Very rural part of the state, and the perseverance, the dedication, the hard work that my parents taught me really has carried me through so many different challenges in my lifetime, opportunities in my lifetime. And i wanted to tell a story that could be uplifting, certainly are. People will face challenges throughout their lifetime, but we all should understand they dont necessarily have to define us. Im just blessed to live in the United States of america, had opportunities presented to me, and thats what i hope to share in this story with other people. Host the book is relatively revealing, and well go through some of those things, but was that tough, to expose yourself like that . Guest it was. It was are very hard. Ive been through a number of significant challenges in my lifetime. I was raped when i was a young woman with my first boyfriend and really suffered from that. But moving on going through an episode of Domestic Violence and just really difficult time in my marriage x. Those were all things that i really did not want to share publicly, but i was obviously going through a very public divorce a couple years ago, and that information came out through that process, and i had so many other women and a few men that had reached out to me and had said, you know what, joni . You have gone through these challenges, you went on to be a battalion commander, youre now a United States senator, and it is good for other people to hear that you can go through these lifealtering events but still overcome them and move on to better days. And so thats what i hope that i can share with some of the readers, is that you do have challenges in your lifetime, but you know what . There are opportunities. The next day is a new day, and you can find joy in your lifetime. Host in your book daughter of the heartland, senator, you write that, quote people tend to pay an inordinate amount of attention to women legislators private lives. Guest absolutely, they do. And theyre scrutinized from everything that you wear, the style of your hair, the color of your hair, all of that. And then, you know, maybe certainly if youre a mother, you know, how are you raising your children . Why are you away at work when you should be at home . I mean, those are situations that i dont hear men ever talk about in that talked about in that way. But certainly the women receive a lot of attention, you know, with their personal lives. And i think that is wholly unfair, especially when were serving in the same, same chambers, same body as our male counterparts. Just being looked upon differently, i dont think its justified, and people shouldnt be scrutinizing personal lives when they dont do it with the men. Host tell us about red oak, iowa. [laughter] guest its a beautiful community. It is the heart of montgomery county, iowa. It is our county seat, and it was the community that i was raised very near. Now, i went to school in stanton, iowa, which is adjacent to red oak. I was raised to an on a farm thats northeast of red oak, and there is such a sense of community in rural iowa. You know, were all very proud of where we come from. We call out being ah nice where youre reaching iowa nice where youre reaching out and helping a neighbor that might be in need. It was a great place to be raised, and i had truly a wonderful childhood growing up on the farm. It was a lot of hard work, there was a lot expected from us, but at the same time, you know, growing and developing in that type of community was really important. Host back to your book. Quote life on a farm was a constant battle for survival. Guest yeah. Finish and my parents experienced that firsthand. And many of our neighbors did. So i was raised on a farm during the 70s and 80s x my father still livings on that farm today can be lives on that farm northeast of red oak and stanton. What they went through in the 80s was very difficult with the farm economy coming down around them and really having to make ends meet. So my dad started working with heavy equipment doing dirt work for other farmers in the surrounding area. My mother, once my brother was in school, took on a parttime job in town. They found other ways to bring income in, the farm, support us kids, and we made it through. But those times are challenging. You never know when the next flood is going to come through and destroy your crop, if theres going to be a drought, if theres going to be a tornado. All of those natural events that can really impact the farm economy. And so you drive through, you be as resilient as you can and, like i said, that sense of community and helping your neighbors. I share one story in the book where it wasnt a natural disaster, but there was a farmer that had been injured by a cow. It was just a freak accident. This cow, she pushed up against him and knocked him into the fence, and he was hospitalized, and he died from his injuries. And it was harvest time, and so his wife really needed theport. So the radio, they put an announcement on the radio, our local radio station, and within hours people converged on that farm with combines and wagons and tractors and brought that harvest in so that his widow wouldnt have to worry about that. Thats the sense of community that we have in iowa. Were very proud of that. I know other states have that too, but thats the way i was raised, you know . We help when needed, and were just blessed to live in such a nation that provides us the opportunity to help others. Host and when you talk about a constant struggle for survival, after the 2015 state of the union address, you gave the republican response, and you talked about putting bread bags on your feet, and you became notorious for that line. Guest i did. And it was so funny because, you know, i look back at my childhood, and my mother was thrifty out of necessity. We had to be thrifty. And we only had one good pair of shoes, you know, for church or for school, and living out on the farm anybody thats been raised on a farm in iowa understands that when it rains, it gets verymuddy. So wade waiting for a school bus, my mother would put bread bags over our shoes to protect them and keep them clean. And so, you know, wed get on the cool bus with our bread bags, but the all the other kids had them too, so out9 really didnt matter to me. But certainly, its something that now that i look around our community, you know, parents arent as thrifty, or maybe they dont utilize things like that. Everybodys very conscientious about maybe being embarrassed about not having maybe what the other cool kids have. But it was a learning point for me just to make do with what you have, be proud of what you have and then protect what you have. A dollar, you know, a dollar back then, it was something that my parents really struggled to earn those dollars, and we certainly didnt want to waste them. So so thats what ive carried on into the United States senate with my waste efforts, trying to be a federal watchdog. But it was amazing though that some people would tease me about that, you know, all in good humor, but then there were some folks that were very mean about it too and made fun of me because i grew up that way. And certain isly all think that certainly i would think that folks on the left, you know, they tout being tolerant, but when it was a republican that was going through that same hardships as a child, then i became the object of scorn. So, you know, its really unfortunate that we have those types of divides in our society today. And what i want people to understand is were all human beings. We all go through different challenges. We all go through different learning points in our lifetimes and that we should respect each other for different points of view but always have empathy towards our brothers and sisters. Host well, senator ernst, one of the continuing themes in your book daughter of the heartland is the cohesiveness of the 26 women who serve in the United States senate, republicans and democrats. But at the same time, a couple of those friends of yours campaigned against you [laughter] in 2014 when you were running for the senate. Guest right. And that is the thing about politics, and one thing that you have to keep in mind anytime you are entering into this absolutely bizarre world is that not everybody will agree on everything. And that you have to have thick skin. So even though there are women that i would consider friends, we obviously have very different politics. And so, you know, we have to understand that, not take it personal. We can have shared passions and drive on toward similar goals, but outside of that, you know what . Just let it roll off your back. Thats what ive had to do many times over, but its okay. I will still consider those women collaborators, i would consider them friends especially, again, when we have those shared passions. Host and its a pretty tight sorority, isnt it, among the women senators . Guest out really is. You know, our ideologies vary widely. All across the spectrum, republicans and democrats. But what we have found is we can come together, and we do this in a bipartisan fashion every couple of months we get together and have a womens dinner. Itll be hosted by Susan Collins or dianne feinstein, i hosted one this last fall. I mean, there are so many things that we can do together, and we dont talk politics, we talk about our families, we talk about, you know, what might be going on in our childrens lives, things like that. And theres something that e weve found really brings us together in a cohesive unit. So while we may be on opposite sides of one piece of legislation, we know that we can always find a path forward through friendship and work on other opportunities. Host well, youve mentioned children. You have one daughter, libby. Where is she now . Guest and libby is actually on her way to d. C. Right now, and i will be taking her back up to the United States military academy this weekend where she will report in for her next year of schooling. They she is a cadet at west point and will go into the army here in the next couple of years and serve our great nation. And im very very proud of her. Shes a hard charger, extremely intelligent, smart young woman. But, you know, trying to raise a daughter that is selfconfident, knows her path forward and she has achieved that, i are to say, she has achieved that. So im very, very proud of her. Host following in her mothers footsteps. Guest yes. [laughter] i think shell go on to do even more. Host senator ernst, you wrote as a child that your goal were to be a nurse and a farmers wife. It didnt turn out that way, did it . Guest no, it sure didnt. One of those other things was miss america too [laughter] host oh, yeah, forgot about that one. [laughter] guest so i was talking about that with a friend, and i didnt become a nurse, and i didnt become a farmers wife x i didnt become miss america. And my friend was like, joni, youre such an underachiever. [laughter] so, you know, our paths change, and, you know, we certainly can look at various career fields through the eyes of a child, and i so admire people that are in health care. And a lot of that was maybe informed by my mother. My mother is not college educated, but she was the mother to two children that had juvenile diabetes. My brother and my sister both had to live on insulin shots and they still do, and i always watched my mother give my brother and few sister their shots morning and my sister their shots morning and evening, and i just admired that she was caring for my brother and sister. I admired that about my mother, that she was able to do so much with little and hold our family together. And i always thought, wow, that is really noble, i want to go into health services. I chose a different career path, i ended up going into counseling and job training, working with serious populations like those that had been underemployed or those that had been longterm unemployed and really found my calling more in that area. But, you know, ive had so many great experiences through my lifetime and while i set those goals as a child, i know that ive made significant difference in my state and in my nation by choosing a different career path. Host how did the military become part of your life for 23 years . Guest well, i had always had this friend, the gentleman that sold feed, livestock feed to my family are, he was in the National Guard, and he was a recruiter. So as a young girl we always used to say, hey he always said, hey, joni, ill come talk to you about the National Guard someday. [laughter] oh, jerry, i dont think i can do that. So my father had served in the National Guard many, many, many years ago. I dont really remember that period of his life so much, just the stories. But what really took me into the military was with, oddly enough, an Agricultural Exchange to the soviet union in the 1980s. And what i found, a group of iowa students lived on a collective farm in ukraine, and the family i stayed with, thaw didnt have a car they didnt have a car, no refrigerator, no running water, so no indoor plumbing. I could go on and on and on about what they didnt have. And even though i grew up on a very small farm, id had a refrigerator, i had a telephone in my home, i had running water, we had tractors. They didnt have those things. And so two different world superpowers, and i thought, my gosh, they would offer their citizens the same level of opportunity. And that wasnt true in the soviet union. And so when we got together, the iowa students and we got together with that collective farm group of citizens and we went to the Community Hall that first night, the first question they wanted to know was what is it like to be an american . And it just struck me, i think at that point, that so many people want what we have in this great nation. They desire out. They hunger for it. And through the course of that exchange, out really emphasized to me how proud i am of these values and freedoms and opportunities that this country gives us. And i decided and, again, i was 19 years old, but i decidedded i dont want to take it for granted anymore. I have to give back to my country. And so when i got back to iowa state in that fall, i started exploring that opportunity of army rotc and joined the rotc program. And went on to serve then 23 years in the Army Reserves and the iowa army National Guard, and it truly was one of the greatest honors of my life to serve my country and my state in uniform. Host and, in fact, you are the first female combat veteran to serve as a United States senator. You saw action in iraq. Tell us about that. Guest yes. So we were stationed in kuwait, and i was the commander of a transportation company. So we would deliver supplies. Wed pick supplies up at the port, we would take them to warehouses in kuwait, theyd be broken into various logistical packages, and then we would deliver those supplies throughout kuwait and on up into iraq, up to Baghdad International airport as well as logistic spaced sites and many places like that, the air force base. But it was a very difficult time. It was the first, you know, the first tier of the war. We had just gone in to iraq. It was very chaotic at that time, i guess is a good way to describe it. And on that first trip up into iraq, few e company didnt even have have masks. So what i dud, i knew there was a tennessee National Guard unit that had already made a trip to Baghdad International airport, so i went to that Company Commander and asked if he would come give us a briefing and share with us, you know, the path that would get to Baghdad International airport. So he came over and he sat down with me and my First Sergeant and those that would be leading this mission, and he pulled out his handdrawn map, and he shared it with us. And my driver copy toed that copied that handdrawn map down so they would know where some of the locations were on the route so we with would make sure we got to the right place. But talk about flying by the seat of your pants, you know . Here we are navigating at the early parts of the war through iraq with handdrawn ap maps. And my drivers, you know, theyd annotate Different Things on their handdrawn maps, and wed share that information when we got back in to kuwait so everybody had a good picture of where we were going. Eventually the post exchange, the px, got some rand mcnally type maps [laughter] and when those came in, i went in with my personal credit card, and i bought all of them because, you know, if we couldnt have a map provided by the United States government, for heaven sakes, at least we could have a rand mcnally, and it would get us where we needed to go. We a made do with what we had, can and i am very fortunate because there were a number of other iowa National Guard units that were deployed at that time. Several of them were other transportation units, and they were permanently stationed in iraq. And i had the advantage, or my unit was stationed in kuwait, and we just ran missions back and forth. But those other units did lose soldiers. And i was so blessed because when i rededeployed, i redeployed with my entire unit. Theres sacrifice all the way around, and there are Different Levels of sacrifice. And what those commanders went through, those First Sergeants went through in losing soldiers, it was devastating, you know . And not all heroes wear combat, you know, infantry patches. Some of them are truck drivers, some of them are supply sergeants. Were all vulnerable when we go into a combat zone. And is so, you know, god bless em, and i was just very fortunate to come home with everyone. Host we mentioned that you were the first female combat veteran to serve as a United States senator. And i would guess to say that you were probably the first senator to ever be tased. [laughter] guest probably. [laughter] host tell us that story. That. [laughter] ing. Guest so, yes, i was tased. I was a battalion commander, and in that nearly three years that i served as a battalion commander, we had an annual training at fort mccoy, wu, where all of my wisconsin, where all of my units were together at one time for that two week annual training. So i had my truck units out there, i had my Ma