Joni Ernst framed her exit as a sacrifice, not a retreat. After recounting her journey from small-town farm life to lieutenant colonel and then U.S. senator,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
she cast her decision as an act of devotion: to aging parents, growing grandchildren, and the family she claims once held her up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She insisted it came only after \u201ca tremendous amount of prayer and reflection,\u201d as if heaven itself signed off on her departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet beneath the sentimental gloss, her farewell was also a final defense of her record. She reminded Iowans she was the first female combat veteran in the Senate, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
the Republican who promised to make Washington \u201csqueal.\u201d She boasted of cutting waste, fraud, and regulations,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
portraying herself as a warrior who did what she came to do. Now, she says, it\u2019s time to go home\u2014before voters decide for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joni Ernst framed her exit as a sacrifice, not a retreat. After recounting her journey from small-town farm life to lieutenant colonel and then U.S. senator, she cast her decision as an act of devotion: to aging parents, growing grandchildren, and the family she claims once held her up. She insisted it came only after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16603,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16601\/revisions\/16603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}