Senator Chuck Grassley's Pitiful Waving of the White Flag of Surrender
Meanwhile, Ernst and Miller-Meeks nap while Trump stiffs Iowa Farmers
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) waning political career is increasingly hard to watch. Once a force to be reckoned with in the US Senate, as a fierce watchdog against waste, fraud and corruption, those days are long behind him.
For the last decade, at least, he’s been more of a lap dog and water carrier for the most partisan Republicans in the Senate, and now the most corrupt president in America’s history.
Since Donald Trump’s 2.0 return to the White House, Grassley has entered a new phase of subservience. These days he pitifully waves the white flag of surrender in the face of Trump’s assault on democracy and Elon Musk’s assault on the federal government.
Grassley’s latest unfurling of the white flag comes in the wake of Donald Trump’s lies that Ukraine started the war with Russia and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator.
Reporters asked Grassley whether he thought Trump had gone too far with those statements, and whether they jeopardized American alliances.
For the record: three years ago, Russia - brutally and without provocation - invaded Ukraine to seize territory that belonged to that sovereign nation, a democracy and an American ally. Russia launched a war of naked aggression.
Also for the record, President Zelensky is a hero of democracy, not only in Ukraine, but globally.
Neither of those facts should be a hard thing for a United States Senator to say, particularly one who is the Senate’s most senior member, its sixth longest serving Senator of any party in the Senate’s history, and its current longest serving Republican.
That would be Chuck Grassley, who is also Iowa’s senior senator and longest serving senator in the state’s history.
All of which is to say, Senator Grassley has a responsibility to lead, especially when there is a criminal president of his party in the White House who vandalizing the federal government, working to destroy American democracy and, at every turn, siding with America’s greatest adversary.
Grassley shirks this responsibility at every turn.
When Senator Grassley was asked whether Trump’s comments went too far, or jeopardized America’s alliances, Grassley was unwilling to say anything about who started the war or whether Zelensky was a dictator. He also apparently has no view on the impact Trump’s obvious lies may have on America’s alliances. He didn’t answer that question, either.
Instead Senator Grassley waved the white flag of surrender and subservience to Trump. He could have called Trump out and insisted on an accurate telling of how the war started and the nature of Zelensky’s leadership.
What he said was this: “You’ll have to ask the president that. I can only speak for Chuck Grassley.”
Chuck Grassley then proceeded to say nothing on behalf of Chuck Grassley regarding who started the war with a brutal, unprovoked invasion; who was, or was not, a dictator; and what impact Trump’s falsehoods might have on U.S. alliances.
Dodged.
Dodged.
Dodged.
Grassley did acknowledge that whatever Putin and Zelensky are, Putin is worse - but there was no direct, definitive defense of the Ukranian president from the claim that he is a dictator.
“I’m not going to say anything more on it,” Grassley said. Bailing out of the exchange, as he so often does when the questions start getting uncomfortable for him.
When Trump illegally fired 17 Inspector Generals (IGs) - the in house watchdogs who ferret out real waste, fraud and corruption at federal agencies and departments - Grassley’s response was similarly meek.
He wrote the president a letter which did not object to any of the firings, but did note that the law requires the president to inform Congress 30 days prior to any terminations, and could the president please do that?
“I’d like to alert the president to the fact that he can abide by the law and still get rid of the people he wants to get rid of. He can put them on administrative leave for 30 days and send us a letter,” Grassley told the HuffPost.
When asked about the random, groundless, damaging firings that private citizen Elon Musk is imposing through uninformed, ignorant directives designed to destroy the federal government, the best Grassley could come up with is “It’s a tragedy for the people getting laid off,” but the “only thing Congress can do is complain.”
What on God’s green earth is he talking about?? Fifty years in the House and Senate and that is the best answer he can come up with??
Congress is supposed to be a full partner in these kinds of decisions with the president. You know - the old “the president proposes and the Congress disposes?” Whatever happened to that?
The answer to that question appears to be this: Actual governing has apparently. been outsourced to private citizen, billionaire, and Trump’s biggest campaign donor Elon Musk with little or no input or oversight from Trump himself, let alone the Congress.
Grassley and Iowa’s congressional delegation - which has either been silent or supportive of Musks unsupervised demolition work - all seem just fine with that arrangement.
The Washington Post reported this week that Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) and US Rep. Maryannette Miller-Meeks were falsely re-assuring Iowa farmers that Trump’s federal spending freeze didn’t apply to farmers - who were, in fact, stuck holding the bag for millions of dollars in conservation work they were required to pay for up front with the promise of federal reimbursement.
The Senator and Representative were wrong. The freeze did apply to farmers and their contracted payments. The feds were no longer paying.
Imagine that. President Donald Trump using the same tactic he used in his private businesses: not paying bills legitimately owed.
One must ask: how does a member of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate - the Senator a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, no less - not know that a president is, as a matter of policy, stiffing farmers in their district and their state to the tune of millions of dollars??
Was it actual ignorance, willful or otherwise? Negligence in keeping an eye on things that matter to their constituents? Or were those reassurances just lies in which they got caught?
What ever it is, one thing is clear: Both Ernst and Miller-Meeks failed to do their job of monitoring what the administration is up to, and to look out for the interests of Iowa farmers. What good is it to be a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee if you don’t know what’s going on in agriculture policy in your own back yard - as administered by a president of your own political party?
It is clear that tough times are ahead for democracy, for the nation, and for Iowa with Musk’s and Trump’s demolition crew working out of the White House.
That’s bad enough news, but the really bad news is that Iowans in Congress seem unplugged from it all, surrendered and accepting of it, and simply hoping that hyper partisanship will save their political careers in the end, as their constituents fend for themselves.
Hyper-partisan ship will not save their careers. This is not a sustainable course, politically, for any party - even one that has shown massive willingness to lie and cheat in the past to win.
I’m surprised Iowa’s congressional delegation hasn’t figured that out yet.
WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TICKER - 511 DAYS: The number of days that have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, without Congress passing a new one. (Total days as of Sunday, 02/23/2025).
Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serves on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate; and Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th) in the House and Representatives
The legislation sets national farm policy. It expired 511 days ago, and was last updated in 2018.
511 days without a new Farm Bill after the old one expired is an important milestone marking unprecedented failure by Congress - and the Iowans who serve on the Agriculture Committees in the House and Senate.
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Unlike most Iowans I’ve never been a fan of or respected Chuck Grassley. He would get a lot of press as a so called watchdog for focusing on minor outlandish expenditures and such but couldn’t see the forest for the trees. It’s long past time to put him out to pasture.
“I can only speak for Chuck Grassley.” (Silence)
What a sad legacy this elected US Senator will leave behind: abandoning all integrity and courage.