While many congressional Republicans have avoided holding town hall meetings with constituents in recent months, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa agreed to attend an hourlong event early on Friday morning. She quickly offered the political world a timely reminder as to why so many GOP policymakers avoid such gatherings.

The issue at hand, of course, was the Republicans’ far-right megabill — the inaptly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — and when the discussion turned to health care policy, the senator tried to defend her party’s proposed Medicaid cuts, Ernst delivered a highly memorable line. One of her constituents said that people would die as a result of her party’s health care cuts, at which point the Iowa Republican said, “Well, we all are going to die.”

I assumed her office would quickly walk that back or claim that she was taken out of context. It actually did the opposite and leaned into the quote.

This did not go unnoticed. Not only did Democrats pounce on the GOP senator’s rather morbid defense of her party’s agenda, but local news outlets treated the senator’s quote as front-page news.

A day later, the Iowan — who, incidentally, will face voters again in next year’s midterm election cycle — decided to double down. The Washington Post reported:

While outrage at Ernst’s glib comment was immediate, on Saturday, the senator doubled down with a sarcastic response shared on Instagram. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” she said in a video filmed in what appeared to be a cemetery. “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

The video, which the senator filmed herself in what appeared to be a cemetery, was roughly a minute long.

Ernst’s defense, in other words, is rooted in the idea that people aren’t immortal, and therefore, she was correct.

I’m not in a position to say with confidence whether the Iowa Republican is genuinely confused about why her “we all are going to die” rhetoric was a problem, or whether Ernst is simply doing an excellent imitation of someone who’s easily confused. Either way, it’s probably worth taking a moment to clarify matters.

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The senator sparked a controversy, not by telling a secret about human mortality, but by expressing indifference to the real-world consequences of her own party’s policy agenda. Told that Republican plan would lead to people’s untimely demise, Ernst could’ve pushed back and explained why the criticisms are mistaken, but she instead suggested that if GOP health care plans lead to fatalities, it doesn’t much matter, since “we are all going to die” anyway.

Imagine if, 15 years ago, as Republicans peddled “death panels” nonsense while attacking the Affordable Care Act, Democratic senators responded, “Well, we all are going to die.” If you’re thinking that it’d be a rather major development, you’re right.

The difference, however, is that “death panels” were a ridiculous myth, while GOP officials really are trying to advance brutal health care cuts, including the biggest Medicaid cuts ever.

Asked for his reaction to Ernst’s rhetoric, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told CNN’s Dana Bash, “I think everybody in that audience knows that they’re going to die. They would just rather die in old age at 85 or 90, instead of dying at 40. And the reality is that, when you lose your health care, you are much more at risk of early death. And when rural hospitals close because of this bill, when drug treatment clinics close in Iowa and rural America because of this bill, more people will die at a younger age. “So the reality is, this bill is about life and death. … I wish Joni and others saw the immorality of what they’re doing.”

Stepping back, let’s not forget that Republicans have had plenty of time to come up with credible defenses for their own proposed Medicaid cuts. Ernst’s on-stage rhetoric and her weird follow-up video suggest the party’s messaging efforts aren’t going especially well.