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A 6-year-old child was found dead in his Florida home Friday, and his mother, who has been criminally charged in the death, believed she was being told to “exorcise demons out of the child’s body,” the St. Lucie County sheriff said.

The body of the child, Ra’myl Pierre, was found in his bed in the family’s Fort Pierce home shortly after 10 a.m., after school resource deputies requested a welfare check, Sheriff Richard R. Del Toro Jr. said.

His mother, Rhonda Paulynice, 31, was charged Friday with second-degree murder, failure to report a death, and with altering a body, Toro said.

“What we did learn in speaking with the mother is she believes she was being told by God to basically exorcise demons out of the child’s body,” he said at a news conference. “And when the child had stopped moving and basically passed away, at that point she felt that the child had been released from those demons.”

When the sheriff’s deputy arrived at the home Paulynice met the deputy in the driveway and escorted the officer into the home, where the dead boy was found in a bed in his bedroom, Toro said.

The cause and manner of death could not be immediately determined and an autopsy will be performed, Toro said.

The sheriff’s office has responded to the home before, but nothing involving the mother and child, Toro said. They last responded on a call about a medical issue for the mother on May 17, the day before investigators believe the killing took place, he said.

There had been some domestic issues at the home in the past involving the mother and her sister, who no longer lives there, but nothing involving the child, Toro said.

The mother was interviewed by sheriff’s detectives Friday, Toro said.

“During the course of the interviews, our detectives learned that the mother last spoke to the child on May 18th,” he said. “That’s when we believe the homicide occurred, and that she was responsible for child’s death.”

The second-degree murder case did not appear in online court records Friday evening, and it was not immediately clear if Paulynice had an attorney who could speak on her behalf.

Toro told reporters at a Friday news conference that he has not spoken to the Paulynice, but he was told that she showed a range of emotions at the scene when speaking with investigators.

“What we do know is that she had a lot of highs and lows during the investigation — from laughing at different times at the scene to crying,” he said.

Investigators believe that the child has been dead in his room since May 18, Toro said, but he said the autopsy should help provide more insight.

No one else lived at the home besides Paulynice and the boy, he said.

LOS ANGELES — Alf Clausen, the Emmy-winning composer whose music provided essential accompaniment for the animated antics of “The Simpsons” for 27 years, has died.

His daughter Kaarin Clausen told The Associated Press that Alf Clausen died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles after struggling with Parkinson’s disease for about a decade. He was 84.

Clausen, who also scored TV series including “Moonlighting” and “Alf” (“no relation,” he used to joke) was nominated for 30 Emmy Awards, 21 of them for “The Simpsons.” He won twice.

Al Jean, an early “Simpsons” writer who was one of the key creative figures on the show in the 1990s, said in a post on X Friday that “Clausen was an incredibly talented man who did so much for The Simpsons.”

Danny Elfman wrote the show’s theme song, but Clausen joined the Fox animated series created by Matt Groening in 1990 and provided essentially all of its music until 2017, composing nearly 600 scores and conducting the 35-piece orchestra that played it in the studio

His colleagues said his music was a key component of the show’s comedy, but Clausen believed the best way to back up the gags of Homer, Marge Bart and Lisa was by making the music as straight as possible.

“This is a dream job for a composer,” Clausen told Variety, which first reported his death, in 1998. “Matt Groening said to me very early on, ‘We’re not a cartoon. We’re a drama where the characters are drawn. I want you to score it like a drama.’ I score the emotions of the characters as opposed to specific action hits on the screen.”

Groening, in a 1996 interview, called him “one of the unacknowledged treasures of the show.”

Clausen was born in Minneapolis and raised in Jamestown, North Dakota. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1966, and moved to Los Angeles seeking a career in music.

In the 1970s he was a musical director on several TV variety shows including “Donny & Marie.”

Clausen worked as an orchestrator for composer Lee Holdridge in his scores for 1980s films including “Splash” and “The Beastmaster.”

It was Holdridge who first got the composing job on “Moonlighting,” the late-80s ABC rom-com detective series starring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, but he handed the gig off to Clausen, who would get six Emmy nominations for his music on it.

Clausen won his Emmys for “The Simpsons” in 1997 and 1998. He also won five Annie Awards, which honor work in animation in film and television.

He was fired from “The Simpsons” in a cost-cutting move in 2017, to the outrage of his collaborators and fans. He sued over his dismissal.

Clausen is survived by his wife Sally, children Kaarin, Scott and Kyle, stepchildren Josh and Emily, and 11 grandchildren.

The Falcons (and specifically owner Arthur Blank) aren’t fans of reminders of their failure to turn a massive third-quarter lead into a Super Bowl LI win. Usually, it’s someone else who reminds the team and/or its fans of the 28-3 futility.

This time around, the Falcons did it to themselves.

Via John Breech of CBSSports.com, the team posted a photo on Twitter of safety Jessie Bates (No. 3) and cornerback Mike Ford (No. 28). The image was quickly deleted.

Arguably, the Falcons should have left it alone. First, the players were configured 3 and 28, not 28 and 3. Second, deleting it makes it a bigger deal.

As evidenced by the fact that it became a PFT item. If they hadn’t deleted it, we probably wouldn’t have decided it was worth a post.

Meanwhile, the fact they so quickly deleted the image shows that, more than eight years later, they’re still as sensitive about 28-3 as ever.

The clock is ticking on a potential Chiefs move from one Kansas City to the other.

Matthew Kelly of the Kansas City Star reports that Kansas may pull its new-stadium offer off the table on June 30.

House speaker Dan Hawkins told Kelly he doesn’t want to extend the expiration date for the Chiefs or MLB’s Royals.

“I think if they want to get it done, they’ve still got time to get it done,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins doesn’t want to extend the deadline, because doing so gives the Chiefs (and Royals) leverage in their ongoing efforts to get stadium solutions in Minnesota.

“If one of them wants to — or both — wants to come to Kansas, we’d love to have them,” Hawkins told Kelly. “We have the tools.”

The Chiefs may prefer at this point a new stadium, given that (as noted by Nate Taylor of TheAthletic.com) owner Clark Hunt and team president Mark Donovan envision a dome for the Chiefs. As with other open-air teams looking for new stadiums, a dome opens the door to events throughout the year.

And Hunt has said he’d like the Chiefs to host a Super Bowl.

It’s part of the loose, unofficial quid pro quo for cold-weather cities that build domed stadiums with significant taxpayer money.

However it plays out, Donovan realizes that Kansas isn’t bluffing. “Hypothetically, as you’re trying to figure out how to put a deal together, if you’re on either side of the table, you look at deadlines,” Donovan said, per Taylor. “That June 30 [deadline] is real.”

While that may indeed be a statement of fact, it’s also a clear warning to Missouri that time is running out on keeping Arrowhead Stadium the home of the Chiefs.

The Chiefs’ current lease runs through the 2030 season. Which means that can make the short trek from Kansas City, Missouri to Kansas City, Kansas as soon as 2031.

President Donald Trump told U.S. steelworkers on Friday that he will double tariffs on steel imports to 50%.

“We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America,” Trump said during remarks at U.S. Steel’s Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.

Trump is visiting U.S. Steel after indicating last week that he will clear a controversial merger with Japan’s Nippon. Investors and union members are listening for answers from the president on what shape the deal he announced between U.S. Steel and Nippon will take.

Trump described the deal as a “partnership” in a May 23 post on his social media platform Truth Social. The president said U.S. Steel’s headquarters would remain in Pittsburgh and Nippon would invest $14 billion over 14 months in the more than 120-year-old American industrial icon.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that the deal is an “investment, it’s a partial ownership, but it will be controlled by the USA.” But the White House and the companies have provided little detail to the public on how the deal is structured since Trump’s announcement.

U.S. Steel has described the deal as a “merger” in which it will become a “wholly owned subsidiary” of Nippon Steel North America but continue to operate as separate company, according to an April 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber that Nippon is expected to close its acquisition of U.S. Steel at $55 per share, the original offer the Japanese steelmaker made before President Joe Biden rejected the deal in January. Biden blocked Nippon’s proposed acquisition on national security grounds, arguing that it would jeopardize critical supply chains.

But Trump ordered a new review of the deal in April, softening his previous opposition to Nippon buying U.S. Steel. The president announced the “partnership” one day after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was supposed to conclude its review and make a recommendation on whether the companies had found ways to “mitigate any national security risks.”

‘National security agreement’

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick told CNBC on Tuesday that the U.S. government will have a “golden share” that will allow it to decide on a number of board seats. U.S. Steel will have an American CEO and a majority of the board will come from the U.S. McCormick said.

“It’s a national security agreement that will be signed with the U.S. government,” McCormick told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “There’ll be a golden share that will essentially require U.S. government approval of a number of the board members and that will allow the United States to ensure production levels aren’t cut.”

The “golden share” likely wouldn’t take the form of an equity stake by the U.S. government, said James Brower, a partner at law firm Morrison Forrester’s litigation department. The committee that reviewed the deal, CFIUS, does not negotiate equity interests, Brower said.

It would likely take the form of contractual right for the U.S. government to veto certain actions, said Brower, who has represented clients on issues related to CFIUS.

Nippon will “have certainly members of the board and this will be part of their overall corporate structure,” McCormick told CNBC. White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro told reporters Thursday that “Nippon Steel is going to have some involvement, but no control of the company.”

“U.S. Steel owns the company,” Navarro said. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC on Friday that the details of the Nippon Steel deal “remain confidential, relatively.”

“The underlying principle is that the United States should have control over key critical sectors, whether it’s basic manufacturing or high tech,” Greer told “Squawk Box.” “In the event that foreign countries or foreign individuals or firms want to acquire these companies or have large investments, the U.S. has to maintain control of things that matter.”

The United Steelworkers, which originally opposed the deal, has said the union “cannot speculate about the impact” of Trump’s announcement “without more information.”

“Our concern remains that Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven track record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steelmaking capacity and jeopardize thousands of good, union jobs,” USW President David McCall said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former podcast host with a long history of inflammatory remarks, to head the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

“Paul is a highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar, who has done a tremendous job serving as my White House Liaison for Homeland Security,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social announcing the nomination Thursday night.

Ingrassia is a far-right former podcaster and commentator with a lengthy list of incendiary comments. He has called for Jan. 6 to be declared a national holiday to honor the “peaceful protest against a great injustice affecting our electoral system” and dismissed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel as a “psyop.”

He has worked for and praised “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate, who’s facing rape and human trafficking charges, calling him an “extraordinary human being.” He has referred to Tate as “a dissident of authoritarianism” — a title he has said applies as well to white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the rapper Ye and Trump.

He has also called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be jailed, and referred to former Vice President Mike Pence as an “FBI asset.”

Ingrassia graduated from Cornell Law in 2022, joined conservative think tank The Claremont Institute later that year, became a leader in the New York Young Republican Club, and then went on to be a frequent presence at Trump rallies and Mar-a-Lago in 2023 and 2024.

He’s currently working as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security and was formerly the administration’s liaison to the Justice Department, where he’d been seen walking the halls, touting the president’s agenda and telling people he was acting as the “eyes and ears” of the White House.

His post at the Office of Special Counsel will require Senate confirmation.

The OSC is an independent federal investigative and prosecuting agency, tasked with shielding federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, including retaliation for whistleblowing.

The agency head is confirmed to a five-year term, but Trump fired then-OSC head Hampton Dellinger earlier this year. Dellinger, a Biden nominee who was confirmed to the post last year, fought his dismissal in court but eventually dropped the suit.

Ingrassia thanked Trump for nominating him in a post on X.

“As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement,” he wrote.

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Elon Musk and Donald Trump bid farewell from the Oval Office on live TV. Meanwhile, Kristen Welker digs into Trump’s latest social media salvos at Vladimir Putin and what they could mean for the Russia-Ukraine war. And senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley answers a reader question about a notable provision tucked into the House budget bill that passed recently.

Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here.

— Scott Bland

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Elon Musk’s missed opportunity

By Jonathan Allen

Elon Musk stood next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Friday, but the physical proximity belied a growing philosophical divide between two of the world’s most powerful men, resulting in the tech mogul’s abrupt announcement that he is departing Washington — without having achieved his goal of decimating the federal government.

“He came, he saw, he folded,” Steve Bannon, a senior White House adviser during Trump’s first term who is influential with the working-class wing of Trump’s MAGA base, said in a text exchange with NBC News.

Musk, who stood with his arms folded across his chest as he and Trump took questions, sported a bruise near his right eye — an unmistakable metaphor for his tumultuous government service — that he said was incurred while playing with his 5-year-old son X.

Trump took a more charitable view of Musk’s tenure during a sprawling news conference in which he also declined to rule out pardoning Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is standing trial on charges of sex trafficking and other alleged crimes; said he dislikes “the concept” of former first lady Jill Biden being forced to testify before Congress about her husband’s mental fitness; and predicted again that Iran is on the cusp of making a deal that would suspend its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“He had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame because he’s an incredible patriot,” Trump said of Musk.

Trump and Musk both contended that DOGE will continue to wring out savings by rooting out waste and fraud without Musk as its face.

“This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said, vowing to reach the trillion-dollar mark in cuts by the middle of next year. At the same time he spoke of cutting government spending, Musk lauded Trump’s remodeling of the Oval Office.

“I love the gold on the ceiling,” he said.

Musk has argued that inertia throttled his efforts to reduce government spending — a conclusion that raises questions about whether he was naive about the challenge of the mission he undertook.

“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he told The Washington Post this week. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

Read more →

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The next steps as Trump vents fury at Putin

By Kristen Welker

President Donald Trump has ramped up the rhetoric attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin, but so far there’s no teeth behind it.

After months of cutting Putin slack on the world stage and clashing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump has undergone a stark rhetorical shift in recent days.

He’s taken to social media to blast Putin for having gone “absolutely crazy” and for “needlessly killing a lot of people” including Ukrainian citizens “for no reason whatsoever.” He has warned that “what Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”

Trump appears to now be warming to the belief many Western leaders have held for years — that Putin isn’t seriously pushing for peace, outside of total Russian victory. In recent weeks, we’ve seen some of the biggest bombardments of the entire war, including a massive drone attack in Kyiv that came in the shadow of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.

None of this means Trump is buddy-buddy with Zelenskyy now, and he criticized the Ukrainian as “stubborn” during Friday remarks in the Oval Office, even as he underscored his disappointment with Putin.

Meanwhile, the issue of sanctioning Russia and sending aid to Ukraine obviously splits the GOP, and it doesn’t necessarily sit well with the “America First” wing of the GOP that Trump commands. But if Trump wants to act, as former Vice President Mike Pence told me he recommended during our conversation earlier this month, he has arrows in his quiver.

Earlier this week on “Meet the Press Now,” former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul told us that the only way to convince Putin to come to the negotiating table is to convince him he can’t advance on the battlefield. While one might think the West is tapped out when it comes to sanctions, McFaul said there’s a lot more on the table, including seizing more assets or banning Russia’s “shadow fleet” that ships oil from docking at Western ports.

And just a few days ago, Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, an elder statesman in the Senate, called on Trump to be as “decisive” in new sanctions against Russia as he’s been in his push against Harvard University.

So if Putin has run out of leash with Trump, then what’s the president waiting for?

Join us Sunday when we talk about this and a flurry of other important domestic and international issues with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

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✉️ Mailbag: Congress and the courts

Thanks to everyone who emailed us! This week’s reader question is on an under-the-radar provision in Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill.”

“I heard that the bill contains language that takes away a judge’s authority to hold someone in contempt when they don’t comply with the court’s orders. Is that true? I’ve seen a lot about the financial implications but nothing on this.”

To answer this, we turned to senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley. Here’s his response:

The House bill does indeed include a provision that would limit the ability of federal judges to hold people in contempt for violating court orders. (Read it here.)

The Republican-backed measure comes amid considerable pushback on the right against a number of judges who have not only blocked Trump administration policies but have also questioned whether the administration is complying with rulings and at least considered contempt proceedings.

The provision in question would seek to limit the ability of judges to pursue contempt findings by withholding federal funds that could be used to enforce such a ruling unless the plaintiff posted a bond when seeking a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction.

But there is no guarantee the Senate will include the language in its version of the bill, in part because it may fall foul of rules intended to ensure budget bill provisions have a direct link to federal revenues.

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That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Scott Bland and Ben Kamisar.

If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at [email protected]

And if you’re a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.

Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif must undergo genetic sex screening to participate in upcoming events with the sport’s new governing body.

World Boxing announced mandatory sex testing for all athletes Friday. The governing body specifically mentioned Khelif when announcing the policy, saying the Algerian gold medal winner must be screened before she will be approved to fight at any upcoming events, including the Eindhoven Box Cup next month in the Netherlands.

“The introduction of mandatory testing will be part of a new policy on ‘Sex, Age and Weight’ to ensure the safety of all participants and deliver a competitive level playing field for men and women,” World Boxing wrote in a statement. The fighters’ national federations will be responsible for administering the tests and providing the results to World Boxing.

Khelif won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics last summer amid international scrutiny on her and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, another gold medal winner. The previous governing body for Olympic boxing, the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association, disqualified both fighters from its 2023 world championships after claiming they had failed an unspecified eligibility test.

The IOC ran the past two Olympic boxing tournaments after the banishment of the IBA for decades of misdeeds and controversy, and it applied the sex eligibility rules used in previous Olympics. Khelif and Lin were eligible to compete under those standards.

Khelif intends to return to international competition next month in Eindhoven as part of her plan to defend her gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics, but some boxers and their federations had already spoken out to protest her inclusion.

Chromosome testing was common in Olympic sports during the 20th century, but was largely abandoned in the 1990s because of numerous ambiguities that couldn’t be easily resolved by the tests, collectively known as differences in sex development (DSD). Many sports switched to hormone testing to determine sex eligibility, but those tests require governing bodies to make difficult decisions on the eligibility of women with naturally high testosterone levels.

Three months ago, World Athletics — the governing body for track and field — became the first Olympic sport to reintroduce chromosome testing, requiring athletes who compete in the women’s events to submit to the test once in their careers.

World Boxing has been provisionally approved to replace the IBA as the governing body at the Los Angeles Games, but it has faced significant pressure from boxers and their federations to create sex eligibility standards.

World Boxing announced that all athletes over 18 years old in its competitions must undergo a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) genetic test to determine their sex at birth. The PCR test detects chromosomal material through a mouth swab, saliva or blood.

If an athlete intending to compete in the women’s categories is determined to have male chromosomal material, “initial screenings will be referred to independent clinical specialists for genetic screening, hormonal profiles, anatomical examination or other valuation of endocrine profiles by medical specialists,” World Boxing wrote. The policy also includes an appeals process.

The boxing body’s decision is the latest development in a tumultuous period in Olympic sex eligibility policy. The issue of transgender participation in sports has become an international flashpoint, with President Donald Trump and other conservative world leaders repeatedly weighing in.

Earlier this year, World Athletics also proposed recommendations that would apply strict transgender rules to athletes who were born female but had what the organization describes as naturally occurring testosterone levels in the typical male range. In 2023, World Athletics banned transgender athletes who had transitioned male to female and gone through male puberty.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said he felt confident that the body’s new rules would withstand legal challenges.

The 26-year-old Khelif had competed in women’s boxing events under the IBA’s auspices without controversy until the 2023 world championships. She had never won a major international competition before her dominant performance in the women’s welterweight division in Paris.

The Trump administration is escalating its social media vetting of visa applicants seeking to travel to Harvard University, a State Department cable sent to diplomatic posts Friday shows.

The cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructs all U.S. missions and consulates abroad to immediately enhance the vetting of such visa applicants, with the intention of expanding the scrutiny process over time.

The vetting will go beyond student applicants, according to the cable seen by NBC News, as it also includes faculty, employees, contractors, guest speakers and tourists.

The stepped-up vetting is intended to “address acute concerns of violence and anti-Semitism at Harvard University” and calls for vetting of “any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose,” the cable states. Non-immigrant visas are for temporary entry to the U.S.

In response to an NBC News request for comment on the cable, a State Department spokesperson said, “The Department does not comment on internal communications.”

NBC News also has contacted Harvard for comment.

For the expanded social media screening, consular offices have been told to identify applicants with “histories of anti-Semitic harassment and violence, and to duly consider their visa eligibility under U.S. immigration law.”

In those instructions, the cable criticizes what the administration described as Harvard’s failure to maintain a campus environment “free from violence and anti-Semitism.”

The cable instructs U.S. consular officers to ask visa applicants to set all their social media accounts to public in the event that they need to be reviewed as part of the vetting.

The State Department also instructed officers to “consider whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to ‘private’ or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.”

On Tuesday, the administration stopped scheduling new interviews for international students seeking visas to study in the U.S. The halt on interviews was intended as a precursor to the expanded social media screening, allowing diplomatic and consular posts to prepare for the larger and adjusted workload.

The vetting is another volley by the administration in its ongoing battle with Harvard and other universities.

Harvard has fought back against the administration’s attempts to control the university’s hiring and admissions, diversity outreach and initiatives and foreign student enrollment. The administration has cut billions in research to pressure Harvard to cede to its demands.

On Thursday, a court extended its bar on the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.

The administration said in its cable that the stepped-up social media vetting of visa applicants to Harvard is a pilot program that could be expanded.

Other groups of visa applicants could be included later, the administration said in its cable.

Foreign students have been targeted by the administration, stripped of visas and arrested, detained and deported, including those who protested Israel’s military response since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

Rubio said on Wednesday that the State Department would work with the Department of Homeland Security to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, was repeatedly pressed on cuts to Medicaid in the House’s budget bill at a town hall in her home state on Friday, and pushed back on an attendee who said the cuts would lead to deaths.

“People are not — well, we all are going to die, so, for heaven’s sakes,” she said, prompting resounding jeers.

The exchange began with an attendee complaining to Ernst that the bill would give significant tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy while kicking some people off Medicaid and food assistance programs.

Ernst said the only people who face getting booted are those who should not be on Medicaid in the first place.

“They’re not currently eligible by the original definition of Medicaid, and they will be moved off of those Medicaid rolls, again still allowing those that are truly eligible for Medicaid to remain on those rolls,” the senator said.

She later claimed that 1.4 million undocumented immigrants are receiving Medicaid benefits. That figure, which the White House and other top Republicans have also cited, is based on a Congressional Budget Office analysis that said that one provision of the bill would cause 1.4 million people to lose coverage (including but not limited to those without verified immigration status.)

“They are not eligible, so they will be coming off,” Ernst said, which is when she was interrupted by the attendee who yelled, “People are going to die!”

After Ernst gave her fatalistic response, she complained to the attendee, “What you don’t want to do is listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable.”

Democrats pounced on Ernst’s “going to die” line, with DNC chair Ken Martin saying she “said the quiet part out loud.”

Martin said the remark shows Republicans don’t care about “whether their own constituents live or die as long as the richest few get richer, and that’s precisely why they’re ramming through a budget bill that would rip away health care and food from millions of Americans, including kids and seniors.”

An Ernst spokesperson said, “While Democrats fearmonger against strengthening the integrity of Medicaid, Senator Ernst is focused on improving the lives of all Iowans. There’s only two certainties in life: death and taxes, and she’s working to ease the burden of both by fighting to keep more of Iowans’ hard-earned tax dollars in their own pockets and ensuring their benefits are protected from waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Ernst also got into testy exchanges about DOGE cuts and her support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Butler County town hall, but was asked repeatedly about the proposed Medicaid changes.

“Everyone says that Medicaid is being cut. People are going to see their benefits cut. That’s not true,” she said earlier in the town hall, to shouts from the crowd.

Ernst predicted the changes would strengthen Medicaid in the long run.

“What we do need to do is make sure that those that are part of a vulnerable population have access to Medicaid and receive those full benefits. So, what we’re trying to do is strengthen Medicaid by directing the dollars to the people that actually meet the requirements of the program,” she said. “We will do much better.”