Iowa’s Republican Senate nominee Joni Ernst told a local news outlet she’s “appalled” that her husband once called former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano a “traitorous skank” on Facebook.
As reported by the Des Moines Register, Democrats took a screenshot of Gail Ernst’s written comments, which had been up since April 2013, and seized on them. That prompted him to delete that and other inflammatory posts and apologize for them before Ernst denounced them.
“I’m appalled by my husband’s remarks,” Joni Ernst said, according to the Register. “They are uncalled for and clearly inappropriate. I’ve addressed this issue with my husband and that’s between us.”
Gail Ernst also called Hillary Clinton a “hag” in a May 2013 post on Facebook.
The flap is particularly notable because Ernst’s allies have been sensitive to sexist attacks on the candidate in her race against Democrat Bruce Braley for Iowa’s open Senate seat this November.
