WASHINGTON — In a sit-down interview with The Daily Iowan, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R- Iowa, spoke about her influence on the Department of Government Efficiency and work as the Senate DOGE Caucus Chair.

Ernst also expressed her willingness to vote to end the Department of Education and her concern for taxpayer dollars in regard to refugee resettlement. The senator discussed how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact Iowans, specifically farmers, and her support of the president’s pause of funding for Planned Parenthood.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Daily Iowan: The Trump administration paused funding on refugee resettlement services, and Iowa has a long-standing tradition of supporting refugees and opening up our state to them. Do you believe this pause aligns with the state’s values?

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst: F​​irst and foremost is we know how important the refugee resettlement is, so that’s important for Iowa, very, very important. We’ve seen governors like Governor Ray that really worked hard to bring refugees into Iowa.

But on the other hand, too, we have to make sure that the dollars are being spent well, and that the dollars are being used for furthering American interests. So, while we evaluate all of that, there has been a pause, but already, some of those dollars have been restored.

So, I do anticipate we’ll see more of that in the future. But again, we just want to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being safeguarded, but at the same time, yes, refugee resettlement is important.

The Department of Government Efficiency has worked to slash billions in spending that it finds wasteful. Tell me a little bit about your review of their performance so far, and what are the highlights of what you’ve seen?

Well, as the Senate DOGE Caucus Chair, I actually am very excited about this. In 2014, Iowans decided to send me to Washington, D.C. to “make them squeal.”

And so, I have worked on what I call my squeal priorities the past 10 years, and with that blueprint, I was able to present that to Elon Musk at DOGE. They’ve used that as a blueprint on what they are examining as well. I give them very high marks.

Obviously, they’ve moved very quickly in some of those areas. And Elon Musk himself has acknowledged that there have been a few mistakes along the way, but as long as they are quickly identified, and he’s encouraged us to do that, is to reach out to him directly.

When they are quickly identified, they will go in, evaluate if there was a mistake made, and then they can correct it.

I am very optimistic about where we are, and right now, just two months under the process, we have saved about every taxpayer in the United States $800 so far with cutting wasteful spending, and that’s just two months into the process. So, I think we have a long ways to go, but I’m actually very excited about it.

Opponents to what DOGE is doing, say cuts, specifically layoffs of federal workers, have or could impact services that Iowans rely on. What do you say to those criticisms?

Some of them will and have already. And again, if they are vital to Iowans’ interests and for the rest of our national security, food security, we raised those issues with that particular department.

Just for example, USDA, where we had issues in a number of offices, we raised that issue immediately to Brooke Rollins, the secretary over at USDA. She went in, she took a look and made changes, and we see those positions being restored.

It doesn’t mean that every cut is going to rise to the level of it needs to be restored, though. Our federal government has grown so huge and so bloated that we really need to examine what are the positions that are needed [and] what are the positions that are not. We cannot become complacent.

And we have seen many instances where federal workers have taken advantage of the system, and I’ve outlined a number of those I did last week in our Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

Just the bureaucrats that are out there, we had one that has been teleworking. Meanwhile, he actually started his own small business doing home inspections while his mother was responding to his government emails.

So, we see these types of examples all the time. Those people need to go. So, we’re drawing the line.

And if there are people that have abused the system [that] are complacent, they’re sucking up taxpayer dollars while not actually working for our constituents, [and] we’re going to get rid of them.

President Trump has started the process of closing the Department of Education. A full closure would require congressional action. Would you sign off on that? Why?

In my campaign processes as well, when people bring up the Department of Education, I have always said as well that I believe that it should go away.

I go back to even when I was a kid coming up through school in very rural, small-town Iowa. Minnesota and Iowa always vied to be number one in the nation when it came to education.

After the Department of Education was put into place, Iowa continued to fall, and now we are middle of the road when it comes to education. Instead of us pushing to achieve more, we were held back and had to adhere to standards that were set by the federal government.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is extraordinary when it comes to the issue of education. We believe that parents, school administrators, our teachers, should be deciding the way our children learn, not the federal government.

I do think that local and state leadership is essential when it comes to learning and what’s right for our children. Our children are different than children maybe being raised in Arizona or New York City, and again, local leaders, local people that have authority, they are the ones that should be determining how our children are being educated.

RELATED: Joni Ernst to lead Senate government efficiency caucus

Trump has enacted reciprocal tariffs just this last week. Can you tell me your thoughts on the tariffs and how they’re currently impacting the economy, specifically for farmers?

I would just say that even in the last administration, we saw over a $1 trillion trade deficit, and it has, again, the word complacency.

We have become so complacent with other countries putting tariffs on our own. We need to come back to the table with those countries. And I think this has been a wake-up call to so many other countries that have had tariffs against the United States for decades.

And so now is our opportunity to rectify it. Hopefully, we will see those discussions be fruitful, and then perhaps in the future, it’s not something we’ll need to worry about.

Trump recently paused $27.5 million in funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood, family planning, contraception — those reproductive healthcare services. What are your thoughts on that?

I’m OK with that. I am adamantly pro-life and would much rather see the dollars that go to actual women’s health care.

Certainly, Planned Parenthood performs abortions, and I would rather see the funding go to entities that don’t perform abortions.

So, I do have a number of bills. I actually have a Defund Planned Parenthood bill that I’ve worked on for a number of years. But again, those dollars, I would like to see them directed to women’s health care, but health care specifically, and for me that does not include abortion.