(Atlantic, Iowa) – Republican Iowa Senator Charles Grassley stopped in Atlantic Wednesday afternoon, and spoke with some of the 150 employees at Henningsen Construction. The company is very busy working on buildings and roads around the State and the Midwest. Appropriately enough, one of the things Grassley spoke about was the bipartisan Infrastructure bill he voted for last year, which includes funds for bridges ($432 million in bridge funding over a five-year period), locks and dams ($829 million on the upper Mississippi River) and at least $100-million for broadband.

Henningson Construction President Brad Henningsen (Left) & Sen. Charles Grassley

He says a major reason he did so, even though he received some criticism, is because approximately 23-percent of the bridges (4,500) in Iowa are structurally unsound, and that’s the worst of all 50 states.

One question Grassley was asked was if he thought President Biden should be tested for his cognitive abilities, such as some suggested for former President Trump when he was in office. Grassley said “Susan Rice might be running the country…Obama’s top person.”

He said in the only face-to-face meeting he’s had with Biden since he became President. He suggested Biden has changed from how he acted as Senator, due to outside influences.

But he says he doesn’t think however, that there’s any reason to conclude Biden’s thinking processes make him unfit to hold the office.

The Senator was asked if the U-S is handling the situation in the Ukraine appropriately. He said “From now on, I would have to say ‘Yes’, because the only thing we’re presumably going to do is institute the sanctions.” He said the U-S has to draw a “line in the sand” with the sanctions, but he has some reservations about whether the sanctions will work at this stage in the situation.

He was asked also if a statement made by former President Trump that Russian President Putin made a “Genius move,” by putting Troops along the border as “Peacekeepers.”

Prior to coming to Atlantic, Senator Grassley spoke earlier in the day, Wednesday, at the Audubon County Economic Development Corporation’s meeting, in Audubon.