donald trump and some of his supporters are saying and doing. i talked to two sisters who said they went to the mosque to pray. and one of them said we were wonder whether not we both should be there because if something happened to us, it would be no one left to care for our 92 year-old mother. that's a tragic situation that results from people like donald trump and their language. portland: we now go back to the audience for another question. welcome. >> good evening. my question is about climate change which is a real and present threat to the people in ohio. public health agencies are preparing for more heat related deaths and new insect-borne diseases come water for such agencies are expecting damage from or an intense rain storms and flooding. experts are concerned about water level in our great lake erie. and increased smog during heat waves as well.

our native species might not be able to adapt. affect the national audubon society sent half of all the north american bird species are at risk. if elected water your plants to protect the people, the wildlife and natural areas in ohio from the current and potential threat of a changing climate? portland: thank you for that question. as you i've taken the lead on this issue energy efficiency, crafted legislation with jeanne shaheen financial. we have two bills oversight into law. where the third bill, the combination of those bills will be the equivalent of taking 29 cars off the road within 15 years. what's important is it also creates jobs, 200,000 additional jobs. it's a way to do two things. deal with emissions, carbon emissions help create a clean and five at that second to do so in way that creates more economic growth and opportunity both are important event that is a good example. also the author was called the conservation act which is saved

86 million acres of tropical force around the world. not by losing any job in a while. but light by it's an actual helg those countries to be able to do debt for nature swaps with u.s. debt. i can that's been issued say this because it's viewed a as a the third of fourth largest cost of carbon emissions is the burning of these tropical forests. i used as examples of things i've done. being an independent voice, getting things done working cross the out of making a concrete a difference in both of those cases veterans of emissions to in both of those cases not hurting ohio jobs. there's another approach, as opposed to -- he didn't use to take it but when he lost his election he didn't to washington. he joined up with the group, a lobbying group, that group took on our ohio interests, energy interests, coal interest, not u.s. interest and put in place and supported over regulation that makes it impossible to create jobs in ohio. >> moderator: your time is up.

thank you. governor strickland. strickland: senator, there's only one of the two of us standing before this audience that's ever been a registered lobbyist, and that's you, senator. your first job as a lobbyist was with a chinese-based firm. you are a registered foreign agent and your client was haiti, at a time when the baby doc, a desperate, was killing people. now, i believe in science, thank you for the question i believe in science. science tells us that our climate is changing. and science tells us that our climate is changing in large part because of human activity. i believe that and i accepted my opponent does not. he concurs that the science is changing but he's not willing to say that human activity is significantly involved in climate change. you mention lake erie. lake erie is being affected by climate change.

that's what i support the president clean power plan. senator portman opposers president obama's clean power plan. i as governor passed an energy bill that had efficiency standards and renewable standards, and we were seeing major investments being made in ohio in wind and solar. and so i've taken action on this issue. senator portman opposes the most significant thing that can be done to improve our climate in this country, and that's to support the president's clean power plan. he refuses to do so. he can talk about a forest somewhere else but when it comes with a born writer writer in this country he's on the wrong side. portland: i bulimia false claims that it would have time to go through. but you must be desperate, governor. let me just say this about lake erie because you mentioned it. i am co-chair of the lake erie caucus and lake erie caucus and i'm the one who is taking the lead on dealing with these algae

blooms, but also get rid of the microbeads event in lake erie. my legislation requires companies to face a microbeads altogether the again i work with democrats and republicans, brought environmental us in with the business community to solve the problem. >> moderator: let's go to annex audience question. welcome. >> my name is nancy dietrich. my question is about guns. would you explain how your stance regarding nonviolence and gun registration, regulation has either solidified or involved in the past two years? strickland: thank you for the question. my position has changed or evolved over the last several years. people ask me why. i say, i've got eyes in the years. i've got a head and a hard.

and i see what's happening in our country and in our communities. 33,000 americans lose their lives to gun violence each year. about two-thirds of those as a result of suicide. we can't solve the entire problem, and i do believe and support the second amendment, always have and always will. but also believe that we can have common sense solutions to this very difficult problem. so here's what i support. i support comprehensive background checks for gun sales, including internet sales and gun show sales. that makes sense. most gun owners support that as well. in fact, the nra used to support background checks. and also support keeping those who are suspected of terrorism from being able to go into a gun store and buy a semi automatic weapon. senator portman on the other

hand, coded against a bipartisan bill put forth by a republican senate colleague that would've stopped terrorism -- terrorists from having access to guns. portland: governor strickland, in this campaign bragged about his a+ rating with the nra. i'm not talking about your step by but this campaign to he says has an extensive body record on this agency can be criticized for it. those are his words, not my. i don't know where he is on this issue. i will tell you where i am, which is a to support the second amendment. i also support tidying up background checks to get mental health records into the background checks. i support someone who is on a no-fly list not being able to get a gun. but we need to be sure people are properly on a no-fly list. the famous example is that ted kennedy was on the no-fly list and the legislation i supported actually got the most votes, a bipartisan bill to be able to

solve that problem. i think they got 56 or 57 out of 60 votes. this is one of the things that working together we should be able to solve. the nra did not support that particular go but i did support it. i think that's one that they can regardless of who wins this election we should figure way to come together because i think it's a consensus about this. if you are on a no-fly list you shouldn't be able to get again. these are issues we have to address. we have to address the deeper issue of gun violence. when i talked to police officers in cleveland about the gun violence in the city this is related to games into drugs. another reason to get at this harewood prescription drug issue and other issues. strickland: al-qaeda maintain my 30 seconds. the fact is a bill was put forth. it was written by republican senator collins of maine, and it would've prevented people who were on that terror suspect

watchlist from buying guns. the world was watching. the country was watching. senator portman voted no. he has sold his soul to the nra. that's why they have spent nearly $2 million trying to defeat me in this senate race. i am proud of the opposition. >> moderator: thank you. fortunate we are already on our last audience question. this one comes from twitter. let's hear it. >> this question is from twitter and from cindy and focuses on education. testing helps students id problems that takes away from teaching time. what changes would you make? portland: it's a great question, and for teachers out there who are listening, they all feel this way. maybe some a little more strongly than others but i don't want to teach the test. they want to teach students.

i support legislation called the every child succeeds act. it was bipartisan legislation. it was work on republicans and democrats alike to get passed the senate a couple months ago t.the president signed it into law. it to change the law. so there are not as many students who are being focus on the test, not actually. i think that's important. i think it's important for our students all the way through the process. i support allowing students who are in high school to be able to get college credit and to be able to get pell grants. i've legislation to be the. marcia fudge and i've introduced that together. it's called early college early high school legislation. i've also supported legislation to ensure that when somebody gets out of college and have a big student at which a fortune and the a lot of students do, $28,000 is the average. that they should be able to consolidate and refinancing of student debt. it's called the we pay act. it is interesting provision that

for students they can opt never have to pay more than 15% of their income in interest on the debt. it would be a terrific thing for the students and for our economy. strickland: senator, i do lighting in your or my perspective but your nose seems to be growing. the fact is you have consistently opposed allowing ohio students to refinance their student debt at a lower interest rate. that's his record. that's his record. read the repay act. let me say this about the question. we need to respect teachers. we need to our teachers to help us formulate the approach that we take when we try to educate our kids. for far too long we try to adopt a corporate business model for our schools. we treat our children as if they are some kind of wedge, these wages. every child is individual every

child is different and every job has a different method of learning and needs to be valued as an individual student. this testing is maddening, it's counterproductive and harmful and it takes away from a good educational experience. education should be enjoyable, and it should be adequately funded. we need to put professional educators in charge of education. and what we've done is allow politicians at the federal level to be take too much of our education policy. portland: again, the bitter partisan attacks over here and the falsehood, you know, he needs to look at the repay act because it's good legislation. it's bipartisan. it allows students in ohio to be able to pay less in student loans. that to me is very good for them. it's good for our economy so they can buy a car, get out of

their parents basement. i think it's great legislation. it's the kind of thing i focus on in washington as an independent voice. i know it. i know it's frustrating because i've got a lot done. when he was in congress for 12 years i mentioned i got 45 bills done. do you know how many past? zero. >> moderator: we've come to the point for our closing remarks. by prior agreement the candidates will follow the same order as the opening remarks that we want to let you know you have 90 seconds, 90 seconds for your closing remarks and will begin with senator portman. portland: thank you and appreciate you guys tonight, the city club using a contrast here tonight. using ted strickland talk about bitter partisan attacks. he doesn't want to talk about his record. i don't blame him. the cleveland plains dealer said he has no roadmap for the future. that's true. i've talked about by independent for holcomb by approach of working across the aisle to get

stuff done that else i'll families and workers. i'm proud of that. what i do is i got washington, d.c. to represent you in the senate taking with me the ohio values i learned growing up. when i was a kid i was living in cleveland, ohio. my dad had a job as a salesman. he decided to give it all up and take a big risk. he took us back to cincinnati which was his hometown to follow his dream. and that was to start a small business. he gave up his health care, he gave up his commission. mortgaged the house, couldn't get enough money to start the business because the bank would give it any money. they had to go to my mom's uncle to get about to start a business. it was five people, five of the guys, my mom was the bookkeeper. it was many the first few years but they persevered through hard work, sacrifice and ethical approach to business. eventually finding their niche. i worked there. my brother worked there. my sister worked there. i ground the rust off forklift

trucks, prepared him for picking her rates are bringing to the guy who i've been almost my whole life. he was a mechanic. >> moderator: you need to wrap it up. sorry. strickland: thank you and i want to talk to the people of ohio. there's a choice in the senate race between rob portman, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and i spent his political life looking out for people like him. the wealthy, well-connected, the washington insiders in the wall street bankers. i've got a different story. i've spent my life working -- fighting for working people. that's unsupported the otter rescue. he opposed the otter rescue. that's what i opposed raising the retirement age and privatizing social security and voucherize a medicare. he wants to raise the retirement age. he voted to voucherize new medicare and wants to privatize your social security.

in terms of working people, he is opposed to raising the minimum wage. devoted to strip overtime pay from 6 million of you, 6 million americans lost overtime because of this name. so i'm fighting for you. i believe in working people. i think you need a break senator robb portman represents everything that you don't like. he's the ultimate insider and he's taking care of those who are already well to do and i want to take care of regular working ohioans, people who actually work for a living. thank you so much. china we will ask the audience refrain from any is, any sound. you've been good so far. but let's close out on a positive note. you have been turned into a i'll countries to send a debate between rob portman and ted strickland.

i'd like to thank both candidates are participating in this debate tonight and a big thank you to her studio and put audience for the thoughtful questions. >> for my colleague from here in, from news five in cleveland i'm karen casler. thank you for tuning in and good night from cleveland. [applause] ♪ ♪. ..

show hillary clinton leading by over five points. hillary clinton is in cleveland this afternoon holding a rally at cuyahoga community college and estate were most polls show a tie. >> in the vermont senate race, patrick leahy and scott mill and three third-party candidates debated the nominees, nomination , immigration and the

economy. >> welcome to the studios of channel 17 here in burlington vermont. i am mark johnson. i work at an online news publication here in vermont. welcome to the debate with the candidates in vermont for the united states senate. this will be, as usual, a six-year term that will be by four with five candidates. you will meet all of them tonight. candidates are together and we will have five candidates joining us tonight. we will also be taking phone calls from you and across the nation. the phone number is 802. [inaudible] we will have some questions for candidates before we get to some of yours. let me introduce some of the candidates on the program tonight. we will go from my left outward.

senator patrick leahy is the incumbent in the race. he is a democrat. scott mill is to his left. he is the republican candidate. next to him is jerry trudell who is running as an independent and chris erickson is also joining us and she is with the united marijuana party. peter diamond stone with the union party is expected to join us during the program. our format tonight will have the candidates answering questions. we will limit them to two minutes. we have asked them to honorary tethers time so so each of them can get the maximum amount. let's begin. let me start with the five of you. i would ask you to discuss the single biggest issue in the senate race. senator leahy let's start with

you. >> thank you for having me and i want to thank those of you that have encourage me to run. i think the biggest thing is to make the senate be what it should be. it often has been the conscience of the nation. , watching what has happened in the national races, we have to have somewhere where republicans and democrats can work together as often we have in the past and be the conscience of the nation. >> i agree with my opponent, i don't have a 42 year record of not living up to that bar so i think the biggest issue is a dysfunctional senate, the problem i believe is caused by poor career politicians being

propped up election after election with special interest money. my opponent has been in office for 42 years. the problem has really taken root and i am offering those of boys who think it's a big problem and i'm looking forward to the next three weeks. >> the number one issue is the economy. one and three are struggling to survive. i have an st card. you know well what this is. we have recordings that we took to prove the veracity of my claim. there are so many that are upset with you in varying degrees that you have lost their vote senator i say the issue i have boils down to class cronyism. you had a fundraiser a year ago.

your former chief of staff who is now campaign manager for senator clinton, you are such close bed fellows it isn't even funny. you have this all lined up years in advance and of course bernie upset your applecart a little bit. what you say to those who, in my opinion pretrade your trust. besides the economy itself, the perennial issue. >> the biggest issue is we are suffering from a lack of democracy. the whole system is un-american. just to give you an idea, i asked them to allow the eighth-graders to watch this program eighth-graders are concerned about bullying.

senator leahy has been a bully the waste children are bullies on the playground. i ran this summer and he refused to have one debate or one for him with me. he is a bully, he sexist, he is totalitarianism, undemocratic and un-american. he he should be ashamed of himself. thank you. >> please give me an opportunity to respond. >> it's kind of hard to respond, as a person who wrote the violence against women act and greatly expanded it, i don't think there is any group of women in this country that would call me sexist. >> talk about the violence of

against women act. >> when we referred to senator sanders, i admire senator sanders. i have served with him, he and his wife are close friends of mine. he and i are both supporting hillary clinton at the national convention. he and i both voted for her. i admire him and i admire the issues he has raised. if he had been the nominee, i would be gladly supporting him. >> i need a quick rebuttal. right after you pass the violence against women act, i filed in court with that act and

i had been assaulted and battered by an actor named patrick swayze on a movie set and i found out years later that you took campaign donations from my opposing attorney. you should be ashamed of yourself. >> were to pick up on an issue of the integrity of the opposing classes. do you have any opinion on whether or not it's in jeopardy. >> i think if we look at history from windsor county, i will be the first senator from windsor county. i think we are seeing a dialogue on the national levels. i am concerned on a national level, a lot of the rhetoric from my opponent and his candidate who are calling them deplorable and vice versa from both sides.

i would like to have an issue which i would congratulate my opponent, i think i clearly carried out things that i disagree totally with that are borderline hypocritical if not completely hypocritical. i think that's what campaigns should be about, people's records and their plans and what they say they're going to do matches what they've been doing up until now. i want to defeat senior member for the first time in united states history and it will give us a lot of momentum to change. >> are you confident in the integrity of the system. >> when their paper ballots i am so you can recount if you have to and in vermont we have paper ballots. put it this way, first of all it is a fact that there is a very low incidence of voter fraud so i'm not that concerned about

voter fraud. other people are trumping that issue for the sake of their own agenda. if you don't have a paper ballot which is the company that manufactures a lot of these election machines which is actually run by a lot of these elections, he claimed he was going to deliver ohio. i think voting without a paper trail is very suspect. >> in the last election in 2014, when i ran against congressman peter wells, he lied and said he had not taken campaign donations from defense contractors where in fact, just a couple days days before that, he was in a photograph with patrick leahy with both of them waving their checks for thousands of dollars. peter welch both lied on this

very stage and that's campaign fraud. number two when the votes came in, my vote were cut in half the next day and so were two other candidates, and the secretary of state said there was just some kind of accident and that's why they had to cut them in half the next day. they told me the people running the state democratic committee are wonderful and the leaders came from out-of-state actors and one of them is from ireland i when you think that one of them is from ireland and could be a member of the ira, the irish republican army, and you and you look at the things going on in north carolina with the fire at the republican office,

you have to be concerned. >> i trust the elections in vermont. last year when there is a recount, i pointed out our machinery. [inaudible] i said i know two things about them, one they are totally honest and to they can count. he is not concerned that somebody will vote twice. that does not happen. he just wants them to vote. whether people are voting for me or for opponents, get out and vote. we have to have higher turnout in this country. >> peter, good evening, how are you my friend. we will catch you in the next

round of questions. who are you going to vote for for president, and talk to me about the tone of the presidential debate. >> deplorable is one word and i don't want to depress myself even more than that. the most depressing spectacle i've ever seen of contest of insult, that is all we have here. this thing is degenerated to such a low level that i'm embarrassed and so are a lot of other people. >> who are you going to vote for? >> i'm not sure. >> ms. erickson. >> we have a secret ballot and it should stay that way. >> what you think about the tone of the presidential debate. >> i'm disgusted, i'm shocked, i'm horrified, it turns my stomach. i'm totally and completely shocked. the main thing is that people, over and over again have been

voting for the candidates who have the biggest campaign funds, the most money. that has impressed them. you have to go back to reading the holy bible that says you shouldn't worship man where you shouldn't worship money because when you worshiping money, you're ending up with the worst candidates, not the best candidates. >> peter who will you vote for for president. >> glory out the riva it's really interesting how the so-called alternative candidates within the capitalist system think they should be allowed in the debate that they have made no effort to get the socialist into the debate. if you're looking for high quality candidates, that is where you'll find them. there are three of them. the socialist party candidate in

the workers world candidate -- i'm really exhausted and the peace and freedom candidate is glory outlet areva. you want to understand that this is a panel of capitalist and only one of me. it's not really fair. i bring messages from the deliberate liberty panel.

we declared patrick leahy a war criminal for his work in planning saudi arabia to bomb yemen and his appropriation vote to give israel money to commit war crimes in gaza. as you know, those who aid and abet are those who perpetrate. >> what do you think of the presidential race. >> i'm disturbed by the tone of the presidential race and i am supporting hillary clinton. i made that very public.

both bernie sanders and i are voting for her. both of us have campaign for him. i am disturbed at the republican candidate, donald trump has said that he will pick and choose which parts of the constitution to uphold, he is willing to violate freedom of religion and freedom of speech and he has also said he will not commit to fulfill all of our nato obligations. he will pick and choose which treaties are the law of the land. which ones he will follow. you can imagine the conservatives concern in the rest of the world when we are supposed to be the leader of the free world, the leader of democracy and as some like him say i will pick and choose. to go on television and mock someone who has a physical disability or condemn a mother, someone who died in our service protecting fellow servicemen,

where he will say that he is opposed to people like john mccain even though he served honorably and bravely because he was captured. he said he would never be captured. of course he would never be captured. >> thank you. the election is three weeks from today. i'm asking vermont come i know we have a national audience, but i'm asking vermont to take a difference between senator leahy and myself and other candidates as you decide who to vote for. one of the contributors to the bad rhetoric at a national stage i would say was my opponent's decision, as a vermonter, to disenfranchise the voice that were supporting his opponent. i'm a republican. i was supportive of howard dean when he was running early on.

i'm not asking people to decide tonight who they're voting for for u.s. sen. i have not decided who i'm voting for for president. i will say i have said for many months that i'm not supporting anybody. i did say i will not be voting for donald trump yet i also find it troublesome that the candidates that my opponent is supporting refers to the supporters of the other candidate, donald trump, as a basket of deplorable's. i've had conversations over the last several months of those who are supporting donald trump and i would not consider any one of them deplorable. everyone has their fingerprints on this mess but i would argue that patrick leahy's are deeper than anybody else's. >> we will go to the phone. good good evening, you are joining us on the u.s. senate senate candidate debate. >> i have a question for the

republican candidate. i would like to know if he is elected, if you will follow the constitution and go ahead and vote for justice for the supreme court. i believe all these senators in the senate are violating the oath of office and their duty because they haven't voted for justice garland on the supreme court. >> thank you very much. let's start here. i believe. >> i believe he is unable to get the senate to go along with the vote and i believe there should be a vote on judge garland. it's irrelevant as we look toward the future and our nation and our planet are in perilous times. i think you can tie a lot of the problems to the disintegration of ethics and not getting things

done. i think the advise and consent role is clearly complementary to the executive role of choosing supreme court justices. my opponent has a 422 year track record of essentially being in the bag for democrats when they've got a nominee up and being and obstructionist when there's a republican president. if hillary or anybody as president, i think everybody should have a hearing based on what i know about garland, i would be voting for hearing and most likely vote for him to be confirmed. >> sometimes when he is so used to attacking me that the attacks are more important than the facts, let me set the facts. whoever is the majority leader, they determine when the votes are going to be. his parties leader who seem to have more republicans who like to boast his power, announce

about two hours after justice scalia's body was discovered that there would be no vote on a supreme court justice. he is the one person that can decide that. the republicans when arete along with it. i agree, the constitution says we must have, it's not complementary to the executive that we shall shelf. i believe strongly in that. contrary to what he says, i have voted for well over 90% of republican nominees for the judiciary and everything else. i believe very strongly in a president's ability to nominate someone who is qualified. >> let's take another call. good evening, you're on the air.

>> i would like to thank senator leahy for his service. i have watched him over the years. i'm in north carolina but i'm a fan of his and it's not his fault that the judicial system did not give a chance to give the gentleman and invitation to see if he would qualify for the supreme court. the republican party is blocking every issue that he is trying to accomplish. i think you for the call and i thank you for your beautiful state of vermont. >> what you think of this election of the supreme court nominee? >> i'm looking forward to voting for garland when i'm in the senate this time. i'm a little slow down but i can keep up.

i want to impress on folks the importance of this vote. some people call it one of the other, but it isn't. you can vote for his confirmation by voting for me and you can vote for no more war by voting for me. you can vote for me and get a reference to the criminal court for mr. leahy to defend himself for the bombing of yemen in the bombing of gaza and there is zero war budget. >> with the other two like to comment on the supreme court selection? do you support mayor garland? >> if i'm voted into the united

states senate, i will question the nominees and find out whether or not they will get 100% support for gun rights and repeal laws that take away gun rights for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. one of the most important things is vetting supreme court nominees is to make certain we are going to have our gun rights we have a potential of hillary clinton being president and letting all kinds of terrace in the country. we have to have our gun rights and veterans with post traumatic stress disorder have to have their gun rights restored. >> i was just about to get to the gun issue. >> let's give some of these other people an opportunity. >> i would vote for any qualified nominee of any party or no party. >> people mentioned people coming from the outside.

there have been syria refugees, do you support that program? >> many of my valid petition signatures to get on the ballot, so i could be here today everybody i talked to said no, they don't want them here. when you're in rutland, there are homeless people, americans standing across the street from walmart, there are people sitting on the streets begging in the people want them to be taken care of first. as far as our moral obligation to the people of syria, we are arming armies, we are supplying armies with weapons and this results in the syrians being gone. all of the weapons are being used to bomb syria and we do

have a moral obligation to take care of the refugees but we don't have to take care of them here in the united states. we look at the whole entire globe and say where is the piece of earth that is not populated where we can provide them with tents and fishing poles and some farm animals. what you think of the efforts to put syrian refugees in vermont? >> i have no problem with taking as many as we can. i am not seriously concerned about whether they will be so-called terrorists. these are people who are suffering at the hands of the united states. let us not forget that the so-called civil war in syria is a product of the united states government international policy.

it's not just something that happened out of the blue. if we take appropriate responsibility for what we've done, we will take as many as we can and that means hundreds of thousands, i believe. >> this whole? immigration, we can walk out of the studio right now and see the vibrance. those are mostly immigrants, the kids that go to the boys and girls club that's just two or three blocks from here. those are immigrant families that have come here to the united states. we are not being asked in the united states to bring in anywhere near the number of syrians like canada, a country

much much smaller population than we are, that they're taking in. the differences, i don't think any of us here would ever want to go through the kind of screening that these people have to go through to come here. it is the most intensive screening you can imagine. i think the united states, in the same way that my investors in the 1850s came from ireland because they're being persecuted for their religion or my grandparents came from italy after all the various wars there to the united states, they all made this place better. are we going to say no to syrians because they have a different religion then we do? i would hope we haven't come to that point in the united states. >> thank you. i would respectfully disagree with you.

i have met a lot of people over the last several months who are in favor. i think as people with nations to most have given, we are a blessed nation and a prosperous nation, we have a responsibility on immigration and on trade and all kinds of issues to leave the world. i don't think folks in rutland are anti- immigration. what they are is anti-rigged political system. what we saw saw in rutland from the federal delegation, they have their hand in it, of a actually saying, let's get the people on board, let us get it down the court so people can't disagree with that. i think rutland should've of been respected in vermont should've been respected and able to essentially solicit the refugee. i remember hearing stories about it in the 40s, you could hear

conversations in five languages. it is enriching part of our planet and our lives. what's ringing democracy and ruining america is a rigged system with special interest money and career politicians and you can see senator leahy's office as well as all these other problems were talking about. >> first of all, i think if the economy where were should be people would be hollering and screaming. yes, because we bomb and blow up and destroy people's homes and lives in syria, we do have some responsibility, but we create refugees for the sake of our political, but at the same time, we have people at home who deserve jobs. i would like to focus this on

the economy once again. in the economy, people don't complain about things like this historically. it's only when the economy is on the fritz that people start playing blame games. the real responsibility is for our politicians to stop playing and come up with some real solutions like the blueprint. i have ideas and he does not. >> that makes me mad. yes, it does make me mad that you sit there and your condescension, as if you are the king of the road when i haven't heard one original idea. the only substantial plan happens to be the gravy train. what you say about that. >> we will get to that in a moment. thank you. >> good evening, you're on the air.

>> hello. why doesn't he support trump. >> again, i think i ran for governor two years ago and came close. i believe when i ran for governor i made a few promises. one is i will listen before i act. i was watching what was going on. again, clearly senator leahy disagrees with me. i think he made a mistake coming out early for sec. clinton. i think that was a big mistake. >> the question is why are you supporting trump. >> i'm answering that question, with all due respect. i said i was not supporting trump or anybody else early on. the question is not why did i

announce i'm not voting for trump. i wanted to save it for debate, however it's three weeks to election and i'm sitting next to one of the expert debate doctors of all times. i say if i could go through a time machine back to 1947 and play dodgeball, he would skunk me. he's great at it. there's three weeks till election. at seven years old i was pretty good at dodgeball but you are obviously much better than me. we are dodging debates. i have a campaign that sincerely wants to inspire young voters. i've been inspired by a lot of vermont political leaders and humbly, without being presumptuous, i, i want to be able to at least do that. the things that were validated about the republican nominee over the last couple weeks just

made it completely inconsistent for me to hold my tongue so i have announced i'm not voting for donald trump and it's a succession of things. i feel bad for the folks that are supporting him. there's clearly a need for change and he offers a voice for a lot of those people, but it's not a voice i can agree with. >> we are going to take another question. thank you for your answer. >> good evening, my question goes to all the candidates about the eb five project. presently vermont is in a top-tier of most backed states in the country. how can we address less complicated tax code so young entrepreneur like myself can start up a business here in vermont and rather than funding by selling off a green card, why are we making it easier to start a business here in vermont. >> let's start peter down to

your end. >> i don't think we need to expand the economy, that's the idea of capitalist candidates. what we need to do is increase the wage by having a 20 hour work week at a 40 hour pay so we produce less and people get paid more. we don't need most of the crab that we buy. we need to sell producing for need so that we can give the people what they need including the syrians, syrian refugees and we can give them what they need and what they offer. mostly that means work. the syrians pay taxes, the syrians, all the people who come

to this country and work, but we don't need more work, we need less work. we need more leisure. we need more time to work at home, to grow your own crop and do many things including training for militia. my view of that one is that we the people should have whatever weapons the government has, except for nuclear weapons. we should be able to have those weapons and as the nation disarms itself, then we can disarm also. i'm a candidate who stands for zero military budget except for the veterans budget.

>> i believe we should have development in the state. i have visited a number of businesses. one was for stocks that are soldiers are going to wear. at the university of vermont, we saw what young entrepreneurs can do. we want to expand that. i am as outraged as everybody. i said good men and women in the

newport area getting jobs, excellent jobs. i'm glad the fcc in the justice department is in there and they will get to the bottom of it. the one good part is that the receivers say burke will open and those jobs will be there for monitors. we need to tighten up eb five. >> format piggybacks but i would say what mrs. for economic vitality in vermont is predictability.

my opponent voted to shut down the government because he couldn't get his colleagues to go along with getting the spotlight off of him and eb five. when you have people voting to shut down, you need that to stop my grandfather ran his own office for a while and i heard stories from the time i was a young boy. he was a new england republican. [inaudible] we need people who worked in the middle to get things done and not shut down the government. once we get a predictable functioning united states that

keeps working and doing things the way it was in george aikins time, businesses are going to be more into investing capital on the shore of the united states will be the greatest contribution i can make as a united states senator. >> is at the vermont economy, personal my comment about eb five. i think you said this was the first time you heard of this mass. isn't that what you said when you were interviewed? it's all in the public record. >> go on, take your time. >> well anyway, you did say that. it's public record. to me, there was proof that there was zero oversight. they said they were checking the books. i would've hired an accountant. i would've been down there and i would have been interested enough in the program to keep

tabs on it myself because i'm so hands-on. there was proof that there is no oversight what's going on down in new york? the eb five gravy train, the deep dive into the crack cocaine of real estate financing. you seem to think that was quite alright in the interview. how do you feel about that now? don't you think their other people are important now? that was my comment. now on the economy what i have to say our country is falling apart and it will create substantial jobs which is what we need. we need to fix these safety hazards called roads. the way we need to do it is what i'm calling the 1% solution

which is an investment tax on wall street to raise a truly substantial amount of money for investment. rather than the gravy train ponzi schemes. >> hi, i'm chris erickson, i have a plan to fix the state tax code in vermont which will also fix the tax code in every single other state. if you vote for me for united states senator, i will sponsor a bill in the united states senate to outlaw the making of any state or federal law that has blank spaces. by blank spaces, i mean the united states congress or the state of vermont passes a law and says an unelected administrative official can make the rules and regulations to fill in the law. these people have been cheating. they have been collecting taxpayer dollars and cheating

because they leave blank spaces in the law saying that unelected officials can fill in the blanks and add the rules and regulations can end up in court and lose your property and your home and your children and everything else. we need to stop the unconstitutional making of the rules and regulation and make it a crime for state legislatures to pass any law that has rules or regulations that are unconstitutional because they are made by unelected officials which is on constitutional. you have a right to the occasion with elected officials. >> you don't feel that you bear any responsibility that there was a lack of oversight for this

program that resulted in the allegations? >> here in vermont, what i do believe is there is ample reason for the fcc, the department of justice to look into this. there is an investigation underway. i will not say anything to jeopardize or affect that, but i think it's a good thing thing they do. what i'm concerned about, my mother is born in the northeast kingdom, my wife was born in the kingdom, i have brought brought hundreds of millions of dollars of jobs to the northeast kingdom. i want those jobs to continue. if ev five and people are defrauded, there is legal reef recourse and they should take it there was also one, i did not

want to shut down the government, but it's a nice talking point, it is a good, ev five can do very good things as we have seen it do in vermont, but, we have seen places where it has not worked right and that's why senator grassley and i in a bipartisan way, are working hard to reformat were ended. >> you did not vote in favor of the continuing resolution. >> no i did not. >> it already passed and i made it very clear to people, there was a number of people voting against it for one reason or another. we have to come back to this for the long term. >> let's go back to the phone. good evening, you are on the air

>> thank you for taking my call. i have a question for senator leahy and the other candidates. i am interested in the protection of minority, our government. [inaudible] the majority gets whatever it wants. only in the senate with a filibuster are the rights of the minorities protected from the tyranny of the majority. we have both parties talk about the nuclear option and threaten it and i'm hoping that both the senator republican candidate and others will commit to upholding the filibuster in all cases. >> not using the nuclear option, okay great, thank you thank you. we start this with you. >> one of the biggest things

that has been question in the supreme court, i oppose the idea of that vote. what i would point out is what works better is when we work together. i have past more legislation than most people. almost all of my. [inaudible] that's why goes through and that's how it works. i have voted for most nominees by republicans and democratic presidents because i believe they have the right to do it unless the person's not qualified. >> are we gonna come back to eb five because you said two things that are completely wrong. i will save my time for later on unless unitech that now. >> you use your time the way you

want. >> he said he didn't vote shut down the government, you clearly did. senator leahy said he doesn't have any responsibility for the problems and he wants to talk about the kingdom, but we know now there's a campaign and the news media are actually talking about what's going on, there is four or five times money going to hollywood. not only are there ponzi schemes, we have hillary clinton's brother involved in an ev five scandal. we have harry reid's son involved in the scandal. i didn't say you were the godfather, you said you were. you saying it's up to the fcc in the justice department is like somebody building a bridge, designing and building a bridge and blaming it on the maintenance people when it fall down. you went around parading saying you are the godfather of the program hanging out with everybody, talk about country kitchen,, they have $12 million

of ev five money. it's a vermont company and you change the rules so you don't have to hire people. if your business is off by 20% you can go get money. they went out got $12 million and didn't hire one new person. they put. they put the $12 million in the bank and sold the company to a company from wisconsin. how do you claim that is a success tory? you change the rules when your buddy who's now a lobbyist so that jobs that are created don't even have to be in vermont anymore. how is that speaking up for jobs? that's just a complete. >> it's a story of fiction. you need to come clean on it. >> the question actually was, on the filibuster in nuclear options. >> i support the use of

filibuster when necessary. nuclear option, no. i don't think we should have world war three. i don't think anybody. >> i think we should keep with filibusters, but i think there are some rules that you can't leave to go to the bathroom or something, there's some some childish rule about not going to the bathroom when you're doing a filibuster. >> i would get rid of all major industry. the major means would be tax so

that it would now belong to the community at large. whether it's car building or oil or exploration. all major means of distribution should belong to the community at large. private enterprise is robbery. you see here, a set of robbers trying to make things work out better, and they can't work better, they can only work worse >> would you like to respond to other charges? >> i believe in democracy.

>> it has been the most negative campaign i've ever seen anybody run. all i would like to say is how many jobs has he created? i can point to thousands of jobs i have created with my program. that's what i do as a u.s. senator. >> i think we do our job in some ways that are effective but you are the poster child for a dysfunctional u.s. senate. you are the poster child for the pervasive, dwight eisenhower had a prophetic warning, the war of where of the military and industrial conflict. my opponent is opposed to that. things are going very bad. it's complete fiction.

you can look at all kinds of numbers and most of the numbers i looked at were number six out of seven. small states have an advantage. we have a 20 trillion-dollar deficit on the books. comments that my opponents have made, we have got a hundred trillion dollar deficit. >> we have a question from the audience as well. >> about the homeland security budget, it's enormous, which of you would support or consider supporting an initiative to use all of the budget for community centers in all of our

communities. we have a great lake here in our community, maybe focus it here or put it on land but it could be moved around from town to town. >> it's a great concept. i think we need to say no to things that cost more money and aren't related to the issue of homeland security. we need a new senator from vermont. >> first of all, we need to say yes to investing in this country and stop being so spendthrift and spending our money on the wrong thing and pork barreling. we need vision and reinvest in

america because we are the poorest rich country in america. we need to put it toward community investment. >> they will put in's all sort of spy cameras and sound cameras and just use them to spy on people. it's got to be financed so that the major means of production and distribution are as well are owned by the community at large and these centers for automobiles and management and

farming industry and management. no compensation to those folks who own the distribution. we have been ravaged by the s-uppercase-letter trying to make it nicer and you can't make it nicer. it's still shows itself through the killing of coffee and the attempt to kill the minister from haiti. we kidnapped him twice. we just murder all over the

world and that's part of capitalism. >> we have many community centers right within a five minute walk. the idea of the community center floating on lake champaign and other great lakes, no. >> y. >> let me restate what the second digestion was, build a community center on lake champaign. floated there for a while and then floated on the other five great lakes. i think there's far better use of money. >> the senator is only in favor of a hundred jobs in vermont. he wants to militarize the airbase.

he and sanders and someone and welch, they want to militarize everything they touch. one of the things they touch is the airbase in burlington. >> thank you. now your, on the question. >> i think i've said enough on the. >> i misunderstood your question, i apologize. >> let's go back. plans might've been different otherwise. that evening you're on the air

during the acceptance. and one of the precision's, within 60 days the parties north and south would sign a peace agreement. and a peace agreement would include a vote on whether to unite the country. united states interfered and would not let south korea sign that agree but. senator leahy is one of the people that participated in blocking south korea. the other thing is, north korea didn't bring nuclear weapons to the peninsula. we did. so north korea has to respond to having do good weapons because

we put a sobering and south korea. so we started it, and when they decide to match as we get very upset about that. nobody can match us. nobody can do what we do, right? start war everywhere, prevent peace treaty something signed and nuclear weapons within every region in the world, except for the people who we are aiming them at. >> let me take a minute with rest of the group, nuclear proliferation. >> you can find us on the internet. senator leahy has repeatedly promoted bringing f-35 strike fighter jets to vermont. they are dual capable to carry nuclear bombs. they are not safe to in the largest most populated area of vermont near the burlington international airport.

they are simply not state to have adjacent to the burlington international airport. these f-35 strike fighter jets have been built with taxpayer money. what happened is the united states senate and members of the house of representatives vote to give your taxpayer dollars to the pentagon, and the pentagon decides to give millions and millions and millions to teach defense contractor to design more models of these f-35's and their components. there are several different designs of the f-35 strike fighter jet and they're being sold to foreign countries. and again they are dual capable to carry nuclear weapons. then what happens is that defense contractors use some of the millions of dollars they receive to give to their political action committees, to give to you senator patrick leahy. your money has come full circle. i call the money laundering.

>> first of all i think nuclear proliferation is a very series issue. i remember when i was a kid in the '60s when we were much more worried when we had two superpowers and worried about the threat of global annihilation. now we have a situation where there's been the potential of road nations gain use of nuclear weapons, whic which innocent as little bit scare you. you touched on a couple of things. this country spend enormous amounts of money and part of what you're doing, senator leahy, with all your defense contracting porkbarrel he is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars. yes, we're still spending money on nuclear weapons in this country. look into it. do some investigative journalism. if we are going to be the leaders, should we be leading by continue to do this so that other countries are playing catch-up? now. that's not how we will accomplish the true goal which we should set of global nuclear disarmament which i haven't

heard words out of your mouth or your mouth. but maybe now. >> here's your opportunity. >> that's right. it would be great it was a perfect world. clearly, i agree with the leader of your party, our president obama, that you want to avoid mistakes but mistakes of action are better than mistakes of inaction. i don't know, i'm not on inside, i don't get classified briefings. i applaud what president obama has done in iran, the persian people are a great nation. somebody we need to respect and work with an have a cordial relationship as with a lot of things we had a horrible history with how we treated the first democracy in iran in the 1950s. some of those chickens come home to roost. i think north korea is another place. i think those are the two places. you are right, we get these

rogue regional people get dirty bombs. it's a big problem. i think we just need to be a nation that leads by example. need to be regarded countries engage. china, i think senator leahy was right when he said we are on the eve of the cold war with the russians again. those are big problems. i think a new voice, new ideas are better than what's been going on for the last 42 years. that's one of the reasons i'm looking for to get to work for vermont, and american indian estates in. >> with the exceptions o of his last sentence, i agree. trying to stop nuclear proliferation. i was shocked when donald trump talked about maybe we give nuclear weapons to south korea. made we give them to japan.

it is a major problem. now you've got pakistan and india with nuclear weapons. historic rivals to this is a very -- it is a threat to all the rest of the world with nuclear proliferation. another very, very significant threat, we have to stop spending more. we decided to some of his work in vermont. and that's on cyberwarfare, and cybersecurity. if north korea, god forbid, fired a missile at the united states come as a return address. we know exactly what it would come from. they would be obliterated withih in a matter of minutes for doing it. what i worry about is cybersecurity, somebody who's able to hack into all of our power grid, the middle of january in the northeast and they turn off our power grid. that's something we have to

worry about. i'm very proud of what the college is doing, what north university is doing on this whole area of cybersecurity. i visited it many times. they should be applauded. they are turning young people the right way. >> we have to make the question quick, please. we will take a minute on the answers. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

>> translator: this question goes to senator leahy as well to the other candidates are a part of the immigrant unity in vermont doing some of the most difficult and dirty jobs in the state. recently we've seen a growing attack against our key nerdy from ice, immigration and customs enforcement, and i'd like to know are you willing to be part of the solution to call for an immediate end to deportations against our community? >> first of all i would disagree about it being a dirty job. there's tremendous work on applaud you intertidal working on a dairy farm. yes. good job and i applaud you for doing that. i think the bigger issue is our immigration program for what we're going to do. again, i do want the election to be all that you senator leahy

but i have to talk about you. he wants us to believe after this election he and his friends get together and the bipartisan. i'm telling you i'm going to be bipartisan now. i do have a track record to the contrary that you have to overlook to believe that at least. we need coverage of immigration reform. it's one of the biggest priority for america so that folks like yourself that are here illegally, don't have to worry about being deported unless you do something that's completely wrong, you on a pathway to citizenship and is something i'm working hard to get a plan together and, obviously, i'll be a junior member of the senate but there's a lot of momentum there. i'm looking forward to it. >> mr. trudell. >> i'm against deportation. my perspective on integration is actually -- native american, that everyone is an immigrant. this entire country was built by immigrants. let's not forget that. so i don't see immigrants as a negative force. they are actually a positive force and a vital economy which

we need to build. and i want to quickly add that as a senator jeff to take responsibility for some of your defense appropriations pork barreling that goes towards building up this problem we have with nuclear weapons. i want to squeeze that in. okay. iadc someone make a good talk but actions speak louder than words is what i'm saying. go ahead. >> i'm cris ericson to the united states marijuana party and when i was a child my parents took in for hungarian immigrants during the hungarian revolution. i'm 64 so this happened in 1956 when i was about four years old. i remember teaching them english, pointing to things and saying the word and teaching our new hungarian boys english. they stayed with us. they graduated college eventually. they all became good citizens. while i was in junior high and

high school i had a penpal from india. they went to medical school, came over to the united states through legal immigration, all these with illegal immigration. you can look at his website. he's one of the finest orthopedic surgeons in northern california. we were penpals for years before my mother helped him to legally immigrate. my question to you, sir, is why haven't you gone through illegal immigration program? >> i've got to stop you there. peter, you are next. >> i would take the wall down, and immigration should be freely available to everybody to go in and to come out, go both directions. we should have no restrictions. we should have no i.c.e. equation that nobody barring people from coming in. that's where our strength comes from, except for one group of

people to whom we owe at least to each one of them a quarter of american reparations, that is the descendents of black slaves. we cannot, we must understand that this nation was built on slavery. it's not an accident. slavery is not an accident. >> thank you. >> contrary to what my opponents say you can do, when the democrats were in charge of the senate i got 68 votes, a key member of republicans and democrats across the political spectrum. we passed a comprehensive immigration bill. 68 votes. it was blocked by mr. milne his party in the house of representatives. they said something they called that passionate revolt within must respect the memory of

former speaker hastert. they said they wouldn't bring it up. i went quietly with a number of republicans and democrats the past couple of months. we intend to get back together after the election. we will try it again. but we have proven innocent we can put those bipartisan coalitions. when i was chairman, we didn't. >> just a couple minutes left our to give you each a 30-second opportunity to make a last ditch. and we will start with mr. trudell. >> go to my website. see a blueprint to rebuild america that no one else has by some strange coincidence. what i am saying is vote for ideas this time instead of the same old 20th century porkbarrel politics which isn't getting us anywhere. it's keeping the politicians elected in office. that's all it really accomplishing. what they claim and pat

themselves on the back four, the accomplishment. meanwhile, -- >> thank you. >> my name is chris ericson. my grandfather was born on a hemp farm in shelbyville kentucky. his name was george robert erikson and hemp and marijuana were legal than. please go visit the united states marijuana party ucmj party.com or national party and we believe that marijuana and hemp should be legalized as a federal law. thank you. >> and i believe that old drugs -- all drugs, legal, illegal, prescription and nonprescription should be the business of the population at large, and that industry also needs to go on and be controlled by the population. we need to be able to say what we decide what the prices will be. in case of illegal drugs, the

price has to be no higher than cost. that is, you can't add taxes in because as soon as you at anything in it builds a place for salespeople to come in. >> thank you. your last 30-second pitch. >> i believe in vermont. i am a vermonter. thousands of people have asked me to run but it's more than just that. it's because i know that i can help them. i was talking with a world war ii veteran, a member of the greatest generation. he said so glad you're running again, because i've upheld the values that he fought for. i was humbled by that. i am humbled by the trust promoters have put in the. i use every single second to fulfill the trust. >> thanks everybody. thinks her studio audience. three weeks and did a movie was shot america by changing the united states senate seat in

vermont, pass it off to someone who is running a campaign with all the lunches with no special interest money. i've not made one phone call, e-mail, ask anyone for money. i think it's getting weird not seeing in american for and credible statewide candidate in 45 years. i would also -- >> you have to wrap up. >> i want to see check it out, a big day for america. we're going in the right direction and want to thank all the folks will support in the election. >> thank you all very much for joining us here tonight from berlin -- burlington, vermont, for a senate debate. for all of us here, have a great night. >> road to the white house coverage later today as donald trump campaigns in pennsylvania holding a rally in the southwestern part of the state. five recent state and national polls gathered by real clear politics have hillary clinton leading by over five points in the state. the rally is live at 4 p.m.

eastern on c-span. hillary clinton is in cleveland this afternoon holding a rally at cuyahoga community college in a state where most polls show a tight. live coverage at 4:30 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> rolc-span2. >> roll call is reporting democratic governor maggie hassan is polling at a republican in cup at kelly ayotte according to a new poll released yesterday. she leads by eight points 46-38 among likely voters but according to adobe him you are a staple. the new hampshire battle which has been closed for months is one of a handful of purple state races and is expected to term which party controls the senate majority. here's the most recent debate from a week ago about health care cost, the national debt and the opioid crisis in that state. >> what i work to do as governor and what i hope to be able to do in the united states senate is build a future for our country

were hard-working people know that if they are working everyday they can get ahead and they can stay here. where we grow our middle class so we are all thriving together and where parents are confident again that the kids can have a better future. that's the vision the democrats share. and because we share that and because it's a vision hillary clinton shares, i support hillary clinton i'm it's a vision bernie sanders' supporters shared and that's why so many of them support hillary clinton as well. i will never fail to stand up to leaders of the party as i have. for instance, i differ with secretary clinton and the president on the president's proposal to close guantánamo. i don't support that proposal. i differ with th the president n the tpp. i don't support it. i differ with secretary clinton on the internet sales tax. i differ with secretary clinton on taking a temporary applause to make sure that our vetting system for refugees is as effective as absolute possible. so those are issues i stood up

to hillary clinton about but let me just be clear. to equate hillary clinton and donald trump in the same sentence is unacceptable. and i am very concerned what you did near my opponents that is why she supported donald trump for over a year as he made one sexes, after the next after native won races, after the next, as he made fun with people with disabilities. pc magazine to the cruelty is a sport. her support for him has been unacceptable. >> rebuttal, senator ayotte. >> first of all, i renounced donald trump statements on the occasion on the issues governor hassan has identified come and have clearly said where i stand on donald trump and hillary clinton. i won't be voting for either of them. again, if you -- >> are you writing in mike pence? >> i will be. let me just say that if you look

at issues governor hassan has just talked about recently, she was interviewed by the monitor about secretary clinton's plan to bring 65,000 see refugees and should answer where she stood on that. so when you think about issues about protecting the country, the iran agreement, when you hear talk about these differences of either species we will come back to that. quick comment. >> senator ayotte, until last saturday, was willing to vote to put donald trump in the situation room with access to nuclear codes. he is of the same person on saturday as he was on friday as he was of the previous day. and that shows a very concerning lack of judgment. and with regard to secretary clinton's refugee proposal, i don't think we should be talking about numbers at all. i think we should be taking a temporary pause and improving our vetting system.

>> you can go back to any point you want. next question was brought by one of you in the beginning. want the things up with a lot of listeners are feeling and wondering what will talk by the economy a bit. is health care costs are going up. they are not coming to deductibles are going up. the affordable tract was supposed to make health care more affordable. governor, why our health care costs so expensive? do you support the affordable care at and why our crossfire? >> we have to make improvements to the affordable care act and health care costs are of course a continuing concern. and they had her longtime. when i first ran for the state senate one of the reasons i ran was because they've been health care law passed in new hampshire that had raise premiums by 200-300% for small businesses and i was part of a bipartisan coalition backing to overturn that law and begin to take on

insurance companies and work to improve access. here's the thing about the affordable care that. while there are issues with it and we duty to make improvements, we don't want to go back to a time before the affordable care act with people with preexisting conditions could not get health insurance. we don't want to repeal medicaid expansion. we have a bipartisan new hampshire health protection program that is medicaid expansion. over 50,000 hard-working grants daters have coverage because of it including substance abuse and behavioral health coverage that wasn't available before it. washington keeps voting to repeal that medicaid expansion. i will always stand for people's access to health care and i will block any attempt to take away health care from 50,000 hard-working people. unhappy who want to continue this discussion to talk about what we do need repealing the medical device tax, a catholic

tax, getting generic drugs to market more quickly and rewarding quality health care instead of quantity which would help bring costs down. >> affordable care act, senator ayotte, your thoughts on health care costs. real quickly, donald trump and republicans a lot of people say we need to repeal it. probably not realistic political speaking of intuit agree on repeating it. what to replace it with? if you are against what do you replace it with? >> let me just say the affordable to act is not so affordable for people in new hampshire. when it was passed we were told that if you like your plan you can keep it. we know that so many people lost plans that they wanted to keep and are paying much more. the claim was that families would be paying $2500 less. they are paying so much more. the average increase nationally is 25%. we are waiting to with the increase will be this year in new hampshire. higher deductibles, co-pays. less money in people's pockets.

11,000 people have defined the injuries as a result. even president clinton had said it's a crazy system we have hard-working people who are being crushed and paying so much more. if you want to change this, these are big differences between the because i would have more competition, more choice not one size fits all from washington. i want to expand health savings accounts, flexural spending accounts. i want to make sure we addressed preexisting conditions and those who need the support who can't afford health care but it should be done in a way that's been done. this is an issue where if you want to make significant changes to the affordable care act, there is a big difference industries and i will be fighting to make sure that people in new hampshire half affordable health care, are paying a higher deductible, have been premiums, from the one size fits all from washington which we have seen from this bill. secretary clinton wants to expand the affordable care act as opposed to really addressing

fundamentally the problems with it. >> a quick rebuttal. >> because of our bipartisan medicaid expansion program we have more competition on exchange than before it was passed and actually more insurers in new hampshire that we've had in a while. that's very important. so is taking nonprescription drug costs and big pharma in order to address health care costs. something we've done at the state level when we realized pharmacy companies were playing gimmicks in terms of their charges for certain basic product. we sat down with our employees and found a way to lower those costs. one of my concerns at the difference between us issue talks about changing the affordable care act but she voted to repeal medicaid expansion five times which we take health care away from 50,000 granite staters. >> clearly either to extend for two years but to actually give states the flexibility to design the program how they want to

design it. but the real issue as will look at this, what about all those people being hit with hard vegetables, iacocca, less choice? this is a crazy system and we have to address it. this is a big difference in this race. i will fight to address for more choice, more opportunity for people to lower health care costs. >> i think both of you have been a part of my show. sometimes i like to break the format with the question and we can continue but senator, the next question, before we leave it, some people may want to know where you're both at and host over the governor, on american corporate tax rate. there's been a lot of debate but it never seems nothing gets done in washington. is the american corporate tax rate, short answer, too high, you should know, and we think it should be all poor, what percentage? right now 35%. too high or not? >> too high for some

corporation. of the corporations to huge tax breaks. you have to take the confidence of response. we have cut corporate taxes in new hampshire and i will just say i hope to come back to one of her last comments because it was washington doublespeak at its best. >> corporate tax rate to i? >> absolutely too high. we are in a position both are small and large businesses, we have some of the highest taxes in the world. our jobs are flowing overseas. let me dress she talks about cutting business taxes. you want to talk about doublespeak. she vetoed the budget because of the business tax reductions and speeded i'm going to come back to the state house type stuff in imola. before we get to the debt one other quick question. talking about health care costs and some people may want to know, medicaid expansions been brought up a lot. governor, i think he said 50,000 people in new hampshire, low income people get some health care they might not have gotten. >> hard-working low-income people.

>> some governors in neighboring states mainly name -- mainly name, you take things like some of the public programs, the food stamp ebt program, medicaid expansion, do you think, should with any kind of work testing if someone can do some part-time or full-time work to give off some of these programs if they can't or do you think that's unacceptable? that's a quick question both of you. we want to get on to our format. >> yes, i think we should be able to encourage that. that's hostile to what i think states should have the flexibility to design the programs that are going to best serve the people that need help and also give them the opportunity to have a good paying job and a better quality of life. >> governor? >> let's just go back to one thing, the concern i had about what senator ayotte said when she said she third to extend

medicaid expansion. she has worked repeal a five times a and extension she's tald about says she will wait a year or two before she takes away health care from 50,000 hard-working granite staters. that's what i refer to as washington doublespeak. >> called on. >> but let's talk but getting people off of public assistance. i have a gateway to work program proposal that right now is being blocked by republicans in the state legislature but i'm hoping that people will make progress on and until people get into the workforce come off the public

ask whether she would support medicare expansion. >> the question was do you want to take away medicaid. >> i want to address it to make sure i would not pull the rug from people but i want to make sure there's more flexibility on how to address and serve the people best in their state. >> the next question to you. i am allowing the back and forth on substance if you notice which i think is refreshing. the national debt, it changes, it's going up. it's closer to 2,020,000,000,000,000 the 19. is it a problem and specifically, tell me some specific ways we could cut it. is it programs? how can we cut the debt and is it a problem because you don't hear much about it. >> the $19 trillion, it's totally unacceptable.

every committee that i serve on, i'm i'm looking for ways to cut wasted spending whether it's eliminating waste for programs like a missile to know where that was never going to get a result for our troops, money that was flowing in our enemy's hands where i've cut spending, i've worked across the aisle with joe mansion on a bill of duplication a limitation act, all of these reports that come out every year but talk about waste, fraud, abuse, duplication would require the president and the congress to vote on them and address them. when the budget committee, i help craft the balance budget in 15 years and also, i feel strongly that we do have to do something differently. i would like us to undertake tax reform because i think if we do that we can have more revenue pitifully make our business is more competitive competitive to keep jobs here that will help us address the debt and make our

economy stronger as well. the governor really has a record of proposing significant spending increases as governor and tax increases in terms of how she wants to pay for spending. including when she was a state senator, the llc tax on our small businesses that would be basically an income tax on small businesses. fees, registration, you name it, it, she wants to tax it. i don't think we should be taxing her. >> the original question with the national debt, is a problem and if so, how would you lower it and you can address any of the points in that. >> yes it's a problem and i have a fiscal plan that your listeners can certainly go on our website that addresses in performing our budget process, i support the effort to take the new hampshire approach of two year budgets in washington, to reduce and eliminate wasteful spending, i would eliminate

tobacco subsidies. we have to make data driven decisions and federal government, something the federal government doesn't do very much to see if programs are really working and were getting a good return on our dollars. we have to strengthen and reform medicare and social security, but we also have to make sure that medicare and social security are there for the people who have paid into it and who have earned those benefits and this is a big difference between the senator and myself. she has voted to turn medicare into a voucher system and against protecting against benefit cuts. we also to make sure we have the economic growth that allows us to continue to grow and continue to work on reducing our national debt. the last budget i proposed as governor was actually about $250 million less than the one that craig benson, our our last republican governor and legislature enacted. i have cut business taxes in both terms as governors and i'm

very proud of the bipartisan compromise we came to that had us business taxes while also investing in the critical priorities that businesses tell me they need. the number one thing they talked me about is a 21st-century workforce and how we train them. that's one of the things we have to continue to work on. >> thank you, would you care for a rebuttal? you don't have to use it, we can move on. >> i would say first of all, this say first of all, this is one of her favorite talking points. i firmly believe we need to strengthen and preserve medicare and social security. these are issues, my mother is on social security and medicare, this is really important and actually, her proposed, her proposed budgets propose cutting $7 million from nursing homes. if we want to talk about protecting seniors, i've done it and i'm also for reforming the program so if you look at ways to address them for the younger generation, when she talks about medicare, absolutely, if we don't address it in 2028, there will be deficiencies in medicare. i firmly believe protecting seniors in medicare, i thought to do that and when you hear her

talk about the tax situation, she proposed, in her budget, a 25% increase on car in industry and she vetoed the budget. she now claims credit for wanting to reduce business taxes. >> governor do you want to respond. >> i'm just to say this. it's not surprising to hear the senator, after her years in washington fail to appreciate that you can actually stand up for fiscal responsibility, as i did when i vetoed the budget and work across party lines to broker a compromise and get to a place, we have important safeguards in place so we can both cut taxes and protect critical investments and critical things like substance abuse funding. you know what, there is enough credit to go around. that is something something that

is so different from washington. she voted with ted cruz five times to shut down the government and i think there's a real difference in approach here. >> i was going to move on but you keep talking about the budget. so, i'm going to come back to the next question for the governor. the majority leader on wednesday said this week, and maybe at some of the paid advertising which i will come back to, he takes offense that you're taking credit for the budget that you vetoed with the reduction of business taxes and somewhat say, during that time, it was a period of a few months, as part of that was something that could go out to the drug wars. those were his words on wednesday. are you taking credit for the senate leaders budget for political gain. >> first of all, unlike washington, what we did after i needed to veto the budget because the numbers did not add

up and it's as simple as that. your job as governors to make sure you can have a balance budget and to the respond to the need of people and businesses of your state. we kept government running and funded while we negotiated a compromise, a compromise i have very important safeguards so that with those business cuts, we didn't have to be concerned that in a year or two years we wouldn't have the money to continue to address our substance misuse challenge. i think there is plenty of credit to go around, i think it's getting to be a little bit of a political silly season where everybody's arguing about who should get credit for what. i do want to go back to a couple things that the senator said. first of of all, on medicare, the record is what it is. people should look it up for themselves. she has voted to turn the medicare program that the aarp

said would be challenging and difficult for medicare and social security recipients. on the nursing home.that she made, we were able, with careful management to make sure that the nursing homes did get that increase in funding, but what i was instructed to do by the legislature was make $7 million of cuts from the health and human services budget and i decided when i had to name how i would do that to delay increases, not cuts in nursing home budget. >> you can respond to senator bradley's criticisms, but the criticism of you from the governor side, i believe this is from her campaign versus third party, i'd like to stay clear of the third-party spots and make it clear that you don't control those. >> you can comment to the last,

on the budget and who's taking credit or not, but also a criticism from the governor, you can respond for 90 seconds. you're in for 90 seconds. you're in the pocket of big oil, big insiders, that's been a constant attack on you. >> yes, first first of all, with the budget, you want to talk about acting like washington, she vetoed a budget, delayed money to address our heroin epidemic, to address mental health aide that we needed, at the time basically she said there was a $90 million hold by the business tax reductions and then eventually agreed to those reductions and was overridden by members of the opposite party and her own party on the budget and now takes credit for it. this is just, you want want to talk about taking credit for something and doublespeak, that's why jeb bradley is upset about it and other leaders who worked hard to craft the budget that she vetoed. when it comes to medicare, first of all, let me be clear, i've actually received an award for my work that i've done by the aarp, work i've done on caregiving caregiving and to help seniors and in terms of

medicare, we do need to preserve it. i voted to preserve and strengthen medicare part b, to stop medicare advantage cuts, to make sure doctors rates aren't cut and i'm certainly not going to do anything to harm my mother or any senior on medicare. for the younger generations, i have supported giving them choice of whether they want medicare as it is or if they want to have other choices, but not for anyone at or near retirement. for us to say we should look at different ways to address lower cost of medicare and making sure that people can have the medicare so it doesn't go belly up, that's basically not wanting to solve this problem. >> thank you. >> governor you have time for rebuttal. >> okay first of all, on medicare and on special

interest, the senator has failed to stand up to big pharma which is a major funder of her campaign to allow medicare to negotiate first prescription drug prices purge she has a voted against the importation of prescription drugs from canada which would certainly help us lower our cost including in medicare, and she has failed, i think she has voted against allowing generic drugs to get to market more quickly. she has stood with wall street in voting against tax loopholes for fund managers and she has stood with big oil over and over again at the expense of our natural resources. the rhetoric is there a happy to talk more about it should your listeners want me to. >> this is one of her favorite talking points. when, we've looked at your tv, we are up to $100 million in this race. we want to keep special interest money out and i've offered the people's pledge, the same pledge that was in place, she didn't want to keep this money up. she talks about things like big farmer, first was not true that i don't want to get generic

drugs to market. i have pushed for that. by the way when it comes to big pharma, she is raising money from lobbyists from big pharma, she doesn't doesn't want to talk about that, she's raising money from lawyers and taxpayer bailouts and we can go down the line on each issue. >> okay, two and a half billion dollars from wall street to the senator's campaign at this point, voting with the coke brothers nearly 90% of the time of her first four years and office. she did not stand up to big pharma when it really meant something to stand up. i overturned citizens united which is what allowed the start money into politics. i strengthened the people's pledge in the senator didn't want to negotiate about it. >> let's tal