was talking about. we have lower your taxes. you payay taxes today by percentage. i voted for those tax cuts. in contrast the largest tax increase in the history of this state. taking us from the 16th highest income tax state to the fifth. talking about housing. i support legislation for manufacturer homes. they are a third less expensive than regular homes. i am also supportive of land banks. fixing up properties that have been vacated or just in shambles by the way, in the unicameral they have this boat and tony did not vote t at all. whether 20% of the h vote that e did not, tax incentives to help clean up homes.

you can go in there and fix them up and have other people move in i hope habitat for humanity to help refurbish homes. got the approval for them. homes to people in north omaha. similar to people today that they would not have had if they did not do that. >> thank you, sir, you have a minute andho a half. [laughter] >> 45 seconds for rebuttal. >> housing really matters. this is the reason why a focused on $200 million of housing. we leverage dollars to make this possible for some of this housing. we use this to make sure that we are investing in housing opportunities across this district. he voted against the opportunity to make this happen. what he also talks about his he voted hell yes to take away 700,000 pre-existing conditions.

look it up. these are the facts. when he voted yes to the second congressional district that tells me cares a lot more about $6 million of donations he received from special interests and he cares about your healthcare costs. congressman. >> guaranteed pre-existing coverage. and it was right. it also guaranteed those that were young or young adult could stayag on their parents coverag. this is democrat talking points. looking separately and doing your research. he just does talking points. he has no meat on the bones on any of these things. what is the important thing we can do for housing's lower interest rates. we stop this reckless spending to include the american rescue plan. giving us the worst inflation in 40 years. nine and 10% inflation. we were able to stop all of the reckless spending. now inflation is going down in

business rates are going down. >> thank you. currently picking up the pieces from two major hurricanes. nebraskans are still recovering from ath summer of devastating weathers. at the same time, homeowners face rising insurance rates and costs of rebuilding. do you believe that climate change is to blame and what role do you think that the government should play in protecting americans physically and financially. >> congressman, a minute in the half. >> climate change plays a role. we could debate about that. right nowvo we have people livig on the coastline so they are more vulnerable to these hurricanes. several hurricanes 100 years ago i have no doubt that there is a human factor here. that is why support, multiple investors putting less pollution in the air. i support nuclear energy. it was my work to get the solar,

the solar tax deductions. but think back on the tax reform albeit here at omaha we have 40% i am proud of that. helping incentivize farmers to do sustainable farming. i have a lot of different issues to help clean up the environment when it comes to rebuilding i saw what happened. i was able to get $1.4 billion. i was able to get 40 million for camp ashland. we built them up 10-15 feet higher to make them flood proof. we needrn to do the same kinds f things in florida and other areas for these disasters so hard in the rebuilding so that we do not as much every time we have an emergency. >> thank you, senator. a minute and a half. >> climate change is real.

we have a responsibility to not only slow it, but we are immediately contributing to it. i just heard this from congressman bacon that there is a human factor. it is the reason why we not only at the school science teacher i taught thise to my students because it t was important for them to understand that the future of their generation land and water in all of these amazing natural resources depended on whether or not we protected them. it is a reason we need to invest on the kinds of jobs and economic opportunities that would take care of our land and water. what does it also means is those kind of jobs right now are under attack. we have to be more competitive right now across this globe. investing in the next generation of clean energy jobs that will do everything possible to not only bring these wages, benefits from nebraskans and americans but also make sure that those

jobs are contributing to reducing climate change. rather than just saying it is somewhat of a factor. it is an absolute factor that we can do something about. i also think that it is important that when we do not support these kind of american jobsbs, when congressman bacon voted against the chip act, these are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of american-made jobs that will make us more competitive against china. make us less reliant and actually invest in the middle class. >> thank you, congressman. forty-five seconds. >> a third goal that helps fuel inflation. a bill from onene industry. again, he has supported the bill that gave us the worst inflation average taxpayer is 4.2% former because of the policies that they are championing. i was the champion for wind energy. i got those tax deductions back.

i think we should be moving farther ahead on nuclear energy. we should also be doing more with our natural gas. that is the cleanest in the world. so much cheaper or warmer than cold. we should look at carbon capture they will be here for a while. let's capture the pollution in our atmosphere. >> thank you, senator. forty-five seconds. >> the reason i talk about jobs is because this is one of the best ways to address our cost-of-living and lower the cost for you. this is the reason why want to invest in clean energy jobs that will make it possible for you to be able to save more. that willte increase your wages. i also think that it matters that when i mention that congressman bacon is not supporting of the chip act, our next generation of stem jobs creating hundreds ofds thousands of good paying american jobs to make theme, more competitive across the globe, there is no

response. they want to claim a lot of misinformation and lies about my record. what i have worked on in the legislature is low in the cost-of-living. investing in climate change solutions are doing everything that we t can for the middle cls >> senator, thank you. next question from bill. >> let's get to the campaign ads we have been seeing. some created by your campaign. supporting you or against you. right now is your chance to set the record straight on one add. >> you have a minute and a half on this. >> look, i believe campaigns shouldld be about democracy. what i can say is the individuals that support congress, first, let's set the record -- record straight. the authors have something very much in common with congressman

bacon. they are also the donors of congressman bacon. they have a plan for him. so does donald trump. it is clear through these advertisements that they care more about the seat of power than they care about you. if they did, they would not try to scare you. i never voted to increase my salary. i made $12,000 a year as a state senator. i've done everything i can to lower your cost of living. $6 billion worth of tax cuts. the fact they are trying to make it seemed like i increase my salary to an astronomical amount when congressman bacon is made more than $2 million as a member not only during this period of time, hiss net worth has increased to $2 million. a million dollars as a member of congress he has made. he continues to vote against working middle-class families. making it harder for you to have a piece of the american dream while he continues to do most of

the bidding of $6 million worth of special interest donations coming in because they know he will do what they ask him to. yes, that is just setting the record straight on these many different types of asks. >> thank you, congressman. >> you know, i served in the military for years. i earned a pension. you're worried about me getting that pension? you just taught school for years if you would have top or 30 years he would've gotten a pension ass well. i never made an issue of wanted to double the salary. he spoke on it and proposed it. i am not the one making that issue. i think i would be more concerned that he took money led by mark eliasson those listening tonight, google mark elias. he put $60,000 to help cover his living expenses. it is under investigation right now by the fec. it shouldho get more coverage because it d looks dirty from he 2025.

no one i know has read it. he needs to get the specifics. he does not get specifics on the tax cut. he does not get specifics because nobody in congress that i know has read it and will never implement it. the issue that i probably have the most concern on is tony and his friends have put out i have always supported the wife of the mother exceptions. i will vote for the nebraska bill that has reasonable restrictions on abortion where most nebraskans are at. also supporting those exceptions for rape and incest, but also for health of the mother. i'm glad we were able to clarify that. every survey that i filled out i've always talked about protecting the lifesm of the mother. >> thank you. you said salary. you said abortions were the issues. you wanted to clarify. you have 30 seconds. >> well, one, it is clear that project 2025, don bacon does not

want toe read it. i encourage you to google that. he says we are just avoiding at the the authors have made it very, very clear that there is a plan for congressman bacon. as part of the plan it is to ban abortion nationwide. they are actually taking more of a playbook out of congressman bacon cosponsorship. he cosponsored the abortion ban in the constitution three different times. no exceptions for the life of the mother for rape or incest. he believes they should carry it to term and he knows better. we are standing up against these lies because he is concerned and afraid and worried that you will hold him accountable. i am actually hoping that you do so this november. >> thank you. forty-five seconds. >> i have always supported life of the l mother for one. i willl support the nebraska la. reasonable exceptions with rape and incest and also health of

the mother. i have to tell you that 2025 guy , he got fired. it isly obviously not true. he obviously does not know. i will come back to the pay issue. i am not the guy bringing this up. i think the bigger issue is him taking $60,000 from a dark money group ran by mark elias. look him up. helping him pay his expenses. >> congressman, thank you. you may have a chance here. >> it is a very distinct line. how to handle violent juvenile offenders in our community. we would like you to clarify that and what your plan is about our current c policing and juste system.

>> congressman. >> thank you. this is a big issue. three county sheriff's talking about theal rise in juvenile cre making a big point about this. our sheriff say that the biggest factor is the amendment that blocks to be passed about four or five years ago or six years ago actually. making it harder to hold violent juvenile spirit that shifts her saying this. the county attorneys are saying this. the number one reason we have a spike in juvenile violence is because tony vargas amendment. in fact, sheriff hansen said 2 million —-dash two people murder that should have never been murdered. the thinghe you have to ask yourself when you are law enforcement and they see that tony led the protest in the summer of 2020, stood on the

line of the protesters where they were throwing rocks the size of this at the police. hundreds of police are injured during those bad terrible weeks. tony was on the other side protesting. i am so proud the omaha police officers and the fop endorsing you want them endorsing unanimously. every single one voted for me voted for tony because they know who he is. >> thank you. a minute and a half. >> thank you. >> i voted for $37 million as a member of the legislature. i've invested in not only a federal lawth enforcement, state law enforcement and funding for their training centers. also working to make sure we protect their pensions and environments. congressman bacon, you talk a lot. the fact that you just told everybody that i led a protest, which i did not lead a protest is deplorable.

we expect better from you. i honestlys expect better becaue this community deserves proof. rather than hyperbole, not misinformation. it just shares with me that you care more about this seat of power in actually keeping this election rather than actually the integrity of being honest. we have law enforcement officers that have been not only supporters of ours, loners of ours and advertisements because they believe. not only do i support law enforcement c. supporting our public safety. this is not only has no merit, it is from dark money groups that brought these initial complaints. there has been no wrongdoing for the work that i was actually paid for. you know exactly what to do.

we will hold you accountable because this kind of policy should not be allowed here. >> thank you, congressman. >> sheriff hansen was right there watching the entire time. leading the chance against our police while people were throwing rocks. we sell people throwing rocks. why did he not stay with him. why did he not protest against minneapolis for the crime that bad crime was committed. he should've gone there to protest. he protested our police. he watched it the entire time. screaming at all of the police. tony connor watched you yelling at the t police. this ise my time. the police are angry with you for a a reason. >> thank you. congressman bacon. >> last eight years you have been surveying. one, it is more important to the public right now to actually

lead with the stability that you claim to have had this entire time. you continued to make close generalizations. itge is a flat out lie that i ld protest, and you know that. but you are so desperate to hold onto power. right now. i want to work on behalf of nebraskans. congressman bacon is so concerned with this seat and winning it. he is saying whatever he needs to win this seat. $37 million of law enforcement funding. we continue to prioritize our public safety. >> thankex you. next question from bill. >> border and immigration is important to both of your campaign platforms. i do chance to visit earlier this year. customs and border protection at then border migrant crossings fr the past two months since the

first time they have been that low in more than three years. what is working? >> we have to do everything we possibly can to address this issue. border security, immigration reform is critical. i am proud to be the son of parents that worked incredibly hard to pay their taxes. and the legislature, i prioritize public safety. it is an issue that we at the self right now in this immigration process will only be solved. we have bipartisan solutions that will make it easier for us to stop human trafficking. there was a bill in the u.s. senate, a bipartisan bill led by u.s. senator that could have been passed right now. if it would have passed it

would've been one of the most monumental steps forwardl and border security stopping list. donald trump told every single republican keep away from the solutions to solving our border crisis. they did not work to try to bring that bipartisan bill to the floor. if they did, it would have passed. the speakerhi of the house to bring it to the floor either. it could have. it could stay in the way of real border patrol the border security measures and reform. >> what is really civil or uncivil is lying. my opponent lies when he talks about saying i want to defund the d police. i have an obligation to speak up

no specific bill are no specific donors. i backup my comments. what is really uncivil, and after come back to the leadership of the police department. saw state senator out there leading the riots. others are throwing rocks at our police. more injured during the civil riots. they were injured on january 6 in washington, d.c. let's talk about the border. president trump at 4500 folks a day on average across our border anything over 1000 was an emergency. getting rid of all of the executive orders. welcoming everybody to come in. 10,000 a day. they want to get it back down to 5000 a day. that is not good enough. we have to do better than 5000 a day. one of the things the administration is doing now that

president trump was doing with executive orders, biden always headed within his reach do but refers to do it until was election time. tony has never said the word border untilil about a month ana half ago. he has a new word in his vocabulary as he is trying to win an election. >> what is working and what still needs to be changed? you have 45 seconds to address that. >> it is critical and it is important. >> they are compromising. what you saw on the u.s. senate was a compromise bill like i killed by donald trump. when donalde trump tells members of congress like don bacon what to do, they say, what do you need me to do? when i working on issues voting for $6 billion worth of tax cuts , i'm trying to not only fund our law enforcement and public safety, it is because i

care about your safety and your pocketbook. when there is a real bipartisan solution on the ground in congress, congressman bacon just avoids it and does not do anything about it being a congressman, thank you. under president trump we average 2500 a day coming in illegally. under the goal in the senate it should be 5000 today. many americans say that that is not good enough. some may disagree. i want more legal immigration. talking about leadership. the former president, he campaigned against me two years ago. this primary, people saidry i ws not trump enough or not ma ga enough. i have been rated the most effective bipartisan and congressss. i do what is right for this district, i do what is right for our country.

>> thank you. next question comes from julie cornell t. >> we have seen the ads about what you both stand on abortion. right now, what is your exact stance on when it is acceptable for a woman to have an abortion. how is your voting record supported that stance? be my congressman bacon, a minute in the half. >> the nebraska law has restrictions on abortion for threee months. i spoke with a lot of folks pro-choice with three months is right because it was the science behind it. most people see the signs of a heartbeat. at some point they just don't think it's right. some support the nebraska law. three month restriction it will have the exceptions for health of the mother self any health issues pop up, doctors have

every right to work with the mother and do whatever is right for that mom. also for rape and incest as well i think they came up with a good balance. a consensus where most nebraskans are at. i willso be supporting this legislation. i will vote for. i've got to point out in contrast where my opponent is that, he will ask dozens and dozens of times what restrictions would he take your nine months, seven months, eight months, he is never able to give a restriction for a healthy mom and healthy baby. he is clearly on abortion until birth. look at the world, most countries are going to where nebraska is out. most european. only southern countries in the world share the radical views of tony vargas when it comes to zero restrictions. even for baby a day before birth >> thank you, senator. >> thank you.

>> i trained stem teacher trainers and i worked in education for years. this is a very personal issue because i have a 5-year-old daughter. when the decision got overturned , it was incredibly hard for my family. first time i saw my daughter and realize she had fewer rights than my wife. i realized it was not just my daughtere. every single woman across the state of nebraska, across his country, trying to figure out how to b navigate this. i believe in restoring roe v wade. that is what i will do when i am in congress. but i also need to make sure that i fight back against individuals like congressman bacon who is not a physician, not a woman and believes he can tell people like my daughter that what she can and cannot do with her body. he is very much hiding and changing his position on this. otherwise, whyrw have he have

cosigned an abortion fan in the constitution three different times. original cosponsor of the life at conception. google it. when you see it you will not only see coverage of news that this is a full abortion band with no exceptions for the life of the mother rape or incest. even voted against protecting contraception access. even right now he will do everything that he possibly can when he has the opportunity to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. >> that is total baloney right there. i want to remind people a lot of women are also pro-life the my wife is, the mayor of omaha, our senator is, there are many leaders in the pro-life movement i've been working with pro-life causes. we are made in his image.

my wifee has been a leader on this and i'm so grateful to her. you are a science teacher. when does the baby have any rights? does an unborn baby have rights? does an unborn baby have rights? healthy mom and a healthy baby? at some people most save the world view. coming to where we are at with where policies are with nebraska >> thank you. you are 45 seconds. >> cosponsoring an abortion band in the constitution he is desperately trying to hide his position on this. his world, there is no exceptions whatsoever for o the life of the mother for rape or incest. you may hear him say that he believes that now. the truth is, his cosponsorship three different times of this. telling the real story. cannot believe him when it is his own name on these bills. it is his own name said he put on three different times.

still surprised at the same all thirdse' which he said he will t read, but the same donors of his in this document. a full abortion band in the constitution as part of their priorities. we have to stop republicans in congress fromro enacting this. >> will be not artificial intelligence. it is used in the public sector political advertising. other states are passing the ai laws. there is a concern by some that this will lead to a patchwork of laws. what legislation would you support in congress when it comes to artificial intelligence >> larry, you have a minute in the half. >> one, this is a real issue. very bipartisan issue we should be working on. i worked in the legislation on having to deal w with how ai is

impacting our day to day work. we have been part of committee hearings and interim studies. it is clear that we do need a framework of long congress to make sure that we are reacting, actually trying to be as responsive as possible to this policy issue. it is very quickly developing right now. does not matter if you are using ai right now in the work that you are doing or you are using ai through social media or for something that you are potentially working on in your personal life. ai is basically within our hands , within our phones. it is also really concerning because we are seeing these deep lakes. we are seeing them in politics. making sure we are also advancing technology but also making sure we are generating the kind of jobs that lead in this sector. also protecting the kind of jobs in the kind of job so we make sure we are not going too fast,

too quick. i want to work on this issue. it is very clear to me that there is more that can be done .... .... companies and individuals, both sides can come to the table. this is what i want to work on. >> congressman, a minute and a. >> i want to touch but on the previous question since i had to correct the record once again. the bill is referring s mention the word abortion in it. it's a statement of principle that the unborn child has rights. i say most of us do, agree with that at some point, right? secondly, for a person makes this number one issue of abortin on demand stillbirth, he had a he voted present not voting. i just have to stress to the listeners, 20% of the time he's not work. he's from the working class, working class get fired 20% of the time. ai, thyme operation subcommittee chairman. i've been away for 3 months now. i have the cyber offense and defense from the military.

i also have the ai portfolio and warfare portfolio. the big thing is due right now as a government is not get in the way of industry. we have to have industry working on this. doing the programming and quantum computing because we get in front of that, china gets there first, we can break codes. whoever gets ai first at a significant level will be at a significant advantage at any conference. i think we have to protect again the deep fakes, we can't have someone making fabricated storyl there should be legislation to protect against ai. >> the question is, what legislation would you support on ai? that's the issue, what legislation do you support? 45 seconds? >> work on legislation that addresses not only the deep fix,

we can agree on that but also working in hand to make sure there are better protections for youth, better protections on social media apps, we have to do a lot more. but i do want to make sure to respond because congressman is bringing this up. things, i think it matters that i passed 70 bills into law. he's actually defunded the police. he said no to defunding them and does everything he can to take a woman's choice and extreme on abortion with no exceptions whatsoever. >> congressman, 45 seconds on ai. >> again, four different lies on this statement, funding the police 100%. the ai side of it, we can't

agree on the deep fake stuff. i think more importantly and this is where i have a huge role, the military has to be able to procure from these companies and be able to do it more quickly. right now it's 4-5 year process from commercial companies in silicon valley. it's got to be able to be done that year. the latest technology and the funding helps fund ai research. right now it's too difficult for the military to procure off the cuff technologies and that's onl of my top goals in the next congress to fix. >> congressman, thank you. next congressman julie. themselves raising multigenerational families. millennial's, gen x caring for their parents.

>> is a blessing to take care of our parents. >> largely fall on my wife. we took care of her dad and i'm so honor today have her mom living with us at 88 year's old f us. when it comes to aging society what i worry about is social security and medicare. the average person on social security will lose 21% of their benefits. medicare be 3611% so neatly gone. i support the commission have republican and democrat. we got to sit down and bipartisan -- how do we save

medicare and balance the budget? they that nobody wants to tackle so we got to sit down and make it bipartisan. we'll have to sit down in room and work with/50 wins and losses on both sides. leaders deal with it. >> , father can we talk about childcare and aging population.

we've been able to do everything we can to make sure we invest more into it. childcare is very important to me. my wife and i tried to figure out how to make ends meet and this sector is incredibly hard. he has not. they have endorsed me and raise the cap so more people can pay their fair share, i want to make sure we are protecting social security and medicare and invest in childcare so it's easier to be able to get by.

his exact words were yes, it tells me he's not prioritizing for everyday middle class and hold them accountable. >> aca had the existing. they put out a new bill and support. it is a way can get a bipartisan calendar bill passed.

that's why we have all these ads did leave and bipartisan for this. it has enough reading for the national education association. these americans holding accountable, individuals say they care about childcare and working and middle-class. the final question and for the

sense of timing, one minute to answer the questions for 32nd rebuttal. >> we have accusations, we heard each of you say there are lots of character. we want to know what you think your opponent is doing right. >> two things. it's important we have more opportunities for served and are military. i think that is important and i hope more people will consider that. something we need to make sure we are in the hallmark republicans and democrats alike

for the engagement and solve problems. >> been working this for a years and the fact that they noted the i have shown courage of this issue. the camera. you voted presence with the 20% failed to vote. i love how we watched from a father that cares for the children and i appreciate that. my father four, three are

married. i love my eight grandchildren and i love their personality. i can see the love toward his two children. >> appreciate you knowledge and not only to be a good father but a good husband. i want to make it clear that has nothing to do with the discussion. and he tears them down. >> what is the really uncivil thing?

and the endorse me at one 100%. >> now we move the closing payment. >> i want to thank the distinguished panel. my parents came here with little to nothing helping your community in the middle class is

something we. prioritizing spilling with the tax cuts money in your pockets did it because there's the right thing to do and was named taxpayer defender because of probably party. it matters who is presenting us and it was clear to me the independence and burn donald trump's endorsement within a couple of weeks. when he took 6 million worth of

donations, 80000 against bipartisan legislation taking so much from insurance companies voting against flowing and 700,000. finally hiding from this abortion stance with no exception of full abortion ban cosponsoring three different times, it seems like you) sponsorship and be to hold them accountable this november. >> this is a great american tradition. i talked about experience, two years of teaching purses the most senior levels but just as importantly for issues and results.

the economy, the border and crime. all three issues the voters favor my positions and impose the inflationary spending that resulted in 4.2% and income or value for every american. the comes to the border, he never mentioned the border at all. i voted for the strongest border security possible. by the people on the streets which decreases crime against americans and having a full-time. the most effective republican

congress. what does it result in? 5 billion in infrastructure. i ask for your vote tonight in the second district of nebraska. >> we want to thank the candidate for their willingness to participate in this debate. inflating a healthy democracy for all.

free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. >> georgia secretary of state brad raffensbperger. this is 25 minutes. >> i cover voting for the national desk at the washington post

>> i wonder if you can talk about what you're more focused heading into this election, please? >> good morning, amy. we have been focusing on this since day one, help rebuild trust where we felt it needed to be rebuilt. number one no matter how you vote in georgia, we now have photo id for all forms of voting, if you vote absentee, voter id, in-person early and obviously on election day. that sures up voter's trust in the process. all the early voting has to be reported by 8:00 p.m. on

election day. we will be starting early voting despite helne devastating our counties and several others, all 159 counties are starting early voting tomorrow. >> as you said early voting start tomorrow across the state of georgia, what can voters expect and what would you like them to know about the start of early voting on october 16th? >> well, by in large all are in great shape but if you're living for in one of the counties that were hit, we will have to move precincts and probably election day. we have been working very closely with governor kemp and his team at fema. since this, the day after the hurricane hit, making sure that we have power, internet. you can go to my voter page and that'll tell you where to vote

on election day. we want voters to be aware of that. >> and what kind of turnout are you expecting, early voting, mail balloting, what you're expecting and how well the counties are prepared for that? >> we don't like making predictions but from what we've seen so far, last week we had 250,000 people that had absentee ballot as the united states postal service did post up game and ballots have been requested and accented, they went out to voters last week. 250,000, we may have another 50, so 300,000. i would say 5 million voters, that's 6%. so that's really about what we are going to see for absentee voting, i believe, probably 60% will be voting early and the balance of the other 30%, maybe 35% vote on election day.

>> and is that number 6%, certainly lower than 2020 during the pandemic, of course, is that higher than pre-pandemic absentee voting levels in georgia. >> it's about the same. 5, 6 in 2022, 5% back in 2018, 2016 and prior years. so looks like georgia have gone back to preferred way of voting which is actually 17 days of early voting that we have. >> let's talk a little bit about the state election board. of course, you are sort of the top election official in the state of georgia and give a lot of guidance to the counties that are actually running the elections on the ground in the state. as you know the state election board has been passing new rules in recent weeks including one requiring hand count of the number of ballots in the days and immediately after the election. what do you think the impact of the rules are and what ask your view of the purpose of those

rules? >> first of all, about the hand counting is before the judge and he'll hear that later this week. that will be decided and pushback from both sides of the aisle and -- they are also concerned about management. first of all, the chain of custody concerns, have the people breaking all the boxes and starting count to ballots, who is touching, there's supposed to be a chain of custody. we have that in place. also hand count for larger precincts. it's going to take a lot more time. everything that we have been fighting for the voter quicker responses, quicker results, that's why we are going to post all the early votes by 8:00 p.m.

well, this drags on for the final 30% to 1, 2, 3, 4:00 o'clock in the morning. really that just becomes breeding ground for conspiracy theories and we don't support but the judge will make that determination and we will find out and follow the law. >> do you think that the state election overstepped its authority with these rules? >> i've been pretty clear that they exceed state law, so is general counsel. they have it. >> got it, thank you. i heard a story last week about how republican members of congress in pennsylvania to force state officials to segregate oversees and military ballots which they say are not sufficiently secure, the process is too porous they say and in pennsylvania they don't require the same identification requirements required of in-person of early voting and domestic mail balloting. do you have thoughts about the impact of that suit and of the rhetoric questioning the

security of military and oversees ballots and have you heard about that issue in your state? >> well, what i will say i support military and support their commitment to -- if that's what happens during military conflict. we want to make sure we get overseas ballots out to them and we've done that, no matter how you vote, using driver's license number or some form of photo id based process so we can tie that back to the voters and give voters -- look at how we do it. look at some other states, minnesota, nebraska and texas are using photo id. i think that sures up voters' trust and confidence. >> of course, you were a party to the famous phone call januarh

president trump asked you to find 11,779 votes when it looked like he had lost the race in your state to joe biden and, in fact, the race had been certified at that point. i wonder if you can talk about how you're combating misinformation and as you put it a minute ago conspiracy theories and how much harder is it, is it harder because some of those theories are coming from the top of the presidential ticket, for instance, trump's running mate j.d. vance has refused to say given multiple opportunities by the press that trump lost the 2025 election, i wonder if you can talk about to combat that kind of misinformation coming from the top of the ticket? >> well, we want voters to have high trust, high confidence, so if you look at everything that we've done since 2020 and even going back to 2019 when i took office we have verifiable paper ballot but this year what we are going to do is first time in

america ever, we are going to be able to audit every single race that's been cast, so we have the ballot images after 5 million ballots are cast, we will have the images and be able to run those through a scanner with a tech company and not just the president, county surveyor and county librarian and compare to what you've got with the machine totals. that's one way that we are going to retally that and give you 100% risk limit to help you encourage and dump trust with voters. we think that's really important. i think photo id for all forms of voting. so everything we've done is make sure that we can proof the accuracy and then have suspenders no matter what people say, we are going to stay we've already checked that. we have list and recognize that for several reasons, one we are also part, part of a 25-state,

multistate organization. our office will exchange our voter list with 25 voter states, it's a confidential secure way of doing that to make sure that we don't have two people on different voter list. now with our department of driver's services all -- all, you know, 49 other states plus the district of colombia, all of them will get their driver's license. you say move from georgia to whatever state that is in, massachusetts or could be washington state, we find out about that and we can reach out to the voter to make them off the list because they driver's license in other state because they've moved there. death records monthly and then we also have bilaterals with four states that pulled out of the multistate organization. so everything we've done to have clean and accurate voter list because people always said there's dead people voting, no, there aren't. first secretary of state over 20 months ago to do and ad it of the voting roster to make sure only american citizens are on

the voter list and because we do a robust citizenship verification, we came back and we found 1600 people who attempted to register but never got on the voter list because our system was secure, our system checked that and couldn't prove citizenship. so we feel like we have a lot of things in place, so people can say things but at the end of the day, the winner will be the winner and the other person will be the person that comes up short and we are trying to gentle as we share that because we understand how polarized is on both sides of the aisle. >> notstanding the steps that your happens has been taking, that has not stopped groups and individuals from filing lawsuits claiming that the voter rules in georgia and elsewhere, of course, are still bloated or, you know, still do include people who are not eligible to vote or noncitizen or moved away. what are you doing specifically if anything to -- to sort of

counter message, when you talk to individuals who disagree with you, do you feel like you've made progress with them? do you give them the same explanation that you gave our viewers and is it effective and can you talk expansively what your office has in place in terms of a messaging counterpoint or rapid response operation to deal with the misinformation that is so prevalent out there right now? >> well, we do the best we can with our press releases but we understand on a good day we may have 50,000 twitter followers and others have millions upon millions, probably outside organization that is can weigh in there and really try to correct all of that disinformation and, you know, be very -- you know, out there in social media to get that out there immediately. but our job is to do our job and our job is respond to people. we get sued and beat them in court because at the end of the day, you have to have the numbers, we have the numbers and

we have the facts on our side have you come out and attempt today refute his statements in particular and what impact do you think his misinformation has had on voters in georgia specifically? >> well, i think that when people have any questions, particularly someone with his really number of twitter followers, his influence, he can call me whatever he wants. in fact, he can get my personal cell phone number, you can give it to him and i won't put it out here today because i can only

handle so many calls today. this will be safe, secure and we will get those results posted quickly and, you know, i think we have high marks from the heritage foundation and also the bipartisan policy center. top of the list of those organizations. we have that. you have to understand in georgia we have secure, accurate elections. at the end of the day i would like to talk to influential people, give them the facts, they want to come to our office, i'm more than happy to sit down with them. that's really important. past sb202, some of the major corporations, you know, located here in georgia would have called us before they started saying we think that stacey abrams is right about this because she was wrong about everything she said about sb202. voter id has been used in minnesota for over ten years. now we are using photo id for absentee voting.

so it's a mid western thing but makes sense, you're taking away just -- we have been sued by both political parties republicans and democrats. as an engineer i'm looking at a fact-base system and we have been working hard every day because i know that every vote matters because every voter matters. i want them to know that their vote counts. >> do you expect donald trump to contest the result in georgia if he loses to kamala harris, vice president harris and are you prepared for and can you tell us a little bit about how you're prepared for it if so, please? >> well, obviously this is not our first rodeo. stacey abrams lost by 55,000 votes in 2018. i get signed into office and we have about 10 or so lawsuits from that, pushed back with the facts. in 2020 we got it from my side and we pushed back with the facts.

and so if people have questions at the end of the day we will be able to respond with fact-base but also we are going to have all 5 million paper ballots and we are going to be able to scan those and human readable text. we can do that by hand or we can do that with, you know, tech companies that we partnered with and be able to do that scan. you can check it and look at it and the paper ballot that we have, has security fibers and state seal on it so you know it's official ballot paper. it's not something that you got from a local office supply store. and so all those things that we've done are to build trust for voters. >> i'm looking at a story this week with my colleague tyler pager who covers the white house and the harris campaign about how the harris campaign is prepared to -- to protect the vote against efforts to

undermine popular result. they say they have a robust election protection as most campaigns do but they are also telling us that they are not worried, they talk, everyone is sort of on message talking about how the 2020 election was the most secure election in u.s. history and that they have no reason to believe that 2024 will be any different and i wonder if you can reflect on whether you agree with that outlook and, you know, if you're prepared in different ways to -- to combat sort of emergency scenarios in your state if -- if there are -- if there is a large scale objection to the result. >> we are going to be prepared. obviously 2020 in the middle of a pandemic, it came off as it relates to election management,

it came off well. people made short lines on election day in 2020. we have been working on that again. we will keep the lines short. less than one hour. the voter will have a good experience but we understand at the end of the day when the results get put up on the floor and look at the total, half of the people dancing in the street, half are going to be very disappointed. we want voters to have confidence in that and that's why we have all of the things that we put in place and make we check citizenship, clean voter list, we make sure that you have photo id for all forms of voting, keep lines shorter, everything we've done is to -- at the end of the day political parties could have observers there. they can watch the process and they can actually understand what they are watching. we think that's really important. so we will be ready and we welcome, you know, that scrutiny.

we tend to have a very open and transparent process because at the end of the day, i work for the voters. i want every voter to know that their vote was counted, counted accurately and hear what the results are. >> i want to try one more time, do you think that the harris campaign is being too lazy about the possibility for disruptions? >> well, i believe in the very best of my fellow georgians and i know at the end of the day they will accept the results, you know, out of our state and cause disruptions. we have seen it before and we will be prepared. but when we meet them in court, we win because we deal with the facts. i know that for half of the people it's going to be very disappointing and i understand that. we don't know which way the election will go but our job every day is to make sure that we have fair, honest and accurate elections and that's what we have been working on inspied of a pandemic, we are going to be ready tomorrow. we have a great team in the

state election's office, we also have great county election directors too. >> one of the moments four years ago that was -- that was troublesome i suppose is a good word for it was the meeting december 20, excuse me, decemben the electors who had been picked by the trump campaign met in the georgia state capital in atlanta despite that biden had been certified winner and biden electors shared by stacey abrams were meeting to cast electoral votes for joe biden. are there specific preparations underway for the meeting of the electors this year at the georgia state capital, are you worried about security or alternate electors as they were known in 2020 and are you doing anything specificically about the meeting to have electoral college this year? >> no, that's not really in our lane. our lane is to report the

results and point to certify it. we will recount any of those races within half percent. they'll be up to 3 counts on those ballots, everyone will know who won those races based on those results. what they do with the electors, i think, they probably realized that wasn't a good strategy but, you know, that's a different, you know, part to have process. my process to certify it and send it over to the governor's office and review it and he will be in that position, certify the results and that's when they'll have the election of the electors here for georgia. >> as you know, hundreds of election administrators around the country have retired or quit since 2020 in part because of

the absolute spike in threats and harassment that they've endured since donald trump began contesting the 2020 result. i wonder if you can talk a little bit about whether your counties in georgia have -- have been able to recruit sufficient numbers of poll workers to staff their polling locations and make sure the election is running smoothly and also what are you doing to protect their safety and security during election hours both early and on election day and what are you telling them in order to encourage them to feel safe in that environment? >> well, as it relates to manpower, by in charge we are in good shape. we have a few election directors. we work really strong on training. our only concern is we have county election director where they are running a smaller county, 10,000 people and now in the county of a hundred thousand, it's just more

complex, we work with those folks but we have worked hard, getting their counties ready, poll worker wise, we have been in good shape, hurricane helene did damage some of the poll worker homes and so the counties are making sure that they can have enough poll workers there. at the end to have day be in good shape on election day coming up in november. >> are you -- sorry. are you -- are you -- will there be law enforcement at polling locations, that's always viewed as double-edge sword because the balance of security and voter intimidation, is that an issue in georgia? >> regional table tops with law enforcement, so we've called in the county sheriff's department, local police departments, you know, if they are more of urban-city type location and we've also brought in dhs, tbi, fbi and other organizations and

role-playing, game playing, scenario strategies but also the poll workers, the poll managers all will have a tool, see something, say something, we will get notified and have panic button and if the situation looks like it's getting out of control, dangerous. by in large, many precincts will have a sheriffs vehicle posted out there, just sitting up there and they just sit there all day to let everyone know that law enforcement is here and just come in and join the process, vote for the person of your voice and, you know, smile and ready for the results to be posted on election night. >> okay, we have time for one more question and i'm going to ask you to be as brief as you can although it's a big question. you are a life-long republican, self-described proud conservative. i believe you said publicly that you voted for donald trump in

2016 and 2020, i wonder the state of your party and if you want to tell us who you're voting for it and whether you're voting, i'd be happy to hear it? >> i think that the republican party at the end of the day will have long-term benefit from really leaning into integrity, character, just being a good honest, descent human being and really leading into being a public servant, elected public servant, we need people to do their job. build trust where it needs to be rebuilt and increase security where it needs to be increased and i will continue to do that. i think at the end of the day, that's what voters are looking for. honest person working hard for them. >> thank you so much secretary, always a pleasure to chat with you, unfortunately we are out of time. thank you for joining us. we will have to leave it there and thanks to all of you for

watching. if you are interested in watching more of these important conversations please sign up for washington post subscription, get a free trial by visiting washington post.com/live. i'm amy gardner, thanks again for joining us. >> voting in the 2024 presidential election has already begun as states around the nation begin early voting and mail-in balloting. several other states have been accepting early voting such as arizona, california and illinois. some have gone to mail-in voting

including hawaii. >> involving you discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy, from washington and across the country. coming up wednesday morning a discussion on latino voters and campaign 2024, first with rafael, executive director of action packed followed by alfonso aguilar, hispanic engagement director at the principal's project. c-span, washington journal join in the conversation live at 7:0g on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. wednesday on c-span, look at results of recent survey examining priorities for americans in both the 2024 election and beyond including opinions on immigration, the economy, foreign policy and u.s. democracy.

msnbc reed and columnist are among the participants. watch that event from the brookings institution and the public religion institute live at 10:00 a.m. eastern at the same time on c-span2, army secretary kristin and other military leaders talk aut civilian workforce innovation at an event hosted by the sociation to have united states army and in evening our campaign 2024 coverage in a debateween incumbent republican senator kevin cramer and his democratic challenger katrina christianson u.s. senate seat.orth dakota's that's live at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. also on c-span now our free mobile video app and online at c-span.org. >> republican congressman kelly armstrong and fellow candidates in the 2024 race for north dakota governor, independent michael coachman and democrat merrill pepcorn participated in

debate hosted by perry public. they discussed number of topics, ways to reduce cost of living for north dakotans and abortion policy, representative armstrong was considered the favorite to win this race and in nonpartisan cook political report with amy walter rated the rate solid republican, this is a little less than an hour ♪ been. >> hello. i'm dave thompson and welcome to the republic and mrp election coverage 124. 124. tonight the debate for office of north dakota governor. i guess our republican congressman kelly armstrong, democratic state senator merrill piepkorn independent candidate michael coachman. each candidate will be afforded a one minute opening in one minute closing statement in between the debate and discuss topics and questions that a been chosen by myself, matt also for

the partners at aarp. michael coachman goes first. >> hello. i want to thank everybody. first of all, want to thank my lord and savior jesus christ as my lord and savior of what you think also perry public for making this event happen. as running for governor i like to let let people know what i plan on doing and where i stand. one of the things i want to stand on is the u.s. constitution. also the north dakota constitution. why is that important? because without the constitution we are no better than any other country. 95-98% of the issues that we have an north dakota can be a leaved by just people following the constitution of the u.s. and north dakota. with that, in the bill that will come across my desk i want to make sure that these two books are followed, and if the

benefits the people of north dakota. that way you know where our government stands and where you stand as an individual. thank you. >> next will be congressman armstrong. >> thank you, dave for hosting this. they could aarp and republican thank you to all of the people watching at home will give me the privilege of serving first in the state senate and in the united states congress and now this to miss opportunity and responsibility to run for governor of the great state in the greatest country in history of the world. i have always, always tried advocate for north dakota in the most positive way possible. tireless energy from beulah to bismarck to fargo to mental to all the places in between. we have such tremendous opportunities in this state and we have opportunities to continue to grow, harbors our national resources in a responsible way. ag and energy of the most boring making sure every single kid that goes to high school in north dakota has an opportunity to build a life and career.

it's been my great post a short north dakota in the u.s. house of representatives for the last six years but i'm really, really excited about coming home. >> okay, senator piepkorn. >> thank you, dave faq numbers of prairie public. dave thompson, our moderator tonight and, of course, aarp for hosting tonight event. i also want to extend our thoughts and prayers to our residents of north dakota especially the folks at west, our emergency responders as they still are battling those wildfires in the western part of the state. i am real popcorn, i'm candidate for governor of north dakota. morgan stanley, raised in fargo and served eight years in the state senate. will discuss many topics tonight. tonight. i believe you'll find significant differences between the two other men here on stage with me. if you like to want to be governor for all of north dakota. i'm not beholden to special interests. leave and bipartisanship in putting the good of the state

had any elitist or political party or philosophy. we've had enough extremists legislation that interferes with peoples personal lives. that sets me apart in part from my opponents in several ways. first of all, a woman's right to determine her own health care. >> one minute. >> thank you. >> so first topic let's start with measure number four where voters will be asked to decide whether or not local property taxes should be eliminated. estimates show this day would have to find about $3.1 billion per biennium to replace those taxes. i have a two-part question for all of you. how would you vote on the measure? and if it passes, where does the state find the money? we start with kelly armstrong. >> i don't support measure four. i understand the frustration. i've been from one of the state to the other since january and every two years running for congress people are frustrated. people are angry. people want property tax relief and want property tax reform. the problem i see is that, one,

you are absolutely giving up opportunities to rattle money from out-of-state interests to buy lancome do those types of things. the other edge is i quite frankly if you get through this bismarck, grand forks, those types of places do okay. you will start losing absolute local control in this mode committees. we have a great state centered in north dakota but some of them represent five or six school districts in north dakota legislature. having to go to the legislature every two years to deal with those things is going to be really, really problematic and we need to continue to do it. i think property taxes have to be front of my one way or the other whether the measure passes, whether the measure fails. if the measure passes you wanted to cut programs, that money, figure out how you deal with those things we start rating principal on some of our funds like the legacy fund which means you'll depleted for future generations. if it doesn't pass we better be serious about not only doing more relief to property tax but significantly reforming it. the legislature over the last 12 years has been good at buy

downs. we buy them an average 40% of local property tax all across the state. the problem is we haven't been good at lowering property taxes and that's where the frustration buys and the opportunities to do that that we've encoded one part of it but if the state will be involved in buying down 50% of the local share property tax and we have to have a say in how those local property tax budgets grow. i plan and voting no including to cut back and services to the local political subdivisions. kelly mentioned a couple.

i will mention townships. townships have no taxing authority. they got hundreds of miles of roads the responsible for. cost a lot to gravel and maintain and pay those roads. with the maintainer to keep them level. they need a lot of work. concern about them in particular. when it comes to how he could replace it if it does pass, what are we going to do? people will be lining up and asking the state for help. that's going to be tough, like we are talking about either cut services which will happen or raise taxes are most likely it would be both. who wants to see a statewide sales tax? who wants to see special fees placed on anything from hunting, morpheus on hunting and licensing fees, to specialties in the cities or finds such as the prairie dog fund is been a great benefit to me people

across the state. maybe the legislature as to backtrack on that and say it's been good while it lasted. we can't afford to do that anymore. so if it does pass will have our work cut out for us in the low dosage of the republicans of that 30 years of super majority to take care of this and have done nothing about it yet. >> michael coachman. >> what people need to realize is freedom is always attached to the land. you are not free if you don't own your property. if you go to to three years without paying property tax they will come and take it, which i'm going to get back to an little bit. like i i was ten when it opened up, that the constitution has a lot of things already made out. here article ten in a north dakota constitution as of the legislative the solution that prohibit from raising revenue or to defray the expense of the state to the levying of a tax of assessed value of real or personal property. it always states on how that is supposed to be taken care of with businesses.

we have two individuals who worked the legislative and the not even following the constitution. that is one of the biggest issues we have. it spells out what needs to be done for an individual, which is key to freedom. what no one wants to address is what happens when people can't pay their property tax. they, confiscate all those lands. you go to different counties, for the last couple of years and see him and people who lost their homes because they could not afford the property tax, all because it was in generations to to three years, it's gone. as far as covering the cost, here we have what what youy seen in the newspaper, all the expenditures the state hasn't done. first of all as governor i will cut all the services that really don't have a purpose, doesn't eat a constitution value.

then we start going through in doing audits. we know everyplace needs to be audited. what you do an audit you can find it where the money is. the sad thing is your talk about where the money comes from, -- in my done? okay. >> were going to give anybody else a chance someone or bite at the apple and start again with representative armstrong. >> i mean, the answer to this question is we have to be how to get -- a lot of this is good. we've had 120,000 people come into the state the last ten years. we that growth, , communities tt were shrinking and dying in western north dakota that growing and those are going up and all those different things. you have real opportunities for things that never existed when we are first year. when i graduated from high school nobody state. there were no opportunities in western north dakota. those things are great but not great for the senior citizen who

also interest selling their home and they are saying valuation. the army ways in which we can address this issue but it can't just be what we do in the past which is why downs, by downs, bytedance without significant reform. there's real opportunities. legacy fund is going with the interest can do this. we've got utilize that and give direct relief to with the people are asking for the most and that is in the property tax from. >> senator piepkorn. >> this basically wants to tax transfer. the money has to come from somewhere. it is our obligation as a state, what is or will it boiled down to? taking care of roads in providing public education. this lets a lot of the big businesses out-of-state corporations off the hook, railroads. a lot of that central assessed property including railroads in transmission lines and some pipeline property. that makes up not all of the property tax but a big chunk of

it. the couple plans that are being talked about. there are probably a total of 40 property tax relief plans, property tax restructuring plans that people are having written by legislative council. a couple that an interested in is boosting the least and pray relief, boosting the hundred dollars residential property tax credit to $1000 per primary residence and making it permanent. another is, this is pretty drastic, and radical. we take heavy-duty featuring and a lot of talking and negotiating but having the state ante up the third of the cost of education that we're not paying for right now. the state pays for two-thirds of the cost of educating a student k-12 student, i have we take a look at start a conversation with paying for it all, reducing the pressure on school districts. school districts the largest cause, the greatest cost raising

the property tax. if the state could find it that would reduce the pressure on schools to keep putting out these bond issues that often don't pass. >> michael coachman, you have about a minute. >> as i was saying no one wants to let the people have their homes. do you got people who are locked in income come have to make a choice of making a monthly payment, medicine or food. we as individuals are supposed to be the owner of a property and wants people don't own property. that is the key to freedom. as far as the funding, like i said, we have this. we have things that we could cut. well we heard back in october we get billions and billions of dollars. at how is it helping the individual? as far as meeting, come up with the cost, here at the turn of the century we couldn't even

fly, but now we can go almost mach five. we have technologies that a computer, we could put in our pocket, we can't come up with a plan to fix the budget here in north dakota? really? you guys said years, years to try to fix the budget and fix property tax. ask me as governor i will eliminate it and i will do some cutting, and we will make the government downsize and we will get the funding. >> our next topic has to do with the ethics commission. north dakota's ethics commission is looking at changes onto an ethics complaint should be filed. do you believe are ethics rules should be changed to make things more transparent? senator piepkorn. >> thank you, dave. this ethics commission was established because of a bill

sponsored by fargo democrat senator tim mather and. it is in existence. it's very, very slow in getting formed up and form of these things that you're talking about, guidelines, duties, responsibilities membership, types of complaints come how they're handled. i will say that the legislature initially really dragged its feet. just because something is resent the legislature still can either help move it along or can drag its feet and just try to np. in this case impede the implementation of an ethics commission. if you see some of things happening you probably understand why there's a resistance to having an ethics commission at all. we've got a good leader of the ethics commission, so who's in charge of it. i think she will be effective in

form and get up and establishing the guidelines and getting the processes in place. we are still our feet along those lines but it needs to be there. the people want it. i think we will get there. >> michael coachman. >> it's a waste as far as happy ethics committee is moving for a simple reason. everybody is protecting everybody. they are not enforcing what is already being done. there's been unethical events within, as far as i know, i've been there and north dakota, but they get pushed aside or because cronyism. until you start in making everybody accountable, it's just a band-aid on an artery. you can't do nothing until we make a change in government where people are not afraid to stand up and say hey look, this

is wrong. because most of the power really belongs to the people. they're the ones who say look, this person is doing wrong. you need to do something about it. but no one really wants to take care of the real problem. it's just a nice way of saying we'll take care of it, you just go back to sleep. >> representative armstrong, although that further, the north dakota monitor data storage you are familiar with on your oil and gas assets. in terms of ethics d believe you can adequately regulate the industry and avoid conflict of interest? >> it's been a secret i've been in the oil and gas entry since i started in this crazy run in 2012. the single most important thing that is probably happened, or consequential generational change in north dakota has been a bunch of companies figure out how to crack the boston and the three forks. it's providing generational wealth and opportunity not just for this generation of the next generation in north dakotans to

come. having some he knows that industry knows what it takes to do that is a benefit not a detriment. at the same time one of the things that frustrates me is to demonize the industry. we don't see a transit of banker can't vote on banking regulation or farmer can't vote in any form in regulation or businessman, teco to build a private equity i can't vote in any of those things. we have a specific opportunity to address it and recuse yourself. at the same time if you have asset and southwest north dakota and a vote on the oil industry in northwest north dakota that is that the direct conflict. you have to talk to people come to see people you're talking to come make sure you disclose those things and to your other overly question with regards to the ethics committee there are thousand of the ways to be more transparent and we should do that. you should have to do an open records request to get things. it's the 21st century. a lot of the stuff to be put online. one of the things that frustrated me as you don't get the whole quote is i spent 80-90

hours a year doing my financial disclosure can hire a campaign lawyer and accountant full time. it's it's a great process if you have the resources and have the office staff to do that. we don't have with north dakota legislature. they are volunteers of sb way in which you can a more transparency, more disclosure but you're not causing a volunteer legislation serves every two years for 81 days to have to fork over ten -12 five grant to file an ethics disclosure. we need more transparency, , moe really available but we should recognize that the greatest form of representative government i think in the country because everybody gets to go and do a day job other than the 81 days in which they serve in the state senate or the status. >> thank for your answers on that. [inaudible] >> no. we have to move on. we got a lot of topics i want to get to. our next topic is the believe the state should have a voucher program for school choice? i'm going to start with michael

coachman. >> i'm going to have to come i know what you're saying but i'm going to address this issue what he just said. in 2017 he passed sb 2134 talking about giving mineral rights back to the individuals here in north dakota. when he talked to the legislators and said hey look, this is going to be beneficial to previous owners, some things he failed to mention. one, that the state owned that and that when it went back to was no previous owners. and two, he did not disclose that he had oil wells in that land. correct me if i'm wrong, did you not? >> yeah, you're wrong. >> okay. well, i got maps and documentation. >> i had zero mineral acres of her health in suspense by the state of north dakota. he's talk about the lakebed minerals bill. probably as long as i serve the

politics i will not be more proud of the piece of legislation i passed because the state of north dakota redistricted the lake and sent letters to north dakota farmers and ranchers who had been scratched a living out of that dirt for generations. they said hey you don't own your minerals anymore. we do. when those people came cand base of what her options? nothing. we century literature we took it. i worked very closely with the attorney general, the governor at the time. we didn't get the process we wanted so we introduce the bill. the state took those minerals from north dakota farmers and ratchet we gave them back. i was really proud of that. >> not sure because there is none. anything after three years that the state owns there is no previous owner. >> may have been buying and selling leases on minerals for generations. there are no owners on that land. we got documentation. [inaudible] >> no, it's a reason come for some reasons to about ethical. but it is going to not be

ethical with this, he's that going to be as governor. that's key. that's key. people need honest people in government. >> you need to let melt away in if you want. >> i think people understand now kelly's position in oil, his company, is how the company owns over 300 wells. he has significant income from that. i just get my sources on the news that we trust. at any rate, talk about recusing yourself. there are only three members on industrial commission. a lot of conversations that take place it's the governor, , the agriculture commission and the attorney general. they've all been republicans for the past several years, 30 years. not quite 30 years but close if you add it all up. a lot of conversations take place are not recorded in the minutes. for example, should have recuse myself? those conversations don't have to be recorded in the minutes.

what several issues to come up in the industrial commission regarding oil regulation and gas regulation and energy questions. and if kelly is going to be recusing himself from every issue that comes up, that deals with those, that leaves two members on the commission. they pretty much march in lockstep anyway. having a democratic nonpartisan leak government will add transparency to the conversations that are going on within daschle commission and provide balance when it comes to voting on these issues as well. >> i'd like to get back to vouchers is willing to talk about it and we will start with mr. coachman. >> yes, i believe doctors are good. i believe parents should have the opportunity to send a child to whatever program they want, either public school, private school, homeschool. yes. the power needs to be in the parents and and but i would take

a lot of that power away from the voice from the parents. i think this would be a good thing. >> senator ernst extra i believe in more parental involvement. i believe vouchers are not necessarily the right approach. you can see this and other states by the way. before vouchers passed in arizona tuition and private schools raised. the key is taking sure i have two kids in public school, two kids have gone to two different public school system over the last five years. we nationalize education arguments far too often. i want to localized in. i read at the education my kids get in public schools are responsible school choice abide it allows for the money to follow the paris is really good approach to do things. i don't think it has to be either/or. we can find our public school system, have the best public school system in the country and still allow for significant more parental autonomy in school choice. >> senator piepkorn. >> i'll tell you, dave, if we passed a property tax we will a hard time funding anybody's

education. in the meantime the school choice, it's real. it's a lovely term that sounds fantastic, and what it's hiding, we have a tough enough time now paying for our public education. we are. it are states responsibility i like to see the state of our financial commitment to public education, and taking money away right now from public education for vouchers, any money you take and send in that direction is going to be less money for the public education we have now, are. our teachers are fantastic at the straps. they're buying things out of their own pocket to provide for the classrooms right now. it's always been possible for the private schools to get children, students into their schools have either wanted for athletics or who needed, according to the parents, this particular environment. another thing is most of the private schools do not are not

required to offer the same services to students perhaps with disabilities. we cannot start chipping away at the funding for public education in favor of private education. it's simple as that. i couldn't explain my stance any clearer than that. >> kennett had a follow-up on the. >> was all give you one minister against the constitution, north dakota constitution says an article eight of education the legislative assembly shall provide a uniform system of free public school throughout the state beginning with primary and extend it for through all gp to and including higher education, except the legislative assembly may authorize tuition fees and service charge to assist in the finance of public schools of higher education. you are arguing about something the state constitution is already stating that they are supposed to fund 100%. thank you.

>> i happen to agree with that. i believe in my statement. >> were not doing it. that's what property tax has nothing to do with them funding this. >> okay. i need to get kelly armstrong in to hear his response. >> the more autonomy you can give parents and the more you can do these things, i think the better off you are. i do want to say and a mean this sincerely come in and a program that involves school choice, the money has to follow the kid, and the porous catholic kid in that community needs have the opportunity to does education. i don't think any school choice program that is long to subsidize tuition for existing stewards is right approach. the other edge is i wholly reject the argument it's either/or. i don't think it is. like i said you can't as the more autonomy and the more choice you're giving parents involved in their kids education, the better our education all the way round is going to be. >> thirty seconds. >> i i know mr. armstrong chose his running mate, lieutenant

governor because she voted for private vouchers for schools in the last legislative session. she also voted to end the north dakota benefits for teachers. one of the great attractants to teachers, to the profession here in north dakota, a good retirement system which is now taken away from guaranteed to go ahead and do with what you want, put in the stock market and see what happens. i think people would benefit from doing that. >> our next topic then is childcare. we hear a lot from parent who can't file a confined childcare. many of the centers are full and if waiting list. should the state be doing more to support childcare? senator ernst on. >> yes, i was just -- i to the childcare facility in leeds. i've seen what watford seediest and for all those things. they started a program and is funny for childcare. found out last night the turner at a background check and five days. have been a hindrance for

significant period of time. when you're offering $18-$20 an hour for a job and takes six weeks to get a background check, i can guarantee you and every other community in the state in every community in the state there are the same types of jobs that exist. you can't build your way out of it. we built on five childcare centers all across the state but if you don't have the people to work and incentives to do that. one thing i learned last night i did know because i've been in d.c. for the last six years is there a grant programs of knowledge of the things we place it on the childcare facility. the people are trying to run these childcare facility on a time to write a grant come from listings that. the idea was there in place then the last legislative session. we have to streamline it, make it easier. we have to incentivize it and we got incentivized businesses and communities to do that. i don't think we should put the blame on the person who's probably trying to hire three extra spots running around credit take care of toddlers entering such a noble job.

it's your workforce issue. it security growth issue. it's a very issue. anybody knows a first-time mom probably the scariest time of the life is a first data traffic it off at daycare and want to come back and pick them up but it's a huge impact issue that affects all other aspects of early committee and economy in north dakota. and if we have to do a better job. >> senator piepkorn. >> a lot of the childcare strain and financial responsibility and the woes the mike mueller .co fall on single parents who are really in a bind -- to parent house looking off into the joking. the state should do several things. this all leads back to work for. >> a lot of things were taught of the to workforce. and what it paid off? made workers. it comes up all the time. how about the state wraps up its support for the daycare providers themselves and perhaps to the parents as well to help

them pay for the daycare. how about incentivizing businesses? large businesses like starting in the capitol building itself to the daycare in that building. doesn't that sound good? how about at schools for teachers so they can have their children in the daycare right there at school? let's talk about some of those things. childcare workers are horrendously underpaid. let's step up and help them because it relates to the workforce which means job. >> we need the workers to grow our economy. we are concerned about that. just a couple of things for us to start and talk of certain michael coachman. >> i'm going to be different and say no. the only reason i'm saying no is you don't want the state involved in everything. this this is a local thing. this is where people can come together and watch their own, help people, others come help with their kids. with businesses that's a private entity. they should work out some type of childcare program, not the

state. it's not our responsibility as a state to interject our thoughts and our laws or guides into every aspect of life. we are taken with a stream of the people. that's what capitalism is, to work on different ideals to make a profit. we can come together as individuals and communities and work on different types of things. as far as childcare. it has to be left to the lower level. the state does not need to get involved. again we've got millions of dollars going to teaching kids how to ride a bike. but you going to say need to spend more money into that. but again it goes like to the property tax. we don't have money for property tax. we have to stop the spending. we have to let people, if it dies on its feet let it die. that's what -- what you're doing, say discount we should almost like a socialist country or a a communist country to te care of everyone. no.

it's a free enterprise. let people work it out. we are smart enough to work out whatever issue we have within ourselves. >> okay. next topic. a question that comes from our cosponsor an erp north dakota. with the rising cost of vital prescription drugs that many north dakotans rely on what steps to plan his government to take to ensure older people and the families of affordable access to the sites it sustaining drugs? senator piepkorn. >> there are a lot of issues about this particular bigger issue of the cost of medication for seniors and everybody else. recently the federal government has put caps on the ten popular drugs, some of them are diabetic in some weight loss. one that unfamiliar with his a blood thinner that for surely due to the medical modern medicine i don't have to take those anymore. i'm appreciative of that. so capping the prices of these drugs, and there are several

states that also involved in the own separate programs involving capping the amount of people, the amount of money people can spin on drugs. $2000 is a popular a popular figure in her own legislature just this last session i believe it was gretchen, sponsored the bill the cap the price of insulin. i forget the exact amount that people are paying, but, for example, i go to white insulin? i do know that much about it. because it's been around for years and it's not that expensive to produce and air charging, making a lot of money at it, , which unfortunately kes people away from the drug who need to use pick the accounting their resources in half. there's a lot the state can do. pharmacy benefit managers have a lot to do with the price of prescription drugs, too. let's take a look at them and press we can rein nso.

>> michael coachman. >> as you know in europe and the only mention to produce certain meds it's really cheap. but we're making up the difference. we need to be transparent as far as what is the cost to make that medicine, and as a state you need to stop gouging. that's what it is. its price gouging. we need to step in and say look, you cannot beat up in this 200, 300, 400%. you want to work here, we need to work on on a deal on how o lower the prices. we need somebody to step in. right now, again, the choice of meds, so i stay my house or eat? we need to step in and say look, you need to change or method, your methodology of what you're charging the people here in the state. as governor i will step in and fight for you. >> representative armstrong. >> the overall healthcare part of the portfolio is remember

significant portion is federal. i watched it happen play out over the last six years in dealing with those issues and the cost of healthcare in general is continuing to rise. there are different grade we shouldn't do this. we are a committee of small business and then have private insurance and then go for medicare, medicaid, list of issues. so start you want to look at what the ship this when that happens and make sure you're not pricing people out of that and work about if you can forget creative ways to forceful insurance plans come to different things where you can have a larger risk pool and deal with a lot of those issues as they to talk with your representative senator cramer, senator hoeven do with those issues. medicare part b is a huge problem. there's a fight on the coast about waste, fraud, and abuse. it doesn't occur here but without the program work whenever a huge, huge problem in north dakota so make sure we stay on the present on that ended with that. at the state level we've got to continue to work with weather at stanford, blue cross, whether it's his broken programse know why the rates are going and

a lot of that is that a policy of working careful in making sure we can do everything we can't at the state level which can be a lot, a lot of times the stock could be as much as we would love it to be to offset that federal regular regime. >> let's move on to the recently by a north dakota judge the threat north dakota's abortion ban. many doctors say a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant at six weeks, for example. i know you vomit all sure different views on this and voters want to hear them. so tell me your reactions to the ruling in with this controversial issue goes now from you within the state. michael coachman first. >> i'll tell you right now my feeling is life does begin at the moment of conception, okay? that is what life is right there. i know my opponents will say, just case of rape or incest, it's okay. no. i do not. we were in grand forks a couple weeks ago for the right to life and our guest speaker was a person who was come his mom was

raped in a mental institution and he was a very well gifted speaker. what people don't realize is you could call the health, women's healthcare. it's murder. because if you look at somebody who kills a woman who is pregnant either even if she's a couple weeks or a few much of what is that person charged with? double homicide. double homicide. because it's on life. life begins there at the moment of conception. me, i'm going to support. i know what the judge said banco do everything i can to protect life, not just on that end but on the other end, the elderly. i will do to protect everything because the most precious resource we have as a state is not oil, it's not ag. it's people. i don't want to protect that precious resource. >> kelly armstrong. >> i appeared in front of the judge.

i've known all of those different issues. i think he got a really wrong. i don't think that's the last sane. i think the north dakota supreme court will have an opportunity to weigh in. i was chair of the senate judiciary when a lot of these bills came through and i supported them then through committee and on the floor, past them. hopefully we get it right. i do think there are places in which we have to make sure we create situations where like exception works in an emergency room and not just in hearing room. there are real answer to that, but i've been proud of my pro-life record to the entirety of my legislative career i'm going to continue to stand with the north dakota law as it is. if we're to clean it up, tighten it up with smart people that can do that but i'm hopeful the law will withstand, will be overturned at the supreme court. >> senator cochran. >> junior with the smartest thing to do would be watertight but abortion and a woman's right to choose which is going to do? is to stay out of it.

you're in the senate. i'm in the senate. mr. coachman has his ideas. we're going to sit in the legislature, talk to scientists and experts and legal experts and say at six weeks until it's viable, but it's not viable, the baby is a viable out of the womb until 24 we shouldn't be involved any of that talk. if you think it's murder, mr. coachman, then it's, but that woman and family members, spouse, weber mip, partner, let him deal with their maker then. if that's what it is. we are all born sinners, and there are, you know, there is are all equal or they are not. i understand the significance of murder. i don't describe that. however, let that person deal with their maker is what i feel about it and not let me be the judge. i do want to be in there talking with that doctor and that woman when you talking about the

various things come just unimaginable things that could be going on. i'm not pro-abortion. i don't know anybody who is pro-abortion out promoting it. hey, come on in, let's do this, get pregnant and then get an abortion. i don't know people like that. we all cherish life. representative armstrong loves using the term overreach, federal overreach when it comes to energy and attention. how about this for overreach when a government gets into the healthcare decision the women have an extremely difficult time making difficult conversations? >> thank you for your answers on that. a topic i want to get to is next. do you believe more of the legacy fund should be vested in north dakota projects? if it is can you keep it as a state funding source to be used when our oil and gas production tricep? representative armstrong. >> yeah, i think so. i think the key to the legacy fund is making sure investing in

something that is not competing with existing north dakota business. i like the idea of keeping as much of the principal and are willing to get back to replace a finite resource whenever it's done. i think if you don't show citizens of the state that is working for them, then there's going to be real issues and real things going forward. the first way to get his transparency and make sure you understand and could understand what those monies are being disclose and where this monies are being spent. you have to be careful if you do that. one, you better have worthy projects. you can't overheat the economy. if you invest the billions on a legacy fund money into infrastructure in a community is going to be expensive to do your driveway. my wife is from oslo, norway, and at the world's largest sovereign wealth fund and they are very, very very y transparent. england website in a single day and see exactly where their investments are which is something north dakota should actually strive for. they are also very, very careful

about artificially overheating their own economy with government infusion of dollars. that doesn't mean you can't do like large-scale water projects, fiber as a start on this connectivity, things that every single north dakota benefit from. be transparent, make sure people know where it's been spent and invested, and picture north dakotan are proud of how that is happening. that's a recipe for short-term success and long-term success. >> senator piepkorn. >> repeat the question for me please. >> do you believe more of the legacy fund should invest in north dakota project? >> again, who's going to decide? this is why we do need transparency. what we don't need is people with special access to government, whether it be bending the ear of the governor, whether it be bending the ear of officials at the bank of north dakota. right now start discussions on changing the way our money is managed and how it is invested

and will be extensive conversations about that and people know more about it as they continue. what we don't want is people coming in and looking for a quick buck. wherever there is money available to invest in the project, there are people swarming around kind of on the outskirts often, looking for a way that they can get their hands on it and without really doing anything, without the coalition anything. so oversight. we have to trust our government leaders and officials when it comes to making some of the spending decisions. but again we go back to transparency, how the decisions are being made and, well, whether or not it competes with fargo businesses, north dakota businesses. that's another question. what we certainly can grow. there are going to be opportunities in north dakota we haven't even realize yet.

i was just up in grand forks at the national security corridor where they're going to be launching satellites, building satellites and launching satellites from the grand forks air force base. that's new in north dakota. something there are things we haven't even imagined yet that i believe we will be able to invest here in north dakota. >> michael coachman, quite. >> i might beg to the difference as far as the oil reserve drying up. i do believe it is replaceable. but his foreign as invest into north dakota we need to invest more into small towns. we need to bring life to the small towns of 50, 75, 100 because right now they're being forced out again because of property tax or one means or another. we need to bring these towns into life, bring them up to the modern times so we can start bringing structures, companies into our state to make the small towns viable.

we just got to just do more as far as investing in our state as a government, but it's like maybe like a one-time good deal. and then take on. >> are right. i'd like to ask each of you how you're going to vote on measure number five, the legalization of recreational marijuana. why or why not? we will start with senator piepkorn. >> well, i'm conflicted on this but it did not sign the petition to get on the ballot. i will be voting no. i'm kind of thrown in with the highway patrol on this, one of the branches of law enforcement that i respect most. is it tough maybe pulling over somebody with a headlight out and their smoking a joint and they spend present time? well then, let's take a look at the penalties for possession and using, and differentiate that

from selling, from dealing and transporting large quantities. we can't penalize the occasional or recreational user like that and make them criminals out of that. but i'm just, as governor, the legislature can do amazing things to impede the implementation of an initiated measure. that's another something that's on the ballot. maybe you'll get to it later but as governor, if it passed by the people, i would simply go ahead and endorse it and say let's go for it, an amendment in the most effective and safe way. >> michael coachman. >> again, me too. i'm kind of conflicted on it. maybe i'm not going to say yes or no on it but it's up to the people. that is up to the people on what you want to do. if the people suggest we want it, i supported him if he said no there it is.

but it's up to the people on that. >> representative armstrong. >> i have flip-flopped and my own mind on this issue some at different times. first of our lord summoned to give a lot of credit to people about the measure forward. this is significantly better written than some of the previous measures. if we remember the medical marijuana one, they did come with the purchase, they just forgot to decriminalize the sale. it gets local municipalities and local governments significantly more autonomy. spent ten years as a criminal defense attorney can watch all the sink. i had to give credit to the north dakota legislator wills after left about taking more responsible approach. you don't go to prison for smoking a joint in north dakota anymore. they have decriminalize a lot of these things. i think the measure is written in a great way but but i jui spent the last six years have my time in d.c. where it's omnipresent. you walk outside and you spell l everywhere. it's in front of the 7-11 come all over the place. i have c16 and 14 note so i will

tell you when i walk in at about i will vote no. >> we have time for one more question and this is the arp any need to limit the answers to limit it because we're starting to run out of time. this has to do with senior housing. are the things the state could or should do to help keep people in their homes longer before having to be, going to nursing him for the silly like that? i'd like to start with michael coachman. >> can you repeat the question can. >> was it's about housing for seniors. is the state able to do something to keep seniors in home as much as possible before they have to move to an institution? >> get rid of property tax. that right there, that when you don't have to move to senior living. that's what they're doing is raising it when they can't, with have to move them to assisted health. let them stay in their house. they were there for generations. let them stay in their own house. and property tax complacency in your house. >> representative armstrong. >> it is to deliver long-term

care and effectively do all the things come it is significantly cheaper for the patient, cheaper for the taxpayer and cheaper for the committee the longer people can stay in their own home. there are going to be something if you have to do modification for wheelchair access, some of that is easier in some places than others. you run the stag, deal with that, one of the things with property tax is significant span the homestead property tax. we've had a lot of conversations with aarp and the people who work there and i think there are things we can do to make a lot of those things better. >> senator piepkorn. >> class of things would do positively for senior housing, including freezing or unlimited property tax for seniors at a certain age, maybe having certain residence requirement. and again this is where we sit down and talk. i think were all headed in the same direction. let's get the involved parties

and moving in that direction. how but maybe incentivizing developers and construction industry? in the big major plans like the soybean crushing facilities, for example, one incented is no sales tax on some of the equipment they buy. how about that? let's try that for developers and builders a small homes. and also in in-home care section important. let's a in-home care people. it's quite a sacrifice family members are making, and that would really reduce the strain on seniors and our senior living facilities that are lacking. >> all right. we have reached our time for closing comments and statements. senator piepkorn goes first. one minute. >> let's make it simple. i stand with taxpayers in reducing property tax or at least holding the line on property tax come not a limited

in the property tax. i stand with our singes for these reasons i just mentioned now, prescription drugs, capping the price, try to keep it within reach of singes and providing more affordable housing. i stand with our farmers and ranchers and look for more opportunities for yes, the corporate people are moving in for some of the opportunities but i'm concerned about the beginning in small farms and ranches as well. what can we do to help them? i stand with women and the right to make their own decisions regarding healthcare, and not afraid to use the term abortion. let's stay out of it. and women, you make those decisions. and i stand with small businesses. let's help recruit workers to keep the economy growing here in north dakota. lots of things we talked about today relate exactly to that. ..

>> everybody as the great privilege have time history. a bunch of people who risk capital and a lot of things created opportunity, governor in

my lifetime doesn't have to work on jobs jobs, jobs. workforce and housing at all of those things and because of good will is a and good things promoted to the legislature and more importantly, the people who took a risk to grow crops in north dakota and gas, coal, we have an opportunity to grow in the 21st century at a huge advantage compared to other places across the state of my privilege to run for governmental and to tackle challenges and move forward and figure out how we do to make sure every kid who graduates has the opportunity to build a life and family and career. >> i like to thank our candidates tonight. kelly armstrong and you for your participation in this great.

election day is november 5 and early voting underway, thank you for watching cov she slid now ae

old. >> journalists from bloomberg news and shannon talk about experiences covering the upcoming election. this is where an hour.

>> for those of you are recovering political journalist, this is the first campaign cycle since the clinton administration i find myself not covering the campaign in the homestretch this time of year but there's no place i would rather be right out and the next generation of political journalist and here's the list fantastic conversation today. he

we are going to introduce the panel in a moment. thank you to gemma for making that happen and thanks to all of you for joining us all today. one of the political journalist of the future critiquing the job

on the panel. please introduce yourselves. cap mike mack i am a senior in college mining and journalism. so thrilled to have you here to discuss this crazy election cycle so without further ado to introduce these journalists, and the ticket policy for bloomberg opinion former senior political reporter through cnn and the washington post. she's correct politics and campaigns are more than two decades. barack obama to bernie sanders to ben carson and donald trump in organizations including

newsday, the cnn geopolitics a level in a journal reporter covering national politics with a focus on 24 presidential campaign to washington. she's covered the white house and national security for the journal for cnn and associated press with a focus on foreign policy breaking a number of major stories involving the white house and including the administration's controversial travel man the former president relents. a former correspondent reported more than 805 continents of the past two decades.

as a graduate of the university of law school. a chief media analyst most of vanity fair's weekly podcast and author of three books most recently. in crow nights of excellence and a geopolitics fellow. great and amazing panel with us today. >> thank you for the warm

introduction. [applause] one of our panelists had to pull out. just heard how they were third.

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> all right. i look back to cover the race. my first take away was, when did politics get to be so mean?

one of the other candidates among other insults and being involved in the assassination of jfk. the first woman for a major ticket. i was coming at a war zone to be clear. in seems like a natural transition. >> are we over it?

the national stage to submit is that there are he says a woman of color no less. there is heightened awareness. and they have been actively trying to work get them discipline.

>> we have this event where they have this question when harris black and among other things. prevent that. and get them over the edge this time. so that is where we are. in his side we know what is covered and what not to be covered? >> going to north carolina to see what was going on.

in. >> you approach to campaign gender attacks, it is not fear that they will be right. trump, you are probably the beta right. why? because he had two years to build a coalition the coalition that i think in many ways together around identity politics and around anti- immigrant sentiment antiblack sentiment in the.

the harris campaign do you hope there is a realignment of black voters. they are much more tired and more likely to be offended by the things trump did or didn't do by january 6. it's not going to be obama coalition. can you together a racially diverse coalition in 100 days up

against a guy who very well knows what he's doing with the rhetoric? whether it's what he said in the debate, about people eating people's pets or aid to hurricane victims and some instances black voters, two that the federal government did not care about and they care more about a migrant and that is something that motivates voters. such an idea that this will be an election on the economy. it is a lot around these cultural issues, transitions and immigration crime in so they are motivating issues and more on the right than the left.

i get sick of people on tv seeing the cliché from the clinton campaign. on the economy, it will be another issue. >> we can look at the advertising spend. one of the campaigns prioritizing x. >> add spending is a good way to determine what the priorities of

the campaign are. donald trump campaigned and spending double in pennsylvania what it is in. and in pennsylvania where they attempted assassination happened, he says 100,000 people for in attendance, he's a big fan, i'm not sure it was quite that high. not just going to go up and do a

rally for he knew it would be media coverage. he just made it in to the show because he wants to lure people and uses his star power so you see that. arizona is another place where they poor resources and because of early voting you see them shifting to arizona where trump is going to hold a rally impact you learn a lot when you go in person? >> it's worth the trouble to talk to the voters at the rally. believe it or not, they haven't changed all that much.

>> you are there not for trump but to learn about the trump voters. >> absolutely. there is a lot you can tell. they're not the ones necessarily. i might they they are and talk to people that are not at the rally. our team is a bit smaller so we really tried to the narrative around the rally.

the tax-free situation on someone a double taxation no foxes on. he's been throwing them out. in the same time in arizona i would go report on early voting and report on the fact that continues to deny the fact that the state of arizona despite the audit and what has proven the contrary. >> build politician and went

back to mar-a-lago. no one really perceived that they would be but i think by and large three years ago tucker carlson, we are going to make him a nonperson. move on from the trump years of how do we get back to this? and back in a situation where you just said you make i think trump had his people and in so many ways the palestinian undergrads one of the finest institutions but he had people

so he never left him. in so many ways, i don't necessarily mean this in a disparaging way but you have to work use the word cold in so many ways to explain the loyalty and i call them followers, i don't even call them supporters because that is the election they have with donald trump in the correspondence can. when you understand that relationship and what trump does trickles down immediately to his

base of supporters, who are facing demographic shifts and facing economic challenges, there's a lot of people in american culture, drops being shipped overseas and a.i. >> a woman of color. >> exactly. a hermela around identity politics around essentially making white voters feel like reminding them of their whiteness by mentioning the other is a threat over and over again. >> this sort of scapegoat. it had to spend the republicans

we are going to play the political level also i want i will usually all and in some ways we talk about in these are stereotypes but they work and they are motivating ideas instead of american voters. times they are brown voters who have their own idea what it means to be part and what it means to be american. the idea of being american need to look down so if you are donald trump you have a

discourse and you have social media and a sense of disconnect among so many voters so donald trump becomes their figure. the. >> other republicans are like j.d. vance who want to tell the whole thing down and anti- institution. next they are is campaign rally so the difference between trump rally and dance rally and smaller rallies but also they want him to take russians from the media. he starts with the local media and moves on to national media. they see this access at bedtime

with a lack of access to governor walz and they go beyond to have him access to the media. it is where exit questions and local journalists for the most part and questions at the local level had a little bit about migration issues and many of them travel with him and used to be my colleague he said the new york times reporter and baked into the whole thing.

all things about the federal reserve, it's the only question you can get. cutting interest rate and the crowd lost their mind. j.d. vance actually giggled because he was expecting that reaction. >> it was good news? >> the question that was good news for the other team and the they told me aside and they were like that's not true.

>> if i had a penny for every time and at one time or another are all that way. >> i actually started laughing. it is something worth taking note of. animosity toward the other side, it feels wrong five president biden and harris so it's interesting.

>> you covered the trump campaign and where were you? >> i was house hunting. ... especially all of us one point or another. we are all tv people, basically. at that people literally picking you apart physically among other things. everything you say it was a show more than anything else.

just this animosity towards the other side. they feel so wrong by president biden and vice president harris is something to take note of. so it's interesting. >> let's look at harris. where were you when biden dropped out? sunday afternoon. >> nobody had a heads up. >> i was househunting. yeah. i was househunting. we were going to take our daughter to a playground. i got a call from our editor. i do leave my wife with my child which happens a lot. >> we ran out of the water park. >> i love my daughter to come here and she was crying. you know. this is what it means to be a

working mom particularly around this campaign. harris has done something amazing in a very short period of time. stitching back together the biden coalition which was despond it which wanted volume large a different candidate. in no way there was for obama and even hilary clinton had a stronger base of support than biden did. even as he was running, he essentially promise he would be a one term president. a bridge to the next generation. he said this at a rally the next

day. he had all of these people behind him enclosing kamala harris. raising all of this money and to tighten this thing. they never even elected a black america governor. they have only elected to black women in the senate. very few people out that black women bosses. i have had a few at the washington post. i have one now at bloomberg but that is a rarity. it is a huge leap that america is going to elect, not just a woman president, but in african-american woman president it is a big thing. we will see if it happens. again, she calls herself the other dog. i think part of the reason she calls herself the other dog is because she is trying to quote hilary clinton.

>> as much as we do cover the policies and the positions in the speeches, i think it's important to cover the part you are describing. the psychology, the historical residents of what it means for her to be running. the notion that many people have resistance he had an austin that other people seeing it happen. i don't have the right words. there is so much caught up in that that is beyond policy positions. >> so many people in the media have been like we are kamala harris detailed the plans. never really worrying about the fact that donald trump does not have any detailed plans at all. but, yeah. >> much more about the symbolism >> it is all about feeling and emotion. >> who is america, what is america, who is america four. >> it is an important plan. we talk about this.

a lot of us live here on the east coast and we are a little bit shielded from the realities elsewhere in the country. this is something that i am grateful for to be able to travel and see other perspectives. a lot of times when i talk to even democrats in states across the country, we talk about heat as a future. in 2024 america is not ready for a yay male president. it is shocking to me as someone that lives here in washington, d.c., but those are the things that you hear. race tends to come into the equation a lot when it comes to kamala harris. it is something that you have to kind of open your eyes to even if you yourself don't see it that way or it is something that these are discussions that are really happening across the country.

let's just talk briefly. talking about the waterpark. for me, last weekend i was at a corn maze with the kids. i was texting with the trump campaign advisor at the same time. i felt like i was cheating on one side or the other. that is the point. you are in touch with both sometimes. what are your practical tips about what it's like to kind of know what will happen next or be ahead of these stories. any thoughts for an aspiring journalist in the room. >> i think sort of be open to being surprised. i think if you watch cable news, we kind of get up there, we act like we know it all and this and that. voters want to know. she has to separate yourself from biden. i'm not sure that that is the case.

this was, you know, probably in 2017 or something. i was in and we were. this is sort of a cliché. i was asking, who do you think is the person that should go up against donald trump. she said joe biden. this is a black woman. she was on the joe biden train way before, you know way before he was deciding to run. having a sense of things seen from a very different way than we do. republican strategists. having a sense of what the country needs and what the country is ready for and what the country would deal. >> i have a corporate card.

getting them talking. take advantage of that. if you join a news organization that gives you a corporate card take them out and get them talking. >> i will play over and come into the crowd unless we have a mic for questions. you do not even need me to run up and down the halls. let's see who wants to go first. right here at the second row. >> thank you all so much for joining us. granted i cannot remember that many election cycles. one thing that i feel ask become more common over the past year or so is the minute there is a fact check this is a journalist doing their job. this is something against me. how does it impact your supporting? do you think that there is something that they shouldn't con do for the attitude.

>> particularly fact checking. this came up in the debate. they did not fact checked. that would not have helped joe biden at all, but anyway. the kamala harris donald trump debate. this sort of trump half of things basically came up with all of these conspiracy theories they were threatening the license bias in the black woman was part of the same sorority so there must be something. this final debate, a jd vance one, one attempt to fact check the you know, listen, i think at cnn, who was fantastic, i do not know that the media is up for this time.

even though we been added since 2015 covering donald trump and donald trump's lies. i think cnn grappled for this with a time. there was a time they decided to fact check. there'd be something on the screen. a particular lie that donald trump was telling about barack obama being the founder of isis or something. there was a check, a fact check that was running in that way. getting more airtime than anyone during that cycle. i am not sure that it helps. i am not sure that fact checking does not ultimately advance the live. today on cnn for instance, there was a trump person talking about the fema response to hurricane. of course, they are liars that fema has been bled dry by these migrants and no money will go to

the actual victims of the hurricane. a fantastic job of fact checking when you sort of elevate someone who will live, is it a kind of the equivalency in the mind of some viewers. i am not sure of the kind of fact checking that has been going on whether it's in the pages of the washington post or on air. whether it has really done anything or solved the problem of the lies that trump tells. >> i do not think that cnn viewers are clear on what the facts are, necessarily. it feels to me that the bigger challenge of consumers to cbsn their feeds. i worry that those are the folks that actually are unclear on what is real and what is fake. i do not think a new york times

fact check article will get through to them. i agree with you 100% about the limits of fact checking. showing up with a knife to a gunfight very clearly. we can tell there are millions of people that prefer their feelings over facts. people believe what they see in their eyes. they can gain traction. i still hold on to hope. most americans do want to know what's true in the world. most do want to know what is real and they don't want to be fools all the time. >> i think that access to a greater number of information, let's call it information sources not news sources.

excuse what is and what is not truthful. because i covered the trump campaign i go back to them. it is often taken as gospel. i call it the word of trump. the other day was a perfect example. something very minor where he said biden never called camp the governor of georgia after the hurricane. this is something that his base has started but it was not true. he did call. there was an effort to get a hold of each other but they talked. same with florida now. talking about this hurricane stuff. immediately when he says it is this taken as truth. incumbent upon us to then call it out. do people believe us? often times it is a challenge to get people to believe us.

there is really no other answer at this point. >> it does raise the reality of the limits of the media's power. i wish it were different. but we should be realistic about the limits of journalism's power to debunk narratives that are out there and especially in that world. let's see other questions that we have. take the pressure off me. >> thank you so much for having me. how social media, especially twitter has turned journalists into brands of their own. allowing audiences to interact with them. now in the era of stella stack they are producing their own content and do not necessarily have to stand, they don't have organizations to stand in front of or behind. they don't have that corporate

card. someone paying for fights to go to rallies. the creations of journalism especially during a campaign where there is a lot of travel involved. >> i do think that obviously again it is going back to the level of professionalism. you have mentioned sub stack. great platform for a lot of people. not just journalists, but others that are good writers or have something to say want to get the word out there and gives them access to greater audiences. i don't pretend to really understand how these platforms work. but i do have a lot of established journalists turning to diversify the type of audience that they reach. for people for young journalists , if you put in a

level of professionalism. i did not have the corporate cards. i did not have the access to security and all of that stuff. you are taking a risk in those situations. a risk of what you can do. competing against journalists that do work for news organizations. you can still write well and you can still build source spaces just by working the phones. you are in d.c. working on the members of congress love to talk. go knock on the door of members of congress and get to know some of them. you would have access. i teach a graduate journalism class here at georgetown and ivan assignment where i tell them to just talk to members of congress.

so you do have access. there is low-budget ways to still do good journalism and to do it for those platforms. build a couple of clips for yourself you can shop around to bigger news organizations if that's what you want to do we are all anticipating if there will be buyouts and layoffs in various newsrooms. it is just a field that is shrinking. with ai, i am sure that that will only accelerate. to the extent sort of outside outlets crop up in different kinds of journalists who is not as east coast elite, who are from the upper echelons of american society to the extent

that there are other outlets and journalists who can provide an alternative voice. they are overwhelmingly white. in some ways they are overwhelmingly male in the upper ranks of newsrooms. and then they are filled with people that went to fancy schools like georgetown and duke it is just a fact. journalism cannot accurately cover america. in some ways, that is why 2016, you know, we got it wrong. we got 2022 wrong as well. we will see how we do this go round. it is an industry that is not nearly as diverse enough. ideologically religion. ideally something that actually changes. you talk to people in the

newsroom and there like we have been working on it. we have more work to do. they had more work to do for decades and needs newsrooms are still not very diverse. not a real reflection of american society. >> next question. let's see where the mike heads. over here. >> hi. thank you so much for being here today. i am a soft or minoring in journalism. on the topic of media, i was curious what your opinion is on candidates kind of coming out and campaigning on modern social media platforms like kamala harris now has a presence on to talk and she was recently on the caller daddy podcast. trying to tap into a new audience of potential young voters. i was curious if you thought this could be more harmful to her legitimacy considering the

reputation of these platforms and the controversy behind them. you know, what kind of audience is watching these. >> trump is doing it, too, by the way. >> flagrant. comedy show. trump did one hour and 20 minutes on this podcast. he was hilarious. i thought caller daddy was one of her best interview she has ever had. i think all of these old fogies who pooh-pooh these interviews are just out of touch. these influencers and pod casters, they take it really seriously when they are interviewing a candidate. the reality is that will never change. it will only become more like this because as media fragments, we will see more and more these nontraditional interviews. journalists can whine about it, it will never change. >> listen. part of it is personal. kamala harris is only giving interviews to these folks and, you know, these are mostly friendly outlets.

what the new york times is actually saying is kamala harris has not given us an interview and we really want an interview from kamala harris. we don't care about her going on a podcast or talking to even 60 minutes which is a very serious outlet. it is very personal to these. listen -- >> hold on, wall street journal, is that true? [laughter] >> i agreed. it is definitely part of the dynamic. they will always say we wish we had more access. we wish we could get more interviews. i don't think we live in a world anymore that it hurts i think it helps her. >> next question. let's see where the microphone had steel. >> i think trump should go on caller daddy, to. >> my name is matt and i'm a sophomore in the college. i have not declared a major gap but i'm kind of leaning towards journalism. i want to lean back to something that was said earlier about how do we get people to believe what

their politicians are saying may not always be true or, you know, how do we get people to trust journalists again. what do we say to people that go , yeah, well, donald trump may say a lot of lies but i think he is better on the economy so i don't really care or kamala harris or tim walz brought up in the vp debate about how we got some dates wrong about how he was in china. he is running on the better ticket so i don't really care. how do we get to people and say the truth does matter and you should care because, you know, a lot of the times a lot of the people are saying it does not matter to them as much. >> that is a great question. that is a great question. you know, what i find mostly is that their choices are limited. that is a big driving force for white people are at this point saying, well, i guess that this is what we've got.

it is as simple as that. there are some people that are willing to dismiss just because they think -- i hear that a lot while i'm on the campaign trail that trump was better on the border, he was better on the economy, we were living better under his presidency. yeah, he says things that i do not really agree with or i do not like, but, ultimately, my life was better. you do hear from the other side as well, i do not want another term presidency, so i will take whatever they offer us. >> is it also true that you can decide to know different versions of donald trump, meaning, there is a version of donald trump as an autocrat who will imprison his political opponents next year, we will try to shut down american news organizations if he is reelected we will live in a country that is far less democratic next year that is a version of donald

trump. there is also another version that is a blowhard that like to talk too much that has a great new york accent just wants everyone to like him empty as friend. you can opt into different versions of donald trump. i think a lot of trump voters opt into the blowhard guy. >> i worry about that because i'm very concerned about the autocrat. >> i think people, a significant number of americans love every single thing that donald trump stands for. >> including the fascism. >> including the fascism, including the shutting down democratic institutions, jailing enemies. we should understand that. we do not take these voters seriously enough. they like what donald trump stands for. i do think that mg -- ma ga is one of the most powerful political movements we have seen a donald trump talks about that.

the question is the anti- movement which began the day the election was called for donald trump, is that stronger? is this sort of hatred of donald trump stronger than what i think is a real infinity for donald trump the man, the methods he employees and what he wants to do to the country. there are significant numbers of americans who do not mind and autocracy as long as it is there guy who is implementing it. >> i appreciated that reality check. five more minutes for questions. >> i would like to get your take on a strategy question for the kamala harris campaign. i've been a political analyst on the cable network particularly msnbc and i've been elected to office six times. what i'm concerned about is it

will just go down the tubes. i have seen up close as hilary did in 2016 a lot of voters that will not support a female candidate. i am sure you have seen in the last two or three weeks trump ads are hitting her hard. her response has been, oh, well, that is just being divisive. she is not being aggressive enough. james carver was saying today or yesterday on tv as well, she needs to be more aggressive. from a media standpoint, how would you react if she becomes much more aggressive, much more not just sitting there and taking it because i fear that, in fact, today on tv a segment that said here we are again, 2016 again. >> inside politics. every democrat i talked to is really, really nervous. about where this, the harris

campaign is. is it too much on a cruise control? they are not sure if it is just psd from 2016 with hilary clinton or something. they are really seen from the harris campaign. but, no, i think sort of the gender in the race issue which are inextricably intertwined here, it is a real thing. if you are kamala harris i think she is partly trying to lean into being tough. she was basically a call. she was a prosecutor. she has a gun, apparently it is a glock. that sounds like a pretty serious type of gun. and, so, yeah. listen. over these next 26 days, i think that you will see some change. i do think that there is a great deal of worry about whether or not they are sort of sleepwalking to the same result. because of the same reasons.

around the gender and race paying. is she hanging out too much with liz cheney. thinking that there will be this sort of realignment among republicans. i think she is doing it for a slightly different reason which is the argument as she is a scary progressive black woman that is the fifth member of the squad. hanging out with liz cheney counteracts that. how scary can i be if i'm here with this white suburban lady. that is her strategy around that to the extent that she may lose, i think you can probably trace some of this back to donald trump, haitians, immigrants eating your pets and then you fast-forward to jd vance talking about immigrants taking your house is and then you fast-forward a little bit more to this recent lie around immigrants taking fema funds.

and, so, i think that that is the territory that has worked for donald trump and can really begin for him particularly against a woman of color. >> to some extent i think it will come down to this ground game. voter contacts making sure that you are not taking the base voters for granted. that is the real fear. latino voters, information voters which are different from those types of voters. so that is what folks are talking about to me. they are worried that again she is focusing too much on the liz cheney's of the world and not enough on the traditional base of the democratic party. >> do not underestimate civility either. the vp debate turned out to be very civilized. it was very well received by the

public. i would just say, i think harris kind of joined and said she would not stoop to that level of the insulting things like that when people would ask about the comment she would roll her eyes and say it is ridiculous, move on. same old trump, same playbook and move on. up until now, that has been their strategy. >> she is a black woman. she has to be careful around this stereotype of being an angry black woman or a ball busting woman or anything around that so she is held to a different standard because she is a woman and because she is a woman of color. >> i hear fear versus joy. i hear are people tired or are they not tired of the trump era? those could be the two frameworks. final question before we wrap up when are you feeling safe to go on vacation?

we will have an auction and then we will have an aftermath. >> this is a very real discussion in my household right now. end of november beginning of december. >> you are not sure yet. >> christmas ideally. i am from south carolina hopefully i will get to spend time in south carolina. i think no matter who wins, if kamala harris wins this backlash will be massive. with barack obama and we have seen that. >> also the celebration and the joy. >> i think that's right. i think that's right. there will be dancing in the street and then there will be some, i think, shock among some communities as well and not in a good way. we will see when the campaign is called, but i think the reverberations of it iterate both positive and negative for quite some time.

>> i am looking for the positivity. even though we talking about the exhaustive nature, all three of us have dream jobs. these are dream jobs. we get to document history. >> i remain optimistic about america, about america's future, certainly about the young folks that are here in this room. i say that as a black yay woman whose ancestors were enslaved. listen, this is a great country. we have come a long way and will continue to make strides. >> it is an incredible story to get to be part of. thank you both very much. let me bring up one more speaker really quickly. closing us out. ann-marie, the floor is yours. >> i just want to thank everyone for coming today. wonderful impressive journalists spending your time with us. your time is very valuable. thank you for that. an alliance, we want you to get

involved. be part of the community. the goal is to showcase alumni in the field and promote professional development. i want to share three top ways to get involved. externship in the summer. not summer, spring break. actually, spring break. open to seniors from the undergrad, nba law school. you get

>> c-span said they are ready so we are ready now as well. as soon as i can control this microphone. there we go. perfect. good morning, welcome to the national press club, the place where news happens. i'm emily wilkins with the honor of being the 117th president of

the national press club and a correspondent for cnbc in washington. thanks for joining us of the national press club for headliners panel on unions, labor and the national labor relations act and thanks to those of you joining the discussion online or by tuning in on c-span television and radio. we are very happy to accept questions from the audience and we will take as many as time permits. if you would like to submit a question please admit email headliners. it is plural at press.org. and right labor in the subject line. the survey by gallup published in august found 70% of americans approve of labor unions. in the past several years millions of workers around the country including high profile -- in the past several years millions of workers around the country include in high-profile campaigns at starbucks, amazon, wells fargo and apple stores

have sought to organize. in data the bureau of labor statistics released shows union election positions were up 27% from fiscal year 20 23 year 2024. and doubling since fiscal year 2021. yet 10% of wage and salary workers or 14.4 million workers belong to unions in 2023. that's now 20 -- down 20% from 1983 according to the pls. meanwhile employers are increasingly challenging the constitutionality of the national labor relations board and its power to enforce the national labor relations act. spacex recently winning a stay in a texas court that stopped the nlrb from pursuing administrative cases for unfair labor practice. and in april the supreme court heard a challenge brought by starbucks after a lower court ordered the company to reinstate several paris's does who were fired after they announced plans

to unionize. in june the court sided with starbucks. exploring these with us today we are delighted to have with us an all-star panel. we have national labor relations board general counsel jennifer abruzzo who is responsible for the investigation and provocation of unfair labor practice cases. general counsel abruzzo had previously worked for more than two decades in various roles of the nlrb including field attorney, deputy regional attorney and deputy general counsel. she served as a special counsel for strategic initiative for the commute workers of america. brian patrice, general counsel of the labor international union of north america mid-atlantic regional organizing coalition is a frequent presenter of panels at the union lawyers alliance and the national employee lawyers association in relation to his work obtaining new visas.

and the international president of the news guild communication workers of america a former reporter at the arkansas democrat gazette and the los angeles times. part of a group of workers who organized the first newsroom union at the los angeles times. he was elected president of the new guild in 2019 and since then more than 7500 workers from 180 workplaces have organized with the new guild. please join me for a warm welcome for our esteemed guests. [applause] >> now i think i get to move to this chair. we can have a great conversation between the three of us. i just want to start off with a broad general question and feel free to take this in a direction you want. tell me about what you see for the purpose for the national labor relations act.

>> we went out of order there. sorry about that. so obviously the purpose of the act is to restore balance between workers and their employers. it's very clear through the industrial age that employers had too much bargain leverage for workers and workers as a result were suffering inadequate wages and working conditions, safety problems pride the act was established by congress to give workers greater leverage and also to control the violence that resulted from the fact workers were struggling often violently with their employers to get dignity at work and fair wages. so the purpose of the act is to allow workers to come together to act as a more powerful bargaining force in the economy

against increasingly large employers. so that i think is the purpose of the act and then all these other rights are designed to make sure workers have free choice to make the decision to come together and bargain with employers and they will in fact recognize their representatives and bargain with them so that workers can get better wage conditions and safety at the job site. >> general counsel of the nlrb. brian is 100% right, the statute is a most 90 years old during the great depression 1935 congress enacted it. there was a lot of industrial instability, wildcat strikes going on because workers lacked channels of communication to engage together and with their employers to improve their work circumstances. and that was affecting a failing economy. so it is a statute that's designed to level the playing field between employees and

their employers by promoting the practice process of collective bargaining. allowing for workers to freely choose who they want to collectively bargain on their behalf with their employers and to otherwise engage with one another to improve their wages and working conditions and address issues of mutual concern. so we are enforcing a pro-worker statute. a pro-worker statute. i am often maligned, i don't know or often asked what do you do about the situation where when a democratic administration and the nlrb is prounion and when a republican administration is the agent -- the agency's

pro-employer and there is this flip-flopping and back-and-forth and what are people supposed to do. the answer is the statute is not prounion and it is not pro-employer. it is pro-worker. and we promote workers ability to elevate their voices and be heard and seek the respect and the dignity they deserve in the workplace and get a piece of the pie for the value they add to their employer's operations. so that's what we are about, that's what we've been about for 90 years and we will continue to be about that forever. >> >> those were great views from lawyers. i will not speak like a lawyer but the thing that strikes me about the act is probably the fact that it's provided some any basis protections that many americans have no clue about. i grew up in rural arkansas and

i did not know any thing about unions. i thought it was a far off thing. big bulky guys down in mines or putting together cars and so i didn't have a clue it all that i could actually form a union. the national labor relations act provides americans working in the private sector the right to collectively bargain to negotiate to talk about their wages, this is something that is super taboo in a lot of newsroom circles with the workers would mostly represent but a lot of workplaces it's taboo to talk about your wages. it something you can legally do. you can talk about your working conditions or your benefit to come together and try to make them better. at a basic level the thing i love is it is this amazing power that every american working in the private sector has right there that they can take advantage of and most of them don't even know it. >> that was a fantastic overview , i want to get to the news

today that we did see this increase in these decisions over the last year can you just talk about why you think we are seeing this increase now. what does it mean to you and what does it mean for the future of unions. >> a lot of it has to do with education as john said. so many workers it's a very broad statute. it covers unionization of course but it also covers workers just engaging together talking about issues of mutual concern, talking about discrimination in the workplace. advocating, engaging in social, racial and economic justice advocacy where there's a nexus to something going on in the workplace. we want to case where there was racial discrimination happening at home depot, of the workers were complaining about it internally obviously it had a broader impact socially. we said that was a concerted

activity. the press has done a wonderful job in getting the message out there because workers need to know there is a statute that protects the rights to talk an with -- with one another about health and safety issues or whatever is of concern to them and they cannot be retaliated against for doing so and if they are there is an agency that will not only protect their rights to engage in that behavior but to remedy violations and a hold the violators accountable. and so it's really i think the education is key, knowledge is power. there is strength in numbers and so the more we can get out there and advise workers about the rights that they have, the better. i think that's why we are seeing this surge and certainly during the time i've been back at the

agency, i was with the agency for 25 years than out during the trump administration and now back in my current role as general counsel. i do think that we are seeing underserved vulnerable populations actually feeling empowered to elevate their voices and be heard, to demand to see -- a seat at the bargaining table with her that's their established labor organizations or through homegrown ones. it does not really matter. i think labor organizations need to be nimble. there is no one-size-fits-all. workers are organizing in different ways using social media for example. they are bargaining in different ways. hybrid bargaining, a virtual bargaining. i see where workers weathered through established labor organizations are not are feeling more empowered to engage with their employer and i hope we see more of that.

i will say we -- fiscal year 21 when i came in as general counsel today, our case intake has increased 47%. so it's wonderful. i think it is wonderful. i don't want to see violations of the statute but, and certainly workers need to file charges with us. we have no independent investigatory authority. so we have to be out there and educating not only about rights but about the agency because otherwise they really have no place to go, no private rights to sue in court. they have to know that our agency exists. so education. >> to build on that, the other thing is when we talked about the purpose of the act to level the playing field and what we are seeing recently is areas

where the playing field was previously seen as level it's now not level and we are seeing that increasingly with higher educated employees. even medical workers, position -- physicians, nurses. everyone in the hospital seeing private equity by medical practices and doctors who used to consider themselves as having a very high leverage position economy going lower and we are seeing that across the board with educated workers. so we are actually seeing the lack of a level playing field stretch with the economy. it isn't going away it's getting worse. it's spreading to places where this was originally passed people probably never thought that a worker like this would need a union. and now increasingly some workers are coming to the idea may be unionization should benefit my profession as well. and i do think that -- see that a lot in the statistics around

the energy around collective bargaining right now is that more workers in new industries are saying this is something we need because we need a level playing field. >> the fact that 2018 when you guys started these unions it was not that long ago. i'm wondering if there was a tipping point for you or a moment where you are just like we really need to have more power on the sides of the worker. >> it started when we got a link in our slack channel at the l.a. times. for me it started we got a link in the slack channel for our group and journalists were all in love and hate slack for work. and the link was a hidden youtube video from the director of hr now -- announcing with so much glee in her voice that she was eliminating our crew paid vacation time. and switching to an unlimited flexible time off which would mean we could take as many days as we wanted. but effectively meant that we

were not accruing value in our vacation and our paycheck every single day that we could then use two for having a kid, for planning for some emergency, for some medical procedure. it was stripped away from us because we did not have a union. so it became a very quick conversation of may be we should form a union. that was the case for so many folks, so many journalists we've seen over and over again, mentioning private equity spreading across the economy but hedge fund private equity have taken that on. all with global capital. the chicago tribune, the baltimore sun. bought up the orlando sentinel 11 years ago bought at the denver post and has basically been siphoning resources out of it. and really reducing the number of working journalists and local communities across the country. so we've basically seen this huge wave of organizing in

response to really terrible conditions at least in the news industry where we've lost 35,000 workers in the last 15 years. through the consolidation, through the in coach -- encroachment of equity. and i think journalists like a lot of other workers are just like that is ridiculous we have to stand here and fight back because this is something we care deeply about and if it's not can it be the boss because they're controlled by private equity then it's good to be us. >> that was i think a really illuminating example of some of the things workers are being making us think a we need to get together and see what our power can be in pushing back against some of these practices. i know were having a number of questions come in. if you're in the room if you want to take one of the cards there write a question and you can pass it who sitting there in the lovely purple dress. we had a couple of questions come in. forgive me parker for slaughtering your last name. this question jennifer is for you.

the agency walked away from its litigation around joint employer rules. can you give us any insight into that decision and what next steps are providing in the standard sprayed and if you could start off with a five second version of that for the few people here who don't know what that is paid >> sure. the trump board joint employer rule was -- joint employers are two or more employers that are controlling some terms and conditions of employment of a set of employees think of a dominate -- a company using a contractor and they have employees but the dominant company is controlling the wage range or the schedules, opening and closing up the stores or any number of things or a franchise, or a franchisee situation.

we had that with mcdonald's for example. so that's what a joint employer is, a relationship is. the trump board issued a rule that i won't go into the gory details about why they issued a rule. if there was adjudication initially there were some issues with one board member who failed to recuse himself. they decided to issue a joint employer rule basically said you are not a joint employer unless you control a essential terms and conditions of employment and that control has to be direct and substantial control and then they lifted what the essential terms and conditions of employment were. which did not include health and safety. at any rate the biden board then issued its own rules because that's the only way you can typically undo a previous rule.

which went back to more of a common-law which was direct or indirect control over terms and conditions of employment. and that got enjoined i am not a board member as you know. and so -- there is a law -- wall between the general counsel side which is a prosecutorial arm and the board side which is the adjudicatory arm. and never the twain shall meet. i can engage in apartheid communications with them so i do not know exactly why they decided to give up the ghost on the joint employer rules there. however i do think personally that they could go back to adjudication and go back to the correct standard in my opinion which is the direct or indirect

control which is the common-law factors. >> jennifer we do have another question here from a law 360 reporter which hopefully this one you will be able to answer. while your office recently released a memo about non-competes in state or pay clauses how does your theory about the lawfulness of these provisions balance the rights of employers and workers? >> let me just start with that last piece. workers have rights. unions and employers have obligations under our statutes. let's just start there. in terms of the restrictive covenants which there's a number of us at various government agencies who are all looking at this obviously from our different lenses. but the issue with non-competes from at stay or pay arrangements where you've got to sign off and

you are required to stay at a particular employer for two years making a hypothetical for two years if you don't stay for two years you have to pay back $100,000 may it's prorated if you stay a year or what have you but it's a substantial amount of money. or basically just indentured servitude, forcing people to stay at their employing entity. despite how horrendous the working conditions may be. and so from my perch with regards to these restrictive covenants, as we've been saying, the statute was enacted to equalize bargaining power between workers and their employers. and when you have these restrictive covenants whether it be a noncompete or fair pay or something else you are taking away one of the greatest weapons

that workers have which is to threaten to resign or to actually resign in concert and go elsewhere to get better conditions. you've taken away that weapon because they can threaten to resign or they can even resign. but where are they going, this a geographic restriction. there's a time restriction. you are killing them from actually engaging together because of their unlawfully fired, where they going to work while the trying to get the job back trade will they have to relocate their family. if they go on strike and one supplemental income where will they go because they are subject to these restrict of covenants. so to me it's clearly chills employees exercise of their rights to unionize, to engage in protective conservative activity and our job is to make sure that there are not restrictions to

those rights and if there are violations that we are quickly remedying them. you brought up very early the issues of spacex and other companies that are challenging us. i just want to say out loud and this is kind of evidence i think. but it is worth saying. it's a distraction right because we are trying to hold violators of our statute accountable and when you've got these deep pocket corporations that would rather spend money fighting and litigating versus provide their workers with better wages or better benefits or whatever it is that's what their workers want. it's truly is a distraction from them being held accountable as

violators of the law. so you know a lot of the reporting is about constitutional challenges and spacex got that in texas in district court where there more than happy to enjoin us at the fifth circuit and we will see what happens. but their goal is to just stop us from doing our jobs. and we have been governing labor-management relations for just about 90 years now. everybody in this country. we are the only federal agency that enforces the only federal labor law in this country. it would be chaos if the agency was not allowed to perform its functions and do it properly. >> kind of just following off of that. please feel free to jump in here

if you guys have thought sprayed what needs to happen now that some of these big companies have figured out that there are ways they can sort of sell your work, put you through this really long court process and take you away from your main mission of litigating some of these claims. >> shout out to the law 360 reporter for her great question and congratulations on their eight day strike that they won last month. >> i think that one of the biggest challenges right now for jennifer and the entire board is underfunding. they do not have enough staff to actually adequately handle that increased whether it's elections or unfair labor practices. they lost about 40% of their staff since 2010 which is really decimated their ability to move quickly so they need proper funding. i think personally the budget should be doubled based on the amount of need that there is out there and separately i think

there should be some real aggressive penalties for companies when they violate the law. we file unfair labor practices a lot, almost every week against major news companies across the country for violating federal law as we see it. and we get rulings but it takes a while for them to actually move through the system especially when you have lower staff. we've been on strike of the pittsburgh post-gazette for two years. and it's taken a very long time for the unfair labor practices to go from a charge to a complaint to getting a full board ruling that we got last month a few weeks ago. but there really should be some aggressive penalties i think for companies and for employer specifically. i think there should be strong fines. i think there should be potential jail time for companies and bosses that break the law. this is the law, there should be consequences for violating the law. as jennifer said.

>> i just need to jump in. a lot of people violate the law and get out with like paying a fine. why go as far as jail time. >> you've got ceos making millions of dollars a year and spending millions of dollars paying attorneys to violate the law. so for instance of the pittsburgh post-gazette it's a pretty straightforward issue. it's a lack of following the law and bargaining in good faith is the specific wording but showing up for the bargaining table and agreeing to move a little bit here and there. to work out a compromise to get to a contract that's also about arguing and agreeing to pay for health care. the actual cost to resolve that is minuscule to the amount of money that these companies and specifically large chair people like john bloch and alan block the people of the pittsburgh post-gazette lock indications to

actually follow the law instead they're spending millions of dollars hiring attorneys. i think they should be held accountable. there should be more penalties. they should face jail time if they do it. and it's not out of the realm of possibility for the board to actually call the u.s. marshals and go after folks who do violate the law when it becomes this bad for so long, or needs to be serious consequences. the law is just followed. >> i'll piggyback on that. >> the current law does not allow jailing employers except for extreme instances of contempt of court. but i do agree with the comment that we do need to have more respected norms around this issue because what we are seeing is employers just do not respect the idea that the workers have the right to make this choice. the workers make this choice, they make it unmistakably and

the employers still do not care. and we see this, a lot of this started as really kooky right-wing theories of attacking the national labor relations board based on the supreme court had clearly rejected and we were seeing them come back like zombies now 90 years later. which is a clear indication of the employer's contempt for this idea that the workers have these rights, the workers forced them to sit across the table and bargain. so we do need as a society to translate the widespread respect for collective bargaining that we've had as seen by public sentiment. we need to find a way to translate that into a norm that all the important players are willing to respect. if we have that if we can get that we will see the operation work much better. more freedom of workers to join

unions and bargain. but we have to get to the point and a lot of that is going to be public opinion. with respect to company's the do show complete contempt for the collective bargaining law. if they are good essay i want to have courts enjoin collective bargaining law in the country, they need to take that into account. they do need to fill these norms and it's incumbent on every citizen. to say this is an important right and we don't like it when you show contempt to it. >> we do have a question from the audience talk of the kinds of workers and the laborers union of what changes under the current nlrb have helped them in organizing or bargaining.

>> we represent construction workers and it's kind of exactly what you would expect particular with laborers for their mostly people who carry heavy things on construction sites and you shall go up shovels to dig. the thing that this administration has been doing that has most benefited the workers. this is not exclusive but i think the general counsel has done this better than anyone else probably in the country which is deferred action for workers who do not have immigration status who are victims of violations of the rights under u.s. laws. the country has always had a problem with enforcement of laws and criminal laws, civil laws if people who are victims do not feel free to report when their rights are violated and that has

the effect of undermining standards across the country. there's been a program to provide deferred actions to those victims so if the laws can be enforced. this is at a major positive impact in terms of bringing forth complaints, violations, people who have -- we have recently and example of workers who are having their supervisors shake them down to say you get your paycheck and then say hand over some portion of it. it's like a bully, a schoolyard bully taking someone's lunch money. it is at that level and they are doing it because the supervisor felt certain there's no way this worker will report me. the worker is going to report him. and we would not have this tool without the deferred action. to protect workers who have

these violations. so i think that is probably the most significant thing that we have had showing a direct affect on the ground for workers who have very immediate problems. >> we have a question that says does the nlrb protect. it sounds like the answer is it does. >> yes. whistleblowers are very broad term. it's a very broad term but in general the technical answer is technical. it protects certain activity for mutual aid protection. it's very easy for the nlra to protect we have a look at the specific fact. if they are whistleblower on behalf of other employees including themselves than absolutely provide protection for them. >> that's the more -- that's where you are more protected anyway. when you are forming a union or decide to go on strike you do it as a collective.

there is power in the numbers so the more you can bring your colleagues together to do something the more protection you'll have regardless. >> i just want to say one thing about what brian very eloquently said before and i'm happy to hear that some of what we're doing is making a real impact on the ground which is obviously our goal. you know there's a lot in the news these days about immigrant populations and i'm very proud of the fact that we have issued a number of memos, one of which was about immigrants are employees under our statute and are entitled to the same rights as everybody else and we have made sure that they have safe access to our operations when they need us and that they are treated with dignity and respect. and certainly we are engaging with dhs to ensure that those

that are assisting us, our enforcement actions are protected and are not exploited again. typically you get these vulnerable populations, immigrant populations in particular that is exploited once by the schoolyard bully that says here is your paycheck and now give me some money back. certainly we don't want them to be exploited once again by a threat of deportation for example. there's plenty of as we know legal -- people who are legally here and so just to say it's really important that we recognize that we are all in this together and you know there's a lot to say about collectivism and unity. >> we only have a little bit more than 15 minutes left. still have a ton of questions and i will try to get them as quickly as we possibly can. another one for you jennifer. a number of companies have contended the nlrb structure is

unconstitutional. an emergency petition was submitted this morning to the supreme court to stop and administrate if hearing against an employer. will your office biju dictating these cases while these constitutional agreements are considered and does this change anything for you about how you litigate unfair labor practices? >> the short answer is yes but we are not can estop what we are doing. and we have been successful. we have been unsuccessful in certain district courts in texas. we've been successful in other district courts elsewhere in batting back these request for pull, nary injunctions or temporary restraining orders or administrative proceeding. we are knocking a stop, we are going to continue to enforce the act as we have. john raised a really good point about the lack of resources. our case in taste is way up.

you gave a statistic. it's in the field office of 48 offices around the countries where the vast majority of the work is performed. we have lost since 2011, 62% of the field offices. it is a huge resource issue. and it is because we do not have a reasonable appropriations and congress really needs to step up and provide us as i said earlier we are the only federal agency that protects the only federal labor law in this country and we want to and do the best that we can. but justice delayed is justice denied. there are inherent delays because of the lack of resources , i.e. funds available so that i can staff up. it is really crucial. all of that being said we have

the greatest board agents. they are super committed to the mission. they are super committed to effectuating our congressional mandate and they are doing everything that they can to help workers in this country and i will say all the cases that are brought to us about 40% of those cases are found to have merit. sometimes workers get confused and are not sure what agency this goes to so we gear them -- steer them to another. but we find merit in 40% of all cases that are brought to us. and we settle 96% of those cases. >> upfront for complaints issue or right after perhaps. so the vast majority of the violations are getting remedied once they are investigated and i recognize there's a delay in the

investigation but we actually are getting remedial relief rather quickly for victims of unfair labor practices. there's very few that actually get -- go through the adjudicative process. >> the statistic you laid out earlier is still very interesting. the same number of petitions and cases go up you still have district offices handling these go down because of a lack of funding. i think 2022 was the first time in nearly a decade congress increased funding. i believe the nlrb is currently underfunded by 100 20 million according to some estimates. and you laid out the impacts really clearly there. i'm sorry everyone wants to ask you questions today so we have another one. if donald trump wins in november do you worry a trouble point general counsel will undo your agenda. >> trump is not in a win in

november. you can move on the question. >> we do have to answer that question i'm sorry. >> this is what i will say. so we are a government of people by the people and for the people. this government official is going to do everything she can and i will tell you all the agencies, board agents will do all they can to protect workers rights and to hold violators accountable. i think that no matter who is in the job i go back to what i said the beginning. which is it is a pro-worker statute. and if you take on the job per your congressional mandate you are required to protect workers rights in this country. >> i wanted to make sure no one had anything else to ask. i know the nlrb has expanded its interagency collaboration with

partners like the ftc and doj to promote competition in labor markets. what has been the biggest win for these collaborations and what's on the horizon for this whole of government approach and this is from chris. >> i really applaud the biden harris administration. i've been with the agency for a very long time. as i said earlier and we really have broken down the silos, we really are taking the toll of government approach which is in essence means we are sharing information with one another. because unfortunately when we see violations of our statute which is a very broad statute we often see violations of other statutes. for example workers are complaining about the fact they did not get overtime and they are suspended as a result of that. that's falling under our statute. they engage in collective protected concerted activity.

and it also falls into fair labor standards act. they get the overtime they were entitled to under the law. and so we are talking with one another, we are co-investigating when appropriate, we are co-enforcing. and i'm really proud of the work, the partnerships that we continue to develop but we start develop these under the obama administration with regards to worker protection agencies. but where i've expanded our interagency collaborations has been with those that are the traditional worker protection agencies. the ftc, the doj, antitrust division. because we are looking at we are all about the same thing. you want to stop unfair and deceptive practices, you want to stop misclassification. you want to stop employment structures and models and practices that are creating

vertical restraints on competition that are affecting consumers, that are affecting workers. and so we are all tackling these looking at it from our different lenses. but the goal is to all address them at workplaces at the same time as possible so that workers can actually enjoy working in a conducive environment and which benefits not only them but their families and communities. if they feel empowered to elevate their voices and if their employees actually -- employers listen to what their concerns are and address them, then workplace conflict diminishes and that's a win for everybody and i will say with the ftc and doj antitrust which -- what has been nice is the educational piece between the

two, because i'm certainly not an antitrust expert by any stretch of the imagination. we provide technical assistance to one another which i also think is key and we are assisting with doj antitrust merger investigations so that they are considering the effects on the labor market. the effects on workers, not only on consumers, not only on product or service markets. >> different collaborations. >> it is a continual. we are all trying -- our goals are the same. it is just how we get there may be different. the idea is to ensure that we are doing all that can for working families in the country. >> the -- i do want to say how much i appreciate general counsel abruzzo's vision of the

national labor relations act. i think her view of the fact that non-competes as we discussed, those sorts of impediments to an employer -- employees, her ability to see that that has an impact on the division of really understanding the role leveling the playing field has really been, i just really appreciate it. i represent construction workers. you might think we have no problem with non-competes. we have the guys who hold the paddles and tell you when to go who are subject to noncompete agreements because of the intellectual property they might acquire holding the paddles. this stuff is so widespread and reflects the way employers have maximize their leverage in the employment market. and nothing was being done about it until the biden

administration, including the work of the general counsel here. i think it's been really valuable and really important that we have this sort of vision of really an act that provides freedom to workers and i do think that is what the -- it should be about. it should give a tool to workers to act on their own behalf to improve their lives and we are having a lot of trouble getting there with all of this employer resistance and people trying to get the extra. but that should be the vision that we all share. >> we had a question again from the audience from you. and the person who wrote it wanted to see what you would say to a midcareer journalist who opposes his union organizing because he feels unions are only for dangerous jobs and that it re-allocates midcareer salaries to inexperienced reporters. >> it is pretty common that

different types of workers will have different questions about unionizing when they're going through the process. i remember early on organizing it happened in every single one of them especially in newsrooms in particular because you have young workers who are fresh out of college coming into the newsroom being taken advantage of by the employer, paid next to nothing with terrible benefits. there's not a lot of people in their late 30's and 40's and a lot of newsrooms and there's a lot more veteran journalists who have been around for maybe a few decades at the organization and built up a lot of time. the thing about unionizing is there's benefits for everyone. there's a benefit for a veteran journalist in having job security. if they've got seniority of being at that workplace for a while, they are probably going to be one of the highest-paid journalists in the newsroom this gives them the chance of job

security. they will be the first one laid off. when you're owned by a hedge fund that's typically what they are kind of angling to do. it also helps you negotiate better health care agreements. i remember we've seen in the tribune properties there were eight different types of health care plans you could pick whether it was an hmo or a ppo and the younger journalist ended up getting the most expensive in terms of high ductal plans because they could not afford the monthly premiums. the more veteran journalists who may be had a spouse or some kids would opt for the health care plan that covered their entire family. and when you are in a union and you come together and you look at these issues you are like we are all paying way too much for health care and we should all pay less and have better coverage. so it's really about a question for me is your care about the actual work and your colleagues and your mission. and for journalist we have an

ethical duty to minimize harm. we do that making sure we don't take advantage of sources. we also do that in the workplace to make sure we are not letting younger workers are women of people of color taken advantage of by a company that is actively creating inequities. we have a duty to hold -- it's on us ethically to make sure that the employer follows the law to make sure that the newsroom leadership is doing what they are saying rather than doing their standup meeting where they make a bunch of promises. i think it's actually a very solid ethical thing and if seen a lot of people come together recently on strike we were on strike for 24 days at the rochester democrat, -- chronicle to fight for a successor contract. some of the best leaders with a veteran journalists who were really trying to build an organization in the newsroom that was good for rochester and future generations of journalists. >> i also wanted to ask because

we talked about some of the concerns facing the overall enforcement agencies and some of the current shifts that we are now seeing with employers and employees. i know there is legislation out there which is backed by think it's mostly democrats at this point. but can you talk about if that law was passed what it would do, what would it change and would any of these issues that we discussed today benefit from that. >> as far as the proactive. one of the things it would change would be both to make it easier to originally establish a union and collectively bargain the first contract, the traditional statistic on bargaining the first contract is less than half of successful elections lead to first contract. it is very difficult to do. the proactive would actually establish a process where it would have to happen quickly over short amount of time and if

the parties don't agree they go to arbitration in a manner similar to employees similar to major league baseball on the good arbitration over player salaries. that would provide profits to get into a first contract which would be extremely important change to the act because that's what that is all about is getting to the contract so if you're not delivering that, so that would be a massive change as well as greater protections for the initial organizers as we discussed. there is this problem that there needs to be more deterrence against employers paid a talked about norms but we need more penalties. maybe not necessarily jail, but more employer -- penalty so they comply. and they would deliver that as well. all of what we are trying to do with that proposed change or any changes currently is just to make it easier for workers to

establish a union. the problems that make workers form a union are usually not world historic. a lot of times it's a bad supervisor or a crude lead. it's a very practical problem. if you make it that they have to go through a gauntlet of hostility and intimidation to get there, it is not as useful as a tool for addressing a simple problem like my supervisor is really a jerk. it is important that the actual decision to choose to join a union be obtainable. workers come together so we want this. so i think it will be the step in the right direction. >> i just come back to the thing we said earlier, which is that we need funding for the nlrb. it can actually be enforced. again, the agency is really underfunded.

the challenge with -- organizing drives are very challenging in themselves, right? an employer can voluntarily recognize workers or push for an administration, but then you start bargaining and right now for the news guild we have 91st contracts we are currently bargaining for. and that is literally half of the number of bargaining units that have unionized in the last five years i have been president. now for us, you know, i mentioned it earlier, we are also realizing we just have to do more collective action, and you are seeing that in workers at uaw going on strike. we have had before four strikes so far this year. from the l.a. times to continuing to be on strike at the pittsburgh post--gazette.

we have had newsrooms gone strike in the past, the new york times or washington post, but you have to move to withholding your labor to move the company to agree to what i think are commonsense proposals to make the place a better place to work. ms. wilkins: this is a fantastic discussion. i feel like we could have gone on for another hour, but before we wrap and i ask a final question i wanted to take a moment to think our headliners. and the headliners team member who organized today's event. donna, thank you. as well as the program manager and the club's executive director. we are also very grateful to have the privilege of hosting our extraordinary guests, and there are three of them. we are honored to offer you the official log of the national press club.

it has been given to celebrities, ambassadors, heads of state, and now you are joining the ranks. thank you for taking the time to be here today. also while we have -- it is less than $10, yes. [laughter] you can also get it in the gift shop, but it only counts if it is handed off to you after the panel. i want to let everyone know about a couple of events. we are going to be hearing from craig unger, who will discuss his new book, the secret history of the trees and that stole the white house, and october 29 we will be welcoming veteran affairs secretary dennis mcdonagh you, who will deliver an update on the state of america's veterans and their families. and now for the final question. i'm going to ask everyone for short answers. why do you think journalists have been as successful as they have in unionizing so many newsrooms over the last couple of years? mr. petruska: hard question.

at the end of the day journalists, we are weirdos in that we really love our work. we love the idea of seeking truth and telling stories. for us it comes with this very core passion to protect that work and make sure it is better so we are unionizing at a record pace to continue that work for future generations. ms. abruzzo: i would hope we are helping in that regard in terms of being very aggressive about our enforcement activities so that people feel comfortable engaging together and not fear being retaliated against. mr. schleuss: i will combine those. the additional pressure in the workplace in order to have a good workplace to live in, and also making it easier to organize, you know, the biden nlrb decision that made it easier for workers to organize.

especially in cases where the employer is either delaying or resisting the organizing drive. i think that has helped and played a key role in increasing employees' willingness to file petitions and utilize the machinery of the act. the protections are more robust and the ability to get the union you are looking for is more obtainable. i think those have been important. ms. wilkins: i love the range there, from the technical answer, top i love our jobs a lot. thank you for being here today and thank you for joining us here at the national press club. [applause]

the local report with amy walter rates the race means democrat. >> good evening and thank you for joining us. i am aaron connolly. we want to welcome you here to connecticut state community college. i will be serving as the moderator of tonight's debate which is hosted by wf sp and w atr radio. we are looking forward to a spirited discussion on a number of topics that are very important to voters. so, with that, let's introduce the candidates. first, we want to welcome congresswoman a democrat and her

republican challenger george logan. we appreciate both of you being here tonight. it is important to note that this is the first and only debate between these candidates prior to election day. tonight the candidates will be taking questions from our three panelists. next to me we have channel three susan lewis our chief political reporter. after that we have dan hard. a columnist and senior editor of ct insider and finally -- senior political reporter for wsh you public radio. thank you to you three for being here tonight as well. we did a coin toss with the campaigns on monday we determined that mr. logan will give the first opening statement congresswoman hayes will answer our first question and she will make the first closing statement now to the rules which both of these campaigns have agreed upon

each candidate has a 90 seconds to make an opening statement. after that they will be asked a question and have two minutes to respond to. the opposing candidate will have one minute for a rebuttal. as the moderator, i have the ability to grant another 30 seconds to the original person question. if it is determined that a response is warranted. but after that, we will move on to the next question. each candidate will be given two minutes at the end of the debate to make a closing statement. now that we have gone over the rules, let's get started. mr. logan, we begin tonight with your opening statement and we have 90 seconds. >> thank you. want to thank everyone for being here today. my goal here today is to make the fifth congressional district the best place to live, work, raise a family and retire. you take a look at where we are

now, 32 years ago, everything is worse off. you look at affordability, the cost of everything from groceries, milk, bread, seasoning like adobo, gasoline prices have all gone. you take a look at the border. we have folks coming across the border illegally. folks bringing in illegal drugs, human trafficking, it is a problem and it is a main issue. my opponent has done little to help that situation. as a matter of fact their claim she has actually made it worse. my parents came from america to guatemala. in terms of an education for me and my siblings. give us the opportunity for better job. i do not want that dream to end with me. right now there are so many people struggling to make ends meet. i want to go to washington to work on a bipartisan basis to reduce reckless wasteful spending. i want to lower taxes.

i want people to have more money in their pockets. i want people to feel safer in their community. i want to fix broken washington. one of the most partisan members going to that and i want to be part of that solution. >> congresswoman hayes, you now have your opening statement and you also have 90 seconds. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here tonight he had i look forward to having a spirited debate as the moderator said about the issues that affect the people in this district cared about the things that you care about. he has right. the economy, affordability, the border. all of those are things that people want to talk about. i plan to tell you what i have done what i plan to do. i also look forward to hearing from my opponent. not like status quo but in what he has actually done because he also has a voting record as a state senator, as a connecticut state senator. i would like for him to hear how

he has made this state better. how key, what he has done to affect the people of this district and hopefully, actually , i believe that at the end of this debate that people will see that there is a clear contract between me and my opponent. i want this district where i've lived, raise my children, worked my whole life, worship, shopped, everything, this is a community that i am part of. i want this to be a community where everyone can prosper. not just a few people. not just the wealthy and well-connected, everyone. i have the record to prove that. he says he is bipartisan but he has nothing to show. he cannot point to any specific action. hopefully tonight that will come out and i look forward to a discussion. i look forward to sharing my work and what i have done. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. we appreciate both of your opening statements. the first question tonight will

go to you congresswoman hayes. >> thank you. i want to thank you both for agreeing in participating in this debate. congresswoman hayes, what you see as the three most important things in the district that you would like to address in the next two years. >> well, as i travel around the district whether ethnicities, suburbs, rural communities, there are some things everywhere one of the top issues is inflation we hear a lot about that. we talk about inflation it is not just the price of seasoning and gasoline. it is affordable housing. 36% of people's income goes to affordable housing. i brought money back to this district for affordable housing in different places around the district. to help people so that when they are deciding on their bills and what they have to pay, knowing that a huge chunk is not going

to their rent. part of our inflation conversation is about making sure people have living wages. i voted to increase the minimum wage. my son voted against that when he was a state senator. lowering the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare. that is something i've done time and time again. 129,000 people signed up for the affordable care act in just 2024 that is something that he does not support. i want to make sure that we are addressing all of those issues. i also support the vice presidents plan to go against corporations that are price gouging so that we can lower the price of groceries and things like that. that is a huge issue for me when we talk about inflation and affordability. i think that in this district a big issue for me will be passing a farm bill that protects our farmers. that provides crop insurance, that feeds our children. when you talk about bipartisanship i have a problem with some of my republican colleagues because the bills that i sponsor and cosponsor are

to feed children, public education. they don't want to sign onto things like that. protecting our democracy. january 6 should have been a nonstarter for everyone. it is a disqualifying factor. you should be able to agree with that. he said that he would not have voted for a january 6 commission those are things that i think feed into all the other issues that we will talk about. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. mr. logan, you now have one minute to reply. >> over and over again, are the complications for sure. affordability the big issue. directly spending in washington and the policies coming from washington that have resulted in government -induced inflation has caused the increase of all kinds of goods and services. the people in the district are suffering from. take a look at energy costs and

the cost of gasoline. the administration of washington , the first thing was killing the keystone pipeline. racing towards energy independence. my opponent supported washington in terms of their absolute war against american energy, american energy independence. i want them to be energy independent. i want to bring down the costs in a sustainable way. we must secure the southern border. we must fix washington. washington is broken. folks are tired of the partisanship that we have in washington. we can fix it. we need a new voice in washington. she has had six years to make a difference and she has not. >> right now we will move onto question two. two minutes. >> thank you very much. you have both talked already in a short few minutes about the economy and jobs.

i want to drill down a little bit more and talk about how you think things are right now. you both talked about families struggling and that is always the case. families are struggling with prices as you said, mr. logan. how do you thinks are right now? unemployment is near record lows hovering around 4%. jobs are the high sustainable number. wages have outpaced inflation of these for the last two years. and yet there is a lot of struggle. how would you characterize the economy and what do you think should happen differently? >> sure. for me and the people of the district statistics mean absolutely nothing. when you take a look at what the people in the district are suffering with high grocery prices, high gas prices, the cost of mortgages, rent going up , we have young people that do not have the ability to what i've been able to do with my family. my home, raise a family, the cost of everything is going. jobs are going down.

america's place in the world has been exponentially weekend. supported by my candidate, my opponent. we need to go in a different direction. it is time for us to really hone in on wasteful spending. it is time for us to reduce taxes. put more money in the pocket of folks. that will help our economy. we need to make sure that the government stops putting together these loaded programs that result in deficit spending. deficit spending is kicking the can down the road. it is not only hurting the folks in the district here right now, but shamefully it is hurting our children which we are seeing now because they cannot find good jobs here in connecticut. it is hard to do. we are not encouraging businesses to grow. i would argue that right now the economy is trending poorly over the long term. we need a sustainable healthy

economy. we do that with responsible spending. making sure we focus to make our community safer. we need to secure our borders. we have approximately 500,000 illegal guns entering our country every year. my opponent is supporting government programs to give legal counsel to illegal immigrants. my opponent is using your taxpayer dollars to bring illegal immigrants and send them to different parts of the country. that is a problem. that is wrong. we need to secure our borders. >> your time is up. thank you very much. we appreciate. congresswoman hayes, your rebuttal. >> talking about the cost-of-living and high prices, he does not bring up energy costs because when he had the opportunity to do something about one of the things that people in this district are talking about, he took a walk on that boat is a state senator. i guess it was too hard for him

to make a decision on that. what i would like to do in order to make sure we are addressing our economy is talk about jobs, unemployment. we have the lowest unemployment rate. the investments we made during the pandemic have helped the united states to recover faster than any developing nation in the world. some of the things that i worked on his job training programs. you cannot have a job without childcare, without making permanent child tax credit. taking care of labor so that when we are distributing some of these contracts for these infrastructure projects, $5 billion i came back to the state that we are paying fair wages and people have jobs that they can feed their families and live in this district. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. the next question will be going to you. it will be about crime. >> hello. crime has been a big issue in your last campaign.

mr. logan has brought it up again this year. in his campaign ads. he claims that you support an open southern border which led sin deadly drugs, guns and crime but the state office of policy and management faunal reports a short drop in all categories of crime in connecticut. violent crime has dropped 41% in the past 10 years. property crime 23%. the prison population is about 40% less than it was 10 years ago. it is crime a problem and if so, what can be done about it? >> yes, according to your statistics, crime is down. for people in this state and statistics it does not matter. if they are affected in any way then that is their metric for evaluation. as far as what my opponent is saying about me on this issue, a lie does not care who tells it.

as your congresswoman i voted abroad $15 million in funds to support law enforcement. one of the biggest investments ever. i have brought back community projects to upgrading improve communication systems in the police department new fairfield watertown brookfield police departments. brought hundreds of thousands of dollars back to our police athletic league's to build trust with community. this is a back and forth. this idea that we can incarcerate our way out of a crime problem is so incredibly flawed. we have to build trust with communities. we have to make sure that not only are we supporting our law enforcement offices and giving them the tools training and resources that they need, but we are also making sure that accountability is there. i am the wife of a police officer. my husband has been on the job

for 27 years. i am also the mother of three black sons. i want to make sure that my sons are not afraid of their encounters with police. that has to be part of the conversation. mr. logan has a lot to say on this. when he was a state senator and had the opportunity to vote to support the connecticut state police for hazard pay and raises in their salaries, he voted against it. he is introducing himself to this district and deciding who he wants you to believe he is. i offer you to fact check everything i'm saying. to look at his record and look at the fact that he voted against the connecticut state police when he had the chance so we can say whatever he wants. trying to convince you of something that you know not to be true. but i know how he voted. >> mr. logan, you have one minute. >> very difficult bills that we had to bring. i support increasing. i am consistent in my support of

it. it had to do with the process that democrats here should want when switching the bills before we actually put together a budget. the issue has more to do with the process issue, not my willingness to increase officers pay. we need to have responsible budgeting. the same budget that you are talking about in that year, we passed a bipartisan budget. i think i have done more for the state of connecticut as you have as a congresswoman. a bipartisan budget. we have instituted guardrails against spending caps. volatility cap and these things have allowed us to have multibillion-dollar surplus. getting them to shore up our budget in terms of our pension debt. make sure that we are not doing as much spending as we were before. we have had a great success in terms of my time. we are seeing the results of that now.

>> we appreciate. thank you so much. congresswoman hayes, would you like 30 seconds to respond? >> i am a history teacher. i taught civics. the first job of the legislature is to make the laws of past budget. the fact that you voted on a budget is not specific to your successes as a state legislature you remind me of the kid who is part of a group project and does not do anything but wants credit for the final grade. that is something that everyone did. our state is in the position that it is now because of the federal investment that have come back to the state time and time again for my time in congress. >> thank you. we do have a lot more to get to tonight. the next question is about the border bill. >> mr. logan, immigration is a big issue in this upcoming election and it is important to the people in connecticut. you have mentioned immigration in the border many times while running for congress.

would you have supported the border bill, the one that was proposed but never brought to the house floor and why? if it were to be reintroduced, no matter under which administration, would you support it and further, would you support a comprehensive immigration bill? >> i will start with the last part of your question. yes, i would absolutely support a comprehensive immigration bill we cannot do that until we secure our border. that senate bill, supported by my opponent, that would have brought in 1.8 million illegal immigrants. we will move and transport illegal immigrants to all parts of the country. by goal is to fix illegal immigration. my goal is to fix. first we must have secure borders.

we need someone who will be strong in terms of crime, in terms of illegal immigration. we can do that, but my opponent has shown no desire, no ability, no leadership in washington on the border bill. she has gone with the stick with her record along with the washington democrat leadership. we do not need that. we need someone that will speak independently. we need someone that will be a voice for you in washington. she comes down here and she goes into the community. once it is over she disappears. she is quiet and she just both in line with the democratic leadership. i will work in a bipartisan basis and i will vote for bills that help our community. i will criticize any bill, any legislation that hurts of people regardless if it comes from the republican or democrat side of the aisle. my opponent has shown no ability to do that. the border bill, i am telling you there is a competing house

bill that is out there as well. i am confident that with the right folks down in washington, if we had some true bipartisanship, we could make some gains. we cannot do that with the current congresswoman. she had almost six years to make a difference. she only made the situation worse. it is time for a change. why cannot washington just work together. i had a 97% bipartisan voting record. bringing it down to washington. >> your two minutes is up. how to go to congressman hayes for one minute. >> i want to make clear that i do not come back at election time because i live here and i'm here all the time. after the last campaign saying he would move to the district permanently. i guess he has not gotten around to that yet. you look as a connecticut state senator. he never split without party. he voted with senate republicans all the time. so you can look at that if you would like. on the border, yes, we need to address our immigration system. we have a broken immigration

system. people presented themselves at the border are doing it following the law. we need to do this in a humane way. i can tell you that, yes, i would support the bipartisan bill that was negotiated in the senate. the bill that they asked for. they said the most conservative republican center to negotiate this bill which would have had lessened processing time. increasing judges. donald trump telling them to vote against it in the bill was changed. >> congresswoman hayes, we appreciate your time. next, the question is for you. hurricane milton about to make landfall. the next question has to deal with the role of fema. this is coming from you, dan. >> we are all hoping and praying for the better result as this latest hurricane hits. we are seeing an increasing number of weather crises

especially flooding perhaps because of climate change. do you think that the fema response emergency management agency response by the administration has been adequate what do you think should happen differently if not and in the big picture, do you see connecticut which has had its own flooding in this very district being left out as the money runs out? should congress allocate more money. >> so, yes. one of the things that we did was for the first time in history address climate change for the problem that it is. and the infrastructure bill, we had money for mitigation, resilience, making sure we were proactively dealing with all of these things. by the time fema comes in, a disaster has already happened. under donald trump's entire time as president he lessened or reduced the amount of funding that would go for disaster.

people are talking about the money running out for fema. before we left for congress pushing funding. we knew that with the intensity and severity of storms we would need more money. republicans blocked it. voted against it every single one of them voted against it. did not want additional funding. i know that my opponent will bring this up. as your congresswoman my job is not to post on twitter or take pictures. it is to get people to help that they need. we had this a couple months ago. thanking me for being in constant contact with them and forgetting funding for them in record time. i've continued to do that to come back to those places because that is what people need they need our legislators and lawmakers to do the job that they were elected to deal.

i had already flown out. when i was flown in chicago, the president was on the ground. we worked in lightning speed to make sure that we brought a disaster declaration back to the state. the infrastructure fund already in place had already started to harden our bridges, our roads to make sure that it was not catastrophic. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. we appreciate that the one minute for you, mr. logan for you to discuss fema. >> when you talk about taking pictures and posting on social media, when we had the floods in august of this year, whether it is dan barry other areas, she went to chicago. she stayed in chicago for a political party.

we talked about the leadership. we need true leadership where you can recognize. you are suffering. i met with people, i met with families to see firsthand what was going on. we need someone that will be a leader and understand they need you to be there. that is what we need you to do. my opponent, again, she is more concerned about satisfying the party leadership to put them over the people. she does that over and over again with her voting record. it is time for a change. we need someone to represent the people of the district. >> thank you. would you like to add 30 seconds >> when it comes to storms and predicting storms, republicans want to get rid of the national weather service. at the very basic. when you want to talk about politicizing a storm, let's look

at what the leader of your party is doing when people are actually dying. convincing them not to take fema funds. not to listen, trying to convince them that the administration is not coming to their aid when every republican governor is saying that they are talk about partisanship, it is on that side. >> we do have to stop you there. thank you. we want you both to sit tight for just a moment. we do have to take a quick commercial break. airing live on channel three continues right after this. welcome back to the primetime debate. george logan. we have a number of other questions we want to get to tonight. our next question will be for mr. logan and it will be asked. >> mr. logan, congresswoman hayes has said tonight. this campaign and this election, both parties nationally put out

messages. do you agree, what does that mean? >> i believe that the direction of our nation is absolutely at stake. do we want two more years or four more years of the failed policies from washington? people want to be able to afford to live and work in the district they want the borders to be secured. they want to make sure that we support our allies internationally. they want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to work, to grow and to be happy in our nation. right now, folks are very concerned. they see the liberal left, very left-leaning policies coming out of the washington leadership. really heading toward socialism.

that is where the fear is when they make policies that continue to increase the cost of everything. driving up inflation. when they see the open borders. they see my opponent continuing to tell you over and over again that she is doing a good job. things are good. they are not as bad as they are. you see it with your own eyes. look at the results. we need folks in washington. we need those that will walk across the aisle and deliver. she has not delivered on all the things out are important to you. whether it is affordability, whether it is safety. the education system. we have issues here that need serious, serious attention. focusing on what my opponent has i have gone into new britain. i have gone into meriden. i see what is happening. underreporting. that is why you are listening at all these statistics.

you know what, if you do not report it, we can say that it is not happening. you will live in these communities. you know that these schools are more dangerous than before. he spends more time trying to keep himself out of fights and trouble than he does studying. that needs to change. >> thank you very much. you have 60 seconds to respond. >> you do not even want to go there with the public school system. first of all, for all of your talk, nothing that you said or done is bipartisan. you cannot even acknowledge when something literally as basic facts. no matter what side of the aisle you are on the political affiliation should be able to agree that it should never have happened and it is a disqualifying factor. voting for the person that incited january 6. asking you to turn off your phone in your camera. voting for donald trump.

mike johnson is a great leader. the person who authored the plan to overthrow and not certified the election. none of those things matter that he is talking about if we don't have free and fair elections in a peaceful power. i will not stand for that. i will not stand here and let mr. logan pretend that it is not an issue. >> would you like 30 seconds to respond? >> i condemn all forms of political violence including january 6. including the anti-somatic riots going on here and across the world. including the assassination attempt on a former president. yes i condemn political violence we have an opportunity to change things. my opponent she just cannot help it. i have told you over and over

again, i am here for you. >> thank you. >> i'm here to represent you and i will do that. >> we have a lot to get to tonight. the next question will be coming from suzanne. it is about all of the world conflicts happening right now. >> congresswoman hayes, i would like to know what you feel the united states role is when it comes to conflict specifically israel. a lot of people are on edge right now worried about what will happen in the middle east. what role does the united states play. when it comes to iran and more specifically nuclear weapons. >> so, just like everyone else, i am heartbroken by what is happening. we want this conflict and that we are seeing right now in israel and gaza and now expanding into other countries. i do believe we have a responsibility to support our

allies that are israel. however, what that support looks like matters. how they use that support matters. i think that families of the hostages who have said they want a negotiated cease-fire. they also want a release of all the hostages that have been held i would say moving forward we have to make sure that there is a bath towards these that give self-determination to the palestinians in gaza. the innocent people. >> netanyahu does not care about the hostages. >> please stop the clock. ....

we need to refrain speaking cheering or anything of the such. this is about the voters and there are lots of important topics to get to here. congresswoman hayes we apologize and we did stop the clock so you can begin again. >> i would say in addition to everything that i just said there are voters who were suffering right now because of what's happening in palestine and in gaza to innocent palestinians and that cannot be overlooked either. that is something we have two makes sure that they are part of the conversation. i'm the only person on this stage who is acknowledged the suffering of the palestinian people and mr. logan has never even acknowledged that their people in the gaza strip that

are suffering that have been displaced and children who are dying. that has to be a part of the solution. i understand that people are passionate about this issue but they have a reason and a right to be passionate about this. when we talk about our allies around the world is not just our allies in israel. i can tell you my republican colleagues held up the budget because they didn't want to support ukraine.

he has been serving in congress since 2018 and currently serves on the small business committee and he lives in lewiston with his wife and his two daughters. republican challenger austen terrio is from a multigenerational logging and farming family. he is a former nascar driver who captured a racing series national title. he stepped away to focus on the business side where he meant toward -- mentors, manages and -- new drivers. he currently lives in fort kent. john and jason will be helping me ask questions of our candidates. i will now it's plain the rules of our debate. each candidate will be given one minute for opening statements and the end of the debate, each candidate will be given one minute and 30 seconds for a closing statement. we will not be timing responses to questions throughout the debate, but we do have a lot of questions to get to, so we are

asking candidates to keep their responses within a minute or two. we are hoping to get a discussion going this evening between the candidates to provide you the viewers an opportunity to get to know who you are voting for. we did a coin toss before the debate to determine the order of the opening and closing statements and we will begin with jared golden. you will have one minute for your opening statement. >> thank you and good evening. i've been representing you in congress for six years now. it has been a huge honor and i am running again, if you so choose to send it back, i look forward to doing it for another two years. i want to say thanks to my family, to my wife, our daughters back home, to my family and hers. i want to thank austin for doing the debate here and of course,

thanks to our moderating team and all the crew here tonight. i appreciate you putting this on. thank you back home for tuning in and i look forward to a hour of conversation. >> we are now going to go to austin terrio. >> thank you for the opportunity to be in your living rooms tonight. for some of you with us for the first time, i am running to represent you in the second district. really proud to have been born and raised in fort kent and there was a lot of hard-working people in that area and around the rest of the state right now that honestly feel like their leaders have forgotten them. they are not aggressive enough to represent those folks back home and that is why i am running. i think about people like my grandparents watching tonight. 82 years old, you guys taught me a lot. you taught me to not give up, to be persistent, to fight for your family and community and that is why i am running for office. we need more of that in

washington. there is too much divisiveness and extremism and we have a lot of problems whether it is the border crisis, crime, inflation, natural resource economy. we have to find solutions to address those problems so i am running to represent you to put people over politics and i look forward to having a discussion tonight. >> we don't want to waste any time, so we're going to go ahead and get right to the first question. >> thank you very much. we begin with this question. as mainers prepare for winter, the high cost of food and energy will make it difficult, especially for vulnerable low income families to afford groceries, medicines and fuel. at the same time, costs are up, benefits from key programs are down from before and during the pandemic because of flat funding and significantly increased demand. what do you propose be done at the federal level and what would

you advocate for to ensure residents in the second district do not go without having critical needs met this winter? >> right now, energy is a huge driver of inflation. we have seen it over the past several years. inflation is driving up the cost of goods, the cost of groceries, the kind that and underneath it, i believe it comes from energy. what we have seen from washington and this administration and from jared golden is a focus on legislation coming through congress right now that is very costly to the maine ratepayers, the folks paying their electricity bills. the inflation reduction act disproportionately has driven inflation out of control. it has increased the cost of electricity, one of the reasons we have green energy schemes popping up around the state, because of the energy tax credits being used to finance those programs.

there is nothing wrong with clean energy, but the issue is it is expensive and on the backs of people living on fixed income. seniors and businesses right here in the valley and around the state right now like the potato growers who are having to pass those costs onto the consumer. what i would like to focus on in washington is looking at natural gas, oil, nuclear. there is nothing wrong with solar and wind in the right places and for the right cost but right now, you're giving away money. it has raised inflation and it is driving the economy and making it tougher people to be able to afford their goods. -- tough for people to afford the goods. >> i did vote for the inflation reduction act. we will get right into that. we talked about at the last couple of nights. that bill is the model of and

all of the above energy approach the united states. it made investments not only in gas and oil production, carbon capture so that we can do that and use those fossil fuels with less emissions, that is great. it made investments in nuclear energy, investments in geothermal, the development of hydrocarbons for the future of potential transportation and invested in wind and solar as well. when i voted for that legislation in august 2020 two, gas was almost five dollars a gallon and now it is down to almost three dollars. that is in part because that law is working the way it was supposed to. that bill also had tax credits that will help mainers better afford heating their homes, important tax credits for insulation and weatherized windows and it also brought down the costs of medicine for our

seniors. $35 insulin is not a law of the land because of the inflation reduction act. we are capping out-of-pocket prescription drug prices for seniors, saving about $500 per senior. right here in the second district. finally i would say the lightning program is really important and i just have to point out that austin has criticized every budget i've ever voted for. every one of those budgets is where that funding comes from so the people of maine, i've joined the delegation getting more money put into that program. at the end of the day, you can't deliver that assistance to people if you don't vote for the budget. >> i want to specifically address the second part of that question which is what are we going to do this winter for mainers facing a critical shortage, which i sort of hidden this problem in terms of the rising costs. groceries up as much as 30% and

average households that rely on programs are going to be looking at a reduction in their benefits this year while facing higher costs. how would you address that in the immediate term? >> i would like to see more money appropriate for like keep. going back to the conversation on the legislation coming out of d.c., over the past couple of years, inflation has gone down to the reason it has gone down is the federal reserve has raised interest rates to a point where it is putting -- it is hurting the economy and making it hard for families to afford to buy their first homes because of interest rates. they did that because of the wishful government spending coming out of washington, d.c.. we can be in support of lowering the cost of prescriptions and we don't have to put it into bills that spend hundreds of billions of dollars, money we don't have that drives up inflation and then we have to fix a problem years down the road because inflation is spiraling out of control.

it is hurting you, it is making your mortgage payments go up, it is making it difficult to invest in properties. we wonder why the cost of housing is so high, is because interest rates are high. the lumber industry is struggling right now because of high interest rates, because of legislation that jared golden and joe biden and kamala harris have pushed through. >> what would you do this winter? >> i would certainly be pushing for that. i would like to see the administration draw down on the strategic oil reserve, get that out into the market. people are going to be looking to be making purchases. i do want to point out on the inflation reduction act, we actually said even if they wanted to release permits for wind projects, they would first

have to release projects for oil and gas. that is a market that is based on future projections. when the government gives a signal to the oil and gas industry like they did with the inflation reduction act, they know and they have been given the go-ahead to drill more and that helps them make decisions to bring down prices. >> we are going to move on to a question that is not too far away from the same topic that came from a viewer in our area. that question is, how will you seek further funding for vital programs that assist our aging population? issues such as food insecurity, social isolation and access to health care. programs such as meals on wheels are experiencing extensive -- >> i am certainly supportive of the budgets that provide money for things like meals on wheels and a lot of that money goes

through local nonprofit organizations that do really good work. i think that is a very important program and i talked about medicare and social security and those are the foundations of a secure retirement for every american. we saved medicare $200 billion over the next 10 years by negotiating lower drug prices as part of the inflation reduction act. we took those savings and put them out toward helping seniors afford important medication. we are capping out-of-pocket costs to save hundreds of dollars. if you have diabetes and you are a senior, you are now guaranteed to pay $35 for insulin. >> austin? >> to give you a story recently, i had a constituent reach out and she was an elderly lady, she had cancer and she couldn't get

a ride to her medical appointment and i got on the phone and talk to some folks and were able to find her a ride so she could get a procedure, but it shows that we have a bigger problem, especially in rural maine, where our constituents who have been paying taxes and paying into the system and paying their fair share years can't even get access to those services when they need them. we also have an issue right now, i think we need to protect social security and medicare. there are a lot of claims out there that i want to cut those programs. that is not true. my grandparents are watching tonight and they depend on those programs. we need to look at cutting in other areas and that includes benefits for people in this country illegally. you can look at it, how much money has the u.s. taxpayer spent on housing illegals, on giving them transportation,

giving the medical care? it is in the billions of dollars. i would like to see that money allocated to americans who are struggling and can't get access to medical care, who can't get treatment because they are living on a fixed income or living by themselves. there are a lot of things we can invest in, but we are spending too much money on illegals and certainly that money is being wasted. >> we definitely have some immigration questions coming up as well. did you want to rebuttal? >> on social security, i want to point out, there is no light out there. austin has committed to not raise taxes. we look at the shortfall in the trust fund security, you could raise revenue, you could let people retire at a later age, which i think working people -- you could cut their benefits. if we do nothing, sometime in the next decade, there is going

to be a 20% cut for beneficiaries. my plan is to raise the contributions by millionaires and billionaires. if we eliminated the cap, we could eliminate 75% of that shortfall. if you are not willing to raise taxes to do it, you will have to look at taking benefits away from people or raising the retirement age. one of my colleagues, a super conservative from georgia, he has a plan that calls for raising the retirement age, calls for cutting benefits to seniors. that is the plan that often is going to have to support if you want support raising taxes. >> that is just not correct. that is the scare tactics being used right now. millions of dollars being spent

on tv to spread lies. have you gone to a mcdonald's recently where they have shut down the in dining because there were not enough people to work? but we can focus on is growing the economic pie. getting more people in the workforce, reforming welfare. we've been looking at helping people get a hand up, getting back into the work hours so that we can have more people paying into social security and medicare. that is how we can strengthen it. jared's response, he wants to raise taxes but what he doesn't say is that is going to affect people here and around the state because what we have seen happen over the past 50 years is that businesses and people move away where taxes are lower. during the trump era, was the highest level of economic growth, low inflation, people had more wages in their pocket at the end of the day because taxes were low. jared wants to raise taxes and

that is one of the things he and his friends will do in the next congress is raise taxes on the middle class, on businesses that are just trying to survive, trying to make a dollar they can hire more people and -- and invest in our local economy. >> did you want to respond to that? >> certainly. if you make more than $168,000 a year, i would propose you should pay more to social security and make sure it is there for our seniors. if you are a millionaire or a billionaire, it is true i want to raise your taxes so we can extend tax breaks for working-class families. without busting our deficit even worse than it already is. we can pay for middle-class tax cuts by raising taxes on the very rich and the largest multinational corporations. many of them pay 0% because of loopholes that congress has put in. i want to make sure they pay their fair share. >> just quickly, and this is

where there is a difference between us. i run my own business and what we have seen is we live in a world economy and when businesses feel like they can get lower taxes, they will take the jobs out of the united states. that is the reason i support tariffs in the united states for things like lumber and steel because we need to tax people, corporations that want to take jobs out of the united states. it keeps businesses here but in terms of making sure the united states can remain competitive, we need to have a tax plan that people cannot illegally escape paying taxes but something that is fair to the people can create jobs here. what have we seen? more people coming into the county, to start new companies and invest? that is not happening. they're going to other states, other countries and that is why i believe tariffs are a good answer for that but also lowering the tax break for americans, that provide jobs and

that is how we can grow our economy. >> we are going to move on to our next question. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. we kind of have a theme here, starting out this debate as our viewers have -- viewers have made clear to us that the economy and the high cost of living is the most important issues to them. you both touched on a little bit but i want to ask a specific question about the high cost of housing, a very important issue. whether you buy or rent, i know the previous debate, you both talked about public-private partnerships and estate programs but i would like to focus on congress. what can the federal government do to help bring down the high cost of housing, whether you rent or own? >> we need to stop the government's wasteful spending. in 2020, look at where interest rates were. look at where they are in 2023 and 2024. they have gone up astronomically and that has affected people's ability to buy and build new

homes. if we want to get serious about making sure we have an economy that works for everyone, we need to have an economic plan and a spending program down and d.c. that doesn't waste trillions of dollars because what happens is the federal reserve had to respond by raising interest rates. if you want to make sure we have more homes, we have an economy that works for everyone, we have to look at programs for the illegals we are spending money on, we have to look at reforming our budget process so we have a level zero-based budgeting program. some of these agencies have to prove to us that that money they want to spend is going to be spent in good use and is going to be good for the taxpayer. those are things i would like to do in d.c. an example where we differ for example, he voted against a bill because he blamed it for putting the deficit out of control and then literally a year later, the inflation reduction act, some estimates say it is going to cost over $1 trillion of the

time this is all said and done. this is an example of a flip-flop, an example of when your party tells you to vote for a green energy agenda that raises inflation. that is what he did. >> i think first, you have to reduce spending. i agree with austin about that. the congressional budget office scores every piece of legislation. they put the price at $440 billion and it raised about $700 billion in revenue. that is raising more money than spending. that reduces the deficit. under a guy that helped recruit austin, kevin mccarthy, he struck a deal with the biden administration just last year that reduced our spending. kevin put out a press release

about how that was going to reduce our federal deficit. we have made progress on this which is why the fed was confident enough to lower interest rates. by doing that, they will bring down the cost of taking out a loan to purchase a home, that'll be a good thing right there. i hope that they will continue to lower rates even more. i expect that they will. i want to talk about the regulation, to make it less expensive to build homes, easier to build them. i've talked to construction businesses that say local regulations are very difficult from one locale to another. some are better than others but that is the main thing they talk to me about. >> let me talk a little bit about the monkey in the room here. as a response to something i wasn't able to get out before. we talk about making sure the middle-class, the taxes are low in the middle class and making sure people have more money. inflation is a tax on the poor

and middle class and what has inflation done over the past three or four years? they decimated the middle-class, they may people have to work two or three jobs in this economy. jared wants to be serious about building homes and having an economy that works for everyone, and he shouldn't have gone down and voted for the wasteful spending he has. kamala harris was the deciding vote in the senate for the inflation reduction act and you and your colleagues in the house got it through to where that is now the law of the land and now we are digging out of a deep hole because energy costs have gone up and that is what is driving inflation out of control. now we are going to have to fix the issue. it is not going to be a quick fix, this is going to take some time but it starts with getting our fiscal house in order and people have been saying that for too long. jarrett has been there for six years and the national debt has going on the control. it's not just him. it is all the people to go down there and say one thing and do another. we need to bring people to the table because other than that,

our kids and grandkids are going to be paying the national debt and we are to the point now where the interest on the national debt is actually higher than what we are spending on defense. there is something wrong with that. we are paying more on interest and we are for our military and defense. >> the deciding vote in the united states senate was joe manchin. joe is the chair of the energy committee in the senate. he is from west virginia, coal country. only if it is being produced here in the united states. i put tariffs against any wind or solar made in china to make sure that it is backing up the inflation reduction act. we've had a lot of talk about

the inflation reduction act. you have to weigh the good and the bad in these thousand page bills. austin is on the sidelines and wants to throw bombs about it. i worked on that legislation, helping health care for seniors. when he says he doesn't support the elation reduction act, he is saying he does not support lower prescription medications, not supporting insulin. >> that is what is wrong with d.c. if more people went down there and stood up for what was right, we wouldn't have 1000 page bills. we will be able to get prescription costs down for seniors, we will be able to cap these costs and protect medicare and social security we wouldn't have to have -- we wouldn't have to put so much pork in these bills so joe manchin voted for it. joe manchin voted for it because they gave him special treatment. he was able to put stuff in that bill that benefited him and it hurt the american people. that is why we need more balance and less extremism.

we need to look at these bills in their totality. if it is bad for the taxpayers, it is bad for the taxpayers. >> having a conversation about the process in a legislative body, often keeps telling me i should be amending things until they are perfect. that's a scenario where you end up taking nothing instead of taking half a loaf. he understands this. he says he supports law enforcement and wants to make important investments in mental health. he wants to support our lobster communities. yet when the state budget came up for a vote this year, he voted no. in that budget was money for law enforcement to hire more state troopers and give them raises. money to repair working waterfronts damaged by the winter storm. a big investment in mental health funding around the state. austin voted no. why didn't he amend it? he can't live up to his own standards. he's just trying to cherry pick

my record. you have to be ready to make tough calls on every bill. when you are new and voting in congress, you're are not in full control. you have to take the time to read the bill and make the tough decisions about what is best for your constituents. >> we are going to stop on this one and move on to the economy and the second district specifically. congressman golden, you mentioned the lobster industry. much has been set throughout this campaign. -- has been said throughout this campaign. what would you propose doing in the coming congress to better ensure the sustainability of these key sectors in our state economy? >> we've talked a lot about the lobster fishing. it is so important to maine's economy. obviously farming.

it is huge those things are the cornerstone of our economy. i'll hit again on the inflation reduction act. that had a tax credit specifically for forest products, timber hp, a paper mill that closed in 2015, 2016. they reopened and are making insulation out of wood fiber. we got them a $16 million tax credit out of the inflation reduction act that will help them open up their final product line and ultimately ramp-up to employing 150 people. i've done things like supporting millions of dollars for the mechanized loving operations training program that you have up here. it's a great program. i've worked closely with the logging contractors to get them

money when we had weather up here that because their operations to go sideways and they were losing money hand over fist. we got them millions of dollars from the federal government to help out their losses. on the farming side, i've actually tried to work closely with agencies like usda, small business development centers, and others to make sure we are getting them the resources they need to continue doing work that way they want to do it and make smart investments in their farms. >> representative theriault? rep. theriault: this is personal for me, i come from a farming and logging family. a lot of people watching tonight have some sort of story of a grandparent or whatever that picked potatoes at one point in their lives. here's the deal, when government creates bad economic climate and the government tries to come into save the day, that is

exactly what mr. golden just talked about. in particular with logging, the logging industry is really struggling because of high interest rates, because of out-of-control government spending. let's look at the farming industry. i was in a potato house this afternoon and i asked the guy, how do you store these potatoes, and he said "our energy costs have doubled, almost tripled." that is what they are facing now. they are -- they may be making more money at the market, but they have such high costs, they are not able to buy new equipment and whatnot. in terms of the lobster industry, this is even more challenging. the federal government is coming after the fisheries, particularly noaa, the agency that is put a lot of regulations on the lobster industry. i've been against offshore wind pretty consistently. jared golden says he's just not support offshore wind, but on several occasions he supported additional subsidies and funding for offshore wind, and the

lobster industry is spending millions of dollars in losses trying to fight back against what is going on. they know if the offshore wind turbines come to maine, they will be decimated. this is personal because it affects a lot of people i know. in the inflation reduction act, there's a lot of money spent on renewable energy, even joe biden said it had nothing to do with inflation, it was a green energy bill. noaa is going after fisheries. i would like to go to noaa and say we will not give you any more money unless we come to the table with all the stakeholders involved in the natural resource industries and find a long-term solution, because the people in d.c. like harris and biden and those running his agencies don't know better than the farmers, loggers, and lobster men on the ground at home. they've been doing it for decades and generations and i trust them more. >> last word, each of you. rep. golden: well, on the lobster fishery, since the last

election i've successfully helped get a six-year freeze on proposed regulations. lobstermen were telling us it would be absolutely devastating for the industry. we had to take a compromise to get what we could. i would like to see more years added onto that. certainly i will be trying to do that. the money from noaa was in the same bill that the freeze on the regulateds was in -- regulations was in. if i said no, austen would be attacking me for not getting rid of those regulations. it is like a catch type of argument he's going to use it -- catch-22 type of argument he is trying to use. i've gotten that moved, especially as of the second of january, they can move that to july and keep fighting it. austin is talking about wind

repeatedly, and every debate. right here he voted for the gateway, a powerline. the bill he voted for was with the state government to take private land from the mainers to connect power to the maine grade. those costs get passed off to ratepayers. you voted for it. that is fine if that is what he thought was the right thing, but to stand here for three nights and say you think wind is bad and can it all on me, you have a voting record, too, on this issue. i'm proud of what i've done with the inflation reduction act. we're going to help with energy projects. we have helped oil and gas production increase in this country. and yeah, we have made smart investments in the future of things like renewable energy. rep. theriault: i never said i was against clean energy. i i said i was against clean energy that raises the price of electricity for people living on a fixed income and businesses

now, and that is what is happening not only in maine, but around the country. in particular you changed the subject. we were talking but offer wind in the lobster industry. offer wind is a whole different -- offshore wind is a whole different animal. offer wind is going to devastate the lobster industry. we talk in previous debates, if you want to be serious about making sure offshore wind is not coming to maine, we need people like jared golden to ask for a meeting with joe biden to say we cannot let this happen. and he has claimed he has never had a meeting with joe biden, so is it because you didn't ask for a meeting or they never gave you a meeting with joe biden? i'm deeply concerned, this could decimate an industry for generations come and we need strong and aggressive leadership, and i'm committed to doing that regardless of who the president is. we need people who can get into the administration and say this is what is happening on the ground, and we can't be playing games because at the end of the day we are talking about livelihoods of hundreds of people on the coast. rep. golden: talking about offshore wind, i have a bill at the federal level to say no

offshore wind. that is something i've been pushing the biden administration and noaa to come out and say they will respect that decision. i call it a decision because it was a decision made by the maine legislature. they passed the state law. 75% of our lobster fishing area. that was the piece of legislation that austin voted against. again, he's got his record on these things and he is always just pointing the finger at me you could have protected the lobster fishery and you voted against that. rep. theriault: that's got to be false. i don't know what you are talking about. never voted for anything related to offshore wind that would allow that. back to the issue at hand, we have a real problem with lack of leadership. if we want to be serious about preventing these issues, we can't vote for money that is going to fund these programs in the first place, and then three or four years later say, oh man,

we opened up a can of worms, we gotta fix this issue. you shouldn't have voted for money for offshore wind, because whether it is maine or the federal government, the federal government and maine is looking at that bill and singular so much money in tax credits and subsidies -- let me get started on ev vehicles, four of these programs -- that is why the lobster industry and lawyers are having to go to court to stop this from happening because it is going to decimate this industry. >> we are going to leave it there and move on to another important topic that has been mentioned this evening, border security and immigration. here in maine, residents and communities are faced with the challenge connected with our nation'immigration policy thats for this race. as a growing number of people face homelessness and housing and security with not enough resources to house them, refugees and asylum seekers are being provided shelter in parts of our state. how do you propose we address this at the national level and what specific measures would you

propose to ensure mainers experiencing homelessness are able to access housing like those for out of -- those coming from the state from out of the country? we will start with you, representative theriault. rep. theriault: i think this is one of the most important topics we will discuss tonight. obviously the economy is number one, but this is number two because we affect people coming across unvented, we have not had background checks on them, and they are coming to neighborhoods across the country and they are coming to maine i understand the attack is going to be that you are not compassionate, but it is very non-compassionate to let somebody come into this country when we are not able to provide services for the, we are not able to make sure they get what they need. we have americans, we have veterans, we have people who are homeless. it cannot get access to substance abuse counseling, they cannot get access to mental health because our system is being overtaxed. we literally have tens of millions of people who have come across illegally on the southern border, even the northern border. the northern border is facing a

crisis as well. i was endorsed by the border patrol council because they understand that i'm going to go down to washington, d.c., and fight for them, make sure they have the resources they need to protect the border. the difference between me and jared on the stages before the crisis spiraled out of control in 2018, 2019, 2020, we did have a low-level of people coming across the border. there was some people, but it wasn't in the millions. he voted against building the wall and finalizing the wall, he voted against h.r. 2, the toughest border security measure to make it to the house floor. after several million people across the border, the national news started talking about it, he reversed course, flip-flopped on the issue, and voted for legislation that protected the border. this is about judgment, this is about not letting politics get in the way of what is right for the american people. unfortunately we will see the results of this in maine, we will have to take people in that we cannot provide for them.

social services are paying for housing, medical care, transportation. meanwhile we have people on the streets right now bit i think there's something wrong with that. >> congressman golden? rep. golden: austin claims i watched the national news and suddenly had a change of heart. of course this has been in the national news since i got into politics, so obviously he is wrong about that. my ninth vote in congress in 2019 was for a border security bill that reopened government. it had been shut down by the republican majority prior to my getting into office. we reopened government and we gave $1.3 billion to construction of the border wall. since then i voted for another $5.5 billion for the border wall. collectively over six years, $80 billion for customs and border protection, for border patrol, for ice. we have put forward a 22,000 border patrol force down on the

border, the largest workforce that we have had patrolling the border ever. that is my record. that should speak to you back home, no matter what austin has to say about it. on asylum-seekers, probably what we should do is require them to work. the moment that they come here and we acknowledge them and their claim for asylum, here is your work permit, get to work, we need you to work. and they want to work, i know that they do. while we talked about work and the issue of illegal immigration, austin doesn't have a record on border security. he does have a record on immigration, illegal immigration. he voted against a bill that would have raised penalties on companies here in maine, particularly in the construction industry, who have been employing illegal immigrants, and even more, stealing their wages. that's called wage theft. austin voted against a bill that would've tightened penalties on them. if we cannot trust him to be strong on enforcement of employment laws, how do you

trust him in washington with the southern border? rep. theriault: i'm not sure what jared is referring to, i don't know what bill he's talking about. at the end of the day it is a distraction from the larger issue, which is in 2018, joe biden, kamala harris, and then jared golden made this political. they said we are not going to let donald trump this border fence because we don't want to give them a win, we don't want to let republican secure the border. what happened is we had millions of people come across. now, i do support allowing them to work. if you do that without securing the border, you are only going to incentivize more people to come across. that is why they are coming, they want the american dream, they want to come here. but at the end of the day all of us have immigrated at some point, whether it was two generations or 10 generations ago, and we follow the process and we follow the law. we are for the immigration process, perhaps letting more people in legally, but don't incentivize more people --

literally right now there is flights coming across from some of the countries in south of mexico, and those people are coming across right now, right now, and they are unvetted, we are unable to give them a back on check because the governments don't work with the u.s. government, and nothing has happened. that is just an example of golden saying he voted for border security, but i'm sorry, it was too little, too late. and now we have people that we don't know who they are and we don't know where they came from, and we have to deal with the consequences of that, because of some of them unfortunately don't have the best interests of you in mind and they have bad records. rep. golden: austin is describing that people coming into the country on planes from another country who aren't u.s. citizens, they go through customs. those are people claiming asylum that is what i was talking about when i said we should require them to work. if they have legal status here, we ought to make sure they can legally work. i'm talking about legislation austin opposed.

if they weren't employers giving them jobs, they wouldn't come. when we catch a company doing that and taking advantage of those poor people by stealing their wages, it is hard for american workers to compete with that. but then austin doesn't want to see us throw the book at those types of companies. >> we want to move on to make sure we can get to as many topics as possible. >> we will move on to a topic that i don't think has been addressed much in this race, but as you both know, there have been numerous illegal marijuana groves busted across the state. it is estimated there are hundreds in maine. the director of the fbi says there appears to be a chinese organized crime get what needs to be done at a federal level to help local law enforcement to, number one, stop these growths from happening, and number two, to take them down in a faster rate? we begin with congressman golden. rep. golden: the maine delegation has been having

regular meetings with the federal law enforcement and state law enforcement about this. often times they won't share everything with us because they are in the middle of investigations and they are not going to tell us everything they're doing. often when they take out one of these, they are setting up to go after the next one, so we are not privy to everything. but i'm supportive of what they're doing and i want to continue to give them resources to take on these illegal grove houses. a lot of them are tied to china. in the trade space we can punish them for what we know they are doing to the united states, sending precursors for fentanyl and things, yes, across the southern border, but also through mail packages. there is a thing, de minimis, a trade-related issue or any package under $800 doesn't have to go through customs, it goes right to a warehouse for distribution. it is easier for americans to

ship things -- let's say if they are on vacation and want to send something home, but $800 is way too high in this age. if we can get rid of that right there, we can stop some of these precursors that are used to make fentanyl. i talk about fentanyl as it relates to this because i don't know for sure, but i think there is annexes between the flow of fentanyl -- a nexus between the flow of fentanyl through china and these illegal grove houses, turning red and using it for other illicit purposes. rep. theriault: it has been reported that the illegal money is transferred over to china, the byproducts of fentanyl shipped to mexico, and then they come across the southern border and end up in towns across maine and across the united states. i think there's a couple things here. we need to empower law enforcement to go into these facilities and obviously bust them. it's been happening, i'm glad to see it's been happening, and i fully support the sheriff's

department that are doing that now. that is why i was endorsed by seven sheriffs in the district. in terms of specifically the illegal chinese folks that are coming in, i think it is symbolic of a larger issue, once again, of lax laws and people not taking america seriously with our immigration system with . we have had too many years of too many politicians voting against border security, and i guarantee these multinational gangs and criminal organizations said the united states borders seem like they're open right now, let's cash in. they are cashing in on those overdosing on drugs, fentanyl, and cashing in and buying up houses -- we talked about housing. 300 homes in maine have been bought sight unseen from people out of state, moving into these homes and growing illegal marijuana. and we wonder why we have a

housing issue. i want to make sure law enforcement has the tools they need and the federal government needs to make sure they get involved, and i'm disappointed it took so much time for this to happen. >> we are running short on time and i want to get a few more issues in here. >> obviously, this month marks the anniversary of the tragic shooting in lewiston. do you feel there should be a yellow and/or red flag law at the national level? austin theriault, we will go to you. rep. theriault: this is a sensitive topic. i've supported the yellow flag law and we currently have that at the state level. in this particular case with the lewiston shooting, we know there were instances where this gentleman could have been brought in, his weapons taken under the yellow flag law, because he was obviously -- had mental problems. he was dangerous and he was violent. unfortunately, there was a lot of things that didn't happen correctly. i am for making sure that those issues are addressed, that law

enforcement has what it needs in order to make sure that doesn't happen again, and that the v.a. at the very least is communicate better with law enforcement and mental health practitioners back here at home. but the larger question, and this is the difference between jared and i on this issue, is the second amendment discussion comes up. jared's first thing after this was to say that he supported banning one of the most popular weapons, firearms herein maine. that would not have solved this issue. at the end of the day, by saying that he says he is in line with joe biden and kamala harris on second amendment and gun policy. i think we have a mental health crisis in this country. we have to get tough, make sure that mental health practitioners have the funding they need to assist people when they are in crisis. and when we went away from these larger buildings and larger places that people could go for a period of time and we went to a community health model, we

didn't make enough investments in mental health and people are slipping through the cracks. i've been endorsed as somebody who is going to support the second amendment. gun owners in maine have given me an a, they have given jared an f, because he is flip-flopped on the issue and needs not trusted by hunters and people who believe the second amendment is an important part of life, here in maine and certainly across america. that is the difference between golden and i. rep. golden: i've not been supportive in the past of extremes protection orders like you talked about. i voted against red flag proposals in the maine legislature and the united states congress. after the shooting in lewiston, austin made reference to it, came right from the heart. i said we should have a conversation about the most lethal of firearms. 18 people were killed that night. 13 were wounded. if this type of firearm wasn't

the one that was used, we would have more people alive today. i don't think we are going to legislate our way through a country that doesn't have gun violence. we're not going to get rid of all guns. no when here would support that but what we can do is have a conversation of how to reduce the fatalities by getting some of the most dangerous firearms either off of the shelves or, as i have proposed, let's have a higher threshold for legal possession limit. let's as people like myself, let's meet a higher standard. let's prove we're in a good mental state, we are not addicted to mind-influencing drugs, that we are going to be responsible. maine is not unfamiliar with that type of permitting system like what i proposed right there. i've always sought, through 10 years in office now, to be

balanced and looking at how we protect the individual's second amendment right with an extremely important duty to keep our communities safe. that is what my voting record has reflected for six years now. austin says i have lost trust on this issue. the last president of the sportsmen's alliance of maine when the shooting happened, he just resigned a couple month ago, he is in an ad telling people is the former chief of the maine state of police that he trusts me on the second amendment any trust me to do every thing i can to keep our state and our communities and families safe. rep. theriault: jared, you have the same essentially policy on the second amendment as kamala harris and joe biden. they want to do the same thing with these types of firearms. your permit system is essentially a gun registry, which will allow the government to know what sort of weapons you have in your homes. people actually right now have to pass a background check to buy a firearm. this is one level too far for

the government to get involved with law-abiding gun owners. sportsmen alliance -- once again, sportsmen alliance of maine, gun owners of maine have given me an a rating and given jared feeling ratings because he has flip-flopped and has taken the same position as kamala harris and joe biden. when stanley, you don't even -- coincidentally, you don't even say you are supporting kamala harris, but you have the same policy in the second amendment as she does. rep. golden: it is complete just crazy. everyone knows i am one of the most conservative democrats out there when it comes to gun rights and what i would or wouldn't support is nothing like what austin is suggesting. >> it is hard to believe, but we have actually gone through our our, so we are going to be wrapping it up to make sure that both candidates have time for the closing. that is all the questions we have this evening. we thank you both for that. but we do want to allow you to have your closing statements. each candidate, as we said at

the beginning, is going to get one minute, 30 for closing remarks. austin theriault, we start with you. rep. theriault: this was a lively discussion because i'm passionate about being able to serve the maine people. very proud of being born and raised in fort kent. the values i learned as a kid growing up picking potatoes in the potato field, working in the shop greasing trucks, working with my dad and grandfather in the family business, and ultimately going and racing in nascar, has taught me that we have so much we can be proud of, we have so much we can look forward to. for too long leaders have gone down to washington, d.c., and not delivered and followed through with promises they have made. that is why my campaign has been about making sure we put people over politics, making sure we can create a situation where we have less extremism and more balance in the legislative process. god knows we have a lot of work to do, and it's certainly not going to happen overnight. i'm just one person, but one

person in a group can make a difference. we need more people who are willing to stand up, speak up, and be aggressive for what is right. i can give you my word, we may not agree in all of these issues, but i can promise you you will have a seat at the table with me, you're going to have somebody who is going to fight every single day especially for people who feel lost, that behind, and abandoned. we can do better. washington has failed us, and it is time for a change. i would really appreciate your vote in november. >> thank you very much. jared golden, you have your moment now. rep. golden: austin is calling for less extremism and more balance. i've been one of the house of representatives six years now. if that is what you like, if you like the original band, why pay to see the cover? i've been one of the most bipartisan members of congress year-in and year-out in my voting record reflects that. it's a record i am proud of. i understand maine, i understand

you and your communities. we are independent people, we are fair-minded folks. that is how i've been your representative now for six years in congress. i appreciate having had the opportunity. i'm never going to forget where i come from. through six years, three campaigns, you know i am no matter what the attacks are. you give me another two years, i will continue to do the job the way i have done it the last six years. >> ok, we thank you both very much for participating in this debate, and hopefully the voters/viewers had the opportunity to really get to know the candidates this evening. >> the important job is yours to cast your ballots, whether you are casting absentee or on election day. >> that is the important thing, to register to vote. voting is underway so hopefully you exercise that right. >> we want to thank you gentlemen for a great debate tonight and for being here to

discuss these important issues. >> and this debate, if you were not able to see the whole thing or you want to rewatch it, is going to be available on the wabi website, wagm website, and we hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to listen back and hear what your candidates have to say. we do thank wabi's news director very much for making the trip up here and joining us this evening, and jason parent, thank you very much for being willing to come in and help us with this debate. we thank you tuning in, and we hope you will get out there and vote on november 5. we will be doing political profile next wednesday on october 16 with the four candidates running for the u.s. senate, and we are going to be doing our local political profiles here and that will begin on monday, october 21. thank you to everybody. we hope you are going to get out there and vote on november 5.

we thank you for tuning in, and we'll hope you have a wonderful night.

than one hour. ♪ been. >> hello. i'm dave thompson and welcome to the republic and mrp election coverage 124. 124. tonight the debate for office of north dakota governor. i guess our republican congressman kelly armstrong, democratic state senator merrill

piepkorn independent candidate michael coachman. each candidate will be afforded a one minute opening in one minute closing statement in between the debate and discuss topics and questions that a been chosen by myself, matt also for the partners at aarp. michael coachman goes first. >> hello. i want to thank everybody. first of all, want to thank my lord and savior jesus christ as my lord and savior of what you think also perry public for making this event happen. as running for governor i like to let let people know what i plan on doing and where i stand. one of the things i want to stand on is the u.s. constitution. also the north dakota constitution. why is that important? because without the constitution we are no better than any other country. 95-98% of the issues that we have an north dakota can be a

leaved by just people following the constitution of the u.s. and north dakota. with that, in the bill that will come across my desk i want to make sure that these two books are followed, and if the benefits the people of north dakota. that way you know where our government stands and where you stand as an individual. thank you. >> next will be congressman armstrong. >> thank you, dave for hosting this. they could aarp and republican thank you to all of the people watching at home will give me the privilege of serving first in the state senate and in the united states congress and now this to miss opportunity and responsibility to run for governor of the great state in the greatest country in history of the world. i have always, always tried advocate for north dakota in the most positive way possible. tireless energy from beulah to bismarck to fargo to mental to all the places in between. we have such tremendous opportunities in this state and

we have opportunities to continue to grow, harbors our national resources in a responsible way. ag and energy of the most boring making sure every single kid that goes to high school in north dakota has an opportunity to build a life and career. it's been my great post a short north dakota in the u.s. house of representatives for the last six years but i'm really, really excited about coming home. >> okay, senator piepkorn. >> thank you, dave faq numbers of prairie public. dave thompson, our moderator tonight and, of course, aarp for hosting tonight event. i also want to extend our thoughts and prayers to our residents of north dakota especially the folks at west, our emergency responders as they still are battling those wildfires in the western part of the state. i am real popcorn, i'm candidate for governor of north dakota. morgan stanley, raised in fargo and served eight years in the state senate. will discuss many topics tonight. tonight. i believe you'll find significant differences between

the two other men here on stage with me. if you like to want to be governor for all of north dakota. i'm not beholden to special interests. leave and bipartisanship in putting the good of the state had any elitist or political party or philosophy. we've had enough extremists legislation that interferes with peoples personal lives. that sets me apart in part from my opponents in several ways. first of all, a woman's right to determine her own health care. >> one minute. >> thank you. >> so first topic let's start with measure number four where voters will be asked to decide whether or not local property taxes should be eliminated. estimates show this day would have to find about $3.1 billion per biennium to replace those taxes. i have a two-part question for all of you. how would you vote on the measure? and if it passes, where does the state find the money? we start with kelly armstrong. >> i don't support measure four. i understand the frustration.

i've been from one of the state to the other since january and every two years running for congress people are frustrated. people are angry. people want property tax relief and want property tax reform. the problem i see is that, one, you are absolutely giving up opportunities to rattle money from out-of-state interests to buy lancome do those types of things. the other edge is i quite frankly if you get through this bismarck, grand forks, those types of places do okay. you will start losing absolute local control in this mode committees. we have a great state centered in north dakota but some of them represent five or six school districts in north dakota legislature. having to go to the legislature every two years to deal with those things is going to be really, really problematic and we need to continue to do it. i think property taxes have to be front of my one way or the other whether the measure passes, whether the measure fails. if the measure passes you wanted to cut programs, that money, figure out how you deal with those things we start rating principal on some of our funds like the legacy fund which means

you'll depleted for future generations. if it doesn't pass we better be serious about not only doing more relief to property tax but significantly reforming it. the legislature over the last 12 years has been good at buy downs. we buy them an average 40% of local property tax all across the state. the problem is we haven't been good at lowering property taxes and that's where the frustration buys and the opportunities to do that that we've encoded one part of it but if the state will be involved in buying down 50% of the local share property tax and we have to have a say in how those local property tax budgets grow.

i plan and voting no including to cut back and services to the local political subdivisions. kelly mentioned a couple. i will mention townships. townships have no taxing authority. they got hundreds of miles of roads the responsible for. cost a lot to gravel and maintain and pay those roads. with the maintainer to keep them level. they need a lot of work. concern about them in particular. when it comes to how he could replace it if it does pass, what are we going to do? people will be lining up and asking the state for help. that's going to be tough, like we are talking about either cut services which will happen or raise taxes are most likely it would be both. who wants to see a statewide sales tax? who wants to see special fees placed on anything from hunting,

morpheus on hunting and licensing fees, to specialties in the cities or finds such as the prairie dog fund is been a great benefit to me people across the state. maybe the legislature as to backtrack on that and say it's been good while it lasted. we can't afford to do that anymore. so if it does pass will have our work cut out for us in the low dosage of the republicans of that 30 years of super majority to take care of this and have done nothing about it yet. >> michael coachman. >> what people need to realize is freedom is always attached to the land. you are not free if you don't own your property. if you go to to three years without paying property tax they will come and take it, which i'm going to get back to an little bit. like i i was ten when it opened up, that the constitution has a lot of things already made out. here article ten in a north dakota constitution as of the legislative the solution that

prohibit from raising revenue or to defray the expense of the state to the levying of a tax of assessed value of real or personal property. it always states on how that is supposed to be taken care of with businesses. we have two individuals who worked the legislative and the not even following the constitution. that is one of the biggest issues we have. it spells out what needs to be done for an individual, which is key to freedom. what no one wants to address is what happens when people can't pay their property tax. they, confiscate all those lands. you go to different counties, for the last couple of years and see him and people who lost their homes because they could not afford the property tax, all because it was in generations to to three years, it's gone. as far as covering the cost, here we have what what youy seen in the newspaper, all the

expenditures the state hasn't done. first of all as governor i will cut all the services that really don't have a purpose, doesn't eat a constitution value. then we start going through in doing audits. we know everyplace needs to be audited. what you do an audit you can find it where the money is. the sad thing is your talk about where the money comes from, -- in my done? okay. >> were going to give anybody else a chance someone or bite at the apple and start again with representative armstrong. >> i mean, the answer to this question is we have to be how to get -- a lot of this is good. we've had 120,000 people come into the state the last ten years. we that growth, , communities tt were shrinking and dying in western north dakota that growing and those are going up and all those different things. yo h