united states. we have another 60,000 i think sex offenders now in our country and that's just what we know of. we have to secure the border. >> thank you. in a related issue and after hearing from various communit members, many have asked why foreign aid is prioritized while domestic issues struggle with underfunding. how would each of you balance foreign aid with addressing critical needs at home? congresswoman glusenkamp perez? rep. perez: federal appropriation bills are set aside for different programs. when i think about our national security and national interest, i know it is by supporting our allies and following through and ensure a liberal democracy in the middle east. the fastest way to end the war would have been for hamas to release the hostages took on october 7, they would have ended

the war at any point. we need to make sure israel has tools to defend itself. i ran for congress because i care about our local issues. a county just went down to a four day school week because revenue went down and i want to make sure we are able to sustainably harvest timber and we are not losing more mills and importing lumber from overseas, but building our homes ourselves. that is what matters to me. supporting a level playing field for small businesses. we've seen -- d.c. does not have the same interests. they are not running small businesses or family businesses. i ran for congress to represent our values to, focus on schools and business and the public infrastructure our businesses rely on. i'm proud to have brought back to million dollars for the i-5 bridge, that is money that

would've gone to california or joe's home state, oregon. federal tax dollars came home to us in washington state to build our infrastructure with southwest washington labor, american-made steel, so we can be a country that can take on the tough jobs and build the best info structure. to advance our pride in being tradesmen. to make sure we are not handing off decrepit infrastructure to our children. i'm really proud of having brought back the federal tax dollars for the infrastructure we rely on to fight for our schools, and sustainable timber harvests. that's what i will focus on. >> thank you. mr. kent, your response? mr. kent: i went to combat 11 times for this country, the greatest honor of my life and i have strong feelings about how our country was lied to by people like dick cheney who i guess are now democrats. i have strong feelings about how our country has prioritized foreign aid and foreign were over american citizens.

one of the things that hurts me the most as a veteran, when you think about how much we sacrificed overseas, how much blood was spilled on foreign soil, how many of our best friends like my late wife are buried in arlington cemetery right now. you walk down the street and you see american citizens squalor, addicted to drugs, homeless, struggling to get by, when we always have enough money to send billions overseas. you see it right now, we have a major crisis on the east coast with this hurricane and we have military bases that could be giving aid but instead they are postured for all of these different engagements overseas. i'm not saying we should stop doing these different things overseas but we've got to start prioritizing actual american citizens. we've got to get this balance right where we are prioritizing our own citizens ahead of the next war. i am not a pacifist by any means, i've spent most of my adult life in combat.

i know what fight is and i'm not afraid of a fight and the only place we should be looking for a fight right now is the southern border. fentanyl is coming across the border and killing our citizens. our country is actually being invaded right now. it's wanting to say it's complicated washington, d.c. that is nonsense, it is our money, we pay taxes and washington, d.c. chooses how they prioritize it. look at her voting record, sh is prioritizing foreign wars and foreign aid in her corporate paymasters, you can see who is funding her reelection campaign. she is prioritizing that and expecting us to be happy with table scraps and that has got to stop. >> thank you. congresswoman, your response? rep. perez: i'm really proud to be ranked in the top 3% of most bipartisan members of the u.s. house of representatives. i am the one who has upheld my

pledge not to take corporate tax money. he reneged on that. this idea of corporate paymasters is not based in reality. look at my voting record you can go to the federal website to see how i voted in line with our values. not the values of a political party. joe moved here to run for congress and purge the republican party of people like my parents, who i love and respect. that's his idea of how politics will work, not standing up for our fight to get sea lions out of the columbia river, not our fight to make sure we have sustainable timber harvest, not our fight to stop wildfires or get shop class back in junior high. i'm proud to have brought a million dollars back to the technical problem right here at lowe columbia college because respect people who work for a living.

>> american industry has been reassuring or returning to the united states rather impressively, which we hasn't seen in decades and it raises two questions, addressed to both of you. first, what effects with a tariff proposed by former president trump have on those reassuring efforts, and ultimately what consequences do you see to reassuring from vice president harris's proposed corporate tax increases? we'll start with mr. kent. mr. kent: let me go back and address some of that. she said she doesn't take corporate pack money, you can see who funds her, it is the military-industrial complex, big pharma and big tech, even astrazeneca has given her nearly $1 million. maybe she will tell us tonight was she promised those big corporations to fulfill their needs. i think you can see that by her record, you can see what she is prioritizing. in terms of trade we have to prioritize american labor and actual american manufacturing. i was disappointed to see when my opponent voted to ship high-paying american

manufacturing jobs overseas to china. she gave biden the permission to go to the chinese communist party to source the electric vehicle charging stations. those could have been high-paying american tech jobs we could've manufactured here in the district. i've talked to actual entrepreneurs here in the district like at united precision, a family-run technology company that does american manufacturing. right now they are working competitively as a small shop in the defense space. however, their business has been hurt by votes like the one she took to ship those jobs overseas. she can say she's for the working class and maybe some unions endorse her but her voting record tells a different tale just like her financing. that's why we had to establish a watchdog site so you can do your own homework and see what her actual voting record is. the tariffs are a strong policy. we've got to reward bringing back american manufacturing and penalize companies that want to

ship manufacturing overseas. tariffs are fair, when we ship our goods overseas they tariff us and and we need at least reciprocal tariffs on goods coming back here and we've got to give american workers and american manufacturing a competitive edge. we can't compete with the slave labor from the chinese communist party or other countries. we got to prioritize american workers and jobs. rep. perez: you don't need to go to joe's website, you can check the federal website where my votes are clear and recorded opposing the tax breaks for solar panels manufactured overseas or the batteries we cannot recycle here. i've opposed the california emissions standards that would have made it impossible to buy internal combustion engines. i support an all of the above

energy policy that make sure we have access to clean, renewable energy from all sources. i will always vote to support the infrastructure small businesses rely on and what our community needs. expwroands a lot of time talking about foreign policy. the reality is, there are things very close to home that need supporting. i'm proud to have stood up to these policies that would have hurt domestic manufacturing. it's one of the reasons that i supported getting money back to the lower clump he a technical program. one of the reasons i've been fighting for shop class in junior high, the right to fix our own stuff against mandates that would create monopolies, in our tablesaw industry. i'm so proud of who we are and what we believe in doing. its critical support domestic manufacturing and support the next generation. we bought a machine shop that

was closing down because we know our customers rely on high-quality parts. junkyards are getting shut down. when i get stuff from overseas, they fail. right out of the box. the way you get a honda civic to 300,000 is by having high quality parts to keep it running. and ensuring we have the right to fix and maintain our own stuff. that our programs are supporting diagnostic skills in young technicians, not just plug and play part swapping. >> mr. kent, any response? mr. kent: well, sounds great, doesn't it? there are links to her house.gov voting record for this reason. she says i talk about foreign policy a lot because we are getting scammed by foreign policy the military-industrial likes that supports her reelection campaign. washington, d.c. can always find money for the next war, there will always be a next war, there

will be annexed for in crisis because that's one of the best ways the beltway has to take our taxpayer dollars and ship them overseas. so that firsthand for well over 20 years in special forces and the cia. i want to make sure we the taxpayers are getting what we need in return from the federal government, not more foreign adventurism. we don't need jobs shipped overseas, and she voted to ship those jobs overseas. records matter more than her rhetoric. she has a voting record and you can see exactly how she will continue to conduct herself in congress, especially if hakeem jeffries is given the gavel. every vote she's taken has been directly in line with the democrats. >> representative glusenkamp perez? rep. perez: facts don't lie. i'm not top 3% of the most bipartisan members of the u.s. house of representatives and that cannot be refuted. that is not driven by partisan politics but loyalty to my community. i don't care what the beltway things, i care about my reputation at the gas station, the grocery store, daycare drop-off. we drive like 30 minutes each way to drop kids off at daycare

and that's like four hours each day when you account for all of the car seat stuff. that's a lot of gas money. i focus on how we can support more competition. get in-home day cares back. so when companies are thinking about bringing back and working with the best labor in the world they know they have a predictable, reliable, clear regulatory environment to come back into. as a small business owner i navigated that. i had osha show up at my shop and ask me if an ac machine was a welder, this is a guy that can shut down my business. i'm proud of my work. i fight for us. >> based on the responses you both given up to now, our southern border is an issue. both of you have run television ads in which you pledge to end -- pledge to "secure the border." what do you mean by secure the border and what actions do you intend to take to live up to that pledge?

we'll start with you representative glusenkamp perez. rep. perez: from day one i took on the biden administration on their failed policies to secure the southern border. i demanded they continue stay in mexico and move legislation to fund border patrol. i voted for the highest workforce at the border we've ever seen in our nations history. i hear our community when they heard from fentanyl deaths. that's real and is hurting us right now. it's the kids my sons play with, their families, our families, people i love. it's critical we secure the southern border. that we are thinking about how we support people in having a better path and that young people have hope to own a home and raise a family. that they can do as well as their parents, own farmland again. these are things up and

policies i've been supporting to stop the demand from fentanyl and the border policies up and supporting to stop the flow of fentanyl. that's why i have the police endorsement, i listen to them and i support policies that create more assets and accessibility for law enforcement to intersect the trafficking of fentanyl and humans and defund cartels that have their boot on the neck of some any small businesses in mexico. that fund themselves through human trafficking. that's the smaller picture of humanitarianism, not letting cartels run wild but funding border patrol and ensuring they have the technology to intercept fentanyl whether it comes through legal ports of entry or our ports. i don't think people really care if the fentanyl that killed their kid comes from the northern border or the southern border, they both need to be secure. and take it very seriously in ensuring it's easier to get into rehab than it is to get high. those policies that can go back the middle class and the people

who make and build and grow and fix things in our communities. >> thank you. mr. kent? mr. kent: let's clear some things up here. when she says she has voted across party lines, every so-called bipartisan vote she took was immediately preceded by a vote on strict party lines. every time on the rules vote, the procedural votes, to kill republican legislation to secure the border, to prevent illegals from voting in elections, she voted straight party lines, which indicates exactly how she will vote if we don't take back at this seat and if we lose our majority in the house of representatives. we will get just four more years of chaos working against the trump agenda and we will continue to have our southern border wide open. one of the first votes she took was against hr2 which would have finished construction of the southern border wall, and increased resources down there and most importantly would have stopped this foolish asylum process we have right now where we let people come directly into the country to claim asylum and they are paroled into the interior of the country and

given a legal status. in the bill she proposed, it said the words remain in mexico but if you read the next paragraph, it says unless they are seeking to claim asylum, if they say they are being persecuted. based on their political affiliation, six, gender, etc. basically it just said the words remain in mexico. much like her so-called standing up to president biden on the border. she wrote a strongly worded letter. she voted to leave the border open and then did a little performance saying she disapproves of it. her vote was to leave the border wide open. we've got to get our military off of other people's borders, get them on our southern borde finish the wall to stop the flow of fentanyl, close the asylum loophole, stop giving these people that want to claim asylum direct access into america, make them receive vetting elsewhere in the first safe third country. that need to be restored. people have come into our country illegally, we got to find them and get them out of our country. we've got to secure our borders.

she and her party have proven time and again that they are unwilling to secure our border. rep. perez: for joe, this is all about party politics. he's talking about with got to take this seat back. and about these weird procedural votes he's tried to go after me on. that's not real. what's real is our values here and advancing those and voting in line with our communities values to fund securing our southern border, to ensure our police officers have the resources they need. this is not about partisanship, this is not about political football, is not about going to the southern border and live-streaming yourself for likes. it's about taking real action and showing we have the resources -- and ensuring we have the resources we need. i'm proud of upholding our community's values. >> procedural votes get bills on the floor, she doesn't want you to know that but that is the truth. you can go ahead and look the

up. procedural votes matter very much, they actually probably matter more than policy. if you control procedure you control what is written and that's why she doesn't want you to focus on her procedure votes. yes, i went to the southern border, i've been twice, i want to see what is actually taking place. that's what i did in the military and what i will do in congress. it's important to see the actual carnage inflicted on our nation and how it reflects here. that's why i have done ride-alongs and been throughout with police officers hunting down fentanyl dealers. she has proven time and again with her voting record and more important, i would say, the way her party wants to govern, that they are completely unwilling and incapable of securing our border. this invasion they want to codify into law. they've been in power for four years and she's been in for two years and they've done nothing but flood our country with illegals and fentanyl.

>> this is your second time squaring off in a congressional race. given your shared history, what question would you pose to each other that might not have come up in round one? we would like you to limit your question formulation to about 30 seconds so you can hav a succinct response. we'll start with you, mr. kent. mr. kent: i have two sons and i also have a young niece who is getting ready to play sports in schools. why did you vote to allow biological men to compete against women on the athletics field? why did you allow them to have biological men enter women's spaces like locker rooms, dressing rooms? why did you vote to allow men into women's shelters and other protected spaces? can you please explain that to the people here tonight who may

have daughters? >> as a woman, my views on this issue are libertarian. i believe these are decisions best made at the family level and local and school level, t ensure that there is fair play in sports competitions. here is the reality, the bill that joe is nailing me over, the reality is that bill would have opened the door to genital examination of girls as young as 5. >> do we really have to go through this? do we really have to go through this? >> yes, we do. >> no, we don't. the one thing i'm telling you not to do is to not interrupt. can we please stop? ok. here is what we are going to do. \[indistinct yelling]

rep. perez: i promise i have heard way worse on the shop floor. sorry. \[applause] >> now if we can remember where we were.

rep. perez: joe spends a lot of time talking about this issue. he also spends a lot of time talking about not supporting kitchen sink bills. the bill voted against was a kitchen sink bill that would have infringed on the safety and security of families and girls in sports, it would have opened the door to genital examinations of girls as young as 5 years old. that's not the america i believ in. it would have treated a mechanism to track menstrua cycles in athletes. that is weird, ok? it's not normal. i support in public education bringing back penmanship and geometry, those are the things we want to see in schools, not genital examinations. >> thank you. your question for mr. kent. rep. perez: earlier this year after being

contacted by a lot of people who are carpenters and woodworkers, i introduced bipartisan legislation to stop a new federal law that would have required table saws sold in the u.s. come with costly, expensive saw stop technology. technology that only one corporation holds the patents to. on may 15, you tweeted your opposition to my bipartisan bill to stop this federal overreach. you said it was a waste of time. given how often you talk about getting the federal government out of the way, i would like to know why you support letting a federal agency impose a new government mandated monopoly on table saws, jacking up the price of each new tablesaw by hundreds of dollars? mr. kent: while our southern border is wide open and we have people dying from fentanyl-- [laughter] and while the price at the pum and the grocery store is really hurting working americans, congress is doing these

performative measures. we have major problems in our country and when we have congressman out there talking about these tiny minuscule bills that don't affect the vast majority of the country when our southern border is wide open, while in the dead of night the are voting to send $86 billion overseas, new inflationary spending that will only make the world more dangerous. it is safe for us to say why are we worrying about tablesaw regulations when most americans can't afford groceries and when we literally have toddler's dying from fentanyl overdoses after she voted to leave the southern border wide open. maybe there is a good part of the bill. maybe there is a bad part of that bill. it is a great discussion to have at the state level. maybe once we get our out-of-control government spending out of control we ca address things like that. but we have the federal government absolutely failing us. this performance and entertainment is nothing but pure distraction to keep our eyes off of the border, putting men into your daughter's dressing room, and all the other problems

we have. i want to get the federal regulatory system out of our natural resources industries. i want to protect american manufacturing jobs. marie perez voted to allow to continue d.c. bureaucrats to regulate the timber industry. the same guys that killed off the timber industry and the spotted owl. to don't regulate the columbia river and tributaries to prevent us from killing predators to prevent us from putting more hatchery fish into the columbia river so we can continue to have a vibrant and thriving columbia river and forest. we need to get federal bureaucracy out of our daily lives, secure our border, stop the out-of-control spending. then we will talk about tablesaw's. >> thank you both and we will take a break. we are taking just 10 minutes, so please take a look at your clock and be back in your seat 10 minutes from now. [applause]

>> thank you. the recent shooting at apalachee high school in georgia has re-stoked the national debate on gun violence. with the surgeon general declaring firearms a public health crisis and gun violence now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents aged zero to 19 in the united states according to the cdc, what specific legislation would you propose or support to address the issue while balancing public safety with second amendment protections? congresswoman glusenkamp perez? rep. perez: i own a firearm. i support the second amendment. it is clear to me that we have that right. these deaths are tragic in schools. it is a moral stain that we have let things get this bad. they are young people. but that data that is being

cited, the reality is if you lift the hood up on that, the majority of them are suicides. they are not homicides, especially for young people. and so i think we think about how we can address gun violence and death. we have got to be thinking about the driver of it. that is why i sound like a broken record in the fight to get honors level shop class back in junior high. because every kid has got to have a chance to be the smartest person in their school at some point during the day. they have to be proud of what they are doing. i cannot think of a more toxic thing to tell a kid than what they are good at is not good enough. your value is based on your grade in english class. that is not right. that is not productive. you can be blessed wit intelligence in so many different ways. turning back our academic programs to ensure we have the full spectrum of intelligence

being supported, also mechanic genius, spatial brilliance, kinetic genius, those other things i want to see manifest in our public education system and those other things that can drive down the systemic rise in death from firearms. but they are a tool that needs to be used responsibly. where i live, i know it will be about half an hour before the sheriff can make their way out there. so i don't support what is commonly referred to as an assault weapons ban. i believe firearms are a tool that need to be used responsibly. >> thank you. mr. kent? mr. kent: my heart breaks for all these parents who have had to go through the tragedy of losing a child, especially for something as preventable as violence. i know my opponent is a parent as well, so this is something we can really unify and agree on, we need to protect our children. unfortunately we have not been prioritizing our children.

we have money for wars all over the country all over the world outside of our own borders. for a small amount of money compared to what we spend securing other country's borders and on foreign aid, we can put more armed security, trained police officers in our schools. it has been proven that when schools actually have an armed security, school shooters not target that school. we saw that recently with the tragedy down in nashville. that shooter went to a few othe schools, cased them out. they had armed security so they went on to a safer target. we have to guard what we love, and we all love our children. we have to prioritize that. that cannot just be words on paper. we have to allocate resources to defend and harden our schools. infringing on the second amendment is not something we can do. we have to address the mental-health crises. the way that we have heavily medicaided our children.

in some crazy circumstances, even this chemical castration we are giving our children. we have to prevent that. unfortunately we have to protect the second amendment at the same time. my opponent said she had guns and all that. she voted to make anyone who owns a pistol brace a felon overnight. we have to actually protect the second amendment. we cannot trust her because she is taking money from big pharma. she took nearly $1 million from astrazeneca that is pumping these narcotics into our kids. that is how we address the mental health crisis. we get them off the drugs and prioritize what we love and stop prioritizing foreign aid in foreign wars and prioritize our children. >> congresswoman glusenkamp perez, washington recently enacted new gun-control laws including a ban on high-capacity magazines. should congress enact some of these restrictions in the name of reducing gun violence?