it's not a states rights issue, it's a woman's rights issue. >> again, the only attack here is to lie about everything i have said and it is in fact with the courts decided was a states rights issue, i have laid out what new york state policies are nothing is going to change in new york state, regardless of which one of us is elected and it is very disingenuous and playing on the fears of women and women don't like being lied to, john, and you really should take note that you make these false statements. john: part of the agenda and the legislative priorities of the republican study committee and the conservative party is a national abortion ban with no exceptions. chris: a follow-up and i would like to give 30 seconds for the question. john, would you vote against the

laws that punish women or doctors who cross state borders to perform or receive an abortion? >> in new york state we have already protected women that come to this state and doctors to be able to provide those services with those laws. so if i go back to your question, depending on how it was asked what i would say is i'm going to protect the women that travel to the state, i'm going to protect the providers that provide those services, and additionally we have protections in the state when doctors send abortive medication or contraceptive medication out of state, they have those protections and every physician in this country should have those. chris: brandon? >> we have a federal system and each state has certain rights so we're certainly not going to go after doctors in other states that, you know, that that are performing these services so i i don't know where that attack comes from but that's seems

disingenuous to me. that is not how america works. chris: there have been proposals i am sure that people would cross state lines. >> i am sure there are proposals but that is not how our federal government is set up. chris: ok. let's move on to housing. don i believe we'll start with , you on this question there's an urgent demand for good housing in central new york that's caused prices for new home buyers and renters to skyrocket and there are concerns we aren't building enough new housing fast enough to meet the demand that will come with micron and a growing economy . what would you do in the house to help increase the supply of homes of all kinds or to bring down the cost of rents or home ownership? >> they give it a question. housing is a complex issue and it is not one that can be solved quickly. i will speak to some of the things that i've done at the state level just in this past budget acknowledging that there is a housing problem. we have advanced legislation for infill housing tens of millions

of dollars to fill vacant properties only in upstate new york. tens of millions of dollars also for renovation, including renovation from commercial to residential, additional dwelling units can also be legal. we need this housing, we need affordable housing, and the pathway to generational wealth often comes from home ownership so we have to strip away as many barriers as possible so that new families can afford and can secure firsttime homeowner loans . i do think that there's probably some more creative things that we can do. when it comes to rents, they are, again, a challenge because of our difficult housing situation, so what we need to do for me is make sure that they're incentives in place for developers, including lending, to them to be able to build

additional units but an incentive to make sure that there's affordable housing, elder care housing, and disabilities housing in that space. chris: thank you. brandon. >> i think we're all hit by the inflation that has really shocked everyone the last three and a half years in the biden economy. my opponent keeps saying that these are complex issues. it's actually fairly straightforward. prices are set by supply and demand, and the problem that we have particularly here in new york state is that there are so many regulations that it's very difficult to build new housing and to build affordable housing like we've done for a very long time. it used to be that if you had a good job coming out of high school and a few years in the trades that you could be able to afford a starter home and increasingly that is out of reach and especially so for the last three and a half years . we've just seen the horizon for young young people to be able to get into a house and afford a

house get further and further out. more government involvement in housing actually leads to more government control, higher housing prices, and less availability, that's always the case when there's more government. now since i've been in congress i've been able to champion actually some important housing issues here in central new york . one is part of the east atoms development there in central , $10 million syracuse as well as a $50 million hud grant that i championed along with senator schumer. chris: i would like to talk about money in this race. brandon more than half of your , donations have come from outside of new york, many of them from texas. why aren't you turning to central new yorkers to financially support your campaign and does this mean you're beholden to people who

are not in our community? >> politics, i have learned, because i am completely new, is there is a lot of money required. i think as you said in your your introductory comments chris that this is a national race in fact some people view this as the most competitive race in the country and because of that it's going to attract national resources and it's going to drive a lot of the spending and advertising that you've seen and so because there's so much at stake it is completely true of myself and also for my opponent that there is a lot of money pouring in to this and every other competitive house seat in the country, even more so in the senate seats. so i think my fundraising represents a significant amount of investment from new yorkers and from people in central new york, as well as people that are concerned about the direction of our country nationally and that is true, that will always be be

true in this very competitive seat of new york 22, there's nothing different about my campaign as everyone else's. chris: giancola -- chris: john, democratic groups have have poured money into central new york so far with negative ads against your opponent. how comfortable are you with super pacs putting their thumb on the scale in this election ? >> first of all i'd like to speak to the support that i have my support is local and if you look back at what was documented when i was approaching the primary election and where my support came from i could have these percentages off but i believe i had 89% of my donations were from within new york state and 73% of the donations came from and why 22. i have a coalition of support behind me and that coalition is supportive of me so you know we are going to have party investment in this race.

certainly my opponent has party investment and in the last race millions of dollars came men from various organizations supporting him in that race so i'm pride myself on making sure that i'm at the doors, i'm on the phones, i'm talking to people of new york 22 every day . municipal leaders, civic leaders, leaders of nonprofits, everyday people making sure i know what their concerns are. so i'm here to serve the people of the 22nd district. i'm not here to serve my donors and i'm certainly not here to serve people who don't don't live in the district and don't live in the state. chris: 30 seconds for a follow-up for you both. just for a follow-up. you both alluded to this but somewhere between 12 and 14 million dollars is expected to be spent on this race from outside groups throughout the course of this this election cycle. i'm curious what you would do in congress or what congress should do to take that kind of big money and outside independent

money out of elections? brandon. >> i would start by saying money isn't everything last two years ago in the last cycle my democratic opponent spent over $3 million in his campaign. i spent significantly under $1 million so i was outspent by more than three to one and i still won and so money certainly isn't the only issue in politics . however, i think one of the things we could do is push out some of the outside spending in advertising and only allow the candidates campaigns to spend money in advertising you know for five weeks into the election just to keep the the crazy money being spent at the last minute . >> the first thing we need to do

's end citizens united. that decision allowed for a massive influx of outside dark money into our political system and we will continue to have ramifications because of that decision we need comprehensive bipartisan legis legislation to end the citizens united decision which is corrupting our governmental structure. chris: we are going to lighten things up a little bit. a handful of lightning round questions. rapid fire. i'll go back and forth between you. john, what is your favorite central new york restaurant? >> possibilities. >> paladino pizza. >> cats or dogs? >> dogs. >> dogs. >> john, you are cooking tonight. what are we eating? >> breaded chicken and potentially some pasta with mussels, tomatoes, fennel, onions. >> i would be grilling chicken

on the barbecue. >> if neither trump or hair -- nor harris was running for president, who would be the best candidate for the job? >> glenn youngkin, governor of virginia. i have a lot of respect for him in the way he ran his campaign and a think he is the future of the republican party. >> josh shapiro who has brought people together and is from a place and a position really reflective of this country. >> what car do you drive? >> lincoln. >> honda pickup. >> should new york build more nuclear power plants? >> yes. >> yes. >> john, what is the most recent book he read? >> tip on the gipper. >> i am reading grant's memoirs

right now. >> brandon, your sink is leaking. do you try to fix it yourself? >> ifixit, try to fix it myself and i have on many occasions. >> my wife won't let me fix it anymore. >> john how long should the term , limit be for a member of congress? >> i have said for years. i think that is long enough. >> six years. >> the senate is always a balance between having competent people and new people but also not giving over more power to the bureaucracy. >> brandon, how would you describe the trump and harris? >> trump is a disruptor.

we can all agree on that. kamala harris is an experienced. >> trump is dangerous. harris is motivating. >> john, do you own a gun? >> no. >> yes. >> brandon, in 10 years will america be better or worse than now? >> i believe we will be better. there is a great future ahead but we need better leaders. >> better. i taught a generation of kids and i am inspired by them. chris: thank you. we will move on to more serious questions again. a question about gun control. brandon, we will start with you. earlier this year, two police officers in central new york were killed by a man using a military style assault weapon do -- weapon. do you have any plans to restrict the use or ownership of

those types of weapons by a non-or nonmilitary personnel? if so what specifically are you , proposing and if not what else would you do in congress to help stop these kinds of killings and other large-scale shootings? >> those killings were incredibly tragic for our whole community. i was at both funerals and spent time with the families. it is really heartbreaking, all that we have gone through. and yet new york state still has the most restrictive gun laws in the country. and it is criminals that are committing the crimes, particularly the horrific crimes of who socko jensen on the murders. we need to and cashless bail. my opponent has championed in albany end these raise the age

and halt act policies in fact under the leadership in albany it is the best time ever to be a criminal in new york state and that kind of support for criminals and lack of support for law enforcement has to end . one of the things that my opponent said earlier is that i belong to a republican group . well, he's endorsed by the working party's family that wants to defund the police, that is pro hamas, that represents a lot of things that i think don't represent the people of central new york and if i am associated in the same way that he's asserting, then he certainly has to answer for defund the police . >> in new york state when you talk to representatives of law enforcement, district attorneys and advocates, they attribute a really the lack of except for one racist act that occurred in buffalo of our mass shootings due to our strong laws including red flag laws, ghost gun laws,

making sure gun trafficking is addressed, and it does not mean i am not against responsible gun ownership. it was actually my legislation that passed, of two counties in this state, only did not allow two for rifle hunting of bear and deer. i support an assault weapons ban and universal background checks. but the bail laws passed in new york state happened before i was in office. i listened to my constituents. i went to albany and i changed the laws, strengthens them, it doesn't make the headlines, to give judges more description -- discretion, to make sure that more crimes are bail eligible, and we address the reoffending issue. so i take that very seriously.

i've had the support of law enforcement in every one of my elections, it was my legislation that created the syracuse regional airport authority the first police force in 50 years . it is my opponent that voted against funding the police, i've funded them every time in the new york state budget, giving the municipalities every tool they need to keep our community safe. >> i think the police don't like being lied to. i talk with police all the time and they are incredibly frustrated with the laws out of albany. nobody thinks that bail laws have been strengthened in new york state. there isn't a single law enforcement officer in the entire state that's going to stand up and say that the bail reform laws are adequate for reducing crime, disincentivizing crime. this is the most disingenuous statement i've heard tonight from my opponent. >> 20 seconds. >> my opponent voted to cut tens of thousands of government law enforcement individual positions

with one of the continuing resolution funding bills. so when we talk about supporting our law enforcement, let's support them with actions and not just words i have always supported them, i have family in law enforcement and friends and i appreciate their service. chris: we are going to change gears. a grad student here at the newhouse school would like to ask you each a question. >> hello. with the cost of college significantly increasing in the last 15 to 20 years and the supreme court shutting down biden's student debt relief plan do you support federal action , for student debt relief? if so what would that relief , look like and if not how do you plan to support a generation struggling with student debt so -- student debt? >> thank you for the question. i think we would all agree that higher education is too expensive.

and it is a barrier in this country to pursue anyone's dreams or goals. i will say at the state level what we can do in our public ed higher ed institutions and we have done is to keep tuition costs frozen, we also have increased the amount of tap that's available to individuals and the excelsior scholarship. but not everyone goes to a public institution. so i agree there should be some loan forgiveness as it comes to the student loan costs. i also thank that we have to go after the predatory lenders that are increasing the rates and selling the loans to others. i also think that there should be more incentives so that if a student attends a university , private or public, in a state and commits to dedicating a certain number of years into that profession, be it for health care, education, whatever it might be, that there is a significant amount of loan forgiveness. employers need employees right now and we have tremendous educational institutions in the

22nd district and we want our students to graduate and stay here. so yes i do support a level of , loan forgiveness, including cost-free community colleges but also let's keep our graduated students in the state. >> well, there's something that my opponent and i agree on that the cost of higher education is certainly too high. in fact, i have sponsored federal legislation to cap the interest rate of student loans at 3% and that certainly would be very significant. the truth is, it is not loan forgiveness. and i have a masters in finance. it is loan transfer. and this whole scheme of the biden administration trying to buy votes is actually transferring these loans on to the middle class taxpayers and we have heard from constituents that they just simply don't

agree with this kind of transfer . it's not forgiveness, as if it magically goes away, it actually is transferring to middle class taxpayers. one of the things that i've also championed is a reform to the pell grant's. again, agreeing with my opponent that supporting our community colleges more affordable choices including trade schools. one of the reforms we've made in legislation is that pel grant s, instead of just going to really expensive schools, in fact it is taking away from schools that have the highest per student endowments and making pel grants available to trade schools, to community college, two-year programs, not exclusively just for the four year degrees. so there's a lot of action that we have taken. i'm on the education and workforce committee and have been very involved in this thank

-- in this. >> thank you. chris: i want to talk about macron. brandon, i will start with you. the micron project has been slow to get off the ground and clay how would you use your power in congress to support the project and make sure it delivers on the huge promises that have been made to this community? >> since getting elected i have , been a strong champion of the micron project and i want to just start by congratulating county executive ryan mcmahon on the incredible job that he's done of landing this this amazing growth opportunity for central new york. it is historic in every sense, for the region and for the nation. i come out of the tech industry and have long experience with tech companies, understanding their business and what is important to them on their timeline and i have kept that in mind as i have engaged with them at the highest level, i have been to boise and visited their facility and done everything

possible to help champion the project, including meeting with the army corps of engineers regularly, telling them how important it is and pushing them to get permitting done. i've been working across the aisle and also with democrat members in the u.s. senate on permitting reform. we've had several proposals that we've tried to attach to different pieces of legislation to get this streamlined and pushed through and quite frankly and has been stymied by the majority leader in the senate on two occasions so there was only so much we can do to try to push forward and i have used my office to do that at every opportunity. >> i have lived in central new york my entire life and i watched of the job cuts and companies leave in the 70's, 80's, 90's. carrier, new venture gear, closing of griffith. they were challenging times. so we reimagined our economy.

we watched a lot of people move away. a lot of my friends moved away when we got out of school. but what has changed in our economy is that we have positioned ourselves in a great place. we produce lots of clean, carbon free energy out of the region we , have fantastic public schools and higher ed institutions, and we have more clean accessible water than almost anywhere else in the world. we also have great tech manufacturers. when we passed the green chips legislation in albany, which i was a co-prime sponsor of, which ties into the chips and science act, which would not, without that piece of legislation at the state level would not have allowed a company like micon to move into new york state and with the largest private investment in the history of this country, transform it. but my opponent went out of his way to write a letter to the editor calling this corporate

welfare, and what that says to me is he did not feel what i felt. that's why i worked diligently to make sure that this piece of legislation got through in just a few months later the six-letter word micron was coming out of everyone's mouth. >> 30 seconds to respond specifically to the letter to the editor. >> as i said since being sworn into congress, everything i have done is to support micron but i think one thing we gets tired -- we get tired of is hearing politicians talk out of both sides of their mouth. just a few moments ago my opponent was complaining about government subsidies for corporations and that that was the cause of inflation or the reasons to evaluate the corporate tax rate. in fact a $6 billion grant from , the federal government to a profitable corporation is corporate welfare, it just happens to be in our district

and i am being a champion for it so let's not talk out of both sides of our mouth. >> that was a state incentive to buy into a federal program. if we didn't have it, micron would be talking about moving to albuquerque or austin or somewhere in the ohio, but they are not. they are coming here to my hometown. >> let's talk about social security and medicare. john, you both said you would fight any proposal to reduce social security or medicare benefits for seniors. both programs need change to remain sustainable long-term. it is an issue few politicians are able to tackle. if elected, name one tough decision you would make to ensure both programs remain viable long-term. >> we must protect social security and i would sign on to the protect social security act . we have to make sure that it remain sustainable.

we cannot raise the retirement age that has been proposed. we have to make sure we have a significant cost of living adjustment for individuals. there are a few ways to do it and legislation to do it but one thing that makes perfect sense is when we talk about income levels and the cap at which individuals pay in, right now it is in the 160 170,000 range and it incrementally moves up, but this country has provided many with tremendous opportunities and they should continue to pay above that level. the proposal is to raise that cap. the ultra-wealthy can pay their fair share. as working people, regardless of income, have paid into receive the benefit and live a dignified life in their older years. let's raise the cap. it has to be significant. it should be upwards of 400,000.

i support raising the cap. it is a adjustment that has to be made. one thing to sacrifice for it would be to put an additional payment and above the 160,000 individuals that earn an income beyond that and up to 400,000. chris: brandon, same question. >> i have been consistent throughout my time running for office and serving in office that i would not change any of the benefits or reduce any of the benefits for social security or medicare, nor change the retirement age. in fact, just a couple of weeks ago, again, crossing the aisle, signing a discharge petition on the house floor for the social security fairness act was a significant step and against the majority of my party to do so . and what that did, it actually

writes a wrong that was established in the 80's where public school teachers, firefighters, and police officers did not get the full social security benefit because there was a restriction, even though they paid into the system . so signing on to the social security fairness act is a very important step. in terms of long-term liability, which is the heart of your question, it is a bipartisan issue and there are discussions for example in the problem solvers group that i'm a part of and also in main street partners to be looking at bipartisan conversations to address that but it's got to happen from both sides of the aisle. >> i believe that that fairness act does not involve teachers within a retirement system or firefighters within a system unless they are government

employees, individuals that work at tsa or other governmental locations, that's where that social security fairness act comes into play as they are unfairly burdened and some of their rightfully earned pension has been taken away and taxed as a result of their enrollment and social security when they retire . chris: ok, brandon, final thoughts. let's move on. i want to talk about poverty. brandon syracuse has struggled , for years with some of the highest child poverty in the nation and some of the country's worst overall poverty. in your opinion why hasn't , government been able to solve the problem and what's your single best idea to help solve it? >> poverty is a persistent problem and often a generational problem and we do have acute poverty here in, you know, suri