other bad decisions. >> ms. alsobrooks? >> i believe the former governor when he says he disagrees with trump in person. but he does agree with his policies. this issue is one that is very personal. . as the mother of a 19-year-old daughter, she is facing a world where there are fewer rights than that of her mother and grandmother. when the former governor had an opportunity to stand up for the women of maryland, he didn't. he vetoed abortion care legislation. he doubled down and refused to release the funding to train abortion care providers. this was two years ago. when the supreme court overturned roe, he complimented them. the republican party has declared war on the reproductive freedoms of women. contraception. its mitch mcconnell, ted cruz, rick scott, they all say they would like an abortion ban, and i believe him when he says he has had a change of heart.

the fact of the matter is there will be no vote on roe if he gives a majority to the republicans in the senate. >> she keeps misrepresenting the bill passed. it was to change the law so that it wasn't just doctors and professionals, it would be non-licensed professionals like midwives performing abortions. you can't lie about it and say i was denying access. the funding was for the bill which i didn't agree with because i thought it would be unsafe and a lot of the people in the medical community agreed with me. >> tracy has the next question. ms. alsobrooks>> i have a separate question on abortion. as county executive, we have often testified in writing or in person for state legislation that you support in annapolis. in maryland, they have been bills to protect women's reproductive order to protect women's reproductive rights, access to safe abortions, and also privacy. some county executives have testified in favor of those

bills, but you have not. why? >> i don't know specifically which bill you are referencing. i have been a very vocal supporter of a woman's right to choose. that is unrefuted. i support women's access to women's reproductive care. it's not just abortion care, it is also things like planned parenthood. that is the reason they have endorsed me. i received the endorsement of reproductive freedom for all because of this issue. the support of emily's list, as well as planned parenthood, who are aware of my strong and uncontroverted record on this issue. and i will continue to support women's reproductive freedoms, contraception, abortion, and i.v.f.. >> mr. hogan. >> we will never get everything done in washington if you just attack people who disagree with you. we agree on this issue. i fully funded planned parenthood and abortion every single year while i was

governor. this is a very important issue. to misrepresent what the facts are is really sad, and it is unfortunate. but i have been clear. my record is clear. you and i pretty much agree on this issue. and yet you continue to say that i have a different position. my record as governor is clear. >> go ahead. >> i will say it again, i believe the former governor when he says he has changed. >> i did not say that. >> the point of the matter is, if the republicans are in control of the senate, there will be no vote on roe. we have seen this movie before. when mitch mcconnell refused to bring it to avoid. they have been abundantly clear that they do not decide to codify roe, and that they will be seeking national abortion. if mitch mcconnell or ted cruz or lindsey graham are there, it will not happen.

>> a follow up with you, ms. alsobrooks, i believe vice president kamala harris has, in favor of getting rid of the filibuster in order to codify roe. would you be in favor of that? >> highwood. we have seen the filibuster used as a tool to thwart civil-rights legislation. it has been used in ways that are very destructive and has not been in the interest of the people. this issue is one that is very near and dear not only to marylanders, back to people across our country who do not want -- like my daughter who is in georgia, to have to look out in the country and decide where to live based on where she will have look at where she lives -- i will be working to codify the protection act. mr. hogan: i think it is a terrible idea, and you know who agrees with my opponent is donald trump. she and donald trump agree that we should change the rules,

long-standing rules that require bipartisan cooperation, and change things so you can jam things that are on a party line, partisan vote. you have to be careful what you wish for, because you know who will be jamming things through. i like the idea of finding that bipartisan compromise but i will work with susan collins, lisa murkowski on my side to get that done. chuck: you think 60 votes should be -- mr. hogan: i think making washington more partisan and allowing things to be jammed through by one vote, which she has been complaining about most of the thing, now she says she wants to do it for this one thing, but when the pendulum swings back every two years or four years, everyone will push their other chuck: things. when it comes to lowering the votes, that concerns you? ms. alsobrooks: i talked to senator cardin, and he says whoever is in the majority

control of the agenda, and he believes the filibuster has been used in such a way we no longer have the deliberative body we used to have. it becomes destructive. we really have to form and abolish the filibuster, so i agree that we are going to have to do something. we see the progress has been thwarted. chuck: all right, deborah has the next question. deborah: i would like to talk about gun violence. it was about a month ago when maryland witnessed a fatal shooting, the same week that a shooting in georgia killed two teachers and students. gun violence is the leading cause of death, and do you believe the government has a role especially in the nation's schools? chuck: go ahead, mr. governor. mr. hogan: yeah. absolutely there is a role.

i'm for universal background checks. i have always done everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill and out of the hands of criminals. i support a bipartisan, commonsense assault weapons ban. as governor, i signed a red flag law to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill. i sighed a bump stop. when there was a school shooting in maryland in great mills, in st. mary's county, i passed the safe to learn act, which requires school resource officers at every single high school in maryland to try to keep people safe, and i committed to fostering that exact thing bill at the federal level. unfortunately, my opponent has pulled the school safety out of schools, and the bill is no longer requiring it. deborah: governor, what is a common sense assault weapons ban? mr. hogan: i would support an assault weapons ban. we need to get bipartisan agreement on getting a bill passed. ms. alsobrooks: let me just

correct misinformation, i have not pulled any school resource officers out of the schools. in fact, "the washington post" just complimented me in their endorsement of me. it is also the case that the former governor complimented me two years ago on my leadership on this issue, public safety, saying i was a leader across the state. the fact that the number one killer of our children as gun violence and that we as a country have done nothing about it is shameful. there is an opportunity, i would be in favor of eliminating assault weapons, removing ghost guns from our streets, and in reality, the former governor did not have the courage come as a governor. he in fact veto legislation that would have created a waiting period for long guns and outright refused to sign the ban on ghost guns. he could have helped us on this issue but instead kowtow to the gun lobby and vetoed a band that would have created that waiting period for long guns and did not

support it. yeah. mr. hogan:mr. hogan: it is half-truths and trying to control those -- confuse people. on ghost guns, there was legislation, and there was just not an event for it. we already have the toughest legislation in america, yet it is not stopping 100% increase in murders in places like prince georges county, so we've got to take the shooters off the street. along gun bill was a hunting rifle. nobody in baltimore city had been shooting people with hunting rifles. it was illegal handguns and ghost guns, which i was supportive of. chuck: a quick follow-up, the george floyd justice into what restrict chokeholds and no knock warrants. would you support the act?

mr. hogan: i can tell you one thing i'm very concerned about them and i probably have spoken out more about this than anyone in america. when the defund the police movement started, i was the loudest critic against a, saying you were going to defund the police is like saying you are going to improve education by defunding the school. it was absurd and ridiculous. i passed the first bill in america, a refund of the police initiative, so they could hire more officers, so they can train better, pay for de-escalation techniques. my opponent has cut the prince georges county police, they are down, crime is out of control, 500% increase in carjackings. chuck: ms. alsobrooks, the george floyd justice in policing act, would you support it? ms. alsobrooks: i would. i was law-enforcement, the chief law enforcement officer in prince georges county saw 50% lower crime.

i increased police funding by 23%, and when he talks about the ghost guns, he said it did pass, but it is like so much of his record, because we had a strong democratic legislature, thank god for them, he's not going to annapolis coming going to washington and will not have the same support he had. we could have gotten anything done if he did not have that democratic legislature. chuck: i want to turn to issue of immigration. should prince georges county remain a century city echo ms. alsobrooks: prince georges county is not a sanctuary city. a can't in the executive actually created a policy that violent offenders, that we cooperate with the federal government, that we notify them when we release violent offenders. i also think about this issue, sat in courtrooms and prosecuted gang members who are in ms 13. i have cooperated with the

federal government. i know the former governor lied about my record on this. chuck: how would you describe it? is it something the council did, that they did not want local law enforcement cooperating on everything? ms. alsobrooks: they did not. i change the policy to ensure that people who were accused of gang activity or violence, that we notified the federal government. chuck: ok, you have one minute, mr. hogan. mr. hogan: first of all, with respect to crime in general, i have the unanimous endorsement of the maryland fop and nearly every single law enforcement organization in the state could because they do not think she did such a great job on crime. prince georges county police officers are the ones complaining about how things have gotten out of control. on i.c.e. detainers, it is not true. you are the largest jurisdiction in maryland that refuses to work with federal law-enforcement. when i.c.e. requested a container for a violent rapist, murderer, or gang member, you do

not cooperate. your policy is breaking federal law. chuck: you have 30 seconds. ms. alsobrooks: it is not true, when he says about not cooperating with federal government. it is a live feed i change to the policy. furthermore, i the only person on the stage who stood in a courtroom them and i prosecuted and convicted murderers, rapists, and gang members, and i did so with the police department. i did so with law enforcement. the partnership we created helped us do a tremendous job right now in prince georges county where they have lower crime in every category except one where we are up one point. chuck: i want to give you both one minute to answer this simple question. would you legalize marijuana on a federal level? mr. hogan: yeah. i was for medical marijuana, but i never really considered legalizing recreational

marijuana on a national basis. i think many states have already done it, including maryland, but we had not seen the full impact of that yet. some and law enforcement are concerned that we have a lot of deaths for drunk driving. i think we have to make similar advances before we take a step like that. chuck: so you are not ready to legalize on a federal level? mr. hogan: not at all. ms. alsobrooks: the people of maryland have spoken on this issue and legalize it here. i would support it on a federal level. chuck: you had some hesitation at first. ms. alsobrooks: the hesitation is i think it is an awful idea to have children, i'm deeply concerned about the impact of marijuana on children, so i've always said, whenever adults use , recreationally or otherwise, is for adults to make a decision, but i think we ought to be protective of our children in the same way that we have been with alcohol and other things. we've watched our children suffer, and i think we should be really cautious and be concerned about our children having access to marijuana and other substances.

chuck: this next question, one minute for both of you, should federal government workers still be allowed to work from a one or two days a week, or is it time that they return to the office five days a week? ms. alsobrooks: i support having our federal workers be able to work from home once or twice a week. by the way, i'm the granddaughter is a federal worker who worked very hard to get herself in the federal government. she was a housekeeper, taught herself to type on her refrigerator so she could get that federal job. our federal workers do a tremendous job. we know that if republicans gain control, if they put forward project 2025, which anticipates they would eviscerate the federal workforce, would politicize it, would harm our federal workers, including all 130,000 federal workers who live in the state of maryland, but i will be standing up for our federal workers, which is what i have the endorsement of the afp,

the federal government employees union, and i will make sure we are defending and protecting their rights. chuck: mr. hogan, in question. mr. hogan: with respect to 2025 -- project 2025 come on the leading republican voice against that. i wrote an opinion in "the washington post," and i called out all the crazy things they were trying to do. that is the beauty of having someone in the party being willing to stand up to their leaders. i'm not sure when you've ever stood up to party leaders, but i've done it when it was hard, and i've done it over and over again, and i will continue to. i agree, we have the largest concentration of federal employees, and for them to try to politicize the federal government was just absurd and ridiculous, which is why i was so strong in voicing my opposition bid with respect to getting workers back to work, certainly there are some things that can be done remotely. it has been a disaster for the washington metropolitan area when we have empty buildings everywhere, restaurants close, because very few people are getting back to work.

when i was governor, i required people to get back to work, because you got to public service and interacting with folks and a lot of jobs if you are not there. other things you can do home. chuck: would washington, d.c. gun town economy be a factor whether -- downtown economy be a factor whether workers return to work? to the office? ms. alsobrooks: it is interesting to get the governor sadie criticized the party, -- say he criticized the party. when mitch mcconnell called him, he put the jersey on, says he disagrees with all of these various aspects of it, and the reality is, again, his mere election would empower the people whose policies who says -- who he says he disagrees with so strongly. blasting president kamala harris they had a majority. chuck: next question, i will

start with you, mr. hogan. on the issue of transportation, as governor, you brought some transportation projects involve more, the baltimore's redline. there's been the purple line in the d.c. metro area. how would you handle finding of maryland's transportation objects as senator? would you be a champion of getting more funding? mr. hogan: i'm proud of my record on infrastructure. when i ran for governor, we had crumbling roads and bridges, no money had been invested. that's one of the reasons i got elected, because i promised to do something about that. we move forward on nearly every transportation project across the state, resurfaced almost 90% of the state highway system. no governor has invested more in transit or inroads than when i was governor. when i was chairman of the national governors association, i got all 50 governors to agree on an infrastructure, and that became part of the bipartisan interceptor bill, which i strongly supported.

i brought senators and congressmen together to get it done, and when installed, i pushed republicans and democrats to get the bipartisan infrastructure bill done. republicans only wanted to do roads and bridges. democrats wanted to add $4 trillion of social spending, and we reach an agreement and helped get that deal done, which i think was good for america. ms. alsobrooks: the former governor did something so shameful. we know the number one issue because of state's economic opportunity, and having the opportunity to invest in the redline that would have created not only attracted jobs and opportunities to baltimore but would have allowed people to have access to these opportunities, and he did something of governor in history has ever done in maryland, returned $900 million to the federal government to aspen to redistribute it and send it to other states. this not only crushed that opportunity, but it was unprecedented. furthermore, what we know is that he was not -- i think we need someone who can treat our whole state can i work, conversely, to draw the fbi

headquarters to maryland, brain 7500 jobs here, cybersecurity and technology, i drew 100 million dollars near the new carrollton metro station, and i even worked to attract $400 million to the blue line to create jobs and opportunities. that is what i would do as a senator, not send money back to the federal government. i will be fighting for every part of our state to attract every single dollar we can to the state of maryland. mr. hogan: well, i ran for governor promising not to do the redline. "the washington post" editorial boards that it never made any transportation or economic sense. most people in baltimore did not support it. it was a $7 billion project. it was not going to accomplish much of anything. and we had $900 million. nobody in our transportation fund wanted to move forward on it. what we need to move forward on now is fixing the key bridge, the howard street tunnel, fixing the traffic relief plan that was

just killed because the transportation trust fund has been drained and there's no money to build any project. chuck: we have technically come to the end. one final question for you, mr. hogan, i know you said you wrote in ronald reagan's name, that you've already voted. if you lived in a state where it is up for grabs -- you said the police did not matter in your state --would you have still voted the same way? mr. hogan: i've never voted for someone i don't believe in. there are a an awful lot of people in america they don't feel like these two folks that are at the top of most tickets are the best people to lead america. that's why we have the ability to write in and take whatever decision you make. i don't plan on moving out of maryland, so i will not speculate on what i would do if i were someone else. ms. alsobrooks: i think the decision not to vote in a presidential election for a senator is a disqualifier. this job requires votes, tough boats can if you have to make a decision, and for a person who says he can see a bipartisan way

forward but was unable to do the most bipartisan thing ever in an election year he says he despises their nominee but cannot bring himself to even vote for vice president harris, and in fact, has a chance to vote in three different elections, rather than stand up, do that right thing, though for a democrat, he voted for a deceased individual and that he will do so a good this election. i think it is instructive of the way he would operate as a senator, unable to make tough calls and to go on to do what he declares is bipartisan. this is the most bipartisan thing you can do. chuck: here's the toughest call i will make you both make. ravens or commanders? ms. alsobrooks: commanders. mr. hogan: [laughter] ravens. chuck: we guessed right. ms. alsobrooks: thank you to everyone watching. it has been a great joy for me to have represented our state

for the last 27 years that i've been proud to fight for our families on every front. fighting to keep our communities safe, fighting to go economic opportunity, fighting to ensure we are caring for every part of our community, providing health care. i built mental health facilities, build a cancer center, broke ground on 18 schools and build 10. i have been fighting every single day to preserve not only our freedom but economic opportunity for every member of our family in maryland. i will do that, making sure we are moving forward, and i will support president kamala harris, making sure that she has the majority that she needs in the senate, so that she can get her agenda across and that she can take our country forward, that we can come up together, the value we share, honor human rights, democracy, freedom, integrity, decency, these are what i believe in, and it is what i will fight for every day. thank you so much. chuck: thank you. mr. hogan? mr. hogan: thank you all again,

thank you for watching tonight. as i said at the beginning, we are going to hear a lot about democrat versus republican, red versus blue, but all i really care about is the red, white and blue and blue, and i think that sending more partisan politicians, making washington more partisan and mortified it is not going to help. the country is way off track. i'm completely fed up with politics as usual. if you want to change things in washington, you will not change things by doing the exact same things you always do. i have a proven track record of standing up and bringing people together, having the courage to stand up to the former president, to the current president, and i will do it to the future president and to republicans or democrats. i'm trying to put people over politics and country over party, and i'm asking the voters of maryland to be willing to do the same bank, and i'm asking for their vote. chuck: thank you both. that concludes tonight's debate. we would like to thank the two candidates for participating.

would also like to thank maryland public television and this terrific studio for hosting us here. thanks for our panelists, tracy wilson, debra wilson, and jeff. for all of my colleagues here at nbc news, nbc washington, wbal, i'm chuck todd. good night. our life campaign2024 coverage continues this afternoon starting with remarks but i can afford democratic vice-presidential nominee and governor, tim walz and green bay, wisconsin. he is being joined by wisconsin governor tony evers, and michigan governor gretchen whitmer. watch live at four 45 eastern time on c-span2. then, take 24 republican presidential nominee and former president donald trump speaks to supporters at a town hall in oaks, pennsylvania.

governor kristi noem of south dakota is the moderator. watch live at 6:00 eastern here on c-span. finally, democratic presidential nominee and vice president kamala harris speaks to supporters at a rally in ev, pennsylvania. that will be live starting at 7:30 eastern on c-span2. you can watch all these events live on c-span now, our free mobile video avenue online at c-span.org. ♪ >> will you solemnly swear that in the testimony you are about to give, will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god. he weeknights, which are on own edition of american history tv's series "congress investigates." , as we explore later investigations by the u.s. house and senate. authors and historians will tell these stories. we will see historical footage

from those periods, and examine the legacy and impact of key congressional hearings. tonight, lawmakers examine the events surrounding the 1972 break-in at national democratic committee headquarters at the watergate in washington, d.c. the investigation led to the resignation of president richard nixon. watch "congress investigates." tonight at 10:00 eastern on c-span2. ♪ announcer: incumbent republican congressman marcus molinaro and his democratic challenger josh riley faced off in a debate to represent new york's 19th congressional district. they were asked about a number of issues, including the economy, immigration policy, and women's reproductive rates. this race was rated a tossup by the nonpartisan cook political report with amy walter. from wnyt-tv in albany, this is

about one hour. >> this debate is sponsored by a consortium of the regions premium outlets. joining us is done is director of wamc, new york now, and an investigative reporter at the times union newspaper. the 19th congressional district is sprawling, stretching from the messages border across the catskills, and along the southern tier to ithaca and enclose columbia, green counties. roughly 770,000 people live in the 19th district. let's get to the ground rules for tonight's debate. each candidate will have 19 seconds to give an opening statement. when candidates are asked a question, they have 90 seconds

to answer and the apartment has 45 seconds to respond. we will also have a brief lightning round. at the end of the debate, each candidate will have 30 seconds to deliver his closing statement. the candidate who delivers the first opening statement will deliver the last closing statement. our audience has agreed to hold a during the debate is for right now as i introduce the candidates. gentlemen, good evening. [applause] >> so our order was determined by a coin flip. mr. molinaro will go first and deliver his opening statement. >> i chose public service along time ago because of the dignified duty. it is our responsibility as citizens to engage. when i became in local

government, i learned that the decisions we make have real impact. fast-forward to today would have the honor to serve and represent the people of new york. this kid who grew up on food stamps in a working-class family, who watched his stepdad lose in a part of the state that is wonderful and beautiful and i've never push turned my back on people of upstate new york and i never will. two years ago josh riley and i stood together for election. you rejected his policies and politics then. why? we've seen the abandonment of the southern border, which has led to over 10 million individuals pouring into this country. policies here many new york and a half made us less safe. these are the policies he embraces yet again. i am committed to serving the people of this district because i know we are resilient, we care

deeply about the businesses, the farmers and our border. we have to make things safe again and ensure we're taking care of the farmers and small businesses that make up this beautiful state of new york. >> mr. riley? congressman, happy belted birthday. if you are a 1-year-old named mateo or 4-year-old named pa preach other patricio, you need to turn off the tv and go to bed. i'm josh riley and i'm running for congress because of the lessons i learned growing up in west endycott. a blue collar neighborhood where just about everybody worked in the factories and nobody cared about your political party. on our way home from school we'd pick up the cokes and cans and

turn them in for the nickel deposits. in our economy the deck has been stacked against you and stacked in favor of big, powerful corporate pacs and the politicians they pay to do what's best for their bottom lines, don't up. i'm running for congress to change that my vote is not for sale. i'm pushing for term limits. i'm pro choice. i believe women can make their own merrick decisions and i'm serious about solving the crisis at our southern border because today's politicians are not. honored to earn your vote. >> our first question is about the tone of the campaign. mr. riley, your commercials tell mr. moll taro a gang leader -- he wrote the bill giving am nestity to 1 million illegal

immigrants. to do you stand by all of the assertions made in your ads and those created on your behalf? mr. molinaro: josh riley spent the last several years in d.c. he argued before the supreme court 23 times to dismantle border security. his very legal argument in defense of secretary mayorkas was that the president of the united states didn't have the authority to protect americans and to unilaterally decide that certain individuals who want to enter this country shouldn't. his legal argument was that the president of the united states could ignore congress and wave a magic wand and allow immigrants to come in. it was that legal argument 1230 years working in los angeles and washington, d.c. to surrender the southern border and with it, 10.5 million people come into this country.

a thousand known tryst terrorists come into this country. they catch and release and them they come to new york, a sanctuary state because of your allies who think it is not important to protect americans and enforce the law. so yes, this election has gotten heated. why? because americans see every day. every say they see the department of homeland security seeing some 600,000 individuals, known criminals are in this country. they see jobs being exported for low immigrant wages and they see crimes being committed on their streets and tired of people like josh riley suggesting that somehow they had nothing to do with it. nonsense. that was yorman, that was your legal argument. >> mr. riley, your ad tells viewers that mr. molinaro doesn't respect-up enough to be honest and you accuse him be a

sellout to china interests. do you stand by all of the assertions made in your ad and those creteed on your behalf? >> you just asked him that question, you didn't hear an answer. he doesn't because he knows it's not true. you just talked about me doing something 20 years ago. i must have been a heck of a lawyer at 23 years old to do half the things he's talking about. he is a 30-year career politician who is desperate, desperate to talk about anything other than his record of failure on this issue. so desperate to the point that he's literally just making things up. here's what's not made up. here's what's true. he's been in office for over 30 years. every one of those incidents he's talking about and putting on tv happened on his watch. his. he's in congress.

there was a bipartisan bill supported by the border patrolline served up to him on a silver platter and if he was even the slightest bit serious about involving arc solving this problem he would have done the right thing and supported it but he's not. he cares more about having a campaign to run on than solving the problem and the only thing he's offered to voters, not a solution, not a plan, not a vision. conspiracy theories about haitian immigrants eating pets in ohio. that is incredibly irresponsible. and dangerous. i was speaking at a haitian teachers union meeting the other day. are you going to apologize tonight? i'll take that as a no. that is not a serious solution to solving the crisis at the border. i'm serious about it. >> i was going to give you 10 seconds. i think you both responded

rather than answerrering the question. >> i answered the question. >> the question you asked me is when you can draw a direct line from the million dollars in pac checks he's taking to the votes he's attack taking to the struggles folks are having across the issue. you westerned taking the checks. the avid i ran talks about the two -- >> that is more than 10 seconds ask that is a lie. >> you're not the moderator. >> allow them to jack up grocery prices and crush our small farmers. >> with all due respect, that is an outright lie. this isn't like one time you argued. you worked for the most politically connected law firm in washington, d.c. where you worked for mayorkas to surrender the southern border. you helped where i a mass

amnesty bill that would rear relate in illegal immigrants not only coming into this country but getting hotel rooms and social security and cell phones. in a state where democrats want to extend the right to vote to illegal immigrants with. all due respect, josh, you know this. the federal government doesn't set electric rates. new york state does. kathyy hokele and your allies set electric rates and i join pat riley in calling for the resignation of leadership -- >> a 50% rate hike. you're fact checking deny >> she has her next question. >> this question is for the congressman. you've been criticized for amplifying unfounded claims that haitian immigrants from springfield, ohio, were

capturing ask eating pets. what is your response to the criticism that those claims will both inflammatory or may gallant. >> i voted for the strictest border policy in generations and the president of the united states chose not to engage or participate. he turned his back on mayor adams, who was begging for assistance. congressman pat riley and i called for in administration to intervene and they did not guilty. beyond that, a year ago we had a woman raped and abused by an illegal immigrant in the catskill region of new york. we had of have an illegal immigrant who kills and remains in the capital district. people weren't angry enough about that. i respect people who come to

this country legally but i will not back down in arguing that because of the policies of this administration we are less safe at our southern and northern border and we've created a system where new yorker and upstate new yorkers get treated as second class citizens and they're angry. >> i would love to hear the question as to whether he stands by a dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory. he didn't answer the question. i don't know, maybe you're embarrassed about saying it. here's the thing. both parties have failed us terribly with respect to the southern border. i've been very critical of the biden administration and the congressman is reading off a hit any of horrors. all of them happened on his watch. all of them. he had a bill sitting on his desk that was bipartisan. he said they didn't negotiate. they did negotiate. that was the result of the gary,

and instead of doing the right, principled -- negotiation. and instead of doing the right thing and accepting that bill, he did what was politically ex peeled cent. >> for mr. riley. vice president kamala harris made headlines when she said she no longer support the ban on hydraulic fracking. do you agree with new york's existing ban and support ongoing efforts to expands the definition of fracking to one naiass carbon docks side in the method instead of water? >> i look at our energy policy in two respects. first, in the short term we've got to lower energy covers for folks across upstate new york. it's one of the biggest problems across the region for

development. a lot of you just saw a 62% increase in your bills. when i'm a new york congressperson, i'm going to fight to make sure that doesn't happen because i'm not taking their corporate pac checks and i don't have to do whatever they want me to do. in the short term we need to look at all available energy options. i'm deeply skeptical of these properties that are proposed by big corporations to take energy in upstate new york, which we found too often in other states ends up all getting taken out of the board rooms and all getting taken out to texas. but bigger picture, longer term we have to have a vision about how we get to truer energy independence and lowo costs. what that means is advanced manufacturing in the united states, building the solar pants here in the united states, here

in upstate new york, not new mexico, building batteries. we should be investing in advanced manufacturing to rebuild the middle class and also have a sustainable energy policy. my opponent voted to kill all those investments in green energy management under the inflation reduction act. >> pleasure molinaro? >> i support an all the above approach in energy. we have to drive up both our capacity to find american oil product and not rely on venezuela and countries around the world. we ought to be supporting microtechnology and i've led the bipartisan coalition in supporting a renewable and alternative energy and in fact called on the administration and congress to ensure that we continue to direct tax credits and assistance to the manufacturing that does make up

upstate new york solar panel technology, wind purr bin -- turbine technology, e.v. technology. it is rich to listen to you suggest that somehow you are pure on this issue. it's your law firm that represented chevron. it is the work that you did for the very corporations that have been stealing jobs from upstate new yorkers and why 36 unions have -- >> we have a great deal to get to. illinois give you 10 seconds. can you save that for your closing statement? >> congressman molinaro, local officials have long been concerned with a dearth of appropriate and affordable child care options in upstate new york. how would you give affordable choices for people who are

struggle at home to raise their families? >> i know firsthand. i'm the father of four children, one with a disability. we know the challenge. my wife is a preschoolteacher. believe me, we get it and one of the biggest problems besides housing costst is access to affordable child care. i led the effort to ensure the bill includes an expansion to the child care tax credit. this tool has believed provided real, meaningful relief to middle class family. in addition, my legislation that i worked on across the aisle would create a pathway to life sunnies so that we can educate and encourage people to enter the field of day care, so we can expand the workforce so that there are more available options for day care families and make

sure that businesses, governments also provide assistance when it cocks today care. i lobby businesses when they come into new york that they invest in day care for your families. i was the first to extend a family leave and paid assistance for county employees for the purpose of not only caring for their children but provide support as they get older. it is really one of the biggest challenges. we as a state should also be leveraging medicaid assistance to drive down the cost of day care and provide support for those who provide day care. >> universal paid family leave. universal child care. we have to make this investment in working families across the district. i was just in a pickett line with our health care workers in the catskills.

the thing i heard over and over was that access to child care and housing prices. we should make those investments so that people don't have to choose between their job and the child care that they need. but i say that all the time and one of the questions i always get, josh, how are we going to pay for it? nobody ever asks how we're going to pay for the $114 billion tax cut that he voted to give big corporations and billionaires in his first month in congress. nobody asked how we're going to pay for the $20 billion per year we're spending on oil subsidies. nobody asked how we're going to pay for the loophole to give billions to hedge fund managers. >> thank you very much. mr. riley, do you believe democrats minimizing their private concerns with president biden's performance hurt the

party and down-ballot candidates like you? >> to be really candid, i haven't given it a lot of thought and most voters ask me about policy issues. i will tell you what frustrates me about the democratic party. i think both the democratic party and the republican party have completely failed us with respect to the border. i think it is the worst of politics to have awful of these politicians just playing around with the issue because they think that's what's best for their political career. we need real solutions. bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, sending thousands of additional agents to the border. we could have done that. new technologies that are sitting on a shelve right now collect dust. if only they would find it, it would detect the fentanyl that's coming across the border. both parties have completely

failed on that issue. another issue where you have disagreements and concerns my own party is with respect to trade policy. it was democrats and republicans who got us into terrible, tribute trade policies with china and nafta. i saw my friends and family and neighbors lose their jobs. that's something we need to reverse and i think both parties need to come together and do that. >> when the democratic party woke up and realized that joe biden could no longer serve as president. josh riley was asked whether he supported the president. one day he did and one day he didn't. >> i've been very clear that i support the nominee. i'm not supporting the guy who ripped away roe v. wade and tried to turn over an election. >> when asked whether or not he supported the vice president, he didn't have an answer.

but you wouldn't know a lot of this because here we are in the only debate that my opponent would agree to. >> i agreed to three. >> you agreed to one. backed out of another and the difficult questions we face the people we represent aren't being asked of josh riley. he spent the last months hiding behind campaign ads. i think we ought to hold both counties accountable but i don't think it's right to be lectured to about democracy for an individual who wrapped himself around a party that woke up and threw joe biden under the bus and supported kamala harris. >> let's move on to our next question. >> for mr. riley. -- are a persistent concern amongst voters nationwide.

how are you planning on addressing issue if elected to congress this year? mr. riley: the challenges that folks face across the district and i think across the country all comes back to corruption in politics. the deck is stacked against working folks in this country, stacked in favor of these big corporate pacs and the corrupt politicians they pay. there was a young family i met in liberty over cinco de mayo. probably in their 20's, early 30's and had two little kids. when i talk too voters my first question is never are you a democrat oren, who are you going to vote for? my first question is always what is it that keeps you up at night. what are you and your family thinking about at the kitchen table? this family told me we're really concerned because the grocery prices are going up. we're already struggling to pay the rent and keep a roof over

the kids' heads. and you have to think how can that be happening in the united states of america? and the answer to i'm is something i think we all know. it's corruption in our politics. the grocery prices are going up because the big monopolies have paid my opponent. thank you tilts have paid my opponent tens of thousands of dollars to put his head in the sand when it came to hike rates. they've paid him a ton of money to not address the housing crisis in this country. we have got to get corporate money out of our politics and fete back to a politics of team people. >> mr. molinaro? mr. molinaro: when the families in this district speak to me, i know, because i've lived in upstate northern. i know the pain they feel. we feel it too.

i pay high rates. i've shouldered the burden of property taxes and i know that the families and farmers and small businesses understand. it's the reason that upstate new york and new york leads nation. more people leave this state because of the high cost of living. we have been fighting and confronting this when i was at local government, fighting taxings and i continue to drive down costs. in the house tax bill we adopted this year i fought for middle class taxes. we needs relief in prompt and income tax relief. i will continue to hold new york responsible for driving up the cost of electric rates. with all respect to my opponent, he's taken in about a million from corporate interests. he wants to make this argument about corporate pacs. tens of thousands of dollars from the corporationings he

worked for. chief executives and lobbyists and 12,000 donations with no information about the -- please, don't lecture us on corruption. >> thank you very much. >> this next question is for congressman molinaro from our partners in bengie molina hampton. you said you don't support a national abortion ban but you also support late-term abortions. how do you define a late-term abortion. >> i've witnessed the millions of familiars that my opponent has use today's lie about my record and belief on this issue. i oppose a national ban. i said i would oppose a national ban. i do and i remain committed to opposing a national ban. that tv ad saying i'll be the deciding vote on a national ban i've been consistent on this. times union cnn called him out

two years ago for lying about my position on abortion. i want women and families in upstate new york and across america to understand that. i absolutely respect the decision you make and i want that decision to be between you and your physician, not washington, d.c. it's the reason why i'm the first republican not only to come out and make clear my position on a national ban, which i would suppose. i came out about the complication of i.v.f. women who have made the choice to use it know how heart wrenching it can be. i clive in protecting access. as a congressman i led in ensuring access to birth control. i believe women ought to be respected for the choice they make. i-lead a bipartisan effort to expand excess to help communities like the ones we

represent are allowed access to natal the pre-natal care and ensure that women have support no matter choice they make. >> he's lying to you. he voted 13 times in the last two years to restrict women's access to abortion services. when he was behind closed doors in the fall of 2022 right after roev. wade was overturned, he expressed his support for an abortion ban. a woman i met after he took one of those many votes, karen, a marine veteran with three daughters who are currently serving in the military. some of them in places that are now trying to restrict access to abortion services and she saw my opponent's voting record and she said my family and i have put our lives on the line to defend freedom and it is unacceptable to us that he's in congress voting to take ours away.

you send me to congress i will sponsor the women's health protection act, put roe v. wade back into law because women's health care decisions are women's health care decisions and politicians like mark molinaro can stay out of it. >> you've criticized your opponent for the situation at the southern border. but a bipartisan bill offered in january was killed when former president trump told republicans to abandon it. how should voters believe you are serious about the situation? >> i voted for the strictest border control in generations. and co-sponsored legislation to secure northern border. the senate compromise, which never came to the house -- the senate compromise codifies the problem and ultimately takes taxpayer money for transportation, housing and support to those who enter into

this country illegally. a billion dollars worth of your money to states like new york that embrace sanctuary city policies. giving them cell phones, access to health care. housing credits. that is unacceptable and the bill didn't secure the border ask it wasn't something that i think ought to become law. we out to secure the border. when you ask that question, i would also pose to you president biden killed the house bill. nobody wanted to negotiate the problem until after 10.5 million entered this country. josh riley didn't just wake up one day and said one case he believed in surrendering the southern border. he believed time and time again, making the legal argument that the president of the quiet doesn't have to follow the law. that the federal law can allow people to enter in country without background checks.

and it's how a peruvian serial killer ends up in new york. and americans know and feel like they're being treated as seconds class. ultimately they see an administration that isn't willing to enforce law. the president should have begun negotiation with the house the seconds we passed h.r.-2, the border security bill and negotiated an agreement. what came out ultimately of the senate was never going to pass the senate and perhaps they should take seriously the question as to why we would allow 10.5 million into this country. >> what does a 30-year career politician sound like? certainly not taking any responsibility for any of the stuff that's happened in his three decades in office. i was trying to keep track of all the excuses and others to blame. he was in state and local government for decades and he

always blamed the federal government. anyhow he's blaming the state and local government. at some point, do your job. do your job.there is a gentlemat the county fair in august, and he told me he had lost his job at a factory. when he did, he lost his health insurance. he turns on the tv and he sees a migrant crisis in new york city where his taxpayer dollars are being used to bailout the politicians from both parties who are failing to do their job. everybody has to stop screwing around. the democrats, the republicans, stop screwing around. since the agents to the border. send the technology to the border and get it done. i want to make one point -- he said a number of times, his exact words was he voted for the strictest border security bill. that bill had bipartisan opposition to it. why? because it literally would have criminalized our dairy industry.

other members of congress who have big dairy industries opposed it, because that bill would have criminalized dairy farmers across the states. rep. molinaro: one, that is absolutely untrue. . we carve out protections for the dairy industry. because i lived in upstate new york and i have dealt with the challenges they face. let me finish. you can have a conversation when you have more time. more importantly, the president of the united states put into practice your legal argument. mr. riley: that's not true. rep. molinaro: we adopted the policy that would have secured the border. instead, this president did what you argued should be done. here's the thing. you argue the president could simply waive any adherence to the law. the president of the united states should have enforced the law. i used your legal argument is say he shouldn't have to. that led to some 600,000 criminal illegals entering this

country. you did your job of rep or handing -- mr. riley: he has raised this a number of times. i have not had a chance to properly address it. i think this is really important. there was one case, i don't know this magic handbag of numbers he is coming up with, do you really think that's true? i'm actually really trying to understand if you actually think that's true or you just don't know when you are talking about. >> let's remember the viewers. mr. riley: i want to talk about those there there is one case i handled. i handled it on behalf of who? senior homeland security officials from republican administrations. and what were they arguing? they argued we have limited law enforcement resources in this country. a part of the reason we have limited law enforcement resources is because the politicians are screwing around with the issue. they argued we should use our limited law enforcement resources for the highest priority cases. the drug traffickers, the child sex traffickers, the violent

criminals with limited law enforcement resources, you have to match choices. they said we should choose to do the highest priority cases and not use those resources to rip little kids away from families and put them in cages. this is the last thing i will say. this is really important. do you know who agreed with that argument? just last week during the vice presidential debate, jd vance agreed with it, law enforcement agreed with it. on g20 second, 2018, there was a gentleman running for governor named marc molinaro who agreed with that issue. he has taken a hard right turn into the darkness. >> forgive me for one moment. this is an important topic. that is we are allowing extra time. but it is going to mean that you will have less time to respond. rep. molinaro: this is the question right now. it is a matter of priorities in this country. josh pointed to one case, 32 separate submissions on behalf

of surrendering and dismantling border security. he argued the president of the united states did not have the capacity to stop terrorists from entering the country. in u.s. v texas, josh riley argued the president of the united states did not have to follow the law and allow states like texas to protect themselves from the onslaught of illegal immigrants coming into this country. using the discretionary argument he made, this president and alejandra mayorkas put into practice a policy that said you could simply claim asylum and enter into this country. what we saw was 10 million people enter into america without any background checks, no screening. for the record, the border patrol union supports me because they know i take seriously the need to not only secure the border, but to lift a sanctuary city policies and to protect american citizens. >> i think what just happened here is extraordinary and

newsworthy. he keeps saying 32, i would love to hear what the other ones are. rep. molinaro: 30 t submissions you made on behalf -- >> will give mr. riley a few minutes. mr. riley: it's not true. he is lying. the two cases, it is when he agreed with and said so in print on june 22, 2018, that we should use limited law enforcement resources to traffic the drug traffickers, and not to rip innocent kids away from families and put them in cages. he mentioned the hawaii case. rep. molinaro: i support getting terrorists out of the sanctions. [talking over] mr. riley: everybody supports that. [talking over] it goes to who we are as americans and who we are as upstate new yorkers. we do not in this country banned people from entering the united states based on religious litmus tests.

we don't have signs that say, no dues allowed, no muslims allowed. that is what i case was about. my father-in-law wears a turban. after 9/11, the prejudice he faced in the country he came to to build the american dream, and have the federal government then say, we are not going to allow you into this country based on your religion, i fought against that and i would do it again. >> we are going to -- we are going to give you each 45 seconds to respond. the next question is for you. this is for mr. riley. we will turn to the middle east with a two-part question. do you agree with senate majority leader chuck schumer that israeli leader benjamin netanyahu is an impediment to peace and should be replaced with fresh elections? and do you want to see any restrictions on u.s. aid to israel given the campaign in gaza and the latest developments in lebanon? mr. riley: i was at cornell university a couple days ago, october 7, to commemorate the

tragic events of that day. what we saw on that day was absolutely horrific and barbaric. i want to be very clear. hezbollah, hamas, are brutal terrorist organizations, backed by iran but need to be taken off the face of the earth. you asked me about conditions on aid to israel. and to israel is already conditioned. i think israel should be subject to the same conditions with respect to aid as any other country. it is a critically important ally for us because of historical and moral and geopolitical reasons. at the same time, i think there are a lot of concerns about the way the war has unfolded over the last year. it is really hard to turn on the tv and see little kids being pulled out of rubble, and little kids starving and suffering. we have to bring this war to a close. i would support a plan that would end the fighting, get our hostages out, provide humanitarian assistance where it is needed and put us back on a path toward a two state solution

. rep. molinaro: i was in binghamton university. in the days after the attacks a year ago. and made clear then what i think america should make clear, that we stand shoulder to shoulder with israel. by the way, no conditions, no restrictions. israel has every right to defend itself and bring about the extension of -- extinction of hamas. i saw in the moments after those attacks, a brief moment where america stood united. then we saw the ugliness of anti-semitism that erupted around our college campuses and communities across america. what frightens me is jewish citizens who have seen an escalation of hate and violence. when i go to the civic communities, in greene county committees or individuals that have been living peacefully and all of a sudden have their children and lives being upended, threats of violence brought against them. at the end of the day, we need to confront anti-semitism as the

cancer it is. that means, yes, standing with israel and israel's right not only to defend itself but bring hamas to its knees. to ultimately bring the hostages home. we as a nation must make very clear that if you harbor individuals and support individuals who act out in violent and intolerant ways against jewish americans, that that is not something to be accepted. mr. riley: can we note the hypocrisy of someone who just announced his support for a muslim ban and oppose the white house's task force on islamophobia, lecturing us about bigotry. rep. molinaro: with all due respect, please. i said, the argument in trump v hawaii, it was meant to protect america from terrorists. because of a policy that this administration has put in place and you argued for, mass amnesty, catch and release, casa could torry discretion and century city policies. we have 1000 known terrorists that have entered into this

country with 600,000 known criminals. at the end of the day, this administration abandoned the southern border in the northern border using your legal argument. mr. riley: there he goes again. 30 year career politician, blame everybody else. >> i know there are topics both of you want to talk about. let's move on. >> federal data has shown a provisional decrease in opioid overdose deaths across upstate new york for the first time in years, leading to some optimism that current public health policies may be effective at combating one of the state's worst public health crises. do you believe new york politicians have dealt with the opioid crisis or do you believe there is more to be done? if elected, what policies would you support to deal with fentanyl trafficking, and opioid overdoses? mr. riley: there is a huge amount that needs to be done. i grew up in and a cat -- in a factory town. everybody worked in the plant. mike morley's folks had the

flower shop down on washington avenue. everybody was connected to the plant in some way. when the politicians and special interests shipped those jobs overseas, we sought real challenges across our community. the opioid epidemic ripping through was one of them. on of my really good friends on the corner was killed because of it. i was just with his mom a couple days ago. our buddy, mike, was a couple blocks back and was killed because of it. one of my best friend's mom was killed because of it. i have seen the damage this is caused. number one, i want to secure the border. go do your job. pay for the technology to go to the border to detect the fentanyl. pay for it. get it done parent stop the fentanyl from coming in. second, we need a surge in treatment. we do not have enough across this district to deal with this challenge here and i advocated in a bipartisan way for a treatment facility to go

there. it was very effective for the folks it could serve. the demand far outstrips the supply. rep. molinaro: i have witnessed far too many who struggle with substance abuse disorder. lindsay in sullivan county has efforts to assist those who live with substance abuse disorder. she knows what we know. which is that far too much fentanyl and synthetic opioids are pouring in across our border. secure border. it's why i voted for secure the american border act. to not only support law enforcement at the border, but to intercede in drug trafficking. what we must do is secure the border, enforce the law. in states like new york, we let those who prey on young people, on american citizens, get away with continuing to take lives with no repercussions. i have supported additional resources for local law enforcement to engage in drug trafficking.

it's why those law enforcement agencies that have endorsed in this race have supported my candidacy. they know we stand shoulder to shoulder with them. i led the creation of the community-based mental health and substance use treatment program, which is the model the state of new york uses. they must have access to treatment for those who deal with substance use disorder. we need to meet people where they are and help them to get to a life of greater independence. not reliant on substance use and ultimately get the treatment they deserve. it's why i'm working with jason gardner, democrat, to bring about the treatment. it's why we're working in sullivan county. to do the same every community in america should have access and every person should have access to treatment. >> thank you very much. >> in 2016, you said he refused to vote for donald trump and wrote in former representative chris gibson instead. eight years later, after trump has been convicted of dozens of felonies and has been impeached twice, plus lost the last

election, you have endorsed him. why is it a different approach this year? mr. riley: i have watched -- rep. molinaro: have watched these last four years of inflation going up, i have seen the cost on the burden of small businesses and families and farmers. i have watched as this administration abandoned the southern border. allowed 10.5 million people enter into this country. i have seen far too much devastation, loss of lives because of substance use disorder and synthetic opioids pouring into this country. i believe this administration abandoned its responsibility. i have a hard time embracing someone who says, pay no attention to the crisis we have created over the years. i think ultimately we need a government that respects the people of upstate new york, but focuses on driving down cost, secures the border, protects americans and creates opportunity for everyone, regardless of their background. mr. riley: you are asking me? that was a very different question. a response to why he is supporting donald trump?

i don't know that i can necessarily speak to that. except if i were to guess what the actual answer to that question is, it's politics. back in 2017, he was running for governor of new york. a very blue state. probably wasn't good for his politics to support president trump at that time. now he is running for a different office in a different place where he put his finger in the air, saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to change his position. it's exactly what he has done with respect to abortion and women's health care decisions. for 30 years, he has been a politician in every single step of the way, he has been anti-choice. now, he realizes it is election season, and that's not a popular position to have. now all of he is saying he thinks things differently. you can find out for yourself, this is not a matter of debate as to opinion, these are facts and knowable. you can go to molinarofacts.com, you can see the votes he took to restrict women's access to

abortion. rep. molinaro: you are lying again. it is the height of hypocrisy to have josh riley lecture us on women's issues. it was your law firm that represented harvey weinstein, and your team that silenced and bullied and intimidated harvey weinstein's victims. you consistently have lied about my position. i absolutely make this commitment. i believe and have always believed that the decision should be left to a woman and her physician, not washington. i oppose a national abortion ban. i will continue to work to expand access to the treatment, support, and care necessary no matter the choice a woman makes. mr. riley: you know what would be great? because you can put action to your words. will you commit to cosponsor the women's protection act? rep. molinaro: i will do nothing that diminishes access in the state of new york, which that legislation could result in. mr. riley: nope. it would just put roe v. wade back.

if you believe anything coming out of your mouth, you would sign the bill. >> we have to move on. >> republican candidate and former president trump has still not conceded the 2020 diffie. if you loses the race to vice president harris next month and again disputes the result without evidence, will you vote to certify harris' victory? rep. molinaro: i will certify the results sent to us by the state. and josh can -- i want to return to this. we have heard this consistently paired with all due respect, there is only one person on this stage that has made millions of dollars working in washington, d.c. and it sure as heck is not me. you can see the tv. it is a canny live people like you use to suggest you have not been working the halls of washington. you are the problem in washington, d.c. you trade relationships and power and think you can come to new york and buy yourself a congressional seat. with all due respect, i gave myself the pup -- i gave myself

to public service because i believe it. i have sat with families who have seen their homes destroyed because of fire and flood and responded. you have a tv ad out that says i have done nothing in 30 years. with all due respect, 20 years and local government led on reducing the cost of living for the people we serve, led on mental health and substance use disorder. we have made a lifetime commitment to ensuring those who live with mental health and intellectual physical developmental disabilities have a government that respects them. you can continually argue somehow you are free of the corruption. millions of dollars poured into your campaign from corporate interests. millions of dollars back in your campaign from corporations. nevertheless, you took those resources. mr. riley: this actually is not that complicated. i don't take corporate pac money. i don't. rep. molinaro: you do.

mr. riley: you had your time. rep. molinaro: you have accepted corporate dollars. mr. riley: he had his time. i don't take corporate pac money. never have, never will. it is the root of corruption. he has taken nearly $1 million in corporate pac checks. you can draw a line from the checks that he has stuffed in his pockets to the votes he has taken to jack up the grocery prices. rep. molinaro: no such thing. mr. riley: this is still my time. there is a clock there. you can see the clock. i'm just asking for the time. rep. molinaro: you have interrupted me every time i've had a answer. >> will you another 10 seconds. mr. riley: he said that i hadn't done anything. rep. molinaro: that is your position. mr. riley: can you please? i know this is hard. i just need you to give me the opportunity to speak. he said my position is he has not done anything during his political career. that's not my position. he voted to give on hundred $14

billion in tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations. he voted to cut heating assistance for seniors. he voted for an over 20% cut to head start that are desperately needed. you just can't escape your voting record. you voted 13 times to restrict access to abortion. this is what is going to happen. he will say that's not true. you will go to his website and you will see for yourself. >> we want to be sure we have enough time -- mr. riley: my campaign did not create the votes. >> in the meantime, chantel has the next question. 30 seconds to respond. >> you plan to vote for the equal rights amendment on your november ballot this year? mr. riley: i don't know how i can be any more clear on this. women health care decisions belong to women and not politicians. roe v. wade being overturned was one of the worst supreme court cases in the history of this country. i think citizens united which

opened the floodgates to dark money and politics was one of the worst. but the dobbs decision was one of the worst. the equal rights amendment will undo that damage by restoring roe v. wade. my opponent has been in office for 30 years. he has been antichoice every single step of the way. including back when he was in the state government. he opposed putting roe v. wade back into law. we are now seeing the damage that is causing across the country. not only is the equal rights amendment in the state, but we should be talking about what is happening federally on this issue. i still did not hear an answer to my question the women's health protection act has been sitting on his desk. a wood store roe v. wade. i will sponsor it. rep. molinaro: the amendment you referred to waita codified -- would codified biological males playing in women's sports. we have fought to have equal access to athletics, equal respect under the law.

this amendment goes too far. what troubles me is the amendment would extend country -- extend protection to illegal immigrants. this is part of the democratic plan. to expand access and protection to illegal immigrants on the new york state constitution would lead to what new york city tried to do months ago, extend voting rights. >> thank you very much. we have closing statements and neither of you will get the opportunity. first with your closing statements, 30 seconds. mr. riley: thank you all again for hosting. i'm not a democrat, i come from a republican family. i know today, our politics seem hopelessly divided. i have had the opportunity to travel all across this district and talk to folks from all walks of life and different political backgrounds. if you have given me hope. i know we are not nearly as divided as the political establishment and the special interests would have us believe. we are hard-working, decent people who have each other's backs.

those are upstate new york values that unite us and those are the values i'm going to take with me to congress. rep. molinaro: i truly appreciate the honor of being here and representing you in the house of representatives. i will say this without question or this was a spirited debate. and i have crisscrossed this district for the last two years meeting tens of thousands of people i serve. i serve you. i know that. we are supposed to respond and be responsible to you. it's the reason our office reaches out to citizens and residents regardless of political background. when you call us and ask for help, we don't ask who you voted for, we just ask how we can help, and we want to help. i am the second-most bipartisan member of congress because i will work with republicans and democrats to get the job done. i'm asking for your support to continue to do the work on your behalf. >> thank you, gentlemen. our consortium invited other area candidates for congress to debate the season. the two of you are the only ones who agreed. for that, you should both be

applauded. thank you to our panel of journalists here tonight. it is exactly 26 days until election day. please get out there and exercise your right to vote. on behalf of our consortium and all of us here at news channel 13, we wish he a good night. -- we wish you a good night. [applause] announcer: later today, republican congressman kelly armstrong faces off against independent michael coachman and democrat merrill peppercorn in a debate among candidates to be north dakota's next government. watch live starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile in video app, or online at c-span.org. announcer: with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of key state. this fall, c-span brings you access to the nation's top

house, senate and governor debates from across the country. debates and races that are shaping your state's future and the balance of power in washington. following our campaign 2024 coverage from local to national debates anytime online at c-span.org/campaign. be sure to watch tuesday, november 5, for a live real-time election night results. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. powered by cable. former president bill clinton campaigned in support of democratic presidential nominee and vice president kamala harris in columbus, georgia. he highlighted the vice president's economic plan for the country and talked about border security and education investment. he criticized former president trump's interference into a failed bipartisan immigration and border security bill, and disinformation surrounding hurricane helene. this is part of a multi-day swing through the peach state

for the former president on behalf of vice president harris. ♪ >> all right, columbus! are you already? y'all ready? i don't think you're ready. y'all, remember i told you that i had somebody who works with me every day in washington, d.c. fighting for your values down here in southwest georgia.

y'all, today, i need you to give me a warm chattahoochee valley, welcome to your congressman, the dean of the georgia delegation . [applause] >> hello, hello, columbus! hello, hello columbus. are we ready? are we fired up? fired up? ready to go. fire it up. ready to go. listen, we are fortunate. we are fortunate. this has been a great, great two days. we got an exciting, exciting energized week coming up and we are counting down, counting down november 5. but more importantly, we counting down the hours till

tomorrow when we can do what? early vote. early vote. listen, for the last two days we've been honored to have in this area, midland, southwest georgia, the 42nd president of the united states of america. bill clinton. we started out yesterday from columbus to albany. he went to an early church service and he brought a message, a message of what america needs and what we have to do to make sure that we deliver for the people of the united states of america. to make sure that we have people who are working for and in our behalf are in the white house to make sure that kamala harris and tim walz are there in january to be president and vice president of these united states.

we went to albany, he met with people there connected with them. we went to fort valley middle georgia, connected with them, went to the state fair in perry, georgia. and you should have seen him with the candy apples and the people in the selfies. it was awesome. and this morning, we just met with faith leaders from our area, a very, very powerful breakfast. you know, we've got to pray because god is in this god is controlling this. and we're gonna pray like everything depends on god. but you know what? we got to work like everything depends on us. when we fight, when we fight. all right. now, i don't need to tell you how important this election is. georgia has delivered for this

country. in 2020, we sent joe biden, kamala harris. we turned georgia blue. we sent two senators in washington to clean up the mess that had been left. and now we're gonna send kamala and tim walz to washington to finish the job that joe and kamala have started. we're going to get it done for the american people. and to help us put in context just how important georgia is in saving our country, saving our nation, saving our health care, saving the department of education, saving headstart, saving all of the things that mean a better life for american people, for you and for me and our children, our children's children and our children's

children's children. we're going to bring the 42nd president of the united states of america, bill clinton! [crowd cheering] mr. clinton: thank you. thank you very much. thank you. well, -- [crowd cheering] first, thank you.

you know, columbus has really improved a lot in the last 32 years since i came. and, we can give a little credit to your congressman. my long time friend, he's done a great job here and it's just wonderful to be back. i have been hanging around here the last two or three days, you know, and traveling out and going around. i went to the fair, and everybody was in such a good humor. i even had one guy with a maga cap asked to take a picture and it made me feel good. i thought maybe there's hope for this country yet. part of kamala harris's new way forward is that we're going to have more us and fewer them. this us and them thing is eating us alive.

and so when the guy asked for a picture, i said, come on up here, ma'am. maybe i can affect him. meanwhile, we got a race to win and i want to thank another man native of columbus. who was for a while, the longest serving member of any state legislature, anywhere in america, calvin smyre who is from columbus. he's over there. he has been with me. i want to thank congresswoman akima williams, your state chair and a great friend of many of my friends. thank you, representative carolyn. thank you, representative teddy reese. and thanks to all the local

campaign people here. i've had the best time the last few days. i got to go to the state fair, which i thought was pretty cool. i didn't get it. you should be proud of me. i didn't eat one. i got one and gave it to somebody younger with a higher metabolism. [laughter] look, we started early voting, tomorrow, right? and if you look at all these recent georgia elections and they've all been close because we fought hard. and they tried to rig the rules away, you know. so it hurt us. and there have been some new innovative efforts in that

regard, trying to rig the rules away from us. but you did well. we won in 2020. and you got raphael warnock and jon ossoff. [crowd cheering] and we did it because, not just because we did well in atlanta, but because where there was an opportunity anywhere outside atlanta, we punched above our weight. so that's what this election is coming down to. if you want it bad enough, you can win it. and you will be proud of yourself for the rest of your life. and your children and grandchildren will be grateful. and if you decide you got something better to do for the next few days, you will regret

it for the rest of your life. i know quite a bit about not only being president but about the current issues. and the competing candidate. and the thing that, as i said, -- as i said this once before when i was speaking for kamala harris at the democratic convention, people always talk about donald trump lying. they say, you know, he just make stuff up. well, he does, you know, he just -- and you get a lot of help here. i saw marjorie taylor green was there and did you see this, she said when our friends in north carolina got creamed by that terrible storm helene. usually hurricanes hit the coast. this one hit inside the west and

it was terribly damaging in asheville, which is pretty much a democratic city. but it also hurt all these rural counties that were mostly republican. and they acted like we've done something unfair. because i mean, i knew, for example, when i went to the east coast of north carolina in 2016, i didn't see how hilary could possibly win because i went to this national guard armory and all the people who lost everything were in there. and half of them had their buttons on and were enthusiastic and glad i showed up. but i knew their lives were wrecked and they couldn't get themselves together to go vote. and there wouldn't be an organization to do it. so now they say we have the power.

to change the weather. [laughter] i'll tell you something, folks, i love being in politics and i love public service. but if i had had the power to change the weather, i'd have been in a different line of work. and, you know, i would have underwritten this entire campaign if that had happened. we're having a good time, but we need to be serious here. there are big stakes. and the thing that bothers me more about the opposition campaign, even than any lies are all the eyes. the sun came out today. i did it. [laughter] yesterday, a range. if i'd been president, it never

would have happened. this is about me, you've got to understand. there's nobody in the world like me. i can do things nobody can do. i can stop things, nobody can just stop. and i listen to all this stuff and i thought if that's true, how come since the end of the cold war, there have been 50 million new jobs added to the economy by democrats and one by republicans? [applause] and we are about to finish the four year period that will produce the most new jobs of any four year period in the history of the united states. so they got a real load to carry the republicans. they want to attack kamala

harris and blame her for anything they managed to keep from happening. like they claim she was the border czar. that's not what her job was. her job was to go down to these other countries that were sentencing a lot of people and trying to get them to enroll them in a legal process while they were still in the country. so they wouldn't be illegally trafficked. show up on our border, had to be cared for on one side of it or another, and then we would run the risk of having people get in here who weren't properly vetted. that's what she tried to do. and we had some success with that. but those traffickers, they make a lot of money. so for the last three years, the biden-harris administration has done increasingly tough things trying to control the border and

the illegal crossings have gone down every year for three years. our friends in the other party don't want to talk about, but that's true. and then president biden called the republican senators who seemed genuinely concerned about it and he said, look, let's make a deal. the only thing you care about is having fewer people come in? and they said, well, there is a limit to how many people we can efficiently take. so i will make a deal with you. i will take your limit if you will give me enough money to make sure that these families can stay together and no kids are taken away from their children. and if we do serious background checks, so the people who shouldn't get in because they're highly likely to commit crimes don't get in. let's make that deal.

so they made the deal. so biden then said, you write the first draft of the bill. i trust you. you never hear those. and then donald trump hears about it and he said, oh my god, we can't fix the border. [laughter] what am i going to do for tv ads? who am to demonize everyday? -- who am i going to demonize everyday? i don't get into politics to solve problems. i got into it to create problems and blame other people for doing it. he learned from his great mentor, roy cohn, who helped senator joe mccarthy deny everything and accuse other people of doing what you're doing. there it was on a silver platter. a new direction to manage an

immigration crisis in a tough time where there's all this up people all over the world. where there are border problems all over the world. where millions of people are trying to escape the misery they're in and other people are saying, well, i want to do what i can and take what i can. but maybe there's a limit to how much we can do. in other words, i don't think americans are anti-immigration, they are anti-chaos. they don't want us to do more than we can, but they recognize , at least most people do, we have got the lowest birthrate we have had in well over 100 years. we are not at replacement level, which means we got to have somebody come here if we want to keep growing the economy. unless one of you is one of these artificial intelligence geniuses who have figured out we can all grow with no work. which i'm not sure would be good

for us. i think, it helps us a little to get up and go to work every day. so what you've got is a clear choice. kamala harris has offered a credible, compelling economic problem. there was a huge number of economists more or less evenly divided by philosophy that reviewed these programs. and basically her program would help more than twice as many americans as trump would because they get too much money as they always do to high income people like me. i'm on the bottom end and, and elon musk is on the top end of high income people. and i don't need a tax cut and i sure don't want them to eliminate the department of education or cut spending to kids or do all these things at

that 2025 port. [applause] but their program would not have nearly as many people, but it cost more than twice as much money. because one of the reasons they exist and live, i just can't wait until we get to congress and the white house again. so that we can give billionaires another tax code. the poor darlings, they need some incentive. they need some incentive to invest. well, let me tell you something. i've got a few friends who made a billion dollars, they worked for it. they earned it. but the friends that i have, they're proud to pay taxes on what they owe. [applause] they don't believe that you should pay less. and they believe they live in a

country that should give all the kids a chance to become what they did. not a millionaire, maybe, maybe just a poor millionaire. [laughter] maybe a musician, maybe a carpenter, maybe a whatever. they should have a chance. [applause] so, kamala harris and tim waltz, -- tim walz, they want to make it possible for many more jobs to be open for people who have had skills training, who didn't get a college degree but have skills training. republicans don't give a roof about that. they want to make it easier for people to go to college and stay there. they want to make it easier for people to repay their debts because they want us all to have a chance to live the way people who feel successful and fulfilled have lived.

so you just got to decide how bad you want this. >> we want it bad! [applause] mr. clinton: mr. johnson, you look good in your t-shirt. [laughter] i think that's all i need to say. i have loved being here. [crowd cheering] we lived 30 years, i thought about everything in the wide world that's happened to me here. i love driving all over columbus to see how beautiful it is. but you have to realize it is literally possible that the whole election could be decided here. it is possible.

there are seven states where the election is too close to call. we could win them all and we could lose them all. and it depends on want to. and, you know, the supreme court has had a lot of terrible rulings since the last election and they've been able to make it easier for states that agree with them to make it harder for people to vote. but not impossible. and georgia has more experience than almost any other state in climbing those barriers and breaching them. [applause] i was looking at that gentleman

in the beautiful cap that says, bronze star. you got too many military veterans in georgia who have paid too high a price to serve this country to be turned around and discriminated against and access to the polls. you can say no. you can be no. so that's the last thing i want to leave with you. i want you to celebrate on election night. i want you to be happy and i want you to know that i am here because i believe, i believe based on my personal knowledge of the job and the candidates that kamala harris will be a fine president. will make a huge difference that the risk that her opponent will

actually do what he says. and now he says, who are these 2025 people? i don't know them. well, president trump, 144 of the writers were in your administration. it's just 144 of them. about that many come over 100 -- about that many, over 100 military and administration members from the trump years have already endorsed kamala harris because they saw up close what happened to ordinary people. don't be fooled. just bear down. have a good time. look for somebody in a maga cap to take a picture with, but don't forget they'll be better

off if you win. and you won't be better off if they win. so for the sake of the children and those of you who have grandchildren, including me, please, make sure we turn out. all we have got to do is show up. if we show up, we will win. and it's in your hands. god bless you. thank you. ♪

>> ♪ i break chains all by myself won't let my freedom rot in hell hey i'ma keep running 'cause a winner don't quit on themselves i'ma wade, i'ma wade through the waters tell the tide, "don't move" i'ma riot, i'ma riot through your borders call me bulletproof lord forgive me, i've been runnin' runnin' blind in truth i'ma wade, i'ma wade through your shallow love tell the deep i'm new i'm telling these tears, go and

fall away, fall away may the last one burn into flames freedom freedom i can't move freedom, cut me loose freedom freedom where are you? 'cause i need freedom, too i break chains all by myself won't let my freedom rot in hell hey i'ma keep running 'cause a winner don't quit on themselves ♪ >> ♪ ten hail marys, i meditate for practice channel nine news tell me i'm movin' backwards eight blocks left, death is around the corner seven misleadin' statements 'bout my persona six headlights wavin' in my direction five-o askin' me what's in my possession

yeah i keep runnin', jump in the aqueducts fire hydrants and hazardous smoke alarms on the back of us but mama don't cry for me, ride for me try for me, live for me breathe for me, sing for me honestly guidin' me i could be more than i gotta be stole from me, lied to me, nation hypocrisy code on me, drive on me wicked, my spirit inspired me like yeah, open correctional gates in higher desert yeah, open our mind as we cast away oppression yeah, open the streets and watch our beliefs and when they carve my name inside the concrete i pray it forever reads ♪ >> ♪ i pray it forever reads freedom freedom i can't move announcer: c-span's washington journal, our live involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy, from washington to across the country. tuesday morning, senior vice president and senior policy director of the committee for a responsible federal budget, mark pulled wine, talks about the fiscal impact of the candidate's

tax and spending plans. then, jackie mentoring fit -- documentary filmmaker on a recent film for pbs frontline, examining the israel-hamas war one year later. c-span's washington journal, join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning, on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on selected videos. the timeline makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest.

monday roundtable on health care and campaign 2024. in new york joining us is joel zinberg and here in studio is andrea ducas of the senator for american progress. we will start -- of the center for american progress. before we get to policy on health care, where you stand on with the government should be doing when it comes to americans and their health care, where they should be involved, and what should be the responsibility of individual americans? guest: absolutely. at the center for american progress action we believe everyone should be access to affordable health insurance. health care is a right. the role of the government should be to facilitate the pickup of affordable health insurance as much as possible to make sure that when people go to the doctor they know they're getting high-quality care and when their purchasing insurance they are getting a good product

that enables them to access the providers they need at the government should also be setting the rules of the road, making sure that in the system we have all entities are playing by the rules, doing what they can to look out for the best interests of the american public and again ensuring everyone in this country has access to the best health care in the world. host: is there anything about that you disagree with? guest: i do not disagree with everyone having access to health care. that is what everyone wants. i happen to be a physician and i would want that for myself and my family. i think we differ on what is the best means of achieving that. is it through making sure everyone has some sort of government provided health insurance or is it done through maximizing people's ability to choose what they would need and what they would want? we do that by maximizing choice and by increasing competition so that the best plans, the best ways of providing health care

rise to the top and people have the opportunity to choose that for themselves. host: with that being said, what you see as the faultlines of the health care battles in this election cycle? where are the two parties differing? guest: one site seems intent on expanding government provided care. they do not care if it is done in an efficient way, if it is done in a wasteful way or not. you have one party that wants to expand the marketplaces, and they will do that by increasing subsidies and to do that in a way that induces people to misstate their income and have fraud. at paragon health institute we issued a paper dealing with that , that because of the changes in the subsidy structure that were included in the american rescue

plan and extended in the inflation reduction act, people with incomes between 100 to 150 of the federal poverty line get no premium care. they pay nothing. that is a great incentive for people to misstate their income and we estimate four to 5 billion people are receiving care -- 425 million people -- 4-5 million people are receiving care that they do not qualify for that is costing us $15 billion to $20 billion a year. you also have a party that does not seem to care of people are enrolled in medicaid who are ineligible. we had a program during the pandemic that told states not to look at whether people are enrolled who are eligible or not . that kept getting extended and extended until just about a year ago.

now the federal government is pushing back when states try to disenroll those folks who are eligible. it is a feeling that you need to get as many people on as possible and it is getting people onto plans that are not very popular. the aca marketplace plans prior to these expanded subsidies never topped 10 or 11 million per year. that is about half of what the cbo estimated were going to be enrolled. you only got an expansion when you provided the free stuff. people love free stuff. host: the issues of waste, fraud, and abuse, trying to expand these programs. andrea ducas, you agree that this is the fault line when it comes to health care? guest: it is hard to say because there has not been a lot of that has been part of the discussion around health care from one of the parties. it is challenging.

what dr. zinberg shared is right in terms of that being one of the faultlines. we take significant issue with that analysis. i think there is a difference between somebody who is a sole proprietor and self-employed person trying to estimate how much money they will make at the beginning of the year and somebody who is fraudulently and lowering an insurance plan -- somebody was fraudulently enrolling in an insurance plan. to the extent you have actors engaging in that kind of activity that should not be happening, and there's a difference in belief about what to do about that. one way to handle fraud is to go after fraud. another way to do it is to pick everybody out with health insurance. it is an odd choice to be making. that is one fault line. there is one party for expanding access to tax credits and government subsidies to purchase private health insurance and there is another that has worked very hard to limit access to

government-funded insurance and care. host: health care in campaign 2024 is our topic this morning. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. andrea ducas and dr. joel zinberg are our guests. andrea ducas with the center for american progress action. what is that? guest: where a nonpartisan think tank that works to advance progressive policy across united states. host: we mentioned at the top of paragon health institute. i know you also work with the center for committed -- for competitive enterprises. explain to viewers what those institutes do. caller: paragon is not -- guest: paragon is a nonprofit health research institute in washington dc and aims to improve american south by empowering patients and reforming government.

the competitive enterprise institute is also a nonprofit think tank in washington, d.c. and is a libertarian think tank that tries to improve government , limit its influence, and empower people and empower individual liberty. host: our guests are with us until the top of the hour at 9:00 eastern. start calling in. dr. rosenberg -- dr. zinberg, what happens to health care affordability and and access under a second trump administration? guest: there is a lot of handwaving about what will happen, but during the first administration health care access was pretty good. the trump administration tried to expand access by improving people's ability to choose the types of care that is best for them. that included things like short-term limited duration

plans, association health plans, reimbursement arrangements. these are all things that give people improved ability to choose their plan. the association health plan is way for small employers to band together and purchase insurance together as one big group that gives them a better price and incentivizes small businesses to provide insurance they would otherwise not be able to afford. the biden harris administration immediately reversed all of those lands and put them on hold and ultimately change the rules. i think you would expect to see more of that in a future trump administration. host: would you agree that health care access is pretty good in the first administration? guest: absolutely not. what was on the first trump administration was a relentless attempt to overturn the affordable care act and its many

consumer protections. we also saw a former president intent on having roe v. wade overturned and who nominated justices who did exactly that. you asked before about faultlines, and the biggest one is access to abortion and a women's right to choose. we also saw president trump an act pretty harsh roles early on in his tenure like the punch archewell which threatened people who were not citizens of the united states with deportation if they use public benefits. we saw medicaid enrollment decline as a result of that. we saw defunding of the people that actually help people access the marketplaces. we did see some attempt to introduce more transparency to the health care market, which was certainly a welcome change although has had limited impact. host: plenty of calls.

kevin out of lakewood, washington. you're on with andrea ducas and joel zinberg. caller: i am one of those black male callers that is supporting, harris from earlier. on health care, we should not trust any republican to do anything positive for people on health care. they've been trying to kill the aca ever since it has come out, and then you have the republican states not accept the aca and not implement it. you've had kentucky, unified idaho, you have people who are poor in these states put this on the ballot and when it gets to the people they vote for it. mr. zinn berg is saying -- dr.

zinberg is saying people lie about their status in order to game the system and get benefits. i could see some of that happening because people are desperate and the insurance companies have be people down over the years. denying people claims at the time they really needed the service. i would never trust a republican to have anything to do with health care. host: got your point. joel zinberg? guest: i thank you for your comments and question. i think you have to look at the campaign to increase government provided care. it is just a question of do you think government provided care is the answer to everything or

would you rather have the choice of what kind of care you want. do you want to have to enroll in a plan that some bureaucrat in washington has decided is best for you or would you like to choose the plan that is best for yourself? no one is talking about repealing the aca. there are things you can do to improve the aca. you can expand health savings account that allow people to take tax-advantaged money and then use it to decide what care is best for then and expand the type of things they can use it for. take part of the aca's subsidy and allow people to put that into their health savings account so they can then decide how to use that. you expand so of the other choices i talked about or do you want to have this self campaign, increased subsidies i talked about were enacted in 92 a1 -- those were enacted in the american rescue plan as though

there was some emergency because of the pandemic. there was, then in 2022 when the pandemic was winding down those things were extended and now you have a push to extend those subsidies permanently and that means $383 billion of spending over 10 years according to the cbo. we are in the middle of record deficits now. is that what we want? do we want part of the subsidies to be providing subsidies to people with more than 400% of the federal poverty line those subsidies now applied to. you have a family making close to a quarter of a million dollars. they are getting subsidies across the cbo of -- people with higher incomes are getting subsidies. is that what we want? people who can easily afford

care on their own have to get subsidies from the government? they are getting subsidies for a type of insurance that has narrow networks, that is lower quality than employer-provided care, but this is coming right from the kaiser family foundation and also from a paragon publication, these are extremely narrow networks were people find it hard to obtain care. less than 40% of the doctors in their area are in their marketplace. people cannot find a specialist who can treat their condition. host: i get the sense andrea that you wanted to jump in. guest: i will focus a little bit on the marketplace. there is so much to say. i think is interesting that so much of the conversation is about whether we subsidize care or access to insurance for people who do not have any other option that is affordable. individuals who cannot afford the job-based coverage if they

haven't offered and those who might be self-employed or do not have access to any other health insurance. we spent a lot more time subsidizing the job-based coverage. that is not free. that cost a lot of money. we made a decision as a society that that is a valuable thing to pay for just as we believe it is a valuable thing to pay for and helps in order to enable them to access care. we ought to believe that people who do not have that option -- some folks to get zero premium plans. others pay in. i want you to speech the experience and start a personal story. my floor -- my father works for small business. when my parents got divorced he did not have access to affordable health insurance.

he had a cancer diagnosis and at that time the exchanges were set up and we could get him a plan. for him the experience was do not get care or now we have the affordable care act and subsidized coverage and he could get care. it is remarkable that we are having this conversation about whether that is something a nation like the united states should be offering its citizens. guest: i think that is a little bit of a strawman. nobody is talking about abolishing that option. you're looking at a system where 92% of the people who get exchange plans are getting the subsidy. these are extremely unpopular plans. no one was signing on in the past and very few people are signing on now who do not get a subsidy. if these plans are so wonderful people would be flocking to them. you have gone from a situation where people in a certain income range were being asked to pay 1%

to 2% of their income to purchase a plan and they did not think it was worth it. now that you're giving it to them for free they will sign up. if it was not worth $30 or $40 a month coming out is being given away. it tells you a lot about the plan that is being pushed as opposed to alternative options with i have prescribed and making it easier for people to get through their employment. host: let me bring in colleen from california on the line for independents. caller: calling to chat a little bit about the affordable care act. taking a look at it from a middle-class persons framework. most people in california are middle-class. the affordable care you between $850 to $1000 a month to get it, especially if you are an independent contractor, a

realtor, or a beautician. you cannot get on any other type of plan, you have to pay for that yourself. by suggesting -- my suggestion is there is a sliding scale. i went on the affordable care act and i realized you are paying around $900 even if you do not include dental. most of my friends who are beauticians and realtors do not have insurance because they cannot afford it. then you have our governor who puts noncitizens on plans that is kind of destroying the middle class. what i would suggest is it should not ba sliding scale. if i paying 10% to 12% of my growth income, then i think maybe the millionaires and billionaires should be paying 10% to 12% and that extra money where they are paying 10% on --

let's throw out any millionaire. the bushes, the kennedys. that would help pay for the noncitizens on the plan. it should not be a cap, anyone should feel the pain of paying this amount of money. guest: thank you so much for that question and that point and this speaks to the benefit of the subsidies wherever a certain percentage of income nobody at that level should be paying more than 8.5% of their income towards premiums. that was one of the things the enhanced subsidies fixed. before once you hit 100% of the federal poverty line you were eclipsed. people at 399% would get help, people at 400% and above would get nothing. now we have a situation where nobody at that level will be paying more than 8.5% of their income toward subsidies. in california -- states make

different sores -- make different choices about who they want to provide expanding coverage to. i would agree that is important to actually make it such that people can afford access to the plans. if i have insurance through my job it would be very expensive for me to pay the full cost of that premium for myself and my family alone. that is why there is such a limited take-up of cobra programs when people leave their jobs. there is a subsidy that allows them to pay -- to afford the coverage. i would agree it is important to make sure people have the support to afford that premium. host: dr. zinberg? guest: i would add that these are very heavily subsidized plans by the federal government. when you say you want the millionaires and billionaires -- i guess you are parroting the bernie sanders line, they are

paying. the federal government is subsidizing all of these plans and they are doing it with revenue they collect via taxes. we have the most progressive impact tax system in the world. that money is being collected and used. i think most americans would probably be surprised to learn that someone with 750% of the federal policy line needs a subsidy to buy health care. why can't they pay their fair share at that point? why are they on these plans they would not otherwise buy with the some sort of subsidy? one party once to let wasteful subsidies expire at the end of 2025 and the other ones to extend them permanently with a

bowl of including as many people as they possibly can under government provided health care plan. host: let me bring in bradley in georgia. democrat. it works better if you turned on your television. then we can hear you better. caller: i would say the original sin of tying your health care to the employer. i don't know why we did that. no other country in the world does that. kids younger than me, they want to burn all of this down. health care will cause the crumbling of the country. the prices for everything is unsustainable. we are thinking about subsidies. there is note -- the only way to solve the problem is to abolish

the insurance industry. the doctors need to be making less money. look at this guy, they make millions of dollars. we have to go to health care. backcountry is so sick. our country is on the brink. obamacare saved my life. it is trash except for two things. pre-existing conditions and the no limit on what your deductible is. because of that, if you are poor is fairly isn't. the people that make a little bit of money. host: how did it save your life? caller: i had a torn knee when i was 30 playing basketball. for two years i am limping around. i finally got the affordable care act and with surgery by

february i had been my deductible. never mind the surgery, but i had a drug problem, so i was able to take the affordable care act and go through rehab with nine months. they had to pay for all of that. i got nine months in california. host: bradley, thank you for sharing your story. dr. zinberg, do you want to start on that one? guest: no one is talking at this point about getting rid of the affordable care act but we are talking about the best way forward. there are things you can do to improve the current system that have bipartisan support. you could look at what is called site neutral payments we are wasting money because we pay more for the exact same services that are provided in a hospital setting then we do in the outpatient

setting. you can perform the medicaid program. you could perform a medicare advantage program by improving or making it more flexible in saving money by looking at the various benchmarks, the various bonuses that you get for quality that are probably not really warranted. so there are all kinds of things you can do to save money, but you don't have to improve the health care system overall by expanding this really unpopular government program. i am happy that the caller called in and told us the story and its a that he was able to obtain the care he needed, but how do you provide that care? that is really what we're talking about today. is it via this expansion, limitless expansion, because realize these are all heavily subsidized government programs and when you create government subsidies, invariably what

happens, the premiums skyrocket in our deficit skyrockets. we have to face the music at some point. host: got the point. the response? guest: two things here. first i want to challenge the notion that nobody is talking about getting ready the affordable care act. it is setting rules for the insurance system and it is also opening up new coverage pathways. one of the main things was instill consumer protection. i used to negotiate benefits. at that time you could be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. 60% of them didn't cover maternity services. i have a young child, if the ad more than three year infections a year.

that is what the affordable care act fixed. it also created a pathway to expand medicaid not only to young children or pregnant women or parents or caregivers, but a very low income people who still have kids and it opened the affordable care act in marketplaces which contrary to this idea that they are unpopular, we learn from the department of treasury that what in seven americans have turned for coverage. that is amazing. i would not call that an unpopular policy. but to the caller's, we do have a significant issue in this country when it comes to health care prices. we also have a real challenge when it comes to health insurance deductibles. not only on the aca marketplaces, but for job-based coverage. they were introduced in little over 20 years ago and that is a significant issue and it has been really heartening to watch

states like california, massachusetts, new mexico experiment with ways to actually use the marketplaces. look for ways to lower coinsurance. one of the things these subsidies to limit how much people pay out-of-pocket, but we also need to be regulating, we are closing entity -- holding entity's account of who are competing fairly, not price gouging, looking for ways to actually bring prices down. guest: i'd like to point out, by the way, you just mentioned medicaid. much of the expansion in coverage from the aca came the other medicaid expansion. what most people don't realize is that is an expansion that requires the federal government to reimburse the federal matching amount, four percentage

at 90% of the cost of the care as opposed to much lower amounts for the people who were traditionally in the medicaid program. the people who the medicaid program was supposed to cover, was created to cover. single moms, moms with kids. now you have a 90% match rate for able-bodied adults. and as a result, states are taking that up and they are trying to for every possible service into that, and that is actually hurting the people who medicaid was traditionally created for. funds and programs are being diverted to these folks who really could be getting care other ways. this is kind of what i mean when i say it is a single-minded attempt to get as many people less possible into a better program. we published a paper dealing with reducing overtime, that

matching rate back down the rate of all these states copy for which at the moment, if because of it depends on the income of the state. it would save a lot of money, you would reinforce a program for the people for whom was originally intended, and then we would propose possibly lowering the floor so that richer states, which are taking advantage of these programs to fleece the federal government, essentially, they pay their fair share where you propose bringing the floor down to 40% which would affect a few wealthy states. host: about 20 left in 25 minutes this morning. new york, republican. caller: my issue is that you are so focused on people having insurance, but just having insurance does not mean people can slip or care.

i have a family member who gets insurance through the exchange and can only afford a philanthropic plan. they can afford to go and get an x-ray because it is so expensive. and also now this person qualifies for estate plan, now it is getting counseling, that was getting counsel for drug addiction. i just think there is a difference between having insurance and having the care, and that is what we have to make it, so the people can access care. guest: exactly right. if you have an insurance card that you can't use, what value is it? which is why it is important not only to be expanding access to coverage, but you want that coverage to be generous, comfort as comprehensive and not need

care in and of itself. it has been heartening to see how these have been improved to experiment with lowering deductibles, with lowering coinsurance, seeing some of the positive results. something that i love to see across the u.s. it's also why when people have access to expanded medicaid, they enroll. if they had the ability to get coverage elsewhere, i think they would do that the majority of people on medicaid work and they don't have access to affordable coverage outside of that one of the previous callers talked about how high health care prices are and again, that is a state problem. we can see how dramatic that growth has been in part i would say because of the rate of consolidation. so many markets in this country are heaven -- heavily consolidated. a big insurer, when that happens

in markets generally, he starts the prices go up. something that actually needs to be addressed and it has been wonderful to watch the biden harrison street opus on that and look for ways to protect consumers, to look for ways to bring prices down. but that is something that should be happening intended with coverage expansion. we also have to make sure the system is functioning well. guest: that's a really important point you've made that we focus on expanding coverage but not focusing on health. and there's really two aspects to that, to what i'm saying. first, all of these expansions under the affordable care act have been into plans that have extremely narrow networks where the enrollees, the patients find it very difficult to obtain care. so as i mentioned earlier, most of the expansion occurred the medicaid, which is notorious for having poor access to care. many physicians don't want to participate, many hospitals limit participation via

centrifuge. number two, you have the affordable care act marketplace plans which as i mentioned earlier, the kaiser family foundation and paragon have very narrow networks. people report having difficulty obtaining care. either there's no one in their network, no active participating physician, or even if there is a purchase fitting physician, good luck trying to get an appointment. it can take months because they are so overwhelmed, and particularly when you throw on all these able-bodied adults who now are clamoring for a spot that medicaid positions as well. strut the second aspect of a want to talk about is the single-minded focus on expanding coverage when in fact, insurance, while it is very important protecting people's financial health, their

financial situations by protecting them against catastrophic expenses if god for bid they did very ill, actually has a lot less to do without health than most people believe. the economic advisers where i work put out in the economic report of the president a help chapter back in 2018 talking about how important or unimportant health insurance is for health care, in the literature indicates it has a very minimal effect and probably only for certain groups. we are kind of updating that via forthcoming paragon paper that's going to look at the literature on how important insurance is for actually improving health. and again, it's far less than you would believe. what is important? people's behaviors, do they smoke, are they overweight, and they get healthy food? these are important things.

these are the things that really influence our health much more so than whether they have insurance or not. again, i'm not saying they shouldn't have insurance. insurance is important. obviously they've been getting health care, but the literature indicates that these other things are actually probably far more important. host: before we get too far into the segment, the idea of creating, developing and creating more medicine in this country and not relying on imports of medicine, donald trump has talked about using tariffs as a way to promote and stimulate more production of medicine in the united states. what are your thoughts on that? guest: one of the things that we struggle with here is shortages even of generic medications. that is a function of having not only to rely on outside suppliers but because outside

suppliers are also so have the concentrated. host: in the region? guest: in terms of where they are produced and even the materials that go into production. and even within the united states. just following the hurricane, iv bags, you might have one place that produces 60% of the countries iv bags. that is a problem especially when you have a climate where it is becoming more and more volatility driven. they spend some interesting models that would try to amp up production here. i think that's important. apart from spurring the production of medicine, is also the issue of just generally the price for medicine. one of the things that hopefully callers are aware of is that

thanks to the inflation reduction act at the medicare program which is a very large provider of coverage in the country and now negotiates prescription drug prices for their first time, the program is not able to do that before. and as a result leasing the prices decrease in 20 of the six from the negotiates prescription drug prices to go online. people are expected to save about $1.6 billion. in addition to looking for ways to ramp up to mentor production there's also a lot we could be doing to bring down the prices of pharmaceuticals, including not only through direct price initiation but by picking on issues like the patent system, the fact that so much money goes into producing drugs that provide no marginal benefit compared to what is out there now because the focus is on money, not on producing drugs that extend life supply better. there's a lot that we could be doing as a society to actually address the issue. host: on this production of medication.

guest: there's really two things. they the production issue and where it's located. more than 90% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients come from china, any the production of drugs, particularly generic comes from china and india far more than here. a supply-chain issue that we have to deal with. not merely a health issue, a national security issue. we don't want probably are foremost foreign enemy to maintain drug supplies. the second issue, dealing with drug pricing. everyone would like drug prices to come down, but the question is how you do that. do you do it by instituting a so-called negotiation program which is really just the government aiding prices because the companies are being told you

accept our price or we take away everything you earn on this drug and more the attacks come or you have to exit the medicaid program. it's not a negotiation in any normal sense of the term. many scholars have said that this is going to decrease the number of new jobs that we have. if you include an account for all of the failures only one in 10 drug that actually makes it through to the market and even all of those are practical. if you then deprive the manufacturers of the money to develop those new drugs they are going to develop less on r&d and they will develop fewer drugs and the university of chicago economist estimated 100 or fewer

drugs in the coming decade. and that is particularly important because the way the inflation reduction act set up this process, it disadvantages a small molecule drugs by imposing controls on them for years earlier than the biological drugs. oncology drugs, the drugs we used to treat cancers, are largely small molecule drugs. that means the companies are going to turn toward biologic drugs and making those drugs rather than the small molecule drugs and we are going to have a shortage of the drugs that president biden has said he really wants to develop. still it's going to have a decreased number of new drugs and they're going to be disproportionately the ones we want to treat cancers. host: about 10 minutes left, loretta, florida. ray doing today?

how are you doing today? we look at the kimberly in california, good morning. caller: hi. my experience with the affordable care act is similar to what dr. dash is saying. medical services. host: kimberly, i apologize your line is not coming through. you seem concerned about the affordable care act but i couldn't make out. i don't know if the -- you know what she was bringing up, i am. tom, republican, good morning. caller: thanks for taking the call. i'm a retired physician, basically forced out of business by obamacare. i got tired of telling people

that you have a $10,000 deductible, not to mention the complications, the documentation, submission of claims to the computer. they've made some good points. i would like to go in further and reduce the -- the big 800 hundred really you have in the room of the fact that we've got a huge way the massive die meeting -- kids can even get into the military because they are unfit. no insurance program is going to be able to cover it. we can argue politics, conservative or liberal. you can't argue arithmetic but some are just on pace for the crime disease that are exploding

now even in their young population. it's just exploding my colleague in the hospital, as soon as they are able to retire there leaving the physicians. -- possession -- profession. to say nothing about the lack of expensive things we have put the spring lab cover and equipment. changing your diet or lifestyle,

why not focus on doing some preventative care and education? host: chronic disease, preventative care and also manpower shortage in the future. guest: there's a lot to unpack and thank you for that. prevention chronic illness, we talked about education, behavior change. you are a physician. the ability to make out the traces already have they come right? center for american prevents constant good jobs, a walkable community, safe housing, not having exposure to lead or expressed as. you one high-quality education that enables you that and it

it's a nuisance relators they would say who is funding a public school? my mental patella -- protection help agency who is interested in building the kind of society were people can live long and healthy lives in there at less risk running these it's a different way to have this conversation about i think

leaders hurt is an attempt to boost strategy areas in the visiting and said they are you responsible for everything because it impacts health. let's look at what happens when the government gets involved. you have the nutrition pyramid, which falsely tells people that fat was the problem. eat more carbohydrates and as a result, people began consuming more calories, and we have an obesity epidemic. result of government intervention. you had the government with the agreement of various professional societies saying we were under treating pain. use more opioids. now we have an opioid pandemic, opioid crisis which is actually decreased the life expectancy in this country in a way we've never had an air history. over 100,000 people are dying of drug overdoses every year, and

you can pull it right back to government intervention here. so the question is how do we want to do this? by saying the government should pay for everything, by saying we ought to have rent controls so we could keep people in their homes? actually no, it actually makes it harder for people to get good homes. another government policy that is actually probably impairing her health we need to be looking at the causes of these chronic diseases, and adjust where we need to go. we can't be focusing on trying to strive everything into health and claiming that is actually health there. we get a focused merely on expanding coverage into plans that are that make it difficult people to access health care. we need to be focusing on the chronic diseases that are the this country. host: time for maybe one more phone call. interlocking michigan,

independent. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. my question goes back to a previous point that was made two or three minutes ago, and it is in regards to the negotiation of pharmaceutical pricing. and i guess the question goes down to referring to the fact that this is going to just take everything and companies can develop the drugs. regards to the pricing, how does that sit with what they say companies charge for europe or australia which i understand is a much overprice, where does that fit into this pricing model waiting for the money to be able to develop these trucks.

depressing goes year of solesky will have to cover with the pressing here in the states. guest: there's no question we have what is called a free rider problem where americans care most of the cost of developing the drugs and paying for them, and we need to address that problem. european countries have strict -- most of them have strict price negotiation problems, and what happens is partly as a result they get access to the same drugs either later or at a much slower manner than we did in this country. so we get the benefits of the drugs more quickly. how do you want to solve that problem, the approach of the lasted this treasure matures these regulatory barriers so you can get more generics approved,

or branding drugs approved. where his situation were more than one in -- excuse me, 90% of the drugs we use in this country are generic so we actually pay less for those generics here than they do in europe. that is because they move together to get drugs approved more quickly and most people realize in 2018, drug inflation was actually negative. i'm not talking about real terms, i'm talking about novel terms you bring your generations, bringing new brands of drugs and biologics and by assemblers on more quickly, and you will get competition. you will get the generics. no question you want to make it easier for those things to get on the market and that does require more effort and

hopefully will be seeing more of that in the future. you dictate the prices. even thou this is highly touted, those drug prices are not going into effect for another two years. so we haven't seen any of that yet. guest: to that point, other countries make different decisions about how they pay for pharmaceutical drugs. i want to just push back on this idea that negotiations going to innovation take us to a time where we have fewer and fewer important drugs being developed. a couple of years ago, announcer: former president trump is speaking to voters at a town hall. you are watching live on c-span. ♪

gov. noem: good evening. hello, everybody. are you ready for president donald j. trump? yes. we are so excited about tonight. listen, i am xo excited to be here. i am governor of the great state of south dakota but i'm going to tell you one thing, pennsylvania rocks. you all are showing up and showing america how we are going to make america great again, aren't you? listen, i love the fact that in my state we have pulled the

constitution. it is so fantastic to be here in the city where the constitution was actually written. and i know that you all embrace being the city of brotherly love. but i am going to get real with you right here. kamala harris sucks. right? she sucks. and listen, if there's one thing that i have learned since being governor is that leadership has consequences. that it matters who is in charge and impacts every single family, every single business in the state. when you have the right person in the white house and the wrong person in the right house. i have served as governor under joe biden and under president donald trump. yes. and when president trump was in the white house i got to get up every single day and be on offense. i got to get out there and solve

problems for my people. i got to be aggressive and help them grow their incomes. in south dakota we have the fastest growing incomes in the entire country. we have the lowest unemployment rate in the country. during covid we were the only state in the country that never once shut down a single business, we never mandated anything. in fact, i didn't even define what an essential business was because i don't believe the government has the ability or the authority to tell you that your business isn't essential. we were the only state to never take the elevated unemployment benefits because i said, listen mr. president, our people want to work, and they did. they went to work every single day. listen, we broke the national record for the lowest unemployment rate in the history of the united states of america because people in south dakota understand we were created to serve each other. in our state, we banned china from owning our land.

and we passed the strongest bill in the nation to make sure that only women could play in women's sports. and when president trump gets back in the white house, he is going to make sure that we don't have mediocre men taking away opportunities from our exceptional women. so listen, i've got people in my life that i admire and tonight you're going to get the chance to hear from one of them. president trump is somebody that i appreciate for his fight, his tenacity, his wisdom, and his ability to get things done. he is a dealmaker and he never loses sight of the american people. when i first saw him announce for president in 2016, i watched him on tv, i was sitting at home, come down a golden escalator. do some of you remember that?

i remember thinking, who does that? who comes down a golden escalator? because the politicians that i had known, what they do when they run for office as they put on a pair of jeans and find themselves a barn and made a hay bale and they say golly shucks geez i'm just like you and pretend to be somebody they are not. but not president trump. he was going to be honest with you and genuine with you. and here is a situation and here is the truth. he doesn't think he is any better than you. all those politicians that run and pretend to be something else, they think they are better than you, they think they are smarter than you, and they can sell you a line and a story. that is not president trump. president trump is himself, he is fighting for you, fighting to protect you and your family, and he loves this country. he loves this country. people ask me -- we love trump. we love trump.

we love trump. he's listening to you right now. he's listening to you, and he hears you. listen, everybody. let's get right to it. please welcome the 45th president and the 47th president of the united states, donald john trump. ♪

gov. noem: welcome, president trump. mr. trump: thank you very much.

this is a nice crowd. gov. noem: yes, they love you. you know why? it's because they recognize, sir, that you are the one who fights for them. you are the one who protects them. mr. trump: you know what else? they fight for themselves. they have been fighting for a long time. we are going to make your fight easier, very important. because what's happened to our country in the last almost four years now, it is hard to believe, but if you look at the borders, if you look at inflation, you look at the afghanistan disaster, the most embarrassing time in the entry of our country, i think the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, afghanistan, not getting out, i was getting out with dignity, strength. the way they got out was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened. probably led to putin going into ukraine, probably. he looked at it he said, these people aren't very good, are they? he wouldn't have done that with

me. we are all in this together. we have to win the election november 5. gov. noem: yes. sir, he has never yet called those goldstar families to express his grief for the people and the soldiers we lost that day. and who controls that airstrip now? mr. trump: china. gov. noem: china, yes. mr. trump: china took over. one of the things -- get out. we were there for 20 years. i said, what are we doing here? so we get the hell out. i had a talk with the taliban and we didn't lose one soldier in 18 months until this catastrophe happened when they took over. but you know, one of the things -- aside from everything else, we left, we spent billions of dollars years ago to build a bigger base, and you knew that one from your own time, a big one, a really good one, powerful, long runways. you know what happened? i tell you, they gave it up.

it was one hour away from where china -- forget about afghanistan, one hour away from where china builds its nuclear weapons. would have been very nice to have -- and china now occupies that airbase. it's terrible. gov. noem: as you can see, we have a lot of american patriots here tonight who want to ask you some questions. if you don't mind, we will move into that portion of the town hall tonight. our first question is going to be from a man named reed. reed, i am not certain where you are. mr. trump: where is reed? there he is. nice looking guy. gov. noem: i believe you are a navy seal, is that correct? >> no. good evening. my name is reed. i'm a single father and iraq war veteran. i dream of owning a home for me and my son, but mortgage rates under the biden/harris administration have made that impossible. what can you do to help make homeownership affordable again?

mr. trump: great question. and a lot of people have this question. first of all it's too expensive to build the homes and they are building them and they cost a fortune and 30% of the cost in some locations is the cost of like, planning and certificates and all a lot of nonsense they do. they make you go through hell and it takes forever to get all the approvals you need. we are going to get rid of a lot of that. most importantly we are going to get interest rates broadway down. we had interest rates at 2% and now they are 10% and we can't get the money. at 2% there was plenty of money for everybody. we are going to create the american dream for older people. we are not going to forget. we are not going to forget the older people, we are not going to forget the older people, by the way, no tax on social security benefits.

[applause] i guess you know someone said he has a conflict of interest, but uh we are going to do that for the older people that is a big deal because you have been eating alive with inflation and all i am doing is getting you back to even i think when we do that you know you have fixed income and you went up numbers like 30, 40, 50 depending on what they include they like to say it was a 20% increase but it wasn't, it was 30, 40, 50 depending on what they want to include so we are going to do that but getting back to we are going to drill, baby, drill, we are going to have so much energy and we are gonna bring prices down because you know the prices are up, don't forget, the damage is done, we have the worst president and vice president in the history of our country by far she is even more dangerous

than him but he is actually smaller -- smarter than her, i never thought i would say that but look, we are going to get it down, we are going to drill, we are going to get the energy down and when energy goes down prices are going to come down, all of those prices because you know when they say although they had very bad inflation numbers last month, you saw that, very very bad inflation numbers despite the big you know they did this big drop, probably too big of a drop i will not get into it but we are going to get the prices down because the damage has been done, if we have no inflation now such damage has been done, the highest in my am opinion the biggest inflation in the history of the country they did not includes a lot of the bad numbers, i will give you an example on housing and different things like crime statistics our

fate, they were fake statistics, they did not include some cities that were really bad so the crime looked like it was just bad as opposed to being horrific . jobs, 818,000 fake jobs they added. and they patted the job numbers a couple of months ago so that they would look better on jobs. they were fake, fraudulent jobs and they will announce the real numbers after the election but we had a whistleblower or somebody that let it out so they cheated us on 18, think of that, 818 thousand jobs they cheated, you know usually when you have those numbers it is $9,000, this is almost a million jobs off of it it is not even possible so we are going to bring things that you are going to pay 3% interest on housing and you are going to say i love this guy because interest rate rate will follow as the energy goes down and i made another commitment i made it over the last month i have

been making it, we have more liquid gold under our feet then saudi arabia, russia, than any other country. i am going to bring down your energy costs 50 percent in the first year. 50% and i better do it because i am all over the place. i am going to have problems if i don't get it done but we have all the capacity to do it, nobody else can make that statement, we have so much energy we don't even use that, we get energy from venezuela and they do not have good oil, they have tar and you have to liquefy and you know what they do the in houston texas that is where we have to plant it is the only player that in the world that can do it so for the environmentalists out there it's not a pretty picture what blows into the air but we are going to use our beautiful liquid gold and when we get everything else down, houses, everything is going to come it is going to be beautiful you can have a house, just give me a little while, let me give it.

-- let me get in. one year from january 20 we will have your energy prices cut in half all over the country. [applause] >> and in reference to read and his family, he is not in a unique situation. 65% of americans today cannot buy a home. that has dramatically changed under the biden harris administration and a harris has a brace to the policies that made homeownership take away that opportunity for reid and his family and 65% of americans today. the american dream is still to own your own home and that is not possible because of what they have embraced a new talk about liquid gold, if any state understands american energy, it is pennsylvania. >> yeah. the commonwealth. make sure come up by the way this is a really great governor, successful number -- successful governor, she read some of the numbers and i thought she would

be because why not no one else will do it but i will you did it beautifully so she has done a fantastic job as governor and i will say this, i went to school here, i just want to forewarn her because i have seen it happen and it is career threatening, do not ever call the state the commonwealth because a lot of innocent lambs have come up and they start talking to the people of pennsylvania, i love you people, i know you so well, i am here all the time, i am here all the time. yeah i went to school here. i went to the wharton school, the great wharton school of finance. and they were great. it's a great place. it's a great place. but i went to college here. so never ever even think, i watched one man crash and burn, he kept calling it the state i kept saying it is the commonwealth but i think his political career ended. >> tonight we have some special

guests in the audience. a goldstar family that is with us tonight. mary and charles strange are here. where are they? here they are. they are behind us, over here. they lost their son michael. >> come on up. [applause] it is a little harder to get up since i got shot. they have made it more difficult. perhaps that is the way it is supposed to be. >> sarah, they lost their son, michael. -- sir, they lost their son, michael. do you want to say anything? >> under obama is right. under obama.

>> mr. president, my son was killed august 6, 2011 in the biggest loss of life in the iraq afghan war, the biggest loss of life in the single day, 22 of the men were navy special warfare. we still have not gotten any answers. i was wondering, i am begging you. we would like a congressional hearing. >> so here is what we are gonna do. in the first week, let me have, not the first day because i made a lot of promises in the first day, we are going to drill baby drill and close out the border and we are gonna do a lot in the first day in the first week we will set up a commission we are going to find out because so many people are in your position, they want to know why did that happen to their son or daughter and we are going to do that within the first week so you get ready to come over to the white house, ok?

[applause] >> i want to let america know june 2017, president trump and his wife had me and my wife bring 20 gold stars to the white house, him and his wife stayed the whole time, they had food, drinks, they did a candle ceremony for us, trump's set -- stood up every time, saluted the goldstar parents. that was both a celebration, remembrance and all emotion, right? they were happy, they were sad, they were devastated, but they remembered their beautiful boy, right? beautiful boy and we are not going to forget, we are gonna find out what happened, we are going to do that within the first week and you have my word. >> thank you. [applause]

trump: what a nice couple. >> mary and charles daughter rachel is also here tonight. she is michael's sister. thank you, rachel, for coming on god bless you and your family. thank you for your service and your sacrifice. >> thank you. that is tough stuff. like what we were discussing in afghanistan with the 13 family members they feel that uh bad things happen, stupid things happen and you hate for that to be, it is your son or your daughter. it should have never happened in afghanistan, i can tell you the

outcome of the 13 that died and you know they do not mention how many people were wounded, and i mean seriously wounded with the legs and the arms in the face and we are gonna give them everything they want, i have got to know those families, thanks. >> thank you. our next question tonight is from angelina, who i believe is right here. if you want to come forward? >> good evening. i was raised in a philadelphia democrat household, a union household. as the mother of a blended family, my top issues are the same issues that face all americans. illegal immigration whole -- hurts black americans. inflation hurts black americans. dangerous cities hurt black americans. [applause] like my fellow americans, my

grocery bill has not gone down. everything is still so very expensive. what steps will your administration take to help american families suffering from this inflation? trump: you know it is such a great question in the sense that people don't really think of grocery, it they don't talk about grocery when you're talking about homes but tell me more about grocery bills, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes they tell me, you know our farmers are not being treated properly and we had to deal with china, it was a great deal but i never mentioned it because once covid came in and said it was a bridge too far because i had a great relationship with president she and he is a fierce man and we had to deal and you know he was perfect on that deal, 50 billion dollars he was gonna buy it, we were doing numbers like you wouldn't believe the farmer but the farmers are very badly hurt, the farmers in this country, we

are going to get them straightened out and get your prices down but you asked another question about safety and also about black population jobs and hispanic population jobs in particular so when millions of people brought into our country they are having a devastating effect on black families and hispanic families more than any others, i think it is going to spread to a lot of our prices, i think it is gonna spread to unions, i think unions are gonna have a big problem because employers are just not gonna pay the price and it is going to be it is a very bad thing that is happening so they are coming in, many are coming in from jails and prisons and mental institutions, insane asylums, it is like step above insane a silent, right, and you know when i go hannibal lector, you know what i am talking about, they will go fake news that it is a lot of fake his back there too. they always mention it is a way

of demeaning, they say hannibal lector, why would you mention, you know because he was a sick puppy and we have sick puppies coming into our country, i think that is better than wasting a lot of words, just say hannibal lector, we do not want them but they always say why would you say that and do it for a lot of reasons but i do it because we are allowing some very bad people into our country and they are coming as terrorists, you know you saw the other day last month they had the record number of terrorists, i had a month that i love border patrol, did you see they gave me a full endorsement two days ago? but border patrol and you know they want to do their job, they do not want to let these people come in, they look at them, they can tell, they can look at somebody say good, bad, they say what is coming into our country now is having cute -- huge negative fan -- impact on black families and hispanic families and ultimately everybody and we are going to close the border so

tight, it is gonna be drones and i say the two things i am gonna do, first we are gonna close that border and people are gonna come in, you want people to come in, we need people to come in, people are gonna come into our country legally, you know it is so fair you have people waiting on a system in a line and they have been waiting in this line you know how long? 10 years, 12 years, and they study and they take tests and then people come i actually say why don't you just come on across? i tell people, that is terrible, right? i say you are incredible they say what can i do to speed up the process and i say you know what, go to the southern border, i will see you on the other side and it is so unfair but we are gonna have them come in legally, you have to see what they have to do they have to test son who was the first one here and what date is this and what is 7076 day and these other people that are coming in and they are affecting the school systems and they are affecting the hospital

system and i mean if you take a look at what is going on in springfield, ohio, a town of 50,000 people, they have just added 32,000 people, illegal immigrants, and we are not gonna put up with it and we are going to take care, your costs are going to come down and you are knocking to have a problem with because the biggest problem and i am hearing it from black people and to a lesser extent right now but it'll be the same hispanic people, and i will tell you what, our poll numbers have gone through the roof. with black and hispanic have gone through the roof. and i like that. i like that. i like that. so we are going to take care of it. you and me, i will tell you, if everything works out and everybody gets out on january 5 and before, you know what used to be you have a date, today you can vote two months before, probably three months after, they don't know what the hell they are doing but we are going to straighten it out and we will

straighten that out too and we are going to straighten out our election process, that will be important so thank you very much, darling, we are going to get it straight. >> we had in the last year over a 100,000 americans lose their job in this country but 1.2 noncitizens took those jobs. they are filling the jobs americans could have to provide for their families and harris has been in charge of this order and has been the borders are -- border czar. we see criminals and terrorists coming across. trump: it is an invasion like we have never seen before and you know if there was an invasion of people that deserve to come in or that will love the country it would be great, you know she used to go around saying they do not commit crime. have you seen the gangs from venezuela, what they have done in aurora, colorado? >> is just a few apartment

buildings, according to martha ravitch. [laughter] trump: they are like me, in the real estate business but they take over buildings with rifles and they take it over with a level of sophistication and you know they know a lot about gloves and i protector of the second amendment -- a lot about guns and i am a big protector of the second amendment and if you think that is easy, not easy but the nra gave me total endorsement, i assume you got total endorsement and we have no choice we have to have it especially when we have you know it is amazing these radical left lunatics, they want everybody to come into our country, many of the people are criminals and then they also want to take your guns away simultaneously. so you need it for protection. you know somebody knows that you have a gun in your house, they say, let us go after somebody else. people put signs, this gun or we have, some of them actually even spell the kind of gun we have,

we have an ak-47 inside and people say you know what, let us just, i know an ak-47 firm a few weeks ago and i know about the ar-15, but you know what, you have a lot of bad people out there and you can't you know can't just be a one-way street and you know one thing because she wants to take your guns away, if you take them away the dead guys are not giving them up, that is the only thing. i do not think the good people are giving them up, either, but the bad guys, the bad guys are not giving up their guns, that is the only thing i know for certain, right? >> jd vance did a fantastic job sunday morning calling out the fake news for how they are trying to diminish the devastation that is going on in some communities and kamala harris has facilitated losing 300,000 children as well since she has been in charge of the border and i would say they are not missing children, they are trafficked and kidnapped and

murdered children because they come across the border and we have no idea where the children are and we know how devastating it is with what is happening to their lives right now with what she is facilitating. trump: i think they are all bad numbers we have a lot of bad numbers there is so much bad that happened in this administration it is disgraceful and you know as an example that would be no war with russia and ukraine there is no way, i get along very well with putin and fully understand what is happening, it was the apple of his eye, he used to talk about it but i said you are not going in there and he wasn't going in and it is only because of biden he looked at this guy and he said he cannot even believe it but the same with ukraine i got along very well with zelenskyy, he came to new york to see me and i got along very well with him, i want to negotiate that thing out, it is now a death trap, cities that are all down, those gorgeous golden domes and magnificent domes, all busted up after i don't know their -- they are 1000 years old the heritage what is happening there but many

more people killed than they are reporting and they knocked down it was my business they have apartment houses that are really like three city blocks long, not that tall but pretty tall and they are big and they knock them down with a missile and they say two people were slightly injured, know, a lot of people, the number of people dying in the ukraine-russia war is a far greater number than anybody knows and biden has done nothing about it, he hasn't even spoken putin in over a year, knows nothing about it and this is a war that has to end we are going to get the war ended and i am going to try and i think i can get it and did as president elect, in other words, before i even take over the white house, i am gonna stop the people from dying. [applause] they said to me, well whose side are you on, i was in the fake news cnn type, oh, the camera just went off, their camera just went off. [crowd doing -- booing]

i was caitlin collins, a nice person soon but caitlin collins is interviewing me and she says whose side are you on and i say it is not a question of sides, i want people to stop dying, that is all. i want people to stop dying. [applause] and you know it was a very interesting thing because it was a cnn it was like this a smaller room much smaller this is a big room, this is a very big room but it was a much smaller room but they had more people in there from cnn within the first five minutes they were totally on my side because it is common sense and we are now the party of common sense, i say we are conservative, but we are the, -- the party of common sense, we want good education and lower interest rates and we want to be able to buy a house, we want jobs, and you know what we want is a strong military. i rebuilt our entire military

and we want a strong military. and ideally a strong will and jerry that we do not have to use, is not even better? a strong military that we do not have to use is even better. >> i love it. i love it. back to the questions. yanni is waiting to ask you a question and has been waiting a long time. welcome. >> 80, just give him one second. here they come. right behind you. >> thank you. thank you for being here today. to answer questions from all the voters of pennsylvania and just the work hard and support i appreciate that. i am a small business owner in lands bill, i have a small bed and breakfast restaurant called coffee corners. and to be honest, i really am

praying for you to get in and change the policies ever since the gas prices started spiking, literally everything started spiking from deliveries to services, goods, even maintenance, overall maintenance, everything just went up and it is really hurting small businesses, small business owners and those who work within them so my question is, what is your plan to help bring common sense back and help small businesses that were destroyed after covid? trump: right because small businesses are actually bigger than big businesses when you add them all up and it is very important and it sounds like yours, i would love your food, i can tell by looking at you, i think i would like to go over there and get something the fact is you know they want to get away from gas and i have friends

they are into the cooking world, i am not, i just like to eat, but they are into the cooking and i don't know how you feel, it sounds like you, they feel that gas is much better than electric for cooking, right, and they say they want to put gas out of business, no gas, we do not have electric in the country but we have all the gas you can use, we have oil and gas, that is what we have and even the cars if you look they want us all electric cars, california as having blackouts every week, and then they come up with rules and regulation to go to all electric but they cannot even supply what they have, it is so nuts. we are going to get number one utility you know i said before your cost will be down and we are getting rid of all of the electorate, if you want electric, great, if you want gas, great, the only thing you cannot have is a hydrogen car, right you heard me say that, right, a new car they say is great but you know what the problem is is every once in a while one of them will blow out

and if it does blow up and you happen to be inside it you are in bad luck because you are not recognizable, do you know that? it is the new thing, hydrogen, i said no thank you, i do not want that. they call the wife, that is not my husband, yes it is. so your energy costs will be down by 50%, your interest is gonna come down and people are gonna start to make not only you but people will have more money to go to your restaurant, you are going to have a great business and you know during covid i was the one that worked out the lowest, i don't know if you got one but so many got one millions of small businesses at linda mcmahon with the head of small business administration which was a big business but she was the head and she was phenomenal. linda mcmahon was phenomenal. so many people tell me about her that she was one of the best secretaries but linda mcmahon was in charge and they brought billions of dollars to people with small businesses and it was

the greatest investment we made, it stopped us from going into a 1929 depression which is exactly what we would have had and she did a fantastic job. we are going to get your costs way down. thank you. [applause] >> i always tell people it is hot in the summer and cold in the winter and a long ways to drive anywhere, which i think a lot of americans are experiencing no matter what your energy is dependent and since joe biden has been in the white house and harris has supported every single one of his policies, did you hear on the view, did you hear her say she would not change a thing from what joe biden has done? it has cost the average american family 45 hundred dollars just in energy costs, just in energy costs. trump: a doctor, please. a doctor. thank you very much.

we have incredible people that come here hours before and a little hot and uh so weak, they are with us all the way, we gotta respect them and you take your time, dr., you take your time, thank you very much we always have great doctors in the audience we have never had too much of a problem. look at the quality of care we have. it is incredible, when you think, right? these people, first responders. [applause] our first responders are amazing, the way they can do things so beautifully and

quickly. thank you. we will get it taken care of, as a lot of it is pretty easy to take care of, the hardest thing is going to be the border though in terms of the people that have been led income of the people that have been led into this country, what they are doing, where did they come from, what are they doing, who what is the thought process when they allow a thing like that to happen, let's wait until they take care of this incredible person who i guarantee you is a great patriot, i guarantee it. everyone in this room is a patriot. [applause] >> we love you, trump. trump: thank you, darling. thank you.

some problems. some problems. that looks a little bad. that looks a little bit bad.

don't worry, we will extend for a little time, ok, we are not gone, we just want to make sure, this is a little bit of a tough one, i think, a little tough.

[crowd singing god bless america] [applause] trump: you know, while we are waiting, so we had a beautiful evening and i do not know if they can get this up quickly but if they could work really quickly backstage while we are waiting, ave maria, we had a ave

maria the other day in butler, pennsylvania and butler, we had 101,000 people, it was the most celebration, i called corey the firefighter of the chiefs, he was great, and if they could play on ave maria, if you can get it, justin, let's go, if you can, a little quick notice, ave maria. ♪

trump: great. we love that man. we love that man. [applause] [crowd chanting usa] ♪ trump: it is so beautiful, though, right? listen to that, it is nice. he is going to be ok, we have nice music, we are together, not bad, not bad, right? so beautiful. thank you everybody, very much. >> thank you everybody for your patience. we will be praying for him.

thank you, sir. as we talk about how things have gotten harder under this administration on how the policies have been so dangerous for americans there is someone here who wanted an opportunity to ask you what western her name is heather. would you please stand -- wanted to ask you a question, her name is heather. would you please stand? >> good evening. my name is heather and i was a registered democrat for most of my life. [crowd booing] but not anymore. i no longer identify with the democratic partner -- democratic party. [applause] they have put criminals and foreign enemies ahead of american citizens. the border is the issue of this

election because if we cannot secure the border, we will not have a country. we know you will finish the wall. how are you going to handle the deportation of criminals? [applause] trump: so if you have watched any of our last rallies, we have a cruel--criminal aliens act of 1798, that is a long time ago, and it gives the president tremendous power to do what has to be done to secure our country and you were right, you know, so if you look at the polls it says that the number one issue is the economy, number two was inflation, let's even put them together or number three is the border. i disagree. i do agree with you. the number issue -- number one issue this country has --

[crowd yelling medic] [crowd noise] ♪ [ave maria playing] ♪

trump: take your time, dr.. thank you very much. ♪

it is gonna be good. ♪ trump: i wish we could open those doors to outside.

[crowd yelling open the doors] trump: yeah, take your time, dr. ♪ trump: for security reasons, they can't but you know what i should just open them because you know if anybody comes through, you know what is going to happen to them. [applause]

>> it looks like first she is on her feet and walking out, let's encourage her, let her know we will be praying for her. and i know it is really warm in here, everybody agrees that it is really warm in here, we've got a lot of people, i am going to ask that if you have a chair, maybe sit so everyone around you can sit and still see the president and ask him questions, maybe that will help us. trump: and we can spend a little more time, personally i enjoy this, we lose weight, probably lose weight, that is ok with me. but some people have been waiting here for two days so you know it is a little bit, it is a little bit tough, it is a little bit tough but they are going to try to get those doors open i do not know who is building this is but if they have air conditioning, is there any air conditioning? trump: >> -- they probably cannot afford it in this economy. trump: they don't want to have air conditioning, it is too

expensive, it costs too much. anyway, but they are both ok, they are both in good shape. would anybody else like to faint? >> let's do it now. trump: you know what we could do, though, if my guys can do it, how about we will do a little bit of music, let's make this a musical fast, oh look, look. that is great. that is great. because it is nice and cool outside, right? it is nice and cool. why don't we, and i mean this, if my guys can hear me, two things. put up the chart, my favorite chart. my all-time favorite chart. and let's listen to pavarotti sing ave maria, can you hear that? they gave me the ave maria with no voice. there it is. and it is my favorite piece of paper in the world, i sleep with

it every night, i kiss it, i kiss it, and you see those numbers by the way for those we talk about you know the border when you were talking about the border look at the numbers. that was the lowest it ever was, right there, that is the last day i was in office, and we are going to get it lower than that but we are going to let people come in, we are going to let people come in come up so very important but this is one of my most favorite, if i had turned to the right i would not be here with you right now so sort of a cruel world but i was very proud of that before the fact, now even if we had lousy numbers i would love that piece of paper a lot so put on pavarotti singing ave maria, nice and loud, turn it up louder, we want a little action here. turn it up louder! [pavarotti singing ave maria] ♪

trump: that's for your boy. that's for your boy. stand up. that's for your boy. ♪

♪

♪ >> beautiful. trump: let's not do any more questions, let's just listen to music. [laughter]

who the hell wants to hear questions, right? [laughter] that is so beautiful. we played that in butler, pennsylvania, we had a moment of silence and then we had the bells of notre dame go off and then we had a great opera singer, christopher, who was so incredible, a great opera singer and that is pavarotti, pavarotti i guess is actually, i asked christopher, your voice is incredible, how does it compare to pavarotti? he was the maestro, the greatest of them all and he was phenomenal but he said, no, pavarotti was the greatest. maybe we will play time to say goodbye when we end, ok? instead of your normal like rock out. and then you were gonna say say it time to go but i -- say goodbye and then you go out and vote and you know if we win pennsylvania, we win the whole thing. we are going to win. [applause]

we are going to win. if we win pennsylvania, we are gonna win the whole thing, right, so you know, it would really be something, we just had some numbers coming out of virginia which is great, we have numbers coming out of if we win this commonwealth, if we win the commonwealth of pennsylvania, we are in clover and then we are going to fix our country and we are gonna fix it fast, we are gonna fix it fast. so get that song done, get that song ready and then it will be beautiful, you can't just say, by the way, you do not have to go so fast, you can sit and listen, we will play a couple of songs, some of you will be a little warm but that is ok, it is not a bad thing, and if you want we are going to do that but i think it would be beautiful, don't you think it would be beautiful, a little different. it's just a nice thing to have imagination, is another nice thing to have imagination, that is like when harris's

teleprompter went out the other day, did you see that, she loses teleprompter and she wouldn't notice she lost it, you know if you are a politician you can count on 5% of the time you lose a teleprompter, sometimes really badly, like in the middle of a sentence and you say, you have to have a good memory, if you do not have a good memory you cannot be much of a politician, it can't take a while, sometimes if you are outside the wind blows them down, i had one in ohio we had only five mile-per-hour winds and i said we are going to lose the suckers and within the first two sentences they were gone. bernie marino who is now doing very well, i have to say, a senator and i think he is doing very well but we will listen to a couple of songs if you want and that is ok with me, i like it so we will do that, we will do those songs that we had mentioned, justin, and if justin doesn't get it right, he gets fired. [laughter] >> i have a quote from john wayne, life is hard but it is

harder when you are stupid. i think that perfectly explains kamala harris, right? right, sir? our life has been hard because of her. can you imagine what it is like to wake up as kamala harris? how hard life might be? my goodness. trump: she is not fit for the job. everybody knows it. we are running against a very powerful and very corrupt machine, that is what it is. and the same thing with joe biden, joe doesn't know where the hell he is. when you talk about biden, you've got 14 million votes, he won the primary, and we had a debate, his numbers were very bad and it looks like we were winning, you never know what is going to happen but it looked like he was down and then they said you were getting out and he said i don't want to get out and that was the overthrow of an american president, you can call it a coup but i don't even call it anymore because a lot of people say what the hell is a

cool, you can call it that but it was really basically the overthrow of an american president and frankly, she is doing horribly right now, you saw 60 minutes where they replaced her answer with another answer, she is doing horribly and i have a feeling he might have done better than her. we have to see what the end is, maybe they made a good move but when they talk about a threat to democracy, how about where they take a candidate who won fair and square, they throw him out and they put up a woman who failed with the first one to drop out of a field of 22 and got no votes and this is the person we are running against and she is not a smart woman, it is true, and we cannot, we have had that for four years, we are knocking to have it for another four years, we are not going to have it. -- not going to have it for another four years, we are not going to have it. >> we are not going to complain, we are going to fix them, right? and you were going to fix them here in pennsylvania by showing

up and voting for donald j trump, we are going to make america great again, right? [applause] trump: those doors are open, that feels good. i feel it right now i do not know who is out there trying to get in but you know what doesn't that feel nice? and you don't even have, there is nothing like outdoors, you do not even have the cost of an air conditioner if they have them in this beautiful factory, anyway, go ahead. >> so do you want to play your song and greet a few people? you said you wanted to close with a specific song. and not ask questions. trump: justin how about a couple of really beauties and we will sit down and just relax but let me give you the bottom line, we win pennsylvania, we win the great commonwealth, we will win the whole thing, it is such an important place and we are up in the polls fairly nicely.

fairly nicely. but it is really important and we are gonna turn this country around, it is the greatest movement in the history of our country, make america great again, with biden he is to go on and say we would to stop, you know remember with the purple background, the pink and purple, he looks like the devil, right, but she is worse than him, remember it but they would say we are going to stop maga because it means make america great again, i mean why would you need it to stop and we are indeed going to make america great again because it is never, we are a declining nation right now, we are a nation in decline and we are not going to be into client for long, let me tell you, every country respected us four years ago, we were energy independent and we had everything and we were the greatest economy in the history of our country and we are going to bring it back bigger, better, stronger than ever before, go and vote, let me hear that music, please. nice and loud. >> god bless you.

let's bring trump back to the white house. ♪ >> donald trump participating in a pennsylvania town hall. tomorrow, jd vance will also participate in a town hall hosted by moms for america in pennsylvania. vice president harris and governor tim walz are on the schedule to appear on the campaign trail. she will head to detroit and be

interviewed by radio host charlamagne tha god. governor walz will make three campaign stops in the keystone state with his final step a rally in pittsburgh. watch coverage here on c-span, c-span now, and c-span.org. tuesday, democratic vice presidential candidate and governor tim walz speaks to voters at a campaign rally in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. our coverage starts at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. see spans washington journal. our live form involving you to

discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from washington and across the country. tuesday morning, senior vice president and senior policy director of the committee for a responsible federal budget mark baldwin talks about the fiscal impact of the candidates tax and spending plan. then documentary filmmaker robin bawled well on his recent film for pbs frontline examining the israel-hamas war one year later. washington journal. join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be

recognized as one of the best internet providers and we are just getting started. building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, even you a front row seat to democracy. -- giving you a front row seat to democracy. in a tight u.s. presidential race, latino voters references mirror 2020. one of the authors of that report, mark hugo lopez, with us this morning. he is the race and ethnicity research director at pew research. before we dive into the various parts of that report, latino, let's start there. define what it means to be latino in america today and is that word interchangeable with hispanic? guest: by the federal government, it is. there is a definition that

defines who is part of this group. if anybody can trace their roots to spain or spanish-speaking latin american countries. hispanic and latino are used interchangeably and that is a standard omb used for government documents. however, it is going to about 65 million people, almost one in five americans by the way. many people.have different viewpoints on this some people prefer hispanic. some people prefer latino. some people prefer other terms like latinx, which are terms used to describe the community. people have different choices. at pew research, we use them interchangeably. host: one in five americans are latino or hispanic. what is the turnout rate for the latino population in america compared to other ethnic populations? guest: yes, estimates from the census bureau the turnout rate for latinos at 50% to 55% depending on the election.

by comparison, for black americans, you will see a turnout rate of 65% to 67%. similarly for white americans. asian americans are about the same turnout rate as latinos. interestingly, among latinos, the turnout rate is higher among those that are immigrants compared to those born in the united states, yet it is those born in the united states that make up the bulk of the voter pool of latinos every election cycle. host: why is that? why are immigrants more likely to vote? guest: they have taken the step to become a u.s. citizen. there is a lot of hard work. also, if you other things as well, but voting is part of the motivation for some people to become naturalized citizens. host: the headline of the report, latino voters preferences mirror that of 2020. where do the voters fallout in terms of who they are likely to be picking at the ballot box? guest: vice president harris is leading among latino voters this

year. this is a poll admittedly from september but 57% at the time said they would vote for kamala harris if the election was held today versus 39% saying the same for donald trump. what we have seen here is these numbers particularly for trump are not much different from what we saw in 2020 when he won about 36% of the latino vote. the reason i am saying it is similar is because we cannot distinction between whether he has made some gains or not statistically. more recent polls from the new york times or others do show a very similar race with donald trump doing at least as well as he did in 2020. host: when you say the preferences mirror 2020, are we talking but the top issues in the minds of latino voters? guest: the democrats have leads. biden won a majority of this apartment from has not lost ground among them since 2020 .what are host announcer: we are going to take

you live to a debate between the candidates running to become north dakota's next governor. republican representative kelly armstrong, democrat merrill piepkorn, and independent michael coachman are running. the debate is hosted by bek tv. you are watching c-span. >> [indiscernible] we prepared these questions ourselves and flipped a coin to decide who goes first for moderators. we know which one of us is going to go first. >> it is recommended the live audience holds applause.

candidates will be given two minutes for answers, one minute for follow-up answers, rebuttals, or return to a previous topic. please be mindful of the clock. >> i want to stress be mindful of the clock. as talkshow hosts, we know how to be rude and we will shut you off. trust me on that. we will be taking a few television breaks and we begin with the opening statement of three minutes from each of the candidates. >> beginning with republican candidate kelly armstrong. rep. armstrong: i am a little confused. i thought you were leg wrestling in the hallway. thank you all for doing this. thanks for everybody -- [indiscernible]

[inaudible]

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[inaudible] mr. coachman: i want to thank my lord jesus christ. i want to thank my wife sitting here. and i want to thank the people who supported me during this campaign. i also want to thank bek tv for posting this. we want to defend and protect and hold the constitution of the

united states and of north dakota to help empower the people of this state. we want to first of all drain the swamp. i fully support the second amendment. i prohibit land purchase by foreign entities. restore parental rights in education and ban the woke agenda. i will work with farmers and ranchers to create a bill of rights. i am not a career politician but i know i want to stand for people who want to be heard. we have seen over our lifetime many politicians say vote for me, and that's it. once they get into office it is hard to reach them. you try to email them or text their office and you don't get nothing but a generic response. in 1977, i joined the united states air force. i raised my right hand to defend the constitution against foreign

and domestic enemies. i believe and many americans believed before me that our oath is the most important thing there is. but i never thought i would have to defend my country, your country, here in north dakota, against foreign and domestic enemies. we don't have just a state issue, especially as part of being a governor. it is really important to know that we also have a national issue. i supported donald trump back in 19 -- i mean, 2016. i support him through all his endeavors. i believe he would be the next next -- best president we would have as a nation. you ask why that is important? because him as commander-in-chief and president, we have an immigration issue. that is important. next we have a ccp problem here in north dakota. and here in north dakota we have found out dealing with fufang

that it's very important that the chinese have established themselves in this state. we need to get that out. and working with our president, we can do it. the constitution is the key. we need to follow the constitution. it's sad that most of our legislators will not follow the constitution because 95% to 98% of our issues would be alleviated if you followed that. and with that, let's make the constitution great again. thank you. >> [inaudible] mr. piepkorn: thank you, steve. thank you bek communications are hosting this grand event. too bad there is not a camera in front to show the audience this beautiful audience, which we

believe is a nationwide audience on c-span. my name is merrill piepkorn. i was born in stanley, a little north and west of here. raised in fargo, for the most part. like most young people, i traveled the nation, some of it hitchhiking. traveled across europe. some of that hitchhiking as well. i don't think we do that sort of thing these days, but i think all of those experiences are good for young people to get out a little bit antsy with the world is about. i eventually settled down in fargo which is my hometown now. north fargo, downtown fargo, and i represented north fargo from district 44 for the past eight years in the north dakota state senate. i have one son, married. thank you kindly for being here tonight. with our parade dog daisy, who is napping right now.

she said if she is elected first dog, she will just appoint me governor. i have been involved in my local schools, my church family, neighborhood association. i worked in broadcasting, entertainment, both as a performer and as a promoter and producer. i have a production company that produces television, movie projects, radio, and live events. our company's mission statement is to bring joy into people's lives, uplifting their spirits wherever we go. that's an attitude that we can bring to state government, to the governor's office. you can have an upbeat positive office -- attitude. you can have a joyous attitude. you can travel north dakota in the fun bus that a lot of people jumped on that bus during our prairie fire picnics this summer. you can do all of that and still be serious about governing the state. you know, we are going to

discuss several topics tonight. and during that time, i believe you will get a chance to know me. i know some of you, probably on the side of the room, most of you do know me. some of you don't hear. but you will also not only get to know me a bit, but you will discover that there are differences between us. now, we share a lot of the same vision for north dakota and we each want to do what we think is best for north dakota. and what that is is different. that's why we are here. that's why you have a choice. again, thank you for being here. if things get a little slow, i think a conversation between joel and steve will liven things up. >> congressman, i am going to ask you and then we are going to ask everybody, and we will have a chance for rebuttal after. you get two minutes and then a

minute for rebuttal. but the biggest issue i see coming the way of the governor is if measure four passes, you are going to have to restructure that tax code and you are going to have to work with the legislature. so i need to know whether or not you are going to vote for or against measure four, and if -- basically i want to know why, why that vote would be what you are going to do. rep. armstrong: [inaudible] legislators are frustrated. [inaudible]

[inaudible]

>> how will you vote on measure four and why? mr. coachman: i am going to vote yes on measure four, for the simple reason, it is already pretty much in our constitution. it is our guideline, it is our walking orders for the government to do. our constitution is to show the legislators what they need to do and they are not. for instance you in section one, the legislators assembly shall prohibit from raising revenue to defray the expense of the state

through a levy of attacks of assessed value for real or personal property. it is already there. and as he already said, they are not following the constitution. what they are doing is making laws to subvert what is already in there. in other words, it is like having an employee doing his only job on your machines and you keep telling him look, there are instructions right here, but he keeps doing it his way and not what the instructions say. so what do you do? i have 56 seconds. sorry. what do you do when you have an employee who will not follow instructions? you terminate him. and that is what we need to do here. if they are not going to follow the constitution we need to terminate these legislators who not follow what is already spelled out.

>> how are you going to vote on measure four and why? mr. piepkorn: i am going to be voting no. most of you are well educated on the ramifications of what would happen if measure four happens. talk about sucking all the oxygen out of the room to be governor. that is the first thing on your plate, is there is no property tax. where are we going to get this $1.5 billion that the rest of the state is depending on? your school districts, counties. we have taken several steps and as congressman armstrong talked about in tax incentives and such. i proposed a notion last session that was earlier introduced by senator potter at the time for a 10% tax incentive. i introduced that same thing and

it got shot down, came back at the end of the session. i am not sure about this clock either. i don't want joe yelling at me. are we starting here again? ok, thank you. i want to be conscious of the rules here. anyway, came back at the end of the session as a five dollar tax credit. very good. there are probably 30 or 40 bills out there that legislative council is working on right now, property tax bills. what to do if measure four passes, if it doesn't pass. those have to be winnowed down. one of them is make a $1000 tax incentive on primary residence and make it permanent. that would be something. but i think we also need to get together and figure it out together. i was visiting with a friend of mine, a business partner, someone i have known for over 50

years who was the sales manager of a break -- of a big printing company any twin city. cooperation is when you say to somebody when they tell you to do something you say ok, i will do that, i will cooperate. when you collaborate you work together, you talk together, and come up with a solution. >> we have time for rebuttal. congressman armstrong, you can go first. any rebuttal? ok, then mr. coachman. mr. coachman: freedom is always established with the land. the constitution, that is when you are free, when you own your own land. what they are proposing is adding extra lings to each of your ankles and send you are free now. no. freedom is always attached to land. if you don't own your land, you are not free. as far as the funding, we waste more money than you can imagine. we got over $1 million to teach

kids how to ride a bicycle. really? you start going through as governor and start going through different branches and organizations like this here and start cutting them and find out, are you really valid? are you constitutional appointed-type organizations? if not, it's gone. if they don't benefit the people, if it doesn't benefit the people, it's gone. that's where you get your funding from. >> any other rebuttal? mr. piepkorn: first of all, if this property tax is eliminated, there goes the property tax from the big corporations who already see us as a friendly state to do business. there goes the centrally assessed tax, the railroads. i will take this point with mr. coachman. so, the citizens, many in here i would imagine, probably most of you own your own homes. what about renters? are they not citizens?

are they not valued because they don't own property? so i take issue with that statement, that it is simply land that is the most important in consideration in this discussion. mr. coachman: can i follow up on that? >> no. mr. coachman: ok. >> we are going to be taking our first scheduled break this evening. [inaudible] announcer: bektv in bismarck the host of tonight's north dakota government -- governor debate is taking a break. in the meantime here are some ads merrill piepkorn has been running in the state this year. mr. piepkorn: i am running for governor of north dakota. we live in a time where it is fashionable to pick one person against another and criticize rather than solve.

we simply cannot afford to do that. the time is right for a different style of leadership, a governor committed to bringing the state together through bipartisan working relationships, and by reminding us of a goal we all share. doing what's best for our families and our communities. for all of north dakota, i am merrill piepkorn and i am asking for your vote. you may be asking yourself, why should i vote for merrill piepkorn for governor? i stand for women and their right to make their own health-care decisions. i stand for strong public education, supporting our teachers and librarians. and how about providing lunches for our kids? i stand for strong, safe, and healthy communities, whether you live in a rural area, a small town, or a big city. i am asking for your vote. oh, taylor swift, if you lived in north dakota and were running for governor you know i'd vote for you. but you're not, and i am, so i

guess you voters, i'm just going to have to do. announcer: tonight's north dakota governor's debate hosted by bek tv will resume shortly. you're watching live coverage on c-span.

>> this is an election special report from beck tv. -- bek tv. >> welcome back to the bek tv -- next question for congressman armstrong. this goes back to 2012 and i know you were in the legislature at the time. the argument has a was been relief versus reform. one of the things that is evident to a lot of people on the outside looking in is, the issue is not necessarily the taxation, but the exemptions.

we have an exemption problem in north dakota, not a taxation problem. what say you to that? rep. armstrong: there is a valid argument to that. the biggest way to lower property tax is under a real, sustainable policy, would be to expand your tax base and continue your community growth and deal with that. but we have a homestead tax credits exemption for people who are 65 and older. i think we should expand that, not reduce that. a lot of these decisions are made at the local level. those kind of things are set up. but the relief versus reform question is the real conversation. i always use the example when we voted to take over the social service mills at the state legislature. i was part of those debates. the debate was simply about whether or not we were taking local control away from the burly county social services. that debate went on and on for a couple days and it was intense

and it was real. not a single one of us i think the legislature thought we were not delivering property tax relief. we were buying off the mills for social service from every local county across the state. unfortunately i don't even think we saw a bump in the road and property tax. we bought those mills off recognizing because of federal mandates and all the different programs that existed that the old 1965, 1975 county social service office had so many federal requirements and match money that local control didn't matter we get done doing the entire process and we delivered really significant buydown to every community in north dakota. we just didn't deliver any of that relief. that is where the real conversation has to happen. if $500 primary tax credit, $1000 primary tax credit, 60 mills on residential property, you can do any and all of those things. if you don't attach reform to it, then you are just doing the same thing we have done over and over again and expecting a

different result. so it is really important we have that conversation as well. >> mr. coachman, same question to you. reform versus relief. this goes back to 2012, and as far as an exemption problem versus a tax problem. mr. coachman: it really doesn't do any good. same with the tax. like i was stating before, people are not free. when he talked about the renters and big companies, when i was on city council and going to commissioner meetings, what is the first thing they do when big companies come to your county? they give them five years exemption and after that they get up and go. big companies are worried about big companies getting a break. as governor, it is the people who need the break, people who need to be free. the only way you can really fix

that is give the people their property. the side effect of this so-called tax break, people are still losing their homes. you start going through all of your big counties and find out all the people who property tax -- that is your primary duty as governor, take care of the people. companies is a second. take care of your people. because the most vital resource in this state is not oil and not ag, it's people. the most precious thing we have. if we lose people, everything else is gone. we need to take care of our people here in north dakota first and the only way you're going to do that is give them something that they can claim their own, and that is their home. so tax relief or whatever, they are still chained to the

government. and i am going to break the chain. thank you. mr. piepkorn: i haven't followed the tiff program's programs, and renaissance's own programs closely. but the problem is locally is we give these developers a five-year exemption on that property tax. but then the tax earnings for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years will more than pay for that. i pretty much trust them, that that is indeed the case. i know businesses do come and go but most of the people who enter into those agreements for developments -- for example, i think downtown fargo looks pretty good for business when everything moved out and went to the shopping centers invest acres. let me tell you another thing about exemptions. you want to see an industry that has exemptions?

i sat on the energy and natural resources committee. to me, natural resources is the deer and grasslands and the parks. oil and coal are also natural resources. you want to see an industry that comes back looking for exemptions on an industry? this is easy to say. it is overstating it and it is easy to say things that are overstating it to get people's attention. the people in texas and oklahoma say they have the best legislature money can buy. that is what they say. right here in north dakota, there is something to be said for that. because every session that i was on, energy and natural resource committee, the oil companies were back looking for another exemption. chipping away at the taxes that they pay. we realize it is an important industry here in north dakota. nobody i no one to shut it down. but just pay the taxes that you have agreed to in the past, and

again, saying it simply, clean up the mess. when you are done with the oil, don't abandon it. restore it as it was before you got here. >> candidates have a one minute rebuttal starting with congressman armstrong. rep. armstrong: i would say there is not a lot different from the eagle for to the permian. we don't have uniquely special shale rock. and frankly, we have some built in disadvantages. we are a long way from market in north dakota. we the geographic center in north america. one of the reasons it was the first -- we are 100 out of 100 wells. nobody understood what that look like. a bunch of companies who were not big at the time, by the way, that is a dirty little secret. small companies find onshore oil. we created an incentive to allow them to risk their capital and

in doing so with $10 million in a legacy fund, 16 and 36 are important in a school section. we take 10% off of everything a barrel of oil per we had smart policy that allowed people to come in here and invest and create generational wealth for this entire estate and i think it is a fantastic thing, not something to apologize for. mr. coachman: again, i am going to revert back to the constitution as much as possible because these are marching orders. when it comes to taxing the companies, it is already in here. all of the different companies that need to be taxed are already in our constitution. our legislators are just not reading what they need to do. if they read what needs to be done, the debate on a lot of this issue, these amendments, should not even be coming up. because they are failing to do their jobs.

i as governor will follow the constitution and make sure the proper people are taxed like your companies that are supposed to. the company if it sells, we are going to go back to this here and you will be free and the companies that are ultimately taxed will be taxed. mr. piepkorn: several years ago by way of initiated measure, the people of north dakota established the oil extraction tax at 6.5%. they established at 6.5%. i don't know if it was 2017, maybe the session before that. the legislature reduced it to 5%. but there is a caveat. if it ever gets to $100 a barrel then for three months in a row will pay an extra percent. that happened one time for three months. and the oil companies came screaming back, we can't afford that. we can't afford that little bump for three months.

until so the legislature rescinded that action. another example of they just never quit. they will always come back and ask for more, more, and more. nobody is going to up and go to the permian basin because our tax structure is unfair. we have a good climate. they keep saying we have a good business friendly state. we do. they are not going to abandon us for a tax and not granting them their every wish. >> we are going to switch gears from taxes. we are going to start with you, mr. coachman. does north dakota have an ethics problem in its government? i am going to give you some examples and you can speak to it. we have a state representative who was found guilty in a court of law of making sure that he got paid for a lease on a building that he did not own prior to the legislation he voted for to make sure he could make money on it. we've got a state legislator in

the williston area, upon being arrested for a dui, called the arresting officer is every possible name you can, including race baiting. we've got a state senator that had to quit the state senate when he was utilizing money that was being hid through the appropriations process to something that wasn't a political subdivision in terms of using the north dakota school board association so he could travel to prague. can the state paid for that. and now he has pled guilty. i am going to ask this in two parts. do we have an ethics problem, and because of the super majority we have, everyone i just described is a republican. so do we have an ethics problem in north dakota? mr. coachman: we have an ethics problem no matter if you are democrat, republican, whatever. it has to be the people policing

the government. we have a person right here on stage with sb-2134 who passed the legislation in 2019 to benefit himself because he had oil companies where the state gave back. so yes, we do. and we need to fix this. we have to fix this. we can be letting people take advantage of the people of north dakota to benefit themselves. we have to put a stop to it. the party doesn't really matter, because it is the individuals. we have to do a better way of placing. that is using the civilian people to come in. because as far as we can see, a majority of the time -- because there more that has happened -- is they keep protecting each other. some of it when it gets out of

hand, it hits the news. something they cannot fight about. but yeah, there are a lot of issues we have within our state government. mr. piepkorn: it is a matter of the super majority for the past 30 years of entitlement. they feel as though they are entitled to any actions that they deem appropriate, that they want. and with that comes this lack of transparency. what is it, what does it mean, why do we need it? so yes, there is a lack of transparency in state government. and let me tell you, one department of state, one aspect of state where we could really use a democrat non-bipartisan governor. that is in the industrial commission. the industrial commission is a three-member commission. ag secretary, attorney general,

and the governor. they have informal conversations and it is all perfectly legal. but if you had at least -- it is not going to overturn to legislature in this or even bring it up to what would be a fairly equal representation. but if we had one democrat governor on the commission that would go a long ways towards bringing clarity and transparency to conversations that go into the industrial commission office. i don't want to say that people can walk in and ask for what they want. that's not true. but my uploaded here, if he is elected governor, and is deeply invested in oil, says he will recuse himself from votes regarding energy, oil, gas. he is recusing himself -- he

overstepped my words there, excuse me. i have to turn my hearing aid off, i heard that. uses himself from all of these votes regarding oil, then there are two people who going to be voting. >> congressman armstrong, do we have an ethics problem when it comes to our governors? rep. armstrong: one, we have a criminal problem. anything else you have done in your life, if you get convicted of the crimes that ray got convicted of, there is no redeeming factor. i don't know if nico s is an ethics problem. it is a, you should not talk to that to any human beings under any circumstances problem and you have a hard time explain that to his voters. jason has to go home and answer whether or not he can be a valuable member of the north dakota legislature. but every two or four years you

have to go and face your voters. that is a huge part of that conversation. i have served on the ethics committee for two years in d.c. and one of the things that has always frustrated me, whether it is a republican speaker, democratic speaker, republican leader, i don't work for them. any representative doesn't work for the governor, they work for their constituents. with regards to transparency, we know all about all three of these cases. with the alcohol-related, those have gone on on both sides of the equation for a long time. one, the only way you have a conflict in lakebed minerals -- i had no minerals held under suspense. that came from western north dakota farmers and ranchers who got a letter from the state saying you used to own your minerals and you don't own them anymore. we are taking them.

we decided to resurvey the channel of the misery river 50 years after it has been under the lake. in my entire time of government i don't know if i will pass along more consequential than lakebed minerals. the state of north dakota stole those minerals from north the coda farmers and we worked our butts off to get them back. you would have to drag me out of that room. i will recuse myself from anything that specifically involves my dad's operating company or minerals i have unique interest in. >> rebuttal. mr. coachman: when the state took back the mineral rights, you had no oil companies within that boundary. you had no oil companies? rep. armstrong: i had zero minerals. mr. coachman: i didn't say minerals, i said oil companies. rep. armstrong: i understand

what the conflict is, i am not sure you do. but ok. mr. coachman: i will address this later. >> rebuttal, anyone else? mr. piepkorn: when it comes to the personal behavior issues of the legislators, it was hidden for quite some time. the building purchased lease. the senator's behavior, people knew about it and were not saying anything and the investigation still goes on. still, i don't think there is any law. he didn't have to resign. voters, people, come on. if you don't like that behavior, vote them out. that is the way it works. he didn't resign. fine, i don't have a problem with that. in fact i called representative

rios and said, what are you doing about this drinking problem? i have a little history of straightening out my own life, we will get into that detail maybe a little bit later. that is why i am here, i was given the opportunity. but i said straighten it out and maybe you can do something about it. >> one quick follow-up, yes or no. i want to go away from ray, who did resign. i want to go away from nico, who we have seen other legislators have that problem. i want to focus on jason. because you can make an argument -- and i will if you need me to, that he stole money. that money was not appropriated. he knew the money wasn't appropriated. he was a legislator. he basically worked with the attorney general to make sure that that money was given before that building was even bought. my question is simple.

should he resign? better than that, would you resign if you were him? if you were him and you are found guilty in that court of law, do you feel you would need to resign? mr. coachman: yes. mr. piepkorn: i would imagine i would have a tough time going back home if i tried to pull some shenanigans like that. >> i am not talking about going back to the voters. mr. piepkorn: no, to my neighbors. >> congressman armstrong, would you feel the responsibility to resign? rep. armstrong: two things, he was never convicted. >> that is not what i asked. if you are found guilty like he was, would you feel the obligation to resign? rep. armstrong: i would have a hard time understanding how i would be able to represent my voters. mr. piepkorn: he was found guilty. what did he get, community service?

rep. armstrong: which is not unique for misdemeanors. mr. piepkorn: yeah, go ahead. >> we talked about measure four. for me, the bigger issue is measure number two. do you support making the process for north dakotans to affect change in north dakota harder with measure number two? and three pieces to this. one, north dakota laws, making them more difficult. changes to the code through the process. out-of-state interests, how do you address out-of-state interests as it plays into the process? first up, state senator piepkorn . mr. piepkorn: i will be voting no on that. it is another case of the legislature knowing what is best for the rest of us. legislature is great about local control until we know better.

so, let's say matt talk, north dakota, they have got some avid environmentalists and i don't want their grocery store using plastic bags. we passed a law saying that they cannot make that law. so, so much for that. it will just make things more difficult. there is a thing called marcy's law that really started this conversation to tighten up the qualifications, what was needed to get a measure on the ballot. i don't remember the exact ramifications of that law. but a lot of people didn't like it and it was funded by millions of dollars from out-of-state. i am sorry, i think that is my son calling me. would you take that call? but things are going to happen.

it is not a perfect system but it is a good system and it is the best thing we have and we don't need to change it because things will come along every once in a while. it is not a perfect world, but i would not change this. the legislature gets to take another look at it. forget about it. the legislature has enough to do without meddling in this. >> as far as supporting or not supporting helping north dakotans to affect change, as far as changes between the laws, and out-of-state interest, how would you address that? rep. armstrong: i am not entirely sure how i'm going to vote on measure two yet. i think the petition process is uniquely greater north dakota. it should be as easy as possible on the statutory side. when you are changing the constitution of north dakota, we have to be really careful about what that looks like. i can go back and talk about the

original medical marijuana petition would have been constitutional. it decriminalized the purchase but not the sale. there is no way for the legislature to fix that. that is the thing and we put way too many -- the second amendment of the constitution, the fourth amendment, the fifth amendment, are pretty short. when we change our constitutions now, they are five pages long. i like the idea of single subject. i have not spent a lot of time to figure out if he truly is a one-person veto or not. but i think the more we can do the initiated measure process at the statutory level the better off we are. we want to raise the threshold for constitutional change, i am comfortable with that. it should be really hard to change the north dakota constitution. the other answered we have to talk about is what you said. i don't know if this solves this or not. out-of-state money. because you cannot stop it.

without u.s. supreme court change, you are not going to be able to stop it. we are dangerously close to the point there with enough money it would be cheaper to change the north american constitution than to be up on tv in san francisco in a political campaign for a weekend. i don't think that is something we are interested in in north dakota. the problem is constitutionally it is really difficult to keep out-of-state money out. >> do you support making the process more difficult, and how does that relate to whether it is statutory with new with the dakota laws versus the century code and changing the constitution of the state and how would you address out-of-state interests? mr. coachman: the first question you have to ask, is the legislator authorized to do a measure? you have to ask that. are they authorized to do a constitutional measure?

our constitution says the people reserve the power to propose their lot and enact laws by initiative. and it starts to go through. legislators cannot initiate the type of measure. measure one, two, and three are by the legislators and they are not supposed to. it astounds me that these men, who after we talked last thursday and they talked about the constitution, not once have they brought up the constitution at all, or even decided to switch to say, you know what, you are right. i see this now in our constitution. we should follow the constitution. because if you don't follow the constitution, what you got? a third world country. because what you are doing is either bringing up globalist or socialist solutions and not following our u.s. constitution

or their growth dakota constitution. it astounds me that not once you ever refer to the constitution and say it is already here. it saddens me. if you're not going to follow the constitution, what are you going to follow? the almighty benjamin? because that is what you are running on. because you are not running on what we are supposed to have. the constitution is our guideline to run a republic. they do not want this paper to be the most important thing to you. and they are going to change it. and as governor, i will not. i will put the constitution the main thing. thank you. >> one minute rebuttal. mr. piepkorn: mr. coachman has a deeper knowledge of the constitution then nine to -- than i do. i will just have to have good people on my staff to advise me to legislation that runs along

that runs contrary to our constitution. i do respect the notion of because edition and i respect mr. coachman's knowledge of it. talk about transparency and outside money influencing initiated measures and because additional measures. what about influencing politics? congressman armstrong spent over $3 million getting his party's nomination because they think whoever gets this republican nomination will be the next governor. that isn't the way it works. it works because you are going to go into the voting the -- the voting booth and you decide. we can have transparency when it comes to pac money too. rep. armstrong: i don't need a minute. mr. coachman: i like what he said. >> before i ask this question

let me remind everybody, and i thank everyone who took the short route. because we have a lot of questions and the people who are listening and all of this nationwide love to hear as many questions asked as possible. just because you get two minutes means he doesn't have to take two minutes. do you believe -- mr. piepkorn: yes, next question. [laughter] >> do you believe any public dollars should go to private schools? mr. piepkorn: no. simple as that. public schools have a responsibility -- it's our responsibility to educate. let's start with k-12. one of the ideas is, ok, the state right now we leave about

one third of the cost of educating a k-12 student to local school districts. here is the thing about it. about talking together. forgive my words here, the clever thing i started with. but talking together about this, how we can make it work. if we in the state up our level of contribution to education, then we can -- boy, school districts hate to hear this -- we would figure out a way to do it, to cap their ability to raise the bond issues they are always issuing and most of the time our defeated and they keep hammering away. one thing to do is to up the ante from state. no public money to private schools. they can get the best athletes if they want them.

they don't have to accept every child with special needs, for example. i left you 27 seconds. rep. armstrong: first of all my debate prep was going to a public school and doing parent-teacher conferences before i got here. my kids have gotten into two dove or -- there are ways in which you can do this. i have said this a million times, it doesn't have to be either/or. allowing parents more autonomy and flexibility to educate their kids is something i would support. i would back off a little bit and say one of the reasons -- and through a weird set of circumstances i am very much a consumer of the public school system but through the circumstances of my life and politics i have never dealt with this stuff at a granular level. one of the huge impacts and the biggest factors in how i decided to pick my lieutenant governor

running mate was someone who had been a public school teacher, been a counselor, been a homeschooled parent and dealing with those issues. i also think it is really important in this entire debate to recognize a couple things. we nationalize these fights about public schools a lot, and it really frustrates me. because there are a lot of my colleagues who have really, really, really significant problems that i would not stand for if i lived in their districts. i can tell you as somebody who has had two kids in two different school systems that we have to localize this conversation and make sure we are doing whatever we can do to recognize our north dakota teachers in public schools don't suffer from a lot of the things that bring the national narrative into this. that is one thing that does frustrate me. mr. coachman: again, an education in the concentrations of the legislators should provide a uniform system of free public school throughout the state beginning with primary, extending through all grades up to and including schools of higher education.

except the legislative family may -- as far as public schools, yes, the question was for private schools. they would have to come through to have some type of vulture program that will somehow change the people would want to change this in that way. as far as vouchers, yes, i support that. but right now the constitution states only people that get it right is public schools. mr. piepkorn: do i have a minute? we are in the rebuttal phase. i believe the constitution, as we discussed, is obligated to provide free public schools, and also free from sectarian control. boy, this school choice moniker that is going around.

there are influences from outside north dakota, major national groups who are pushing for this. it has been tried and is in action in some states. it is not delivering the goods like they say it should. our lieutenant governor candidate that you are running with voted to provide vouchers for private schools in our last session. that is public money to private schools. they have done it so far up to this point, and they can continue doing that. and in the meantime, we need to do as much as we can for our public schools, for our public school teachers, for our librarians, everybody involved in that system, janitors and custodians included too. rep. armstrong: there are varying degrees of success in different states. yeah, she's been a public school teacher and a homeschool mom. we far and away recognize there are different ways. but what is being demanded and is not in a national interest

group, not big money with parents and people showing up at town halls that say they want more autonomy, they want more decision-making in their child's education, and they should be allowed to do that. i reject the premise that if you figure out a reasonable formula. i have said this before and i really mean it. whatever kind of program you have that develops this cannot be to subsidize people's tuition who are already going to private school. if we are doing this and going down this road, this has to apply to every kid. the poorest kid in the community , disabled kids in those communities, we have to make sure they have equity. >> we are going to take a break in about one second. when we come back i want to talk about teacher retention. because that is one of the biggest issues when it comes to private schools. versus public schools, as we know them. you're watching a gubernatorial debate here on bek tv. announcer: bek tv in bismarck,

the host of tonight's north dakota governor's debate, is taking a short break. while we wait for the debate to continue, here are some of the ads republican nominee kelly armstrong ran earlier this year after naming his running mate. >> kelly armstrong will be a great governor because he knows us and he is from here. he knew what it was like in the early 1990's, and he was part of the boom and the resurgence of jobs in western north dakota. so he gets it. he was there and he helped create good times. >> i support kelly armstrong for governor because i'm a west north dakota ranch kid born and raised and kelly understands what is important for the energy ag industry in north dakota. kelly is the conservative choice for governor. >> i support kelly armstrong for governor first and foremost because he loves this state.

we are so supportive of him. he is extremely honest, extremely transparent. he will tell it like it is. and he is supportive of the things that matter to north and's and to americans. >> kelly is just a decent christian man who cares about the people of our state. our daughter was attending a medical school rotation in dickinson one year and our family was supposed to go out and spend easter with her when a huge ice storm hit the state. he picked her up, took her to church, took her out for easter brunch so she had someone she could spend easter holiday with. that just speaks to the genuine care that he has for the people of the great state of north dakota. >> tonight's north dakota governor's debate hosted by bek

tv will resume shortly. you are watching live coverage on c-span.

>> this is an election special report from bek tv. >> welcome back to the bek tv 2024 gubernatorial debate for the north dakota governor's race , featuring congressman kelly armstrong, state senator merrill piepkorn, and mr. coachman running as an independent. joe, i believe you have one follow-up, important question when it comes to teacher retention. i think the reason it's important, you probably remember and i remember when teachers were coming out of school making $26,000 a year. that increased, but now we are running into a retention issue. >> i do want to talk about retention because whether you are a large or small school, the

superintendent would say the biggest problem is, i can't keep my teachers or can't find my teachers. i think all of us can agree on that. how would you fix it? mr. piepkorn: what did they say, why? what is the problem? >> there is two things they mention on my radio show. number one, money, competing against the private sector on money. the other issue is expertise on that given suspect. mr. piepkorn: thank you for clarifying. we can work on the money. we have done some things to help pay for the education of a teacher in forgiving loans if they will stay and teach in north dakota for a number of years. we have taken care of some reciprocity things for teachers. our lieutenant governor candidate from the other party

could probably answer this well, having been a teacher. my mom was my first and second grade teacher in a country school and life was different there. i think she ruled the roost. in addition to money, i think a lot of the problems are behavior of students in the school. i know that's very frustrating for a lot of teachers. they will say, i can't say boo to a student. this is generalizing, but to bring the point to discussion, rather than sending a student home who then gets disciplined at home, the parent may come back with the student and confront the teacher. i had a couple teachers who deserved that, i wish my parents would have come to talk to them. but there is a behavior issue in school.

i don't know how we are going to deal with that. we can help with the money. i know we are importing teachers from other countries, in addition to health care workers. we have to pay them more, make them more competitive. one thing that didn't help was eliminating the pension plan in favor of the new plan, which isn't nearly -- >> congressman armstrong, same question. rep. armstrong: i have no idea. we have no data to say what is causing us not to recruit new people into the industry. i do think the mental health issue is huge. there are two groups of people we ask to do a job they are not qualified for, first grade teachers and law enforcement officers. it affects outcomes not just for the kid going through what they're going through, but all the other classmates. more importantly, sometimes we forget about the teacher.

this is important because the best predicators across the country about whether your child will have a good education, it is class size and teacher experience. those are the single two things. how do we keep new teachers, how do we recruit them? student loan buydowns, different ways we can recruit them, particularly into more rural communities. i think that is something we can solve fairly easy. i think the retention question is harder. i know they just had an interim hearing. one thing that might solve two things is daycare at great schools, particularly in places that don't have access to daycare. those are the people typically going to need it, young teachers in grade schools with young families at home. it's difficult how you can have a husband or a wife teaching

while someone else has another job if you don't have adequate daycare. there are some good ideas that have come out of that and i think this is one of those things where if any of us say we have all the answers, that's probably not right. we just have to hope we are asking the questions and asking them of the right people? >> mr. coachman? how do you retain teachers? if you are governor of the state of north dakota, how would you keep teachers in the classroom? mr. coachman: first i would talk with them and say, what do you need? you talked about finances. we have to work on how we can get the finances to meet that one need. we have to pull restrictions off a lot of teachers. i know a lot of parents used to work with the teachers to help lead, especially a large class. parents would assist. you have to sit down and give

the teachers what they need. pull restrictions off, get the parents involved. when the parents are involved with the teachers as far as assisting, that helps. if a parent is right there, if they can afford to be there, let them assist with the teacher. we have to sit down and really contemplate how we can fix this issue. it's not something you can just cover in a debate. >> one final question on education -- >> rebuttal? pay them better and help them in the classroom. this is an example of collaborating. i love the idea of having daycare, not just in the schools , but other business places as well. how about the state capital building up the road?

>> one final question on education, as pertains -- a lot of different issues, including measure four. i am a believer if the state fully funded k-12 education meant measure for would not be on the ballot. do you see as governor any changes for supplementing what dpi does as it plays out to educating north dakota kids? first off, congressman armstrong. rep. armstrong: i think the cpe schools -- we just opened one in dickinson, had them in grafton for a long time. i think those are uniquely fantastic. they are allowing different kids to learn different skill sets that might not necessarily be english or math. they are also helping develop a 21st century workforce.

you can engage kids in that meaningful way. if we can provide resources to dpi and do some of those things, we can do those things, but how you educate kids in one county versus other counties are very different animals. has somebody who has been on the other side in the coaching world , i promise you are way better off when those parents can actively engage the members of the school board. i think we have the most transparent and accessible legislature in the country. a local school board is making those decisions. if we can help them on resources, that's ok. if we are mandating how they are going to do things in adams county or burley county, i think that is wrongheaded. mr. piepkorn: could you ask the question one more time? >> this comes back to measure

for as far as the finances. half of your property tax bill tends to go to your local school board. do you see any changes in the department of public instruction that would help supplement local education or supplement the education of our kids in north dakota? mr. piepkorn: as far as the finances? >> either finances or changes in dpi. mr. piepkorn: there are changes in dpi that need to be done. we already know that article nine with the financing will come for this schooling. dpi needs to go back to the aid of the constitution and education. they need to get back to a high degree of patriotism, intelligence, morality on the

part of every voter. they need to go back to the roots. that would leave the majority of issues they are having by going back to something we already have established. why does nobody want to go back to the constitution and start following what it states? by doing that you are going to leave anywhere from 95% to 98% of the issues, from school to whatever it may be. if we go back to our constitution -- there's is a reason for that. i know you are bringing up the questions of what if this or that. it doesn't matter if you go back to the constitution. it's like playing basketball. you are losing, it's halftime. what does the coach tell you? we get in the locker room, go back to the basics. when you go back to the basics, you go out and perform.

right now we are losing in all these different areas. we need to go back to the basics , which is the constitution. we do that as governor, you would see things start turning around in a matter of years. mr. piepkorn: when i am elected governor, i will ask mr. coachman to be my advisor on constitutional issues. what we don't need, and this sounds a little conspiracy theorist, but it is out there. what we don't need is a department of public instruction that says we will put the 10 commandments in every schoolroom , on the wall in every schoolroom. what we don't need is a department of public instruction directing exactly what can be

taught in the schools. and that would be the final word. that is a movement to do that. it can easily go from school choice. if people would like to do that, i don't think it will ever get to that point in our state and country, but they would like to see it happen. people moved to america so they wouldn't have to follow the government division in england. the department of public instruction has basically been a nonpartisan office and i think over the course of the years they have done a good job on it. if we can support payment of the education, take the pressure off the schools, maybe even mandate

it, we are going to pay for the rest of the education, but you cannot issue these bond issues. if the public doesn't like it, it's tough. >> a minute for rebuttal, congressman armstrong? rep. armstrong: we have to be very careful. we can figure out other ways to do it. we are going to have a billion-dollar general fund surplus. there are unique opportunities to do that but we have to be careful. i don't think anybody envisioned $8 million. that money is going to be used long after our oil and gas resources are gone. i hope we can produce oil and gas for hundreds of years, but eventually it is a finite resource. we have to grow to replace those things. also a great way to supplement local education spending without the inevitable mandated policy

after it. i watched this in d.c. a lot. every time we do something for social services, education, school lunches, we mandate that at the federal level. we do less of that at the state level but we are not immune from that. mr. coachman: his comment on the 10 commandments, our north dakota constitution, we the people of north dakota thank almighty god for the blessings of civil and religious liberties, do ordain and establish this constitution. the 10 commandments are key for integrity and morality. without it, we won't have it. we needed. get socialism out, get religion out, the 10 commandments out. next thing you know, from socialism you go to communism. that's why we are a free nation because we have an almighty god

that established this nation. the 10 commandments are key. kids need to know it just as adults need to know it. mr. piepkorn: i have to withdraw my suggestion to bring on mr. coachman as my cause additional advisor. [laughter] >> quick yes or no follow-up. would you support the pledge of allegiance requirement in public schools? mr. piepkorn: i wasn't listening, i was watching the audience reaction. what was the question? >> would you support as governor a pledge of allegiance and civics requirements in k-12 education? mr. piepkorn: i think that would be ok. we did it when i was growing up in grade school. >> mr. coachman, oftentimes tonight you have recited the state constitution and i respect that, but also there is the united states constitution,

which says there will be a separation of church and state. many of our founding fathers were not christians. it's a two part question. you cite the 10 commandments and the need for those in the classroom, the individual that passed and sponsored the 10 commandments bill in the legislature was on my radio show and couldn't recite them when i asked. so somewhat hypocritical, i think a little bit, but if in fact you feel that the constitution pushes, or should have the 10 commandments, i have to ask you this. what if other religions, other beliefs, want their beliefs posted on the wall? if you were governor, would you support that? mr. coachman: yeah. yeah. we are a free nation. we can practice religion anyway we want. when you talk about separation of church and state, what does

that really mean? people really don't understand what that means. separation of church and state means that state has no set religion. you are not a catholic, you are not a lutheran, everybody has to be a methodist -- no. separation of church and state says the state doesn't have influence on the church and the church doesn't have influence, but you want to have morality in the right place. it is not one religion, not one type of religion. that's what it's talking about. mr. piepkorn: now, mr. coachman, there you go again. mr. coachman: there i go again. mr. piepkorn: we are going to have the 10 commandments and every religion's major points that they believe in. in every classroom. that's not going to happen.

>> you will get a chance to rebut. congressman armstrong -- government is bad at it. rep. armstrong: i don't want to have this debate. in the vast majority of communities in north carolina, the church is part of the fabric of the community. when you start saying if you are going to have the 10 commandments, you have to have the koran, the buddhists. let's teach reading, math, and civics. teach them theology. north dakota has the oldest mosque in the country. that's fascinating. people in north dakota don't know that. we have tremendous social organizations in every community. that's where these states need to be taught. more people have to take their kids and get them involved.

those are the things that make small towns what they are. if you start bringing this into public education -- would i personally have a problem if the 10 commandments were in a second grade class? i do not. do i think we want to spend 85% of our oxygen writing about that and have to bring that into a civics question? which i think is a fantastic idea. last legislative session, they passed a law requiring to teach native american heritage in high school. that is one place maybe dpi should get involved. the next thing about the civics question, there is a civics test. you have the metrics. but i don't think we should pass a law like that and then not implement a program that shows our native american brothers and sisters the cultural significance they deserve. schools and governments generally are bad at trying to

do those things. >> mr. coachman, you are correct on that. as governor, i am a governor for all the people, not just a select. i am a born-again christian and i believe it is a flag for everybody. we the people is everybody. that's what america is all about. do i prefer one religion or another? no, i don't. i believe that the constitution does talk about it. you take civics, you learn how did this country become. that is the key, understanding the constitution. it doesn't matter what religion, it's for everybody to understand we are all americans. if you have the koran and islam

say we are going to overtake the christian belief and government, i'm not for that, but i do believe everybody has the right to practice their own religion the way they believe. >> in the public schools. mr. coachman: no, not really in the public schools. >> interesting that you mention the mosque. the first mosque in north america is located -- they built a new one just about three miles from the family farm where i grew up. we grew up with those people. we grew up with the people who worshiped at that mosque. i remember the family's names. i put their names in a song i wrote about my family in north dakota. i didn't know diddly about what religion they were from. we were neighbors, we worked together.

they had a problem, we would go help them. there wasn't a big discussion about the religion in the country school down the road. they have their religion, we have ours. >> next question concerning the state budget. this goes back to the finance side. one third of the state budget belongs to dhs. do you see any issues with that? what is the role under your governorship of dhs moving forward? state senator pipe corn? mr. piepkorn: one department that has the largest single budget of all the departments in state government. it's pretty hard to say, where do we cut back? i will talk about it. then again, budgeting is all about we have the income stream

and we choose where to spend it. are we going to spend it on tax cuts for out-of-state corporations? tax cuts for the oil companies? tax incentives for you to start a business here? everybody who comes in front of the taxation committee, they go north dakota is a great business friendly state. we already are that. so we have the income coming, where do we spend it? there will be a movement in the legislature to eliminate all the income tax. there was the current governor's big project. he wanted to eliminate all the income tax. it got eliminated and i don't know how far up the scale it went. people on my block don't mind paying their income tax.

now some of that has been eliminated. are we going to eliminate the income tax for high earners? let's first of all start by not eliminating that income tax. one area i think we can spend more time on and invest on his mental health, drug addiction, and addiction to alcohol. there are not enough opportunities for people to access treatment or counseling for those issues in particular, and that is the root cause for a lot of problems in our society today. >> dhs is a third of the budget in north dakota. how would you address that? rep. armstrong: i asked a smart guy this question friday night. there are a ton of places you can cut administrative fluff, but i don't think there is a lot of movement right now to reduce

addiction related services. there is a lot of -- i don't know why i have never thought of this before in this way, but this guy is particularly smart about this. it doesn't matter how much or how little you spend, make sure the programs you are doing get more efficient. make sure the money is being deployed where it needs to go. don't build a new mental health facility if you don't have anybody to work there. if you are talking about where we have moved as a society in incarceration, addiction, recognizing the things, knowing how early brain development affects long-term strategic learning, we have come a long way on that. do i think there are plenty of places we could trim bureaucratic red tape in health and human services?

absolutely. i'm running as a republican for governor, beating up on bureaucrats is the easiest thing you can do. i worked with these people in the legislature and we came along way on a lot of issues. if you are talking about significant criminal justice, mental health, and addiction reform, someone would circle the role -- circle rural north dakota on a map. the governor and first lady have really promoted those types of things and i don't think we should give up that momentum. the answer is we should spend the dollars better. if we can cut a portion of the budget, great. if we have to spend more defined better, we should do that too. mr. coachman: i would audit not just dhs but every agency in the capital. i would do a 100% audit, find out where the money is being

spent, and if it's not where it should be going to the places that needed, we will put it there. i would do a complete 100% to make sure everything they are spending is being used efficiently. the key is to spend our money wisely, not just because we have it. >> one minute rebuttal, mr. piepkorn? mr. piepkorn: the red tape issue is phenomenal. computers were supposed to make everything easier, faster, more efficient. i don't know if it has done that. it has just made for more paperwork. it is pretty complicated, a lot of forms to fill out, steps to go through to access the programs we are talking about. yes, there can be efficiencies found in simplifying the process. i will extend an invitation to the current first lady that i

believe her program has done a lot of good and i would invite her to continue that program in the next administration, whoever that is. >> congressman armstrong? rep. armstrong: a little bit on the red tape, one of the dirty secrets i have seen from my day job the last six years is when you do federal match dollars, which so much of this we have to streamline everything we can do at the state level because we are going to be hamstrung by a federal bureaucratic bureaucracy. so, there are some questions about which programs in which you absolutely need that funding because you are going to have federal rigidity without money. if there's a way we can really work to streamline that, and if there are ways to move outside of that, but we have to take care of any innovation. i think telehealth can save us money and provide access to

service in places that don't have a. i think the technical things that we can do that can allowed to expand services and probably save taxpayers millions of dollars. >> i think telehealth is only good for so long. i have talked with individuals in the work area who have issues and they don't like being put on hold because it makes them fidgety. they won't give the social worker the opportunity to meet the person. so we have to do some serious revamping of the whole program. that's going to be something that's going to take time. i think with the right people, we can have this taken care of in a short time. we have some of the greatest people here in the united states and north dakota, and there's nothing we can't do, whatever problem, we just have to have

the right people, knowing you are going to get the support to fix whatever issue we have. >> thank you, gentlemen. that will take us to our next commercial break. our final break for this evening during the 2024 featuring republican congressman kelly armstrong, democratic state senator meryl peppercorn an independent michael coachman. thank you for attending, we will be back after this break. >>bek tv in bismarck, the hostess taking a short break. while we wait for the debate to continue, here are some of the ads running in the state's u.s. senate race. you can watch the debate in that race on wednesday evening at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.org. mr. trump: you need a senator that doesn't just talk like they are from north dakota, but votes like they are from north dakota, that's what you need, and that is kevin. >> serving in the senate, i see

how democrat policies in washington threaten north dakota. higher prices, a wide open border and a tax on our energy industry. it's a battle, but i don't back down. i'm kevin cramer and i approve this message because i vote from north dakota. >> neglect your period, they are going to die. same with politicians. when they go to washington like kevin cramer, folks back home suffer. that's why i'm voting for donald trump and katrina christiansen. she's agricultural engineer, a problem solver and she's fired up to work for north dakota. we haven't seen that in a long time. >> when a bull doesn't do its job anymore, you take them to town. time for kevin to come home. >> i'm katrina christiansen and i approve this message. i'm katrina christiansen and i approve this message. a lot of midwest families lost everything to the farm crisis. my family was one of them. we grew up very poor.

it can break you or make you unbreakable. i survived and i chose to fight for what north dakota and sneed, a fair economy that builds up hard-working families and their children. i'm katrina christiansen and i never give up. >> tonight's north dakota governor's debate hosted by bek tv will resume shortly. a watching live coverage on c-span. -- you are watching live coverage on c-span.

>> election special report from bek tv. >> welcome back to bek tv's 2024 gubernatorial debate. we have state senator merrill peppercorn, congressman kelly armstrong and independent michael coachman. i'm trying to remember where we left off to go first. but, there we go, i think we are going to go with mr. armstrong.

if you walked in the any small town cafe right now and you asked them what their biggest problem is. granted, its harvest, but it wouldn't matter to me whether it's january and february and he said, what's the biggest problem in your community, they would say we don't have enough workers. we don't. we don't have enough workers to expand our businesses, we don't have enough workers to do the job that we can until -- so north dakota finds itself in the stalemate, that begs the question, what would you do to bring more workers into this state? >> our high school, junior colleges on higher education. that takes a longer term. that's why we were talking about all of those and i've been to all of those. maybe not everyone, but i've been to a lot of them and you are 100% right. it is the single thing driving this conversation. there are a lot of things that could happen. there could be more automation,

artificial intelligence. all of those things are coming and are super exciting and it will help whether it's our active producers and all those different things occur, but we have to figure out how to recruit talent now. i can't change the weather in february, but we can figure out how to offer and drive those. i think those policies can do that. i think there are different things in which you can do. but you know who the best salesman for any of those communities would be is their local communities. that's what i told them at the inaugural northeast district economic development day. look it up, people. they have so much passion and they are not competing. they all compete with grand parks a little bit, i'm ok with that. but we have to figure out how to showcase that. and we could get a little smarter about how we do this. when i recruited the first person who worked for me and dickerson, one of the things i looked at was where they were from, where they came from and how they did it. one of my dearest friends was

from butte, montana. if you live in butte, you can live in dickens. if we can educate them from heading there, we have a much better chance of keeping them in dickinson. if we do that on the front end, and help our communities work forward to do that. we could talk about it for the next 90 minutes and still not get there but we have to figure it out. click same question, the question is simple, which is, how do we bring more workers into the state? mr. coachman: in 2012 there was a report done called the beacon report. during that report because it was for north dakota, and showed by getting rid of property tax, that's five times more people would come live in the state of north dakota. so, that right there showed that getting rid of property taxes is a big incentive for people to come knowing that when they come to north dakota that's a house that they purchase will be there is matter what.

the next thing i would do, and this is something i had shared when i was on the road in 2018 visiting and talking to people who were campaigning for different positions, and just going around the state and talking with individuals. it would travel the state as governor just to sit down and talk with people because some of the greatest resources we have our people in small towns. and you talked with them to find out what do you need as a town. and as governor, i would try to claim that. i would find out how could we hope your infrastructure because a lot of them can't grow because they can't afford the infrastructure. we would take some of the money and try to help them with their infrastructure to bring people in knowing that they have decent housing that they can keep in businesses, knowing that at the end of five years, they don't have to cut much. so, companies will come and say,

this was a pretty good deal, we don't have to worry about cutting the office, then they will stay, which in turn will bring people. click senator, same question. how do we bring workers into this state? mr. piepkorn: this is it may be such a big influencer when you talk about numbers, but a lot of the things that the legislator gets hot and bothered and worked up about when it comes to social issues, lgbtq. abortion. those are the issues that go out to the greater american. what kind of books are in your libraries? a lot of the things that the legislator gets all worked up about, young people that i don't care about and i mean it's not in it issued to them and they

will be more confident in a person's personal feelings about these things. and so, when we are making laws that discriminate against or even put out the attitude that we discriminate against certain groups of people, that doesn't make it very attractive to young people who want to move to north dakota. on a more positive note, there's a young lady, i can't remember her name before she got married but she came from the twin cities to wishek, north dakota, 30 years ago to teach music. she attempted it, she liked it, she fell in love with mr. wolf, now she's janet wolf. she has an accordion band. he know this because you been down there. she has an accordion band for sauerkraut day. she loves the community and we could talk about another thing, they had to hire her back again because she was willing to come back as a music teacher. we cannot cut music from school.

some of the things we talked about, everything comes back to workforce. child care, affordable housing, making your community a welcoming community, and we just can't provide everything with somebody wants. but there is north dakota nice. we are good people and that's our main attraction. >> we are going to end on a rebuttal and go into this. gentlemen, and i think it's mr. armstrong first. my question is really simple, i'm going to assume that everyone on the stages against illegal immigration, illegal immigrants. that's no big stretch. my question is, it seems to me that the government never talks about the people that employ them. so within the powers of the governorship, once you have them, will you put, as a priority, the prosecution of those individuals that employ individuals that they know are here illegal?

>> considering my first cases in federal court were previously deported people. some folks make more money here than they make for two months at home. they knew if they get caught they would get anywhere from three to nine months. i used to say, do you want to stop this? it doesn't even have to be a lot. but i think the bigger, overall conversation is there's nobody that loves legal immigration more than i do. it's pretty important in my life. don't tell her because she sitting right there. but i'm really glad she decided to come over here because i would've followed her anywhere in the world. we have new american communities in fargo. we have people from trinidad. we have south africans helping my friends combine right now in great know in those types of places. one of the frustrating things for me in this conversation is the entire time i've been in

politics is the conflation of illegal and legal immigration. it's frustrating when you look at it from a perspective of, we have 15,000 to 30,000 open jobs open in the state of north dakota right now. we have people who can't find people to help them work on their farm. a national policy is harder to get h when a worker's, h-1b workers, we need to quit conflating those two things. because i can guarantee if you go down to the hospital in elgin, there is someone there. not just because they are filling a need, but because they are teaching them something they've never seen before. if we want to have different issues, that is fine. but the one thing i could tell you that we really have to get a handle on is that illegal immigration. if for no other reason than we could concentrate on reforming our legal immigration process. >> before i move on, yes or no, you focus on the prosecution of

those individuals hiring illegal -- representative armstrong: this is frustrating to me. we've done the work on the northern border. the illegal immigration if they want to cooperate, sure, but illegal immigration is a federal issue, not all things are state issues. like same question. mr. coachman: yes i would because federal or not, illegal is illegal. and until we start taking control of the legal immigration , we are national security, we know it's over a couple million illegals in our state. just because someone wants to hire them doesn't make it right. it's wrong. it's illegal. if we are not going to follow the law, since especially as an

attorney, i don't care if you are federal or not. it's wrong is wrong. illegal is illegal. they need to be prosecuted for helping somebody. just like somebody saying i didn't do the murder but you are accessory. it's almost the same thing. you are assisting illegals to continue to thrive. there are current laws. we are like no one has to follow the law except for me. which is sad. this is where we are heading. i want those individuals who support illegal aliens, yes -- how much, it won't be a slap on the hand because we know it's wrong. >> i'm trying to save enough time for closing. mr. piepkorn: yes. hold the people responsible who are knowingly and to the knowledge of their neighbors, hiring illegal aliens. why aren't they being prosecuted, because they got money, they got power.

>> what law have they violated? >> excuse me. [todd burke --[dog barks] >> she does that to me at home as well. they are not held accountable because they are people of influence in their community. first of all, governors don't prosecute anybody. we don't want governors prosecuting people. that's not how it works. we very rarely want the attorney general prosecuting people. we elect local states attorneys to do that. if somebody can cite me the statute that they are violating that we actually have these, i'm with it. but i've spent 10 years in that part of the criminal code, i'm not sure one exists. >> you have a rebuttal anybody else? >> the legislator makes the laws

and passes the law because i could sign it, veto it and override the veto. but with the governor can do is bring these issues to the public, even if it's not an issue that you can overturn or direct your personal view on it, putting it to the public, than the public and do something about it, it's their responsibility. you could be a voice for these things, you can let people know what's going on and let them act on it. >> speed round because we do want to leave time. >> we bring the issue to the people to let them know we don't support illegal aliens but i have some friends that are illegal aliens. they are totally upset that they have to go through the whole process to become u.s. citizens, but these individuals who are illegal are being streamlined right through, ids, everything and still can't speak english. they are so upset and that's not the way it should be.

i know she didn't come as an illegal alien, she came the proper way. that's the way we are supposed to do it as americans. >> speed round, 30 seconds or less. we've got a bunch of questions for what we have to get through. your closing statement. i'm focusing a lot on the financial side of things, congress department has been sending a lot of money for the state of north dakota. what is your view of the role of the commerce department as it currently exists and how that changes your administration? mr. coachman: right now, i get it, i would do a complete audit of them, find out where they are sending money, and if they -- if we have to eliminate them, we eliminate them. >> every second somebody from commerce has $40 billion worth of projects out there waiting to

come into north dakota, we just have to change this. $50 billion worth of projects if we could just change our laws. make our tax laws more lenient, whatever it may be. i think we have to keep an i on the commerce department. and also, be wary of covert interests coming in and really taking over the state. the nonpartisan lake, which founded fighting off corporate interest to wanted to come in and take control. >> transparency, accountability, concentrate on work force, concentrate on those communities and a trillion dollars in the state of north dakota, we don't have anywhere for those people to live. we need to be governor at a unique moment in time and we need to make sure -- and by the way, don't compete. that's a real good way to get real sideways with people real fast. >> measure five, should be just yes or no as we go through, do

you support legalization of marijuana for recreational use, and have you ever used it recreationally? mr. piepkorn: i use it professionally. but i played in that band for six nights a week for 12 years for god's sake. >> so mr. piepkorn: you support it. but also 40 years ago, i strained up my life. i will not support it. i did not sign the petition and i do not plan on voting for it. if you want to know why, ask me later. mr. coachman: yes i've used it before, i don't support number five but i've also lived for six years we could smell it. i have to give a lot of credit to this group, this is written in a way where locals can have control. we decriminalized north dakota. if it passes, i will be ambivalent. mr. coachman: no i haven't, and

it's up to the people if they wanted. it's up to the people. >> how are you going to vote on it? mr. coachman: i'm not. it's up to the people. >> you are a citizen, how are you going to vote? mr. coachman: i really don't know. >> last question, 30 seconds or less. the pipeline with the federal tax credit for sequestration, whether you are for or against climate change is not the discussion right now. the issue that has come up is landowner rights. where are you, congressman armstrong, when it comes to federal tax credits and how that may infringe on north dakota? rep. armstrong: i don't think it infringes. i think the federal tax credit is a necessary evil because we have allowed renewables to sell it on the grid for cheaper than it costs their critics. ms someone who hopes to lead a state where it gets really cold in february, the only way the coal industry survives, the only

way we figure out how to crack this code is by being able to compete with federal tax policies that allow competition. now when it comes to land on the right, protect the map all cost. mr. coachman: i protect the landowners no matter wet. they don't meet the qualification and why they are doing it. as governor i would do what i can. again, protect the people's property because freedom is always associated with the land. as far as the federal, i would sit down and really contemplate that. i think we need to get my fellow government out of it as much as possible because they have control. mr. piepkorn: senator jeff and i rarely agree on a set of vote, we were the only two who voted on a bill regarding the pipeline. that was around landowners rights. they can come on your land and survey it without telling you

that they are there? for the pipeline, that just cannot happen. >> you are not going to three minutes for closing, you will get two tops. don't be afraid to take less. so we are going to begin with closing with the senator. >> let me start with a topic we haven't talked about at all tonight, it will be one of the major topics, one of the major issues that people are going to vote on. perhaps women in particular, may be young women, may be mothers and grandmothers who are concerned about and in touch with their young women in their lives, and that's abortion. the north dakota legislator most simply stated, should keep their nose out of the doctors room where that woman and her doctor, perhaps she has a spiritual advisor, a husband, partner, whoever she confides in and

talks with, we all have somebody to talk to. i know this is extremely personal and i do not begrudge anyone in their opinion on this. but i am here to tell you that i am standing for the women's right to choose her own health care and i will not waver on that point. i stand for public money, for public education. call it what you want. school choice vouchers, forget about it, it doesn't belong there. it worked for this point and it will have to work from here. we need to support our public schools at all costs. and i want to see our small businesses, our farmers and ranchers, especially the young farmers who want to get into it. it's extremely difficult and expensive. there are those that can help with that. and will it guide people in that direction. we want smaller processing plants. people want to know where their

crops come from, they want to know where their food comes from, where the crops are going. they want to know where their beliefs comes from and we can help with that as well. that's a couple other things on my plate that we want to work for. mr. coachman: we are at a crossroads as a nation and as the state and as individuals. the choices that you have as far as running for governor is either socialism, globalism or freedom. that's a choice you're going to have to make. the constitution or not. that's what you have fallen into right now. those of the choices you will be making on november 5. agree that as governor i will stand and fight for each and everyone. it does it matter if you are on

this side of the room where this side of the room, i believe that when the constitution says we the people, it's everybody. it doesn't matter if you support me or not, i believe in taking care of the people. we have a problem here because we got supporters from bill gates to this ccp. the ccp is deep in the state and because they are deep in the state they got their hands on a lot of individuals and controlling them. we have people who have committed treason in the state i am hope the tv will really sit and talk about the treason that is gone on. people that are in government here are selling military

secrets to the chinese and to the russians. i hope it will be done before this, but my final thing is, let's make the constitution. >> i started my first business in grand park spirit i raise my family here. i've been a volunteer firefighter. when i got elected to the state senate in 2012 that was the coolest thing i could have ever done. with dealing with other issues in all of those things. i took up the approach when i did that and talking about people from delaware, california, texas and rhode island. what we do here is important to us, we know why it's important to us.

small communities from here to oaks to colfax that used to be streaking that's now in growth. but what we do is important to everybody. it's really important to everybody. that's a huge reach -- reason why the united states is the only country in the world that -- that's a big reason why we have cheap, reliable, affordable power. he goes for minnesota to montana to wyoming to south dakota to nebraska. we should never talk about north dakota needing to be fixed. every two years since 2018 all across the state, we don't need fixing, we have challenges. but the challenges we have now compared to the challenges we have in the past should be looked at exciting opportunities. i've been blessed to represent the state in d.c. for six years. and i have worked every single day to make north dakota the

greatest stay in the whole country in the history of the world. lexis concludes our debate. special thanks to our candidates. to be ek tv for airing the debate live in thank you to our volunteers who assisted with registration, crowd control, to our television audience for washington tonight and those participating in person. thanks for watching and for the bismarck this -- center in bismarck, north dakota, make sure you get out and vote and good night. [applause] >> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of a key state debate. c-span brings you access to the nation's top house, senate and governor's debate from across the country. debates from races facing their state's future and the balance of power in washington. follower a campaign 2024 coverage from local to national debate any