and funny person in addition to being a person of great faith. her 90th birthday party, some of you were there in florida was like a sweet 16 party. it was so much fun. the guest of honor was so beautiful and full of joy. everything that we talked about was what we were going to be doing for a long time to come at this party. we shared stories about her. in 1979, larry bird was signed by the celtics. signed by the celtics and ethel was asked to have a dinner for him.

you know basketball, they come to the dinner. his hand was bandaged. a table full of kennedys and sportsmen it was noisy and then all of a sudden, a very uncommon thing happened, there was a lull in the conversation. we hear the mother and ethel proclaim, larry, telus, what role did your mother play in your basketball success? [laughter] as usual, she was a mother first. another was, forgive me, these

were the stories ethel told. when aarti buchwald was going to be the godfather of one of the children. as he told us, all of a sudden he went to the back of the church. she ran back and said are you ok? why did you leave the altar? he said i'm ok, i'm just not sure i'm ready to renounce satan and all of his works. he did resume his responsibilities. ethel enjoyed her politics. each year until recently we would join ethel in hyannis port . it was always spectacular. everybody wanted to be there.

we would go sailing, go out pretty far, it would get cold, windy, this and that. we would come in and the so relieved, we were freezing cold. she would get off the boat and then went out again. you know that, this was later in life. she was a national treasure, we all know that, just a remarkable woman. the matriarch of a great family. the breadth of her advocacy, the legacy of resilience and hope is such an inspiration. she was the personification of the gospel, not that one, a different one.

that too. the one i'm holding now is matthew seven, verse 11. this is ethel being very biblical. ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find. knock and the door will be opened to you. all of her charities and priority. it soon became as time went by the tournament, she came and played. she was remarkable. in every way she not only had the idea, she had this and how to get things done, she fully

participated in every way. her fortitude and determination inspired all who had the opportunity to know her. i don't know that it was much of a secret. i began with my father because my brother was a big supporter, we had a whole tradition. motherhood has overtones in all languages. like magic, it weaves a pattern full of joy, tears, patients, love. she went on to say we must listen to our hearts as well as our mind. ethel understood this better than anyone.

to the children and great-grandchildren, six and a half, almost seven decades, we prayed with ethel. that was part of the relationship. when we heard the news, we prayed for ethel. now children, we pray to ethel. god truly best -- blessed her family in america, this was an extraordinary, special, god-given person to us. as we play to her that she may rest in peace.

[applause] thank you. [applause] president clinton: father mcmillan, all of the kennedy family, president obama, thank you for what you said, kathleen,

speaker pelosi, the first time i've ever heard kenny chesney sing a cappella, it was beautiful. thank you, martin. to all of you gathered here, i was trying to think of if i could say anything that would add to what others have said, i doubt i can but i will try to do it. your mother was the cat's meow. she would flirt with me in the most innocent ways.

arbor once i said why not a replacement population, all of the politics are anti-immigrant, we need more people like you. a couple hundred thousand and we are back in business. she said that's not a good idea. i said first of all, she really wanted to be your mother, grandmother, mother-in-law. she was an amazing fireball of continuous energy.

it was wonderful to be around her. i remember, i loved all of these valentines cards. they are very political, i have one with president biden, president obama, they are wonderful. my favorite one had about 16 pictures of all of you, various family members, all cut out with small heart shapes. always had a little bit on them.

i keep looking at it and looking at it. . i actually have a picture of it here. i love the little poem. roses are red, violets are blue. i am surrounded by love. but there is still room for you. [laughter] i think that is the way she made all of us feel. there was still room. there is an incredible capacity to expand. i love listening to the speaker talking about her experiences with her.

you just had the feeling that nobody should be this upbeat, being through everything that she has, and yet, she is totally on the level. in a cynical, divided world where it seems like we always do with people trying to play us, trying to play, she was on the level. day in, day out, person income a person out. always making you feel like you made a difference. i remember back in 2000, right as i was leaving the white house , hillary had been elected to the senate, to the same seat

robert kennedy had occupied as a senator from new york. so, ethel called me and said, if i needed any instructions on how to be a senate spouse from new york, she would be happy -- [laughter] she would be happy to provide it free of charge. [laughter] then when we moved into this old farmhouse, about 125 years old now, she gave me this amazing gift. a letter signed by george clinton, who served in two stints as governor of new york for 21 years.

we were not related. she knew what the deal was. there is this amazing letter. so i hung it up in the entryway to our house and people say where in the world did you get that? ethel kennedy gave it to me. she said it was part of her husband's collection. so, i may be the only person who actually got a training certificate and how to be a senate spouse from new york from ethel kennedy. i cannot even begin to say how grateful i am that she lived to

be 96, that she had her energy and brainpower and her love power right through. i cannot -- and it would be wrong to dredge up every memory -- but i am telling you, i never saw her, even on sad occasions when we observed anniversary of her husband's death, i never saw her when she didn't have her game face on. even when her heart was heavy. i think the lesson of those 96 years and all those children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, is that the

god she worshiped wanted all of us to be more other-directed. to think more about how our words impacted other people, how our deeds affected other people, how our lives showed what we were for or against. i wanted to say that every time i think of her -- i thought of her ever since she passed -- i think she is the embodiment of, the definition of love that st. paul wrote about in first corinthians, not romantic love

but agape love for your fellow human beings. a total immersion in the wonder that every human life possesses. and she did it naturally, you'd think. but when you get hit by as many times by life blows as she did, it is a discipline. you have to decide whether you will keep your heart open or shut it down. whether you will still keep reaching out to people or clench your fist. whether you dare trust and dare love one more time. for almost a full century, she kept on giving it a try.

there was always one more time. but there is still room for you. think about how we live, think about how we think, think about what we say about each other especially now in this political season. think about ethel. there is still room for you. we got to clear the room now. it is our job. thank you. thank you for being my friend, thank you for being hillary's friend, thank you for caring, thank you for the family you built, and the untold families you inspired. the good lord knows, if anybody

ever deserves a quality escort to the pearly gates, it is you. god bless you. thank you. [applause] [applause]

>> please be seated. not you, mr. president. you are up next. [laughter] president biden, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

i'm sure you are clapping because i'm the last speaker. that was worth a partial concert. he said if i'm get it grammy, i'm going to give it to you. the only guy in this whole darn church or can't sing a note. [laughter] my dad used to have a band he said, you can't carry a tune, you can't sing, you can't dance, but i love you anyway. [laughter] thank you for everything. thank you for being so good to us. president clinton, president obama, distinguished guests. the kennedy family, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and extended family. it has been an emotional journey listening to all of you. i knew i was going to be the last speaker. i thought, how did that happen?

it brings back so many memories. ethel was always there for so many people. she played an essential role in my life as well. maybe a little different than with others. she was there as soon as i set foot in office as a 29-year-old kid before i got sworn in. i was in teddy's office, i was only 29. you had to be 30 years old to be sworn in and i wasn't there to get. i got a phone call. from a fire department by my house. there had been an accident. tractor had broadsided my wife's automobile christmas shopping. december 18. killed my wife and killed my daughter and my boys weren't expected to live. when i lost my family, and she was there, joe, your mom was

there, then. as soon as i got elected president, i received a letter from your mom. the letter was titled, mrs. robert kennedy. it had very neat handwriting, she had written she took great comfort in knowing the country was in good hands. she had no idea for a 29-year-old kid how much it meant. some of you know, bill knows, i didn't plan on sticking around after that accident. she said she was honored and proud there was a bust of her husband bobby kennedy in my office, the oval office. i had only two political heroes in my life. dr. king and bobby kennedy. not a joke. i didn't realize my two colleagues who were president now, you get to pick what you

want in your office and i wanted to be able to see both of them from the resolute desk by the fireplace, dr. king and bobby kennedy. and days later, another letter from her. i know all of you look forward to each year, a valentine card. a valentine card. which in our house, valentine's day is known as jill's holiday. [laughter] i guess jill is a practical joker. it was no surprise, it was no surprise that jill loved ethel's that yearwood said, i'm not sure the hundred others who received it felt the same way, because apparently she sent that card she sent to everyone that year. it was the picture of me and ethel surrounded by hearts. [laughter]

you think i'm kidding. it meant a lot to me. i'm telling you. on the card it said, i'm not biden my time waiting for you, valentine. [laughter] then in her handwriting she said, 'cause he is no ordinary joe. [laughter] i don't know how many of you got that damn valentine, but it meant a lot to me. [laughter] i have received a lot of honors in my life, but that might be the best one i ever received. [laughter] [applause] you know, yes, ethel was mrs. robert kennedy, he was one of my heroes, but i always knew her as ethel kennedy. in her own right. i loved bobby kennedy, i only met him once when i was at

syracuse law school and he was campaigning. but i admired him so damn much. i told john kerry this, my buddy, i could picture bobby at my kitchen table with my dad and my mom. i could picture him there. but you know, ethel was a hero in her own right. full of character, full of integrity, and empathy. genuine empathy. she was a great athlete in her own right for real. she was a mother. there is nothing from my perspective that she could not do, nothing. four years later, after bobby, after she lost her beloved bobby, she invited me and my boys to her home, after the accident. left my family broken, having

lost my wife and daughter, and my boys barely making it. she got me through a time i didn't want to stick around. i wanted no part of being in the congress or the senate, i mean it. we reelected a democratic governor to find a replacement for me. but teddy and ethel kennedy would hear none of it. you know, the fact is she did for the country, ethel helped my family find a way forward with principle and purpose. we saw how she picked up bobby's

cause and stamped her own mark on our country. marching for civil rights that you heard about today. and so much more. she once said for anyone to achieve something, you have to show a little courage. you must give it all you've got. it reminded me of my mom. my mom used to say, courage lives in every heart and one day it will be called upon. she meant it. for over 50 years, she give everything she had and we are a better nation and a better world

because of ethel kennedy. let me close with this. this year, i delivered the commencement speech at morehouse college in atlanta. i noted that had we been in church that day, there would be a reflection about the resurrection and redemption. remember, jesus buried on friday and then sunday he rose again. we don't talk nearly enough about that saturday, when his disciples felt all hope was lost. all hope was lost. and our lives, and the lives of our nation, we have those saturdays. thank god your mom, your grandma, your great grandma was

there for me, to bear witness to the day before glory. to see people's pain and not look away. what work is to be done on saturday is to move pain to purpose. how can faith get a person, get a nation through what is coming. my message to all of us here today, to the entire country is look to ethel kennedy's faith, to the kennedy family. presumptuous of me to say this and maybe sound and appropriate, but to the kennedy family, the

biden family is here for you. as you have always been for us. you change the life of my boys. you really did. when i lost my son beau, attorney general of the state of delaware, he volunteered to join the national guard as attorney general, you either have to be state property or federal property. he temporarily gave up his office to go with his unit for a year in iraq. unfortunately, that was in and out of iraq as barack knows and afghanistan 30 sometimes and i got to see him several times, but the bad news was he was

about a half-mile away from a burn pit. 100 yards long, 10 feet deep. burning every night from waste to everything. poisoning the air. auntie came home with stage four geo blast oma and he died. your mom was there then too. i apologize. so, from the biden family to the kennedy family, a hymn that is very close to our heart. based on the 91st psalm goes like this. may he raise you up on eagles wings and bear you on the breath of don, make you to shine like

the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand. may god bless ethel kennedy. and may she be reunited with the blessed pieces of her soul in heaven. god bless you all and thank you for letting me participate. thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause]

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view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public serve, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> the secretary of the army, the army surgeon general and others held a news conference focused on force retention and recruitment, funding, and military assistance to israel. the secretary began by announcing a new operation deployment may benefit for service members. they spoke at the annual meeting in washington, d.c.

>> good morning. i am carl roger from the office of chief of public affairs and we have on our panel today secretary of the army, christine warmath, chief of staff of the army, general randy george, and sergeant major of the army, michael wore me -- michael weimer. we begin today's event with our panel having an opportunity to provide or give remarks and then we will open it up for questions. please wait for me to call on you. we have microphones in the back. it will be movement around the room. please wait for those before asking for our livestream and transcription. we are limited on time so questions will be limited to one and a brief follow-up. please direct your questions towards one of our panelists, not all three.

when asking a question please offer your name and organization. i will turn it over to the panel for any opening remarks. >> thank you, roger. thank you for being here today. we had a little bit of excitement in the opening ceremonies that was a little unexpected, but it spotlights our great democracy. i'm pleased to be here. i'm very lucky to serve alongside them. a great leadership team so glad we are all here together. i want to thank all of you in the press for reporting on us. as i've often said to some of you individually you shine a spotlight on us and that helps

keep us accountable. i think you also help us get our story out there and i am struck that one of the things you are reporting on quite a bit is all of the work they are doing alongside fema and others to help with hurricane recovery. we have over 1800 active-duty soldier's right now who are working across the southeast and more than 7000 army national guard soldiers doing great work . so that's just one example of the kinds of things your reporting helps bring to the attention of the american public. i do want to break a teeny bit of news this morning. which is to announce a new benefit the army is going to be providing to our soldiers. it is called operational deployment pay. what this is going to do is for soldiers who are deployed for more than 60 days, they will receive $240 a month during the time of that deployment. that is both to recognize the hardship of being away from families, but also the rigors of deployment and that is something that we will be efficiently --

officially implementing retroactively to october 1 of this year. and then i also want to thank congress of course for working with us to provide the appropriations to fund that operational deployment pay. with that, why don't i turn it over to general george. >> thank you, secretary. i would also like to thank you all for being here today. i assume it is a day off. i do not think there is a better place to be than right here spending it with the army but i know i am biased. and like the secretary i also am , really proud of what our troopers are doing and i'm looking around here, some of you here with all of our troops are doing, whether it's supporting to hurricane relief, out in the eastern flank in europe right now, right now in the middle east we were just out in the pacific but everywhere i go around the world seeing what they are doing. i was kind of the new guy here last year and we will talk a little bit about this tomorrow. but excited about what our troops are doing out there.

i am very focused on their war fighting mission and we talk a lot about being really focused on building lethality and becoming more cohesive of the team and then also learning from the modern battlefield and that's a lot of what we will talk about here over the next couple of days. what we need to do to make sure we are transforming and continuing to adapt to the battlefield and i know we have several panels and things on that. and we will talk about that in a lot more detail. but again, we are happy you are here with us and look forward to your questions. i will turn it over to my battle buddy. >> it is good to be here with you. i was new last year also. so thank you for reminding of that. we have a busy three days but it's been a busy year and the demands on the army to the chief and the secretaries points are just increasing. you will hear a sense of urgency and i think you heard that from the secretary speech already.

and you will hear that theme throughout the next three days. so i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, distinguished panelists. >> thank you for joining us. this is for either the secretary or general george, whoever wants to tackle this. the u.s. announced yesterday it is sending a battery to israel. can you say where is that going to be coming from and more broadly can you talk about the strain on the army air defense, soldiers and systems and where you think this is going and how the army can address this. >> i will start. the fad deployment will have about 100 soldiers who will go over to israel. so that is not a very large number of soldiers so it's adding a tremendous amount of additional strain broadly to the

community, but as you know the , air defense artillery community is the most stressed, they have the highest of any part of the army. i think what we are trying to do to manage that is really two things. one is modernizing our integrated air and missile defenses to try to create more capacity. that's why mentioned in my speech this morning the fact that we are moving to have the rater work with the ibc f system. that's going to greatly increase the capacity of the patriot force we have. that will help do some to relieve some stress on our soldiers. and the other thing we are doing is constantly trying to be as disciplined as we can and give secretary austin the information he needs to accurately assess the strain on the force when he's considering future operational deployment. we have to be as choosy as we can be about what we take on but of course in a world that's

volatile, sometimes we have to do what we have to do. >> i agree completely with the secretary. this is our most deployed formation and everybody wants u.s. army air defense forces. we've seen them every time we've gone out after we've seen them around the world, i've been very impressed. everywhere i go they are super motivated. i was laughing a little bit, i saw in the middle east and the only thing they asked me for was a gym to work out while they're over there. so they are staying very motivated. what we owe them and we've done , sec. talks about what we have done with recruiting, we are well over 100%. one, west we are monitoring very specifically to grow that capability and look at growing continuing to grow that capability in the next couple of years. what we need to do is with ibc

s, working to see how we can pull all of that left so we have prototypes out there, there's a lot of software work that's involved with that so i think those are the kinds of things need to do besides growing the capacity and seeing what we can do to transform them as well to help alleviate some of that burden. >> and where is it coming from? >> i do not think we will comment on the operational details this morning. >> mike stone from reuters. thank you. boeing announced significant layoffs. how has the company help the army understand how its helicopters and munitions programs will be impacted and how is the army working to support the trouble defense -- troubled defense contractor? >> we've been pleased with the support we've gotten from boeing on things like our chinook fleet. for example. and to my knowledge we are not

to my knowledge, we are not expecting the layoffs the company has announced to create difficulty for our programs. our assistant secretary for acquisition in very good contact with the industry partners and to my knowledge we haven't heard any concerns being raised. >> thank you all for doing this. i wanted to follow up on the fad to israel. can you give any expectation of when those soldiers should arrive in israel? and does this raise concerns for you all about drawing u.s. soldiers into a conflict more directly given they may be at greater risk of injury or harm being on the ground there? >> i'm not going to comment on when they are going to arrive.

again, for security, for force protection purposes i don't think we want to go into detail on that. to your broader question i would say this isn't the first time we have deployed a sad -- fad to israel. we sent that in the week of the hamas invasion into israel year ago and if i'm not mistaken i think we also had one go over for exercise purposes in 2018 or 2019. i think we should view this fad deployment as for what it is , which is another visible statement of our commitment to the security of israel. as it deals with everything that is coming at it from hamas and hezbollah in lebanon. >> right here in the front. >> thank you. defense one.

this question is for the fma. when we talk about transforming combat, a lot of that ultimately rests upon the ncos who are skilled in electronic warfare drone operation and the army is , moving more and more towards fielding more of those types of systems. i imagine we will eventually expand past the flight infantry. do you have any concerns about attracting, retaining those types of very highly technical skilled soldiers and really any of your thoughts on that would be of interest. >> first, it is good to see you. i think we have to have concerns. it's very competitive market out there. we see it with recruiting and retention. we have a lot of capability. first is the purpose. they want to do their jobs. we see that in context brigades right now. we are seeing soldiers getting

to do things they did not have the opportunity to do before. we talked about it and they are now doing it. we are hearing from the other brigades of when we will do that. trying to figure out how we will do this faster, that sense of urgency i referenced. as far as retention, i watch it daily. every two weeks in detail a specific list of mos and a lot of them are high technical mos because we know it is not to get simpler, we are getting more advanced so the professional military education piece, you will hear quite a bit about that from me tomorrow at the brief, putting a lot of emphasis on that because leading that technical capability is tough. so absolutely watching it. >> just a quick separate follow-up. the army is putting more and more into health, especially when it comes to tracking that with technical means. could you speak about any of those efforts and where you see that going? >> wearables.

i was wondering where you're going with that. we are working it. squad competition wrapped up with the 10 miler and for 18 days straight we put wearables on them. couple different ones but it nests completely with our holistic health and fitness. that's part of transforming also. people are our number one platform. i love all of our things, don't get me wrong to our industry partners, but our people are definitely the priority so i think you will see a bunch of that. interesting to listen to youngsters on the squad talk about, i can't believe how any calories i burned. at is your sleep score? that is a good cultural change for better fitness all around. >> as i say, i do not need a ring to tell me how crappy my sleep is. [laughter] >> what we've seen is retention has gone up.

i think they know that that technology is out there, they are part of the change and what you seen firsthand that they are helping us adapt our army and it is our ncos out there that really understand how all of this fits together at a tactical level that are helping us lead to some of that change. >> here in front and then we will move around. >> i wanted to ask a follow-up on the thad battery. given the assessment has been there is a need to send that, how does that impact the assessment on israel potentially buying that the iron dome capability and can you say more about where that is in the process? >> i do not have anything to add about that. again i don't think this , deployment significantly changes israel's calculus about how they are thinking about buying back iron dome.

>> secretary, what is the current cost per soldier of the army calculates now and can you say a bit about how rising personnel costs are impacting the overall budget? what does that mean for the affordability of the army of 2030, and will you have to look at some of the night court process again somewhere in the future? >> i do not have a cost per soldier off the top of my head but what i can say is 53% of the army's budget, which is about $186 billion a year, goes to taking care of our soldiers, families, and department of army civilians. so that is pay and benefits, health care, mwr programs.

it is more than half of the united states army's budget. it is a very significant piece of our budget. we do have to be constantly monitoring that balance. and trying to be good stewards of our resources. as i said in my speech, fundamentally the united states army is about its people, we are much more about defined by our soldiers rather than being defined by our platform. that investment makes sense in terms of taking care of our soldiers and families. but we cannot let that get to be too much of our share of our budget, or crowd out the very important focus for the army right now. which is modernization efforts. and we also have to fund our readiness.

so the chiefs and fma and i are constantly looking at the different programs and again trying to make decisions that are data-driven so we don't inadvertently allow the resources we are spending on soldiers and families to crowd out the modernization we have to continue with. at this time we are not contemplating another night this is my fourth year as secretary, my fourth budget cycle, we are gearing up for we , are going to present obviously the budget to congress in the spring and we are starting to look at palm 27. but every single year we have been doing that, we have been scrutinizing where do we need to continue, what programs do we need to end, like shadow and raven. we are doing a lot to fix our networks and consolidate our i.t. programs and we are doing a lot of that in the service of trying to create fiscal efficiency. >> given those rising personnel

costs, do you think the army of 2030, we see so many ideas on display at the show, is the army on track to be able to afford what it is looking for? >> i think if our budgets remain flat, as they have in the last few years, we will continue to have to make hard choices. >> can i jump in on that, because that is an important aspect. this is something we spend a lot of time talking about. i was not here for night court, but just like in your personal life, i think everybody has to make tough decisions about what they stop doing and spending money on. we have the best troopers out there in the world, and worth every penny, but there's programs, we add things it seems and what's really hard is what you decide to stop. there is a requirements process,

we kind of have flipped it around and now we call it cora. it is deciding what things we will stop doing and looking at requirements. i can give you a lot of examples where previously we were buying equipment, vehicles, radios, extra stuff that can now be done on an app and that's a lot cheaper. so i think it's a combination of all of those things we will have to take a look at as we move forward. what we are trying to do is when i remind my parents back in a very small town in iowa and tell them what our budget is, they are like holy cow that is a lot of money. we have to spend every dollar and get value out of every bit of it. i know our soldiers are the highest on that value chart. >> i was curious for you to

share more information about what you mentioned, specifically regardless of rank, by month, how was the decision made and what went into it? >> it is a flat $240 per month. we did have discussions of this and i think our view is all soldiers of all ranks are sharing the rigors of deployment the same, and they are all the -- all away from their families while on deployment so a flat rate made sense to us. it is going to be oriented around operational deployment so things like for example taking a brigade to fort irwin or fort

johnson. it is going to be things like the brigades and battalions for example that have gone over to europe as part of the reassure mission. things like that. >> is this just a time-based, you said it is a project. is it the next six months or a year? >> i do not know a lot of new benefits so i think our view is this will be something we will offer to our soldiers for the foreseeable future. >> part of the other decision is if you get jump pay and jump pay is the same for everybody and i know it's come , out and there's different talk about it. everybody's doing exactly the same thing. that is how we all sat down and talked about this. >> for general george, on transformation and contact, what

are some specific technologies successes that you've seen since the effort kicked off and what are some of the institutional challenges you are still working through and how do you expect that initiative to grow over the next year? >> i will do the last part, we will talk about that a little bit tomorrow. i do think we need to grow every formation we have is going to need systems inside it. we are going to talk about how we will do that and again it will be not doing some other things that i think will help us figure some of that stuff out. what's been really good is if you go out to formation. and we have our next rotation that is happening in january and that will be in europe and we are doing it, we've done one that's just finishing up in the pacific. we did the one down at fort johnson because we are running different things in different environments.

ua s works different in different areas. also things are moving very fast. we've even had some updates with some of those systems. what i think we've learned something across i think what has been the biggest thing for us, and i talked about this a year ago, because i have been those formations for my whole career is getting after fixing the network. i think what we have seen is these big c2 notes that have shrunk down to very, very small. some of you are in here. as an example, when we were at joint readiness training center, they cannot find it. it was the observer controllers and they were looking forward -- for it and they couldn't find it. they were in a pretty crappy location in the middle. they had promoted all of their c2 notes.

i think we are constantly learning and evolving. i've been really happy with all these units that are sharing their lessons so that 225 actually picked up and we've got them sharing. they picked up to 101 left off and we are really proud of that fact. >> just as a quick follow-up, anything you want to preview ahead of what you maybe want to say tomorrow and how could we see the outcomes of transformation i'm contact so far reflected in the upcoming budget request? >> i think we have already been talking about this. we talked about what we needed to do across these areas. we been having these for quite some time. in this upcoming budget request we are going to be focused on that. you heard the secretary talk about it this morning and we've been very clear with this on the hill is what we need to do in the world.

how could we be more agile while maintaining the proper oversight while changing with it. you've talked to a lot of these companies out there, these tech companies. and i have a panel a couple of them in the next few days, and they will tell you that six months from now things are going to be completely different. so we want to buy modular open system architecture systems where we can put any different kind of sensor on it. i think that's going to help it, the money problem as well and we can continue to adapt. so we should be, after this last formation, we will probably be talking about what our overall lessons learned are and exactly what the formations are going to look like. tomorrow i'm going to talk a little bit more about how we are going to expand our initial concept. our transforming on contact 2.0.

>> we will go over to dan. >> national defense. both the secretary of chief spent a lot of time messaging congress about the importance of passing the 25 budget on time the harm of continuing resolutions. can you provide any examples now that there's a continuing resolution of how this affected any specific transformation modernization initiatives. are there new starts, are there school ups, are there things that are tangibly affected right now by this continuing resolution? >> it varies whether we see a three months continuing resolution or whether that winds up going longer. but i think when we looked across our various programs, there is more than about $8 billion worth of projects and programs that are being slowed

down by the continuing resolution. we have 23 different new starts that we aren't going to be able to make while we are under a continuing resolution. there are various things we'd like to do in the recruiting space, for example, we don't have the flexibility to do some of that in terms of marketing that we would like to purchase because of the continuing resolution. it also affects things like military construction and other renovation and modernization projects. there are a lot of different impacts. sadly, the army on the other services are pretty used to operating under a continuing resolution. but particularly, if we go six months or longer, it will really be an impediment. >> could you provide any specifics of the new starts? >> we can get that for you after the conference. >> i'll give you a quick example

from last year, we wanted to make some adjustments to coyote missiles and then increase the production of them and we were able to do that. it's hard to adapt for a continuation of how rapidly things are changing. >> dan from inside the fence, either this secretary or the chief can answer this. you all have talked about flexible funding for fy 26 in the area of ual's, counter ua s. i'm wondering if you have had any conversations with members on the hill about that, if they have given any feedback, and just based on positive or negative feedback, how that's going to shape your strategy for flexible funding going forward and if there are other procurement programs you would want to take a similar approach

if this goes positively in the next year. >> both the chief and i have talked to a number of different members, particularly appropriators and authorizer's. there is considerable support. i was cautious about how much progress we would make in the area when the chief and others started talking about it. in my experience appropriators are leery of what they see as slush's, but i think given the dangerous environment we are in, and the recognition by everyone that technology is evolving as rapidly as it is, there more openness to this. so we have been talking to both members, but also clerks and psm's on the appropriations committee about how we could perhaps consolidate budget line items into fewer pools and have the ability as a result to be able to move money around.

i don't want to get ahead of those conversations, because like i said in my speeches morning we are trying to work on this together with congress. we are countering electronic warfare. we are chinese the whole elephant at once, we are trying to start with more of a pilot approach, see if that works, and if members and their staff feel like they can have the oversight and transparency that they need to do their jobs, we may, in the future, be able to expand it. >> quick follow-up, general george you mentioned with the integration, i think you said you were trying to move it to the left. how quickly would you accelerate it, like in the next year or so and does the testing schedule really allow for that?

>> one of the things you heard us talk about, there's been a lot of things that are prototypes, and they are also much better in capability. what we don't want to do is, wait a year, send it out to some test to some test range and then get everybody on board with it and then wait another year to get it with soldiers. we are trying to compress all of that. either a block away as her energy and whatever else that oversees those similar to that concept. when we get it out so the soldiers and junior leaders, you get feedback immediately on what it is.

>> i know you're not deeply involved of acquisition, how did the soldier touch point in august go and once your overall feeling for the privacy problems are. can in layman's language you talk about the capabilities it brings to that theater? doesn't that give you an ibc s capability to connect the navy and israeli air defenses? >> we want to give our soldiers the very best night vision capability possible. we want to move to wearable

technologies. we've gotten a lot of feedback from soldiers. we are working through the feedback. we've open up the program. >> for air defense systems anywhere we go on the world we will be operating as a joint team. to your point, that's where we need to go with all of our systems. in a big reason we are focused on that network and iv cs and all of these aspects.

i do know that will be a great increase in capability to help tie that together. >> you had a number of exercises at juniper cobra and a couple of other ones in the past. have those hemp to play in terms of this integration in case of those exercises? >> this is why we exercise with our partners everywhere that we do this around the world, it makes a difference. get personal interoperability, getting to know each other. how you operate. same thing with systems. that's how we do that. doing it around the world and it makes a big difference. be fighting besides joint with our partners and allies. >> ashley with breaking defense to follow up on that. our -- other additional 100 soldiers going with this unit, will there be additional soldiers manning other systems

this is the starting point to open the conversation? >> we are not announcing any additional deployments at this time, ashley. >> on supplemental spending as you had a higher off tempo, whether in europe or the middle east, if they're sort of a date that you are going to need more supplemental spending to continue operations, are you sort of curtailing exercises and things at this point to stretch the dollar? >> we are not curtailing exercises right now as a result of the cr. there are is certainly talks of a supplemental. there has been talk of a supplemental to deal with hurricane recovery. and i think looking ahead, certainly ukraine is going to continue to need assistance to fight russia. i think there have been brought discussions about supplementals, but right now we are not having to curtail activities.

>> general george, you mentioned a culture of change in increasing fitness among the soldiers. researchers say that the number of these soldiers has doubled from 10,000 to 20,000 since the end of the pandemic. what are you doing to address that, and are you taking any lessons learned from the soldier prep course where you brought in delta w sitting among the recruits? >> great question. we have noticed that. that's why we are having some of the challenges with putting people are -- putting people in future prep course. the anecdotal feedback is, it's been really good i turned in my phone. we give it to them in our day, i'm sleeping better, i'm eating better, all of the stuff we wouldn't find surprising, real basic stuff. what's good about that future soldier prep courses, if you are

less active, we try to reduce the injuries. you can't just go from zero or 40 or 50 with that, but it's a combination of things. we've also made the decision to invest a lot more in health and holistic fitness. the h2 f program. so we have the nutritionist, the physical therapist, the occupational therapist, strength coaches that are down there, to make sure we are focused on having fitness centers that they can use and builds, i think that's making a difference. we seen that in every one of our formations where we've had h2 f, it is increasing performance, it is increasing how people view themselves. it's been good all the way around, so we pump that extra, we did an additional. our only challenges hiring

everybody as fast as we can. we are trying a higher all of these folks to come on, but it's obviously something that we are going to have to be focused on for the near future. lexi doubled down on it, 100 and 11 or 66 brigades trying to get to have it -- 111 and fy 26 because it's that important to your point. and now it's how do we extrapolate that to our guard and reserve teammates who have a challenging environment, but they needed all, so we are trying to figure all that out. to the money question, it takes money, those 22 experts that the chief was referencing, it's not about the kettle bells, it's not about the racks in the sand bags, it's those subject matter experts that come with h2 for what our soldiers are really -- especially the noncommissioned officers, they are really falling in love with. they actually were teaching them

how to fish, not just giving them a fish. >> the last thing i would add is we are trying to change our food strategy, to the nutrition part. i was just at fort jackson recently to see a future prep course, and i saw one of our dining facilities that has been kind of change to offer much healthier food but also more on the go options, different hours. and we are really trying to spread that out across the army. believe it or not we have these recipe cards that govern what we can make and we can only by food from certain vendors and we seek certain investors from that we allow it to offer more appealing and more nutritious food. we are already paying for soldiers to eat who live in the

barracks. we have meals that are ready made that soldiers can bring. i've been impressed with the air fryers are seen in a surprising number of soldiers who've been in barracks you actually want to make their own food where they can. >> mill prep is pretty popular. >> it's also part of the new barrick standard that madam secretary recently approved. as we invest in it -- every dollar into barracks, having

those kitchen areas for them to be able to find food, store the food and prepare the food. quex we have one more question and we will go here. click thank you for taking my question. kind of going back to the air defense with increasing demand on air defense soldiers, is there anything the army is doing to help decrease some of the pressure with a high off tempo with dwelling time between deployment? >> they are definitely outside of the desired limits for dwell time. i don't have the exact well ratio off the top of my head, but they are busy, which is part of the challenge that we have. like i said earlier, i think what we are trying to do is to make it as clear as possible when a combatant commander comes in and says i need another patriot here, the ukrainians want another patriot, for example.

try to lay out for sec. austin and deputy secretary hicks, what exactly does that mean in terms of the strain that it puts on our soldiers and their families, but also what it means in terms of readiness and our impacts on modernization. one of the biggest concerns that we have in the biggest points of tension is when we are able to replace the legacy patriot radar connected to ibc us, we actually gain 360 degree awareness, which increases the capacity of our patriot batteries. but if we can't get them into depot and get them into the modernization window to reset, we can't do that. we need to be able to bring these units home to be able to go through that modernization process. we are trying to lay that out for secretary austin so that he can weigh those risks, essentially current versus

future risks as he makes recommendations to the president about whether to send a patriot here or there. >> is there anything you are doing on the recruiting sites to get soldiers more interested in air defense? >> i don't remember every specific we are tracking. we have a list where the secretary and i come in and take a lot of recruiting briefs. but you wouldn't be surprised by where we have a top 16 mos is and they move, and we are doing fairly well and 14 series, which is what that is for air defense, and trying to press hard. there's the other thing we are looking at. sma talks about it all the time, about retention and what are we doing also to retain them giving that high up tempo. so what we have, what kinda levers do we have, because they are very good. but deploying for a year and coming back for a year is tough to do for anybody.

but especially for some of these young troops and for certain families. i think we are looking at every possible lever. some of that is growing, some of that is, with the technology that will change. you get in increasing capability that requires less people to. so you'll be able to grow capability, which is why we are trying to pull that left which is doing things different. quex thank you very much distinguished panel, we are out of time. we will ask if we stay in place while our panel departs. thank you very much. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast.

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click c-span now featuring your unfiltered view live and on-demand. keep up with the day's events live streams of floor proceedings of hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaign and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span's tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download it for free today or visit our website, c-span.org/c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> next a preview of nasa's new earth information center at the national museum of natural history in washington, d.c. during the preview bill nelson explain what the 3d imaging on

display at the center can teach visitors about climate change. to bring nasa's incredible data visualization toolkit to a place where americans can see the data being produced and to understand how nasa is not just looking out for a period looking down towards planet earth and seeing the incredible array of information that we have now that we didn't have before.

>> we watch that. we do it day by day. this is pretty close to it being destructive. you see these new priorities and they move so fast and they prove so much with how quickly we go through the data and they put that up there. >> look at the atmospheric river . we have rivers of atmosphere that flow all over the globe and

from this kind of information we can all put together a composite 3d understanding of what is happening to the climate on earth. >> the hurricane is coming right there. that's the gulf of mexico. >> when people think of now so they think of astronauts or landing rovers on mars. but what most people don't know is that earth science is a part of nasa from almost the beginning. from the earth rise image. that was the first time we realized, we can see our home planet in a new way. so nasa has been studying the earth for decades now. 60 years in fact. and so we have the largest data

in the world. it's a natural partnership to both say, hey, let's partner with people who are really great at helping the public understand science, let's bring it all together and create a space where people can see the earth as we see it, when it's a great benefit of the smithsonian team to help make sure we got really great communication. >> that's the two dozen satellites that we have that's visually there in that chart that is bringing us all this data. they are circling the earth in different orbits so that we get virtually the coverage of the whole earth. >> that's why nasa is important for getting real-time data that accumulates for the long term. the administrator and i were looking at the curve that shows the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last 64

years. that's one of the most compelling curves in science that shows the steady increase of carbon dioxide from 315 parts per million in the 1960's to 420 parts per million now. we would have that data with the chance to share the data >> i hope they take away a sense of awe and how beautiful and intricate our home planet is. you can see the atmosphere in life on earth all interactive and you can see it over seasonal cycles and year. it's really cool. one of the things we thought was really important from the very beginning. the data should be dynamic so people can really get the sense of this is the world i'm in right now.

not as it used to be, there is really value in understanding but here it's really about what's happening now. >> c-span's washington journal, a live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues for washington, d.c. to across the country coming up thursday morning. will it affect founder bill adair discusses his new book beyond the big lie, examining how and why politicians spend this lead and which party sends to do -- tends to do it more often. syndicated columnist, author and political commentator on campaign 2024. c-span's washington journal, join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern thursday morning on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org.

quex attention middle and high school students across america, it's time to make your voice heard. c-span student documentary contest 2025 is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness and make an impact. your documentary could should answer this year question, your message to the president. what issue is most important to you or your community? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment or community stories. studentcam is your platform to share your message with the world. when $100,000 in prizes, including a prize of $5,000. visit -- this is your opportunity not only to make an impact but to be rewarded for your creativity and hard work. enter your submissions today. scanode or visit studentc for all the detailsn how to enter. the deadline is januar20, 2025.

quite c-span is your unfiltered view of government. >> charters plowed to be recognized as one of the best internet providers -- is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. building 100 thousand miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> up next, remarks by 2020 four democratic presidential nominee in vice president kala harris at a campaign event in bucks coun pennsylvania. president biden when the county by 4%. the last time a republican presential candidate when the county was in 1988.

♪

vp harris: good afternoon, good afternoon pennsylvania, good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon. thank you so very much for that introduction and for your friendship and as i've said till all the friends and leaders on the stage with me, we had a chance to speak ahead of time. i thank you all for everything that you are doing and the courage you are showing. this is an extraordinary climate right now. and i think we all recognize the courage that you are showing to speak out so publicly and to put as we are saying because we truly believe the country over party. bob and christina and all of the folks on the stage, please,

thank you. truly. truly. so, if you all have a seat, please do sit. so, as i think everyone knows here we me in a place that holds a very special meaning for our country. here on christmas night 1776, general george washington and over 2000 troops crossed the icy delaware river in dartmouth. then marched to trenton where they surprised an outpost of enemy soldiers and achieved a major victory in the american revolution. and after we won the war and achieved our independence, delegates from across the nation

gathered not far from here in philadelphia to write and to sign the constitution of the united states. [applause] and we remember and reflect on what that moment was. knowing that leading up to that, that work to write, to compose the constitution of the united states, that work is not easy. but founders often disagree, often quite passionately, but in the end, the constitution of the united states laid out the foundations of our democracy. including the rule of law that there would be checks and balances that we would have free and fair elections, and a

peaceful transfer of power [applause] in these principles and traditions have sustained our nation for over two centuries. sustained because generations of americans from all backgrounds, from all belief have cherished them, upheld them and descended them. and now, the baton is in our hands. so i am joined today by over 100 republican leaders from across pennsylvania and across our country who are supporting -- [applause]

my candidacy for president of the united states and i am deeply honored to have their support. some served in state houses, some in the united states congress, some worked for other republican presidents and presidential nominees including mitt romney, john mccain george w. bush, george h.w. bush and ronald great in. in some today served in donald's own administration. we also have with us republican voters from here in pennsylvania and beyond. who will be in there republican party years who have supported republican candidates up and down the ticket. i say all that to make an obvious point. in a typical election year you all being here with me might be

a bit surprising, dare i say unusual. but not in this election, not in this election. because at stake in this race are the democratic ideals that are founders and generations of americans before us have fought for. at stake in this election is the constitution of the united states it's very self. we are here today because we share a core belief that we must put country before party. [applause] [crowd chanting "usa"] vp harris: indeed.

and we chant that with such great pride because we all know, we all have so much more in common than what separates us. and at some point, in the career of the folks who join me on stage, one of the other things that we have in common is in our careers we have each sworn in oath to uphold the constitution of the united states. and so, we know that sacred oath must always be honored and never violated and that we should expect anyone who seeks the highest office in our land would meet that standard. we hear know the constitution is not a relic from our past. but determines whether we are a

country where the people can speak freely and even criticize the president without fear of being thrown in jail or targeted by the military. [applause] where the people can worship as they choose without the government's interfering [applause] . where you can vote without fear that your vote will be thrown away. [applause] all of this and more depends on whether or not our leaders honor their oath to the constitution. i have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution six times, including those of vice president, as united states

senator and as a top law enforcement officer of the largest state in our country. [applause] and i have never wavered from upholding that oath. and this is a profound difference between donald trump and me. he, who violated the oath, took hold of the constitution of the united states and, make no mistake, he who is given the chance will violate it again. donald trump lost the 2020 election. [applause] and, he refused to accept the will of the people in the results of a free and fair election. he sent a mob, in armed the mob to the united states capital

where they violently assaulted police officers, law enforcement officials, and threatened the life of his own vice president. and he refused to engage in the peaceful transfer of power. were it not for the courage and patriotism of vice president pence that day, donald trump might have actually succeeded in overturning the will of the american people. let's reflect on that. and now, donald trump is telling us how he intends to use power if he is elected again. he has stated that one of the biggest threats america faces is

"the enemy from within." [crowd booing] the enemy from within. but nowhere that language harkens back to. understand, and let us be clear about what he is saying. he considers any american who doesn't support him or bend to his will to be an enemy to our country. and further, he says that as commander-in-chief you would use our military to go after them. honestly, let that sink in. use of the american military? to go after american citizens.

and we know who he would target first, because he has targeted them and attacked them before, journalist who stories he doesn't like. nonpartisan election officials who refused to cheat by finding extra votes for him. judges who insist on following the law instead of following him. it is clear donald trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. [applause] and he is seeking unchecked power. consider what his closest advisors of said. his national security advisor, to defense secretaries, his

former chief of staff, his own vice president all have warned america donald trump is unfit to serve. or listen to general milley. donald trump's top general, he has called trump, and i quote, "fascist to the core." and said, "no one has ever been as dangerous to this country." so think about that. general milley served in uniform for more than 40 years. commanding american forces around the world. he has confronted some of america's worst enemies and he is saying no one has ever been

as dangerous to our country as donald trump. america must heed this warning because anyone who tramples on our democratic values, as donald trump has, anyone who has called for the "termination of the constitution of the united states" as donald trump has, must never again stand behind this seal of the president of the united states. [applause] never again. never again.

and to those who are watching, if you share that view, no matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign. [applause] the coalition we have built has room for everyone who is ready to turn the page on the chaos and instability of donald trump. and i pledge to you to be a president for all americans. and i take that pledge seriously . i take that pledge quite seriously.

so as i've mentioned, many of you know i spend a career as a prosecutor, in law enforcement, and i will tell you i never asked a victim or a witness, are you a republican or are you a democrat. i never asked of anyone who needed help, if anyone who deserved attention, where were they registered and who did they vote for. the only question i ever asked was, are you ok. and that is the kind of president i pledge to you that i will be. [applause] that is my pledge to you. because we have too much to do and too much good work to do to be relegated to requiring each of us to be in some silo

disconnected from each other. there's too much good to be done . and the challenges that we face as a nation require us, if we truly want to create solution and strengthen our nation, the approach truly requires that we understand we are all in this together. this is so much more than rhetoric or a campaign. it really is about tapping into the spirit of who we are as americans. because we are all in this together. we are all in this together. so i've pledged to be a president who actively works to unite us around our highest aspirations. i pledge to you to be a president who is realistic and practical and has common sense.

and to always fight for the american people. [applause] unlike donald trump, who frankly, as we have seen, cares more about running on problems and fixing problems. i want to fix problems, which means working across the aisle. it requires working across the aisle. it requires embracing good ideas from wherever they come. that is why i have pledged to appoint a republican in my cabinet. [applause] that is why i have pledged to establish a counsel on bipartisan solutions, to recommend to me common sense

solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing our country. [applause] nobody has a corner on the good ideas. they actually come from many places. and one should, especially if they want to be a leader, one should welcome those ideas. in those ideas, which are about strengthening the middle class, securing our border, defending our freedoms and maintaining our leadership in the world. [applause] in all of this is to also say that i believe for america to be the world's strongest democracy, we must have a healthy two-party system. [applause] because it is when we have a

healthy two-party system that leaders are then required to debate the merits of policy and to work across the aisle regularly and routinely to get things done. and i have experienced firsthand how important and rewarding that kind of bipartisan cooperation can be. so i will tell you, when i was the united states senator i served on the senate intelligence committee. it was actually my favorite committee for a number of reasons, but specifically this. there we dealt with some of the most pressing issues affecting national security, there we would talk about hotspots around the world and what we needed to do to focus on keeping america safe and secure. and to do that, we would review classified information, which required us to meet in a secure

room. adam, you know. when we would go in that room, with all due respect, no cameras were allowed. no press, and we would roll up our sleeves and get to work. i'm telling you, senators of both parties would walk in that room, take off their suit jackets, roll up their sleeves, have a cup of on the table and we would have real conversations. real conversations. as americans. because we understood that what happened in that room, the stakes were so high. and therefore it cannot be, we cannot afford to let it be about whether one was a democrat or republican. the stakes are too high. we were in that room and it was all about us as americans.

about doing what is in the best interest of the safety and security of our nation. all of that work. and it was what we have as the theme of today, it was country over party in action. -- and action. [applause] so i know it can be done and that is the standard of leadership and the aspiration that i have in terms of how we will work when, with your help, i am elected president of the united states. [applause] [crowd chanting "kamala"] we've got a get to work.

there's a fundamental choice, a very fundamental choice, a choice between the leadership that i pledge to offered to america, leadership that brings folks together that builds consensus and focuses on making life better for you with the knowledge that we have so much more in common than what separates us. and on the other hand, the choice of someone who i think we can guarantee will say it in the oval office plotting retribution , stew in his own grievances and think only about himself and not you. so as i have said, our campaign is not a fight against something, it is a fight for something. it is a fight for the fundamental principles upon which we were founded.

it is a fight for a new generation of leadership that is optimistic about what we can achieve together. republicans, democrats and independents who want to move past the politics of division and blame and get things done on behalf of the american people. and when it all comes down to it, i know we are all here together. this beautiful afternoon because we love our country. [applause] we love our country. and we are here because we know the deep privilege and pride that comes with being an american. and the duty that comes along

with it. in the duty that comes along with it. [applause] in perfect, though we might be, america is still that shining city upon a hill that inspires people around the world and i do believe it's one of the highest forms of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country. [applause] so, to people from across pennsylvania and across our nation, led us together stand up for the rule of law, for our democratic ideals, and for the constitution of the united states and in 20 days, we have the power to chart a new way forward.

one that is worthy of this magnificent country that we are all blessed to call home. thank you all, may god bless you, and may god bless the united states of america. thank you. [cheers and applause] ♪\

♪ >> thursday on c-span, our campaign 2024 coverage continues with jd vance speaking to voters at a rally in pittsburgh livet 12:30 p.m. eastern.

then at 3:00, tim walz is joined by former president bill clinton in durham, north carolina to ckff early voting in the state. at 8:00 p.m. on c-span, vice presiden harris holdg a rally in green bay, wisconsin, marking r x visit to the state since e start of r presidential campaign. you can watch our live campaign coverage on the free c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington. live and on-demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics at your fingertips. he could stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span's tv network at c-span radio plus a variety of compelling podcasts.

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>> good evening everyone. welcome to the tv 2024 senatorial debate featuring candidates and democrat actor christina christiansen republican senator kevin cramer. moderating with me this evening. >> thank you. we share common interests and talk radio from bismarck he is from fargo. i'm a former mayor of bismarck joel is a former legislator but we're broadcasting live from legacy high school in bismarck, north dakota tonight. this evening will be alternating as we ask questions of the candidates but we have prepared the questions ourselves and flip the coin to decide who goes first. both for moderators and for candidates. it is recommended hold its applause until the completion of a candidates answer.

so that the candidate does not forfeit their time to the applause. candidates will be given two minutes for answers. one minute for follow-up answers or a return to the previous topic candidate please be mindful of the clock. and understand if you watch the monday night steve and i are not afraid to tell you you are done. [laughter] >> we will be taking the television break near the bottom of the hour. we begin this evening with opening statements of three minutes from each of the candidates beginning with doctor katina christiansen. >> thank you so much. thank you joel, both of you for moderate this evening. i want to thank them and their team for making this happen. i want to thank senator cramer and debates with me. while he may not agree on all of our policy issues, we both agree it is important for north dakota and to hear us. it's vital to a healthy

democracy. it is important to vote for the person, not the party. i am katrina christiansen. i am proof of the american dream. my dad and his brother lost the farm. my dad struggled to find work in the 80s and it was hard because i grew up in poverty. i remember the first year of college, my dad was dropping me off i did not have a car but he gave me 20 bucks and said good luck kiddo. i lived off of 20 bucks for two weeks. now some of you listening are here tonight may have lived this more experienced. and you know what it took to get here. because of federal programs that my opponent might demonize tonight. i graduated at the top of my class. i've built a better life for my family. i have made jamestown my home

where i live with my husband max and our three kids who go to public school and to the dairy queen as often as possible. i am an agricultural engineer. i have three patents. so tonight you will hear from somebody who voted against lowering prescription drug prices for seniors. you're going to hear from someone who voted against the bipartisan border bill protecting our communities. you are going to hear from a career politician who is failed to get a farm bill passed. because what he does is identify problems, assign blame and walks away from the hard work resolving issues. you're also going to hear from someone who thanks north dakota can do better? who is talk to those north dakota and spent has to rush in their meds. who has talked to many north dakota ends that are frustrated that we have not secured our

border. i want safer communities. you are going to talk to somebody who knows how to solve problems. and actually knows how to do the job in the hard work it takes to get things done. thank you so much and i hope to earn your vote in november. you for lending your talents to this night. thank you derek, thank you for your remarkable service you provide. so many out there in rural north dakota as much is right here in the big city of bismarck and fargo. not just for stepping up to the plate is very few have done what we've done right now there's a reason for that it's not that easy. it's tough work. i was thinking and i appreciate you mentioning the debate. i was thinking about my career and some of us have done this quite a bit. all of the debates i was thinking about all the people

i've ran against a been an incumbent and i've been a challenger. i don't think i have ever had an opponent that accepted fewer than three debates. that says something about the culture of our states. he says something about this right here. people have asked me why would you, the incumbent why would you give your opponent a third debate? i don't like giving my opponent third debate i give you a third debate. it's hard to hide we know each other. i look forward to this katrina is right you see a difference yes somebody has got some experience. yes, somebody who's been there a while. this would be my second term i'm seeking in the united states senate. the senate is a place where experience matters. or having a gavel matters. and by the way it arty doesn't

matter. the idea that somehow you can both work but not vote for a party not going let chuck schumer be the majority leader if kristine becomes senator. that's a nice idea nice ideal is just not practical. i talk about my upbringing i'm way back 400 years three of my ancestors came on the mayflower i'm in tenth grade grandson of william bradford the governor of plymouth colony. the person who offered and signed the mayflower compact. for generations in my sixth grade grandfather was one of the first people to die in the revolutionary war and bunker hill. a family member still has his plane he made. he was a craftsman. he carved the scriptures and in this he said this complaint was made by me. a son of liberty.

my father was in 11th grade educator. he was a lineman. my mom graduated high school and pumped gas at the co-op. they worked overtime for what the time was thought and a half. but they did whatever it took. >> time, senator. >> thank you. >> my first question goes to doctor christiansen. doctor christiansen, what makes you qualified to be one of 100 people in this nation to make decisions? >> thank you. i really appreciate that question. it is so refreshing to hear something not starting off with ukraine. i get asked this a lot. the thing that makes me a really great candidate for north dakota as i am forward thinking.

i understand how to tackle problems. i understand the importance of reaching out to stakeholders. that means reaching across the aisle. i am not afraid to go get the republican votes and the independent votes. and that's the same thing i'm going to do in the u.s. senate. i told the story about growing up in poverty. to try to convey to you what it took to get to this point to graduated as valedictorian. should be high scholars at the university of nebraska, lincoln beat departmental senior of the year end biological systems engineering. those are no small feat. i am not doing this for me. i'm doing this for all of the people i have met across the state of north dakota. i have gone to every county. i have talked to people. those conversations have left marks on me. i was at my not a couple weeks ago and there is a guy there who

talks about how he could not for his insulin. my opponent voted against capping and some prices at $45 heat loss 75% of his vision. he cannot drive. we cannot have career politicians that recycle talking points representing u.s. senate. we need to be luring prescription drug prices. aside from securing the border, lowering prescription drug prices is the most important thing on people's minds. we have some his voted to repeal the affordable care act to but we have somebody who voted against capping prescription drug prices for seniors. voted against capping insulin at $35 a vial. we need somebody who understands the problems of north dakota. click senator cramer do you have a rebuttal? >> first of all i want to agree with the upfront answer. the beauty of our self governed system is the only qualification to serve the people that are voting as you get more votes than your opponent. it's up to the people that we

work for. that is the qualification. that is what gets you there. but what makes you a good senator? personal experience does matter by the way. it doesn't matter. not sure about scholarly accomplishments. i have seen plenty of scholars not do so wellin congress. i prefer workers. i would raise this point about reaching across the aisle and point i don't do that. the reality is, i do it a lot. the reality is i'm the only republican nights it centered in senate inthe last congress thatd a bipartisan action award reaching across the aisle. i don't introduce legislation very rarely doesn't have a democratic cosponsor. by grew with a long list of them to say the least. also implied i am the guy the first talking point the democrat party is accused your opponent using republican talking points. they got immersed today by

jamestown newspaper precisely because i do not use talking points. because i sometimes warrant my staff in advance about to be blunt. >> next question is for senator kevin cramer. the economy is on the major issues during this presidential cycle. of course the sentence and the house and the makeup of that will have a large play in dictating the finances of the economy. vice president kamala harris. give us a take on your working relationship no matter who wins and what that looks like assist in the economy. >> the president has a lot to do with legislation.

unified government has the ability to pass legislation with the 50 it went votes in the senate rather than the 60. that's a circumstance i hope for but one thing is sure the job acts expires next year. everyone's taxes go up unless we do something about it. inflation is arty 20 plus% aggregate over the last four years under the hair/biden administration. a lot of it has to do with tax on energy. when you cause energy prices to go up there now at 45%. you drive up the price of everything everything you move, you go you produce everything you manufacture everything goes up. we have to restore solid energy policy. places like north dakota to feed a hungry world. to feel a growing economy. we do it better than anybody we do cleaner than anybody.

my opponents have advocated for limiting fossil fuels. stop investing fossil fuels and invest only in renewable energy. that is nonsense low cost abundant and clean energy. north dakota oil, gas, coal, wind it's all cleaned for cleaner than anywhere else in the world. it's a lower-cost and more available than any place in the world too. >> doctor christiansen same question. >> i thought about this coming in tonight. pointing out many of the talking points you will hear tonight for my opponent are the ones he is six years ago. you are here tonight you're probably wondering why you have not accomplish a lot. that's become 13017th congress he cut the third worst attendance rates. how could he be voting for north dakota family if he is not there? okay? what about the 118 congress?

he has the eight worst attendance. he has missed more than 60 votes. i think it was a couple of weeks ago or maybe just last week. we have the terrible fires out west. just terrible. i'm sorry for the family members who lost their loved ones. but, we are going to have to come back to congress in the new year and address those disasters. my opponent voted against a jail disaster funding in 2021 that would have given we can't send someone to washington that does not show up or they cannot do the work for us if they are not there. in the 1117th the eighth worst in the 118th. his expanse has allowed him to

forget who he is and who he represents. it's time to send somebody who has worked in industry and understands the importance of working hard. click senator cramer at one minute rebuttal if you choose. >> several things. the 117 congress is most productive congress as we passed unanimously under the eye am the ranking member. provided lots more money for north dakota cities, counties, rural communities, farmers. the type of infrastructure that brings down inflation and brings important resources. it's also the year i led the charge with a lot of upset republicans to pass the committee i'm a ranking member. that provides more than 50% more money to north dakota counties, cities, communities, townships. 50% more for infrastructure moving goods and services

including farm products. when my mom died i was fortunate enough to be able to get there before she died and spent some time with her and of course plan for arrangements and lead the family through the grieving time. i spent the week at the mayo clinic with my son was having surgery at the time. it's also when i had my surgery. it was productive nonetheless. >> the next question goes to senator cramer. your opponents accuse you of doing nothing. that you passed a number of bills. you and i both know there's a difference a drink on a bill and being the prime sponsor of the bill. being the origin of the bill itself. so you could easily, you've been in the majority, you've been in the minority you can easily find yourself having to introduce

legislation that kamala harris would sign. and so i'm going to ask you, have you passed any legislation that its genesis came from you? >> lots and lots of it. >> it came from north dakota governor to use resources during the pandemic when the oil patch was a bleeding people and bleeding money to hire more workers. to re- claim oil that was my prime cosponsor was rule on a democrat from new mexico. that was my bill. there's lots of those but i introduce the legislation that created the states force of nine

states of america. brand-new military force. they thought you've got to be out of your mind. fifteen votes to 14 that opposed it. and now there's no way he thanks we were crazy. expansion of the export import. the largest extension in its history. by the way, but had this idea that there's independence record there's no such thing. but the idea is you could somehow keep score on how many bills you introduce that passes the bill that you introduced is following. is only a handful of meals that get past it. that is why you've got to be ready. there's a whole bunch of them have benefited the north coast airmen and soldiers, national

guard. probably dozens of them i could point to one at a time for they are all part of the national defense authorization act. >> doctor christiansen, amid one minute rebuttal. >> i think if kevin had a voting record to run on, we would already know it. the reality is one of the largest industries in north dakota, agriculture, does not have time but the low price right now soybeans are way under being profitable. we are not talking about the facts that we have a bunch of career politicians in washington d.c. and i believe senator cramer said it best. only a few bills get past. every five years we ask our

congress to pass the farm bill. to make sure our farmers have the right reference prices. they make sure we are improving crop insurance like making sure they can enroll in dual arc programs. >> time? the next question for doctor christiansen, i want to save the theme of agriculture. of course the farm bill for north dakota. one of the pieces of the farm bill is snap. there's a lot of producers out there looking at the protection for an operation. first of all would you be in favor or not in favor of separating the snap program from the farm bill to address agriculture? would your vision of farm bill be? >> steve, i really appreciate that question. senator cramer and i have had the opportunity to talk about the farm bill and are two other

debates. one of the debates he brings up as a problem is a snap benefit. i will be honest. i find it offensive coming from u.s. senator and someone as a christian you would vilify poor people. i grew up in poverty. i remember being at the economy market in nebraska or my dad asked to get credit to buy groceries. and he was denied. i remember it later on him saying he would never own money for food because of food stamps. one out of six households in north dakota uses food stamps. one out of six. 49% of those work. they are the working poor. they are the people we should be

protecting. 65% of the households have children. 30% have elderly disabled adults. this is a serious program. the reason we have it is we value everyone. we want people to be fed and survive. that's the best we can do. when we vilify these snap program i get upset i think that's apparent right now. that is not a u.s. senator should do. the farm belt and the snap program goat together. that brings urban it makes sure we take care of our most vulnerable people. >> thank you doctor christiansen. and it sent on their own 2 feet.

>> first, absolutely not. you would lose the farm bill if you did that. you lose the safety net for vulnerable people if you did that. but, she said something very interesting just so you know this is not insignificant problem to the farmer. duke dilutes the amount to go to the farmer. think that farm is a rooftop garden by the way. fuel on fire which drove the price of everything out. she is that as a reason to bring more money to snap and the conservation called climate title. thus to limit the amount owing to the farmer. you've got to rebalance those things party matters.

a violent uprising and's authority for government. that is insurrection. and so the question becomes, do you believe donald trump played a role in the january 6 insurrection and the beating of those law enforcement officers on the steps of the capitol i think donald trump on that day gave a speech those two ramped up. it was nancy pelosi who turned down donald trump generosity of national guard or active military. he calls her, he warned her. it is well documented. these people are upset. i think you better get more security there. she turned her down, why did she

turn it down? i have no idea. i could speculate but i do not know what's in our heart or mind. that fact to seeing what was going on, knowing how upset people were and then to deny the decline in health and leading our police officers who i love, so my best friends in washington. i love marcus like a brother because he is a brother he hugs me every single day at the door of the united states capitol this big tall beautiful and says were in it together we are in it together from her military is unconscionable to me. i blame her as much as i blame anybody. it's a handful of people that were violent not the one strolling through the capitol after it became easy but the people who were violent and shouldnot be taken off the hook. it's not somebody else's fault they did with a did. >> the question was do you believe donald trump played a

role in generally six insurrection yesterday? i think his role was minimal converted nancy pelosi. >> rebuttal? >> talking points is on the career politicians do. but recycling dangerous lives is really un-american. i do not know how many of you in this audience or at home were all watching what happened in generally 26th. i remember being terrified that we would lose our democracy. i hold president trump accountable and those who went along with him and not certifying the election results of the free and fair election of our president. i have never been more terrified of my life. i think it is so sad you have changed so much as a career politician you would repeat

dangerous lives and not reflect history. that is the important thing here. we cannot recycle dangerous lives for. >> same talking points over and over and over again. >> was at a rebuttal for mule of a bottle back. >> by the way, i was there. i was there. she watched on tv and was was t, i was there. i voted to certify. i was there. watching on tv and being terrified, who are we kidding? who are we kidding? this is serious not some drama because it's a nice stage for because she blame nancy pelosi? i blame people who did it because she blame nancy pelosi? senator, then the question becomes did donald trump have it within his power to release the national guard to put it down? wesley ordered his own military

declined as well. >> i am a rule follower and he was interrupting me. i have just got to say, i said my piece i think it is really important that when you are a politician and representing people that need you to get things done, that you tell the truth. he missed that boat in 2022 where were you? you did not vote for the ranchers, okay. he does not have a problem misrepresenting the truth because he is a career politician. that is a great quote from president roosevelt at the end of his life became so disenchanted with politics he said good people to go into politics become crooks and very good people become impractical. i will let you all decide who the career politician has become repeating this dangerous lives. >> are going to take a little

break. when we come back steve will be asked the next question. thank you for tv. ♪ >> welcome back to north dakota senatorial debate between senator kevin cramer doctor christina christiansen. our next question is for doctor christiansen. i want to talk about border security. there's a lot of different pieces that go into border security and north dakota was a part of a building the wall that was started and not completed. but what we are seeing as illegal immigration, as discussions about the wall, about securit it all comes under traffiin whether or not is narcotics trafficking whether it is labor trafficking or whether or not it is human trafficking. what is your stance what would you do in the u.s. senate to help secure the border and

alleviate some of these issues? >> thank you. such an important question right now in our lives. there is a bipartisan border bill that was introduced this spring. it gave money to the border patrol to add new agents, over 1000 to help fuel the human trafficking issue. it also had the money to install 100 conventional detectors. as many in the bill to make sure we could process to actually endorse the bill. it did not pass. the resources to her border patrol.

to including our children. that's an up and everything it's so important we make sure we address that. we are talking about this because it did not get past. clear politician he identifies a problem, he assigns blame and walked away from the hard work of resolving the issue he saw on the bill. it's important we send somebody to d.c. this going to go to the senate majority leader and ask for the bipartisan border bill which has buy-in from both sides. truly bipartisan not the big awards senator cramer talks about but real bipartisanship fought hard over four months to reintroduce the bill and i would vote yes on that so we can install the fentanyl detectors. make sure communities are safe.

and he would voted for joe biden is responsible at ludacris and defies all logic and historical facts. a career politician is a talking point here is what that builds it in addition to some pretty decent things. customs and border protection did not need a thousand more or 100,000 or one more when donald trump was present and took care of it the way he supposed to by enforcing the existing laws. by the way with the democrats took over the senate and the white house, not only did they stop building wall that was already paid for including allowed it by north dakota company. they sold the wall for pennies on the dollar that bill gave lots of money to ngos and

sanctuary city. the biggest problem with the border is not the fentanyl are not stopping the fentanyl at the border. were not stopping at the border. sanctuary cities and ngos to protect criminals that's what they do. sanctuaries if you are the mayor at bismarck a bunch of criminals that commit crimes but can skip sanctuary you cannot touch them. that is the policy of guys. that's the draw. and by the way it regard to expediting asylum, what that is is expediting illegalities. legal to faster process. i don't know about you, i am not for that. i am tired of kids dying from fentanyl.

>> doctor christiansen, rebuttal? >> i think, senator cramer's argument that maybe he is implying senator lankford a republican from oklahoma is a closeted democrat. which is really hard to believe. he assigns blame and identified problems. he walked away from protecting north dakota communities. i am not going to do that. he brings up sanctuary cities a lot. i control the map after the debate. in the cities are not here north dakota but what is here in north dakota is fentanyl. those overdose deaths are really serious. we had a pragmatic a bipartisan solution that career politicians torpedoed for the sake of running our problem but that is not why we send people to d.c. to introduce the bill and i'm going to vote yes. they're not going to bring the

bill up. i assure you. i'm pretty sure president trump is going to fix the problem with the authority he has before that joe biden's head for four years that kamala harris has had as a group, they had a person in charge of the southern border. i'm pretty sure without another bill you do not need another bill part you need somebody who cares about it. you need somebody a backs up customs and border protection who backs up our police. who backs up our community the idea that's because north dakota's are too smart for that kind of silliness. that's why there's not one north dakota. blue states have sanctuaries they are criminals imagine that. think about that for a minute. century from the cops if you are a criminal. we'll never turn you over to the federal police. just get here fast. get your fence halted north dakota and montana but don't hang out there, they will arrest you. not a good idea but one good

follow-up yes or no only. doctor christiansen do you believe a path forward the illegal immigrants are here for citizenship? >> and the dreamers? >> for the illegal immigrants already here that across the border do you believe there's a path for citizenship for them? >> just to be clear, for the dreamers and guests. this people who came over here with their parents who did not have a choice. i absolutely think we should have a pathway. cook senator cramer yes or no? >> donald trump offered that up to the democrats and they declined it. they denied it. but i would support the dreamers as well not as citizenship but legal status not for anybody fre sensed. >> thank you, joel? work senator cramer, do you believe a woman should have a right to decisions about her own body? >> she should have a right to decisions about her own body. she should have limited rights about decisions as it relates to another body that is in her.

depending especially on how old the body is. i believe in life at conception. life deserves protection which is why i introduced legislation, bipartisan strongly supported by the left to make sure the father's of unborn children have the same accountability as a father's unborn children. i believe a row the way it was a bad legislation the bill returning as a gift it's up to states from now on to pick that up state-by-state. same question. quick so i believe a woman has a right to control the health care that she needs. i think since the overturning of roe, what we have seen from states across the country is sad. there's a lot of poorly written by humans that have not reduced the number of abortion. but we have seen is there are women who are denied care and

are in need of emergency healthcare. we are talking about life or death situations because of poorly written band. we do not need the government in the doctor's office. now my opponent wants to whitewash these stories. it does not fit into a historic line that's not the reality of women's healthcare. anya cook was in florida. she had three term membrane rupture. she went to florida hospital was told to go home was denied care and almost died. jackie stanton, had a mueller pregnancy that was cancerous in oklahoma she was told that if she did not get treatment, which was an abortion, she would bleed out and die. she was told to wait in the parking lot until she flatlined her had a heart attack. and there was a woman from idaho

who started bleeding at 20 weeks. had to be life flighted to utah and all she could think about was living for her to living children. these women are real. they have people who want them to live healthy lives. and what to be able to have children when they want them. this is the reality would limit women need to be in control of the healthcare. we cannot whitewash the reality in the states where there are bands but we just can't. >> one minute you don't have to use it all for a rebuttal. [laughter] >> let me just say, first about healthcare and abortion are hard for me too put together in the first place. she's three major healthcare denial but i do not know a place and certainly north dakota is not one of those places. i am surprised utah would take a woman from idaho quite honestly. the reality is saving the life

of the mother is obvious. i don't know anybody that does not use that or agree that should be an exception for i am with her one 100% on those things. but last night i was in fargo and event with about 600 people who love life. who care for women for free. that's at the women's care center. a big fundraiser. they take care of the woman and the child. as a result of that this year they've already saved 426 babies. i am for saving babies. i think that ought to be our passion. we can argue and debate with the policy ought to be what the point of life but i'm for saving babies. >> same point, rebuttal. >> i think what senator cramer misses when he focuses on the pro life narrative is the very real experiences that people have in the states with fan. interest is not happen here yet.

we have comments on ponce rightt now, a six week van that does not have exceptions for rape and incest and north dakota. we do not allow that. is not really a pro life position that we are going to make somebody have eight rapists child? the son of a pro-life position point we should allow people to seek the healthcare they need when they need it without the interference of the government. that is it. it is that simple. >> thank you. next question is for senator cramer. i want to talk a little bit about global policy. with what is going on the state of the world right now and unrest and many different areas. primarily ukraine and what is going on in israel. what is your stance with supporting or not supporting

either one of those countries? >> i believed america safe when the world is safe in the world's safest when america strong. when america leads with strength and lack unlike the last four years, the world goes into chaos i supported every aid package for ukraine not just because it's good for the ukrainians but it's good for us. the cost of preventing a war coming to the united states is a lot less than fighting a war. or a nato or should it break out. this things did not happen with stronger leadership. with god to israel we have a moral obligation, a biblical obligation to back the people of israel. they have a right to be a jewish state plain and simple. the very idea we now have a president calling on our very best friend may be in the world to tell him how to fight a war how to go after the people trying to eliminate the entire

country is ludicrous to me. he succumbs to strength. yes i'm a ronald reagan republican. peace comes through strength we are taking 40 or 50 or break from modernizing our military which is i'm on the armed services committee. that's why senator kellyanne i started the modernization caucus a democrat from arizona. it's why i believe it got to invest where we have not invested for 40 years because america safe in the world is safe for the world is safe when america strong. right now we act week we project terrible weakness but we do back israel that's our war already. rivet north dakota and now coming up on a year of being in the hospital who was taken down by a houthi drone. took down his helicopter his wife was also an army helicopter pilot for their grieving wondering where in the world to we go wrong that these iranians

could take us out the small drone? >> doctor christiansen same question. >> no, i don't think we should be taken for impulsive advice from a senate member who supported and fund raise off of withholding the promotion of 500 military members. that really jeopardized our military strength and readiness for the global complications we are seeing across the globe. in fact, i was in my knots, like i said before. there is a young woman who came in and asked the panel of candidates about what we would do to support enlisted members? senator cramer talks about sitting on the armed forces committee this young woman was concerned because so many of the younger enlisted men did not have the money to buy food. and so they had food stamps. i'm so when we talk about

military readiness, that means promoting people who have served our country honorably. that means making sure that our military members have the resources to provide for themselves and their families. i am standing up on stage with somebody who has that ability and has not exercised it. he's not willing to work across the aisle and get things done like pass the bipartisan portobello. ukraine is serious. it is serious because putin is a bloodthirsty dictator and he of is not stopped in ukraine, he is going to roll through all of the other eastern european countries. it's important we help ukraine win because that puts america first. otherwise putin wins, china wins, taiwan wins. let's send somebody to washington d.c. that understands

the priorities and is not there to play games with our service members. >> it a crime or rebuttal? >> lex asked roy about specific legislation i passed. when we had about one piece about the national defense authorization act, two widows of the air force base for two people suffering with mental illness went to get help. both of them were denied that help buds because the people that were there to help them do not have the right certification. i offered up an amendment and told by the bureaucracy don't do it it's going be very controversial. they're bound to a study. i thought about that. i thought i'm going to take my chances for they introduce that amendment life and the committee. it passed unanimously. there is nobody. you can say a lot of things if you find one general with one star that would back what she said about me i will be very,

very, very surprised by this cell phone number of several if you would like them. >> one quick follow-up 30 seconds or less. doctor stinson fighting a proxy war against the israelis, would you be in support of further sanctions against some of those proxies are going after iran directly? >> i think it is really important that when the united states considers going to war with an adversary that we look at the last 20 years and what did we learn? what did we learn from going into iraq? forever wars don't work. and so it's probably better for us to resolve through negotiation. we just stop ethically the fighting in the middle east. we need a cease-fire and then start the very hard work of resolving the issues of her. >> were to seconds or less same

question. >> said it will be responsible for slighting a war for iran who is become a member of the axis of evil has become empowered because joe biden lifted the sanctions that allowed to go from $4 billion to $2.4 billion or $240 billion of foreign reserves is nuts. the idea someone would negotiate their way out with this that's we had a world war one of the sump american ships too. that's without in world war ii until came to pearl harbor but that's without in the war on terror until he took on the twin towers. america's safest when the world is safe in the world is safe when america strong. appeasing the ayatollah will not de-escalate. you have been in a position of power as a united states senator many times spoke to the national media. one of things you talked about at length was the biden family

and hunter biden who in light of your strong comments about hunter biden and in light of now what is happened with your family, do you regret it? >> i've not said a lot about hunter biden. they meet he hasn't pretty open about the fact i shied away, stayed away from. having been through it i have been there not just recently with my family but throughout my family. particularly adult children it a little bit different when the president of the united states or the vice president of the united state is aiding and abetting an enterprise where his influence and even his presence is for sale. that's a big problem. in fact just the opposite been very clear with national media. i've empathy for them. i pray for them. quentin's father to love each

other forever just like i love my children forever no matter what. i told my kids and i was able isaac and ian were four and five i adopt them i told of nothing you can ever do in life could stop me from loving i told my son that several times recently. quick senator christiansen response or rebuttal if you choose? >> you are premature there, doctor christiansen. i just think it's really important to it love it you are family and keep them close as possible. i really hope that kramer and his family can heal from the incident. and they deal that like they need to deal with it. the president who is simply mutual the judicial work its way out and we hope for the best they can have a loving long relationship. i think it's really important that we are supportive of all sorts of families.

i don't think it's worth discriminating. i don't think it was worth a bashing prince important to recognize we are all human. we all live here. it's best to love each other while we are alive brickwork .quick senator it's time for statements. >> held her closing statements? >> two minutes per thank you all again. thank you again doctor christiansen. you earned it for doing this. this has been invaluable hopefully to the people who are making the decisions that they have not already. i do worry about the people washington have made the decision and are looking for entertainment. totally they've got that as well. the very least was a great testament of the american experience. i'm always amazed some people say something about the person they voted for that they never polite to themselves in this beautiful nation of ours. with that we hear a lot of class

warfare going on these days. i'm going to tell you a reject t that as well. growing up as poor as we did i never felt like we were poor. i remember holding up the collector several times not me by them. they never complain they made us believe we could be whatever we wanted to be never had an idea it was possible the seventh of 11th grade rural electric lineman from a little town and north dakota can become a united states senator. but they can and so could a professor, soak it in any number of people. that's the greatness of our system for it if you are thank you all for participating in this. i will try the top 1% are 46% of taxes in the country. i love them all. the bottom 50% are paying about 2.3% of the taxes in this country, i love them all we ought to try to get them closer

together but, everybody's doing their part everett we live in the greatest land in the world. we should not apologize for but we should not be pessimistic about it. i love god, i love my family per thank you for being here. thank you again katrina for participating in for stepping up. and let's have fun for the next two and half weeks. >> doctor christiansen two minutes. >> i just really appreciate the audience coming out tonight. enjoyed our dialogue. like i said before it's vital for healthy democracy. for people to understand how we would work differently and d.c. thank you again senator kramer and truly for three debates that awesome. i appreciate the moderators. then really original questions i appreciate that so much so thank you. i want to acknowledge my friends and my family who have been so supportive this past year. i am grateful for your love and your support. you all can tell my opponent has

been doing this for long time. he has had a career politicians answer for every question. but he did not have solutions for our problems. so i say to the 8000 ranchers abandoned by our senator cramer, i will be there for you. i want to get the origin labeling the 146,000 people on social security in the state of north dakota, i'm going to protect social security and career politicians. to the 38000 veterans in the state of north dakota i will always have your back. into the police officers and the healthcare workers, and the laborers, and everyone in between i am going to work for you. i'm not going to work for special interest. it is time. it is time we get beyond blaming back to doing.

it is time to send kevin home. thank you so much. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] >> thank you very much for being cognizant of our time restraints this evening. >> i am told this it concludes our debate special thanks to the candidates for both participating. for steve for moderating with me. for tv airing this debate live. thanks are volunteers who assisted with registration, clock management and crowd control. to a television audience for watching tonight and those participating here in person. thank you for watching. from the legacy high school in north debate hosted by a nonprot

news site. >> good evening and welcome to the 2024 dicker debate series. i'm the editor-in-chief. every few years we have the opportunity to introduce you to those vying for vermont's top political offices and ask you questions on their behalf. it is to produce rigorous journalism and explain complex issues for those public accountability and foster democratic and civic engagement. tonight, we will hear from the leading candidates for governor of vermont. we will be joined by candidates

from the u.s. house and senate. before i introduced the candidates and moderators, i will begin with the rules. we will open was 60 seconds or less. some have been submitted by readers.

candidates will have 90 seconds to respond to such questions. the moderators may pose brief follow-ups or allow the opposing candidate to respond. we will generally now -- allow a candidate named or invoked to respond. follow-ups and responses will be limited. we will ask both candidates to pose a question to one another. we will have a brief lightning round during which candidates will answer questions. our moderators will be timing answers and they will hold up a yellow card when there are 15 seconds remaining and a red card when time is up. i have the pleasure of introducing her candidates and moderators. first we are joined by governor phil scott, running for his next term as the chief executive. a republican and former small business owner, he previously served as a governor and state senator. challenging him is esther charleston, an educator and consultant.

i want to introduce our moderators. take it away. >> we will begin with an introductory question for each of you. governor scott, please name one concrete policy goal you have not achieved during your nearly eight years in office and how will you get it done in a fifth term? you have 60 seconds to respond. gov. scott: well, i think when i first came into office, i had a few goals. make vermont more affordable and protect the most vulnerable. i would say making vermont more affordable has been challenging. over the last two years especially with all the taxes and fees that have been raised in making vermont even more

unaffordable than before. from my standpoint we have to continue to work on all three of those initiatives. making vermont more affordable is critical. >> thank you. miss charlestin please name one goal that you have seen this got administration not achieved and what would you do to make it a top priority if you win? ms. charlestin: housing, housing, housing. as i travel the state and campaign around, the one thing i hear the most is people cannot afford to live here so i agree with the governor. affordability is a priority. would my administration would do would increase affordable housing. so that would mean prioritizing the development of mixed income housing. >> thank you. we will now turn to general questions, which you will have 90 seconds to answer. this fall, the state has

continued to wind down its pandemic era motel emergency housing program for vermonters experiencing homelessness. this has resulted in a mass wave of evictions. what plans do you have to find or make homes for the many homeless people in vermont or the folks who are temporarily homeless through difficult circumstances and those who have been unable to live on their own due to mental or physical problems? ms. charlestin, we will start with you. you have 90 seconds. ms. charlestin: i believe in a housing first model. winter is coming. families are on the streets and communities are getting check tents for families. behind the library. behind the library is a tent community. i would focus on making sure

people are housed and then supporting them with mental health services, substance abuse services and job placement. we know housing is the beginning, but how do we help them transition to permanent housing? >> governor scott, what plans do you have to find or make homes available to those experiencing homelessness. gov. scott: we have re-housed more homeless vermonters and invest in into homelessness. the solution to all of this is more housing. i'm glad to hear esther leading the charge on that as well. we need all the help we can get. we also have to make sure they can afford their rent or mortgage as well. the legislature has fought us at every turn. the hotel motel program was never meant to be a long-term housing solution because it is not good for the people in it.

they are isolated and they need to have interaction with our dcf and so forth to get them the help they need. the democrats in the legislature understand this, the short-term safety net is what it was meant to be. the mobile home program, i would like to talk about this a little more, probably running short on time. we will have more units online to re-house the families who need it in the near future. we hope to have 30 online by the end of this year in terms of the mobile home program and we hope to have 100 done by the end of next calendar year. >> thank you. we will stick with this topic for a quick 32nd follow-up. governor scott, of the vermonters who have been evicted from the program this fall, many are children.

if one of those children were watching this debate, what would you have to say to them? gov. scott: yes, we are working on that. we have our folks at human services who have been interacting with them we are coming up with can tinge see plans. -- contingency plans. shelters are part of the answer. we want to make sure they have a place to go. what makes them homeless, what is it that created that in the first place. we want to know. we know we have a long way to go, but we are making ground there as well. >> ms. charlestin, the same question for you. 30 seconds, what would you tell one of those children who have been affected this fall? ms. charlestin: i would say icu. i remember as an administrator knowing students going through

this. i would say icu and it is on except bill you are in the streets with your family. them being housed should be a number one priority. >> thank you. i will handed over to neil for the next question. >> thank you. we will now turn to a topic on many vermonters minds following the summer floods of 2023 and 2024. given that extreme weather would likely continue to threaten flood prone towns and cities, does it make sense to continue rebuilding them year after year or should we begin something different? ms. charlestin, you have 90 seconds. ms. charlestin: one of my top priorities is climate resilient communities because climate change is real, the floods that happen over the last two years i believe are coming again. so being ready is important. the way what -- my administration would work to do so is increasing resilience by restoring wetlands. that is a way to make sure that

our communities are safe. how are we moving folks who are in water planes, making sure they are safe? it is impacting the low to middle income and usually they are the ones who don't have the money to move or have options, so making that a priority is important. >> thank you. governor scott, do you think it makes sense to keep rebuilding flood prone towns and cities? what would you do differently? gov. scott: i don't think there was one single answer on this. climate change is real and we are seeing the impacts of more severe weather right now as we speak, especially in the southern part of our country. i believe that it is going to be a mix of many different things. there are some situations where people should be living where they are living. they should do the buyout programs in those areas, we should use flood mitigation money to buy up some land on the

banks of rivers and reservoirs at capacity, where we have these high-volume rainstorms. but we should also invest in resiliency and some of those homes as well. but it depends on the situation, it depends on the city. building more housing is probably the answer as well because people don't have choices right now, even if they want to move or sell their home or take part in the buyout program, they have no place to go. if this is the crisis we all say it is, we need action now, treat it like a crisis. >> a quick follow-up for both of you, can you identify the most important thing vermont towns can do to become more flood resilient? ms. charlestin, you have 30

seconds. ms. charlestin: after the flood, we knocked on doors, we saw vermonters come together, regardless of party lines. i saw as being vermont-strong. i would say making sure you are getting the help you need to being connected to your community. >> governor scott? gov. scott: once again, it goes back to the same thing to determine whether you are going to advocate for a buyout and move out of your home and put that back into green space or are you going to be able to harden that with resources from programs and so forth? we might be able to do that in some cases. there is no one single answer to any of this. >> thank you. we will shift from climate induced whether to vermont's efforts to address climate

change. this day's independent public utility commission suggested the clean heat standard does not make sense for vermont. instead they recommended a thermal energy benefit charge or a tax on heating fuels. do you support the clean heat standard as a way to reduce greenhouse gas omissions? do you have an alternative? ms. charlestin: i support any effort that gives vermonters the option to not only if they want to use oil they can, but they can use heat pumps, they cannot. options is what i support. >> so you don't have a specific alternative proposal? ms. charlestin: whatever gives vermonters options.

thank you. >> governor scott? you have been very clear you do not support the clean heat standard. what proposals would you pursue to meet the targets? gov. scott: again, the global warming solutions act i didn't support either. i thought it put us at a disadvantage by adopting that and we are being sued right now because of that action. they overrode the veto. we should attack this like we did clean water. you might remember there was fis ago. all kinds of different strategies. knee-jerk reaction to just institute another tax and we finally convinced them after a couple of years that there was

another way to do it and i below that to be the case now. we have to be creative in doing that but i want to be clear, the p.u.c. looks like their secondary recommendation will be a carbon tax. they call it something different but it's a carbon tax and i won't support that. that's regressive. that will hurt the very people they're trying to help. we just need to get creative. move forward. heat pumps and some of the things we've putt forward to help move us in the right direction is the move to due go but it's not going to happen joint. >> another quick follow-up for boast of you. miss charlestin, how much responsibility does vice president have to act in this climate crisis? ms. charlestin: we are stewards

of this earth and i believe it's important for us to take charge. we need to make charge that our planet is ready for the future so that means taking the initiative, being proactive. working with different orbs to make that happen. we don't have to do it alone, we can partner with other folks but it is a priority. thank you. >> thank you. governor scott, how much responsibility to do you think vermont has to play in this? gov. scott: obviously we have a role to play, as people do across the globe but we emmitt the lowest number of carbon emissions probability of almost any state. we can't do this alone and we can't punish vermonters along the wail. there has to be a better way. we have to, again, get creative and reduce our reliance on carbon emissions and we can do

that while working with electric vehicles and heat pumps and so forth. 88. >> thank you, governor. sarah? >> thank you. now to another reader-submitted question. in april the vice president senate voted 19-9 against confirming your nominee for secretary of education, governor. a month later you appointed her interim secretary, a role she has filled sense. jim would like you to explain why you "ignored the vermont senate's decision not to hire saunders, a move he called not very democratic. governor? gov. scott: again, i i thought it was a political hit job on myself. but let's go back just a little bit on this. there were 17 or 19 applications

for this position. secretary of education. and it was up tonight state board of education to whittle those down to three. they sent those three for us to interview, which we did. zoe was the logical choice. she's happened so much experience. i think the more people get to know her and i think there are a number of people who have now changed their minds about her instead of just reading some of the diatribe, they actually got to know her and she is energetic, she's smart. she's made changes already and she can -- she would do that great job in that position. as you know, there was a lawsuit brought against us. the other side lost and it was

within our right to do what we did. she is interim secretary of education at this point and we will then make a decision as to whether to forward her name again to the senate. >> mrs. charlestin, what do you make of the governor's decision to ignore the senate's decision and do you agree with the two who the governor alluded to who sued saying it was against the constitutional north to confirm apoints. 90 seconds. ms. charlestin: i do not agree with the governor's approach, with the way he appointed zoe saunders. the senate had a lot of letters come to them from the community with folks who were worried about her representing public schools with limited public school experience. it was a hard hit and did not

build camaraderie amongst leaders. so instead it brought a lot more division. do i agree with the senators who took that stand? i think it's within their right and they went about the law and as governor scott said, their didn't win and i think they did the right thing. >> governor, you already alluded to this but interim saunders' point does expire in february of 2025. so what are your plans to renominate her or not to an interim capacity, to a permit capacity? what's your plan right now? 30 seconds. gov. scott: i want to go back to something that esther had said about zoe nod of not having any public education experience. and that's false. she has 10 years of experience in public education and, again,

they acted wouldn't doing their homework. the chair of the senate education committee, a democrat, advocated for her and called it politics at its worst. so, gwen, i just -- discount that she doesn't have the experience. it's just that people didn't wants to give her the chance. i don't know if zoe would want to move forward. we'll posit her about that and make a decision in the coming here if i'm re-elected and make a decision at that point. >> mrs. charlestin would you re-elect her to her position? ms. charlestin: no, i'm an educator myself and i would

not. >> thank you, both. governor scott, you have -- a record 52 bills in your time in office. that is more that have a quarter of vetos issued in state history. some have criticized you for not working more collaborative li before bills reach your desk. what could you personally do differently going forward to find consensus? gov. scott: well, first of all, there are probably should have been more conveniented than that number. this legislature, the legislature has passed a record number of bad bills over the last six or seven years. so i think we need to work together but when you have a pseudo majority and they flaunt they don't need to work with the executive branch and they have

remarked such as that it really doesn't matter and they can do it without the executive -- without the governor, without the and he can active branch. i'm not asking them to cross over, just meet me in the middle. we can work together but a super majority with the power and numbers they have has made that impossible because they have no interest in working together. they just want to score political points. >> mrs. charlestin of the bills that governor scott vetoed this year, which would you have signed? ms. charlestin: i would say i would sign most of them but i struggle with a head of state blaming part time because legislatures make $15,000 a year and don't even get health care.

blaming them from where we were when you've been in office for eight years. i struggle with that so i believe in working with legislators from the beginning, showing up, being at the table. having those hard discussions and not leading through veto. gov. scott: it would be a happen day for me when i don't have to issue another veto. when we willfully come to the table and solve problems. 100 bills were passed in 2024. 75 of them passed in the last week of 2024's session. and about 30, 40 passed on the last day alone. tell me, tell me those legislators were reading those bills and really knew what they were doing at this point. that's what's frustrating here. it's like forced through and

it's something they need to work on. >> all right. thank you both and we'll be returning to that subjective legislator play pay so hang on. back to you, neil. >> thank you, sarah. we had an opportunity for candidates to ask each other questions. each candidate may ask their opponent one question at this point and these please should be questions and not speeches. you'll have 90 seconds to answer and we may ask or allow follow-up questions. mrs. charlestin, you may ask the first one. narrator: through thank you. as a proud haitian american i am deeply concerned by the hurtful and false statements made by trump and j.d. vance about immigrants, particularly haitian immigrants. how do you plan to support and protect immigrant communities, especially in the light of such dangerous rhetoric?

gov. scott: i agree with you, esther. those remarks were callous, uncalled for, un-american and i hope and i've said this publicly before. i hope donald trump isn't successful in november. we're welcoming -- i think part of our answer here in involvement because of our demographics. we're aging out. a stagnant population, our workforce is declining. we need more immigration and diversity here in our state and we advocated for that. we asked first the trump administration to send us more refugees so we could keep the best part of what's beautiful about vice president and we've been successful in that area so i want more immigration. i want machine refugees and we want to do our part so i think we're on the same page there,

esther. >> mrs. charlestin, any follow-up? ms. charlestin: i'm happy to hear that you don't agree with trump and j.d. vance and i'm wondering what specific programs you've heard since you've been in office. gov. scott: we're worked with the afghans being in limbo after the withdrawal from the middle east. we instate a program -- it's in -- at this point in time. through the translation services, refugee housing, refugee settlement has gone very well and, again, we hope to do

more in the future. with training programs and some of these skills that we need and, again, i think this is something we've been involved in refugees in the -- county area, in the afghan refugee resetment program. it's all moving us in the right direction but we need morehouseing. gwen, bottom line is we don't have the housing to support more and we need more. >> thank you, governor. it is now your turn to ask ms. charlestin a question. gov. scott: i think i heard that you might have had a business at one time but what's your experience in managing people, being governor means you're heading up an enterprise of about 8,000 employees. i'm wondering can you give us

your perspective on that? ms. charlestin: absolutely. i am a small business owner in vice president and i've been able to identify people who are experts to help bring me along. i've been able to see how folks work and that's what makes me a great leader. i'm willing to show up, collaborate. talk through -- the work that i do, i help folks have hard conversations and sit with what's uncomfortable for them and as a result we're able to get to the other side together so my work includes identifying experts and leaders and to bring us along so i know the work of governing, as you know, is really bringing people along. having a team of advisors, experts in their field to help make vermont better and that is what i am really good at.

>> any follow-up, governor? gov. scott: how many employees do you have, esther? ms. charlestin: well, it depends. right now i am a consultant all by myself and i also run another company with four employees. gov. scott: i wasn't sure what the business was. ms. charlestin: i'm a speaker and educational consultant. >> thank you, both. we'll turn it back to sarah. >> thanks. neil. we'll have another round of candidate-to-candidate questions in a bit but we'll turn to questions we'll pose to each of you. leader chris leslie wants to know what you will do to address the rising cost of education and the corresponding impact on property taxes. "what is vermont state doing to ensure it doesn't continue to

push more residents or potential residents to another state due to increasingly high cost of taxes" governor scott, you have 90 seconds. gov. scott: this is the question and something we do have to address and we tried to at the end of the session but that was all for thought. since i came into office -- when i first came in we were spending $1.4 billion for education and now we're spending about $2.4 billion so it's gone up almost a billion familiars in 80's to 10 years. we put forward dozens of proposals. all rejected by the legislature. but never put their own ideas forwards and partnered with me. and it's part of our affordabilities crisis that we face. we spend more per pupil than any

other state i believe in the country. so we need more consolidation, we need more structural form and we need to work together with school boards with, simms, with the legislature and figure which out, because we can't continue down this path. as you know. in was about a 14% increase this year alone and it was quite a bit the year previous to that and it doesn't look like, because we didn't do anything in terms of structural reform, it's going to be another big increase next year so we have to address it now. we can't study it for two years and then do something. we need to do something about it right now. >> a quick follow-up for you, governor. throughout this legislative system, you've frequently sent

many proposals to rein in spending which the legislature hasn't taken you up on. do you have new ideas that you think the legislature would actually support to address this is issue? gov. scott: i think this study coming outs is going to identify some of the same opportunities as the suggests we've made and some of the suggestions that were made in previous, dozens of other studies that have been done over the years. i think we need a five-year plan to freeze rates so we can reinvest from kids because the money is not getting to the kids. it's getting suckeds up in the system. we need to use natural attrition to bring down that statue to students ratio. we needs health care reform. the formulas need to be changed as well. there are a lot of things we can do but none of it is easy.

consolidation is a big part of this and it's note easy to consolidate schools. >> thanks, governor. miss charlestin, how would you answer chris leslie's question about containing education spending and slowing the rise of property taxes? ms. charlestin: so when i think about our education system and as i work in the school systems as a consultant and when i worked in the school system as an employee, for a lot of cracks and teachers are needing support, students are needing support. to hear the amount of money we're spending, yes, it's high and i question where the money that we do have, where does it go? and using property taxes to funds education, that's not sustainable. we can't. homeowners are feeling that burdensen and our schools are not getting what they need. they're not getting everything that they need so it's important

that we come up with a plan to funds education a different way and to support teachers and students. >> i want to drill down a little bit on what you just mentioned on property taxes not being the best way to fund education. if not property taxes, how would you profession that you fund it? miss charlestin? ms. charlestin: all right. i think about fair share in vermont. making sure that people are paying their fair share. we have wealthy vermonters who are interested or in participating legislators to tax them more so they can be a part of this community in a new way. that is an avenue we haven't explored to the fullest.

>> miss charlestin. people who have served as governor of vermont have had previous experience at the high levels of states government. how can you assure voter you have the experience to run an enterprise with more than 8,000 employees. ms. charlestin: i am an expert at finding experts. i would bring on board experts and folks who represent all of vermont, who can help us make decisions so that we can be in the best place, work with legislators, work alongside to make our state great so i would use my power to do that. yes, i've been on the select board. i ran two successful campaigns and yes, that doesn't seem like a lot and the way i got here was

by finding experts and that's what i'm really good at. identifying those good people to help us get from. >> thank you. governor scott, only one other governor of vermont, dean, has won five terms. many other states barred governors from serving more than 80's consecutive years. why do you feel that the same person, you, should remain governor for so long? gov. scott: there's just too much work left to do. i struggled with this decision to run another term but when i got into thissics i want to leave vice president in better shape than what i found it and i can't say this at this point after the last six years. the first few years, things weren't going exactly as i wanted but at least we're reducing some of the burdensen on vermonters and the last two

years has gone in the opposite direction. it's helped hurt the low and middle-income vermonters. so i just feel as though somebody has to step up and i wasn't seeing a whole lot of -- i didn't have a lot of faith in who was going to run next at this point in time so i just thought we need some consistency, continuity and we need more balance in the legislature in order to get what we need. i want to go back to one more thing in terms of the education funding and i don't mind changing the formula at all but if programs continue to spend $22.4 billion or more, what difference does does it make what pocket it comes out of? and as far as the people with wealth in vermont, we have 3,500

people with incomes over 300,000. and 1,000 with incomes over a million. so just keep that in minds when we talk about taxing the rich at this point because we don't have that many rich. >> a quick follow-up for you, governor. if you do win re-election this fall, would that be it or would you will consider running for another term? gov. scott: one step at a time, sarah. is i haven't been successful yet. so one election at a time. >> thank you, back to you, neil. you're muted. >> thank you. sorry about that. -- at least 24,000 new housing

units over the next two to four years. in 2022 just 2,300 new homes were permitted. that's less that be half of what is needed annually to reach the target. how would up -- as governor, miss charlestin? you have 90 seconds. ms. charlestin: my administration would work with municipalities to revise zoning laws. a lot of it is, yes, we needs to invest with money but there are regulatory barriers that that won't allow new folks to come in and really build new construction so my administration would focus on that. not only in the urban areas but also in rural areas as well. >> thank you. governor scott, how would you secure at least 24,000 new housing units over the next five years? gov. scott: i wish esther had

done legislature last year because we needs new regulatory reform. passed by the legislature, the conservation bill and they put the title as a housing bill and it just didn't go anywhere near far enough and as you said, we're going to needs a number of $24,000 to 36,000 new homes by 2029 and we need more incentives for developers. reneed regulatory reform, both on the state and local level. and it can't be for just two years. that's not long enough. we need more consistent city than that and we can invest in more of our involvement housing improvement program that we developed. it's been incredibly successful and we can do more with

manufactured homes and so forth and we're doing a lot of that right now but there's more opportunity there. some of our money that goes to the e.c.b., housing cons ration corps, they're spending $450,000 to $650,000 per unit and that's not affordable housing so we needs to look in another direction. the mobile homes, as i said. we have a program now where we can get people into ownership positions for less than $100,000. >> thank you, governor. vermont legislators make about $15,000 a year even though their work five days a week for at least four months of the year. governor scott, you introduced a

bill that would have raiseeds legislature pay. if not passed, how do you plan to improve that? gov. scott: it wasn't just more pay. it was paying them over the summer, working on mondays, health care, all kinds of things. they want to turn it into a situation where it's a full-time legislature like massachusetts and that's the last thing we needs here in this state. i agree with more pay but i've said repeatedly -- in fact, i went and testified on this when i was a senator. we said what we need is a shorter session and we need a contract. work on a contract that gives you more money. figure out the length of the session. 90 calendar days, that's it,

you're done. there are some states that meet every other year. some have 90, 120 tays, whatever it is. we could do this and pay more money and save money by doing so. >> does that mean you would support a clean bill with a pay raise? >> a pay raise with a shorter session. shortened session, a contract amount for that. once you hit the cap, the ends of that session, you don't.net paid anymore so it's an insent active to get done. if you get done early, in >> thank you, governor. ms. charlestin, would you have signed to raise lawmaker pay? ms. charlestin: i would have definitely signed it. the fact that they get paid

$50,000 and have no health care, i think about equity. who gets to be a legislator? folks who are either wrist direct -- retired or who can make their sacrifice. it limits to can participate in our democracy and that is unacceptable to me. >> would you support a shortened legislative session along with higher pay? ms. charlestin: no, in the time that they have i feel like they have so much going on and they are so busy, they don't feel like they have enough time. i have done emerge, i have a lot of sisters in the legislature who worked through the summer to get ready for the year every at no, i would not go for shorter time. >> thank you. according to the council on state governments, vermont pays its governor moore than all but four other states despite being among the smallest. would you support a given at oriole pay cut? gov. scott: i'm not in it for the money. and i'm not the one who set the

rate, so if they wanted to do something with that, that is fine. but again, i just go back, they are so busy, they don't always work as hard as they do in the first part of the session as they did in the last. there were about 100 bills passed and the last week or so. they can get the work done if they set their mind to it. >> thank you, governor. ms. charlestin, would you support a gubernatorial pay cut? ms. charlestin: yes. so legislators get paid more, i would support it absolutely. and governor, i know you don't have to worry about it because i believe you have $1.4 million which is comfortable, but not a lot of people are in that place. gov. scott: if you could pointed out to me, i would appreciate it. ms. charlestin: we should have

coffee, let's talk after. >> thank you both. >> thanks, neal. health insurance premiums in vermont have increased significantly the last eight years, up 10% to 20% over each of the last three years. a small percentage of vermonters are uninsured. around 40% are underinsured. meaning we cannot afford to use the insurance we do have thanks to high co-pays and deductibles. there have been no significant attempts at reforming our health care system over that period of time. do you intend to do anything in the next two years to address this problem and are you willing to consider universal primary care? ms. charlestin, i will post this to you first, you have 90 seconds. ms. charlestin: yes, i do support universal primary care.

that is the dream and that is something my administration would work toward. i know people are feeling the burden. families, businesses, schools, everybody is. getting a solution would be really important. >> governor scott, what would you do to solve this problem and would you consider universal primary care? gov. scott: universal primary care is not going to solve this fiscal crisis we have. it is not free. it is still a bill that has to be paid. the problem we face in vermont are demographics. and when you look at the statistics, we have lost 14,000 of our youth 18 and under since 2010 through 2022. we have lost 28,000 in the age

group. we have gained almost 50,000 over the age of 55 and i'm one of them. we tend to as we age, we tend to use more services when we need more health care. the problem is what we typically have a say younger, healthier population that pays the premiums in order to help out and don't use the services and pay the premiums. we have lost that, so we need to attract more people to vermont to make it more affordable in other ways as well. the problem we face is similar for our education system that we have. we are in a bad position in terms of the demographics. we need to work on this.

>> a quick follow-up for the both of you. many of the states rural hospitals must undergo major structural changes to continue to be sustainable. you have 30 seconds, ms. charlestin. ms. charlestin: i just wanted to say youth does not equal health, there are a lot of young people that still need services as well. those who have invisible disabilities that you can't see. youth does not equal health. i wanted to name that. can you repeat the question? >> absolutely. does vermont need 14 community hospitals and should they be offering fewer services? ms. charlestin: i believe we do

need those hospitals. driving an hour driving an hour to get basic services doesn't serve everybody. we need to consider those who have and have not we need to think about first. >> does vermont need 14 community hospitals. gov. scott: yes, the study they did was myopic in some respects. those hospitals can they do the same thing for everyone, some are critical for different regions.

it is key to solving those problems that they can't attract to people. housing is an area they recommended that be focused on. i hope the legislature will finally act on this. >> the city of burlington is planning to open an overdose prevention center open to a safe injection site. what role if any will your administration play in this process and what will you do to keep vermonters safe from overdoses? gov. scott: again, the good news is we are seeing a decline at this point in overdose deaths. i know one death is still too many, but we are seeing a decline.

i think prevention is key, that is why i oppose safe injection sites. if there was an unlimited amount of money, that would be one thing, but we have to be careful about the monte -- money we spends within fiscal constraints. i would much rather put that money into prevention and treatment and recovery than to set up a safe injection site, just to experiment with that. the bottom line is we follow the health department and they will do its due diligence to assist in doing what ever the law says we have to do. >> ms. charlestin, do you support overdose prevention centers and do you think there should be more of them around the state? ms. charlestin: i do believe we should have more around the state. i believe yes prevention is key and that is not where we are. have you walked the streets of burlington? or even middle barry? i love middlebury.

but we have folks who are suffering right now and what are we doing about it? how do we support them now is the question? to do it with people first harm reduction approach would be the way i would move forward. >> thank you, back to you, neal. >> thank you both. rural vermonters seem to be rotting from the inside out with no future for youth or young families. for mott is only a nice place for rich out of stators. what will you do to create more jobs for young people and more affordable housing? ms. charlestin, we start with you. ms. charlestin: i believe in trade schools, so not everybody can afford college, so making sure young people have options to have successful careers outside of college.

so making sure that is strong, making sure our state schools have the financial aid they need so students do want to go to college. student loans are still calling my name, but we will let the president do that. making sure they have options so they can stay in vermont because we need our people to stay. people who have been here for generations and people who moved here yesterday. all vermonters working hard. but it breaks my heart to hear about the rural communities, yes. >> thank you. governor scott, what would you do to support young people in rural vermont? gov. scott: it is what we have been doing. focusing on the erosion of the rural communities is something that has been front and center for us. unfortunately the way our legislature is made up, it is by

population base. with rural representation, it is not as vibrant as it should be. we do have opportunities. trade school is part of the answer. we need more balance in the legislature. working for their constituents their political party. this is something that is critical to our state. you look at some of the communities, the highest per capita income in the state.

the highest per capita income. we can't forget them. there was a lot of opportunity. they want to grow and reinvent themselves, but we have to focus on areas that will work for them as well. >> thank you, governor. back to you. >> thank you. we will now return to candidate to candidate questions, same rules as before. ask a question, avoid speeches, 92nd responses. governor scott, you mask the first question this time around. gov. scott: i think you will agree there is too much polarization across america and seeing the other side is the enemy. my political mentor who we lost was a democrat. it is important to have relationships with those on the other side of the aisle.

i have a lot of friends on the other side of the aisle over the years who are still my friends. are there vermont republicans so you looked up to our respect that you stay in contact with and glean information from to try to make decisions? ms. charlestin: i do. and they are part of my community. so i'm not only in politics, but i also attend a church that has different folks from different walks of life. i have a range of people who support and to help me. i won't name them and put them on the spot, but i will say yes i have a village if that is what you are asking. >> governor, do you have any follow-up questions?

now it is your turn to pose a question to governor scott. ms. charlestin: so, your administration has failed to maintain the i.t. system at dcf, which is harming children, workers, and leaving vermont in eligible for federal funds, this has foot foster children at risk, hindered dcf, impaired services for justice involved youth. and blocked access to additional federal resources. what will you do differently if elected again? so this won't be a problem. gov. scott: are you talking about integrated eligibility? is that when you are talking about? ms. charlestin: this system that is outdated.

gov. scott: income eligibility program that was put into place long before me, it has been struggling. one of the proudest moments has been to establish an agency of digital services. we didn't have one before, it was like the wild west out there, programs being developed by not interacting with each other, every agency doing their own thing. nobody was working together. we establish that my first year in office and we named a secretary of digital services as a result. denise is top-notch. working on that issue. among many others.

we have been able to get the legislature. the labor department and growing that and rebuilding that ancient program. the evolution has been dramatic. we are going to have to try to finish it somehow, someway, or pull the plug on it. >> ms. charlestin, do you have a follow-up question for the governor? ms. charlestin: yes, with technology changing so fast, i think about eight years ago when you started and where technology is today, it seems that this is urgent. i just want to say i hope it is a top priority. gov. scott: again, you have probably heard that the motor vehicle system was a 50-year-old program. the labor employment department was a 50-year-old legacy system

as well. they were as high a priority or maybe more than these services. they are all priorities and cybersecurity is so important these days and protecting ourselves is something we have to work on increasing every single day. we are attacked every single day by some country. >> thank you both. >> final segment tonight before the closing statements will be a lightning round. each of you will have to answer these questions, but we ask that you do so in as few words as possible. the first question, is vermont better off now than it was eight years ago? we will start with you, governor scott. gov. scott: as i said, the

answer is no, we are moving in the wrong direction. we need to reverse course and start replicating some of the things we did in the first six years. >> thank you. ms. charlestin, is vermont better off now than eight years ago? ms. charlestin: no, property taxes are high. doubling. health care, housing, folks can find rentals, can't even find housing. so no we are not. >> what have you done personally within your household to improve the environment? ms. charlestin, we will start with you. ms. charlestin: composting! i'm going to give a shout out to middlebury college that taught me that when i moved to the state of vermont and i learned you are supposed to compost. but it wasn't a habit of mine. so grateful for that introduction.

>> governor scott? gov. scott: preservation, efficient heating system, solar panels, turning the heat down to 58 degrees. i believe mime the first and i don't know if i'm the only governor to ride around an electric vehicle everyday. >> thank you. a little tighter answers could be helpful. keep that in mind. do you support a higher marginal income tax rate on vermonters who earn more than five hundred thousand dollars a year? governor scott. gov. scott: again, i don't mind looking at it, but i'm not ready to commit to raising those taxes. >> and you, ms. charlestin? ms. charlestin: yes. >> the most concise answer we've got so far, thanks. should vermont requires state

employees to work from the office most of the week? ms. charlestin: no, covid taught us that we are in a time of working from home and people get just as much done, so giving them that flexibility, knowing you have options is helpful. >> governor scott. gov. scott: we are finding it doesn't work for everyone, it works for some. the cohesiveness of the teams that need to work together. >> thank you. have you personally utilized vermont's legal cannabis market? gov. scott: no. >> ms. charlestin? ms. charlestin: no. >> should those who are not hunters or trappers have more representation on the state fish and wildlife board? ms. charlestin: yes.

>> governor scott? gov. scott: i don't think that should be a litmus test, whether you hunt or not, i think it be finding good people who serve. >> should for mont build a women's prison? gov. scott: yes. >> ms. charlestin? ms. charlestin: yes, with the way our current one is, it is unacceptable. >> two is your political role model? ms. charlestin: stacey abrams! she was here in vermont earlier this weekend and i got the opportunity earlier this weekend. >> governor scott? gov. scott: i've had many, but i would have to say dickman as a. >> thank you. who are you voting for as president? gov. scott: not donald trump. i haven't made up my mind who i'm voting for. i voted for biden. i haven't made up my mind to them voting for this time but it won't be donald trump.

>> thank you. ms. charlestin? ms. charlestin: kamala harris! it is her year. [laughter] >> all right. what is your favorite spot in vermont? ms. charlestin: hm, i think it is called cookies and cream. thank you. you got me. cookie love. >> governor scott? gov. scott: sounds like you have been there. >> once or twice. gov. scott: i would say the bragg farm. >> all right, thank you both so much, i will turn it back to sarah. >> we should have asked you for your favorite swimming holes. we could have gotten some secret tips. we will now offer each of you an opportunity to make brief closing statements, you will have 60 seconds. ms. charlestin, you are up first. ms. charlestin: the question

that was asked earlier, is vermont in a better place than it was eight years ago? when i think of property taxes, health care, housing, affordability, the answer is clear and it is no. after eight years it is clear that vermont needs a new direction. and one that truly works for all of us, not just those at the top, but also the middle and low income, everybody. and i believe in the candidate for you. so check me out. estherforvermont.com. >> governor scott? gov. scott: since i have been governor i have been working to make vermont more affordable. we are also making investments in housing, public safety, mental health, crime mitigation and more. the approach over the last three years as i've stated many times, the super majority in the legislature has had other ideas. passing property tax increase,

payroll tax, 20% dmv hike, plans to raise your home heating costs and more. it seems to be insatiable. if you want to make vermont more affordable, then i need your help. i need you to send more common sense candidates to the legislature who will actually work with me, meeting me in the middle to make vermont even a better place for all of us and for you especially. so thanks very much for having us on tonight. >> thank you. neal will wrap things up. >> thank you. that will conclude vtdigger's 2024 gubernatorial debate. we hope you will join us for the next edition of the debate series monday, october 21 at 6:00 p.m. hosting vermont's leading candidates for the u.s. house. find our full debate schedule at vtdigger.org. while you are there, make sure to check out our election guide

to learn more about how to vote and who is running for office. all of this is made possible with the support of our contributors. please consider making a donation tonight by visiting vtdigger.org/donate. and finally, i would like to thank the two candidates who joined us tonight, esther charlestin and phil scott, and those who made this possible, including sarah moorhouse, charles robinson, natalie williams, taylor haynes, and sky bars. thank youthe race is rated as a.

>> things like school districts. >> each candidates will have 90 seconds were opening statements, one minute to answer questions

with a 32nd rebuttal and 90 seconds for closing statements. wxyz's live debate starts right now. >> now live from the seven news detroit studios this is michigan's u.s. senate debate. >> good evening and welcome to michigan's u.s. senate debate hosted by wxyz. it is one-hour dedicated to getting voters the answers they truly deserve. thank you so much for tuning in. i am carolyn clifford. >> i'm alicia smith. >> on channel seven editorial director chuck stokes. candidates thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. a few days ago we met with two of your representatives who -- for what you call a virtual towing cost to determine who would get the opening statement, the closing statement in what order and who would get the first question.

ms. slotkin you have the right to open up the first question. mr. rogers at the end of the debate you will have the closing statement in the last word in the debate. we -- you will also go first when it comes to time for questions. your opening statement per you have 90 seconds. >> thank you for the whole team for being here. i'm a third-generation michigander and i represent michigan's seventh district in the u.s. congress right now. my life began in service at 911. i happen to be in new york city on my second day at school. 9/11 happened. i got recruited by the cia, did three tours in iraq alongside the military and came home and worked for two presidents. one democrat and one republican proudly. i believe service should be nonpartisan. at the end of the day i'm running for senate because i believe in my bones we need a strong and growing middle class which means jobs with dignity

and making sure we can attack the costs that are eating a hole in your pocket. i think it's part of the democratic process to just talk about the differences between us and we have a lot of differences. on the role of the middle class, bringing manufacturing back from china, on protecting our rights and our democracy. the good news is we both have records. mr. rogers was an politician for 20 years so we don't have to guess about what we've done or will do because we had the opportunity to be in the seats and cast important votes preyed i hope we can talk about policy issues today and not throw insults because of the end of the day it's about trust. who do you trust to listen to you, learn and fight on your behalf in washington. thank you for having me and i look forward to the debate. >> thank you for the opening statement. mr. rogers it is time for your opening statement. >> thank you channel seven, the panelists were being here and

elissa for taking the time as well. this is the most important question we will ask during this campaign. are you better off than you were four years ago. i've traveled the state and talked to a lot of people. the simple answer is absolutely not. i talked to a mom in grand rapids, a mother of four, she works part-time, her husband works full-time at a small factory shop. in tears she described how she had to go in the last two or three days of the month to a food pantry to feed her four children. this is not the only time we have heard that story unfortunately across the state. the policies out of washington dc have been crushing to our families. the fact that i talked to a young police officer whose stepdaughter was killed by an accidental overdose of sentinel with a cigarette that was laced with it. because of a wide open border

that is allowing in criminals and cartels to run the show. 10 million illegals coming to the united states. i talked to autoworkers across the state, people who are affiliated with autoworkers. their number one concern, ev mandates are killing their future and jobs. we need somebody who can go back and that busy on the very first day to bring results on grocery prices, on the border, on killing eve e mandates. i look forward to having your vote and a discussion here this evening. >> thank you for your opening statements. mr. rogers do have the first question and it is about the economy. the economy continues to be a top concern for voters especially right here in michigan. in fact about eight in 10 registered voters, that is 81% say the economy will be very important to their vote in this election. people are struggling as you know to pay for groceries,

childcare, gas and housing. how would your specific policies help working families here in michigan? >> some really important things we have to do quickly. this is why think you want to send someone with experience to get busy the first week. we know trillions and trillions of dollars of spending by the biden harris administration, 100% supported by my opponent has driven up grocery prices, gas prices, energy prices. your housing prices have gone up. we must get control of the outrageous and wasteful spending in washington. we have to make ourselves energy independent. all of those votes that tried to steer us away from having our own destiny decided by being energy independent is wrong and what it's done is raise your prices at the pump, your prices at the end of the month. all of that needs to be corrected. you have to do a few things. you have to undo the regulation

$1.6 trillion of regulation. new regulation in the last four years and you have to make sure we curtail spending to get our economy back on track. >> thank you mr. rock jurors. ms. slotkin you have the same question. how would your specific policies help working families in michigan. >> is the number one issue i hear about inflation and cost of living you can go to the grocery store gas station anywhere without someone pulling you aside and talking about how they are making choices around what they buy and save. for me if there was a silver bullet that could have been fired to solve inflation it would have been fired. i work on three things we have to bring supply chain's home in manufacturing back home to the united states. good paying jobs, benefits so we can afford more of what we want to buy. we have to attack the cost that are major parts of our budget. health care care, prescription drugs, child think of housing

and how much people pay, we have to attack those costs. lastly you have to save more of what you earn, that means a tax policy that supports the middle class, that promotes a strong middle class. these are three specific things i believe would help with inflation. >> thank you congresswoman preview of 30 minutes or. >> this is where my opponent and i differ most definitely. voting for increased taxes on the middle class does not help talking about supply chain but doing nothing about it. and then lastly when you talk about budgets in the u.s. government, voting for every big spending bill that came down the pike in support 100% of the biden harris administration has cost us all of these cost and our groceries, gasoline and housing prices. >> ms. slotkin's you now have 30 seconds for rebuttal. >> this is where i said it would

be important we understand and think truth about our records. mr. rogers has voted against middle-class tax cuts over and over again. 80's constant. to the idea that somehow he cares about the middle class, his voter record says the opposite. the most important thing is to be honest about the conversation and say we have a problem we know we need to deal with it, attack the biggest problem, people's budgets, prescriptive drugs and housing that's what people expect or washington. >> the second topic tonight, ev's in manufacturing. i will address this question to you first. in our competition with china, are we investing too much in battery plants and ev's that a majority of consumers are not willing to purchase yet? you have 60 seconds. >> i do not care what kind of car you want to drive. i do not drive on and ev. i live in a dirt road on a farm that's not likely my future.

the fundamental question is who'd we want to make that next generation of vehicles you better believe i want that to be michigan and not china. right now everyone knows china is eating our lunch on these vehicles. go to europe, they have 30% market share. american knows that we haven't always gotten it right and it comes to seeing the next generation of vehicles. in michigan in the 70's and 80's we did not think anyone would drive anything but a big vehicle. very fuel-efficient vehicles and then the japanese came in and ate our lunch. the koreans came in and ate our lunch. by the way, it also means saving auto jobs. it make sure in the heart of the district in lansing we save the 700 jobs that are at that plant because we are upgrading it. i want to build them. >> i will repeat the question for you mr. rogers. are we investing too much in battery plants and ev's that a

majority of consumers are not willing to purchase yet. >> thank you. this is really important. what a candidate says and what they do in office for the last five years is really important. voted for the ev mandate at least three times. as soon about four weeks ago doubled down on her position on ev mandates. i am telling you it is ruining our car industry. 5000 auto dealers wrote an open letter to the biden administration and said you are killing the car business, please stop with eeev mandates. if you think about what's happening, they mandated you have to drive that car and my opponent signs and nda that allows the chinese battery company to go -- outside of goshen to facilitate her votes on ev mandates. same with the $500 million rebuild of the gm factory. you're promoting chinese technology in america.

it is wrong, let's go to hybrids. people are buying them and you don't have to mandate the people drive them. >> 32nd rebuttal, miss slotkin. rep. slotkin: there is no ev mandate. my position of my opponent, says he cares about american manufacturing but doesn't want to compete against china. for those of us in michigan during covid, we learned our lesson that we outsourced too far to china. our supply chains. we made the decision to bring them back. i want that manufacturing here. i don't care what you drive. i want to build them. mr. rogers: nothing has happened since my opponent has been in office on bringing manufacturing back to the united states. she has lost 29,000 manufacturing jobs since she has been in office. 29,000. the ev mandates, they are going to cost, according to the ford ceo, about 400,000 manufacturing

jobs in the state of michigan that will go away with ev mandates. that is unacceptable. you don't have to do it. we can build hybrid cars in america and sell cars that people want to buy. >> let's turn our attention to foreign affairs, particularly international conflicts. the u.s. has spent nearly $18 billion on military aid to israel since the october 7 attacks. about $60 billion in military assistance to ukraine since russia's invasion. the united states senator, as elected, will you authorize more budget spending on two international conflicts where there is no cease-fire and no clear resolution in sight? esther rogers? mr. rogers: let's start with israel. we just passed that anniversary of the most brutal terror attack ever. they were robbing people,

kidnapping them out of their homes, brutally murdering them and their children in front of their families. then they drove these people into tunnels in gaza. you cannot have a cease-fire until we get the hostages back, pure and simple. then you can have a conversation of what comes next. hamas does not want that. they want to continue to fight in israel. and we have to pivot to the real problem in the middle east, which is iran. iran is funding hamas. they are training them, they are giving them weapons. the same with hezbollah in the north. they are funding them, giving them weapons. same with the houthis, they're giving them weapons, training, and even what ships to shoot. >> will you authorize more spending? yes or no? mr. rogers: i would make sure we

support israel, our great ally in the region, to support themselves and i would do a lease program with ukraine. >> same question to you. rep. slotkin: it is hard to understate how these conflicts have been roiling michigan. whether it is israel or gaza or what is going on in ukraine, we have a large polish american community watching this closely. these issues have come home. for me, i think it's important to have a strong american leadership role in the world. i work for democrats, for republicans, but the one thing that was consistent was the idea that there should be a strong american leadership in the world. what is going on in israel now is deeply painful. we need a negotiated cease-fire where hostages come home. we go to a different phase of the conflict, iran has complicated that by firing ballistic missiles, some of them hypersonic, at israel. putin invaded, the first

democratic state to be invaded since world war ii. i believe we have a responsibility to defend the democracies and arm the ukrainian so that they can push back on putin. >> to be clear, you are comfortable with the spending? rep. slotkin: i am comfortable with the spending and the strong leadership role in the world. mr. rogers: probably the biggest difference between my opponent and i, she is the architect of the nuclear iran nuclear deal. supported the fact that we released iranian oil into the market, gave them billions and billions of dollars, which is bad judgment, after bad judgment, after bad judgment. it was all on the heels of afghanistan, which was an embarrassment for the united states, which my opponent supported. if you look at the bad decisions, bad decisions, now we are engulfed in the middle east in a way that will be hard to extract ourselves, and still show engagement in the world but not entanglement in the world. rep. slotkin: there is one of us on the stage that has sat in a war zone and taken iranian

rockets and mortars, who have gone on dangerous convoys, dodging iranian iuds. one of us has studied the roles that they played in facilitating money and weapons to their proxies, to the terrorist groups around the region. i take a backseat to no one on how hawkish we will be on iraq. if they want to talk about long employments in the middle east, mr. rogers knows all about that. he authorize the war on iraq. i don't want to get into another 20-year war in the middle east. >> which is what we are doing now. >> the next question is for you, mrs. slotkin. it is about abortion. abortion and reproductive rights remain a hot button issue post-roe. how will you address this in a way that supports individual rights and differing viewpoints? rep. slotkin: this is very clear for me. i didn't support overturning roe. codifying roe v. wade came in

front of the u.s. senate, i would vote for it. i voted for proposition three in michigan in 2022. for me, it is crystal clear. mr. rogers has voted for every bill, every band, every restriction on abortion that came in front of him for 20 years. he had a 100% voting record with his party and never broke wants. now he will come out because he put his finger in the wind saying i need to win an election, so he has changed his position completely and wants you to believe that he will be a protector of women in the u.s. senate. i can't tell you how strongly i believe that you have people tell you who they are when they vote. he has shown us who he is. don't trust him on this issue. >> mr. rogers, how do you plan to address this topic in a way that respects individual rights and differing viewpoints? mr. rogers: this is the most heart wrenching decision that a

woman would ever have to make. i think it is best made with her family, with her partner, with her faith, with her doctor, where she lives. michigan came together in consensus. i know that my opponent wants to make this as divisive as humanly possible, and i get that. it's unfortunate. misrepresented so many of my positions on this issue. i will tell you this, the state of michigan and the people of michigan went to the polls and voted. they voted to make abortion legal, and they put it part of their constitution. our constitution. i won't do anything when i go back to the united states senate to undo the votes of the people, their position, their concession, their compassion when it comes to this issue. >> thank you so much, mr. rogers. ms. slotkin, you have 30 seconds for a rebuttal. rep. slotkin: mr. rogers voted 56 times for every bill, ban,

and restriction on abortion that came in front of him. that is not misrepresenting. i am so sick of people who don't understand women's health, who don't understand reproductive rights, who don't understand that this is about the rights of our grandchildren having the same rights as their grandmother. saying one thing and doing another. michiganders do not believe him. he will not protect you. >> you have the final 30 seconds for rebuttal. mr. rogers: it is unfortunate she is taking the stone on something so completely untrue. i've stated my position clearly. if you care about all women, this is probably a great time to talk about title ix where my opponent said i'm not protecting girls in sports, and i'm not protecting girls by allowing men into locker rooms. both of which she voted for. if you want to protect women, there are other ways to do it. i think that is an outlier in

this particular debate and it doesn't put you on team normal. >> we have to leave it there. you have the next question. >> mr. rogers first. immigration has been another hot button issue in this election. it is complex. i will ask the next question with two parts in mind. what policies would you propose to one, enhance border security and, two, improve the legal immigration system? mr. rogers: it is hard to do in a minute, but the first thing we have to do is reinforce the remain in mexico. it has to happen. you have to take away the ability of people in other countries to fill out an app and come into the country. we are finding that 10 million persons coming across the border because of a wide open border. unfortunately my opponent supported all of it. we have criminals in fentanyl and human trafficking at unprecedented numbers coming across the southern border. you can see the problems

everywhere. the sheriff of oakland county was talking about another series of raids by illegal immigrants last night in oakland county. this is a problem that we have to deal with. we do remain in mexico. you can't have a discussion about what legal immigration and reform looks like until we secure our border and protect our citizens and make it easier for people who are here already trying to go through the system legally to get into the country. >> 60 seconds for mrs. slotkin on that. how would you enhance border security and how would you improve the legal immigration system? rep. slotkin: as a cia officer and pentagon official i spent my life redacting the homeland. for me this was easy. i have done more border legislation than any member of congress, democrat or republican, in michigan because no one is proud of what is going on at the southern border. what is going on is a symptom of a broken immigration system that is not working for anyone.

not for the people at the border, not for immigrants, not for businesses who need labor, not anybody. for me, it is every country in the world has the right to know who is coming and its borders. we have to do more to secure it. we had a deal on the table. the sad thing is we were actually doing what most michiganders want. democrats and republicans in the senate were sitting together, conservative members, bro members, and they were hammering out a compromise on the border. mr. rogers and his allies came out against it. they would rather have immigration and border as a political issue than actually do the real work and get things done. >> mr. rogers, 30 seconds to underscore the policies that you proposed for this. mr. rogers: quickly, the bill that my opponent talks about was voted down in a bipartisan way because it was a terrible bill. 2 million illegal immigrants guaranteed to come across the border every year. that's nonsense.

that is a nonstarter. if you look at all of the things that they say, we will work on it, we will send a letter, none of that worked. if you talk to the mothers or families of people who had children raped in this country by illegal immigrants, you would know how serious this issue is, and how office gating your position isn't going to get it done. -- obfuscating your position isn't going to get it done. rep. slotkin: if it was such a bad deal how come the people who work here in detroit who actually work on the border endorsed it? do you know better than they do about how to secure a border? that to me is what democrats and republicans are supposed to be doing. hammering it out, taking out the press and twitter and hammering out a compromise. that is what americans expect of their leaders and we were doing it. mr. rogers and his allies said this is too good of an issue to use. if i was back at the pentagon where i used to work and i

looked at a problem and i said it was really dangerous but i do want to do anything about it for political reasons, i would be fired. >> this next question touches home for many americans and many people right here in the state of michigan. the u.s. surgeon general has declared gun violence a public health issue. considering current gun death rates, mass shootings, and two recent presidential candidate assassination attempt -- thankfully, they were not successful -- do you believe america needs stricter gun laws? yes or no and why. rep. slotkin: yes. for me, i grew up in michigan. i grew up with guns. i have only positive memories of my dad teaching me how to shoot skeet and target practice with my brothers. it is part of our culture for many michiganders. i carried a clock -- eight glock in a war zone.

the idea we can't go after the number one killer in america is broken. i was representing this district where we had two school shootings in my district. oxford high school and michigan state university. there has been nothing worse, in my experience, then explaining ptsd to a 14-year-old who all he did was sit in his social studies class while one of his fellow students shot up innocent children. to me, we have to, as democrats and republicans, gun owners and non-gunowners, go after the number one killer of children in our communities and our schools, by suicide, by accident. it is the responsibility of leaders to protect children. >> same question. do we need stricter gun control laws to curb the violence in our society? mr. rogers: we need to enforce the gun laws that we have. we also need to deal with middle health issues that are happening in our schools. this generation of americans is

under mental duress and distress like i have never seen before. it means that we will have to come together on how we get ahead of these problems. banning guns is not going to do it. the two shootings that happened in michigan were handguns. everyone talks about the other kind of guns. we need to get at the root of the problem which is mental health. if we don't tackle the mental health issue, we will be in trouble. i will tell you the difference between where my opponent is on this. just cut 93% of all school resource funds and mental health funds, including oxford, by the way, where the shooting happened. this is unacceptable. there are other ways to do it. i did it my personal life when i was in the private sector trying to get dogs into schools so that they could be a deterrent to shootings happening in schools. there are things we can do. the notion that something your chest isn't going to get it done.

-- thumping door chest isn't going to get it done. >> your rebuttal? rep. slotkin: all you need to know is gun violence is the number one killer of children under 21 in our country. are you going to do something about it or not? my opponent doesn't want to do anything about it. why? because he has a 100% rating with the gun lobby and they give him campaign donations. it's really easy to understand why politicians in the face of murder children do not do anything. they don't do it because they receive campaign donations and they are scared. they are scared because they do not want to lose their election, and it's terrible. mr. rogers: with all that passion you would have thought my opponent would have introduced a series of bills in the u.s. congress. she did not. i am in law enforcement for a big chunk of my life. i was an fbi agent, i worked the

streets, everything from gun violations, human trafficking, drug cases, organized crime cases, and listen, i understand what victims are in the way we get at this problem. the way we do it is constructive dialogue with these schools, with mental health, and with smart precautions that save kids. not the huffing and puffing that you hear here and the name-calling. >> let's talk about education. mr. rogers, this is for you first. michigan's education system ranks 41st in the latest best states ranking. we underperformed in key areas like reading. how would you improve michigan's k-12 education system to ensure that all students, regardless of their zip code, have access to high-quality learning that prepares them for the future? you have 60 seconds for this question. mr. rogers: you could take an hour on this particular issue.

my wife and i have been very engaged in literacy efforts here in the state of michigan and elsewhere around the country. this, to me, may be the biggest civil rights issue of our generation. our kids are not learning how to read. in michigan, 39% of third graders could read at grade level. 39%. if you do not read in the fourth grade by the fourth grade you have a 70% chance of going to prison or being on welfare. this is so unacceptable. the good news is there are great ways that we can get around it. we support reading reclamation programs where they go into the school, they take these kids out for an hour a day for intensive tutoring. this is the secret sauce. they do it with phonics and get kids reading at grade level. the amazing progress that we could make if we invest in these reading reclamation programs to get kids reading again would change america. forbes said $1.7 trillion to our

economy if we have reading at the 12 grade by the 12th grade. >> how would you improve michigan's k-12 education system to ensure all students regardless of their zip code have access to high-quality learning that prepares them for the future? rep. slotkin: obviously, it is the responsibility of any leader to make sure the next generation gets educated. everyone has equal access to education no matter where you live, what community you are from, and it prepares you for the jobs of the future. that is the responsibility of any society. to me, the federal government is responsible for a lot of funding to make sure that we get our schools fully funded. we have a problem with that in michigan. we have a problem with how much we pay our teachers. they are making choices to leave teaching. there are places in macomb county where they have struggled to staff schools five days a week even after covid because they don't have enough staff. we have a generational problem with our education system. for me, i am a believer in public education. mr. rogers and i may differ on

this. one of his biggest supporters is betsy devos who is very clear about her theory of education. she literally wants to defund public schools. she was our secretary of education but now wants to get rid of the secretary of education position. for me, i believe in strong public schools. >> thank you, congresswoman. a rebuttal. mr. rogers: i am the youngest of five boys. my dad was a shop teacher at a public school. all five of us went to a public school. my opponent went to an elite private school. it is an experience you have to have to understand the challenges of public schools in michigan. this is the other thing. my opponent likes to talk about everything other than what we are talking about. betsy devos, i'm not sure how that has anything to do with us trying to improve education for our kids. i will tell you this. in the last five years, she voted 100% -- >> your time is up. mr. rogers: she voted 100%

biden-harris, by the way. had to get that out. rep. slotkin: it is clear how betsy devos is connected to education. she was the secretary of education come the longest serving under donald trump, and she end every member of her family have donated to you for years. it would make sense that you adopt her approach to education, demonizing public schools and public school teachers. i don't believe in that. every kid in every corner of our state should have their access to education. >> let's turn our attention to health care and affordability. i will address you for this first question. research from the cdc showed the high cost of prescription drugs has had adult skit medication, put off refills, or take smaller doses. it is heartbreaking. there are those worried about

the bigger picture. rightly so. as health care costs continue to rise, many americans struggle to meet basic medical needs. what ideas would you propose or support in order to obtain an affordable health care system while maintaining high quality medical care? rep. slotkin: this one is particularly personal to me. i lost my mother in 2011 to ovarian cancer. when she died, she didn't have medical insurance. the same week we are finding out about her diagnosis is the same week and month that we are filling out the paperwork for her to declare bankruptcy. i believe in the united states of america all people deserve access to health care that they can afford and prescription drugs are way out of people's price ranges. i don't know if you have to imagine what i would do on this, i would have done it. we would vote have medicare negotiate drug prices. everyone understands cosco. you buy in bulk and you get a lower per unit price.

medicare was prohibited from negotiating drug costs, like cosco. people like mike rogers voted for it five times. voted for it five times. how is it possible to vote against medicare negotiation to bring down the price? for me, we start there and we had more and more drugs that we can negotiate and get cheaper prices. >> what ideas would you propose or support to obtain a affordable health care system while maintaining high quality medical care? mr. rogers: thank you for that. this is also personal for me. i was a cancer survivor at the age of 19. we were able to beat in and i went to the united states army and served as an officer, special agent with the fbi, congress, amazing. my father was also a cancer survivor, kidney cancer and had a rough go of it, but he beat it. he was, as my family would say, tougher than woodpecker wood to beat that thing. when we hear this rhetoric about if you don't do this, it is

this. the bill that they supported still has our prices, ozempic for example is $800 and in france it is $80. it means the united states is continuing to support the rest of the world when it comes to research, development, and cost of prescription drugs. i would go back, make sure that we do average sales price, including international, to bring their prices up and hours down. we shouldn't be paying for foreign governments' medical and medicine when it comes to prescription drugs. >> rebuttal. rep. slotkin: this is rich. this man voted five times against medicare negotiating drug prices. now he is upset that france pays less than us. he did that. upset that canada pays less than us? he did that. he voted five times. that is a matter of public record. google it. it is public information. the idea that someone who voted

against medicare negotiating is somehow now the champion of it, i have a bridge i want to sell you if you think that this guy is going to protect you. mr. rogers: look at the prices that have gone up in the last six years when my opponent was in office. not only have prescription drug prices and premiums, but premiums in health care. some notion that today she has the gall to stand before you and say, everything is wonderful on your prices, it is not. it is not because of the way they approach this. they did advantage foreign governments over u.s. providers and medicare. i put medicare prescription drug when i was in congress way back when as part of medicare. the first time it's ever happened. >> candidates, there are thousands of michiganders who are senior citizens watching the two of you debate. the questions that we got from them, this ranked pretty high on the list. according to the social security

board of trustees, the social security administration will be unable to pay scheduled benefits in full or on time starting in 2035, just a little over a decade from now, if there are no changes in the current system. if elected, what specific legislation will you offer to strengthen the system that serves as a financial safety net for millions of americans? mr. rogers? mr. rogers: to me, it is so important that we strengthen and protect social security going forward. again, my father and my mother, who are wonderful people, they didn't come from wealth, but they worked their entire lives, they counted on it. it was important to them to make sure that they didn't fall into poverty when they retired. it is the same with my in-laws, the same issue. they survived on social security and medicare. there is so much false

advertisement, candidly, on this. if we are going to solve social security we have to have a bipartisan commission that sits down and goes through the numbers and puts their party politics on the outside and worries about the seniors on the inside. my opponent had five years to do something and have done nothing. if you think about what is at risk, it's significant. you will hear a lot of nonsense, but i tell you, this is an important issue for the seniors and families and you shouldn't let them scare you into getting your vote. >> mrs. slotkin? rep. slotkin: the senior citizens of this state can know exactly what they are going to get with mike rogers. he voted to privatize or cut back social security and medicare over a dozen times. look at it. it is an open record. you can't deny that you voted for those things. you voted to increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67. you did that. that is not made up. you voted against seniors

allowing to negotiate drug prices through medicare. you did that. we don't have to guess what mike rogers will do. he has shown us who he is over and over and over again. why? why does someone say to themselves i will vote against allowing medicare to negotiate? i will vote to privatize social security and medicare? why do you do that? you have donors demanding that of you. you are getting campaign donations. it is pure, unadulterated greed. he takes over $1 million from the pharmaceutical industry. why are we surprised when he votes against medicare being able to negotiate drug prices? >> your opportunity. 30 seconds to answer some of the things i heard you under your breath saying, not true. mr. rogers: dishonest in this debate and you should be ashamed of yourself. this is may be the most important issue. i get you want to scare people, but think about the last five years. 30 years ago, a quote, i'm telling you what is happening

now, people are afraid for their future in this state. they can't afford groceries. their heating bill is up and they cannot afford it. you know who gave them all of that? my opponent in the last five years. you don't hear her talking about those successes. because it has been so harmful for our state and our seniors. i'm going back to washington and fix it. >> your rebuttal. rep. slotkin: he voted over a dozen times to privatize or cut medicare/social security. he voted to raise the retirement age. his quote, we need to rethink retirement. this is not trying to scare anyone other than to outline his record. i'm not throwing insults. just own your record, mike. you voted these things in your own time within your own free will. you had a choice. you sat in that job and you made that choice. >> i have the next question. it is to you, mrs. slotkin.

it is about climate change. climate change and energy independence are critical issues, especially with michigan experiencing more severe flooding, hurting so many communities. how do you plan to balance environment of protections, energy needs, and economic growth while addressing these increasing climate-related disasters? rep. slotkin: we have not been hit as bad as other places, but we have been seeing the changes happen in our state. farmers talk about the warmer winters. we had more flooding in our lake communities. in the years while mr. rogers was away we are doing with this. i had republicans and democrats talking about how we need to plan infrastructure for more storms, more severe storms. i believe that climate change is real and we need to do something about it. for me in, we know that we will need more energy. everyone has energy in their pockets with their phones. we have increased energy needs. i do and i believe what i was trying to do at the pentagon,

which is an all of the above approach. i want to invest in traditional sources, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, all of those things help us maintain our independence but increase the amount of energy we know we will need. we do that and at the same time make our climate cleaner. >> mr. rogers, how do you plan to balance environmental protection energy needs and economic growth while addressing these increasing climate-related disasters? mr. rogers: this is a huge, important issue and i'm glad my opponent has had an election year conversion to be for all of the above. the votes to stymie our ability to be energy independent has been pretty brutal for people in michigan. when you look at the cost increase, huge. more in gas at the pump, more in gas for their electric bill, and it is really having a devastating impact. i believe that we can get there if we are smart. we don't do the ev mandates because it sounds good.

we are jeopardizing 400,000 working people in this state. 400,000 people by these ev mandates. we shouldn't do that. we can't get there. you have to do modular nuclear reactors to try to get our electric read up to snuff. let the market decide and take us. hybrids we should build in the state of michigan. we should be proud of them. you don't have to plug it in, it get too down the road. if we can do all of these things we can get to a better climate. >> mrs. slotkin, 30 seconds for rebuttal. rep. slotkin: when we talk about climate change, every michigander on a bipartisan basis care's about our lakes and rivers. that is our heritage. it is in our blood. to me, there is nothing more important than protecting those great lakes. it is the responsibility of anyone elected. we have different records. we have different feelings about protecting the great lakes. for me, i think that it's the number one issue and it is something that we passed many pieces of legislation to do all

kinds of things for the great lakes, but it starts by understanding we have a change in climate and a responsibility to do something about it. >> you have the last 30 second rebuttal. mr. rogers: you can do both but not at the expense of people who are worried about their next meal. the policies that have been coming out of washington, d.c., where my opponent has voted 100% with biden and harris, have been devastating to our state and cost. you can protect the great lakes, you can have a better electric grid, you can produce hybrid cars that keep people employed in michigan, but you can't do it by big, heavy government mandates that are costing you money and costing your job. >> that will do it for climate. you have the next question. >> thank you, carolyn. mr. rogers, according to the education data initiative, 14% of michigan residents have student loan debt with the average amount being $35,790.

nationwide, only 18 other states and the district of columbia have higher college debt then the state of michigan. are you for or against forgiving student loan debt? how do you propose to address the rising cost of higher education? mr. rogers: this is a huge problem for all generations, but this generation particularly. here is what i believe. i don't believe that your neighbor should write you a check for your school debt, but i do believe that you could provide a service to the country of which we need to work it off. we have desperate need for school counselors. let's make sure that if you have that debt and you spent time in a public school during school counseling you get relief on your student debt. we have not recruited a military class for the army, navy, air force, marines in all four years, the last four years. that is a problem. there are ways that you can pay back your student debt.

go into the military. it is a magnificent thing. i served as an officer in the army. four generations of rogers served. my son, my wife's family water generations that served. it's a great way to give back. let's find a way to give back to your country and we can help you in that way. >> are you for or against forgiving student loan debt, and how do you propose to address the rising cost of higher education? rep. slotkin: for this generation and the generation before, people are living under a mountain of student debt. even at our great state institutions, 50 years ago the state was paying 75% of tuition and student 25%. now that has flipped. the student is paying 75% and the state is paying 25%. we should cap student loans at 2.5%. we have students taking out loans for 12% interest and they are leaving under that debt for the -- living under that debt for the rest of their lives. going to school is different

than building a deck on your house. it is an investment in society. capping student loans. actually we may agree. we should have a program in michigan where, if you agree to serve in one of the really important, much needed job professions, teaching, nursing, mental health professionals, fire, first responders, police, you should get tuition reduction or tuition free if you sign a commitment to stay in michigan and work in those career fields. it may be something that we agree on. >> you are against forgiving student loan debt? mr. rogers: how we forgive it i think is important. i agree with my opponent. i believe that service is important. we have gotten away from that, and i think that if you provide a need, a service for a need that we need in michigan, or around the country -- i think that this is absolutely the right way to get students to understand that you signed a contract, you have some obligation. some obligation could be a great service to your country, number

one. the other thing we have to do is stop raising prices for these kids so they can afford their student loan payments. >> i wish we had all night long to answer these questions. thank you for going with our time constraints. 30 seconds for you. you are for forgiving student loan debt? rep. slotkin: i am for 2.5% on all student loans. for me, i don't think doing debt relief all in one fail swoop for one group of young people solves the underlying problem. it doesn't help a michigan state student who is a freshman now. we have to do something about the debt. there is a bunch of different ways to do it and for me capping student loans at 2.5% is the way that i would propose. we need to do something on this issue, because this generation isn't facing the same even playing field that the last generations have had. >> thank you for your answer. carolyn? >> this hour has flown by. we are now to our final question of the night. it goes to you, mrs. slotkin. with rising partisan divide, the

spread of misinformation and growing incivility in political discourse, what specific steps will you take to encourage bipartisan cooperation, safeguard democracy, and promote respectful dialogue in congress and among your constituents? rep. slotkin: i think because i come from the national security world, really, you don't ask people how they vote. you work alongside them for 15 years and you have no idea because it doesn't matter. for me, civility, decency, respect between parties is a positive thing. we want two healthy parties that debate the role of government in our lives, how it should be. we know that we are going through a period of instability. for me, you have to start with our democracy. it's critical that every decent person supports the democracy that our founders believed in and set up. that is our birthright. i have a real problem with the misinformation and disinformation that is spread about our election.

for me, as someone who barricaded herself in her office on january 6, i know what it means when senior officials openly talk about misinformation and disinformation about our democracy. i think everyone has the responsibility to support free and fair elections and i will respect whoever wins the next round of elections. >> do you want me to repeat the question? mr. rogers: i think i got it. i served as chairman of the house intelligence committee and proved that you could be bipartisan and get big things done. it isn't easy to do. honestly, it took us a long time. but my vice chairman, i was the chairman as a republican and my vice chairman was a democrat. we ended up coming together, working hard, spending time line by line in a budget that is 78 billion dollars and cut 7.5 billion dollars at the height of the iraq and afghanistan war because we decided that it was more important that we work together than be partisan when it comes to national security. that takes leadership. it takes effort. it takes a lot of work.

it isn't just throwing a boat here and there, it is about digging in and getting it done. i think we can do this. and passionate believer in it. my wife tells me that my eternal optimism may be a genetic defect, but i tell you we can get back to this. what we have to do is go back and fix the problems happening to families in michigan. it is so important. >> you have 30 seconds for a rebuttal. rep. slotkin: the only way to fix our system and the polarization is if we start by reinforcing our democracy. what is really concerning to me is the 2014 mike rogers was happy to be bipartisan. the 2024 mike rogers a couple weeks ago said he is worried about "shenanigans" in our voting systems in southeast michigan. we know what that means. he sits next to mr. trump as he spreads misinformation. our democracy has to be sacred and i want the 2014 mike rogers back. >> thank you for that. chuck?

did i miss your rebuttal? mr. rogers: first of all, the reason 2014 mike rogers is absolutely here. here is what is different. your gas prices are up, your grocery prices are up, your energy prices are up, housing prices are up. people are afraid not only for their kids to buy a house, but if they can stay in their house. this is the most consequential election i've ever seen. the policies, 100% my opponent voted for all of the policies that gave us these bad outcomes, including ev mandates. all of that has to be fixed. we get that fixed, we will get along just fine. >> congresswoman, congressman, thank you for your answers to our questions. it is time for your closing statements going back to what i said at the top of the show. mrs. slotkin, you go first followed by mr. rogers. rep. slotkin: thank you,

moderators, appreciate the time. i will end where i started. at the end of the day, your vote is about who you trust more to come, to listen, to learn from you, and go fight for you in washington. we outlined really big differences between us. middle-class, bringing supply chains home, competing with china. they are big differences on substance and style. to me, there is no greater responsibility of an elected official than to represent all michiganders. i want to make a particular outreach to the republicans watching this debate. just like my dad, republican lifelong, who felt like the party had left him. for all of you wondering where you have a home, you always have an open door in my office and i will always listen based on the merits and substance of your argument. there is no monopoly on good ideas. i think that the only way we go forward is with decent republicans and decent democrats debating and push and pull in a

civil, decent way. at the end of the day, i think there are real differences on substance come on style, but also motivation. for me, as someone who served my entire life, who proudly worked for democrats and republicans, bush and obama, for me, this is about our country into doing what is right for the place that we love. mr. rogers, i fear, has different motivations. at the end of the day, i appreciate the opportunity to talk with you, to earn your vote. thanks for the debate. >> mr. rogers, you get the final word. mr. rogers: thank you. i've traveled all across this great state. literally, i've met thousands and thousands of people. michigan families are hurting. any of the fancy talk, or let's look what happened 30 years ago, needs to be set aside. what happened in the last four years, i talked about this in the beginning, are you better off that you were four years ago? my opponent voted 100 percent

with biden-harris on all of the things that have raised your prices. i ask you this, if you are worried about your grocery prices, if you are worried about your job being here from heav eeev mandates that might -- heavy ev mandates that my opponent supported, if you wonder what the next generation of housing costs are for your family, i ask for your vote. i've done it before, and i will tell you this. i will go back to washington, d.c., i will work as hard as i can as a guy who worked on an assembly line, a guy who is the youngest of five boys, a guy who served in the u.s. army as an officer, a guy who worked the streets in street crime watching human trafficking at its ugliest, drug trafficking at its ugliest. know this, i will fix the border and secure it for our families. i will do something about the education system in america. i will bring your prices down. i will go back to washington and

make that change. i will have your back when it comes to november 5. >> thank you so much for a very spirited debate and a civil debate. to our viewers at home, thank you so much for tuning in. we will have a complete wrap up on seven news detroit at 10:00 and 11:00. if you want to watch the debate in its entirety, go to our website. >> we've got you in the morning as well. continuing coverage and live, expert analysis of this debate all morning long starting at 4:35 and 6:00 on seven news detroit this morning. >> don't forget to vote on tuesday, november 5. you can vote three different ways, absentee ballot, early voting, or just show up and cast your ballot. from all of us here, thank you. good day. ♪

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sen. vance: thank you, thank you all. [cheering] [crowd chanting] wow. it is great my friends to be in wilmington, north carolina. and it is great that we are going to win wilmington in the state of north carolina and make donald trump the next president

of the united states. i'm going to tell you something, i bet very few, maybe no one knows this, i was an extra in a tv show filmed in wilmington, north carolina. did you ever see "one tree hill" ? that was filmed here. when i was in the marine corps, semper fi to the marines here. they showed up one day and said we will feed you and pay you $300 to be an extra in one tree hill. that was my exposure to wilmington. it's good to be back and it's good to be back as your vice presidential candidate and we are going to win this race, i'm telling you. i've got to say, i love you,

proud of middletown. i was singing about this. i saw tim walz's plane this morning. [crowd booing] no, i got to tell you honestly i feel bad for tim walz. think about it, he's got to defend the record of, harris and i've got to defend the record of donald trump and that is a helluva record to run on and we are proud of him. we are proud of him because he did a good job for the american people. you don't have to agree with everything i say, you don't have to agree with every policy or everything donald trump says, but who can dispute that when he was the president of the united states we had rising take-home pay, low inflation and a secure southern border? let's get back to it. let's get back to those commonsense policies. tim walz has to defend kamala harris. he has the toughest job in

america, he's got to defend the record of kamala harris. i don't know if you know but when, harris is running for president, she pretends that she has never met joe biden, she runs as far away from joe as she possibly can. you would think she had never even seen the president of the united states and yet she is the sitting vice president who is not just the sitting vice president but bribed for years she was the last person in the room before joe biden made so many disastrous decisions that increased the cost of groceries, increase the cost of housing, opened the southern border. joe biden is kamala harris and we are going to fire kamala harris, not center to the white house and give her a promotion. [cheering] i will say, she is making it a little easier for us. i think she's the only candidate who's ever run for president

where every time she opens her mouth we gain about 100,000 votes on the other side. i am going to be try to be reasonably quick here because i believe that in about 10 minutes she is going to do the first non-softball interview she has ever done. on fox news. now, of course president trump and i we do non-softball interviews every single day because we think that's what you ought to do if you want to run for president you want to get out there and answer the people's questions and actually do the job of running for president. you will hear people say well, kamala harris is given more softball interviews lately. and i say well, the problem with the softball interview if you still have to be able to hit a softball. and i see the great attorney general candidate dan bishop in the audience. stand up and say hello to folks.

you know, i was thinking this, kamala harris, she can't hit a softball, she cannot even hit a t-ball. that's the problem here. the reason she does so bad in these interviews is because her record is so bad for the american people. let's just think about this. in the state of north carolina, we've got people who are paying $1000 more a month thanks to her policies then when donald trump was president. thanks to kamala harris's policies, this country, this state, and this community have been flooded with millions upon millions of illegal aliens. not just flooded but kamala harris has welcomed them with open arms and then said if you make it into this country illegally she wants to give you free medicare and free housing. and you know our message in the

trump campaign is just a little bit different. our message to illegal aliens is if you came to this country illegally, pack your bags because in four months you're going home. [crowd chanting: usa] now, now, thanks to kamala harris casting the deciding vote on trillions of dollars in new spending and going to war on american energy, north carolina families are paying more for gas, about 25% more than they were when donald trump was president. they are paying 20 5% more for groceries than when donald trump . they are paying 53% more for housing then when donald trump was president. now here is the simple donald trump plan to restore a golden age of prosperity in this country. we are going to cut taxes for

american workers. we are going to cut down on the terrible regulations that make it harder to hire and create a business in the united states of america. we are going to unleash american energy and lower the cost of fuel and electricity for american families. and we are going to make it harder for companies to ship american jobs overseas. we are going to create prosperity right here in north carolina and all across the united states of america. because for too long we've had leaders like kamala harris, and again, she has been in office for 1400 days. we have leaders like kamala harris who would like to reward companies for shipping jobs overseas instead of creating good american jobs right here at home. perhaps the worst of all of kamala harris's policies is she

wants to tax you and tax year friends and families and pay people to buy electric vehicles made in china. and you know what donald trump and i think? we think you ought to be able to drive whatever the hell you want to because this is america and we want to support american automakers. now, one of the things the media doesn't like to talk about even though it is as clean as day is that we have a housing crisis in this country because we've got millions upon millions of people shouldn't be here in the first place. this is just common sense. think about this, if you let ian 25 million people into the country illegally, people who have no right to be here, you have to put them somewhere. they have to have housing somewhere. if you take away housing that ought to go to american citizens what are you going to do? you are going to have what we have in this country today is that young people can't afford to buy a home. i'm a big believer in the american dream of homeownership. and to all the young people,

especially those watching at home or watching some of the clips, we are going to fight for american citizens to be able to afford american homes. and it is really that simple. you just have to get illegal immigrants out of our country. you've got to put the interest of our citizens first and then you've got to lower the mortgage interest rates because thanks to kamala harris's policies the interest rates are just too dam high and donald trump is going to lower them. and this is how we are going to lower them. we are going to lower them because we are going to stop spending money we don't have. we are going to lower them by unleashing american energy. lower the price of everything. and we are going to lower interest rates by making sure that american homes don't go to illegal aliens. it is very simple. it's going to work and it's going to make the american dream of homeownership more affordable. i want to talk -- look, there

are all these disagreements we have with kamala harris. there all these issues were be could say well, donald trump supports lower taxes on american families and kamala harris supports raising them. donald trump supports closing the border and building a wall and kamala harris wants to open the border. donald trump wants to build a world of peace and stability and kamala harris seems to encourage chaos and war to break out everywhere. set aside all these policy disagreements we have with kamala harris. the most important thing about kamala harris is that she is incompetent. she does not have the competence to be president. think about this. we of course in the state of north carolina but all across the southeast in appalachia, a lot of folks were hit very hard by hurricane helene and i know a lot of us are praying people, we ought to say a prayer for those folks every single day they are fighting to rebuild their lives.

they are fighting to grieve loved ones and rebuild out of a terrible situation. and look, that storm was a terrible act of nature. but the bureaucratic incompetence that delayed resources getting to people, that was an act of kamala harris and failed leadership and we can't let people forget about it. now, think about this. probably shocked to hear me praise -- i am going to do something that is going to really surprise you, i am going to see something really nice about barack obama. in 2010 -- lady back here said yeah, i am shocked by this. surprised everyone here. 2010 there was a caramel -- a terrible earthquake in haiti. two days later the air force was in haiti. god bless the 82nd airborne. we had a terrible natural disaster one hour away from the 82nd airborne and it took six

days for them to get to north carolina. that is kamala harris and joe biden's fault. it is a disgraceful failure of leadership. when donald trump and i are in the lighthouse is not can happen. we are going to have fema helping our people and the american government is going to fight for american citizens once again. [crowd chanting: usa] here's the thing. there's a lot of crazy stuff out there on the internet. i actually don't think that it was some malicious intent that made fema as unresponsive and delayed the critical deployment of the 82nd airborne. i think it is just because people are incompetent. joe biden was on the beach, probably didn't know where he was. kamala harris was at a san

francisco fundraiser when the critical test of leadership comes in a moment of crisis. at that moment of crisis for the people of north carolina, kamala harris wasn't doing her job. i promise you that donald j. trump will and he will fight to do his job for you every single day. i want to say just a couple more things here before we take some question. the main thing i want you to take away from this event today is that yes, donald trump is going to be the president of the united states and i really do believe that, my friends. i think we are going to win this state. trust me. those of us in the trump campaign, the staff, the people at the top of the ticket and certainly our man donald trump, we are feeling good about this race and it's because y'all are working hard and we are grateful for it. but the only way we are going to

get president trump and me across the finish line is if we get out there and vote. i'm going to make a few requests of you. the first is that i want every single person here to get out there and vote 10 times. some of y'all are shifting uncomfortably and saying well, we only vote once. that's what republicans do. we follow the law. here is the legal way to go and vote 10 times. take yourself and take nine friends and family to the polls. that is what i want all of yes -- all of you to do. this is true of every single person out here including me. we've got people in our lives who are smart. they are competent people but they don't pay that close attention to politics. we have got to motivate them. we have to encourage them to say even if they don't care that much about politics, politics cares about them. and if we don't get donald trump

back in the white house this terrible affordability crisis and a terrible crisis at the southern border is going to continue so let's get our people out there. even the ones who don't care about politics, maybe especially the ones who don't care about politics, we've got to make sure they get out there and vote. number two, again, i'm going to talk for a little longer and then take questions from the press. but whether it is now or five minutes from now or 10 minutes from now, i want each of you to take out your phones, take a photo of this event, take a photo of that you to full airplane -- i gotta tell your growing up in a working-class family raised by my grandmother it is wild to be flying around in a plane with your name on. that is pretty cool. great testament to the american dream and the possibilities of this country. take out your phone, take a photo. texting a lot of people, emailing a lot of people, social

media, x.com, facebook, whenever you use, post-it and talk about why you are voting for donald trump for president. i don't know exactly how many people we have here. looks probably around 1000 people. if every single one of us reaches 100 people, that's 100,000 people that would not have heard the pro-trump message. trust me, they are not hearing it from the corporate media so they've got to hear from us. we have power. we have an ability to reach people. we just have to use the tools god has given us. luckily in this era of great communication we have a lot of tools to get the message out about why we need to support donald trump. here is the third and final thing. i want you to go to this website and i want to make sure i get it right. it is swap the vote usa.com. swamp the vote usa.com. that is a website that we built so the people can check their registration, check where their polling location is, maybe they

can request an absentee ballot, maybe they are going to vote early. just get out there and vote before november 5. that's the deadline. look, i'm one of these people, i don't like election season. i like election day. but as donald trump would say, it is what it is. if we are going to have a long election season the republicans have got to take advantage of that stuff as much as democrats are and that is exactly what we have to do. get out there and make your voice heard and that is how we are going to make donald j. trump the next president of the united states. i know apparently kamala is doing this interview soon with fox news. i want to point out an interview she did 10 days ago because frankly my friends it blew up the entire narrative of her campaign. most of us here hopefully know

she is running a dishonest campaign but a lot of folks are watching this who may not realize that kamala harris bears the responsibility for the failures of the biden administration. she gave this interview to the view, and they said what would you do differently than joe biden? and her answer was nothing comes to mind. i think by the way that should be the slogan of the kamala harris campaign. nothing comes to mind. i think that is unfortunately true. but think about this. after running on the idea that she would lower prices for american citizens, nothing comes to mind that she would've done differently. after talking about how she is going to restore peace and stability in a world that has been ripped apart by war and chaos, nothing comes to mind

that she would have done differently. after 94 executive orders that opened up the border and flooded our communities with fentanyl, nothing comes to mind she would have done differently. if nothing comes to mind that she would have done differently over the last 3.5 years than we need to get the real candidate of change donald j. trump back in the white house to restore peace, restore prosperity, and restore common sense to the united states of america. so here's what we are going to do and i will take some questions. here is what we are going to do. when we make donald trump the next president we are going to make groceries and housing more affordable. when we make donald trump the next president we are going to secure the southern border and stop the mexican drug cartels from waging war on our country. when we make donald trump the next president we are going to make the american dream affordable for american citizens again.

and when we make donald trump the next president we are going to usher in a golden age of american prosperity for the state of north carolina and the people all across this incredible land. let's go get it done my friends. get out there and vote. make donald trump the next president. the country needed and we are going to fight for every single day. 19 days to go. let's make it count and let's get our man across the finish line. god bless y'all. thank you. [crowd chanting: jd] again, i want to take some questions from reporters and i'm going to start with the local reporters. but it is getting a little chilly out here. this is north carolina, it is supposed to be a little warmer in mid-october. maybe it has just been too long since i have been here. there is a cold front apparently. thank you, sir.

i need to get better weather reporting from my staff. for all the gratitude i have for folks for being out here i just want to say of course that the person i am most thrilled to have with me, the two people are my beautiful wife and my son. i love you guys. he is sitting over there with a blanket over him saying why the hell did i agree to come with dad on the plane today. he is not a child built for cold weather. but we love you guys. as you all know this is so much fun for me but it is a lot of sacrifice for the family and we are thrilled honey that you could come with me and bring our beautiful boy. we love you and i know the crowd loves you. so, what i'd like to do is start

with a local reporters and because it is pretty chilly we might only get through three or four but we will try and do as many as we possibly can. let's start with the first question. >> my first question for you, dockworkers recently went on strike asking for higher wages and protection against automation. what would your administration do to make sure these workers are confident in making this temporary agreement a permanent and accessible one? sen. vance: look, we love our dockworkers. i would not be surprised if we have dockworkers in his audience right now. look, the very simple reason the dockworkers went on strike is because a dollar just doesn't go as far as it did 3.5 years ago. this is why donald trump calls inflation a country buster because if you think about it, if the dockworkers aren't making enough to survive and then they go on strike, then we can't get the goods we need, this just becomes a vicious spiral.

we have to get back to common sense economic policies so our dockworkers can thrive and so that everybody can thrive depends on their very important work. here is what i would say about this. look, we believe in technological innovation in the republican party. we believe in technological innovation in our country. but we can have technological innovation while protecting the wages of our workers. whether at our ports, our manufacturing facilities. when you have an innovative economy, that leads to higher wages and higher take-home pay for all workers. the problem with the kamala harris economy is we don't have nearly as much innovation. we have to get that to the dollar being worth something again. that will happen when donald trump is back as president and we have to get back to innovation in our economy. thank you. >> thanks for the opportunity. i notice mark robinson has not been at an event in some time. he is not here today. frankly he is falling behind in

the polls. can you clarify if your campaign still endorses mark robinson for governor and why? sen. vance: look, first of all, i think mark robinson did a helluva job with the hurricanes getting out and helping people. i thought that was very admirable. i really appreciate that. but my view on this issue is who the north carolina voters make their next governor is up to the people of north carolina. what i am here to do is to persuade them that they need to make donald trump their next president and i think that's what they are going to do and we are going to keep on fighting for that every single day. >> welcome to wilmington. law enforcement recently arrested an armed man for threats made against fema workers in rutherford county. i am just wondering if you have a comment on the threats made against the men and women who are working to help victims in

counties recover from hurricane helene. sen. vance: look, we have course condemn threats of violence. it is disgraceful to threaten violence against anybody, especially relief workers. and we ought to remind people that are criticism here is not for the fema workers on the ground, it is the broken political leadership in washington. think about it. fema is the federal emergency management agency. that is what fema stands for. why is the agency that is set up to help american citizens in the face of disaster spending billions of taxpayer dollars resettling illegal immigrants? it ought to focus on its core mission. why is the leadership of fema focused on resettling migrants instead of preparing and presenting resources for the next storm? that's a failure of leadership. it is not a failure of people on the ground trying to help people.

but i will tell you, if you know someone in western north carolina, i imagine pretty much everyone in this crowd does, a lot of them will say 1.5 weeks into the storm they didn't see anybody. they weren't getting any help. they weren't getting any relief. so the scandal here is not that a crazy person, as much as we condemn them, that's always a bad thing. b scandal here is people in western north carolina went days and weeks without the help of their own government. and that's what we have to fix and we will when donald trump is president. next question. >> thank you. i'd love to hear more about the one tree hill moment, but for another day. i wanted to ask you about what you had said earlier in pennsylvania about the 2020 election results. you have been asked that on the debate stage and then again in the new york times interview, five times, and by other reporters. [booing]

sen. vance: ma'am, my answer on this, and i answered this question a million times when i ran for the senate. i have answered this in the 2022 general election. i have answered this 10 times recently. i think big tech rigged the election in 2020. if you disagree with me, that's fine. >> answer it now. why did you enter the question now? why did you answer the question now? sen. vance: i have given that exact question for years. this is such a preposterous thing that the american media does. i have given this answer to this question for literally years. and the american media once to focus on what happened four years ago and the fact that north carolinians can't afford groceries, i think that's a disgrace. do your job and focus on the

problems the american people care about rather than ballshit from four -- rather than bullshit from four years ago. [crowd chanting: jd] look, i honestly -- my friends, i'm sure there are as many opinions about what happened four years ago as there are people in this audience. if you disagree with me on an issue, or if you disagree with me about what i just said, for you disagree about a particular policy view of the trump administration, that's fine. because i believe in the united states of america. it's ok to disagree. what i think we are all united on is that we need to get kamala harris out of the oval office that americans can afford to live a good life again. >> i wanted to ask you -- ok

[booing] sen. vance: no, it's all right. i always joke, she's actually one of the good cnn reporters. they do exist. but i always wonder if i say that if you are welcomed back at the newsroom in cnn. >> i spend more time in the field. anyway, friday at your event, you said the attorney general job would be the most important role, after president of course. houthi you want to see in that role, and what do you make of trump's former appointments? sen. vance: i am not going to make any news about who we are looking at for attorney general. obviously the president makes the final decision but we are looking at a lot of good people. the reason i said that is very simple and this is a little bit of a hit for my ego. i would like to say the person who's most important after the

president would be me. i appreciate that. but what we have seen out of the department of justice in the last four years of this country i think is such a disgrace and we have to do better. we really have to. one of the fundamental principles of our country is equal justice under law. you've got catholic pro-life fathers of seven arrested like a common criminal for exercising their first amendment rights peacefully. you've got government bureaucrats encompassing big tech companies to censor their fellow americans. you've got people who are protesting peacefully at their children's school board meetings and then in investigation is launched into them. everybody focuses on corruption at the doj and focuses on how that is affected. president trump and some of his close advisors, that obviously matters.

but the federal government weaponizing law enforcement to go after him and citizens is a disgrace and we have to stop it. that is why i think it is so important that we get a good attorney general. >> i have one more question. of course our hearts and prayers go out to those in western north carolina. here in our area, we go through a lot of flooding as well, especially heavy flooding. what can the federal government do to assist state and local governments and preparing and recovering from flood events that happened from an unnamed storm? sen. vance: a really good question. we have to have competence back in government. when these things happen you need someone who is paying attention and focusing and making sure resources go to the people who need it. you can't have a government where nobody is actually in

charge and unfortunately that is what we have way too much thanks to kamala harris's leadership. two things in particular. when you have a crisis like what happened in western north carolina, obviously this part of the state has been affected by a number of storms too. you have so many different bureaucratic agencies. one of the things you've got to do is just have a leader who is saying all of you are empowered to save lives to rescue people. go get to work and cut out worrying about the redtape. that is a big part of what you need, that empowerment of some local responses. this is a big issue in north carolina, probably a bigger issue in florida and georgia. but it is an issue all across the southeast. insurance is getting way too expensive for a lot of our homeowners. this is a big problem. not just homeowners but folks who are getting car insurance. i think we can do a better job of lowering car and home insurance rates. and again, making that american

dream of owning a home and owning a car more affordable for more of our citizens. of course one of the ways that people really struggle in the wake of these disasters is if they don't have the right home insurance policy. we've got to make smarter policy choices so people get the insurance they need. and i'll do one more question you noted yesterday in pennsylvania what we have seen in public polling, which is there seems to be a pretty stark gender gap between your campaign and vice president harris's. i was curious if you could speak to what you think is behind that. why do you think there is such a discrepancy between men and women in this election? sen. vance: well, you know, first of all, i will say, look, there is clearly a gender gap. but i think it is not nearly as big as the polls say it is. i think that is important to point out. i think we are going to get a lot of women supporting the

trump/vance ticket. and of course a lot of men too, because we are united for common sense. one of the arguments i think we can make better, especially to women voters -- it matters to all voters but particularly women voters, moms of small children, we see that moms care a lot about public safety. they want to be able to take their kid walking in the neighborhood at 9:00 at night without the fear that they are going to be involved or without the fear that an illegal alien is going to commit some violent assault. we have to get back to public safety. the fbi it looks like just released some updated crime numbers which suggested crime was higher than the previously led on in 2022. i am shocked by that. just kidding. look, what is so interesting about violent crime is it is a very small number of people who

commit the gross majority of violent crimes in our country. what president trump and i want to do is empower law enforcement, lock up the violent criminals and make our streets safer. that is a message that works with a lot of women voters and that's what we're going to keep on talking about. all right. so, one more time, the third time i have set it, i am sick of it. swamp the vote usa.com. i see some folks have my book, i am sorry i can't sign them because i have to hit the road but it is available wherever bookstores are sold. here is what i want to say. i know it is easy to get frustrated with the policies of kamala harris, i certainly do. it is easy to get frustrated with the fact that she apparently doesn't even care about public policy and governance. that's why she gives these word salad answers to all these questions. i just want somebody competent who cares about this country to be is less leader and that is clearly not kamala harris.

what i would ask'ya is to not let our frustration at kamala harris blind us to the fact that this is still the greatest country in the history of the world and we ought to be proud of it. [crowd chanting: usa] and i see my beautiful son over there. i am sure he's annoyed that his daddy is embarrassing him right now. but one of the coolest things about running for vice president is that i've gotten to see the country from the perspective of my seven-year-old, my four-year-old and my two-year-old. we go around, we talk to a ton of people. we were and a small business earlier today buying some dog treats for our dog in rural pennsylvania and now we are here in beautiful north carolina watching a pink and purple sunset. i mean, this is an incredible

country we have. it's the most beautiful country in the world. but it is also a country where we have incredible natural resources. resources the chinese and the russians would literally kill for and in some cases have. and of course the best natural resource of all is that we have the best people anywhere in the world. the only thing that is broken about the united states of america is the failed leadership of a generation of politicians like kamala harris. so i ask you, we've got 19 days to go. let's span every single one of those days fixing the broken leadership and giving the american people at president who is fit to lead this great nation. that's donald j. trump. let's work our tale ends off and get it done. god bless you all. thank you for having me and we will see you soon, north carolina.

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>> we the people and audio town hall with vice president kamala harris in conversation with chgneor the god life from exclusively on i heart radio. we will talk all i can tackle tough questions of the future and of our nation pictures your host charlemagne the god. >> yes peace to the planet. charlemagne the god with madam vice president kamala harris. how are you. >> was very well. how are you doing? >> with a 20 days and 60 minutes. we just need to get to it. >> i'm with you. we want a. >> how are did? fugitives walk-in. >> i try to be on time. appellant and 45 seconds late, you're right. >> you are black. [laughing] a lot of your present gets criticized folk you come off as very scripted. they say you like to stick your talking points. somebody says you had speed that would be called discipline. >> say you are and what you

believe i know that's not true but what do you say to that criticism and is fair for s&l to mckennitt? >> has my rudolph and wonderful? i have nothing but admiration for the comedy and a think it's important to be able to laugh at yourself and each other. >> obviously comedy and not belittling people. >> what you say to people who say you stay on talking points? >> i would say you are welcome. i mean listen come here's of the thing. i love having conversations which ones are happy to be with you this afternoon. and the reality is that there are certain things that must be repeated to ensure that i have everyone know what i stand for any issues i think are at stake in this election. so requires repetition pick some people say that until someone has are the same thing at least three times it just doesn't stay with you. repetition is important. for that reason yes at my

rallies i said the same thing when you go to detroit as a do in philly come as a do wherever i am to make sure people here and receive what you think are some of the most critical issue that are at stake. >> there has to be a high level of anxiety when had these conversations but you're running for president. >> i i mean you know there's certainly a lot i feel the weight of the moment and my role. i feel an extraordinary weight of responsibility right now to do everything i can. when i go to bed at night i almost every night in addition to my prayers will ask have done everything i could do today? this is a margin of error race. it's tight. i'm going to win. i'm going to win. but it's tight. you know, what is at stake is

truly profound and historic many would say. and it's about some people would say it's lofty notion of supporting evidence of our democracy but it is about real issues that affect people everyday, like window going to maintain a $35 cap on insulin our seniors. i don't want to continue to allow medicare to negotiate drug prices to bring them down. whether we're going to have as my opponent would have a formalized stop and frisk policy for which he has said if the police department does not do it they should be defended, or not. that is so much at stake. with america's going to stand on its principles brent the enforcement of sovereignty and territorial integrity and stand with our allies around the world, , or whether we will adme dictators and send during the height of the covid pandemic covid test that nobody could get to the president of russia for his personal use when black people were dying every day by

the hundreds during that time i feel like that one had gone over peoples heads, the fact he was doing that. >> i mean, you know, i invite, you are listening. the people we know, the number of people who lost their grandparent and parent. remember what that was like during the height of covid? a lot of people are scrambling for the resources. donald trump and that time secretly sent covid tests to the president of russia who by the way do not forget in the 2016 election because i was in them member of the senate intelligence committee when we investigated it, targeted black voters in 2016 with ms. and this information to discourage black people from voting in that election. and this is just another of the very many examples of whom donald trump really is and the danger he presents to real

people. >> sending covid test to russia doesn't sound very america first at all. it's not just you versus trump. it's you versus misinformation. one of the biggest pieces of this information what are the biggest allegations against you is that you targeted and blocked of thousands of black men in san francisco for weed. some say you did to push her crew. some say did out of pure hatred blackmon. please tell us the facts. >> it's simply not true and it's what public defenders who were around the state will tell you i was in those progressive prosecutor in california on marijuana cases. and what does in people to jail for simple possession of weed. as vice president have been a champion for bringing marijuana down on the schedule so instead of it being ranked up there with heroin, we bring it down and my pledge is as president i will work on decriminalizing it because i know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically black men.

>> before we get into the talkback future of the questions from the audience i want to talk about the legalization of weed picky say what to legalize another what steps to the biden administration take to get closer to that reality? >> we had to work with the dea, and there's a certain level of bureaucracy that exist in the federal government that slows things down, but essentially to bring down how weed is classified, a one is classified, to make it classified as a lesser harm. so that took some time. physical process for about that but that's the work we have done. in addition to work we've done writ large on criminal justice reform. >> okay. let's take some calls. not calls come let's go to the talkback feature. >> my question for kamala is, why are we, and i say we because my tax dollar is simulacrum why are we sending money to other

countries when we desperately need in our own country for homeless, housing, resources, for whatever? that is my determining factor if i vote for kamala are not. >> that's one of the reasons the america first redbrick residence because nobody would complain about when money was going if citizens everyday needs were being met. what you say to that? >> we can do it all and we deal. first of all, i maintain very strongly america should never pull ourselves away from our responsibility as a world leader. and that is in the best interest of our national security and each one of us as americans, and are standing in the world. that being said, we also have an obligation to american citizens obviously and people who are here to meet their everyday needs and challenges, which is why, for example, we have done the work in the last four years

of bringing down the cost of prescription medication, whether it be $35 a month for seniors or insulin or $2000 a year cap on prescription medication. what we've done that is been about putting $17 billion in our hbcus or ipad to be the first hbcu vice president. i intend to be the first hbcu president of the united states. those resources of us invented cities of academic excellence at end of them to be. the work i continue to do is about increasing access to capital for small businesses. it is about increasing the opportunity for home ownership knowing the black people are 40% less likely to be homeowners in america. we have history of legal and procedural obstacles to that home ownership started with the fact nobody got 40 acres and a mule, to redlining, two issues that this detroit area people around the country know to be real. part of my plan is we're going

to give people a $25,000 down payment assistance to get their foot in the door to buy home for first-time homebuyers. the work i'm going to do to increase housing supply and america knowing that's one of the reasons rents and housing prices are jacked up and work with the private sector, cut to the red tape and worked to build more housing 3 million before the end of my first term. and i give these examples and their many more which i will offer. so, for example, the work i will do to extend the child tax credit to $6000 for young families during the first year of the child's life. as you and i both know, our families all have a natural desire to parent their children well but not always the resources. so by expanding the child tax credit to the first you child's life to $6000, that gives a young, young family the build to buy a car seat or a crib or clothes, the things that are so important during that critical phase of that child's development so that they can get on the road and have a chance at

succeeding. >> you said we can do all but can we? tupac famous is that we got money for war but can't feed the poor? i saw president obama said last week you really shouldn't expect a president to rid the world of all of its problems. is it fair to tell people pay, we can do it all? as when people get disappointed when things would have. >> i think president obama is absolutely correct, but it doesn't mean we can't do anything. >> that's right. >> want to talk about extending the child tax credit when i was vice president i pushed we would do it during our first year. we reduced black child poverty in america by 50%. we did that. we can do that. my plan that is about building up homeownership in the black community, we can do that. my work is been about increasing access to capital bringing billions more dollars into our community banks which have done as vice president through cooperation and partnership or

some of the big banks and tech companies, to get more access to capital for ottomans, for businesses. we've done that. we should never sit back and say okay i'm not going to vote because everything hasn't been solved. i share a desire that everything should be solved by the way. i think it's what we should all want. that doesn't, that shouldn't stand in the wake of us also knowing we can participate in a process that about improving things. and by voting in this election, you have two choices. or you don't vote but you have two choices if you do. it's two very different visions for our nation. one line that is about taking us forward and progress and investing the american people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with the challenges there any other donald trump is about taking us backward. >> the other is about fascism. why can't we just say? >> yes, we can say that. >> reverend kinloch junior what

you do meet empiric he's a senior pastor of trying church wears the reverend? just a reverend, you're all right. >> hey, reverend. >> what's up, madam vice president, charlemagne. thank you all for being in detroit tonight. recently, madam vice president, by one of trump's surrogates from the black faith-based community, you've been criticized by him and others for lack of engagement to the black church. knowing that the black church is an unrivaled place in the heart of black people, what did you speak to as it relates to a future, a harris administration how you would partner with the black church to address some of the urgent needs of the black committee? dr. king talked about the fierce urgency of right now and as a church, triumph churches in the play. >> first of all that allegation of course is coming from the trump team because they are full

of ms. in this information because they are trying to disconnect me from the people i have worked with and that i am from. so that they can try and have some advantage in this election is otherwise have nothing to run on. i grew up in the black church. i grew up, i grew up attending 23rd avenue church of god in oakland, california,. >> that his church. >> yes, that is church. my pastor is a third baptist church in san francisco, california. i have throughout my career and his vice president and recently been actively engaged in the church, and church leaders not only come so we can share in fellowship but so we can share and what we can do together that is about supporting the community, the strength of the community, the cohesion of the community. it is my long-standing work and, therefore, my pledge going forward i will always work closer with the church because i

understand who are church leaders are into the congregation is. we're talking about people who are driven by faith and the ability to see what is possible. by faith what i was raised and i of us were, understanding that our god is a loving god, that our faith repels us to act in a way that is about kindest and justice and mercy, that is about lifting one another up. let's talk about the contrast you. donald trump and his followers spend full-time trying to suggest the measure of the strength of the league is based on who you beat down, which is absolutely contrary to the church i know. >> t-cells bibles of those. >> where our church and my church is about saying to leadership, the measure of that is based on who. and right, , and then he selling $60 bible or tennis shoes and

trying to play people as though that makes him it more undeg of the black community. come on. >> thank you reverend. >> god is good. >> every day all the time. >> there you go. make sure you get that right. have you seen the clip madam vice president from the real? it's a clip that out of context and it says you won't do anything specifically for black people. have you seen this purpose i have not seen it. >> if the clip that has you saying you're you could g specifically for black people. >> well, that's just not true. listen again, you said at the beginning of this is a, charlemagne. one of the biggest challenges that if this is mis- and disinformation. and it's purposeful. because it is meant to convince people that they somehow should not believe that the work i have done has occurred and has meaning.

my work from the beginning of my career through today has been about come for example, we talked about it, whether id on hbcus, with a bill of black what are the most heavily singularly many would say one of the highest level leaders in our country to bring the issue of black maternal mortality to the stage of the white house, to address it. the work i've done that is been about focusing on my knowledge in my experience in my life experience of knowing that entrepreneurship that we have in the community, the invasion, the aspirations, the dreams, and the tapping into data so not only has my work been about ensuring we had some of the lowest black unemployment ever in our country, but that also knowing that she should be a baselit has a job, and what we should be invested in is also building wealth in the community and intergenerational wealth. i have many, many examples of that.

but again part of the challenge that i face is that they are trying to scare people away. because a no otherwise have nothing to run on. ask donald trump what is plan is. ask him. i'll tell you what it is. look at project 2025. project 2025 tells you the plan includes making police department f-stop and first policies. the plan includes making it more difficult for workers to receive overtime pay. the plan includes ending the ability of medicaid to negotiate drug prices. you know what we have done? he said he would come we did which means that so we brought down the costs of prescription medication. his plan includes making it more difficult for working people to get by, and to destroy our democracy. you know what he says he will do? omit the constitution of the united states. that may remind folks, you know

it's in the constitution? the fourth amendment which protects you against unreasonable and seizures, the fifth amendment, the sixth amendment, the 14th amendment and he's going to determine the constitution of the united states? which in most of those amendments one thing or another was about a movement spurred by black people to ensure that we would equally protected under the law. come on. >> let's take a question from top expert minutest joshua, african american male from las vegas that i would like to ask the law she has planned to make sure there's a stop for police brutality and murder set a been going on viciously? >> so again the work that i have done to my career and most recently when i was in the united states senate to help with the george floyd just simply seen him act. cory booker i work closer that. >> can you talk about that. >> we couldn't get the votes in

congress. there's a clip somewhere of me fighting with a republican senator to actually -- [inaudible] >> right. to actually get it passed e couldn't get it passed. what we did when you came in office and during the time i been vice president is we passed an executive order. so whereas we were trying and i been trying to make these things national so everyone would have it to do it, an executive order by the president the says for federal law enforcement the following things have to happen which we for the first time put in place. no-knock warrant. barring chokehold, a national database not just for federal law enforcement but a national database for us to collect information and track police officers who have broken the law. law. this is no small issue, this piece in addition to adl's because as in the we've seen plenty of examples of the police officer who committed misconduct

in one jurisdiction and then goes to another to jurisdictd gets hired because there's no place that's tracking their misconduct. these are some of the things we've done. i'm still going to always work on getting the george floyd justice and policing act passed pierpont of work i'm doing as a candidate for president includes lifting up those candidates who are running either for reelection for the first time to congress who are supportive of what we need to do on all of the issues we've been discussing, whether it be free to devote and passing the john lewis voting rights advancement act, whether it be freedom to make decisions about your own body, whether it be the freedom to just eat and be free from any brutality including police brutality and where it occurs. >> a lot of frustration comes from people who will say sometimes politicians volunteer lies because yes it's great to try to pass the george floyd act but you probably can't get the

votes so why push spec with why push it on people? >> i don't subscribe to that approach and i will tell you why. look, it took a long time for the voting rights act to get done. it took the brutality of what happened when john lewis and all those were trying to cross the edmund pettus bridge. it took a lot of work over our history to do what we have accomplished thus far. and we have made commit. >> howdy convince republican senators, as you just said? >> part of it is that their constituents are part of this. i mean we have plenty of folks who want this provision districts where they serve and this is the point come this gets back to earlier point about you can't get in but teacher out of the gain by not voting. the solutions, and maybe this is a point you're making but what president obama said.

the solutions are not going to happen just overnight, and the solutions that we all want i'm not going to happen in totality because of one election. here's the thing. the things we want and are prepared to fight for happen if were not active and if we don't participate. we cannot allow circumstances to take us out of the gain because they basically what we're saying is almost people who work obstructionists who are standing in a way a change are winning. because they're convincing people that it can't be done to take us all out, don't participate. look at that circle. look at that vicious circle then. so let's not fall for it. >> zeke, this is my man seek he's a president and ceo of new era detroit. he wants to talk about your black male agenda for the black community. zeke, what's up, brother? >> what up, dog? madam vice president,

charlemagne tha god can what up dog, welcome to detroit's purgative back. >> i would like to see the real because i'm up in here. my name is zeke, new air founder, ceo. i've worked on the ground in detroit in the black kids all across the country for over the past ten years actual celebrate our tenth year this past august. in my ten years of organizing we played a major role in the resurgence of pride and the change of mindset in detroit neighborhoods across the city. we are not only knew for the work we do in detroit but across the country in black communities. i'm having worked in over 35 cities of the blackest city in america. saying all that to say i'm extremely qualified to sit in front of the current vice president and which can be the next president of the trinity of america. as i post my question to you i would first like to make it

known that i don't have any emotional connections to politicians. i believe this is what our biggest flaws in the current political process. i view politics as a business and america's what of the biggest corporations in the world. with that being said i'm here on behalf of business of the black community. with all that black americans have been through and contribute to the success of america i feel there should be an in-depth investigation for evaluation of the lack of resources and current living conditions in black community nationwide. my question to you is, what's your stance on reparations? we all know america became great off the backs of the free black labor. how progressive are you on making it a priority and writing america's wrongs, it's understood your running for president for all people of

america. asking for specifics for black communities doesn't mean no,, don't do for others but black americans are heavily asked to vote democratic in every election for over half a century with very little in return. what are your plans to address these very important issues and change the narrative? >> thank you, z. >> appreciate that come thank you and thank you for your work. so to your point, yes, i am writing to be a present for all americans. that being said i do have clear eyes about the disparities that exist and the context in which they exist, meaning history. to your point. so my agenda, while first of all on the point of reparations, it has to be studied. there's a question about that. i've been very clear about that position. in terms of my immediate plan, i will tell you a few of the following. one, as it relates to the economy which is a lot of what you have addressed, look, i grew

up in the middle class. my mother worked hard, raise the and my sister and by the time i was in high school she was able to afford our first home. i know what it means for an individual and the family to have homeownership. i also knew in the context of history nobody got 40 acres and a mule. we have a history of a number of things including redlining, detroit does it well. a history of for example, something that still exist that i've worked on to address which is racial bias and home appraisals. we know homeownership is, black families are 40% less likely to be homeowners than others. and that homeownership is one of the surest ways to build intergenerational wealth. right? when you own home that's when your child says daddy i want to go to college and you can say sweetheart don't have to take a look and all take equity out of houston if your child says want to start a small business, same point, right? my plan includes making sure

that for first-time homebuyers to have a $25,000 down payment assistance to just get the foot in the door because we know forecastle were card, they will save and pay that monthly mortgage. second point is to bring down the cost of housing generally because when it issues is whether housing supply shortage so that's working with the private sector. in terms of our small businesses which are part of the backbone of the economy of the black community as part of the backbone of america's economy writ large. my second mother, woman who helped raise us was a small business owner. i know who our small business owners are and i can the black small business owner way before i was running for president. in my official office at the white house to talk with young entrepreneurs most of young about the work they are doing that is about clean energy work, technology as well as the traditional whether it be a barbershop or a restaurant.

one of the big issues facing black entrepreneurs and flexible businesses is access to capital. unlike my opponent who got headed $400 million on a silver platter of the file bankruptcy sextant can still forget that, call since of business better not ever that has access to the capital but we know in the community we do not lack for ambition aspirations and dreams hard work ethic. and so my work has been as vice president to increase billions of dollars into community banks. and as vice president part of that work will also be to change the tax deduction for start of small businesses from $5000 to $50,000 because nobody concert a small business .5000 dollars. if you don't otherwise have intergenerational wealth how are you going to be able to do it? second point of small business is of this. i'm going to do basically it's a program that is about $20,000

nonrefundable loan to a certain, to basically businesses that don't have access to wealth and don't have those relationships, which is going going to directly impact a lot of small, black on small businesses. that nonrefundable loan is what would help somebody if you need to buy equipment, if you need about an extra truck division of what the business is which we know that's a big part of what holds back our small businesses. just having enough capital to pay for the things that allow you to then put your hard work and play to actually grow your business. the other piece and this is something that is critically important is to see black folks at the particular black man as a whole human being, and understand that were talking about funds, talking fathers, grandsons, talking grantors, talking uncles. and so i say that as a preface

is a two of other things and i'll keep going. one, to do with speedy you'll keep going? [laughing] >> you caught that. >> okay. >> to deal with health care for black people and black man in particular. we know that we still have a lot of work to do to increase, for example, the high risk we have for colon cancer, for prostate cancer, right? and increased screenings and to make sure people actually going to get the screenings. not to mention the high risk for sickle cell. part of my agenda is about what we will do to deal with and highlight what we've got to do to focus on life men's health. and then a similar point is this. 40% of caregivers are men. and we know culturally we take care of our elders, and we have a lot of meaning community who are in no time to take care of

the young kids in the care of an ill-prepared or relative. it's overwhelming for people to be able to do both and a lot of people have in in the think t leaving the job to just do it. my plan is this. one, in order for people to afford assistance for hiring health care, home health care, they basically have two go broke to be eligible for medicaid. my plan is this. let's have medicare, this is i have to do we can make it work. medicare cover the cost of home healthcare, which means you are looking at individual in the context of their whole family. because what we know is again understanding the culture can understand the reality come lots of people having to leave work and order to do that. these are some examples of my agenda. and overall it is an agenda that understands either way because we have talked about criminal

justice, that the needs of the black community are not just about criminal justice. >> we need that money. >> yeah, because years of the thing. we have brought down lack an employment one of the lowest levels in history but a very clear. the community is likely to stand up and applaud just because everybody has a chapter that should be a baseline. my agent is about tapping into the ambitions and the aspirations knowing that folks want to have an opportunity if they want, they should have a meaningful opportunity to build wealth, including intergenerational wealth. that's my agenda. >> there was a couple things you said that people would say were talking points but it's just your stricker even though the are becoming your greatest hits you talk about the middle class and your godmother and small business owner but that's just your story. >> it's my story. look, i've been in this race 70 days. some people just getting to know me. a lot of people have no need.

listen, i feel strongly, i need to earn every vote which is why we're having this candid conversation with you and your listeners. i have to earn peoples support, and i'm working to do that. >> before go to another talkback call a way to say there was a time i had a was it running for national election it's bad electoral strength to say you're going to do things specifically for black people which is what a lot of politicians don't speak directly to the plans for black people. is that a thing? >> i don't, i don't know that that's true. i think what is true is that i am running to be a president for everybody but i am clear eyed about the history and the disparities that exist for specific communities and mac when a shy away from that. it doesn't mean my points is not prevented anybody because they are. everything i just talked about will benefit anybody, small business owners, whatever their race, age, gender, geographic

locations are going to benefit from the fact i'm going to extend tax deductions to $50,000 for every first-time homeowner wherever they are whatever the race will benefit if there first-time homebuyer with a $25,000 down payment assistance. everyone is going to benefit from i plan to extend the child tax credit to $6000 for the first year of their child's life. that's quite a life. that's quite a bit of it everybody but i realize again that on the issue of home ownership for example, black people are 40% less likely to own a home. >> do you feel like president obama stepped on your rollout? i do you beware of this black male agenda for for a long d you been doing outreach with the opportunity, and things like that. he made the statement he made last week to everybody to get a reaction to that. >> no, no, no. i mean you just have to come no, i was enough. i been doing this for quite some time including before i was running for president for let's go to talkback. >> i'm bobby from george and i

to question for kamala harris. could you please respond to trump claim he's going to use the alien enemies act of 1798 to bound immigrants if he wins the election? this law was last used to put asian-americans in internment camps during world war ii, and i have a sneaking suspicion that if trump wins he's got use of to put anyone that doesn't look quite in camps, and i'm scared. >> yeah, so you've hit on a really important point and expressed it i think so well, which is he is achieving his intended effect, to make you scared. he is running full-time on a campaign that is about instilling fear, not about hope, not about optimism, not about the future, but about fear. and so this is yet another example. look what he did in saying that

those legal immigrants in springfield ohio were eating their pets. and by the way the hypocrisy of it abounds because on issue of immigration let's be clear. some of the most conservative members of the united states congress working with others came up with a border security bill which was the strongest toughest border security built in a long, long time. it would've put 15 had more border agents at the border. it would have reduced the flow of fentanyl into our country which is killing people all over our country of every race in background. it would've allowed us to do more work on prosecuting transnational criminal organizations which i have done in my career. trump got word that that bill was afoot, knew it would fix the problem, and told his buddies in congress to kill the bill. and you know why? because he would refer to run on a problem is that six apart. he's running his campaign the way he does these the shoe

people walk out and does these rallies to try and instill fear around an issue where he actually could be part of a solution but he chose not to because he prefers to run on a problem instead of fix the problem. we've got to come out and say what a disparate doesn't the biden administration have to take some of life for the border? for the first three years you all did a lot of things wrong. >> charlemagne, within hours of being inaugurated, the first bill we passed before did inflation reduction act before we did the bipartisan infrastructure act, before we did this safer communities act to do with gun violence, first thing we dropped was a bill to fix the broken immigration system which by the way trump did not fix when he was president. and you can look at every step along the way, we've been tightened up the asylum application process. we then worked with what we needed to do to secure ports of

entry. we did a number of things including what we did to try and get that border security bill passed, and then also an executive order that actually reduced significantly the number of illegal crossings and tightened up what needs to happen in between ports of entry. but no, we've been working on it ever since. but -- >> so what went wrong? >> here's what has to happen. congress has to act to fix the immigration system and it has been broken for a long time. congress has to act but it does that help when finally a bipartisan group got together to fix it, and donald trump told in hold on, don't do that, because it won't help me politically. >> why do you allow him to call you the borders are? that wasn't even -- >> not getting information for that. >> you're right. i mean you don't push back on because that wasn't your role.

>> fact checkers have made that clear. if i respond everything he called me i wouldn't be focused on the things that actually help the american people and that's my focus. that is true. ..

trust requires consistenten engagement and into the community outside of election periods and political benefits for poll to itses and may view that -- politicians and may view that some people in the democrat party use black americans to play identity politics. >> first of all, thank you for your question and for being here. i've been in this race about 730days -- 70 days. you can look at all my work before those 70 days to know what i'm talking about right now is not new and is not for the sake of winning this election. this is about a longstanding commitment including the work that i've to cone as vice

president and before when i was senator and before that. in fact, a lot of what i'm doing that is about my economic agenda, an opportunity economy, was born out of the work i did as vice president, before that as senator most recently to get access to capital the for our entrepreneurs. the work that i did in the senate was about getting a couple billion more dollars into our community banks and building on that when i became vice president. i created -- it's called the economic opportunity council, bringing in some of the biggest banks and technology companies to put more into the community banks. and i'm going to tell you one of the reasons why, because i have been aware with for years brach entrepreneurs only get -- black entrepreneur only get 1% of venn hur capital funding. -- venture capital funding. we don't, we don't have the same rates of access to capital be it through family are or through connections which is why i've done the work of putting

billions more dollars and working to put billions more dollars into community banks which go right directly to the community. my work around the $20,000 is building on that and understanding that, you know, i convened, for example, i said this earlier, a group of black entrepreneurs way before i was running for president in my official office at the white house. to hear some of the obstacles that they were facing. and one of them was what we need to do around getting folks the help to just be able to boy the equipment they need to run -- to buy the equipment they need to run their business. and often time we find that when black entrepreneurs and black people apply for credit, they're denied at a higher rate than others. we have also seen and the data proves this that all of those, the realities also end to -- tend to to dissuade black are folks and black entrepreneurs in particular for even applying for

credit. so my point is the to work on every way that we can approach the issue the encourage people and to the invest in their ambition. because i know the ambition is there. i know the talent is there. i know the innovation is there. and certainly, the hard work e thick. ethic. so this is not new work for me -- >> speak to the american rescue to plan too. i know small businesses in north carolina, small black businesses that got tens of millions of dollars because of that. can you speak to that -- >> from the time we first came in, the american rescue plan, the work that we have done, the infrastructure bill, i mean, part of that is we made a decision that we were going to increase the number of federal contracts that go to historically underrepresented businesses. this was way before -- this was years ago. so this is not new work.

>> let's go to the talkback feature. >> on several to occasions recently -- the don lemon has stated there's a large group of black men that -- [inaudible] covid because his name was on it versus it coming from the government as a stimulus check. can you provide some clarification? >> i'm so glad you raised that. so here's what happened. a majority democratic congress bought to get those stimulus checks out, fought if against resistance by the trump administration and won because we had a majority of democrats in congress. and that's why those checks went out. as we all know and grew up learning, congress holds the pursestrings. don trump, never being one to the pass up an opportunity to give himself credit when no credit is due put his name on those checks and, sadly, it

resulted in people thinking donald trump was responsible for and directly responsible for putting money in their pocket when, in fact, it was a democratic majority congress that was responsible for those checks going out. >> why is it hard for democrats to message their wins on the economy? since world war ii the, the economy has done better under a democrat president. this is just a historical fact, and for some reason the narrative is that the economy does better under republicans. why don't democrats push back on that narrative more? >> well, i, you know, we -- i think that part of the issue is that democrats probably talk about it more in terms of what we are doing for people rather than the economy when, in fact, when you do for people, the economy yous. grows. and you are absolutely right, charlemagne, you will look at the growth of the economy and compare it, democratic and republican administrations. democrats have been, are

accelerated economic growth if my plan, for example, okay, so some of the smartest economists in the country have reviewed and compared my plan to donald trump's plans for the economy from goldman sachs to moody's to, the the 16 nobel laureates and even most most recently "the wall street journal". and in comparing our two plans, the net result is my plans strengthen the economy, his plans will weaken the economy. there are reports that include the fact that donald trump's plans for the economy would accelerate inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year. my plans would strengthen the economy as a whole. you look at under what we've been doing, you look at the stock market as one of the stroggest it's ever been can -- strongest. inflation is going down to, i think it's now the most recent number is 22.4% -- 2.4%. nobody if wants to hear an econ 1011 lecture, but the reality of

it, the your point, is that under democratic rule the economy gets strengthened. and, certainly, when you look at my plan for my presidency, it will strengthen the economy and it will help people. and as per the conversation we've been having today, perhaps the issue is that i'm going to always think about it in the context of how am i helping working people, how am i helping families, how am i helping people in the middle class? how am i helping people who have been without access having access? that's how i talk about it. but my plan is about strengthening the economy, and i know when you strengthen the economy, that's how you do it. you do it by investing in the middle class. let me tell you the contrast. donald trump think abouts about the economy based on what he has done and will do. that that's how he thinks about the economy. he thinks about the economy not about middle class people trying to not just get by, but get ahead.

no. he wants to stop medicare from being able to negotiate drug prices down from the big pharmaceutical companies. if. >> we've got a couple more questions. i want to yet my man eric thomas. in here, but i do want to say president obama a but r -- was out there last week waving his finger at black men. when are hillary clinton and liz cheney going to wave their finger at white women? 52 percent of white women voted for trump in 2016, 55% in 2020. they all voted against their own interests. when the finger waving going to start at hem? >> well, thank you for highlighting that i do have the support of over 2000 republicans who -- 200 republicans who worked for various administrationses including everyone going back to ronald reagan, to the bushes, to john mccain and mitt romney and including liz cheney. and i'm very proud to have her support. and i believe that they who -- many of them who may have voted for trump are supporting me

because they know the stakes are so high. in terms of our very democracy and rule of law. and -- >> the finger wagging should start today or tomorrow. >> well, i think what is happening is that we are all working on reminding people of what is at stake, and that is very important. >> eric, real quick, we only got a few minutes. >> only got a few minutes. thank you, madam vice president for having me. thank you, charlamagne tha god. as an employee of a mission-driven, nonprofit banks, i appreciate the efforts many in that bank. but as cheer storymaterial of the city of -- chief storyteller of the city, if donald trump doesn't like the train so much, he's not welcome back. [laughter] >> okay. i don't want to interrupt you. i don't know if anybody knows what you're talking about. okay, go on, go on. >> you can get into it. we mow there's been a lot of conversation about the middle

class, but black men have been taken out of the work force more many reasons of we know that black men are not criminals, they are criminalized, and that has taken black men out of the home, wealth out of the home. and so because -- especially in a city with hutch high poverty, i've heard a lot about middle class, but i would love to hear more about stair stepping from poverty into middle class -- >> no, that's right, and that's real. so, for example, the child tax credit. when we did it, when i first became vice president, we cut black child poverty by half. and you know when you deal with poverty for a child, that's about the whole family, right? when you look at the work that we have done that has been about a dealing with prescription medication, for our seniors black people are 60 to more likely to to get diagnosed with diabetes and have -- and when you look at what people are in

terms of on the verge of brings because of medical bills and medical debt, that's very real. so us capping the cost of something like insulin and prescription if medication not to mention the work that i've been doing to ensure medical debt does not get included on your credit score, and back to the point about history and the reality of life, we also know the real disparities around access to meaningful health care which are more likely to result in people facing chronic illness and in medical emergency. so my work has been and included working to get medical debt not be on your credit score so that that thing you did not invite upon yourself would not be the reason you can't get a lease on an apartment if or anything else. we have to deal with child poverty, we have to dole with poverty period. and there are many specific ways to do it including dealing with getting resources into the

community that aleve great the burdens -- alleviate the burdens that hold people down. but back to detroit, so can you imagine if you go the a city and you say you want the votes of those people, and then you disparage the city? >> damn. >> that's what he did in detroit, and he has a tendency to mention cities that either have his the to haveically black majority population or a black mayor. >> that's right. and that's what he did. the death of detroit because detroit is 78% black, and he doesn't want america to look like that. madam vice president, thank you. we've got to do this again. >> we're done? >> we only -- according to i heart, unless you want to keep going, i got more questions for you. [laughter] but thank you. >> i appreciate you, charmagne. thank you. >> this has been iheart r we, the people, an audio town the hall withic president kamala har remember, your voice matters. say informed, stay engaged and midwest importantly, make sure