Well, it looks to me as if we have hit the 10 o'clock a.m. mark. And so I will begin with a little bit
of introduction to the process for our candidate forum today. I am Sonya Learcamp. I go by my nickname,
Sunny, and I will be your
I am honored to be your moderator today. I'm vice president of the Brown County League of Women Voters.
The start time has been set previously for 10 o'clock. If you are not a candidate, I would ask that
you please mute your audio. If you wish to ask a question of the legislators,
please send a direct message in the chat to one question moderator and just put in, I have a question.
We will begin the questions in the order that they are received. Next slide. We want everyone to know
that all of the Democrat and Republican candidates
for this particular forum for Congressional District 9 have been invited to this forum. Aaron Houchin
did not respond to our invitation. Tim Peck has a schedule conflict, and he is here, however, and plans
to make a one-minute statement at the beginning of the forum. We are pleased to welcome also candidates
Jim Graham
and Brad Meyer. We are also hopeful that Kyle Rorick is going to join us. He did indicate that he would
be joining us today. He may be just running a little bit late. We want everyone to remember how this
works. This is an informative meeting, not a debate. We ask everyone to please be civil and respectful
to one another.
We will begin with a one-minute opening statement from each candidate. The participants will then present
questions for the candidate. Again, I remind you to just type into addressing one question moderator
that you have a question and you will be called upon in the order that your question has been received.
If time permits, we certainly try to give individuals an opportunity to ask additional questions. The
order in which the candidates will respond will rotate. The response time for each question will be
90 seconds unless I set a different limit. We will conclude with a one-minute closing statement from
each candidate.
Time will be moderated to facilitate participation of as many people as possible. The Community Access
Television Services is recording this session, including the questions. So,
We are ready to begin, and we're going to start. Tim Peck does have a conflict, and he will not be able
to stay for the rest of the forum. And we give individuals in that situation one minute to make an opening
statement, either themselves or a representative. And Tim has chosen to be here and make a statement
for himself. So Tim, I would turn it up.
platform over to you and ask that you make your one minute statement. Can you hear me okay? Yes, I believe
so. Wonderful. Thank you. So I'm Tim Peck running for United States Congress. I'm an emergency doctor
and was working overnight last night and I'm working again overnight tonight. So definitely need to
have some sleep today. But in the morning right now, I'm seeing you from my kids T ball game.
here in small town America and then after that we have a day of action where we are knocking doors in
three different towns across district at once and that's the thing I would like to get across that people
are falling behind
It costs too much to work in this country and our rights are being infringed. We are here to bring forward
our message that all of that can change and we need a new way forward. And we are doing that through
a very organized campaign throughout the district. I have one minute here. So just want to stop with
just saying so thank you so much for having me today. I wish I could be here for the whole thing, but
the schedule just didn't line up.
And thank you for your support. If you'd like to join the campaign, please go to our website, take a
look at our positions, and then sign up to volunteer. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tim. All right.
All right. Now we are going to turn to opening statements from the remaining candidates. And I'm glad
to see that Kyle was able to join us and he is here as well. I'm going to start with Jim Graham.
Thank you, Sonny. I grew up in southern Indiana. I studied engineering. I worked as an engineer with
General Motors for about five years. I did graduate study at Purdue and then taught engineering at Purdue
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at the University of Louisville.
In talking with voters about this election, the key concern that comes to my attention is economic conditions
in the ninth district. People are working extremely hard and just barely making ends meet. And if you
take a look at my website, Jim Graham for congress.com, you will see that's the major part of my platform,
together with common sense things like securing social security and Medicare and restoring the cuts
that have been made to veterans programs.
I look forward to this debate and telling you more about what I believe in and why I think I'm the best
candidate for the job. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Brad, we will turn to you next. Thank you. Hi, I'm
Brad Meyer. I'm running for the US House of Representatives. The work you guys do embodies the promise
that this country should work for everybody. But that promise is under attack right now. And that's
why I quit my job a year shy of early retirement to run for office.
Some people think the only way that we can get back into power to make a difference is to be moderate,
to think small, and offer timid changes. This is only going to lead to managed decline. I'm a progressive.
For the last 100 years, we fought for food safety, women's rights, social security, Medicare and Medicaid,
civil rights, and the right to choose. None of those victories came from playing it safe. It came from
people who stood up and fought for a better future.
And now it's our turn. If you want to learn more about my campaign, you can get information at bradmeyer.org.
Thank you. Thank you, Brad. Kyle will now turn to you to give your one minute opening statement. Yeah,
there's background noise there. I was just going to say there are individuals on this who do not, they
are not muted and we're getting some background noise. Could you please check to make sure you are muted?
Thank you. You may go ahead, Kyle. OK. OK. Yeah. So hi, everyone. Good morning. My name is Kyle Rourke,
and I'm running as a candidate in this ninth congressional district. I'm a former UAW semi-line worker,
Navy officer, father of four, Christian, and a former educator at Ivy Tech. And I'm deeply worried about
the American dream. And essentially, I'm running to
create jobs and create opportunity for folks in the ninth congressional. You know, our folks are under
a lot of pressure, financial pressure, you know, either through gas prices, grocery prices, you know,
housing prices, rent prices and the like, everybody's feeling it. So my platform is essentially the
economy, the economy, the economy, educational access, as well as a government oversight, of course.
Relative to the war, I'm still not convinced we need to be doing the war right now, but we're in it.
So we have to deal with it at this particular point in time. But we do need to pass a War Powers Resolution,
which Congress has abdicated its responsibility to do that. I'm a proponent of providing a check on
the executive. And appreciate if you could vote for me and look at my record.
HTTPSCowork.com. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. That's okay. Okay. I think we are ready now to get
started with some of the questions. And I don't see that anyone has indicated that they're ready to
be called on yet.
But I'm going to encourage everyone, you need to be putting your name into the chat box, direct it to
one question moderator so that she can let me know if there is somebody ready. Yes, we do, because I
wasn't paying attention here. Tracy, face it. If you would unmute and ask your question, please. Tracy, face it.
Sorry, I didn't know I had to come off mute and I just scrambled. So my question is to all the candidates,
what is your plan for tackling the healthcare crisis and how did your plan differ from the other candidates?
Thank you, Tracy. We will start with Brad Meyer. So I'm advocating for universal nonprofit healthcare,
which is Medicare for all. I'll let my other
Opponents speak to their plan, but we need this because people are going broke just trying to stay alive.
The current system is not working for us and we need a big change. Thank you, Brad. Next, I will direct
that question to Kyle Rorick.
Yeah, I mean, I'm a proponent of keeping your private health care policy where plausible and implementing
a universal health care policy as a supplement. That's kind of my platform. But primarily, I think the
best path forward is to reinstitute the subsidies for the ACA that expired. That's something that could
happen pretty quickly as soon as I'm sworn in as the congressional rep here in the ninth.
Because assuming we have full control of both houses and Senate, we should be able to do that very quickly.
And that would have meaningful impact to a lot of folks here who have ACA coverage in the ninth
congressional. Relative to my opponents in this space, relative to health care plans, I think Medicare
for all is a pipe dream. I just don't think it's going to work.
for a couple of reasons. One is we have doctor shortage right now. Two, it requires a large tax increase.
And then obviously, what are the operational efficiencies? And thirdly, I just don't see that getting
done unless we get back 60 plus votes on the Senate side. I just don't see it happening, unfortunately.
Medicare for all or universal health care policy
Japan has that in place, but places like that have different institutional structures to make that work.
So we can go into that later. Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. Jim, would you like to answer that question
now, please? Yes. I'm in favor of expanding and improving the Affordable Care Act.
I think that a public option should be included as part of that plan. Clearly, as Kyle said, one of
the first steps is reinstituting the subsidies for insurance coverage through the exchanges. That's
greatly increased the expenses for a lot of people in our district this year. And I have to point out
that obviously our current Congresswoman voted against those subsidies.
So I think that I'm primarily in favor of the improving the healthcare system that we have. And I think
there's plenty of things that we can do to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now go to
the next individual in the queue. I believe there's only one
person in the queue right now. So all of you need to be putting your question, your desire to ask questions
in by addressing one question moderator. I would now call upon Maria Douglas to ask her question, which
will be directed first to Kyle Rourke.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much to the league and to the candidates for this time and this opportunity
to have this conversation. I am curious about your thoughts on our Monroe County Sheriff and his litigation
against the Secretary of State. And I'm curious about your
Um, thoughts, feelings, plans to keep all Monroe County, uh, community members safe. Okay. Kyle. Well,
I'm going to be real honest with you. Um, I'm that type of leader where if I don't know enough about
the context and the litigation, I'll just tell you, and I don't know enough about the litigation actually,
but I will tell you about, um,
community policing, I do think we need to hire potentially more police officers where needed. We need
to have good recruiting, but we also at the same time need to have body cameras. We need to have good
police methodologies where police officers follow their tactics, techniques and procedures.
and they're following the rules. So everybody has fair justice. And also from a judicial perspective,
we need to continue to look at alternatives to criminal justice, such as reducing cash bail for non-violent
offenders, additional probation opportunities for those non-violent offenders, and things of that nature to help
People rehabilitate, right? We also need to look at our prison systems relative to early release for
nonviolent offenders who are getting the right training so they can be released and have a vocation
to get out and be a productive member of society for nonviolent offenders. Yep, thank you. Thank you,
Kyle. I would next direct that question to Jim Graham. Yes.
like Kyle, I have to start by saying I'm not familiar with the specific litigation that the questioner
referenced. I will say that I certainly support the police. I think they protect and defend us.
As Kyle says, they should be properly trained, properly supervised, or should be civilian review. I
often say that I support the police as long as they obey the law.
and I support protestors as long as they obey the law. I think both are important to our parts of society.
And I just feel like that sometimes people forget that just how important police are when you have an
emergency and you have to call them at 3 a.m. to come to your house. So I'm supportive of the police,
unfortunately not familiar with the litigation in Monroe County. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. Brad, we will now turn to you to answer that question. Thank you. I think that that
lawsuit is about ICE. And I'll say this, that one of the first things that I did in my campaign was
I held a protest at Camp Atterbury against the use of that for ICE detention. What we have right now
in immigration is a situation that really is
an unfair system. We need an immigration system that is helpful to American citizens economically, but
also respects the dignity of the people coming in to work and be part of our communities. I also think that
There are other things you talk about just general safety We need to free up police to do things to
protect us So I think we should legalize marijuana and get that out of the way of the legal system so
that police can spend more time Protecting us against violent crime. Hi Thank you
And we need to be looking at effective rehabilitation. Right now, 70% of people coming out of our jail
system re-offend within three years. So what we're doing is we're housing people and we're not giving
them a path forward. Thank you, Brad. Very good. Next, we have a question that Penny Giffins has a question.
Sorry, I'm getting a little tongue tied this morning.
Penny Giffins, I would call upon you to unmute and ask your question, directing it first to Jim Graham.
Well, good morning all and thank you all for being here. I feel like there's a crisis with regard to
mental health and substance use disorders in our community. I think that that taps into a little bit
of what Brad was just referring to also with the number of people that we have incarcerated because
We have far too many people ending up in our carceral system with mental health issues and substance
use disorder issues. So what kind of programming would you propose to address that? Yes, Jim, would
you like to answer that first, please? Yes. Thank you, Penny, for that great question.
And that is a major problem in our society today. It shows up in prison populations. It shows up in
the homeless population. Many, many families are dealing with the problems of mental issues within a
family member. And there's just not enough support totally.
So definitely that's one of the priorities I think that we need to have. I don't know exactly the best
way to address it. We have many facilities and programs both at the state level and at the national
level. To some extent, I think we need to coordinate those better. And certainly that's one of the things
that congressional representatives do is make available information about where you can get resources
from the government. And that would be a priority for my staff to answer those types of questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. Brad, we would now turn to you to respond to that question. So Indiana spends about
$4 billion a year on treatment or the effects of a mental illness that's not covered. We need to get
more resources into schools to help with early intervention.
with children that are having troubles and struggles. We need to address, as I mentioned before, the
mental health crisis of people in prisons so that when they come out they can be productive members
of society. Mental illness untreated is a significant cause of homelessness.
And it's very difficult. We need to hire more social workers. We need to invest in the pipeline for
education and training for people. And it's a very difficult job. There's a lot of people carrying a
hard load and supporting people that need help. And they need to be paid more, and it needs to be part
of a universal healthcare system that I've advocated for.
Thank you, Brad, or excuse me, Kyle, we would now turn to you for your response. Yeah, I mean, relative
to my role as a US House representative, we have funding. So we have Medicare, Medicaid, we have CHIP
to help support funding for mental health services. We have the standards that practitioners
and mental health practitioners are supposed to adhere to relative to licensing and adhering to the
best practices for supporting those services. We also have research that we can count on to best deal
with folks who have bipolar, schizophrenia, different mental health or PTSD as a veteran. And then we
also have integration policies that can help support
between federal and state policies for mental health services. And then lastly is the protection part.
You know, folks with mental health issues, you know, for example, in Floyd County, we have the Veterans
Court. Different protections from a federal perspective could be used to support folks who have mental
illness to keep their job and to provide those services so folks can rehabilitate and get back in the
workforce pretty quickly.
So I know I threw out a lot there, but hopefully I answered your question. But there's a lot there that
the federal government can supply in terms of support for those who have mental illnesses. Thank you.
I would now turn to Michael Starks to ask his question, directing it first to Brad Meyer. Michael, if
you would unmute and ask your question.
Thank you. I appreciate you all taking the time out of your busy schedules to participate in this forum.
My question is, do you support overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision about funding
of political campaigns? Brad, would you like to respond to that first, please?
Absolutely, absolutely. I would like to overturn Citizens United. I'm struggling a little bit on how
we can do that from the federal level, given that it was a Supreme Court. There are some interesting
things. I think it's Wyoming or another state has come up with a thing at the state level that can help
to ameliorate that.
But the impact of money in elections is corrosive, and we can see the effects, and it's just gotten
worse since Citizens United. They're estimating that for a Democrat to win, we're going to need $3 million
over the next six months. So it is really unfortunate that raising money is a huge part of running an election.
Thank you, Brad. We would now direct that question to Kyle Rorick. Yeah, I would definitely agree. Citizens
United needs to be overturned. But the reality is, since it came from the Supreme Court, you really
can't do much in it. The Supreme Court has spoken on that issue. The only way to deal with that issue
effectively is a constitutional amendment. There needs to be a campaign finance constitutional amendment.
That would effectively weaken or basically override the Citizens United case. But we all know how hard
it is to get our congressional friends to agree. It's very hard to see that changing anytime
soon. Unfortunately, we'd have to get 66 or 67 votes obviously in the Senate, plus the majority in the
House. But I do agree.
The campaign, the amount of money going into these campaigns is unbelievable. It's corrosive. I mean,
I just saw John Corning going against Mr. Paxton down there in Texas. I think there was $70 million
spent just in a primary. It's just unbelievable the amount of money that's coming in. And it's definitely
corrosive to democracy. It's not good. A constitutional amendment is the only path forward and we have
to get it done.
Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. Jim, would you like to respond to that question now, please? Yes, a number
of people have asked me, what have I learned in this one-year campaign that I've been involved with?
And one of the things is I've got a very close-up look at why our government is so dysfunctional. And
unlimited amounts of dark money going into campaigns is at the top of that list.
difficult to run against incumbents because of that purpose. And it just really makes no sense. Recently,
Elon Musk put $10 million into a senatorial campaign in Kentucky, which is ridiculous. He's not a citizen
of Kentucky, has very little business dealings in Kentucky. Why should he have that much influence over
who's going to end up representing Kentucky in Congress?
And unfortunately, we see the ads every day down here in this part of the world. So it was a very poor
decision. It will probably go down in history as one of the worst decisions of the Supreme Court. It
needs to be overturned. Unfortunately, it's going to be a constitutional amendment to do it.
All right, thank you for asking those questions or answering those questions. The next individual in
the queue is Jeff Richardson. Jeff, I would ask you to unmute and direct your question, first of all,
to Kyle Rorick. Yes, thank you very much.
I am interested in your position or positions on how to achieve affordable housing. And I know perhaps
a separate question is how to deal with the homeless situation. So depending on the nature of your response,
you can incorporate the homelessness into your response or just focus on affordable housing. And thank
you so much. Well, affordable housing obviously is a major concern
without question, and it really comes, at the end of the day, it comes back to supply, supply of affordable
housing. So from a federal perspective, we need to look at the cost of construction, you know, all the
inputs to the cost of construction materials, building materials, nails, wood, shingles, and the like,
right? We also need to look at providing financial capital.
or low-interest subsidies to developers who have an interest in providing affordable housing. And then
we also need to look at tax incentives for development in general for developers who want to develop
a maybe 20, 30-acre piece of property and provide housing that way.
And then we also need to look at regulatory reform. What are some of the regulatory issues that are
causing a barrier to entry for developers? Environmental, now obviously we don't want to reduce our
environmental regulations, but there's got to be some other regulatory reforms we can put forward to
help developers get access
to that development and get it done in a timely fashion. So we can drop the price of these housing units
so folks can buy a house and get in a house very quickly. It's literally out of reach. I mean, since,
what, 2000? Time. OK, my time's up. All right, thank you.
I will tell the candidates when she says time. I believe you still have 10 seconds to finish your sentence
if you're in the middle of a sentence. We would go to Jim Graham next on that question. Yes. In my opening
statement, I spoke about people working tremendously hard and just barely making ends meet.
In some cases, not making ends meet and continuing to rack up unlivable amounts of debt.
And a big part of that is the cost of housing. If housing is scarce, rents are going to be more expensive.
And so we definitely, that's something we definitely need to work on. It's a problem that's a joint,
local, state, and federal. And I will point out that there are a bunch of federal programs already available
to improve housing and make housing available.
I think a lot of the work needs to be done at the local level on regulatory form zoning and other things
that cause the cost of housing to be so expensive. So I don't I think that, again, I think Congressional
Office needs to be a good clearinghouse to help developers find out what sort of low interest housing
information is available and funding is available to support their efforts. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. Brad, would you like to answer that question now, please? Absolutely. So there's a couple
of things. First, you look at single-family homes, which I think is what mostly the other people were
talking about. We have to stop speculation by out-of-state companies. It's not appropriate. Sorry,
say again? Jeff Richardson and Sue Medlin, would you please mute?
your thank you. Thank you very much. You can go ahead, Brad. Thank you, ma'am. So we have to
stop speculation. Tariffs have driven up the cost of materials. So building new homes is expensive.
There's been federal policies that I won't
that don't incentivize people to build new homes. When you're talking about developers and we had that
in the past and it was very effective. And the other thing is earnings. Earnings have not kept up with
inflation and the average wage for an 18 to 34 year old in real terms has dropped by about 20%. That's
part of why they can't get into a new house. So we need to help first time buyers get in. But also, you know,
You talk about homelessness, it's not, although we have a massive housing shortage, mental illness needs
to be addressed. There are issues that even if we had lots of homes would still need to be addressed
to help with homelessness. Thank you, Brad. We have a couple of individuals in the queue who have second
questions. But I think before I do that, we had some questions submitted
by the Brown County high school students in the political science class of Emily Llewellyn. And I thought
we might sneak one of their questions in here. First of all, the question is, in what ways do you plan
to support rural public education? And I would direct that question first to Jim Grant,
education really is the source of the commonality that we are largely at all share in this country,
which has worked so well for 250 years. And it's now under stress. It's under stress from a whole bunch
of things from giving vouchers to non non public schools, from cutting budgets to schools, and to, you know,
an insufficient salaries for teachers. So public education, I feel, is so important to what makes this
country work that it needs to be a priority both in rural counties and in the urban areas. There's problems
both in both ways. And so I just think I'm very much against this proposal to eliminate the Department
of Education.
I think it does important things in terms of support for student loans. It does important things for
researching new educational methods and for also for tracking the performance of educational schools
with high schools and other schools within the country. So I think it would be a mistake to eliminate
that department. So that's my response. Thank you, Jim. I'd now turn to Brad Meyer to respond to that question.
You need to unmute Brad. Sorry, ma'am. Thank you. So about 90% of education funding and policy comes
from the state and constitutionally, that's what's required. The federal government through the Department
of Education does several things. One of them is they act as an important scorekeeper to let parents
know whether the education system is meeting the needs of the children.
There are also, and in the case of special needs kids, especially in rural communities, the federal
government supplies additional funding to help because local communities just don't have enough money
to provide education for special needs. That's primarily the bounds of federal policy on local education, but at
The state level, we also need to be helping with student loans, and we need to be trying to nudge the
states into getting back to their primary responsibilities for funding schools, which they've
been underfunding. Universities, only about 15% of funding comes from the state, and that's limiting
opportunity for people. Thank you, Brad. I now ask Kyle Rorick.
to respond to that question? Yeah, sure. So public education, I mean, let's just start with the big,
beautiful disaster of a bill taking, you know, cutting 13 billion over the next 10 years between Medicaid
and SNAP benefits. Obviously, I would want to repeal and replace the big
beautiful disaster of a bill and reinstate those SNAP benefits because those SNAP benefits are used
for elementary kids and middle school kids to help subsidize those meals. Obviously from a STEM perspective,
we need to pay teachers more. Can't get enough teachers in the STEM community, whether they're math,
engineering, or physicists to come and teach, we need to pay them more. Student loan forgiveness, we
need to continue to try to do that.
for folks who wanna go into teaching and support, and they work in a school for 10 years, they should
get student loan forgiveness. And then TAs, my wife is a teacher and I've discovered that through her
work that there's not enough teacher assistance, and especially in elementary schools that need that
additional support. And another thing just on a side note,
They've shown over time, over the last 16 years, the scores have been going in the negative direction.
And a lot of that is because we have too much digital technology in school. So I would advocate for
a no iPhone policy for schools. And I know I'll probably get lynched on that comment, but the truth
is there's too many distractions with these iPhones in these schools, middle school to high school.
Yeah, we need to continue to look at that as a policy. And I would advocate for no iPhones in public
high schools. Thank you. OK. Thank you very much. We now turn to the next individual in the queue. I
believe that Tracy Fawcett has another question. Tracy, I'd ask that you unmute and ask your question.
Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So yesterday, excuse me, Trump said everyone who came within 200 feet of
the Oval Office will be fully pardoned for any crimes committed. So do you support Trump's impeachment
and any other means to ensure those in power get punished for the crimes they've committed? Hey, I direct
that question first to Brad Meyer.
So, yes, I'm in favor of impeaching Trump. The biggest thing for me is, I mean, there's a lot of reasons
to impeach him, but the fact is the Iran war is completely unconstitutional. The American people needed
an opportunity to weigh in of whether this was a war that we wanted done in our name, and he's completely
bypassed that.
bypassed other laws and usurped the responsibility of Congress, and Congress hasn't done their job.
So we need to impeach, we need to start having hearings, we need to hold these people accountable if
we're going to preserve our democracy. Thank you, Brad. I now direct that question to Kyle Rorick. Yes, I mean,
where do you start? I mean, he's been impeached twice. We all knew going in, he's going to be impeached
again and again. I mean, the American people, you know, we voted for this. I hate to say it, but we
voted for this. I mean, we all knew he was a convicted felon, legally a convicted felon. We knew this
was going to happen and it's happening. So, but what we can do to,
you know, deal with this situation and try for impeachment again, and hold those accountable where possible.
Now, he did say he's going to try to pardon all his underlings, and that probably will happen. And we'll
have to deal with that, and that's unfortunate. But as of right now, here's what we can do now.
If the Democratic Party takes back control, we can start impeaching the secretary of war. Well, we were
talking about impeaching Miss Bondi, but she got fired. But any of his undersecretaries that are doing
all the work, that are doing some shady things, we need to start investigating those folks and impeaching
those folks because he hasn't pardoned them yet.
He hasn't pardoned them yet. So we need to take a proactive approach to start to hold those folks accountable
now, effectively in January. That needs to be top priority because once he gets ready to leave office,
they'll be all pardoned. And then you can't hold them accountable after that. Thank you. Thank you,
Kyle. Jim, we'd now turn to you to answer that question. Thank you. And thank you, Tracy, for the question.
I think it points to a bigger issue of the need for government reform. There are tremendous ethics issues
within the Congress of individual members trading individual stocks. There's issues about needs for
ethics reform of the Supreme Court in terms of acceptance of gifts and conflict of interest. And there's
a big conflict of interest that goes forth in the pardon process.
This was really a holdover from the era of kings. And unfortunately, our framers never thought we would
elect somebody as malignant as Donald Trump. It was a failure of their imagination. But I think that
the pardon policy has been abused both by Democratic and Republican presidents over recent years.
Trump has just taken it to a new level, pardoning a convicted middle American drug lord, pardoning people
that has business ties to himself, of all things pardoning the people that rioted at the Capitol and
actually led to the death of police officers. That's just beyond the pale. There's certainly currently
something in Congress called the Pardon Integrity Act,
And I would certainly support that as a congressman. I think it's long overdue. Thank you, Tracy, for
your question. Thank you, Jim. And we would now turn to the next individual waiting to ask a question.
But I also want to remind everyone, please
Get your name in the queue if you have a question. There are a lot of important issues out there for
these individuals here to give you their opinions and impressions on, so don't hold back. The next individual
I would call upon is Kelton O'Connell.
Kelton, if you would unmute and ask your question, directing it first to Kyle Rourke. Thank you. I'm
a student at Bloomington High School North. I heard about the idea of banning cell phones in K-12 education.
Indiana passed Senate Bill 78, which bans phones entirely at schools. But I'm wondering what the candidates'
positions are on the underlying issue, which is social media companies and how they manipulate
youth and how that can affect our mental health. So what are candidates' positions on social media platforms
and how maybe that can be regulated more? Thanks. Thank you for that question, Kelton. And again, Kyle,
could you respond first? Yeah, you know, just recently I did see that there was a decision passed down.
I think Metta was getting sued.
for 400 million civil case. Well, it might not be just meta, but I think Google was in there as well
about meta. Oh, Kyle has frozen. While we wait to see if Kyle can
reengage. Why don't we turn to Jim Graham? Would you please respond to Kelton's question? Yes.
Thank you, Kelton, for that question. I think we've all become aware that social media and certainly
social media in conjunction with AI
poses a great risk to our youth. And it's a big oversight that we haven't addressed this more forcefully
before now. I, like Kyle, was happy to see the decision against Meta and Google for not providing better
safeguards for minors in terms of use of their technology. And it's certainly something that Congress
is going to have to investigate in depth going forward.
I think that we've kind of let the people in Silicon Valley get away with harmful activities too long
with AI coming on. It doesn't even work in a lot of cases. It has these solution nations where it generates
completely false returns. And so to not have guardrails on the development of AI,
would be a tremendous mistake and has to be addressed by the next Congress. I would be a person that
could do that. Thank you for that response, Jim. Until Kyle comes back, I will stay in this order. Brad,
would you like to answer that question, please? Yes. There are great benefits to social media for young
people, and there are also risks.
As they grow from youth to young adults into adulthood, we need to provide increasing or decreasing
controls. But the younger you are, the more protections you need. And there are some predatory behaviors
that social media has to bring in business that really need to be reviewed under antitrust and
the predatory nature of some of these practices have shown been really dangerous and causing a lot of
distress for young people and a lot of anxiety for parents. Other countries, Australia has, and European
countries have digital rights that we do not, and those companies operate under those successfully.
So they can do it here as well. They just choose not to and Congress doesn't hold them to the standard
that they should. Thank you very much for that response. We will now be turning to the next individual
in the queue, which is Maria Douglas has another question and she is the last one we have in line. So
please make sure to get in line if you have some questions.
Maria, if you would like to unmute and ask your question and direct it first of all to Jim Graham. Again,
thank you so much. A couple comments first. Kelton, pride of Bloomington North. Great question and thank
you for pointing out that our state legislature, which ended in February, had passed that cell phone
ban. I'm also happy to hear
that we are not condemning social media entirely because I've heard several of you talk about education
being important. And one of the reasons why we have a high dropout rate is because education is not
keeping up with keeping students engaged. Okay, so my question is, I am more interested in systemic
change. It is high time, past time.
None of these issues, housing, healthcare, things like that, none of these challenges happened overnight.
So I am curious about your thoughts and plans, not thoughts. I would be curious about your plans for
systemic change, and then I'd also be curious to know what your theory of change is. Thank you.
All right. Thank you for that question.
We turn first of all to Jim Graham. Yeah. And I was going to ask if Maria could repeat the last part
of her question. I didn't get it. You're interested in what my plans are for systemic change and what?
Yes. Thank you. What your theory of change is. Oh, my theory of change. OK. Very good. So this is a
good political science question.
You know, I'm an engineer, so I'm not as knowledgeable as possibly I should be in that area. You do
bring up an important issue, and that is, you know, what we can do as young legislators. We're going
to be first time there. We're kind of at the bottom of the queue. There's, you know, I think it's one
of the important things is for
is for us to get to know the other legislators on both sides of the party and start to work together
for common sense solutions to our problems. I think that that's the best way that we're actually going
to move forward. It used to be, I can remember when others, even sides of the party could really argue
about a point, but then could come together and come up with workable solutions.
We've forgotten that because a few years ago, a group of people ran for Congress on the thing that they
would not compromise with the other side. And that's one of the worst, that's beside Citizens United,
that's one of the worst things that's happened to our government.
because compromise is not a dirty word, it's how things get done. And if I were elected to Congress,
that would be one of my key things is to try to find places where we can have win-win solutions and
start attacking some of these critical problems we have such as immigration, such as secure and social
security and Medicare, such as affordable housing. So to me, that's the answer is the return to reasonable
bipartisan discussion and finding solutions.
for everybody. OK. Thank you very much for that response, Jim. I'm going to ask Brad Meyer to respond
to this question. And then Maria, I'm going to ask you to repeat the question since Kyle has just rejoined
us. And then he can have an opportunity to respond as well. Brad, would you please give your response?
Thank you, Maria. This is a wonderful question. And it's the heart of the question of electability here
in southern Indiana. My position is that we need to actually be fighting for systemic change. When
And I'm not against bipartisanship. I'm not against compromise. But the fact is we need to stand firm
on what we believe and what our values are. We need to be working for these changes. We need to be advocating
for these changes. And if we start out by saying, we're going to run to the middle and we're going to
try to snuggle up next to the other side, that isn't the beginning of a bargain. That's the beginning
of capitulation. So my theory is, and my plan is,
is to reach out to voters from the other side and show them that our ways are better and in their best
interest and get them to come over and vote for us instead of trying to be softer and soften and undercut
our own positions. For systemic change, I'm advocating for not just universal healthcare, I'm advocating
for a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right of healthcare for
federal budgeting, I'm advocating for a balanced budget amendment that forces Congress and the government
to act responsibly. And I'm advocating for an immigration policy that changes immigration to an economic
question so that we can begin to deal or communicate with the other side of why it's in their best interest
to allow controlled immigration. We need to be reaching out.
Thank you very much, Brad. And welcome back, Kyle. I'm going to have Maria repeat her questions so that
you have an opportunity to respond. Oh, man, I hope I remember what I said. OK.
So I don't know if Kyle was on when Kelton pointed out that the cell phone, that our state legislature
already passed a cell phone ban in the legislature that ended in February. So, Kel, I know you don't
have to worry necessarily about that anymore. Also, my question was that I am interested in systemic
change, housing crisis, mental health,
uh, healthcare has not, these challenges have not happened overnight. And so, like I said, I'm interested
in systemic change. And so I'm curious about what your plans are for systemic change and what your theory
of change is. Kyle, yes. Systemic change. Okay. What, in which area, um, are we, are we talking about
mental health? Are we talking about childcare? Are we talking to,
Can you be more a little bit more specific in what in an area? I'm not sure that I need to be specific
in in a in an area. Just overall systemic change would maybe think about what what that means to you.
What how you're going to address what your plans are to to and so you could pick you could choose what
what area you want to be specific about if you would like. Yeah, OK, so.
I'll just start with issue identification of the constituents here in the night. So it's obviously
affordability, educational access, governmental oversight, right? So if you just go to those top three,
my goal is to figure out from an economic perspective how to ease the pressure on grocery prices,
gas prices, housing prices.
And I talked a little bit earlier about the housing issue, but basically we have a supply issue with
housing. We need to provide housing subsidies to encourage folks, developers to get access to basically
develop property at a reasonable price at a reasonable cost. So that's kind of a tidbit on the housing.
And then obviously wages, wages have to come up.
It's $7.25, they need to go up north of 15, maybe even $18 an hour. I'm a pragmatist, we'd probably
land at 15. But with all these issues I'm talking about, it really comes down to developing relationships
once you get in office and trying to build legislation. So for example, Congressman Baruch develops
a piece of legislation, I author it, boom.
I have to go around and work with all the other House of Representatives to get them to buy onto the
bill. They will co-sponsor the bill and build those relationships to build that support. That has to
be passed. And then of course the Senate has to debate the legislation. They have to pass. And then
obviously it will go to the president for signing. But that's the job about change. You have to have that
that personality, that relationship skill set to be able to build those relationships. And if you don't
have that skill set, you're not gonna be able to build relationships to get things done. That's the
job. So hopefully I've helped explain my change theory and how I present myself in that role. Okay,
thank you very much for responding back to that question.
I have had a request from Jim Graham to do another round on this question. We don't normally do that,
but if all three candidates would like to have another minute to expound on this particular topic, I
will do that. Otherwise, we'll move on to the next question. Do either Kyle or Brad wish to answer any
further on this particular question?
I mean, sure. I mean, I can expound a little bit more. I mean, though, it all comes back to those top
three, affordability, educational access. I think I hit on affordability a little bit. Educational access.
We really need to provide subsidies for Ivy Tech, for example, folks who want to go to be electrician,
be a pipe fitter.
be a plumber. We need to make those educational tuition benefit, those prices a little bit lower through
subsidies. So because I think that's critical. So folks can get access to that educational program.
They can come out of that. They'll secure a degree and get a high paying skill trades job. Okay. That's
important. Another program. Say you want to go be a phlebotomist, you know, a medical tech program.
you know, at IU and Columbus, right? And you get a two-year degree. You have a hard time paying that
tuition. And the government comes in and says, listen, this is a high-demand area. Skill trades is high
demand. So is medical. We're going to help subsidize that program to get you access to that program.
So when you graduate, you can get that high-paying medical position. So I'd advocate for those policies
that help folks get into that next level of income of wages that'll help support their families.
Thank you. Okay. Jim, what did you want to add to your response to this question? Yes, thank you, Sonny.
To me, this brings up the key issue of electability. We've lost this race eight times. Many of the things
that have been mentioned today have been brought up and rejected.
by the voters soundly, eight times. I think it's time for a new playbook. And I think the answer is
that we work, that we focus on bipartisanship, on solving our problems together, rather than hoping
that people are gonna change their mind after voting eight times against a lot of the things
we're suggesting. So I think we gotta be reasonable and get off of fantasy island and get back to actually
talking about things that appeal to independence,
appeal to a fraction of the Republicans because that's the only way you're going to get a plurality
of the votes in this district. It's been proven time and time again. I feel sometimes like we're on
Groundhog's Day only without the happy ending. Thank you. Jim, thank you. Brad, would you like to weigh
in with a little more information on this topic? I would very much like to weigh in on this topic. This
is the heart of the difference that has to be picked on May 5th.
So there are people who should go nameless, Jim, that are explicitly saying that we need to approach
it one way and I'm saying we are not. We have been losing for a long time. We've been losing for a long
time because Democrats have really good ideas and frankly do a crappy job of selling it because we talk
about it out of our feelings and how we feel about it and our sense of morality instead of talking about
it from self-interest.
the self-interest of the voters, why it's important to them, how it's important to them. And all of
these arguments about we can't do this and we can't do that, they said it about food safety,
women's rights, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights, and the right to choose. All of
these things we had to fight for. And we're not fighting near hard enough. And the reason we're losing
isn't because we aren't fighting, it's because we think fighting is a strongly written letter to the Congress.
from Congress to the president. We need to stand up for our rights because we're never going to press
forward if we don't. The systemic change that Maria's talking about is what we need in this country,
and it's going to attract voters. Voters want courage. Thank all three of you for your responses on
that particular question.
Can't make any more exceptions, Kyle, sorry. I didn't get a chance to weigh in on the electability part.
That's the only thing I'm saying.
Well, you can perhaps address that in your final remarks. We're going to move on to the next questioner,
who is Pat Slabach. I will advise everyone that he is the last individual that's in the queue at this
point in time. We just have about 26 minutes left. If you have a question to ask, make sure to get in
the queue.
Excuse me, Pat, I will ask you to unmute and ask your question, directing it first of all to Brad Meyer.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Great. I think you've already said something that I was asking that the District
9 has not elected a Democrat for eight election cycles, which is very discouraging to me. I'm a progressive
Democrat and I'm looking for change. So why are you the best candidate who can actually win? And what
are you doing to assure that? Thank you for that question. Go ahead, Brad. I'm sorry.
This comes down to the question of electability. And years ago when Trump was first running. I was talking
to a guy, complete stranger and he said you know he said I don't know whether I want to vote for Bernie
Sanders or Donald Trump, but I want, and I said you know they're diametrically opposed he said yeah
but I want something different.
alternatives to what people are seeing. The people that are struggling don't want our sympathy. They
want their problems fixed. We need to be advocating for a $20 an hour minimum wage and the first $20,000
free and universal health care, Medicare for all, that's going to really make a concrete difference
in people's lives. That's what electability is going to be because
You know, the meek may inherit the earth, but they're never going to take back the house. We need to
show courage and we need to stand up for our values and our priorities. And we're not doing that.
Thank you, Brad. I'd now turn to Kyle and ask you to unmute and respond to the question. Yeah, yeah.
So there's two issues here that have led to the last seven, eight election cycles, us getting beat, handling.
One, the Republican party is really, really good at labeling, and it's kind of our fault too, labeling
the candidate that we put up as woke or too progressive or too liberal, right? They're very good at
that, right? Okay, maybe it's justified, maybe it's not. Okay, fair. Two, the economy. The economy has,
it's kind of like, you don't have any lock on the front door
until somebody breaks into your house and then you decide to put a lock on. That's what's happening
with the Republican folks. They have like, whoa, I got to wake up. My gas prices are up. My housing
prices are up. My gas, all these different pricing issues are impacting them. So now they're looking
for a reason to vote for Democrat, but it has to be the right reason, the right Democrat, that centrist
Democrat who wants to put more money in their pockets. Period. It's that simple. They don't want to think,
As soon as we start talking about being progressive or Medicare for all or other issues that are on
centrist to put more money in pockets, you lose that Republican voter. You lose that independent voter.
They wanna know what you're gonna do for them right now. I believe that is the central issue between
deciding my candidacy or Brad or potentially
I feel I'm the best person, obviously, to bring that message home in the general. And I believe I'm
the only one, you know, between myself and Jim, Jim and I are pretty close on a lot of these issues,
but definitely we're big golf between, you know, myself and the other and Brad. Brad's a good man, but
we just have a difference there. And I truly believe
The Republican and an independent, that's what they're looking for. They're looking for that centrist
voter in that background like myself, who's I worked on assembly line. I put myself through college
eight, nine years. I was in the Navy for 11 years. So I'm that person. It's focused, hyper-focused on
the economy and trying to provide more money in people's pockets, period. It's that simple. And I believe
I can bring home that message and bring home those independent and Republican voters.
Thank you, Kyle. Jim, would you like to respond to that question now? Yes, I think I'm the best candidate
because I've lived over half my life in this district. I spent over two years traveling around, visiting
with people in the district before I decided to actually enter this race. In those hundreds of conversations,
the thing that came up loud and strong was the economics, the personal economics. I'm struggling, but
my family's not making it. There's no jobs here.
in this community for my kids. My kids are gonna have to go someplace else. And I agree with Kyle 100%
that the message is economics. The other thing I think is that we have to, I'll repeat myself, we have
to have a message that's gonna be accepted to independents and some Republicans. And those hundreds
of conversations, I did not have one person indicate that they felt we needed universal healthcare.
If I brought up the issue of health care and would you support universal health care, maybe one in 10
said, well, maybe the rest felt like it was a government overreach, a government takeover of health
care that they would be worried about and would not support. And I don't think we ought to be turning
away potential voters right off the bat. So I think we got to get realistic about working and finding
those independents and finding those Republicans, not what we think everybody should want, but what
the voters actually want. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jim. Well, there does not appear to be anyone in the queue at this point in time.
So I'm going to pick another question from the list of questions submitted by the Brown County High
School political science class. Please give an example of how you have worked with people on opposing
sides to accomplish something.
So I would direct that question first to Kyle. Oh, boy. Woo. That's a great question. I was in the military
for 11 years. I've been in the private sector for 20 plus years, 25 plus years. I would say the biggest
example is when I was in the military. I mean, you always have competing views on providing a solution.
I'm an electrical engineer by trade.
So it was always in situations where we want to build something faster, quickly and under cost. Um,
and you want it to work over five to 10 years without bad things happening at breaking and causing,
uh, harm to somebody. So there was always a competing views on different things on how we should approach
a problem, how we should solve the problem, how we should providing me meaningful solution to that problem
and who's going to pay for it.
And so I really think what you have to do is everybody's got their own personal perspective on how to
solve a problem. But you have to have empathy. I think that is the key as a congressional representative.
You have to be able to put yourself in that other person's shoes and understand their perspective. Because
if you can't understand the perspective, you're not going to build that rapport in that relationship.
that is gonna bring them on board with a piece of legislation you wanna put forward to get it passed.
And if you understand empathy, I think you can build those relationships and you can bring that best
solution to that problem to bear. I think the problem in Congress a lot of times is pride. Everybody
thinks they know everything about everything. And the reality is, is nobody knows everything about everything.
You have to find the solution to the problem, figure it out quickly, and help people's lives, make things
better for them. And that's it the other day. That's what your goal is to do, improve people's lives
in our congressional district. Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. I would next direct that question to Jim
Graham. Yes, that's what I spent most of my life doing.
is working with people, strong-willed people with disparate views and coming together for solutions.
I did that when I was a process engineer with General Motors, trying to get the UAW to accept changes
in the way things were produced in the plant. I did that when I was a department chair at the University
of Louisville and dealing with 22 PhDs, all of whom had egos. And in all of these cases,
I was able to come up with solutions that actually worked. I think that bipartisanship, working together
with solving problems, has to be our way forward in this country. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I would
now direct that question to Brad.
All three of us have had long careers. I spent 25 years in manufacturing leadership roles, and I spent
nine years as a subject matter expert as a civilian for the Navy. And you always run into these situations
where there are competing interests. Different organizations or subgroups always have different perspectives,
and they're trying to maximize the good for them, and they sometimes forget that they're needing to
maximize the good for everybody.
And my approach in general is when things start to get heated and there's conflict, I stop talking and
I listen. And I've been listening. I've had two universal healthcare forums, five round table discussions
with experts and 15 town halls to listen to what people are thinking and what they're worried about.
And Kyle is right.
that empathy is important, but you have to understand where they're coming from and then help them understand
that we're trying to maximize the overall good, not just the good for one or another group. And eventually
people come to the table and work it out. And that's the heart of compromise. So I'm talking about fighting,
but it's not just
yelling at each other. It's about advocating for a position and helping to find that common ground that
both sides can live with that makes a difference and moves the ball forward. That's what leadership
is about. Great question. Thank you, Brad. We do have a question that was posted in chat by MW.
And that individual asked if I could address this question to the three of you. What is your view of
the growing incarceration system, such as seen currently with detention camps? And I would direct that
question first to Jim. Yeah. Thank you, Sunny. And so the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates
of any developed nation. And I think that has not served us well. We've already had the issue about
repeat offenders and that people are not getting the education and the skills they need so that they
can make it in the outside world. I think that the idea that private industry or private organizations
can run prisons better well than the government, I don't think that's been proven. I think it's mainly
put a lot of money
in a lot of pockets. And so I think that we certainly need to restudy our imprisonment system. I'm totally
against the mass imprisonment under ICE. I think that arresting people that have simply come here for
a better life and have lived here peacefully, again, is not serving us well. It's making us,
look bad in the world. And I just think that it's unfair, and it's against my personal Christian values.
So I'm definitely 100% opposed to the ICE incarceration, high incarceration. You know, elect the criminal,
I mean, arrest the criminals, but don't incarcerate the rest of the people. Thank you. Thank you, Jim.
And I appreciate that you covered both privatization of incarceration,
plus the immigration aspect of detentions, because I do believe the questioner wanted to have both of
those issues addressed. And I say that for clarification as I turn to Brad to answer the question next.
Thank you. One of the first things I did in my campaign, and I mentioned this before, is I led a protest
against Camp Atterbury
not against Camp Atterbury, but against the policy of using Camp Atterbury. And we had 500 people there.
We got national press with Rachel Maddow. We need, and that's only a small part of the, it's an expression
of a bad immigration policy that needs to be fixed.
We need to work on not just the symptom, which is the detention, we need to work on the overall policy
and break this 40-year logjam on immigration. There's a way forward. And it's on my website, bradmeyer.org.
The second thing is, again, 75% of the people that are in prisons
going to get out, and 50% of those reoffend. So we're clearly not addressing recidivism, which is an
important aspect, and the answer isn't making a profit off of people that are being incarcerated. I
don't think that if you're trying to make a profit, I don't think your interest is in helping
find a way for these people to become productive members of society. I think it's to minimize cost and
maximize profit while they're in your control, not care. So I think we've got real problems to address.
And when I get in Congress, I'm going to be working on that. Thank you, Brad. We'd now turn to Kyle
for his response. Yeah, so relative to the private incarceration,
Um, you know, I'm a proponent of alternatives, uh, to, uh, private incarcerate alternatives to, to do
judicial punishment basically for nonviolent offenders. Um, so we talked a little bit earlier about
probation. We've talked, uh, about reducing, um, uh, cash bail opportunities for nonviolent offenders.
We've talked about house arrest.
You know, there's other forms of providing relief to incarceration for folks who, instead of going to
jail, basically, these are some things they can do to provide correction. I see that as a necessary
thing to, you know, to deal with the recidivism issue. Also, we need to look at folks who actually get sentenced
What are we doing in jail, right? Are we providing trades, trades training, any kind of training to
help them so when they leave the judicial system, the prison system, that they can actually make a living.
They can get out and get a job and provide some kind of meaningful income. In terms of the ICE piece,
I really think it all comes down to
E-Verify, that's why we have the problem we have now. E-Verify is a system where it basically requires
tracking of your immigration status while you're in this country. And it requires employers to basically
sign you up and requires you to pay taxes. And if you don't pay your taxes and you don't track these
employees who are actually here working, then you will get fined.
you would get fined. The government would come in and, you know, for example, if you're a meat packing
plant, you would get fined for not having all these employees have an e-verified number. And I really
think it all comes back to money. We could really get our immigration system under control if we really
stuck to the e-verified system because it goes after the actual employer who employs illegal immigrants
who come here to work
And that's fine, they can come here and work, but we have to have a guest worker program that tracks
their status here in the US. And so, because the reality is, is we need ICE to do national security,
right? We have a lot of folks in this, you know, from other countries, China, Russia, and Latin America
who want to come and harm us, right? Cartels, for example. So we have to deal with those hardened criminals
So sometimes it's just justified. I mean, ICE was created after 9-11, and we cannot defund
these organizations because if we do, we jeopardize our national security. So thank you. Thank you for
that response, Kyle. I don't believe I have any other individuals in the queue at this point in time.
If I'm mistaken,
Let me just break in to say that our one question moderator got knocked off chat. So if anybody has
a question, I guess the thing to do would be to put it generally in chat or directly to Sunny. Either
one of those will work. There was actually a question in chat from Ellen. We've seen so much damage
done by the current administration.
Do you see that one, Sunny? I do. And I can read that. She has posted, we've seen so much damage done
by the current administration, not only to our internal affairs, but also damage to our foreign relations.
What are you going to tackle first to reverse
this damage. And this may need to be our last question, because we're going to need to leave time for
final remarks from each of the candidates. I would direct that question first to Brad Meyer. Do you
remember the question, Brad, or did you see it? I've got it right in front of me. OK, thank you. The
first thing that we need to do is we need to get our system of government back up and running again.
Congress has completely
abdicated their responsibilities. They have not done what they need to do for oversight. We need to
ensure accountability. Kyle mentioned, which is true, that we have impeached the president a couple
of times. And we still have to swing at that pitch. And we have to swing at the pitch of holding our
leaders accountable and at least going on record to say, this is not what our democracy is about.
This administration over the last eight years has done, or seven years, has done enormous damage to
our reputation internationally, and it's going to take decades to fix the problems. There is a basic
distrust of the American government at this point. Even if Trump is pulled out, they're afraid that
somebody new is going to come in. We're going to have to work
If we wanna talk about external, we're gonna have to start by working internal to help people understand
why international relations is tied to their life, why it's relevant to them so that they care, so that
we can overcome this poisonous isolationism and short-sighted isolationism that has gripped us and our
foreign policy. Until we can overcome that,
We are going to have a lot of trouble on the international front. And if we don't, it's going to hurt
us economically. We're 4% of the world's population and 33% of the world's wealth. And a lot of that
has to do with friends and allies abroad. And we need to get past this isolationist fever that we're
in right now. And in Congress, I'll do what I can to help with that. Thank you, Brad. Kyle.
I would ask you to weigh in on that question now. Yeah, unfortunately, we have a pay for play system
right now in the Trump administration. That's very apparent. It's very apparent. And our allies, I think,
have got that message.
Don't come knocking at the door unless you have something to offer Mr. Trump and his allies.
So, unfortunately, that's where we're at. Very corrupt administration by any account. I think everybody
sees it. It's out in the open. And unfortunately, nobody cares, especially on the Republican side. That's
what they do. No, not really. No, this is unprecedented what they're doing relative to, I mean, we've
all seen Trump's
net worth, I think it went from one billion, now it's up to seven billion, right? It keeps up and up
and up, right? So this is what we got. So it's going to be a massive cleanup, you know, when the Democrats
take control relative to investigations, impeachments and the like. But in 2028, there's going to have
to be a new presidential reform act relative to money on the politics, ethics and the like. But the
answer to the real question is,
How do we get along with our allies? I mean, it comes back to credibility and not criticizing them,
right? You know, treat others as if you'd want to be treated. Not wanting to go take over Greenland,
which is a sovereign country. You know, treating them with respect, not saying lewd and vulgar comments
to them. Treat them as if you would want to be treated. It's that simple. Because the more allies we have,
We don't need as many guns and bullets when we have to go to war and protect our interest. Thank you.
Thank you, Kyle. Jim, would you like to weigh in on that question for us, please? Yes, I would. And
I'll note that even though Brad and I disagree on a few things, we agree on a lot more things than we
disagree on. The statement that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, I agree with 100%. The question
is, what's going to happen
when the new Congress comes in. And I think there's a good chance that the Democrats will have control
of the House, maybe even a small majority in the Senate. However, it's not gonna be possible to impeach
the president. It's not gonna be possible to overcome presidential vetoes, to pass a lot of legislation.
My suggestion is, rather than start a whole bunch of investigations and try to bring people forward
and investigate,
that we make a deal with the Republican minority in Congress. That is, we won't impeach the president.
We won't waste your time doing that. Instead, let's work together to try to solve some of these big
problems we have. And here's some of our suggestions. And so I would take Brad's suggestion about trying
to work with others to try to do that, because if we just, if the Democrats just come in and start a
whole bunch of investigations and make a lot of noise,
we're not going to make any progress at all in the next two years. And the Democrats might well lose
the next race because the public will be fed up with the fact we didn't get anything done. So it's a
double-edged sword. That's all I have.
Thank you very much, Jim. I want to commend all three of the candidates who are present today for addressing
the questions in a straightforward but respectful manner. I think now we will turn to your final remarks
and we will start with Kyle Roark. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate your time this morning.
The reality is, is our constituents, assuming I get elected, they're gonna expect results.
Like Jim just said, they're gonna expect results. You can do some investigations, but you have to be
able to do that at the same time you gotta pass meaningful legislation that provides a meaningful financial
impact to our constituents. Meaning, what are we doing to lower gas prices? What are we doing to lower
grocery prices? What are we doing to lower housing costs, rent prices?
What are we doing to improve healthcare costs, right? They're gonna want results and we very well could
lose in two years if we don't provide some results. Show me the results. At the end of the day, that's
what has to happen. So if we can walk and chew gum at the same time with some investigations but at
the same time provide meaningful legislation, so be it. I don't know if that's possible or not.
But regarding my candidacy, obviously I believe I'm the most delectable here. I have the blue collar
background and military experience to understand DOD and what's happening during wartime. I've done
recruiting, I've done, I was a civil engineering officer in the Navy, and I'm a electrical engineer
by trade. And I feel like I can pull in those independent and those disenfranchised Republicans with
my financial
message that impacts them directly. And I have the experience of service. I spent 11 years in the Navy,
and I have that background to substantiate people who trust me. I have that background and that experience
to say, this guy actually put his name in a hat and signed up to be a Navy officer. Thank you, Kyle.
I did it for 11 years. All right. Thank you. Appreciate your support. No problem. Thank you so much.
I would turn next to Jim and ask him for his final remarks. Yes. When you decide who you're going to
vote for in the primary, you need to evaluate the candidates in two key areas, message and personality.
In terms of message, is it a clear and concise message that the candidate's delivering?
that's consistent with basic democratic principles, but can also appeal to independence in some Republicans.
This is a message that truly reflects the desires and the concerns of the people in the district, not
what we think their concerns ought to be. I very much think that winning message is economics. In terms
of personality, I think you have to ask yourself, can this person stand toe to toe
with the Republican opposition and not back down and call out the horse manure that she's going to throw
at us for exactly what it is, manure, OK? We're in a street fight for our democracy right now. I wish
it wasn't so. I wish we could get back to rational debate about high principles, but that's not going
to happen this time or in the near future. We need a fighter to fight for us. And so if that's what
you want, I'm your guy.
I think I'm the best candidate for the job, and I hope you don't vote for me on May the 5th. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim. Brad, your closing remarks. Maria's point about systemic change, I think, is fundamental.
This election isn't about one or two problems. It's about the future of our democracy, and our democracy
wasn't our inheritance. It was something that our forefathers gave to us in trust for the next generation
and how we leave it is going to be important. And it's clear that our systems aren't working for us
and we need to leave better for the future. Economics is important. And I'm not, I'm talking about making
systemic changes. I'm talking about making practical changes. I'm not talking about changing the color
of the overpasses. I'm talking about things that are make a difference in people's lives.
But we also have to remember that if we focus just on economics, if that's all we care about, then eventually
we will end up selling our democracy for a bowl of rice. We need to fight for our freedoms and we need
to fight for a better country and a better future. And fighting isn't just arguing, it's about changing
minds and convincing people that we have better answers.
And we do, as Democrats, have better answers. We tried running in the last election. Tim Peck ran as
a centrist, and he got beat. And he got beat 11 points worse than other Democrats that didn't run as
a centrist. The centrist message, Republicans don't cross over for Republican wannabe, and Democrats
don't turn out for a meet.
a Democrat that isn't a Democrat. If you look at my business card, it says Democrat for Congress. I'm
proud to be a Democrat, and I'm not going to hide my values and my priorities. Vote May 5th. Thank you
so much, Brad, for those closing remarks. We want to remind everyone that early voting has already started.
An election day, as a couple of candidates have already mentioned, is May 5th.
I want to, at this point in time, give a shout out not only to the candidates for participating, but
all of you who joined us to ask questions and hear answers. I also want to thank Community Access Television
Services for recording this forum. Our other partners include the League of Women Voters,
Bloomington, Monroe County, League of Women Voters for Brown County, and League of Women Voters for
Johnson County, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Kappa Tau Omega Chapter, the Indiana University Political
and Civic Engagement, Monroe County Now, the NAACP of Monroe County, South Central Indiana Citizens
Climate Lobby, and the Unit
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus. We thank all of them for joining us in sponsoring this.
Please make sure to direct people to vote 411 if they want to learn more about candidates in their area.
We wish everyone the best results possible on May 5th. Thank you. Thank you, Sunny.