(bright orchestral music) - Hello, I'm Jennifer Rooks.

Welcome to this Your Vote 2022 debate between the candidates for Congress in Maine's 1st District.

We are live from the Maine Public Studios in Lewiston.

Maine Public is presenting tonight's debate in partnership with the Portland Press Herald.

Many of the questions for the candidates come from you, readers, listeners, and viewers of Maine Public and the Portland Press Herald.

Those questions will be asked by Maine Public State House correspondent Kevin Miller and Portland Press Herald reporter, Joe Lawlor.

There are two candidates on the November ballot, Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, was first elected to Congress in 2008.

Before that, she served as national president and CEO of Common Cause and is Maine Senate Majority Leader.

Currently co-owner of the Nebo Lodge, she lives in North Haven.

Ed Thelander, a Republican, has never served in political office.

He is a retired Navy Seal and currently owns a small business doing light excavation, tractor work, and scuba diving for local shipyards.

He also serves as a reserve deputy sheriff.

He lives in Bristol.

This debate will last approximately an hour.

In the interest of fairness, we will take turns which candidate will answer each question first.

We will be addressing the topics that you, the voters have told us are the most important to you.

Each candidate will have one minute to answer the question posed by the reporters.

When the reporters ask a follow-up question, the candidates will then have 30 seconds to answer those.

When a candidate needs to give a rebuttal, we will also allow 30 seconds for that.

Before the debate began, the beginning and ending order was chosen by coin toss.

And for this first question, Kevin Miller will ask a question about the economy and inflation, and Ed Thelander will receive that question first.

Kevin.

- Thank you for joining us here tonight.

- [Ed] Thanks for having me.

- So poll after poll has shown that inflation is the top concern for voters this year.

Factors like supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine are beyond the control of Congress.

But what can and should Congress do to help people struggling with high grocery bills, gas prices, and heating costs?

- We have to get spending under control.

We really have to look hard at where we're spending our money.

And a lot of people in this district won't like it, but we've gotta start drilling for oil again here in America.

It's necessary.

Getting the price of oil down is gonna help everything.

It's gonna get shipment prices down, it's gonna get food prices down.

I just filled up my tank, oil tank, and that was painful.

There's a lot of folks that are gonna be really facing some hard decisions this winter, whether to heat or to eat.

- [Jennifer] All right.

- Do you want to go?

- Sure.

Well, spending has been very critical in Congress in the last couple of years.

As you mentioned, we've been suffering with the pandemic, we've got the war going on between Russia and Ukraine that could impact all of us.

It has been a really challenging time.

But I believe many of the things that we spent money on during the pandemic, making sure our small businesses could stay afloat, keeping people on unemployment insurance, expanding COVID testing, paying for vaccinations, there were so many things that we needed to do and that was important.

Since we've been able to move forward a little bit from the pandemic, some of the funding that we've been very specific about has been investing in our infrastructure and dealing with climate change.

And one of the reasons we're so focused on climate change is because of those very costs of oil and fossil fuels.

We need to bring those costs down.

This is gonna be a very difficult winter for Maine residents, whether it's heating oil, the cost of filling up your gas tank, all of these things are gonna be very expensive.

But I believe investing in renewable energy is how we're gonna bring those costs down in the future and have true energy independence in our country.

- I have a follow-up question for each of you.

For Ed Thelander, you and your party say that electing Republicans is the only way to lower the prices of gas and goods.

But how exactly does switching parties change the trajectory of inflation and the economy, and what will a GOP-controlled House do to help people stretch their paychecks that the Federal Reserve is not doing already?

- Well, getting oil back online again, so it actually makes sense to build a refinery without making a smart transition to green because we're not doing that right now, that's gonna help get prices of everything down.

We really need to look at what we're doing, and, you know, I wanna go green, but we gotta be smart about it.

And right now we can't have lithium batteries everywhere.

- Congresswoman Pingree, your question, so you were an enthusiastic supporter of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but there are economists, including former Obama White House Advisor, Larry Summers, who called that proposal irresponsible and potentially inflationary.

What do you have to say to that critique?

- Well, to the contrary, we are fully paid for, unlike the Trump tax cuts, which greatly raised the deficit, and this reduces the deficit by $300 billion.

I also believe we're never gonna bring down costs for oil, which is fundamental, and we're never gonna bring down energy costs unless we invest in renewable energy.

And this has money that's gonna help people directly, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, supporting people who wanna put a solar panel on their house, a heat pump, buy an electric car.

We need to make that transition.

This is the smart way to go about doing it and it's the way to plan ahead.

- The next question will also be about the economy.

This time we're going to focus on workforce issues, and Joe Lawlor will ask the first question of Chellie Pingree.

- Yes, hi, Representative Pingree.

Earlier this year, you introduced a bill that would change the rules for asylum seekers so that the amount of time that they have to wait before they can get their work permit is shortened.

Given the pretty big workforce shortages in Maine and, you know, the potential that this topic would have to find common ground between Democrats and Republicans, why do you think this bill has not gained traction yet?

- Well, honestly, some of it is because everything about immigration is blocked.

And I think it's partly because the Republicans use it for rhetoric and campaigns.

They wanna scare people, and they've forgotten that unless we have a workforce in this country, which is the number one issue I hear from small businesses, we don't have a future economy in this country.

So all this talk about not letting people into our country, not letting them work, that they're gonna, quote, take away your jobs, you know, in a state like Maine, we are clamoring for jobs everywhere we turn.

During the Trump administration, they actually made it one year before an asylum seeker legally present in our country who's applying for asylum and waiting for the courts, they made it a whole year before they could even apply for a work permit.

It's now down to six months, but I'd like to see it at 30 days because we have so many people already here in Maine who would do anything to get a job.

They don't want the state of Maine to have to support them.

They wanna be working.

And so we've done everything we can to reduce that to make sure that work permits come more quickly.

And just today we heard that H-2B visas are gonna get the full quota that we're able to have and that's because of pressure of myself and Republicans on the other side of the aisle who I've worked very closely with.

- [Jennifer] Joe.

- Yeah, so Mr. Thelander, you just heard Representative Pingree, 30 days for an asylum seeker, you know, if her Bill were to become law, to work, and I know workforce shortages is one of the big issues of your campaign.

Do you agree with that?

- So this is one of the ways we're gonna agree.

If people come here legally, legally, we need to get them to work and getting them into, you know, welfare, 'cause they come here and they can't work, how are they, what are they doing?

You know, they're stealing or they're causing problems.

So we need to get them to work because we do have a workforce shortage and we still haven't addressed the problem that's at the border though, because what's happening there is not right.

And, you know, right now the progressive policies of opening the border, it's wrong for America.

My wife, Liliana, from Venezuela, you know, she came here legally 28 years ago.

My mom from Montreal, Canada, legally, and it's a big deal.

We need more workers in America, but it has to be done right.

- And we will be returning to the topic of immigration, but you have a follow-up question, right?

- I do.

So this question is for both of you, we'll have Representative Pingree answer first.

Should the federal minimum wage of $7.25 be increased?

If the minimum wage were to be increased, should it be indexed to automatically increase when inflation increases?

- Absolutely, yes, it should.

- Well, what should it be increased to?

- Well, I think right now the Maine minimum wage is somewhere around $12 and that's attached to inflation.

So that would be a good start to get the federal minimum wage up from where it is and start moving in that direction.

I mean, look, people can't live on the current minimum wage and we need more workers in the workplace.

The fact is, in most places today, you couldn't get away with paying someone minimum wage, they'd take another job down the road.

So it ought to be the rule, it ought to be the law.

- Mr. Thelander.

- Yeah, we don't need more laws and we don't need businesses to tell people how to pay their people.

Like she said, if they're not paying enough and the job isn't good enough, then they're gonna move on and find another job.

There are plenty of jobs here in Maine.

There's only about 5,000 people on minimum wage here in Maine.

And so, you know, to make a law again, to tell somebody how to run their business, there are jobs where kids need to get in, you know, and yeah, they're gonna be down at the lower end of the pay scale and that's life.

- So there should be no federal minimum wage then?

- Nope.

- Is that what you're saying?

Okay.

- No, there are plenty of jobs right now, you know, and prices have gone up very high, you know.

- Now we will turn to immigration policy and this question will go first to you, Ed Thelander.

Kevin Miller, go ahead.

- You touched on some of these issues already, but on your website you state that people are entering the country illegally because, quote, "We're not doing the hard work of fixing our broken border and immigration system."

Congress has been talking about immigration reform for years now with very little to show for it.

So what specific ideas do you have for fixing the immigration system?

- Well, right now, addressing the border is one.

So we can slow, you know, the flood, 'cause it is a flood right now and we're not ready to handle it.

So the biggest thing about that is addressing the flood that's happening right now, slowing it down so we can breathe and, you know, the proper paperwork is not being done at the border and it's hurting Maine.

You know, $11,000 a month is what people are getting paid, hotels are getting paid to put somebody up.

That's wrong, you know.

It's hard to address the problem right now when there really has been an argument created that didn't need to happen.

- And quick, just a quick follow-up.

So former President Trump obviously made the border, securing the border wall a major priority of his administration, and we spent upwards of $15 billion to build the border wall, which Mexico did not pay for.

But what other steps need to be taken to secure the border then, short of a wall?

- So, you know, one thing, I don't like screaming about build the wall.

Yes, the wall is part of what we need, but there's electronic surveillance, there's human surveillance, and there's just not passing the message along that it's okay to flood the border, you know, 'cause that is what is happening.

People are getting word that they're getting a cell phone, they're getting a plane ticket and traveling money, and that's true.

My cousin's an ICE agent and I went down to the border myself.

You know, I watched the crossings happen and I watched, you know, families cross that were not allowed to and they were turned away.

The cartel doesn't allow them to, they have to cross over in the McAllen-Roma region.

- [Jennifer] Okay, you have a question for Chellie Pingree as well?

- Yes, so Representative Pingree, the situation on the southern border has arguably worsened considerably during the Biden administration, both in terms of the flow of refugees and illegal drug trafficking.

What additional measures do you support to address these complex issues?

- I think there's general agreement that we need to have strong borders.

The bipartisan inflation, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which the Republicans voted against, had billions of dollars to strengthen the border.

This 2023 budget cycle that we're in right now, the Biden request is $97.3 billion.

So they're continuing to spend money to keep the border secure.

We are checking people as they come through the border.

There were about 2 1/2 million entries last year, and over a million of them are sent back.

The people who are here in the state of Maine, the people who are staying in hotels, are legal asylum seekers.

They're not stealing, they're not causing trouble, they are waiting.

Many of them come to my office every single day to figure out if their work permits are coming through or can they apply for a job yet.

They are anxious and ready to go to work.

But there are more forcibly displaced people all over the world, whether it's because of wars, because of climate change, because of hunger.

We can't pretend that this isn't gonna be a constant challenge.

We are gonna keep the border secure.

We are gonna keep investing in that, but we're gonna have a lot more asylum seekers and we have to speed up the processes, we have to deal with the work permit issues.

And certainly the Biden administration is investing a lot in trafficking, in fentanyl coming across the border.

We care deeply about those things and that money is being spent.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Kevin.

- Yeah, I do have a follow-up question for each of you.

So Mr. Thelander, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently paid to fly migrants, mostly from Venezuela, which is, as you mentioned, your wife's native country, flew them from Texas to Martha's Vineyard.

Do you believe that moving human beings around, human beings who are fleeing violence and economics turmoil, do you think they should be moved around to make a political statement?

- You know, there needed to be light drawn to the problem.

Martha's Vineyard's a nice place, you know, Maine's a nice place too.

But drawing the attention to the problem, I mean, that's happening all over the country where people are being moved around and dropped off in a place without a plan.

The biggest problem about this is there is no plan for bringing all these people in.

When they come across the border illegally with the wrong paperwork because their documents are not correct, the border patrol and ICE are being told to shuffle them through.

- Okay.

- And let them go.

- Congresswoman Pingree, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Governor DeSantis' recent actions.

- I mean, that was outrageous.

That was an outrageous thing to do to people.

Most of those people were from Venezuela.

They've gone through a lot of hardship.

They've come a long way to get to that border.

And they were in Texas, he picked them up in a private plane.

It cost the federal, I mean, it cost the Florida taxpayers $12 million.

So you're taking people who are already struggling, you're just dropping them off in a community.

Martha's Vineyard was welcoming to people.

They opened the church, they opened the doors, and they helped people find a place to go.

Many of them have moved to the Massachusetts mainland to look for jobs, to look for things that could happen to keep their lives secure.

But that's just a political stunt.

That's not what we should be doing.

- Thank you.

- People aren't pouring through the border and not being checked.

If you're a legal asylum seeker, you have every right to be in this country.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, the next topic is reproductive rights.

Joe Lawlor, Chellie Pingree will answer your question first.

- Yes, Representative Pingree, you have recently said that you would work to urge Congress to pass a law to codify Roe v. Wade.

Could you explain why there needs to be a federal response to this and why it shouldn't be left, this issue shouldn't be left to the states as the Dobbs decision say.

- Absolutely, well, first off, that was settled law, Supreme Court Justice, one after another has said it was settled law and it was a precedent we expected would stand for the more than 50 years it's already been there.

We have, in the House, passed the Women's Healthcare Protection Act, which codifies Roe v. Wade, basically means it's a law now in the House.

It hasn't passed the Senate yet, but we do hope that eventually the Senate will see the light and do that.

So I believe it has to be, because say for instance, who knows how this particular election's gonna go in Maine.

If Paul LePage were to win and the Republicans take control of the House or the Senate, I have no doubt they would immediately make abortion illegal.

We would be Alabama tomorrow after that election if it went in the wrong direction.

And so, in my opinion, that's a right that women have, that's a right that women should have to discuss with their practitioners, their own families.

That is not something that any politician should be meddling in, and we should protect states like Maine and states all over the country.

- Okay, Mr. Thelander, you were quoted in today's Press Herald as saying that you would vote against a bill outlawing abortion nationwide, bucking some in your party.

But one of our readers, Gregory, wants to know exactly where you stand on abortion.

Do you think abortion should be banned in Maine without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother?

- So first, I am pro-life, but that is not a federal issue.

The Supreme Court decided it.

It could change again.

The Supreme Court changes its mind more than once a year and overturns decisions, and it could happen again.

But having a federal law on it is wrong.

That's how America gets along, is we have states that have different laws and that's where it needs to stay.

You know, the drum beating on this one is creating hate.

We have to understand that, you know, Republicans are women too.

You know, my wife, my campaign manager right there, strong Republican women, and they don't wanna hurt women's rights.

They believe it's a baby and it needs to be protected.

So we can come together and talk about it that way without hating each other, you know?

I don't, you know, dislike her for her beliefs on that.

You can't do that here in America, and it's happening too often.

- I guess I'm just wondering, where exactly do you stand when you say that you're pro-life, 'cause pro-life could mean- - Yeah, so again, I'm not gonna vote on it and I'm not gonna hate anybody for it.

And it doesn't belong in the decision as my personal beliefs are not gonna affect the way I vote because I have my integrity.

- Okay, Follow-up questions?

- Sure.

- Okay, so.

Okay, so Representative Pingree, other than codifying Roe v. Wade, you know, are there other things that should be done to safeguard abortion access in Maine?

- Well, I think in Maine, I mean, I'm just gonna say I hope that we continue to keep democratic control of the Blaine House and the legislature because I do believe that Republicans in this state would overturn the Maine law.

They would make abortion illegal.

And what we've seen in other states have been illegal abortions.

They've made it illegal for anyone to assist someone to have an abortion or goes out of state.

We now have doctors sitting around in emergency rooms trying to debate, you know, you've got a woman who's in health distress who's pregnant, and they're trying to decide, you know, will our hospital go to court if I perform the appropriate surgery, give that woman the healthcare she needs?

This is the wrong path.

This is a private decision a woman should make and it should be protected, it should be protected at the federal level.

- I'd like to interject for just a second.

Chellie Pingree, last week was the governor's debate and former Governor Paul LePage stated that he would indeed veto a law that would make abortion rights more restrictive in Maine.

Are you saying you don't believe that?

- I'm saying I'm finding it hard to trust Republicans on this because I feel like everybody, you know, this is the dog that caught the bus.

I've worked with Republicans for all of my life who have said, you know, "We don't believe that abortion should be legal."

Then the polling data starts to come out and I'm just concerned that people are trying to, you know, kinda flip-flop on their answers or kind of give a muddled answer so they don't have to be clear with people in this state where they stand.

- [Jennifer] All right, go ahead Joe, sorry about that.

- Okay.

And then, so Mr. Thelander, the follow-up question.

So as we've just discussed, Maine protects a woman's right to an abortion, but other states do not and some are trying to criminalize abortion.

Do you support or oppose a bill in Congress that would forbid states from criminally charging women who cross state lines to seek an abortion?

- If Lindsey Graham's bill came up, any federal bill came up, I would go against, probably most, a big portion of my party and I would vote no on it.

- Okay, but on the other way, I think some are saying there needs to be a federal bill that would prohibit states from like say- - Allowing someone to travel?

- Well, it states, so to explain this a little bit more, some states are saying that if you live in one state and then say you travel to Maine and then you get an abortion, and then when you come back to the state that you reside in- - Not necessarily.

- That you would be criminally charged.

- [Ed] No, you're traveling and wherever you get you, you know, no.

- So no to what?

- No, that should not come into law.

You can't, you know, we're in America, you know, and if you travel someplace else and you do what's legal there, it's legal there.

You come home.

- [Joe] Okay.

- We're gonna turn now to the topic of voting and threats to democracy.

Kevin Miller, your first question to Ed Thelander.

- Yeah, so Mr. Thelander, your campaign website says, quote, "You will fight for measures to guarantee one person one vote and real accountability for absentee ballots."

But I guess what exactly do you mean by this?

Do you have doubts about the integrity of our election systems?

- So many people have doubts about the integrity of the election and we need to make people comfortable with it.

I hear it all the time on the campaign trail.

It's a terrible drum they're beating.

You know, I try and tell everybody, "Get out and vote," you know.

"I'm not running because I think the election's stolen.

I'm running 'cause I know it's possible to win."

But I need people to be confident in it.

And I'm hearing so much, so passionate, and it's becoming very divisive.

So let's go ahead and look at it and make people comfortable with it and let's get voter ID, you know, make it free IDs, you know, I don't think anybody can complain about that.

Most people want that.

You know, the absentee ballots for those that need them, we need to do that.

I believe we need signature verification.

But a lot of the laws for voter ID are really at the state level and I'm just encouraging people to move forward and look at it.

- So just to follow-up on that, so the absentee ballot, you mentioned real accountability for absentee ballots is the way you phrased it.

Here in Maine, we've had absentee ballots widely used for years and years.

It was used extensively during the pandemic.

We haven't had any issues that have come to light.

There have been, you know, folks have looked into it.

There's been no major fraud with absentee ballots.

So I guess, what are your concerns regarding absentee ballots?

- My concerns are that people still aren't confident in it and if we have to take a little bit of time to do that, so that, you know, a forensic audit, we need to make people confident that our elections are secure, and a whole bunch in the country aren't.

Again, I'm running and I'm not running 'cause I think it's gonna be stolen out from under me.

I would not waste my beautiful life.

- Is there a risk that by bringing up concerns about the security of absentee ballots that you're actually undermining the democracy process?

- No, I want people to be so, you know, wild on the campaign trail.

Real quick on the red light.

I've been called, you know, I'm 21 years in the Navy.

I'm a volunteer firefighter, I'm a reserve deputy sheriff.

Someone asked me about the election and I said, "We need to take a look at it 'cause people are not confident with it."

That man called me a traitor.

That's wrong, our country is so divided on this subject.

Let's take a look, and let's get right with it.

- Congresswoman Pingree, following up on the same conversations.

Surveys suggest that a sizeable percentage of Americans are still skeptical about who won the 2020 elections, especially the presidential year's race and it's been two years.

So how can Congress restore Americans' trust in our election systems?

- Well, we have some legislation that we're supporting, but I just wanna go back to this very question of why do people mistrust elections.

I mean, I've been really proud to be in the state of Maine where we've had excellent election laws, very high voter turnout, and some of that is because our election laws make it possible and easier for people to vote.

Not everybody can get the day off work.

Some people wanna vote absentee because they're gonna be busy that day.

We have no-fault absentee and it should stay that way.

We have same-day election registration.

You shouldn't have to think three months in advance like you do in some states.

"Oh my gosh, I forgot to register," When you're not even paying attention to the elections.

You got other things on your mind.

So I think these are really important laws to preserve.

And at the federal level, we have a bill for the People Act, which actually would, again, codify many of those things into federal law.

States are the ones who are in charge of elections.

But I think starting back at this last presidential election when you had a president who from the start said he wasn't sure he was going to accept it, but then that spread to, you know, people all over the country and to misinformation, disinformation, all of these court cases, investigations, none of them came up with voter fraud.

- [Jennifer] Okay, thank you.

- Sorry.

- We're gonna move on.

We're gonna move on to our question about vaccines, COVID, and the pandemic.

We'll go first to Joe Lawlor.

Please begin with Chellie Pingree.

- Yes, hi, Representative Pingree.

Do you think Congress should continue spending money on COVID vaccines or should the vaccines be treated more similar from the financial aspect to the flu shot, childhood immunizations, in terms of federal funding?

- I mean, at this point, I think we're still supporting the vaccines.

We've made, you know, some progress.

We've made some new developments in dealing with the current variants.

And I think we have to do everything we can to make sure that people can afford the vaccines, that they're able to get it, that they're able in a variety of places.

It sounds like eventually the COVID vaccine could be something that you choose to get every fall, like you get a flu shot.

It could be something that we think about when kids are starting school.

I don't know how this particular pandemic will play out, but I think it's been critically important that the federal government has been involved, made them available, made them affordable.

- Okay, yes, Mr. Thelander, curious about your stance on the vaccines themselves.

The US CDC says vaccines, COVID vaccines have been overwhelmingly safe, effective, saved millions of lives.

A recent study that came out last month found COVID hospitalizations 10 1/2 times higher in unvaccinated adults compared to adults vaccinated and boosted.

Do you have any reason to doubt the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines?

- The Maine CDC website right now says most of the people that are in there seriously with COVID are fully vaccinated.

And so it very much contradicts what you're saying, but if anybody wants to go to the Maine CDC website right now, I think since March of this year, most of the hospitalizations are vaccinated.

So feel free to fact check me on that, but I believe that's right and true.

- Okay, moving on to follow-up questions.

- No, we're gonna.

- So go ahead - I'm sorry, we're gonna go, we're gonna go to a break, Joe.

- Okay.

- And we will go to a very short break.

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(bright orchestral music) - And welcome back to our first district congressional debate.

We are moving along with our topics, and the next question will be climate change.

Kevin Miller will go ahead and he'll ask Ed Thelander the first question.

- Representative Pingree talks often about climate change and how it poses a major threat to Maine.

We heard you say earlier that you want to be green, but I haven't heard you mention a lot during your campaign, and it's not listed on your campaign website, the issue of climate.

So I guess to start with, you know, do you believe that human activity is a major driver of the changes we're seeing in the climate, and if so, what should we do about it?

- So no one can deny that the climate is changing.

It's getting hotter, otherwise we'd be under a hundred feet of ice right now.

How much does the human factor really weigh into that?

You know, I don't think in weigh as much as it does to do what we're doing.

You know, if we're gonna go all electric cars right now, we can't do it.

There's not enough lithium on the planet and the infrastructure isn't here to do that.

So right now we're planning on shutting down and going all electric.

We don't have enough lithium to do half the cars in America.

In Maine, when we have a 10 day power outage and those batteries dry out, you know, those $15,000, $20,000 batteries will crack.

You know, we have to be smart about we're doing and we have to really think about it.

- Representative Pingree, as we mentioned, you've said that climate change is an urgent threat to our way of life, but by supporting the Green New Deal and bills that would eliminate subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, don't you risk driving up the cost that consumers pay at the gas pump, on their utility bills, realizing that a lot of these green technologies they're still years away, if not a decade away, to being fully available to consumers.

- Well, first off, I don't think there's any debate about what we're going through, and I don't think there's any debate about the impact in Maine.

The fact is that Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate faster than any other ocean body in the world.

And if we're gonna talk about lobsters, and we're gonna talk about the future of our fishing, we gotta think seriously about the species that are moving north and what that means to the state of Maine.

One of the reasons we passed the Inflation Reduction Act was to make those investments in mining for things like lithium, finding them, recycling the batteries that we have so that we can make sure we don't waste any of the precious minerals, investing in making sure that people can afford the things that will drive down those costs for them, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps, heat pump hot water heaters, electric cars, more insulation in your home.

You know, you gotta remember that everything we do and everything that we're doing to bring those jobs back here to the United States is good for the economy, good for jobs.

We can't put that off.

No one thinks we're gonna get done with oil and gas tomorrow.

The United States is still the largest producer of oil and gas in the world.

But look, Saudi Arabia is cutting us off.

Russia is cutting us off.

I mean, this is a world market.

We don't control all of that.

We have to have energy independence.

- All set.

- All right, The next topic will be education, and specifically student loans.

Joe Lawler, your first question to Chellie Pingree.

- Yes, Representative Pingree, some progressives are saying that President Biden didn't go far enough with the student loan forgiveness, and it should have been more than a 10,000 to 20,000.

Some are saying forgiveness of 50,000 or more.

Do you agree that it didn't go far enough?

Or was President Biden's plan about right?

Where do you stand on that?

- Look, I mean, I know this is a challenging topic, but the fact is a tremendous number of young people here in Maine, young people, their families who paid for college are struggling under the way to that debt.

Young people put off decisions, Am I gonna get married?

Am I gonna have children?

Am I gonna buy a house?

There's a huge percentage of people who are going to have their debt forgiven who are in their forties, who are making less than $75,000.

They didn't just get outta college and decide not to pay for that debt.

They are struggling, and if we don't deal with that problem, I think we're gonna be in trouble.

Probably the president found a middle ground.

Your right, there are some people who thought he should relieve all student debt, and other people who think that this is inappropriate to do.

But the fact is, I have a bill that would lower all debt to zero.

Why the federal government ever charged students any amount of interest on that debt doesn't make any sense to me.

We've made this complicated, we've made it hard, and the average young person comes outta college today, even from a public university, with about $30,000 in debt.

That is a hard way to start your life, particularly in an inflation.

- Just to clarify, are you saying debt to zero or interest to zero?

- Interest, I'm sorry, yeah, interest rates to zero.

That's how it all should have been.

We shouldn't have let this problem go on for as long as it has, and it shouldn't be so expensive for college students.

- All right, Mr. Thelander, so what do you think the federal government's role should be in forgiving somebody's individual debt, individual student loans?

Is that the role of the government?

If it's not, should there anything else be done?

- Absolutely not.

There are so many people that are struggling hard.

They started a business.

They bought an excavator.

No one gave them free money for the loan they took out on that.

You know, you don't see anybody that went to vocational school asking for loan forgiveness.

They got a job and they paid for it.

A lot of people are going to college 'cause they want the college experience, you know?

No, you know, you have to go there for a purpose.

It is a business decision to go to college.

And if you go there without purpose or idea that you're gonna pay that back, shame on you.

You made a deal And yeah, there are a lot of people struggling that made a bad decision.

But if you're throwing, you know, trillions of dollars towards forgiving debts, that's terrible.

That's gonna drive up the price of college.

And again, it's gonna encourage bad behavior and grow that industry more when it needs to be slowed down.

And we need to divert money to getting technical schools and getting people to work.

You know, high schools are... - Thank you.

- Their metric is wrong.

Their metric is to send people to college.

Their metric needs to send people to work.

- So Joe's, the second part of his question is, should anything be done to help those with college debt?

And you are saying no.

- No, no one paid for my excavator.

No one paid for Seamus's excavator, kid that graduated high school, he had a scholarship.

He bought an excavator and a rusty dump truck.

Few years later, he had a shinier dump truck and a little bit bigger excavator.

- All right, we're gonna move on to focus on government spending.

Kevin Miller, Ed Thelander will go first.

- So a bit of background.

So more than 46% of the $6 trillion spent by the federal government last fiscal year went to Medicare and Social Security and to national defense.

Obviously, tens of millions of older Americans rely on Medicare and Social Security to get by.

So for Mr Thelander, you've talked a lot during the campaign about the need to reign in "out of control government spending" as you put it.

But are you willing to make cuts in any of these key safety net programs and the military?

And if not, where else would you cut?

- So we made promises to folks, you know, you put your money into Social Security, you'll have it; that needs to come back.

It actually needs to get taken out of the general operating fund and put back in the Social Security fund where it started.

You know, Congress did that.

It needs to go back.

We can't, that's another tool that politicians use to create hate.

And you can't tell somebody that the federal government can spend millions, billions, and now trillions of dollars on other things, but they're not gonna pay you what they said they were going to?

We can't do that.

We have to look at things smart, these omnibus bills that nobody can read, logically read at all, which, you know, she signed onto.

We can't do that.

There's money in there that is being spent, you know, and we'll find it.

I don't know exactly what it is, but you can't tell me that's right.

Money in, money out.

That's how I run my house.

That's how I can run and be in this campaign, is I have a budget.

- Thank you.

- But you don't have any specific ideas for where that could be cut?

- No, we really need to look at these omnibus bills and see what's in there and does the federal government really need to be spending on certain things.

- Okay.

Representative Pingree, in addition to the COVID-19 relief bills that Republicans and some economists say contributed to inflation, I know you said you disagree with that, but you also supported President Biden's Build Back Better Plan and the Green New Deal, both of which carried massive price tags or would've carried massive price tags had they passed.

Are you concerned at all about government overspending?

- Oh, absolutely.

I mean, that's part of our job.

I serve on the appropriations committee and part of our job every year is to spend endless amount of time in hearings, in committee markups, working with Republicans and Democrats trying to figure out where you can cut and where you need more money.

That's one of the honors and one of the challenges of serving on the appropriations committee.

So absolutely, you have to make sure that all spending is reasonable and that it will move your country forward, or that it will help to cut the deficit.

I mean, just to be clear, I think that the spending that was in the Build Back Better Bill, which would've brought down the cost of childcare, which would've done a variety of things that were critically important, I believe, to our economy, would've helped us to build our GDP, would've helped people to make ends meet at the end of the week.

The Green New Deal is actually, it's a policy document.

It's not a budget bill.

It's not a bill with finances attached.

That's what the Inflation Reduction Act was, and that was the largest amount of money we spent on climate change and renewable energy.

And I think it was very well spent.

And that'll be a good investment in America's future.

- All right, we're gonna go now to a topic very much in the news right now, and that is the challenges facing Maine lobstermen.

Joe Lawler, Chellie Pingree will go first.

- Yes.

Representative Pingree, as you know, there's a lot of emotions and tensions with this issue between NOAA, the white whales, lobster industry regulations, a lot of livelihoods are at stake.

Today during a rally, your opponent compared NOAA to rapists.

I guess I'm just, what do you think of those comments and were they inappropriate?

- Well, I mean that's for him to decide.

I would say we are united in our opposition to what NOAA is doing, what's been happening in the court, What our lobster fishermen are facing is completely unfair.

There hasn't been a lobster entangled in Maine lobster fishing gear since 2004.

And most of this is happening because of ship strikes and Canadian gear.

We are doing everything on the delegation to fight against the NOAA ruling, to look for ways that we might be able to change legislation and to push back on those entities who want to red list lobster or say that it shouldn't be purchased.

I disagree with my opponent.

I don't think it's ever appropriate when you're talking about a government rule making to use derogatory terms that talk about a sexual assault on a woman or a child.

That is not a good way to move forward on policymaking, and I think doesn't help the debate at all.

It sort of drags it down into the gutter in a way it shouldn't happen.

- So, Mr. Thelander, your response.

Were your comments over the top?

- Yeah, my comments were over the top and I apologize for that.

I'm very passionate about it.

I mean, I love those families.

I've been, you know, in and around them since I moved to Maine and I've been working with them, you know, for the past 14 months more so, and I'm seeing the struggles that they have.

I'm seeing that nothing's been done.

Identified, all the problems.

You know, 1997, the problem started, you know, and 2017 it really came to a head and nothing's been done about it and something has to be done about it.

NOAA, all their documentation is incorrect.

She agrees with it.

All the other legislators agree with it.

But nothing's been done about it.

We've gotta do something about it.

I mean, I truly love those people and again, I apologize for going over the top, but we've gotta make it right and NOAA's not gonna do it.

- Can I have a little rebuttal?

'Cause we didn't do nothing.

This has been going on since 1997, and our entire delegation, that's Republicans, Democrats, whoever was in office since then has pushed back on NOAA.

We've pushed back on those entities.

We've met with places like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, argued with the data, I mean, every step of the way.

It's now in the courts and we're gonna continue to fight it.

And if we need to change something in legislation, which in this particular case is not easy to do, but the delegation will go ahead and do that.

And look, I've lived in a coastal community for 50 years.

I live in a town of 417 people.

If lobster fishing were to dry up, that's the elementary school that my kids went to.

That's the school that my grandchildren go to.

That's the restaurant that my family runs.

That's the store, That's the church, that's a minister.

I know all about how deeply this will impact my community.

So don't say I'm not passionate about it.

I use the right language, and I appreciate your apology.

I think that was a very good thing for you to do.

- Anything else to say?

- Yeah, I don't think enough has been done.

And again, I, you know, apologize for going over the top, but something has to be done.

It's come to a head where they're actually gonna start, you know, shutting with the industry down and in months they're really looking at shutting it down.

It needs to go back into the courts and the lobstermen should have to be paid for it.

- All right, we're gonna go now to a question about foreign policy and Ukraine.

Kevin Miller, go ahead, Ed Thelander, excuse me, yes, Ed Thelander goes first.

- So Mr. Thelander, you've deployed to multiple war zones during your military career and worked as a security consultant in I'd say sounds like some difficult places like Yemen.

Given those experiences, how do you rate the Biden administrations and the US government's response to Russia's war in Ukraine?

- You know, the response there started one with our behavior in Afghanistan and pulling out of there so irresponsibly.

No ground force commander wanted to make those decisions, you know, know to move out of a perfectly safe base and out into town where they were vulnerable.

You know, those lives were lost.

The respect that we lost around the world was caused by that.

Leaving $80 billion of equipment on the ground functioning.

I talked to a helo mechanic at Lichfield Fair, he said, "Those are my helicopters there."

He worked on them.

Translating that to the Ukraine, that happened because there's no respect for this country with our foreign policy right now, and we need to lean forward hard and get that back.

- Representative Pingree, you were part of a congressional delegation that traveled to the region.

So you've seen first hand how this war is affecting Ukrainians who've been displaced from their homes.

Are there things that the US can be doing to help Ukraine that isn't, that it's not doing right now?

- Well, we are constantly in that conversation, whether it's briefings to members of Congress or analysis in the appropriate committees.

And as you can see, we've continued to escalate the amount of weaponry, supplies that we're supporting the country with, humanitarian aid.

I mean, everything we can possibly do, but I just wanna say something there.

You can excuse the horrendous action of Putin and what he's done to the Ukrainian people by anything in Afghanistan.

I agree with you.

That was a terrible pullout.

But you can't give Putin an excuse and say, "Eh, I didn't respect the United States."

Listen, I lived through four years of the Trump administration, and if we lost respect around the world, it was when a man didn't believe that we should be in NATO, who didn't understand or treat any of our allies with respect and treated our non allies like Putin and like the head of North Korea, as if they were his friends and they wrote him letters every day.

Look, he helped us get into this situation by being soft on Putin.

And the fact is Republicans and Democrats in the Congress are united in supplying aid and increasing the support that we're doing for them.

This is a very serious situation we're in, and we have to be all in.

- [Rooks] Kevin?

- [Kevin] Do you wanna reply to this?

- Yes, please.

You know, yeah, hey, Putin's an evil man.

Got it.

And what's going on in Ukraine is wrong, but we're in that because there is a lack of respect for this country right now from the pullout in Afghanistan.

It's horrible, the money that's being spent there.

We've almost spent the entire Russian budget for their entire military worldwide in one country.

That's insane, that $60 billion is their budget and we've almost spent $60 billion in the Ukraine.

- We're gonna go onto top crime.

Joe Lawler, you can ask the question of Chellie Pingree first.

- Yes, Representative Pingree, you support the George Floyd bill.

One of the components of the bill is eliminating or curtailing qualified immunity for police officers, which shields police officers from civil lawsuits when performing their official duties.

Can you explain your stance?

- Sure.

I mean, this is one of those areas where you have agreement on the Supreme Court between Republicans and Democrats, that this was a device designed by the Supreme Court.

It's gone too far and it needs to be reformed.

So when I say I don't support qualified immunity, it's in the state that it's in now, and I just think that it's time for some reform.

Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, they have both agreed on that.

The Cato Institute says it needs to be reformed.

There will be three cases in front of the Supreme Court this year, and all of them are about qualified immunity and all of them, I think the average viewer would say, "Wait a minute, the police overstep their bounds and they're getting off on a loophole."

- And Mr. Thelander, your views on qualified immunity, and I'm all just gonna ask my follow up right now on a slightly different topic.

Why do you think shootings are up in Portland?

- So, well, qualified immunity first, People really need to understand what that is.

It doesn't let an officer off.

When I went to to school up there in Vasel Barrel, they said it's not if you get sued, it's when you get sued.

And that's true.

Qualified immunity does not defend them against doing wrong.

If they're within the bounds and the scope of their work and training, they're okay.

But if they step out of that, ask Chauvin, Derek Chauvin.

You know, he's in jail now because he didn't take care of that man on the ground.

and to take away qualified immunity, to put that threat, and it's a threat to an officer's family, their livelihood, their home.

That is I'm extremely passionate about because it's wrong.

It doesn't give them a free pass by any means.

- Shootings in Portland.

- Shootings and violence in Portland, in Maine, which is, you know, not something I can legislate on, but I can help out with shootings in Portland.

It's easier to do crime in Maine.

You have less of a penalty.

If you have a finger of fentanyl in Maine, you might get 90 days.

If you step across the border in New Hampshire, you're gonna get six years.

You can also sell it for more in Maine as well.

That's a huge thing.

You know, the lack of respect for law enforcement, in Portland, you know, two years ago, the violence that was there, throwing bottles of urine at law enforcement officers, absolutely horrible and nothing done to those folks.

- Okay, I think we have just a couple minutes to closing statements, and Kevin, you had a very quick question for each candidate on the topic of guns.

- Yeah, so topic of guns, questions for both of you, can go through a few of 'em and I think they are yes or no questions on each, if possible.

A ban on assault style firearms, such as the AR-15 assault rifles that have been used so heavily in mass shootings.

Yes or no?

- Yes, yes.

- No, we need to work on mental health in the country.

And you can't attack, not the problem, the problem is mental health.

If you're focusing on one thing and not, just like the lobstermen, they're focusing, you know, on the lobstermen, not on what's killing the white whale.

If you're focusing on an AR-15 and not on mental health.

- [Kevin] That's a no.

- [Rooks] Okay, go ahead Kevin.

- Ban on higher capacity ammunition magazines?

Congresswoman?

- Yes.

And I also support mental health and that has been in several pieces of legislation we funded recently.

- [Kevin] Mr. Thelander?

- Again, no.

We need to focus on the problem.

- And requiring background checks on all private gun sales?

- Yes.

- No, Second Amendment.

- And increasing the minimum age to purchase a shotgun to 21 just like it is for handguns.

- I'm a very strong supporter of our tradition of hunting in Maine, and I think a lot of young people use guns responsibly.

A lot of people train their young people to go hunting.

So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about shotguns and young people.

I mean, you're talking about 21 year olds.

A lot of teenagers hunt.

- [Kevin] Mr. Thelander?

- No, you know when we were kids, yeah, you went hunting after school, and yeah, we gotta actually address the problem and that's not the problem.

- All right, that's our last question.

We're gonna now turn to closing statements.

Each candidate will have two minutes to make his or her case to voters.

The order again was decided by coin toss before the debate.

Chellie Pingree will go first.

- Thank you very much.

Well thank you to the voters of the first Congressional district.

It has been an honor to serve you in Congress.

I know there will be a decision to make, and I hope that the voters of the first Congressional district choose to return me to Congress.

I feel very supportive of the range of issues that matter to the voters in my district, and it is such a wide range, whether it's about the Maine economy and small businesses, inflation and the fuel prices that people are currently challenged by, supporting our workers, making sure that people can make ends meet and get paid a decent wage, healthcare, prescription drugs, which I've worked on for so many years, and now we're seeing some reductions in the Inflation Reduction Act and making sure that we protect a woman's right to choose.

We have so many challenges, with climate change, with all of the things that are facing us and our natural resources, our fishermen, our farmers, our forestry, making sure we protect Medicare and social security and veterans benefits and rights.

I will be there to support this district in all of them.

My office gives constituent service to people every single day.

And I am so proud of the per people who work with me and the help they give people on their social security and Medicare or challenges that they're having with the IRS or VA and student loans, healthcare problems, immigration, grant applications to communities that need to access those federal dollars.

And I'm also very proud of the seniority that I have in Congress.

I've learned about a wide range of issues.

I've learned how to solve problems, work across the aisle with many of my colleagues who I don't agree on every issue, but we know how to get things done.

I'm really proud to be on the appropriations committee and I think with Senator Collins on the committee in the Senate and myself in the House, we've been able to do a lot for the state of Maine.

But I didn't start out in Congress.

I've been very proud of the service I've given to my community, whether it was as a volunteer ambulance attendant, or serving on the school board.

All of these things have taught me along the way how to work with my community, how to support small towns in Maine.

We're facing a very challenging time, whether it's climate change or inflation, the threats to our democracy, the economic challenges we're facing.

- [Rooks] Thank you.

- I hope you'll send me back to work on those things.

I'll do that for the people of Maine.

- Thank you.

Go ahead, Ed Thelander.

- All right, hey, thank you for watching.

I understand that I'm here for a job interview, so let me introduce myself.

I'm Ed Thelander.

I'm a retired Navy SEAL.

I did 21 years in the Navy, all of it in the SEAL teams.

I'm a volunteer firefighter in Alna.

I'm a reserve Deputy Sheriff in Lincoln County.

I've served a lot in my life.

I believe in public service.

I've been asked several times to run for Congress.

I've always said no.

14 months ago, I was asked again.

Again I said no.

We have a beautiful life, three awesome kids.

Why would I do this?

My wife, Liliana, who was from Venezuela, said, "Yes, you will."

She saw the vacuum of leadership in Venezuela caused the downfall of a once prosperous nation.

She recognizes that it's happening here.

We talked about it as a family and decided it was time to serve one more time.

We agreed we would do it for six years and then come home.

On November 8th, you have a clear choice.

Chellie Pingree has one of the worst records of showing up to work in DC.

She is one of the top 20 proxy voters of 435 members in Congress.

She does not work there when she gets there.

She has never passed a bill into law in 14 years.

She is divisive.

She throws red meat at her base to raise money for our next election.

We need somebody who will represent us by showing up, and I guarantee I will do that and when I get there.

I will work tirelessly.

We need to find a leader to fill the void in Washington, DC.

I will use my life experience to bring people together, really solve problems, and after six years of serving my country again, I will return home to Maine and get back to my awesome life, thank you.

- Thank you Ed Thelander, Chellie Pingree, and thank you for joining us for this "Your Vote 2022" debate between the candidates Maine's first Congressional district.

Don't forget, election day is November 8th.

For all of us here at Maine Public and our partners at the Portland Press Herald, goodnight.

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