So it's my pleasure to introduce Senator Husted, as well as our moderator, Doctor Cherie Strachan.

Jon Husted began serving as a United States Senator in January of 2025.

He was born and raised in northwest Ohio.

Growing up in the small town of Montpelier, instilled in him the values of work, hard work, faith, and family.

He could play a little ball back in his day, and was an All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton, where he obtained both his bachelor's and master's degrees.

In 2000, he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives and went on to serve as speaker of the House from 2005 to 2009.

He followed his time in the Ohio House by serving as a state senator, and then in 2011 began serving as the Ohio Secretary of State, a position which he held for two terms.

He was elected as the state of Ohio's lieutenant governor in 2019, and then in January of this year, was appointed to the United States Senate by President Donald J. Trump.

During his tenure serving in our state's Capitol, Jon focused his efforts on being a good steward of taxpayer dollars, eliminating wasteful spending, and helping attract investment and talented workers to Ohio, which can help make the Buckeye State the envy of the Midwest.

To that end, he's played a, he's very proud to play a pivotal role in securing large capital investments from a number of large corporations spanning a multitude of industries.

He and his wife, Tina, are proud of their greatest accomplishments their three wonderful children, Alex, Kylie and Katie, and proud grandparents of their granddaughter Mae, who was born just in 2023.

What is he doing right now?

In 119th Congress, he presently serves on a number of committees overseeing a number of topics, including the Committees on Health and Education, Labor and Pensions, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Environment and Public Works, as well as the Special Committee on Aging.

Today, he's our esteemed guest at the Akron Roundtable and is joined by Doctor Cherie Strachan for a moderated discussion on a number of current topics impacting our nation.

Dr. Strachan serves as Professor of Political Science and the director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron.

Her political science research combines interests and political participation, voluntary, civic and political organizations, and political communication.

Her most recent work has explored the MeToo movement and women's political ambitions, as well as the effects of polarization, rudeness, and civility on political engagement.

She's also coauthor of the textbook Why Don't Women Rule the World?

And coeditor of The Resource Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond.

So my friends, if you'll join me in giving a warm rubber city, welcome to Dr. J. Cherie Strachan and to Ohio's very own senator, Mr. Jon Husted.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Before we begin with the question and answer, I just wanted to thank the senator for coming to speak with us today and to the roundtable for asking me to moderate.

This is a valuable opportunity for me as director of the institute to help fulfill Ray Bliss’ mission, part of which is that we have an engaged and informed electorate.

So any time we have such a prominent elected official who is willing to come and engage with us and answer questions, I'm I'm happy to facilitate.

So we appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

And I think I just wanted to start out this conversation.

You know, we all know, especially from the intro, but also from, being aware of Ohio politics, that, you know, that you served in statewide office before you were appointed our senator.

But prior to that, you spent much of your time in, in the state, representing other areas, beyond northeast Ohio.

So not everyone may know your your full background or be familiar with your story.

So just can you tell us, you know, what attracted you to elected office and public service?

How did this how did this become your, where you landed?

Well, thank you for inviting me here today and giving me the opportunity to share some thoughts with you and answer a few questions.

It's interesting, in the origin of, you know, for those of you that don't know my background, I. I started out life in a foster home, and in Detroit, Michigan, and I had the great blessing of getting adopted by two wonderful parents, Jim and Judy Husted.

So, as I said- And then they they moved to rural northwest Ohio outside of I grew up on County Road J outside of Montpelier, Ohio.

Innovative road naming system.

We have there, numbers and letters and and I was just very blessed to be adopted, get adopted and have two wonderful parents and and grow up in a small town in rural Ohio.

As I say, I was born in Michigan, but I was made in Ohio.

And, we literally it's right up by the Indiana Michigan border.

And I had no interest in politics in my life.

None of my family members had gone to college.

Nobody was interested in politics.

I wanted to be, a football player and a college football coach.

That's kind of the only only the only dream I had.

And I ended up becoming a college football player, winning a national championship, becoming an All-American defensive back, and then eventually turning down a coaching job from Nick Saban.

To go into politics, like, how in the world did that happen?

Because, you know, you make these decisions when you're young and you think like like, what was I thinking?

Like what?

Why did I do that?

Why did I make that choice?

And, and and it was really, you know, I learned that, hey, coaching football is not like playing football.

It's not the same thing.

And I started to get more interested in our country because I was interested in history and, and, and I was fascinated by Ronald Reagan growing up, you know, even though I wasn't, you know, anyone who was really political, I volunteered for a congressional campaign, eventually got hired to work in county government.

And there we go.

And and work for a county commissioner.

But I decided to run.

But what got me into running for elected public office was when I was doing economic development at the- in Dayton.

I guess there's probably two other things that you need to know.

Like when I was growing up in Montpelier, my dad lost his job about the time I graduated high school, and he and two uncles and an aunt all lost their jobs.

It was the largest employer in the, it closed down.

Largest employer in a in a small town.

And, they all had to leave like, they all had to leave Ohio to find jobs and work.

It was a tough time in Ohio.

And then I mentioned I go to Dayton playing, go to college.

I'm in, working in economic development in Dayton.

You know, like I got a really good job in my mid 20s working in economic development in Dayton, Ohio, and I joked, I was in Dayton yesterday at the Dayton Chamber.

And I was like, the only reason I got I realized many years later, like, the only reason they hired a young guy to do this is because nobody else wanted the job.

Because in Dayton, Ohio, much like Akron in the 1990s, it was tough.

We had five GM plants close, and GM went from employing 30,000 people in Montgomery County at the beginning of the decade to 2500.

By the end, we lost the Mead paper Company and eventually NCR.

It was tough and but I you know, I was proud of my town and proud of my state.

And I just just kept fighting, you know, to do things and, and, but I was working at the Dayton Chamber and, and the Dayton public schools at the time were the worst.

They were 613 out of 613. in academic performance and the business community there had done everything that they could think of to try to get the schools to be better.

And they just couldn't get any cooperation.

So, so little naive Jon says, I'll run for Ohio.

I'll run for the legislature, and I'll do school choice.

We'll just we'll just let kids, poor kids that are trapped in failing schools, go to a school of their choice.

And gosh, who could be against that?

As I see Kevin Coughlin smiling at me down there because like a lot of people were, I was like, you know, because I was new, like I was young, I had I had hope.

And, and I got there and I was like, wow, why is everybody so adverse to giving kids like this choice?

And, and as a new legislator, I had a hard time, you know, doing things.

I got some charter school bills passed, but then I was like, well, I'll become speaker and I'll just do the whole thing.

And that's when we started EdChoice, which at the time was 4000 students.

Now it's 160,000 students who can go to a school of their choice.

And and you meet these kids.

And I have the benefit of meeting these kids now.

And, that you helped unknowingly through these programs.

And you see them, they like.

Yeah.

I went to college and or.

Yeah, I graduated high school.

I was the first one to graduate high school and college in my family.

And, and, and you meet some people that like they’re doctors and, and, you know, tech entrepreneurs and things like this, and you're like, wow.

See you can make a difference.

So I say that to every young person in the audience.

Just it's hard.

It's not easy, but you can make a difference.

And that's why I did this.

You know I'll stop there.

- Okay.

- I can go on.

- Well, I'd like to give you the opportunity to just expand just a little bit.

Before we hit some more substantive policy issues.

Just it's a big transition.

So how is your work focused from shifting on, you know, northwest Ohio and Dayton and then to statewide roles, but now to a federal role in DC?

- Yeah.

Well, I've kind of lived in a variety of places.

I grew up small town, rural.

Then I went to the big city of Dayton.

When you grow up in a town of 4,000, it's a big city, right And, and worked there.

And now, you know, I've traveled the whole state many, many times, been in every county many, many times.

But it does go back, you know, the transition of family, losing their job, being in a tough place like Dayton, where the economic dev- That's why I've always kind of gravited to economic development and workforce development issues and innovation issues, because I always felt like, give people a good job and you let them have the right kind of skills, and you constantly try to make your state a little bit more competitive, your community a little bit more competitive, your workforce more competitive, your business’s more competitive.

And that creates prosperity.

That was my gravitation through all- that's that's like my guiding light through it all.

It's like, that's what really matters to me.

And I've seen it at all levels.

And when I got to the legislature, I do remember these are why your life experiences are helpful.

I remember I remember trying to go sell Ohio and Dayton when I was working in economic development, you know, and it was tough, like, I remember we were in South Carolina and we tried to explain to these site selection professionals about why Ohio was going to be a good place.

This was in the 1990s to locate a business and tell your CEO of these, you know, to go Ohio.

And they laughed at us like, why?

Like make a case for it.

They said, your tax system sucks.

You got all these taxes, you tax businesses, literally, you tax businesses for investing in machinery and equipment.

The very things that they need to do to compete.

And you’re Rust Belt state, you're just like, they gave us the whole thing.

They gave us the whole rundown.

And I was like, wow.

It was like a gut punch.

And and so I remember when I got to the legislature, I'm like, okay, well this, we're going to fix this.

And when I became speaker of the House, we reformed the tax code.

We eliminated all those business taxes that were driving people out of our state.

We cut the income tax.

We, we, you know, but we also did some other things where we invested in infrastructure and the things that we were falling behind on.

And we took Ohio.

This is something I'm very proud of, not just me, but the we in the state who are part of this from the 39th worst state to the fifth best.

And that's a big deal because now now I've, I've lived the whole thing where I remember when people laughed at me when I went to go try to sell Ohio, and now people are like, what?

What's going on in Ohio?

Why are you guys winning all these deals?

I mean, it's a change.

It's a huge change.

And and that is like that just runs through everything.

Like everywhere I go, I, if a business comes to meet with me in Washington.

I'm like, oh, do you have operations in Ohio?

Why don't you have operations in Ohio?

Like, where can we put you?

What do you do?

What do you need?

These are the things that we do.

And I, you know, like, my proudest moments are things like when we land big economic development deals.

I was in Dayton yesterday, and Dayton hadn't made aircrafts since the Wright brothers until we recruited Joby, who, by the way, was looking at every state in the nation.

It was a highly sought after, and now they're going to make electric aircraft there in Dayton.

First time since the Wright brothers.

Like we're winning stuff again.

And that's fun.

That's exciting.

And and that's what connects it all for me is how you help people through those different.

- Thank you.

Yeah.

- pathways All right.

I know I'm going way on too long.

For the first two questions.

- Well, here's, here's one that’s a little bit moren specific.

One unavoidable recent topic of conversation for anyone paying attention to politics has been, the big, beautiful bill, that was recently passed by Congress and signed into law.

There's been a lot of talk about it, but in particular, some critics, correctly or incorrectly have expressed concern over, the effects on access to health care and Medicaid and Medicare.

That affects citizens in Northeast Ohio, but also Cleveland Clinic, Summa Health, their hospitals.

So can you share what you want people of Akron and Northeast Ohio to know about the effects of the big, beautiful bill overall?

But also perhaps with some some attention to health care.

So remember why it was necessary because the 2017 tax policy was going away by the end of this year.

So you had to either let it go away or you had to renew it.

It would have been a $4 trillion tax increase on the people of this country.

I my personal opinion, it would have devastated our economy.

And so I had a lot of businesses, particularly small businesses, saying you got to get this done.

So we not only did the tax policy, I know that, you know, here in Akron you have a lot of manufacturing facilities and R&D facilities.

And, we'll talk maybe a little bit about the innovation hub around polymers in a bit, but making that tax policy permanent on R&D and on buying new machinery and equipment, is very important to helping attract investment.

If we want to do Made in America, we want to do Made in America.

We have to encourage people to invest and do R&D here and do manufacturing here, and you have to have a tax policy that's inviting to that.

But it was also, I think, the most pro-family, working class bill of the 21st century because it eliminated tax on tips, eliminates tax on overtime.

It is- it provides a $2,200 per child tax credit.

And if you've had to pay for childcare lately, you'll know it's more expensive than college for many people.

And so every time you can help a family afford to raise kids, they do the virtuous thing of perhaps having some kids and raising them.

And we need more of that.

It eliminates or it cuts taxes on Social Security benefits so that people can pay for their, you know, to retire in dignity, secures the border to make sure that we don't get overrun as we were in the, you know, with millions and millions of people crossing the border illegally, you know, on and on and on.

I could go on, I love maybe talk a little more.

We get an education about how we made Pell grants.

Pell.

We made Pell grants.

Now eligible for workforce credentials in that bill.

And that's a big deal for people in in a state like Ohio.

On the health care side, you hear a lot of discussion about Medicaid.

I actually probably know more about Medicaid than anyone in the US Senate, because for 25 years I worked on those issues at the state level.

And Medicaid, even though it's a federal program, it's really different state by state.

So there's some states that can look at what happened in the bill and complain and, you know, I understand their perspective.

But they're states like Ohio, where we'll get a big benefit from what the way the bill turned out, because as Ohio, it's as a state was not abusing the system that we call the provider tax.

So a lot of states had already maxed out their provider tax.

And what it is, is so you can raise you can tax your health care providers and then use that money to draw down more federal money.

Well, many states had already maxed that out like New York and California.

And by the way, they were using it to pay for health care for people who are not citizens of this country, which should stop And in Ohio, though, Ohio's was less than 3.5%, it's now going to be like 5.3%.

And that's going to allow Ohio to draw down a bunch of new federal money under the bill.

And most health care providers will see a 24% jump in their in their, rebates under the Medicaid program, the most ever.

So in Ohio, it works out great in places like New York and California, it doesn't work out as well.

It also has provisions in there that require the states to check eligibility.

I think the report that I saw had 2.4 or 2.8 million people who were dual enrolled, meaning enrolled in one state and in another state, at least one other state, which then you're paying premiums for both of them.

And that is a huge expense to the American taxpayer.

And there's going to be a work requirement, okay, for able bodied, healthy adults, able bodied, healthy adults who do not have young children.

Same standard as we have with the SNAP program.

And up until ten years ago, those individuals were not eligible for Medicaid.

Under Obamacare, they became eligible for Medicaid.

And now we're going to require them to work 20 hours a week, or take classes or volunteer 20 hours a week in return for their benefits.

Because Medicaid was designed for poor children, people with disabilities, the elderly, not for healthy Americans, but now we have healthy, able bodied Americans who are eligible.

But we're going to say, you got to work now.

It's not fair for your neighbor to work 40, 50 hours a week to pay taxes for you, to receive generous health care benefits and do nothing in return for them.

It's not good for you.

It's not good for society.

And so those are the changes that are going to occur.

And I think they're virtuous.

Health care is health care costs are bankrupting our country.

They're harming businesses who can't afford to pay the premiums more businesses are passing more and more on costs onto their employees.

And so literally, we gotta we gotta be smarter as Americans about how we're doing this Medicaid costs.

We're going to go up at, I think, over they have been going up at like six and a half, 7% a year, and now they're going to go up at 3% a year because of some of the changes that we made.

And I think that's good.

But it's for everybody in Ohio is going to see it go so much better than it is in the California’s snd New York's.

- Thank you.

Okay.

So this.

That’s good.

They like your answers.

That's good.

- Well, it was, it was.

Look, I wanted to give you a detailed answer, so you understood.

Like, I know there's a lot of noise, like people to say things.

They lie on all sides of the conversation.

And that is, those are facts that I just provided you.

- So this next question circles back to the theme that you'll probably like on economic development.

So, you know, we've been working hard in the state of Ohio, as you know, and in Northeast Ohio to welcome new businesses and industry and, and, you know, compensate for a manufacturing decline.

And, you know, we have some current efforts ongoing that I know some members of the audience might be interested in.

One is the Intel semiconductor plant and what the sort of the fate of that project is.

But then also there's a good deal of, interest in the anticipated federal investment in the polymer industry cluster, right, right here in, Akron.

So any, any insights into what's happening with those kinds of projects in the state?

- So Intel's been in the news recently, that I've been talking with Intel's leadership, several times a week over the last couple of weeks.

And they have reiterated that they are committed to building their plant in Ohio.

And I know that the- one of my colleagues, Senator Tom Patton, they sent out a letter, criticizing their CEO.

The president made some comments about the CEO wanting to step down, wanted him to step down and so one of the things I did is I helped to facilitate Intel and the white House having a conversation so they can all get on the same page.

And they had a great conversation.

I think that that is going to be a fruitful, new direction for that relationship between, the white House and Intel.

Remember why this is important.

And it's extra important for Ohio because we have two multibillion dollar chip fabs.

They've put $7 billion in the ground in central Ohio already is because America needs to make chips in America for our economic and national security.

Right now there are basically three chip makers.

TSMC is the largest one.

They're headquartered in Taiwan.

They have facilities in Arizona, but they're- all their R&D is done in Taiwan.

You have Samsung, which is a South Korean company.

All of their R&D is done in Korea.

Intel is the only major chip fab manufacturer that does their R&D in America.

And, I want you to, you know, play out a Kim Jong Un or a XI Jinping deciding all of a sudden they are going to do a blockade.

They're going to prevent a lot of these things from happening in these countries.

America has no ability outside of Intel and a few other smaller companies to make the chips that we need, like right now, we couldn't do it if it, if it shut down, if TSMC and Samsung couldn't produce for whatever reason today, we would be un- particularly with TSMC 90 miles from China, we wouldn't have the ability to produce the chips we need for our economic and national security.

So we have to build chips on American soil with American companies, by American workers.

And that's why it's important.

And, and so Ohio can play a big role in that.

We will play a big role in that.

The delay on the Intel plant is simply because they don't have a customer.

They have to have an in use customer.

And I think where the president can be very helpful is to get a domestic, get domestic companies to purchase a portion of their chips from Intel, and to have those manufacturing done in these fabs in Arizona, in Ohio and other places, it's essential.

It's, it, it is something that I will continue to push for because I think it's important for the country.

And by the way, it also has a big benefit for Ohio.

And then on the on the polymer side of things, I know I keep in regular touch with, with, a variety of companies that are have interests in Akron, on these issues.

The polymer hub.

I know was an aspiration.

For this community for a while, but it also has been, was an aspiration for me as lieutenant governor to see Ohio be excellent in the areas that each region is capable of being excellent in.

And we've done health care hubs in Cleveland and Cincinnati and in Columbus, but we're also doing aerospace hub in Dayton.

We're going to do a glass hub, glass silicon hub in Toledo and a polymer hub here in Akron, which the state is, and then and then advanced manufacturing in Youngstown, because you have to be world class, like you can't be if you really want to lead and create jobs and have investment come to your community, you can't just be good.

You have to be the best, and you have to pull talent, resources and innovative work together in these hubs.

Whether they're physical or virtual, and create that collaboration.

I am hopeful that that the innovation hub here in Akron be very successful at helping.

Then I won't get I won't dig into the science of all of it.

But but look, polymers are an issue today in the environment.

You have issues like, hey, we're going to drive electric cars, but electric cars are a lot heavier than traditional cars.

And how are you going to make tires hold up under that strain?

How do you how do you, you know, you put polymers together very strong so that they don't come apart.

Right?

Because you want products to last.

But then if you want to recycle them, it's hard to change all that.

And get them to be to break those parts down into recyclable material.

That kind of innovation is going on here in Akron, and I hope that we can turn it into an engine that drives the next generation of, manufacturing polymer related jobs here.

- Great.

Thank you, thank you.

Okay, so the next question builds on a conversation about the economy, but is connected to immigration.

The city of Akron, as well as other cities in Ohio, have historically relied on immigration as a way to bolster declining population, but also to provide workers for these labor intensive industries.

I mean, you think about Akron and the rubber industry.

There's a close tie there.

This is also becoming, of concern to universities in Northeast Ohio.

As tuition paying, the population of tuition paying freshman has the population size has just declined.

There's been reliance on trying to enroll international students.

Can you speak to how the immigration policies of the current administration balance the need to secure our border with concern for maintaining access to entry level workers and to incoming college and university students?

- That's it?

Just that's all you want me to do is just that.

- Just that little just that little question.

- So.

So let's unpack this.

America is a nation of immigrants.

We embrace the idea.

And by the way, if you want to meet people who love America, talk to an immigrant, they will tell you what a great country this is.

And, but we also have to be a country that follows the rule of law.

Open borders are not something that people want.

If you have an open border, you don't have a country.

I can't just go to Italy anytime I want without a passport and following the rules.

And people shouldn't come here anytime they want without following the rules.

The problem is that we've had a really hard time, building.

By the way, you need bipartisan support for this to get buy in and to get it passed and get it done.

And, you know, we always get close, but we never get across the line.

So I'm hopeful that after I think the Trump administration has done a great job at securing the border.

There's money in the big beautiful bill to do that.

I think that there is going to be a, a, a period which I think we're moving through right now where they're finding people who came here illegally, who've committed crimes and deporting them.

And, and then (audience murmuring) hang on, hang on like you want to hear my answer.

You want to - They are.

And, but there's also a recognition that we have a lot of people in this country who are working in agriculture, working in construction, working, and a lot of other important fields who, we need to work here to operate those industries.

And so we're going to have to find a compromise where we secure the border, we deport people who are not following the laws and came here illegally, but also finding pathways for a more fluid.

Path for our immigration system to work so that people that want to come here and they want to do it legally and they want to follow the laws and they want to contribute to our society can both work here and have a pathway to citizenship.

It is, it is complicated to get everybody on the same page.

But this is how politics and policies work.

We have swings.

Like, I know that there were many Democrats who thought that the Trump administration overbaked it in the first term, and then they come in and then they overbaked it in the other direction by, by, allowing all of the unchecked immigration that occurred.

Now, the Trump administration swinging it back the other way, I hope, I hope that we can listen and not just yell to what people are saying on both sides of the conversation and then find pathways to do this.

And I'll give you I'll encourage for all of you.

AI users, look at a, look at a bill that Congresswoman Barbara Jordan sponsored like 30 years ago.

I bet if you look at it and you see it, you're like, well, that sounds pretty reasonable.

And that's what we're going to have to find ways to stop shouting, stop making up stories, and just try to get things accomplished.

- Yeah.

- And, I hope that we can do that - We will have a time for question and answer.

So, you can hold your.

If you can hold your reactions until then, we would appreciate it.

This is another maybe sticky one, or a long answer or a complicated answer.

But, also builds on this concern for northeast Ohio economy.

We know that we'll have trouble encouraging people to come to Northeast Ohio, to launch a business, to pursue a professional opportunity to attend the university of Akron downtown.

If they don't think our cities are safe places to live.

So what can we do to reassure people, either by enacting new policies or continuing to, celebrate the current success in revitalizing our downtowns?

What can we do to convince people that the cities and suburbs in Northeast Ohio are not only safe, but a good place to live and raise a family?

- Make them safe and a good place to raise a family.

- Yeah.

I mean, that's what you do.

We have a lot of local officials here, and, and a lot of people who are involved in the world here's, here's the deal that is the most important function.

Most, one of the most essential functions of government is to protect people and their property.

We have the rule of law that we do that we have private property rights through which we do that.

We're supposed to have a court system and a system of enforcement to do that.

But if you don't protect people and their property, people and their investments will leave.

And I often tell the story of when I went to San Francisco in 2005, I was a newly elected speaker of the House, and there was a conference there.

And I was, you know, I'm focused on Ohio, man.

I’m like, how do we make Ohio win?

And I was there and I could feel the vibe.

And I was like, man, this is a this is a probably the best city in the country because they had prosperity.

It was clean.

You can just feel the vibrancy there.

Sonoma, Napa, Silicon Valley all around it.

It was, it was a, it was happening.

I go back in 2019 and it was a hellhole because they hadn't enforce the law.

They were allowing people to steal from stores.

The stores were closing, there were needles and excrement and all kinds of things on the street.

And it had the feel of, man, this is too edgy.

This is not a place I want to be.

And, it's simply because the people who ran the city didn't enforce the rule of law.

That's it because nobody's going to open a business in your community.

If the copper wire on the heating system and cooling system is constantly being stolen, like they're just going to close up and leave, and if there's violence and the threat of violence, people won't come to your restaurants They won't live there.

They'll move.

No one makes the announcement.

They just do it.

And so fix that.

Make sure that people feel comfortable there.

Invest in things, where people are going to want to come and be part of your community.

And if that happens, you'll be prosperous.

And if you don't, you won't.

And it's that simple.

- Okay, so this is the last question before we'll shift over to question and answer.

So we we ask about making this a good place to live and raise a family.

I know that, focusing on young people has, given your own history has been a defining issue across your career, you know, preparing young people to participate in the economy, preparing young people to participate in public life.

Can you speak to some of the issues that you're continuing to prioritize, that specifically benefit?

Our youngest generation of citizens?

- Well, first of all, we need to balance the budget because we're stealing from our children and grandchildren.

Okay?

It's gone, over the last, 32 years, it's gone up to a $37 trillion deficit.

And it's just not right.

It's generational theft.

And, (audience clapping) - Please, so that we have time for question and answer.

- And and look, I know everybody has a different opinion about what doing that means, but I can tell you when I look at when I look at spending money, I always look at it through the lens of is it worth borrowing for because you're not spending money in the federal government, you're borrowing money in the federal government to decide what you're going to spend on.

So literally, the things I look at, I'm like, is this going to be something that will be around for your children and grandchildren to use to benefit from?

Is it important to them?

Because what we've done to them is wrong.

And I you know, I encourage you to listen to my maiden floor speech that I gave back in June.

It's on.

It's available.

And I talked about how for all of American history, we had this from the beginning, from the pilgrims to the revolutionary period to the Civil War, to the Industrial Revolution, to the Civil Rights Movement.

We had people where we just we had we wanted to leave an inheritance of a better place for our children than what we had.

Like, that's the that was the American ethos.

And I track it back to sometime in the late 19, mid late 1960s.

And by the way, John Kennedy, I think he sensed this coming when he said, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.

And we just started taking and passing the debt on to future generations.

And that's just wrong.

And we're going to try to, you know, do my best.

I've been there only a few months to try to restore that ethos back to the country.

And it is very important.

And one of the things that we're doing, we did in the big, beautiful bill that I alluded to for the next generation is with workforce, Pell grants.

Pell grants are only for college in the past for low income students.

And now you can, use a Pell Grant to get a workforce credential, because a lot of times, low income folks can't go to they can't go two years, four years before they work.

They need to work quickly and, a eight, you can use an eight week program, earn a credential in manufacturing, in health care, in other places, go to work, and then continue to build on your skill set while earning an income.

And that kind of stuff, I think is really important because employers are looking for skills more and more than degrees today used to be that a degree.

Now they may still want a degree, but they're going to want a skill.

Skills are more defined, and they are the kinds of things that employers hire.

- Thank you.

I think we're.

Ready for question and answer.

- Thank you, Doctor Strachan And thank you, Senator Husted.

We appreciate it.

It is now time for questions from the audience.

I have a couple things that I want to share.

First, we have more than 150 questions, and we do not have enough time to probably even attack 10% of those, but I will do my best to get through them.

One of the ways to make that easier is for you to please just listen.

That's we're here for non-disruptive and respectful, engagement with Senator Husted.

So I will start asking the questions now, Senator.

Ready?

- Ready.

- Okay.

All right.

We've had a couple people ask about, your service on the Senate HELP Committee, which stands for health, education, labor and Pension.

And people were wondering what your priorities are as a member of that committee.

- Yeah.

So, the HELP committee is, by the way, I'm Senator 100.

Okay.

So I was the last one in.

So I didn't get to pick the committees that I wanted because I got what was left.

Right?

But and I probably wouldn't have picked the HELP committee, if I had all the choices.

But I love being on this committee because it's dealing with so many important issues health, education, labor and pensions.

Okay.

And, health care inflation is the number one driver of inflation in America in the 21st century.

And so everything that I can do to try to drive down health care costs and improve health care quality is what I prioritize in, in that committee.

And so I have I have some legislation that I did with Maggie Hassan, who's a Senator, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire.

And we are trying to help improve and accelerate the number of drugs that are prescription drugs, which have to go to the doctor.

You have to get a prescription.

They cost more money and move them to over-the-counter drugs so that they're less expensive, like, an example that would be if you have an allergy, Claritin and some of these allergy drugs, they used to be a lot more expensive when they were prescription.

Now they're over-the-counter.

They cost a lot less.

It's like everything that I can do on that front, I want to I want to do, to try to drive down health care costs.

I want to open health care transparency.

Because how do you know what you're getting a good deal on health care if you don't even know the price?

How do you know if you're overpaying as a business, if you can't even find out what you're being charged for the, you know, for the health care that your employers are receiving or they can't know that.

I mean, all that stuff is super important.

And then other things like in promoting ESOPs, this is actually something to like, try to find somebody to.

I agree with Bernie Sanders on we agreed on this particular issue on ESOPs and ESOPs are employee owned companies.

So the more when when a business owner is maybe ending the end of, of their, you know their, their active life in the business and they're thinking, hey, what am I going to do?

I don't have a next generation.

Should I sell it to private equity?

Well, make it easier to sell it to your employees so that they can have an ownership stake in it.

They can be part of of, of gaining value from the success of the company.

And, and those are the kinds of things that I work on.

in the HELP committee and, and I will continue to try to make health care more affordable and sustainable for this country.

- Thank you.

Speaking of, health care, we had a few questions on, sorry, on the, Rural Health Transition program.

- Yeah.

- We have, concerns expressed by audience members that it will not be enough to protect Ohio's rural hospitals.

I wondered if you would comment on that, please.

- Whoever asked that question.

Thank you.

Because I should have mentioned that earlier when I was talking about Medicaid.

One of the provisions in the big beautiful bill, I guess it's big, beautiful law now, is a $50 billion pot of money for rural health care.

And, it's undefined right now specifically on how it will be allocated.

But I have been meeting with rural hospitals across the state, and this is what I'm I'm encouraging them to do is to come together as a coalition and use your collective buying power to get better deals from insurance companies and from suppliers and, and to and to use some of this money to upgrade your technology so that you can advance telehealth services so that you can advance your billing services, that you can use AI technology to find efficiencies and fight back against the insurance companies.

That may make it harder for you to get paid for the services you're providing.

So I'm hopeful that we will.

I sent a, I'm a very big AI user.

I use it to to try to sort through all kinds of things quickly and, and, and I came up with a series of proposals that I'm going to talk with them about to hopefully get a portion of that money, a good portion of that money for Ohio and, use it to help make those, make the, the viability of these rural hospitals, sustainable because they want to be community owned.

They don't want to have to affiliate with a big institution.

No offense to our big institutions, but they they like their they like their independence.

But to maintain that independence, they're going to have to work together as a coalition.

Because, just, the economics of providing rural health care is really difficult.

We have a couple of questions related to individual health.

And so I'm going to read both of them and give you an opportunity to comment.

The first one is from someone who says, they have a nine year old niece who has rheumatoid arthritis.

But she lost her Medicaid, and she'd like to know the the questioner would like to know how, how can that be addressed?

And how would the beautiful bill and then one other one, someone is a cancer patient on the ACA who has seen health care costs explode and is no longer sure that they can afford the insurance, so, - Yeah So, first of all, for the individual who has the child, please see us after this visit today and I will hook you up with our team who works on Medicaid issues, to find out, you know, what happened and how we might, make sure that that child has their Medicaid services restored.

Sometimes it's, over income eligibility, things like that.

But we will, happily help.

That's one of the things we really try to do a great job with is customer service.

And so happy to help try to sort that issue out, whatever it might be.

And then on as far as the Affordable Care Act, the marketplace just is not working very well right now for a variety of reasons.

And the, because the insurance companies are charging very high rates, I won't dig I won't go into some of the regulations that were put in place late last year that are causing that problem, but it needs to, There is going to be a process over the next few months to look at how that exchange works, how the subsidies are put in place, and how we can make it sustainable and viable.

Because it doesn't work right now.

And, and it needs it needs to be fixed.

- Thank you.

Next, we have several attendees who have submitted questions.

Related to the difficulty of getting through, to your office or getting responses to questions, asking for meetings to be scheduled.

Please hold.

And, wondered if you could comment on that about that - Yeah - frustration they're feeling.

- Well, you can get through to my office and you can send us emails, and we will respond to those as quickly as we can.

I became a US senator on January the 22nd.

I learned that I would become a U.S.

Senator on about January the 18th.

And so we didn't have a staff.

I didn't have an office, I didn't have a phone number, and I didn't have an email when I got there.

And I had to hire all of those people, that do this to handle tens of thousands of calls and emails addresses.

And, we are now staffed up.

We are now doing all those things.

Is it, I think as effective as any office, in the US Senate.

And if you have a specific issue, we're, stand ready to help.

- Related to that was a question of, when will you all hold an open town hall?

I have.

I have town halls about once a month, and we do, tele town halls, and we can reach much more many people that way.

And we'll be doing one.

I think, in early September.

- Early September.

Thank you.

Is that information available on your web page?

- I don't know where we make it available, but it's we, we call out and try to reach as many people as we can.

If you want to be signed up, you can do it through our web page.

Yes.

- Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Delayed release of funds for senior community service for the senior community service employment program is hurting older job seekers because they are unable to afford, basic needs and learn skills to get jobs.

Thus, the lack of services is hindering them in that, area.

What, What are some ideas that you have of things you could do to help with that?

- So I. I missed the beginning of your.

- Sorry, the, the delayed release of funds for the senior community service employment program is the concern that's been cut.

- I don't, I will have to look more into that specific question.

If if it's part of the Trump administration's freezes on on how some of the money was being spent, we can look into that and find out where, or that where those resources might be made available.

But, I can help you answer the question about job resources.

If you want to get job resources in Ohio, you go to OhioMeansJobs.com or your local Ohio Means Jobs center because that's what we fund to provide those services.

There are hundreds of there are over 100,000 jobs on the site right now.

There's access to free job training.

You can get free job training through tech Red, as long as you're in partnership with an, with a, a local employer.

There are a variety of programs that Ohio means jobs operates to give you access to free job training.

And so that's the that's the best resource to go to.

- The question was related specifically to seniors who are looking to upgrade their job skills because because they're unemployed.

- It's all it's literally all right there at OhioMeansJobs.com - Sure - It's a one stop shop to do all of those things.

I used to run it, so I know so I don't anymore.

Right.

Couple questions on public education.

Things along the lines of, what can, can you and government do to help public schools not lose funding?

The fact that, or the, statement that good public schools are the backbone of many citizens, we've seen significant cuts.

And additionally, the elimination of the Department of Education and making deep budget cuts, how will you assure students with special needs receive the protections and support they are entitled to?

- Yeah, most state- most funding for education comes through state and local taxes.

The department, US Department of Education has not been eliminated.

All the money for those services for the Department of Education is available.

We're now going through a new appropriations process to to, fund, fund to educate, the education department, in the next, fiscal year, which will happen at the end of has to happen by the end of September.

And there is an increase in funding in that.

So, all those resources are, are available, I’m supporting them get them through, get them out to local schools.

But I will tell you, this federal government makes it worse, not better.

Federal government should send the resources to the state, send them to the local schools and get out of the way because it is so meddlesome and so cost adding When you involve the federal government in education, people in Washington think they know everything.

They don't.

I worked at the state level.

I've worked at the local level.

It's better there.

I'm going to do all I can to force it out of Washington and force it to the States.

- Alright.

Quite a few questions on environmental issues.

Folks are interested in knowing, about your thoughts on the current administration's response to climate change.

What can we do to, preserve the wonderful natural resources that we have here in Ohio, particularly with Lake Erie?

And, another, tangentially related question, which is the growing need for power, to, provide the energy needed for AI, for data centers, for, for all those kinds of things that are going on.

So give us your view on, on environmental issues.

- That's a pretty broad question I'm going to narrow it down to some component that I am working on.

I think I'm going to have an impact on, we need nuclear power.

Okay?

It is the only baseload, zero carbon source of energy available.

And I don't know why.

Everybody's not for it.

I think more and more people are for it.

Because if you're talking about AI, China right now is investing $361 billion in new generation.

Okay.

And it's coal.

It's gas.

It's, hydro.

It is all of it.

It's all of it.

Why?

Because they are they want to have enough energy to dominate America in the AI race.

Understand they don't want to compete with us.

They want to defeat us.

And we need to have enough energy and enough investment in AI technologies to win.

And if you care about the environment, if that's a priority for you.

You should do everything in your power to support, more nuclear energy as fast as possible.

And one of the things I'm doing, with Sheldon Whitehouse, who's a, Democrat from Rhode Island who is no.

One, no one's more concerned about the environment than Sheldon.

I will tell you that.

I hear it from him all the time.

And, we're doing a bill to improve the regulatory process around recycling spent nuclear fuel.

There is technology that allows you to take the spent nuclear fuel at places like the Perry Nuclear Power Plant and recycle it, and there's enough just recycling.

You can run the whole U.S. economy for 150 years just by recycling the already spent fuel that have come out of nuclear power plants in the last 50, 60 years.

That’s just sitting there and and we're also trying to do a, a project in Pike County where we have, the country's only, centrifuges that are American owned, that are focused on, the generation of nuclear fuel.

And we can make that an Ohio project.

We can make that fuel for the whole country.

So all of these things need to happen.

And the regulatory environment that slows these things down, which we are working on, on those bills and some other places that, that, that we're working on in the Environment and Public Works Committee that I'm on, are essential because we will fall behind.

You can't help if you accept the premise of the question that we have to compete in AI.

And you want to reduce your carbon footprint.

There's only one way to provide energy to do that, and that's nuclear, in my opinion.

And I think science would back that up.

And then on the environmental side, on on the Great Lakes, I am the only, member of the Environment and Public Works Committee which has jurisdiction over the Great Lakes, who's actually from a Great Lakes state.

So I feel an extra sense of responsibility there.

I am a fisherman.

I am a conservationist.

I am a hunter.

I want to protect the environment, but I also want to do it in a sustainable way for our economy and our prosperity.

And I take that responsibility very seriously.