special two hour edition of Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Renee Shaw and we appreciate you joining us this evening.

Five of Kentucky's six incumbent congressmen are seeking reelection this year, but there is an open seat in the sixth district in central Kentucky, as incumbent Republican Andy Barr runs for the U.S.

Senate.

Tonight, you'll meet several candidates running for that open congressional seat.

In one hour, you'll hear from four Democrats.

But first, the Republicans.

Three of the candidates met our criteria to appear this evening.

Mr.

Ralph Alvarado declined our invitation.

We're joined in our studio by Ryan Dotson, a state representative from Winchester and Greg Plucinski, a Nicholasville businessman.

We certainly want to hear from you tonight.

You can send us your questions and comments by X, formerly known as Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

Send an email to KY TONIGHT at ket.org or use the web form at ket.org slash KY TONIGHT, or you can simply give us a call at one (800) 494-7605.

Well, welcome candidates.

We appreciate you being here this evening.

>> So good to be here with you, Renee.

>> Thank you, Mr.

Dodson.

I will start with you.

You jumped into this race really quickly.

As you've said on KET before, when we have interviewed you and you've said in other spaces that 30 minutes after Andy Barr announced he was running for the U.S.

Senate, you tossed your hat in the ring for this sixth Congressional District seat.

Why did you feel the urgency to jump in so soon?

And why is this role one you believe that you're equipped for right now?

>> Well, the reason we jumped in as soon as we did is because we knew that we had to take off running and we wanted to get our name ID up.

We wanted to go out and campaign as early as we could.

And Renee, I've been to every strawberry, raspberry, BlackBerry festival, been to every county fair.

One day we done three parades within 12 hours because I wanted to meet the voters where they were, and I wanted to get out early, and I did.

I planted my flag early.

I wanted people to see that I meant business while other people were playing politics, waiting to see who was jumping in, who was not going to jump in this race.

I planted my flag and said, I'm going to run.

And that's exactly what we've done.

And I have been in this race now, as of last week, over a year running for this seat.

So I'm very intentional on why I wanted to get in this race, because I felt led.

I felt a mandate to get involved with this race, and it's proven to be very successful, and I'm glad we got out as early as we did.

>> You have been leaning heavy into your legislative victories as your service in Frankfort, the Save Women's Sports Sports Act.

You champion opposition to DEI programs and initiatives.

Are you centering your candidacy for Washington somewhat based off of the cultural and social issues that you've championed in Frankfort?

Will that posture continue if you're elected to serve the sixth district in Washington?

>> It is true that I have been a social conservative, and I've been a champion of those social issues.

Save women's sports was some heavy lifting that I got passed.

And now Kentucky leads the nation, and Donald Trump wants to do the same on a national level.

And I came back the next year, and I passed and helped lead the charge in the House on stopping gender reassignments on minors, keeping boys out of girls bathrooms and locker rooms.

These are common sense policies that we shouldn't have to pass legislation for.

But because of the woke ideology that's being pushed on our families, our children, somebody had to take a stand and I took that stand.

But aside from just the social issues, I'm also a businessman, and I've been able to bring back record funding to my district.

Last budget cycle, I brought over $200 million this budget cycle, many millions more, because I use my business expertise to help grow our economy, bring back infrastructure.

And that's what I'll do as a U.S.

congressman.

>> Mr.

Plucinski, thank you for being here this evening.

And you have never run for office before, never served in elected office before.

And you describe yourself as a business first candidate.

So tell us more.

>> Yes.

So I started looking at running for office and last summer, and I didn't really know how.

So I had to figure it out.

I had to figure it out the old fashioned way and talk to people and decide to run.

I. I watched Ryan and Ralph and a few of their events at Republican parties, and I decided that at that time we needed somebody in there who was not a career politician, but somebody who's going to be working for the people every day.

So that's what I've done for the last 24 years here in Kentucky.

I got to Kentucky in 2002.

The first thing I did was start hiring.

I started hiring from Lexington, Richmond, Georgetown, Paris, Harrodsburg, Lawrenceburg, across the district.

And for 24 years, I was building an economy right here in the sixth district.

While our career politicians were talking about it, I was busy doing it.

And that investment continues today with $20 million a year flowing into the bluegrass.

So I got into the race and I needed some additional help, and that was kind of hard to come by with the the current, what was going on in office, because a lot of people like Ryan and Ralph were running.

Other people had chosen their teams, and I needed a new team.

So I got some help with some representatives from the state of Kentucky.

And I got moving, and then I got some national help and got in the race in mid October.

So I came in a little late, but I'm making up ground fast and I'm looking forward to the race.

>> Well, we're going to talk more about what you're running on.

I do want to mention that you have framed your candidate or candidacy as not being beholden to special interests.

As someone who hasn't served in elected office, how will you navigate the reality that not only are you expected sometimes to toe the party line, but that you also may have to build coalitions with special interests in order to advance the things that matter to you?

Are you willing to do that?

>> Oh, absolutely.

Yes.

I mean, I would treat it just like business.

You know, when you get into an office and you get into a discussion with your boss, you know, I reported to the board of directors and we had arguments we had back and forth.

But then when I left, I went out and I told the company line it was very important for me to go out and show the people that we're all aligned, focusing on the same path.

So running for Congress, I see as no difference.

Yes, we need to form coalitions.

Yes, we need to tackle tackle objectives in Congress.

And I see no problem doing that with with anybody.

You know, if they have a good idea, I don't mind if it's somebody on the other side.

You know, it can be if they have a good idea, why not move forward with it?

>> You have signed the U.S.

Term Limits Amendment Pledge, committing to support a constitutional amendment that would limit House members to three terms six years and senators to two terms 12 years.

Tell us why that matters to you.

>> Because when I looked at it, I want to go in and I want to help Kentucky create jobs, boost the economy, go to work for the American government and the people.

And that's very important to me.

But I don't want to have a career doing it.

I want to get in there, do the work and come home.

That's the way the founders intended it.

There should be no career politicians in office.

They should all have a point where they need to go home because that's that's when things start happening that aren't working in the best interests of the people.

>> Mr.

Dodson, have you signed a similar pledge or such a pledge?

Yes.

Why is it important to you as well?

>> Because I too do believe that that for me, outside of politics, I really don't need the world of politics to have an enjoyable, a successful life.

I back during the pandemic, I had 250 employees.

I am not a career politician.

I am a businessman.

I'm a pastor.

I'm a lot of things, and I'm a part time legislator.

With that being said, I've worked hard all my life, came from nothing, and I've lived the American dream right here in Kentucky.

And it is very well possible.

And like I said, I've built businesses, I've employed many people, and you've got to be someone who is able to build coalitions.

You've got to be someone who can walk across the aisle and get things done.

And I've demonstrated that in Frankfort, Kentucky, going back to bringing back record funding to our district, you have to build relationships with other representatives to get those things done, because the sausage is made not on the House floor.

It's made in the caucus rooms, it's made in the back rooms, and you've got to know how to do that going forward, even on a federal level.

And from day one, I can hit the ground running.

I've already established relationships in Congress.

I've got several congressional endorsements already.

I've already built some relationships there.

So we'll be ready to go forward the very first day we get in office.

>> You've been used to serving in a supermajority environment in Frankfort and the Kentucky House, and you've claimed that you are a fighter and you have that mentality that you will take to Congress if perhaps you might even be in the minority during that time.

You just mentioned how you'd be willing to work with Democrats, but how do you stay true to the Trump first agenda, and maybe the Trump only agenda, and also reach across the aisle?

>> And that's a really good question.

But I want the voters to know I will never compromise who I am or my convictions.

But I'm always I'm always open minded to get things done.

And here's the thing with me if I can get 70% of what I want, I can work towards that.

I don't have to have 100% and keep the ball moving forward for Central Kentucky, because I want to bring back jobs.

I want to fix our infrastructure.

When you look at Kentucky on the map, Kentucky is within one day's drive of 75% of America.

And here in the sixth district, we are the heart of Kentucky.

So we are poised and primed for great growth economically.

And as a U.S.

congressman, you have to be a CEO of a fortune 500 company going out there, recruiting the Amazons, recruiting the Elon Musk of the world to come here and do business because Kentucky is primed for it.

>> Speaking of Elon Musk, Mr.

Plucinski, part of your platform is built around fiscal discipline, and I want you to define that for us.

And does that translate to evaluating current federal agencies and seeing if there are some redundancies and cutting those?

And would you cut all federal agencies the same, or are there a few federal agencies that you'd like to pick out and to eliminate?

Are we talking about a Doge 2.0?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I think that there's a lot of federal agencies that probably don't need to exist.

>> Can you name.

>> Some redundancies?

Well, I can think of some offices in the FDA that I think should be eliminated.

For example, the fee office.

There shouldn't be a fee office with the FDA.

We pay for services from the federal government.

And there's an office where you have to submit your fees.

And I know that people don't understand this, but we not only get we have these strict regulations, but on top of that, we have these fees.

So if we put in a generic drug drug application, that might cost us $250,000 just to put the application in, then the FDA starts going after our vendors, our suppliers, and they want to make sure that all of those fees are on the books before they even start the review.

So yeah, that would be definitely one of them.

>> Yeah.

Do you agree, Mr.

Dodson, that there should be some federal agencies that have outlived their usefulness and should be eliminated altogether, or should there be broad based cuts across all federal agencies?

>> I think every every department needs to be looked at individually.

For instance, the Department of Education, I think that could very well possibly be eliminated and all of that be handled on a state level.

And when you look at the parameters of different agencies, I think even within like the EPA, there are certain things that could be cut there that is driving up costs, that is costing us our energy independence.

And so there's things that within departments themselves that we could look into to eliminate.

And I think what Elon Musk done early on needs to continue.

>> And so you support how he went about that.

>> Yes.

>> I do.

Even though there were federal workers, even in Kentucky who were affected by those cuts.

>> I just think that we have to be very intentional when we go forward with these things and make sure that there is a smooth transition as possible.

>> Mr.

Plucinski, you talk about leveraging federal America First policies that position Kentucky to capture more semiconductor battery and defense related projects by aligning with national priorities.

What specific federal incentives do you have in mind that you would champion to bring high tech manufacturing jobs to Kentucky?

>> Well, the federal incentives on the pharmaceutical side are are kind of out there.

They're not they're not totally defined.

So it depends on the business that you're going after and where you want to put it.

So I would work with RFK Jr and his team to make sure that we're bringing drug manufacturing back to Kentucky, where it needs to go in the community that it needs to go.

And then we would align federal spending on that program as well.

>> Mr.

Dodson, I want to go back to something you just mentioned, which you talked about the Save Women's Sports Act that you had passed in Kentucky, and that helps to keep biological males out of girls sports.

Just to let people know if they were confused about what that meant.

If elected to Congress, would you support a federalization of those restrictions?

And does that contradict conservative policies, education policies that say those decisions should be left to the states?

>> Well, I would support it.

As of now, we still have the Department of Education, so that's a moot point.

But yes, I would support that.

But again, I believe a lot of those things will be handled on the state level.

>> Right.

So you support Federalizing, a Save Women's Sports Act?

Yes.

And not giving states the right to decide to do that on their own.

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

Let's talk more about the medical red tape.

Mr.

Kozinski, that your website hints at.

I want you to explain what you mean by that.

And for those who are concerned that such red tape reductions could result in lack of safety oversight, and when new treatments come on the market, how do you still do a medical red tape exercise and still guarantee that there are safety measures in place to maintain public confidence in new treatments?

>> Sure.

There's every drug development is different on its own.

So we get into programs where we have to execute clinical studies.

So those clinical studies are determined by regulators.

And it's a back and forth between the company and the regulators.

So of course we want to keep everything safe and effective.

But I think there are some programs where you might not need to check things like things like nitrosamines, which are which are compounds that the government has deemed as carcinogenic.

And we have to check every compound for nitrosamines down to the parts per billion level.

And there are no nitrosamines in some of the compounds, but yet we're still checking them.

That's just an example.

And then we have to go through a lot of validation, which is double checking that the methods that we're developing for each compound are, are, or designed for that particular compound.

So we go through all kinds of regulations like that in developing a drug that adds cost to the drug.

It adds time to the development time.

And I don't think a lot of those regulations are necessary.

Now, there are some products that do have nitrosamines as starting materials, and those are ones we should evaluate.

But there are many that don't.

>> When it comes to pharmaceutical and federal negotiation of federal drug prices, prescription drug prices, with your kind of insider view of pharmaceutical industry, do you believe the market should dictate those prices, or do you see a role for the federal government to regulate those prices so that it's more affordable for people to get their medications?

>> Well, I think it's I think the market should dictate what those drug prices are.

I don't think the government should intervene.

Anytime the government intervenes, things go off the rails.

We can we can allocate costs of, you know, we can get rebates for drug prices to consumers.

But anytime it's regulated by the FDA and the federal government, things just don't go right.

>> Mr.

Dodson, do you agree with that?

When you think about the high cost of prescription medications, particularly for seniors, do you see a role for the federal government to step in and to help negotiate some of those prices to make it more affordable?

>> Most definitely.

And we've done that on the state level, too.

When it comes to pharmacy benefit managers, well known as PBMs.

And we see that they have driven up cost dramatically.

And so I believe there is room within the federal government to take and regulate the PBM and drive prices down for our citizens, because people are at a turning point, either get their medication and pay these high electric utility bills.

People are really struggling right now in some of those areas.

And so we have to make medication as affordable as we possibly can.

>> I want to turn to an incident over the weekend and talk about political violence in light of the shooting at the white House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night.

And there have been many instances before that many are renewing calls to lower the temperature and political speech and rhetoric.

How do you respond to the idea that heightened political rhetoric on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, is directly contributing to the rise and mass shooting events targeting public officials?

Mr.

Dodson.

>> I think being a great leader, you can stand your ground, have backbone, have convention conviction, but also still lead from the front and be a person who brings healing and restoration.

And I feel like I have the ability to do that.

As my background in pastoral ministry, I've been able to bridge a lot of gaps, bring a lot of people together.

I've done that in the political world, in the business world, and I think that's true.

Leadership is to be able to bring people together and quieten a lot of this noise, a lot of this that has brought a lot of angst, a lot of division in our country right now that we really need healing and we need leadership that will help bring that.

>> Do you think that President Trump offers that leadership that you're talking about?

>> I think he can, yes.

>> Do you think he's currently doing it?

>> I have been so busy on the campaign trail.

I have really been working so hard.

Yes, I think he is.

And I think there are times that we can all, you know, watch what we say and how we say it.

And I believe that going forward, we're going to see a better America.

I hate these instances happen, but they do happen, and sometimes even for no reason at all.

>> From the depictions of the president, many say is depicting himself as Jesus to the spat that he's had, Pope Leo, I'm curious, as a man of the cloth and a clergyman yourself, how do you interpret that?

And does that rise to the moral leadership of which you espouse?

>> Well, being a pastor, I looked at that, and I honestly don't think Donald Trump and I heard him speak about this, and I heard what Franklin Graham had to say after he met with Trump.

I don't believe he intentionally tried to characterize himself as Jesus.

I think he really tried to characterize himself as someone who wants to bring healing.

And so I, too, believe that that this country needs a healing.

>> I want to go to you, Mr.

Plazynski.

How do you feel about the political rhetoric as is it leading to attempts of political violence?

Where do you stand on this?

>> Yeah, I think it is.

I think that there's way too much rhetoric.

You're not going to see me fomenting violence.

You're not going to see or hear me do that.

My wife will attest to that.

She'll make sure of that.

But I think that there's way too much violence in the streets that is caused by fomenting this rhetoric that people are espousing on TV.

You know, that's why that's that led to the death of Charlie Kirk.

People are are talking about, you know, taking care of people.

There's a lot of people that are they want to take care of people that that's not a good term.

That's, that means taking them out and, and taking care of them.

So we should avoid that kind of rhetoric.

And I think that people should start I mean, I yeah, I think that's not good.

>> The gunman had firearms and also knives.

And it's renewed a conversation, too, about gun violence and the president's press conference that he had shortly after the incident on Saturday night, he called the gunman, quote, sick, meaning mentally unwell.

Which brings to mind a question about red flag laws.

Are both of you second amendment?

Yes.

Ardent members, ardent upholders of the Second Amendment?

>> Yes.

Most definitely.

That's a non-negotiable for me.

>> So red flag laws, what is your position on enabling federal courts to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who were deemed to be either a harm to themselves or others?

Mr.

Dodson.

>> Well, law abiding gun owners are never the problem.

It's the criminals.

And when someone is deemed to have mental health issues, then you know those things need to be looked at from a medical perspective.

There has to be a rigorous process.

A neighbor should not be able to just to call and say, my neighbor has a gun and I think he's got issues mentally.

There has to be a process in place, and I don't see that in place right now.

>> Mr.

Plazynski, your take on that?

>> Yeah, I think that's really a slippery slope of of going after gun owners just because they might have some views that aren't popular with the community.

So, you know, there that really has to be looked at closely.

If there's somebody who's committed to an asylum.

Yeah.

I don't think that person should have a gun.

>> So you both would agree that the issue is not the gun, but the people with the guns.

>> Is the criminal, correct?

Yes.

Most definitely.

>> So if elected, would you support either new or increased federal investment in mental health services to make sure that folks who are in a mental health crisis do not have access to firearms, that can commit acts of mass violence or self-induced harm?

Mr.

Dodson.

>> Even as a state legislator, I've always invested and voted for legislation for mental health issues, and I will do the same on the federal level when it comes to firearms.

That individual, if they are of a criminal background, of course, that's something that we look into.

And also, if they have prevailing mental issues, then that is something that can be looked into as well.

But I'm never going to compromise the Second Amendment when it comes to our citizens.

Again, it is not the law abiding citizens, it's the criminals that are the issue.

>> Mr.

Basinski.

>> Yeah, I believe that we should take care of our people if they do have mental health issues and allocate federal dollars for that.

There's good uses of federal dollars and there's really bad uses of federal dollars.

But I think in the case of having people that have mental health issues, I think that we should get them the help that they need.

>> Can you expound more on what you think are bad use of federal dollars?

>> Oh, tax fraud, abuse, things like that.

Fraud and abuse waste, reckless spending, things like that.

>> What do you classify as waste?

>> Waste.

Waste is something that you're that you really don't need.

You, you know, in your business, you're going to run it without buying extra materials.

So in the government, we don't need to spend a lot of money for things that aren't going to be used right away.

It's, it's kind of a budgeting process where, where if you, if you need certain items, you're not going to buy a whole lot of them just to have them and, and end it, end up wasting them.

So there's all kinds of waste in federal government.

There's, there's wasted expenses.

There's people that are spending money that, you know, they shouldn't be spending.

>> Do you believe that starts at the white House as well?

>> At the white House?

I, I don't know, I, I have no idea what's going on at the white House, but I think that that's going on in Congress where people are taking these jets and traveling around the country at their own leisure, taking their families on vacations.

The American people shouldn't be paying for this.

This is this is absolutely waste and potentially fraud use of our taxpayer dollars for their own luxuries.

>> You have a thought on that, Mr.

Dodson.

And we've had reports about the white House, about the FBI director, Kash Patel, going to certain places extravagantly.

There have been reports of those things.

Do you look at that with equal ire as well?

>> I look at everything.

I mean, when you've got a Congress that passes a budget that allows pushing LGBT agendas to our children in schools and into Guatemala and certain countries around the world, we have no business pushing those agendas and funding those things.

That's waste, fraud, and abuse that needs to be cut out on a federal level.

>> So let's talk about Iran and national security.

The conflict ignited a significant debate regarding the balance of power between the executive branch and Congress.

What do you think the role of Congress should be in restricting or restraining the president when the commander in chief decides to go to war?

Mr.

Pucinski, I'll start with you.

Should Congress exert its power and independence when military action is waged by the president?

>> Well, we're not we didn't go to war.

So I don't think Congress needs to be involved right away.

>> So you don't describe what we're in now as a war.

>> I think it's an incursion.

I don't think it's a war.

>> Can you define the difference, please, sir?

>> Well, a war is something that does require congressional involvement to.

To declare a war.

Right now, we are not an incursion.

This is not dissimilar to other things that we have done around the world.

And if we were to declare a war, we would take away the element of surprise, because Congress can't keep a secret.

So we would go into office, talk about it, say we're going to war, and Ryan would get ready and they would see us coming.

Well, we don't want them to see us coming in this particular instance.

So I don't think that they needed to be involved at all in this incursion.

And I think that the Gang of Eight was brought up to speed as quickly as possible.

They were involved.

But after after we took action.

>> The president has even used the term war in describing this conflict in Iran.

Mr.

Dodson, how do you characterize what is happening in Iran right now?

Is it a war or is it an incursion?

>> No, we're we're in a conflict, and the president is well within his rights to do what he has done, just like he did in Venezuela with Maduro.

I believe that these things the president has privy is privy to, and it's under his purview.

Now, if we go into a full blown war, sure.

I believe in congressional approval, but we need to have the ability to be stealthy.

And there's things that we don't know as a civilian what's going on around the world, and the information and the intelligence that they're taking in.

And sometimes quick, decisive action is needed.

And our president needs to have that ability to do that.

And I think he's done a great job.

>> Two Kentucky service members have died in Operation Epic Theory.

What do you think this war brings home for the people of Kentucky?

Mr.

Dodson?

>> It's very unfortunate.

I served in the U.S.

Army.

I know what it is to swear that oath.

I know what it is to put on that uniform and to and to be ready.

I served back during the Gulf War, and I was I was on standby.

So I understand what it is.

And I know when I take that oath that I'm putting my life in danger.

And it's very unfortunate.

These are heroes in Kentucky and we salute them.

>> In addition to saluting our fallen servicemen and women, what do we get out of this conflict?

As you have described it?

What's in it for Kentuckians?

>> Well, what's in it for Kentucky?

Is we stopping a nuclear war taking place if we if we don't go and do what we're doing in Iran now, a lot of Kentuckians can die.

A lot of Americans can die.

When you have people shouting Death to America and all they do, and they live and breathe to take us out.

We need somebody who who brings peace through strength.

We don't need another failed administration like Joe Biden and Obama.

We need somebody that's going to stand up, that has a backbone, that has conviction like Donald Trump has done.

And so I'm just very proud of the fact that we got a president, you know, with his wealth, with his stature, he could be taking it easy for the rest of his life on a golf course or on a beach.

This man loves America, and he's making a stand.

And I'm glad he is.

>> Mr.

Paczynski, many Kentuckians are looking at how much it costs for them to fill up their tank, and they're also thinking about the human sacrifice.

Will it be worth it for Kentuckians who are doubting now that it is.

Do you believe that we are winning this conflict and that it is worth it?

>> I do believe we're winning it.

We've done a lot of things for the economy, and they're going to be coming to light here soon.

The we're we're getting energy independence in the United States.

That's that's coming.

We are cutting the cost of gas as we speak.

The 2017 tax got implemented, tax cuts, the tax for tips got implemented.

So there's a lot of good things coming down the pike for the economy.

And right now we're paying a little bit more for gas.

But it's going to pay off.

And we're going to get to a point where we have energy independence and people are going to be paying a lot less, and they're going to feel a lot better for not spending so much money on gas.

>> Do you believe that the president clearly outlined the objectives of this conflict and how the strategy, what is the strategy to exit and what a win would look like?

Do you understand all of those things?

And can you explain it to the viewers tonight?

>> Well, I think that the president has a plan and he doesn't share that with everybody.

So he's going to you know, you look at what he's doing today, but he's probably ten steps steps ahead of us in planning out his exit out of Iran.

So right now we're looking at it and we're saying we're confused because we don't know his plan.

Well, he's not going to share that with us.

He's a strategist and he's going to make this work for the American people.

He's done nothing but work for the American people and make everything that we've done around the world work for Americans.

We're winning, and we are going to continue to win.

>> Do you believe the president should have the power to deploy ground troops without congressional approval?

>> I believe that would probably come under full congressional approval at that point.

But I do believe there are some times when special forces have to be used, just like with Maduro.

I think that's perfectly fine.

But when we send our regular troops in, then that should be an act of war.

>> Mr.

Dawson, of course, you have talked about your service for our country, and we thank you for that.

With the current deployment in Iran potentially becoming a prolonged conflict, as you gentlemen have described it, do you have a plan to ensure that the troops who are over there, who come back to the United States, are getting the services they need from the Veterans Administration?

How would you go about that?

>> That would be priority number one, for me to make sure that veterans have access to health care to make sure our veterans are taken care of.

And that's one thing that Andy Barr has done really well as a U.S.

congressman here in the sixth district, his constituent services and his military services have really been really above, above so many others, even across the nation.

And so we want to continue that.

We want to take care of our military.

We want to take care of our armed service people.

And yes, when they get back here, they need to be recognized for the heroes that they are.

>> And you would commit, if you were elected to Washington, to vote for the amount that is deemed appropriate to care for those veterans.

>> Most definitely.

>> Same question to you, Mr.

Luzinski.

>> Yeah, I've been out in the community recognizing Vietnam veterans.

I've been meeting veterans.

Veterans are supporting my campaign, and I have a very warm regard for veterans.

My daughter is a veteran.

My dad is a veteran.

She served her country and now she's an Army veteran.

I have cousins that are veterans.

I, I just have a lot of a warm regard for veterans.

And definitely we're going to take care of them.

I got a call the other night from a woman.

She said there's 20 female veterans staying in a place downtown Lexington, and they're waiting for houses.

Well, they're.

She sounded pretty distraught at the time, and she wanted me to help her, and I said I would gladly come down there and see what's going on and then take that with me wherever I go and talk to Andy Barr about it and see what's happening with these veterans.

Now, I think that that they are on a waiting list to get some assistance from the government, but nonetheless, they are in a housing project that that they don't like right now.

>> Let's talk about another constituency here.

Many farmers are currently they say they are underwater dealing with these war related or conflict related costs.

At least 70% of U.S.

farmers say they can't afford the fertilizer they need, and this could lead to higher costs for our food because of the war in Iran.

Would you vote to attach millions in direct farm aid to an upcoming military spending bill to help farmers who are in current distress?

>> Mr.

Dotson that makes up a huge part of our district here.

We're in a big ag community, and I want to pledge my support here publicly to all the farmers across the district, that we will do what it takes to keep defending Kentucky agriculture and from overregulation and foreign, you know, competition, because they face a lot of unfair competition from around the globe because they're subsidized by their own governments around the world.

And so we really need to protect our farmers here in the Central.

Kentucky.

>> Mr.

>> Plazynski yeah, absolutely.

I would I would vote to get the the funding that they need for the fertilizer and, and support them in any way possible.

We need to continue to support our farmers and our, our, our ranchers and, and take care of them just as we would our veterans.

>> This question from a viewer tonight says, quote, it appears that U.S.

senators and representatives are increasing their personal wealth using the equivalent of insider information to buy stocks.

ET cetera.

Or make wages in the prediction market.

What are you all's thoughts on that?

Mr.

I'll begin with you.

>> Well, I'm not here to make money.

As you've seen, I've invested money in my own campaign, and I'm not going to Congress to make money.

I've already committed to that.

I've told people I'm not going there to make money.

I'm going there to do a job and bring job.

Jobs back home to Kentucky, boost the economy and get things rolling here in Kentucky.

That that is my number one goal.

So there may be people who are getting rich on on this type of insider trading, but it's not going to be me.

>> Would it be you, Mr.

Dodson?

>> No.

A good friend of mine, Congressman Ralph Norman from South Carolina, for 4 or 5 months ago, he he proposed a bill to stop insider trading.

And so I would be all for signing on to that as well.

I don't do what I do as a pastor.

I don't do what I do as a state representative for money.

17, $18,000 is all we make per year as a state legislator.

And a lot of what we do, we give a lot of our time away.

It's about public service.

It's about making a difference.

And if you're not called to it, you won't last very long.

I'm not in it for the money again.

I've got a beautiful life outside of politics.

I just feel a mandate and a call to be involved and to try to make a positive difference.

>> Pivoting now during the 2024 presidential campaign, President Trump vowed to preserve Medicare and Social Security and prioritize making child care more affordable, arguing that tariff revenue would help those causes.

Earlier this month, he signaled a reversal on those safety net programs, saying, quote, we're a big country.

We have 50 states.

We have all of these other people.

We're fighting wars.

It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.

Do you believe, Mr.

Plucinski, that the federal government should honor those original affordability promises that the president made?

>> Yeah, I think we can.

And I think we can do that by getting rid of the fraud that's happening throughout the United States.

We've got $9 billion missing in Minnesota.

I've heard.

I've heard numbers as high as 19.

We've got that much missing in California.

And that's going on and on in every state.

So if we took all that fraud money and put it in a pot, we would have more than enough to fund all of those programs.

>> Mr.

Dodson.

>> That's a really good question, Renee.

You know, the Bible says in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three, to everything there is a season.

And in that scripture it says there is a time of peace.

There's a time of war in times of peace.

I'm sure those obligations would be fulfilled.

But I also believe while we are in conflict at this current time, that things aren't normal.

And so we've got to wait till those things normalize and then we can fulfill some of those promises.

>> But you do believe they should be a priority.

>> Sure.

I believe in times of peace when things are back to normal and people are back to work and and our military is back home, then yes, I think that we can honor those.

>> Do cost of this conflict or war is worth what it is?

Debt, which now stands at $39 trillion.

>> I like what Donald Trump plan is.

I believe when we get involved in a conflict like this, that we should extract from that country rare earth, minerals, the oil, whatever it takes to reimburse the American people for setting the people of Iran free.

>> Mr.

Brzezinski, your position on that.

>> What was the question?

>> So we were talking about the debt.

The debt, the national debt.

Is the cost of this conflict or war worth the debt that is now $39 trillion and rising.

And we do know that this conflict is costing about $1 billion or more per day.

>> Yeah, it's definitely worth the cost of doing it because we're we're over there taking nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians.

They have those weapons pointed at Israel.

They're going to, you know, if we let that go, if we can't just appease them and send them $500 million and say, you know, you guys be good for a while.

You know, they they've been they've been at war with us for 47 years.

Every president along the way has said what they're going to do to Iran, you know, from from Bill Clinton up through today.

I'm going to take care of Iran.

We're going to get Iran.

Nobody did, but President Trump did.

And we finally have to do it.

And and we probably did it just in the nick of time, Nick, of time, because we're not going to have these ballistic missiles pointed at us with with nuclear weapons because we took care of this.

And it just it had to be done.

Sometimes you have to spend a little bit money, spend a little bit of money to make things move forward.

>> The president has put forth a substantial increase in military spending.

If elected to the to the Congress, would you vote to prioritize safety net programs over military spending?

Where do you stand on that, which should be at a higher priority?

>> I don't like the either or priority.

I think that they both can be funded.

The military program is phenomenal.

If you look at what we did in Venezuela, we went in, nobody got injured.

We took out a foreign dictator without firing a shot, and we got him over here.

Now that also gives the rest of the world something to think about.

You know, Putin might think about that.

She might think about that.

Hey, they just did it to us.

They overcame all of our defenses.

China's defenses were there in Venezuela, and we overcame all their defenses to get Maduro out.

So, yes, I think that we're spending money, but it's spent wisely and we're advancing technology in the military, in the military.

>> So for the Kentuckians who are watching tonight, wondering what you all's ideas and platforms are and addressing their everyday concerns that they talk about at the kitchen table, their housing costs, gas prices for a new car or a new to them used car, and maybe even possible hospital closures.

What is your message to those everyday Kentuckians who are struggling to make ends meet and wonder if it will ever get better?

Mr.

Dodson.

>> That is a huge concern, Renee.

And I want the people of Kentucky to know that, you know, as your next U.S.

congressman, that I will fight to lower cost.

And one of the issues that we're fighting now is that interest rates for buying homes have stayed up way too long.

Jerome Powell has not really done a great job on that level.

And we should have lower interest rates now, which has put pressure financially upon all the markets.

So the thing is, is that we need somebody who's going to fight, who's going to bring back jobs, who's going to help bring back opportunity.

And again, to the point I made earlier, I will be a CEO of the sixth district, and I will recruit and bring those things back here.

And one of the things that Kentucky has enjoyed for many years is that we had the lowest kilowatt per hour when it comes to our energy, because we had coal fired plants, we used our coal, we used our natural resources, and we need to get back to that again.

And America needs to be energy independent.

Drill, baby, drill, drive down these high cost of energy, high cost of fuel, and we'll start seeing those prices come down.

>> Do you see any validity in a proposal by Senate Democrats talking about working across the aisle?

In February, they proposed the American Homeownership Act, which would strip tax breaks from corporate landlords owning more than 50 homes.

What do you say to an idea like that?

To go back to the issue of housing.

>> I would have to look deeper into it.

I think as a capitalist, I think we should be able to do the type of work and investments that we deem necessary for our companies.

So I don't know exactly what that entails, but I would have to look at it.

And again, just because it's an idea that came from a Democrat doesn't mean that I would exclude it.

I have great relationships with the Democrats in the House here in the state of Kentucky, and I will do the same in Washington, D.C.

>> Mr.

Basinski, your view on that.

>> On the.

>> On housing, housing.

>> You know, I've been here working 24 years, and I built a company.

We created hundreds of good paying jobs.

We invested $200 million into Kentucky's economy with $20 million a year going every year.

We've hired our young people right out of school, right out of high school.

We've we've made life saving drugs used for fentanyl overdose reversal.

So I'm coming to office with real results.

I've done that.

Now I'm going to repeat it.

When I get to Washington, I'm going to find whoever I can to bring those drugs back to Kentucky and place those around the sixth district in strategic locations, working with the Chamber of Commerce.

And we're going to put young people back to work.

We're going to get good paying jobs.

There are so many communities that are around here that are neglected.

You can see it, you can hear it.

I get into Powell County.

They don't have any industry.

They don't have any manufacturing.

They are working in a facility that is crumbling.

Their city water workers.

There's so many communities like this around the district.

>> Plan that gets at that, though.

That is a solution to that problem.

>> What's the solution?

>> What's the what is a specific idea you have that would be a solution to that problem.

>> That I'm going to go out to the United States and I'm going to say, Kentucky is open for business.

We don't want only drug manufacturing coming back from overseas.

We want all of your manufacturing to take a look at Kentucky.

We want to work with you.

We want to bring you here and get into these communities.

Come look at us.

I'll be the front man for all of this.

I've been the front man right here in Kentucky, right here in Lexington, hiring people from every walk of life.

I bring people from out of the community, out of the state.

I bring them back to Kentucky.

They love being here because they were born here or they they came here for this new job that we just offered them.

And if we get enough of those coming, we're going to boost everybody's everybody's salaries.

Things are going to go really well.

We're going to we need infrastructure.

You know, Clark County has infrastructure problem.

For example, they don't have a good sewer.

So we need to get that money from the state, from the federal government, whatever it takes to get all of these communities attractive to new companies.

>> When it comes to housing, do you have any specific ideas that would get at the housing crisis, as Kentucky is 200,000 housing units short at the current time?

>> Yeah, we have to cut regulations.

I got into I got into developing after I sold the business in 2024, and I started looking at developing housing projects in Nicholasville.

And as soon as I got into it, it was I needed to spend $50,000 to get a study done so that, you know, then that could go through the city and the county.

And these things are just hampering the the timeline of getting these housing projects going.

So we need to look at the regulations.

We need to cut regulations on housing.

There are so many regulations.

I had, you know, if I was X feet from the road, I had to offset this amount.

I had to widen the road for this.

Regulations will help the housing industry.

It will help the construction industry, and people will be able to afford houses earlier in their lives.

>> Finally, on the last topic, before I allow you all a minute or so to make your closing remarks, election integrity, Mr.

Dodson, this is something that you've have on your website about Secure our Elections, Restore Trust.

That's part of your platform.

Your website says you believe the American people deserve complete confidence in the outcome of every election.

And you say that has not always been the case in recent years.

Do you believe that Joe Biden won the presidency fairly and squarely in 2020?

And if not, do you believe that same system that elected President Donald J. Trump in 2024 is also rigged?

>> I do not believe Joe Biden won that election fairly.

I believe it was a rigged election.

And that is my personal belief.

And we've seen the issues after issues during the drop box.

All the ballots coming in were days and weeks after.

So, yes, I believe that was a rigged election.

And I do believe that things have changed because we're in a whole different season now.

That was during the pandemic.

There was a reasoning to it, and the American people will not fall for that again.

And I here in Kentucky, I help to work to make election integrity what it is today.

So I think here in Kentucky, we're in great shape, but there are states in the United States that need better election integrity.

>> Mr.

Pucinski, where do you stand on election integrity, and do you believe Joe Biden rightfully won the 2020 presidential election?

>> I don't believe that for a second.

He did not get 80 million votes.

He did not exceed Barack Obama's 76 million.

I don't believe that for a second that that happened.

I don't think many people do.

And that's where I stand on that.

>> Do you have confidence in the current election system and believe that President Donald Trump won fairly in 2024?

>> I do believe that, yes, I do, because you could see it not only in the.

What was going on around the country.

He was so popular everywhere he went.

He has the country just.

I mean, I would say everybody in the country supported President Trump in Biden's election.

Hardly anybody was out there supporting President Biden.

He was in his basement.

President Trump came out.

Everybody supported him.

He definitely won the election.

And it wasn't just it wasn't just one state or two.

It was all seven of the states that he needed to win.

And it was just, you know, they went down the line one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

>> Let's quickly talk about immigration quickly.

If you can give an answer to this before we give you closing statements.

And a Politico poll reported and conducted April 11th through the 14th, half of the Americans polled, including one quarter of President Donald Trump's 2024 voters, said Trump's mass deportation campaign, including the widespread deployment of Ice agents, was too aggressive.

Roughly a quarter said his immigration posture is about right, while 11% say it's not aggressive enough.

Where do you stand on this, Mr.

Dodson?

>> I believe we're on a great trajectory.

If we don't get rid of the illegals that have come into our country under the leadership of Biden, it's putting a major stress on our hospitals, on our law enforcement, on our housing that you just addressed.

So our Americans who are paying their taxes have been supporting these illegals for many years.

And so we have to deport them.

And then if they want to come back legally, then they should probably be able to come back to the front of the line.

>> Where do you stand on this, Mr.

Paczynski?

>> Well, you know, during the ice deployment, people were battling ice everywhere they went.

The police in certain states were not cooperating with ice.

Ice could go to the to the jails and to the prisons and pull people out of those.

But they wouldn't allow that.

So then they had to go into the streets, and that's where they were attacked by the people that were there, you know, spitting on ice agents, doxing them, kicking out their lights.

That's not that's not normal.

They they need to get out of the way of ice, let them do their job and get it, get the job done.

>> Mr.

Brzezinski, I'll give you 30s to make a closing statement about why Kentuckians in the sixth district, Republicans should vote for you.

And the primary on May 19th.

>> Well, I'm coming to office.

I'm not just coming to talk.

I've already done what I said I'm going to do when I get to Congress.

I'm going to bring a lot of good jobs to the young people in Kentucky.

I'm going to support the signature industries that make Kentucky special.

Kentucky bourbon, horses, farms, manufacturing.

I want to pick up Andy Barr's reins where he left off, and I want to be a voice for these industries and for the jobs that are in them.

>> Mr.

Dodson 30s.

>> Six congressional district deserves a conservative fighter.

I am that guy.

I have a proven track record.

You want to know what a man will do?

Look what he's already done.

Every man's track record speaks for itself.

And I always live my life by this motto.

A good shepherd smells like the sheep.

I have served my community for 29 years as a pastor and a businessman, and I have served the last six years as a state representative.

And I will go there and I will serve and a sheep follow the shepherd because he smells like him.

Because if you live among the people, dwell among the people and do business with the people, you're able to lead from a position of trust.

And the people of Kentucky know I am from Kentucky.

I'm the only candidate in this race from Kentucky, and I know what makes Kentucky tick.

>> Mr.

Dodson, thank you so much, Mr.

President.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

After this quick break, you'll hear from four Democratic candidates running in the sixth district.

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>> Welcome back to Kentucky tonight.

We appreciate you staying with us this evening.

I'm Renee Shaw.

For Democratic candidates for Congress in the sixth district.

Met our criteria to appear this evening.

All four accepted our invitation.

They are Aaron Petrie, who has a background in U.S.

public diplomacy, renewable energy, infrastructure and education.

David Kloiber, a former member of Lexington's Urban County Council, Cheryl Lynn Stevenson, a former member of the Kentucky House and former Minority caucus chair, and Zach Dembo, a former federal prosecutor.

You can still send us your questions and comments by X, formerly Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

Send an email to KY TONIGHT at ket.org or use the web form at ket.org slash KY TONIGHT, or you can simply give us a call at one (800) 494-7605.

We'll welcome candidates.

We appreciate you being here at this somewhat late hour of the evening.

So thank you for making the time.

I'm going to allow each of you to introduce yourself.

We'll start with you, Mr.

Denbo.

And I want you, as you give us your background, to tell us why you think you are the best candidate to flip this seat blue to the Democrat column in November.

What do you bring to this race and what would you bring to the sixth Congressional District?

>> Sure.

Well, thanks, Renee, so much for having me.

Thank you to KET for hosting and thanks to everyone watching at home.

My name is Zach Dembo.

I grew up in Lexington.

I'm a ninth generation Kentuckian, and I spent my whole career in public service, whether teaching, whether in the Navy on active duty or, most recently as a federal prosecutor.

However, when this administration came in, it became clear I couldn't in good conscience continue to serve.

And so I resigned as a matter of principle.

Now I'm taking that same fight that I did for my students that I did for sailors and Marines, that I did for victims of crime.

As a prosecutor, I'm taking that same fight to this congressional race because Kentucky needs someone who can stand up against this administration, and someone who has a record of public service and fighting for Kentuckians in America.

>> And tell us specifically how you'd fight for the voters and the citizens in the sixth Congressional District.

What unique and specific issues to the sixth district do you want to address in Washington?

>> Sure.

Well, the first thing I would say is Congress just needs to do its job.

So many of the problems we have right now are from them giving up all of their legislative powers to the executive.

So, for example, these tariffs that are crushing Kentucky industries that are costing Kentucky households $1,000 a day, I mean, a year, excuse me, those don't need to be happening.

Congress should not be allowing the administration to do this.

Similarly, this war on Iran has led to massive gas spikes, massive diesel spikes, and led to the death of two Kentuckians.

Any self-respecting congressperson from Kentucky should be standing up against that.

And instead, all we've heard from the Republicans, unfortunately, is how great this administration is and who's going to trip over themselves more to suck up to this president.

>> Mr.

Glauber, tell us more about why you're running for the sixth Congressional District seat as a Democrat and what you bring and what issues that you will try to champion, should you be elected to serve in Washington.

>> Well, my name is David Kloiber.

I did grow up here in Fayette County.

I went to UK.

I live here with my wife and two kids who are in the public schools over at Bryan Station, and I'm committed to trying to make my community better, not just for my kids, but for all our kids.

I've I've spent a long time working with nonprofits.

I run a nonprofit in town that helps make sure teachers have the tools they need and the school.

Make sure our kids are prepared for when they go out into the world.

I've built up many businesses, and I've tried to create good paying jobs with good benefits for people here in Central Kentucky.

And I've served on the City Council in Lexington all the way through Covid, trying to make sure that we rebuilt stronger than we were before.

Now, when it comes to this election, I think it's very important that if we're going to win in November, we have to have a message that's going to bring people in from across the aisle.

We can't keep talking about the same old things, sounding like we're coming out of Washington.

If we're going to be able to get people who voted overwhelmingly for Trump to vote for a Democrat.

So I've committed to putting forward concrete policies and plans to tell our neighbors this is what we have to vote for, instead of just giving them something to vote against.

>> And what are those specifically?

And you described yourself as a moderate centrist Democrat.

Would that be an accurate assessment?

>> I would I would consider myself a pragmatic Democrat.

A lot of the old Blue Dog Democrat comes through in what I say, but it doesn't mean we have to move away from our liberal beliefs.

Some of those policies that I want to put forward that would really help us are things like getting us the health care we already paid for, making sure that we have a living wage being paid.

That doesn't put pressure on small businesses, and we make sure that people can live in the communities they grew up.

These policies are concrete.

We've got a plan and a way we can get it moving forward as soon as we get to Congress.

>> Miss Petrie, you describe yourself as a progressive Democrat, so define that further for us.

And what are the issues you would champion should you be elected to serve in Washington?

>> Absolutely, Renee, and thank you so very much for inviting us all here.

These kind of forums and public television like KET, where my dad, my uncle and my cousin both worked and has been such a critical part of my childhood in so many childhoods of folks right here in Kentucky.

And yes, I am a proud, progressive Democrat.

I'm an unapologetic progressive Democrat.

And what that means is that I believe in Medicare for all.

I believe in abolishing Ice.

I believe in making sure that we actually are moving forward.

Because I'm tired of Democrats just negotiating against ourselves before we even come to the negotiating table with Republicans.

See, I have talked to a lot of Democrats across this state, and they're tired of the same kind of centrist tactics because it kind of just candidates aren't standing for anything.

I am not beholden to the political establishment, and that is frankly why I also got into this race, because the Democratic Party has not been the kind of party we need to be.

That's why Donald Trump is elected.

That's why everything from school board to city commission, all the way up to state House and the United States Congress have been taken by the GOP over the last ten years.

We need to stand up and fight for every single person, insist on human rights are for every human.

Make sure that we actually pass Medicare for all for once.

78% of Democrats approve of it, and many other voters do as well, including 63% of all voters.

I also believe that a living wage must be paid for full time work, and we must abolish Ice and these ridiculous mass squads in our street, really just trying to fight against a boogeyman that was created by this administration.

I believe that politics must serve the people, which is why I have decried special interests like AIPAC, as well as corporate donations, and have dedicated myself to actually passing things like campaign finance reform and other measures of accountability, like term limits if elected to office.

>> Miss Stevenson, you've been in Frankfort.

You've served in Frankfort for many years now.

You want to go to Washington one y. And why do you think that you are the best Democrat who can advance to the general election and turn the seat blue?

>> Well, thank you, Renee, and thanks again so much to KET for having us here and giving voters the opportunity to hear from all of us.

Well, I grew up in a holler in Eastern Kentucky.

I hail from Knott County.

My mom was a teacher.

She was my second grade teacher.

And my dad was, excuse me, an Army veteran turned coal miner.

I went to Morehead State University, came to Lexington after that, met my husband, and have been here ever since.

I have worked in a fortune 500 companies.

I have worked for hospitals and nonprofits.

I've owned my own small business and yes, I have served in our General Assembly.

I am running for Congress because I believe that it is far past time that we have a representative that not only understands our politics, but truly understands our lives.

I am the only candidate in this race that has flipped a district from red to blue, and then held that district.

I am the only one that has successfully navigated the nasty and divisive politics that unfortunately dominate our elections today, and I'm the only one that has already stood on a House floor and fought back against Maga Republicans.

I fought for Democratic values on that legislative floor, and I delivered for Kentucky families, helping to make health care more affordable and more accessible.

I have built a team, a coalition, since 2018 that surrounds me, so I have the infrastructure to not miss a beat.

As we head into the fall.

We've already knocked about 22,000 doors as we are out trying to take our message all across the sixth Congressional District.

>> So we're going to just play a little game, just raise our hands on these issues, and then we're going to drill down a little bit more talking about living wage.

We heard that.

Are all of you how many of you for a living wage?

How many of you are for Medicare for all?

Okay, Mr.

Dembo, by not raising your hand, why are you not for Medicare for all?

>> So my big concern with Medicare for all, Renee, is what we're seeing right now in the federal government, which would be if we allowed the federal government to require everyone to be in a government sponsored health care plan.

Robert F Kennedy Jr would be in charge of that plan right now.

I'm not in favor of that.

I'm definitely in favor of a public option.

I was the beneficiary of a public option when I was in the military with Tricare.

I think that's absolutely something that we should be making available to everyone possible.

But I think for those folks who like their employer sponsored health care plans, we should not be forcing them off of that in favor of the federal government overreaching into that.

>> Do you all believe that health care is a right?

>> Yes, absolutely.

But I would also like to say that I think it's pretty bad to say that just because Robert F Kennedy Jr is in charge of HHS, that we should not be doing the right thing for our people.

If you are only holding one cabinet member between us and doing the right thing for our people, I don't really see as someone being able to actually hold the administration in general accountable.

>> So why are you for Medicare for all?

Why do you think that's the solution to the health care crisis in this country?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Listen, we provide we spend more money on health care in this country than any other similar country, over $13,000 per patient, while other countries like the United Kingdom and Japan and Germany and Switzerland are paying essentially half of that.

Our health insurance process has not always been this way.

However, it has been usurped by greedy people, especially politicians, even like Chuck Schumer on our side, who have been paid off by the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy benefit managers who are essentially stealing money from us and telling us that we can't have good health care.

Our health is the greatest natural resource that we have in this entire country.

I have Crohn's disease.

It almost took my life a few years ago, and I remember when I was in the hospital, I didn't know if I was going to leave or not, but they put that IV in my arm and the next person I saw was not a doctor, but the billing person asking me how I can pay for that.

The way that we revitalize this country, especially rural and small town America, is taking that burden and that insane amount of money that you have to pay just so that health insurance executives can get their pay is absurd.

We must restore health care as a human right.

Mexico has it now.

Why can't the United States of America.

>> Mr.

Glauber, you raised your hand that you're for Medicare for all.

But there are some critics who argue that that free health care card doesn't really solve the underlying problems with access to health care, such as lack of transportation or food deserts.

So does your plan drill down beyond just the phrase and lexicon, Medicare for all to address the fundamental social determinants of health?

>> I love this question because supporting something like health care for all or a living wage, those are goals, but they're not plans, right?

And we need a plan to get from where we are to where we want to be.

And my plan is actually set forth how we can start that process.

When I say something like, get you the health care you've already paid for, we're talking about over $200 billion that was spent over the last ten years on pharmaceutical grants for research that the American taxpayer has not seen a return on.

And if we tie that to pricing, we can reduce everyone's health care costs by 15 to 20%.

Now, that's the first step in a plan that leads towards a public option, and that leads towards Medicare for all in a way that's sustainable and lets us address the bumps along the road.

You can't get to a goal without a plan, and you can't start that without having something to present.

>> Miss Stevenson, you also raised your hand for Medicare for all.

But we know in other countries where there is a single payer health care system, there are complaints of rationed care or lengthy delays on procedures and treatments and appointments.

Do you have a plan that would keep Kentuckians from experiencing those types of delays in care, particularly if they have an urgent need?

>> Well, I believe that we need to work our way toward Medicare for all.

Do I think that we can get there anytime soon?

I don't, so I believe that we do need to work toward that public option.

My absolute number one priority in Congress will be to lower health care costs and increase access to health care.

I, too, have a very personal health care story.

My husband had a major medical event.

He had a pulmonary embolism during a very short period of time when we were both in a gap of waiting period for new insurance to kick in.

In the blink of an eye, we were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and it took us a long time to climb out of that.

So I made it my number one priority in Frankfurt to file a lot of health care bills so that we could work toward families, not ever being in that situation that we were in.

We do need to immediately get in there when we flip Congress.

And I do believe that we are going to flip Congress.

We've got to be sure that those Medicaid cuts that are in that one big, ugly bill are stopped.

We need to reinstate the ACA subsidies.

We just had 40,000 Kentuckians not renew their health insurance through connect because premiums went so high.

We need Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices for all of us.

I was part of the bipartisan team in the Kentucky General Assembly that delivered insulin co-pay caps and medical marijuana to Kentuckians.

So there are so many small steps that we need to be making, Renee, to get us to that point, that every single person that has a need can have that right in their own backyard, not have to travel crazy amounts of time to get to a doctor and have affordable care right there.

I am so worried about us as we have 35 hospitals set to close.

One in Flemingsburg has already closed everything except for their emergency room.

We've had two birthing centers that have closed.

You know, we have got to be sure that every single person can be taken care of again.

We all believe that health care is a right, and it's something that no one should have to decide if they can go to the doctor, if they can pay rent, if they do go to the doctor, or if they can even afford the medicine that that doctor prescribed.

>> Mr.

Petrie, I want to go back to you because the others seem to embrace a public option.

Do you totally disregard a public option and want to go for Medicare for all?

Do you see a need to stair step?

>> No.

Renee.

Again, I don't know why we are negotiating against ourselves and being apologists for these corporations like insurance companies.

One of the things that people like to talk about, about the Fleming County Hospital is that it's going to close, but what they usually leave out that it is a for profit hospital, and there are a lot of other issues with similar institutions.

They are closing because they are for profit hospitals, and they're not making the kind of money that they want.

It doesn't have to do with gaps in care.

And when we talk about rationing care or people not being able to get into specialists in places where there is universal health care, that happens here, too.

I couldn't get an appointment with my primary care physician for six months just to get a checkup.

I know someone who I was speaking to at the University of Kentucky, who's a student there earlier this week, and they said that they had an issue with their gynecologist.

They could not get in for three months.

So we're already seeing these challenges, and it's because our system is irrevocably broken and we must start over.

Other countries have done it.

Why can't we?

>> What is the investment in a Medicare for all or even a public option?

We talk about the Payfors here, Mr.

Dembo, what's the price tag?

>> Well, I mean, I think the first thing we need to find is the massive amount of waste, fraud and abuse that we're seeing from corporations and frankly, that we're seeing from some of these government agencies.

One of the things that frustrated me the most as a federal worker for 11 years, both on active duty and at the DOJ, was that there are lots of ways in which the federal government could be run more efficiently, certainly when it comes to how it funds and reimburses for health care.

But instead, what this administration did is it just took a chainsaw to so much of the federal government, cutting thousands of vital federal workers, especially I'm thinking of of my fellow veterans.

The VA cut over 40,000 positions, 200 right here at the VA here in Lexington.

That's not helping anyone.

That is not making government more efficient in any way.

I think there are easy cost savings we could be making if we actually had a targeted way of making the federal government run more efficiently.

But this.

>> Yeah.

So didn't mean interrupt you.

Sorry about that.

But let's get to getting the federal government to run more efficiently, more efficiently.

And that comes from a question that we have from a viewer with the government spending too much money, what categories would you decrease spending to combat that?

So, Miss Petrie, we'll start with you.

Where do you see that there can be some cost reduction in government programs and services?

>> Absolutely.

The first thing that we can do is to abolish Ice.

It is currently the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the country, and more funded than the Marine Corps.

We absolutely need sweeping immigration reform in this country, but we need one that is humane, focused on due process and focused on a pathway to citizenship, not arming these untrained people in our streets and dumping money into it.

I also do believe that the Department of Defense needs to be able to pass an audit.

If you go to Northern Virginia, you'll see all of these giant McMansions, and that is funded by your taxpayer dollars by Raytheon, Leidos and all of the other military industrial complex.

We absolutely need to support our veterans, but we are seeing the challenges with their health care.

We are not actually investing in our veterans once they do their time.

We have veterans who are still experiencing homelessness and mental health crises, so we need to make sure that we are getting rid of that private sector influence.

First off, by overturning Citizens United and making sure that we get corporate money and special interest money out of politics, but also by actually making sure that things do run efficiently.

I've been in the private sector nearly my entire life, and I've managed billions of dollars in construction projects, so I know how to be efficient and on schedule, and I know how to cut chaff.

But the thing is, efficiencies are not achieved with a chainsaw, but with a scalpel.

And there are certainly many ways such as these sweetheart deals that are given because we have so much rampant private sector corporate money purchasing our politicians at the highest level to give them contracts.

>> Miss Stevenson, I want to go to you next and to answer a question about the national debt, which now stands at $39 trillion and climbing higher.

Are you concerned about that as you look at what Kentuckians and Americans need now in the short term, how do you weigh that against the long term impact on the nation's debt?

And for programs that you're espousing tonight, where's the balance?

>> Well, I absolutely am concerned about our national debt.

It is absolutely, way, way too high.

And we know that so much of that has been caused because of Republicans giving billionaires tax breaks.

We are spending so much money on foreign wars that no one wants.

The last time that we had a balanced budget was under Bill Clinton.

So we have seen Republicans add and add and add to this deficit.

Right now in Iran, we are spending $1 billion a day that should absolutely be coming back to our taxpayers.

So because the people that are paying the largest portion of our taxes right now are not the billionaires, are not the millionaires, these are the people that need investments in child care, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in Snap benefits.

We absolutely have better uses of money than what we are spending on foreign wars, you know, and billionaires need to be paying their fair share so that we can be sure that we are affording all of the things that we need.

National security, yes, is important, but as Miss Petrie just said, you know, the Doge went in with a sledgehammer where they could have used a fly swatter.

I guarantee if you go to every single federal department and talk to the employees, they can absolutely tell you what can go away, what can be cut, and what is absolutely necessary.

And you can find a lot of money saved there.

And again, that is reinvestment into our people.

That's money that should be staying right here at home.

>> So, Mr.

Kloiber, same question.

Where would you cut?

Where do you see that there is a way to cut back some federal government programs and services?

Where would you start?

>> Well, I think the first place I'd start is with the Department of Homeland Security.

When it was created, it was thrown together with the Patriot Act at a time where there was a lot of fear and concern, and it's just become a Frankenstein that continues to create more Frankenstein's monsters.

It's a it's.

It has failed to meet all five of the criteria.

It was established in order to create, which was to make there to be better organization and communication between departments.

And instead we have this huge sieve of funds that just goes out and does not give us any real tangible benefit.

But we see things like Ice getting funded disproportionately to other programs within the same organization, and we don't see that changing.

We had programs before the Department of Homeland Security was created, which all handled these issues separately.

We've just created a lot of bloat in that particular area.

So the first thing I would do is try and address that bloat.

The second is, you know, we need to figure out a way to increase revenue to the federal government.

I know a lot of people don't necessarily like to talk about it, but at the end of the day, we have a deficit that is going to drag us down for generations.

And I don't like to talk about a problem without giving a solution.

So I'll say my proposal has to do with taxing something called borrowing on margin.

This is an aspect that only very wealthy individuals or corporations are able to use where they borrow against their assets.

Good example is when, when Elon Musk wanted to purchase Twitter.

I think we're all familiar with it.

He didn't spend $60 billion out of his own pocket.

He borrowed against what he owned.

He did not pay tax on that money.

In fact, he got a tax break and a write off for having borrowed it.

Now, if we assessed a tax and a fee on that, we could generate trillions of dollars over the next ten years to help us relieve that deficit.

And it would not affect the average worker in this country.

That's a net benefit to the economy.

It's a real solid solution that helps us address the problem and perhaps get some of these programs off of the wish list and into reality.

>> Okay.

Mr.

Dembo, do you have a similar idea on how you can reduce the debt?

>> Well, first, I'm glad that you brought it up, because I do have to say, you know, it has been both parties spending without any regard for the debt, which is why it's reached that reached the astronomical number that you mentioned, Renee.

And they've just made it worse.

I mean, not only did this tax cut for millionaires and billionaires add 3 trillion to the deficit, ultimately 4 trillion to the debt.

But now they just turned around and asked for 1.5 trillion in DoD funding.

It doesn't seem like there's any interest from this administration or this Congress in stopping the out-of-control spending.

I think there are lots of ways that we could make this spending get under control.

One thing that's always bothered me, and that Congress has tried to address and hasn't, is the carried interest loophole, right, where fund managers get to pay capital gains rates instead of income tax rates.

That is a massive difference.

And it's some of the very richest in America.

And so we have a situation where wealthy Wall Street hedge funds managers are getting effectively tax breaks, whereas the rest of us are having to pay more and more for goods every single day.

That's what's happening under this Congress.

And that's what we need to take on when we flip the House.

>> So you all are in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy?

>> Absolutely, yes.

>> What do you consider wealthy, Miss Petrie?

>> Yeah, I mean, sure, I mean, at a very minimum, we're talking billionaires, right?

But I mean, here's the thing, right?

In 1980, the top tax rate was 70%.

Today it is 37%.

That's nearly half.

So it's no wonder we are where we are now.

The thing is that Reaganomics, trickle down economics, supply side economics does not work.

And we are in a position now where we are seeing a logjam of the impacts of that.

And so, listen, if you make over $1 million a year, that's probably a good place to start.

But you the average Kentuckian should not be paying more in taxes than someone who decides to just get around it by throwing a bunch of money into assets and putting all of their cash into properties, rather than paying their fair share.

>> Mr.

Kloiber, many people would say that you're taxing or tax more.

The wealth creators, those who are generating the jobs, who are creating the opportunity for other Americans, you say what to that?

>> I say that what we really need to do is not focus on exactly who we are taxing, but how and what loopholes we are closing in our system.

My proposal on taxing margin is literally just a loophole that allows people to borrow and then get a tax break.

We've we've seen this time and time again that if we target the system that is allowing these things to happen so that everyone is getting a fair share or paying their fair share, that's that's the method to go forward.

It's not about targeting a specific group or class.

It's about targeting a system that has not been working for all of us.

And that's why my proposal is a concrete example of how we do that, instead of just aspirational, in that this is the area we should be working.

>> Yeah.

Is it more than aspirational?

Miss Stevenson, do you have a plan.

>> Again, I believe that asking the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share, there is absolutely no reason that a secretary or a nurse or a police officer or a school teacher should be paying a higher tax rate than a corporate CEO.

And trickle down economics has not worked.

We have seen CEO pay raise by astronomical numbers at a time when wages for working Americans working Kentuckians have stayed absolutely stagnant.

We have a lot of work to do to lift up those working families.

I think that we have all known for a long time.

There used to be a lot of talk about building out from the middle class.

Well, more and more, the middle class is disappearing.

We have an Epstein class and we have a working class, and I'm absolutely focused on that working class.

>> So for those who are in the working class, many of them are concerned about the cost of college tuition for all the candidates.

And we can start with you, Miss Stevenson.

What do you plan on doing about the rising cost of college tuition?

>> Well, you know, Renee, when I went to college.

The state paid about 80% and we paid about 20.

And that has flipped upside down.

And it's actually even gotten worse.

But I had a roundtable with a college students and those that had just graduated not long ago, and they talked about how they are just coming out of school, absolutely swamped with with college debt.

And they don't believe that they're ever going to be able to own a home.

They don't know that they're going to even be able to start a family, because they are going to be paying a mortgage worth for their student loans.

So we absolutely need to be finding ways to give zero or very low interest loans.

My hometown, Alice Lloyd College, Berea, they have ways for work studies.

Folks come in, they work their way through school and they come out not owing anything.

So I would love to see more colleges take on that, that way of educating our young people.

>> Okay.

Mr.

Dembo, your thoughts on lowering the cost of college tuition.

>> Is personal for me because not only did I only recently finish paying off my loans, but we're still paying my wife's student loans in my household, and I know how crushing they can be.

And this is just another example of the way in which DC and this administration is not working for everyday Kentuckians.

We've created a economy where the expectation is for a lot of jobs that requires a four year degree, but we've made it completely unaffordable as soon as you get out.

I think there are some easy, easy fixes here.

Pell grants need to continue to be fully funded and expanded.

I myself was the beneficiary of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which if you spend ten years on active duty or in federal government as I did, they'll forgive your loans.

We can expand that to many other occupations that are helping folks.

And finally, a good thing to help student borrowers would be have a Department of Education that's actually functional.

This administration has gutted the Department of Education as part of its many corrupt doings.

And what we need to do is restore the federal student aid program and have the right number of people at the Department of Education to actually help borrowers, instead of just abandoning them to crushing student loan debt?

>> Mr.

>> Kloiber well, when I went to school, I worked at KFC and I went in State, and that was enough to make it through.

Many of my friends took on debt, and they're still dealing with it today.

I would say there's two things that I would focus on at the federal government.

The first is that we have objectively predatory lending on these student loans.

It's it's backed by the federal government on bankruptcy, but you can still have an adjustable rate, interest rate that can skyrocket over time.

That's just we haven't allowed that in payday lenders for a long time.

And we shouldn't be allowing it when we're talking about someone's future and their education.

And the second thing is, you know, I serve on the Kctcs Foundation board.

And so we work a lot with technical colleges to try and make sure they have programs for placement for people after they get through their schooling.

We need to make sure federal dollars are coming into those programs and making sure that when people are going through any of these wonderful programs we have for, for trades or nursing, etcetera, that they can get placed, and we're working with the businesses to do that.

We need more funding in that space, and we need to make sure that people aren't getting saddled with predatory loans that should obviously be protected under consumer protections.

>> Miss Petrie, what's your idea or ideas?

>> Yes, I earned my master's degree at the University of Kentucky's Patterson School of Diplomacy, and I was very thankful to be able to get that at an in-state tuition.

However, I do believe that we do need to address the educational issue, which of course, I mean, the current lending environment is incredibly euceros and predatory.

However, one of the things that we do also need to handle is the opportunities afterwards.

So many folks wouldn't be so worried about what they were paying for their college tuition if they knew they were going to get good wages, good jobs that they could not just afford to pay off those loans, but also to live in a house, buy a car, and maybe not go on food stamps while they are working a full time job.

This is why we must invest in more opportunities for good jobs for people, but also make sure that we are investing in things like Kctcs and our community college programs.

Finally, one of the things that I hear students at the University of Kentucky and other colleges around the district worry about is this existential threat of AI replacing them.

We must put a federal code of conduct on AI, especially as it relates to being cited in layoffs.

And we should also move to companies being paying for FICA.

So things like Medicaid and Social Security based on revenue rather than payroll, so that they are incentivized to make sure that they are paying their fair share for people while they are not employing those who they need to be.

>> Let's, let's go there with that a little bit further.

Miss Petrie, I want to go to Mr.

Dembo about AI, artificial intelligence, as many workers do, fear that machines and robots will replace them.

And that's not a long distance sci fi scenario.

It could be a real reality for many workers, particularly those who lack maybe the current job skills to maintain.

What are your thoughts about what federal government policy should look like when it comes to artificial intelligence?

>> Well, the first thing we need is a policy at all.

Right now, this administration's policy is to let corporations do whatever they want, and certainly they allow regulation to go to the highest bidder.

The corruption coming out of DC on this is staggering.

So the first thing we need is to fight that corruption and make sure that we've got government looking out for us instead of big corporations, including AI.

We have to make sure that while AI is getting a huge amount of prosperity and frankly, having a boom in the economy, that they're also shouldering the costs, the very real costs that AI is bringing in when it comes to data centers, for example, there is not nearly enough transparency, there's not local input, and there's not taking into account the serious environmental, societal, and other problems that come with a data center.

I was talking to a supporter the other day who likened it to landfills.

You need landfills, but they have huge impacts on the surrounding areas that aren't taken into account.

Data centers are the same way.

Similarly, if AI is coming in and it's going to be taking folks jobs, it's the companies who are benefiting from that who should be paying to retrain those folks and make sure they are placed in other good paying jobs.

AI is going to be in the future, no matter what.

The government needs to make sure it's standing between us and these multibillion dollar companies to make sure we're getting a square deal, and that the true cost of AI is being shouldered by the AI companies and not by working folks.

>> Miss Stevenson, where do you stand on artificial intelligence and data centers?

>> Well, first and foremost, as I did a listening tour across the district, one of the things that I heard over and over and over was AI regulation.

And we have none right now.

So we absolutely need to be stepping up and taking bold action because there are so many nefarious uses for AI at this moment.

And as we all know, there are some great things that are happening, some great things that we are getting from AI.

However, we have to be so careful moving forward.

It is transforming at a rapid, rapid pace and we have yet to even get our hands around it at all as a government.

But as Mr.

Dembo just said, we currently don't have an administration or a Congress that is willing to stand up to their corporate overlords and say, this is a problem.

Now, as far as data centers go, I believe that we must have local control.

If folks want a data center, then great.

But if we have locals saying, absolutely not here, we don't want it here, then you know that community support needs to be there.

And so.

>> You're saying a referendum.

>> Absolutely.

I think that we absolutely should allow the people to speak on it.

Also, the utility increases that we see working folks should not be paying for the richest corporations on earth to run amok with a data center that is there.

The environmental factors are really, really troubling, but also it's a huge red herring for jobs.

We hear, oh, it's jobs, there's a couple while it's being built, and then there are maybe 1 or 2 as they are running.

But it is not an economic boom for localities.

And I think that folks have a right to know that.

>> Mr.

Kloiber.

>> I think that too often the term AI is thrown around as a buzzword and a catch all for a lot of things, the actual programs, the LLMs and, and those that are being used and grouped into this, they're a tool.

And we need to concretely understand how they're going to affect things going forward.

I think a real good example comes from understanding traditional business revenue to pay.

In a traditional business, you look at your payroll and it usually accounts for about 85% of your revenue.

But in a tech company, that same model shows that only about 1% of your revenue goes towards pay.

And what we're seeing from these LLMs and these other tools is that many companies that could never have been considered tech companies are going to be able to utilize these tools and move in that direction.

Now, this brings upheaval to our entire economy.

It turns things on its head.

And if we don't start putting in place the legislation and the guardrails we need, we're going to find ourselves in a position where we've gone way down the creek without a paddle.

So I propose many small incremental guardrails that allow us to say, as these things are phased in, companies have a responsibility.

But down the line, if this continues, we're going to have to strongly look at something like UBI just in order to keep our economy moving forward, because things are going to be changed dramatically.

And if we are not prepared for it, we're going to be left behind.

>> Mr.

Petrie.

>> Yeah, so I'm the only candidate in this race who has actually called for a full moratorium on data centers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and I don't do that lightly.

I have actually worked in that industry before, and I understand it very deeply from the inside.

So I do understand it as an expert in that arena.

And I do believe that we do not need these here right now, especially.

And I completely disagree with the concept that these are necessary, just like landfills, because people, we produce waste, people we don't need crypto mining data centers.

We don't need generative AI data centers for defense contractors or for large companies just trying to make a bigger margin while at the at the benefit or at the detractor of people.

I have been asked to actually come and testify at the Mercer County Planning and Zoning Commission on the draft referendum on this issue.

I was also in Madison County last week at the Data Center Forum talking about data centers.

I was the only candidate who decided to show up to that because I know this is a critical issue and it's an existential one for people, not just for their jobs, but for the beauty that we love here in Kentucky.

And as someone who has spent almost the majority of their career in renewable energy and corporate sustainability, I know exactly how these companies need to be regulated because currently seven companies control almost the entire value of the S&P 500, and that is all bloated due to AI.

We are on the precipice of yet another tech bubble, yet another recession, one that I know too well because I graduated from grad school during a recession.

And with everything we are dealing with, from affordability and housing to health care to education, we cannot have this as well tank our economy.

>> Let's shift now and talk about national security and the war on Iran.

A recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, written by a Democrat, declared that President Donald Trump is doing the right thing for the U.S.

and Democrats like him should judge the war on the merits, as every past president since Bill Clinton, a Democrat and Republican, has declared that Iran should not possess and develop nuclear weapons.

Explain your position.

We'll start with you, Mr.

Klauber, on the war in Iran.

And do you believe Iran should be able to acquire nuclear weapons?

>> Well, I think it's not a far step to say that I don't want nuclear proliferation to expand throughout the world here.

It doesn't seem to make us safer when that happens.

I would say that the easiest way to describe it is that my foreign policy, how I view the U.S.

on the international stage, is that we need to be a force for stabilization and humanitarian aid.

If we're not focusing on what we're doing at home, we need to create stability and we need to be helping people.

That's what our resources should be used towards.

If we're talking about a complex situation in the Middle East, a conflict that has happened for longer than I've been alive and longer than most of us have, it's not going to get resolved in just a couple of weeks with a bunch of bombs.

It's going to take a long time of people working together.

So what I would say is that while a goal may be great to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons, we need to make sure that on the international stage, our resources are only being used to stabilize and for humanitarian aid.

And then the rest of our resources need to be spent here at home.

>> Well, Mr.

Dunbar, I want to go to you because you have a military background.

And for 47 years, as we all know, the Iranian regime has killed Americans, Israelis and other innocent people from other countries and thousands of their own Iranian protesters.

While Democrats in Congress have really largely opposed Trump's military actions, they have done so largely on procedural grounds.

Is your position on this war?

Are you against the president because he has waged the war, or are you against how he's gone about this war?

>> Look, you said earlier that it was we should look at this objectively, and I completely agree.

And I think the first thing that I think of is someone who put on the uniform and swore the oath is, are we risking folks lives for a reason that justifies that's justified by national security?

And when I think of Benjamin Pennington and Ashley Pruitt, two Kentuckians who lost their lives in this conflict, and then I weigh that against what we have on the other side, it's clearly not worth it.

We were going in supposedly for regime change.

However, now we have an even more extremist regime that's more beholden to the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

We were supposedly going in to remove Iran's ability to process uranium.

We've not seen any evidence that a lot of the highly processed uranium has been removed.

As a matter of fact, if the president had just stayed in the JCPoA that had been negotiated under President Obama, we'd be in a far better situation.

And most importantly, the president has said multiple times, as has his lackeys in Congress, that we've won the war militarily and the war should be over.

If that's true, why are we still there?

Why are folks like Benjamin Pennington and Ashley Pruitt dying?

There is no clear national interest in us being there.

I am all for standing up to rogue regimes like Iran.

But you can't do it at this cost, and you can't do it for no clear reason and no clear objective.

This is one of the endless wars that the president promised his supporters he was going to keep us out of, and he's gone and done, in so many ways, the complete opposite of what he promised folks who voted for him.

And Congress has just stood by and let him do it.

>> Miss Petrie, I want to come to you now because you have a lot of expertise in international diplomacy.

But the JCPoA that Mr.

Dembo referenced is the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Wasn't that JCPoA one sided and that it really failed to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon and had some some sunset clauses on it?

Right.

So was that the best deal?

And the fact that Trump decided to not go with that, wasn't he doing the United States and perhaps even the globe a favor?

>> Yes.

So the JCPoA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the Iran nuclear deal, it was a start.

We also need, by the way, speaking of start a new Start treaty, which is a nuclear proliferation treaty.

Now, there were some problems with it.

Of course, there's always going to be something that you give up in that treaty, but you don't just retreat from it.

You come to the negotiating table and say, this is where we are starting and this is where we need to go.

Now, one of the things that I feel like many Democrats tend to ignore about the the Iran issue is that much of this war was also at the behest of Israel.

We need to remove the United States chokehold in regards to Israeli money and Israeli influence.

Now, of course, I completely agree that the theocracy in Iran has been horrendous for the people.

It has been committing human rights atrocities across the board, but so has the Israeli government.

But what we are seeing with Iran is that there was no clear opposition force.

We could have been spending a lot more time and being using our our resources much more strategically by shoring up those opposition groups.

I know many of them were targeted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

However, coming in and just bombing is not the way to achieve regime change.

And I've said this before, you cannot achieve regime change without boots on the ground.

And as a millennial, I am tired of these intractable quagmires and wars in the Middle East that leave so many Americans without their loved ones, us in more and more debt, and people with PTSD and other challenges, and us completely untrustworthy on the world stage.

So even though that deal, that JCPoA was not perfect, it was a start and it was a place that we should have not just pulled out of because the signature on the bottom line was not Donald Trump's.

We needed to use that as a starting point to move forward.

But yeah, of course, I don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

But as Donald Trump said last year, it was already done.

So why are we back?

Is it the Epstein files?

Is it something else?

We need to stop these ridiculous wars because our people are suffering and we are causing terrible strife overseas at our behest?

>> Miss Stevenson, if the president had sought formal congressional approval for military action in Iran and you were serving in Washington, would you have voted for it?

>> No, I would not.

You know, I think what we have seen is he has no plan.

There is no plan.

He has not come to Congress or the American people with a plan of what is going to happen.

There is no exit strategy.

There is no definition of what success actually looks like there.

No one wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and no one is going to, you know, be upset that a dictator is gone.

But now there's someone even worse in place.

The Strait of Hormuz was open before this war, and now this recklessness from this reckless president is causing strife globally, but especially right here at home.

We already had tariffs that were making so much of life unaffordable for Central Kentuckians.

Now they're paying it at the gas pump, and our poor farmers are stuck in the middle.

They had already been ravaged by tariffs.

Now they are struggling to get diesel.

They're struggling to get fertilizer.

And they are just kind of left holding the bag once again.

So no, I would not have done this.

And a huge red flag is the fact that none of our NATO allies are in this with us.

>> So let's move on and talk about immigration.

Unless there's further comment about the war in Iran, many blue collar workers are frustrated by the Biden administration's handling of the border.

Some point to evidence that the surge of immigration under Biden that tempered the wage growth among workers in construction and manufacture and other labor intensive sectors and fields.

Do you favor immigration reform?

And if so, what would it look like?

You all said, all of you against Ice and when it abolished?

>> Yes.

>> Anybody else want Ice abolished?

>> I would like to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing Ice, and get back to what we were doing long before.

>> Do you believe there is a need for illegal immigration reform?

>> I absolutely believe we need immigration reform top to bottom.

>> And what should it look like?

>> So I have friends that have gone through the process not to not to pretty recently.

And it took them almost ten years and tens of thousands of dollars to come in the right way.

And when you're getting backlogged in courts and we're not able to get people who are seeking asylum or going here to try and get here on an HB one visa or any of the other actual pathways to citizenship, we have a problem.

If you get stuck in the courts and you can't actually get in, immigration reform means we need to get back to the basics.

You know, my great grandfather immigrated to this country.

I haven't been here for as many generations as others, but I know that if we didn't have a pathway for him to be here, I wouldn't be sitting here raising my family in one of the greatest places in the world.

We need to make sure that immigration reform focuses strongly on the process.

Make sure that if a person is coming here and they fill out all their paperwork and they get it submitted, it's not the courts that are tying them up for years, making them wait and wait.

Because if you have to wait a decade just to see a judge to put a stamp on a paper that you should have been processed earlier, that's a problem.

So it requires making sure that we don't hold these people hostage in our >> Our judiciary system and make sure that the process allows people to move through, especially those who are doing it the right way.

>> For those who are undocumented, who have committed violent crimes, should they be deported?

>> I think that every single person who has committed a violent crime should go through the justice system.

And in the case of someone who is here illegally, they absolutely should be removed and remanded to their natural.

>> Mr.

Tembo, your thoughts on that and immigration reform?

What should it look like?

>> Well, first of all, absolutely.

If someone's here and they're committing violent offenses, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and deported.

The problem is that's not what we're seeing from the immigration policy of this administration.

The vast majority of folks that are being picked up by Ice have almost no criminal record at all.

And we've also seen they've been picking up U.S.

citizens.

It's very clear that what this administration has done to Ice is turned it into an unconstitutional entity that doesn't have sufficient training or oversight.

And I share Mr.

Petrie shock that they would fund this more than the Marine Corps.

That is not a priority in the sense that the United States Marines are.

And it shows the misplaced priorities of this administration.

When this agency is able to go into people's homes with simply an administrative warrant, as opposed to what's required under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

That is wrong.

When this agency is able to work without body cams and without standard use of force policies that I encountered when I worked with other federal agencies that were responsible.

That's wrong.

All of the things that I sought to enforce as a federal prosecutor when it came to accountability and folks, constitutional rights have been trampled on by this current version of Ice.

The other thing that we can't forget, though, is in addition to making sure we have a secure border and a humane and constitutional immigration system, is that there is a pathway to citizenship.

And we were really close to getting that until the president decided he was going to torpedo it for political gain, so he could use it to run in 2024.

We have to pick up that challenge again to have a pathway to citizenship, to the millions of folks who have been here obeying the laws and being good members of our community.

They deserve that chance.

But when it comes to criminals, absolutely we need to prosecute them and deport them.

>> Miss Stevenson, your thoughts?

>> Yes.

Well, I guess as we know, it absolutely is not working.

We have mass paramilitary troopers on our streets.

They're killing Americans.

They are violating people's constitutional rights.

They are unaccountable.

They are.

There's no transparency whatsoever.

We need strong borders.

We need to enforce the immigration laws that we currently have.

But DHS should not be funded until Ice is reined in and returned to its normal role.

Solutions existed, just as Mr.

Dimbo just said, and we had a president who chose chaos and politics over the right thing to do by the American people, because he wanted politics and chaos instead of an actual solution.

This is something that folks from both sides of the aisle have to sit down and work out and figure out a better path to citizenship.

If folks are coming here escaping terrible, terrible situations at home, they're here seeking asylum, and they want to be productive members of society and just give their family a better chance.

We absolutely want and welcome those people, but there is no way that we should be having violent criminals that are here illegally on our on, on our streets at all.

And so we absolutely need to still be getting rid of those folks.

>> Miss Petrie.

>> I absolutely agree that President Biden did a terrible disservice to the people of the United States and the world by failing to pass immigration reform.

But here's the thing.

That's the problem with the current Democratic establishment, which I that's one of the main reasons I'm running, because I'm the only person on this ballot who does not represent the Democratic establishment and needs to wants to revitalize and reinvigorate that party.

Now, here's the thing.

We should stand for human rights.

We should stand for due process.

We should stand for compassion and dignity, and create an immigration program that is focused on it being a civil case, not a criminal case.

There is currently a Jefferson County.

I know this is Louisville outside of our district, but it's happening right down the road from us.

A Jefferson County senior who's currently being held in an Oldham County jail on ice requirements.

That person will not be able to walk at graduation because of what ice is doing.

This is not what immigration should be about.

America wants was this beacon on the hill, a place where people were so proud of being a melting pot?

And we need to return to that and make sure that people are not lost in the system, create a pathway of citizenship, but also make sure that we remember that we must stand for laws and human rights above everything else.

>> Final question for the evening.

For each candidate, if you lose the primary, will you support whoever wins the nomination, Mr.

Dembo?

>> Absolutely.

I got in this race for one reason, which is to flip this seat.

Obviously, I think we have the campaign with the best chance to do that.

But if the voters feel differently, I will proudly endorse whoever is the nominee because we absolutely need someone to flip this seat and change this broken D.C.

system.

And we can only do that by coming together.

>> Mr.

Kloiber.

>> We all want the same thing, and we're not going to win in November unless we have the message and the support of everyone.

That means we need to be able to talk to people across the aisle, make sure that our conservative neighbors can get on board with the message that we are putting out there.

And that means changing how people view Democrat's by giving them something to vote for instead of something to vote against.

>> Miss Petrie.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

If you're tired, it's politics as usual, like I am.

We absolutely need to change something, which is what I represent.

But of course, we need to actually pull this state out of its red quagmire and flip this seat blue no matter what.

>> Miss Stevenson?

Yes, absolutely.

>> It is time for change here.

We need real leadership in the sixth Congressional District, because the current leader here in our district is more worried about licking Trump's boots and putting his face on a $250 bill than lowering the cost of your health care, your groceries or your gas.

>> Thank you, Miss Stevenson, and thank you all for being here.

We really appreciate it.

There is more complete coverage of the primary election campaign coming up each week night on Kentucky edition, and I'll see you there tomorrow night.

Take good care.