- [Announcer] Funding for Election 2026 coverage is provided by the members of Prairie Public.

(compelling music) - Good evening, and welcome to tonight's North Dakota US Congressional Debate.

I'm Dave Thompson.

I'll be serving as your moderator this evening.

We're pleased to have three candidates with us tonight who are seeking to represent North Dakota and the people of North Dakota in the United States Congress.

We have Trygve Hammer from Minot, then we have Helene Neville from Jamestown, and we have Charles Tuttle from Bismarck.

Julie Fedorchak, the incumbent Republican candidate, declined to participate in this debate.

Our goal tonight is to provide voters with a fair opportunity to hear directly from each of these candidates.

As moderator, I shall remain neutral, and I'll enforce the same rules and time limits for all the candidates.

Before the broadcast, we determined the order of the opening and closing remarks, and each candidate will be given one minute.

And with that explanation, let's begin.

We begin with candidate Trygve Hammer.

- Well, thank you, Dave, and John, Barbara, all the good folks here at Prairie Public for hosting this event.

Thank you, Helene, and thank you, Charles, for joining me in this time-honored tradition of American politics.

Two years ago, on this very stage, I said that we had to be cautious about how we let data centers into this state.

Two years ago, I said that Congress had ceded too much power to the executive branch.

Two years ago, I said that our Representative in Congress needed to remember that their oath was to the Constitution of the United States of America and not to a person or to a political party.

I'm running again this time because all of the problems we discussed here two years ago have only gotten worse.

I'm a retired Marine officer, combat veteran, and Naval Academy graduate.

All three of my kids are in active duty families.

We know what it means to serve.

I grew up in Velva.

Since I returned to North Dakota, I've been a seven-time- - I have told time.

I apologize.

Okay.

- Grade 7 to 12 science teacher at oil field roughneck and a conductor on freight rail across the state.

- Okay.

Next, we will hear from Helene Neville.

- Thank you.

My name is Helene Neville.

I'm representing the North Dakota House and I've spent 42 years as a nurse.

10 of those years were with the federal grant program, CDC, FEMA, ATSDR, Department of Defense.

I've served on tribal health through eight states.

I've served on the front line during the COVID pandemic.

I've also written seven books.

I am a endurance athlete.

I've run 17,000 miles across North America, and I've been a high school coach, and I'm ready to take this job on.

Thank you.

- All right.

Charles.

- I'm Charles Tuttle from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Most people know me as a petitioner.

You probably signed one of my petitions.

I believe I put term limits on the ballot.

I put you have to be a US citizen in order to vote North Dakota.

I've done a lot of Constitutional measures, as well as initiatives to go into the century code.

I believe we should be abolishing the property tax.

So, I'm active at the school board meetings.

I've gone to the industrial commission meetings.

I've gone to the school and board meetings.

So, I understand the politics of North Dakota.

I understand... Actually, I'm here for one reason only.

It's because the person that should be here isn't.

And the reason I've decided to run is because this person, we only have one Representative in Congress, and this person isn't even showing up to represent herself here.

So, Charles Tuttle, I'm running for US House.

- All right, thank you very much for those opening remarks, but we'll start with questioning, and we go back to candidate Trygve Hammer.

I'd like you to explain more about why you're running for Congress.

- Well, as I said before, all of the things we talked about two years ago have only gotten worse.

And I feel like just the temperature of our politics has gotten much, much worse.

When I talk to young folks, I tell them that I want my generations to start setting a better example for their generation.

And that starts with sending people to Congress who understand that leadership is about character.

We need to bring down prices.

We need to make life easier and better for everyday North Dakotans, not just for big donors and corporations.

- Helene Neville.

- Thank you.

I'm running as an independent because I'm for the people, not politics.

And affordability has got to be number one.

There are people that are barely surviving and it's not addressed as much as it should be, which should be on the top.

And the cost of living, Social Security, you get a monthly check of maybe 1,200, which some of my neighbors receive, and then they get 438 or so as a subsidy, which leaves very little for the rest of the month for cable, gas, whatever it is.

And that has to end.

I am for the people.

- [Dave] All right, Charles Tuttle, please.

- Well, I guess the question was: Why am I running again?

Again, I'm running because we're not being represented.

North Dakota has only one Representative, and that Representative is hiding in some basement somewhere, refusing to come out and talk to the people.

I got a phone call the other day, and a person says, "You answer your phone."

Yeah, I answer my phone.

I will always answer my phone.

And I'll try and answer any questions the best I can.

And we need to solve problems.

We need to stop... A lot of the stuff is still going on with COVID.

We're still giving the COVID shots.

We have mRNA in our blood supply.

We haven't cleaned the blood supply.

Our problems with prices is fuel prices.

I just did a AI search on oil companies, and they're having record profits.

Record profits.

Everything is transported, every product and service that we have.

Cost is related to its transportation.

Those are the things that we need to discuss.

It's not tariffs.

The tariffs are actually bringing money in, and hopefully we're gonna be able to get a refund from those tariffs.

- Thank you, Charles.

That is time.

Now, the next question, we're going to start with Helene Neville.

And this is kind of a follow-up with the first question.

So, if elected, can you list your priorities?

What are your priorities?

- Absolutely.

First of all, we need age and term limits.

There's no way that a 94-year-old senator from Iowa, whom I actually worked for years ago, has any relevancy on what's going on today.

The People First campaign is just to help everybody that needs a helping hand.

We are looking at the whole state, and our $7.25 for our cost of living, which... Or I'm sorry, the... I've lost my train of thought, sorry.

But that's only 15,000 a year, and people can't live on that as an hourly wage.

So, I'm running to bring that in, and the very first thing will be no trading.

Pause all trading, stock trading, buying, selling.

Thank you.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Now for Charles Tuttle.

- [Tuttle] Can you repeat the question?

- Yeah.

If elected, what are your priorities?

- My priorities are... I thought our president was gonna eliminate Department of Education.

My priorities are to make sure that those cuts are permanent.

We have thousands of people that are 200 years old getting Social Security checks.

We've got fraud, it seems like everywhere.

We need to stop the spending these trillions of dollars in budgets.

They don't have a budget.

They keep doing these stopgap measures.

I think the reality is we need to have a wiser, more responsible government, and we don't have that.

And we need to follow.

I support Donald Trump.

Everybody who knows me knows that.

I don't need Donald Trump's endorsement because I endorse him.

And we need the Republicans, the people in Congress, to get behind him and get these bills passed.

Elections is one of those, and this election act to make sure that we have safe and fair elections first.

Without elections, we don't have a country.

- [Dave] All right, for Trygve Hammer.

- I'll get to Washington D.C.

and not be a rubber stamp for anybody, be it Donald Trump or whoever comes after Donald Trump.

I don't believe Congresswoman Fedorchak remembers that her oath is to the Constitution and not to the president.

So, we need people in Congress to exercise proper oversight because I agree with Charles that fraud, waste, and abuse has gone through the roof over the last two years, and we need to get ahold of it.

We need to get things more affordable.

We need to end this little excursion into Iran to bring down fuel prices.

And then, we need to get legislation that people largely agree on and that will show that Congress can actually do something.

So, like a clean anti-gerrymandering bill.

That would show Congress getting something done for the people, not for themselves, and it would be popular across the entire political spectrum.

- Thank you very much.

Our next question, we start with Charles Tuttle.

North Dakota farmers are increasingly dependent on both domestic and biofuel demand, and international markets.

They're dependent on domestic and international markets and biofuel demands.

What policy would you support to make farmers less vulnerable to tariffs, trade disputes, and changing foreign demand?

- Well, first of all, I disagree with Donald Trump's beef.

He was trying to reduce the price of beef in the grocery store.

I don't agree with that.

I think a lot of these producers, especially South America, have poor beef.

I think all of our cattlemen will tell you that.

We need to make sure, though, that we have fair and equal trade.

Our farmers need to understand that the biofuel, this green energy stuff doesn't work.

We spent $1 trillion, $1 trillion on solar and wind, and it only accounts for 3% of our grid.

We've got to stop using these things with tax incentives and giving welfare out to different people, winners and losers, and it's got to stop because we don't have the money to continue to do that.

- Right.

So, let's hear from Trygve Hammer.

- So, the power of the tariff actually belongs to Congress.

And so, those ag markets that went away with this trade war, that is on Congress.

Same thing with the prices we're seeing with the Iran War and the input prices that have increased because of that.

So, we need Congress to get there and actually take control and get something done, and a Farm Bill that favors smaller operators over huge conglomerates.

And finally, I think that we could really change this economy entirely because everyone knows that it is too top-heavy.

We have a tax structure and an economic structure that favor these big companies, and we can create domestic markets and have markets work again for our agriculture.

- [Dave] Helene Neville.

- Thank you.

- Well, I see things a little differently.

We pay taxes that goes in, we trust our government, we thought we trusted our government and what comes back to us in the end.

I think that our current Congresswoman, she's been there 20 months, and she's up to 11.5 million net worth, and that's disgraceful.

While we have people suffering, HUD is short of money and her husband being hired as a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company.

That erodes trust.

And I think the answer lies in halting, pausing, whatever it takes, all trading.

And insider trading was already, in 1934, a law.

So, her bill that she sent through to stop insider trading, well, it was already illegal.

- Thank you very much.

- [Tuttle] Can we get 30 seconds to rebut?

- Yes.

- I wanna rebut.

I keep hearing this Iran.

Look, we need to go into Iran.

We need to take their nuclear out.

Iranian war has nothing to do with the cost of oil.

I'm sick of hearing these people saying, "It's a world market."

That oil doesn't come to us.

We're an oil-producing state.

We're an oil-producing country.

We need to get these oil companies to stop gouging our oil prices.

It's just price gouging.

We need to have attorney generals stepping up and going after these oil companies for doing that.

- Trygve Hammer, would you like to rebut?

- Yes, I would.

So, if you take a look at a, say a diesel price chart, the price started going up on February 28th.

Now, I agree that oil companies are gouging us and that oil companies are making record profits, and that there needs to be a rebalancing, but the Iran War definitely did cause increases in oil prices and at the gas pump.

- [Dave] Helene Neville, would you like to rebut?

- Well, this war that nobody seems to know if it's a war, or an expedition, or whatever it may be, but nobody wanted the war, but yet we're in a war, or we're in Iran.

And obviously, the prices are gonna be jacked up.

The tariffs are so high that it comes back to the customer, and that's not how it should work.

- Right.

The next question, we begin with Trygve Hammer.

Do you think Congress has given up too much of its spending authority to the executive branch?

- Yes.

And as I said a couple of years ago, Congress has ceded too much authority in everything to the executive branch, but the Congress has the power of appropriations.

They hold the purse strings, or at least they are supposed to, and they have just let this administration do whatever it wants.

And that's why things have run among... That's why we've seen, for instance, at DHS, before she left, Secretary Noem ordering a bunch of airplanes they don't need at a higher cost than any of them were worth.

So, we need a Congress that will exercise oversight and keep these things from happening in the future, and let the administration know that you will spend where we appropriate.

- So, Helene Neville, your... - Is it my turn to- - [Dave] Yes.

- Okay.

- [Dave] It's your turn.

- I see things a little different.

They are elected by the people, but they should be elected on facts, or not soundbites or... other things like conspiracy theories.

Our money is there.

We are funding the entire country.

We pay in, they're working for us, which they forget.

I think most of the time, it's not just the $187,000 salary.

They're getting housing per diem for eating and lots of other things, and we want our money back because they're spending and spending.

And what does that say about us when we allow that to go on?

- All right.

Charles Tuttle.

- I think we seem to forget the first term of Donald Trump, when Congress had these, I don't know what you call them, on this bills, these bills that were more than unbelievable spending, and they used the military and things that needed to be done as leverage over Trump to pass them, and he wasn't happy about it.

I think Schumer and Pelosi went into room.

The Democrats have no compunction about... They wanna spend, and spend, and spend, and keep spending.

And then, we see all this fraud.

And think about the outrage that the Democrats had when Donald Trump exposed, through Elon Musk, this fraud.

They're outraged that we would find fraud and we would expect to even try and stop it.

And I'm sick of these people that they don't care about any of us as far as they're there to make money, they're there to get rich, they're there to spend our money.

We don't have any say over it.

And Julie's no different.

She's actually out there telling everybody she doesn't need- - [Dave] Your time is up.

- To answer to you.

- Thank you.

Would you like a rebuttal, Trygve Hammer?

- Well, since Julie Fedorchak went to Washington two years ago, this administration and this Congress has added $4.71 trillion to the debt.

It's now over $40 trillion total.

And, yes, we have seen corruption.

There was a firm that does detainment centers, got a $68 million contract to build one in Colorado.

Two days later, $1 million to Trump Inc., his Super PAC.

Then, at the end of the same month, they got another contract to build a similar prison in North Carolina, and then after that, over $400,000 again to Trump Inc., Trump's Super PAC.

- Helene Neville.

- Thank you.

It's just really unbelievable what's happening out there, and we need to stop it.

We are, "We the People," we are one American, and we should celebrate what works and celebrate our diversity of our nation.

It's just unreal to see, on my running around North Dakota campaigning, there are people hurting and people barely making it, having to decide if they should ration their medicine or their food, and that's just not right.

And that comes from Washington.

- Charles Tuttle.

(Tuttle scoffing) - Again, I'm gonna go back to the fact that we had caravans, 20 million people crossing the border.

I didn't hear my fellow Democrats here.

I'm not a fellow Democrat.

These Democrats saying, "Oh, this is terrible.

This is the cost of living.

These people, we've got Americans that need this money.

Oh, no, we're gonna put them up in hotels.

We're gonna give them all the social services."

And we're still doing it.

I mean, it's still happening.

They got sanctuary cities and sanctuary states.

It's crazy what happened when Biden was in, and I didn't hear anything.

I come from the same town as Trygve.

I don't remember Trygve being at any of the city meetings.

I don't remember him being out there on the street doing petitions, getting the special elections.

I don't remember him participating in local government at the school board meetings, but yet we've got all this influx of illegals, and I call them illegals, not migrants, and we need to take care of that.

And that's what the Democratic Party stands for.

I hear there's caravans waiting at the border now in case the midterm's going their way.

- Okay.

Time is up.

All right, our next question will start with Helene Neville.

What changes should be made to Social Security and Medicare to keep them viable?

- Well, again, it goes back to money.

What is our government doing with our money?

Where is it going?

How much is it?

Why aren't we giving it back?

There are people on Social Security in their 90s that live alone, but, again, they're getting 1,200 a month net.

And after rental assistance, it does not provide because Medicare and Medicaid have cut... In Jamestown, our bus, our shuttle bus, which Medicaid paid for patients to go back and forth to either Bismarck, or Fargo to see specialists.

Well, that's cut.

So that, not only are they failing to survive, then they have to add a $40 round trip ticket to go to a specialist.

And the problem is in Washington D.C.

And we have to take a stand on that.

- [Dave] Okay, Charles Tuttle.

- First of all, Congress needs to keep their mitten hands off of Social Security.

They shouldn't even be... This should have been invested.

I believe that Bush was the first one to talk about it.

This was money you paid in, this was your money.

This isn't their money.

This program was set up to be your money, and that's not what's happened with it.

And Congress needs to keep their hands off of it.

And quite frankly, I think I was the first person in North Dakota.

We were one of four states that actually taxed Social Security as a state.

I fought that for years, we finally won that battle.

But the fact that... Seniors shouldn't even be paying property tax.

Once you've paid your home off, you shouldn't have to pay property tax.

If we can do this for all these illegals and give them all these free stuff, we should at least be able to take care of our elderly and our veterans.

- Trygve Hammer.

- If we remove the cap on income tax for Social Security purposes without raising the maximum benefit, we can get 60% of the way to the 75-year long-term shortfall, and we won't have to be worried in 2032 when possible cuts might come.

How many more generations of North Dakotan retirees are gonna have to worry about their benefit being reduced?

How many more generations of North Dakotans are gonna have to think that they're gonna pay into a system that they will never collect from?

We can put a stop to this.

Congresswoman Fedorchak had a woman on her virtual town hall one night who was 62 taking early Social Security benefits.

And what was obvious in that conversation was that the Congresswoman didn't understand how those benefits work, and she said that, "Oh, I'll soon be in the same boat."

But, Congresswoman Fedorchak and all her colleagues in Congress, for the most part, will never be reliant on Social Security to keep things going in their older age.

- Helene Neville, would you like a rebuttal?

- Yes, thank you.

I'm kind of with a different thought on the illegals.

We have migrants, people seeking asylum.

We have the people that are coming here legally, green card, like, I guess, the president's wife who came here like that.

But, everybody's clumping illegals into one lumps group, and it seems like what's going on out there is more racist than anything, that, "If it's brown, it's going down," and that's the mental thoughts of these people.

But sanctuary cities, that is the city's money, the city's choice to fund these people.

That is not federal dollars.

And if all these millions are coming in vans and trucks, and somebody's seeing this to say the number, well, can't they capture them at the border?

I mean, if you're counting them, surely you can grab them.

- Thank you.

Now, Charles Tuttle.

- Huh.

She obviously doesn't know what really happened.

What happened was it was catch and release, and you don't seem to understand how it works.

You can claim they were actually being trained by lawyers at the border, what to say and what to do.

And then, what was happening was they were then moving them where they would have been contained there on the spot, and they would have had a hearing within 30 days, and they would have been determined their status.

Instead, what happened was the Democrats then bused them and flew them into these cities, where then it would be years before they would be able to go and have court hearing.

So, it was all planned.

It was a way to circumvent the law, and we have laws that protect us, and the Democrats were the ones that passed them, as well as the Republicans.

And now, because Donald Trump's president, oh, anything Donald Trump does, if he cured cancer, we'd find fault with it.

- All right, Trygve Hammer, your bite at the apple, so to speak.

- Right.

So, I did border security on the Iran-Iraq Border in 2003.

So, I understand secure borders.

I was one of the first people last go-around to say that Joe Biden should get out of the race, and I've always been strong on border security, but we can have security and humanity.

We had a restaurant in Bismarck that closed down for a short time because they were raided by ICE.

Their workers were documented.

So, what brought ICE to them?

Probably someone reporting a person who was brown or speaking Spanish and working.

And we're better than that.

- All right, Charles Tuttle, the next question's to you first.

Are you concerned about the continued military action in the Middle East and Ukraine?

- Ukraine's very troublesome.

20-some thousand soldiers are killed every week.

I don't think people understand.

You see a lot of drone.

It's amazing, when you watch it, how poor, ineffective the Russian military seems to be.

But, it's a war that I don't wanna be involved in.

We need to stay out of it.

We don't need to get involved in it, as far as... We have enough domestic issues going on here.

The Iranian war, I felt that that's a nuclear threat, and it is.

And they are trying to make a nuclear weapon, and they've told everybody that, and we have evidence that they were, and they had plans and all of that.

So, we need to make sure that they don't.

And I'm sure they're gonna continue that.

If they aren't removed from their power, they're gonna continue.

They're a jihadist.

Anybody knows about Iran.

It's not good to women, it's not good to gays.

It's a country that- - [Dave] All right.

Time is up.

- Yes.

- [Dave] Thank you.

Okay, Trygve Hammer.

- So, I have a soft spot for Ukraine because it was a Ukrainian unit, even though they're not members of NATO, that relieved my Marine battalion in Al-Kut, Iraq in 2003.

I think Putin is a tyrant and a murderer, and he needs to be kept in place.

And if we had spent the money we have spent on this adventure in the Persian Gulf to Ukraine, it would be almost half as much as we've given to them already.

So, just in these few short months that the 38 billion or whatever we have spent in the Gulf compares to 56 million, or billion, to Ukraine and military aid over all those years since Vladimir Putin invaded.

So, I think we need to support them.

- Helene Neville.

- I not only ran the entire southern border on foot, I worked for every jail in Phoenix, Arizona.

And part of our training was on the border, and I don't see it the way that Charles sees it, and I see it the way that human rights see it.

And I don't appreciate that this is like a Trump rally here going on, but we're here at a job interview for one job, and there's four of us.

- Charles, would you like a rebuttal?

- Yeah, I don't know about a Trump rally, but I know that the policies of Donald Trump, they work.

The border is shut down.

You can't argue that.

They don't wanna discuss that.

The border is shut down.

Nobody's crossing the border illegally.

They're coming over and they're coming over legally.

That's the way it was set up.

Obama did it, and so the Bush, it's been through... All the presidents have done that, and Trump has successfully done it better than anybody, and I don't see them giving him credit for that.

And to say it's racist, it's absurd.

There were people coming from all over the world and we didn't know who they were.

Some of them were terrorists.

Some of them were heightened... They threw out their inmates.

So, to say that we're racist because we want a secure border is just ludicrous, and that's the problem with the Democratic Party.

- Trygve Hammer, your response?

All right.

- The very conservative Libertarian Cato Institute recently came out with a study that showed that migrant workers in the United States have contributed 14.1 trillion more dollars to the Treasury than they've received in any kind of benefits.

They come here, they pay into Social Security, pay into Medicare, and don't then use them.

So, a higher percentage of migrants come here and work than natural-born Americans.

So, they are a boon to our economy.

And again, we have to treat them with humanity even as we work on security.

- [Dave] Helene Neville.

- Thank you.

I just wanna set it straight.

I'm an independent.

I'm People First Party, not a Democrat.

And we have one Democrat, one independent, and an independent, who is a Republican, I guess.

- I'm not an independent, I'm a Republican.

I'm the only Republican running.

- As an independent.

- No, that's based by choice.

- But you're not for all the people.

I'm right down the middle, and I believe in a- - How can you say that?

(Neville scoffing) - Thank you.

- All right.

Okay, Trygve, the next question's to you.

And you have mentioned this already.

Are you concerned about data centers and AI, and how should they be regulated, if at all?

- I think the data centers themselves are a physical manifestation of just a general distrust in big tech, a general distrust in big corporations and in billionaires, and a need for more transparency and more accountability in these things.

And that was what I was warning about two years ago, that we needed to be careful, I said, about how we bring those things in here to make sure that it's not a case where economic development means a big company coming in and rolling over everybody they wanna roll over to get what they want.

- Helene Neville.

- I think the data centers, somewhat like our government, there's no transparency.

Do we know what they're doing, what they're storing?

What's the outcome?

I worked for Superfund sites in Iowa, and we did soil, air, water samples, cancer cluster investigations.

We knew what was going on in the site.

And then, we had remediation protocols set up.

None of that was done on data centers.

We're in the dark.

And I happened to visit the Harvard scientists, the head of all the data centers a couple weeks ago in Virginia.

I'm not from Virginia, I was visiting Virginia.

(pen clattering) Thank you.

- Charles Tuttle.

- Well, first of all, I think I haven't seen any of these folks, including Julie, to any township meetings, any county meetings discussing any of this stuff.

I've been there.

I've been to all of them.

And the problem is that we have too much secrecy.

We're selling land.

People that are selling land have connections.

We've got a Public Service Commissioner, who's now our Representative in Congress, who bought land for the specific purpose of CO2 pipeline and CO2 burial.

So, she's obviously for all the green.

We've got people selling their land for the windmills.

We know this is all, without taxpayer dollars, could not sustain itself.

We need to stop this.

Doug Burgum was on Fox News and said, "We need to get rid of wind and solar because it's an intermittent energy and it disrupts the grid."

And that's the same with these data centers.

If they aren't gonna pay for themselves, if we have to use our water, all of this resources that they're gonna use, and then we're gonna give them tax abatements, it's got to stop.

- Thank you.

Would you like rebuttal, Trygve Hammer?

- Yes, Congress does have a role in regulating these AI data centers and in slowing this.

The AI bros have been talking about how they need to be regulated.

And from what we've seen so far, corporations are using AI surveillance tools to drive up our prices and to drive down wages, and they keep losing control of the AI agents they put out there.

So, how long until they hack into something that could be truly dangerous?

So, we need regulation, and Congress needs to act and make sure that the AI economy does not hurt regular working people.

- [Dave] Helene Neville.

- Under a Republican Congress, a Republican president, we are a boom and bust society, and we need to get in there, like Trygve said.

Everything has to be examined, full transparency, and none of that is being done.

In a couple years, when other emerging markets and things that are being invented, like mineral rights and things like that, and more digging and... Well, what's that gonna say for cleaning up?

Nobody has a remediation plan for any of these sites.

- Charles Tuttle.

- Well, I will say that there will be, absolutely, probably in five to 10 years.

So, these farmers in that they're selling their land for money, like Julie bought this land for money, we need to stop that.

We need to be more concerned about the longevity of what our plan is.

No one seems to have a plan for longevity for any of this stuff.

And I think Julie was like, "Well, we got to beat China."

China about what?

China uses AI to regulate and monitor its people, the surveillance.

And now, we see surveillance coming here.

I see the black license plates.

People, stop buying black license plates.

It's all about surveillance.

So, we need to start thinking about these things.

And even on the local level, townships are the most powerful political subdivision there is, and we need to allow them to have the power that they are granted.

- The next question goes to Helene.

Would you wanna see changes in campaign finance laws?

- Absolutely.

All the PAC money has to be out.

If we take money out of political arena and where you have to do grassroots on your own or your political campaign that you follow.

But, money in politics, even money, AIPAC, like I said, overseas, we're not for sale.

We are not for sale, candidates are not for sale.

We run on our own merit and not with the money.

We're going against somebody who has 1.7 million spent so far.

And where is she?

- Charles Tuttle.

- She's in Joe Biden's basement.

Yeah, money is way out of control, especially North Dakota.

Doug Burgum started it.

Kelly Armstrong, we've just seen where he's spending $450,000.

He's pushing yes on Measure 1.

Vote no on both Measure 1 and Measure 2, folks.

The taxpayers, I saw an ad where, "Oh, hey, it's gonna save families $1,000 a month."

Well, who's paying the $1,000 a month?

Somebody else's family.

So, it's ridiculous.

All of this money in politics and it's why Julie Fedorchak's not here.

That's why she's not here, folks.

She doesn't need... You're not gonna listen.

You're not gonna vote based on this program tonight, I would hope that you do, but she's counting on the fact that she had to lower the price of her fundraiser because she asked for $7,000 for you guys to show up.

But, as far as she's concerned, her money's gonna buy this election, and we're not gonna have anything to say about it.

- Trygve Hammer.

- Well, if elected to Congress, I will get there and not owe money to AIPAC.

And I would not take money from AIPAC if the I in AIPAC stood for Italy or Iceland.

I just would not take that money or from corporate PACS.

So, when I get there, I am not gonna owe any corporations or even my party leadership anything.

I'll be there just for the people of North Dakota.

And, yes, we need to get the money out of politics because the worst thing for our politics is the idea of a safe seat.

And it's all that money that makes those things happen that keep people in those safe seats.

Julie Fedorchak got a golden ticket to the UFC fight on the White House lawn, and we have a lot of people in Congress, I would say most of them, who feel like they have gotten a golden ticket to that seat that they hold in Congress, and that they are gonna always have the candy factory.

- [Tuttle] I would like a rebuttal.

- Go ahead.

Come on, - Huh.

It really stems down to education.

And the Democratic Party has destroyed the liberal, I'll say the liberal movement in our country has destroyed education.

If we can't educate our children to do what our Constitution says, I'm probably the only one here that can quote this, we're supposed to teach a high degree of intelligence, patriotism, integrity, and morality.

That's our North Dakota Constitution.

If we would teach our children these things and educate them properly, then they will come up, and our term limits will work because we will have good legislators, we will have good leaders, and that's where we need to start focusing on.

Our education system has been destroyed by liberal views and liberal indoctrination.

- [Dave] Helene, I'll give you a chance to rebut.

- My opinion on this is different than Charles.

The teachers are... They're right on the front lines.

Their salary is very low.

If you're teaching and you're pregnant, there's no maternity leave.

Well, you can take maternity leave, but you're not getting paid for it.

Teachers are spending their own money to bring in snacks, treats, pens, and pencils for their kids.

And I think teaching is a wonderful career path, and there's not one teacher in this country that should be rehearsing for tragedies.

- Trygve Hammer.

- So, I taught Grade 7 to 12 science in Granville, North Dakota.

And my feeling about the upcoming generation is that the number one thing they need to be taught is critical thinking skills and the ability to recognize disinformation because it has been very divisive for my generation.

So, the scientific method, I felt, was more important than the science content.

And if anyone thinks that a kindergarten teacher or a fourth grade teacher can indoctrinate anybody, you'd be surprised getting in that classroom.

I can tell they have indoctrinated someone if they have their fingers out of their noses and their shoes tied.

That is where teachers live.

They love those students.

They hate to see students who come in and get their only meals in the school or need the Backpack Buddies program.

And that's more common here in North Dakota than most folks think.

- All right, our next question goes to Charles Tuttle.

And this is a little different question.

How would you plan to work with your colleagues, if elected, to get things accomplished for North Dakota?

- Well, first of all, I'm gonna lead.

We need leadership.

You have a bully pulpit.

Julie has the ability to go out, and talk about issues, and raise issues.

You have to raise the issues in order to actually solve the issues.

If you don't raise them, look, why are we still giving COVID shots?

Why did 7 million kids last year get COVID shots?

Why are we doing that?

Why is COVID shots still... Every time I go to CVS, I'm in line.

They wanna get me out of there fast because I will say, "Are you still giving the kill shot?"

And everybody's like, "Yeah, yeah, let's get him out of the line."

This is ridiculous.

We are doing things that... We have not quit doing the things that COVID didn't.

And that's when you talk about people filing it, that's what the Democrats did.

They all had five masks on.

They're driving down the road on their motorcycle, sandals and no helmet.

They followed everything.

I almost got arrested for not wearing a mask at Menards.

These are civil rights.

These are rights.

It says right in Civil Rights Act 1964, unless you're under court order quarantine or isolation, they have to prove- - [Dave] Time is up.

- That you're a danger to their business.

- Thank you.

Trygve Hammer, you're next.

- I think everyone knows that Congresswoman Fedorchak has been ineffective in the majority.

Republicans will be in the minority in the House after this election.

How much more ineffective is she going to be in that position?

Now, when I get there, I won't owe the Democratic Party anything, and they will be very, very motivated to give North Dakota what North Dakota wants in order to try to keep that seat in their party.

And I tend to use that leverage when I get there.

- [Dave] Helene?

- When I get there, I will establish rapport with both sides of the aisles.

I've worked with both sides of the aisle.

As a nurse, in ER, you don't get to ask the patient, "Are you a Democrat or Republican?"

You just serve them compassion, love, and whatever it takes to heal them.

As far as Fedorchak and all the things that she likes to do or not do, there's real trouble.

And when you push propaganda about the COVID, I worked the front line in COVID from March to October, and in 2020, I didn't get the COVID shot, but over 300,000 people died before the shot was available.

And that doesn't include the people that took their lives because of what was going on and the frontline health professionals.

So, I disagree.

(Neville chuckling) - We will do a round of rebuttal.

We'll start with Charles Tuttle.

- Well, it's obvious.

Remdesivir was a drug that was banned and outlawed, and it showed up on the top of our COVID list.

It was, "Remdesivir, run, death is near," is what the nurses called it.

And the ventilating with the remdesivir killed people.

Nobody died of COVID.

If you read some of the books that are out there now and the information's coming out, it was a hoax.

It was a hoax, folks.

And it was a genetically mutated flu that really did kill.

It was dangerous.

But, they knew it was coming, and it was a way for them to shut down Trump's economy.

If you remember, his economy was booming.

Everyone forgets about that.

And everybody's wanting to beat up on Trump.

These people, they brought this here.

It's still here.

Explain it to me.

These vaccines.

Somebody just told me they took their son to get... Or they were in the doctor's office and the doctor tried to give them, the son, the hepatitis shot.

Why, why are we giving children that aren't seven, eight years old, or babies hepatitis?

We need to look at our vaccine list.

- [Dave] Time is up.

- Pharma, all of that.

- Time's up.

- [Tuttle] They're donating to all the different ones.

- Trygve Hammer.

- Not on COVID, but I would say on being effective in Congress that that'll require reaching across the aisle.

It will require listening to people from across the political spectrum.

Unlike Congresswoman Fedorchak, I was at the North Dakota State Republican Convention and have been out there speaking to people across of all political persuasions.

And we need someone in Congress who will actually do that.

Go and listen to the people.

- Helene.

- Well, we have over 100 military serving in all of Congress and 178 attorneys.

Those are the people making and debating on our health, the elderly, the disabled, and that has to stop.

There's three nurses in all of Congress.

It's not a coincidence that there's 18 running, including myself.

But, the whole COVID, I was there.

I think that when you have propaganda spreading, like there's kitty litter boxes in schools and the ferries driving my plane, and all the ferries and trannies, so they call them, Tuberville from Alabama, I believe.

He wants to put all of them in a sane asylum and lock them up for good.

And that's the party that's running the show, and that has to end.

- Okay, time.

Next question.

We start with Trygve Hammer.

A very simple one.

How are you going to win over voters?

- I'm going to win over voters by doing exactly what I've been doing, and going out there and listening to them.

It's a lot different meeting people face-to-face than it is online.

Folks can be a lot meaner online.

Folks can be a lot meaner even on the telephone.

But I have yet to run into someone, at least anyone who is actually willing to talk to me, not just turning away when they heard I was a Democrat, but there isn't a single person I haven't talked to and found some common ground with out on the campaign trail.

And that's what we've been working to do.

And I've been working for a long time to build up district parties, and the state party, and to find candidates, and to make this competitive the way it should be.

- Helene Neville.

- I've been traveling on foot around as many cities as I can get to, and it's been wonderful.

One thing resonates in my mind.

I visited a small town, she and her husband ran a pioneer fertilizer business, I guess.

And I asked her, "How's going?"

And her answer was, "It's going pretty well right now, but when we needed it, the relief wasn't here."

And that's pretty telling.

The only negative thing I'd have to say about my... on the campaign trail on foot or in my car, I was bit by a dog in Ypsi, Ypsilanti.

(Neville laughing) So, darn it.

- Charles Tuttle.

- Well, nobody's talked to more people in North Dakota than I have.

I've done hundreds of thousands of signatures, different issues.

Everyone, people come up to me.

If I got a petition out there, they know that whatever I'm petitioning, they'll sign it.

But, again, I don't want the Democrats to win.

I'm not in this race to split the vote and let the Democrats win.

Because I'll tell you what, if they win, they will impeach Donald Trump.

If they win the Senate, they will remove Donald Trump.

And everybody's forgetting about all this censorship that went on.

During their power, they censored us on everything, whether it was Facebook, and they don't even act like it happened.

I'm listening to her, you wouldn't think it happened.

They censored everything.

They censored all the COVID.

Ivermectin was a horse medicine.

I've heard that, I don't know, how many times.

They're all, "Oh, we didn't say that."

They're all backtracking.

Don't forget, I didn't see any of them out there protesting the masks, protesting the forced shots.

- [Dave] Time's up.

- I was out there, every protest, Fargo, Bismarck, Minot.

I never saw any of that.

- Your time is up.

Thank you.

I have another question I'd like to get to, and I need to start with Helene Neville on this one.

What is the single most important federal policy you would pursue to keep rural hospitals and clinics open?

And also, how would you pay for it?

- I'd pay for it by releasing the sitting Congress of trading.

All our money, when our money goes in as tax money, and it gets divvied up or allocated to different funds, but it's not coming back like it should, and that's not right.

But, how would I pay for it?

I think that our taxes should be able to handle it without them sticking their hand in our money jar and giving it out to other people.

- Charles Tuttle.

- Well, first of all, I think in North Dakota, we have rural hospitals that do work.

Tioga, there's a Dr.

Bob there.

I think this guy should be our rough rider.

He was the Head of Triage for Ronald Reagan in the Grenada invasion.

I believe he was involved in the invasion of Iraq.

We've got people like that that are in our rural areas doing very well.

I believe it's a great facility, it works well.

North Dakota has so much money.

There shouldn't be any reason why North Dakota can't fund these things.

We're funding everything but what we really need to be funding, and you can see that in the economic development debacle that just happened.

So, I would rely on the states to fund their... This is not a federal government issue, it's a state issue.

It needs to be handled by the states, especially as wealthy as we are, we can do that.

- Trygve Hammer.

- So, Congresswoman Fedorchak, and her peers, and this administration have wrecked our ag markets and then wrecked our rural health economy, and then they wanna buy back votes with bailouts, and that is unsustainable.

Here in North Dakota, we have about 110,000 people on Medicaid.

44% of them are working adults and 43% of them are children.

Congress, which has worked far less than most Congresses have, they've taken so many days off without having to worry about losing their healthcare, yet they throw red tape and so-called work requirements in front of hardworking North Dakotans and their medical insurance coverage.

- We have reached now the round of final statements.

Giving our first final statement of the evening, Charles Tuttle.

- Final statement.

This is Charles Tuttle, I'm running for US House.

I would like your vote.

I'm a conservative Republican.

In fact, I'm the only Republican running.

Julie Fedorchak has withdrawn herself from the Republican Party, as you know, didn't go to the convention, none of that.

She didn't seek the Republican nomination.

She's not here tonight.

She's not representing you folks.

I will represent you folks.

I always have represented North Dakota, and I will till the day I die.

And I'll represent the people, whether it's an initiative or whether it's in Congress.

- Trygve Hammer.

- I would like to take this opportunity to talk to the young folks out in North Dakota.

Those of you who might be watching this tape in a classroom later on, or many of you might be watching this evening, but I want you to always feel that your vote counts and your voice counts.

Do not become cynical about the process.

Go out and find people you seem to agree with, and then find places where you disagree.

Find people you disagree with and find places where you might agree with them.

Don't take anything at quite face value.

I recommend watching RFK's speech in Indianapolis on the night that Martin Luther King Jr.

was assassinated in Memphis.

He talked to a crowd.

He prevented riots in Indianapolis that night.

Compare that to what you saw from your leadership after Charlie Kirk was shot.

You'll know what is right and you'll know what you want in leadership.

- Helene Neville, you have the final word.

- Thank you.

There's lots of titles in my family.

One son is Dr.

Neville, the other son is Coach Neville.

My daughter-in-law is Mrs.

Neville, she's a teacher.

And one of my sisters, my youngest sister, I come from a military family.

She is the bronze medal recipient.

I've been known as Nurse Neville for 42 years in this race.

I'd love for you to bestow the title of Congresswoman Neville on me.

I don't march to the two-party drumbeat.

I march to the heartbeat of people.

- Well, this concludes our North Dakota US Congressional Debate for tonight.

We'd like to thank all our candidates for participating tonight.

I'm encouraging everyone to get out and vote on November 3rd or when early voting begins.

Early voting in some places is already underway.

I'm Dave Thompson for Prairie Public.

Thank you for watching, and have a great rest of your evening.

- [Neville] Thank you.

(compelling music) - [Announcer] Funding for Election 2026 coverage is provided by the members of Prairie Public.