(upbeat music) (camera beeping) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - Welcome to "Meet the Candidates" ahead of the March 19th, Illinois primary on WSIU.

I'm Jak Tichenor.

We're joined by Josh Lloyd of Virden, who is one of two candidates vying for the Republican nomination for US House of Representatives in the 13th Illinois Congressional District.

The 13th District runs from the Champaign Urbana area over through Springfield and then down into the Metro East area.

Good having you with us, Josh.

- Thank you, Jak, glad to be here.

- Let's talk a little bit about yourself.

First of all, you're an Eagle Scout originally from Carbondale, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point.

Tell me about your background.

- Yes, so I'm originally from here in Carbondale.

This is where I was born and raised.

I was over at CCHS where I got into the trades.

Here, I got into an organization called Skills USA, and they represent the vocations here in Illinois and nationally.

I went on to represent the Trades and Labor Organization in Washington, DC.

We were advocating for Carl D. Perkins funding.

This is what funds all trade schools nationally.

So, we were successful in that endeavor and I'm very glad to have done that.

Outside of that, I am a big volunteer within the community.

I have three Presidential Volunteer Service awards.

My highest level being the gold standard, but for the last several years I have been in the military.

I've recently got out.

I did a few years enlisted, and then I went up to West Point and that's where I got my Bachelor's in Business Management.

- What was your highest rank?

- In the military, it was right before I commissioned.

So, one of my enlisted injuries came back and bit me while I was at the academy.

Instead of med boarding me early, the three star general allowed me to finish out the last six months, and so, I was able to get the degree.

I can't say everyone had that luxury.

Some people got kicked out Christmas right before graduation, because of their injuries.

One of my good friends, he did seven years enlisted down at Guantanamo Bay.

He got injured and unfortunately, that came back and got him, and he was not able to get his degree.

- How would you describe yourself when it comes to the broader political spectrum?

Left centrist, right of center, or where do you come down?

- I would say I'm more center.

I take a more conservative view on most issues.

However, when it comes to more social and subjective issues, I take a more liberal approach.

When you look at subjective things, you have to take into account both sides of the argument, and most people don't do that, which is unfortunate.

It's very emotional.

You have to take emotion out of the politics sometimes.

- What qualities of yours would you say best qualify you for the position as a member of Congress?

- I have been around, I've had experience.

I was fortunate enough to study global affairs at West Point.

I was able to meet some very notable figures within our bigger political spectrum.

And when you look at politics, it's not these figureheads who are making the ultimate, they're not the ones drawing up the opinions and the facts.

They're just making the ultimate decision.

I was in the institution where people were drawing up those opinions, having those discussions.

Outside of that, I've worked in business, I've owned a business.

I've unfortunately had to close down a business, and I'm just involved with the community.

I'm always willing to have a discussion whether someone is Republican, Democrat, and I'm willing to have that discussion in order to hammer out what is the right course of action.

- I've looked at the broader part of your political platform, but what would you say would be your number one quality, if elected?

Your number one priority, excuse me, if elected.

- So, I'm running on three pillars.

The teacher, the preacher, and service.

In a broader respect, they represent the mind, heart, and strength of our country.

Three things I believe we have either lost or are moving away from that we need to get back to.

The teacher, they represent the education, everything from kindergarten all the way up through post-secondary education.

These are the young teachers helping a classroom full of bright students prepare for the future.

They're the ones who are giving the tools and resources to succeed in life.

The preacher, they're the heart of the community, they're the volunteers, they're the ones helping the homeless, feeding the poor.

They're the ones mending the sick, and so, even though it sounds religious, the preacher is a bigger spectrum of helping the community and doing things outta the kindness of your heart not doing it for the expectation of anything in return.

Service represents the strength.

This is the police and the military.

Unfortunately, we have gotten into a system where the police and military have become polarizing.

They're not allowed to do their careers effectively, because politics keeps getting intertwined.

One thing I learned in the military is you always have to do everything apolitically.

Even though you might have an opinion, you can't express that in a broader spectrum.

You can't endorse a candidate.

You can't say this candidate is better for X reason.

You have to take a very neutral position.

- This district is very diverse with the University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne, on anchoring kind of the eastern end of it.

Going all the way across Springfield, down to the Metro East area.

What would you consider to be the biggest issue facing people in the 13th District, and how would you deal with it if elected?

- One of the biggest issues people have been expressing to me is the cost of living and taxes.

Right now, we are living in a time where the actual inflation rate is very skewed.

At some points within the last year, it has been up to 20% inflation.

Right now, we're back down to a reasonable standard, but people are just afraid of the cost of living.

They don't know how they're gonna pay for groceries.

They don't know how to pay for heating their homes, or their electric bills, or food, or gas to get to work, and they're just overall afraid.

So, we need to bring that down.

One thing that I want to look into is reducing that tax burden on many families.

For example, farmers.

When you look at farmers, their biggest issue is the death tax.

They want legacy farming, but they have to put their farms into LLCs, corporations, trusts, just in order to pass down the farm to their children.

Why should they have to go through that same burden every single time in order to continue farming?

The family farm that their father, their grandfather, and so on, has been farming for generations?

- Turn to another issue.

Of course, that's dominating the discussion in recent months and actually last few years, that's immigration.

Senate Democrats and a number of Republicans put together a comprehensive immigration plan to address the migrant crisis on the southern border.

But Speaker Johnson and the presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, rejected it.

What kind of border protection plan would you endorse, if you're elected to Congress?

- If you look at the current border, you can look at it as a Trojan horse right now.

You don't know who is coming into the country, you don't know where they're coming from.

You have immigrants coming from China, the Middle East, from Africa, and you have to ask yourself, how are they getting here?

Is it from boat, are they being flown in?

So, you don't necessarily know.

Right now, we have roughly 13 to 16 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

And unfortunately, a lot of these immigrants they don't have the same protections that US citizens have.

They might be taken advantage of from employers who are paying them under the table or they're here for nefarious reasons.

Today, Biden and Trump are both going down to the border, so we'll have to see how that plays out.

But overall, I want to see a closed border and a very protected border.

But that is not saying that immigrants should not be coming to the United States.

I fully support immigration to the United States, 100%.

The issue is,- - [Jak] Go ahead.

- the immigration process, it's just so complex people are having troubles navigating the system.

My in-laws took 10 years to get to the United States, 10 years, and that is one of my in-laws, my mother-in-Law, she's from Poland.

She was turned away at the Polish border numerous times over those 10 years.

This was when Poland was communist, and when they finally arrived into the United States, it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to them.

They were so happy, they were joyous.

She was able to go on to get her education, but they went through the correct process.

They did the paperwork, they submitted employee records, family records, education records.

So, they were showing the US government why they were coming to the United States and why they wanted to be here.

I understand the desire to help people and allow them into the United States, but how can we do that if we're not healthy?

We have to be healthy as a country in order to help others.

- What about the Dreamers who qualify under DACA who've been here for, in some cases, most of their lives?

What about a path to citizenship for them?

- I think there should definitely be an easier path.

I don't think they should get automatic entry into the United States, but definitely a process that is easier for them, because they have those records, they have those connections within the United States.

And if they're showing that they are a good American citizen, then they should get that American citizenship.

- Governor Pritzker has called on President Biden and the federal government to help foot the bill for the thousands of people who are in this case, coming to the state of Illinois, mostly to the Chicago region, and it's stretching the states and the city's capacity to the limit.

What is the federal government's role in trying to foot that bill, if there is a role for the federal government in that respect?

- You see with different states, some states are rewarding immigrants, illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, for coming to the United States.

So, they are essentially, incentivizing them to come here and break our laws.

And when it comes to the broader US government, if these states are rewarding these immigrants, these illegal immigrants coming to the United States, they should not get extra money.

They are giving money away that they shouldn't be.

So, why should they get rewarded for doing what's wrong as well?

Two wrongs don't make that same right.

- You touched upon this a little bit earlier, and that has to do with the Illinois economy.

The Illinois economy is now posting something like $1 trillion or more every year in terms of gross domestic product, but the benefits of that don't always trickle down to the average person.

And there are parts of the 13th District that still have high unemployment rates.

There's still lots of issues with housing insecurity, with food insecurity.

How can the state and the federal government do a better job working together to try to rectify that?

- So, if you look at Illinois, we have 12 of the top 50 housing markets that are at risk.

If you look at unemployment and taxes in the state, Illinois ranks number two in the most taxes.

Yet, Governor Pritzker wants to increase taxes even more.

What are those taxes dollars going to that every other state has the same exact methods, but they're not in the same dire situation that we are?

So, we need to get people employed.

I always try to plug in the career technical education.

Right now, there is a skill shortage.

Employers need skilled workers, but they don't have enough of them.

And when it comes to trade schools, it only takes one, two years.

They can get a degree making $70,000.

The average cost of living in Illinois is roughly $50,000.

Unfortunately, students who have a four-year degree, roughly 50% aren't even in careers that their degree is.

Further, depending on which source you look at, they're only making 45 to roughly 22,000, which is well below the cost of living standard of Illinois.

- How does transportation infrastructure fit into all this?

If you look at the 13th District, you have the interstates that stretch from north, south, east to west.

You also have high-speed rail corridors.

What projects would you prioritize, if you're in Congress?

- So, one of the big jokes on the internet right now is how the US rail system is far behind Europe or Asia.

I would like to see more transportation rail.

So, all the transportation rails such as Amtrak, they use private lines.

So, this is the cargo lines.

So, they're actually being contracted out to Amtrak to use.

So, they're secondary to all the cargo.

I would like to see more of these transportation rail lines throughout the United States.

I was looking at it, most effectively we could get a line from Upper Washington down to Southern California, one from upper New York down to Florida, and then have a rail line from the East Coast through Chicago and down to Southern California as a high-speed rail line.

So, this is outside of the normal rail line.

Unfortunately, the cost is just so extreme that it might not be beneficial for several years.

And when you're a business in the business industry, you have to look at the cost and the return on investment.

- You touched upon vocational education a little earlier.

The federal government overall plays kind of a smaller role in the quality of public education in the state of Illinois, because most of the funding for that comes from local and state government sources.

Many of the city and county school districts in the 13th though are still catching up when it comes to per people spending and have poor educational outcomes when it comes to high school non-completion rates and the like.

What role should the federal government play in trying to address those issues for K through 12 students?

- So, if you look at the Illinois education, Wall Street Journal just ranked Decatur, for example, as the number one worst school system in the country.

In Illinois, only one in every four students can read, write, or comprehend math at grade level.

And unfortunately, we have one of the highest student spending rates.

The national average is roughly 14,500.

We're spending roughly $17,000 per student.

So, it's not a factor of cost, but where's the quality?

We have to get quality education, we have to get quality instructors.

We also have a teacher shortage.

Teachers don't want to work in Illinois, not because of the pay, but because of how they're treated, how they're respected.

Administrators, they don't want to back their teachers, but administrators can't back the teachers, because parents are so sue happy that if the administrators do back the teachers, then they're at risk of being sued.

So, we have to give schools protections that they don't currently have.

- Higher education figures prominently in this district with the U of I, both at Urbana Champaign, UIS, Springfield, and across the entire area, Illinois has been losing a lot of students who go outta state for a college education and unfortunately, a lot of those folks don't come back to the state of Illinois.

If you were elected to Congress, what would you do to try to stop the brain drain?

- I don't know why students would want to be in Illinois.

It's high in taxes.

They don't get the same employment opportunities that they do elsewhere.

One of the only places in Illinois is with a broad spectrum, is Chicago, but no one wants to go to Chicago, because of the violence or the dangers that they perceive.

Talking with some of my peers, they call Illinois institutions the second options after you don't get into community college.

So, the fact that there is a perceived bias that these institutions are second tier to other states, that's very telling.

So, we have to bring better education here to Illinois.

We have to focus on certain industries, whether it be STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, or the vocations.

So, for example, SIU is one of the best aviations programs in the United States.

Most people don't know that.

We have to get more education like that here in Illinois.

Education opportunities, people want education opportunities, people need.

- Congressional Democrats and Republicans right now are going head to head on trying to negotiate a new farm bill for the country, and they're divided over providing money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP.

They're also concerned about how much should go to address environmental issues.

And of course, Illinois is one of the largest ag states in the country.

What would your approach be to negotiating a new farm bill for the country?

- First we have to get everything subjective out of there.

Then we have to look at everything objectively.

If you want to look at farms, one of the current initiatives is solar farming where they put solar on farms at a raised level.

So, tractors and farm equipment can get under them.

And speaking with Terry Bryant, she just came back from Europe on a trip to learn about how Europe farmers are implementing solar farming.

And this is a good initiative, because ag gives us energy and the crop yield that we need.

At the same time, it is reducing the amount of space we are using.

One thing I would really like to see is the benefit for farmers so they can pass down their farms.

SNAP right now, you were speaking about SNAP.

If you look at schools, roughly the average cost for a meal is about $2.

This is not enough for a nutritious meal.

So, even though politicians don't want to spend on school lunches or school programs, it's very expensive.

It's one of the most expensive parts of increasing budgets for schools.

Students need this nutrition, because if they're going to school and they're not learning anything, everything else you're spending money on is moot.

It doesn't matter if they're not getting that education, because they can't focus, if they can't concentrate, because they are hungry, then it's worthless.

- I'm gonna ask a couple of questions related to foreign policy before we go.

Continued financial support and military support for the state of Israel is driving wedges between Americans, because of the casualties in, you know, in Gaza in the wake of the October Hamas terrorist attacks, and of course, what happened to Israel in those attacks.

How does the United States broker a lasting peace agreement in that troubled area of the world and is there still a place, or is there a place, for a separate Palestinian homeland?

- Unfortunately, I don't think there is going to be two different states at the end of this war.

And as unfortunate as that sounds, I really don't believe either side wants that.

In terms of Hamas, Hamas is not one of our allies.

Palestine is not one of our allies.

Israel is, at the same time we have to ensure that they're following the rules of war.

In the military, they go on a code of Just War Theory.

This is what most of our doctrine is based on.

We have to ensure Israel is following Just War Theory.

That they're not killing innocent civilians, fleeing civilians, that they're giving those refugee corridors.

So, as unfortunate as it sounds, I think there will be only one state at the end of this war.

- We're entering the third year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And Ukraine, of course, is desperate for continued American military and financial aid.

Some congressional Republicans though are questioning how long the United States can keep investing in Ukraine.

Where do you stand on that?

- I support Ukraine and their fight against a tyrannical government.

The United States, one of the things we are doing is we're sending our old equipment that is equipment that we built to fight a Soviet army during the Cold War.

We are sending that over to Ukraine.

So, this is equipment that was designed to fight Soviet equipment and is now being put to that use.

One other advantage is this equipment, if it was to stay here in the United States, it would have to be decommissioned, which is millions if not billions of money sending to contractors or outside organizations to scrap this metal, to scrap the equipment, to make sure the ammunition and armament is safe and properly disposed of.

So, it's a win-win on one perspective.

At the same time, there has been a fear of corruption.

Where is all that money going to?

Because we have no effective oversight of how this money is being spent once it gets to Ukraine.

And one of the issues some Republican lawmakers have is that this money is going to pocket books.

So, it's billions of dollars.

It's very easy to miraculously misplace a million dollars here, a million dollars there.

- One question before we go, we've got about a minute left.

The 13th Congressional District is currently represented by Democratic Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski of Springfield.

And because of the way the district is drawn, it leans Democratic.

How does a Republican win in the 13th District?

- So, if you look at the district, it has numerous universities, numerous metropolitan areas, but it wasn't too far of an election in the '22 election.

Only about 20,000 votes, which is less than roughly 5%, roughly 5%.

So, if we can just change the view of 5% of electorates, we can easily flip the seat.

And unfortunately, for my opponent, she doesn't have necessarily the real world experience.

Her entire career path has been working for the Speaker of the House, the Governor, or the President.

So, she's not able to connect with these families who are struggling, or these families who want an education, or these families who don't know how they're gonna pay for groceries for the coming month.

- Joshua, thank you very much.

Joshua Lloyd of Virden, who is one of two candidates vying for the Republican nomination for the US House of Representatives in the 13th Illinois Congressional District.

Thank you for your time.

- Thank you, Jak.

Glad to be here.

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