- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Democratic candidate for House District 9, Justin J. Pearson tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Justin J. Pearson.

He is the Democratic candidate for US House District 9.

Thanks for being here.

- I'm so happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

- Absolutely.

Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

I'll note before we get started here, we had the Republican opponent of Justin Pearson, Brent Taylor, was on the show about a month ago now.

This is all just because of scheduling and when people are available.

There's no particular magic or to who came first and who came second.

That you can get at wkno.org or The Daily Memphian.

We have also had, we have Heidi Kuhn coming up, Democratic candidate for District 8.

That's coming up next week.

We had Chaz Molder, District 5, Democratic candidate.

And we had Jerri Green, the Democratic candidate for governor.

We have reached out repeatedly to Marsha Blackburn, the Republican candidate for governor, as well as Charlie Hatcher, who's running against Chaz Molder, as well as David Kustoff, who is running for reelection.

They have declined or not responded to our offers.

We do hope to get them before we get started, before early voting begins or even before election day, but we're not holding out a lot of hope at this point.

Again, thank you for being here.

Congratulations on your primary win.

When you look, we're one year from the Memphis Safe Task Force, the anniversary.

When you look at, there's a lot, you've called it the Memphis Unsafe Task Force.

Are there any parts or pieces of the many elements of what the task force was?

Crime is down a whole lot.

It was going down beforehand.

Are there any parts of that task force that you would say, "Hey, that actually did work?"

- The Memphis Unsafe Task Force has killed four Black men since they have gotten here over this last year, and they're likely to kill more Memphians before they leave.

We've seen 100 people kidnapped and sent to deportation centers in our community.

These are our neighbors.

These are people who we work with.

These are folks who have children and families here who pay sales taxes and grocery taxes, which we should be ending, and they contribute to the fabric of who we are.

And they have been kicked out of our community and their children are left to continue life without them.

I think that's immoral.

It lacks compassion.

And as a person who's a Christian, it's antithetical to my belief system that we don't take care of the immigrants in our community.

- What is a path, you know, Brent Taylor, your opponent, when he was on the show, again, some weeks ago, talked about the country needs some me time.

The border should be shut down.

People can get, everything he had to say on that interview, but really very much shutting down any sort of immigration.

Is it your desire to go back to where the border was relatively open, where people could just come in, they could work, they could go back and forth?

Or is there some other middle ground that you are supporting?

- Yeah.

There was legislation that was brought to the House and the Senate actually during the last presidential cycle that had bipartisan support.

That legislation is actually the type that I would push forward, that makes sure that we have a secure border.

We have more judges that are able to process applications, but also we need a pathway to documentation.

That's a more serious answer than just saying we need to cut off all legal and illegal immigration, which my Trump-endorsed opponent is talking about for talking points.

The truth of the matter is we need pathways to documentation.

There are over 10 million people in the United States of America who are here without documentation, living in fear or worry about what will happen to them.

And they are still paying taxes.

Every time they buy something, they pay sales taxes.

Every time they go to the grocery store, a lot of them are paying taxes into our system.

And so, it isn't that they are not contributing, even though they can't get Social Security and things like that.

I think our job is to create those pathways and to make sure we treat people with all dignity and respect that they're due.

- For undocumented immigrants who are here who've committed a violent crime, whether that's one or people will say that's so many, whatever the number, let's say they're picked up by MPD or by TBI or whoever locally, should ICE be notified?

Should the federal government be notified when someone accused of a violent crime, who is undocumented, should the federal government get involved in that?

- Look, I do not believe in 287g programs.

I think local governments need to take care of the problems that they have in their community.

But I do believe if someone commits a violent crime, which is what they said they were focused on, that should be addressed as it were.

But the truth of the matter is they're not going after people with just violent crimes, they're going after people who are on their way to work, they're going after moms and teachers and grandmoms who've been here for 10, 20 and 30 years raising their families.

And I think that's immoral and wrong.

- Let me bring in Bill Dries.

- The conversation we had with your Republican opponent also focused on what he called assimilation for those who are here legally too.

What do you think about that?

Is assimilation necessary to be allowed to be a citizen or pursue citizenship here?

- No, assimilation is not a requirement to become a citizen of the United States of America.

It's a desire maybe of my opponent, but we have to address the real issues that people in this district are talking about.

The gas is too high, groceries are too high, and wages are too low and trying to blame everything on immigration is part of the problem.

The reality is people are struggling because the billionaire class is greedy and they're doing everything in their power to amass more wealth while working class people are struggling.

Right now our farmers are suffering because of the beef decisions that have been made as it relates to imports and exports by this administration.

We know individuals in our state are struggling because the minimum wage is $7.25 and we have done nothing to change those policies because people like my Trump-endorsed opponent are bought by corporations is the reason people like SpaceXAI have given him $10,000 because they want to have a status quo that hurts working people.

And my job and my effort that I'm making across these 15 counties is to actually address the needs that people have, which is healthcare, housing, job opportunities and protecting their land, their water and the soil from data centers.

- The 15 counties in this district cover rural counties in some cases.

And you and the others who have been running for this have just waded into this, hit the road, gone where the district is.

Was it what you thought it would be outside of Shelby County?

- And let me point out on the screen here, the red district at the bottom there, that is District 9 for people watching.

So you've got some whole counties, parts of Shelby County in the corner there and parts of other counties, But go ahead, Justin Pearson.

- Absolutely.

Look, I have been overjoyed going to these counties and meeting people who I otherwise would not have ever met, right?

I wouldn't have been in Nolensville or in Pulaski where Cassie's organizing and we were expecting maybe 12 to 15 people to be showing up at our community gathering there and we had over 150.

There is so much motivation and inspiration happening across these 15 counties.

And when they divided the districts, right, and everybody knows I'm from Memphis, I love Memphis and Shelby County, hate what they did.

But when they divided it, they thought that this was gonna separate us.

They thought there's no way you would be able to get rural people and more urban folks to be on one accord.

And what we are seeing is the exact opposite from Nolensville to Pulaski, in Fayette County, and Hardin and Hardeman, people are inspired by the message that we have because we want to build an economy that works for everybody, not the billionaires.

We want to fix the healthcare system, which is particularly hurting people in rural areas.

We've lost 16 hospitals since 2005 and a report just came out that 12 more are likely to close within the next 12 months.

And we are standing up to data centers, which is a big issue for people, not just here in Memphis, but in Lawrenceburg and other places where these are being planned.

And so our message is resonating in a real way that is inspiring and motivating me and gives me confidence that we're gonna win.

- So what is the path forward on data centers?

I mean, is there an amount of regulation that would be enough as far as you're concerned to permit those?

- Absolutely.

I think there is a lot of regulation that is needed and necessary.

We can't trust that these companies are gonna regulate themselves and we should all just be okay with that, which is what the administration is asking us to do.

It's like asking the tobacco industry to regulate itself.

No one would do that.

It's asinine.

And these tech oligarchs are creating technology and products that are quite harmful to us right now, whether that be the air quality, the use of millions of gallons of drinking water, hundreds of millions and billions across the country, or the reality that our workforce is likely to be displaced at 15-30% by the increase in automation, artificial general intelligence and robotics.

We need to have a pause here in Memphis on October 6th, which I'm hopeful the City Council is gonna pass, but a national moratorium that actually gives us time to have those protections written into law with community at the center.

- Do you worry that the definition of a data center is maybe too broad in the sense that there are all of the country will stay focused on Memphis.

FedEx has big computer rooms.

AutoZone has a big computer room.

I mean, St.

Jude, UTHSC.

I mean, there are big rooms filled with computer, that's computers that do a lot of work that for companies and organizations in Memphis that employ a lot of people.

Can those get swept up and maybe blocked as these regulations are put in at the local level, state level, federal level?

- I mean, anyone who reads the legislation knows the necessary protections are there.

We're talking about hyperscale data centers.

We're not talking about those data centers.

They don't count.

They don't matter.

And anyone who understands the issue that we're dealing with as it relates to hyperscale data centers knows that those wouldn't be included.

The reality is when people are using 59 gas turbines to power their hyperscale data center or in Memphis renting for $1.25 billion to Anthropic, the data center that's three miles away from my home, we're talking about a level of scale that is not the same.

And when we're talking about what they're being used for, like Grok we believe was used to kill 100 young girls in the Iran war, the first day of the Iran war, that's not what FedEx is doing.

- Grok being the xAI- - xAI's chatbot being used to kill people halfway across the world and is being powered in our backyard.

That's not something for us to be proud of and that's something that needs more regulations.

- You mentioned Iran.

We'll go to some international issues.

I mean, if you were elected that you'd be voting on these, would you vote to cut funding to the Iran War, to the troops, to the soldiers, sailors that are over there now?

- Yeah, I would bring all of those troops home.

I would bring all those sailors home.

And we should talk about this.

I mean, we had USS Lincoln where I believe eight people attempted suicide while they were on board the USS Lincoln for over 250 days.

That's what the cost of the Iran War is.

We yesterday just had the 19th person American servicemember killed in the Iran War and none of us know why we're there and none of us know when the end is gonna happen.

I'm sick and tired of these endless wars.

I'm tired of billions of our taxpayer dollars going halfway across the world to kill people and to be given to other foreign governments as well, which is why I don't take any AIPAC money.

It's why I don't take any AI or crypto money because I want those billions of dollars invested right here in Tennessee, invested in our country, and our taxpayer dollars should be helping taxpayers.

- What about things like USAID, which were a bit, the federal, the US program that funds a lot of poor countries around, poor communities around the country was gutted by the Trump administration.

Some people celebrate it, some people hated it.

What about, you know, support for Ukraine or support for be it Gaza, be it Palestinians or Israel?

Are there places where that money is appropriately being distributed around the world?

- Yeah.

USAID, let's talk about it, was gutted by Elon Musk who's built this large data center that many people here are celebrating and have been celebrating like my opponent who's gotten a $10,000 check from Elon and SpaceXAI.

I've been advocating against this since day one, since before day one.

But they cut USAID.

I would 100% fund it because it was the best diplomacy program that we had.

A PEPFAR program helped to prevent HIV and AIDS all across the world, saved millions of lives since its existence, which was built under the George W. Bush administration, right?

A Republican at the time.

And now that has been completely gutted.

And so, I believe funding like that should be restored and it did good for America, but it also saved lives.

But because Elon Musk cut it, eight to ten million people are gonna die over the next decade.

That's the consequence of that action.

- Real quickly before we go back to Bill, Ukraine War, would you support funding military and diplomatic and so on in Ukraine?

- No.

- Okay.

- I want taxpayer money in Tennessee.

- Okay.

But USAID being an exception.

Are there other exceptions?

- That's right.

That's probably the main exception.

I want healthcare for people across the world.

I want food because that helps a lot of our farmers who are able to provide food to people across the world to stay open.

Those are the types of programs I think that did us good.

- Before we go back to Bill, I'll remind everyone that we spoke to a Republican opponent who's been mentioned here, Brent Taylor, about a month ago.

You can get that at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian or YouTube.

We are moving towards October 5th is the last day to register to vote.

Early voting begins October 14th and election day is November 3rd, Bill.

- Most of the counties, I think all of the counties outside of Shelby County and this district are considered quote, unquote, "red counties," Republican counties where Trump carried the vote in his past presidential bids.

So from your journeys through the district, does that apply on a broad basis once you get in there and meet the people?

- No, once you get in there and meet the people, you see folks who are frustrated that every time they go to the gas pump or the grocery store, prices are higher, and they know they're paying for the Iran War.

You see people who are frustrated that corporations are getting their money back from the tariffs, but we haven't gotten a check back as consumers.

And you meet people like Amy who's raising three kids, whose husband works at Arby's.

He's sick now, unfortunately with cancer, and he doesn't have any way to get treatment or access to treatment.

And she's wondering what they are going to do.

That's who you're meeting.

You're not meeting red people or even blue people because if we're being honest, a lot of the establishment, the Republican establishment of which my Trump-endorsed opponent is flying the flag of and the Democratic establishment have actually failed to meet the needs of folks all across these districts.

And my job is to be proximate, is to show up and to go into these places where honestly Democrats have not gone and certainly Republicans have taken advantage of.

And the people that I am meeting who have voted for Trump in the past, one of my main organizers actually voted for Trump in the past and now she's 100% on our team helping us to win this election.

They are people who want to see change and who need it more immediately than millionaires who are serving in the United States Congress are willing to give it to them.

- If you're elected to this seat and go to Washington with other Democrats, does the Democratic leadership change in Congress as a result of that?

- Yeah, I think the congressional leadership is definitely gonna change with the Democratic majority because we no longer have Mike Johnson as the speaker of the House, but what will change more than anything is the vision for our country.

People, the Republicans have been in control of the House, the Senate and the White House for the last year and a half.

And in the state of Tennessee, they've been in control of the House, the Senate and the Governor's Mansion for about the last 15 years.

And look at where we are as a state, highest in maternal mortality, lowest in per pupil funding and spending, hundreds of millions going for private school vouchers and not investing in public school, no teacher raises that are meaningful.

This is what Republican leadership has wrought us and that's the reality of the people who are in these 15 counties.

And I'm going there and talking to farmers who are like, "We've never actually gotten help.

We've never got a fair farm bill," but Monsanto and Cargill and these huge corporations that my opponent continues to get funded and funding his campaign are the ones who are really economically strangulating them.

And my job and the job of Democrats when we get to Congress and win the majority is to make sure we actually improve the lives of people.

That's the priority and the main job.

- But among Democrats, as you're aware, I'm sure, there is this discussion about the direction of the party.

Sometimes it's old versus new.

Sometimes it's left versus left of center.

What's the state of that?

- Yeah, the state of that is we're gonna win the majority back and we're gonna do that by winning District 9, and we need people to volunteer.

We need people to vote.

We need people to donate.

We need people to knock doors because there's no need to get into a discussion about being in the majority and we're not in the majority yet.

And so, our job is to win elections.

And as we do that, the way we run, the way we campaign has to be addressing the economic hardship that people are experiencing, making sure we pass Medicare for all and expanding access to healthcare to people, and stopping these toxic data centers from being built in our communities, which is an issue, mind you, that Republicans, Democrats, and independents are all supportive of.

And so, the policies I think that we're pushing is building a lot of bipartisanship that we have not seen in our country in a long time.

- Let's go through, I asked questions like this of your Republican opponent when he was on.

Are there any policies of the Trump administration that you agree with?

You've talked a lot about the ones you disagree with.

One that you agree with is cutting funding to Ukraine and the war there.

Are there other policies that you look at and say, "Well, I actually agree with that"?

- Yeah.

You know, back when Donald Trump was running for president, he would talk a lot about America first.

He never really believed it, obviously, because he's put us in another endless war.

He's done all these tariffs which have destroyed our economy for smaller businesses in particular.

But I really do believe we need to have a policy that starts to focus on our country because our roads need to get paved.

Our schools need to be funded.

We need more access to healthcare.

We need to make sure that we increase the minimum wage and those are priorities that I'd like us to have.

- When you look back at the Biden administration, do you say there were policies there that you disagreed with?

- Absolutely.

I think we did a horrible job of following AIPAC's lead in how we did not care for the Palestinian people during this genocide.

- Other policies back in the Biden administration or that's the one that stands out for you?

- That's the one that stands out for me.

- Well, what does it mean?

You are not a Democratic socialist.

That is a term that gets thrown around a lot by Republicans, that Democrats are socialists, sometimes they'll say they're communists.

You look at some of the very Democratic socialist candidates who've won around the country.

Are you a Democratic socialist in sheep's clothing or any of that?

You know what I mean?

I mean, you know where I'm going, but give you a chance to address those kinds of accusations.

- Absolutely.

My opponent, Trump-endorsed opponent keeps saying these types of things and phrases to distract us.

The reality is people want us fighting left versus right.

They want us fighting Democratic socialists versus Democrats versus Republicans because as long as we're distracted fighting each other, we never look up at the billionaire class who is really hurting, profiting, and pillaging our communities.

And that's where my focus is gonna remain, making sure we tax them, making sure we lift up working class people and fight for families.

- Other Democrats have said that, you know, because of what they view as corruption and all kinds of decisions and actions by the Trump administration, the Trump family, that Trump should be impeached, that if Democrats take the House, they should start what would be a third impeachment process.

Would you support that?

- I would support making sure that this administration is held accountable.

We'll see what happens with the impeachment.

Again, we have to win the majority to be having those conversations.

But my main priority is to lower people's costs.

Things are too expensive, and that is what I'm hearing on the campaign trail.

I'm not hearing a whole lot about impeachment.

What I'm hearing a whole lot about is making sure that we lower people's costs, increase people's wages, expand access to Social Security, make healthcare more affordable, childcare more affordable, and make life better for people in District 9.

And that's gonna be my primary focus.

- One more before I go back to Bill, we have about six minutes here.

How would you pay for those programs?

The healthcare, Medicare for all, all these programs you're talking about, how would those be paid for in a country that has a massive debt that continues to grow, it's grown under Democrats, it's grown under Republicans.

Is it raising taxes?

Is it cutting other spending?

How does that get paid for?

- It's both of those.

We need to tax billionaires who are not paying their fair share and corporations who are benefiting off of a lot of public investment, but they are not paying back into the economy at the level that they really should.

And also, it is cutting spending.

Just recently, Secretary of the Department of Defense has asked for $1.5 trillion, $1.5 trillion to the Department of Defense.

Instead of giving that money, which doesn't go to soldiers, in fact, it goes to the military industrial congressional complex.

Instead of giving that money to these private contractors, I think we need to take hundreds of billions of those dollars, give them to small businesses so that they can pay their workers a livable wage, but also put that money back in investing in our community.

We do not have a lack of resources.

We have a lack of political will.

- Okay.

Bill.

- Let's go back to funding for Ukraine.

US funding to some members of Congress is crucial to check Russian advances in Europe.

Should we really cut all of our assistance to Ukraine?

- Thank you so much for the question.

Look, we are part of NATO.

We have our responsibilities and obligations there.

We've given hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to Ukraine and to other countries, it's not just them.

I want to revisit all of the funding that we're giving across the world because we need money here.

Now, if every road here was paved, everyone lived in a decent house, we had access to healthcare, every child was well educated, and it didn't matter the zip code that they lived in, and we could ensure that people here weren't divorcing one another because they're afraid that if they die from a terminal illness, they're gonna lose their house, then I can think we can start looking at how should America's taxpayer dollars be spent across the world.

But right now, we're always being asked to give billions to folks for war, billions to all of these corporations.

And at the same time, people in Congress are trading stocks.

People like my Trump-endorsed opponent trading stocks while serving in public office are making money off of these decisions, making money off of war.

And so, I need to stop that.

And I think we all want to see the money invested right here in Tennessee.

But when I can wake up in the morning and don't smell pollution from Valero and Tennessee Valley Authority and xAI and Nucor, when I wake up in the morning and my car isn't misaligned because there are potholes the size of craters, and the school that I went to and graduated from has all of the technological needs that it has, and the parents that I meet on this campaign trail aren't worried about whether or not their husband's going to die from cancer because they don't have access to healthcare, then we can start talking about how can we give billions of dollars to people in other parts of the world.

- Doesn't what happens overseas, though, have an impact on our lives here?

- Absolutely, it does.

And we see that.

This stupid war and illegal war in Iran is destroying our lives.

I saw somebody get $4.67 worth of gas yesterday.

That is what is happening overseas, impacting us because of decisions made by this administration.

And they're deeply problematic, troublesome and harmful, not just to the economy, but to the day-to-day lives of people.

Interest rates are going up, so people who are living on credit cards are struggling every single day.

I think these are the travesties of our participation in these endless wars, but our job is to make sure NATO and our allies do have the resources that they need, but it is not our responsibility or our obligation to fund the defenses or the military program of foreign countries.

That is what AIPAC has convinced us to do for the country of Israel for decades, and I think it's wrong.

- Where are you on tariffs?

- I think they've been horrendous to the economy and to the small business owners that I have met, it has really hurt their bottom line because many of them are getting money in B2B relationships and the wholesalers are having to give that cost to them.

The tariffs have not done anything to benefit our country.

If they had, why would the president be talking about, "I'm gonna give you $5,000 or $500."

He wouldn't have to do those things because the economy would be thriving, but it is not thriving because of the horrible economic policy and economic decisions that have been made by this administration against the people in this country.

- This race and the two others, but this race especially, has attracted national coverage of your campaign, of Brent Taylor's campaign.

The national media has been here right with those of us in the local media.

And sometimes I wonder if we see the same things.

I mean, is there a national narrative for this race and others that reflects nationally, but not necessarily what's happening with the folks who decide it?

- No, I think this is one of the most important races in the state of Tennessee and one of the most important races in the United States of America.

And people in this state, around this country are recognizing that, not just because of the Callais decision, but because this is a fight for our democracy.

And my Trump-endorsed opponent, he talks more about me than my wife does and he still won't debate, right?

And so, that's something that you all should work on as well because we do need to articulate our different visions that we have for our state.

Even in our conversation here together, we've been able to talk about foreign policy and so many other issues where all he can talk about is me.

We need to have plans that are actually gonna address the needs of the people in District 9.

And that's what I've been seeking to do as we travel these 15 counties.

And that's the message that I think many people are responding to.

- We can talk about many more issues, but Bill will obviously be on the trail with you covering and people can get that coverage at dailymemphian.com.

We appreciate you being here.

Thank you, Bill.

That is all the time we have this week with Justin J. Pearson.

Again, I'll remind everyone, voter registration ends October 5th.

Early voting begins October 14th, so less than two weeks away.

And election day is November 3rd.

We had Brent Taylor, if you joined us late, we had Brent Taylor, Republican opponent on the show about a month ago.

Get that at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian or YouTube.

You can also download the full show as a podcast.

And that's true of this show as well in case you came in late and missed the beginning.

But that's all we have.

Next week we'll have Democratic candidate, Heidi Kuhn, for one of the other districts, District 8.

We'll see you then.

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