These interviews were pre-recorded; no calls will be taken.
Earlier in the week, eight of the nine candidates on the ballot to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate or one of Maine’s two Congressional seats joined Jennifer Rooks for a Your Vote 2024 interview.
This show features interviews with the three candidates seeking to represent Maine's 1st Congressional District.
Lightly edited transcripts of the interviews will appear below as they're available.
Ron Russell: Republican, Army veteran, small-business owner
Rooks: Why are you running for Congress?
Russell: I'm running for Congress to get our nation back on track there. I think the last four years have not been good for our nation and for the people of Maine, and I'm trying to do what I can to get us back on track.
When you say not been good, what do you mean specifically?
Well, the economy is horrible for everyone. We're losing people from the great state of Maine. We're hemorrhaging them, actually, to other locations. The price of everything — gas, food, housing of all sorts — is way too high for Mainers. We have increased our taxes here fairly significantly this year. Mine have gone up a good 10% in Kennebunkport. And these are problems that are just unsustainable. We don't have enough good jobs to make the amount of money that we need to make for people to be able to live in Maine.
How can you, as a congressman, change this?
I think I can help with the economy. I think the first thing to do there would be to increase the amount of fuel production that we have to where we are energy dominant around the world. That will also have a significant impact on national security. But just from an economy perspective, I think when we became not energy independent anymore, that was the catalyst that drove inflation up, along with some spending of money that we did not have. But I think energy was the primary catalyst for driving prices way up. Energy affects everything that we do, and when we reduce the costs of energy, then everything is going to follow suit. Most importantly, heating oil, or what it takes to heat your home, whatever you use -- I have heating oil and propane here at my house -- those costs are going to go down. The amount of fuel that we put in our gas tanks goes down. And unfortunately, that affects our lower-income Mainers more so than it does our higher-income Mainers. We spend a larger portion of our income on energy here right now, and when we decrease those prices, that's going to put more money back into the pockets of our citizens.
You mentioned housing, and one of the realities -- Maine Calling has been doing a yearlong series on the housing crisis -- is that it's estimated that Maine needs something like 80,000 homes by 2030 to keep up with the number of people who are coming into the state and the number of jobs that are being created. How do you propose that Maine increase its housing? And what could you as a congressman do to to help with that?
Well, I think the first thing I could do is decrease what it costs to get a house. So when inflation increased, we mitigated that increase in expenses every day for food, gas and the like -- we mitigated that by raising interest rates. So if you want to get a new home now, the interest rates are several times larger than what they were before. If we get those back down to where they were before that will have a significant decrease in the cost of purchasing a home. For rental properties, the rental property increases have been just, I think, a result of the inflation that everyone is suffering. If you're a property owner, your taxes go up, you're going to pass those expenses on, those increases, on to your clients, to your renters. Your cost for heating your apartment, those costs will go down when energy costs go down. I also think we need to concentrate on starter homes for some families. Not everyone has to have a palatial estate to start off. And the amount of starter homes that we have is very, very small. We have a builder here in the Kennebunk-Kennebunkport area who is building two bedroom homes, which are very, very nice. Those are good starter homes for new families. They're working to start an investment and then turn that into something better as their family size increases. But a starter home right now -- I mean, the average cost of a home in Maine is, I think, over $400,000, so that's almost prohibitive for someone, for a young family starting out. Smaller homes, as my friend is producing, those are a little bit more affordable, so that's going to help out significantly.
Do you believe Congress should subsidize the building of these starter homes? Because, you know, the housing costs are part of the problem -- the cost of labor is very high and the cost of materials.
Right, well, so this builder can build these starter homes for $210,000. So that's a decent price that almost anyone would be able to afford. So no, I don't think that that needs to be subsidized. I am wary of subsidizing anything that we do, because when those subsidies go away, the additional costs now fall upon the consumer. I think we can produce houses at an affordable cost that people will want without any subsidies to occur.
Ron, let me ask you, I'm especially interested in your opinion as an Army veteran what you think of the war in Ukraine. Do you believe that the U.S., the administration currently, is supporting Ukraine at the right level, and what do you want to see happen in the future?
I don't know that we have ever supported Ukraine at the correct level. And by that, I mean I don't think we got them what they needed when they needed it. So the aid was not in time. That's the first problem. The second problem is we are providing them aid that has nothing to do with waging the war. We are paying for 401(K) plans for some of the bureaucrats in Ukraine, paying the salaries for some of those bureaucrats. I don't think that we ought to be doing that. So I think we should take a very, very close look at every dollar we spend in Ukraine and make sure that it goes to support what our strategic aims are there. And that would be defeating Russia in the battle and to help Ukraine regain its territory. At some point in time I mentioned we have advisors that join the military and join these special organizations that they belong to to be able to advise and assist military forces as they wage war, and providing some of those advisors there is not a bad thing. You know, we've got a lot of conflict under our belts since 2001 and that's conflict where those lessons learned are easily passed on to another fighting force. We learned an awful, awful lot during the global war on terror, and those lessons can be passed on and make the Ukrainian forces far more effective. Again, we have organizations that are trained and equipped and resourced to be able to provide that advice and assistance. And candidly, I would not have any issue with putting their boots on the ground to be able to do that.
It sounds to me as though, Ron, you believe it is of paramount importance that Ukraine defeat Russia.
Yes. I think, you know, there's a lot of speculation that if they succeed in Ukraine then they'll just move on to nations that are now members of NATO, and then we will be engulfed in a much bigger conflict at that point in time. What I'd really like is to work through, with and by host nation forces to give them the wherewithal to be able to fight and win, on time, on target. But we have not been on time with our resources that we have been giving them. You know, we've been late to that aspect of the fight, and unfortunately, that's had a negative impact.
I asked you about one of the big international issues facing the U.S. today, of course, the other in the Middle East. What do you believe the U.S. can, if anything, do to bring peace to Israel and its neighborhood?
To a degree, I think we can join the fight more than we have. As an example, the Houthis are firing on our ships in the Gulf. We should destroy every Houthi firing position that we possibly can, because they are putting our people in danger, they're attacking us, and we should defend ourselves in the finest order that we can do. And of course, we have tremendous capabilities that are there right now. Israel also needs our assistance there, and I think we can provide that, you know, in terms of the munitions that they need and the support from that perspective. And again, you know, we have stopped supplying certain munitions there to Israel. That is not providing the best support that we possibly can provide to them. Israel really has been in conflict since their very existence in one way, shape or form, and we need to provide the resources that we can provide to make them successful in this conflict. They are fighting our enemies as well. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran are all really declared enemies of the United States of America, and anything we can do to help Israel defeat any and all of them, I think we ought to do.
As you know, we're coming up on the one year anniversary of the horrific shootings in Lewiston. I'm wondering how you feel about some proposed gun regulations, including a proposed ban on assault rifles, as we used to have on a federal level.
Depending on where you fall down on that argument, you'll hear a different discussion about the effectiveness of the assault weapon ban. My approach is the weapon is not the problem. It's the individual who is the problem. And in almost probably every case, there were laws in place that, when followed, would have prevented a lot of our school shootings. In [Lewiston], I don't think that thelaw was properly followed. We have a [yellow-flag law] here in Maine. I know the sheriff's department tried to approach the shooter in Lewiston unsuccessfully. Even though they thought he was in the house, they did not pursue it and had they pursued that, I think we might have had a different result there in Lewiston. The other aspect of that is he sought medical attention and indicated a desire to kill himself or others. That should have been reported to our FBI, which would have put him on a list where he would not have been able to purchase weapons again. The failure there, that didn't have any impact in Lewiston, so to speak. But had the sheriff's department been successful in approaching him and taking his weapons away, because that information had not been shared with the FBI, he could have just purchased new weapons. So a couple of different systemic failures there. As I said, the problem is not the weapon. The problem is the person that is operating the weapon, from my perspective. And I've got a lot of time using weapons, 30 years and 28 days in the Army, and, you know, I've been a hunter my whole life as well.
Ron, as you know, some Republicans in Congress would like to see a national abortion ban. If such a bill were introduced, would you support it? And why or why not?
Actually, I'm delighted that the Supreme Court has taken that off the table as an issue there for me. The Supreme Court decided that decisions about abortions should reside at the state level. So I can't see myself advocating for any new federal legislation to call for an abortion ban, because that, from my perspective, will be found to be unconstitutional again. I will say the same thing about any time limit ban on abortions for the exact same reasons. I believe the Supreme Court will find that as unconstitutional legislation. So I've I'm not going to support anything that's unconstitutional.
And I believe this might be our last question. I'm wondering about Social Security, and if you believe the federal government needs to take action to save Social Security, to support it beyond the next 10 years, and if so, what would you support? What do you believe would be the most effective means to support and keep Social Security solvent?
I think getting more folks paying into the Social Security system would help, and that means more employment. And of course, that rolls right back into the economy. I don't support any changes to the current users of Social Security and I'd have to take a real hard look at anyone who is currently paying into the system. That, to me, just is not fair. But I think we do need to look at the system writ large and see any newcomers to the system, if it makes sense doing what we're doing there, or should we just now start having them use what they would have paid into Social Security and putting it in an individual retirement account, or some other way to ensure that funds will be available to them in the future. I'm a Social Security recipient, and I certainly don't want my Social Security payments being decreased by 25% or anything like that. And my aunt, who just passed away, 94 years old, I can't imagine doing anything to decrease her Social Security payments, or anyone else of that particular aid. So I don't want to mess with the current system. I want to mess with the system that we could put in place for our newcomers there as they start being wage earners.
Chellie Pingree: Democrat; incumbent Congresswoman for District 1, first elected in 2008
Rooks: Tell us why you decided to run again.
Pingree: Well, there's so much work to do in Washington, so many challenges that we're facing, you know, everything from the situation internationally to the things we're facing back at home, the housing crisis, the cost of childcare, the looming impact of climate change. I just feel that given the experience I've had working on these issues and the position that I'm currently in in Congress on the Appropriations Committee, if the voters of the first district choose to reelect me, I'm happy to go back and get to work on these things.
What accomplishment are you most proud of as U.S. Congresswoman for Maine, especially in more recent years?
Well, I really try to focus a lot of my work on things related to our natural resource based industries. I serve on the Agriculture Committee as well as the Appropriations Committee where I work on agriculture issues. So things like our most recent farm bill, which we're deeply involved in working on, we invited some of our members of the Agriculture Committee on both sides of the aisle to come to Maine so they could see the firsthand, the tremendous work that goes on here with small to medium sized farmers and our aquaculture industry. So shaping that policy has been very important to me in previous farm bills, and keeping many of the services that we have available to people who are struggling with food insecurity, the availability of more fruits and vegetables, assistance to our farmers. That's really important. I also, as the ranking member of Interior and Environment, have oversight on the Forestry Service budget. So a lot of the things that we're doing in Maine to upgrade our wood products industry, as we've lost many of our paper mills supporting wood innovations, things like the timber HP, wood fiber insulation mill, things to do with cross laminate timber, all of the things that we're trying to do in Maine, sort of for our next generation of sustainable forestry work. And then, of course, the fisheries. So much to do with the fisheries, and also the challenges of our warming ocean and how climate change is impacting our fishermen. So I really try to focus on a lot of those issues. They're very important to Maine. They're common sense, resource based issues, and a lot of them actually have much bipartisan support.
As you know, voters are very, very concerned, very upset about the inflation that they're facing every day. What can and what will Congress do if you're reelected to help curb that?
Well one of the things we've been trying to do is fight food price inflation. You know, there's been a fair amount of collusion around pricing in the industry, whether it's in meats or at the grocery store, so we've had a big push on fighting around that, I've also been trying to support some of the costs that people are finding increasingly unaffordable in their lives. In Maine, that's certainly housing. We have a low inventory of housing. Maine estimates it has to build over 80,000 houses by 2030 and getting those built is a big challenge, particularly after the pandemic that we've been through the supply chain shortages, some of the worker shortages that we're facing today. So there's a lot of different ways to tackle this, but for me, making sure that there's more money in the budget for Housing and Urban Development, for the USDA that builds a lot of rural housing, that we keep our low income tax credits available, and that we have funding for homelessness and homelessness housing. So those are all very big concerns to me, and as a member of the Appropriations Committee, it's a constant fight that we're in. Just to give you a sense of this year's budget, we proposed $1.2 billion to go into HUD. That's such a critical program here in Maine, and the Republicans cut it to 500,000 so that was one of those fights, one of the negotiations that we're literally working on as we speak.
You know, it's interesting to me that if you've served in Congress from Maine since 2008 I'm sure in those earlier years, you weren't talking about housing and you weren't talking about, well, maybe you were, but most people were talking about childcare. These have risen to be top issues in our country. Do you believe that there's opportunities for bipartisanship on these issues, or do you not see that in Congress?
Well, absolutely, just, just for the record, I was definitely talking about both of those in Maine. You know, I live in a coastal community, so affordable housing has been a big challenge on the coast for a while, whether it's people having to drive a long way to be able to work at jobs on the coast, not be able to live in their communities, teachers, firefighters, the people who provide our services every day, often can't live in the very communities where they serve. So I've been focused on this issue for a while, but they certainly have risen in attention. And I think if you think back to 2000 and now eight, we were really struggling with the recession, so people weren't thinking about buying a house, and in fact, we hadn't had the population surge that we've had somewhat since the pandemic. So you sort of couple those things, the recession, and lack of house construction. We were the oldest state in the nation, nobody thought we didn't have enough housing stock. We seem to have a lot of available housing stock, or at least a lot more than we do today. So that has certainly risen. And childcare of course, the cost of childcare availability. I mean one of the big challenges is that we're not able to pay or we don't pay child care workers enough for taking care of our kids at one of the most vital points in their brain development, in their early childhood development. So changing those things, providing more federal funding for those and also just supporting families in dealing with some of those needs, whether it's providing them with some childcare credits or some of the proposals to help people with the payments, the down payments for new houses, these are things where the federal government can help. Interestingly, I often hear about these the most from Maine employers. We also have a worker shortage, and one of the biggest challenges for people going back to work is having childcare. That's a big issue for women in the workforce and for people who want to live in our state and take some of the work in some of the jobs that are begging right now, we have about one employee for every two jobs in Maine today, but one of the biggest issues is making sure they have enough housing. So these, I think, have risen to the top of the list, and anybody representing Maine needs to keep them at the top. And I also think because the need has grown, it's grown beyond Maine, my colleagues in states all over the country are starting to see this problem. So I think we're going to see more bipartisan support for this in the future. It doesn't mean there won't be battles, but I think we'll have a better opportunity in the next Congress to work on this.
It won't be a surprise to you, the Republicans we are interviewing are not in favor of more and more subsidies. They believe that's, you know, the federal government just spending, spending, spending. And so I want to ask, where does the money come from for whether it's childcare, housing or other priorities? How do we raise the money to pay for those?
I mean, all good questions, but we all have our priorities. One of the one of the jobs of a member of the Appropriations Committee is to try to do that give and take. You know, many people think we have to continue to increase our defense budget. Many people think that there are other priorities that we should be spending on, and for a lot of us, making sure that things like childcare are fully funded is a really important priority for us. So there's always a lot of give and take. The other big issue is the revenue. During the Trump administration, we had tremendous cuts to revenue as he allowed some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in our country to pay less in taxes. I feel like everybody needs to pay their fair share, and you can't make the economy fair if you don't have some support right now for things like childcare and housing so that people can have an opportunity to get ahead.
I'll ask you about some of the top international issues. Congresswoman Pingree, do you believe that the U.S. has taken the right course when it comes for support of Ukraine. Are we supporting the Ukrainian government at the correct level? And what would you like to see happen next?
Well, I've been a strong supporter of supporting Ukraine since Russia invaded the country. I think it's fundamental to our democracy. It's fundamental to our NATO and European allies, that we make sure we can end the conflict in Ukraine, but that we stay strong supporters of Ukraine. There are some people who think that there should be more sophisticated weapons going into Ukraine, and I'm open minded to that. I just think that we and all of our NATO allies have to keep funding that or the situation will get much worse, and we will pay a price in the Western world and in Europe.
What about Israel? In your own party, there's a lot of debate about whether the U.S. ought to be providing the kinds of weapons it is to Israel and the kind of aid we're supporting, you know, providing or not providing to Gaza, and what our role might be in negotiations. Where do you stand on those?
I'm concerned that we haven't used the power that we have for enough leverage in the negotiations. I have been very strongly in favor of a ceasefire since the beginning. I think we have to get the hostages back and we have to end the conflict. There's been needless death in Gaza, and unfortunate the number of civilians who have been killed. And now we're seeing an escalation going on outside of Gaza, and I think it's incumbent on the United States to push back much harder on the war there and use more of our leverage. And so I've been one of the stronger voices for the ceasefire and for using our leverage in any way we possibly can, and I think that we're seeing what happens if you don't act fast enough and strongly enough in the situation in Lebanon today.
And do you worry that this is going to escalate further?
I do.
I know where you stand, but I'm going to ask you, because many of our listeners may not, would you support a federal law that codifies the reproductive rights that were law under Roe?
Absolutely, I've been so discouraged by this Supreme Court, and I think that for many of us, we never imagined that the rights women were given in the 1970s with Roe versus Wade would be taken back, and now we're seeing that situation get worse. Many of us in Congress worry that this will escalate to birth control, to in vitro fertilization, to more and more restrictions on a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body. So I would like to see Congress pass stronger laws to codify Roe versus Wade and also to protect a woman's right to use contraceptives, use IVF. I'm really discouraged about what happens in some of the decisions that have come out of the Supreme Court, and this is number one.
Congresswoman Pingree, what do you believe needs to happen to ensure that Social Security remain solvent in the long term?
Well, there's a great plan that's been floating around the house. I've been supporting that for quite a while. It's from John Larson in Connecticut. It basically wouldn't change the current cap. I think people stop paying into Social Security at around $126,000 so it wouldn't change that cap up to $400,000, but above $400,000 people would go back to paying into the Social Security system. That would ensure that the system would stay solvent until 2100 it would allow us to have a slight increase in benefits. We'd be able to use a more sensible COLA, the one that is used today to evaluate increases in people's social security benefit, only covers food, not things like the cost of energy. We could also get rid of the GPO WEP, which is a complicated little part of Social Security that denies benefits to many people in Maine. Many people worked in public service, jobs like housing, I mean, like teaching and a variety of other professions, and that's really been hard on a lot of people in Maine, and we've been working very hard for many years to eliminate that. So it's a great system. It's a great proposal to fix the system, and it would be a far cry from what some of the Republicans are proposing, which is to raise the Social Security age to 70, cut benefits, cut benefits for some of the disabled people. I think we just have a much better plan, and I'm hoping that one of these days we'll get a vote on it.
As you have served in congress for 16 years. I think that for those of us on the outside looking in, it seems as though Congress is almost broken, and that the hyper partisanship makes it impossible to get anything meaningful done. Can you talk about where you see there are opportunities for progress on a bipartisan level?
Sure, I think one of the questions I get asked most often from my friends and people I run into in Maine is, why do you want to do this? And the truth is, I think it's still an enormous privilege to be a member of Congress, and in spite of what you often see on cable news are some of the most partisan of arguments that go on. And a very frustrating two years under the Republican control of the House, they truly haven't been able to get much done. There are a lot of committees where we continue to work, where we have bipartisan bills. I work with Republicans on things related to agriculture and fishing, working waterfronts, protection. Often we see the same way on how we protect our veterans, many of the same issues related to forestry and our natural resources. I've been able to bring Republicans to Maine to see what we're doing here. I'm about 71st in my bipartisan work, and a lot of that is because I produce a lot of bills that Republicans sign on to and I sign on to a lot of their bills, because we do find areas of agreement. We also have a really wonderful office in Portland and another one in Waterville, where we work daily with our constituents. We're able to help people with problems with the IRS or their veterans benefits or Social Security, visas and immigration issues, a passport that you forgot to get renewed when you get to Boston. I mean, there's a tremendous number of things we're able to do for people and try to be helpful. So I feel really good about the work we get to do. And I feel like we manage to do something good for Maine every single day, and that gives me a sense of believing that it's still good work to do and we can always get more done.
Finally, an issue I haven't asked you about Congresswoman, is immigration, and I'm wondering if you believe that the immigration bill that was about to pass very recently will be brought back in Congress, and if so, would you support it?
Well, I think we will see another attempt for immigration reform. I mean, if Kamala Harris is elected, I think it will be very high on the agenda to move forward on that bill. If it's President Trump, I mean, he said he wanted to postpone that bill till he was in office so he could take credit for it. So we'll see what happens. But I think everybody knows we have a lot of changes to make in the system. There are a lot of things we could do in Maine, like shortening the amount of time people have to wait for their work permit, and that will be very beneficial to us. So I'm hoping that we can get that passed at a federal level. Let's just hope, after this election, whoever gets elected there's a fresh start.
Ethan Alcorn: Independent, has a degree in anthropology, worked for nonprofit organizations
Rooks: First question, why are you running for Congress?
Alcorn: Well, I am running because I, well — I get that question a lot, and what I tell people is the biggest reason is I'm really tired of seeing candidates that I thought were going to be the answer, and they never are. And so I just want to be that candidate that I know that I can be and that I want to be. I'm a self employed landscaper. Have been for 20 years, and so I just, I'm a do it yourselfer. So sometimes you just got to do it yourself to get it done. And I'm also — I believe the two party system is broken, and so that is the No. 1 point that I'm probably going to mention a couple times, is that it's broken. And I feel sometimes like a political first responder. I just need to go in and — because I'm not in a party. I don't even say that I'm an independent. I say that I'm unenrolled because I think that the independent term has been associated with Democrats thanks to Bernie and Angus. So I say that I'm unenrolled because I'm more of a constitutional conservative. And then also I enjoy it. This is the last point, I do enjoy — although the last few days have not been as enjoyable, and I understand why now they call it running, because I have just been running around. And so anyway, that's it in a nutshell.
All right, well, I'll ask you then a follow-up question. You mentioned Angus King and Bernie Sanders who, as you said, both caucus with Democrats. Who would you caucus with? Democrats or Republicans?
That's a tough one. I don't like either party, I really don't, so if it's up to me, I'll just get my signatures on my own. I did it before. I'll do it again. I don't mind that part too much. If I had to go with a party, it would probably be a Libertarian Party. But from what I've learned, they are actually still just another party. And I like the freedom of — although this enrages both sides — I found that I like the flexibility and the freedom of being able to think for myself, make my own decisions and and speak freely and not worry about somebody who's looking over my shoulder. And, you know, both parties are not representing the people. They really are not, and most people know that, and we're voting for the lesser of two evils most of the time. And that is why I think we're broken, and where I think we're broken. That's a problem. If you're still voting for evil, you're still voting for something that you don't like, whether it's to block the other party or, you know, that kind of thing.
If elected to Congress, what would be the first piece of legislation you'd introduce?
Ooh, that's a tough one. I think, probably, I would try to go for term limits. I think we need term limits in Congress. I think it's just gotten so bad down there, it's become like a geriatric society. They just stay there. They never leave. And the incumbents, especially now, with early voting and all this stuff, the incumbents always get an upper edge now, and it's enormously frustrating right now. With all these absentee ballots, everyone's voting early. The window for an incumbent or a challenger is getting so hard. But the other thing I would do is, I believe the debt is the hugest thing, really. And you know, both parties spending us into debt like crazy. And you know, we're gonna have to pay that someday. We're gonna have to pay for that. And that is the hugest problem. I don't know what kind of legislation you can do to stop that, not immediately, but you gotta just stop spending, because every time they overspend they have to print money, and then that devalues the dollar, and that causes inflation. And inflation is a tax on everyone. And that is the biggest thing. It's just a nightmare scenario. It has to stop. We're going to be $35 trillion in debt? When is the end of that? I don't know. If you lined up flatbed trucks with a billion dollars on each one. It's 35,000 of those trucks, and it reaches from Maine to Georgia. And that is a way of saying it so that people understand how serious our national debt is.
If you want to cut spending, where do we cut? If you're in Congress, where do you start?
The military is the No. 1 biggest thing that you can just do better. And then people say, 'Well, oh, but this is the wrong time,' to cut, because of wars and stuff. That's the other thing. We have never-ending wars. Stop the never-ending wars. Get diplomacy back in order and stop the Abrahamic wars overseas that are just dragging us into — and maybe, who knows lately, we might be seeing World War III. I don't know. But the military, we have 800 bases around the world, give or take. It's like an anchor weighing us down. We can do better without — we need a military. We do have to protect ourselves. That's what it was originally designed for. It was never meant to be going around, you know, and pushing — the Monroe Doctrine has long since gone, we're not the police. We don't need to be the policemen of the world. In fact, a lot of times we're destabilizing countries. And you know, I love our people in in the military, and people who serve, but I think we could do better there. And also probably our just overblown government in general is just so huge. It's like it just keeps growing, and it has no brakes, it can't stop. And that is something that's really — I mean, I don't think people understand how big our government has gotten. And I think that the other thing that goes in with that is the corruption — on my little flyer that I hand out to people, the corruption of our federal agencies, like the CDC, with regard to COVID, which, the lockdowns and all that, just restrictions I thought were wrong. A lot of us, so-called conspiracy theorists turned out to be right on a lot of things. But the the other thing is, like the EPA on the East Palestine train wreck, and this other thing that got no coverage down in Atlanta. I mean, what is going? ... There was a chemical fire that got no coverage in the mainstream media this ... so by the way, the media, too, is part of the problem. Not you guys so much, because I like what you do, but I mean, I think the people are frustrated in America. That's why I say I'm a political first responder. I'm going in to kind of shake things up. But you know, I'm not a [rabble] rouser and just like a demagogue. And by the way, both parties are demagoguing all the time, almost constantly. But I'm not a demagogue. I have a good business background. I've been a landscaper for 20 years. My father was a businessman down here, started roof truss company down in Saco-Biddeford area back in the '60s. I come from a long line of federal judges. I'm a very fair person, and my family on my mother's side was in banking, so I realize how weird things have gotten with the Federal Reserve.
I understand that you deeply and passionately want to change things, but if you're elected to Congress, you're one of 435 members. How do you change something when you would be representing, you know, less than half of 1% of the people serving.
Well because — so basically you're going down there to represent Maine, and that's the one thing that I care the most about, is the Maine people. Both of the other candidates are not really from this area, and I am. I was born and raised in Portland, and I grew up here in all the — basically in Cumberland County, York County. And I, the Maine people — I love this state so much. And, darn it, NPR always makes me cry. Always makes me cry. Sorry. I love this state so much, and the people, and that's — I'm sorry, hold on, darn it, I always get upset on your show. Why is that? Anyway, the people of Maine I love, and that's who I'm representing, and that's what I'm going there for, and I will always look out for them the most. That's the key. That's a priority. Making life better for them, bringing down inflation, if possible, and, you know, not being afraid of industry. I come from a background of industry, with my father's business. And making life more affordable here.
In the time that's left, let's address some of these hot-button issues. And we'll start with inflation. How can Congress, in your view, bring down inflation?
The first thing is — and by the way, all of their things don't work. The Inflation Reduction Act didn't really do anything. It made it worse. The only thing you can really do is stop spending so much. And we're giving out money to immigrants like I've never seen before, and I just think that's — we're handing out money like candy to everybody and to everything. And it's just — so I don't know how much time we have left, because it's a little story I want to say.
We don't have much. So I'm wondering about Ukraine. Do you support the U.S. supporting Ukraine?
No, I don't. And I'll get to that in just a second. I want to tell you this quick story about Daniel Boone. This is only about 30 seconds. So he was down there in Washington, and there was a fire, and they gave out money to the fire victims in Washington. He went back to his constituents, and they said, 'I'm never going to vote for you again Daniel Boone. You gave out the federal money, the public's money, to people who ...' So who are we going to ... where does this end? When are we going to stop giving out the public funds to everything, to every ...
So does that mean that — we're talking about a big hurricane, Helene, that just hit Florida, another one coming. Should FEMA not be giving aid to those people who are victims of the hurricane?
No, we should be. Well, FEMA — so this is a big issue, FEMA. Why do we give billions to Ukraine? You mentioned $20 ... no, it's more than that. It's like $100 billion, whatever, I lost the figure of that. But then we don't have enough money for people here. This is what I'm talking about. We gotta start taking care of people here before we continue these never-ending wars, the military industrial complex. And so, you know ... and let me just finish with ... the people of this country need to remember something. That whoever it was, Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson, said 'The public liberty is like a precious jewel that should be protected with jealous attention.' And the two-party system is so broken that that precious jewel has been taken from us, and now they, the two-party corporate system, are protecting that precious jewel with jealous attention, and they have taken it from us. You ... we aren't represented anymore by our two-party system. It is broken. They are overspending both sides. They are lying to us, and they are tricking us into believing that we are represented when we are not. We have never-ending wars. We can do better. We can take care of the people of this state and the people of this country without all of this madness that's coming from our big, overblown government. And I just had to get that in there, because this is something that's key for my campaign, is being a constitutional conservative. We have to get back to basics, to the Constitution. And speaking of that, I believe in a woman's right to choose, although, in fact, I would almost be so passionate to make it a another amendment to the Constitution. But if you really want to fight for the unborn babies, you should — I don't like abortion — you should continue to fight and maybe even change the definition of murder if you're that passionate about it. So this is what I'm about. And for people to say — one last thing — for people to say that I'm an unserious candidate, is really almost offensive. I have worked so hard, I have my big orange camper that's gone all around the 1st District campaigning, meeting people on the street, having people sign — and bringing two parties together — sign my camper to say what they want to say, however they're feeling that day, how they feel about politics. This is a race. This is why I say I'm running. It really is a running race. The other side is nervous. They are very afraid, I think. They're putting up extra signs where I was the only one with signs. So Democrats don't like independents, but we do have a chance, because I am serious, and Republicans are nervous because they know, with an R after their name, they are not going to make it, and they're not going to win in this in this district. So I am a threat to both sides, and they're trying, the Republicans are trying to take me down by overdoing ... it's a sign war down here right now. Unfortunately, it's come to that.
