- [Announcer] Funding for Election 2024 coverage is provided in part by AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership association, 83,000 strong in North Dakota.

Find information on how to make your voice heard in the 2024 election at aarp.org/ndvotes.

And by the members of Prairie Public.

(patriotic music) - Hello.

I'm Matt Olien.

Welcome to Prairie Public and AARP North Dakota's coverage of Election 2024.

Tonight, the debate for Minnesota's 7th District Congressional seat.

My guests are Republican representative Michelle Fischbach and Democratic nominee A.J.

Peters.

Each candidate will be afforded a one-minute opening and one-minute closing statement.

In between, they will debate and discuss topics and questions selected by myself, Prairie Public News Director Dave Thompson, as well as our partners at AARP.

Based on a coin flip, A.J.

Peters goes first on opening statements.

- Thank you.

Good evening.

I'd like to say thank you to AARP and Prairie Public and all the PBS stations carrying this tonight.

I'm A.J., sometimes called John Peters, and I'm running for Congress because I believe in communities deserve leadership that listens, learns, and fights for everyone, not just the powerful few.

I've spent my life as a teacher, a coach, a small businessman, and a community advocate.

I've seen firsthand the challenges that we, our families face from affordable healthcare to rural hospital truck closures to the struggles of farmers fighting for their right to repair.

My opponent has spent her time in Washington serving the interest of corporations, not in people of Minnesota.

In fact, I believe she just voted against funding for FEMA for the people in Asheville and in Florida on there.

My sister-in-law happened to have been near Asheville when this all happened.

She managed to get out of there before the problems.

And I also have nieces and nephews in Fort Myers Beach and in Tampa, St. Pete, which is right in the path of the category five hurricane.

So I really want to let people know-- - That's one minute.

You can come back to that later.

One-minute opening statement, Representative Fischbach.

- Well, thank you and thank you to Prairie Public and AARP for sponsoring the forum tonight.

And thank you to everyone for tuning in.

Just a bit about myself.

I've been married to my husband, Scott, for 37 years.

We have two grown children and seven grandchildren and in Congress I currently sit on the Ways and Means Committee, the Trade Subcommittee, Rules Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Ethics Committee.

And I've been honored to serve the people of the 7th District for the last four years.

I've enjoyed and appreciated all of the visits and conversations I've had with people across the district.

I've visited farms, nursing homes, schools, manufacturers, hospitals, and so many others across every corner of the district.

I've even had the chance to visit the world's largest sugar beet in Halstad, the Fagen Fighters Museum in Granite Falls, Big Ole in Alexandria, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder site in Walnut Grove, just to name a few.

- Yep.

- Thank you so much.

Looking forward to it.

- Okay.

We have a lot of issues to get to.

Let's start with farming, a big issue in the 7th District.

How do each of you stand on continuing farm subsidies?

How crucial is farming in the sugar industry in the 7th?

And what do you want to see in the next farm bill?

And Representative Fischbach, you'll start us off on this one.

- You know what, I'll start out by saying thank you for asking about it because you know, we have been working on the Farm Bill along with Chairman GT Thompson from Pennsylvania's Chair of the House Ag Committee.

He's been traveling the country for a year to talk to farmers, to do listening sessions to make sure that we are putting together a farm bill that works for farmers.

And I have been happy to be side by side with him.

As a matter of fact, he was down at Farmfest in 2023 with a listening session and I think that's an important part of putting the farm bill together.

I feel very strongly that we've put together a good farm bill and it actually passed out of the House Agriculture Committee on a bipartisan vote.

I have two bills included in the Farm Bill.

I've got one that deals with, it helps strengthen crop insurance.

And I've got another that would actually change some regulations in order to bring more capital to rural areas for bigger projects.

And so I'm very happy with the farm bill.

I think that it does what it needs to do.

I think that we absolutely have to protect that sugar program and it does in this bill.

And so I will continue to work to make sure that we have that strong farm bill and get it across the finish line.

And if I can say one more thing, what we need to do is have the seven Democrats get a farm bill introduced and get to the table to negotiate this so we can pass it during lame duck.

- Okay.

A.J.

Peters, response.

- Well, yeah, the Representative Fischbach and the GOP-led House has not even voted on the floor for their farm bill.

And they're blaming all of the Democrats for the problems that they're seeing after they've put in two or three different things that they know are a non-starter.

I'll take a page from Collin Peterson's playbook focusing on bipartisan issues.

There are some things in there that the Democrats absolutely need.

They need the stamp program so we can feed kids and we need to make sure that the nutrition problems are fixed.

Also, the fact that the farm bill has, I believe it's called base acre inequalities for the pay on there where it helps the southern farmers much more than it does in Minnesota.

I believe that peanuts roughly get roughly 37 times more than corn does on that.

And we need to make sure that we do have this.

We agree that we need better farm insurance.

We agree that our things, disaster insurance and we need to make sure that the subsidies are there for all of our farmers, the small and large.

- Representative Fischbach, do you want to respond again?

- You know, I would just like to say that the SNAP program is included in the farm bill.

What we've done in the farm bill is put in some reforms and one of those reforms is so that increases in the program, now, not cost of living, not inflationary, but actual increases in the program would have to come through Congress, which makes perfect sense to me because we should be looking at those things.

We represent the people.

We should be voting on whether or not we spend more money.

And so that, but it is contained in this bill.

And like I said before, this was a bipartisan bill.

This came out of the House committees, the House Agriculture Committee on a bipartisan vote.

The Senate Democrats have not even introduced a farm bill.

- Okay.

Last word on this, A.J.

Peters, then we'll move on.

- Well, I'd just like to say that staff is very important.

We need to also negotiate the southern versus the northern crop insurance.

I meant top acreage pays on there and we need to make sure that we have the subsidies for the farmers and the emergency, given all the things that have been happening over the last few years.

- Okay.

Let's move on to another topic that affects farmers and that's tariffs.

Certainly talk of this if Donald Trump wins the election.

Some would argue the tariffs imposed under his previous administration did hurt American farmers and businesses.

I want to hear your thoughts on tariffs and also how best to deal with China on these trade matters that affect Minnesota.

A.J.

Peters, you start off on this one.

- Well, we need to make sure that when we do trade deals with China, that they are working for the American farmers.

We as Democrats have failed on that in the last few times, going along with the Republican view of doing the big businesses and forming it out to other countries.

Now, when it comes to tariffs, I believe that we lost a large percentage of our crops to Brazil when the system did not work for us, when the tariffs, they did negative things, they took stuff away.

We've lost a lot of crops to Brazil.

And also when it comes to tariffs, 200% on cars, maybe, maybe not, but if we look at 20 to 60% for the other things, it's gonna raise the cost, it's gonna raise inflation, and it's gonna hurt not only the farmers, but almost every person in the United States.

- Representative Fischbach, response?

- You know, thank you.

And I just wanted to point out that, you know, China is not our friend and one of the things that we need to be doing, and I sit on the Trade Subcommittee and what we really need to be doing is looking for new markets, opening new markets, and making sure that we have alternatives and where to sell our products.

So that's one thing that we absolutely need to be doing as we deal with China.

We also need to make sure that we are able to produce and our products are here through incentives and also reducing burdensome regulations that make us uncompetitive.

So we need to do some things here to make sure that we are dealing with issues with China and bringing more things back onto our soil.

But I'm not opposed to putting tariffs on China, but we need to be very, very careful.

When we look at those, we need to make sure the effects aren't going to hurt our farmers because I think what Trump was trying to do with those tariffs is really, he was trying to spur the US economy and bring things back here because he also paired them with the 2017 tax cuts.

And so I think that we obviously need to be very careful with China and very careful when we are looking at tariffs in order not to hurt our farmers.

- A.J.

Peters, do you want to respond?

- Well, when we start looking at our trade deals, we need to go to Indonesia.

We need to make sure we go to the central American states.

I agree with you on that.

Things we need to broaden our exports and our imports, to be completely honest.

One of the things that caused a lot of problems was the fact that we had shipping containers not coming to this country and not opening them because we had the supply chain that was broken.

This caused a lot of the inflation that we're looking at today.

And we need to make sure that all of this gets done in a way that does not hurt us.

And I don't believe until we have the infrastructure for building this stuff, that the tariffs will do nothing but hurt us.

- Okay.

Last word on this one, Representative Fischbach.

- You know, and I'll say on the Trade Subcommittee, we are working on opening other markets.

We've taken trips to Central America in order to create those relationships.

One of the downfalls is that the Biden administration has not done what it needs to do on trade.

And so we've taken that upon ourselves to try to open up those markets 'cause it's so important that we make sure we are doing those things.

- All right, let's move to immigration.

With the controversies surrounding immigration in rural communities like Springfield, Ohio, how do each of you address the concerns over xenophobia along with the need for workers, especially in Minnesota, with also the concerns over strained resources in communities caused by immigration?

Representative Fischbach, you'll start on this one.

- You know, one of the things that I'd just like to make sure that we understand that difference between is we have immigration and then we have illegal immigration.

And you know, the Biden-Harris administration had the opportunity to stop illegal immigration, but they chose to leave the border open.

And what I hear from constituents is a concern over the spending on illegal immigrants and insecurity.

And I think what the concern was is in Springfield, it may very well have been is that they are just overwhelmed with the influx of individuals and they can't afford it and they don't know how to deal with it and they're very frustrated with it.

And I think that's what is happening in Springfield.

But you know, and I just want to mention that not that long ago, the Judiciary Committee, one of the subcommittees of the House Judiciary Committee, held a hearing in Grand Forks and we were talking about the northern border too.

So if we're talking about immigration and particularly illegal immigration, we need to talk about the northern and the southern border because there are issues.

At that hearing, we heard from law enforcement and other members of the community that there are concerns there.

But I will say I do support visa reform, particularly the H-2A.

I've got legislation introduced to help reform that.

Under the visa program, these are folks who want to come here and work.

And in the 7th District, so many of them are employed, but in the agricultural industry.

And what we need to do is reform those visas so that they can be more useful and they can actually serve, fit the employer better.

- A.J.

Peters, response?

- Okay.

Immigration is about people in distress seeking a better life.

It is also about the survival of our communities.

Without immigrants, Long Prairie would be forced to shut down two meat plants, a pasta plant, a liquid egg plant, and many of our dairies.

My wife, who is a registered nurse, often must do nursing assistant jobs because they do not have enough workers to do this.

We can address this by safely and efficiently processing immigrants on the border, yet you, Representative Fischbach, voted against bipartisan bill that provided more border agents and processing staff to handle this secure and humane way.

We need real solutions and we also need to make sure, by the way, the reason they voted against it was because it claimed aid to Ukraine.

And I personally feel that working with Ukraine is better than working with a known murderer and dictator.

- Representative Fischbach, response?

- I guess I just am wondering if he's talking about the fake Senate border bill that they had because we never voted on it in the House.

It was never voted on the floor.

So I never voted on the Senate fake border bill.

- I misspoke.

Sorry.

- Okay.

So, but that did contain over 70% of the money, 70% of the $118 million, or excuse me, billion dollars went to overseas aid.

It wasn't a real border bill.

Actually I'll talk about H.R.2, which was the bill that the Republican House passed, would've really strengthened the issues at the border.

It provided more money for more agents.

It provided for the technology that they needed.

It closed down the border.

And I think that that bill, the Senate never took it up.

They never bothered to take it up, even though that was a stronger bill and passed the House long before the Senate fake border bill.

But I also would like to add, that is why when we're talking about immigration, that is why very clearly when I started my answer, I said we need to distinguish between legal immigration and illegal immigration.

And I think we are being overwhelmed with the illegal immigration.

- Okay, last word on this topic, A.J.

Peters.

- Well, I would just like to address a few lies I've heard, not necessarily from you, Representative Fischbach, about one, the drugs are coming across the border through the illegal immigrants or through the non-documented immigrants.

That's a lie.

90% of the drugs come from US citizens in their trucks and in the cargo containers.

The second thing I've heard is that guns are coming across the border.

That's completely opposite because we make the guns.

We send them to Mexico.

They're not coming there.

The cartel's no better than to use an unprofessional mule to move their drugs into the United States.

So I'm gonna call that those are our lies that we need to address as we are looking at these bills.

- All right.

Let's move to the economy and inflation, one of the key issues in the presidential race and nationally.

Some would argue excessive government spending has led to inflation problems, but yet Minnesota, of course, is a key beneficiary of government spending, as well as many states are.

How do you reconcile these two issues and how, as Congressman and Congresswoman, would each of you work to get inflation under control?

A.J.

Peters, you start this time.

- Okay.

Inflation has hurt all of us.

Two years ago, I paid $6 for a dozen eggs.

Two days ago, I went to Coborn's and spent $2 for those eggs.

Two years ago, I spent $4.50 for gas.

Yesterday I spent $2.94 for gas.

And that, by the way, it went up 25 cents today, I believe, because of the Israel, Iran work in here.

But we'll never go back to pre-COVID prices.

But we have successfully slowed it down.

While inflation is improving, Republicans are imposing tariffs that will raise our inflations in there.

It'll send them skyrocketing.

We cannot burden our family with higher cost.

I believe that the infrastructure bill actually helped reduce inflation in this country because it's given us the jobs.

The lower income people have been able to buy more.

Now, it's really quite simple.

Lower income people spend more money, higher income people save more money.

Now, one of the things that we need to do is get more infrastructure act like we did before, which Representative Fischbach voted against.

Plus the fact that we just look in the 1950, Eisenhower created the interstates.

The interstate brought prosperity and economic boon to our country.

We need to do the same thing with internet and all the other items that we need to work with to get things done in this country and to make things sure things are affordable because we have a good supply chain.

- Representative Fischbach, response?

- Thank you very much.

And out of control government spending has led to out of control inflation.

You know, Vice President Harris bragged that inflation was down to 3% and let's remember that it was 1.4% when Trump left office.

The Biden-Harris administration has failed on every measure in helping the economy.

You know, families are struggling.

Grocery costs are up.

Kids just went back to school last month and families had to buy new clothes and school supplies.

And according to USA Today, this year a family is spending 200 more dollars, or excuse me, than in 2019 for back to school supplies.

You know, we need to get a handle on spending.

Obviously there's a $35 billion or trillion dollar, excuse me, debt that we're facing.

And you know, as I sit on the Budget Committee, we are trying to grapple with those issues and we actually put together a resolution that would've balanced the budget in 10 years to show people how we can do it and how we can make sure that we are getting that government spending under control.

And you know, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 did nothing to curb inflation for families and for individuals, but it spent billions of dollars on Green New Deal programs.

You know, what we really do, what we need to do is we need to do the hard work.

We need to cut spending, we need to look at programs, examine programs, look at the result we're getting from those programs.

Is there a private market alternative that we can use?

It's a big job and we have to get serious about cutting and never forget that government is spending taxpayer dollars.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Well, just the fact that Trump, when Trump left office, inflation was down because nobody was buying anything because we had to stay home.

And that was because of the failures of the Trump administrations to handle the COVID epidemic, which kind of got in control.

COVID changed our supply chain.

COVID worked against the nation's interest on there.

We needed to work on our supply chain.

A lot of our problems found out when we were doing just in time shipping from China on there, that it was causing us major problems, raising the prices of everything on there.

By the way, Ronald Reagan happened to say that the national debt has nothing to do with our economy on there, but also the fact that as we are working in here, we need to make sure that we get goods to people, that we handle the supply and demand part of the things, which is the key to capitalism.

Thank you.

- Last word on this, Representative Fischbach.

- You know, I would just say I wanted to add that, you know, we also need to be looking at those 2017 tax cuts because those really did help grow the economy and so they expire next year.

And so we are looking at those and we need to make sure that we keep those in place to keep people's taxes in place and not increase.

- All right, our next question comes from our co-sponsor, AARP.

The Social Security Trust Fund is expected to see a shortfall in 10 years.

If Congress doesn't act, millions of Americans who are counting on social security will see cuts to the money they've earned.

Do you see a path for Congress to work on a bipartisan solution to protect social security for those who have earned it?

Representative Fischbach, you start this time.

- You know, protecting the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund is absolutely critical.

And it is another thing that we are looking at in the Budget Committee.

I have been in many meetings where we're examining the entire program and looking at the solutions and how we can effectively make changes if we need to while protecting those people who are receiving social security.

You know, and many Republicans have stated over and over that they want to protect social security, but the Democrats still try to use the scare tactic in telling people that their benefits will be cut.

And that's just not accurate or helpful.

We need the Democrats to come to the table.

What we really need to do is have them come to the table and actually have a conversation in good faith instead of the scare tactics and have honest conversations about making changes if we need to to preserve and strengthen the program.

We cannot or will not make cuts to current recipients.

We all know that people are depending on the funds and they have paid in and we have to honor that commitment, but we also need to get everyone at the table.

If we are gonna do this, we need to get everyone at the table, including the Democrats, and talk about this in an honest way.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- I agree we need to talk about this in an honest way, but let's just take a look at it.

Social security is based on two different parts.

One is how much the employee pays and one is how much the employer pays.

90% of what the employee doesn't pay, let me restate that.

Employees only pay 10% of the possible income in this nation, leaving 90% of that being left alone.

And therefore we don't have the benefit of supplying social security to the people that need it.

I believe that we should cap the employer part, but not cap the employee parts, which should go on to the exam forever.

Just remove the cap.

We should not raise the age for social security because a lot of the people that depend upon this had jobs in which they have worked their lives.

Their knees are bad, their backs are bad.

They can no longer do these jobs.

So therefore we need to make sure that those people are protected as well as the people like me that sat on our rear end while we were working.

- Representative Fischbach, do you want to respond?

- I will just say I welcome the conversation because we do have to have an honest conversation and the Democrats need to come to the table and stop the scare tactics because we are not going to cut benefits to current recipients.

- A.J.

Peters, last word on this one.

- The key word there was current recipients on there.

We need to make sure that it is there for all the recipients for as long as we can go.

The numbers that I ran, if we do what I just proposed, it'll actually be fully funded into 2106.

- All right.

One more question from our partners at AARP.

48 million Americans help their loved ones each day to remain independent and in their homes and communities.

These family caregivers sacrifice time and money and provide $600 billion annually in unpaid support.

How would you help family caregivers?

A.J.

Peters, you start this time.

- Okay.

That is a tough one, I will admit on that.

Unpaid caregivers, what we need to do is one, if they want to stay at home, we need to make sure that we have supply people that will help the unpaid caregivers.

We need to give them tax breaks.

We need to work on there.

People need to get out of the home.

I know that because what has happened in my family where my daughter-in-law had to stay with her mother and had to stay home, losing the income on there.

We also need to make sure that we have safe places for our seniors to move if they need daily care where the caregivers can visit and we need to work where the caregiver can supply help where needed.

But we need to make sure that we have a safe place to live that people can afford without giving up their houses.

- Representative Fischbach, response.

- Thank you.

You know, family caregivers work so hard to provide care for their loved ones and increasing support for the caregivers and making sure that we have elder care and resources available in rural Minnesota is a priority of mine.

The longer we keep seniors in their home, it's better for them and it saves money.

You know, one possible way to recognize and understand the work that those family members are doing is tax credits, but also making sure that we have respite care and the kind of support that they need in all areas, including rural areas, but making sure that we have nursing homes and assisted living nearby so when someone does need to go into that kind of care, they can stay close to their family and friends and their home.

You know, it is important and very recently and a difficult issue that we had to face was the Biden administration and the nursing home staffing mandates.

You know, I've been working to make sure that we stop the mandates in DC and as a matter of fact, I even reached out to the department and tried to get them to sit down with stakeholders, particularly rural nursing homes, before they issued the new regulations.

And they wouldn't even do that.

And we just don't need this regulation from DC, people who don't understand what the real issue is, that we're facing workforce shortages and imposing these mandates on these nursing homes.

We've already lost one nursing home in the district and 30 people had to find new homes.

30 families had to find new homes for the elderly.

And so we need to make sure that we are making sure that those are available too.

And stopping the overregulation from DC would do that.

I have legislation that would correct it and I understand there's also a lawsuit, but we have to make sure that we have the continuum of care and those home caregivers, those family caregivers are very important to that.

And if we can look at things like tax credits, that would be wonderful.

- A.J.

Peters, do you want to have one more response?

- My wife is a nurse manager at a nursing home on there.

And what the thing is, if we stop the mandates, that means there's going to be less care and fewer people helping the senior citizens on there.

We need to make sure that we have enough workers, which we don't, to do all of this work on there.

The first person that dies because of maltreatment will fall on the face of the people that want to get rid of mandates on there.

We need to make sure that we have enough people that are staffed, that they're paid well enough, and that we fund the nursing homes so they can do what is needed.

- Last word on this, Representative Fischbach.

- Well, I think one of the important parts is, is you know, we've seen studies that necessarily those mandates aren't going to point to better care and that we need to make sure that our nursing homes are available in rural areas.

And like I said, we've already lost one and I want to make sure that we do have those nursing homes available to our family members when we get to that point.

- All right.

Let's move to foreign policy.

What are each of your views on and ways forward on Russia-Ukraine, and also the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza?

So, big question.

Couple different things going on in the world right now and Representative Fischbach, you'll start us off on this one.

- Well, thank you very much and you know, the Ukraine and Israel wars are really a result of the Biden-Harris administration's weakness on foreign policy and their total failure in their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

We also need to take a look at China continues to ratchet up aggression in the Indo-Pacific against both the Philippines and Taiwan.

You know, as we look at Israel, it was just a year ago now that they were attacked by terrorists.

Families, men, women, children were brutally murdered and they still actually have hostages and some of them American.

Israel needs to be allowed to defend themselves.

They should be able to defend themselves.

And Israel is our ally in the Middle East and these terrorists are not gonna stop there.

If you recall, they are a chance of death to America.

We have provided 14 billion that was done in April and the Department of Defense has done an additional, they've allocated an additional 8 billion.

You know, and just as a side note, the rise of antisemitism is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable.

And these so-called protests, particularly at college campuses, should not be tolerated.

They Jewish students are frightened for their lives and we need to do everything that we can to support Israel and support the Jewish people.

You know, in Ukraine, they have already received $175 billion.

And the thing is there is we don't know where it's went.

The Department of Defense has admitted they don't know where that $175 billion has gone.

And we need to get an accounting of where it's gone and where it is before we send more.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Okay.

Israel does have the right to defend itself.

We agree with that.

But we need to make sure that the people of Gaza get humanitarian aid.

The people of Israel need to be protected.

The people of Gaza need that.

There are bad people on both sides of this fight on there.

It's simple.

The fact that Iran's getting into this, we need to have a two-state solution that Iran agrees to and Israel agrees to, Hezbollah agrees to and Hamas agrees to on there.

Now, as far as weakness on the Biden-Harris, I believe it shows strength that we protect our friends rather than giving aid to our enemies on there.

Where money goes in a war, we've never known that in any war.

We don't know exactly because things are chaotic in war.

That's what we need to worry about.

We do not want Russia taking first Ukraine, then taking Poland, then taking Yugoslavia, I don't know if it's Yugoslavia anymore, then taking Finland and Sweden.

We do not need to do that.

Showing strength shows that we are on there.

And by the way, President Trump released the Afghan guys, the Taliban that became the head of the government there and caused that type of problem.

So the problem is not just one-sided there.

It's two-sided.

Both sides of us screwed up in Afghanistan.

- Representative Fischbach, response.

- I will just sum up by saying we need to make sure that we are strong on the international front.

And I think that the Biden-Harris administration has shown weakness and that is why we are where we are.

- And last word, A.J.

Peters.

- Well, we're gonna disagree on whether we've shown weakness in there.

I do believe that the way Israel worked in Gaza, we are now creating more terrorists than they had before because when you kill your father, when you kill your brothers, you kill your sisters, you hate people.

Unmitigated attacks do cause hate.

We need to get rid of Hamas, we need to get rid of Hezbollah, but I think they went about it the wrong way.

- All right.

Let's move to education.

Question about Minnesota's public schools.

Teachers are leaving, retiring, quitting the profession.

Some buildings are aging.

Funding is always an issue.

What are each of your views and solutions on funding for public schools and retaining teachers?

A.J.

Peters, you start off on this one.

- Well, we're having a big hullabaloo in Long Prairie with the superintendent and the school board.

I'm not gonna get into that, but what one of the things is, yes, we do not have enough funding for our schools on there.

The state has still not fully paid back the funding that they borrowed from the schools during the Pawlenty administration and that hurts.

Plus the fact ever since we have gone to this, we can't have the government giving money.

We need to give money with no strings to let the school boards, to let the teachers, to let the professionals work to do all this type of stuff in here, especially needed here in rural Minnesota.

I know the Edina is a great school, but here in Long Prairie, which is 60% Hispanic in the schools, they are ranked fourth in their school sizes on there for outcomes in there.

And that's the type of things, when the teachers and the staff and the school board work together, we can make sure that the schools are well-funded and we can make sure that we have positive outcomes.

- Representative Fischbach, response.

- Teachers and educators are important to our communities.

And you know, I do believe that the Minnesota legislature did do a large increase in education funding last year, but I'm leery of regulating education at a federal level.

You know, as we've talked, it's about state funding.

We have elected local school boards and elected by their community school boards should not be told by the federal government, by unelected bureaucrats in DC what they should be doing.

And the federal mandates on education, particularly the unfunded mandates, need to be stopped.

And we need to make sure that we're handling education at the state and local level where it belongs.

Those folks are close to what the needs and the resources are and they will be able to determine how to best educate the children in their area.

- A.J.

Peters, do you want another response on this?

- Well, the only thing is I do believe the federal government can give money to the states and can give money to the schools and have local representation without too many strings on it.

We just need to have the will to do that, and that's how we make sure that we get the school systems working correctly.

- And final word on this, Representative Fischbach.

- Well, and that's a possibility to consider block grants to states regarding, you know, for education.

But I am really very concerned about the overregulation and the mandates and those kinds of things coming down from federal level, from unelected DC bureaucrats to school boards that are elected by their communities to represent them.

- All right.

I want to get to a topic that was mentioned in opening statements, and that's kind of a political football going on in the nation right now, and that's FEMA funding with the hurricane and now another hurricane coming toward Florida with Hurricane Milton.

So I guess my question is, Representative Fischbach, do you want to respond to what Mr. Peters said about FEMA voting and funding and things like that?

And also kind of the follow-up is how do you see the government role in responding to crisises like this?

Representative Fischbach, you go first.

- You know, the FEMA vote was mentioned and actually to be more accurate and to actually tell the entire story instead of picking out that one thing, this was on the continuing resolution vote that we took just before we left for October.

So it was part of the continuing resolution.

That bill also had 231 million, as I recall, for the Secret Service.

And I was concerned about that because you know what?

The Secret Service was just given that money, was being given that additional money, and the investigation into the assassination attempts hasn't even been finished.

We don't know what's really going on, but we're handing them money.

In addition to that, it didn't have the SAVE Act, which would've required actual, you know, and particularly important in Minnesota, it would've required actual proof of citizenship in order to vote, which only makes sense because we all say that only citizens can vote.

So why are we not in some cases asking for the proof?

So, you know, that, but I do think that the Biden-Harris administration needs to step up and make sure that those folks are getting the kind of help that they need because we've all seen the pictures of the devastation in these days and weeks afterwards, struggling to even get water.

They don't have electricity in many cases.

And I know that there are a lot of, and I'd like to thank them, private organizations and individuals who are there on the ground helping, but we need to make sure that FEMA steps up, that the Biden-Harris administration steps up and does what they need to do.

You know, we had a disaster of our own.

We had flooding in Southern Minnesota and we were able to work with FEMA and get centers set up for people to get, obviously a smaller scale, but set up those centers and make sure that people had the connections and got the help they needed.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Yeah.

Well, just today, Speaker Johnson decided not to bring Congress back to vote on continuing aid for FEMA, which is bad on there.

And as far as the SAFE Act is concerned, the SAFE Act, if I were not registered to vote, I would have trouble based on that act right now because my birth certificate says I'm Alvin John Peters, Jr. My driver's license says I'm Alvin John Peters and I have my social security that says Alvin J. Peters.

None of those work together and it would take me months to do this.

Imagine the fact that also women that have been married don't have their birth certificate.

Their name changed.

Then they get divorced, their name changed and get remarried.

The name changed again.

I've been told by constituent that it took her three months to get her driver's license with the new ID on there for that.

It's just getting rid of voters.

We have no voting problems in Minnesota.

None of the lawsuits that happened found that anything was wrong.

Basically, when we have Republican judges talking to Republican people, we have not had a problem in the elections.

We know our elections are safe and the people that I know will not let anybody vote twice.

They will let them do a regular, what's the name of the word for the, submit a ballot, but not be counted until you're proven.

So that's the way it is.

Thank you.

- Representative Fischbach, do you want to respond?

- I would just like to respond just briefly saying that there's never been a problem in Minnesota.

You know, I think very recently, and if I'm recalling correctly, very recently, we were seeing issues with the voter rolls and additional people being added to it.

So I will never say that the election process is perfect, but I think we need to strive to make it safe and do what we can to protect election integrity.

- A.J.

Peters, last word on this and FEMA and anything else.

- Well, the way everything has been stated to me, it looks like a poll tax.

- All right.

Let's move on to another topic.

Why is there such a huge difference between Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities and how will you represent the 7th District to make sure Greater Minnesota has that voice in Congress?

A.J.

Peters, you start this time.

- Well, first of all, I'm gonna blame my Democrats for ignoring rural places for a long time here that we took 'em for granted when they had the big area and then we didn't work hard to bring them back.

What we need to do is rural and urban people are alike on there.

They are alike.

They both have problems.

They both need work to get done.

They need to earn a living.

They need to take care of their kids.

They need to make sure that the kids get educated and they're safe and they're healthy.

We have not done a good job of that.

We need to work together to make sure that that gets done.

- Representative Fischbach, response?

- You know that that is one of the huge issues is the difference between the kinds of money and support that the Twin Cities gets and Greater Minnesota.

You know, one of the things is that I've been able to do in Congress is band together with other folks that have like districts.

So that's one of the things.

But I do think that we absolutely, one of the other things that I've been doing is talking about strong rural communities and making sure that we have all aspects, whether it be healthcare, education, the ag industry, but looking at those strong rural communities.

And when we look at legislation, making sure that rural areas are addressed in those.

If we are looking at a housing incentive or some kind of thing like that, making sure that the issues and the concerns that rural areas have are addressed so that we can qualify for those incentives and tax credits.

But making sure in every piece of legislation, that the concerns and issues that rural areas have are addressed in those pieces of legislation.

- A.J.

Peters, do you want to respond?

- I agree with 90% of that.

I just want to make one point.

As far as money is concerned, the rural people get more money back than they put in and the city people get less back than they put in.

But that's not the problem because we need more money out here because of the big area we have to cover.

But yes, we need to work for both strong rural communities.

- Representative Fischbach, last word on this.

- I just really strongly believe that those strong rural communities are what's gonna make sure that our area survives.

- Okay.

Let's move on to free speech and social media.

This is a big issue nationally, disinformation.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said he regrets censorship on his platform during COVID.

How do you balance the government's role, if any, in protecting us from what some call dangerous misinformation versus constitutionally protected free speech?

Representative Fischbach, you start us off on this one.

- The right to free speech is enshrined in the Bill of Rights and I believe it's part of the key to democracy.

The problem is, is that the other side wants to judge and determine what people are allowed to say.

They get to decide what disinformation is.

And I am suspect of someone who says whatever they want, but then will work to limit someone else's free speech.

Free speech needs to be protected and not set up so that we, it says one side gets to judge the other side.

We may not always agree, we may not always like what other people are saying, but they should be allowed to say it.

And it is not government's role to decide which speech they like or they don't like.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Well, I don't think it's up to the government to decide what they like and what they don't like.

But we have a big problem with AI right now.

I've seen pictures of people that are talking together when they've never been there.

I've actually seen live videos which appear to have Donald Trump say something or appears that Joe Biden says something that they never said on there.

That's a problem.

So we need to address the AI issue as we address all the other false information that I hear out there.

And I do think that whenever something is said on Facebook or Twitter and all the lies that are, TikTok is just a cesspool, by the way, as far as misinformation and health information, but we need to make sure that properly vetted information and the vetting comes across based on what we have seen that is misinformation.

- Representative Fischbach, response?

- Well, and I would agree that AI needs to be addressed.

That is something that we are discussing, but it's a rather large topic and a new topic and so we need to make sure that if we are going to take a look at how it's gonna be limited, how it's gonna be controlled or regulated, we need to take our time and make sure we do it correctly.

- A.J.

Peters, last word on this one.

- Well, having worked in AI for several years a little bit just on the fringes, it is a tough problem to solve.

We need to make sure that the people that make AI have all this stuff built in to say that it is AI, that we know that it's AI, and that means we have to work with the scientists that can create the programs that determines whether it's AI or not.

- All right.

I want to get to another key topic that's abortion.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it's essentially back in the hands of states and voters in states.

I know both of you share different views on this and I want to hear them.

So tell me, what state or federal guidelines would you both favor regarding this controversial issue?

A.J.

Peters, you start us off on this one.

- Well, I believe that abortion is a right for the mother and the doctor for all healthcare is decided on there.

We have found out that I believe both of us want to reduce abortions.

Making it illegal has not shown that abortions have been reduced.

What has shown to reduce the number of abortions is education of the parents and the teenagers, providing contraceptives when needed, and working together to handle the family when they're training to do all this type of stuff.

When Colorado did it, they reduced teen pregnancies by 40% and abortions by 35%.

I have not seen where Texas and Georgia have done that other than to put the mother's life at risk.

A miscarriage basically is a DNC thing to handle.

You do not know whether that is an abortion or a miscarriage.

It's putting the doctors at risk.

It's putting the mothers at risk at a time when they are having their hearts broken by losing their child.

- Representative Fischbach, response.

- Democrats have taken abortion to the extreme.

They allow for abortion in the ninth month at any time during the pregnancy.

No waiting period, no parental involvement.

And even in Minnesota last session, they changed the law in Minnesota to stop medical care for a baby who survived an abortion attempt.

You know, most Americans, according to polls, do support some kind of limitations on abortion.

I will say pro-lifers always have and always will be about helping women and their babies.

That's why I introduced the HOPE Act and the MOMS Act.

These bills will help with crisis pregnancy centers, provide resources for prenatal telehealth, and provide vital information and resources for mothers, and I will continue to reach out and to help protect mothers and their babies.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Well, I'd just like to address the fact about the Minnesota law and I cannot speak about any other states, but when they changed the wording of that, it is giving the parent and the doctor permission to not, it's just like when you unplug an adult from the respirator when they are not going to survive.

When you allow the baby to live for two weeks in continual pain, if they've been born without a skull, if they've been born with several other defects that are on there, we should be allowed to humanely treat that child and let them go in peace.

- Last word on this, Representative Fischbach.

- I believe a baby who survives an attempted abortion deserves medical care.

- All right.

Let's move to one more topic, affordable housing, which is such a key issue for so many Americans.

And what will you as representatives at the federal level, if anything can be done about this issue?

Representative Fischbach, you can start off on this one.

- And this is one of the things, housing is one of the things that, you know, as I travel the district and meet with folks, this is one of the things they talk about.

And we need to take a look at entry-level housing so that a working family can afford a home.

You know, there's been a lot of focus on low-income housing, which may have its place, but we need homes at a level where working families can afford them.

There's a lot of barriers, infrastructure costs to bring services like water and sewer to homes and the overregulation and the permitting process all add costs to those homes.

And many of our small towns have aging housing stocks, so they either need rehab or they need replacement.

Inflation and the economy have made it even more difficult, including higher interest rates on mortgages.

But as I mentioned before, as we do consider programs for housing and any programs, we must also address that we need housing in rural areas and making sure that those needs are addressed in the programs that we have.

You know, there is a housing tax credit that we are hoping to continue.

It was put in the 2017 tax cuts.

And so we're trying to make sure that that tax credit would continue to help.

The other thing is, is the bill that I have that is included in part of the farm bill to help bring more capital to rural areas for projects, that would be helpful.

But housing is, excuse me, housing is an ongoing issue and we need to continue to work for any kind of creative solution that we can come up with.

And I know that there are a lot of the smaller cities in the district, across the district that are doing very creative things in order to bring housing to their areas.

- A.J.

Peters, response.

- Well, housing is one of our most urgent issues right now, but the lack of an immigration bill is making it worse.

We had hail at my place.

I got $28,000 worth of insurance costs that I have to have to have my house, but we're having trouble getting enough workers and most of the workers that do roofing work are immigrants in here.

So we are slowing down construction, which makes it more expensive because when we start building a house, if it takes longer to get done because we have lack of workers, prices go up no matter what happens in there.

I also support the Harris plan, which communities build affordable homes and ensures local contractors get a fair shot.

Right now, unfortunately, the GOP supports policies that favor the large builders focused on expensive homes, leaving everyday people out.

We need to build more affordable housing that support the workers who make it possible and not just to cater to corporate interests.

- Representative Fischbach, response.

- Well, and I appreciate that, but I will say it is one of the issues that we're facing and we have to be creative in how we're going to address those.

And I will continue to work to make sure that 2017, excuse me, the 2017 tax cuts are continued so that we can continue to look at creating entry-level housing and workforce housing for people.

- Okay.

Last response, A.J.

Peters, 30 seconds response, then we get to closing statements.

- Well, really, I don't have any response to that.

We just basically agree that something needs to be done and we need to work together to make sure things get done the way they should be.

- All right.

We're out of time.

It's been a great hour of debate.

We need to move to closing statements.

Representative Fischbach, you'll go first on closing statements.

One minute.

- Well, thank you very much and thank you again to the sponsors and to everyone who tuned in tonight.

We've talked about a variety of issues tonight, but I do want to leave you with a few thoughts.

I'm working to keep more dollars in your pockets.

Government needs to get its spending under control and we always need to remember that government is spending taxpayer dollars.

It's important to get the economy back on track, on control.

And I continue to fight to secure the border and bring security back to our country, including making sure that our law enforcement officers have the respect they deserve and the equipment they need and making sure our farmers have the tools they need because food security is national security and they are the backbone of this country.

And I will continue to talk about and fight for strong rural communities to make sure that our communities can thrive and grow so our children and our grandchildren have a great place to live and to work.

And please get out and vote.

I ask for your vote and I ask the honor to serve the 7th District for another two years.

Thanks.

- And closing statement, one minute, A.J.

Peters.

- Thanks for everybody coming here.

Thank you, Representative Fischbach.

Thank you, sir.

And I believe we need a future that can thrive.

Now, one of the things that has been hit hard tonight is the taxes that are coming from that are due to expire next year.

I think they need to be changed.

I think we need to give more tax to people earning less than $4,000, more tax breaks, but people earning less than $400,000 and gradually increase the taxes as it goes higher.

We gotta make sure that we have enough IRS agents to make sure that the corporations and the billionaires are paying their fair share.

That's the only way we can reduce the debt.

Now, it's who we trust to stand up for us and I promise to stand up for the everyday working people, the union workers, the farmers, the laborers, all of these people, the families.

That's who I am.

And I would like to thank you again.

Thank you for this and I'm looking for your vote.

- And we are out of time.

My thanks again to my guests, Republican representative Michelle Fischbach and Democratic nominee A.J.

Peters.

We are out of time.

As they mentioned, election day is November 5th.

Early voting is underway, so get out and vote and thank you for tuning in to Prairie Public and AARP North Dakota's Coverage of Election 2024.

I'm Matt Olien.

Goodnight.

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