- [Announcer] Funding for Election 2022 coverage is provided in part by AARP, a non-profit, non-partisan membership association 83,000 strong in North Dakota.

Find information on how to make your voice heard in the 2022 election at aarp.org/ndvotes.

And by the members of Prairie Public.

(lively music) - Hi, I'm Matt Olien.

Welcome to Prairie Public and AARP North Dakota's coverage of Election 2022.

Tonight, the debate for North Dakota's loan congressional seat.

My guests tonight are Republican Congressman Kelly Armstrong and Independent challenger Cara Mund.

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

In between, they will discuss and debate topics selected by myself and by our co-sponsor, AARP.

Based on a coin flip, Cara Mund will go first on opening statement.

- Hi, North Dakotans, those watching at home and those streaming.

My name is Cara Mund, and I am an Independent candidate.

I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat.

I am a person, and I will always put the people of North Dakota over a party.

I was born and raised in North Dakota.

I went to Brown University, but as a teenager, I started a charity fashion show right here in the state of North Dakota that benefited children across the state through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

After graduating with honors from Brown, I then went on to become Miss North Dakota and made history as North Dakota's very first Miss America.

In that role, I served as a National Goodwill Ambassador to the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and supported our troops, both domestic and abroad.

And during a global pandemic, I went to Harvard Law School where I also graduated with honors and served as a teaching fellow and as a lawyer for those who needed it most, those with low income and those who could not afford it.

On Friday, I became a barred member in the North Dakota State Bar as I passed the bar with a s- - Okay, that's one minute, Cara Mund.

Kelly Armstrong, your one-minute opening statement.

- Hi, thanks for having me.

Thanks to AARP and Prairie Public.

I've been doing this job for four years now, and the greatest part of it is getting to travel around the state of North Dakota.

And one thing that always catches me is how proud people are of what we do here.

Proud of our towns, proud of our sports teams, proud of the food we produce, proud of the energy we produce.

And the thing is, it's not droughts, it's not blizzards, it's not floods, and it's not hail that are our biggest challenges.

Quite frankly, what most people call a climate catastrophe, North Dakotans call a Tuesday.

Our biggest challenge is what faces us in Washington, D.C. And in this time of more information at a touch of our fingertips than at any other time in history, the people who are making decisions that affect North Dakotans' everyday lives have no idea how the wheat that produces their bread is grown, or how a cattle rancher makes a living, or how the electricity that turns on the light switch is actually generated, or how the oil that is used to make the gasoline that they put in their cars is produced.

So every day I continue to fight for North Dakota, continue to fight for the farmers, ranchers, energy producers, big town, small, and all.

- Okay, that's one minute.

Let's get right to it.

Let's start with the Supreme Court decision, the Dobbs decision that reversed Roe v. Wade, essentially sent the issue back to the states.

North Dakota has a trigger law, as we all know, that will set to, when it goes into effect, would essentially ban most abortions in the state.

But that's been stymied by the courts.

Cara Mund, you've said this is exactly the reason you got into this race, so let's start.

Kelly Armstrong, you'll go first on this topic.

Your views on the Dobbs decision, both of you, and what should be done, if anything, at the federal level.

Kelly Armstrong, you start us out.

- Yeah, I think the Dobbs decision is exactly right.

I've been pro-life my entire time I have the privilege of serving in the state Senate, but most importantly from a legal perspective, it corrected what I think was a pretty drastic error in that the 14th amendment and the Roe v. Wade decision created a new right out of whole cloth that had never existed before.

Listen, I'm a huge state's rights guy.

I've always been a state's rights guy.

This isn't a question about legality or illegality, it's about giving the decision and the decision powers back to the states where it should've been to begin with.

Personally, I'm pro-life, but just more from a philosophical and a policy standpoint, these decisions are best left at the state level.

- Cara Mund, response.

- I disagree completely.

The Dobbs decision was the wrong decision.

And just because you are pro-choice does not mean that you are not pro-life.

And we have to stop that narrative.

This is women's healthcare issues.

Thomas has stated that now we're gonna look at same-sex marriage, whether that is valid, whether we're going to look at your right to contraceptives.

I mean, this is a huge impact of what it does for women in our state.

And for the first time, in 2022, we are treating women like second-class citizens.

When you tell women that they can't make their own healthcare decisions, you are putting the government in the place of their bedrooms and in their doctor's appointments.

And Representative Armstrong has on his website that healthcare decisions are between a doctor and a patient, but it's different for women, and it's wrong, it is wrong.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong.

- Yeah, I absolutely disagree with that.

The point to a Roe v. Wade is putting it back in the power of the states.

And the question is, we always talk about what codification means and where that ends up and what that is, but what are the restrictions, and how does that work?

Do you support the Hyde Amendment?

Do you support sex-based or disability-based abortions?

When is an abortion, you've said in a previous debate that you support viability.

When is that?

First trimester?

Second trimester?

Third trimester?

How do these decisions get made?

Why is that important?

The answer of codifying Roe is not a real answer.

It's not a codification.

It has never quelled this issue.

It has never been done.

The last bill that Democrats tried to pass through the U.S. House of Representatives wasn't a codification of Roe, it was a radical expansion that had no protections at any way, shape, or form, and gave no abilities for states to restrict abortions in any way, shape, or form.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response.

- One of my top priorities is gonna be to codify Roe to make sure that women have a choice in their healthcare.

We're looking at the Roe decision.

This is the pre-viability of the fetus.

We're not asking for any rights additional to what we've had these last 50-plus years.

And it's not just abortion, it's when you have nominees coming in under oath saying that they are gonna uphold it as the law of the land.

And when the opportunity strikes to flip, it is a question, it's a concern.

This was under oath, and this was a vulnerable decision.

We saw it in Casey.

We knew it, and that's why we asked.

We asked them, and under oath, they had said they were going to uphold it.

But when the opportunity comes to strip women of their rights, they took it.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- Yeah, I mean, first of all, they didn't specifically say that, and I'm not here defending how a Supreme Court justice's hearing went in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But the reality of the decision is, is stare decisis is an important part of legal precedent, but it is not controlling.

And I would point out that if codifying Roe was the number one priority for Democrats, they should've done it in 2008 when they had 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House, and a Democratic president.

But the reality is it was easier to fundraise off of than codify, and they couldn't come to an agreement in their own party based on how radical they wanted those positions to be on things like the Hyde Amendment, on things Whether you would force Catholic hospitals to do that.

The Biden administration has a regulation right now that would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, and I don't think North Dakotans, and I don't think the rest of the country agrees with that.

- [Matt] Cara Mund.

- I agree, Democrats should've done it in 2008, but there's not a Democrat up here.

There's an Independent and there's a Republican, and it's a woman.

The fact that we are having this debate, this is the second debate, and I have been the woman, the only woman both times.

Neither of you have a uterus.

Neither of you know what it's like to have to prove under a trigger law, rape.

These exceptions we have, what does that mean?

Does that mean that women have to have a conviction, and that has to happen within a certain number of weeks?

We know how the court system treats women under rape.

Incest.

How do we prove incest?

And same with the life of the mother.

Does that mean now as a lawyer, I have to come in and say, yes, this woman is close enough to her deathbed that the doctor can now perform the crucial treatment?

It's wrong, and when you put the government in these positions, once we start criminalizing doctors, you're not a doctor, I'm not a doctor.

It's not my place as the government, as a leader, to say what a doctor can and cannot do for that woman.

We also need to look that these decisions, these are tough decisions.

This isn't something that women are choosing to do lightly.

And we need to keep that in mind.

The trauma that women go through when they have to make this decision, it is not a place for the government to be, and it's not a place that our trigger law can actively be enforced in a way that protects women.

- As a quick followup, Senator Lindsey Graham has talked about a 15-week ban, federal legislation.

Kelly Armstrong, would you support that or not?

Or where is that going?

- Here's what I think is the functional problem with that.

And it's kind of the same problem with this argument.

You're federalizing things like rape and incest.

And those are not federal things.

Those are very different laws in very different states.

And you're right, I'm not a doctor, but I have represented victims of those very crimes.

For 10 years of my life, those are the things I did.

And they are very, very difficult, which is why I support those being left to the state level.

But I would also point out that when you have this radical opinion and pushback on all of those things, Lindsey Graham's position is essentially more, or less restrictive than all but two countries in Europe.

And my wife's from Oslo, Norway, which also, by the way, I have a 14-year-old daughter.

We think about these things and we talk about these things a lot.

But it's not a particularly radical position.

It's not a radical position.

And this is one of the biggest problems with Roe.

We actually have the most bifurcated and extreme law of just about any developed country in society because we have continued that.

But that's a long, roundabout way of saying these are a lot of complicated issues, which is why I believe in state's rights.

And I believe that you make these decisions best at the state level, which is also why I think the Dobbs decision was the right decision.

- Okay, Cara Mund, last word on this, and we'll move to the economy.

- Yeah, talking about this going back to the states, then Lindsey Graham brings a bill federally to, again, to ban this.

So Republicans have completely contradicted themselves.

The hypocrisy in this, at the end of the day, it's lives of women that are at stake, and we are treating women like second-class citizens.

- All right, let's move to the economy, specifically inflation.

President Biden's Inflation Reduction Bill recently passed, but of course, it remains stubbornly high.

It's affecting consumers, the stock market.

What, if anything, can people in the congressional level do about inflation if elected?

How did we get to this spot, and how do we get out of this spot?

Cara Mund, you're gonna start us off on this one.

- Yeah, so there's no question we're having an issue with our inflation.

I would've supported the Inflation Reduction Act, especially the part where it comes into capping insulin prices.

There's 54,000 North Dakotans who need insulin every single month.

This is a difference between putting food on your table and surviving.

You know, there's things that need to be done.

We had a bill come up that was about capping gas prices, the surge on gas prices.

Representative Armstrong didn't even vote for it.

Again, it was just would've put more ethanol in to help alleviate that cost to help families.

The price of groceries is going up, the price of oil and gas, and how you're even getting to and from work.

We see it and we feel it, especially as a student who's just graduated that's far in debt, I know what it's like to go through that and having to choose which groceries to bring home because you're not able to have that freedom.

So as a leader in this country, we need to stop playing the blame game.

We need to look at the fact that Putin came in.

I mean, Putin's a huge factor as well, but when we are not bringing bipartisan solutions, when we are pointing fingers and we're labeling bills as certain representatives names or senators names, we are not bringing solutions to the core problem.

And that's what we need in our leaders.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, response.

- Well, I think part of the problem with the inflation is exactly that, the partisan Inflation Reduction Act won't do anything, even with the fake offsets that they have no intention of ever being permanent, to stop inflation until 2028.

Combine the $755 billion in that bill, which not a single Republican in Congress on either side of the chamber voted for, with the $1.1 billion bill about the Food and Fuel Act that also would done absolutely nothing to lower fuel costs at any time in the foreseeable future without dealing with implementation issues about restructuring at all of those different things.

So now you're talking just under $2 trillion, none of it paid for, that we are just printing money with a fire hose and throwing into the economy.

And you're wondering why eggs are 39% higher, gas is still 25% higher, inflation is at a highest rate since 1981, home electric bills are the highest they've been in 20 years, and oh, by the way, today the Dow went into a bear market, which if you think only affects rich Wall Street bankers, we have people in North Dakota that have up to 40% of their 401k that has been wiped out in this calendar year.

How about we stop spending money we don't have?

- Cara Mund.

- I agree.

We need to stop spending money that we don't have.

But the Inflation Reduction Act goes straight to families that need it most, those on prescription drugs.

This is the first time Medicare is able to actually negotiate these prices.

Again, I mean, the amount of the burden that North Dakotans are carrying trying to pay for these prescription drugs, this is huge, and I find it really interesting, Representative Armstrong talks about how this isn't gonna have an impact, and on KX, you said till 2025.

On our last debate, you said 2029.

Now it's 2028.

We can't keep throwing around these numbers and not knowing the facts, because at the end of the day, the people who are hurt most in this failure to act in a bipartisan manner are North Dakotans, and North Dakotans who need the help.

- Kelly Armstrong, response.

- Over half of the $750 billion bill goes directly to Green New Deal policies that will harm the North Dakota economy.

You don't get to vote for part of bills or not part of bills, that's not the way Congress works.

If you want to have a real debate about insulin reduction, we have a bill that caps it at $50.

I'm a co-sponsor on it.

And allows you to do the pay-fors throughout the year instead of one at a time.

But when you're gonna tack it into something that directly and negatively affects North Dakota farmers, ranchers, and energy producers, and oh, by the way, it puts a tax on people making $200,000 or less a year, and hires 87,000 IRS agents, which aren't only going to go after billionaires, then you have a real problem.

So if you're going to say that this bill does anything to solve inflation, I would tell you the CBO disagrees with you, and just about any serious-minded economist agrees with me.

- So as a quick followup as we move on from this issue, Cara Mund, is this a cyclical thing that's gonna have to work itself out, or on the federal level, can anything be done If you're elected?

- There's definitely things that can be done.

And I think part of it is making sure that we're stating the facts.

This 87,000 IRS agents that are getting hired, look it up, that's not the case.

That's not what that was going for.

So again, we need to have the facts.

We need to stop spinning the facts in the favor of our party in order to get our party's agenda pushed forward.

- Actually, it's a budget- - Kelly Armstrong, last word.

- Actually, it's a budget gimmick to draw down the number, to draw down the cost of the bill, because for every IRS agent you put into the bill, you lower the cost of the bill.

So you get one of two choices.

You get either it's an absolute bougie gimmick and a fake offset, which is what it truly is.

Or they're serious about hiring 88,000 IRS agents, which I don't know where they get them in the workforce shortage, but it is one of those two things and it cannot be anything else.

- Okay, let's move on to another big federal issue.

Recently, President Biden move to forgive $10,000 per student of student loan debt, and another $10,000 if a student had a Pell Grant.

So my question is, is this good policy or not?

Almost a two-part debate here.

And what, if anything, can be done to lower the cost of college?

Kelly Armstrong, you start us out on this one.

- So first of all, it's a double hit for North Dakota, right, because anybody in North Dakota who was responsible in the last 10 years or so, consolidated their loans with the state bank and get a lower interest rate.

So they don't actually qualify for this.

But it's a $420 billion expense that isn't paid for that just came out, which again, is raising the cost of inflation.

More importantly, 60% of the benefit goes to the top 40% of loan holders.

Less than 20% goes to the bottom 40% of loan holders, which means it is, it's not a student loan forgiveness.

It's an absolute redistribution of wealth from working class, blue-collar Americans to pay for Ivy League educations for people who aren't doing it, and it's a terrible policy.

It should have never been done.

And it's just part and parcel of what's going on.

President Biden's executive orders alone have spent $1.9 trillion we haven't paid for, and these types of policies should not be allowed in the Executive Branch, and I just completely and wholly disagree with it.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response.

- I completely disagree with it as well.

I see it as a bandaid to the true issue.

We should be looking at policies such as not having interest rates start until after a student graduates.

Marco Rubio, Republican, brought a great bill forward, the Loan Act, which actually removes interest rates.

And what we're seeing is that people have paid off the principal, and they're stuck in these predatory loans that just keep causing them to pay interest.

And so yes, it's giving a relief in this very short term moment, 10,000, 20,000, but at the end of the day, it's not fixing the problem.

And so that's where I have an issue of is, you know, it's a great start to figuring out what we can do.

We obviously need to address the price of higher education.

And as someone who's just come out of it, I know what that's like.

But at the same time, we can't just have bandaids.

We need need to bring true solutions to the problem.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- Yeah, and I think it actually incentivizes bad behavior.

There was no protection mechanisms in any of this that would actually force colleges to lower their rate.

I'm not a huge fan of taxes, but there are creative ways we can do this.

We could tax endowments to universities, we could do a lot of those different things.

North Dakota's done some fantastic things through the state bank and through the legislature, particularly for high skill needs in rural areas.

I think we can continue to work on those things.

But I'm just telling you, when you try and do a federal solution to these types of problems, we're a blunt-force instrument.

We can fund something or we can regulate something.

But when you're dealing with these issues, again, I think states and state universities have to have these hard conversations, and they are hard.

I served in the state legislature for eight years, and we, or six years, and we talked about these things all the time and worked for it and tried to get tuition in North Dakota under control.

One of the things that I think would make a big difference is if we spent more of our money on students and teachers and lowered the federal regulatory environment that requires more and more administrative staff.

I just saw stat that something like 80% of the growth in both K through 12 education and higher ed is going to non-teaching functions, which is administrators, IT, all of those different issues.

You get that core thing back to teachers and back to students and you can lower tuition.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, I'll give you the last word on this issue.

- Yeah, I agree, we need to support our teachers, we need to support our students.

I do think that there is a place for the federal government to help do that.

This just wasn't the right decision.

But I will say, if we are going to criticize it, we also need to look at other spending.

And we keep talking about reduced spending.

And we're not talking about, what about the PPP loans that we're given.

You know, if we're gonna give relief to people, how are we doing it?

And so I'm gonna pose the question to Representative Armstrong.

Did Armstrong Corporation take PPP loans?

- No.

Not that I'm aware of, no.

- Okay, I recommend viewers to check federalpay.com, and you'll see the facts.

- Do you want to respond?

- Yeah, I wasn't a part of it.

I don't, I'm not sure of it.

Our sports bar may have.

I'm not entirely sure.

But I'm legitimately not a part of any of those operations anymore.

- Cara Mund, do you have a last word on this?

- Yeah, federalpay.com, Armstrong Corporation out of Dickinson.

So if we're going to be criticizing federal spending, we also need to look in the mirror as who took that funding, especially when we voted against it.

- Okay, let's move on to energy.

North Dakota's a leading energy state, but with more calls to go away from fossil fuels to renewables, what are each of your positions on how North Dakota balances this issue?

Because of course, coal is still a huge source of electricity and North Dakota is of course a big coal state.

Cara Mund, you can start us off on this energy topic.

- Mm-hmm, so energy's obviously the backbone, as well as agriculture for the state of North Dakota.

And we need to continue to promote our energy resources.

We need to continue.

I've been very vocal in the fact that the Biden administration needs to allow us to be drilling on these federal leases.

When you compare the Biden administration to the Reagan administration, we need to be doing more.

And this is a supply-and-demand issue, which goes right back to the inflation issue.

But for alternative forms of energy, you know, we can be looking at it.

It's not a mutually exclusive decision.

And you know, I don't know of a battery-powered plane.

We're gonna be relying on oil and coal for quite some time, but that doesn't mean we can't do more to make sure that we are protecting our Earth.

And I applaud, you know, our Project Tundra carbon capture.

We are a leader not only in energy, but also in making sure that we protect the environment.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- Yeah, I mean, listen, on day one, the Biden administration shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, which is direct impact.

We cannot get infrastructure in the ground.

In the middle of an energy crisis while we are flying over to Saudi Arabia to meet with people begging OPEC to increase more production, we're also having FERC issue rules by political appointees that career officials at the agency will say these permits should've been granted 8 months ago, 10 months ago, 12 months ago.

And instead we're saying that you have to mitigate both upstream and downstream carbon.

The simplest and easiest answer to this, and one of the reasons North Dakota is a leader in carbon capture and these innovations is because we're one of two states with EPA primacy.

If you get the federal regulatory environment out of the way, allow states to do this, which the EPA versus, or West Virginia EPA should actually help make these decisions.

But again, we have alphabet soup agencies that have never had dirt under their fingernails a day in their life, making decisions on the climate based on ideology and not reality.

North Dakota is part of the solution to the climate crisis.

Since 2017 when the United States left the Paris Climate Accords, we were the only country to actually lower our carbon emissions.

Now, there's a lot of things about onshore shale and all of the different discoveries about natural gas that are fantastic, but that is really a North Dakota Bakken-centric one.

And it's because of this incredible resource we produce cleaner and more efficiently and better than anybody else that we were able to do that.

So instead of demonizing, penalizing, and taxing American energy producers, we should allow them to do what they do best, and that's produce the cleanest, most efficient energy in the world.

- [Matt] Cara Mund.

- Yeah, I have to agree with Representative Armstrong.

I think on this viewpoint, we are very similar, less regulations and allowing North Dakota to continue to thrive in this market.

- And Kelly Armstrong, last word in this.

- Yeah, it's something I'm very proud of.

I think North Dakota is as good at this as anybody in the world.

And oftentimes the biggest hamstring we have to this is either federal overregulation, or in often cases, the federal government just not acting on things.

- Right, let's move to agriculture.

A huge issue in this state, of course.

Your thoughts, each of you, on how you address farm policy and how to make sure farmers are successful in North Dakota.

And are there hindrances at the federal level or the international level to this?

Kelly Armstrong, you start us off on farming.

- Well, I think to start, we're gonna start a new farm bill, but I think even before that we should have a real conversation.

And it's not just in North Dakota, and it's not just in the United States.

Canada just banned a third of their fertilizer.

Dutch farmers were actually in open revolt.

At a time when the world needs more calories, the EPA is trying to turn North Dakota egg producers into organic farmers, whether they want to be or not.

So we have to be reasonable and regulatory about this.

And I think this is the next fight that is coming in the climate space that we need to be fully aware of, because it's coming, it's coming really fast, and it's moving forward, and it'll do nothing to help North Dakota farmers, ranchers, and energy producers.

But every time when you bring a farm bill up, it becomes incredibly important for North Dakota.

We need to make sure we have crop insurance, we need to make sure we have supplemental crop insurance.

One thing I've been working with members on both sides of the aisle is to get out of these ad hoc disaster programs, particularly with North Dakota being close to the northern border, and get dates and set into these programs that actually reflect the environment in which we farm.

We've been very good at getting reaction when we have drought, when we have floods, when we have all of these things, early blizzards, late thaws, all of those different issues.

The problem is each and every time we do that, we have to go in and get them to do it.

Whereas if we would get more concrete dates that more accurately reflected our weather patterns, it would be better for everybody.

- Cara Mund, response.

- I agree, our farmers and ranchers over the last five years have gone through so much, from the war in Ukraine to the trade war in China, to a pandemic, (chuckles) the lack of inputs, the high cost of these inputs.

And so going in with these negotiations, knowing that the farm bill is probably going to be one of the first few bills that comes across my desk, it's upholding our North Dakota farmers and ranchers and keeping in mind that they are the backbone of our economy, and they're the ones not only fueling North Dakota but fueling the U.S. And it's something that I'm very proud of and is something that I will fight hard for to make sure that, you know, in times of drought, in times of these unpredicted situations that our farmers are taken care of and that they know they have a representative that is serving as their voice.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong.

- Yeah, it's the single-most important thing.

Listen, long before the oil boom, we had value-added ag from one end of the state to the other.

You can go from Casselton to Richardton, to all of these different places.

But I think one of the unique stresses and threats that we face right now is that we aren't even talking about the expansion.

A lot of the things that are going on are really cool.

We have the Spiritwood soy crushing plant.

That'll go to Richardton.

It's a combination between ADM and Marathon.

You know, they're making renewable diesel in Dickinson.

All of those different issues.

That's value added ag, not just for the Spiritwood, Jamestown area, but it's also huge for the surrounding communities like Oakes and all of those issue.

Right, we talk a lot about carbon capture in the coal industry and in the oil and gas industry.

But the first project online is gonna be the Red Trail ethanol plant in Richardton, North Dakota.

The real problem with all of this is when you talk about all of these things and you talk about agriculture and you talk about all of the above energy, far too many people in D.C. don't mean all of the above energy, and they don't mean production agriculture.

They think we can feed the world from rooftop gardens in the Bronx.

And what they mean by all of the above energy is wind and solar only.

I've said this a lot, I've got to serve on the Climate Crisis Committee.

If you really want to see how this works in the real world, come to my old house in Dickinson.

Within 24 miles, you have it all.

You have Brady I and Brady II, which is the largest wind farm.

You have the ethanol plant in Richardton.

You have the renewable diesel plant between Dickinson and South Heart.

We grow all the cereal grains, and we have the thriving livestock industry that actually gets the feedstock from the Richardton ethanol plant.

And we're on the southern patch of the oil patch, which is oil and natural gas.

We know how to do it.

Let us do it.

We do what we do best, which is feed and fuel the world.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response?

- Yeah, I just want our farmers and ranchers to know that you are appreciated, you're seen, and you're being heard, and we are gonna fight hard for you for this farm bill.

But it is important to know that when going into these negotiations, we need bipartisan support.

2018 is very different than the climate in 2022.

And so when you choose who you're gonna vote for come November 8th, make sure that you're picking someone that you know is not only going to advocate for you, but is also gonna be willing to reach across the aisle to make sure that we're able to get you the best deal that we can get.

- As a quick followup to this, you both have mentioned drought and climate change in this farm topic.

So Kelly Armstrong, we hear a lot about climate change, your views on it, how crucial is this, how dangerous is this, and can any consensus ever be reached on this to help farmers and other people?

- Yeah, probably.

I'll let you in on a little spoiler.

Climate change is, I mean, the humans cause it.

I mean, we're releasing more carbon into the atmosphere in a month than we used to be in a decade.

I serve on the Climate Conservative Climate Caucus.

I think we have to get better at talking about these things.

What I don't like about the climate ideology policies is what they end up doing is not reducing the amount of carbon released in the atmosphere worldwide at all, and they just simply don't.

We could shut down every coal plant in North Dakota tomorrow.

We could shut down every ethanol plant in North Dakota.

We could shut down every cattle rancher in North Dakota tomorrow.

Next month, the world will burn more coal, there will be more cattle on the planet.

We create these things.

We are part of the solution.

We do this better and cleaner than anybody else.

But in this race to global renewable and green and climate utopia, we have proven it doesn't work.

Germany is burning more coal right now than when they started their clean power plant 13 years ago.

They have the highest effective utility rates in the world.

The Donbas region of Ukraine has 12 1/2% of the world's calories.

We want to see how we end up if the U.S. gets involved in dealing with all of these issues.

We need to be a part of the solution.

We need to help feed a hungry world.

And we need to help fuel a world that's dying and starving for electricity.

Because if we don't, our strategic adversaries, China and Russia, will.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response.

- Yeah, I agree, we are part of the solution.

And just when you ignore the issue does not mean the issue doesn't exist.

And so, you know, I challenge those at home to do what you can to make sure that for your children, your grandchildren, as policymakers, we are making the world a safe place for those to grow up in and to have the same opportunities that we had.

- Okay, next topic.

Cara Mund, you've said you will caucus us with Republicans.

You also interned with John Hoeven.

That being the case, what are, we've heard some differences tonight.

As you said, there is no Democrat in this debate.

We've seen some differences tonight, but that being said, what are other significant differences between yourself and Congressman Armstrong?

And then of course you'll be able to respond significant differences that you feel, Kelly Armstrong, between yourself and Cara Mund.

So Cara Mund, you go first on this one.

- Yeah, as to the caucusing question, I have put the ball in the Republican's court.

If they are going to continue to name call, if they are going to continue to exclude, I don't know if that's a party that I'm going to even be welcomed to.

So now it's up to them for the next month to decide how they want to treat not only North Dakotans, but also women who want to get involved in the party.

Things that make us different is that I see women as equals.

I see women as they have the right to choose their own healthcare decisions.

This is huge, especially coming in to 2022, where now women are being treated like second-class citizens.

I also would vote for the PACT Act.

Representative Armstrong voted against it.

I would've voted for the infant formula appropriations.

Representative Armstrong voted against it.

These are all issues that I didn't see being bipartisan issues.

They're North Dakota issues that help our North Dakota people.

And when we continue to play this food fight between parties, the people who are getting hurt the most are the North Dakotans.

And so at the end of the day, I have no special interests.

I don't have a party behind me telling me how to vote.

I don't have to vote with Nancy Pelosi, and I don't have to vote with Kevin McCarthy.

And I represent the 41% of North Dakotans who see themselves as Independents and want an Independent voice in Washington.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, response.

- Okay, I got a lot.

(laughs) I voted for the PACT Act.

The original PACT Act that came from the Senate, which was a bipartisan bill, was never brought to the floor in the House.

Instead of what happened was the same thing that Democratic leadership did.

They brought a bill in that didn't do anything for existing programs, put no flexibility in, and even President Biden's VA Secretary said this would delay implementation.

That is the bill I voted against in March.

In July we got another, after that failed exercise in political gamesmanship went down, we got the bipartisan bill back again from the Senate.

So the bill that President Biden signed into law, I voted for in July.

And I'm getting a little sick of people having that conversation, because it's just simply not honest.

I've been in this job for four years and I've been in politics since 2012.

And prior to that I was a criminal defense attorney.

And before that, I was a youth baseball coach.

You want to criticize me for things, there is all kinds of things that exist out there, but not that.

As regards to the FDA Appropriations Act, funding has never been the problem with the FDA.

In 2010, their budget was 3 billion.

Last year, it was 6.688 billion, and they got money in CARES Act funding.

This bill did nothing but gave salaries and deployments to the FDA at a time when they weren't listening to whistle blowers, were not doing anything.

And the bill, again, the bill that got released, import restrictions, streamlined processes that President Biden signed into law that was bipartisan from both chambers, I supported.

I reach across the aisle on the daily basis.

I was the only Republican in the Oversight Committee that supported postal reform.

I've worked with Hakeem Jeffries and many other representatives to put positions out there.

I got 350 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Republicans who have never supported something like this before, to vote for a crack parity in sentencing bill.

We've got the Debbie Smith- - Cara Mund in for response for time, and then you'll have the last word on this.

- Mm-hmm, so exactly, the first time it came up, he voted against it when 39 Republicans voted for it.

He voted against the Insider Trading Act when it was a bipartisan effort that 13 Republicans voted against.

He voted against the Pregnant Women Fairness Act in which 103 Republicans voted for, along with their Democratic colleagues.

He voted against the Elderly Vulnerable Bad Acts Act, which had a hundred-plus Republicans voting for it.

He also has stated he's gonna vote for President Trump in two years, which we don't know what's gonna happen.

And so that's another difference between us is I see the importance of democracy and upholding it, and I see it now, and we need it more than ever.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong.

- I think we have to be a little clear about what Independent means.

You don't get to choose where you go in D.C.

They have to invite you in.

And we're pretty good at this.

There's no Republicans that supported the IRA.

None.

There's no Republicans I know that support red-flag laws.

Their number one priority is the codify Roe v. Wade.

Supported the Inflation Reduction Act, and have trashed the next Republican leader on an interview.

You can say you're not beholden to either one of the parties, but you're gonna have to pick one.

And if you're not going to get invited to one, then I can guarantee you the only way you're getting invited to the other is if you guarantee you're gonna vote for Speaker Pelosi.

So those are your choices.

That's where it exists.

And if not, if you truly decide to be an Independent, then I have to give a congratulations, because I serve with 435 members of the U.S. House.

It is a hell of an accomplishment to be the least effective member in that body.

There are some really ineffective members on both sides of the aisle, but there is no mechanism for committee assignments, there is no mechanism for doing any of these things if you truly walk in and you're not gonna caucus with one party or the other.

So we should be honest about that.

- Cara Mund, I know you want to get a response.

- That mechanism is to be the voice for North Dakotans, and I will have to pick one, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to have a party leader tell me how to vote, and I'm not going to have these special interest groups also telling me how to vote.

At the end of the day, I am going to put the people of North Dakota first.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, last word on this.

- Yeah, I've never been told how to vote, and anybody who knows me, either in my professional life, my state politician's life, or my congressional life knows that.

I vote the way I think is important.

I vote the way that I think is right.

And you don't get as far as I do on certain issues that have just traditionally not been Republican issues without having a very strong independent streak and willing to buck your own party.

When I was in the state Senate, I did it.

As a state party chair I fought with my own administrations, and I will continue to work with anybody or fight against anybody if I think it's bad for North Dakota.

- All right, let's move on to the January 6th hearings, which continue to go on.

Depending on what side people are on, this is a very controversial thing that happened on January 6th.

What are both of your views on these hearings?

Should they continue?

And should former President Trump ever be charged with a crime over this, or theoretically what was discovered at Mar-a-Lago?

Kelly Armstrong, you go first on this one.

- Well, as somebody who was originally named to the January 6th committee, and probably one of the few Republicans that's actually paid attention or watched most of it, I think they're, I mean, they're an exercise in political theater.

And I know that, and I've been part of that.

And I've done this, 'cause I've argued against the contempt motions in the Rules Committee.

Even Biden's DOJ has agreed with me on all of this.

But January 6th was a serious day.

I've never shied away from that.

I've never apologized for that.

I've never talked anything about that.

It was a riot on the nation's Capitol, and it shouldn't have happened, and we need to do whatever we need to do to happen again.

But I was just reading an article today talking about it and how they're not, we know of these massive intelligence and police failures that have gone on.

We know the committee knows about them.

And it was specifically decided that as they're moving into whatever the twilight of this is, they will not have that hearing because they're concerned that it will take the focus off of President Trump.

We tend to do this a lot in politics, look back.

My number one goal and concern for anything coming out of this is that in six months from now on a Wednesday at 11 a.m., the Capitol is back open for business.

Because we have used it, between COVID and January 6th, we have used it as an excuse to isolate members of Congress from their constituents and to have unbelievable security and documentation of anybody who's coming in and out of the office.

That has a chilling effect when you want to redress your government for grievances, and it has a chilling effect on free speech.

So one of my number one priorities as we move into the majority is get the Capitol back open and make it the people's house again.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response.

- Yeah, so in a July article in the "InForum," Representative Armstrong called these hearings choreographed, which you just heard again today.

January 6th was a day that's gonna go down in history.

Lives were lost, and it was an overthrow of, attempt to try to overthrow the government.

President Trump is not above the law.

And in our last debate, Representative Armstrong said that he's gonna be voting for President Trump in 2024 if he's on the ballot.

Again, that just proves we don't know what's gonna happen in the next two years, and so when you say look back, look now, look at the time now.

We don't even know all of the evidence, but what we have seen is that he continuously thinks that he is special, or that he has some type of privilege.

And so when you decide two years in advance who you're voting for, and it's someone that we don't even know what's gonna happen in those next two years, you are again putting your party and the interests and the agenda above the people of North Dakota.

And these hearings are important, and I hope all North Dakotans are listening in.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong.

- Couple things.

One, they are choreographed.

We know they've hired people to choreograph the hearings, from TV producers to writers, to all of those things.

They're choreographed.

Like that's not a criticism, it's just the truth.

They're very, very choreographed.

Secondly, my response was if the choice is between President Trump and President Biden, I'm voting for President Trump, and I am, and I don't need two more years to understand that because I've watched what the Biden policies have done to the cost of eggs, to the cost of groceries, to the cost of gas, to the cost of electricity, and to everything that is really, really important to the constituents in North Dakota.

So that's a pretty easy answer for me.

But more importantly, you don't find guilt and innocence in any criminal setting in a congressional hearing.

You never have in the history of it.

This was my complaint about impeachment.

This was my complaint about the Mueller investigation.

To prepend like a congressional partisan hearing in any way, shape, or form accurately reflects how a courtroom works or a real legal investigation works is just simply not true.

The January 6th committees are to hold Republicans and President Trump accountable to a very select audience.

To that end, they've probably been effective.

But I am just flat telling you, they have not done anything to prove anything that would be sustainable in a courtroom and nor will they do that.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, last word on this.

- Yeah, that answer really concerns me, especially because Representative Armstrong serves on the Ethics Committee.

He only publicizes this when it's convenient for him.

He had a fundraiser yesterday in which he completely left off that committee.

So again, it's your job, it's your duty as a North Dakotan, as our sole representative, if you are on that Ethics Committee, you should be listening to the evidence.

And again, if you're already gonna say you know who you're voting for in two years, when we still have additional hearings that need to be done, there's a concern.

- All right, next topic.

- Know what the first part of that answer is, but my Ethics Committee only deals with members of Congress.

(laughs) - [Matt] Go ahead.

- The Ethics Committee is an internal committee made up of Republicans and Democrats that only deals with members of Congress.

- And if this is a choreographed scene, then you should be addressing that.

- Okay, Next topic comes from our co-sponsor, AARP North Dakota.

Social Security is a promise that must be kept.

If elected, how would you protect earned Social Security benefits for the future?

Cara Mund, you start us off on this one.

- Yeah, Social Security is crucial.

We could consider options such as raising the cap, but making sure that those people who are relying on it, that we have it there, and not just for them right now in the present, but for the future as well.

Again, you need to look at the voting record.

Voting against the elderly with bad actors.

Again, who are we representing?

Who are we putting at the forefront?

Our Social Security is vulnerable, and we need a representative who's gonna fight hard to make sure that North Dakotans are covered.

And so I would do whatever I possibly can to make sure that Social Security is there, not just now, but in the long term.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- First, stop borrowing against it.

Second of all, ensure that anybody's currently drawing on it has no change in their benefits whatsoever.

And then figure out real long-term solutions.

I hate it when people call them entitlements.

It's not an entitlement.

Entitlement spending bothers me.

That's why I always call it mandatory spending.

People have paid into Social Security their whole life.

They have done it.

It's been a contract they have made with the federal government.

They owed that money, that is flat, hard stop, and that has to continue.

But we also have to get serious about how we have this conversation moving forward.

And we can't politicize something.

This is a long-term 10, 20, 30-year problem for the solvency of this.

And when you live in a town that people are far too often worried about their next election and not so much about what the long-term solvency of these programs are, it becomes a real problem.

So we need serious people to sit down and work on both sides of the aisle and figure out what these solutions look like, what realistic staggers.

One of the biggest problems with Social Security is a great one, we're living longer, healthier lives.

We're living longer, healthier lives, which means we're drawing on this for a longer time.

That is a fantastic thing for a society, and we should be proud of that and we should celebrate that.

And instead, 'cause we get into these situations, we politicize it.

But it's a serious issue.

We have to look at it long-term, and we have to do it in a serious-minded and thoughtful way.

- Cara Mund.

- I agree.

People are relying on it.

We can't politicize it.

And just like how I agree in this, that we can't politicize it, we can't politicize women healthcare either.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, last word on Social Security or whatever.

- I just think these are serious questions and you need to have serious people.

And unfortunately what ends up happening far too often is anybody talks about it, it's the third rail.

It's been the third rail for 20 years.

You've been probably moderating these debates for 20 years.

Social Security, yeah, Social Security is a huge issue that is incredibly politically toxic, so we end up keep kicking, two things we do that we just have to stop.

We have to quit borrowing against it and we have to quit kicking the can down the road and hoping somebody'll solve it later.

- All right, let's move to foreign policy.

Is the U.S. spending too much or too little on defense?

And has too much money been spent aiding the Ukraine or not?

And what are your views on this involvement and the conflict with Russia?

And also as a followup, what's the greatest foreign threat right now, Russia, China, or something else?

Kelly Armstrong, you go first on this topic.

- Well, I think the greatest short-term threat is Russian aggression and how that reflects on China and Taiwan and all of those issues.

I think the greatest long-term foreign policy threat we face is our debt.

I mean, there's a reason people talk about China winning this war without ever firing a shot.

The greatest long-term strategic threat we face in this world is our national debt, and we should get a handle on it, and we should be serious about it.

Republicans have a plan to do that.

We hopefully, when we take the majority, we will have a 10-year balanced budget agreement.

But listen, strategically, we have a lot of different issues.

And I said it earlier in the debate, and I mean this, and this is one of those issues that really gets blown up on Twitter, but you have to have a serious conversation about it.

Until recently when we got the port open, like I said, 12 1/2% of the world's calories come from the Donbas region of the Ukraine.

We talk about politics and dictatorships and all of these different issues in the world.

The single thing to topple a government is hunger.

And as of October, if we wouldn't have got that port out, there was a reasonable, logistical chance that the world ran out of wheat.

There are benefits to being the world's only superpower, but there are responsibilities to it as well.

And if we start having hunger lines in the Northern Triangle countries, and we start having hunger riots in Northern Africa, it was going to cost the United States a lot more than we have spent on the Ukraine.

Now, my problem with the Ukraine money is we didn't do near enough to oversee how it's being spent and making sure that it isn't being moved, that it isn't being taken advantage of.

And unfortunately with us, when you get in that position, you don't get to vote for a perfect bill.

You get to vote for a bill you support or don't.

I'm happy to have supported it.

I think Russia's aggression in and of itself is terrible.

I think the signal of Russia's aggression that it sends to our other strategic allies is terrible as well.

- Cara Mund, response.

- Yeah, I agree Russia's our biggest concern right now.

Putin, just a few days ago, threatened nukes.

Again, these continuous threats.

And as Americans, as North Dakotans, we have to have a united front.

I applaud Representative Armstrong's vote on aiding Ukraine.

I would've done the same thing.

It is crucial that we help fund and that we help support our allies, especially when they're going against someone like Russia.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- I'm good.

- You're done?

Okay.

Another topic from AARP, our co-sponsor, and this is now on Medicare.

Medicare provides critical health coverage for older Americans.

If elected, how would you strengthen it for the future?

Cara Mund, you go first on this one.

- Mm-hmm, so I think the Inflation Reduction Act, again, the very first time that Medicare is ever able to negotiate these prices to make sure that those people who need it most are being taken care of.

And so continuing policy along those lines, keeping in mind that our North Dakota elderly individuals need a voice, they don't need a partisan voice, they need a voice.

And so with that bill, I would've voted for it.

And it's not just for those on Medicare.

It's for, you know, originally it was for everyone.

54,000 North Dakotans who are on insulin caps, or who need insulin, and to have that cap.

And so again, putting this at the forefront to remember that with the rise of inflation, with the cost of prescription drugs, insulin is not a new drug.

And so again, this was a huge step.

Whether you agree with the bill or not, we have to recognize that, because for the first time ever, Medicare has this ability to now negotiate.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, response.

- Well, I disagree with the negotiation part of it because essentially what it says is if you don't agree to the government's price, they're gonna put a 17% tax on it.

As somebody who used to negotiate plea deals on minimum mandatory sentencing, I can tell you, that's not much of a negotiation.

But the reality is, is we have to get together.

We have H.R.

19, which is a Republican plan, but more importantly, it has 36 bipartisan subdivisions of that, that it would be the first modernization of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act in 20 years.

It would lower out-of-pocket costs, it would allow Medicare patients to distribute those across the year instead, cap out-of-pocket costs for seniors and disabilities, would allow them to spread that cost across the entire year.

And we have to do that.

And we've done a pretty good job on some things.

Mental health, telehealth, Blue Cross Blue Shield is now giving one-to-one parity on telehealth.

Expanding those things that have actually worked, which there haven't been many during COVID, is a good way to lower cost for everybody.

And then I'm always a huge fan and consider this a really core platform to this, is increase the transparency in pricing, 'cause nobody pays the list price.

Absolutely nobody pays the list price.

But you get a discount, and what we have done is this overreaction that incentivizes this like internal arms race to raise the cost of prescription drugs so you can offer the best discount.

But most importantly where this really comes into a problem is because we're now allowing insurance companies to make the decision for healthcare instead of doctors and patients, and we have to resent that, and we have to allow doctors and patients to be actively engaged in their healthcare process.

- Cara Mund, response.

- I agree.

It should be between doctors and patients when it comes to healthcare, not the government and not bureaucrats, just like Representative Armstrong's website says.

We need to do more for healthcare.

We need to do more for Medicare.

Like I said, the Inflation Reduction Act was a huge step, now knowing that those on Medicare are gonna have a $35 price cap for insulin.

Again, this impacts 54,000 North Dakotans, that for the first time, they might not have to worry about, you know, putting food on the table, paying for their children or their grandchildren, and are actually able to focus on thriving, and not having to worry about those costs.

But there's always more that we can do, and keeping that in mind is crucial.

- Kelly Armstrong.

- You know, the problem with all of this stuff is you can't take a bad policy, continue to subsidize it, and that's exactly what we did.

And this may have benefited Medicare patients, but it didn't do anything for anybody else in the food chain, which requires the companies to either raise the cost of their drugs or raise their rates to non-Medicare beneficiaries.

We have to speed up the Access to Cares Act.

We have the first drug on line in 20 years to help Alzheimer's, and the FDA's trying to get it gold-star approved, and this administration continues to reject it.

And I'm not smart enough to know if this works or it doesn't.

I'm an old lawyer, I was never smart enough to go to medical school.

But we have to be able to continue to lower the regulatory burden, which will lower competition and will increase cost.

- And in a followup- - I mean, decrease cost.

- The Medicare age has been talked about, lowering it, raising it.

How do you feel about that, Cara Mund?

- I think right now we just need to keep it as is.

But I'm gonna push back, and I'm gonna say I do not agree that it is bad policy.

It is policy that helps protect North Dakotans, and North Dakotans who need insulin, a drug every single month, and it's time that we start addressing this because at the end of the day we know what big pharma's getting, and it's at the hands of North Dakotans.

- [Matt] Kelly Armstrong, last word on this.

- The issue isn't that.

We have to fix the broken system.

Throwing more federal money we have at a problem, particularly when it's, again, wrapped into a $755 billion bill that is going to increase inflation and increase the cost of goods everywhere.

And that's all this does.

We don't address the underlying costs.

Republicans have a plan.

We have a way to actually speed this up, lower costs for everybody in the food chain.

And listen, this has been a tough issue for Republicans to talk about, but I think we should also recognize it's a pretty tough issue for Democrats to talk about, because Obamacare has been the law of the land now for quite a while, and just last month, healthcare in the United States got an F rating.

It's something both parties need to do a better job working on, because whatever issue you have going on on any daily basis, healthcare's always gonna pop up into the top three, it does every single year.

And the reason is it's about 30% of our economy, and we have to get it back to the consumers having more power.

- One more economic issue, and Kelly Armstrong, you'll start us off on this one.

One of the long-term impacts of COVID has been the impact on businesses.

Service industries, not enough workers, workers don't want to work for certain wages, of course, that are too low.

But businesses are struggling as well, so it's kind of a double-edged sword kind of that resulted kind of at the start of COVID and has gotten worse and worse.

Kelly Armstrong, what are your thoughts on this?

Is there any way to address this?

Are there not enough workers?

But the unemployment rate is very low, too.

- So the unemployment rate is low, but also the people participating in the workforce has gone down.

And it's a really interesting and really heartfelt conversation because you can talk to anybody.

Like the biggest threat, I just talked to a guy in Western North Dakota, and he just simply, he is turning down contracts on a weekly basis 'cause he just simply can't find the workforce.

I've talked to a bar and restaurant owner in Fargo who can't find bartenders in a college town.

We have to do a better job of, one, educating a workforce for the 21st century environment.

Two, utilizing, fixing our broken immigration system so we can utilize legal immigration, which is something we have utilized in North Dakota very, very well and continue to do, whether it's in ag, construction, those types of fields.

And healthcare's a huge issue for us.

And then the other answer is we just have to continue to figure out ways where we can incentivize people to come to North Dakota.

And again, we have strategic advantages here.

We have a state bank, we have state abilities to do those things.

We can't control the weather, but once we get people here, they really want to stay 'cause it's a pretty great place to live, and we have to continue to advocate for that.

- [Matt] Cara Mund, response on this COVID workforce issue.

- Yeah, I agree completely with Representative Armstrong.

In August, 2022, there were 18,000-plus open jobs in North Dakota.

I agree, fixing our broken immigration system is having a path to make sure that we are bringing more people into North Dakota to thrive, to give them the opportunities, encouraging them of how great of a state it is.

And again, I've said this before when I announced my run, I want to raise my family here.

I want my grandchildren to be raised here, because I truly believe it is the best state.

And so making sure we get that messaging out, and making sure that we are providing those opportunities for people, and we have them now, but to continue forward.

- Kelly Armstrong, you have anything else on this?

- There is one thing that federal government can do.

So one of the things we do, and by the way, it's not just the federal government.

This exists across, whether it's insurance companies or state or anything.

We have these high, high-demand positions, whether it's somebody working in daycare or a CDL driver, and we know that we have a shortage of them.

And at the same time, we continue to raise the requirements to have those positions.

This administration implemented, and by the way, they didn't start it, it started either under the last administration or before that.

But theoretical testing for commercial truck drivers.

That has not made anybody on any road safer, but it's made it harder to find people to drive trucks, whether it's a potato truck, oil truck, school bus, or taking a baseball team to a coaching event.

And we continue to do that, and we continue.

One of the problems we're seeing in daycare is it's taking way too long to get background checks done for first-time employees.

If you're paying somebody $16 an hour and it takes 9 1/2 weeks to get a background check, I'm telling you, in this environment, they can find another $16 an hour.

So that is one thing the feds can do.

- Cara Mund, last word, and then we need to get to closing statements.

- Yeah, I also think there's things that can be done at the state level.

We're not running for the state level, but highlighting that as well.

Partnerships between educational institutions and the workforce, making sure that, you know, for students that want those opportunities, that we provide them, again, at the state level, not the federal level.

But we can have a bipartisan support both federally and at the state level to make sure that we are bringing more North Dakotans in to solve the issue.

- All right, the hour goes fast.

Closing statements, one minute.

Kelly Armstrong, you're first.

- Yeah, over the last four years, I've worked really hard to cultivate relationships on both sides of the aisle.

And when the Republicans win back in the majority, I'm gonna be in a really great position to help advocate for things that are really important to North Dakota.

You talk about ag policy, energy policy, big tech censorship, privacy, criminal justice reform, mental health, all of these different issues, I've worked very hard with people on both sides of the aisle to do this.

We keep talking about people wanting a seat at the table, and I appreciate that.

The difference is I already have a seat at the table, and I haven't followed orders from anybody to do any of this.

I've been a thought leader on these issues because I think they're important to the country and I think they're important to the state of North Dakota.

Thanks for having us.

- Cara Mund, one-minute closing statement.

- Yeah, I agree, the seat at the table is crucial, and North Dakota is one of three states that has never had a woman in this role.

But your seat at the table is not guaranteed.

You have to work every two years in this role to prove that you deserve to be there.

Representative Armstrong voted against the infant formula appropriations bill.

He voted against the PACT Act that first time it came up when 39 Republicans voted for it.

He voted against insulin caps, he voted against women's reproductive rights, he voted against your right to contraceptives.

And if those are the values that align with your family as North Dakotans, then you know how to vote.

You know the status quo.

But if you think it is time for a change, it's time for an Independent voice for North Dakotans, then I hope you consider on November 8th voting for me, Cara Mund, because I'll put people over party.

- All right, we are out of time.

Thank you so much for being here for this very important debate.

Kelly Armstrong, Cara Mund, my thanks.

I'd like to thank our co-sponsor, AARP North Dakota as well.

Election Day is November 8th, and early voting begins soon.

I'm Matt Olien for Prairie Public.

So long.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for Election 2022 coverage is provided in part by AARP, a non-profit, non-partisan membership association 83,000 strong in North Dakota.

Find information on how to make your voice heard in the 2022 election at aarp.org/ndvotes.

And by the members of Prairie Public.

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