Debates at New England College 2024 | Republican Primary Candidates for First Congressional District

hi folks my name is Josh mckelvin I'm the moderator of this evening's debate couple of uh rules of the road first let me welcome you to New England College on behalf of the president's office Dr Wayne lespen the administration student body faculty Board of Trustees for the first district uh Congressional debate primary debate between the Republican candidates we have five candidates on stage tonight we're going to introduce them briefly uh in just a moment but uh first I'm sure you guys know the decorum for being in a debate you know no flash photography silence your cell phones try to hold your applause or booze or whatever you want to do until the end of the debate um but uh we're also going to be introducing the candidates so feel free to clap for the one that you're uh rooting for and if you're undecided it's up to you so we're going to get started just a moment I'm going to introduce you to the panelists before the candidates we have Kevin landrian of the union leader Melanie [Applause] pendi Take a Bow Kevin Melanie plender from the grite state news collaborative and Jeff chister from WFA Morning Report they'll be asking the questions 1 minute away all right everyone welcome to New England college and Live Free or Die primary debates for the first congressional district primary with Republican candidates let's get this thing started we do have five candidates tonight we's start let's start the introductions starting with Walter McFarland he's running for congress after a 25-year career in business gaining experience in everything from construction Manufacturing social media and professional sports Walter lives in Manchester thank you for joining us sir thank you Josh next our next candidate is Chris brgh Chris is a graduate of West Point decorated combat veteran entrepreneur business executive Bri promises in that in Congress he will always put country first Chris also lives in Derry our next candidate Joe Kelly lvas he's an attorney who started his career in politics in the year 2000 when elected alderman for the city of Manchester he is won seven consecutive terms now serves as the chairman of the board of alderman he was born and raised in Manchester still lives there with his wife and two children let's welcome Joe Kelly our next candidate Russell Prescott he is served five terms as a New Hampshire state senator being first elected in 2000 he served two years on the executive C counsel as well Russell Prescott's a businessman who resides in Kingston with his wife the couple has five five children with eight grandchildren correct welcome Mr Prescott and last but certainly not least Holly noveski is an author businesswoman Army Reserve veteran thank you for your service and you as well Mr brigh uh as well as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner C Coast Republican got into this race saying quote it is time for new blood in Washington DC all right so with those introductions out of the way it's time for our opening statements we begin with Walter McFarland sir take it away thanks Josh thanks anyc for having us here and thank you all for being here I'm a proud son of an amazing uh two parents uh who served Manchester for years one as an orthodontist one as a mental health counselor uh mom is here tonight and dad is never far from my thoughts I'm a businessman I've turned companies around taking them out of debt and creating hundreds of jobs I get into the race because I wasn't hearing a message that spoke to me uh a message that I thought could win in November I'm a republican that thinks America is still great I'm a small government conservative I believe in strong defense closed borders the rule of law a strong economy free of excessive regulation but small government also must mean letting people live the lives they choose we need to stop pushing people away and start working with a laser focus on the issues that affect us every day like inflation and housing I will represent all of us and bring balance back to Washington thank you sir Chris Brite your opening statement please I'm Chris brght I'm not a politician I'm a West Point graduate combat veteran businessman and a father I didn't come for money and never had anything handed to me but I built the fastest growing private company in New Hampshire I got in the race for congress for one simple reason everywhere I looked I saw failure I saw policy failure I saw political dysfunction and I saw an appalling lack of leadership I thought to myself we can do better than this you know and and like you I felt the cynicism I felt the frustration and I'm here to tell you you could change that story at any time I've done it myself a lot of you know my story we could start by making life more affordable for everyday Americans we can do better at securing the border and we can do better at getting cops or criminals and drug dealers off our streets but we can't do it without effective tested leadership Chris papis is not that he's not a leader he's a follower and a democratic rubber stamp and we need to take that back I can do better the future's bright thank you thank you sir Joe Kelly Lasser your opening statement sir yes uh good evening thank you Josh thank you for the panel to show up today and thank you for everybody in the audience that took their time out to come out here today my name is Joseph Kelly Lasser um a currently I am a seven straight term uh Alman at large in the city of Manchester the biggest blue City in the state I've been elected seven times as a republican because I tell people exactly what's going on in the city of Manchester I don't sugarcoat anything I've been on boards where there's only been two Democrat two Republicans out of a total of 15 I know what it's like to be on the minority side and what I've witnessed that what's going on in Washington DC is beyond anything I've ever witnessed before law fair spending deficits War all over this this world we don't need to be involved in all of that we need to take care of this country we need to take care of our own Citi cens and we need to take care of America first thank you sir up next Russell Prescott yes I'm Russell Prescott and the reason why I'm in this race is to defeat Chris papis this November iik is going bad is it thank you I don't know I don't know maybe sounds like sounds good there you go all right the reason why I'm running for this office is to defeat Chris papis this all he has I'm sorry I don't think it's working so I'll put it up like this he has come to our state and he has said that we got to stop this all this immigration coming in over the Border thank you sorry start over time starting over again third time third time's a charm I do appreciate it I'm running because Chris papis has failed us at the border we need to have someone that comes to New Hampshire and says what he has done to secure our border not come to New Hampshire and say we can't have all of this immigration coming in over the border and had for the past three years done nothing really substantial to accomplish security at our border we need a candidate that does not want to take our election rights away from us when he goes to Washington DC and votes the wrong way on making the federal government in charge of State elections we do need someone that has the experience of being in the state senate and that's myself and on the executive Council we need someone that has stood up for New Hampshire and made sure that we did not have an income tax or a sales tax we need someone that has won and gotten the trust of the independent voter when I ran against Maggie Hassen to defeat the income tax we won because we had the right message we have still have the right message today we need to work hard to unite the party thank you thank you sir and our final opening statement comes from Holly netki thank you very much and thank you all for being here and having the opportunity to speak to you my name is Holly netki I'm the owner and CEO of a structural steel fabrication company novelon works also an erection company we provide erection and structural steel throughout New England and I employ over 100 people I'm also a psychiatric and a geriatric nurse practitioner and I spent my life uh caring for people's dementia and many of you have heard my joke but there is a need for me in DC and my father has always said we no longer need an MBA in business we need a psych degree because it's all about talking to people and lastly I spent eight years in the Army Reserve nurse Corps and two years in the New Hampshire National Guard but what I'm not is I'm not a politician I'm not going to Pander to any of you I'm going to look you in the eye tell you what I think and do what I say say because you as a voter have a right to know where I stand you as a voter have a right to know who you're voting for and I look forward to discussing all the all the topics that we will tonight so thank you thank you ma'am all right we're going to hold our Applause now until the end of the debate thanks for rolling with technical difficulties particularly you Mr Prescott let's go to our first question from panelist Jeff chister has a question uh focused on well Congress approval we'll start with Miss netki according to pool of Pew research 86% of Americans believe that the Republicans and Democrats are more interested in fighting each other than solving problems Congressional job approval ratings are at an alltime low if elected how can the people of the St First District trust that you won't be more of the same thank you for that question politics is about trust well it should be about TR trust it has not been as a business owner I know how to come to the table and communicate and negotiate we need to be able to come to a common understanding and have that's only through trust and open communication and that's why it's very important that you know that I am not going to Pander to people and it's also important to find like-minded people in congress not the ones that are standing in front of the camera asking for their 5 minutes of fame but the ones who are rolling up their sleeves every day and doing the hard work and they are are there when I got the opportunity to go to DC I met one that was from Ohio um Iowa you don't see her name Maran Miller Meeks but she's there every day working very hard for her people doing the hard work so you find that group of people and you work closely with them and that's how you do it thank you ma'am thank you ma'am thank you ma'am you're welcome Mr Prescott same question well thank you the reason why I'm running in in this race is because in the past there have been just negative infighting in the primary for those who get who want to be the nominee to run up against Chris papis two years ago in a debate I said you know if we could just get along we could accomplish a lot so I have maintained that I would never negative campaign for this seat for the purpose of being able to unite the party behind a great candidate I have contacted hundreds of people over the last two years to unite the party all the way from endorsements from Al baldasaro to former Speaker of the House Doug scammon the very broad part of the party to make sure that we can win in November the latest poll showed that I was up in the polls of the University of New Hampshire poll and it was because of three things independent voters the majority are voting for me self-proclaimed Libertarians are voting for me and independents are voting for me because of my record of being positive and saying what I'm going to do wrap up and do it thank you thank you Mr Prescott Mr Lasser well there'd be a lot less uh fighting if the Democrats just listened to uh common sense and did what the Republicans asked it's an adversarial uh process just like uh in court I'm been an attorney for over 23 years and when we go to court we argue our argue our positions so people think that we're fighting we're fighting over principle or we're fighting over what we believe is right and the Democrats are fighting for what they think is right and we have a very big chasm in this country in a divide because they're taking us down One path toward socialism and the Republicans want to take them down the the the right path which is what has made this country so great is capitalism the ability to be able to rise from your station no matter where you are in this world in this country to be able to rise yourself up I grew up in the projects I owned a restaurant at 25 for 34 and 1/2 years and I became an attorney and I've been elected eight times this is what America is about and this is what we're fighting about so hopefully the Democrats are going to finally get the message when this election is over and we win some seats and they'll come to their senses and come join with us thank you sir Mr brigh same question it is about trust and I think Americans are tired of career politicians and by politicians it's not just the people that Walk The Halls of a state house but also writing swampy payto playay checks it's people that are giving themselves an unfair Advantage by being in that position of power and that is eroded Americans confidence in our elected officials in order to get back and start to unite this country which I do believe is one of our biggest issues at this point above all of our other issues that we talk about it's about establishing trust and at West Point I was taught that you don't wear your rank for personal gain you wear it to advance the mission of the people you're honored and entrusted with leading and when you're not there doing that then people don't want to hear what you have to say so it's about putting the needs of the country first in the Army we call that selfless service it's about taking care of the people that are looking to you for leadership and then it's about doing what you say you're going to do and not just talking about it thank you Mr brigh and finally Mr McFarland why are you the one to the grid lock and get along and problem solve well it is about doing what you say you're going to do but the reason congress's approval rating is so low is because they get nothing done and the reason they get nothing done right now is because we've sent nothing but people on the far right and far our left down there all the moderates have left we need some moderates to help bridge the aisle it doesn't mean we abandon the ideals we hold dear but it does mean that we reach across the aisle as all my fellow opponents can attest to every time I see them at an event I go up to them I shake their hand I say hello I wish them well it's not enough to be right and have the right views you have to have the right temperament you have to be willing to work with people and to do that you have to talk to them and about them with some degree of respect even if they disagree with you thank you sir appreciate it next question coming from Melanie plunder from the granite state news collaborative hi starting with Mr McFarland so with the growing debate around abortion restriction where do you stand on potential Federal legislation that would impose abortion bans and do you support invoking the comto ACT to restrict medical abortions and other reproductive Health Services delivered by mail and also how would you address concerns about access to reproductive Health Care particularly in rural areas of New Hampshire thank you for that question there's a lot there and I hope I can get through it and 60 seconds first first on the topic uh of abortion and my view has never changed on this and I'm not relying just on a oh it's a States issue and it's back at the states Ive never felt that the government has any place in telling someone what to do and how to live their life and what choices to make now I believe New Hampshire gets it right I'm a person of faith I'm a Catholic I believe New Hampshire gets it right that at 24 weeks um at a point of viability that's a different standard unless of course there's feet of viability or health of the mother at stake um in terms of access to reproductive care uh IVF and all those things we have to make sure that no laws that we pass whether at the state or federal level interferes with a couple who wants to have children being able to follow any practice they want to have children and to build a family Mr Lasser oh same question oh okay nice you got to stay on your toes you never that was good I appreciate that I yeah I'm not going to Congress to fight about abortion I'm going to Congress to reduce that deficit I'm going to Congress to get us out of world wars I'm getting I'm going to Congress to um get our country back I'm going to Congress to you know get the wall built and stop this massive inflow of uh illegal immigration into our country the Supreme Court punted that to the states and that's where I want it to stay I have no I the fact that we talk about abortion as much as we do it just it just puts everything that's really wrong with this country into a different perspective $36 trillion in debt and that's everyone wants to talk about abortion where're the cracks in our economy are showing every single day million jobs lost they just revised it today we're learning is another 500,000 the cracks are there the economy is going to tank you need Republicans down there to lower tax rates to bring more business into this country get rid of regulations abortion is a state issue that's where I will it will stay for me m noveski thank you as Republicans we can't be afraid to engage in the discussion of abortion because the Democrats are using it as a weapon they fear mongering we need to be able to engage and as a nurse practitioner who's worked at the end of life for most of my career I see the sanctity of Life at both ends but I do believe that Supreme Court got it right by giving it back to the state so I would not support a federal ban it needs to stay at the state as far as mail order prescriptions there's always a risk with prescriptions and I think it needs to be carefully looked at for regulation uh and as far as rural Health we have a crisis in a crisis in this country in healthare Access cost and Staffing and we need to address that New Hampshire has done a good job with um some of the bills that they passed to help with Staffing but we need to loosen up our insurance so that we can have more insurance carriers we need to fund rural Health not planed Parenthood as one of my uh opponents has done planed Parenthood does not provide primary care we need to provide Primary Care in the rural Health settings in the underserved Mr Prescott you agree with what you just heard I do not I believe that when you have the Constitution as your oath of office when it comes to uh funding sexual transmitted disease testing we owe it to our people to make sure that that funding gets done when I was in the executive Council that's what came before the executive Council it came from the Trump Administration to fund the STD testing that came to the sonunu Prescott Administration as an executive of the New Hampshire and I made sure that I didn't show Prejudice and I did not show any animosity towards any candidate that was qualified to receive funding for sexual transmitted diseases that oath of office is what separates us from a democracy which can take away your votes by a single vote what I really am upset about is the fact that Chris papis does not stand up to the president and say enforce the laws that you're supposed to enforce that's what I did when I did my votes for sexually transmitted disease testing and Chris papis you need to stand up to to our president and say enforce the laws at the border solve that problem immediately and finally Mr brigh on same topic same question yeah look with with abortion and any polarized topic for that matter thousand years from now we could still be in this exact same spot talking about this because both sides of the abortion issue look at this from completely diametrically opposed worldviews so the best way to deal with these types of issues is to have it as close as you can to an electorate that's why the Dos was a good decision because because it took it out of the federal level and it put it at a state level and so if that's something that you're passionate about and you care about you have more of a say so we've been rebranded by the Democratic party as if we're against women's rights we're not we're not we want you to have more of a say in what you do with your body I think it's good where it sits right now in New Hampshire I will never support any type of federal legislation restricting abortion and where it sits right now I am 100% comfortable with thank you sir back to our panel Kevin landrian the union leader on Election Integrity recently Donald Trump backed off his repeated claims that the 2020 election was stolen saying in steady he lost by a whisker do you believe the outcome in 2020 was legitimate and did Mike Pence do the right thing when he certified Joe Biden's Victory Mr brigh I can't believe we're still talking about this on and no offense for the question but here we are months away from a new election four years later the American people will speak now we looked at the election and let's be honest during Co the Democrats changed the rules of the game while we were playing it and as a result Joe Biden had that Advantage like that's a fact and we we recognized that we had different type of exposure in our El electorate system but was there Mass fraud I'm not buying that so if you're unhappy with the government if you're unhappy with this disastrous leadership then go go out and vote differently stop putting career politicians in stop voting for a disastrous another four years and let's just move on because hanging around talking about what happened four years ago is four years ago Mr Prescott thank you this is very near and dear to my heart as a state senator I was the Prime sponsor of our voter ID law that is intact today it stood up to constitutional muster and it was enforced the very year that the the law was passed F that's what I do when I get to the public service is I roll up my sleeves I find solutions to problems and I get to work and I get it done this is what we need in Washington DC what Chris papis is trying to do is take away those rights from us and bring them over to the federal government we canot have that and in terms of our uh what Mike Pence did is very similar to what I did in this as the as an executive counsel I had to approve the vote counts of our state we have paper ballots to document every single vote that runs through a machine the machines give us the technology to know right away what the outcome is and we can trust those machines only as far as we can confirm that they're doing the right thing that's where I stand thank you sir Mr McFarland do you believe that 2020 election was legitimate I do the election was not stolen there was not enough going on to materially change the outcome uh Mike Pence absolutely did the right thing by certifying that election uh he is not my favorite politician but he stood up on that day and prevented what I believe could have been a constitutional crisis and in terms of the result if we stay on message if we talk about our policies that are clearly better than the Democrats that when it comes to security when it comes to the economy we win elections by 10 points 15 points they can't be stolen from us if we win by as much as we should win if we run the elections the right way and instead of crying about that election in December of 2020 we should have been down in Georgia winning those two Senate runoff seats we would have had the majority in the Senate the majority in both houses and none of the stuff that's happened in the last four years would have happened thank you sir Mr noveski same question stolen is a strong word I would definitely say that there were some massive um irregularities in the voting for since the ma we changed we changed the rules there was massive mailing of ballots and we found down in Virginia 6300 illegal voters on the registry over 880,000 people who had either moved or died on the on the voter reg registry so there are some irregularities there that we need to be care careful of I have a friend here in New Hampshire husband was deceased 20 years we recently received a mail and ballot another person who had moved into a house the previous owners were long gone received a ballot for the previous owners so there are some Irregulars that we need to be careful of and the fact that Chris papis voted against the save act which would have required citizenship proof of citizenship to vote in our our elections is a shame we need to we need to address that as far as I'm sorry continue okay sorry and as far as um Pence I think he did what he had to do that was what I was going to ask all right thank you ma'am uh and finally Mr Lasser the trust in government our administratives uh administrations our bureaucracies is at an all-time low Co came and the world went into a deep crisis over many issues mailin balloning really is not a good idea coming out of an election and you lose a race by five 10 votes I've been uh involved in politics for 25 years I can't tell you how many um times I've been involved in a recount um election people lose by five six seven votes and as a register uh in Manchester I actually have to make the decisions on those votes people need to trust that we are doing it the right way New Hampshire does we have paper ballots we have machines and I've been involved in many many recounts and those numbers very very rarely change and if they do they're by small numbers there are a lot of questions about that election and there I think a lot of them are are uh are correct to ask we have a right to ask questions you know the Democrats to their credit went out and changed a lot of laws through the courts and that's not the process that was in place at the time we're supposed to be able to go through and do it through the our got to wrap this up so the questions are surrounding that election will be asked answered and debated for a long period of time but when I look at New Hampshire quick Trump lost but the rest of the state went very red so I'm good with New Hampshire's uh electoral process all right fair enough we're going to go now to a question that comes from our student uh reporter from the New Englander on campus newspaper soup sisy has something a very topical nature a lot of people are talking about and this is going to be directed to you Mr Lasser first thank you two high school students and teachers were killed in Georgia yesterday by a young teenager with an assault rifle there has been more than 320 mass shootings this year Pew research found about 6 in 10 us adults favor strictor gunlock would you support a law allowing federal courts to issue extreme risk protection orders to prohibit an atrisk individual from purchasing an own and firearms come to find out today the person that went to that school and shot up uh those those poor victims uh was on an FBI list where are we dropping the ball on these issues why are we dropping the ball on these issues it seems that every single shooting that we've seen the warning signs were always there and people didn't didn't pay attention or they just pushed it aside and we end up with these tragedies I am a strong Pro Second Amendment uh Republican I believe in our right under the second amendment that um our right shall not be Abridged and I think it should stay that way and if there's a situation where somebody has a parent mental illnesses issues that we should be able to go to court and take a look at that and let a a judge look at those type of issues and make a decision on whether or not they are capable of um having a handgun or a weapon just like we do in many other cases domestic assault do domestic violence uh stalking orders when those things are brought in front of the courts the courts will take away their guns until they prove that they are uh I mean they can be taken away for a long time so there are these places these there are things like that put in place in the courts would you support the federal law it would impose a uh extreme risk protection order I think that we should be leaving these tyes of questions up to the states and I think the states should be dealing with those all right Miss noveski as a psychiatric nurse practitioner I really believe this is a mental health issue many people are at risk of mental health issues and we need to shore up our Mental Health Providers and access this person who shot yesterday he Riley uh I believe his name um he he he sought help he was identified according to his aunt asked for help we need to make sure that they have the help available the problem with red flags and a federal registry is there is no due process to get off that we need to look at due process we can't take law-abiding citizens and put them at risk of losing their right to bear arms if we don't have a due TR process to get them off so I would not support it okay thank you very much uh let's go to Chris BR on this same question yeah I mean as a father of four kids three out of four of them are here today it scares me what goes on in in schools and and the threat of gun violence but the second amendment is an insurance policy against a tyrannical government and I've seen that in fact when I was in Bosnia 16 years before I was there they hosted the Winter Olympics so it's naive to think that this government can't fall in on itself or that governments of other countries can suddenly steamroll the rights of individuals we're starting to see it here in this country so stuff like what happened yesterday breaks my heart but that's a symptom and I don't believe that taking the guns away solves the core issues mental health is at the core of what's going on with these types of issues and to the other candidates points that was discovered before they were on an FBI watch list and to Holly's point he was crying for help as reported by his aunt we need to be treating and looking for these individuals and then helping them get the help they need and solving this problem is not a binary solution where it's either take the guns away or not and I'm not willing to trade the ability and the rights of Americans to solve the problem the mental health problem on the gun side thank you sir Mr McFarland what happened was a tragedy and and one we're all getting tired of seeing for sure I'm a gun owner and I believe in the Second Amendment I believe in the right to defend yourself the right to uh pass on tradition of Haunting to your family but certainly a grandmother should be able to go to a grocery store a child should be able to go to school and a former president should be able to go to a political rally without being the victim of gun violence we have smart people in this country and we have to figure out a way to protect my right to bear arms but your right to feel safe and certainly having that conversation a sensible conversation is not violative of the Second Amendment it's simply recognizing that we live in common Society with each other and we have to find a solution but to some of the other candidates points there are often red flags in these situations things that were noticed things that weren't handled properly things that we have to get better at picking up on and addressing so I would not yet be a supporter of of that Federal ban but we have to make sure that our agencies are communicating well with one another that we're doing the proper steps with mental health the amount of mental health issues we're having from 8 years old to the 14-year-old in this country is very disturbing and we have to do something about it before we have more of these issues thank you Mr McFarland finally Mr Prescott this is always a very emotional problem we have children being struck by people that are misusing our rights is the Second Amendment right to keep in bare arms we have to have complete self responsibility to be able to have less gun violence and we need to be able to keep track of Our Own arms make sure they they're not in any Harm's Way of getting into somebody's hands and we have to be aware of our family and our friends and how they're behaving and try and be as much of a role model as possible to keep them out of trouble that's a a core responsibility of community and that's why we always need less control from the federal government and more control locally so we can direct help where it's needed that's why I defend always law enforcement is really our local police are really who really take care of our safety here at home and always back them and Mr Prescott moving on to our next question AARP New Hampshire by the way is a sponsor of to Live Free or Die debates so we thank them for that and they asked me convey the following question to the candidates again Mr Prescott Social Security trust fund is expected to see a shortfall in the next 10 years years what do we need to do what can we do in Congress to make sure that we keep our our promise to taxpayers what we did when I got into con into the state senate twice after defeating Maggie Hassen we had a budget deficit that was the biggest problem that faced New Hampshire at the time we had to weigh what the needs of our state were with the wants and able to cut out the wants to be able to lower our uh spending so that we could balance the budget without raising taxes that is what is missing in Washington DC if we were able to balance a budget of 1% of the GDP here in one year in New Hampshire we should be able to do at least that on the federal level which is more of a bloated government than our state government for sure that is the kind of experience that I bring to the table to make sure that gets done and I know that us us at as Republicans this is our real house we must be fiscal conservatives and follow through and that is what I have always done as a state senator and I will do as your Congressman thank you sir Mr noveski how do we keep Social Security solvent for Next Generation we need to pay we need to make sure that we cover those people who have been paying into the system we owe it to them and it's their money that they put into it two things we need to do we need to cut spending we need to cut this excess spending such as Ukraine sending money there sending spending money for illegal immigration uh we need to get down our spending so that we can bring down our interest and uh we also need to bring become energy in independent increase our energy production and become an exporter and use that money towards assuring up Social Security between cutting spending and increasing uh the budget we can do that but we need to make sure that we take care of those who paid in thank you ma'am Mr Lasser I misspoke before it's not shall be Abridged it shall be infringed I really hate making a mistake that big I could go on on this question for a week um I you know what we could do is we could just print more more money we just gave a private Union $36 billion the teamsters a private Union not a government Union they printed that money they got it out of the Opera funds Manchester didn't know that we could apply for pension Rel we have pension issues here the state of New Hampshire has pension issues too so they just print money how about instead we don't allow 10 million illegals to come into our country how many resources are they taking how much is that costing us billions and billions of dollars in EBT cards billions and billions of dollars in welfare billions and billions of dollars in housing support all that money is going to people who haven't even paid a diamond to our system and they're taking it away from our people Americans who some of them are in their 80s and 90s been working for 50 60 70 years of their lives and they're have to worry about this stuff this is nonsense this isn't the kind of stuff that should be going on in a country this big this great with so much money and so much power and corporate power it's a shame and a pox on America that we even have to deal with an issue like this and talk about it it will be funded because the politicians are so weak need in in Congress they'll just print more money and just keep uh spending it and and uh paying it off it'll never ever go away Mr brigh can does cutting spending get us where we need to be on Social Security uh it's part of it it's certainly a lever that you can pull on as opposed to energy Independence I don't know how that ties into Social Security but um look if you dial down spending and there's more money to allocate towards this pension then that is certainly something that you could fix I almost think we have to relook social security for the next generation and not use the Legacy system so I would be in favor of kind of auditing the system that we have now to drive efficiency and not pull the rug out from people that have been paying into this system for their entire life get them through it and then start with the new generation of Americans and start to figure out a better system that could be sustainable because the path we're on right now just doesn't work to Joe's point we're throwing a lot of money a lot of different places doesn't seem to be the right spot and we need to make sure that these seniors and these folks that have been propping this system up for their entire life still have a pension system for them when when when they hit retirement thank you sir and Mr mcfar yeah four and 10 seniors rely on social security for at least half of their income so it's something we have to protect at all cost but the system itself to Chris's Point needs to be re-evaluated because for a society to stay at the same uh population that it has you need 2.3 births per women per woman and we're down to 1.7 as a country so we're facing a situation where we're never going to have enough workers to pay into the system to pay out these benefits so we have to look at something uh for the Next Generation as Chris talks about but for this generation uh We've made a promise and we have to make sure we fulfill that part of that promise is making sure our fiscal house is in order so that we can back up and support any shortfall in any program so that's part of it for sure but the other part is social security is a safety net and for someone like me who's been blessed and been successful and I don't need that safety net Maybe it's my patriotic duty to say you know what I don't need it and I'm not going to take it and leave it in the system for people who do because it is a safety net the one caveat to that being if I ever fall on hard times and I've waved it I say you know what I need it it's a safety net and i' would be entitled to it at that point but as an act of patriotism Warren Buffett maybe shouldn't take his social security check got to move on everybody have a chance to speak on Social Security all right let's go back to the panel uh Jeff chidester with the next one currently our immigration system has been described as broken and many Americans are concerned about the influx of illegal immigrants that may H that may have on the job excuse me let's go back to that what the influx of the illegal immigrants may have on our job market housing shortage and National Security What policies are you prepared to support to address immigration Miss no I believe we need to walk in chum at the same time we need to stop incentivizing illegal immigration we need to stop uh having open borders I'm the only candidate up here who's been to the northern border twice and in the last FIS in this current fiscal year which is not over yet we've had 177,000 just come over the SWAT in the area we need to stop this we need to stop um The Catch and Release we need to have catch and Deport both on the northern border and the southern border we need to have stay in Mexico and stay in Canada we need to build the wall but on the other hand we we need to open up legal immigration we need to rehaul re revamp legal immigration I brought people over from overseas as workers and it was a very difficult system over $10,000 it took over a year it was a legal process that I had proove that they had a uh bachelor's degree or more we should make it skill-based we should make it more easy for people to come come here who want to be screened and be part of our community and we should make it from countries who are legal who are friendly to us as opposed to quota base from certain countries thank you ma'am let's go to Mr brigh on that immigration we can close immigration and we can close our border on day one how do I know we can do that because it was do it was happening under President Donald Trump so we are setting ourselves up for another 911 style event we know on the northern border that a disr Pate number of folks on an international Terror watch list are coming over on our border there are things that we can do on day one so we can get back to rebuilding that wall and that I'm not naive to think we're going to build a wall across our entire Southern border but as a military veteran car of Engineers I know that you can use walls and other types of obstacles to funnel people where you want them to go so we can continue to funnel people and bring them into certain checkpoints and we can augment the other parts of our border with technology the Customs and Border Patrol by them by by their own account is 2,800 people understaffed we need to get them the people they need and they need another two or 300 more people to help adjudicate some of these fictitious Asylum claims I would eliminate ju so which is the policy that if an a child is born on American soil they're automatically an American citizen but I would argue if you're here illegally and have a child born on American soil that child is also illegal so there are several policies that we can Implement on day one to curb this absolute atrocity at our border Mr McFarland sure well this is uh both a safety and a fairness issue right a country cannot be safe unless it knows who and what's coming across its border and right now we don't but it's also an issue of fairness I met a gentleman named Mike in Gastown the other day who went about coming to this country the right way the legal way and it took him years and years so we have to remember that as well as to how we tackle this problem the first thing we have to do is send a signal that we are closed that we're not open so that it is clear to people coming here that are being basically lied to by the cartels and other sources that no we're not open for business and you can't come in we need to uh we need more judges uh for Asylum cases we need more agents we need more technology uh we need to bring everything to bear that we can on this problem um we have to end catch and release uh and then we also as Holly was talking about we need to make sure our legal immigration system matches the needs of our economy what types of workers do we need at any one given time and we need to tackle that problem and lastly I would just say this this concept of we're going to go around and mass Deport people that is so crazy we we can't find them we can't afford to move them and our economy would really take a hit if we got rid of them so we have to be sensible about what we're going to do but also fair to the people that came here legally Mr Lasser God help us if we don't change out this Administration this Administration allowed 10 million people across our borders probably more we don't know how many of them are criminals we don't know how many are terrorists you know when Trump took office the wall wasn't finished he didn't finish it by the end of his four terms we didn't have 10 million people come across our border Biden gets in wall hasn't been finished 10 million come in it's not by accident they were brought into this country and whatever their reasons are they've never explained them and they never actually publicly came out and said we need employees we're not bringing them they're they're coming in why are they coming in and as far as deporting anybody we start with the same model that Trump started with the first group of people well you're right we're never going to get rid of 10 million people and I don't think this country would would want that we start with the criminals we start with people who came into this country with criminal backgrounds and the ms19 gang members and then we must Deport people who come from another country illegally they've broken the law when they walked in if they get caught breaking the law again in this country they can't give them three four years before they get a court date they need to be taken out of the country immediately send a message to these people that we're not going to accept criminal Behavior that's the start and we could go on for another hour about this thank you sir Mr Prescott it's been said very many times before this is the most important election of our lifetime and I believe it so wholeheartedly I've been running for 24 months to make sure that we can win and beat Chris papis this November by reuniting the party around the posit positive messages of closing our border and if we do not reelect Donald Trump more of the same is going to occur by de facto he is Je President Biden and then uh vice president Harris they will keep the borders open by executive order not obey the Constitution we must reelect Donald Trump we must defeat Chris papis this fall and that's why I've been running for 24 months to get this job accomplished calling everybody I know to unite the party together we need to do that and I'm I'm here to tell you that I have that support from The Independents the Libertarians and all of those Jers that are out there they've been voting for me they just want authenticity and proof that you can do the job I have done the job I will do it in in Congress all right time is flying we like to squeeze in a couple more questions so let's go to uh Melanie plundo with the next one and Mr Prescott you're up first sure the Democratic president Presidential nominee has proposed a housing plan focusing on creating new regulations and adding subsidies including providing firsttime home buyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home this will have a direct impact on New Hampshire's housing market what role do you believe Congress has as it pertains to housing and would you support a program such as the one being touted by the Democratic nominee why or why not if we follow KLA Harris on this subject matter we will have further inflation it will always be Out Of Reach to to buy a home and to have a place to live and reach the American dream socialism does not work taking money from others just to give money back to a person that has not uh you know deserved it or earned it it is a wrong idea it is not an American ideal the American ideal and the American dream is about working hard and making sure you can make it to the next level and make sure that you have your family behind you with your with all of the ingredients of the American dream is lower taxes smaller government and make sure you have political freedom without being a socialist country and that's where vice president Harris is trying to bring us to is the wrong direction I will not agree with anything that vice president Harris brings forward Mr same question to you yeah the party that drove up interest rates to 7% now wants to give you $25,000 to make up for what they did to the country by uh their ridiculous inflation over the last four years in spending so they drove up interest rates so that people can't afford to get into a house at a reasonable market rate and now they're going to give you $25,000 nothing drives up the price of Commodities more than subsidies and so the 25,000 that they're going to give them two years later they're going to forgive the loan that's kind of the method that we're working with with with the Democrats if you really really want to get your people into homes you drive down interest rates you make sure your unemployment doesn't go up and you make sure that people have good jobs you give them a good economy and that's what will take care of this and you know people want to move but they can't move out of their threes to go to a seven right we're all stuck in that kind of a little vacuum right now get those interest rates back down and stop just giving money away and then having another generation coming up you Jen's ears you're going to be in big doodo when uh another 10 20 years of what's going on here you're going to be stuck with all of the bills and all of the debt that these people down in Washington have created and won't stop giving you thank you sir Mr brght well this is the problem with uh with career politicians when you put people in office who have no idea what the hell they're doing then you get things like regulation and subsidies let's govern let's let's put uh let's hamstring free markets and let's give out free money that we're going to pass on to other people those are Elementary solutions to real hard world problems graduate degree from MIT when I was there I actually studied under Warren Buffett I learned economy from some pretty powerful people the housing market when you boil it down is a supply and demand issue period and stop and you attack it by both of those reasons you attack it from a supply perspective by deregulating you create energy abundance you deregulate uh like what what happened with the Keystone Pipeline what happened with our wood and instead of giving all Americans and rewriting student loan debt what about investing in America's skilled labor where the average age of skilled labor in this country is 55 years old and for every five that retires out of a trade only one's coming in supply and demand problem get government out of free markets they're not working thank you sir Mr McFarland this is refreshing right this conversation right here and the reason it's refreshing is we're standing on a stage with five people that have owned businesses before not career politicians people that actually as as Russ likes to say signed both sides of a paycheck and everything that has been said on this issue is correct that's why I'm a small government guy when government gets into a situation like this they created the inflationary issue which drove up the prices of homes and drove up mortgage rate cost right and then they say okay we have this huge problem we have to address now we have to give away this free down payment assist which is going to do nothing but increase the the price of homes so this is a government created issue and now at the back end of it to try and solve it they're coming in and putting a proposal together that would come right out of the taxpayer's pocket it is insane they caused the problem and then they're taking money from us to fix the problem it is a supply and demand issue we need to work on the supply side and not create more demand and finally M noveski what's the role of Congress in the housing crisis so we need to remember that the Federal government does not make money they take money they take taxpayer money and to give this $25,000 to people who are have struggling to make the deposit they're going to struggle to make the continued payments what we need to do is bring down the cost of housing and the cost of Interest we need to stop federal spending we need to bring down the C the federal uh interest rate by reeling in the federal government we also need to be energy independent all forms of energy including nuclear energy drives our economy it drives Transportation it drives manufacturing it drives the cost of goods and it drives the kitchen table issues and once the people are in these homes they're going to need help on those kitchen table issues so we need to be energy independent and we also need to look at the building codes that have been put in place because of the Biden Harris uh push for green energy in building it has added $7500 to about $30,000 per cost a house to add um the green energy requirements the return on investment is 20 is 35 to 75 years that doesn't pay off and my apologies go to my good friend Kevin Lander again who drove all the way here to only ask one question we're out of time we got to get to our closing statements I apologize Kevin good to see you as always we drew earlier for this we's start with Mr McFarland oh I'm sorry I thought 9 seconds I thought we were going in reverse order my fault uh thank you Josh uh thank you to New England college for having us here um it's wonderful that they allowed five of us up here so that the voters could make the decision on who should be their elected official instead of a few Gatekeepers keeping it down to a set number of debate stage people I I want to thank the the moderators for their questions the students for the their questions insightful questions that let us talk about the issues and and what you see comparison between us um I want to thank my fellow candidates uh notice I didn't say opponents my fellow candidates doing this is hard running for office is hard putting yourself out there is hard and while we disagree on some substance and definitely on style I so respect the fact that uh you're all in the arena so thank you we have a choice we can continue down the road we're going where we send Nothing but Extreme people down to Washington really conservative on this side really liberal on this side and they just yell at one another we can continue down that path or we can try a new path we can once again send moderates back to Washington people that can actually work together and get things done people that will respect each other even if they disagree because if we continue down this road of divisiveness I don't know where we end up I don't know what the endgame is it doesn't matter how passionately we hold our conservative views if we can't govern somehow by Reaching Across the aisle and finding consensus you got to understand half the people on the other side hold dear to their liberal views too so we can stagnate or we can come together and find some way to bring down the cost of food for people in the granite state some way to bring down the cost of housing some way to tackle the issues that matter to them I'm someone that can win in November I'm not someone that as the last three Cycles here in Congress people have only gotten 46% of the vote and sent Chris papis back three times I can actually win in November thank you sir Mr brigh we got a fight on our hands there are 33 Federal seats between the House of Representatives and the Senate that represent New England Republicans have one that's Susan Collins of Maine if we don't start to get a seat back at the table I'm I'm fearful of of the direction that this country will go in so look when I got in this race last October and it just jumped in this race a couple of weeks ago cuz I thought it would be cool to run for com Congress when I got in this race I grinded I went out I talked to people I hear the frustration I hear the cynicism and I've been there I've served two combat tours I'm not going to Washington DC to better myself in fact this is a hit for me it's a pay cut takes me away from my kids but I'm going because I am genuinely concerned about the direction that this country is going and we don't have the leadership ship the tested leadership to get up there stand in the storm make alliances and have the experience to figure out how to solve some of these problems how these people that we put up here they're politicians they've been writing checks they've been buying their way out of problems or they've been making friends with a bunch of politicians for that doesn't get the job done you need someone that knows how to fight that can look at problems and figure out how to even start attacking those problems before you go about creating some solutions it's going to take an outsider and we need somebody new not somebody that's been walking the halls of government for 25 years who created this mess I hope I'll take your vote thank you Mr brgh thank you very much Mr Lasser my name is Joseph Kelly laaser laaser for congress.com I'm a Manchester born raised individual who rose up from um very uh poor circumstances but had a good life and uh was able to um because of this country get an education open a restaurant where I was I was told I would only last 6 months 34 and a half years later I finally retired while I was owning a restaurant I went out and got my master's degree in business and I went and got my law degree I own commercial property I own real estate I understand a lot of the problems that small businesses homeowners families uh go through every single day understand what it cost how how hard it is to pay bills I understand energy costs New Hampshire's energy costs are out outrageous you know one of the best things I'm very bullish on this country I believe that we can turn things around very quickly and I tell you why in Manchester the people in Manchester got so sick and tired of Joyce Craig's bad bad management of our city that for the first time since 1998 it elected a republican board we have seven Republican aldermen and a Republican mayor in 6 months we've made a lot of changes to that City and moved forward with from our homeless crisis and our drug crisis in our city for the first time since 1998 we have a republican chairman me we work hard we work together we have a tax cap if you ever want to see something that's effective on governments it's a tax cap they that controls spending Manchester has it and it's done a great job again Joseph Kelly Lasser I thank you for all for being here thank you sir Mr Prescott Russell Prescott for Congress please I am a 30-year entrepreneur from a 70-year family business I grew it from 10 employees to 50 employees by hard work Innovation I'm an engineer I have seven patents I find new ways to solve problems it's what I did in Washington what I will do in Washington it's what I did at the state house we stopped the income tax we stopped the sales tax we made New Hampshire the greatest state in the Union because we're the safest and the freest that's what we need we need talent in Washington DC we need proven leadership in Washington DC I'm the prime sponsor of constitutional carry gun owners of America gave me an A+ rating I'm the prime sponsor of right to work I carried the water for a lot of bills I'm the one that made sure that parental notification got through the state senate I'm a pro-life candidate now I need you please to consider this important race in November the amount of support that I have around the state Jers Independence and how I've earned the trust of Libertarians we need smaller government and we need someone with a backbone to get it done I've done this in the past and it means so much to me my family has been here for Generations my eth great-grandfather left Raymond New Hampshire and went to the Battle of Bunker Hill and he died for our country before we even had a declaration of independence I will give my life for this state and this country and that's why I've been running for over two years to make this happen thank you sir thank you and Final War goes to miss noveski thank you very much I believe we all on the stage agree that Chris papis needs to go he has not represented Us in the state I sit on the board of the American Institute of Steel construction and several years ago we had a Federal Trade case against China CH Mexico and Canada for unfairly traded structural steel and I reached out to our federal delegation papis Shaheen and Hassen I had to go to DC to see them I flew to DC and I didn't get to see them I saw their AIDS were not being heard we're not being represented because of Chris papis and the Biden Harris Administration we have unsecured Waters with unprecedented illegal immigration we' have out of control inflation and energy costs here in New England are out of control we need to change things down down in DC Korea politicians have gotten us into this mess and Korea politicians are not going to get us out of this mess and some of our colleagues on this on this Podium have been running for over two decades we're not going to get any different that's the true definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting something different I've been boots on the ground for two decades fighting for the American worker fighting for by American fighting for the American manufacturing and I ask for your vote so that I can go down and continue to speak for the American worker so that they can make sure that they can address the kitchen table issues I know somebody on this Podium Chris insinuates that I was trying to buy by American every penny I spent was for the American worker and I put over $50,000 into uh Republican candidates by American is very important to me buying votes is not thank you very much I'd like to thank our timekeepers our student reporter sup savitzky of course our panelist but most of all on behalf of New England College thanks to the candidates for participating you said it Walter it's not easy I appreciate you all being here thank you very much and don't forget tomorrow night we have the Democratic primary debate for the candidates for Governor what good job good job thank you for Beverly Bruce for giving me cop drops