Into town in 1994 I was 24 years old. I bought a house for $88,000 a three bedroom home. Arizona was affordable back then. Arizona was safe back then, and Arizona was a place everyone wanted to come to live, and now, unfortunately, we're not seeing that anymore. Arizona has become unaffordable and unsafe because of career politicians who have voted against our needs and what's important for our safety. We are going to be hearing tonight from somebody who has undergone an extreme makeover, to quote an old TV show, somebody who has voted with the most radical Democrats in Washington, DC, to tear open our borders that were delivered to him in a safe way, with President Trump securing our border, who has torn apart our economy and who has made our children and our lives less safe. And so tonight, we're going to watch as somebody tries to reinvent himself, somebody who used to be a member of the Progressive Caucus, somebody who has destroyed the very congressional district that he has served for the past 10 years, where homelessness is on the rise. It's the fastest growing homeless population, where quality of life is diminished. We want to get back to the days where Arizona was affordable and safe, and when we put America first, we can do that. We need to put our country over our party. That's what we need to do, country over party, and that's what America First is all about. Unfortunately, the man I'm standing on the stage with tonight, he took an oath to protect us from enemies, foreign and domestic, and we've seen as we've seen enemies coming across our border, we've had 20 million people pour across our border. Our border is wide open. Murderers have come in, criminals have come in, and terrorists have come in. I want to go to Washington, DC, and help President Trump secure the border, bring back that strong Trump economy, make it so that we can have the American dream once again for our young people who feel that they don't have access to the American dream, I'm looking forward to the debate tonight. I thank you for tuning in.
Thank you. And we are going to start with the border this evening. And as this is an intricate issue, we have separated this topic into two categories, border security and immigration reform. Mr. Gallego, you were one of the earliest and most emphatic critics of a border wall. Has your perspective changed on that? How much of a role does a border wall need to play in an overall security package? You have two minutes,
I think a border wall is important to security package, but it also has to be coupled with technology, manpower and then laws that come behind that. So this is why it was important that we were that the border security compromise bill passed, because it had a lot of those elements, and I have voted for border walls in the past, and actually hundreds of miles with the borders because we're appropriate with the proper manpower and staffing. It does work. What doesn't work is when you put a border wall without the manpower and without the actual laws that you need to implement behind it, because it doesn't end up being of any use in just costing us more money. So this is why we focus on things such as the border security bill, right? Something that's extremely important as a conference in the most conservative Republicans and Democrats to make sure that we brought some effort. This is something that the Border Patrol wanted and endorsed. It would have brought more than a couple about 1000s of border patrol agents, 1000s of asylum judges, 1000s of ICE agents, as well as the technology that we needed at a ports of entries. And this is stuff that I heard from our border patrol union. I heard from the, you know, the mayors that I visited down there are county officials, and they needed this and they wanted this. This is why it was very, very sad that Kerry Lake came out and was against that bill, even after they was carved off between the foreign policy aid and just solely standing, she was still against it, not because there was a better option, but because she needs it. She needs this to be a border problem, because that solution would have brought a lot of the problems we have under control. And look, from day one, I've worked in a bipartisan manner when it comes to this. On the first things I did when I got to Congress, I work with Congressman Martha McSally, Republican from Southern Arizona, to get veterans to join Border Patrol. Even recently, I signed on to a bill. The only Denver signed to Bill represent Crenshaw of Texas to get more federal law enforcement make it easier for them to actually join Border Patrol, something that has been very difficult and some that the Border Patrol agents themselves told me they wanted to be able to do.
Thank you, Mrs. Lake, the two minutes I'm going to give you the two minutes, a full two minutes here to talk about the border wall, and can it up, stand and withhold without adding extra security and billions on technology.
I just jotted down Ruben's exact quote. He called it the dumb, stupid border wall. He wrote an op ed that said why we should never build Trump's wall ever so we're getting the Extreme Makeover version of Rubin tonight. Rubin has voted against border security every step of the way. Remember, I covered the state for 27 years. I was in your home, and all that time, we watched as career politicians said they were going to secure the border and give us border security, and they never did, until President Trump came along and actually secured the border. But he had to do with one hand tied behind his back because people like my opponent were fighting him every step of the way. Would not give a penny for that border wall, that border wall keeps us safe. We've seen it here in Arizona, because we've seen those areas where the border wall is there and people aren't coming through, where there are gaps in it, people are pouring through, and Ruben Gallego has supported every step of the way, Kamala Harris, the border czar, and Joe Biden's open border policy, which has ushered in 20 million people illegally, including more than 400,000 convicted criminals, and they've done nothing to secure the border. The only piece of legislation that Mr. Gallego has put forth was not about border security, it was about removing the word illegal alien from anything in the federal government paperwork. He's more worried about semantics than our security, and right now, we know that we have terrorists that are coming through. We're worried about a potential terrorist attack on our home soil. We want to be able to go for a jog in the morning like Lake and Riley did, and not have to worry about being killed, raped and murdered, and we're not safe because of the people that have come in. Ruben Gallego has empowered the cartels. I want to finish the border wall on day one. My first piece of legislation will be to fully fund and expedite the construction of the border wall. It's unfortunate we already paid for the construction materials to do that. But Ruben Gallego and Kamala Harris, have they sold that 325,000 million dollars, rather of border material for pennies on the dollar, they gave it away. We could have had Mrs.
Lake in addition to finishing the wall. Do you add security and technology. Do you spend on that as well? Absolutely,
I don't think we can do enough to secure our border. It is the most important issue facing Arizonans and facing our whole country. Every state is a border state right now because of this man's policies, this man's votes, which have been 100% open border, he sided with the cartels every step of the way and against the American people, and you and I are suffering because.
Thank you. Mrs. Lake, Mr. Gallego, yes. And do you support open borders?
Absolutely. Now, I do not support open borders. A country that doesn't have a border that control is not a country. I absolutely agree with that. And to say that, you know, I, you know, I've been very proud of making sure that in my time in Congress, I have voted and brought 1000s of border patrol agents to Arizona, have voted and funded hundreds of miles of border walls, where needed, where our experts wanted it. This is why supportive of the border enforcement bill, the compromise bill that was supported by border patrol and carry lake for still no reason. How? Why? She can explain it. Can explain it why she was against that bill. Now this is why we have more support from border mayors than she does. As matter of fact, there's one border mayor that started with her on the campaign, met with her in front of the border wall with her campaign sign, and now is supporting us because he knows that we're not just talk, we're not just rhetoric. We're here to bring the resources to actually control the border and not just use as a talking point, which is what Kari Lake does. Mrs.
Lake a minute to respond.
He voted against President Trump's National Emergency on the border. He said the border is not that big of a deal in Arizona, when he was talking to people who were donating money to his campaign and said he's not an expert on the border. We need somebody who understands the threat on the border, and I do, and President Trump does, and on day one, we're going to get busy undoing the damage caused by Kamala Harris Joe Biden and Ruben Gallegos voted with him 100% of the time. Can you imagine voting with the Kamala Harris and Joe Biden 100% of the time, especially when it comes to the border. You know, this isn't just about an open border. We've got 20 million people pouring in. They're taking jobs, they're taking housing. This is why nobody can afford housing anymore, because we're having to compete with people who have come in illegally. I am completely opposed to an open border. I am 100% for legal immigration. My mother in law came here legally, and all of the incredible immigrants of this country who came here legally are horrified by the votes that my opponent has taken. They're horrified by what Kamala Harris has done, by the way, that piece of legislation. Thank you for reminding me I am not for it. It is because it would codify into law 5000 people every day coming in illegally. That means 5000 people every day would be pouring across our border illegally. That law did nothing to stop child sex trafficking. 350,000 children have been trafficked across our border. Since Ruben Gallego and Kamala Harris opened up that border, 350,000 and they've lost track of them. Specific
question, please, on that topic, are there any elements of that bipartisan border bill you would have supported, actually
not because it was not done properly. Listen, here's what happens in Washington, DC. These guys meet in back rooms. They have an idea. They say, let's put a border deal together. Let's call it the safe border out whatever they call it, because they always call it something that is really usually the opposite. Then they throw a bunch of other stuff in there, and they never get to it. The problem with this piece of legislation that I had a real problem with Steve was that they attached it to $115 billion in foreign money, and more money, our money, Arizona's money going overseas to kill people. And when they couldn't get this passed, because there was no bipartisan support, they may have had three different people writing it, pushing this, but there was no bipartisan support. Three people supporting it. The senators were not bipartisan behind it, and in the house, they weren't supporting it either, and the people weren't supporting it. So what they did is they separated it out, and Ruben Gallego voted to send another $60 billion to Ukraine. And after he made that vote, he sashayed around the floor of Congress waving a Ukrainian flag. I want to ask the veterans out there. Can you ever imagine standing on the floor of Congress, standing anywhere and waving the flag of another country? That is what this gentleman did. He sold us out. He sold us out to Ukraine. He spent $260 billion he voted for every penny of that, but he would not help President Trump build the border wall, even when President Trump said to the Democrats, I want to make a deal when it comes to DACA, I want to make a deal when it comes to DACA. Let's make them citizens in exchange for helping me come up with money to build the border wall. And Ruben Gallego and the Democrats said, no, they're using these DACA recipients as political pawns. I find that to be disgusting. Ruben, why are you using them as pawns? Once you make a deal with President Trump, let me
have you jump in about that, specifically about the dreamers. What's your level of sexual
it was actually in the room when I was negotiating this with General Kelly, Chief of Staff of then President Trump. We actually did agree to give the border wall for dreamers. And then he came back said, Well, now we want to actually take and bring down more legal migration, take out green cards and everything else like that. So
after actually not true, he I'm sorry, President Trump tripled it. So
I promise you rebuttal, I promise you
so. But back to, this is something actually she has been avoiding. Why don't we just give dreamers status? Kari Lake, this whole campaign, has dodged what would happen with dreamers. She talks about deportation, but she'll never answer if she is she going to deport the dreamers in this country, because I don't think dreamers should be deported. Carrie Lake keeps avoiding these types of very, very hard answers. And back to, let's talk about this, the bill was actually separated so eventually, once from pressure from politicians like Carrie Lake, who, again, just want a border problem, won the day, and a lot of Republicans walked away from a border compromise bill that did have a lot of Republican co sponsors, they separated out to actually have a separate bill only on the border. And Carrie Lake, again, voted no. This is why she doesn't have support of so many of those border mayors. So we actually now have 45 Republicans, former elected and currently this have not cross supporters, because they understand we take this seriously, not just the campaign rhetoric this
was going to codify, pouring across our border. And we know we just learned this week. We just learned this week that 400 roughly 35,000 people have poured across who we knew had criminal records. 50 or 60,000 of them were convicted rapists and murderers. This piece of legislation was a disaster. It would have codified catch and release. I do have a solution. It's called HR two, and it will secure the border that, along with constructing the border wall quickly, which we can do, and then dealing with the people who poured in during the bidenvasion, the 20 million people who have come in unvetted into our country. We must deal with them. In order to save our homeland, we must send them back to their homeland. I'm talking about the people came in unvetted in the past three and a half years. I'm talking about I'm not talking about the dreamers. I'm talking about the people who came in. Who came in in the past three and a half years. Do you want to keep them here? Do you want to deport any of the people who've invaded our country in the last three and a half years? Reuben? Do want to deport any of the do you want to deport any of them? 30 seconds,
yes, actually we should have a proper deport deportation proceedings. But I also think that we shouldn't be poor dreamers. Kari Lake again,
20 million of them. I
don't there's no 20, there's not 20 million dreamers. So let's be clear. I made clear you had a chance to make right now President Trump, right now he's going to deport she says she's going to deport people. Will you do poor dreamers? Just be honest, yes
or no, no, that dreamers are not dreamer. President Trump wanted to make a deal when it came to dreamers. To dreamers, you said, No. Unfortunately, the radical Democrats, like my opponent, would rather use people as political pawns. I want to secure the border. We're going to do that right now. We've watched Mrs. Lake and Riley's life have been snuffed out. We've watched as 100,000 people a year are taken from us because of fentanyl poisoning, and we allowed the cartels, he's empowered them to continue to funnel fentanyl in and Mrs.
Lake, I would like to ask through August of this fiscal year, Customs and Border Patrol reported more than 2 million people caught crossing illegally or deemed inadmissible, 500,000 pounds of drugs seized at ports of entry. What is the bigger threat to you? The flow of migrants or the flow of drugs one minute,
they're both terrible. It's a war against America. We have an invasion of people coming in. And I remember seeing video of they look like soldiers coming in, soldiers from other countries, coming and pouring across our border, and then we have the cartels empowered by Ruben Gallego trafficking drugs into our state. We are the funnel for fentanyl. I have met so many parents along and loved ones on the campaign trail who come up to me, and then they wait, usually, until the end of an event. You can spot it. There's a sorrow that you see in their face. And they come up to me at the end of the end of the event, and they say, I lost my son. He was 16 years old. He took half of what he thought was a Xanax pill, and he's not with us. 20 year old daughter, a young mother. We are losing a generation of people. We're losing an entire generation of young people. And you should know better, Ruben, you've, you've even said this. You've, you have admitted that you have a loved one who was a convicted felon, drug trafficker who's trafficked drugs into our country. Mr. Greg,
a minute to respond. I
want to finish this because I feel for you. You got emotional talking about that a close relative of yours, and for you to continue to vote to empower cartels to bring in fentanyl, which is a weapon of mass destruction, into our country, you talked about this one minute. He talked about the sorrow he felt from having a family member who trafficked drugs, and how hard it was for him. And what you're doing to families right now Reuben is you're making that be their reality. You're making it so moms and dads out there are losing people because of drugs. Your on the border have empowered the cartels.
You know, I've taken this so seriously that, you know, I was actually in support of the bill that would brought more technology to the border, that would have actually checked all the scanners. And by the way, that was in the bill that Carrie lake also, again, stood up and said, Do not pass it, not because it wasn't a good solution, because it would have brought a political solution to an end that she needs. She needs this talking point. You know, I take this so seriously. As a member of the armed search committee for the last 10 years, actually introduced a bill into a call the buck stops here, which helps us track down the sources of money that goes to fentanyl all the way from China to Mexico into United States. So I do take this seriously. And again, this is why I have more support from elected officials and leaders in this country and in this state. And she does order mayors that used to campaign with her are now campaigning with me because they don't think that she's serious about this. As a matter of fact, we have 45 Republicans, again, that aren't campaigning with her, but it seems like Donald Trump doesn't want to campaign with her anymore either. He's not allowing her pictures on any of his billboards. So this is what we're seeing right now, a candidate that could only talk but doesn't actually produce results. Well,
Mr. Gallego, one of the impacts that we see that's really being felt by border towns that we heard from in the questions that were submitted by voters is that the hospitals and border towns are spending on medical care for migrants. Food banks have been impacted and continue to be stretched. So now locals worry that there aren't enough resources left for them. So how do you rectify or regulate the financial impact for those communities, especially when we're looking at both for profit and nonprofit organizations two minutes. It's
a great question. Actually, I've been working for, you know, the last two years, especially to make sure that we bring money to our border communities. This is money that's been asked by Yuma County, you know, Santa Cruz County, Pima County, coaches County, and
the NGOs that are transported, we're going to give him his time. Okay? He wants to, he wants to fund the NGOs that I'll give you a response. So
these communities, including these nonprofits, that work with our local communities, are essential to actually making sure that the streets are full of men just walking around, right? And so what they do, with the help from us, through FEMA, which, by the way, she wants to cut these funds, is we made sure that these migrants aren't affecting the small towns. They can't take that impact and that our local communities are hospitals, firefighters, law enforcement, ambulances, that they're all reimbursed. Carrie Lake, I mean someone, she will do anything and say anything to gain power, including lying. I
haven't had this you have 10 years,
has said that in one minute that we took money from FEMA, that we took money from FEMA for hurricane when in fact, we appropriated money specifically for those border communities because they were asked for by these mayors. And now she says we should cut that. She says we should cut that these mayors. So I hope you'll call the mayor of Douglas, the mayor of Nogales, the mayor Yuma, and say, Hey, because I want to earn points with my friends on these right wing talk shows, I'm going to cut your funds. Because she's lying right now, she's lying that the money that went to FEMA came from that fund. It actually is going directly to them. But of course, it doesn't matter, as long as she gets to get her talking points in and she gets to lie and get power Arizona special border committees are the
ones are going to be hurt. The financial impact for those border communities absolutely horrifying.
Hospitals having to close down hospitals there that aren't being paid because people coming across illegally are getting services and they're not being paid for them. And Rubens idea is to actually funnel billions of dollars into the NGOs that are actually taking part in transporting people further into our country, not just here in Arizona. Go to the airport. Take a red eye out of Phoenix Sky Harbor looks like a migrant encampment, because so many people are moving from Phoenix Sky Harbor to all points all 50 states and Gallego. Ruben, Gallego has funded that. That's what he wants to do. You know, the real answer, the real solution Arizona, is not to have to pour billions into all of this, is to shut down the border build the border wall that he calls a dumb, stupid border wall. Build the border wall. And then, and then Ruben, we don't have to pour billions of dollars into the NGOs. The real solution to help these border communities so that they aren't taking a financial hit is to finally put the border wall up and get serious about border security. But Mr. Gallego would rather pour $260 billion of your hard earned tax dollars into Ukraine to fight for their borders, not our borders. I want to protect you. That's why President Trump, my good friend, has called me border Carrie lake. I love the nickname, and I'm going to go there, to Washington, DC, and help him build that border wall and secure the border we can't afford what Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego have done. Can you imagine, he's voted with them 100% of the time for an open border. We're not safe because of it. Fentanyl is falling into the hands of our young people. It's affecting our economy. If you're out there working one or two jobs, when you bring 20 million people in, they're going to work for peanuts, especially under Ruben Gallegos plan, which is to pay for their housing and give them an EBT card with 1000s of dollars on it to pay for their food. They don't have the monthly expenses to live and so they can work for a reduced wage. It brings your wages down, and it makes all of our families have to struggle even more and ask the police about it. They're struggling because more crime. How many of you out there know somebody, or you yourself have been a victim of crime from these Chilean gangs that dinnertime bandits who broke into homes and are terrorizing people here. Thank you. We're going
to dramatically change, dramatically change topics. Just 30 seconds. 30
seconds will number one, there stood been no hospital shut down. This money is actually been requested by the communities these this money has requested by Nogales. I saw the Cruz. They've asked us to work with these nonprofits to release, release, release the pressure that they have. She would literally leave these towns abandoned. No, I would have you not visited. Why have you not visited them and talk to them? You've been to mar a Lago more than you have to the border. If you had been to the border and actually talk to these towns, talk to these nonprofits, talk to these mayors, they would tell you, we need this or else we're going to have chaos. But you have been more interested in the talking point she wants the talking point, she wants a solution, and Arizona is going to get hurt. Arizona is
going to get hurt. Arizona said, you've
probably been to Arizona. Mr. Gallego,
let's switch topics to abortion, reproductive rights. If you were in the Senate, would you either vote to make abortion codified in the US Constitution? Or would you vote for a ban? Or would you find someone in the middle? Do you think federal officials, federal government, at this point, should be involved in this issue at all?
I would codify roe. It is absolutely abhorrent that my 15 month old daughter has less rights in control of her body and her mother and then her grandma. The fact that we have women, they're now going to sepsis, just so they could get a life sitting abortion. We have women that are traveling with their daughters, that are victims, victims of rape, out of state so they could get an abortion. A 10 year old baby girl, victim of incest, had to leave her home state and the comforter family to get abortion. And the reason we need to codify that because people like Carrie lake are the ones that make this a dangerous situation. This is a person who only two years ago, actually less than two years ago, said the 1864 territorial law, a law that said, if you were abortion provider, it was a mandatory two year sentence and had no exceptions for rape or incest, was a great law. She said it was a great law. She said she was thrilled when Roe was overturned, and then, when she was disappointed to find out that the 1864 law, again, the one that had no exceptions for rape or instance, was not going to get enforced, she said, Well, I hope the sheriffs will do their jobs. Can you imagine to share, we have it on tape. You these are all your words on tape. Can you imagine Sheriff Joe Arpaio enforcing abortion laws? This is who Carrie Lake is. She has told us what she would do. She said it. She said she was thrilled when Roe was overturned. And so do we want politicians like Carrie Lake to be involved in these very, very difficult decisions when they should be left to the woman, to the doctor and the family. Mrs. Lake, you have two minutes.
It should be left to the states. I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she said this should be a decision left to the states. Everyone knew it was unconstitutional and Arizona. And I want to speak to the women of Arizona. I'm the only woman on this stage right now. I don't think I'm standing next to a woman, and so I understand how difficult these choices may be, and we have the choice as Arizona is to decide what our abortion law will be. It's going to be up to us, and we're going to decide in November when we go and cast our ballot. And Ruben Gallego wants to take that choice away from us. He wants to take it back to the federal government in some back room with Chuck Schumer, and decide what our abortion law will be here in Arizona, it's going to be up to us. I want us to have that choice, and whatever the law ends up being, whatever our choice ends up being, I will respect. I come from a large family. I'm the youngest of nine, and we had eight girls, so I know a lot about women. I have a daughter myself, and I want to make sure that we have the choice to decide what our abortion law is here in Arizona. He knows and Steve, you know, this is what we're running for federal office. This isn't going to be cited. Decided in the Senate. This is not and I will tell you this, I will never pass a federal abortion ban, nor will I approve or vote for federal tax dollars being used for abortion. But here's what I will do, because I'm a mother and I care deeply about women, and because things have gotten so desperate in this country, more and more people are choosing to have an abortion because they can't afford to live, let alone take care of a baby. I don't want any woman out there to make that choice because she can't afford to live, because of the votes that people like Ruben Gallego have made that have made our economy practically collapse. It's on life support right now. So I want to go to the US Senate and pass the most pro family legislation. I want to make sure that UVF is protected. I have many friends who are here. They're my friends today because of UVF, and I have many of my friends who have had children and experienced the joy of motherhood and Parenthood because of UVF, this is sad because Ruben guy who doesn't really care about women's rights when it comes to our women, our girls, who are athletes, he wants us to have to compete against men, biological men
to follow up. You said that you would not support a federal ban. Do you stand by that if Proposition 139, here in Arizona that would override our state ban, would you still not pursue a federal ban? First
of all, we don't have a state ban. We have a 15 week abortion law that was passed by both Democrats and Republicans, signed into law by both Hobbs and Governor Ducey. And so we don't have an abortion ban, but I will not pass a federal abortion ban in the United States Senate. Ruben Gallego wants to take the choice away from us. He doesn't really care about women's rights. If he cared about women's rights, first of all, I'm astounded that he actually knows the difference between a woman and a man, because I thought there were, what 147 different genders. I do care about women's rights. I come from a family of women, and I have a daughter of my own, many nieces and nephews, and I care about Lake and Riley's right to exist and live and be safe, but his votes have caused it to where people are pouring across our border, dangerous people taking away the lives of women. I care about the ability for our daughters to be able to participate in athletics. He doesn't want that, and he doesn't care about your first amendment right to the women out there who might disagree with him politically, he wants to censor you. So let's talk about women's right. Women care about a lot of different issues. Ruben, I know you spent what, $40 million on attack ads regarding abortion. Think about how many lives could have been saved, and how many women could have been helped with $40 million and think about what we could have done to help make our country a better place with all those attack ads. Mr. Gregor,
I'm going to give you a minute to respond, and I also want you to clarify, because you said you would vote to uphold roe on a federal level. So that means that states can only intervene in the third trimester.
That's correct. We'd go back to what with the protections we had for the last 50 years. And wrote now Kelly also, I think, misspoke, to give her credit, where she said that the 15 week ban is is good, and it's not a band. There's also within that current law, no exception for incest and rape. So again, we're going back to what she originally was saying not too long ago, when she said this very restrictive law that had no, no, no, no exception for rape or incest, that would have jailed providers. Was a great law, someone that was willing to look at a mother and say, I know your daughter was raped, but she does not have a right to an abortion. She was willing to say that just two years ago, and now we're going to trust her. We're going to trust her now this is the same person that still lying about winning the 2022 election, and yet we're going to trust her. She's failed a basic test of honesty. Why would we trust her with our daughters? Mr.
Gray, but Mrs. Lake, I specifically I want to ask you to respond real quickly to 30 seconds.
He acts like he cares about us. I want to speak to the women out there, but when you look at his character and his background, he has been harassing women and being disparaging toward women from the very beginning, when he worked at City Hall, he had a complaint about a hostile work environment and being hostile toward women. He went over to the legislature. The sexual harassment filed against him in the legislature, people go crying out of his office. This is a man who is putting on his extreme makeover act, and what you see behind the scenes is not some of you cares. We
want to get some specifics for voters, because you did mention that you have a plan to support those catch services. So things like state foster and adoptive services, mental health services for women in postpartum care. What is your plan to support those services? Someone mentioned
that because that gets mentioned so infrequently in this discussion, you talked about abort, you talked about we've talked about abortion, but we haven't talked about adoption, and there's so many families out there who would love to adopt a child. I just saw a statistic, and it broke my heart. It said that 60% of women who have an abortion would have chosen not to have one if they knew there was financial help out there or emotional help. And so if we are just offering a little bit of help to women, they will choose to have that baby. And so I want to make sure that those choices are out there. And a lot of these you mentioned our state our state programs, so that would be done at the state level, but anything we can do in the federal government to assist in that, we need more we need bigger families. We need families out there. Our birth rate is dropping to a precipitous level, actually dangerous. And we can't just import new populations. We want to have families growing. And so I want to make sure we've got Child Tax Credit. We have support. You know, I just believe deeply in how beautiful and wonderful wonderful families are coming from a big family myself. Thank you. We didn't have much, but we had love. And a big family is a really special thing. So I want to make
sure Mrs. Lee and Mr. Gallego, one minute, would you try to work in something on a federal level to provide better services for families who are trying to afford their children and if any of the stricter state abortion bans are upheld, well,
certainly we should make sure we continue with some of the great work we did with the child tax credit that brought childhood private down by 60% which, by the way, care Link was against when the bill was on the floor. We should also move into child care right now, child care is more expensive than send your kid to ASU. So these are the things that we should be doing, you know, as often as we can, to make sure that we making, you know, every day a little better. I'd like to do also, just to point out that there was just a lot of personal hits that were just thrown there. And we won't go through every lie, but I
would actually be interested in doing that. You're curious why you have
the current fire. The current state representative fired. The State Representative actually, that we that she is talking about, actually sent her an email asking her to stop because what she claims happened did not happen. We're actually friends, and she's supporting us. She's supporting this campaign. Number two, this is a trend you're going to see with Carrie Lake. Whenever she doesn't have an answer, she just goes for personal attack because she has no good answer on abortion. She will ban abortions. She was willing to tell a mom that your daughter cannot have an abortion even she was raped just two years ago. We're going to move on.
We're going to move on to the economy, because both we have a lot of things to say about that. This is like, I want to ask you a very specific question, and I want to get some ideas from you, because there are a lot of people who are in the state of Arizona who regardless of the stock market going up or unemployment being low, they're wondering, they're struggling right now, they have to work two jobs. I'm not sure what to do, but what does a living wage look like to you? And how is a Senator, would you help people in Arizona get to a point where they could afford housing they don't feel like they're up against the wall every month? I'm
so glad you're asking these questions, because this is the number one issue for Arizonans. There's so many big problems right now, but people are struggling. I was talking to a woman in the West Valley, and she'll remember the conversation we had. She talked about how she volunteers, and she's volunteered for decades at the food bank, even giving food volunteering her time. And she said, for the first time in my life I've had to go to that food bank and ask for help because I don't have enough money to get through the end of the week. And so we have to do something, and it starts with bringing down the cost of everything, the cost of everything we have been affected most especially in rube Gallegos district, with inflation, housing prices are on the rise. They've gone up 35% I talked about when I first moved here and bought a house, a three bedroom house, for $88,000 it's not affordable, and it goes right back to the American rescue Act, the American rescue plan, which was anything but a rescue. It actually sent a spiraling and put our economy on life support. Obama and Obama's Treasury Secretary warned Ruben Gallego and the Democrats do not sign this piece of legislation into law or it will send inflation skyrocketing up. That's exactly what they did. They did not heed the warning. They signed it into law, and that's why the price of everything has gone up. The price of eggs up over 100% the average monthly mortgage payment has gone up 105% here in Arizona, and we have three cities that actually have the highest jump in in rent payments every single month, and that's Tucson, Mesa and Phoenix. So one of the things I want to do is secure the border. When you have 20 million people and we're competing for goods and services with people, it's a basic supply and demand, but we also have to work to bring down the cost of everything, and we have to make sure that we're not printing money and bringing inflation up. There's only one entity that can create inflation, that is the government. They have pushed for more spending, more spending, more spending, and that means more printing of money, and that's why your dollar is only worth 75 cents today. It was worth $1 under President Trump is only 75 cents under Kamala Harris. One
minute to respond, how do you make living more affordable if your constituents
Well, first of all, the minimum wage should be $15 and should be pegged to inflation, so actually keeps moving up. Number two, you fight inflation by actually looking at how you can bring down costs. Number one, we have a big opportunity right now. We need to stop the merger of the grocery stores in Arizona by allowing Corrigan Allison's to merge, they're going to have 70% of all grocery store controlling customers that will raise prices, and we already saw a lot of the grocery stores already gouging our consumers. Carrie Lake, by the way, went on record and says she didn't think there was any gouging of consumers at grocery stores, even though executives from this grocery stores under oath said they did do it. But we also need to continue doing some of the things that we have done. We've passed legislation that mandates that our government negotiates the prices of prescription drugs. We've kept insulin at $35 next year, seniors, they're going to have their prescription drugs capped at a total of $2,000 that's the kind of something to do. And then we have to make sure we fight these big corporations that are taking up 1/3 of all the homes recently. And by the way, Kari Lake wants to allow them to keep buying those homes, and then now she's going to give them a tax cut next year.
All right, I need to issue a 32nd answer on this Trump tax cuts. Would you vote to extend them?
Yes, I would. And by the way, you're about to see the Extreme Makeover version of Ruben. He's going to say he's now for the Trump tax cuts when he's been against them. We're not only going to extend the Trump tax cuts, we're going to make sure that we're not making anybody who's seeing your citizen on Social Security pay taxes on their social security check, no more taxes on tips and no more taxes on overtime. We've got to stop printing money like it's going out of style. That's what Ruben Gallego, Kamala Harris and the Democrats have done, and we're going to start cutting back on the wasteful spending through government. It's outrageous what they want to spend money on. For example, I gave
you 30 seconds. I apologize, 30 seconds on tax policy. Mr. Gaga, we need
to keep the middle class portion of tax cuts, the tax cuts the corporations that made billions of dollars of price gouging those need to go up. She actually was given a bigger tax cut than they already have. That's ridiculous. We need to negotiate. We need to also make sure. We also need to bring in a child tax credit as part of that Trump tax cut. But giving more tax cuts to they have been paying the fair share. And price gouging our Arizonans at the same time is unfair, and Kari Lake will do that. Thank
you, Mrs. Mrs. Lake, because you mentioned it specifically. You mentioned social security specifically. How do you maintain it? Because Arizona has one of the highest populations of seniors, and they're worried about this. How do you maintain social security without privatizing it? 30 seconds, please. I
want people who on Social Security know you have paid into that. That is an insurance benefit you've paid into, and we are not touching that. Ruben Gallego, Kamala Harris and the Democrats will decimate it. They want to make it so you can't the age that you have to be to qualify to get your Social Security. They want to raise that and they also want to take Medicare. He promised he wouldn't touch Medicare. They wouldn't raise ruin Medicare and touch it. And they have. He wants Medicare for all, which really means Medicaid for all, and that will be a disaster for Arizona families. I have to mention that prescription drug prices, he touts that he brought that down his vote in the inflation Reduction Act actually caused medications to go up for people in parking 57% increase in price.
Thank you. I'm going to give you one minute to respond to that and also talk about Social Security. Sure.
And you know, this has been fact checked. We did not support did not raise social security, so matter of fact, we've actually increased the solvency of Medicare by negotiating for drugs. For the first time, our Pharma has to negotiate for the cost of drugs to our seniors, the fact that she wants to keep that I don't even know where to go with that. Social Security has to be saved. I've been working to the age of 14. The money that I put into Social Security when I was working in me packing factory is the money that I've earned. My mom's about to join the community to she's about to be retired. I want her to have social security, and there's so many Arizona rely on it. But the way to do that, to be realistic, we need to raise the cap. When it comes to security. People that make more than $400,000 a year are going to have the caps raised, and that's going to increase the solvency and payout of of Social Security 100% all the way to 2060 that's how we bring security. That's how this is done. And this has been checked by economists, and that's the best way you could do it to make sure it
happens. He's got a Democrat president. I think we have a Democrat president. I don't know, frankly, who's running the country right now. But why haven't you done that? Ruben had a Democrat president your first day on the job. Actually do have a bill. The job was 10 years ago. So I
actually do have a bill, Social Security Act of 2100 that exactly does that. And love to have the Republicans not stop the bill and filibuster it also. But of course, I'll continue working on that. And this is the difference between me and Kari Lake, like I actually try to work on things she says talking points. So just talk and not really know what she's saying. It's interesting
because he's only vote. He's voted with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, Arizona. You got to know this, he's voted with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden 100% of the time. He wants to act like he's bipartisan. He was the leader of the Progressive Caucus. That's where all the ideas that we scratch our head and go, who came up with these crazy ideas come from like, I'm
going to cut you off. So we move on to the topic. We're almost running out of town. So two hottest summers in recorded history, last couple of summers in Phoenix, whether it is human caused or whether it is cyclical, there certainly is a climate difference going on here in Arizona. What are some ideas you have to make sure we're ready to have enough energy and enough water here in the state if, in fact, we do get honor
Well, I wouldn't do what the Democrats did, which was take a great energy policy that President Trump had put in place and decimated on day one, hour one, like Joe Biden did with the support of my opponent. We definitely can't do that. We need to bring back and start building the Keystone XL pipeline and continue as President Trump says to drill, baby, drill. I want to look at all sources of energy. We absolutely need plentiful energy that's inexpensive and reliable. We want reliable energy. The price of electricity has gone up some 30% I was reading an article the other day of a woman who is a retiree who has to keep her house at 83 she keeps the windows and shades closed because she just can't afford to cool her house. We need to bring the price of energy down. And unfortunately, with the moves the Democrats did right when they got into office, it caused a spike in energy prices. Only now are they realizing they're in trouble, and they're starting to drill once again, but the Democrats want us to be reliant on foreign energy, foreign energy with
I bring in more base load energy, and that's going to have to be nuclear. That's the quickest thing we could do to make sure that we could continue the growth that we have in Arizona with the manufacturing and residential to make sure that we can meet that. Number two, she didn't bring up water. This is Arizona. She should have brought up water, but we need to make sure that we're making water investments to deal with the drought that is caused by climate change. So that means we need to make sure that we have more water reclamation projects. We're going to have to have more transference profits. We're gonna have to cover our canal system of evaporation in the 2026 negotiations that are coming up, we're probably gonna have to cut about 760, acre feet of water, which is gonna be very dangerous to some of our farmers. Are gonna be shut off from that. So these are the real things that she should be doing, but she's in denial about climate change. But we should not be surprised that she's still in denial about, okay, the 2022, election. And now I give you one minute. You have one minute. Will you finally tell the people of Arizona, did you win or lose that election?
Can we? Can I talk about water really
quickly, because I got 30 seconds to respond. Please talk about water separately. We're running out of time, so 30 seconds.
Let's talk about water. He's had 10 years in Congress, he's done nothing. I've lived here for 30 years, and I've watched as politicians continue to say we have a water crisis. We are in the West. We need to look at long term solutions. I'm not talking about fighting over a drop of water we can conserve, but we can't conserve our way out of this crisis. Otherwise, we'll end up giving the short end of the stick to our ag community and our ranchers, and we'll have a food crisis before we have a water crisis, I want to go to Washington, DC, and work on true solutions, piping in fresh water desalination, but finally, for once and for all, bringing in new sources of water to the West. The West is growing. We don't want to be scrounging over water. We want to have plentiful water sources. And I'm going to do it. I'm sick of watching politicians like Ruben do nothing
Mrs. Lake before we run out of time. And we do want to get to this last topic as well as Mr. Gallego has brought up. You have both made your stance on previous elections clear, but we want to know public perception is, at least in Arizona, that something seems to go wrong every time. So what specifically can be supported in the Senate to restore faith and confidence, regardless of who wins or loses in elections.
You know, we've had problems across the country since 2001 year, the Democrats are mad. The next year, the Republicans are we've got problems with our elections, and there's no doubt about it, the people of Arizona have been burned. They're tired of hearing about hiccups and loopholes and problems that happen on election day. We just want to make sure that our legal vote counts. My opponent wants illegal votes to count. He actually voted twice to have illegals vote. He voted against the Save Act, which would prevent illegals from voting. I want every legal vote to count. I don't care if you are the most liberal democrat or the most conservative Republican or where most of Arizona is somewhere in between, I want every legal vote to count. My solution would be, let's get back to something closer to what we used to have Election Day paper ballots, and we know the results right there on the night of the election, but we definitely can't have people pouring across our country illegally voting. Not only does he want to let them vote, he wants to give them all asylum, and we've got to stop this nonsense at the border. One minute to respond. This
is Kari Lake. Whenever
she doesn't have an answer, she goes to the border to a personal hit. Number one, has already been factored. I'm not for illegals voting. Number two, this is the person that's this person has shown leadership. She has caused harm to Arizona. She's caused harm and has made a laughing stock, and that's dangerous. She has 14 lawsuits. She's currently suing to be reinstated as governor. She has caused Stephen Richard, Republican, a good Republican, to have to go get private security because of all her threats that she caused upon him to the point where he sued for defamation and she admitted that she lied about him. Now she's doing now she's just waiting for the judge to say how much she's going to have to pay him, and Bill Gates, another Republican and Clint thinkman, so this is what we're talking about. She just also said that she wants to get rid of vote by mail. So what we're seeing here is Carrie Lake again, who still has not accept that she lost the 2022 election. She is dangerous to Arizona. She will say anything, she would do anything to win, but Arizona is the one that is losing right now.
30 seconds, how do you address public perception when it comes to elections and feeling confident? Well,
what you do is what you actually have seen. Secretary say font is Republican county supervisors, as well as kind of recorders. You show leadership. You go and you go through the process, you work in a bipartisan manner to actually instill trust, learn, have people learn about the process, not actually do what Carrie Lake does. She exploits it. She has a nonprofit to fight the steel. But we don't even know what she's been using the money for. As a matter of fact, she's still holding up the judge in terms of discovery so he could see how much she owes Steven Richard for lying about the election.
I've never lied to the people of Arizona. I want to put that out right now. Unfortunately, we've watched, we're watching the great, you know, Extreme Makeover, Gallego, but I've never lied to the people of Arizona, and I just want to have to count, because
it is time Our time is up. So we want to get to your closing statements. Make sure that you have that full minute to keep us on time. We will politely cut you up when we get to the end of the minute, Mr. Gallego, you do have the first closing statement, Your time starts
now. Well, thank you, Arizona. Look, I'm a very lucky man. I'm just lucky to be born in the best country in this world. And you know, by all accounts, I shouldn't even be here. You know, my mom raised us alone, and you know the real belief in the American dream and a real want to succeed, I got to rm and my sisters. We have doctors, have teach about business, women in our small family, and we are a true story American. I want every Arizona to be able to fulfill that and have that opportunity. But you have dangerous situation where crossroads here we have dangerous leaders like Carrie Lake, who will lie to you. She's still lying to you right now. She is trying to take away your vote and disrespecting you by saying that she still won the 2022 election. How could you trust someone like that who's willing to lie to you all the way to the end? This is better Arizona. We are better than this, and we are a great state that's going to be coming greater if we work together and not your time,
Carrie Lake, you have one minute. Arizona.
Thank you for tuning in tonight, and I'm looking forward to being your next US senator and bringing back a strong, secure border, that strong Trump economy, where everybody was doing better no matter what color your skin, what neighborhood you were from, what your political ideology is, we want to make sure we have a strong economy. Once again, we want to fully fund our police. My opponent called to defund the police when he was marching in the BLM riots and calling police officers racist and and actually the bad guys. And that's very unfortunate. I want every police officer in their family to know I fully support you. We will fully fund the police. We're going to need you to make our streets safe again after all of the crime that's poured in with an open border, on day one, we're going to get to work to secure the border. We're going to get the criminals who have invaded our country out, and we're going to bring back that strong, thriving economy. And I want to tell something out there, if there's any kiddos watching, I don't want you to worry. I want you to dream really big. I want you to know that we're going to turn this country around, and your American dream will become reality.
Thank you. We appreciate
your time, and that is all the time that we have, and we thank you for watching you.
