- Good evening and welcome to this candidate forum.

My name is Ruvine Jimenez and I am a member of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

The league is a nonpartisan organization that neither supports nor opposes candidates.

In presenting these forums, it is our goal to provide opportunities for voters to become better informed about the people who are running for public office.

The 2024 primary candidate forums have been prerecorded in person by Northwest Public Broadcasting at WSU Tri-Cities.

They will be available through August 6th primary election day at nwb.org, on the league's Facebook page, and website at lwvbf.org on YouTube and through the league's additional partners, the cities of Richland and Pasco, and the Columbia Basin Badger Club.

At this time, I would like to introduce our moderator, Matt Loveless, from the Murrow College of Communication at WSU Pullman.

Please welcome Matt.

- Well, good evening and thank you to the League of Women Voters.

I am Matt Loveless.

I'll be hosting this forum here tonight.

We have a full hour to talk about a crowded primary in the fourth Congressional District here in the state of Washington.

Eight candidates will appear on the primary ballot.

Not all eight responded to our invitation.

I'll explain how we'll handle that in a moment.

But first, a few rules for today's forum.

And here at NWPB, we pride ourselves on having a fair and non-contentious place for our candidates to speak, meaning we will not tolerate interruptions from anybody on or off camera.

We have made time for one minute opening and closing statements in between a series of questions provided by the league and their constituents.

In order to fit this into our allotted hour, the first four questions will have a 90 second time limit.

The last four will be set at one minute.

I will be clear about those rules and time limits throughout.

Now, as moderator, I may add or remove questions for time in this program in order to keep things fair and on time.

And before we get to all that, let's talk about the candidates.

We have four of them here today, and we thank them for taking the time to come to the WSU Tri-Cities campus for this.

With us here today, Mary Baechler, Benny Garcia, Barry Knowles, and Jarrod Sessler.

Not here, but on the ballot are incumbent, Dan Newhouse, John Malan, Tiffany Smiley, and Jane Muchlinsk.

Well, that's all the setup we can handle for this moment.

Let's get to our candidates.

As I've said, we allotted time for one minute opening statements.

We're beginning alphabetically by last name.

So Mary Baechler, the one minute for your opening statement is now.

- Thank you so much and I'm so grateful to be here.

I'm grateful to the League of Women Voters for hosting us.

My name is Mary Baechler, I come from the Yakima area.

I have a background in job creation.

I was the CEO of the Baby Jogger company for 17 years.

I've also worked as a community organizer and a planner in economic development for Yakima Nation.

I really care deeply about the issues affecting both our district and our country.

And the main thing for me is we're kind of all on one team.

Even if we might imagine we're not, we're on team America and we're working for all of us.

So thank you.

- Thank you, Ms. Baechler.

Alright, Mr. Garcia, your opening statement.

Sir, - First of all, thank you all for inviting me here and especially the League of Women Voters of Benton County and Franklin County in being able to host this forum and inviting all candidates, which is greatly important for the public to go ahead and know who these candidates are.

So to give you a little bit of understanding who I am, my name is Benancio Garcia III, Benny Garcia.

Most people know me as that's easier to say.

I am from Sunnyside, Washington, born and raised.

The government paid for me 'cause my dad was with the US Army Rangers during Vietnam.

I'm also a combat veteran, retired military.

I worked as a city treasurer.

I did over about approximately a 1,000 loans to homeowners in being able to go ahead and make a difference in the people's lives with the federal government.

So I understand government very well.

Today I work with small businesses and other municipalities.

I'm out there outreaching, making a difference to all people, and that's what we need to see.

So I thank you today humbly for giving me this opportunity to speak in front of you today.

God bless our country.

- Mr. Garcia, thank you very much.

Barry Knowles, your opening statement, sir.

- Great, thank you.

Good afternoon everybody.

My name's Barry Knowles.

I'm originally from Spokane, Washington.

I spent seven years in the service, after which I wound up in Western Washington.

I was a home builder for 25 years.

I had a couple of businesses processing narcotics for destruction all around this area actually.

So I split my time between Yakima and the Covington Maple Valley area.

I'm currently a home inspector.

I did my seven years in the service as a drug enforcement.

In 1982 when I joined, there was no war going on except Ronald Reagan's war on drugs.

So that's what I did for seven years.

And I'm always active in politics.

I'm always speaking at events.

You can find me at the school board meetings or anywhere.

I'm an activist for the grassroots.

My name is Barry Knowles, thank you very much.

- Mr. Knowles thank you.

Mr. Jerrod Sessler, your opening statement, sir.

- Yeah, Matt, thanks for hosting and to the League of Women Voters.

Thank you to the viewers for watching.

My name's Jerrod Sessler and I'm proud to be endorsed by President Trump.

I live in Prosser, which is not too far from where we're at here.

I'm a veteran, a former NASCAR driver, business guy and a family man.

I've been married for 28 years, have three kids that we homeschooled from the ground up.

So I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to do that.

I've been been in business for almost 30 years and running for Congress here against Dan Newhouse, who I know that many of you are frustrated and tired of having to vote for him.

We could have got this done in the last election, but I'm thankful to be here this time.

We need to tackle the inflation problem.

We need to be able to afford life again.

And of course we're gonna protect our dams.

We've got some great ideas for how to be able to do that and I'm willing to actually execute those.

So thank you for watching today and hopefully it'll be a good forum.

- Mr. Sessler, thank you very much.

Thank you all for being here once again today.

We'll get onto a round of questions here.

As we'll go alphabetically by last name as I said, but then we'll give everybody a chance or maybe the burden of answering first depending on how you view that.

So onto these questions provided by the League of Women Voters.

Some of these come from the league, some sent into them by the general public.

We do have a handful about specific issues in the fourth congressional district.

Later we'll discuss some issues that you'd have to address in Washington DC.

Right now though we've set aside time, 90 seconds during which you can respond.

There will not be rebuttals for this.

But we do wanna start with just how effectively you think you could do this job.

The American public appears to become very discouraged when Congress doesn't work together to solve problems.

So if elected, would you be willing to work across the aisle?

And if so, and this is the key here, on what specific issues?

We'll begin with Ms. Baechler responses here for 90 seconds.

- Oh, I would so be willing to work across the aisle.

As I said before, I think of us as one country.

I learned as a child from my father who was a photojournalist and traveled everywhere that America was like the greatest country on earth.

And I remember him telling me how people would give up almost anything to have the chance to be an an American citizen.

So working across the aisle, that to me is customer service.

I come from the background with a stroller manufacturing business.

We had extraordinary customer service.

And for someone to be successful in this position and get legislation done, they really need to be able to reach across the aisle.

Again, we're kind of on one team.

We might be imagining we're on different teams, but I loved the, I'm old enough to remember the old days when when a customer customer came in, you were just like, "Oh, it's a customer.

This is awesome."

You didn't think about their politics.

So we should be here to get the job done for the people of this district and also for the people of America.

It's so important to get the important things done because so much of our nation's security depends on it.

And so things I really wanna work on will be like climate change, women's reproductive rights, and all of these things mean being able to listen to each other, to find common ground and to reach across that aisle.

So thank you.

- [Matt] Alright, Mr. Garcia, we go to you again sir.

In terms of working in a bipartisan nature as a congressman here in the US, what kind of issues would you be able to find some consensus?

- Well, as far as working, I've been very blessed in my lifetime.

I was Ebony senate representative when I was playing college ball at YBC.

And I was also as a seminal negro descendant of the Buffalo Aoldiers and also the only Latino that's running here.

I view myself as an everyday American.

I am blessed to be born and raised in this great country.

And you have to be able to reach across the board.

And it's not about being Republican or Democrat.

I am running as independent.

It's about being able to create opportunities for all people.

And that's what I do today in my business.

I'm working with very low and low income.

The unsilent majority, the silent majority out there.

And I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

And that's what I'm doing today.

So I know when I go to Washington DC, I will be representing you, the constituents, not the establishment.

The establishment has failed us on both parties.

Whether you're Republican or Democrat, $34 trillion in debt.

We must have an audit done on the Federal Reserve, number one.

Number two, we must go back to a commodity based system.

We did with silver and we did with gold in order to stop inflation.

Number three, we must be able, and housing development is my specialty.

We must be able to have affordable housing for each American.

See our preamble promise us prosperity for we the American people and that's what I'm going to protect.

- Mr. Garcia thank you.

Mr. Knowles, any specific issues you'd be willing to reach across the aisle?

- You know, I'd reach across the aisle on almost anything to discuss it.

I, some people know this, some people are about to find out, but I've been a part of both parties at some point in time.

I used to be the chairman for the 47 district for the Republican party.

I never fit fully in either party.

So I like to champion myself as just one of the people, right?

And I know how they caucus, and this is really an interesting point.

In the Democrat party, they caucus not as a group, but leadership only and then they come in and instruct the caucus how to act.

In the Republican caucus, and I'm talking about in the state of Washington, I'm using it as an example.

They caucus individually in multiple separate caucuses and they stand up and they have a lot more lively discussion and actually debate things.

So I've seen how both of them work.

And I'm not a person to follow anybody's agenda, right?

I'm here because we have been voting over and over and over over the years.

I looked at people who are, "Oh, he's got a degree in political science.

Oh, he's a successful businessman."

And look where we are today.

We're in the most trouble we've ever been in.

People are afraid to go to the store to get mugged in the middle of the afternoon.

There's people wandering around the streets in a fentanyl stupor.

You know, you don't know how you're gonna pay for your gas, cost of everything is going up.

So we're in big trouble and the people we've been electing are failing.

And it's time for people like me, regular people who are semi involved to get more involved.

Barry Knowles, thank you.

- Thank you.

Mr. Knowles.

And Mr. Sessler, any issues that you can see consensus from both parties?

- Well, I think first thing you have to do is define the rules of the game and that starts with, what are the dividing factors?

And I think, when you look at the Republican party today, we've got division in the Republican party.

Our current congressman, Dan Newhouse doesn't have any friends in Washington DC That's why the legislation and the work that he may want to do doesn't get done.

I'm endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus, which is arguably the leader with over 10% of Congress in as a part of that caucus.

And they truly care about the traditional American values that are important to us.

And so that gives me a body of friends to start with.

And then I think you have to look at the Democrat side and ask yourself, you know, how many of those people truly love America?

Because you look at a lot of things that are happening in our country today, and a lot of them are destroying our country.

And so it's important for us to make sure if we are gonna reach across the aisle, we have to be reaching across the aisle to people who first of all care about this country and wanna see its success.

On January 4th of this year, I had the opportunity to debate with Dan Newhouse on a live stage and there was a question about protecting the dams.

I pushed forward what I would do as a solution on January 20th, 20 days later, his office released the Dam Act, which is basically my suggestion in terms of what we would do to protect the dams.

And my recommendation to the voters is just elect the person that has the ideas to get the things done that we wanna get done and the ability to build relationships to be able to make that happen.

- Thank you very much Mr. Sessler.

- Thank you.

- Alright, let's move on to question number two and talk about Washington State for a moment and a fourth district.

If you haven't looked at the map, that spans our northern and southern borders.

It's a big area of land here.

And just going down the line, Mr. Garcia you get to answer first here.

What's your position on alternative energy sources and would you support bringing more solar and, or wind power to Central Washington?

- Well, first of all, I welcome all alternative resources whether it be nuclear, whether it be gas, whether it be solar.

We have an abundance of much of those resources in the United States.

And so I have thought greatly how we return back to commodity based dollar.

We did do gold, we did do silver and on our federal lands we have an abundance of American oil.

And I want to back our dollar with American commodity, energy, rich oil.

Drill again.

That will stop the rate of inflation.

That will go ahead and strengthen the American dollar once again.

And we would certainly break off the challenges of BRICS and be able to stop the gains of the Mexican peso on the American dollar today.

we have to make sure that we have new ideas and you must be a lion out there.

Be willing to challenge what we've currently had for the last 30 to 40 years.

And especially what Dan Newhouse has donE.

'Cause he has not been able to stand for much at all in his time of service.

It is time for new leadership, new ideas, and someone that is able to make that happen.

And the only person here is me, that is actual fact.

But if we wanna bring back our American dream, that is to use our energy resource that the Lord blessed us so much with, back our dollar with oil.

- And Mr. Knowles, same question to you in terms of alternative energy sources.

Are you a supporter of solar or wind energy or do you have any other ideas?

- You know, I'm all for innovation of all types and I see us trying a bunch of things.

Some of them are working, some of them are not.

So I'm all for innovation.

And I saw, recently I saw Elon Musk touring one of his million acre solar energy plants and listen to him speak about how just a hundred of those plants could power the entire world, which I found very fascinating.

So yes, I'm all for alternative energy sources.

Some of the things we're doing I don't agree with, but when it comes to oil.

Let's talk about oil here 'cause oil is so important.

You know, a couple years ago our oil reserves were full.

We were making oil right here, producing it, pumping it out of the ground.

Gas was two something a gallon.

Now our oil reserves are 70% gone.

We're buying oil from overseas.

Energy is the most important thing that runs the entire world.

And so we need to be conscious and we need to be in the lead for all of that, and we need to not be buying this stuff from overseas.

And the excuse for buying it is what?

Environmental reasons, we don't want to drill here.

So we would rather trust China or India or someone else in another country who doesn't have any pollution controls.

It doesn't even make sense.

So it appears to me that we're not producing oil here for other reasons.

- Alright, Mr. knowles, thank you very much.

Mr. Sessler, same question to you, sir.

- So the biggest problem with the economy today is being caused by the whole energy industry and that is the thing that's hurting our pocketbooks the most and we can blame that on the illegitimate Biden administration.

In terms of alternate energies, I'm totally open to them.

I'm an engineer, I'm very thankful for a lot of the technology improvements.

You know, there's companies like PNNL and others that are doing some great work, but Washington State is just not a good location when you look at the data for wind energy.

There are other states where it does make sense.

The bottom line is, is that, we cannot be subsidizing these alternate forms of energy with government dollars.

Those government dollars are our tax dollars and they're being wasted.

And the cost of our energy is gonna go up as a result.

And so we need to support our dams.

Our dams produce about 60% of the energy that we produce here in this state.

And it's very, very important that we protect those.

We need to continue the research and development expansion of nuclear power.

It's the cleanest energy available.

And then we just need to, we need to make sure that the PUDs have what they need in terms of throttle able energy.

They get so much energy from certain sources, but the question with it always is, when is the energy available?

And those PUDs need that energy for the spikes in the morning and the evenings.

And so the bottom line is, is that human flourishing expands and increases with cheap energy and so we wanna make sure that we can afford the energy products that are available to us.

- Alright, thanks Mr. Sessler.

Ms. Baechler, finally that question goes to you on our alternative energy sources.

- Oh, I love this question because I'm really for alternative energy sources.

Solar and wind power are clean energy and learning how to have more of them is gonna create more jobs.

A friend of mine that has a farm up in Yakima, she installed like just a couple of solar panels on the rooftops of some horse corrals and her energy bill for a large farm dropped down to $600 a year.

You know, she's got more energy coming in than she can use.

In China years ago there were photos of apartment buildings, that every apartment building would have a solar panel hanging out of it.

There's so much we can do with that and that's gonna create new green jobs.

The Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden put in, that's putting money aside for states so that you can have solar, you can have wind power, and you can do this to help get us away from using carbon fuels.

I'm glad that they talked a little bit about oil.

Most people don't realize how much we subsidize oil.

I ran against DoC Hastings in 2012.

Doc Hasting your congressman, over 20 years he took in more than a million dollars from oil companies and every year he voted to continue their subsidies.

Oil companies right now get 4 billion a year from you the taxpayers and these are the most profitable companies in the world.

We need to fight climate change, thank you.

- Ms. Baechler, thank you very much.

All right, let's move on to question number three.

An ongoing conversation here.

In fact, 35 years in the making now is Hanford, it could run for president this year.

As cleanup at the Hanford site continues and becomes more expensive and the nation's attention is really focused elsewhere.

How would you bring it to the public's eye to continue to get necessary funding to keep that cleanup going?

Mr. Knowles, you start this time, - You know that really entails keeping it in the media.

Everything is media driven now.

So if you can't access that, you're not gonna get what you need on any subject.

And so how do you bring media attention to that?

Well, you need a representative that's standing out there, it's visiting there and bringing people with them.

You need to reintroduce it to the media, talk about everything that's going on there and what's needed.

And then you gotta go back to Washington DC and talk to all the departments you need help from and continue that message there.

- Alright, you're seating your time here, sir, the remainder of your time.

- Well, unless I can just go talk about something else.

- I wanna talk about Hanford cleanup, but if you have nothing further there- - Well it's an ongoing thing.

It's gonna go on forever and ever.

It's not something we can get rid of or forget about.

We can't just launch it into space.

So the necessity is definitely there.

The money is there.

If we can give how many billions to Ukraine for a war, we've got money for Medicare, we've got money for social security, we've got money for Hanford cleanup.

Don't be fooled by politicians telling you we can't afford that.

Obviously you can see how they're printing money, we can.

And it just needs to be brought to people's attention and whipped.

- [Matt] Keep it at the forefront is what you're saying.

- Keep it at the forefront.

- Alright, Mr. Sessler, let's turn that question to you.

How do you keep that issue at the forefront to get the necessary funding for it to continue?

- Yeah, I think that falls at the heart of what we really need our congressmen to do.

You have 435 congressmen in Congress and each of them really is a channel of information and you need to be good at being able to articulate that information.

The Hanford project started in the '40s.

It was very vital.

There wasn't a lot of, you know, let's say necessary standards back then for how things were captured, how contaminants were captured and things like that but we've improved that greatly.

And we have about $3 billion a year coming in just from the cleanup project into this area, which is vital and it's important.

We need to continue to make sure that the people understand that and the other representatives in Congress understand that so we keep that money flowing to make sure that we can protect the American people from what's happened here and continue to innovate new ideas.

But the thing that a lot of people don't understand is that the cleanup project is actually just a small portion of what's happening at Hanford.

There's a lot of engineering that's happening specific to nuclear energy, but also other uses and other forms.

And there's also projects to be able to try to figure out how do we use this nuclear waste in other areas to support the American people.

And so I think understanding it is important.

I'm an engineer so it's easy for me to understand this stuff, but then being able to articulate that to the American people to make sure that they understand it will make sure that we keep that project going and we keep the people employed and keep the project safe.

- All right, thanks Mr. Sessler.

Ms. Baechler, same question to you.

- So I think it's really essential that the US government honor the agreements that have already been made and the funding has to be put through for that so the cleanup can happen.

It's essential for the safety of this region here near to Hanford and it's essential for our nation's security.

And if I'm elected in Congress, that would be a priority for me to make sure that we keep asking for the funding to actually happen so the agreements that are in place can actually be taken care of.

I think senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have done a really good job of this, of trying to advocate that the US government fulfill its obligations on Hanford.

Thank you.

- All right, respect that, thank you very much.

And Mr. Garcia final answer on this question on keeping the Hanford cleanup as a topic of conversation?

- Yes, first of all, I actually worked at Hanford with the union laborers many years ago before I left to the military back in 1996.

And I asked my father who I was fortunate to be able to work with at the site, "I go, wow, that semi's out there, it's being buried, why it looks so brand new.

Why, what are they doing to this?"

Well, too much radiation.

Then you find animals that are dead.

They go ahead dissect it, determine what the radiation levels are on the reservation for those animals.

And my point is, it is something that in my lifetime will always have to be pursued in being able to make sure that the Department of Energy has adequate funds to ensure that science continues to prevail, to ensure that containers lifespan will not create any leaks, to ensure that it's properly done in phases that we take care of the cleanup site and that we continue to pursue towards science and being able to solve this problem of waste.

It has led, you know, to the protection of the United States, Hanford has, you know, during World War II.

The reason it was there was for unfortunate reasons because we had a madman in World War II that was wanting to take over the world, Hitler.

And we must never forget how important and how critical Hanford is to all of the United States and its freedoms.

So I will be out there waving my banner, remembering, keep your promise, because when you needed us, the people here, we answered the call.

And today we're asking you to make sure that our river is clean, that the containers don't leak, and that the people continue to have those jobs through department injury for safety.

- All right, Mr. Garcia.

Moving on to number four here.

Our fourth question, we do wanna talk about immigration, but more specifically how it affects people who work here in the fourth congressional district.

Of course, the agriculture industry and the district depends on workers who often come to the US from other countries on visas.

What's your position regarding immigration as it relates to this issue?

Would you advocate for farmers and, or the wokers, why or why not?

Mr. Sessler, you're up first here.

- Yeah, thank you for the question, Matt.

It's very important farmers feed America.

We've got lots of farmers, lots of cattlemen, lots of dairymen here in Washington, in central Washington that need to be protected.

And let's be clear, this is not just protection from federal government, even more so protection from Olympia.

So we need to send someone to Washington DC who has the ability to build relationships to even influence what's going on here in Olympia so that we can protect our farmers and our agriculture.

As it relates to immigration the biggest challenge that we have with that is we just don't feel safe again as America, or we don't feel safe now as American people and that's as a result of our open borders and this literal worldwide invitation that this illegitimate Biden administration has sent out.

When President Trump, who has endorsed me for this seat, was in office, he had a great border policy.

There's really very few laws that have changed.

It's all been done through executive order and here we have literally tens of thousands of people coming across the border every single day.

You know, the truth is we need to fix that and we need to make sure that we feel safe before some of the rest of this even matters.

But as it relates to workers, you know, we have an H-2A program that's very effective, but it is not perfect.

It needs some adjustments, it needs some help and we should be doing that and we should be driving that here from central Washington because we have so many farmers that use that.

- Alright, Mr. Sessler, thank you very much.

Ms. Baechler, you're next here.

That question is, what's your position regarding immigration as it relates to the need for workers and their visas here in the district?

- This is another question I really love because it's such a huge issue.

It affects every state, it affects every restaurant you go to and certainly every farm.

I really favor comprehensive immigration reform.

With comprehensive immigration reform, you create a pathway to citizenship eventually for people that have been here 20 years or so, you create a pathway to citizenship for the dreamers that we've educated in our school and maybe they've been here 20, 30 years and they came across as children.

But with comprehensive immigration reform, we also do need border security.

We're gonna have more and more immigrants coming because of climate change.

And every time there's a climate crisis, people are leaving like South America because of the droughts there and they're coming up this way.

So somehow we need to get that as part of this package.

But right now in Washington state, we have a 23% shortfall of agricultural workers.

So we need to figure out a way to use immigration and immigration reform to have several priorities.

Priorities for skilled immigration workers, priorities for skilled technology workers.

A lot of times we young people that came over were educated in our universities, they have a high tech job here, but because of our immigration policies, we let them go.

So we need to have a thoughtful policy that takes care of all that, starting with immigration reform.

- Alright, Ms. Bechler, thank you very much.

Mr. Garcia, same question to you sir.

- Yes.

First of all, I would like to introduce something that is near and dear to my heart of my campaign, which is 50 no taxes under $500,000.

This is something I believe that can be done.

And this is something that would help our small businesses, our small farmers, and our everyday people.

Once you turn to age of 50, you pay no more federal taxes.

I believe in you.

I believe in giving the opportunity to our small farmers.

The H-2A program is a good program but it does not allow the small farmer to utilize the same type of workers.

And also we have to be very careful on how we go ahead and bring in workers.

And let me explain what I mean by that.

Did we start bringing in way too many H-2 workers and we ignore the American citizens.

We have Americans right now that are no longer working, their jobs have been lost in our community.

Warehouses are shutting down.

You can no longer say, "well I'm gonna go work the fields."

I just did after I left the federal government to be an Apple worker.

And our jobs are going away to foreigners.

We must utilize E-Verify.

We must allow the opportunity to progress with the H-2A program, but make it fair not just to the big corporate farmer, but to the everyday small farmers.

So I'm gonna fight for that challenge.

- Mr. Garcia, thank you very much.

And Mr. Knowles, that question to you now, sir, - You know we've had a system here that wasn't perfect.

We've allowed temporary visas for people to come and work here and it wasn't perfect.

It was kind of a don't ask, don't tell policy, but it worked.

Now four years ago, starting four years ago, we just completely opened the border and we've had 12 million people cross that border in the last four years.

A lot of Washingtonians don't know this 'cause it's hard to find this information.

Over 300,000 of those people have been shipped here to this state.

And this is a problem right here because this affects our regular people that work here.

Let me tell you what they're receiving.

They receive free housing section eight, housing, free medical, each adult gets $800 per month, each child gets $600 per month.

So some of these people are making $3,000, $4,000 with free housing and free medical and not contributing.

That is a tremendous amount of money that if we have that kind of money to be helping people, that kind of money should be going to our temporary workers that are working here or our farmers help subsidize things.

Farming is the most important community we have in District 4 And I see it just being destroyed by this abundance of people that are flooding over and they're not coming over here being chased by their government 'cause they're about to be killed.

That's not why they're afraid.

And we're not even checking them, we're just allowing them to come over.

So again, like I said earlier, this leads to, there's something else behind it besides, we just want to let people in 'cause we're friendly.

- Mr. Knowles, thank you very much.

Well that is our fourth question, which means we're at the halfway point of this.

Appreciate your attention and thoughtful answers so far.

Let's broaden things out here though for question five as we continue to hear from candidates here in the fourth congressional district race here in Washington state.

And just a heads up, for the sake of time, these remaining questions will have a one minute time limit.

So the second half is a lightning round.

Our conversation during election season has become increasingly about election results.

Perhaps some voters believe that the election process is secure only if their particular candidate wins.

Some behaviors from candidates and parties may suggest they feel that way too.

So what is your position on the concept and further, if elected, will you abide by the official results of the election regardless of the outcome that is posted?

Ms. Bechler, your first here.

- So I am so grateful to our election workers and to the county departments that manage the elections.

They do a really great job and now they're under incredible pressure.

And I wanna point out, I think President Trump organization, there was like 40 or 50 lawsuits about the election results and they lost on everyone.

They could not find a case.

I think in Yakima County there's maybe been one case like in 20 years, maybe two cases.

So I think our elections are working, they are valid.

The one thing that isn't working is there's a whole disinformation campaign about, oh, all the illegals are voting.

No, they're not voting.

It's a felony to vote.

They're hiding.

They would never vote.

And so I'm really grateful to that system and I forget the second part of the question.

- Would you abide by the result of the election even if you didn't win?

- Yes, I would 'cause we have really good procedures.

If we think the election, like my election has gone wrong, I have the right to challenge it and to ask for a recount.

I might have to pay for it, but we have a system in place that works and has been set up.

And the only thing that's really hurting that system now is there is a massive campaign to say that the elections are fraud and they're not.

I'm really proud of America for the system we have.

- And time's up there.

So we'll move on to Mr. Garcia here.

That same question to you sir.

- Could you repeat that once again?

- Yes, what about your trust in the election process and would you abide by the results whether or not you are announced as the winner?

- Well first of all, right now I have a case at the US Supreme Court, Garcia versus Hobbes, the only one in state defending our US Constitution 14th Amendment.

The redistricting lines have happened largely because of my case at the US Supreme Court.

About the illegal racial gerrymandering of the 15th district.

I am protecting the 14th amendment right now and that is to ensure that we follow our constitution and do not have a Latino based district.

I've defended this country, I have bled for this country.

I'm the only combat veteran here, it is running, and I will defend our constitution at all cost.

That is what's allowed me to preserve my way life.

And no, I do not trust the election process because it is got improvements that it needs to make and that is why my case is at the US Supreme Court.

Number two, what I just simply concede right now at this moment, what the outcome would be in our upcoming elections.

No, you question and verify like President Reagan said, and that's what I will do.

I will question and verify.

So thank you very much.

- Mr. Knowles, same question to you sir.

- Well of course I'll abide by the decision, but do I think it's fair?

No.

Do I think it could be corrupt?

Yes.

Anything electronic can be corrupt.

You've heard stories of people hacking into people's home, video cameras, you've get your identity stolen.

Anything electronic can be hacked.

You can talk to any computer expert you want.

It can be hacked.

Even our federal government has trouble in the Defense Department with getting hacked all the time.

And why are our votes here in this state going to a place in Germany to be counted and then sent back here?

The more it moves around, the more electronic it is, the better chance it has of being abducted.

Now I'm gonna give you one example of some voting front that does take place here that I did complain to the Attorney General.

I had someone I took down who was on a witness protection, so they couldn't give an address to vote.

They asked him, what district do you wanna vote in?

They said the 47th.

Here you can vote.

And then she asked them what's the address, she gave him the address they gave her, I checked the address, it had 250 voters registered there.

They didn't even ask her for ID.

It takes place.

- All right, Mr. Knowles, thank you very much.

Mr. Sessler, that question for you.

- Yeah, thank you.

2020 election is totally illegitimate.

Anybody who doesn't agree with that just simply hasn't looked at the facts.

One of the democrats here on the panel mentioned lawsuits that went through, those lawsuits never looked at the data.

They were basically dismissed without even actually looking at the facts.

I trust the American people.

I trust the judgment of the American people.

I think that President Trump is a great leader.

I think we have a populist movement going on in this country right now because we're frustrated with our sort of typical politicians who we've put in power to run the country and they've done a terrible job.

I think that President Trump is gonna get overwhelmingly reelected again.

And I think that what we need to do is we need to go back to basically what third world countries are doing right now.

And I said I trust the American people.

What I don't trust is big tech.

We need to go back to precinct in person one day voting, paper voting, ID in order to vote.

And I trust the results from an election like that.

- Alright, Sessler, thank you very much.

Let's move on to another ongoing conversation.

One internationally right now revolves around some conflicts in both Israel and Ukraine.

Where do you stand on military funding for Ukraine and, or Israel?

Mr. Garcia, you start with this one sir.

- All right, a few years ago when I did run for my first time for this position, I had explained clearly that it is a NATO issue and if NATO wants to go ahead and defend its backyard and support that of your Ukraine, that I would support that decision.

But for the American tax dollars alone, basically to go ahead and fund Ukraine, absolutely not.

We have a lot more problems we need to take care of here.

If NATO wants to declare war against Russia and feels that he needs to protect its backyard, I'm for it because we got an agreement with them.

If not, I'm sorry, but we just can't help everybody at this time.

Now, as to Israel.

I decided in 2015 that I was gonna get involved in politics.

The Lord changed my heart.

I worked for the federal government.

I will support Israel because that is the holy scriptures.

And those that bless Israel will certainly be blessed themselves, thank you - Mr. Garcia, thank you.

Mr. Knowles that same question to you in terms of military aid or funding support for Israel and Ukraine.

- It's always important to fund things overseas because evil is always on the advance and we wanna fight those battles other places not on our shores.

Look what's happening right now.

We have a Russian sub off of Cuba, a nuclear sub with missiles on it.

When was the last time that happened?

We don't want that so we fight in other places.

Now, I'm not a fan of just handing money over to Ukraine and I'm gonna compare this to World War II.

The Lend Lease Act we did with Russia and with Great Britain.

We gave them military stuff that we demanded and expected to be paid back at some time in the future.

We're not even expecting that now.

We're just handing it over, printing it up and handing it over.

I'm not in favor of that at all.

As far as Israel's concerned, Israel is our sounding board.

Nothing's gonna happen to us before it happens to Israel.

They're our most important ally in that part of the world.

And they're our front man, so we have to protect them.

If they fall, we'll be next.

- Alright, Mr. Knowles, thank you very much.

Mr. Sessler, that question goes to you.

- It's difficult to answer these questions in one minute, but let me just be general about this.

Two days before we sent the last $95 billion to foreign countries, our representative Dan Newhouse invested in Raytheon.

Raytheon is a part of the military industrial complex and so they get contracts every time we spend money, tax dollars on foreign wars.

So here's my challenge with that.

Number one, with regards to our representative, he's compromised because he's personally profiting from this money that's going all over the world.

That's a telltale sign of somebody that's a member of the Uniparty and somebody that shouldn't be representing us in politics.

What's happening here?

There is a group of elitist who want to see wars continue.

Under President Trump, no new wars, nothing but peace.

Under Democrat leadership, you see a lot of spending, a lot of wars, a lot of aggression because that puts money out into the military industrial complex, which comes back to something similar to 10% for the big guy.

- Alright, Mr. Sessler, thank you very much.

And Ms. Baechler.

- I do support funding for Ukraine.

Ukraine is a sovereign country whose boundaries were breached by Russia.

Russia planned this war.

Ukraine is what stands between NATO and Russia.

And if you think Russia will stop with Ukraine, you're wrong.

We really need to fund them.

They're fighting for all of us.

It's a terrible, terrible war and it's simply happening because of Putin's ego.

With Israel, I have deep concerns about the funding for Israel.

On a good year without Hamas doing what they did, we're spending 3.9 billion with Israel, almost all on arms.

So it'd be different if it was going for education or building peace in that region.

Right now, because of the current war, we added 12.5 billion and it's gonna be 20 billion.

So I think we need to really look at that and we need to tie that to peace in Gaza.

We need to help the people of Gaza, they're being bombed with our weapons.

And so I support Israel, Hamas is a terrorist, but we have to help those poor people in Gaza.

- Alright, thanks Ms. Baechler.

I understand hard to answer some of these in one minute.

Absolutely, it is, part of the challenge here today.

Mr. Knowles, we'll start with you with this one and let's just sort of make it a follow up question.

You may have addressed a bit of this in your previous answer, but aside from military aid, what in your opinion should be done regarding the Israel-Palestine situation happening in Gaza.

As communities even here in Central Washington are continuing to have a very public discussion about those issues?

- Yeah, that's a really tough one.

And you're right, the minute's a very tough time.

That's such a complex situation.

It hasn't been able to be resolved ever and it's not going to be, not even from this conflict.

But we don't want to be killing innocent people.

We really don't want American weapons falling on the public.

And with that said, here's the tough part.

Hamas fights from within the civilians and they will not leave.

And you cannot end this without taking out some of the civilians with the military.

And they've been warned to leave and either can't leave or won't leave.

So it gets very complex.

What do you do?

You don't want our weapons falling on them, but you might have to, you must finish this.

They must finish cleaning out Hamas in order to resolve this and is never gonna completely resolve it.

It's just gonna postpone it for some time.

- Mr. Knowles, thank you.

Mr. Sessler same question.

- Yeah, so first of all, let me just say that the two states solution was never gonna work.

I was a kid when that was originally enacted and I remember looking at the TV thinking, why are they doing that?

It makes no sense and I certainly hope that Israel does not succumb to some kind of a future with that.

The Palestinians are welcome to go to many other countries around there, Jordan, for example.

In terms of Gaza, let me remind everyone and maybe educate everyone who doesn't know, Gaza elected Hamas leadership.

They are complicit, they are Hamas.

And let me also just say how thankful I am that we have a Second Amendment here in America because we have the highest density of Hamas terrorist right here in American homeland of anywhere in the world.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Ms. Baechler, your response.

- Israel and Gaza it is so complex and I really like President Biden's proposals for an immediate ceasefire to bring resources in for the people of Gaza.

Hamas of course is bad, they're terrible, they're terrorists, but starving children and families is just incomprehensible, you know, and we cannot stand by while this happens.

So part of that plan is to have immediate aid for Gaza and then to work for an equitable solution.

But constantly bombing a dense citizen area, that is not a solution and that's just completely unacceptable and we should stop funding that part.

- Thank you Ms. Baechler, Mr. Garcia?

- Yes, I'm uniquely qualified to go ahead and discuss this.

I've been in the Middle East, I've been in combat.

I've seen what war does, you know, and all people wanna do is live their everyday lives normally.

Unfortunately the Middle East has a lot of problems, but there are hopes.

The Abraham Accords was successful.

The other was 1979, Anwar Sadat for Egypt.

When he signed the documents and peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, there is hope.

But as far as defending their country, the Palestinians had an opportunity in 1948 to have its own nation and it chose war instead of peace.

That is their failure.

Israel has been attacked, 1968.

You have rockets and suicide bombers constantly hurting their civilians and way of life.

Let them finish the war.

- Mr. Garcia, thank you very much.

Alright, let's move on to our eighth and final question before we get to some closing statements here.

On balancing the budget, the US has not had a balanced budget, including surpluses since Bill Clinton was president.

Since then, other presidents have tried reducing the taxes for the wealthy, known as the trickle down effect or attempting to tax the wealthy or corporations and more.

Our question is, what's your solution for dealing with the national debt?

Mr. Sessler, your're first here.

- Yeah, thank you Matt.

It's a great question.

President Trump and again, I'm incredibly honored to be endorsed by President Trump.

Our representative Dan Newhouse as far as I know has never seen a spending bill that he did not vote for.

And that is a microcosm of the problem that we have in Washington DC.

President Trump did a great job of driving the economy up and helping all regular Americans to be more successful, helping us to make more money, keeping inflation down, keeping the cost of goods down, and sort of maintaining that balance.

He also wants to reduce taxes, which he did before.

He just recently announced a plan to be able to take care, potentially get rid of the income tax and of course we've all seen the information about tips not being taxed.

That would be very nice.

But we have to stop spending money that we don't have.

The Congress has to change their mindset with regards to spending to a balanced budget.

All of us do it in our homes and businesses and I think it's an embarrassment for every single representative in Congress to vote for anything that isn't a balanced budget.

- Thank you Mr. Sessler.

Ms. Baechler, what's your solution to the national debt?

- I wanna point out that in the Reagan years, Reagan's tax proposal or bill that went through put the business tax at 38% and we thought that was great at that time.

But for the national debt, some of the things I would propose is that we have slight reductions in the tax for the middle class, people with lower incomes and for businesses under 20 million, lower that corporate tax rate a little bit.

But then we need to raise back up the taxes on the wealthiest 1% and on the wealthiest corporations.

Some of the wealthiest corporations pay almost zero compared to what regular Americans pay.

So we need to balance that out and make it more equitable.

- Alright, thanks Ms. Baechler.

Mr. Garcia, same to you.

- Yes, my solution is what I spoke about earlier is that we have a oil based back commodity dollar to lower the inflation, to give opportunities to go ahead and allow prosperity to happen.

The also aspect is 50 no taxes.

So anyone making under 500,000 that you're able to go ahead and have small farmers, small businesses, either decide to plan for their retirement or go ahead and decide to reinvest and keep those people hired.

It is critical because the backbone of every community is home ownership and small businesses.

And we have not been heard.

Those changes need to occur.

Now as far as Bill Clinton in 1990, he's the reason why we had the 2008 fiasco.

Too big to fail.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Lee Iacocca in the 1980s saved Chrysler from bankruptcy.

T-Bone Pickens saved our American oil industry down the road after he purchased dry wells in Texas.

We have to allow the system to fail sometimes so we can build it back up.

- Alright, Mr. Knowles, that final question to you on the budget.

- Sure, there are only two things that affect a budget, income and expenses.

So what can you do with either one of those.

Income, I'm not a fan of raising taxes.

I don't think picking on the rich is the way to do it 'cause they'll just eventually lower the threshold and catch everybody in it.

But you're spending a lot of money you don't need to be spending and I go back to what I talked about, just giving money away to different countries when it could be a lend lease, right?

Were, how much money are we spending on this 12 million people that have come over here, right?

There's another source of money that we're spending.

Tariffs, high tariffs on everything will create a lot of good things.

It'll bring money in.

I mean, Trump had China paying a tremendous amount of money and it'll cause us to start manufacturing more things right here, which is what we need.

So there's some more income there and there are plenty of programs that could be cut down.

And we need way more than a minute to talk about this, but there you go.

- Alright, Mr. Knowles, thank you very much.

And you know, I like to say we've covered a lot, not nearly enough at the same time, but our hour is coming to a close.

So we'd like to let you bring your time to a close with some closing statements.

One minute each for these.

We're back to Ms. Baechler at the top, your closing statement.

- Thank you.

So I'm Baechler.

I'm a Democrat running for Congress.

My website is maryforcongress.org.

I am really working for all of Central Washington.

My number one issue is because of our teenagers and children, our climate change.

What kind of world are they gonna have?

And women's right for reproductive freedom.

And right after that is affordable housing and fighting costs on inflation.

But I really appreciate this time and I hope to have your vote, thank you.

- All right, thank you Ms. Baechler.

Mr. Garcia, your closing statement, sir?

- Yes, once again my name is Benancio Garcia.

You'll see me on the ballot as Benny Garcia.

Most people know me that as I grew up.

I wanna say thank you for giving me this opportunity and the privilege to speak in front of all of you.

And I wanna thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ for giving me the opportunity to change my heart in 2015 when I realized how much my country was in trouble.

The background that I have is actually working for federal government for over 10 years.

Seeing how government actually works, seeing what actually doesn't work, seeing how to go ahead and allow affordable housing, seeing how we can go ahead and improve on that and live the American dream.

I protected that constitution in battle.

I protected that Constitution today at the US Supreme Court.

I am very highly qualified to be your representative as an independent and to make the change that you want to see for all of America.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

- Thanks Mr. Garcia.

Mr. Knowles your closing statement, sir.

- Yes, you know I'm not your everyday politician, I'm running as a Democrat, but you'll find me sitting next to Cacio Cortez grabbing her by the hand and say, what in the heck are you talking about?

So I'm not your everyday Democrat.

And what you can expect from me is you will find me not only in Washington taking care of everything.

'Cause I am when I work, I am relentless.

I mean I sleep maybe four hours a day.

And when I'm home, you'll find me at Hanford.

You'll find me at the city hall, County Hall, school board meetings.

You'll find me everywhere, all over the place.

That's what you'll get with me.

You don't see that with Dan Newhouse or anybody else.

I don't have a degree in political science, and I'm not a corporate exec, so I have none of those baggage to take with me.

And that's who we've been electing and it's been failing.

Barry Knowles, Congressional Fourth District.

- Mr. Knowles, thank you very much.

And Mr. Sessler, your closing statements, sir?

- Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for all the viewers for watching.

Once again, I'll just remind you, I'm endorsed by President Trump and that's because President Trump wants to restore America.

And that's exactly what I wanna do.

We've obviously got the best opportunity here.

This is a very conservative district.

I am the gladiator in this race, and if we want to not have more Newhouse, then we need to elect Jerrod Sessler for this seat.

If you agree with me, then go to nevernewhouse.com and join the movement, and please make a contribution to my campaign, because we certainly can't do this without any money.

So I appreciate that.

I just wanna see America, traditional American values be restored.

I want to serve and represent everyone.

I think that we should have a limited government.

I think it should be much smaller than what we have today.

And I think we, the American people should be in control.

And I'm tired as a business owner, as a family man, as a veteran.

I'm tired of being in a position where we are forced to compete with our government and I think that's wrong.

So, I'm Jerrod Sessler.

Thank you for your support and your vote.

- And thank you very much.

Mary Baechler, Barry Knowles, Benny Garcia, and Jerrod Sessler.

Really appreciate your time.

Hopefully get a good night's sleep here after one more of these events.

And they are on the ballot, Fourth Congressional District for the primary along with four others, Dan Newhouse, John Malan, Tiffany Smiley, and Jane Muchlinsk.

Now a reminder here, the primary here in Washington is on August 6th with some key dates leading up to it.

If you're not registered to vote by mail, that deadline is on July 29th.

You can register in person all the way up to election day, and we do encourage you to vote.

That does it for this hour of our vote 2024 primary coverage.

If you miss anything from this program, you can watch the archive stream of it on the Northwest Public Broadcasting YouTube channel.

Also available on the league's website and YouTube channel, the Columbia Basin Badger Club, and the cities of Richland and Pasco.

There we also have the recording of our live coverage of this year's Attorney General cace.

For everybody here at NWPB, we appreciate you watching.

Have a good night.