assume, is where you sort of get the

idea? Yeah, yeah, the strike.

Well, I was approached by a group of railroaders.

So this was in 2023.

So it's two years after the strike.

I was working in my garage, and some guys from the Central Labor Council here in Nebraska.

North Platteboast is the largest rail yard in the world.

Where do you come down on that?

They should be enabled to grow herd sizes and meet consumer demand." So what actually sets you apart from Senator Ricketts on this issue?

issue?Yeah, I, I, I think that, uh, it's, it's...

I'm not a rubber stamp, right? That's, that's what, you know, he's rubber-stamped everything that's, that's happened up until this point.

Uh, you know, as, as governor, he had an opportunity to go after the, the meat packers, and l- let's, let's be clear, that's who's gonna win in all this, right? 'Cause what happens with foreign beef is it comes up across the border, it goes to the packers.

They take the package off from Brazil or Argentina, whatever.

They repackage it with a sticker that says USDA.

And, you know, that's where MCOOL is so important, you know, mandatory country of origin labeling.

Can you just tell us a little about what you're hearing from your, some of your potential constituents?

What's your game plan for that?

We have to dial back this big, beautiful bill that is legislation that has damaged rural hospitals.

I was out in Chadron, Nebraska, which is on the the northeast corridor, excuse me, the northwest corridor in Nebraska up in the panhandle.

And I met some people that were at a town hall there.

And it turns out there's 16 of them that their clinic has closed.

And this is a dialysis clinic.

And they now have to drive a 200-mile round trip to get blood transfusions three times a week.

But what do you think, you know, if you're the senator from Nebraska, you know, what can we do to get that number up to really strengthen the American labor movement?

So my question to you is where do you really break from the Democratic Party?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, uh, we have the same thing in common, and that's to get Pete Ricketts out of politics in Nebraska because ever since he's been governor, he's tried to run our state like a mob boss.

Uh, and it's just been full of bad ideas.

So we definitely have that in common, but, you know, I suppose where I, where I break is I feel like both parties

partiesUh, in recent years have really both cow-tailed to their, their donor base, right? The, the corporations and, and, and buying money a- a- and funneling money into campaigns.

I mean, you look at the way the DCCC recruited in 2024, and no offense to the lawyers out there, but it's a heck of a lot of lawyers and business execs.

So isn't it, being on President Trump's side, a wise strategy in a state that Trump won by 20 points?

Can you tell me how you got there and what you're doing there now?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I moved here to Nebraska when I was seven years old.

My dad was a railroader, and Union Pacific is headquartered here.

It's a huge railroading state, so that's how I ended up here.

It's all I remember.

I've come to know and love the state, but as far as U.S. Senate, is concerned or politics in general, I haven't always been a political guy.

accusations etc but you're still standing can you just give our viewers just a taste of the chaos in the heart of the country

Don't try to get clever.

It wasn't a hard concept to discern.

The signs were all around us, literally.

First day of each year, Mrs Jamison, the headteacher, would size us all up, then chalk a line on the doorframe and reiterate that he had to be at least that tall to offer an opinion.

Only Stefan Van Fam, after he'd had a significant mid-year growth spurt, came close.

Then one day, he woke up with a particularly unruly case of bed hair.

It was sticking out so much that...

With that phrase, Hamilton Forbes Hamilton silenced the naysayers, cemented his newfound leadership, and established that they would henceforth live peacefully

So I'm curious what input and your experiences with the people you talk to on the ground.

Yeah.

I talk to, to thousands.

I try to talk to as many as possible.

We did over 200 public, publicly advertised events in '24.

We've done probably close to 70 this time.

We'll probably shoot for way over that 200 mark, 'cause that's, that's what's important to me, right? Getting out and talking to the people every day that make it happen, that, that run their small towns, that run their large cities, uh, and, and just really try to understand their life, uh, because I'm a, a...

I'd love you to talk about what that looks like on the ground and what you're seeing.

[laughs]

... inside of it to heat your food, it goes through a tremendous amount of scrutiny and guardrails.

Those are s- those are put into place to make sure that your kitchen doesn't explode when you're trying to heat up last night's cheeseburger.

So those exist in a microwave oven, but yet there are so many dangers to AI and social media, to our children, to ourselves, uh, for the... and, and, and being able to identify the dangers of all these to our society that it creates, and putting those guardrails in place.

Again, something Congress [laughs] could be working on tomorrow and get done fairly quickly if they could just find a way to agree.

And then also, but we don't, we don't wanna stifle the industry either, right? We know AI is here.

It's growing.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And, you know, if we do something right or get lucky or have a great idea, whatever that is.

But people want to know if you work hard in this country, you're gonna be able to get ahead.

And, uh, right now, that's- that's simply not the case.

And, you know, the billionaires that- that are in the ruling class are carving up the states and carving up the countries for themselves.

Uh, they're- they're blocking access to Social Security.

80,000 veterans are losing their jobs and not- not gonna have the same healthcare.

And so, what do you say to those folks right now?