... your response to what you heard from Bobby Charles, and even the cleanup after, does that play in Maine well, that he's gonna call his buddy Tom Homan and have ICE come to the polls?

Not at all.

You know, we have...

I think we have some of the best run elections in the country in the state of Maine, and part of what makes our elections so secure and, and really so reliable and so transparent and trustworthy is the fact that it's, it's, uh, so decentralized.

While I was secretary of state for 14 years, and on election night I was always the guy on camera, the actual election was run by the 500 municipal clerks and election wardens who actually ran the polling stations and made sure that order was kept.

So Bobby Charles, uh, w- even if he was governor, would have absolutely no authority to ask federal agents to come patrol our polling places.

It's actually the election wardens in those polling places that have complete authority over those polling places, and they're the ones that are charged with maintaining order, and they have full authority to have law enforcement come in and remove people who could be creating an atmosphere of intimidation or disturbance in the polling places.

Hmm

So talk us through, does Troy Jackson help you in Maine's second district?

Well, I think it certainly doesn't hurt.

Troy is a native of Allagash, which is way up on the Canadian border in northern Maine.

He's a fifth-generation logger, so like me, he comes from rural Maine.

I mean, I grew up on a farm near the coast.

You know, my, my folks had, uh, they farmed strawberries, milked goats, uh, s- sheep for wool and that sort of thing.

When I...

Mm-hmm.

That has a huge impact in this congressional district where J.D. Vance decided to show up today to crow about whatever it is they think they're doing.

Yeah, it's a bit of a mystery, really.

J.D. Vance was here earlier in the year and came to talk about Medicaid fraud.

And I think what people have to realize is and understand is that they don't care about rooting out Medicare, Medicaid fraud.

They want to get rid of Medicaid.

And I think that's been sort of the theme of this administration is like, you know, dismantle the Department of Education, things like the tariffs, the war of choice in Iran, turning immigration loose on our streets where American citizens have been shot and killed by people who we don't know who they are.

They don't show their faces.

And that doesn't work for people up there.

What would be your plan if you were elected to Congress to at least assist on the federal level?

We talked about that a lot today, actually, at this taping.

It's the anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act of 1965, which created Medicare-Medicaid.

61 years.

And these are programs that have great challenges in Congress, as H.R. 1, the big, beautiful bill, which cuts trillions from Medicaid-Medicare, And I think as we talk about how we fund health care, it's not just the coverage.

That's not the only issue.

It's the access to care, especially in rural Maine, where you have a lack of access to clinics.

So do you support the platform of the DSA?

Talk about how that's impacted folks in Maine and, and how you wanna try to, you know, bend that, bend that arc a little bit differently.

differently.Well, you know, uh, the first question is, who pays the tariffs, right? It's not the people exporting stuff to the United States that pay the tariffs.

We pay the tariffs.

People who go to the grocery store, you go to the, to, you know, the, the lumberyard, uh, the, the, the plumbing supply store.

That's where you pay the tariffs.

And the cost of everything has gone up exponentially.

The only thing that hasn't gone up, of course, is wages, and I think this is what people in Maine are really feeling.

Yeah

Why can't they?

Well, because I think I'm a really good fit for this district.

And I always that's one of the things that people approach me with is that my background, eight years in the legislature, 14 years as secretary of state and now six years as state auditor.

It gives me a depth and breadth of experience, but also my my background in the second district.

I grew up on a farm on the coast of Maine, right near Bar Harbor.

I've worked two full time jobs like a lot of other people have.

I'm a lifetime sportsman.

What is your attitude about what you know? What do you want to find out? And what will your attitude about ICE funding be if you are elected to the House?

Mm.

He said, "I have a heart condition.

I've gotta have it." So to say that this is a loser of an issue means they're not listening to the voters.

Like Randy, I'm telling you what the voters are telling me.And when I start looking at the full tapestry of it, over the last 40, 50 years, it's been the corporate lobbyists, the billionaire class that has gradually tilted the playing field against working families.

And, you know, so we've seen the top nominal tax rate cut from 78% in 1980 to 39% now.

They haven't touched the minimum wage at the federal level since 2009, and it has half the buying power it did at $3.10 an hour back in 1980.

When we talk about things like Medicare for all, we're not talking about elections.

In practice, how much harder does the DCCC and national Democrats trying to put the thumb on the scale of your race, how much harder does that make a candidacy like yours?