Blunt and Torkildsen.

Now, I am the sole remaining Republican in all of New England.

That is not good for our region.

It reflects too much polarization and hypen- hyper-partisanship.

And plus, we need to work together to get things done.

And until, until Senator McCormick was elected in Pennsylvania, I was the only Republican senator in the entire Northeast.

I had to go to Ohio or West Virginia to find another Republican senator.

That w- that was a tou- that was a tough vote for you, wasn't it? I mean, you, you know, they, they were, they, they tried to hang that around your neck.

What, if anything, do you see actually happening before the Senate leaves, or is the answer none of the above?

That's a really hard question to answer.

Right now, we're on the college sports bill, the name, image, and likeness bill.

Whether we'll be able to complete that, I really don't know.

But from my perspective, we should be taking up a permitting bill.

We've been talking about that for a long time.

That would make such a difference in providing more affordable housing more quickly, more energy more quickly.

What is your opponent's primary campaign pitch and what are you doing to counter it there? Well, I'm stressing

Is that just one rock too many in your load, do you think?

I've always had tough races.

Think how outspent I was when...

It was huge in 2020.

And when Sarah Gideon, the speaker, was running, all the polls were showing that she was ahead.

I ended up winning by nine points in a state carried by Joe Biden by nine points.

Only place in the country that that happened in a Senate race.

Did you feel betrayed by Kavanaugh's vote on

Is that just one rock too many in your load, do you think?

I've always had tough races.

Think how outspent I was when...

It was huge in 2020.

And when Sarah Gideon, the speaker, was running, all the polls were showing that she was ahead.

I ended up winning by nine points in a state carried by Joe Biden by nine points.

Only place in the country that that happened in a Senate race.

Did you feel betrayed by Kavanaugh's vote on

Is that just one rock too many in your load, do you think?

I've always had tough races.

Think how outspent I was when...

It was huge in 2020.

And when Sarah Gideon, the speaker, was running, all the polls were showing that she was ahead.

I ended up winning by nine points in a state carried by Joe Biden by nine points.

Only place in the country that that happened in a Senate race.

Did you feel betrayed by Kavanaugh's vote on

What are they doing, and is the Congress helping house and attract skilled workers to the people who build the ships?

Well, I'm pleased to say that I've been able to secure funding for two workforce housing projects right in Bath.

And these are really important.

The majority of the workers at Bath Dime Works do not live in Bath or adjoining communities.

They commute from the Lewiston area.

In the case of the Portsmouth-Naples shipyard in Kittering, Maine, they commute from Sanford, Maine.

That's a long commute.

Is this going to be a model everywhere in the country?

So since this is the first time that we're hearing from you, since he has officially become your opponent, what do you think of him? What do you think of Graham Plattner?

Well, I have to say, Martha, that I never expected to have an opponent like Graham Plattner.

He is very different from me.

He's the antithesis of the steady leadership that I provide in Washington that has delivered real results for the state of Maine.

and for our nation.

There have been numerous controversies.

He often denies them, only to be contradicted by others who say what he told them.

What do you say when you see those people of your home state excusing the things that have been reported about Graham Plattner, Senator?

What's usually happening behind the scene when those things come to play? It

could be a variety of things.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is that they have a sponsor, someone who believes in them, that they've built trust with, who knows that they can lead the project through.

The other thing that I hear over and over again from people in their careers is that they ask to be part of that project.

Where somebody else sat back and expected or wanted to be asked.

The perfect example that I can think about is a few years ago, I was working with a group of leaders.

And a position was filled through a promotion.

And so if somebody was listening and you could give them one practical advice or action to take this week to become more effective at navigating office politics, what would that be?

We need those destroyers.

We absolutely do.

They are the workhorse of the fleet.

They accompany the Air Force, uh, they accompany the aircraft that carry the planes, and we need them, uh, in all sorts of situations.

I was very proud that a Bath-built destroyer had 100% record in shooting down the Houthi missiles that were aimed at commercial vessels as well as our military vessels.

And it is important to note that there are only two surface, uh, combatant shipyards, as you mentioned, Mississippi and Maine, and I am disappointed that the president's budget only proposes to have one, uh, destroyer built.

That doesn't make any sense because you disrupt the industrial base if you don't keep a steady flow of work going through the both shipyards, and we know that the need is there.

Is that something you can do for the lobstermen and the fishing, uh, uh, industry up here, make sure that the craziest of the regulatory burdens are removed, as happened with lobster bright?

I'm just wondering what's your base case scenario in light of the war in Iran.

So from my perspect- so b- go- before the conflict, my baseline would be that we would have been likely to see the disinflationary process start to resume during the second half of this year, and that has really been moved further out because of the energy shock.

We have seen certainly already a surge in energy prices.

There is an expectation that higher food prices are likely to follow.

There are other disruptions that we are seeing in a variety of different markets, and so some of those global spillovers might start to impact other prices as well.

Um-Contacts I talk to talk about shipping costs going up, about, uh, you know, a range of different, uh, things that they see in train.

And so my expectation is that we are likely to see inflation rise a bit further, even if the conflict is resolved relatively soon, before starting to come back down.

Um, one of the things that you mentioned that concerns you is the possible consequences of a more lasting supply chain disruption, and I wanted to ask you if the Fed is seeing this outlook in which supply chain disruptions are the new normal.

I mean, what do you say to your, we both have a lot of Democratic friends.

Right.

I totally agree with you on that.

And I think in many ways, what was going to be a primary race in Maine between the incumbent term-limited governor, Janet Mill, and Graham Plattner is a microcosm for the fight within the Democratic Party.

It's the left versus the loony left.

And that's what we're seeing in the state of Maine.

And I think that reflects the debate that's going on in the Democratic Party.

I am

I mean, what do you say to your, we both have a lot of Democratic friends.

Right.

I totally agree with you on that.

And I think in many ways, what was going to be a primary race in Maine between the incumbent term-limited governor, Janet Mill, and Graham Plattner, is a microcosm for the fight within the Democratic Party.

It's the left versus the loony left.

And that's what we're seeing in the state of Maine.

And I think that reflects the debate that's going on in the Democratic Party.

I

How do you view it?

Well, certainly getting the strait reopened is a big win not only for America but for our allies as, as well.

Um, the news reports have been so conflicting all day that it's difficult to know whether the ceasefire is holding or not.

My goal i-is for this military conflict to be brief and successful.

We must ensure that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon.

We learned that it had thousands of ballistic missiles, which essentially provide a shield for its enrichment of uranium.

Um, and we know that Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Has that ever crossed your radar before?

How, how do you assess this, uh, uh, this Democrat primary?

Well, I've, I've tried to stay out of the primary, but I'll tell you, I watch it with great fascination.

Um, we've got a, a two-term liberal governor who is leaving the state in bad condition, uh, fiscally from a tax perspective, education, you name it.

Uh, she is the one, Janet Mills, who had the big fight with President Trump, where I'm solidly on President Trump's side, about transgender athletes competing in girls' and women's sports.

I don't think that's fair.

I think it's contrary to the whole purpose of Title IX to provide, uh, athletic opportunities to girls and w- and women.

And, uh, it...

How are you-- How is your work to build up the Navy, uh, uh, by building up what's going on at your, uh, shipbuilding, uh, facilities, uh, helping our Navy get back to the preeminent status it should have?

She taught at Harvard and Georgetown and the University of Michigan.

Right? There are lots of themes going on.

I have to say that I'm struck by the, the sense that understanding some of the complexities may change traditional ways of thinking about things.

So that's a theme that I'm hearing.

So the first paper was really ...

If you, um, i- if you account for the linkages through networks that include not only trade flows but also financial flows, and, and, you know, if you ...

And across sectors and countries, not just through countries but add the sector component in, we may historically, with simpler more traditional models, have underestimated the potential for larger and more persistent effects of different kinds of shocks.

"Hey, Tom, here's something you might find interesting."

... we have that nice 2% number on the inflation side.

Yeah, so that's, that is a, you know, a little bit less specifically concrete than inflation.

Absolutely.

But I do think that we have a sense of what full employment looks like.

And, you know, this is something we talked about as part of the framework review that was completed recently that, you know, describes that as the maximum employment that you can sustain over time that's consistent with price stability.

And I think that's a helpful way of thinking about it because it also evolves over time.

It's not just one number.

Yeah.

Is there any reason that, d- do they gain any leverage by shuttering the government, other than Chuck Schumer's, uh, Hail Mary against AOC?

None whatsoever.

I think this is all driven by Chuck's fear of the primary with the AOC.

He got criticized by the far-left when he voted to keep government open in March, and I think this is entirely a reaction to that.

What I can't figure out is why more Democrats in the caucus have not broken away from him and said, "Chuck, this is bad for my constituents.

This is bad for our country.

It's bad for confidence in the work that we do here in Washington." I hope that will happen.

Do your, do your colleagues on the Democratic side, are they indifferent to the situation those young military families are in?

Tell me about the Religious Workforce Protection Act.

Well, it's so nice to talk with you, Hugh.

So there are 50 Catholic parishes in Maine, 35% of... or 35 of the 50, more than half, in other words, rely on foreign-born priests and other religious workers who are from overseas.

And what we have found is that there's such a long backlog in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State that their five-year temporary visas run out before they can get their permanent work visa.

And that means that a priest, for example, has to return to his home country for a year before they can come back.

Sometimes it's even longer.

And let me emphasize, all these individuals are well-vetted, uh, they're here legally.

I can't believe we send people home who are in the work of the faith, whatever the faith tradition might be.