Voices in south jersey are heard and i think that im the person to do that. Im raising my family here, this isnt just my house but my home and my whole family lives in the area and understand what is happening in the community. Seat for second congressional district. I know the district, ive walked it, the people are good hardworking middleclass people that want somebody thats going to break their back to them and thats me. To beat Jeff Van Drew, we need to have a vision of what we want this country to look like Going Forward and for me that means focusing on social justice and moving out of the coronavirus and George Floyds death, that it will be really important to focus on the values of our community. The candidates will have their chance to square off on covid recovery, Climate Change, policing, health care and all the issues critical to the people of south jersey. Good evening and welcome to the john f Academic Center at Stockholm University here in Atlantic City. Im briana, for the next 60 minutes or so we will have informative debate between Second District congressional candidates sitting republican congressman Jeff Van Drew and democrat amy kennedy followed by post debate analysis. This event is sponsored by the William J Hugh center for Public Policy at university, moderator this each asking the centers executive director john. The panelist asking the questions are my colleagues from nj spotlight news, editor at large colleen and Senior Correspondent david cruz and myself. Before i turn it over to our moderator, please know we are doing this debate live and in person, there is no live studio audience, only our crew and guests are in the room, we are following covid19 protocols outlined by the university and department of health. Everyone involved has signed a Health Pledge and wore masks up until the start of this broadcast. Everyone else in the room will wear a mask for the duration of the debate. Lets begin, john. Thank you, breonna, welcome to Stockholm University. The center is pleased to partner with njtv new jersey spotlight news to bring you tonights debate in new jerseys Second District, home of one of the most important house races in the nation. Here are ground rules for tonight. Our panel will pose questions to the candidates on a variety of issues, candidates will have 90 seconds to respond and will be allowed 30 seconds for followups where appropriate. There are no opening statements. Each candidate will give a 1minute closing statement. Candidates, please respect the time limits to which you agree. To maximize the number of questions our last ten minutes will feature a fastpace round of questions requiring 30 second responses from each candidate and no rebuttals. Our first topic involves the coronavirus pandemic, breonna. Thank you, and welcome to you both. Mr. Van drew, first question is to you first, in the days since President Trumps covid19 diagnosis, more than 30 white house officials, staffers and others in his orbit have tested positive including former governor chris christie. Was it irresponsible of the president to travel and hold events knowing he had been exposed . 90 seconds to you. Well, i dont know exactly how much he did and didnt know and i cant speak for the president but obviously when somebody has been exposed and they know they have been, they have the responsibility to let their doctor or whatever Health Professional know. I believe that, you know, we are coming to a time now where we are going to be much more proactive about making sure that those types of things dont happen and we also know that which is interesting, that covid is your younger and healthier, et cetera, doesnt affect you nearly as much as people had originally thought. Some things are looking better on the horizon, still requires vigilance and still requires being careful. Ms. Kennedy, how would you rate the federal governments response to the coronavirus pandemic . First, thank you for having me here tonight, and, you know, i would love to tell you that everything was moving forward in a way where we can just not be cautious in the way that weve had to be tonight but we are six months in and we are still really struggling, we are seeing uptick in cases and its really the mix messaging that we saw throughout this pandemic about how dangerous the virus would be, whether or not we should have masks or not wear masks, the distribution of the ppe, left so much unclear for the American People, i want to see us have a real plan and make sure that we are thinking about how we are going to distribute the vaccine equitably and that we can soon reopen and get back to life. Mr. Van drew, i want to ask the same question to you, how would you rate the federal governments response to the pandemic . Well, first of all, we have to understand how this started. It did start in china and we have to understand that our cdc was not allowed to go into china and really evaluate what was happening. In fact, we dont know if it really came from a wet meat market or actually came from a laboratory, i believe it probably came from a laboratory, we dont know if this was genetically mutated but we do know that fortunately the president did say theyll be travel restrictions quite early on and after ward had travel restrictions with europe. Now at that time he was called racist, said he was xenophobic, thank you goodness he did. We are moving rapidly towards the vaccine and we will have it very soon, we are moving rapidly with Better Therapeutics and they are being used by physicians so i think that all in all, as i said before, i know we still have to be careful and we do, but we have light at the end of the tunnel. This is going to get better. America is going to move toward. The world is going to move forward. This has affected the entire world. Ms. Kennedy, i want to ask the next question to you. Democratic president ial candidate joe biden has expressed a willingness to go into a National Lockdown if necessary, do you support or oppose such an action . 90 seconds to you. Im hopeful that we are not going to need to take action like that. You know, here we have seen really high numbers in parts of the country and in parts of the state, lower numbers in other areas, id like to see it happen in a way thats more precise, but thats going to require Rapid Testing and tracing and until those are in place, we are going to have to handle it in the way that means that americans will be safe and that will help us get back on track as soon as possible. And so to clarify, if the Vice President were elected president and called for a National Lockdown, your position would be what . I dont think he would call a National Lockdown unless it were absolutely necessary and at that point i would hope that hes following the direction of scientists and doctors. Thank you. The next questions are about federal pandemic relief. Ms. Kennedy, it has been six months since Congress Passed the cares act. The president ended negotiations with democrats this week, but then said he would sign bills giving another 1,200dollar stimulus payment to most americans and more aid to airlines and businesses. Do you support another round of federal aid or stimulus funding and if so how much and where should it go . I absolutely support another round of stimulus funding. Im glad to hear that the president is going to approve those measures. We know that families in south jersey have been struggling, just looking at the rise in demand for the Community Food bank, for example, people are having a difficult time just putting food on their table. We know that unemployment is high and we need to get people back to work but in the meantime that that necessary stimulus is going to have to be the bridge there and its not just the airlines but its our Small Businesses that have really struggled and id like to see that stimulus go to the Small Businesses and working families as well as our frontline workers. Mr. Van drew, this is essentially the same question to you, do you support another round of stimulus funding fanned so how much and where should it go . Sure, well i do. The amount can be worked out. As you know its varied from 1. 6 billion to over but that trillion rather, 1. 6 trillion to over 2 trillion. But thats not the issue. Here is the real issue and we could have done this reason and the reason its not done already because of politics, we had a bill that we voted on for covid relief and in that bill were put certain measures that were so unacceptable to so Many Congress people including democrats. What was in that bill, squeezed in there, that shouldnt have been, the release of federal prisoners who were violent prisoners and that would be part of the bill, murderers, rapists and others, how could you vote for that . There was the funding of those who were undocumented residents in this country and they would actually get funded with the 2,500dollar stimulus and or more without even being residents when we dont get it for our 17yearold kids. It was the Green New Deal which would cost trillions of dollars ultimately, so all of the other political ideas and packages were squeezed in when most of the bill was good, so at the end of the day when we left, it didnt get done and we are still where we are. I want to go back. I want to get it done. I want to get a bill done in a bipartisan level with all of us working together and not putting in the nonsense, we can argue about the other stuff later but we need the relief. Thank you. Thank you for that. The next question excuse me, i have a quick followup for you, mr. Van drew, if thats okay. There are some republicans who have called the stimulus a bluestate bailout. Is that something that you agree with . So, of course, we do. It depends how you do that. I believe in helping the states. I believe that states should be held accountable for past practices that were very irresponsible in the way they budgeted it and what they did without a doubt, but i also think the expenses that they have do to due to the covid should be helped, we just cant bail them out because they didnt run their state either. Thats something that you have to go through state by state. Thank you. Next question is about election security. And this question is for both of the candidates. President trump has called into question the validity of this election. He contends theres widespread voter fraud, particularly in relation to vote by mail. But without providing proof. How confident are you in the security of this years election and the validity of the results, mr. Van drew, if you would start . Im hopeful but im worried. Talk to postmasters and any person, we can go to the street and talk to regular folks, every one of them will tell you that they have had the experience or know somebody who has had it where they have gotten extra ballots in the mail and people who moved and dont life there anymore, people who passed away and live in other states, thats not good. We are sending live ballots in the mail, millions of them and i expressed to the governor and i would right now openly on live and said what we should have done is even have maybe monday, tuesday and wednesday voting by machines, you could have the middle of the alphabet vote on tuesday and the beginning vote on monday and the end of the alphabet vote on wednesday, the point is you could have had the spacing and precautions and could have done everything the right way but people would go and vote and press the button and know they did the right thing. Traditional vote by mail is find because you have to make the request. Right now we are just putting ballots out there. Honestly we dont need President Trump to tell us that. All you need to do is talk to family and friends and i guaranty, thaw will tell you and it even happened in the primary that theyre getting all kinds of ballots and they dont know where theyre coming from. Ms. Kennedy, the same question. Yeah, im excited that we are among the states that are making sure that everybody will be safe and able to participate in the process. I think the primary was a great example of why the system works. We saw an inaccuracy in turnout. Almost 50 higher than ever in the history of district 2 that people participated both republicans and democrats, saw increase on participation and on the thinking that if people want to vote in person, they have that option, they can do that. If they need to put it in the mail, thats an option for them and theres also the secure drop boxes which we know that theres ten in each county at a minimum, so i feel like this is a good path forward and also means that everybody will have a paper ballot, it helps us with the idea of interference from any type of Foreign Government as well because paper ballots are secure and the whole narrative that President Trump has been pushing, i think, is disruptive. Quick followup, 30 seconds, if you would. There was an incident just last week up in byrd county where ballots were found with other mail that was thrown away and fairly quickly found the postal employee who they think was responsible. Does that prove that there may be some sort of, you know, worry that is we should have ballots getting where they need to go . I think always with an election that we should be very cautious that we need people to report if Something Like that is happening, but that this overall is a very secure method, its being used in other states and have been for a long time. And for you, mr. Van drew, 30 seconds, if you would, youve been a state legislator before you were in congress for an awful long time and i think you know how the system works, arent there enough safeguards in our system to prevent a person from mailing from voting twice, you know there were, there absolutely were and even in the system that we had we all spoke about in the legislature how actually there should be a backup on the machines and im sure youve heard that. Our machines arent even good enough and there are a whole lot better than all the paper ballots that were floating out there. Look what happened in patterson and look at what happened in the other locations. You mentioned one of them. Im telling you theres a lot. If you know anecdotally people that are telling you that they are getting ballots for people who arent even alive, you know something is wrong. It is a mistake. Time. The next questions involve political ideology. Welcome, candidates. Mammoth University Pole found out that half of the voters were bothered a little bit or a lot by your party switch. We got a lot of questions from the viewers, here is one of them. What do you say for voters who voted for you as a democrat in the previous election and feel betrayed by your switch to the Republican Party . 90 seconds. First of all, i have to disagree with the monmouth poll and ive walked the streets and talked to people and ive had a tremendous amount of support, our own internal polling doesnt show that at all which is really weird how different it is. I would say this, people voted for me because im Jeff Van Drew. My whole career has been based upon the fact that i wasnt so concerned about republicans and democrats. I was concerned about standing up for south jersey, for fighting for south jersey, for believing in the people in south jersey who often dont get their fair share. People didnt vote for me just because i was a democrat. In fact, in my legislative districts there are a whole lot more republicans than democrats and probably more republicans voted for me than democrats. So its voting for the individual person and we just cant vote for the party alone, so i dont buy it, i think that people know who i am, they know what i stand for and they will vote for or against me on that basis. Let me follow up with a 30second question for you. In the oval office, you pledged your undying support to President Trump, do you still standby that . What that means not that i will agree with him on everything. Weve had goodies agreements, solid policy issues and i voted differently when we voted in the house of representatives, so ive been very independent and i will continue to do so. What it meant is i support the presidency, that i support some of the things that hes done about a strong america, america that really can stand up and is number 1 in Energy Production in america, that has its own supply chain and an america that supports education and an america that will fight for the environment and an america that supports military and other things as well. Thank you. Ms. Kennedy, you come from a family well known in politics, you married into a family with a wellknown political name but you yourself have never held elected office, how do you expect to get anything done with no elected political experience . 90 seconds. Thank you, david. You know, this is really going back to the heart of why im here and it is because i was raised in this county, in this district, my family has lived here for four generations. I taught public school, im raising my own 5 kids here and i work as a Mental Health advocate trying to make sure that we are improving lives and i think people will really support that kind of lived experience because im able to bring a voice of my own community to this position. So this followup question comes from a viewer and it pertains to where you fall on the political spectrum. Sure. A viewer asked, are there any issues with your partys president ial candidate joe biden on which you disagree . 30 seconds. Yeah, thank you. I think, you know, one last night that came up was on fracking and i was disappointed to hear