Election. The winner of this election will represent idaho in the United States senate for six years as one of two u. S. Senators for the state. I want to welcome the candidates, incumbent senator mike crapo, and challengers david roth and Scott Cleveland. Scott cleveland owns an investment and Brokerage Firm in eagle. Prior to that, he was the managing partner of the boise office of new york rise. Mike crapo is seeking his fifth term in the u. S. Senate. He previously served as representative for idahos can Congressional District for three terms and in the Idaho State Senate for four terms. David roth was the executive director of the bonneville Youth Executive Council and is on the board for habitat for humanity in idaho falls and idaho falls soup kitchen. I want to introduce our panel of reporters who will ask the candidates questions today. Betsy russell of the idaho press, Margaret Carmel i am melissa devlin. I am moderating todays debate, helping us keep time is bridget gibson, volunteer time keeper from the league of women voters education fund. Each candidate will be given 90 seconds for opening comments and 60 seconds for close. Candidates have 90 seconds to answer questions and 60 seconds for rebuttal. I will allow backandforth if i think the conversation is productive and educational for voters, while trying to make sure each candidate gets equal time. We drew numbers to see who would go first. Mr. Cleveland, you have that honor. Mr. Cleveland thank you. I would like to thank Idaho Public Television for hosting the debate. I would like to thank senator crapo and candidate roth for being here today. Why am i running for this Important Office . In my opinion, america is still great but clearly headed in the wrong direction. The reason is this. Our leaders, including career politicians like mike crapo, are failing miserably at serving the best interest in everyday average americans and i am resolved to do something about that. Im here tonight to speak the truth about why im the best candidate to serve the citizens of idaho. The fact is mike crapo has betrayed and filled the voters of idaho and should not be elected to congress this november. Albert einstein said it best. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. That is exactly what the voters have been doing lately and im hoping to change that with your support. Once again, i am Scott Cleveland , your independent conservative candidate for the u. S. Senate. Thank you. Thank you so much senator crapo. Sen. Crapo thank you. Thank you to you, the voters of idaho taking the time to evaluate this debate. Our country is facing unprecedented threats domestically and globally. Inflation, economic decline, security at the border, personal safety, even the foundational principles of our constitution are under attack. America is at a crossroads. Im in the middle of this fight. My record is solid and proven. Infighting aggressively and effectively for idahos principles and values. I want idaho and idahos principles to be advocated affectively in washington. We must end runaway spending and inflation. Unleash american energy, secure our southern border, and stop the invasion of fentanyl and crime. Protect our constitution and the principles and freedoms it assures. Life, liberty, speech, religious freedom, and the right to bear arms among others. Protect parents rights in schools over curriculum decision and social politics, and yes, safety. Restore our National Defense strength globally. Support our police and stop the defund the Police Effort and the crime wave it is bringing with it, and protect states rights to assure that their election policies. Thank you for listening and i ask for your vote. Thank you. Mr. Rock. Mr. Roth thank you to the members of the idaho public and Idaho Public Television. I think we can agree in the last six months, weve seen a shift in the view of the midterm elections when it comes to what country expects as an outcome. Weve seen individual rights and freedoms ripped away from large portions of the populations and a laundry list of the freedoms to get be taken away. Ive been traveling around the state in every community i reached, i speak to women who were concerned about their future. As a member of the lgbtq community, i also share fears of what may be next. As a Community Leader and in drug prevention, i see firsthand the challenges that idaho faces when trying to tackle the drug problems. Im concerned about the lack of support from the federal government. We need to do more. As a member of the board of directors for habitat for humanity, ive seen the effects of the housing crisis firsthand. As a single father of two boys, i faced many of the same challenges nearly 50 of idahoans face every day. I work fulltime and i still sometimes struggle to make enough to make ends meet. We require leadership with realworld experience. We must have a senator who understands that here in idaho we have real people with real problems, and we require real solutions. Now its time to stand up and ask for those solutions and i ask for your vote this november. Thank you so much. The first question is from Betsy Russell for mr. Cleveland. You are a Business Owner and investor that have never held public office. You list your top issues as National Security, inflation and Energy Independence and reckless spending, but how would you fix these problems as one independent senator . Mr. Roth mr. Cleveland the framers of the country had that in mind and they gave the power of the purse to the legislative branch of government. We are faced with many large problems. You listed most of the major ones. Th for absolutely everything that is going wrong trillion and now he likes to lament how bad it is for the country. Answer briefly and we need to move on. Sen. Crapo lets years, more fiscally appropriate axpayer on took office. They what have you voted for that actively helps constituents . There have not been any bills on the senate floor that tried to do that because Chuck Schumer and President Biden and nancy pelosi have controlled the agenda. But the bottom line is that the Inflation Reduction Act did nothing to reduce inflation. We had put into place. To build american industry and give advantage to american industry, which is what we should be doing as we try to reduce inflation. Dered by the markets to be a disaster. The inflation rate is supp ing us in the direction we are going to go i think life begins at conception. I think we need to protect u. S. Senators who may have a di enough support to push it state to make their not an Inflation Reduction Act. It insulindependent to reduce you introduce competit good with the bill and what was bad. Access spending. Senate supported the bill. There were only 14 no votes. Why were they wrong and you were right . I national and i have been attacked. It puts 380 billion dollars of new spending potential, a slush fund hole in the budget to allow democrats to spend another 380 billion. Chuck schumer has been consistent on this, whether it is the pact act or other acts that has been pushed through. When he sees one that has republican support, he adds a boatload of new spending and puts republicans in the position of voting no to things they support or authorizing hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending. I didnt do it because that was the strategy Chuck Schumer was pushing. As far as veterans come in the pact act, one of the lead pieces was my bill. Three or four of the other pieces were legislation that i cosponsored. The veterans in idaho an that consistently on this issue and many others, i have been one of the strongest advocates for veterans in the senate. I have gone all over idaho and met with veterans across the state. They get it. They dont want to be used as a foil to drive up access spending. My opponent mr. Cleveland has attacked me for voting for extra spending and he just said he would vote for 380 billion of more spending. That has to stop in washington. I have voted against excess spending in washington. Mr. Rhodes, same question. I absolutely would have voted for the pact act. It is important we are looking out for the veterans. And yet we know that in the senate and congress, bills are often compromised. Not everybody gets everything they want and sometimes things go through that they dont want. We cannot allow veterans to continue to wait for muchneeded Critical Care simply because there something in that bill the senator doesnt agree with. As far as spending, i understand we need to control spending and make sure we are directing it these types of cut and run strategies, or this idea that i can vote for anything because there is excess spending, that is the reason he gave for not voting for the Inflation Reduction Act. Because he didnt like the overall act, so he voted against that amendment. Had he voted for that amendment, people on private insurance today would have a 35 insulin cap. Because he voted against the standalone amendment, which he would have done could have done, we saw that cap go out the window. We need a senator who is able to strategically look at the bills, waving the good and the bad and realize that not every bill is an ideal bill. Just because it was ok to have 1. 5 trillion dollars to the deficit to cut taxes for the wealthy, its ok if we have to spend three to 50 billions to give Veterans Health care. The next question is from mr. Cleveland, i wanted to ask about extremism. The rise in extremism and Divisive Political rhetoric we have seen in idaho across the country and the world. Recent Public Opinion surveys including a 2021 survey from the Frank Church Institute at Boise State University showed that 20 of survey respondents believe violence is justified if people dont think the government is acting in their best interests. I want to ask if you agree with that or if you think as a candidate for office it is your responsibility to push back against extremism . I think we live in a very polarized society. I see that continuing for the for seeable future. However, i do not ever condone violence. The 20 figure you mentioned, i do not condone any sort of political violence. There is no place for that in modern society. I think people that do break the law, for whatever their pretext is or they think is a just cause, should absolutely be dealt with fairly young under the terms of the law. New process needs to be brought forth and i think that we dont need that in our society. We are advanced enough that we can settle our differences without resorting to any form of physical violence. Thank you. What is your reaction to the rise in extremism and violence in political discourse . How do you push back against it . I think we are all concerned. Anytime we see groups of people attacked. Many people across this country watched in horror as what we saw and we have seen sitting legislators calling for the execution of particular groups of people in this state. That is extremism. We should never ever be asking for that. We should never be singling out a group. It starts at the top. We have religious leaders, state legislators, our own former president saying a member of his own party has a death wish. We have all of these examples of that filtering down. When you like at someone who was the president of the United States who is saying that is ok, it sets the tone for everyone else. I think it is very important that as a statesman we push back at every opportunity and we look at ways to protect our citizens. Beyond that, we need to look at how extremism grows in the first place. One of the main ways it grows is that people are very unhappy. In idaho, they have been living under a republican super majority. Nearly half of them cannot afford to make ends meet. They are very unhappy and we need to make investments to try to improve those situations and starve out extremism so that they do not have that fertile bed to lie in. Senator crapo, same question. How do you tone down the temperature . How do you push back and fight extremism and calls for violence . The violent extremism you have discussed has no place in american society. It needs to be investigated and prosecuted where it crosses the line. I do not disagree with my opponents on that principal. The point is well taken that one of the best ways we can deal with it is to strengthen peoples lives. People today are frustrated at what is happening to them with inflation. When they go to the gas pump and they are paying double or triple what they used to pay. They are frustrated at what is happening at the border with the fentanyl and all of the problems we see you an open border. We need to address that. I want to take the rest of my time to respond in this context that an attack mr. Dash has made on me three times, saying the tax reform that we passed in 2019 has resulted in 100 i cant remember, whatever the number was of deficit spending. Tax act generated more income in the treasury and grew our economy phenomenally, built the strongest economy we have seen in our lifetimes and reduced inflation and reduced the deficit and put us into a posture of building incomes of individuals across the country in all income categories beyond what it was before. I will make this last point. The growth in personal income, medium income for people across the lower and middle income categories went up. That was the one time in the recent past we have actually seen the difference between the wealthy end of those lower income categories diminish because we were growing opportunities for people across the country. Mr. Ross, 30 seconds. The Congressional Budget Office came up with 1. 5 trillion estimate for what it is going to add to the deficit. That is not something i just pulled out of thin air. That is the stated estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. When you look at what the tax cuts did, it did affect income tax at all levels. However, it affected the wealthiest the most. We are just looking to see that income gap increase over time. That is something we need to look at addressing. How do we bring that back down and close that gap . The congressional is wrong. Back on track. Real quick followup, because he has a unique perspective. You were serving in the u. S. Senate, you were in washington on january 6 during the riot, how would you characterize what happened that day . Given your unique perspective. I was there. I have stated publicly, i rejected the violence that occurred and said that violence should be investigated and prosecuted. The department of justice, the fbi has been doing just that. Over 900 people have been identified and i dont know whether they have all been prosecuted but they are being identified by the department of justice. That needed to happen. We should never see that happen in the United States. Betsy russell, mr. Cleveland. Mr. Cleveland, you have said publicly that you do not support the last election process. What changes would you propose to secure elections if you were elect it, and would you support the bipartisan electoral count act . I would not support the electoral count act. We clearly need reform. The subject of the integrity of the 2020 election goes across this country and the latest poll believes 52 of americans believe they are somewhat likely that the vote count was not counted correctly and it would likely have affected the outcome. We are not talking about a small group of tinfoil hat people who see the Election Results with a fair amount of question. Election integrity is not an easy issue to solve. It starts with cleaning up the voter rolls. The voter rolls in iowa are not clean. I worked with a group called Election Integrity idaho has 500 members and we have been doing a deep dive into the election process in idaho. It starts with cleaning up the voter rolls. I dont like the way some of the machines work. I spent three hours with a county clerk. After learning about how the machines work, the tabulators and the software, i asked him to his face, do you control that software and hardware as the county clerk here . Or does someone else control it . His answer was, i dont control that software. The people that sell the Software Control that. Until some of these things are cleared up, voters are not going to have trust in these soups systems. Why would you not support the bipartisan act . It is going to change how the Electoral College is working. What do you think is wrong with our voter rolls and ill idaho . People voted in the state that dont live in this state. I went out canvassing with a friend of mine who runs this Election Integrity group. We went to five houses on a sunday afternoon with people who actually voted in the primary. At one of the houses, we showed them a list of who voted from that residence. There were six people who voted from that residence but only one of the persons had lived there. I saw it with my own eyes. Our voter rolls is not as clean as our secretary of state would like us to believe. You voted to certify the election but right now, there are a lot of people who dont believe the last election was valid. The leading contender for the republican president ial election repeatedly says it was not valid. Would you support a 2024 president ial candidate who denies the legal and valid Election Results . The bottom line is that there are allegations there was significant fraud in the last election that was not identified and corrected. I agree with mr. Cleveland that that c