Debate. Welcome toning and the district 17 congressional debate here in the wpix studio. That it is by now one of the biggest races in the u. S. House this november and we are very excited to be with you tonight for the next 30 minutes. Lets get right to it and meet our candidates. Enough about a colored or, the incumbent conor lamb, who has been in Congress Since 20 18. And the challenger, republican sean parnell, a retired army ranger running for office for the first time. We posted the rules for the debate online and we for bitcoin in studio to determine who goes first for opening statements. Congressman lam, you have two minutes. People want members of congress to stop attacking each other and start dealing with the real problems we face. That is exactly how ive done this job. 80 of the votes ive cast have been bipartisan. I cosponsored three bipartisan bills that the president signed into law. I know how to work with the other side to get things done and right now, we need that approach more than ever. This pandemic has taken more than 200,000 american lives and cost us millions of jobs. More than ever, people need to know that if they get sick, they are covered, that a trip to the hospital wont mean bills you cant pay. But this year alone, more than 5 million americans lost their Health Insurance. This administration would take Health Insurance away from 20 million more if they succeed in overturning the Affordable Care act. That is a law that protects you from being denied insurance for overcharged for your insurance or having your insurance taken away, just because of a preexisting condition. Today, you are protected by that law. Tomorrow, you may not be. I will continue working to keep that law in place and i will continue to work to strengthen your medicare and social security, to save your pension, to build infrastructure, and allow you to join or stay in the union. If i have the honor of going back to congress, i will work on each of these things with anyone until they get done. This is a serious time for our nation and this job is about you and your family. I wont forget that. Mr. Parnell . Mr. Parnell my name is sean parnell and i led an infantry platoon at the height of the hunt for bin laden and i was blessed. My job was bringing people together. I was able to do it in one of the most hostile regions on the planet. Im sure as heck going to be able to do it right here in pennsylvanias 17th Congressional District. I had high hopes for connor lamb inn he ran for congress 2018. Unfortunately, he has gone back on almost an very promising made us. He posed with a rifle and said he was going to be progun. Two years later, he has an f rating with the nra. He said he was going to be prolife, but he voted against the born alive act twice. He said, one of the first things he said is that he looks forward to supporting President Trump and the republicans who put him in office and then a few short months later, he voted to impeach our president. He said he opposed nancy pelosi and while he did in a ceremonial with he has since voted nancy pelosi over 90 of the time. If that is not bad enough, he votes with ill in omar and alexandria ocasiocortez, the most radical members of his the time. R 90 of he has promised to been a to be a moderate voice and he has not been that. Thatrunning so you have independent voice and i will always stand with the people of western pennsylvania and not that of a Political Party. Thank you both. As we begin our questions, each candidate will have 90 seconds to answer and then the question candidate who goes first will get a 32nd rebuttal. I want to focus on the tone in d. C. Was to do everything to bring people together. White,d black next to christian to atheist, democrats next to republicans in the same foxhole and it was my job as a leader to try to bring those people together and i was able to do that in one of the most hostile regions on the planet despite taking an 85 casualty rate. I thing i would bring that leadership to washington and work across the aisle when i can, but also stand for the people of western pennsylvania. This job is to be a representative by and for the people and if you misrepresent yourself to the people, it is disqualifying and we should absolutely disqualify him in november. I will never lie to you. Congressman . Rep. Lamb you will see a clear contrast on this stage tonight. All these attempts to call people liars, call people names, talk about candidates not even in this race, those are attempts to distract you from the issues. Im going to do my best in this campaign and in office every single day to talk about where i stand on the issues themselves and where i differ from my opponent. That way you can make a decision on which candidate you think best reflects your values. We have no choice to try to change washington, d. C. For the better. Mr. Parnell . Mr. Parnell that sounds real nice, conor, but your voting record speaks for itself. Why should we believe you . We shouldnt believe you. You said one thing and you did another. You dont deserve another shot in this job. To our next question, we are seeing new violence break out in several cities this week and have the months since the george floyd incident and his death advance to the conversation about race in america or set it at . Are there reforms that Congress Needs to support . Rep. Lamb i thing they have advanced to the conversation because we have heard so many more voices from the black community, from all different walks of life talking about what they have been through, how many have had experiences with the police that someone like me never had. But it is a difficult conversation and so i think you have to constantly try to separate between people who protest peacefully, who have a positive message and want to change things for good. That seems to be what you hear from the family members of the victims themselves, whether it is George Floyds family or jacob blakes family. They dont want to see people looting buildings and setting things on fire and neither do i. Those people should be punished for the things they have done. Anyone who commits violence. Our goal should be to commit bring police and the community together. I know that. Ive put people in jail for more than 20 years for committing violence against each other. But we cant be blind to the fact that we have a problem in a lot of the cities and there is Police Violence and the community does not trust to the response and many of these places. I voted to reprove improve that. We got republicans to vote to improve that and we will keep pushing that over the line. Mr. Parnell sean parnell, conor, you havent said anything about the violence sweeping our streets. We had a Pittsburgh Police officer hit with a brick and was put in critical condition. You have said nothing. I came out and i condemned what happened to george floyd, i said that that should never happen in america today. And i hope and pray that George Floyds family gets justice. You dont even opine on the issue. You cant say that you care about building bridges and then remain silent as leftwing mobs rampage across our country and injure our police officers. In fact, in 2018, you gratefully accepted the endorsement of fop 1 and you said you always would defend the police and now just two short years later, you are marching with defund the police radicals. As far as im concerned, i find it reprehensible. Congressman . Rep. Lamb i will say it again since you didnt hear it the first time, i dont believe anyone should commit violence and ive spent a good amount of my career prosecuting people who commit violence. I voted for over 200 billion in Law Enforcement fundings into years in congress. That is my actual record. You can say what you want, you can call the names you want, make the statements you want, my votes are votes. I support funding for the police, but i vote always trying to support police themselves tell you they want the trust of the community, they want to earn that trust, they dont want to be involved in violence when they dont have to be. We all have a job to do to try to improve policing across this country. The difference between the two of us as im willing to do that job, im willing to work with republicans to get these bills passed. Im not going to politicize the violence in this country. Mr. Parnell you say you are willing to do the job, but you havent done it. You like to brag about your record is a federal prosecutor, but you cant bring yourself to publicly condemn the violence. Rep. Lamb i just dont know how many times i have to do it or if you are not listening. Mr. Parnell im listening. Rep. Lamb we are not going to get any farther for the people who are watching this debate by interrupting each other or misrepresenting each others records. Mr. Parnell my record is what it is. Ive given my life to protect this community. Nobody is above the law, including this president , police officers, including anybody. Congressman, thank you. A passionate debate we will continue. Stay with us as we continue the 17 here onp. A. Channel 11. Welcome back to the district 17 congressional debate here on channel 11. I want to start by talking about the virus and the economy. You touched on it in your opening statements. The house as they are staying in session until a new covid relief deal is reached. What should be in that deal . Congressman, do you have any updates on progress . Mr. Parnell . Mr. Parnell first i will say most people here in pennsylvanias 17th Congressional District know that nancy pelosi, Speaker Pelosi has held upwardly for the American People with a far left radical wish list that is untethered to Coronavirus Relief at all. In fact, just this week on wednesday you voted to block an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program through the end of the year that would have helped 11,000 Small Businesses here in pennsylvania 17 and the 100,000 plus people and constituents. Conor, you have been nothing but a roadblock for relief for the American People with regards to the coronavirus. Ist we actually need to do advocate for coronavirus that is directly tethered to the actual virus itself and get back on the path of reopening this economy, letting people go back to work, and go back to work safely, so that people can start putting food on the table for their families again. I never thought in my lifetime that i would see food lines in my hometown. I see them every week. People are really struggling and congress has done nothing to play politics but play politics and i find that to be shameful because this job is about representing the people and not the interests of a Political Party and my opponent has done nothing since his time in congress but represent the interests of his Political Party. Congressman . Rep. Lamb that just isnt true. I voted for the Paycheck Protection Program and unlike my opponent, i spent the entire spring, summer, right of mattel now helping local businesses qualify for funding and iron out problems they were having. We also went back and fixed the program so that smaller businesses, including minority and veteran owned businesses, got better access than the first time. Now, lets talk about a few things that are tethered to the coronavirus, in your words. Unemployment. Here in our own district, you may not know this, in beaver county, there is 15 unemployment. There is a most 15 here in allegheny county. One of the major holdups in washington is that the republicans simply wont support helping with unemployment. One of the other big problems tethered to the coronavirus is that our local government and School Districts are running out of money. They fund themselves by collecting parking taxes, fuel taxes, event taxes, things that are not coming in that everybody is staying home all the time. These are local governments controlled by republicans, they are controlled by democrats, they run Police Departments. You want to talk about defunding the police . The bill has been held up because republicans will not fund Police Departments or local governments. These are all needed. The ppp is needed too. Eviction protection for people facing evictions in the middle of a pandemic are absolutely needed. More stimulus checks are needed. You cant pick out one group, Small Businesses, and say we have to do it only for them and leave everybody else in our society behind. Every hospital is struggling, they are all in the red. We voted multiple times in the house to do different forms of these, different sizes of different amounts of money. And Mitch Mcconnell will not take a vote. It is not like they are voting these ideas down. They just wont show up and do the job. That is where you need president ial leadership and that is what we do not have. Mr. Parnell . Mr. Parnell conor, Seven Members of your own party wrote a letter to nancy pelosi asking desperately for a clean coronavirus bill so they can help the American People. You failed to do it, conor. I do know about the unemployment here in western pennsylvania. I know that it is high. Do you want to know why . It is high because of the governors lockdown, not datadriven at all, by the way. You havent spoken out about it at all. You know what else you havent spoken out about . You havent spoken out about the disastrous policy of governor wilkes to mandate that Nursing Homes, one of which is right here in our district, that Nursing Homes take covid positive patients. That is a travesty because 70 of the deaths are because of that policy. Mr. Parnell, thank you. I want to talk about health care. Since we are doing well in time, we will give you extra time to hash things out. Both of you traded jabs on twitter this week about health care. I figured we would leave it kind of open and let you continue that conversation. How do we Fix Health Care . Rep. Lamb here is a really important fact about where we are starting from. , ify, as a matter of law you have a preexisting condition, meaning asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and yes covid19 if you have suffered from any of those things, if you are suffering, if you have a history of acne, if you are pregnant, if you are a woman, you cannot be discriminated against because of those preexisting conditions. Insurance cannot deny you coverage. They cannot charge you more for. They cannot kick you off the role. Before 2010, that was not so. People went uninsured. My opponent favors overturning that law that protects you. You will hear from him, we support preexisting conditions. No, the law protects you now, they want to get rid of the law. I support it, he opposes it just like the president. It is that simple. Mr. Parnell . Mr. Parnell i support preexisting conditions. In an interview a couple months ago, kathryn, you asked me and i said we should protect people with preexisting conditions. You want to know why this is so important to me . I have a preexisting condition. I was blown up in afghanistan, i had a tremendous brain injury. This is deeply personal to me. I was upset about obamacare. Do you want to know why . Because the democrats in Congress Lied to get it passed. The architect of obamacare went in policy seminars all across the country and said, sure, i lied to the American People because the ends justify the means. If you like your doctor, you can keep your dr. Do you remember that . I sure as heck do. I have people that i love who lost their health care because of obamacare. Right now, obamacare only covers 4 of the people in this country. I had family members lose their health care, that have seen their premiums quadruple, and now have to pay outofpocket for health care. So yes, im upset about the way obamacare was passed because im not uncomfortable because im uncomfortable lying to the people to get the job done like you are. There was a bill in the senate right now that tom tillis is sponsoring that will do just that and im going to sponsor it in the house. Congressman . Rep. Lamb i just in dont get it. This isnt about you being upset. The law protects these people now. All you hear from this guy is that everyone else is a liar, every democrat is the source of all these problems we are having. Look, there are issues. This is a very difficult pandemic. The last thing we should do is throw out the law that guarantees coverage to 133 million americans. Are 100,000 people in our Congressional District who have Health Insurance because of the aca and there are 20,000 more who are uninsured that should have it. That will get worse under your approach. You can say what you want. The law protects these people now. You cant get rid of this law. Mr. Parnell listen, im going to protect people with preexisting conditions, conor. Im sitting here right here, right now, i will always protect, i will always protect you if you have preexisting conditions. You know that. You are running an ad that is a baldfaced lie saying i will kick you off your Health Care Plan if you have a preexisting condition. In 2018, you said it is the candidates responsibility that if they know an ad is false to advocate for that ad to be called. Do you stand by those words now or has your position shifted yet again . Rep. Lamb i will answer the question will answer the question for you, you will not pull the ad because you do whatever you need to do to win elections, you say whatever you need to say and i find that reprehensible. Congressman . Rep. Lamb i guess hes got it all figured out. If you want to see more of this in washington dc, on cable news every night, you should vote for sean. The ad says he opposes the Affordable Care act because he does. That is bad for all the people protected by the law. If you would rather be protected by an executive order, if you would rather be protected by his words that he will always protect you, fine, but i think most people would prefer the source of law. I want to move on. This is a very important one. Voting and november. There has been a lot of talk about whether the president ial candidates should or will accept the results of the election. Number one, will you accept the results of this race . Is pennsylvania ready to handle mailin ballots . Mr. Parnell of course, look. The safety and security of our elections is paramount. In january 2021, there is going to be a swearingen of a new president whether it is joe biden, got for bed, or President Donald Trump. What im not in favor of is moving the election day. Anyone looking at what is happening right now in this country and seeing the provisions the governor has put forth, the idea that absentee the idea that mailin ballots can be delivered three days after the fact with signatures that dont match or no postmark soto sets the conditions for massive voter fraud. Quite frankly, that concerns me because i think that that shakes the foundations of the trust that the American People have in our electoral system. Im certainly opposed to moving the election day. Obviously, the system we have in pennsylvania was developed in a bipartisan way. Republicans and democrats, the early and absentee program is pretty good, it is very secure, but moving the election and and inor early early mailin votes to be cast three days after the election is wrong and i think it shakes the foundations of our electoral system. Rep. Lamb i support the results of the election and i will abide by them. I will just point out that many states around this country, republican and democrat, have been running mail in elections for a long time. We are taking advantage of it now because we are in the middle of a pandemic and many states are. It is the right thing to do. The people that work the polls are older. They dont need to be exposed to thousands of people a day. There is really no historical evidence of fraud in these places. I dont think there will be here. Of course i will except the results of the election and we will make the county of the ballots, the receipt of the balance, as absolutely transparent as possible. I want every pennsylvanian to feel comfortable with the results of the election. Goahead. Mr. Parnell i would just say that i agree with most of what you said. We want people to be safe and feel safe and safety and security of the people especially at a time when there is a pandemic is of paramount importance, but just in pennsylvania, there were nine absentee ballots, military ballots found in a ditch somewhere, seven of which were from President Trump. That could be a microcosm of a much bader greater problem. We want everybodys vote to count, we wanted to be legal, safe, and secure. Right now, i think a lot of the people in pennsylvanias 17th have great concerns about that very issue. Im going to give you about 30 seconds each. What is your vision for the future of fracking . Rep. Lamb that it continues to provide jobs, provide energy, Affordable Energy here and that we can explore it overseas to continue to influence other countries around the world, take influence away from russia, and that it is done safely and cleanly. For our water, our communities, but also our workers. We know how to do that, rules that have been in place since fracking started ive already improved the process and we can keep improving it. Mr. Parnell i dont know how you can say that with a straight face, conor, because the guy you endorsed for president in the primary said he would ban all fossil fuels. Banla harris said she would fracking on day one. Joe biden said he would be a transitional president. Im sorry, we have to cut you off, i know i gave you a tight time. It is now time for closing statements, you each have one minute. Congressman lamb was first on opening statements, so mr. Parnell, you are first. Mr. Parnell one thing i can promise you in pennsylvania 17 is that we wont always agree, but i reject the notion that we have to. I sit around the table with my big American Family and we dont agree on anything, pseudowhy should our american so why should our American Family in this district be expected to agree . For me, it does not matter what color your skin is, it does not matter who you love, it does not matter where you come from, it does not matter how much money you make, if you believe this country is exceptional and freedom is worth defending then stand with me. If you are a democrat disillusioned with how radical your party has become and you still love this country, then stand with me and fight for freedom so that we can preserve a country that is bright and filled with opportunity for our children, so thank you all for the time tonight. God bless you all and god bless this amazing country that we live in. Congressman . Rep. Lamb if you are looking around your community right now and you see that kids are staying home, that you cant go to the Football Game friday night, some of your favorite restaurants of closed down, that life just is not how it used to be, i believe that we should not have to live this way. And our government has a very Important Role to play in pulling us out of this ditch. The choice that you have in this election is between two people who have different views of the roles of the member of congress. My view is that i should go down to washington, work with the other side to get things done for the good of the American People. Ive done that by casting 80 of my votes with a member of the other party. By getting bills signed into law with members of the other party with a republican party. My opponent has done nothing but attack democrats, call them liars. There are republicans who will work with us to get better testing see your kid can be back into school, your restaurants can be open. This is not one of them. If you would do me the honor of sending me back to congress, i will continue the work of started to make washington, d. C. , better, to make government work again, and to help beat the pandemic. Thank you so much and i apologize for that. Thank you so much both of you for joining us tonight. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] our campaign 2020 coverage continues with candidates campaigning and debating. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. The first president ial debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President joe bidens tuesday night at 9 00 eastern from cleveland. Watch live on cspan. Biden is recklessly campaigning against this vaccine, it is really reckless. All it is as for political reasons, political reasons. Isen, his whole deal catastrophic shutdown. And again in his own words recorded by bob woodward, the february knew back in that this was an extremely dangerous communicable disease. Think about it. How many people across the iron range, how many empty chairs around those dinner tables . Because of his negligence and selfishness. Watch the first president ial debate live from cleveland tuesday night on