Reform as well as several nights of unrest that involved looting. As we cover these events, we are keeping our eye on the upcoming primary that falls on june 23 for many states, including for congress, for state senate, assembly. The people elected to these offices are grappling with serious issues here and all around the country. Tonight, were holding a democratic primary debate for new yorks 14th congressional district, which covers part of queens and the bronx. As you can see on the map, this stretches across several neighborhoods including a story a, jackson heights. The seat is currently held by alexandria ocasiocortez we also she joins us tonight. We have also invited some of the leading candidates challenging her to this debate. We are joined by Michelle Caruso cabrera and Community Leader and activist activists badrun khan. The rules have been agreed to by the candidate. You can see the full debate on nyone. Com we are taping this on thursday, june 4. Now on to the opening statement. The order was determined by random drawing. Michelle Caruso Cabrera will go first. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for hosting this. It is greatly appreciated. These are troubling times for the country. We need to come together as we grapple with the murder of george floyd and the impact it has had. We need unity. The choice voters face could not be more clear. I am about unity and my opponent is about divisiveness and polarization. She was the only democrat to vote against 75 billion for hospitals. 25 billion for coronavirus test ing in the middle of a pandemic when we needed it. I would never do that. She worked against nancy pelosi. She voted against hundreds of billions of dollars for paychecks. When i am out delivering food, masks, hand sanitizer, talking my neighbors who are out of work and desperate to go back out as soon as it is safe, i cannot believe that. You know what they tell me . They tell me aoc is mia. Her polarization is not good for the times, not good for new york, and it is not good for our neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to this debate. I decided to run about a year ago because we still have a lot of issues of jobs, housing, and health care. District 14 is the epicenter of the epicenter of the coronavirus covid19. That is why a support universal basic income which will allow 1000 for people who could give their kids who do not have food now because of Food Insecurity that is happening in my district is sad. The lines are insane. We do not have enough hospitals in my neighborhood. It is important that we find more hospitals. Everyone was driving to elmhurst. I want to talk about equality in income we just do not have. With what is happening now my heart goes out to George Floyds family. And everyone in this situation. After i saw the video, i said, i cannot breathe. We need to all come together and put the Country First and unite everyone together. Currently, we have a lot of issues with covid19, people are losing people. We need peace and we need to stand together to protect the people of our district. Thank you. Next is alexandria ocasiocortez. To all the new yorkers tuning in right now. In this moment, were in a desperate crisis. A pandemic inside a pandemic and inside a pandemic. The pandemic of racism inside the pandemic of extreme economic inequality and desperation. Prompted by the pandemic of covid19. One of the things we are learning from all of these pandemics, the brutal murder of george floyd or the inability of our undocumented brothers and sisters in our communities to be afraid to go to the hospital is they are pointing to existing inequalities in our system have been set ablaze. The problems are not new. They require new Systemic Solutions and it requires the Democratic Party to step up and advance notions Like Health Care as a human right, medicare for all, ending qualified immunity to stop police, and making sure we are continuing to guarantee and and dignified pay working conditions for every new yorker without leaving anyone behind, including with respect to immigration status. I have always fought for these issues. I am not new to them. Iran on them in 2018. Every promise i made i have delivered upon and i am proud to championed our community the rest of the country wanted to leave behind. Errol thank you. Candidates, thousands are in the streets marching for police reform. At this moment, as a matter of fact. What public actions have you taken since the disturbances began, and if elected, what actions would you take in the district and in the halls of congress to address these protesters concerns . We are going to start with you, ms. Caruso cabrera. If i was in congress right now, i would be working with nancy pelosi to bring issues legislation forward that addresses key issues like criminal justice reform. But that is not enough. Weve seen terrible racial inequities play out in the Health Care System as we have seen africanamericans and latinos ravaged by covid19 and that is due to decades when it of injustices when it comes to unequal spending with health care and education. I would be in congress showing national leadership, working with nancy pelosi to bring a bill forward that addresses those issues. Unlike my opponent who works unlike my opponent who works against her and works against everybody in the party, we cannot move forward and we cant move a bill forward unless we all Work Together. Thats what we need right now, unity, and thats what i would be about. Making sure we address all of the issues that have come to the forefront, that weve known about but have never been justified and never been rectified. Now, we can do that if we Work Together. Say a little more please about what you have been doing in the district. Ms. Caruso cabrera from day one, i started delivering food to frontline workers, masks, hand sanitizer, 100 gallons of hand sanitizer, nearly 20,000 masks. Weve delivered them to organizations that support the elderly because i knew they would be some of the most affected, also churches in queens and the bronx to make sure they are distributed to the neediest. Ive been out there everyday. Do you know what Community Leaders tell me . They tell me aoc is mia. The worst part is at the height of the crisis, when we saw lines in front of elmhurst hospital, my opponent, who promised to be present when she ran, she didnt come home. She stayed in her luxury apartment in washington, d. C. For a full week even though congress was not in session. How could she do that . Moderator thank you rep. Ocasiocortez i will start by answering the question you asked, which is what policy commitments would we make . One is ending qualified immunity which Shields Police officers and abusive members of all Law Enforcement from covering up inhumane abuses. It covers up constitutional abuses. No one who hurts another human being intentionally should be shielded. Commit to isng to ending the transfer of military equipment to local police departments. They are not equipped for it, they are not trained for it, and police are not military. The third thing i think we should do on a local level, but one i am actively engaged in in advocacy for is the reduction of truly talking about the reduction for our nypd budget and defunding the 6 billion nypd budget. That costs us looks in the hands of our children and costs very badly needed investment in Public Housing. With respect to this allegation of absence, im very happy to say that i am constantly home in this district. Throughout this campaign, ms. Caruso cabrera has been fixated on six days in which i wasnt feeling well and still showed up and spoke at town halls and still did virtual fundraisers for the community. I cant really speak much to why she is so fixated on this but i in tell you in my first term, have personally hosted and attended over 200 events in the district, 17 counts halls which puts me at one of the most active members in new yorks delegation. I have organized 235,000 constituent checking crawls for overitizens, delivered 3000 bags, a weeks worth of meals to peoples homes so they dont have to go to cant trace in addition food pantries in addition to tens of thousands of masks to local hospitals, Colby Medical Center and working with the Many AmericanMerchants Association so workers are safe from coronavirus, as well. Ms. Caruso cabrera the least you could do after driving away 20 billion in taxes moderator we will get to those other issues. You been doing since the advent of the pandemic and what we you would you do if elected . , we have a law in the state the Police Secrecy act carried that needs to be repealed. Get information about misconduct. The other thing i have noticed is when police get out of the academy, they have six months of training. They dont have the ability to understand how to cope with or copeViolent Crimes mentally with people. That needs to be addressed and if i am in congress, i also want the georget we call floyd act, showing people the justice we need to make sure anyone who commits a crime should be punished for the crimes they committed. You can understand how people have racism toward us, i can understand that and being your the community, what i have done in the community, i have given masksfood, out, contacted my Community Leaders, the masks, the churches. Im doing the community leading ive been doing for a long time, but i want to ask something to ms. Caruso cabrera. She believes in health care but according to your book, you want to eliminate medicare. Ms. Caruso cabrera not true. Thats not true. Ms. Khan according to your book, and i also wanted to say that the book he wrote, larry kudlow is actually comes Economic Advisor, so i want to get that issue out there because i know in your book you said i am right. What is the Health Care Issue . Moderator let me do this. I will hold that. I know ms. Caruso cabrera will want to respond to that, i imagine larry kudlow is quoted in the book or something. Ms. Khan he wrote the forward to the book. Moderator let me ask all of you a question because it has come up in other debates. I want to ask about specific legislation and get everyone on the record about it. Hr 4408 is called the eric garner use of force prevention act, which would put a national ban on chokeholds and create a National Standard on the use of force. Would you support that . I also want to hear more from each of you about the 1033 gram under which the Defense Department makes military equivalent available to local police departments, in any order. I can say im proud to be supportive of both of these bills. S, need to banned chokehold level of government, city council to government. We need to ban the transfer of military equipment to police departments. It is patently unacceptable for made, andction to be it further reinforces the frame and division and the idea that the public is the general enemy of the state, and when you use weapons that are designed for enemies and bring them here back home, we also import those paradigms and those frameworks and it is incredibly dangerous so we have to make sure that practice ends. Moderator ms. Caruso cabrera, the antichoque bill antichokehold bill and the pentagon . Ms. Caruso cabrera i would support the choque van choke ban. Military equipment should not be andvered to Police Officers departments. I would say that is not enough. George floyd wasnt murdered by military equipment. He was murdered by a Police Officer holding his knee to his neck. We need much more. We need much better training. We need to take a hard look at what happens in police departments, that Something Like that could happen. That he could hold his knee there for another two minutes and 43 seconds after george floyd laid still. Thats what we have to get to the root of. Mr. Rator let me give casiano cortez a chance to respond. Rep. Ocasiocortez what she said was a passive also patent falsehood. Moderator ok. Ms. Khan i agree with both because i think the chokehold should be eliminated because that is something that should not be used, excess force. I agree with mr. Cassio cortez and for military, they should not be coming into the police stations. Oureed more training with police. What is happening now is not just about george floyd. Look at how many people are affected by this. We need enough training for these people to come up and see what they they are there to protect us. How are they protecting us is the question . And need to be more trained instead of sending more military equipment, which i do not agree with, that is for something else. Not for our police departments. Moderator thank you, candidates. We will be right back with more from our debate for new yorks 14th congressional district. Back to our democratic primary debate for the 14th district which covers parts of queens and the bronx. We will talk more about the global covid19 pandemic now and candidates, as was mentioned by ms. Khan, the 14th district is the center of the epicenter of recentid19 crisis in weeks among zip codes with the highest number of positive cases. Any of the top 10 fall within new york 14, especially jackson heights, corona, elmhurst, at east elmhurst. I wanted to hear more about what you think Going Forward should be done to make the district more resilient and more resistant to the problems of covid19. Lets start with you, ms. Ocasiocortez. Ms. Ocasiocortez one of the things covid19 has done is exposed the holes in our overall system, not just our Health Care System where far too many people cannot afford to see a doctor, but also people who are afraid to see a doctor. In new york 14, about half of our district that we know of is immigrants. We need to make sure we get that of that,because because of the targeting of undocumented people in our community, we need to take strong measures to repeal the public charge, that people are not afraid to go to the doctor and feel they will be put on the line for deportation for doing so. Additionally, one of the things i have been championing working with senator schumer and with the support of nancy pelosi has been trying to severe secure funds for our community. Covid19 is not affecting all communities differently. The mortality rate among africanamericans during covid19 is astronomically high. With that means in our community and communities like east elmhurst, corona, even the ,ronx, communities workingclass families that our tragically losing a mother and a son, multiple people in their families have to deal with tens of thousands of dollars in burial expenses, and when you concentrate that, when you concentrate that cost among black americans, latino americans, what that means is it will exacerbate the racial wealth gap in this country because all of our communities are not buried easily. We need to guarantee health care as a human right, repeal the public charge, so we allow all people to get tested and covered, not just for covid19 but also diseases like pneumonia. I dont believe health care isnt a human right, i dont believe anyone should not go to the doctor because they cant afford it. Ms. Khan i think elmhurst was housingest hit because is also an issue. When people left the hospital, in one apartment, they had five People Living there, kids living there. They couldnt be isolated. Did i hospital was overflowing with people so they had to come home. That is a big issue in corona, amherst. We need to fix that issue. So when people leave the hospital they have a space to stay. The death rate was so high in my community, we did a lot of aerial service. We send people to new jersey. We it hit the south asian, black, latino, people of color. Everyone got hit hard and the reason he didnt have enough income level and what we needed to do was get more jobs, build the community, Work Together and see how can we protect the community. Smalld part is, the businesses had to shut down because nobody knew who had the disease because we dont have enough testing. In the future, we need more tests and we need more hospitals in our district. Moderator ms. Caruso cabrera . Ms. Caruso cabrera i saw with my own eyes the long line outside of elmhurst hospital at the height of the crisis. People from all of the world who have come to queens to try to make it and they were desperate to get in, so i find it quite sayshat my opponent aoc she cares so much about them when she voted against 75 billion for hospitals like elmhurst that were helping immigrants. She voted against 25 billion for coronavirus testing. When i am delivering masks, delivering food and hand sanitizer, when i talk to people who are desperate in line, my neighbors who are desperate to go back to work, they are very much concerned about how they are going to get testing. When are they going to get back to work, and she voted against all of their interests. I would have voted for that bill, and i would be working with nancy pelosi right now for another stimulus bill. By the way, she voted for the last one and didnt even want it to come to the floor, aoc, because shes always mia. Working with nancy pelosi on the stimulus bill that addresses the longterm inequities that have happened in health care spending. We need more spending on Public Health. We also need i like your suggestion you wrote about. Programe education sponsored by local hospitals to make sure our communities live healthy lives so they dont have the underlying issues that made them more susceptible to dying. It was horrific to watch. Moderator that was a brilliant segue. Ms. Caruso cabrera we need unity, we got to work with people. We cant have divisiveness. Moderator i want to give ms. Ocasiocortez a chance to respond. Ms. Ocasiocortez i do think it is important. Lets talk about that because there are multiple Coronavirus Relief packages. I voted for the heroes act