We welcome those watching nationwide on cspan tonight. The next hour, the candidates will face questions from nebraska journalists. The rules are fairly simple. Each candidate will have three minutes to respond to the question with 30second rebuttals if needed. We will begin with questions on domestic policy and then we will transition to Foreign Policy. Before the debate, we held simple coin tosses with the campaigns to determine the order of different parts of the debate. As a result, the first candidate to present an opening candidate is mr. Janicek. Mr. Janicek ready to go. I will start off with a personal story. It is very personal to me, and that is the reason i am in this race. My father died of a heart attack when he was 54 years old. His father, my grandfather, died of a heart attack when he was 58 years old. My greatgrandfather dropped dead at age 60. When i turned 50, guess what . I had a massive heart attack. I had been to the doctor just a week before because i was afraid that this might be happening, and it did. I was rushed to the hospital, basically dead on arrival. Shed to the hospital, basically dead on arrival. But the doctors at the Emanuel Medical Center in omaha saved my life, and to them i am grateful. But the real fear and the real nightmare started when i had to pay the bill. You see, i was uninsurable because i had preexisting conditions due to family history. Health carestrophic plan for my business. It had limited coverage. I was responsible for over 60 of my medical bills. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of thousands of dollars. It bankrupted me. Inody, and i mean nobody, the state should have to go through that because of medical bills and the lack of Proper Health care. It was a nightmare. Bill collectors calling, thousands of times a day. Dozens of times a day. Liens being threatened on my home and car. And the guilt, i know i cannot pay the hospital that saved my life. This has to be fixed and it has to be fixed now. We cannot continue. That is why i want to be or senator. Health care is my number one partake. Take my half staff. I have a fourthgeneration cancer survivor on the staff. I have a mother who has a son with type one diabetes. I have a two time cancer survivor on my staff. Unacceptable. I am currently on the Affordable Health care act here in nebraska as millions of americans are here in this country and in nebraska. When i speak with Small Business people, farmers and ranchers, a lot are on the Affordable Health care act and those not on obamacare pay 5000 or 6000 or 7,000 per month in health care premiums. Im sure you have stories like night and we have to get to the bottom of this and get health care for the people. I do not have all of the answers. I am not a health care specialist. But i am a health care user specialist. Wehave plans in place that are willing to work on. But we have to go with rules of engagement. Have to concentrate on health care and not keep kicking it in 2014,ator sasse, promised health care for all the baskets and all americans. He voted over and over to take Health Care Away in the last sears. Take away protections for preexisting conditions. Payments toler medicare for our seniors, to reduce coverage for people that are poor, on medicaid. Your time is up. Think you, dennis, waverley, colleen and fred for serving as moderators and guide. To net, thank you for hosting the debate and bring about the policy and clinical issues to the people. I have never been a politician so i ran five years ago. I am one of eight people in the u. S. Senate who had never run for anything before running for the senate and i complement my opponent for being a Small Business owner and reading jobs and serving his community and not having spent his life in politics as well. Creating jobs. I were deciding to do it, we went on a campaign trail and lived off a campaign bus. We did hundreds of events across nebraskas 93 counties and went off quick as a broader part of storytelling, that we wanted to displace some political weirdo from seeking the Nebraska Senate because our politics are too often driven by people who act like if you are interested in politics it should be her whole life, the center of your identity and you should try to find community and antipolitics, meaning trolling people on the others of the political aisle is often a core part of the identity of people engaged in politics and that is not what the american tradition was supposed to be and thankfully that is not what most of raskins believe in. Im a dad, i am a husband. Im a churchman, a cornhusker football addict and i am an american, i do raskin and a conservative and other identities. Being a polished shortterm calling like it and i want to be involved in politics to represent the kinds of nebraskans who think most import things in life are not about politics. Politics matters and im excited we are going to get to discuss a lot of things the future of work and applications and the evocation for job disruption. Health care should not be the kind of issue lose when you change job or geography. The future of work, the future of war, american civics and whether or not we are passing along an understanding of the First Amendment to the next generation, none of those issues should be primarily an ideological spectrum from right to left. There should be a whole bunch of overarching civic and american cultural and economic they we toieve in before we get policy fighting that we believe in, before we get to the policy fighting. One of the reasons i decided to seek reelection is the problem we talked about five years ago of a politically addicted small to act american who want like washington, d. C. , should be the center of life, and this is both parties, theres a small set of people, political weirdos, who want to displace normal nebraskans from a healthy adult level engagement with politics and im glad we get to sort through a lot of these issues tonight. Thank you for hosting at thank you you to those that home for tuning in. I would like to ask a question of both of you about your relationship with your respective political party. Mr. Sasse, you have been critical of President Trump. The president endorsed you in a tweet last year and last month said you have quote, on rogue again and called you a rino. Your past criticism of President Trump has drawn criticism from then your party. You once told jake tapper of cnn inc. About being the gop every morning and thing of yourself as, an independent conservative who caucuses with republican. So the question is, what to the statement it to Republican Voters about how you would represent them and what is supported to them . The questionfor and im glad we get to talk about this today. I do have an interesting a complicated relationship with the president of the United States and i will fully acknowledge it. In my primary, from last summer through may, i got to hash that through with a lot of nebraskans , the raskin republicans across 93 counties. I think nebraskans get at. Cnn does not get it. Blue checkmarks on twitter do not get it. The way i approach politics and my party i think make sense to the vast majority of regular people across nebraska. Peers how i think about it. I have been a republican that i have been conservative my entire life i was fighting for conservative issues when donald trump was bankrolling nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumers campaign, long before he thought about joining the Republican Party to run. When i believe in a certain set of issues and campaigned on the in 2013 and 2014, attic slain to voters what i believe, i hold those positions other Donald Trump Holds number not. So when president holds them or not. So in President Trump decided to adopt positions on a number of issues i was cited to welcome him to the conservative movement. But not issues where he does not align with where i believe or things republicans have traditionally believed or things that are good for nebraska, i those differences as well. It seems to meet National Cable political news act like youre supposed to fall into one of two camps. You want to shine present from use all day every day, are you have to hate him and scream about how he is the devil. I think there are issues where we agree and when we do i glad to fight for him. And i went oneat the Judiciary Committee to fight for judges and we have that an alltime record with the number of judges can firms in the last years but on another set of issues when he talks about a mexican judge or tax free trade that nebraska farmers and ranchers need, i explained to him usually in private, we have a lot of healthy wrestling in private, i explain why i differ. On a subset of issues we fight about in private, i believe. The vast majority of nebraskans and americans understand the distinction between having to sign someone shoes all day everyday or think they are evil and scream you think there people, that phone choice. I do not believe that stuff. I do not think nebraskans do. So i slain where i differ. I fight with him where we i explained where i differ. I think he appreciates that we wrestle as much as we do and i think nebraskans understand it and are comfortable with it. Thank you. Mr. Janicek, the Nebraska Democratic party says they do not want you as their candidate and they plan to back a writing canada. The state party asked you to quit the race after you sent sexually explicit Text Messages about a female staff member. What you say to democrats and women voters about what you admitted to doing and what it says about your ability to fairly represent all people . Thank you, glad you asked that question. I want to address the text message first. I made a mistake. It was wrong. I also apologized in person. For Nebraska Democratic party is not 70 who i work for. I do not work for the rest Democratic Party chair. Im asking to go to work for the people of nebraska. Republicans, democrats, and independents. Held. Dust mite number one stance is health care and that include. My number one stance is help care the women and children and everyone in this country. I have apologized for the text message and my apology was accepted. In no way was that message sent with any type of intent, harm or to do disservice to anyone, to maim a reputation. It is time we move on i have received lots of support from the democrats. At a lot of republicans have a lot of independence in this race. Was talking about getting along and not getting along with trump. Back to health, President Trump has wanted a Health Care Reform policy as he took office four years ago. The senate fails to work with him on this. Senator trump park senator sasse has failed to work for the people of nebraska on health care. He has had the time to write book. But he has not have the. So we he has not had the time to write help your policy for nebraskans to write Health Care Policy for nebraskans. Im not going to let five minutes of my life doing everything i have done for womens rights and childrens shelters previous to that happening. Work as a country together. We need to show unity come together, and stop of partisan politics. It is , and that is not being done in our senate that is not done in our house. , to goking for your vote to washington, d. C. , and go to work for the people, thank you. From our panel of journalists. The United States has reportedly the has number of cases and deaths from covid19 of any nation in the world. What do you think of the National Response so far . What would you do to improve it . The National Response so far was that we dropped ball back in january, february, and march. There was an intelligence is ong which mr. Sasse that panel in january she felt to attend. That was which he felt to attend. That was the first morning this pandemic is coming to the United States and we had better prepare ourselves. When for two april, 2020, senator sasse, voted against relief a bill because he said it was too generous for 40 Million People lost their jobs. He held up the senate floor for six or seven hours arguing that case. The bill passed without his. The pandemic has now taken 185,000 lives as of this week. We still have tea Million People unemployed. We are facing an economic ruin now with a lot of businesses including my. We still have 18 Million People unemployed. 22 of restaurants in this country have closed permanently. What we can do to fix this immediately is to test and test. And test we have to do a federal mask mandate for everyone to stop the spread of the disease. We have to make Testing Available in schools, and businesses to reopen. We have sporting events shut down, the School System shut down, retail shutdown, restaurant down. President working on a vaccine. And we have the cdc involved they have something on the horizon. That is going to be another huge thing that present prevents this virus from being transferred so we can stop and try in its tracks. We have to do trials and to make it available for everyone. Those are the issues i would address. There is nothing we can go back and do with things we do not join the first place, we have to start today move forward. This administration has a problem addressing that we actually have a problem. We do have a problem and if we want to have a safe america, and an america that is not infected, we have to do what i suggested. Thank you. Mr. Sasse . The american response for covid has been in out of and a whole bunch of ways in adequate. Mr. Janicek said things that are inaccurate about legislation passed. Threevid legislation point oig support, there were many pieces inside it that were less and poorly thought out big bad unintended consequences. The legislation i did support includes a vaccine accelerator fun, which is fund which is one piece of what is working. Five u. S. Pharma companies have covered vaccine clinical trials. Sometimes you hear reported there are three. Three companies are doing trials in the u. S. And a fourth is in europe and offense in asia n a for u. S. Company in asia. Best pharmacological Vaccine Development in the world the United States. Normally if you are a drug company and think you may be fourth or fifth in the race to a back, you might start backing off the accelerator because your make more and more investment and you might not get the ineluctable property benefits intellectual property benefits after the is developed. My colleague from antenna took the lead from montana took the lead. We decided to make sure the other four pharma companies, after a vaccine is developed, when one of the companies wins the race the other four companies will be reimbursed for all of their cost 10 , which all Fire Companies and u. S. Animation is the best in the world, continue running, and that is probably why we will that an alltime red the timeline to the development. That said the total number of deaths in the u. S. Is too high. Our public liberation and public trust about how we got where we are, is yet again a consequence of americans screaming tribal politics rather than constructive problemsolving. Lets think about lockdowns and the mask escutcheon. I think a National Mass mandate is a terrible idea. Lots more americans should wear a mask indoors. We should be able to use the federal government. There should be public trust. We should have the president can go to the bully pulpit and ask wayne white masks indoors explain why masks indoors are a good idea. I am in a plane every week, i live in nebraska and our home not is where we are on weekends we are not in states doing fieldwork and mondayfriday i fly to d. C. When i get back, i might carrier without symptoms. Indoors i should wear a mask. There are places all of the country where people are trying to wear masks 50 yards from everyone else outdoors. We should have had more first ration about mass unless economic down less economic lockdown which has caused harness carnage. Next question, cully. Co lleen. Emergency coronavirus aide costing trillions of dollars. At 27. Federal debt now trillion is projected to exceed the size of the entire u. S. Economy in 2021, and milestones not reached since world war ii. What should be done about the growing National Debt . Do you favor increases in taxes or decreases in entitlements like cuts to Social Security . Or Something Else altogether . An important question that we do not talk about enough. This week setting the alltime record for the debt to gdp ratio. Overall u. S. Debt will be bigger than the u. S. Economy. We have not had a ratio greater than 100 the 1940s when we were at war. We have never before done this when we were not at war. Here, both parties need to have big targets painted on their backs. I really did believe republicans were more serious about our kids and grandkids this go future. Since i have been in washington, d. C. , i have learned both parties are dominated by politicians who care more about their own incumbency than telling the American People the hard truth. Our problem is not that we do not tax enough, our problem is not that we are spending too much on military and National Defense if you look at it as a share of gdp, we are lower than we were in world war ii or through the entire cold war. Our problem is not w