The district 17 congressional debate here in the wpix studio. We all know by now that it is 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. In alphabetical order, the incumbent conor lamb, who has been in Congress Since 2018. 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 flipped a coin in studio to determine who goes first for opening statements. Congressman lamb, you have two minutes. Rep. Lamb thank you and good evening. At townhall meetings and at your front doors, ive had a chance to ask you about what you would like to see in your representative. People are concerned about how divided we are. They are tired of the shutdowns, tired of feeling like nothing gets done. 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 to lead one of the most diverse infantry troops that you can imagine. 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 conor lamb when he ran for congress in 2018. He said all the right things. 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 vote, he has since voted with nancy pelosi over 90 of the time. If that is not bad enough, he votes with ilhan omar and alexandria ocasiocortez, the most radical members of his party, over 90 of the time. He has promised to be a moderate voice and he has not been that. I am running so you have that 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 candidate who goes first will get a 30second rebuttal. I want to focus on the tone in d. C. You both basically touched on it. Both parties have declared the gloves are off when it comes to the supreme court, the election in november. Will d. C. Ever get back to working together or are we too far apart to make it work . Mr. Parnell again, part of my job in afghanistan was to do everything to bring people together. I served black next to white, christian next 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 think 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. Its an attempt to take this campaign away from you. 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. And bring it back to the way it used to be. 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 advanced the conversation about race in america or set it back . 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 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 improve that. We got republicans to vote to improve that and we will keep pushing that over the line. Mr. 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 were silent until three or four days later. 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 and just two 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 as 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. My record is what it is. Ive given my life to protect this community. By prosecuting criminals and putting them in jail and following law and order. Nobody is above the law, including this president , police officers, including anybody. Congressman, thank you. A passionate debate we will continue. We have to pause for a break, but stay with us as we continue the debate for p. A. 17 here on 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 says 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 up relief 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. What we actually need to do is 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 almost 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 Wolf to mandate that Nursing Homes, one f which is right here in our district, that Nursing Homes patients. Positive 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. Today, as a matter of law, if 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 traumatic 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 doctor. 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 because im uncomfortable lying to the people to get the job done like you are. Always protect people with preexisting conditions. 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 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. There 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