Covid19. This is an hour 25 minutes. Life from the misery theater in columbia. This is the 2020 missouri forum. If the senate by the Missouri Press association. By now youre taking a look outside this historic missouri theater on this friday afternoon. We are hosting todays missouri forum. An afternoon everyone im with newsprint on in the Missouri School of journalism, welcome to the missouri session association governors forum. This is an event the press association sponsored every four years and we are pleased that the university of missouri has partnered with us to broadcast this years event. From the historic missouri theater. Like everything, in 2020 things are a little different that your beginning with the fact that the theater today is not open to the public. Our massive stage does allow everyone to stay physically separated so that is why am not wearing a mask this afternoon. A few Campaign Staffers and members of the media are joining us today the auditorium for you but i do still need to remind everyone to avoid applause or other reactions during todays forum. Joining our candidates on stage this afternoon, the executive and or of the colombian missouri daily. Gary castor, managing editor of the news tribune. Tricia, washington now i am pleased to introduce our moderator today, the jefferson associated press. I would like to introduce the candidates and go over a few rules of the debate. Earlier today, candidates drew numbers to determine the order in which they will be making opening remarks. They are arranged on the stage in that order. Starting for this from me. Democratic state auditor, nicole galloway. Libertarian party candidate, rick holmes. Failed to answer a question i also reserve the right to ask them to try again during the rebuttal time. The first question will go to the candidate furthest away. The second question will begin with the second candidate and so forth. Candidates will receive two minutes for a closing statement. Closing remarks will be delivered in reverse order from the opening remarks. Audio and visual notifications will occur and time is about to expire. Candidates, please adhere to the stops. Finally, due to the coronavirus, todays forum is occurring in front of a limited audience and a few supporters of each candidate. Audience, please hold your response and applause until todays event is over. With that, lets begin. Nicole, you may deliver your opening statement. Thank you. This comes down to whose side you are on and who you are fighting for. Im running for governor to put Jefferson City on the side of working families and ask with urgency to protect our fellow missourians. The most important thing the next governor will have to do is contain the spread of the virus and rebuild the economy. The question is will we rebuild in a way that helps them get back on their feet or continue to ignore science, distract and rebuild with special interest. Governor parson has been part of the system for years that delivers for insiders for himself in the struggle. And actually fight crime before an election year. Governor carson failed the leadership and its time for a change. I want to thank the Missouri Press association and the theater for hosting this. Our campaign is pretty simple. Its based on limited government, Smaller Government, more Efficient Government, Free Enterprise and to protect private property. With that in mind and with that said, what they have to figure out pretty soon is what type of government they want. Do they want a large government, do they want a limited government come and missourians will have that choice on november 3rd. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I thank the Missouri Press association and appreciate all the candidates for being part of the process. For me it started as a humble beginning in missouri where i grew up in a town of 356 people with a Strong Family with christian values, moral values and what hard work means and what being a Good Neighbor means and respect to an individual. I went to work at 14yearsold and served in the United States army for two tours of duty overseas and learn how to respect. I then became the local sheriff and i was a Small Business owner. Husband, father and grandparent those life skills are what make you a leader in the state of missouri. Those are the qualities i will bring to Jefferson City. Im running on a platform stressing universal healthcare and transportation accessibility and equity. My time spent without healthcare almost cost me my life three times in the last decade before i got disability medicare and the pension with medicaid. I almost lost my medicaid. I received an action notice two years ago along with 100,000 children who got kicked off of medicaid. Not everybody is so lucky. Healthcare is a human right. I promise to work cooperatively to establish cooperatives of all kind and work for universal basic income in exchange for universal basic service. Lets bring back the other work projects and have educational training for all. Thank you. We will now move to the question part of the debate. The first question will go to you, nicole. The most recent report from the White House Coronavirus task force lifted missouri into the red zone for new cases. Among the top ten states nationally, hospitalizations recently reached an alltime high in missouri. How do you rate the states response to the coronavirus and what if any additional steps should be taken . We need a reset on the strategy science backed ways to get under control and community spread. They are crumbling upon it because hospitalizations are up. When governor carson was asked if they took response ability for his governments response to the virus he said no and compared it to car crashes. I wouldnt have agreed to a stay at home order and the reason is i like the swedish model to import people to do the proper safety procedures but they didnt close anything down, and i think its not the governments position and i dont think the government has the authority to make people stay home and i dont think its the governments place to have people deemed essential or nonessential, and i think we can open the state fully, and i believe heard immunity would take control and help as far as lowering the death rate on the virus. Thank you very much. Weve taken a balanced approach from day number one and asked to reach out to Washington University and the Hospital Association and put a plan together. The Recovery Plan with testing and we went from 2,00 2,000 tesa week to over 125,000 today. In a couple of weeks we will have testing in every school in the state of missouri, the hospitals when they first come about we can build hospitals in the state in ten to 11 days. The Hospital Association has been part of this planning every day taking care of our citizens every day. The data that weve gotten from ten of the most expert Infectious Disease doctors in missouri has helped us guide our state. In april when the death rate was 8 , close to 8 today, it is at. 7. I agree with what nicole said about this. Every time i go outside Walking Around on the street, i wear a mask even though it is probably not strictly necessary, just because i want to set a good example. The model, the university of pennsylvania. There should be some recourse but people have to want to do it and we have to set a good example for each other. Governor, can you respond in 30 seconds . I never said that i wasnt responsible. When youre the governor you are responsible for everybody. You have to go to work and make sure that you are doing your job in the beginning. We have to worry and have been since day number one and we will continue to do that and we put everything on the table that we can. We bring all the experts into the state and make sure people are safe and by doing that, we can earn 200 businesses to make ppe in the state simply because they were trying to help us at that time. I think those businesses for what they are doing every day. The governor denies that are never stated that. Back to you, nicole. Asked by a reporter for the governments response and he said no and he compared it to car crashes. You know, he mentions working every day, but what he is doing every day isnt working because we continue to be in a red zone. We have to act urgently to contain the spread of the virus so we can get our economy open again and get our schools open again and folks can get back to life and we can go back to the zoo again. We continue to fall in the wrong direction. We are living the governors coronavirus fighting strategy right now and it is not working. We need to go to questions from the panelist. I didnt invite anybody to look at the calendars and see whos at work for the last five months. The last question comes for you. Weve seen different hotspots around the states when it comes to covid19, how much so would the state have over local control on topics such as local stayathome orders. With the business shutdowns and things like that its an aggregation of the responsibility. As governor i would encourage strongly municipalities, counties and the like to open know one person should try to make mandates for the entire state. Its a very diverse state whether you have the urban or the rural areas we should support the local levels. We had the money out the door in ten days to get to the testing and make sure the states could start back up to move forward on that. Its a partnership with the state and local communities but the people at home should have a say in the rules and regulations and should have representation for that. We stated that balanced approach from the beginning. I certainly agree we need a balanced approach to everything. As much local control as possible, but also a rational sciencebased policy. And the State Government certainly has an Important Role not just to make rules for everybody but especially to set a good example. But also to be very flexible and responsive. Thank you. And also, responsive to new acts that we learned about and to keep the public informed. The politicians shouldnt be at the podium. It is a science backed improvement way to contain the spread of the virus. They dont respect party lines or town lines. Some of the highest surges in cases are in the areas. When hes in the Governors Office during the week he encourages folks to wear a mask. He is telling them to ignore that local government guidance and they can ignore it and dont have to wear a mask if they dont want to. We need a leader that is more engaged in containing the virus. I will give you 30 seconds. Do as i say not as i do approach, response . Its starting to look like the bickering on the national level. I think that people in missouri ive never said those things in my career, nor would i. Every day we want the safety of missourians but every day we do that altogether. And to try to blame somebody for the virus, theres a lot of people out there doing incredible things in the hospitals, the nurses and the doctors. It is a virus that is dangerous. We said that from day number one to take the necessary steps and we will continue to do that. We do have Incredible Health carhealthcare workers, First Responders that are front line of the virus and leaders in the hospital groups, physician leaders are asking for a statewide rule because it is a proven way to contain the spread of the virus and protect the Public Health, get the economy going again. We need a governor that will act with urgency to protect us from this virus. The next question comes from emily. What has the pandemic exposed about the healthcare system, whether it is strengths or weaknesses and what would you do to improve it . You are first on this one. We were way too dependent on the Foreign Countries to start with. The other thing you had to realize theres nothing on the internet that tells us how to deal with the virus and the experts didnt know. We had to develop our own data plan and the high school association, using those Infectious Disease doctors. There was a model dashboard i might add to be able to implement policy such as mobile testing sites, where do they go and to deliver hundreds of thousands of masks when executive director in Jackson County asks we delivered them the next day but we knew how to do that. We learned what the strategy was for the nursing home and the Meat Processing plants and people at high risk, the africanamerican community. Thats what we did in the balanced approach. The nation once had a first rate Pandemic Response task force. Especially Washington University to the very first rate medical schools and it really intrigued to learn that. What covid has done is shown cracks in the system that have existed for a long time but theyve gotten wider and deeper with covid19, and particularly on the issue of healthcare. We have a quarter working that dont have access because we have yet to expand medicaid so the voters did approve that in august and its estimated because of this pandemic, 100,000 have lost their healthcare that they got through their employer. I supported implementing it in a way to keep our hospitals open and to make sure that working people have access to healthcare particularly in the midst of this pandemic. Where you live shouldnt dictate where you can get your healthcare. The ones im familiar with are in Jefferson City where we live and i do agree we have a reliance on the foreign equipment and the medicines. One of the things i thought of as it got started. With depression and suicide and a whole lot of other issues. Jerome, you are first. Well, i would have universal basic income for all we can do better than Medicaid Expansion. We really need medicare for all and a singlepayer system. How are we going to pay for that . The economic platform that we passed four years ago recommend a transaction tax and i personally dont know how to implement that. I am not a Computer Scientist but this is an idea thats been floating around for quite a while. So, having a universal healthcare. Nicole. Our state and local budgets are hurting because of the Economic Impacts of covid. So the first thing to do is take action to contain the spread of the virus to get the economy going again. We have seen an increase in jobless claims even this week so we are continuing to fly backwards and we also have hundreds of millions of dollars stuck at the state. As governor, i would be much more engaged in deploying these resources to help our local communities and Small Businesses and those that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own because of the Economic Impact of covid. The state auditor, ive seen waste and fraud and abuse and ad government. Ive identified over 73 million worth we could have the resources needed to help the communities. When it comes to the economy i think we have as Everybody Knows by now im a big proponent of the Free Enterprise system. I think theres an over reliance on the government and over reliance on government to answer the Big Questions and to control and run our lives. I think the Free Enterprise system needs to be unleashed and we need to get the government out of healthcare and other aspects of the economy as much as possible. I have trust and faith in the missouri businesses and people and theres nothing they can do if they put their mind to something. We are 12 in the United States of america getting people to work. Experts in the states that we would get 16point unemployment. It is at seven. To get back to School Safely and by doing the plan we had in place, we had accomplished all of those and we continue to move forward in the state. A. We have one more question before we take a break. That comes from gary castor. A loss this spring to promote learning due to the pandemic what strategies to regain. Nicole. My kids go to school up the street from my house. I want our schools to open. Its vital for our kids and our economy so parents can get back to work. Ive outlined a plan for appropriate learning models to keep kids safe and teachers safe so we can keep the schools open and positivity rates [inaudible] schools made a toug the tough dn early this spring to shut down. The governor did little planning to help that fully reopen this fall and instead went on the radio in july and said it doesnt matter how bad it is, the kids will get it when they go back to school and they will just get over it. That isnt good enough. We need a plan to open up our schools and if that was his plan, it isnt working because thousands of children are learning online or only in school with on one or two days. I think schools opening is a very important thing. We should have the schools open. I am a proponent of local control. Once again, i think that theres too much state and federal control over the education systems. But we have to get the schools opening to get these kids back in school. For a myriad of reasons i do believe we need to get kids in school. We do get our children educated. 85 of our schools are open, 75 of kids are in class or a hybrid version because of the actions we took. I think the administrators around the state for their input making sure the kids could go back. I trust the local levels and board members. I trust them to