NHPR has reached out to voters to gather their questions for candidates who are on the ballot this November.
Election Day is just around the corner, and NHPR’s Rick Ganley is sitting down with the candidates to ask them those questions from listeners. Here’s a transcript of his interview with Libertarian Jeremy Kauffman, who is running for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.
Transcript
Rick Ganley: What would you want to accomplish in your first three months in office? What issue would you prioritize first?
Jeremy Kauffman: Well, Libertarians, I think, have different positions from Republicans and Democrats on several key issues. I think we're the only party that is vehemently anti-war, that doesn't want America to be embroiled in foreign conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen and other places. I think we're the best party on inflation. Libertarians understand that it's actually quite simple: When you print more money, your money is worth less. And so we need to stop this Federal Reserve system that's continuing to inject more and more money into the economy that's making the price of goods go up and up and up. And neither Hassan nor Bolduc want to do anything about that problem. And then, I think, actually we're much better on immigration and the war on drugs. We have both the Democrat and the Republican going down and saying, “Let's build a wall,” lying about fentanyl coming from foreign immigrants and things like this. And, you know, Libertarians have much better positions, much more realistic positions.
Rick Ganley: Okay, well what would your first priority out of all of those be?
Jeremy Kauffman: Well, let's be real about how politics works. As one Libertarian senator, I would not be able to do a single one of those things, right? That's not how politics works. No senator gets to do those things, right? The agenda is set by the majority leaders. But what I can promise to do as one senator is to be the rare, honest person who will do my best to not let the bad stuff happen. I would have been there saying, “This stuff is crazy” when we were spending, you know, trillions of dollars during COVID. I would have been the guy saying, “Hey, we don't need to send billions of dollars to Ukraine.” And I'd be the guy saying the right things on all these other places. But the ability for one man to pass a bill in the way that American politics works today, let's be realistic. You can't do it. That's not how it works. So let's not pretend.
Rick Ganley: Many of our listeners did express concern over the state of democracy in the country. What specific action would you be in support of that you believe could be taken, whether on the state level or in Washington, to strengthen the public's faith in democracy?
Jeremy Kauffman: Well, I'm not convinced that it's a bad thing for Americans to have less faith in democracy. Now, that's not a call for fascism. So let's not take it as one. The number one reason that Americans are losing trust, in a poll that came out just recently in democracy, or why we feel that we're headed towards conflict is not by politicians. It's actually the media. Politicians, I believe, were number two. The press was the number one reason given by people. So it's increasingly clear that we're not seeing the world the same way. We can look at things like Kyle Rittenhouse, where literally we have a video and people can't even see the same thing happening in a video, right, of different sort of political stripes. So I think we should be realistic about this. I think we should be looking at things like, you know, national divorce, and that doesn't mean two countries. That could be more than two. I think we should be looking at ways to return to federalism, letting states make different decisions on things. And let's be realistic about the fact that we have these disagreements. And it doesn't appear that persuasion is a real thing, that people are changing their minds. So where do we go from here as a country and as a people?
Rick Ganley: Is there a specific action you'd like to see taken, though?
Jeremy Kauffman: In terms of --
Rick Ganley: Legislation? Yeah.
Jeremy Kauffman: I want less democracy. I don't want these people in California and New York voting on my life in New Hampshire. And I'm an open Free Stater. I came to New Hampshire because I believe it's the most libertarian place in the country. And I want to be able to live with people who share my values. And it's okay if we disagree, but, you know, people should be able to live. You know, so I want a far right Christian nationalist, whatever, to be able to let them have Texas or whatever. Like let's let the progressives have California. Let's recognize that we disagree, and let's try different things and let's see what falls out of this.
Rick Ganley: Energy prices continue to rise as the weather cools down. Many Granite Staters are worried about the cost of heating their homes this winter. What specific action would you take if elected to help lower energy costs for consumers?
Jeremy Kauffman: Well, I'm an all-of-the-above. We need to be doing absolutely everything that we can to be getting more energy. We need to be opening up markets. A big libertarian one is repealing the Jones Act, actually. In terms of why costs are so high in New England specifically, it is very difficult for us to get natural gas from other places inside of the U.S. due to the Jones Act. We're cut off from other networks and so on. So the more that we can strengthen markets, the more that we can be pursuing absolutely any and every way to be making more energy. I mean, energy is the input to everything, right? Energy is what gives us cheap food. It's what gives us cheap gasoline. It's what gives us cheap heat. I'm a physicist, by the way, by education, and so the more that we can produce more and more energy, the more we will have a prosperous society. And so, you know, we need to be prioritizing making more energy and freeing up markets as much as possible.
You can find additional coverage from NPR’s Planet Money on the Jones Act here.
Rick Ganley: You know, though, the U.S. increasingly becomes more polarized, New Hampshire is still a purple state with many independent voters. We've heard a version of this question from many listeners over the last several months: How would you work with members of all parties to do what's best for New Hampshire were you to be in the Senate?
Jeremy Kauffman: Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest things that I would push is this letting states disagree, right? You know, abortion would be another issue where it's clear whose mind is being changed on this right? No one is being persuaded. So what we're really doing is we're fighting to dominate one another. We're fighting to essentially, via violence, enforce our beliefs on other people. And like, what if we just did that less? That is the message that I would be putting out constantly. What if we stopped trying to dominate each other? What if we just did that less, okay? That's the number one message I would be pushing and letting people be different ways in different places.