- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Democratic candidate for House District 8, Heidi Kuhn, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Heidi Kuhn.

She is the Democratic nominee for US House District 8.

Thanks for being here.

- I appreciate it, I appreciate the opportunity.

District 8 doesn't seem to get a lot of attention, so- - Well, yes, absolutely.

- I appreciate the opportunity.

- Yeah, no.

Well, we are glad you are here.

Bill Dries from The Daily Memphian is here as well.

And before we get started with Heidi Kuhn, I'll note that we have reached out to her Republican opponent, David Kustoff.

He is the incumbent.

We've been unable to book him.

We hope to be able to get that done.

I should also note at the top here that we're taping this a week before it airs.

So, if there's anything we don't get to in that week, that's on us for our scheduling.

I will say, too, early voting begins in less than a week from when this show will air on October 14th, and Election Day is November 3rd.

We have had other candidates on, Brent Taylor, Republican.

These are for the three house districts that now divide Memphis and the Shelby County area.

Republican Brent Taylor, Democrat Justin Pearson, Democrat Chaz Molder.

We also were able to get Jerri Green, the Democratic candidate for governor.

And again, in those cases, we've reached out to Charlie Hatcher, who's running for US House, Marsha Blackburn, who's running for governor.

Haven't been able to book them as well.

We hope to be able to do so.

But we are very pleased to have you here and to be able to focus on District 8.

We'll get a map up in a bit.

It shows, because these districts are so new to everyone some 12 counties reaching from Memphis into Middle Tennessee.

Give us your 30 seconds why you wanna do this and what you would bring to the job.

- Well, I wanna do this because I wanna continue to serve.

I think it's important to be a good representative to the people of District 8, which serves all of West Tennessee over to Perry County, which is considered Middle Tennessee.

And I think that they are asking for change.

I think that there has been a lot that hasn't been happening.

And when we go and talk to the individuals in each of these counties, they're saying, "We want some change.

We want something different."

And because I've been an elected official before and I have encouraged change in different capacities, I thought this was a natural progression, and I'm excited to be the representative for District 8.

- And just for people looking, District 8 on the left side, the west side of the screen there is those green counties that people can see, you know, parts of East Memphis and so on.

Let's go as we tape this.

So, last week was the one-year anniversary of the Memphis Safe Task Force.

Are there parts of the task force that worked and that you would wanna see continued or repeated?

- Overall, I've been disappointed with the task force, but to answer your question, I think one of the things that I have seen that has worked is with the use of drones that the law enforcement has utilized.

Being a victim of a carjacking in '22, I was fortunately that my car was found, but what I think what they're utilizing now are these drones to go where carjackings typically happen.

And when they happen, these drones are following the individuals and they're catching them.

So, I think that has been an idea that has worked, but I think that, unfortunately, the process, and the way it's been handled, and the fact that National Guard should be here only in an emergency, and I don't recall Shelby County having a national emergency.

And so I truly believe that those resources that have been poured in to this task force should have been utilized for either local law enforcement or preventive services.

- On the drones, are there any part of that that worries you in terms of privacy and surveillance?

People nationally, locally, getting very concerned about flock cameras, which is the type of camera that does license plate reading and other things.

- Sure.

- Do you worry about that side of drones and these new technologies?

- Well, sure, I think that everyone's concerned about privacy, but fortunately these drones, in my understanding, have been hovering around places where these crimes take place.

And so, then, they're following and they're able to recover these individuals' cars.

And it's actually reduced juvenile crime.

So, that's been a good thing.

- So I think critics would say, when you say there wasn't a national emergency, they would say, "Well, there was."

Memphis was, by some counts, leading the country in violent crime, and murders, and per capita.

All those numbers are down pretty dramatically and they're going down before the task force got here.

But to people who say, "Well, it wasn't enough.

"We did have an emergency and this kind of intervention was called for," you would say what?

- I would say a national emergency is usually if it's the county is having an issue or there is, not necessarily due to crime.

It's not my understanding of what a national emergency is.

I think that we need to look at what... Crime was going down before the National Guard came in.

And was that because of tactics of the MPD or the Sheriff's Office?

We're not sure.

It has been one year, and we're still seeing alerts on our phone all the time of crime.

So I can't say if the National Guard, and we don't know what they're doing.

There has been no communication.

There's been no rollout of a plan.

We see them walking around.

What are they doing?

And we didn't see them, even when we had an emergency.

When we had those downed power lines and the storm that we had, why weren't they out helping with that?

They weren't.

And so, that is my concern is we actually don't know what they're doing, or what the plan is, or what the exit is.

- Let me bring in Bill Dries.

- A lot of what's happened in these three congressional races is that candidates, Republican and Democratic, have gone into these counties which were seen outside of Shelby County as predominantly red counties, Republican counties.

Are these counties in play in these races?

- They certainly are in play.

And one thing that I really wanna bring attention to, especially the people that live in Shelby County, District 8 is 53% of Shelby County.

It is the largest chunk of Shelby County, and I don't think people realize that.

But of course these other counties are going to be in play and we go to each one of them.

I've been to them several times.

I've had conversations with constituents, and what they're saying to me is they don't have the representation.

They haven't seen Kustoff.

They haven't had those conversations with him.

And they really want someone who is going to lean in, and listen, and represent them.

So, are they in play?

Absolutely.

I don't take any county for granted.

- So, what we hear from Republicans is, yeah, the Democrats have nominees, they're active, but these voters who have voted for Donald Trump are not going to be able to vote for someone in the Democratic column.

They may not be able to vote for the Republican in the race, in some cases, but they're not going to go for the Democrat.

- You know what's interesting, Bill, about my district is the fact that they cut out about 100,000 Republicans and added in more Democrats, especially in the Cordova area.

And I don't think that Kustoff was aware of that.

I know that my understanding is a lot of this redrawing, this gerrymandering, was to benefit Brent Taylor.

And Kustoff wasn't consulted.

And so he's a little upset with the fact that there have been 100,000 Republicans cut out.

That's 100,000 that will not be voting for him.

Now, again, when I go and talk to these individuals in these different counties, they're telling me that they're feeling this crunch, they're feeling the pinch, they're upset about how it's affecting their pocketbook, and they want change.

Now, some of them may not be able to vote for a Democrat, so that means they may sit out this vote, and that's okay, too.

But I think what I am hearing the most from individuals are they want change.

And Kustoff, being an incumbent, that's not change.

That's same old, same old.

- Mm-hmm.

If you're elected to this seat, you go to a Washington, D.C., where Donald Trump still has two years left in office and where the margin between Democrats and Republicans in the House, while there might be a majority of Democrats if it flips- - Right.

- That margin could be just as close as the one the Republican majority deals with.

So, how do you make that work as a new member of Congress?

- How I make it work is I'm gonna represent the people of District 8.

And it doesn't matter if they're a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent.

I think what's important is that I'm gonna be able to be the voice of West Tennessee and Middle Tennessee, I never wanna forget Perry County.

But I think it's important that we have that voice.

And with the gerrymandering, they tried to silence it.

Now, we may not be able to get everything pushed through, but I have to be a voice of the people.

- As you mentioned, I should remind everyone, we've reached out to David Kustoff.

We would love to have him on to respond, rebut, agree.

Anything, we would love to have, and certainly, Bill will be following in The Daily Memphian.

We talked to the 12 counties or parts of 12 counties.

I mean, from suburban parts of Shelby County, East Memphis, all the way to very rural parts.

What are the similarities that you hear from people in terms of policies that they want to have changed?

- The policies that I'm hearing the most or what's affecting them the most, and I said it before, is their pocketbook.

I mean, they're fed up when they fuel up.

I mean, I just went to the gas station.

It took $80 for me to fill up my tank.

And then also groceries.

I mean, that's been an issue.

I spent $100 on two bags of groceries, which I didn't buy a lot.

And so those are the commonalities that we're hearing all across the West Tennessee, and actually I think across the state of Tennessee is people are really tired of this inflation, and something has got to give.

- And do they tie that to specific policies you think you could get done or that the Trump administration has done?

I mean, are we talking about the Iran War, or are we talking about tariffs?

Are we talking about other things?

- I'm glad you brought that up because I just read a study that 40% of the inflation is due to the Iran War.

And when we look at that, is that's a real issue.

And I take personal effect to that because I have a son who is in the military.

And so I am very sensitive about this Iran War and what it has done to not only our community and our state, but possibly my son being deployed to Iran for what I am calling a ridiculous war.

- If you were elected and there was a vote to cut funding to the war, would you support that?

- I would not cut funding to the soldiers and to the troops.

I think it's important to give them the resources that they need, but I do believe that we should not be there and I would want to cut funding.

It has cost us $40 billion to be in this war, and that is resources that could be repurposed.

- Many economists point to tariffs and various tariffs have been put in.

Some have been pulled back by the Trump administration as increasing costs for people.

Are there good tariffs that protect, I don't know, agriculture or certain businesses within Tennessee and within your district?

- I think when we're looking at tariffs, it's concerning to me that we are really isolating, like, Canada.

That was an ally, and why are we putting tariffs on them?

And we need to make sure that we have good relationships with other countries.

And currently, I don't see that with the Trump administration.

- When you look... Stay kind of international, I mean, one thing that, the cutting of USAID, which is money that goes to many poor countries for healthcare, for all kinds of support, AIDS protection in Africa, PEPFAR, it's called.

Your, I guess, colleague, Justin Pearson, Justin J. Pearson, who's running against Brent Taylor, he talks about he would like to bring back USAID, but there's not a lot of other money that goes overseas that he would like to continue.

In that sense, it was something that he... I don't know that he said it explicitly, but he does agree with the Trump administration in focusing on America and focusing money back home.

Is that something you agree with?

I mean, you just talked about allies and you talked about Canada.

- Sure.

- Should we be not spending so much money abroad?

- It's interesting you mention USAID because my brother actually worked in Africa with AIDS and he was defunded.

The federal money was defunded.

And so, I saw how it impacted him directly, as well as the programs he did.

I think that we do need to give money to different countries, but I do think also we need to focus on spending here and really reallocating funds to programs that are looking at being defunded, like Trump is looking at dismantling the Department of Education.

That is a great concern of mine because it's cutting financial aid to states and to schools that so desperately need it.

- Bill.

- Also, let's talk about data centers.

A lot of discussion about that.

Does Congress have a role in that, or is that something that should be state by state?

- I believe Congress does have a role in that.

And I'm glad you brought that up because it's interesting to me, and we talked about the conversations I'm having with constituents, both Democrats and Republicans, both have issues with the data centers.

Now, they may be different.

A lot of Democrats are more about the environment and making sure we have clean water, and soil, and air.

And some Republicans are concerned about that, but they are more concerned about privacy, like you had mentioned.

And so I think that they are both in agreement that there needs to be some guidelines and there needs to be some oversight with these data centers and possibly a moratorium, and we need to do a bit more studying.

And what I would like to see is for if someone comes in and actually creates a data center is: How are they going to benefit that community for which they're coming into?

Are they going to help financially, and are they gonna do testing?

And we need to make sure they have their own energy grid because that's gonna be taxing on the constituents.

- Are the data centers... Are the owners of the data centers, the heads of those companies, are they weighing in on this during these campaigns?

- I personally have not talked with anyone.

Now, I've heard from constituents and I've heard how it impacts them, both Republicans and Democrats, to be honest with you, but individuals that own the data centers have not reached out to me.

- Have you seen it pop up in campaign finance reports?

- I have.

I have.

I know that some individuals are being funded by PACS for that, and that is not me.

I don't receive any funding from them and I won't.

- Okay.

Let's talk about what are considered battleground states and what aren't.

Tennessee is not regarded nationally as a battleground state.

Does that affect the kind of campaign you and other Democrats are able to run here?

Could you use more support or more of a sense of urgency from the state and national party?

- Sure, I mean, we can always use people rallying around each of our districts, but it doesn't affect our campaign, Bill.

What we're going to do is we're going to push forward and we're gonna try and help the constituents.

I want, because of this gerrymandering, I wanna make sure that they have a voice.

And that's not gonna change.

We need to ensure that the Republicans understand that just because they gerrymandered doesn't mean that they can silence the Democrats.

Would we love more money?

Would we love more support?

Absolutely.

And I would not say that we would not take that from them, but I think what's important is to understand that we're gonna keep pushing.

And I think what we're seeing across the United States is this blue wave.

I think people are really upset.

I mean, just take a look at Texas and how close that race is.

I think that you're going to see that a little bit more here, and we're continuing to hear in Tennessee how angry people are.

Even though we are a red state, I think that the possibility does exist that some of these districts could be flipped, and that's going to backfire on them.

- Is a Democratic majority in Congress about immediately undoing the first two years of the second Trump administration, or is there no going back and do some things from that remain while others are rolled back?

- I think there are some things that probably need to be looked at again, and then we need to move forward, and we need to try and tie our laces again and make sure that it doesn't go undone and we continue tripping because I think that's been a real problem.

And so, I think that also, we need to work together.

We don't see that unified effort anymore, and I would like to see that happen a little bit more.

It's continually an us versus them.

- You talked about a blue wave.

If there was a blue wave and there were Democratic majorities in the House and maybe the Senate, if you were a part of that, and there were articles of impeachment, which have been called for by Democratic candidates and people seeking reelection, would you support another impeachment trial?

- I would.

I think that I'm very interested in that.

I think that Trump has done some things that I disagree with.

And the other thing is when people are voting, I do not plan to go and fight against Trump.

I am there to fight for the people of the 8th District, unlike my opponent who seems to be Velcroed to Trump and only does things to benefit the president.

And I wanna benefit the people.

- I wanna circle back to immigration we talked about before.

Apologies if you touched on some of this, but are there policies... The country has gone back and forth.

There was open border, times where there were very wide open borders.

There were times when the border had been shut down by whether that was Democratic administrations or the current Republican administration.

What is the right approach to immigration?

Is it as Brent Taylor, he's not your opponent, but he's a local Republican who came on the show and said, "Look, the country needs some me time "when it comes to immigration.

"We don't need any immigrants.

We need to focus on ourselves."

And when people can get that at wkno.org, the full interview, what's the right balance?

- I think that's a difficult question.

I think that we need to tighten our borders, for sure.

I don't think they need to be completely opened, but I think that people need due process.

I don't think that we should be racially profiling individuals, and not every immigrant is an illegal immigrant.

I mean, the president's wife is an immigrant.

And so, I think when we look at it is: How are they being processed?

And I think that there is so much hyper-focus on illegal immigrants and criminal behavior.

And there are a lot of individuals here, legal and some illegally, who are working hard, and actually they're doing jobs that I don't think Americans would do.

So, we need to tighten the process.

I'm not saying we need to have open borders, for sure.

I think that we need to ensure that there is a good policy and process to make sure that people are coming here legally or can get their immigration status.

- If someone is arrested who is undocumented, illegal immigrant, undocumented immigrant locally, should ICE or DHS be notified by, let's say, MPD or the Sheriff's Office?

- Actually, by law, they have to be.

So, yes, but my concern, too, is that families are being torn apart, and I'm saying it because in the 8th District, I have a lot of Hispanic community members, and they are concerned, and rightfully so.

- Yeah, two more, go back to international and I'll go back to Bill.

One is, would you... When we start talking about federal or money, federal aid to other countries, to other organizations around the world, should the US be supporting the war in Ukraine to the degree it is, or go back to in the Biden administration when billions of dollars was being put into that war?

- I think that what we need to look at is reallocating those resources.

I think when I go to Congress, I wanna look at how the budget is being spent, and I would like to see more of that money being utilized here in the United States, not necessarily internationally.

- What about support for Israel?

A lot of military and other support, obviously, been a war there going on with Gaza, in Gaza for some years now.

Would you wanna cut that aid?

- I would like to see that aid cut, absolutely.

But again, it's not cutting the aid to the troops, but I think... - It'd be cutting the aid to the Israeli troops.

- Right.

- That's what you're saying?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Bill, about four minutes left.

- For all of the attention that these three races have gotten, it's certainly been more than we've seen in past recent congressional campaigns because of the redistricting.

But the overall voter turnout so far hasn't really moved in terms of needle moving here locally.

What does it take to see that kind of change, regardless of who wins, do you think?

- I think you're right.

I mean, the two of you have been in Shelby County long enough and you know that 23% of voter turnout for the last primary, people celebrated it.

And it's unfortunate because it's still an abysmal number.

We need to increase that voter turnout.

I would love to see Shelby County get to at least 50 or 60%.

There are some other counties in my district that have seen a little bit of an increase.

And Bill, you know that midterms, more people come out to vote in midterms than they do in primary elections.

And so, I think you're gonna see a little bit of a bump, and I think you're gonna see more Democrats coming out, and you are going to see people rallying together.

And people talk about voter registration, voter registration, which is a wonderful thing.

And I think that we should continue doing it, but I think we also need some follow up.

Like, what are we doing after these people are registering to vote?

Are we contacting them?

Do they have a ride to the polls?

Do they need more understanding or information about candidates?

I think it's a two-step process.

So, if we wanna increase voter turnout, then we need to look at different ways to do that.

I mean, we used to have, I remember Congressman Harold Ford, Sr.

used to have those buses and take people.

I think those are the types of ideas that it's going to take is increasing voter registration, making sure that we're doing follow up, and making sure that people are getting to the polls.

- Right, and as a candidate, you know this certainly very well, that there are all kind of motivations for people to vote, and all of them are at play in an election, and you really don't know whether you've hit that button as a candidate until they go to vote.

So, you use phone banking, so you use canvassing, you use other traditional tools.

I mean, do you know how effective it is, and is it sometimes frustrating to think, "This may not be working, but we've got to do it."

- Absolutely, I think you want to exhaust every idea and opportunity to be able to get a vote.

And I feel fortunate that I'm not naive enough to think that it's just Democrats who are going to elect me.

I am going to need crossover vote, for sure.

And I feel fortunate that when I became the criminal court clerk, as well as in the primary, when you looked at the boxes, the voting boxes, I did have a lot of crossover vote.

So, that's to my advantage.

But you are going to do everything you possibly can to be able to touch voters and to give them that information of who you are and what you stand for.

And hopefully, it aligns with their ideology, and they will pull that lever for Heidi Kuhn.

- And to the mechanics of this again, there's a certain base level of money that you have to have, but very often the candidate with the most money does not always win.

It's how you use it, right?

- It is how you use it.

And of course, I've only been in this for four months.

I mean, even Justin J. Pearson and Chaz Molder were in it for two years prior to me coming in, so for four months.

So it's sometimes irritating to me that I am compared to them or even to David Kustoff because of my lack of funding.

However, I have raised a significant amount of money in a short amount of time, and it's utilizing that money to the best of my ability and to ensure that we get those votes.

So, I may not have as much money as my opponent, but I perhaps have more votes.

- All right, we will leave it there.

Heidi Kuhn, thank you very much.

Thank you, Bill.

I'll remind everyone, early voting begins October 14th, less than a week away, and Election Day is November 3rd.

If you aren't sure what district you're in, in the new districts, and maybe you are in 8, or 9, or 5, go to ShelbyVote.

That's the Election Commission site.

We did, again, reach out to David Kustoff, the Republican candidate for this same district, and we have yet to get him booked.

We hope to, nonetheless.

If you missed any of the show, go to wkno.org, YouTube, or The Daily Memphian, or download the full show as a podcast.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

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