The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Karina Brown, Utah Lt. Governor Candidate Democrat 2020

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

Karina Brown, Utah Lt. Governor Candidate Democrat 2020 petersonforutah.com

Hi folks, it's Voss here from The Resistance Radio. The Resistance. Viva la Resistance Radio. Coming at you here. We're doing, of course, another interview with some of the great politicians that are running in this country in November 2020. They're going to help us get through a world of change

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Hit that bell notification so you get all the notifications with me. Earlier last week, we had the gubernatorial candidate for the governor of the state of Utah for the Democrats Party, the Democrat Party, who was on with us, Chris Peterson. And he gave a great interview. We were really impressed with him. And now we have his partner, his lieutenant governor, who's going to be on the ballot with him. And you want to check her out and everything else. Karina Brown. Karina is the president of Cache County Friends of the Children's Justice Center Board.

And she was a founding sponsor of the Medicaid Expansion Ballot Initiative here in Utah, Proposition 3, and it was adopted by Utah voters in 2018. She serves on the Cache Valley Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and is co-chair of the Cache Chamber Legislative Affairs Committee. She's a planning commissioner for the city of Nibley, Utah, and she's the co-founder of the Cash Value United for Change organization dedicated to promoting civil engagement. She also serves as a co-chair of the Cash Celebration of Women's Suffrage 2020, an organization working to celebrate the centennial

of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Welcome to the show, Karina. How are you doing? Thank you so much, Chris. I'm doing well. Thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. Thank you for coming. We certainly want to, you know, have more people get introduced to you folks, get the name recognition out there, get people checking you guys out. As we talked about on the show, we're going into some really interesting times with COVID-19. Lots of different joblessness, health care, divorces, challenges, mental health, all sorts of different aspects are going to be upon us. Financial, states bailing out and helping the local economies and their people. Also some of that at the federal

level that governors will be working on. So we're glad to have you on. It's a great way for people to get a chance to get to know you. Before we get into political details, Karina, tell me a little bit about your origin story, where you came from, how you grew up, etc., etc. Well, thanks, Chris. I've actually lived in Utah the longest of any other state or location. I've lived in eight different states, though. I was born in California, moved to Missouri with my family, and Arizona and Oregon, and graduated from high school in Arizona. That's where I met my husband, Carl. We've been married almost, it'll be 25 years in July, and we have four children. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So from meeting in high school in Gilbert, Arizona, we got married in 1995, and then moved around for

schooling in his Air Force military service. I actually moved to Utah after I graduated high school and went to school here for several years before serving an LDS mission to Guatemala. Yeah. So that was a great experience. But my husband and I lived in Arizona and then we moved to Michigan for school. And then we moved to San Antonio, Texas for my husband's medical residency. And then we moved to Las Vegas and then we moved to Logan because we wanted a safe, more rural atmosphere and environment for our children. And so I've lived in Utah the longest out of any state and I'm proud to call it home. Awesome sauce. Cash County,

Logan, it's just a beautiful, beautiful place to, to be up there. And it's, it's a beautiful part of the country. Isn't the other side of the mountains there? There's the blue Lake,

the Bear Lake. Bear Lake. Bear Lake is a, is a beautiful spot. Beautiful spot. Is that lake still blue? It's been a number of years since I've been up that way, but it had like a good tension. It is pretty blue, but it is a nice vacation spot for Utah.

Most definitely. So what made you decide, you've run for office before, what's made you decide to take this specific interest and go after in your life? Well, I ran for office in 2018 for Utah House District 5. It's the southern part of Cache Valley. And it was a wonderful experience. Even though I lost the election, I met some great people. And I've been able to do a lot of community work after the election and be able to network even more with people and working with Republicans on different and people of different backgrounds on different community projects. And so when Chris asked me if I would be interested in being his running mate, I said yes, because I really believe in the power of voting. And as you listeners may know, the Lieutenant Governor has oversight

over all the elections in Utah. And just from my experience voting as a citizen and also my involvement in Proposition 3, being a co-sponsor of Proposition 3, or one of the five sponsors, I should say, of the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative, I've seen the power of people coming together to vote. And it's so exciting and so inspiring to me. Also being involved with our cash celebration of women's suffrage 2020 organization and planning

celebrations to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment has been very inspiring to me too. Looking back to history and kind of using that as a model for us to be engaged and living up to our civic privileges, it's been an incredible process for me. So to be a candidate for Lieutenant Governor is really an honor. And so I'm really excited about it. And I want people in Utah, you know, male, female, different ages to register to vote and to be engaged in our, in our civic process. So thanks. Yeah. And, and registering to vote is so important. Getting to know your candidates is so important. I think we had somebody on and her name escapes me.

We had somebody on from the Kearns District, and she had a great line. She says, if you don't vote, you're not at the table. You're on the menu. So voting is so important. I believe it was Emily Matthews, and she put it eloquently well. I thought that's a great line. And so we want to get people out to vote. This is going to be a very big election.

So you helped get that Medicaid expansion ballot initiative approved. My understanding, this is one that the legislature just went against the will of the voters. Did I have that correct? Well, after the majority of Utahns voted for Proposition 3, the legislature made some slight changes to it and some requests to the federal government for federal waivers to alter parts of it. But at the end of the day, there was the partial expansion

for people up to 100% of the poverty level in July of 2019, which the voters voted to make that poverty level be 138% of the poverty level. So it's like a $10,000 difference for a family of four, but that full, the waivers didn't go through the federal government. And in January of 2020, the full expansion took place. And so I checked with Utah Health Policy Project several weeks ago. And as of that time, approximately 50,000 people had enrolled in Medicaid. Wow. And up to like 100,000 to 120,000 are eligible. And then I know Utah has evolved in that legislation from the GOP

to try and overturn Obamacare. That's kind of an interesting thing that they're doing there in a pandemic. Like, we're going to take away your health care in a pandemic. Have fun with that. Well, I think the process started, you know, several years ago, but I am really disappointed that Utah is one of the states in a lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And that's one of the reasons I got involved in politics that what's motivated me to become involved in politics and speak up is because my mother passed away in the healthcare coverage gap in 2013. And seeing all that was going on in Utah and reading the news

about Medicaid expansion in 2015, 2016, I started speaking out about it. I communicated with legislatures about the Healthy Utah plan that was coming up for a vote. That plan didn't pass. That was Utah's version of Medicaid expansion. But from that point forward, I felt so strongly about how much this could help other people who could be in similar circumstances. So the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion is very dear to my heart. And so that's another good reason why I'm proud and honored to be on the ticket with Chris Peterson, because he does not support Utah being in this lawsuit. And his perspective as an attorney is really valuable and important, too, along with our opinions, too. But to me, it means a lot to me that he supports the Affordable Care Act.

Yeah, I mean, we're going into a state where we're going to have, you know, one thing we are learning with COVID-19, and this is important as people look to their ballot measures coming up November and the people on the ballot as well, and do the research because we're going into two or three years of, at the very least, of a very dark time. High unemployment, people can't afford to keep their Cobras up if they are laid off for health insurance, no health insurance. You know, one thing we're finding out with COVID-19 is if your neighbors aren't covered by insurance, if they don't have good health insurance. You know, one thing we're finding out with COVID-19 is, is if your neighbors aren't covered by insurance, if they don't have good health insurance, you can get the disease as well. You know, I mean, we're really finding that, you know, the balance of our community, our health, life, and death depends upon everyone being healthy. And so that's going to become a big

feature of, of why that's going to be important. important. And of course, you guys would, you and Chris would be going through and dealing with the fallout from that and people needing more resources from their local government to take and help them survive these times. Right. I think it's an important leadership moment. And my heart goes out to, you know, the whole world, people that are struggling during the pandemic and the changes that we have to make. And that's why another reason why I firmly believe in Medicaid expansion, but also working towards a system where our health insurance isn't tied to our employment. I'm also a board member for the Utah Democratic Health Care Caucus, and we are working on studying, studying that issue. And I, I believe as it, from a policy perspective, um, it would be ideal to have, um, some type of insurance coverage that people can access that is not tied to their employment. Um, you know, and this is a good example of it. Definitely. I mean, I, uh, we, we just saw yesterday, 40 million Americans are now out of work. That's

one in four workers in America out of work. That's, that's crazy. And we may easily hit a 20% mark. States like Nevada are already above 30% on their unemployment, which is much higher in many cases than what we had in the Great Depression. So we're, we have a lot of fallout that we're going to go through and picking, researching, and getting to know your candidates is going to be so much more important for people if you're out there as voters, because these are the people who are going to guide you through the next two to three years. Your, your care is going to be in their hands and they're going to be people that are under a lot of pressure to make great judgments and do the right thing.

And you want people in there that are empathetic to people, health care, what voters want, taking care of their local communities, not just people who are lining the pockets of the top 1% and all their rich friends. And that's the great thing. The other thing I've been real excited about what's going on in Utah is I'm interviewing a lot of female candidates. And hopefully we can get that great, nice blue wave or, you know, from what a lot of people have said. I think Chris said this.

As long as we go purple, you know, we can have a balance of government at least where we're just not a solid red state. That would be great. In Las Vegas, we elected the highest legislature group of women, a majority of women, set a record for the nation. If you look at what they're doing, they are doing great stuff with child care, mother support, education, just everything that you would want to have, that you would expect most moms or women would take and do. They're like, let's take care of the future and they're doing great things and so i voted full uh full women down the ticket on the on the democratic side uh in 2018 we saw the results

of that and now more and more we're starting to see our legislative bodies representative of what america looks like you know instead of just a bunch of white dudes. Well, I appreciate you saying that, Chris, because I think it's a good opportunity. Just coming from my perspective, I'm actually the first generation female voter in my family because my grandmother thought my grandfather should vote for her. She was born in 1922. And then my mother didn't become a citizen until two years before she died. And so I think, you know, female leadership and female involvement in government, I think we're going on the right path. And so we appreciate you saying

that and for your support and confidence and female leadership, because it means a lot. It means a lot. And I think, I think I think we do have an interesting and different perspective that we can add that is positive. Mothers care about their children. They care about the future of their children. They care about education. They have empathy. Guys, we just care about getting rich and starting wars and stuff.

That's pretty much our whole – I'm in the club. I'll admit it. I appreciate my different business and work relationships with different people of all genders and so I appreciate male support too. My husband's actually a Republican and so we have a purple household. There you go. So you know how to get along with the other side and how to get along with the other side and how to, you know, get legislation passed in the household. He's voting for us. So there you go. That's awesome. That's what we want to see.

Because, you know, I used to be on the right with a GOP party member. I flip to the left. You can do it too. Anybody can do it. You know, what we're really voting for here is America and we're voting for a state and the good of our people and the good of everyone. It's not about parties. It's not about teams or any of that sort of stuff. You should want what's best for yourself, your neighbor, your children and everything else. And you should make your decisions on that. I think a lot of people sometimes, you know, having a party makes us, they don't really have to think or get to know candidates best. And you don't have to vote along party lines. You can go down the ballot and be like, I like her and like him. And you know, you can, you can can mix and mash it's like a buffet

yeah going back to your las vegas roots we lived in for three years so i know i know what you mean buffet um well well we have i've had some great experiences working with elected officials here in cash valley you know some of them i know know, some of them I know are Republicans, some of them may be Democrats too. But I do believe that we can collaborate and we can work together to solve problems because I've seen it happen in Cache Valley. Cache Valley is a very special place to me. And so all these different people

that I've been able to work with have been wonderful. And so I know, I know it's a possibility. I know we can work together. And that's awesome. And that's what we're going to need. We're going to, when this, when we hit the depths of, of the fallout of the financial crisis and the health, the care and, and divorces and, and joblessness and everything else that we're going to go through, I think a lot of people are going to have some mental health issues after this. I'm not sure I'm mentally right after being quarantined, although I've worked for myself since 2004 from home. So quarantining is kind of my

thing. But, you know, I'm used to going out to restaurants, at least being social. But, you know, I think a lot of people, there's going to be a lot of depression. There's going to be a lot of different issues. And more and more, I mean, we're in the interstate and local governments uh to help us come up with programs there's probably going to be financial aid and different things that we can do to try and get back to the country we are uh i know the bank of uh bank of america ceo says he doesn't see us getting anywhere close to normal till maybe the end of 2022. Oh, wow. And that will put you guys two years into your administration. And so this is really important. So I implore all you toans to really dig in and get to know your candidates

and make some wise choices. You can pick whoever you want, but you definitely want to get to know these folks and what they're doing. All right. So right now, one of the things that is top of the news in the country is what's going on in Minneapolis. And we're seeing riots and protests spilling out across the nation and capitals. There might be some here. George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis with his knee up against his neck and constricted him enough to where he

died. It's been a horrible video that's gone around and created a lot of unrest. I'm not sure how much we've seen here. But what are your feelings on some of that issues with law enforcement, with outreach to minority communities, et cetera, et cetera? Well, thank you, Chris. My heart goes out to the family of George Floyd, and I was so sad to hear about his tragic death. I think it's important to have open dialogue between different groups and African-American community

so that it doesn't get to the level where people are rioting in the streets, so that they feel heard, that they feel understood, that they feel they're valued and they're an important part of the community. I just read on the news just within the last few minutes that the officer involved in that death was charged with murder. And so I think law enforcement is there for all of us to serve us and to support us. I actually did some research on the Salt Lake city police department this morning, and they actually have a good program, good variety of things that they do for their community engagement work. And I think it's important to do research on your local police departments to

see what they're doing to reach out to different communities. They have a program called the Civilian Review Board, and I looked that up this morning. They have two openings. So if people are interested in really having an impact at a policy level, they can apply for that Civilian Review Board. They review all the excessive force complaints. They report to the mayor.

They don't report to the Salt Lake City Police Chief Brown. And so you're able to discuss those situations, those excessive force complaints as a review board, as a civilian review board. So I think that's another opportunity. So for members of the minority communities or the African-American communities, as candidates, we would like to hear from you to see what we can do to help. And also from the law enforcement perspective, I have several friends that work in law enforcement and recognize the hard job that they have. And they're putting themselves on the line every day to protect us.

And that the bad actions of several are the minority in their group and their organizations. And actually the Salt Lake City police chief Brown tweeted about it today and his condolences and how sad and tragic it was. So I think law enforcement, the majority of them are good. I have heard some from different members of minority communities that say there needs to be more reform. And so I think there should be an open dialogue and discussion between different groups so that they they feel heard and they have feel like they have a place at the table i think that's awesome and having a place at the table is so important if you don't feel like your government represents you or is looking

out for your best interest or worse like what's going on in places around the country you feel like you're a target at all at all times you, I've heard some of the stories my minority friends have to have with their children. And I can't imagine living that way where sometimes you, when you go for a drive, you got to wonder, or if you get pulled over if this is it. And so that's vitally important. Most cops I've ever come across are wonderful people. They're good people. A lot of them are very community serving oriented where they just want to make their communities better. They want to protect people that are sometimes being preyed upon by people who really are criminals when it

comes down to it. There are some people out there that they just see us as victims for themselves. But it's really important. Utah has a minority community, and it's important that they feel like their police department represents them, supports them, and everything else. And certainly you don't want to see the fallout from – they responded, I think, very poorly in Minneapolis. It was kind of interesting this time to see a lot of the police commissioners throughout the country kind of call in to a lot of news organizations and go,

no, we think that's wrong too. That's not right. And you're kind of seeing more and more of this thing where, you know, like we talk about, all rising boats rise together. Rising tide lift all boats and stuff. Let me ask you about this. One Facebook group, we love the Utah Democratic Caucus for People with Disabilities. And I have two sisters that are in care homes.

This is an important thing to me too as well. They asked to get your guys' input on what you guys feel about people with disabilities, some of the different rights and things they're struggling with, the ADA and everything else here in Utah. Well, thank you for that important question, Chris. I am familiar with some of the issues within the disability community because of my run for office in 2018. I did research into the state funding for different programs. And I found out

that there was a very long waiting list for different programs to help people with disabilities. And so I think more funding for those programs to help them be independent to work and to thrive in their situation is important. I also think mental illness sometimes can be viewed as a disability, and I think funding for mental illness, people with other disabilities, is important, and our budget priorities should point to serving those that are vulnerable among us and helping them so that they can succeed and that they can thrive. So thank you so much for that question. Yeah.

You know, we used to be this, what made America great was in spite of all of our differences, we lifted each other up. We took care of the poor. We took care of people that were weak. We, you know, during the Johnson administration, we created a lot of social welfare, social net systems that supported people. And we're finding with COVID-19 that, you know, this is the great equalizer that, you know, we're all in this together. We all got to take care of each other. We ought to lift each other up. We found who are disproportionately some of the people in our society that are weaker, that are older, that are more susceptible to this sort of thing. And we all have to take care of one another. And I think that's, I think that's hopefully the lesson we

learned from all this that comes out the other side. So there you go. Thank you. What other sort of plans do you and Chris have on the agenda for when you guys get up there in the governor's mansion, if you will? Well, Chris and I share similar values in that my work to help expand Medicaid and his work in consumer protection advocacy and work as a, as a law professor, as a researcher, as an author. He's currently writing a textbook. He's very intelligent and very up to date on policy and issues. But one of the things that we're concerned about is and our shared value is

fighting for those that, and working to help those that are vulnerable, vulnerable populations. And so, um, another that encompasses a lot of things like health care education. I mean, our children are vulnerable and they need our support. So education funding, healthcare, air quality, um, consumer protection and, um, crack down on like scams on scams in Utah. And so those are some of the things that we're focused on. And also, as a lieutenant governor candidate, encouraging people to register to vote and

vote. There was a study that was done that 300,000 approximately females in Utah are residents of Utah, but not registered to vote. So giving people hope and overcoming that civic despair that I think sometimes people feel, we feel as Americans that whatever I do, it doesn't make a difference. But actually, we do make a difference in our votes, in our choices. We can influence our society for good and our communities for good. And so I really believe strongly in that. Also, taking advantages of resources that we already have, like from the federal government,

especially during this pandemic. Utah was the only state, and this was reported in the New York Times this week, that rejected federal funds to help feed hungry children and that was about 50 million dollars million dollars they turned away yeah so so taking advantages of advantage of resources that we have available to us to help the community to help our vulnerable populations, I think. And that was to really help feed kids, kids that were having trouble. One of the legislatures was like, I don't understand. Why can't my mom fed me? Why can't moms feed their kids? And why do we have to fund it?

Was one of the quotes that came out of that. And a lot of people were stunned. I know Chris Peterson has a page up and he's calling for the governor to look into it and see about that. But, you know, Utah being 50th in education spending and their education quality, you know, you guys have pretty much one more child here than most of the nation. So kids are like a big thing for you guys. And you would think that the quality of their care, the quality of raising them, getting them good education, getting them into great schools, we're going to see that from COVID-19. We're going to see probably the cost of schooling go down,

maybe become more efficient through, you know, instead of sending your kids to, you know, cross country and you're going to pay for all that. Maybe it'll be more localized. A lot of disruption to models that we, you know, relied on before kind of were there. Some of them were fairly expensive. Now we're kind of seeing where colleges may be a little bit more negotiable in their pricing and education and everything else.

So I think it's great you guys are tackling these things. We definitely want to – I think in the recent legislature, they even shot down – I think the quote I'm taking that from is in the recent legislative body in the most year or two, they shot down like it was a program for school assistant for meals, like it was a lunch or something like that and i think that's where i got that quote from um but uh the legislatures couldn't figure out like well why do kids need to be fed and sadly across the nation we're seeing these kids they're showing up at school their parents are poor they haven't had breakfast and

you can't learn if you don't eat right i. I think it's really important to focus on those vulnerable communities and helping them like with education programs that they may need, you know, at certain times in their lives. Actually, my mother was a single parent. My parents divorced in 1991 and I could see her struggle, you know, going back to school with seven children. I remember going to the grocery store, and she was using food stamps. And she was really ashamed of it. And then, you know, at other times, she didn't have to use them. But I think it's important that we have compassion for, for different populations in our policy, and also at the same time, encourage encourage you know technical education other forms of education to so that people can get better jobs and also look at

increasing the minimum wage in Utah the the minimum wage right now is $7.25. Yes that's what I was making in 1991 when I graduated from high school. And so looking at that, also rural development in Utah because I'm from Cache County and I'm on the Cache Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. I really believe in rural business development and also broadband through the state is important, reaching different remote areas. Especially now, where these kids have got to Zoom to do their education.

Recently, you were out supporting the community, the Navajo community, that is going through a huge crippling COVID crisis? Yes. Devin Thorpe, who's running for Congress, invited me to participate and he organized that drive with the Bountiful Rotary, a Park City Rotary in Moab. So we gathered supplies from Cache County all the way down through Moab and took over five tons of supplies to deliver to the Navajo reservation, the Utah side. So we, we went to Montezuma Creek and we delivered and unloaded the supplies there at a converted clinic that they have as a supply site. And so it was, it was really inspiring to meet with the people to meet with some Navajo residents and community leaders and to unload the supplies and to really get a grasp of what they're

facing there. Some of the population does not have, you know, electricity or running water. So it's very difficult if you don't have running water to, you know, keep clean and things, especially during the pandemic. There's people that are isolated and on home, um, shut down because, or quarantined because of the pandemic and the virus. And so they're making food deliveries to those homes, um, and residents. And so it was a very, um, inspiring trip, but also sobering also just to realize that this, the pandemic has exposed some, even more of the inequality or inequity in our state. And so it's important to, to remember that going forward, that we need to, to help out and provide resources and,

and help people succeed in their different communities. And that's important. A rising tide lifts all boats. This is what I tell everybody. And even with raising the minimum wage, we've seen how the economy goes around. I always tell the story about coming from Vegas, a lot of people live on tips. And when they go work with other people who live on tips, they pay tips. I've always been a salesman, so I always tip well because I understand that what goes around comes around. Money comes around, and that's how the economy works. And so, yeah, raising the minimum wage. I know one thing I think we talked with Ashley Matthews about, if I have my name correctly, out in Kearns. She talked about how there's no minimum wage to get government

contracts here in the state of Utah. Like if you go to the federal level, there's requirements and minimum wage that you have to pay to get a federal contract. But here in the state, they don't have any of that. And, you know, support for unions, et cetera, et cetera. It was very sad to me that Doctors Without Borders, a organization that goes to normally other countries that are going through huge health issues, actually had to come out for the Navajo Nation to try and help out these folks. And here we're in America. Yeah. Greatest country in the world. I even saw on one of the local Utah television channels, they broke down the highest issues of COVID cases by zip code.

And then they broke down the zip codes based upon their multicultural community. So all the different people that were in there from income levels to race. And they found that a lot of communities that are upper class are doing well, and they're fine, they're not getting COVID, but the people on the lower end of the spectrums are the ones that are suffering the most and needing the most help. And as this crisis comes more upon us, as the COVID-19 extends, we may enter waves, those people are going to need a lot of help and support

because they're the people who keep our economy rolling. Right. It is important to support, you know, crucial workers in all different industries so that they are protected when they're at work and also so that they are protected when they're at work. And, and also so that they can keep working, um, maybe help with childcare. I know Utah did a good thing by helping, uh, they started a childcare program to help essential workers. And so that was a good, good move. Um, but also Utah has just talking about just mental health in, you know, in general, and also

during the pandemic. And after we're working with a group of social work students, masters of social work students to make, they're making wellness calls in Salt Lake and Carbon counties, just to check on people to see how they're doing, connecting with resources. So I think, um, sometimes people aren't aware of resources that are out there, community resources, and we've posted those on our campaign page at petersonforyoutah.com. Also, I've been concerned personally about child abuse. As president of the Cash Money Friends of the Children's Justice Center board, our board created a safe-to-share flyer that school buses could post and businesses could post so that people can report

child abuse if they see it or if they know of it, because there's actually been a decrease in calls to DCFS because the children, Division of Child and Family Services, because the children aren't in school anymore. So the children are protected and the community knows how to reach out if there's things that are concerning and if children are being abused. And we've seen news about this nationally where domestic violence has been on the rise, home violence. These sort of times bring out the worst of everything. Right. We also created a flyer to help inform parents on ways to protect children from online content, from online predators, emotional abuse, physical and sexual abuse,

just to help educate the public that we should be protecting children and helping them during this time. So I really believe strongly too in Utah, improving Utah's mental health system, Mental Health America just came out with a study that Utah is 50th for overall mental health in the country. And so we have a big room, a long way to go to improve, but we can only go up at this point. So I can send you the link, Chris, on that study. I'd love to look at it. Yeah. It sounds like Utah needs a lot of help, and this is one of the reasons we've had a lot of Democratic candidates

on the Resistance Radio is to give you guys as much, give people, number one, a chance to is to give you guys as much, um, give people number one chance to get to know you guys, um, and really find out who people are about instead of closing, you know, voters closing their mind off. Well, this person doesn't represent that party.

Um, and, uh, finding out more about you guys and making more qualified decisions and, and everything else. And it's going to be so important. I mean, I think,

I think by November, we'll be deep in the fallout from this. The bankruptcies will be high. People have run out of their savings. We're already seeing some states where they have huge food bank lines. And making smart choices about who you vote for are super important. I always tell people, they go, well, I don't vote because I don't feel like my vote matters. And you're like, look, politicians, they go, tell us who voted and what do they want. And, yeah, we don't worry about those. Those other people didn't vote.

Yeah, we're just worried about those voters right there. What do they want? Yeah, okay, we'll do that for them. And so if you're not voting, you're on the menu. So get out, register to vote, get involved, matter. I mean, maybe you may need to turn to your government in the next couple years for help, support, damage, fallout, all this sort of good stuff. That or at least to help support your neighbor and make their lives better so that all of our communities rise back together

and hopefully get back on track someday to maybe the way we used to be only a little bit better. Yeah, I agree with you, Chris. I think this is a good opportunity for us to come together. I know that there's a lot that we need to do to get people back to work, but do it in a safe way. So there's not an increase in cases in Utah and in the country, but it is difficult. And when people have a business, they can't, I spoke with a gentleman today that has his own practice as an ophthalmologist. And he couldn't do that for two months. And it's his own private practice. So he has some struggles with that.

And a lady that I know that works as a massage therapist didn't have clients because of COVID-19. There have been some industries where they have seen growth, which is good. But we went to our favorite restaurant for a chamber meeting this week, and they were remodeling the whole thing. So I think some businesses are using it as a time to kind of refine or remodel. But it is very challenging and difficult to, you know, from the employment perspective, from the business owner perspective, to get through this. So I appreciate, you know, the people that donated and the businesses that donated to our Navajo Nation Drive, the Cash Food Pantry donated about 6,500 pounds of food, because they had extra because they had so many donations.

And so it's been inspiring to, to see people coming together. There's a, there's a Facebook group and Logan stay calm and share Logan where people are posting if they need food or, or things on sale at the grocery store. And so I've seen examples of businesses and people coming together. And this is,

this is a, you know, we've gone through dark times before as a nation, 9-11, Pearl Harbor, I mean, the Depression, you name it. And this is usually the moment where we kind of all come back together and realize we're all human beings, we're all great Americans, and we all need to hold hands and lift each other up. And I think COVID-19 is sadly going to take us through that trough, but hopefully we come out the other side and come together instead of being as divisive as we have been the past few years. And hopefully we get better leaders who don't divide us to conquer us. People are more concerned at a human level who we are and have more empathy to

us and everything we do. Yeah, I think leadership is important. And I think people in leadership positions, whether it's a school principal, a parent, a business owner, have a tremendous opportunity to influence people around them. And we all do, but especially people that have those positions where they can influence more people. It's really important to use language that unites people and doesn't divide people, that brings people together. And one of our, well, our campaign slogan is practical solutions, public service. And Chris and I both strongly believe in that and our values. I'll point to that solutions that, you know, working across party lines to come up with solutions to the salt,

to the problems that we face and also public service through public service that we can, we can create solutions. Also there's some things that we can do working together without the government to to solve problems also so i'm i'm excited for our campaign and excited and honored to be the democratic candidate for lieutenant governor when i started out in 2016 as a health care advocate um i did it on a feeling in my heart of what I felt was right and, and helping people. And I,

Chris and I are both in this to, to help people and to do our best and to be a voice for those that, that may feel like they're forgotten. So awesome sauce, awesome sauce. So go out and vote for them guys. What's the, give us your website again, Karina.

Tell people how they can come support you and Chris, whether it's with donations or volunteer work. I'm sure you guys need some manpower as well. If people can't contribute at a donation level, how can they help you out? Thank you. Our webpage is peterson4utah.com. It's F-O-N, so peterson4utah.com. And you can sign up to volunteer.

There's a link to donate, to volunteer. We're looking for people to post yard signs, to have virtual meet and greets. You can share our social media posts with your friends. So there's a lot you can do if you have no money or no time, very little time, there's still a lot that you can do.