ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのKemp, Abrams face off for last time before election for Georgia Governor

Speaker 1 (00:00):The top job in Georgia politics is on the ballot. Governor Brian Kemp is seeking a second term.
Brian Kemp (00:06):And that’s what I’m going to stay focused on, is putting Georgians first.
Speaker 1 (00:10):And in a rematch of the 2018 election, Democrat Stacey Abrams is hoping to unseat him.
Stacey Abrams (00:15):I want to be governor so I can do right by Georgians.
Speaker 1 (00:19):Tonight we’re getting them on the record about the most important issues to Georgians.
Speaker 2 (00:25):Well, my biggest concern right now is the economy.
Speaker 3 (00:28):The spending of my tax money.
Speaker 5 (00:30):Abortion rights is number one.
Speaker 4 (00:32):My biggest concerns are crime.
Speaker 1 (00:35):Live from the WSB-TV studios in Midtown Atlanta, this is the Georgia Governor’s Debate. Here’s your moderator, Justin Farmer.

Justin Farmer (00:46):
Good Sunday evening. Thank you so much for joining us for this live debate for the Georgia Governor’s race. We are now just nine days away from election day and record early voting is well underway. Tonight we’ll be addressing some of the top issues driving voters to the polls and record numbers, the economy, affordable housing, crime, abortion, immigration, and voting integrity. Tonight’s debate is between the two top candidates who met our 10% polling threshold, the incumbent, Republican governor Brian Kemp, and former Georgia House minority leader, Democrat Stacey Abrams. Some of our questions this evening will come from our panel. Tonight I’m joined by a Channel 2 political reporter Richard Elliot, WSB community and public affairs director Condace Presley, and Univision Atlanta anchor Michelle Benitez. Let’s begin tonight with opening statements. Each candidate will have 90 seconds. We determined the order through a coin toss. So governor Kemp, if you’ll start.

Brian Kemp (01:43):
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate WSB for having us tonight and looking forward to the panelists and the questions. And I’m just honored to be here. I’ve been honored to be serving as the governor of this great state. I’m looking forward to talking about my record, but also looking forward to talking about my vision for the future. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the history of the state, we have the most people ever working in the history of our state, and we’re seeing economic opportunity in all parts of our state. People have opportunity in Georgia no matter their neighborhood or their ZIP code. We’ve been focused on strengthening rural Georgia. We’ve also fully funded our schools and given a well-deserved historic teacher pay raise. We continue to be in the fight with our local men and women in law enforcement to go after violent criminals, street gangs, and human traffickers. And that’s why I’m hoping to earn your vote tonight, and that’s why I’m running for reelection, because I want to continue to keep Georgia the best state in the country to live, work, and raise our families. Thank you.

Justin Farmer (02:48):Now an opening statement please from leader Abrams.

Stacey Abrams (02:51):
Thank you so much to WSB, thank you to the panelists, and thank you to Georgia voters. Elections are a choice, a choice between where we are and where we want to be. What does the next four years look like? In this Georgia, right now people are feeling economic pain, and unfortunately under this governor, the pain is only getting worse. But I look forward to leading a Georgia where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, and I want to land on my record to do so. When I didn’t win the election in 2018, I got to work. I installed 181 wifi devices throughout the state of Georgia in communities that didn’t have access to the internet during COVID. I paid off the medical debts of 68,000 Georgians during COVID to make sure they didn’t have to choose between food and healthcare. I did the work I could to serve the people of Georgia, whether I had a title or not.
(03:42)
But I’ve enjoyed number of titles in Georgia. State legislator, small business owner, and Georgia citizen. And as your next governor, I will take the money that we have in our coffers, a record $6 billion surplus, and invest it in you. Put the money into healthcare, housing, education, and making a good living. But I will also protect our freedoms and our rights. Our right to be secure in our persons, our right to control our bodies, our right to be safe, and our right to vote. This election is indeed a choice and I look at my record and the record of the governor and I will say that we need to see whether we want a man who’s put the wealthy and the powerful first, or a woman who has only ever stood on the side of Georgians. And that’s the choice we get to make tonight.

Justin Farmer (04:24):
Tonight we thank each of you for being here to hear the questions that we know are on the minds of Georgians. Tonight’s debate guidelines very straightforward. Each candidate will have 90 seconds for a response to a question and roughly 45 seconds for rebuttals. So let’s get underway. And we’ll start with inflation. And we know that Georgians are hurting with the crippling inflation. So the question to each of you, please, is what can a governor do, what would you do, please be specific where you can, or continue to do as governor, to help Georgians right away? And we’ll start with miss Abrams.

Stacey Abrams (04:57):
Thank you. The economic pain people are feeling, it’s real, and inflation is actually worse here in Georgia than in 36 other states. In fact, the problem is that Georgia has some of the lowest wages in the nation. And because of that, we need a governor who’s going to use her power to focus on the cost that a governor can control. Tackling affordable housing, which this governor has refused to do. Tackling the issue of healthcare cost. If we expand Medicaid in the state of Georgia and accept the $3.5 billion to which we are entitled, we will lower healthcare costs for every Georgian. It has worked in 38 other states and it will work here in the state of Georgia. We can make certain that families can afford to send their children to school, whether it’s pre-K, K through 12, or making sure they can go on to college and technical college by making technical college free again.
(05:45)
But we also have the responsibility of understanding what is driving jobs away from Georgia. Under this governor we’ve lost $150 million in investment. Music Midtown pulled out. We lost the MLB game. We know that the entertainment industry is thinking about leaving Georgia because of the abortion ban that is driving women away. And we know that this is a governor who has refused to do right by our people. As governor I will not only lower costs, I will put more money into the pockets of working Georgians, of middle class Georgians. But what I will not do is give tax cuts to the wealthy and the powerful. I will focus on our workers and our small businesses, putting them first, making sure that especially our minority owned businesses and our rural businesses get access to contracts. A record 10.9 billion is coming to Georgia, and as governor I’ll make sure the money is spent fairly.

Justin Farmer (06:34):Governor Kemp, what can a governor do right away to help Georgians?

Brian Kemp (06:38):
Well, listen, it’s not just what we can do right away, it’s what we’ve been doing, and this is why I want to stay focused on what my record has been, but also what my vision is for the future. Americans are hurting right now because of a disastrous policy agenda by Joe Biden and the Democrats that have complete control in Washington, DC. Thankfully in Georgia, because we were open even when miss Abrams didn’t want us to be, our economy has been incredibly resilient. We’ve had two record years for economic development in a row, record number of investment, record number of jobs, and people’s salaries are going up. The problem is they’re not going up fast enough to keep up with Joe Biden’s inflation, which is why I worked with the General Assembly and the leadership last year to return a billion dollars of your taxpayer money to you, to put into your pocket, to help you when you go to the grocery store because eggs are 30% higher, milk and poultry’s 15 and 17% higher.
(07:37)
But we also did other things. We have suspended the gas tax since March, saving every Georgian 29 cents a gallon every time they fill up to just help them fight through the 40 year high Biden inflation. We also cut taxes last year. Largest income tax cut in Georgia State history last year because we were open, our economy was resilient, and we were seeing record revenue. In the future we want to do the tax rebate again, do it again in January to put another billion back in your pocket, and also do a one-time property tax relief grant to help Georgians deal with the rising property tax values when their commissioners at home are not rolling the millage rate back.

Justin Farmer (08:23):
To each of you, we know from our viewers that in addition to the economy, crime is top of mind. We know Atlanta is experiencing record violent crime right now. People do not feel safe gassing up their cars, going to a mall, or going out for a run. So governor, what have you done, what can you do more? And miss Abrams, I’ll ask what might you do as well. Governor?

Brian Kemp (08:45):
Well, I would just say again, look at my record. This is going back to 2018, I was the candidate in that race that ran on a platform to go after street gangs and drug cartels because I knew it was a problem when a lot of other people made fun of that issue. They said, “Oh, this is just your normal Republican talking about being tough on crime.” But if you visit every county in our state, all 159 of them, like I have, and talked to sheriffs and prosecutors and others, I knew there was a gang problem. And that’s why I ran with a very straightforward agenda to create a gang task force at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to join with the locals to help them in prosecution and locking up gang members, going after those that are selling dope on our street and killing our kids and our community members. And we’ve done that.
(09:34)
But we’ve also been in the fight with locals when we had civil unrest, when we had unruly people that were literally trying to burn our capital city down. This past session we gave our attorney general more powers to go after street gangs because of, quite honestly, local DAs that that don’t want to prosecute gangs. So we’re taking that fight into our own hands and I appreciate the support of the General Assembly to put more resources at the attorney general’s office. And if you read the papers in the last three or four weeks, incredible indictments that we’re getting on street gangs in our state. We’ve also led the country on efforts to raise the awareness to ending human trafficking, going after the perpetrators, and supporting the victims, many which are women and children.

Justin Farmer (10:18):Leader Abrams, what would you do to help people feel safer?

Stacey Abrams (10:22):
First, I would encourage people to indeed look at the governor’s record. Under his four years violent crime has gone up, gun violence has gone up. Guns are the number one killer of our children. We have the ninth highest gun violence rate in the nation. Family violence with guns has gone up 18% under this governor. And his response was to weaken gun laws in the state of Georgia and eliminate a background check. A background check that kept thousands of guns off of our streets and out of the hands of dangerous people. We must indeed tackle the issue of street gangs, but this is a statewide challenge and we have a governor who’s only focusing on parts of the issue. We have to have a governor who’s thinking holistically about what we need to do from cradle to career to ensure that our children are on the school to success pipeline and are not being drawn into street gangs because they lack access to resources in their schools.
(11:10)
This is a governor who slashed a billion dollars from education in 2019 and only restored funding to education when federal Democrats deliver dollars to the state of Georgia. We need a governor who’s going to be a partner with local governments, not attack them for trying to do their jobs. And we need a governor who understands that we must have stability in housing, access to healthcare, and that our law enforcement cannot be the number one provider of mental health support in the state of Georgia. Right now our law enforcement is being distracted because they’ve got to put people in jail for being sick instead of going after dangerous people. I want to expand Medicaid to put money into the pockets of Georgians, but also put resources in the hands of law enforcement. I want to make certain that our violent crime goes down by strengthening our gun laws and making certain that we are protecting our communities across the state.

Justin Farmer (11:56):Governor, rebuttal?

Brian Kemp (11:58):
Yes, look, I would just like to make sure folks at home know that it looks like this debate’s going to be a lot like the last one. Miss Abrams is going to attack my record because she doesn’t want to talk about her own record. We are not the local police department. I’m not the mayor, I’m the governor, I’m in charge of the state police force. We are working with the locals to go after violent crime and we’ll continue to do that. But the point here is it’s miss Abrams that has said that she wants to defund the police, she wants to eliminate cash bail and have get out of jail free cards. She continues to serve on the boards of organizations like the Margaret Casey Foundation that actually raises money and gives grants to organizations that support and promote the defund the police movement. There are 107 sheriffs across this state that are supporting my campaign because they know I will have their back. They also know that I will be on the front line standing beside them to go after violent criminals, street racers, street gangs, and human traffickers.

Stacey Abrams (13:01):Me?
Justin Farmer (13:01):Yes.

Stacey Abrams (13:03):
First and foremost, yes, local police are responsible for 90% of law enforcement, and this governor four years ago said it was not his job to help local police make certain that they had fully funded opportunities. It would cost $136 million to provide additional funds to our local police officers so they can make certain they’re protecting our communities instead of working two jobs to take care of their families. We need a governor who understands that local governments need help now and that, yes, while street gangs are important, so is the violent crime being perpetrated by dangerous people who have access to weapons because of Brian Kemp.
(13:38)
I believe in public safety. I did not say and nor do I believe in defunding the police. He is lying again. And I’ve never said that I believe in defunding the police. I believe in public safety and accountability. And I would have you look at my record, 11 years in the state legislature, 11 years serving on the judiciary non-civil committee, working with law enforcement, working with our sheriff’s association, working with local governments. And I’m the only person standing here who’s ever actually written standards of operating procedure for police departments, because I know what they need, and they need a governor who will invest in local officers as well as statewide enforcement.

Justin Farmer (14:12):Each of you have another rebuttal on this topic.

Brian Kemp (14:15):
Yeah, well I would tell people to please check the record because we have given state law enforcement pay raises. We did one this past year. We did law enforcement grants of a $1,000 to local law enforcement when many other counties and locals jurisdictions wouldn’t do that with federal COVID money, showing our appreciation for our men and women in law enforcement. And I would tell you to go check the record, because miss Abrams on CNN got asked the question, would she defund the police, and she said, “Yes. We have to reallocate resources.” That means defunding the police. She proposed in 2018 eliminating cash bail. Men and women in law enforcement know who is going to be with them, who has had their back, and will continue to have their back, and that is me. And that’s why we have the-

Brian Kemp (15:00):We’ll continue to have their back. And that is me. And that’s why we have the endorsement of 107 sheriffs around this state.

Stacey Abrams (15:07):
As I’ve pointed out before, I am not a member of the good old boys club. So no, I don’t have 107 sheriffs who want to be able to take black people off the streets, who want to be able to go without accountability. I don’t believe every sheriff wants that, but I do know that we need a governor who believes in both defending law enforcement, but also defending the people of Georgia. I have two brothers, one who has committed crimes and one who is a social worker trying to help keep people from committing crimes.
(15:34)
But my brother who commits crimes should be held accountable, but my other brother should never be pulled over for driving while black. And yet in this Georgia, he is. I’m running for governor because we lead complicated lives and we need a governor who’s willing to hold law enforcement accountable but also be supportive. And yes, pay raises have been given to state law enforcement, but local law enforcement are experiencing shortages that are not being funded by this governor. And Federal COVID money as a bonus is not the same as a plan for their investment and I’m the only one with a clear plan to invest in local law enforcement going forward.

Justin Farmer (16:07):Thank you. Let’s turn to our panel please and channel 2 political reporter, Richard Elliot.