Andy Biggs, Sine Kerr outline their vision for Arizona

When you decide Arizona, we are just six days out from Election Day. And the battle for Arizona's highest office is reaching its peak on one side. Incumbent Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs seeking a second term. On the other, Republican Congressman Andy Biggs with his running mate, former state senator Kari Lake. They are making some moves here to speak to you, the voter, on the Republican side. So let's get right into it. Congressman Biggs and former Senator Kerr join us here in studio this morning. nice to see you both thank you for making uh the drive-in on that busy commute right you said it wasn't too bad not too bad for my side i don't know right an hour to go 32 miles okay i'll take that as a win this morning from Buckeye yes yeah let's jump in i mean we're making this last push less than a week away here to election day what has been the last few days like i know you've been making kind of a run around different cities around the state yeah we've been all over uh the place meeting with mayors and maybe in the West Valley being up in Yuma being up in Mohave County or Yavapai this week as well heading back down south again tomorrow it's we've been all over the state it's been it's been busy a lot of lot of obviously community groups you've got business groups we've got elected officials and a lot of grassroots groups. Congressman Biggs I want to ask you this because a new poll just came out from AZ High Ground. It says that you're down about 13 points from incumbent Governor Katie Hobbs. Do the polls worry you? I listened to an interview you did on KTR that said that you are optimistic. Yeah, I'm really optimistic. I mean, you just need to check that particular pollster and see how they do in the last few elections and you're going to say, ah, they're not so hot. But the reality is our internals and Katie Hobbs internals show that it's a it's a dead heat and it's it's who gets their voters out and that's really what it's about and uh polls polls uh don't don't vote but people do so yeah uh you know Cyna this is going to be the first time we'll have a lieutenant governor uh what do you hope you've had a few i guess months to kind of along the campaign trail to think what can i bring to the table if you're speaking to voters this morning what can you bring to the table as a lieutenant governor Yes, absolutely. Well, Andy chose me because of my background as a small business owner, a farmer, my work at the state senate, chairing our natural resource energy and water committee, also serving as majority whip, so that leadership experience, getting around the state as a state senator, working hard on those rural issues, water issues, and also my service with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I served there and that's what I was doing when Andy called me and so he wants me to be a very active part in the administration already proving that letting me have a lot of input on our policy positions and also to work with the legislature as we collaborate with them to bring back these 541 vetoed bills and to get them you know in proper form a lot of really good bills for Arizona that were vetoed by Katie Hobbs. And we will work collaboratively with the legislators and get Arizona turned around as quickly as we can. We have a good plan. It's a solid plan to turn our state around. And Congressman Biggs, I wanted to ask you, day one, I mean, Sina kind of talked a little bit about some of the things that you have planned, but day one, what are some of the big issues that you want to tackle here in Arizona? So for day one for us is the day after the election. We're not waiting until we're sworn in. We're going to get ready. So for us, we want to tackle affordability we have to tackle what we're going to deal with with water we want to tackle education we're 51st in the nation educational outcomes we need to tackle that as well and quite frankly we want to restore election excuse me integrity and ethics to to the to the state capital which isn't there right now we don't believe and so we want to do that and that's our push and uh our first meeting is uh actually already set for 1 30 on november 4th and and we start with the state working on the state budget getting that ready as well when you say there's a lack of integrity at the state capitol what does that mean well for us uh you look at it and you say uh out of all the governors in this country there's only one who's under criminal investigation right now and that's Katie Hobbs uh over the weekend there was another uh allegation of another pay-for-play scandal these have to you have to stop and we want transparency so so for instance on the federal dollars nobody knows what the federal amount of federal dollars coming in are we're going to make that transparent you're going to know what programs there's they're going to and you're going to know whether those programs are effective and doing their job or not we're going to be a very open transparent government that's that's what i mean mr biggs you signed a pledge to uphold the election law recently and accept the results of the election. But given your past challenges to election outcomes, what led you to sign it this time? Well, the reality is I believe in the electoral process. I believe that it's what works. And I believe that there's just been so many good steps taken in this process. I mean, in Maricopa County, for instance, they took off hundreds of thousands of names that shouldn't have been on our voter rolls. that's a huge thing to me and I believe we're going to have a free and fair election this time and that's that's so why not why not just say hey we're going to we're going to abide by this election I think it's going to be free and fair I think I think for all of us it's a matter of turnout we want voters to come out we want them to understand that I'm trusting the election I want them to come out and vote they need to come out and vote no matter what you think you need to get out and vote. So you touched on affordability a little bit. Sina, your relationship with a lot of farmers, you know, from the West Valley, a farming community, farming family, touch on water, the water issue, the data centers, your thoughts on that and how Arizona can move in the right direction in preserving one of the resources that are important to so many of our ranchers and farmers. Yeah, absolutely. So it is, you know, paramount that we have a local, stable, safe food supply and so number one keeping our farmers and ranchers in business making sure that they have the water that they need and i spent a lot of my time in the senate making sure that uh that farmers could keep their water continuing to work on that um in the west valley and the far east valley excuse me governor hobbs imposed a now illegal moratorium on new housing and so governor Biggs is going to reverse that and get home building going again, bring down the prices of homes, especially for first-time home buyers. It's a shame that they've been locked out of the market by this illegal moratorium, and that needs to be reversed. Is there something we're not seeing, and this is open to either of you, something we're not seeing now in terms of how we regulate water in Arizona that you would like to see? Well, I think that what we have to do is acknowledge how much water we have saved underground. We've got massive amounts of water underground. What needs to happen is we need to streamline perhaps some of our bureaucratic overlays that we have. We have to make sure that we're building and streamlining building infrastructure to help pull that water out, clean it up and distribute it. We've been saving that water hundreds and hundreds of millions of acre feet of water for just as such a time as this. But there's really no movement to actually utilize that. That's on one side. And the other side is we're going to have to keep pushing to get every drop we can off the Colorado River that we're entitled to. So we've touched on water. Another big obvious concern here in Arizona, border security. We've only got about a minute left. I want to know if either of you want to kind of touch on that topic this morning. Yeah, so this governor tore down physical barriers and disbanded effectively the border security task force. We're going to bring back the border security task force. We'll have a border chief appointed to coordinate with all of the the law enforcement in this state and we want to stop the the last areas of human and drug trafficking are coming in which is why we lead the nation in drug fentanyl overdose deaths we've got to bring a stop to that that's that's ridiculous all right and just in about 20 seconds or so your last push if you're speaking to voters this morning yeah you get to vote are we going to turn into California? Are we going to become Arizona, free Arizona again? And the distinction is Katie Hobbs will take you to California. We want to take you to the freest state, most prosperous state where everybody can fulfill the American dream right here in Arizona. All right, Congressman, Senator, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. I know it's going to be a busy week for you both. Yes, ma'am. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thanks for coming in.