Staff reports

U.S. Senate candidate Rick Weiland stopped by the Argus Leader on Oct. 24 for an appearance on “100 Eyes” with managing editor Patrick Lalley. The following are highlights from their conversation. Watch the entire interview at argusleader.com.

On health care: “I want to give people a choice. Give people a choice between Medicare and private insurance. It’ll be the best thing that ever happened to health care reform in this country. … If you open up Medicare, you will force the private insurance companies to compete. You would be paying a premium. It’s in addition to what we put in every two weeks out of our checks. ... It’s going to shore up Medicare. You bring all these young people into Medicare, they’re going to pay their premium every month and not access it because they’re young and healthy.”

On Social Security: “I’m not interested at all in pushing out the retirement age. Here’s what I think we need to do to add some more solvency is take the cap off. Right now, you’d be surprised how many people don’t know that they stop paying into Social Security after $117,000. (Iowa Sen. Tom) Harkin’s bill would take (the cap) off completely over a period of time, and I support that. ... You could actually increase the monthly benefit by $65 a month, which I think would be a great thing for people who are sitting there relying on Social Security as their only source of retirement.”

On Keystone XL pipeline: “This is the biggest bunch of — I wish I could say it. ... Forty-two thousand jobs? That’s a bunch of crap. There are 35 permanent jobs for the whole project. ... But let me tell you the other reasons (for opposing the project). There’s no energy security with the Keystone. It’s an export pipeline. ... This oil is going from Canada to Port Arthur, Texas, and overseas. We don’t get any of it. It’s an export pipeline. ... There’s all the risk and no reward. The Ogallala Aquifer will be jeopardized by this Keystone XL pipeline. If there were jobs, if there were energy and minimal risk to the environment, then we ought to have that debate, but it’s not about jobs and it’s not about energy. It’s an environmental calamity waiting to happen, and I oppose it.”

On foreign policy: “I just can’t see committing our sons and daughters to another ground war in the Middle East. I think we’ve paid dearly in Iraq and Afghanistan. ... When the president several months ago wanted to arm the Syrian rebels and asked Congress to appropriate $500 million, I actually took a public statement and said no, I’m not for that. I wouldn’t support that if I was in the United States Senate. ... We armed Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviet Union. ... A couple decades later, he’s turning the guns on our own kids. … The fact that we are now trying to build an international coalition, I think that’s the only way to handle the Middle East right now. We cannot unilaterally go it alone, and I won’t support a unilateral strategy over there. I can support the airstrikes that are underway, weakening and degrading and ultimately maybe destroying ISIS. I’m all in for that and would support that.”

On same-sex marriage: “Bottom line is I believe in marriage equality. I think the Supreme Court sort of reaffirmed that just recently. It’s pretty simple for me. I don’t believe in really any form of discrimination, and I think people should be able to marry the person they love. I don’t make any apologies for that. It’s what I believe. If people don’t like that, they don’t have to vote for me.”

On abortion: “Obviously, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. I think it’s just one of those issues we all struggle with, but for me, at the end of the day I always believe ... it’s really a woman’s body, and it should be her decision. We shouldn’t be putting road blocks in the way. I don’t think anybody likes abortion, but I do support women’s reproductive freedom and their reproductive health. I’m not for overturning Roe v. Wade. I just think it should be safe, and it should be legal.”

On Ebola: “Sometimes the politics gets counterproductive in this. I don’t know if a politician, anyone running for office, a candidate, knows anything about the science, knows anything about the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and what they did right and what they did wrong. ... People jumped on this thing and created a lot of fear. I think there are funding issues. ... We need to make sure we’re funding the right things, when it comes to the CDC and the NIH. ... We seem to be rejecting science, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to what we’re talking about here.”