ND Dem-NPL Calls for Transparency as GOP Goes Crawling Back to Jaeger

Less than two months after nominating Window-Peeping Will Gardner for Secretary of State, Republicans plead with Al Jaeger to run as an Independent

(BISMARCK, ND) — After news broke last weekend that the North Dakota Republican Party-endorsed candidate for Secretary of State Will Gardner was arrested in a 2006 peeping tom incident, the GOP was left scrambling for a replacement. So, they decided to go back to the candidate they cast aside after 26 years in office: Al Jaeger.

While Republican Gardner backers issue denials of any knowledge of Gardner’s behavior, Jaeger is mounting an independent campaign with the help of his establishment friends to try and keep the job he’s clung on to for over two and a half decades. But many questions remain around how the campaign will work and how it will interact with the Republican party infrastructure, and North Dakotans deserve answers.

“The whole debacle has been embarrassing for North Dakotans,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Democratic-NPL. “It’s a stunning reversal: the Republicans went from questioning Al Jaeger’s competency for yet another term in office to the unusual route of an ad hoc endorsement. Given the extraordinary circumstance this race is now in, voters deserve the utmost transparency from the ND GOP and the Secretary of State’s office. The North Dakota Republican Party, by not properly vetting their first choice and now supporting a candidate who has stood in the way of modernizing the office, have shown they are would rather hold onto power than better the lives of their constituents.”

ICYMI: Cramer’s Failure to Pass a Farm Bill, Support for Tariffs Could Cost Him

Cramer Deserves Blame on House Farm Bill Failure, “Wait-and-See” Attitude on Trade War

Jacobs: “The lesson for politicians is, in North Dakota, you can’t escape farm policy”  

 

(BISMARCK, ND) — Kevin Cramer’s strategy of tethering himself to the far-right flank of his party isn’t working out too well – especially when that ship sank the Farm Bill and still leaves the threat of a trade war looming over North Dakota soybean farmers during the height of their planting season – potentially costing them sales to Russia and Brazil.

Today, former Grand Forks Herald publisher and editor Mike Jacobs highlighted crucial points about how in a state that weights agriculture policy heavily in elections, Cramer’s failure to pass a Farm Bill, combined with his do-nothing approach on a potential trade war and sloppiness in the tax bill could spell trouble for him in November.

“Kevin Cramer bears responsibility for sinking the Farm Bill in the House not just for endorsing a hostage provision that killed the bill, but for lying to North Dakotans by working behind the scenes to eliminate the sugar program while publicly taking credit for the ultimate failure of that poison-pill policy,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the North Dakota Dem-NPL. “North Dakotans have a proud farming legacy, and they won’t forget his Farm Bill failure. They also won’t forget his repeated praise of the president’s threatened trade war that still looms large and while the administration has garnered no concrete promises from China. For soybean farmers who – at the end of planting season – have already lost sales to Russia, their ability to plan for the future has been severely compromised. If there’s one thing Kevin Cramer has proven time and again, it’s that what he’s demonstrated on ag policy: He can’t lead, he can’t achieve results, and he can’t say no to anyone who might help his career.”

Read highlights from the Grand Forks Herald.

Grand Forks Herald: Jacobs: Farm bill could mean shift in election outlook

  • This year’s election campaign in North Dakota has shifted, perhaps significantly. The issue had seemed to be Donald Trump and which candidate supported him while keeping North Dakota issues in mind.

  • This changed last week when the U.S. House failed to pass a farm bill. To be clear, the vote had little to do with farm policy, but that doesn’t change the fact that farm policy is placed in peril by the vote. No farm bill means no funding for farm programs. No funding for farm programs means more risk for farmers. More risk for farmers means more volatility in the electorate.

  • This has big implications for North Dakota. Farm policy is a perennial issue in the state, and has often been a decisive one. That could happen this year.

  • The House action last week creates a two-edged opportunity for Heitkamp. First, Republican leadership in the House can plausibly be blamed for the vote, and Cramer can be linked to the leadership, and by extension he can be blamed, too.

  • He’s said he wants to be there representing North Dakota when important decisions are made, and he was there when the vote was taken. He voted in favor of the bill, but that doesn’t exempt him from culpability. Whatever his role, the bill didn’t pass.

  • The same thing can be said about the potential consequence of the Trump administration’s threatened tariffs on imports from China. China is a major buyer of soybeans, one of North Dakota’s leading farm products. The tariffs have been suspended while talks proceed, but the threat of a trade war hasn’t vanished entirely. Cramer and House candidate Kelly Armstrong have adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude, evidently hoping that the president’s posturing will achieve the reforms in Chinese policy toward U.S. patents, a key issue for American innovators.

  • Another farm-related issue presents a similar opportunity to question Cramer’s influence in Congress. Tax reform originated in the House, and was passed in both chambers. The bill included a provision harmful to sugar growers and processors. The oversight was caught and fixed. A sharp eye for North Dakota’s interests might have caught it in the original draft of the bill.

  • The current farm bill expires in September, and last week’s vote means that work on the new bill likely will move to the Senate. This gives Heitkamp an opportunity to demonstrate leadership on farm issues just ahead of the election.

  • Another Washington policy debate also has implications for North Dakota farmers, the renewable fuels standards. This requires refiners to include bio-fuels in their refinery output. An exemption has been proposed for small refineries, one of which is in North Dakota, at Mandan.

  • In some ways, farm policy is a legacy issue; many North Dakotans come from farms a generation or two back. That showed up dramatically in the 2016 primary election, when North Dakotans voted on a measure that would have allowed corporate ownership of up to 640 acres of land used for dairy and swine operations. Three-fourths of voters said no; opposition didn’t dip below 70 percent in a single county. The point is that city voters remain attached to farms and interested in farm policy; they perceived a threat to farming.

  • The lesson for politicians is, in North Dakota, you can’t escape farm policy.

ICYMI: Experts Wonder Whether Trump Has Lost His Leverage to China to Avoid Trade War

(BISMARCK, ND) – Amid growing threats of a global trade war last week, this weekend the administration backed off tariffs against China, saying “we’re putting a trade war on hold.” After initially announcing a deal that promised $200 billion in U.S. commodity buys – which China denied and experts called actually achieving “a tricky task” – U.S. officials quickly backtracked, calling that figure as a “rough ballpark estimate.”

Now that no concrete deal is on the table, experts are questioning whether the administration’s tough talk on tariffs will actually yield results, one of those experts sayingthe U.S. will have to ask itself, “whether going through all this was worth it.” According to the New York Times, an expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said “the United States’ response to China’s ‘predatory behavior’ had been put on hold ‘in exchange for things yet to occur, and Mnuchin won’t tell us what they are.’”

Here’s some analysis on what isn’t included as part of trade discussions with China:

Washington Post: China is winning Trump’s trade war

  • It was easy to miss the U.S.-China trade statement that the White House released Saturday, right in the midst of royal wedding mania. But it’s hard to hide that China looks as if it’s winning President Trump’s trade skirmish — so far.
  • Notice China didn’t agree to a specific amount. On Friday, Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, was telling reporters that the Chinese had agreed to reduce the deficit by “at least” $200 billion. China quickly denied that, and, a day later, the official statement didn’t have a concrete number, a seeming victory for the Chinese.
  • What about the IP fight? The real battle against the Chinese was supposed to be over intellectual property theft, which the Trump administration says has been going on for years and costs the U.S. economy $225 billion to $600 billion a year. Trump was supposed to get the Chinese to stop stealing U.S. business secrets and technology. On this front, the statement was brief and lackluster, saying that both sides agreed to “strengthen cooperation” (diplomatic speak for not doing much) and that China would “advance relevant amendments” to its patent law.
  • Dan DiMicco, a former steel CEO who has been a big supporter of Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, tweeted shortly after the statement came out, “Not good enough. Time to take the gloves off.” He followed that up with: “Did [the] president just blink? China and friends appear to be carrying the day.” Fox Business host Lou Dobbs summed up the situation this way: “Chinese say ‘no deal.’”
  • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted, “Why do U.S. officials always fall for China trickery?” Wall Street Journal trade reporter Bob Davis tweeted that the big takeaway is: “Trump administration gets rolled by the Chinese.”
  • It was always unlikely that the United States would get China to alter its marquee economic growth plan, but it’s yet another reminder that the Chinese gave a few concessions on things that aren’t sacrifices for China.

New York Times: U.S. Suspends Tariffs on China, Stoking Fears of a Loss of Leverage

  • The Trump administration has suspended its plan to impose sweeping tariffs on China as it presses forward with trade talks, a gesture that will temporarily ease tensions between the two nations but rapidly increase pressure on President Trump to secure the type of tough deal that he has long said is necessary to protect American workers.
  • “We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Mr. Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”
  • The reprieve came as many crucial details remained undecided, and trade experts warned that the suspension of tariffs could undercut Mr. Trump’s leverage and thrust the United States back into the kind of lengthy — and ultimately fruitless — negotiations with China that have bogged down previous administrations.
  • On Saturday, both countries released a joint statement that offered little detail about what had been agreed to, other than holding another round of discussions in China. Mr. Mnuchin said on Sunday that the countries had agreed on a “framework” under which China would increase its purchases of American goods,while putting in place “structural” changes to protect American technology and make it easier for American companies to compete in China.
  • And while Trump administration officials said last week that China was prepared to increase its purchases of American products by $200 billion by 2020, Chinese officials had pushed back on that claim, and the joint statement the two sides released lacked any such dollar figure.
  • Mr. Kudlow said on Sunday that the $200 billion number was a “rough ballpark estimate” that both sides had used.
  • “It certainly looks like President Trump is failing us on China,” said Daniel DiMicco, the chairman of the trade lobbying group Coalition for a Prosperous America and a former trade adviser to Mr. Trump during his campaign. “He is letting down all those who voted for him and rewarding those who didn’t. It appears the swamp got him.”
  • Some supporters of the administration’s tough stance on China now fear that the White House is pursuing a quicker deal that would reduce the trade deficit — a longtime goal of Mr. Trump’s — as well as forestall a trade war, butsacrifice more ambitious goals the administration had discussed for reforming the Chinese economy.
  • Derek Scissors, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the United States’ response to China’s “predatory behavior” had been put on hold “in exchange for things yet to occur, and Mnuchin won’t tell us what they are.”

FARM BILL SABOTAGE: As Farm Bill Fails, Cramer Says Playing Politics with Farm Bill “Not Inappropriate”

#FlashbackFriday: Cramer attempted to hold the Farm Bill Hostage in 2014, touted his clout on Farm Bill as reason not to run for Senate

(BISMARCK, ND) — He’s at it again: After statewide criticism for his work to sink the Farm Bill in to 2014 over a political provision, Kevin Cramer again put his own party loyalties ahead of North Dakota farmers’ livelihoods by encouraging the House Freedom Caucus’ efforts to sink the Farm Bill over yet another political provision.

Last night – before the Farm Bill failed this morning – Cramer told KVLY’s Chris Berg made it clear he would not fight back against poison-pill provisions that could tank the bill, saying it was “not inappropriate” for the right-wing Freedom Caucus to insert completely unrelated immigration policies into this fight. Watch the full video of the exchange here.

Sound familiar? That’s because Cramer tried to pull a similar trick in 2014 through his efforts to hold up the Farm Bill over a similar political provision. Back then, his partisan games were admonished by editorial boards across the state – from the Grand Forks Herald which branded him an “ideologue who values purity above results,” to the Williston Herald, which said “We feel Cramer needs to take a lesson from Hoeven and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in how to wield influence.“

Just a reminder, when Cramer first decided against asking for a promotion, he touted his influence on the Farm Bill as a reason not to run. Now North Dakotans want to know: Where was his influence today when the Farm Bill failed?

“This time, Kevin Cramer has gone too far. After jeopardizing the Farm Bill in 2014 Kevin Cramer once again held it hostage for political games that help him cozy up the D.C. swamp bosses. But this time, compromising the futures of North Dakota’s farmers will not stand,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL. “By defending a poison pill provision, Cramer once again abdicated his responsibility to North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers who depend on his lone voice in Congress to stand up for them. But just like in 2014, he was more than eager to throw them by the wayside. North Dakotans need a fighter who will have their backs in the Senate – who will build bridges to get a strong Farm Bill passed, instead of spending their time defending dangerous and petty politics as ‘not inappropriate.’ We’ve had enough.”

ICYMI: ‘Hamm-handed’ confession shows Cramer (R-Harold Hamm) running for all the wrong reasons

“Serving North Dakotans or the country might not have been a deciding factor for Kevin Cramer running for the United States Senate, but out-of-state billionaire Harold Hamm offering up big bucks definitely was.”

(BISMARCK, ND) – Kevin Cramer (R-Harold Hamm) is showing us what Washington swamp politics really look like. This week, he admitted that a desire to serve the citizens of North Dakota wasn’t what finally dragged Kevin Cramer into this year’s campaign for U.S. Senate – after initially backing out. According to Cramer’s interview with WDAY, it was an out-of-state billionaire who signed on to bankroll his campaign.

The admission is pretty startling – even for a politician widely known for his penchant to make careless and inappropriate remarks. His confession begs the question – is Kevin Cramer involved in this race for himself and Washington insiders or for the residents of North Dakota?

Watch Cramer’s Hamm-handed confession here. Highlights from the column below:

Forum: McFeely: Cramer’s admission is Hamm-handed

  • A public servant should be swayed by public service and the desire, regardless of political affiliation or ideology, to do good things for constituents, no matter how a candidate might define “good things.”

  • But those are not the worst reasons. No, that distinction, the absolute most miserably insufficient reason to run, is to have an out-of-state industrialist with a direct interest in having you elected be the person who finally persuaded you. North Dakota, meet Kevin Cramer. Oh, and Harold Hamm, who is important to this story, too.

  • According to Cramer, Hamm is the person who pushed him over the line to run for the Senate. He said so in an interview with WDAY-TV[.]

  • “It took months to get him to run. He said ‘no’ to other Republicans. ‘No’ to the president. He didn’t want to risk losing his seat in the House,” WDAY’s narrator said. “But it was a call from oil tycoon Harold Hamm, whose net worth is $18 billion, that finally tipped the scales.”

  • Not North Dakotans, not the country. A wealthy out-of-state oil man who promised to raise a lot of money. That’s the who and why that tripped Cramer’s trigger.

  • It’s always telling to know what compels people to make major decisions. Harold Hamm compelled Kevin Cramer. What does that tell you?

Cramer’s Caucus Targets Crop Insurance

After Telling Farmers They’ll Have to Tighten Their Belts on Crop Insurance in 2018, Cramer’s Republican Study Committee Calls for Crop Insurance Cuts

(BISMARCK, ND) — Make no mistake: North Dakota farmers hoping for strong crop insurance programs in the 2018 Farm Bill can’t count on Cramer.

In February, Cramer told North Dakota farmers not to look for crop insurance increases in the 2018 Farm Bill, saying they would have to “make the same amount of money go a little farther.” But last month, North Dakota farmers learned Cramer and his fellow D.C. swamp-buddies at the Republican Study Committee (RSC) have a lot more planned than a little belt-tightening – recommending significantly chopping the government’s share of crop insurance in half in their 2019 budget recommendation, in part by “eliminating the government’s reimbursement to crop insurance companies for administrative expenses.”

Cramer and his cronies certainly don’t think much of crop insurance – even quoting Farms and Free Enterprise to characterize the critical safety net as “less about insurance and more about providing subsidies to farmers.”

Over 93 percent of the farmland in North Dakota is covered by the Crop Insurance Program, but apparently Cramer thinks the vast majority of our farmers are living too high on the hog.

“Kevin Cramer has already shown his willingness to throw farmers under the bus to stay in the good graces of his DC Republican friends and advance his own career, but to take away a crucial safety net for North Dakota’s farmers is downright cruel,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Democratic-NPL. “Crop insurance is a backbone program for North Dakota’s agriculture community, and cutting premium support in half puts farmers and other agricultural producers at risk of losing everything through no fault of their own. It’s clear: No program and no North Dakotan is too sacred for Cramer to betray when it comes to pleasing his Washington pals – and our farmers won’t soon forget it.”

AUDIO: Cramer Again Holding Up Farm Bill To Score Points In Washington

LISTEN: Repeating his mistakes from 2014, Cramer is a broken record –stymieing critical Farm Bill negotiations with partisan politics

(BISMARCK, ND) – Kevin Cramer cemented his position as an out-of-touch politician this week, confessing that passage of the Farm Bill is being delayed in Congress by right-wing political provisions. You have to hear it to believe it – asked by a constituent about the bill, Cramer lamented that his party was being “held hostage” by American families struggling to put food on the table.

LISTEN HERE.

“Typical Cramer – always putting himself first, and his Washington spin on anything that might help his own political ambitions. His D.C. double-speak didn’t fool anyone when he held the Farm Bill hostage in 2014, and it’s not fooling North Dakota farmers now,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of North Dakota Dem-NPL. “We know what he’s gearing up to do – hold the most important legislation for North Dakota’s ag community hostage again over a political provision, and North Dakota farmers won’t stand for it.”

This is nothing new for Cramer, who was widely criticized by North Dakota’s media for threatening to upend the last Farm Bill in 2014. North Dakota’s farmers, already struggling to recover from last year’s drought, are being left out to dry by their lone vote in Congress. Traditionally the Farm Bill enjoys broad bipartisan support – but Cramer is too busy helping D.C. partisan politicians are play games – risking the Farm Bill’s passage to score points in an election year.

By stuffing the bill chock-full of partisan talking points, Cramer shows he’s happy to put the state’s agricultural economy at risk to please his party bosses in Washington. Make no mistake, Cramer is treating North Dakota’s farming community like a bargaining chip while asking struggling Americans to tighten their belts.

ICYMI from NDxPlains: Cramer (R-Harold Hamm) Changed His Mind on U.S. Senate Race Only After Out-Of-State Billionaire Pledged Support

So much for draining the swamp…

(BISMARCK, ND) – Yesterday in an interview that aired on WDAY, Kevin Cramer admitted that it wasn’t North Dakotans who got him to reconsider and jump into the U.S. Senate race – it was an out-of-state billionaire worth $19B who pledged to be his national finance chair.

It begs the question – what was Kevin Cramer assured from Harold Hamm? Cramer has a history of using his campaigns to line his own pockets and it’s estimated that he’s nearly doubled his net worth since he was elected to Congress. This just goes to show – once again – that Cramer is in this race for himself, not for North Dakotans.

Read more:

NDxPlains: Cramer Admits Oil Tycoon Harold Hamm was Deciding Factor in Senate Run

  • In a locally televised interview, Kevin Cramer admitted to what I speculated early on about his decision to enter the U.S. Senate race. It was billionaire, out-of-state, oil tycoon Harold Hamm that changed his mind. Hamm promised to be Cramer’s finance chairman if he took the political risk. Cramer had rejected other calls for him to jump in. He even publicly announced he wouldn’t run for the Senate because he was “a man of the House.”

  • It wasn’t North Dakotans that convinced Cramer to change his mind. It wasn’t even the President of the United States. By his own admission, it was an out-of-state, multi-billionaire oil tycoon in Harold Hamm that was his deciding factor.

  • As I wrote earlier this year, why was Hamm such a large influence on Cramer taking this risk? Is it simply the offer to help him raise much needed money for the campaign? Was there something more that was “pretty compelling”? We don’t have that answer, but we do have another North Dakota example to reflect upon.

  • With his public admission that it wasn’t even North Dakota residents who convinced him to run for the Senate, but rather Harold Hamm who changed his mind, one can wonder if he is possibly looking to help himself in the long-run.

Cramer’s Club: Eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard

Kevin Cramer and the Republican Study Committee advocate killing the RFS

(BISMARCK, ND) — Kevin Cramer is no friend to ethanol producers. Over and over again, Cramer has proposed eliminating completely the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) – a policy which mandates certain blend levels in biodiesel fuels and is a key driver of ethanol production. Even though that policy could put North Dakota’s $640 million ethanol industry at risk, Cramer again pushed to do away with RFS just last month.

Why would Kevin turn his back on North Dakota? Because his Washington buddies told him to.

A member of the Republican Study Committee, Cramer proposed reforming RFS to “end ethanol fuel-blending mandates” and implementing policies ‘mirroring’ the Renewable Fuel Standard Elimination Act as part of the group’s policy reform wish list for the 2019 budget.

“It’s no secret – from tariffs and trade to the Renewable Fuel Standard – Kevin Cramer is no friend of North Dakota’s ag community, leaving farmers and producers by the wayside in favor of the DC-swamp establishment,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Democratic-NPL. “Even though it would put North Dakota’s ethanol industry on the road to ruin, Cramer is forcing the Renewable Fuel Standard toward the chopping block. Our farmers and producers need stronger, not weaker policies that help them thrive, but for thatthey can’t count on Cramer – he’ll turn his back to them every time.”

ICYMI: China Stops Buying Soybeans Despite Cramer Claims

The report comes days after Cramer dismissed farmers’ fears as “hysterics”

(BISMARCK, ND) — You just can’t trust Cramer: Despite Cramer’s relentless attempts to mislead North Dakota’s farmers – insisting their very real concerns about the harmful impact the Trump Administration’s tariffs could have on their livelihoods are nothing but political “hysteria” – North Dakota farmers aren’t buying it. And neither are the experts: According to CNBC, China has been canceling millions of bushels of soybeans over the past three weeks. It was reported that essentially zero new orders are being made.

For weeks, Cramer has hung his hat on the insistence that “very few places in the world grow soybeans,” so China will eventually cave to U.S. pressure, “because three times a day, there’s a meal in China. 1.4 billion people have to eat.” But despite Cramer’s claims, China is shopping around to places like Brazil, proving – as farmers warned – China might not “need us every bit as we need them.”

All of this comes on the heels of the Chinese government threatening a 25 percent tariff on soybeans, corn, and other agricultural products if Trump Administration continues with its misguided trade policies.

“Does Cramer think North Dakota farmers are blind? Despite their warnings about what a tariffs-induced trade war could mean for our ag economy, Cramer has been hellbent on trying to convince them that they don’t know their own business,” said Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Democratic-NPL. “Now that China has halted soybean buys in the U.S. and is shopping around to other countries – will Cramer finally stand up for them? It just goes to show North Dakotans can’t trust Cramer. He would rather play politics with our farmers’ futures and advance his own career every time.”

CNBC: Angst hangs over farm belt after reports that China stopped buying US soybeans

  • Farm country is worried about reports that China has curbed buying U.S. soybeans due to the ongoing trade spat.

  • “Using soybeans as a retaliation for other trade disputes is really worrisome for farmers,” said Gregg Fujan, a soybean grower in Nebraska. “Those international markets are critical to our profitability. So hopefully the people doing those negotiations can come to an agreement and we can get this worked out.”

  • China buys roughly half of the U.S. soybean exports, and about 1 in 3 rows of soybeans grown on the nation’s farms goes to the world’s second-largest economy, according to the American Soybean Association.

  • In the three weeks ending April 26, China canceled just over 196,000 metric tons (or about 7.2 million bushels) of U.S. beans for the current marketing year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s roughly equivalent to filling up the cargo holds of four mid-sized bulk ships.

  • Brazil, though, enjoyed record volumes of soybean exports last month, according to Anec, the country’s grain exporter group. Anec put exports at just over 11.6 million tons in April, or about 1 million above the March tally.

  • Soren Schroder, CEO of agricultural commodities dealer Bunge, said during a Bloomberg interview on Wednesday that U.S. soybean sales to China have essentially stopped. “All the business that’s being conducted with China now is being conducted from non-U.S. origins,” he said.

VIDEO: Cramer admits out-of-state billionaire Harold Hamm was the deciding factor in reconsidering Senate race

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-Harold Hamm) won’t act in the best interest of North Dakotans

(BISMARCK, ND) – Yesterday in an interview that aired on WDAY, Kevin Cramer admitted that it wasn’t North Dakotans who prompted him to reconsider a run for Senate – it was a promise from an out-of-state billionaire to be his campaign’s National Finance Chair.

You read that right.

Kevin Cramer fessed up that nothing was more persuasive to get him into the U.S. Senate race than a phone call from a man worth a whopping $19 billion dollars. So who does Kevin Cramer represent – the constituents he was elected to serve or an out-of-state billionaire?

“Kevin Cramer says he wants to drain the swamp but we now know that he’s nothing more than a lap dog for out-of-state billionaire Harold Hamm,” said Dem-NPL Executive Director Scott McNeil. “Cramer has never been in politics for the right reasons – that’s why he uses his campaigns to enrich his family and has nearly doubled his net worth since he was elected to Congress. Now, he’s a puppet for out-of-state billionaires, which begs the important question – what kind of parachute deal has Hamm promised Cramer if he loses?”

ICYMI: Schneider Opposes Tariffs, Armstrong “Differ[s]” in First Debate

The two candidates for the US House of Representatives squared off at the North Dakota Newspaper Association’s Annual Conference

(BISMARCK, ND) — North Dakota Democratic-NPL endorsed candidate Mac Schneider and his Republican opponent Kelly Armstrong held their first debate in Bismarck over the weekend.

While Armstrong has spoken favorably about the administration’s trade policies prior to Saturday’s debate, Mac Schneider again stood by North Dakota farmers in opposing tariffsthat could put North Dakota agriculture at a competitive disadvantage in the near term and threaten access to markets in the long term.

From the Grand Forks Herald: First faceoff: U.S. House candidates focus on farm bill, ag issues in first debate

  • The two differed in thoughts on how to handle trade with China. The U.S. should play a role in making sure China is not violating trade agreements and is “playing by the rules,” Schneider said, but he disagreed with President Donald Trump’s tactics of putting tariffs on China. Schneider noted the move has resulted in retaliation from China, including the country’s announcements to increase its tariffs on U.S. soybeans.

  • “If you are for less trade, you are for fewer farmers,” Schneider said, calling for enforcement action instead of implementing tariffs.

  • “It’s time to try something different,” [Sen. Kelly Armstrong] said as he called China is a bad actor.