Minnesota Senator Rob Kupec
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Transcript
34 segmentsA couple hours closer to having those couple of days off here on afternoes live, and we are broadcasting live from Swing Barrow Brewing in Moorhead. Center Avenue is wide open. There were shouts across the street, as businesses now have that easy access for you to come and check them out, whether that Starbird lounge across the street or, of course, Swing Barrel. right here where they're having their sixth birthday bash tomorrow, starting at noon going all the way to 11 o'clock tomorrow night. And since we're in Morad, I figured, well, we better contact our friend. That's State Senator Rob Kupak, who joins us over at Swingboro. Senator, welcome back. Yeah, it's a real arm twister to ask me to come to swing. Yeah, I imagine. I said, hey, you're free at four? Yep, I'll be there. I'm glad to have you here. You've been traveling a lot, though, so I don't know if you're going to be here. Yeah, it's been, we've had a little bit of official side business this week. So, you know, still senator, still got that. going on we met had some ag committee folks up and we met with some uh Sugar beet growers up in Norman County. And then also I'm on the Veterans and Military Affairs Subcommittee. And we went up to take a look at the air base up in Duluth because they're trying to get, they have F-16s right now. They're trying to transition to F-35s. The number of air guards that are going to have F-35s will be small. And we put some money in the bonding bill to give them some new facilities that will help make the cause with the federal government that they should be one of the bases that has F-35s. What helps with us? state's bought in. I know that, like, whether you're a state lawmaker, you want to see if there's local buy-in. The same thing goes from the state to the feds. If there's a buy-in from the locals, then you kind of catch people's attentions. Sugarbeats on time, it's been dry. I was just watching you look at the radar, this drought we've been, and it's been tough out there. It is, and we were, you know, we were up in. in Norman County up by Hallstead, and that's almost like the ground zero of the area that they've now upgraded into severe drought. And the sugar beets there, they kind of like late June sugar beats coming out of the ground. So the sugar content is really high, so that's good. But because some of them are so small, some of the machine that comes through and takes the leaves off, it's going to have some difficulty, I think, distinguishing, you know, what is in there and what is not. So it's going to be, it's going to. to be a tough part plus the ground if we don't get some rain it is so hard concrete pulling those beats out well and i've been watching uh obviously on my side of the river i i didn't grow up with sugar beets you know we had barley we had wheat we had corn soybeans uh they've had some moisture back back home here in the valley though i mean i've been seeing some of the corn cubs uh that people have been pulling off just to show us small they've been You're a former current meteorologist. I don't even know what question to ask you. I mean, we're in the cycle. It feels like forever this year. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's thunderstorm, so it's always hit and miss in nature. And that area did catch a little bit of rain on...
Wednesday night, so that was good for them up there. But it is, it's that, it's trail, it's Norman, it's into Polk, Grand Forks, Northern Cass, Northwest Clay. That's the area. It's like everything has missed them up until it's gone south. It's gone north. And that area in particular is the driest of the dry. We have that feast or famine when it comes to the weather in this part of the world. And it seems like we have been in a lot of famine when it comes to that moisture. Back to the legislative duties. Obviously, the session comes up after an election. I do have to ask you, we just got done with the August primary, just what, like two weeks ago. Anything stand out to you in the results of that? You know, I mean, I wasn't surprised, I guess, necessarily by... Who won some of these races? I was shocked at the margin of some of those wins, but I want to hear from you on that. Yeah, well, a couple of things. I think, you know, on the statewide races, some of the polling. Polling has gotten more and more difficult, and for a primary, there were some bad polls out ahead of the race. Absolutely. And so I think some of the margins, I was, I'm not completely surprised that Peggy Flanagan won the Senate primary. I was surprised at how big the margin was. Absolutely. Well, and at words. out now that there's some actors out there that are putting out bad polls on purpose. I don't know if that's in Minnesota, but it's something that's been kind of injected into this election is just very bad polls because you're right. There were some polls that showed Angie Craig, Peggy Flanagan, neck and neck, and it was not on election night. It was pretty overwhelming. You're obviously going on to the November, we got this campaign underway. Do you like having an August primary? You know, here's the deal. We were talking about this. Like, where would you move it to? June. Yes, June, but we're still, you know, we are in a legislative session up until May. And, you know, I think. As it is, you're always kind of thinking about the next election, but you need to be concentrating on the work that you need to be doing in St. Paul. And if you moved at a primary up to June, I think that would run afoul a lot of probably getting the work done at the legislature. That's fair. And July is a lost cause for anything of importance because people are thinking like, 4th of July. They don't want to be thinking about it. Okay, I need to go find my polling place. Yes. So a little bit of a runway in the state legislature. And, you know, and Ethan, you know, I was thinking. thinking about it even for the congressional race. I think, you know, part of the problem that Angie Craig had was she was tied up in Washington a lot. And she did not, I don't think she got to get out and see as much as Minnesota as she possibly could have been in an election. And meanwhile, you know, Lieutenant Governor. who's here as lieutenant governor traveling around the state and then has that ability through june and july to hit up all those places now that's fair point uh well i'd ask you know because obviously uh this season is upon us uh somebody was wondering you're going to be shocked about this in our tax club at 35270 ask rob if draft kings will ever get legalized in minnesota um
You know, I'm happy to answer that every time. You know, if you could go on the predictive market and make a bet on that would happen. It's such a weird, it's such a weird breakdown in the legislature of how it does not. It's not a partisan issue. It is not at all a partisan issue. And there's Democrats and Republicans who are just as passionate against it as those that are for it. Yeah. That's one of those issues that the party line draw is very unique. The other, this is now a point of contention, and it's not a Minnesota thing, it's a national thing. Flock cameras, they're here, they're in the metro area. I saw that some colleagues in the legislature are going to be offering some legislation again to try to wrangle that in. I'm just curious your thoughts on flock cameras here. You know, what you don't want, and this is always the problem when you contract out with a private entity like a flock, is that you. do not have the control that you would like over that data and who that's getting shared with and used. I mean, there are things where those cameras are really important. For instance, we have had a huge problem in parts of Moorhead with street racers, and they've been able to put some of those cameras in those places where they're street racing and figure out who those people were. Okay. And guess what? They left that area. They found another one where there weren't any cameras. But it is always a super delicate balance between, you know, trying to figure out and catch bad guys and not trample on people's civil liberties. Right. probably you know the worry that you have particularly with these block cameras is that they're going to be used uh to track people that you shouldn't be tracking they're not they're not going after criminals or people that are doing that are bad actors see and that's why if i were back in one of those chairs that you are currently and i would i would very much entertain the conversation because as it just pointed out there's good that can be used in these i know some people just want to no none whatsoever same with data centers in that conversation But there is a benefit to some of it. People are using smart apps or using AI, so guess what? You have to have the storage capacity hence data centers. Right. When it comes to the flock cameras, the only way you're going to get the assurance that it's not being abused, in my opinion, is if you have some ordinance or a state law that prohibits the retention or a third party from abusing that data being retained. So I would entertain it because people just want some assurance that, hey, If you're not doing anything wrong, we're not actually monitoring you, but people don't want to believe that at face value. And you're absolutely right. And so the devil will be in the details. Can we put up firewalls that would protect it? Otherwise, I would say, then I would not be in favor of having them there. But you also need to remember. think about in your personal life all of the things you are posting on social media and putting out there um and it's just so so i have discovered and maybe i'm late to this guy but there's this guy jose monkey and he says find me jose monkey and he just do a twirl around and the things and he doesn't use google lens
says, I'm not doing that. I'll do it. But the way he is able to figure out where you are by just a couple of clues in that video, you're not, you know, whatever you're showing when you're posting, you're not, it's really easy to figure out. And this guy, he's wildly entertaining. I suggest you watch them. Okay, I'll watch, but I'm not playing along. That's what I'll say. Rob Kupeg, so I've got state senator over here in Minnesota as we're hanging out at this swing barrel brewing. The. The difference in that, in my opinion, and it's just my opinion. When we're posting on or if we have our phones, we can shut our location off. I encourage people to do that. I know some people in this line of work that share their location with everybody. I ain't one of them. This is a different type of monitoring that we're not buying into, but I can tell you this, Senator. When I brought up flock, I think it was two weeks ago, flock safety emailed me directly during that conversation saying, hey, remember that trailer that was stolen by the Veterans Honor Flight? We used the flock safety cameras to find who did it. So there's benefits to it. It's just some of the guardrail. And every time you watch, if you watch any British crime drama, they, it is, go to the CCTV, right? The closed caption TV, they... The amount, we are way behind. And I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is incredible when you get over to Europe. Everything, you are always under surveillance. And I don't know that that's a good thing. I don't think we want to be in that surveillance state, but it is, you know, I think we've got to find where the balance is on that. This next legislative session, you know, we got bonding that we've taken care of, but what are some of those big items that we're looking at that need to be accomplished here? Yeah, I think, you know, the biggest thing I think that's going to be forced upon us is what we're going to do with HR1. We know that there's going to be a lot of cuts coming, and particularly in Minnesota, we do social services at the county level, so we know our counties are going to be under an enormous strain. Medicaid cuts big time. Absolutely. Snap benefits that you're going to have to pay more to administer fewer benefits. And so we're going to need to figure out as a state, how are we going to help our counties? Because, you know, when I talk to county commissioners, they're saying don't take away inflation, take away health insurance going up, take away raises to people. We're probably looking at a 6% property tax increase just to meet HR 1. Wow. And so. We need to as a state figure out how we are going to help our county partners in meeting this challenge that's coming from the federal government. Well, I'm glad you're talking about it now because H.R.1, of course, for those of you that are listening, is that big, beautiful bill that was passed at the beginning of the last Congress that some of those delayed cuts are coming after this midterm election. That was done by design to offset some of the negatives that they don't want you knowing about before you go cast your ballot here in November. Senator, anything I missed, I just wanted to get caught up with you. You've been busy man. Yeah, I mean, you know, I would also say, you know, the next legislative session, you know, things around, anything that's around affordability, things that we can do. And, you know, like the other thing I told, you know, sugar beet growers when I was meeting with them, sometimes the biggest thing we can do as a state is don't put anything else on their back because they're already in a tough. Sugar's in a tough spot, other commodities that they grow, corn, soy, all in a tough spot.
Let's not dump anything else on them as a state and see what we can do to help them in other ways, but let's not put any more burdens about them. It's a wise take, and I'm sure very appreciated by those that we're listening. Senator, it's always a pleasure. We'll do this again soon here in a couple weeks, all right? Absolutely. Sounds good. I'll get a beer now. Sounds good. State Senator Rob Kupak, he could join them for a beverage. We're hanging out over at Swing Barrel. That's right on Center Avenue, which is now open. And, of course, this place, I think people found that excuse that I was referring to saying, you know what, whatever you've got to tell the boss, you know, and just find it, then get over to Swing Barrel. Some of you have obliged to that request, and I appreciate you joining us over here. We'll get you caught up with some of these messages, and we'll come back to more afternoons live right after this.