Meanwhile in New Mexico, Senator Martin Heinrich won the Democratic
Senate primary on Tuesday.
He will face off against Republican Nella
Domenici,
who secured the Republican nomination.
She is the daughter of the last Republican senator of
New Mexico.
Both candidates ran unopposed. And Senator Heirich joins us now.
He's a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It's good to have you on,
Sir. So lay it out for us.
What's the choice for voters in your state?
You know, I think you guys have covered it really
well this morning.
This is not a normal election cycle.
It's a it's a choice between democracy and all the
freedoms that that affords us and something that doesn't look
like democracy anymore.
And so I think in New Mexico,
we cannot afford to elect an enabler to the kind
of behavior that we see from this former president.
Mr. Senator, am I right that she's
your opponent, the Republican opponent,
hedge fund executive from New York City?
So how does that play?
I know she has ties to the state,
of course, we just mentioned her father.
But how does that play into this election?
I think the biggest challenge for my opponent is that
most New Mexicans just can't see themselves in a hedge
fund executive.
It's it's a, a way of life that is completely
foreign to them and connecting with voters is kind of
at the center of what any campaign is all about.
South Senator, Obviously, one of the central issues in your
state is the border.
Of course. I'm curious about your reaction to the executive
order issued by President Biden yesterday.
Some Democrats are offended by it.
Their lawsuits planned from the ACLU,
for example. Republicans say too little,
too late, a little rich,
as you know all too well,
because they turn their backs on that bipartisan legislation earlier
this year.
A good decision, a strong order from the president.
What's your assessment? I think a necessary decision,
But it doesn't negate the fact that we really do
need to change in statute
the way that our asylum system works and reform our
asylum system fundamentally.
And you can only do that
permanently with the change in the law.
And that means that Republicans need to come back to
the table to make the the kind of permanent changes
that we need in our system,
both to secure the border and also to serve the
interests of legitimate asylum seekers.
Senator Jansaki, I wanted to ask you about abortion rights
because it's something we've been talking about a bit this
morning,
of course, with one of your colleagues,
Senator Warren and others. Tell us a little bit about
that issue in New Mexico.
And is it on front and Center for the minds
of voters?
Are they aware of the threat posed by Republicans and
an election of Trump and,
of course, maybe an election of your opponent?
How, how is that playing in the race?
Well, what I would say is that if you look
at the primary races last night,
we actually had a lot of change in New Mexico.
And it was,
it was women motivated by the Dobbs decision and other
efforts to ban IVF and,
and do these other things that take away our our
fundamental freedoms that motivated a lot of people to go
to the polls.
And if you look at where primaries changed
hands from incumbents to challengers in New Mexico last night,
much of it was motivated by this issue.
And I think it's not going away.
My opponent refuses to talk about it,
but that's not going to make the issue go away.
It's going to be a very active discussion in the
run up to November.
Senator, one of the starkest choices
on the ballot this fall in many races will be
the approach to climate change.
And I know that's something that resonates very much in
your state.
Talk to us a little bit about what voters are
telling you as to what they want to see.
Well, I think we actually have an enormous opportunity on
the Democratic side with respect to climate change
and connecting with young voters.
The the legislation that we passed with respect to energy
and climate in the last Congress was the biggest
progress that we've ever seen on this front.
But young voters don't know very much about it yet.
And so for candidates who are willing to explain just
how much we got done,
how we basically created industrial policy to build the clean
energy manufacturing plants of the future,
it really gives us an opportunity with young voters,
which is, you know, obviously has been a challenging block.
All right. Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico will
be watching the race.
Thank you so much for coming on this morning.