ONE-ON-ONE with U.S. Senate candidate Kevin de Len

U.S. Senate candidate Kevin de León joins KION’s Aaron Groff in studio for an in-depth interview on topics impacting people in California and the Central Coast.

De León, currently a state senator, is challenging longtime incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein finished first in the crowded June primary with 44 percent, and de León finished second at 12 percent. However, a recent poll, published September 6th, has Feinstein at 37 percent and de León at 29 percent, with 34 percent of potential voters undecided.

In the interview, de León says, “I think it’s time we have a change. A new voice representing us in California that’s a reflection of the incredible diversity of California today, not California 20 years ago. But especially we need someone who will be on the front lines, not on the sidelines. And not someone who is going to ask us to be patient with Donald Trump with the hopes that perhaps, in the future, he can be a good president. Those are not the words you expect from the senior senator from California.”

On the topic of ICE, where de León calls to abolish ICE, but Feinstein has gone that far, he says, “since the ascendancy of Donald Trump, we have sen ICE be weaponized by the political branch of the White House to tear apart working families right here in Salinas or Watsonville or other places. ICE’s main goal objective was to deal with terrorism. To deal with cyber trafficking of pedophilia and humans, drugs, and high powered assault weapons. But what ICE has been doing was separating mothers from their children and children from their fathers.” He adds “I’m not calling for the abolishment of the Border Patrol. Every nation has the right to protect it’s own sovereignty, including the U.S. This is a whole different ball game, altogether, because ice has been highly weaponized by the political organization out of the White House.”

On his other progressive policies (single payer health care, free public college) he says “if you voted for Donald Trump, or Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or another Republican Party candidate, the policies that I have moved forward, clean air, clean water, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, moving forward in aggressive climate change policy to grow this economy and put people to work in a clean energy space, this impacts everybody.”

The election is Tuesday, November 6th.