Where I stand.

Yes, raise the federal minimum wage. But no realistic raise outruns what housing, healthcare, and power now cost. The squeeze comes from rules we wrote ourselves, rules that enforce artificial scarcity in the basics and generate windfalls for the people who already own things while working people get squeezed a little more every year. That's why the cost fights come first. And the other half of the equation: the value workers create should land in their paychecks, not just in their shareholders' portfolios. Raise the floor, and bring the costs back down to meet it.

The tax code isn't too soft on the wealthy because the rates are low. It's too soft because it's so complicated that anyone who can afford the lawyers carves their way out. I'd radically simplify it so the people at the top actually pay what the rest of us already do. The national debt is why this matters: interest payments are now one of our largest line items, and that's money that builds nothing. I don't support austerity, and I won't pretend I see a magic bullet. A simpler code the wealthy can't optimize their way through, real scrutiny of what we spend, and a Federal Reserve that stays independent, whoever the president is. That's where it starts.

Solar and heat pumps have gotten cheap and reliable enough that this should be easy. Every roof that wants panels should be able to get them at an easy financed rate and sell power back to the grid. This is climate policy and cost-of-living policy at the same time: we have an energy cost problem, and the cheaper, cleaner option is sitting right above us. I will back the federal financing to make it the default. And nuclear belongs beside it: demonstrably safe, far cleaner than fossil fuels. Keep Seabrook running, and give small modular reactors a real shot.

AI could be genuinely transformative, for medicine and research especially, and it's also potentially extremely disruptive for working people right now. It isn't going anywhere, and we need to be clear eyed about that. It needs thoughtful regulation, and the responsible move is to make the things people fall back on, healthcare, housing, the basics, strong enough to absorb the shock, while using the powers of government aggressively when working people's homes and livelihoods are on the line. As for the data centers: I don't support building them in New Hampshire. Where they do get built, they meet high environmental standards, pay for their own power, and carry their own weight on the grid instead of passing the cost to you.

I love trains, and the Concord corridor rail link is the kind that obviously makes sense: it already cleared environmental review, and the blockers are political, not practical. I'd bring federal dollars home for rail projects that pass that common-sense test. Same for our streets: safer road design that protects people walking and biking, not just people driving through them.

New Hampshire knows the opioid crisis better than anywhere. Substance abuse is a complicated problem, and I'm not sure there's a one-size-fits-all answer. But we don't solve it by pushing it under the rug, and compassion toward people fighting addiction is the morally correct thing. I want a real, well-funded path for anyone who wants to get clean and get back on their feet, paired with the harm-reduction tools that keep people alive long enough to take it, supervised consumption sites included. I don't think we can extend infinite compassion, and if you're repeatedly a danger to the public, harsher approaches are probably necessary. But the first offer should always be a way back.

We treated college as the only respectable path and let trades education wither, and both our economy and our towns are paying for it. I want a real trades track standing next to the college track, not beneath it: apprenticeships, shop classes, direct pipelines into good careers, so a young person can stay in New Hampshire and build a life without a degree and a pile of debt.

I spent five years at a research bench. Public research funding through the NSF and NIH is the seed corn of everything America builds next: Trikafta, the drug that transformed life with cystic fibrosis, came out of that pipeline, and I'm proud to have played a small part in it. Gutting it to score a budget point is how a country stops inventing things. I'll fight to protect it.

The SSI limits haven't been raised since 1989. We tell disabled Americans they can't earn or save past a ceiling set almost forty years ago, or they lose the support they live on. There's bipartisan agreement in Congress to fix it. Nobody's made it a priority, and I will. Disabled people don't have enough of a voice in Congress, and looking after them anyway is the moral minimum for a decent society.

I won't pursue anti-police policy, and here's why: I've been to enough parts of the country to see the other side of that coin, and I don't think it's better for anyone. Police work best when their community backs them, and I want New Hampshire's officers trained, supported, and paid like the job matters. The other half is just as firm: enforcing the law is a hard job with very high standards, and if you can't meet them, you shouldn't wear the badge. Abuse the power or commit violence against a civilian, and you should be prosecuted, and prosecuted harshly.

The problem starts with the fact that we're not willing to be honest about how much our economy depends on immigrant labor. It should be far easier to immigrate here legally; the impossible system is why so much immigration happens outside it. Whole industries run on workers we refuse to give a legal way in. I would build real employment-based visas with clear terms so the people our economy already depends on can come and work in the open. And I would get serious about the instability in our own hemisphere that drives people to flee, instead of acting like it has nothing to do with us. You honor the rule of law by writing laws that match reality. That means the raids end: we deployed an anti-immigrant terror campaign that gutted the industries we need and scared legal workers off job sites, while asylum seekers who want to work are forbidden from working. ICE as it stands should be dissolved and rebuilt under leadership with standards, and its agents held to the same rule as any cop: commit violence against a civilian and you're prosecuted for it.

I'm at core a true believer in individual freedom, and a woman doesn't have equal rights in society without full authority over her own body and her own healthcare, no matter how anyone around her feels about it. The government doesn't get to override that. Codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law is a moral imperative, and I'll vote for it every chance I get.

Responsible gun ownership is a fundamental American right. I know many people who treat firearm ownership with the respect it deserves, and I want them to have that right. At the same time, mass shootings have become a fixture of modern American life, and we need to take that seriously and work toward solutions that make them less common, without punishing the millions of gun owners who did nothing wrong. I'll be honest: I won't commit to harsher restrictions on individual ownership, and I don't have the whole answer yet.

Individual freedom doesn't come with an asterisk. If you want to be a different gender, or without one, or anywhere along that spectrum, I respect it, and you have a right to dignity in public spaces. Caring about what bathroom somebody uses is extremely silly, and I'll treat it that way. In the Senate that means antidiscrimination law that unambiguously protects queer Americans, real funding for mental healthcare, and blocking grossly discriminatory policy wherever we can.

Legalize marijuana, federally and in New Hampshire. The country has fully come around on this, and it's been a major revenue source in every state around us. It's silly and backwards that NH still hasn't acted: every year of foot-dragging hands money to our neighbors and criminal records to our own people, over something most of America can buy legally.

Privacy, digital and financial both, is a core human right, and I will work to write it into law. I built privacy technology for a living: mass surveillance is a blight on a free society, and networks of automated cameras logging everyone's movements into someone's database are a step toward corporate dystopia, not toward safety. I'd support legislation banning that kind of public surveillance outright, along with a ban on subpoenas of private camera footage without the owner's consent. I get why law enforcement wants these tools, the job is hard as it is, but I don't think it's worth the tradeoff.

I believe in standing with our allies and carrying our share of keeping the world stable. I do not believe a President should take us to war without Congress, and I would restore that check. We hand an enormous share of the military budget to contractors, often without much scrutiny of whether the money is actually spent effectively, and it clearly isn't buying decisive results in the conflicts we get into: more expensive is not the same as more capable. I won't touch salaries or benefits for our armed services, but contractor and R&D spending deserves a very serious look, especially with interest on the debt now one of our largest line items.

Ukraine never chose the war against their sovereignty, and with our continued help they're going to win it. I think that's worth doing: wars of choice have no place in the modern world, and if Russia's war of choice succeeds, more will follow. This isn't charity either. Ukrainians are paying a far higher price than we ever will; the least we can do is keep the help coming.

What's happening in Gaza is abominable, and we're funding it. There is no ceasefire; Israel's leaders appear intent on full occupation of Palestine, a genocide. As Israel's chief international sponsor, we have the leverage to stop it, and we should use it: no more funding for the military campaign, and real aid flowing to Palestinians now, because their right to human dignity is not negotiable. Israel itself is a legitimate nation, and I want stability for it and the whole region. But Netanyahu is a war criminal, and I hope to see him tried as one.

No AIPAC money. No AIPAC influence. Ever.

The Iranian regime is one of the most reprehensible on Earth, and it commits atrocities against its own people. The war we started is still an idiotic mistake, and we should end it as fast as we possibly can. We've embarrassed ourselves enough, and every additional day costs the lives of our servicepeople and of Iranian civilians who never chose their government. That's unacceptable, whatever we think of the regime.

The corruption and partisanship of our Supreme Court frustrates me as much as anything in government. Creative interpretation as a means to an end is not the purpose of a court, and neither is using the appointment for personal economic gain. My preference is structural: term limits for justices, real ethics standards, and removal when they're violated. Court expansion is a last resort. But if that's what it finally takes to make government accountable again, I'd support it.

Release the Epstein files. All of them. The way our enforcement agencies have handled that case is ridiculous, and under no circumstances will I let it go until there's transparency and justice for everyone involved, no matter how powerful the names. That case is one instance of a general rule: the government works for you, and you're owed the truth about what it does.

Punishing the last scandal has never stopped the next one, because the real problem is power nobody can check. I want hard lines that aren't open to interpretation: an independent body that can say definitively when an official is profiting from office, and consequences with teeth. If removal is out of reach, freeze the assets until the term ends. Make it scary enough, and people will take the guidelines seriously. The clearest case in front of us right now is a President profiting from his own office, crypto ventures included. For the record, I support clear rules for crypto, the CLARITY Act among them; the problem is ethical standards for the presidency, not the technology. As a senator I'll use every tool of oversight, subpoenas and criminal referrals included, without hesitation.