Interview with Lucas Kunce, candidate for U.S. Senate

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Lucas Kunce, 42, is the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri.

Kunce is a Marine veteran and Jefferson City native. He ran for the party's nomination in 2022 for U.S. Senate, losing to Trudy Busch Valentine.

Lucas Geisler: Can you explain your work and political history?

Lucas Kunce: Sure. So I'm kind of like your normal Missouri guy, right? My parents are from Rock Bridge and Hickman, so they're both from Columbia. And, you know, I grew up, went to Jeff City High School. They got married when they were 19 and 22. They had four kids real quick. And so we were kind of living that paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle in Mid-Missouri. And, you know, I think I really saw the strength that we have in our Missouri communities when I was a kid, because when my little sister was born, she had to have an open heart surgery. She was born in Boone Hospital here and then airlifted up to St. Louis, actually. And it was a really hard time for us. My mom and dad struggling not just with their, whether or not their little girl would survive, but also, you know, how our family was going to make it, because the way our system is set up, if you're living on the edge and health disaster happens, man, it's over for you.

And so, you know, we went bankrupt from that time. But the folks in Mid-Missouri, I mean, in our neighborhood, you know, they passed the plate for us down at my mom's prayer group. They brought more food by the house than we could eat. And they really took care of us. And so I've just, I spent my life trying to pay that back. I became a U.S. Marine. I deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan twice, worked at the Pentagon, and now this is that next step in that service. I'm excited to do it.

Geisler: Why run for this job of all of those that you could have?

Kunce: Well, you know, I mentioned, so I joined the Marine Corps to serve and protect and honor everybody, my old neighborhood. And, you know, I did it, man. Like I led a police training team in Iraq, 12 Marines, Navy Corpsmen, dozens of missions outside the wire, Afghanistan twice. And I think what just kills me about this is I watched our country light trillions of fires, trillions of dollars on fire, supposedly nation-building over there. And then, you know, while I was in and out of war zones overseas, guys like Josh Hawley were literally waging war on the community I grew up in. And if you go back to the neighborhood on Dunklin Street in Jeff City now, I mean, you know, first house I lived in, an empty lot when I joined the Marine Corps ... is boarded up to keep the squatters out. The little store on the corner was shut down because it was robbed so much I couldn't get insurance.

And it's just so not the Missouri I grew up in, and it's a result of folks like Josh Hawley, you know, refusing to invest in our state. Roy Blunt brought $300 million a year back to our state. He's a zero, man, and we got to do better than that here.

Geisler: What's your current take on how Congress works or maybe doesn't work?

Kunce: It's broken. The whole thing's broken. I mean, the whole system is broken. I mean, so I'm a regular guy, right? I've got no family money. My mom got cancer a few years ago, and she was working an hourly job. She had to move in with me because when you're working an hourly job in this country and you get cancer, like you're not going to make it. And so it's just I have lived this and I feel like what we need in Congress is people who understand the way that everyday Missourians live and who will take care of us.

And so, you know, as a normal guy with no family money who spent his life in the Marine Corps, like just trying to run for an office was like almost impossible. Right? And everybody said, "you got to take money from corporate PACs, you got to get in close with federal lobbyists," all this other stuff. And it's like, no, man, the only people I'm ever going to owe are the people in my old neighborhood and everyday Missourians. And so I took no money. We take no money from corporate PACs, no money from federal lobbyists, no money from big pharma executives. You know, none of these people who are really stripping our communities for parts and buying off weak-minded politicians. And so, you know, I'm just excited that we're actually doing this the right way and we're going to be able to run it to the finish line like that.

Geisler: Let's talk about health care. Few times, especially in your story, what motivates you. Where do you think you can start? Where do you think you can start as a congressperson to move health care in the direction you want to see it go?

Kunce: I mean, we've got to have caps on insulin. We've got to have caps on for these pharmaceutical giants. And, you know, the guy I'm running against, Josh Hawley, voted against caps on insulin, which is really sad because it's you know, most of these pharmaceutical industries are run by cartels. So insulin is a cartel run by three companies who just raise the price in lockstep with one another. There's no market pressure. There's no competition, anything like that. And so when you're in a situation where you don't have a competitive market, you've got to come in, you've got to break them up, you got to make that market competitive.

We also have middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry, PBMs, pharmaceutical benefit managers. They are killing small pharmacists, independent pharmacists all across this state. You know, I use TRICARE because I'm still in the Marine Corps Reserve that gutted our TRICARE, our pharmaceutical program. And it's just, it's really bad to see that. And it's because all these folks been taking money from them. That's why I don't take any money from big pharma executives.

And so you know, I really think we've got to have a competitive environment there again and then we've got to get away so that you don't go bankrupt from having a kid. Like it shouldn't be that way. And you know, I'm lucky because I get TRICARE, but not everybody's like that. And we need to make it so that nobody goes bankrupt from having a kid. And so you don't have to choose between, you know, taking care of your family and your job.

Geisler: The voters of this state are going to decide on a ballot measure that deals with abortion, deals with reproductive health care and reproductive rights. I'd like to get what's your position on that? And also, how would you handle the topic of reproductive rights in health care at the federal level?

Kunce: I mean, this is critical for me. The whole reason I'm in this race is because I want to invest in Missouri. I want to bring money back in because I think Missourians are smart enough to make their own decisions without politicians like Josh Hawley telling them, you know, how they get to live and deciding how they get to live. And so, of course, he opposes Amendment 3 and I support it. I mean, he takes us way back in 2013, he wrote an article where he said that even in vitro fertilization, the morning-after pill and other types of contraception are the exact same thing as abortion, which he considers murder. And I just I don't think that's right. I think Missourians should be able to build and plan and protect their families however they see fit.

And so for me, you know, women's reproductive rights, that's freedom for all of us. That's how we build our families. It's how we're able to make it. And so I 100% support that amendment. And I am very much against, you know, Missouri's current law, which has no exception for rape and incest, even for abortion. And he was 100% behind that at the time. He doesn't want to overturn it now. And he'll say a different thing during election year because he knows he's on the wrong side of everybody. But the guy has signed on to a national abortion ban that would even override the will of Missouri voters if we pass Amendment 3 this fall. So if this issue is important to anybody out there, like and you want to protect your rights to build your family, I'm the only one who's going to do that for you.

Geisler: Do you think abortion needs like a federal protection to it?

Kunce: Yeah, we had it forever. Like we had it forever. And it worked, right? We had Roe vs. Wade. I think we should codify it. And I think the thing that makes me the most mad about these laws that, you know, country club politicians like Josh Hawley pass and they fight for is the fact that it doesn't affect them. Right? Because if you have money, if you have resources, if you have access like he does, like if anyone in your family needs contraception, in-vitro fertilization and abortion, whatever else, like you'll travel to go get it. You'll pay to get it. I mean, you can even go to Europe and go get it. South America, whatever, right? That's what they can do. But for people in my old neighborhood who don't have those types of resources, like you're just left with an entirely different set of rights from everybody else. And I don't think America should have a two-tier set of rights where if you have money and you have access, you get it. You know, you get one set of rights. And if you're just a normal person like me and my neighbors, you don't get those rights. I think that's wrong.

Geisler: I'd like to get your thoughts on crime as well and how this gets dealt with at a at a federal level in Congress. What sort of programs do you think are working either in Missouri or nationally that you've seen that help either reduce crime, combat crime, whatever you want to call it? What's something that you think is working that you'd like to get into Congress and really try to push for and expand?

Kunce: Yeah, well, first, I think we need to fully fund and equip police forces. We need to have mental health auxiliaries and things like that with our police forces. You see that. You see it's effective when people put it in place on the federal level, One of the biggest killers of Missourians, age 44 and actually the biggest killer, Missourians 44 and under is fentanyl, Right? And there's all sorts of crime around fentanyl. Most of it's come through the border. It's come through ports of entry. And we got a real train wreck down there. And I think, you know, we have these machines called fentanyl scanners that can really help curb the flow of fentanyl, which will reduce crime and reduce death and overdoses and in other sort of tragedies associated with that, I think we need to fully fund and equip the Border Patrol. And I also think that we need to do those those scanning machines. And Josh Hawley has voted against both of those things, like the guy doesn't want to keep us safe. He wants to keep the problem so that he can have it as a campaign issue and campaign on it.

And the other thing that we have a real failure on right now is, you know, I mentioned my old neighborhood, right? Like the store on the corner where my sister and I used to go when we were 6 and 8 years old by ourselves, we buy candy. My mom had this little like Mountain Dew refill cup, 10 cents. You get a refill, right? We go refill that. That store was shut down because it was robbed so many times, it couldn't get insurance. Like that's what's that's what happens when there's no opportunity in a community. That's what happens when your members of Congress and your senators don't invest in you, don't invest in communities, don't bring about opportunity.

Again, I mentioned before, Roy Blunt brought $300 million a year back to the state. Josh Hawley is zero every single year. It's a decision he has made. You know, he prefers to write self-help books about manhood and make half a million dollars for himself doing things like that and neglecting our communities. And for me, it's all about taking care of communities like that. When we invest in them, when we give people opportunity, it reduces crime over the long run and it saves us a lot of money ultimately.

So I'm 100% in on that.

Geisler: You mentioned making sure the investment’s there for the Border Patrol at the southern border of the United States and Mexico. Any other thing that you'd like as a congressperson to do when it comes to the border specifically and how the situation, I guess we'll call it, is handled there?

Kunce: Yeah, Well, it's not even that complicated, right? I mean, it's so I mentioned I was, when I was a Marine, I deployed to Iraq and led a police training team. And so 12 Marines, Navy Corpsman, I ran dozens of missions outside the wire. You know, my job was able to bring everybody home safe, which thank God we did. But before I went on the police training team, I was scheduled to be on a border team over there. So I went to the southern border. I trained with the Border Patrol. I've been certified by the Border Patrol tactical unit. Like this was a part of my life for a little bit. And it's just it crushes me to see guys like Josh Hawley refuse to fix this situation. Like at one point he said it wasn't even his job. He was like "the president needs to take care of it." I know your job as a member of Congress is to pass these bills and make things happen is a multiple opportunities to do that on both sides of the aisle. And he's refused to do it.

You know, I've talked about Roy Blunt a lot, but Roy Blunt negotiated a deal in 2019 that Donald Trump signed into law. Josh Hawley voted against that one. He voted against fentanyl scanners to stop the flow of fentanyl. And the recent bipartisan deal that, you know, frankly, the Border Patrol guys who I trained with down there endorsed and supported because it was going to fully fund and equip them, he voted against that, too, because he wanted to keep it as a campaign issue. Like the guy doesn't care about keeping us safe. He just wants things that he can rant about. And so for me, it's we got to end catch and release. I think it's a disastrous policy that, you know, the Biden administration has put into place. We got to fully fund and equip the Border Patrol and we've got to put fentanyl scanners in there, stop the flow of fentanyl.

Geisler: Do you think there needs to be an increased effort to deport people that might be in the country illegally, which has become locally in elections here, a major talking point?

Kunce: Well, if someone wants to tell me how they plan on doing that, like I don't know what that would cost, trillions and trillions of dollars to try to deport millions of people, it's like the real safety concern that I have right now is catch and release. And, you know, the fact that the border has not been secured. And so for me, it's like, let's take care of that. We know how to fix that. We know how to put the resources towards that and we should do it. And, you know, catch and release has had tragic consequences here in Missouri. You know, police officer was killed the other day up in the St. Louis area because, you know, someone was released when they shouldn't have been and someone who had been convicted. And it's just it's really sad to see that happen when, you know, that's something that wouldn't take a lot of resources for because the guy was already in custody when he went through his trial, right? And it's just it's tough to see them doing that program.

Geisler: A lot of people also thinking about housing right now. I know Vice President Harris, as just a few weeks ago rolled out a big plan as far as her plan with housing, how to get more people into homes, how to build more homes. Do you have any I mean, is this is this an issue for you? Is this something you hear about in Missouri trying to invest more in? And what's your thought on where Congress maybe comes into how to get into homes and afford it?

Kunce: Yeah, it's a huge issue. You know down in Jeff City we still don't since the tornado that came through we still don't have enough, you know, low and medium-income housing for people to live in. And it's just it's because people don't want to invest here. And again, that's where you can have community development block grants. This is where U.S. senator, like with the $300 million-plus every year that they can invest, can go around this state if they actually want to spend time in this state rather than flying a private jet all around it like Josh Hawley does. You know, if they want to get on the ground, they want to meet everybody, they want to figure out the problems, like they have the resources to do that. I think we need to increase low-income housing tax credits for people who build that sort of stuff. And and I also think that we've got to get Wall Street and these big private equity companies out of single-family housing. And so what you've seen in a lot of neighborhoods in Missouri is these private equity companies have so much money that they don't know what to do with it. And so what they've done across the country and in Missouri is they take that money and they buy up single-family housing and then they become absentee landlords and they rent that stuff out and it drives up the price of housing. It makes it harder to buy a house because you're competing with a private equity company who's buying in cash. And I just don't think they should be allowed to do that.

Geisler: As I kind of wrap things up here, I appreciate your time. I do want to ask, the United States at least what we very publicly we see right now is involved to especially a financial front on helping Ukraine and also in aid to Israel, in the Middle East right now, at least putting a lot of money. And it becomes a big debate in Congress every single time this issue comes up, too. You can separate them if you want to talk about each conflict differently, if you want to talk about them together or your stance as far as the United States involvement in kind of ongoing foreign conflict right now. Where are you at? Where are you at, and where do you think?

Kunce: Sure. Well, I mean, let's just talk about Ukraine as a first example. And so, you know, initially when the administration was not giving money to Ukraine, Josh Hawley, there's videos of him just ranting and raving about how, you know, the U.S. government needs to give money to Ukraine. They need to give Zelenskyy what he wants. They need to put the money in. As soon as the administration did that, there are videos of him saying the exact opposite thing. And so I think what you have on foreign policy here is we currently have a senator who is just not serious about it. Like he either doesn't understand it, that's the most generous thing we can say, or he's intentionally manipulating the situation. Like he says, it's too expensive to do things in Ukraine, and yet the man wants to put boots on the ground in Taiwan and, you know, increase the risk of conflict and escalate things against China, which is like, man, if you think it's expensive in Ukraine or you thought Iraq and Afghanistan was expensive, just wait until you see what happens when we get into it with China, right? It would be unbelievably costly and I don't think we'd ever recover for it.

And so with Ukraine, though, you know, my last duty station, I was at the Pentagon. I did arms control negotiations with NATO in Russia. I was there all the time. You know, I've sat across the table from the deputy foreign minister of Russia, like, I know what these guys are about. They're all about power. They're about expansion at any cost. And you have to combat that with power, because otherwise they just see, see weakness. And like what I want to make sure 100% that we never, ever, ever have to do is have boots on the ground in warfare in Europe again, because, again, that will be so much more expensive than what we're doing right now. And so I think that sending troops and I'm sorry that sending equipment over to Ukraine is a prophylactic measure that is like infinitely cheaper than us ending up in a war over there. So it's actually saving us money to do that.

And, you know, one of the funny things about Josh Hawley on this is he voted against the Ukraine bill and he was like "X number of dollars for Ukraine and zero for Missouri." Again, we can be generous and think that the guy just doesn't understand what's going on or you can look at it and think that he's just manipulating the situation because in fact, in that bill, there were $600 million for two machinist plants here in Missouri because most of that money is actually getting spent in America, you know, good union jobs and on production here. And so I was actually invited down to West Plains, Missouri, the other day by the machinists to ask me to have a rally down there. They're like, "can you please come down here? We all support you because Josh Hawley is, you know, voting against funding for the machinist plant. Right here in West Plains, Missouri. And that's what's keeping our town alive, right?"

Like, again, it's these issues just aren't as simple as, you know, pick whatever opposite side the president is on. Like, that's just to me, that doesn't make any sense. And so I say this over and over again, like I will do whatever it takes. I will work with any president. I will work with any party to bring money back to this state, to invest in the people who live here and make it so we can make our own decisions.

Geisler: On the issue of involvement with Israel, this has been a, you know, a major conversation nationwide really for the last year. Do you have a position on that? Have any thoughts?

Kunce: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think what happened I think what happened on Oct. 7 last year was an unbelievable tragedy. You know, kids at music festivals being taken. And it's just it was horrible to see. And I think Israel had a right to defend themselves. And they obviously, they did. I think what you've seen since then, though, really reminds me a lot of Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, almost 300,000 Iraqi, civilian Iraqis were killed when we were in Iraq. Many more, and, you know, a bunch in Afghanistan. It's like, well, ISIS is still running around Iraq. We're still, you know, involved there. Taliban still has Afghanistan. Right? Just you've seen almost 40,000 Palestinian civilians killed during this conflict. And that doesn't solve things. It doesn't solve them. I mean, we have learned that it's not a solution. It's not a path to peace. It's a path to spiraling conflict for forever.

And so for me, you know, I think we need to get to a negotiated cease-fire. We need to make sure that includes the hostages, you know, the return of the hostages. But we got to get there. And the fact that this conflict is expanding rather than retracting is, it's not good. And I don't think we should ever let people think that we're going to put boots on the ground there, because boots on the ground there is a bad idea. And that might embolden people to expand it even more.

Geisler: Lucas, you’ve been gracious with your time. Thank you so much. Anything that you want to add that I didn't ask you about?

Kunce: Yeah, I'll just I just have one more thing. Maybe it's two. But, you know, if you want to fundamentally change who has power in this country like I'm the only guy who's going to do that. I take no money from corporate PACs, never have, no money from federal lobbyists, no big pharma executives. Like I'm a normal guy. I grew up in Mid-Missouri and my life is dedicated to service. And the reason I didn't take that money is because, again, the only people I ever want to are folks in my own neighborhood and everyday Missourians around the state who took care of me.

And the other thing I would just say is we don't have a single veteran in Congress from Missouri right now. None of our senators, none of the members of the House are veterans. I use the VA for health care. It's been just awful to see Josh Hawley stall the PACT Act, which gave all of us who were exposed to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan VA health care. It's been terrible to see him lie about securing money for Fort Leonard Wood housing, when in fact he voted against it four times and filibustered it. Like these guys, they just use us as political pawns whenever they can. And for me, you know, I know the issues with the VA. I'm there all the time. I know the guys there. Like I just say, you know, if you want to support veterans, don't just thank us for our service this fall. Put a veteran in Congress from Missouri so I can take care of our veterans and really all of us.