3 Questions with WIl Fuentes - Guest Brent Hennrich

Brought to you by the 18th Legislative District with your host Wil Fuentes. Guest Brent Hennrich - Candidate for US WA State 3rd Congressional District talking about the need for holding the current administration accountable, universal health care, and more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Three Questions, sponsored by the 18th Legislative District, Washington State Democrats. I'm your host, Will Fuentes. My guest today is Brent Henrich, who is running for U.S. State Representative for the 3rd Congression of our district here in Washington State. Brent, welcome to Three Questions. With Will Fuentes, yours truly. I'm excited to have you here. I want to get to know you, and I want the uh audience to get to know you. So why don't we start off with question number one? Tell us a little bit about your lives. Give us some background and what office you're running for.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Well, I'm Brent Henrich. I'm a father of four. Okay. Three living. We lost one child and made me very much a advocate for reproductive access through that process. But uh, you know, husband, and uh, you know, right now I'm running for office here in Congressional District 3rd. Uh, but I'm also at the same time uh being able to be a bit of a stay-at-home dad and experience that in my past. I I worked my career in movie theaters. I started cleaning up popcorn in the lobby and the auditoriums after shows until I was an on-site project manager for the global deployment of Dolby Cinema, where I was traveling around the world 20 to 30 days at a time, living here, there out of hotel rooms. Uh, but you know, right now I'm just kind of I'm a big picture guy, and so, you know, I'm working towards making sure that we can do better at the federal level for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah. Now, the third congressional district here in Washington State is uh is geographically, it's pretty large. Can you kind of share with us what what the what counties it includes?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Well, yeah, it's over 7,000 square miles. We basically, the easiest way to explain it is the east side of the Cascade Mountains to the beach, the Columbia River to just south of Olympia. Uh it's it's a huge district. It is. And uh, you know, you compare that around some people are fortunate to have 35 miles square districts. We have 7,000 square miles, and uh there's districts that are actually larger than ours, even in Washington State.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Right, right. So 7,000 square miles, uh a little bit uh smaller than the state of Massachusetts. Yes. That has to be covered. Probably a lot of mileage going on there. Yes. Now, I I want to understand a little bit more, and I want the audience to know uh, you know, why you're running for this specific office. So we're gonna get into that question. Question number two. Brent, why the third congressional district? What are you trying to accomplish?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, like I said earlier, I'm I'm a big picture person. I think that we have a lot of policy at the federal level that needs to be adjusted, that needs to be fixed, especially working towards universal health care, government oversight right now. Trump is running crazy. Uh, I believe we need to hold Trump accountable. We need an accountable government. And uh that that's just where I think I'm gonna be able to do the most good. So, you know, I had people reaching out to me directly after some recent votes were taken, asking me to get in this race, and it's the right fit at the right time, so I'm going forward.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

So you mentioned um just now that there are some recent votes that you are uh not in approval of. Tell me a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Well, let me just say I don't think that Donald Trump should have a personal Gestapo that has more funding than the United States Marines. I cannot believe somebody would vote to disenfranchise 80 milli up to 80 million women voters from having access to the ballot. The fact that we have somebody that's literally telling people that are serving in our military what reproductive care they can have access to or what other forms of care, no one should be telling somebody what can happen in a doctor's office.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Right. And so, you know, that leads me to the next question, uh, Brent, because I want to know then what what you're trying to accomplish, right? You know, uh, if elected to this office, what some of your priorities are. So let's get into that. Question number three. Uh, Brent, you mentioned that you are unhappy with some of the votes that you know our our current congresswoman has made uh here in the third congressional district. Now, share with us what are some of your priorities. What would you do different?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Well, I mean, I I already mentioned that I believe in government accountability and we need to hold the Trump administration accountable. How do we do that? Well, I I believe right now that we have to go with every tool that we have, and that's oversight hearings, but we need to include the the possibility of impeachment. We uh I've been endorsed as a courage candidate that's ready to hold this government accountable from day one and take every step we need to to do so. But I want to make sure that we're working towards universal health care. I want proper education funding, and that includes all day child care up through uh making sure that we have uh education funding for technical schools and higher education. I believe we need people in all walks of life filling the jobs of the future. I want to make sure that we're investing in infrastructure. Right now, the biggest infrastructure project is definitely the I-5 bridge, but we have failing roads and bridges around this district. We also need to actually make the investments in rural broadband that we keep promising, but we let companies buy up contracts that don't actually do it. We need to open that up and make sure that companies that want to provide service for those people in our rural areas are able to so that we can have members from all around the district having actual access to rural broadband.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Now, let me ask you this because you touched on a couple of things that I want to follow up on. One of them was um uh universal health care. Uh the current administration is looking at getting Medicaid, right, in order to continue funding uh wars, right? Uh I I believe, if I remember correctly, they're looking uh at asking Congress for $500 billion more uh for the Department of War. Right? So tell me what how what is your process? What's it gonna look like when you uh if you were to get elected to Congress to ensure that every single American has access to uh healthcare?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Well, it's a multi-step approach, but it certainly doesn't start by cutting access by half a billion dollars and giving that to uh the military. I mean, or sorry, half a trillion dollars and giving that to the military. Where we're at right now, what uh our current congresswoman's been a rubber stamp for is just inexcusable. Uh, I believe that we need to expand Medicaid, lower the age for Medicare, get more people covered. We need to offer a public option where people can pay uh a small fee if they can't, if they're incomed out of Medicaid to get onto coverage like that. We can do steps to go forward and make sure that people are covered.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, absolutely. There's uh the infrastructure project, right? The Interstate Bridge of a Placement, uh, which has been in planning phases for what, 30 years now? Um what are you gonna do to make sure that we get that bridge built? It needs to happen, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I am gonna stand back, I am gonna do everything I can to get money and make sure that I don't mess with the process because right now we have good people that have been working on that project, and every time somebody new comes in, they want to stick their finger in the dough and re-swirl it. Right. And I'm saying, I want to get out of the kitchen, I want to get to the bank, right? And I want to get them the funding. And this is gonna be an expensive project. We're gonna have to tax the rich, make them pay their fair share, so projects like this around the country can happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Light rail or non-light rail.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Absolutely light rail.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah, absolutely. And then uh light rail all the way up to Evergreen.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I want to make sure that we have light rail coming across the bridge and that the county and city can make the right decisions for our area, but I do not see building a piece of infrastructure as important as the I-5 bridge and not having the connection on it.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah, you also mentioned education, uh which was another one of your priorities. Uh, the current administration, right, is dismantling the Department of Education. Now, how do you see that, you know, if you were to get elected uh to Congress and uh Congress has the the majority, right? Uh how do you intend to work with other Democrats to ensure that we get uh education funding uh specifically for the most vulnerable?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Well, I think it starts by making sure we remove half of the worldwide wrestling entertainment from the head of the education department. Right now, the person we have running education doesn't believe in education. We need an education specialist to lead that department and lead us forward. Then we need to do our part. Again, we are going to have to tax the rich to them pay their fair share, but we need to be making sure we're providing a quality education for every student in this country. We need to make sure that we do not allow a single cent of that to go out in vouchers to let rich people offset their private school for their children. Public education is for the public. I want to be surrounded by an educated public, and I want to make sure that that happens.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Exactly. An educated community is a thriving community.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Uh thank you so much for sharing your priorities. Thank you so much for being on the show. Uh, we really appreciate it, and we wish you the best of luck. I appreciate you having me here, thanks, Brent. Thank you. Folks, that is our show for today. Don't forget to hit like, subscribe, leave a comment, and hit the notification bell. We will see you next time.