‘Are you a racist?’ ‘That’s a lie.’ Rep. Andy Barr and Josh Hicks scrap in televised debate
U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, and Democratic challenger Josh Hicks fiercely chewed on each other for an hour Monday night in a televised debate that showed disagreement between them on pandemic response, health care and other issues.
Barr, who is seeking a fifth term representing Central Kentucky in Congress, reeled off a series of votes cast and bills sponsored that he said have helped his constituents to live better lives.
“I am doing the job,” Barr said on the program hosted by WKYT news anchor Bill Bryant. “I am delivering the results. And I am doing it in a bipartisan way.”
However, Hicks dismissed Barr as “a career politician” who is failing to deliver much of real substance.
“Eight years in Congress, we still have Kentucky children without broadband,” said Hicks, a Lexington attorney. “Eight years in Congress, overdose deaths are still at record highs. Eight years in Congress and still nothing happening. He talks a lot about what he will do.”
“I guarantee you that if we let him, 20 years from now, he’ll be standing here telling us what he will do again if we just give him a little more time,” Hicks said.
The election is Nov. 3, although mail-in absentee balloting already has begun.
Aside from Barr and Hicks, the Libertarian Party’s Frank Harris also is a candidate, although he did not appear at last night’s debate. Harris won just 0.7 percent of the vote when he ran in 2018 against Barr and Democrat Amy McGrath.
Among the issues on which Barr and Hicks sparred:
▪ COVID-19, where Barr gave himself and President Donald Trump’s administration high marks for the federal response so far. Barr said his office helped Central Kentuckians get job-saving loans from the CARES Act, and he helped deliver truckloads of personal protective equipment to local health care providers last spring.
Barr said he also served on a House Republican task force “to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their lies and cover-up which enables this virus to spread.” That task force issued its final report last week with a set of recommendations.
Hicks called the federal response to the novel coronavirus “a failure,” from the current viral outbreak in the White House to the massive loss of American lives and jobs.
“We have lost 200,000 Americans,” Hicks said. “We have lost most than 1,200 Kentuckians. We have seen more than 63 million people claim unemployment in the United States. We have had almost 1.5 million unemployment claims here in the state of Kentucky.”
Despite the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that Congress passed in March, much of which went to large corporations, the government has failed to reach many Americans who have been struggling this year because of the pandemic and the weak economy, Hicks said. Congress has not done enough since the CARES Act to assist them, he said.
Barr urged viewers to remember that “at the very beginning, this was a novel coronavirus. Nobody knew what this was. It was a virus from a foreign land, from China.”
“Listen, it’s not perfect and we’ve got a lot more work to do. But the criticism is not helpful and it’s very divisive,” Barr said.
“You know, criticism is part of accountability,” Hicks replied. “And where you screw something up, you have to be accountable for it.”
▪ Health care, where Hicks challenged Barr’s claim that he has protected people with preexisting conditions from potentially losing their insurance coverage. This has been the subject of dueling television ads between the men.
Hicks said Barr repeatedly voted to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law that — among other things — guarantees equal access to health insurance at approximately the same cost for people with preexisting conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Now, the Trump administration and other Republicans are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss the Affordable Care Act, Hicks said.
“They don’t have a plan to replace this. That’s what’s so harmful,” Hicks said. “They just want to get rid of it.”
Barr countered that he doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act because it caused insurance premiums to skyrocket, but he would never want people with preexisting conditions to lose their coverage. Barr said his wife Carol, who died unexpectedly this year, had a heart problem, a preexisting condition.
“Calling me a liar when he has consistently lied about my desire, especially after my personal situation, to protect people with preexisting conditions, is downright offensive,” Barr said.
Barr then criticized Hicks, a trial lawyer, for representing clients who sued a hospital and a pharmaceutical company currently involved in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“On the same day that I was filing legislation to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for this novel pandemic outbreak, my opponent was opening up a medical malpractice practice — ” Barr said.
“That’s a lie,” Hicks said.
“ — to sue doctors and hospitals — ” Barr continued.
“That’s a lie,” Hicks said.
“And he advertised that,” Barr said
“That’s a pathetic lie,” Hicks said. “I filed lawsuits in 2019. And those lawsuits were to protect clients who had been harmed by corporations who fund your campaign. I am out here trying to work for regular folks. The fact that you are out here talking about these things despite knowing that they’re a lie should disqualify you from ever holding public office.”
In one of the cases referenced by Barr, a deaf woman in Louisville sued Norton Healthcare for allegedly denying her access to a sign language interpreter in the operating room as she underwent a Cesarean section in 2018, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The hospital settled the suit in July on undisclosed terms.
In the other case, a Manchester woman sued pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary Codman & Shurtleff for crippling neurological problems allegedly resulting from a defective brain shunt and drainage tube surgically implanted in 2011. Codman issued a recall for its shunt in 2013, citing potential hazards, but the woman said she did not learn of the recall until 2018. The suit is still pending.
▪ Racial inequality in law enforcement, where Barr said Hicks has accused all police officers of being racists.
Hicks, a former Maysville police officer, heatedly denied that allegation.
In a June forum on KET, Hicks said he has come to believe there is “systemic racism” in law enforcement. “We police communities of color differently than we police communities without color, and that’s a tremendous injustice,” Hicks said at that time.
Speaking Monday night to moderator Bryant, Barr said: “One thing we don’t need to do is defund the police.”
“Agreed,” Hicks said.
“Which is what my opponent would enable in Washington, D.C., — “ Barr said.
“That’s a lie,” Hicks interjected.
“ — with the party of (Democratic House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi,” Barr said.
Barr said he won the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, not Hicks, a former police officer.
“Because he insulted them by saying that they were all systemically racist,” Barr said.
“That’s a lie,” Hicks said.
“My question for you, Mr. Hicks, is, if every police officer is racist, are you a racist?” Barr asked.
“My question for you is, how does a congressman not know what the word ‘systemic’ means?” Hicks replied. “Systemic means ‘in the system.’ It means the system has problems. I haven’t called a single police officer racist.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM.
