This transcript was created with help from Ai. Please report errors to us and always refer to the video as your primary source.

Justin Brady: [00:00:00] From the Jethro’s Barbecue Studio, it is the Iowa Podcast, and I’m, of course, Justin Brady. From pizza audit to auditing the state to possibly

governor

of the state, Rob Sand joins us today in the Iowa Podcast studio. Um, you have successfully defeated all your challengers in the Democrat primary, and now you’re running for governor.

Thank you so much for coming back.

I think this is three, number three?

Rob sand: At least three. Yeah.

Justin Brady: I believe so. Yeah.

Rob sand: you. It’s– Yeah, yeah. Happy to be

here

Justin Brady: um, when this show was, uh, nothing, I reached out to Auditor Sand. I said, “Hey, dude, starting a new show. Would you be interested in coming on?” And he’s like, “I’d love to.” And so really appreciate that.

Um, and then the whole show launched and the success and this gig.

So

Rob sand: Oh, you, you owe me, Justin. Justin and everything you guys have seen in the show

Justin Brady: Well, the check’s in the mail. Just kidding. FEC is a joke. All right. Um, public schools. Last

time- Yeah

we’ll just pick up where we left off last time. Last time, one of the things I asked about… Oh,

Before we get

started, Jethro’s.

Gosh darn it. If you like [00:01:00] barbecue, go to Iowapodcast.com, scroll to the top, click that banner. If you buy a $100 gift card, you’ll get $30 gift card. Pretty cool. Okay, so public schools.

Uh, now you have a headl- a heads-up on it.

Rob sand: Yeah

Justin Brady: Last time we were talking, one of the things that always happens is the ping pong match that goes back and forth, is schools are underperforming.

Well, they’re underfunded. Well, they’re underperforming. Well, they’re underfunded.

So last time we talked about, “Okay, fine. Let’s settle the debate. What’s the magic number?” And so last time I asked, you’re like, “I’m looking into this. Good question. I’ll get back to you. Have me back.” You’re

Rob sand: Yeah, I’m

Justin Brady: Is there a number?

Rob sand: So the more I look at this, uh, the more I think I need to acknowledge, and we all should acknowledge first the state of the state’s budget deficit, and that it is a huge number, and that addressing that is going to heavily impact where funding schools, schools goes from after that. What I’d like to aim for if I win this race is that my first year in, we do a 5% increase. They have been, uh, funded [00:02:00] below inflation for literally a decade. Uh, so a year at 5% would be, I think, good for Iowa public schools and good for Iowa students, good for Iowa, uh, kids that are in Iowa public schools like my kids. have a $1.3 billion budget deficit. It has been over a billion dollars every single year. We have a surplus that has been cut in half ’cause we’re using the surplus to pay off the deficit. We need to do some things to get that ship right, and I’m not gonna sit here and make promises, um, that I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep unless we fix that budget deficit. I think we can do a, a 5% increase for a year. Let’s also do a lot of things to incre- uh, to decrease that budget deficit at the same time and see where we go from

Justin Brady: So 5% increase year one, and then, and you didn’t say this, but are you suggesting tracking with inflation and that would be satisfactory?

Rob sand: No, what I’m

Justin Brady: be the guy vetoing something if it comes to your desk if you’re the governor, right? So

Rob sand: I’ll be signing, signing, it or vetoing, depending [00:03:00] on what it is. sure,

Justin Brady: And so it, I think for other lawmakers, it’s helpful for them to know, look, what can we get past a sand governor and what do, what can’t we?

Rob sand: Right, right. Well, I wanna do 5% for the

Justin Brady: First year.

but

Rob sand: At the same

Justin Brady: with inflation?

Rob sand: the same time, in that first year, I want to, uh, take some serious steps towards fixing the state’s budget deficit. Um, if we do those things, then we will have a little bit more ceiling to maintain strong funding and strong public schools in the future.

Justin Brady: Yeah, I think that’s a fair answer.

Uh, You know, you, you may love it or hate it. I

think it’s a fair,

direct answer

Rob sand: o- one of the things that I try to do, Justin, is l- like just be honest. Like what person… We can have goals and we can set out numbers, but in politics too often you have people just, “Oh, my people want me to say this number, so I guess I have to say it.” I think that 5% is a good number for a year, but what we’re– where we go after that is gonna depend a lot on what the budget looks like, and I’m just being real with people. I think that’s

important​

[00:04:00] [00:05:00] important

Justin Brady: So one of the other things we talked about was the shield law, and you said, “Let

me look

Rob sand: yeah. Yeah,

yeah

Justin Brady: I don’t know when this was. It was a period ago. Uh, I wanna say three months, something like that? Uh, you can correct me if I’m wrong. Um, you mentioned, “No, we’re gonna come out and say no immunity for companies that are sickening Iowans.”

I think that’s a verbatim off your site. So you’ve made [00:06:00] a firm position on that. Um,

Rob sand: I think, well, I’ll be clear, we may have rolled it out on our website three months ago, but I did 100 public town halls last year.

And I, and I answered the same way throughout the campaign. I’m trying to remember when we… I don’t know when we started our 100 town hall tour in 2025, but I had a consistent answer on that once we had started the town hall tour

Justin Brady: So, I mean, the question there is, it says no immunity to companies that are sickening Iowans.

Um, is Bayer… I mean, Bayer was behind that bill. Are they sickening Iowans?

Rob sand: Oh, that bill is a veto for me if it lands on my desk. Uh, the foundational study saying that glyphosate doesn’t cause cancer was

retracted.

People who pay attention to true science should be concerned about that. That’s a real problem.

Justin Brady: with that. Uh, and but are you saying, ’cause it says, um, companies that are sickening Iowans, is Bayer sickening Iowans? ‘Cause they’re the ones behind the bill. Yeah.

Rob sand: Yeah. [00:07:00] They’re the ones behind it now Bayer makes glyphosate Yeah The glyphosate study, the, the foundational study on, on which most of the other studies saying it was safe was retracted Yeah Yeah

Justin Brady: Okay. Another direct answer. Um, one of the things in the cancer proposal is radon.

Now we you know, we had Dr. Deming on here talking about, yeah, we- radon linked to cancer, smoking linked to cancer,

alcohol linked to cancer. You’ve talked about all these things. Why not… And so yes, check, check, check.

Correct. Why not, uh, one of the things that I’ve seen kind of left out, and it doesn’t mean it’s intentional, but why not biopharma or ultra-processed foods? Why isn’t that in there?

Rob sand: I guess you tell me on the biopharma or ultra-processed foods where there’s a state role. I think those items are probably more federally oriented. Uh, we can have conversations about them. Um, we– I have always been, uh, a supporter of local and regional foods. [00:08:00] I like the idea, uh, of making sure our kids are eating healthy food. Um, our s- my– our sons are in Iowa public schools right now. They do have, uh, local foods getting served to them to a, a certain amount. I think we should increase that

Justin Brady: mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I agree too. So, um, would that be… ‘Cause you’re against radon, and radon’s like $15 test. That’s cheap. You can get it on Amazon

Rob sand: 1520 and it’s literally w- I mean lung ca- lung cancer is the leading killing cancer in

Justin Brady: And I don’t wanna say you’re against radon, that sounds idiotic, but I think people know

Rob sand: against, I am against radon. Let’s fight this invisible, odorless

gas. Radon.

Well, but let– we should talk about that because radon has been poo-pooed by some folks because it’s always been here.

Why? Because

they

Justin Brady: what part of it?

Rob sand: they say radon has always been here because it’s part of the geographic formation of Iowa.

Sure, but we haven’t had basements that we have been comfortable living in since forever. You, you show me a basement built in a house after– [00:09:00] in a house built after 1980 and one in before, and I think we both know without even asking which one we’re gonna be more comfortable hanging out in and sleeping in.

Justin Brady: my-

Rob sand: We’ve also… Hold on. Yeah. Hold on. Yeah. ‘Cause I think this is important. It is. We also have far better insulation in insulated houses, so much lower air exchange, uh, in modern construction. So radon is a cause of cancer and a cause of our increase because we spend more time in our basements, and we have far lower air exchange than we used to. Uh, this is a real issue, and I think it’s really important that we do something about it. The legislature did something. They passed a bill that says all new construction has to be built with radon mitigation systems. Every time I talk about that in town halls with hundreds of Iowans, I ask people to raise their hands, “Who plans to live in new construction before you die?” Nobody raises their hand. So what we should be doing, what I’ve proposed is, have every home inspector in the state of Iowa, when they do a home inspection, they need to say, “Hey, radon is a leading cause of lung cancer. [00:10:00] Uh, Iowa has a very, very high rate of radon. Do you want me to do the 15, $20 radon test?” I think most people will say yes ’cause they figure better safe than sorry. Then you find out the mitigation system is a thousand, $1,500. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not, um, the end of the world for most folks, and I think we’ll see a lot quicker improvement in Iowa if we’re doing that.

Justin Brady: So the, the reason I ask is because Lauridsen group, obviously family, they’re helping fund your campaign. That’s not really a surprise. Everybody knows that. Most people know that. Um, they

enable

Rob sand: do have them donate to me, so it is disclosed.

Justin Brady: They,

they enable ultra-processed foods in their portfolio by some industrial binders, texturizers, fillers.

And so I think some people would ask, myself included as a journalist, like, “Are we shying away from the ultra-processed foods becau- and not because you’re being paid off,

but because I love my family and my family’s in dentistry, and if there are anti-dentistry laws, am I, am I going to be hesitant?”

Do you know what I mean?

Rob sand: But [00:11:00] you’re like going to be hesitant, you know what I mean? Uh, LGI and its companies make pet food and soup stock. If you hate pets and you hate soup, then I guess you won’t like them. But that’s the vast, vast majority of their business.

So I would like to say that, uh, a second time because there’s a lot of people out there spreading all kinds of information and misinformation about what they do. Uh, they make pet food, they make soup stock. That’s probably 90% of what they do

Justin Brady: Sure. I mean, yeah, they do make industrial binders, texturizer, and fillers though.

Rob sand: They do, but th- but those things also go into pet food and soup stock. Some of them are for human consumption.

Yeah.

Justin Brady: Yeah. Okay.

Rob sand: But that, but they go into products like jerky,

you know? Like, if you think that jerky’s bad, don’t eat it.

I love jerky

Justin Brady: So no connection, uh, bec- the… Basically you have identified radon, booze, and smoking, and again, things I think most

Rob sand: And w- and water quality

And water

And water

quality

Justin Brady: to that

for sure. Yeah

Um, you’ve identified these things are the major things, and some of the [00:12:00] ultra-processed foods, that kind of stuff.

You’re like, “Okay, sure, worth looking at, but it’s not the most important thing on my

Rob sand: It’s also a– Those are, those things are a diet question, which you start telling people what to eat, that’s a little bit different than discouraging them from smoking, right? Now, I am someone who has said, this is actually contrary to your point, uh, we should limit what people can buy when they’re using taxpayer-subsidized, uh, funds to buy things. I’ve said, “Yeah, we sh- I’m, I’m in favor of restricting, uh, unhealthy foods from being purchased with SNAP.”

I don’t want our dollars to go to subsidize the formation of unhealthy habits, which then lead to more healthcare problems for people later on down the line, and then we maybe end up subsidizing the treatment of those. So while I don’t like the idea of subsidizing unhealthy foods, it’s a lot clearer choice to me to say, you know, you’re not smoking to live. We’re not drinking alcohol to live. Our water q- our water quality is something that we need to be care, be careful about. Uh, [00:13:00] but when you get into telling people what food to eat, that’s just a different conversation to me.

And I guess at the end of the day, I’d really wanna see, uh, a lot more foundational studies showing what specifically it is

that’s that’s problematic

Justin Brady: So, um, your position then on the SNAP stuff is, uh, and f- smoking, alcohol, that kind of stuff, it’s your own money, do whatever you want, free country. If the government’s paying for it, however,

let’s be

careful. And you’re, so you’re saying, “Yeah, I don’t, I don’t want our government, our state government, our federal government subsidizing soda and sugary snacks and beverages in the store.”

So you agreed with that.

Yeah, I think that’s fair, too. Um, Dave Muhlbauer.

Rob sand: Leegmaken bar

Justin Brady: Um, well, first of all, he fit the def- the, the requirements in Iowa that says your lieutenant governor has to wear a cowboy hat in

Rob sand: Apparently. So, uh, apparently

Justin Brady: uh, congratulations on that. That was a small pool of people. Um- Very

Rob sand: that was a

Justin Brady: Crawford County supervisor and farmer, and [00:14:00] you’re

on water.

quality.

You know where this is going. He got a few fines. Uh, he got a few hand slaps from the

DNR. What year? Um, looks like ’20- 2009, 2014, 2015, and 2016. Yeah. And then on December 2014, a notice of violation from the Iowa

DNR, um- But, but-

Rob sand: but here’s- To show

Justin Brady: his manure plans.

And Which is interesting

because in your cancer document, you kind of specify that people should share

Rob sand: More, More,

more transparency for manure management plans, absolutely. I think that most Iowans… So number one, we’re talking about stuff here that’s more than a decade old. Uh, Dave hasn’t been running his family’s farm for more than a decade. So that’s a piece of that. Here’s the other thing. I think Iowans understand the difference between a mistake and a choice. Uh, farmers don’t get to pick the weather. They don’t get to pick when they get sick. Uh, it’s a tough job, and you might make a mistake, you might have an accident. Derek [00:15:00] Wolfe literally sat in the legislature, in his chair as a legislator, my opponent’s choice,

Justin Brady: Lane’s lieutenant

Rob sand: my opponent’s lieutenant governor choice, and chose to vote to defund water quality monitoring.

Justin Brady: And what are you

Rob sand: happy to have people

compare those two just on that bill? You don’t have to know it off the top of your

They, they defunded a system of water quality monitors across the state

of

Justin Brady: quality monitors.

Rob sand: yeah. So here we have two guys, one of whom is a farmer. I’d say, I think, I think they’re both farmers. I think that’s fair to say. But one of whom is a farmer who 10 years ago, his family farm had a couple of accidents and mistakes.

Mm-hmm. They cleaned it up. They paid their fine. The other guy, literally just this year, Justin, said, “Yeah, we don’t wanna monitor, we don’t wanna monitor water quality.” This was a $600,000 budget item, and they said no to it

Justin Brady: So for voters, you’re saying, and I guess I’m not gonna say what you’re saying. For voters I’m gonna ask, is this, have, [00:16:00] have voters voiced this as a concern, or are you saying we learn from our mistakes? We’ve had some issues. We, those issues are out there, and we’ve learned from those mistakes, which is why we’ve put it in our plan

Rob sand: Well, I guess I, I can answer both of those questions. No voters in town halls, and I do town halls, I do 100 every year, and I take questions from the public. No one has asked me, to my recollection, about, uh, Muhlbauer’s farm. People ask all the time about water quality and the funding of water quality monitors. They think that the idea, they agree with me that the idea of not even bothering to monitor what’s in our water is kinda creepy, and it’s wrong. So I think– I don’t think that violations from more than 10 years ago, uh, are an issue to a lot of voters. I do think that a vote from someone who’s literally just making a decision on whether to support water quality monitoring or not is an issue

Justin Brady: Yeah. No, [00:17:00] I agree. Um, we are monitoring water quality, but it sounds like the, the– And you can draw out this distinction. It sounds like the issue here is the degree in which,

Rob sand: Ja. Ja, ja

Justin Brady: I don’t know if you wanna elaborate.

Rob sand: No, that’s, no, that’s the issue. There is some monitoring happening. We should do more w- because we have a big problem

Justin Brady: should do. Because we have- Sure. Um, I– We had Chris Jones in here, uh, mandatory setbacks. A lot… Would, would you be saying, um, we’re– ‘Cause we wanna talk about the manure monitoring and how that’s different. But would we be requiring farmers to do things? Would we be providing incentives for them to do things?

You have a few

Rob sand: My, my plan is incentive-based, and here’s the fundamental idea. The problem has been politicians. There are farmers every single year that get turned away from conservation programs. That’s wrong. And then what they do, the politicians, is they try to say, “Oh, you’re mad at farmers.” Like, no, farmers are signing up for these programs, and then they get kicked out of the programs for [00:18:00] weird bureaucratic reasons, or they get told, like, you, you’re on a wait list, and they sit on that wait list for years. So what we should be doing is funding the programs at a level, uh, that farmers are, uh, asking to participate and beyond, encouraging participation as well. And, and it’s not enough, you know, that there’s folks out there that say like, “Oh, we’re making progress.” It’s like, well, technically a snail makes progress. Not good enough. You know, this is a real issue for me. My kids are growing up in Iowa. They go to Iowa public schools. They drink Iowa water. We were up in Decorah, uh, uh, with my parents just this last weekend, and we had to think about, are we gonna go tubing in the Upper Iowa like I did when I was growing

Justin Brady: Mhm.

Rob sand: And this time we did it. The water looked okay. Um, but I don’t wanna have to think about that all the time. We shouldn’t have 20 beaches getting closed

Justin Brady: Yeah, we filter our water. We have a reverse osmosis system, and we can see the parts per million that are getting through, and it’s crazy.

Rob sand: Yeah, yeah

Justin Brady: Um, yeah, it’s, yeah. That, it’s, it’s, it’s a little disturbing for sure

Rob sand: and I think, again, this [00:19:00] goes back to, Justin, why I think that balance is important. Now, if I win this race, I’m gonna be working with a Republican legislature. 100% of people agree on that. That means that we’re gonna have balance, that the stuff that we do is gonna have to be the stuff that people in both parties can agree on, which to me signs us towards common sense. I actually had folks in my town hall in northwest Iowa tell me when they brought up water quality problems with their local legislator, he told them, “Well, everybody just needs to get a filter.”

Justin Brady: Oh gosh

Rob sand: I know. Like, we should just all of us accept this, you know? That’s

Justin Brady: that was, we’ll have you on the show. I don’t– You don’t need to call him out, but I’d love to have him, them on the show.

Rob sand: I can come up with the name.

I don’t have it on tip of my tongue right now.

Justin Brady: that’s… Yeah, I don’t

Rob sand: But I, well, and who knows if they would admit it or deny it. But I don’t know why people would lie to me about that at a town hall. They’re just people in off the street. What I want, I want us to get back to what I think Iowa is, which is a place where people are humble enough to know they don’t have all the answers, and that a broken clock is right twice a day. We’ve had 10 years of one-party control. With that [00:20:00] 10 years of one-party control, they have hit the point where they’re saying, “Hmm, let’s make it harder for the state auditor to audit,” right? Every watchdog in America said this was a bad bill, and they did it

Justin Brady: And you’re referring to SF 478,

Rob sand: Yeah, the one that, that made it much harder for us to do our work. If I win this race, we’re gonna be back in a place where every budget get, gets passed and every bill that gets passed is gonna have to be something that a Republican legislature and I can both agree on. And I think that’s really important, because then we’re gonna have these people who say things like, “Oh, we’re gonna defund water quality monitoring,” or, “Everyone just needs to go out there and buy a water, uh, filter system.” And they’re not just gonna be setting the table and running their agenda again

Justin Brady: So SF 478, to touch on it just briefly, and we don’t have to spend time on this. Of course, I’ll give you a chance to respond to it. I think one of the main concerns there was that r- we, rather right or wrong, one of the concerns was that the auditor’s office was going after individual tax returns, medical records, and [00:21:00] student personal information, and that SF 478…

I’m not saying you’re doing that. Definitely not saying

Rob sand: I understand. Definitely

Justin Brady: But

SF 478 would roll back your ability to do that. So why do you need that information?

Rob sand: number one, uh, we weren’t going after it. But let’s talk about this for a moment. Every single government watchdog in America, 100% of them, looked at this bill and said, “You should not do this. This is going to lead to an increase in waste, fraud, and abuse in Iowa.” Not just Democrats, Independents, Republicans. Uh, George W. Bush’s Comptroller General of the United States for most of his presidency

Justin Brady: Said it was bad. Yeah, there’s a

Rob sand: wrote our legislature two letters, right? So politicians are gonna make words come out of their mouth to justify the bad things they’re doing. Doesn’t mean that they have any basis in fact

Justin Brady: Sure. No, absolutely. Uh, one of the stories on this, uh, water, uh, and you mentioned food, your kids eating public school food. Um, I had an organic farmer in here, and he was telling me about [00:22:00] getting food to the schools. This was, uh, I wanna say a year and a half ago. And he said that, “The schools, like, told me the kids won’t eat vegetables, and then we got them these vegetables, and they gobbled them up, and they started running out, and reordering and reordering.” And I was like, “Oh, yay, hooray. Great story,” right? Local Iowa farmer working really, really hard, feeding the schools, inspiring story. And then, I wanna say this is two, three, two years ago maybe. And then he said, “Then we realized people stopped buying because the Department of Defense was giving cheaper food than we could give it, and they didn’t buy from us anymore.” Do You know what the heck that is about? That, like, If you were governor, would you put an end to programs like

that and saying, “No

no, no. Iowa farmers come first,

And DOD, whatever this

thing is

no thank

Rob sand: That sounds weird to me It does sound weird

I’d, I’d want to know more about it, and I don’t think it’s responsible for me to take a position on something five seconds after I hear about it for the first time.

I can tell you- This is a podcast I can tell you…

Justin Brady: podcast, darn it.

Rob sand: Yeah.

Justin Brady: You should take

Rob sand: here’s all the science. Take my word for everything. It’s the gospel truth. Well, I

Justin Brady: mean,

[00:23:00] that is what listeners

Rob sand: here’s what I would tell you. I’d want to know, okay, how often is this happening?

Was this like a one-off thing? Where’s that food coming from?

But- Do we have con- Are these like… You want to talk about ultra-processed food, are we talking MREs? Are we feeding our kids MREs? That’d be a little

Justin Brady: That I don’t think that’s

Rob sand: think- Probably not. Yeah. Probably not, but who knows what we’re talking about here. So I’d want to know what the facts are, and I’d want to hear from the people on the ground.

Sure. This is really important. There’s so much BS out there in politics and on the internet. I’d want to find the school where this happened and literally have a conversation with the person who orders the food and be like, “What is the story here?” And hear it straight from

Justin Brady: We

will make that happen.

Rob sand: will make that happen.

I’m interested in that. Yeah. No, absolutely. Because that to me, like m- I know in politics a lot of people are like, “Oh, what does my party say?” Or, “Oh, you know, what do my activists say?” I spent seven years as a prosecutor. I spent two terms as the state auditor. I want to hear it from the person who witnessed it. I want to hear it from the person who says, “I was there. This is what [00:24:00] they said on the phone call. This is why we made the decision

Justin Brady: Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, we’ll make– We’ll definitely make sure that happens, 100%. Um, probably the last few questions before we let you go. Obviously appreciate your time a lot.

Rob sand: Yeah, happy to be here Um,

Justin Brady: the redder, bluer thing. Obviously

Iowa has more red registrants than blue. This is not a surprise to you. And so it would– I would gather a guess that the redder and bluer thing is designed to get independent and red voters.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s a smart strategy. I’m already seeing some pushback. Maybe- Well-

Rob sand: go ahead and finish your question. I’m still listening

Justin Brady: Iowa Press and KCCI, of course, uh, Brianne Pfannenstiel, uh, registered on, on Iowa Pressed, both, when I was prepping for this, both pushed back on that a little bit. And they said, “Hey, okay, redder, bluer, great, but you’re doing a lot of attack ads that seem kind of personal.

How is that redder or bluer?” A few examples are, like, uh,

Day one, there

was that thing where you were trying to tie your opponent to sex toys, and he invested in a company that

Later did [00:25:00] sex

toys after he wasn’t involved anymore.

That’s not true. Okay, and you’re saying not true.

Rob sand: after he wasn’t involved anymore That’s, that’s not true Okay. You’re saying that’s not true Well, well, let me be clear. It’s not true that it later became sex toys after he wasn’t involved anymore. He lied about that

Justin Brady: So you’re saying he lied about that? Uh, he’s

saying

you’re lying about it. It’s he said, she

Rob sand: you’re

Justin Brady: he said, he said.

Rob sand: lying about that Well, you can, you can, you can look at the documents on the internet.

We can get, we’ll get them to you

Justin Brady: Your official campaign account said he wants to ban vaccines, ban cancer treatments, and

that he spends… You’re saying both of those are true. He wants to

Rob sand: he wants to ban all mRNA vaccines. That is a fact. Okay. He, he has said it.

Justin Brady: Not vaccines.

though.

Rob sand: mRNA vaccines.

Justin Brady: that’s

different.

Rob sand: I didn’t say all vaccines.

Justin Brady: I think it was on your campaign account. We’ll double-check it. We’ll make sure it’s posted. Um, but you’re saying if you did post that, that’s not quite right?

Rob sand: Well, if you’re banning vaccines, you’re banning vaccines. I suppose you could be more specific either by saying mRNA vaccines or all vaccines

Justin Brady: think if you said mRNA vaccines, that’s completely fair. I don’t think he said all vaccines though,

Rob sand: I never said he said all vaccines. Yeah. But

keep, keep going. Yeah

Justin Brady: sure. Um, cancer [00:26:00] treatments, banning cancer treatments was on there

too, And that he spends most of his

time in Kansas.

Is that true? most of his time? Are you willing to stand by that? one?

Yeah. I don’t have, like, facts that I’m like, “

Rob sand: Okay-“

Let me, let me, let me give them to you Yes Let me give them to you

Justin Brady: Okay

Rob sand: So- And

Justin Brady: also name bag

like calling him a carpetbagger from one of your official accounts as

well, which is kind of name-calling.

Rob sand: I have not used the word carpetbagger myself. If my campaign has said it, let’s not say that anymore, guys. Yeah. But I don’t say that word.

Justin Brady: that.

Rob sand: I appreciate that. I’d rather, I’d rather help people understand the facts, which is that after launching his campaign for governor, uh, he, his plane spent I think 75 nights in Wichita, Kansas, compared to 50, 51 in Belle Plaine, where he says he lives. Uh, in his own words, when he was asked about that, he said, “Well, I’d have to change my living situation if I got elected, and I’d be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.” Those are the facts. That’s what he

Justin Brady: those are two different quotes you’re putting together, in fairness.

Rob sand: That’s what he

Justin Brady: He did say… I know [00:27:00] you’re right

in saying, um, “I would

be In Iowa…

as much as possible.” I

know he said that

I have that. Uh, that was Brianne Pfannenstiel, I believe, that had her

Rob sand: As much as humanly possible.

Justin Brady: Correct. But I don’t think he put, “I’d have to change my living situation in…”

And I think these are two different quotes. Are they not? I’m pretty sure they are

Rob sand: Uh, let’s assume that they are. Or have we not established that the guy mostly lives in Kansas?

Justin Brady: I don’t think we have, because even Iowa Press- and even the Des Moines Register kind of gave this long list at the start saying how long he’s been here. And I, honestly, none of us

Rob sand: How long has he been here?

Justin Brady: think, uh, they said he bought his family farm in 2013. He

Rob sand: buying land mean that you live in a place?

Absolutely not. Correct. he

voted, he voted in, uh, in Kansas- Yeah … in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Yeah.

He registered to vote in Iowa just in time that he could argue that he meets the residency requirement in October of ’24.

Justin Brady: Well, this is Interesting though

Rob sand: These [00:28:00] flights and where the plane lands has been since he launched his campaign for governor

Justin Brady: So you say argue that he lived here, and this is the gray area I think people want an answer on, which is if you have

evidence.

that he,

Again

that he spends most of his time in Kansas and he doesn’t live here, why hasn’t a complaint been filed with the secretary of state? There is a process for this. It’s

illegal You could get him tossed off the ballot

Rob sand: could you. Go ahead and file it if you want to. We’re

hap-

Justin Brady: have the evidence

that you yes, you do.

W- what?

Rob sand: It’s the… We have put this… It’s, it’s in the Register article. It’s out there. 75 nights in Wichita, 51, I think, in Belle Plaine. Where do you live if you’re spending half again as many nights in Kansas as you are in Belle Plaine? Here’s the point. It doesn’t matter why he’s in Kansas. We have clearly established that the guy spends more of his time in Kansas, and Iowans need to have somebody [00:29:00] who’s here full time. We have real problems in this state, and we’re not gonna fix them if we have someone who’s mailing it in from a different state more than half the time. That isn’t good enough. We’re not gonna fix them. We’re not gonna fix as many of them. Call it what you want. This is a full-time job. It’s maybe the full-time job in the state of Iowa, and the guy is not a full-time Iowan. That’s plain, and it has been established, and he can argue that it hasn’t been. The facts are there.

We’re… They’re in our TV ads

Justin Brady: Last question.

Rob sand: Yeah. Well, I wanna, I wanna go back to your foundational question here. ‘Cause you asked me fundamentally, like, “Oh, you’re running negative ads.” Well, our negative ads are factual. He’s

Justin Brady: Absolutely. Please do

Rob sand: running negative ads too. His, on the other hand, are so misleading that when KCCI saw their anchor’s words taken out of context, they literally ran a news story about hi- how dishonest his television ad was. This is, you know, he’s a guy who’s spent 10 years as a [00:30:00] full-time paid political operative. That’s the level of politics that we’re seeing from his campaign. Ours are nailing down facts, telling you how many times he flew, where he was spending his time. That’s pretty clear, and that’s out there, and that’s accountability. We should get past the system of the lesser of two evils. If elected, I would push to end the special legal privileges of both the Democratic and Republican parties. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna tell people why I think that I’m a better candidate than my opponent by both describing my policies, but also speaking the reality about his policy proposals and who he is

Justin Brady: Uh, last question is one of appreciation, ’cause last time you were in here, y- again, I still don’t know the timeline, um, I asked you, ’cause you were talking about fraud and waste, and I gave you kind of a challenge. I don’t even know if you remember this, but I gave you kind of a challenge, like, “Okay, fine. What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna increase penalties for people who waste? Are you gonna increase penalties?” Oh. I

think a couple months ago you did. You said [00:31:00] mandatory prison time for anybody who misuses taxpayer money. Probably last question, and then also make sure people know how to reach out to

Rob sand: Sure. Did I… Are you– So last time I was on,

it was a l- it was, let’s see, it’s July. It was shortly after we launched- Yeah … so it would’ve been over a year ago. But that’s a, that mandatory prison time for people who steal from taxpayers is something I’ve been asking the legislature to do for six years. Yeah, and- So it’s not new- It-

but I am definitely still for it. Fair.

Justin Brady: fair, fair.

You, you did a, I think there was a, and you can maybe

Better

characterize the ad and the campaign

announcement you

Rob sand: Okay. Is that what

it is? Oh, sure. Yeah, same idea. Yeah. Yeah, same idea in our first- What’s it called? … in our first ad. Yeah, um, the ad is called Stealing Is Bad. Yeah. You know? Right. I– This is pretty simple. We talked about how in my first term, we’ve uncovered a record amount of misspent tax money. The legislature then came to town and, through SF 478, made it harder for us to find misspent tax money, that that is wrong, that government accountability is [00:32:00] good, and that stealing is bad, and that we should put people who steal large amounts of taxpayer money into prison. I’m not the person that’s suggesting that we would, uh, for stealing $10,000, throw away the key, but they shouldn’t get probation is the idea.

Sure. Because these are the people… If you can change the structures that people operate in, Justin, you know this, they will behave better, right? Lord’s Prayer says, “Lead us not into temptation.” Iowa has this great tradition of applying that to politicians. You know, we were the first state to create a merit-based judicial selection system, first state to create an independent redistricting commission to prevent gerrymandering. I think we should be among the first states to say to politicians, “You will have term limits. You will have age limits. You will have cognitive tests. You will have civics tests before you can get on the ballot, and you can’t just rely on being in the right private club for where you live in order to make people feel trapped into voting for you.”

You’re gonna have real competition from people within or [00:33:00] outside of your party, and voters are gonna be able to pick people that they actually like as opposed to feeling trapped into voting for people. Yeah. If we have that level of accountability, then all the stuff that we’ve been talking about, water quality, um, cancer, those problems will get solved because politicians, when they can’t go feather their own nests, will be putting their time into building a legacy and doing what they came there to do in the first place.

Justin Brady: Rob Sand, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate here in Iowa. If people like what you’re saying and they want to learn more, what’s the easiest, most direct way to reach out

Rob sand: Yeah, robsand.com or almost every channel on social media @robsandia

Justin Brady: Auditor Stan, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

We really

Rob sand: be here. Good to see you ​ [00:34:00] [00:35:00]