Brad Meyer joined Progressive Indiana Network for the third in a series of four virtual town halls ahead of the May Democratic primary in Indiana's 9th Congressional District. The conversation opened with an extended discussion of Trump's war in Iran — its constitutional legitimacy, the War Powers Act's abuse, the damage done to diplomatic options by Trump's withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear framework, and Meyer's call for impeachment as the proper remedy. From there the discussion ranged across economic themes including the Indiana gas tax increase, a $20 federal minimum wage, the PRO Act and organized labor, and the transition to a universal single-payer health system. Meyer also discussed his approach to advisory input and constituent engagement, his management background and leadership philosophy, care for veterans and the VA, Trump's tariff regime, media consolidation and antitrust enforcement, and how he plans to stay accountable to all 18 counties of the district if elected. Questions came from viewers via the Progressive Indiana Network website, Facebook Live, and YouTube.
QUESTIONS:
**00:01:42 - Introduction and Campaign Background**
• Monroe County resident running in a district that spans roughly two hours wide and two hours deep, covering approximately 18 counties from Monroe County east to the Ohio line and south to the Kentucky border
• Third virtual town hall in a series of four; a fourth is scheduled for April 26
• Has conducted approximately 15-16 in-person town halls across the district in addition to the virtual series, making a point of reaching every county he can
**00:03:14 - Q: Opening — Where does the war with Iran stand a month in?**
• The first question any action of this kind demands is whether it was done constitutionally — and it was not; Trump abused the War Powers Act for what he himself describes as a war, not a response to an imminent threat
• Congress has two constitutionally mandated options: declare war or cut off funding; instead they are weaseling — neither authorizing nor defunding, while signaling they will fund it anyway
• Trump pulled out of the Obama-era nuclear framework during his first term, burning the political capital our allies had invested to make that deal work and convincing Iran there was no point negotiating in good faith — effectively removing diplomacy from the table for both his first and Biden’s terms
• Meyer’s greatest fear is that Trump inflicts serious damage, loses interest, declares victory, and walks away — leaving Iran wounded but not defeated and the U.S. holding the consequences
• Called the constitutional precedent being set dangerous in both the short and long run, with no reason to believe Trump won’t do it a third time
**00:06:45 - Follow-up: Slotkin’s “we’re in it” argument — fund it or use the power of the purse?**
• Pushed back on the “we’re in it so we have to fund it” logic as an end run around congressional authorization; Congress’s failure to act doesn’t retroactively legitimize the action
• Invoked the axiom “never wound something you can’t kill” — the U.S. has attacked and wounded Iran, and extracting from that position is extremely difficult
• His preferred remedy: impeach Trump for declaring war outside his constitutional authority, remove him from office, and end the war
**00:11:31 - Q: What is your media strategy? (Tom, New Albany — web form)**
• Social media is now far more important than traditional broadcast media and will continue to grow; campaign is now active on approximately eight platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, X, YouTube, and Reddit
• Younger voters have been given insufficient reason to get off the couch and vote; campaign is bringing younger team members on to help understand what messages and concerns need to be addressed for that demographic
• Surviving local newspapers remain part of the strategy; a full-court press across both digital and local print will be necessary through the general
**00:19:09 - Follow-up: The PRO Act and organized labor**
• Supports the PRO Act; Indiana’s so-called right-to-work law is in reality the right to work for less — it undermines unions and the balance of power between workers and employers
• Unions built the middle class; as union representation has been pulled back, the middle class has been slipping — the correlation is not subtle
• His 25 years in manufacturing leadership, including time at companies that squeezed workers at every turn, gave him a direct appreciation for why that counterbalancing power is necessary
**00:20:52 - Q: Indiana gas tax increase and the federal angle (Chris Brandon Embry, Facebook)**
• Indiana’s gas tax increase is a microcosm of what’s happening at the federal level: the state cut property taxes (politically popular) and replaced that revenue with a series of regressive fees and taxes — wheel taxes, gas taxes — that disproportionately hurt working people and renters while benefiting property owners
• Gas taxes are structurally regressive: lower-income households tend to drive older, less fuel-efficient vehicles and pay more per mile, while higher-income drivers in hybrids like his own pay comparatively less toward the roads they also use
• The broader pattern is a deliberate transfer of tax burden from property owners to working-class people under the cover of “tax cuts”
**00:24:32 - Q: Who will be your advisors and staffers? (Anna, New Albany — web form)**
• Within the first two months of the campaign, convened a series of private, unphotographed roundtables with community leaders on immigration, people with disabilities (covering education, economics, healthcare, and mental health separately), and environmental advocates — listening sessions with no cameras and no press
• Joined Physicians for a National Health Program and is working closely with Dr. Thomas Ferry on a detailed transition document for single-payer healthcare
• Has conducted 15-16 town halls where constituent feedback has actively shifted his thinking on issues; frames the entire campaign as a continuous listening process, not a platform rollout
**00:28:49 - Follow-up: Transitioning to single-payer — what happens to employer-sponsored insurance?**
• England transitioned to its national health system in roughly six years — Meyer said three of those years they were still fighting the Germans [Ed. note: historically inaccurate; the NHS was established in 1948, three years after WWII ended. The groundwork was laid by the 1942 Beveridge Report during the war, but the actual transition occurred entirely post-war. — Sources: Nuffield Trust, UK National Archives]
• The U.S. implemented Medicare in a single year in the 1960s using three-by-five index cards; if that was achievable then, a modern transition in three years is not an unreasonable benchmark
• Roughly half the country is already on some form of single-payer — Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-run programs — so the infrastructure exists; this is not starting from a blank page
• 38 comparable countries have already done it; Physicians for a National Health Program has worked through the legislative details across multiple congressional sessions; Meyer and Dr. Ferry are working to condense a 25-page transition document into something publicly accessible on the campaign website
• Noted the upcoming PNHP healthcare forum in Bloomington on April 7, 7:00 p.m. at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Garton Hall, 100 N. State Road 46 — https://wfhb.org/event/community-healthcare-conversation-with-candidates-for-us-house-of-representatives-district-9/
**00:33:02 - Follow-up: $20 minimum wage and small business concerns**
• Removing healthcare costs from small business owners’ plates through single-payer directly reduces the financial burden that makes a higher minimum wage feel threatening — the two policies work together
• Supports a thoughtful transition structure, not a five-year phase-in; the bill needs to be written so the implementation makes sense without being used as an excuse to delay indefinitely
• Every major labor protection in American history faced the same “it’ll destroy business” argument — the ADA being one example — and business survived and often thrived afterward
• The minimum wage has been politically managed downward so that raising it to a level still below what most employers already pay earns politicians credit for doing essentially nothing; a $20 floor is about what people actually need to eat, get launched, and start their lives
• Higher wages at the bottom of the income scale get spent immediately back into the local economy, which benefits the same small businesses expressing concern
**00:38:16 - Q: Leadership style — how does it translate to Congress?**
• Described his early management style as “brutally honest,” something he came to recognize was unnecessary — you don’t have to be brutal to be honest
• Made a point of identifying people who had ability but had never been given opportunity: promoted two women into leadership roles who had been overlooked, hired the first Hispanic employees at one company over illegal objections from HR, and worked to address weight-based bias against talented employees
• By the end of his career, had shifted from needing to be the center of attention to preferring to lead the leaders — told his boss directly that he took the job to develop other leaders, not to be the focal point
• Running for office has required reverting to a more visible posture, but frames it as temporary and situational; describes his current self as carrying significantly less ego and considerably more empathy than his younger management self
**00:42:35 - Q: Veterans, the VA, and veteran homelessness**
• The VA’s chronic dysfunction follows a predictable congressional cycle: underfund and squeeze, quality drops, people suffer, hearings are held, leadership is fired, funding is restored, repeat — this is not incompetence but intentional mismanagement
• His answer to VA reform connects to his broader healthcare position: universal single-payer coverage where no one — veteran or civilian — is left outside the system is the only structural fix to the cycle
• Before folding veterans entirely into a universal system, wants to consult veterans groups directly on whether the VA should be retained in some form within that framework, given the specific and special obligations owed to those who served
• [Note: Brad’s audio dropped briefly during this answer; some content may be missing from the transcript]
• The veteran suicide rate is unacceptably high; mental health support for veterans is woefully underfunded and requires more than thoughts and prayers — it requires actual resources
**00:47:31 - Q: Tariffs — does Trump have a point, and what’s your position on trade policy?**
• Setting tariff policy is a congressional responsibility; Trump violated that, and Meyer considers it an impeachable offense the current Congress is refusing to address
• Tariffs are a form of tax and tend to be regressive — they hit working-class and working-poor households harder than wealthy ones — and he is not in favor of regressive taxes as a structural matter
• The framing of “we’re being ripped off by our trading partners” is the wrong diagnosis: the U.S. is 4% of the world’s population and controls approximately 33% of the world’s wealth, yet 18 million households face food insecurity and roughly 12% of Americans live at or near the poverty line — the problem is domestic economic policy, not foreign trade, and the wealth already here is not reaching the people who need it
• Even if trading partners handed the U.S. everything Trump is demanding, no one listening to the town hall would see a dollar more — because the extraction is happening domestically, through Congress and the economic policies it has allowed
**00:51:21 - Q: Media consolidation — what should Congress do?**
• Antitrust law exists; the FCC exists; the tools to address media consolidation are already on the books and simply are not being used
• Congress is not merely passive on this — it is actively complicit, and possibly explicitly encouraging consolidation
• Media consolidation is a direct and serious threat to the long-term stability of constitutional democracy
**00:52:50 - Q: How will you stay in tune with constituents once in office? (Anna, Facebook)**
• Has done 15-16 town halls in the last six weeks alone, including in Franklin, Jackson County, Jefferson County, Washington County, Scott County, and elsewhere — deliberately rejecting the advice to focus only on the three major Democratic strongholds in the district
• When elected, his constituents are every resident of the 9th — not just Bloomington, not just Democrats; Republicans in the district are also owed ethical representation even if they won’t be happy with him
• Commits to coming home on a regular basis, continuing town halls, and maintaining the same model of reaching out to people with subject-matter expertise in affected communities that has defined the campaign
**00:55:39 - Q: When’s Brad running for president? (PolarNights on Twitch from Norway)**
• Not thinking about running for president; focused on representing the people of southern Indiana as a seventh-generation Hoosier
• Invoked Cincinnatus — the Roman figure given extraordinary power, who used it, and then returned to his farm because the job was done — as his model, clarifying he is not aspiring to the next rung; he was on a path to retirement with his wife when Trump’s return compelled him to run
• Not a career politician by ambition; views this as a calling born of circumstance, not personal aspiration
Thanks again to Brad Meyer for joining us. For more information and to get involved, visit his campaign website at https://www.bradmeyer.org. You can also find him on Facebook and across approximately eight social media platforms linked from the campaign site.
The next virtual town hall with Brad Meyer is scheduled for April 26 — mark your calendars. Indiana’s voter registration deadline for the May primary is April 6.
