At 40, Deb Haaland was a single mom raising her daughter on WIC, Medicaid, and food stamps, and she once broke down in tears when she was told she didn’t qualify for emergency SNAP. Now, days before Election Day, she joins the show to explain why that experience shapes how she’d govern New Mexico.

With early voting underway in the New Mexico governor race, Haaland lays out her closing argument: governors are the first line of defense against the Medicaid cuts and SNAP cuts coming from H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” 

She explains her plan for a day-one data center moratorium, with guardrails on water, clean energy, local hiring, and no NDAs. She also makes the case for protecting New Mexico’s first-in-the-nation universal childcare program.

Learn more at debhaaland.com

00:00 Intro
00:38 Back to school at 40
02:07 Closing argument: the first line of defense
03:23 Medicaid and SNAP cuts from the “Big Beautiful Bill”
05:43 Gas prices in an oil state
08:16 Should New Mexico suspend the gas tax?
10:05 WIC, Medicaid, food stamps: her single-mom story
16:31 “Two jobs and a GoFundMe”
17:39 Trades, apprenticeships, and 58,000 homes
21:44 Public lands, Chaco, and lawsuits
24:27 The five bills Trump signed
26:30 The day-one data center moratorium
31:06 The Biden record
34:37 Water and the Colorado River
37:41 ICE and immigration
42:12 Public safety, fentanyl, and recovery
46:06 Following Lujan Grisham
51:13 Get out the vote