Bob Burns, the Republican candidate in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, says he’s far from a polished politician, but thinks honesty is on his side, and told The Sentinel’s editorial board Wednesday he’s honestly worried about China.
The former Hillsborough County treasurer, who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, is trying to unseat U.S. Rep Annie Kuster, 66, a Democrat from Hopkinton who is seeking her fifth term representing the district, which covers the entire Monadnock Region.
Burns, 44, of Pembroke, the owner of a quality control and pharmaceutical safety company, said China poses an existential threat to the United States.
This is an even greater threat, he said, than the one presented by Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, has hinted at possible use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and is waging the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.
“Obviously, hey listen, I’m never going to say nuclear weapons are not a threat, but right now our largest threat is artificial intelligence and the Chinese have been taking that from us,” he said in a Zoom call. “Artificial intelligence will allow them to shut down our entire country and control our nuclear arsenal.
“When we’re talking about artificial intelligence and China, you take every nuclear threat in the entire world and you put it into China’s hands because that’s what it’s going to be.”
He said that mastery of artificial intelligence could allow China to knock out the entire U.S. electrical grid.
“We’ve seen what happens when the electrical grid goes down,” he said. “The most vulnerable of us out there will die. And there will be mass panic. And they’ll be able to do this with the flip of a switch.”
Artificial intelligence is the concept of machines learning from experience and performing human-like tasks for things like self-driving cars as well as military applications. China has set goals to be a leader in the field of AI.
Keene Mayor George Hansel finished second in the Republican primary to Burns, who said a key to victory for him was his strong support for Trump, although the former president never made an endorsement.
Burns defends Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, when the then-president told his supporters in a Washington, D.C. rally that they should “stop the steal,” go to the Capitol (about two miles away) and protest the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Crowds broke into the Capitol in a riot that directly led to five deaths and many more injuries while endangering elected officials and forcing them to flee.
“First off, you’ve got to separate the events,” Burns said. “I mean Trump had a rally, you know miles away, a lot of people try to conflate the two as being the same event, and it’s not.
“What we did have, we had a lot of people there that went and caused a lot of destruction and committed crimes at the Capitol building, but we’ve also had a lot of Americans that have been unjustly investigated … .”
More than 870 people have been arrested in connection with the breaching of the Capitol and 380 have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Aside from his enthusiastic backing of Trump, Burns’ positions, including support for a federal ban on abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat, placed him to the political right of Hansel in the primary.
The U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for the procedure in June, essentially allowing the issue to be decided on a state-by-state basis.
After that decision, Kuster supported legislation that passed the House but was blocked in the Senate that was intended to safeguard abortion rights nationally.
Burns said he believes a fetal heartbeat can be detected at 12 weeks of pregnancy.
He noted that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has introduced a bill to create a federal ban on abortions at 15 weeks.
“You know, the 15-week one, I’d be willing to come out there and compromise if that’s what it comes down to, but that’s in line with the rest of the world essentially,” Burns said.
On other issues, Burns said: — He doesn’t believe Trump won the 2020 election but does believe “there are a lot of discrepancies and I do believe there were a lot of people who illegally voted, and I believe there are a lot of problems in our voting system.” William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, has said there was no widespread voter fraud and judges have dismissed dozens of lawsuits challenging the election. — The U.S. Department of Education should be abolished, saying “I believe New Hampshire can take care of education on its own.”
— Protection of the Southern border should be increased with improved physical barriers as well as surveillance by drones and other devices.
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