WAVY talks with Republican challenger for U.S. Senate, Bert Mizusawa

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) - Retired flag officer, decorated combat veteran, attorney, and even a graduate of a Hampton Roads high school. Republican challenger for U.S. Senate Bert Mizusawa brings an impressive résumé to his campaign to unseat three-term incumbent Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

Mizusawa is a retired Army major general who earned the Silver Star for valor, was first in his class at West Point, and has a law degree from Harvard. His father was a veteran of the Air Force and was stationed at Langley Air Force Base. As a result, Mizusawa graduated from Kecoughtan High School In Hampton.

Mizusawa visited WAVY Tuesday for a cooking segment with the Hampton Roads Show after sitting down with investigative reporter Chris Horne to cover several topics that are top of mind with voters. ( We will post the interview in its entirety, along with a similar interview with Warner, in the coming days on WAVY+ )

TARIFFS — Have they been a net positive or net negative for Virginia and our shipping industry?

Mizusawa:In 2016 I was advising President Trump, then candidate Trump, our national security treaties, our mutual defense treaties. And the one thing I noticed as I was reviewing all of our national security issues, the tariff treaties, or the trade treaties, were 20 times longer because they went by line item on every good and services ... to be passed by different countries.

I think in some cases, they're very, very justified because the bottom line is, candidate Trump back then and now, President Trump wanted to have a level playing field. He just wanted basic fairness and reciprocity. And so I think all Americans should understand that we want our exports to be as welcome as we welcome other nations' exports into our country.

The bottom line is, I think the United States needs to be self-sufficient in certain, critical materials. I'll just name batteries and semiconductors as two that I think are very important for our national defense. And so for those, I would want to do everything we could to make sure that we were self-sufficient.

GAS PRICES — What would you do to try to lower the price of gasoline at the pump?

Mizusawa:Well, right now it's hard to separate what's going on in Iran from the prices of gas, but I think we should do it. I think the writing was on the wall going back decades. In 1973, there was an Arab oil embargo. I was a teenager in Germany at the time. The Autobahns were empty. And so, we knew that the Middle East could hold the Western nations, including Europe.

And just out of context, European gas prices are about twice as high as they are in the U.S., and that's historically been true. What I would do is I would encourage as much domestic production as possible. We have it in the Permian Basin in Oklahoma and Texas. The Prudhoe Bay area would also enhance our refining capability.

We have the best refineries in the world, but I think they need to be enhanced, especially now with the agreement we have with Venezuela. Venezuela could be a huge boon to America. It can more than complement our strategic petroleum reserve. We have a lot of refineries in the Gulf area. So I will put a lot of emphasis on getting these refineries enhanced and online.

CHECKS & BALANCES ON THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH — How would you strengthen them?

Mizusawa:I was a senior staffer in the United States Senate the 1990s. It was a different era. I understand that institution. The job of the Senate, if you follow the intent of the Founding Fathers, is essentially to keep stupid stuff from happening.

I want to bring a longer-term form of thinking to that body. And right now my opponent is coming up with short-term solutions to issues that have been out there for decades. So as far as checks and balances, yes, people know me as a general, but I'm also a lawyer. I understand the Constitution. I did work in that body before. We provided checks and balances on the Clinton administration when I worked in that body for the Republicans. And so, we do follow the law. We do follow the Constitution.

This president is not going to be listening to our Democrat senators. He will listen to a Republican — somebody who understands what he's doing. And so I think I could provide a very, very effective check, not only because he knows that I have the long-term interest of America, but I'd also be the highest ranking military officer in the Senate, as well as the most highly decorated combat veteran in that body.

Virginia gets the highest per capita amount of defense dollars of any state in the nation. And so I would be helping Virginia with both national security and prosperity. And this president will listen to me, but I also have a track record of working across the aisle.

I was a senior appointee during the Clinton administration in the Pentagon. And so, I did work across the aisle with our counterparts on the Democrat side back in the 90s. And I was appointed by the Clinton administration to actually supervise the transfer of the Panama Canal.

UKRAINE WAR — Where do you stand on the current level of support for Ukraine?

Mizusawa:So I was raised in the Cold War. You know, my father served in Europe and in Asia during the Cold War. But I, myself served on the borders along the Iron Curtain in Germany as well as on the Korean DMZ. My soldiers shed blood. And so I understand the that system. And Russia is not a nation that we should trust. As Reagan said, trust but verify.

I do support Ukraine, but I have a very simple question for most Americans and other leaders. Why is every nation's problem our problem? And so, I think because we have subsidized our fellow NATO countries quite a bit over the past 75 years, where we have given a disproportionate amount of the US taxpayer dollars, while they haven't. A lot of them have been in the range of less than 1% of their GDP.

Diesel prices are 50% higher in Europe, and they're very important for our Western allies as well. So I think what he has done with this diesel deal, he's helped the economies of the West, including, most importantly, America's economy. But he's also actually gained some leverage over [Vladimir] Putin. Putin, now that he's getting some income from our dollars, we'll have more leverage over him.

The United States and the NATO allies have been giving Ukraine quite a bit of support.

Don't you think pouring American dollars into Russia for diesel is helping Putin against Ukraine?

Mizusawa:Yes, it'll have that secondary effect. I won't sit here and tell you it won't. On the other hand, I think that there's other ways that we can approach this issue. I think [Trump's] got a big interest in resolving this conflict, as he stated, as a campaign promise — 24 hours I think everybody understands that was way too ambitious. I think the one thing that surprises me and maybe the president, as well as the intransigence of both parties in this conflict, they're fighting for things that are not just strategic. They're in some ways existential.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE — Is it out of control at this point?

Mizusawa:I think it definitely has a prospect for getting out of control. I don't know if it's out of control at this point. I think the White House did the right thing when it brought in about 20 different leading-edge companies. Fortunately, all U.S. companies do have an involuntary kind of an industry agreement. The one thing I would add [is] I did not see an enforcement mechanism.

People know that I'm a general. They don't also know that I'm an attorney, a lawyer. What I would advocate for right now is to take those voluntary industry standards [and] turn them into a multilateral contract among all these firms. It might even include the government as a party as well, and to have an enforcement mechanism. If any one of these participants actually violated the terms, they would be punished and the punishment would include compensation that could be paid into a fund that would either go to the other competitors or come to the U.S. government.

DATA CENTERS — How much say should localities have?

Mizusawa:I don't want any local community that does not want these big, ugly, noisy, energy guzzling structures in their areas. I would support any local community to have a veto. But on the other hand, I do not want us to cede leadership to any other nation, potential adversaries or current adversaries, because it's going to be the leading edge of national security.

There have been a couple of leading edge frontier technologies that people will be familiar with. Electricity was one people thought that was going to be extremely harmful. Thomas Edison put on some displays [to reassure them]. We have nuclear, and then we have the internet.

What separates this new superintelligence now, it's the first technology that exists that can actually reinvent itself without human intervention. That's what scares me. I don't think our politicians are ready to legislate, so I don't think they understand it well enough. And that's why I'm OK with this voluntary, industry agreement.

Election Day is Nov. 3.

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