SPEARMAN WARY OF BOTH TRUMP, PENCE

“When I get to Washington, I don’t plan on being part of that enablers group,” she said.

Spearman also spoke in support of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-calif., who said Trump should be impeached after his recent derogatory comments about people from Haiti, El Salvador and some nations in Africa.

Spearman has also been critical of the man who would become president if Trump’s impeachment were finalized by a trial in the U.S. Senate — Vice President Mike Pence.

Spearman was critical of Pence’s record on LGBTQ rights during a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, saying Pence “used religion as a weapon to discriminate.”

Spearman said on Nevada Newsmakers that her view on Pence had not changed.

“If Mr. Trump is impeached Pat Spearman, Democratic candidate for Congress

and Mike Pence becomes president, that doesn’t change anything. Until he changes his stance, I will still be critical,” she said.

Spearman also touched on the well-publicized bullying story out of Yerington, one of the rural cities in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District.

Parents of two stepsisters have filed lawsuits against the city of Yerington and the Lyon County School District after the stepsisters allegedly endured

months of racially charged bullying — including death threats — from classmates, according to the Reno Gazette-journal.

The Trump administration has set a poor example when it comes to bullying, Spearman said.

“Bullying starts at the top, and the guy who sits in the White House is probably the biggest bully of all,” Spearman said.

She noted Nevada already had zero-tolerance laws for bullying and, “we’ve got to make sure those laws are enforced.”

Bullying is a nationwide problem, she added.

“It is not just Yerington,” she said. “Let me be clear: these are some of the things we face in America, and this whole culture of racism has been perpetuated, in large measure, by the current (Trump) administration.”

A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Spearman wants more federal funding and attention on military sexual trauma.

“We want to make sure that the people who experienced this have the opportunity, a true opportunity, to get their lives back together,” she said.

She also threw down a strong challenge to those in Congress who call for war to settle the nation’s international issues.

“I will say this for all of those people who are calling for, ‘Let’s go to war’ and they’ve never been. My question would be: are you willing to go first? If you are not willing to go first, then I don’t believe you when you say we’ve got to go to war.”

Spearman also advocates implementing universal health care to solve the nation’s health care crisis, or a Medicare-for-all system.

“I believe it is possible to get affordable Medicare, Medicaid for all,” she said. “If other countries have done it, then we’re smart enough to figure out how to do it as well.”

Spearman is seeking the seat being vacated by first-term U.S. Rep. Ruben Kiheun.

“Bullying starts at the top, and the guy who sits in the White House is probably the biggest bully of all.”