- [Announcer] A "Your Vote 2026 Conversation" with US Senate Candidate David Costello.

Costello is one of three candidates on the June Democratic Senate primary ballot.

All three agreed to a televised debate on Maine public, but the program was canceled after Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign and Graham Platner then declined to take part.

Maine Public's Nicole Ogrysko sat down with Costello in our Lewiston studios to learn more about his priorities and why he's launched a Senate bid for the second time.

- David Costello, thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me, Nicole.

Happy to be here, yeah.

- So if the debate had happened, what would you have said to viewers about why you're the best person for this job?

- Well, I would try to have made the case that my background and experience contrast considerably with Senator Collins, but also with Graham Platner.

So that's the case I would've tried to make.

I grew up in a working class family in Old Town and have significant public service experience, over 25 years at senior level positions, both in the United States and abroad.

- You mentioned your public service background, and we should point out you have run for public office before.

- [David] Yes.

- You were on the ballot two years ago as the democratic nominee in the US Senate race.

Angus King won reelection handily.

You came in a distant third.

- Yeah.

- What made you wanna try again two years later?

- Well, as you probably recall, I ran last time, not because I disliked Senator King, but I thought that Washington was broken, that our democracy was lacking, and that I sort of compared it to where, you know, that our governing infrastructure was as outdated as many of our roads, ports, and bridges.

Well, you can imagine what I think now, given what the Trump administration has done in terms of their assault on our democracy.

Not only, not only reckless assault, but often illegal assault on our democracy, environment and economy.

So that's really why I'm more ginned up to run now than I was actually two years ago.

- Is there one particular animating issue that's motivating your decision to run again, a priority that if you were elected, you would wanna tackle in the US Senate?

- Well, a couple of things.

I think systemic reform is what drove me last time, and it drives me again because if we don't change the system, you know, to make our government more little "d" democratic, we're not gonna get the policy reforms that I've supported for over three decades, whether it's Medicare for all, universal childcare, you know, ensuring social security benefits are sufficient, those kinds of things.

I just don't believe we're gonna get them, even though they're priorities of mine.

And I would certainly within, and I think what Democrats would do if we take control of Congress, we'll repeal much of and repair much of the damage that the Trump administration has done, that'll be the primary focus.

But other than that, I wanna get, you know, certainly support or advance the kind of systemic changes that protect against such assaults in future.

- You mentioned your background in Old Town.

- [David] Yeah.

- Working class family as you described it.

Tell us a bit more about that.

- Well, I was born in Bangor, raised in Old Town largely by my mother and maternal grandparents.

My father, an army veteran, labor organizer died at the age of 31 because of work he did as a teenager.

The kind of work he did is he was ripping out asbestos from train cars, so you can imagine the impact it had on his lungs.

So I was raised by my mother, a widow at 28, and my mill working grandparents.

About a year after my father died, the mill closed, Old Town used to be a mill town.

It really only has Old Town Canoe now.

Used to have textiles, shoe, where my grandparents worked as well as a woolen mill, and a pie plate and paper mill.

So it was very much a mill town, which unfortunately isn't now.

So that's the kind of upbringing.

I like to say that I learned early, I started work early, but I learned early to have to hustle to pay bills.

I accrued a lot of debt through college as well as other debt as you accrue in life.

So I know what it's like to accrue and pay for debt.

And I went for long periods of time without healthcare, health insurance.

And I say to people, the only time in my 20s I actually had health, I attended the, you know, visited doctors in England because in grad school I qualified for the National Health Service, so I paid for nothing.

So I had the works done from a healthcare perspective while I went to grad school in the mid 80s in England.

- Yeah, you mentioned your education.

You were the first in your family to attend a four year college, and you eventually went on to the London School of Economics.

What is it that you wanted to do as a young person?

- Well, as you probably know, I left college actually at Maine.

I started at U Maine, which was very close to where I grew up, and I left as a 19-year-old to work on Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign.

In 1980, the Maine caucuses were a big deal.

We came right after Iowa and before the New Hampshire primaries.

So I just got caught up in it.

I was the coordinator on campus.

They asked if I wanted to travel with the national field staff.

So you can imagine what a boy from Old Town, Maine, getting a chance to travel around the country and how exciting that was.

So I really got the political bug then, even though I like to say I cut my political teeth on picket lines in Bangor and Old Town as a boy, it really was that Kennedy campaign experience that propelled me to be interested in government and politics and led me to transfer to a college in DC and then to go to grad school overseas.

- Hmm, you have a extensive background in public service working for the Maine state government and the state of Maryland.

You also worked for the US Agency for International Development, and that is a foreign aid agency that's been largely eliminated by the Trump administration.

How would that experience help you to serve in the US Senate?

- Well, I like to say both my lived experience, which we talked about in terms of my working class background, but my work experience is very broad.

I think it's broad, it's deep, and in many ways more substantive than Senator Collins and certainly considerably more than Graham Platner has.

And what I mean by that is that I had the kind of jobs that I was managing, implementing or managing complex multimillion dollar operations on a, you know, a regular basis, whether it was in, as you said, in Maryland or overseas for USAID.

So I think that kind of hands-on experience is different from what a legislator does.

So Senator Collins has been a legislator for over 29 years, and I like to say Barney Frank, who you probably know recently passed, but he said one time of Connie Morella, a Republican, a moderate Republican Congressman, says she's always there when you don't need her.

And I think that's kind of where Collins has been for 29 years.

She's been there when she's, we needed small grants, but she hasn't been there on the big stuff, whether it's voting for Justice Kavanaugh or missing out on the, you know, making mistakes with the Bush tax cuts and the Trump tax cuts and this so-called big beautiful bill.

She's been with Republicans with Mitch McConnell and now Donald Trump over 94, 95% of the time.

And I don't think that's been in the best interest of Mainers or the nation.

- Shifting gears a little bit to some of the issues you might be dealing with if you were elected.

You are opposed to the war with Iran.

- [David] Yeah.

- What would you do to shore up the War Powers Act to ensure that Congress controls funding for those operations?

- Well, we have to take a really hard look, and it's, you know, as you know, what the Trump administration has done, they have ignored Congressional directives across the board.

And it shows you what a shambles our checks and balances system is.

It takes time to work its way through the courts, right?

So even though some of the actions they're finding to be illegal, the Trump administration hasn't seemed to care, right?

Because they know they've got time on their hands.

So getting back to the War Powers Act, we clearly have to take a hard look at how it was established and what are the guidelines within it, the specific, you know, guidance within the act and how that might be changed so that the president or the executive doesn't have the amount of time they have one to report to Congress or to be responsible to what Congress wants, and to see if there's anything we can do to strengthen and to prevent what's happening now in Iran.

- US support for Israel has created a bit of a rift within the Democratic party.

Do you believe the United States should put more conditions on its aid to Israel?

- I do, and I've been a strong, I've been to Israel, I've been a strong supporter for it, for Israel for quite some time, although I've had real trouble since the Netanyahu administration took over, since the mid 90s when the Oslo Accords failed.

And so I do think certainly given what the Netanyahu administration has done as it relates to the West Bank, as regards to settlements and beyond that, more importantly what it's done in Gaza and Lebanon recently, where 70,000 Palestinians, the estimate have died, over 19,000 children, it's indefensible.

And I certainly agree with what the recent UN commission of inquiry on what has happened in Gaza, which has basically said that the Netanyahu government is responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide, and, you know, has to be held accountable.

So I would support, getting back to your questions in terms of specific kinds of conditions, I certainly support efforts to ban offensive, support for and funding for offensive weapon systems.

I think that's certainly something we could and should be doing now.

And one thing I would say as well, and this is a little different from some Democrats, to me, the two state solution is hard to imagine right now, but the only way we're gonna get there is to support the left, the progressive left in Israel that recognizes what the Commission of Inquiry has said about Netanyahu's actions in Gaza.

And we need to support them as they try to remove Netanyahu from power and his government.

So it's a real struggle, but we can't abandon Israel altogether.

And we don't wanna blame Israel writ large.

So it's kind of a nuanced position, but I think it's important going forward because what's happening now certainly hurts everyone's long-term security and interests and economic interest in the Middle East with what's going on right now.

- You express support for universal healthcare.

- [David] Yeah.

- Does that mean Medicare for all and how exactly would we pay for something like that?

- Well, it's, there are bills in Congress that are pending for Medicare for all, and I support 'em.

It's going to take time.

It's clearly gonna have to be phased in.

And in the interim, we need to reinforce Medicaid, Medicare as they currently extends and the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, all of that as well as funding for maternal care, perinatal care, those kinds of things.

We need to put much more resources.

Now, funding it to me gets to funding many of the programs I support and democrats have supported for decades, and that's, again, rolling back much of the Bush tax cuts and Trump tax cuts on the wealthy and the ultra wealthy.

I think if we do that, we'll raise not only enough revenue to fund the kind of programs that need to be funded like Medicare for all, but also help to balance the budget and bring down the deficit.

So I very much support higher taxes on the wealthy and ultra wealthy, and we can do the same thing.

We can also even lower taxes on those making less than $50,000 a year while we raise taxes on the, you know, the wealthy and ultra wealthy.

And so that's the way I would see us raise.

And of course I think that would generate a lot more revenue from economic expansion as well by tailoring our taxes and cutting some of those loopholes as well, yeah.

- You mentioned this as a motivation for you in launching your campaign this time.

You're among the many Democrats who are positioning themselves as want to take on President Trump if elected.

If Democrats do win back control of Congress, how should they use that power to curb the president?

Are you thinking about legislation, investigations, impeachment?

What do you think?

- Well, first, I think it's important for Democrats to focus on repairing the damage done from a policy and critical government program and service perspective.

But at the same time, Democrats need to launch investigations.

A lot that's happened is illegal.

A lot of the money that's being made by Trump administration people, including the president's family, needs to be looked at.

Now I suspect it'll lead to certainly consideration of impeachment, and so I think that's likely to happen.

But again, I wouldn't want that to, I wouldn't want the Democrats to be seen as too focused on retribution.

That's where the Trump administration or where President Trump is right now.

Take care of government first.

But at the same time, obviously to put the brakes, to ensure that we put the brakes on this administration, we need to undertake the investigations and hold this administration accountable for any lawlessness.

And the kinds of things, as I said, the grifting that's taking place, the money, the money that's being made by many in the administration, including the president and his family.

- Do you see a possibility where there could be legislation that would put more oversight on this administration?

You have extensive experience in government.

I mean, is that something that you've thought about?

- Well, I think the fact that Congress, you know, oversight, I think they've got the authorities to investigate now.

It's whether or not the administration will follow the law.

So it's a real challenge.

That's why quickly we've got the resources to it.

If we take over Congress, the House and the Senate, or even just the House, whatever it might be, we can investigate, we can subpoena, we can try to hold, you know, the administration accountable.

They'll probably balk, and we'll need the courts to act more expeditiously.

So it's a real challenge.

But I do think we have existing authorities to hold the administration accountable.

And of course we've got authorities over the purse.

I mean, Congress theoretically controls the purse, right, of the United States government.

So we would wanna pull back money from agencies that aren't acting appropriately or hold money from agencies and personnel.

So there are things that Congress can do, but it cannot do unless we're in control of one of the houses of Congress.

- There's ongoing debate over eliminating the filibuster in the Senate.

Should there be changes to the filibuster if Democrats do win back the Senate?

- I think so.

I know it's a touchy subject now given where we are, but it's an undemocratic instrument.

A lot of important legislation was denied during the McConnell years because of the filibuster.

So I think it's important to remove the filibuster.

I think it's important to support, you know, eliminate gerrymandering.

We've gotta really take money outta politics.

So campaign finance reform has to be a priority of any democratic Congress.

- You mentioned social security as a priority, I believe earlier.

- [David] Yeah.

- How will you ensure that it's fully funded?

I believe you oppose raising the age of eligibility for social security, but short of that, how can Congress protect the program's solvency?

- Well, the simplest solution is to eliminate the cap.

As you know, the cap, those who make less than $185,000 a year, pay in to the, you know, the FICA tax.

I wanna eliminate that cap so that it would be a tax on all income.

That alone, I think would solve the solvency problem.

But even if it didn't, we can always add general fund money.

And we could also establish, one of the things I agreed with Senator King on is the establishment of a supplemental sovereign fund, Sovereign investment fund, where, you know, the government could put money into equities.

Right now social security is funded, money into the Social Security Trust is all tied to government bonds, Treasury bonds.

So there are ways to supplement the growth of the trust fund, but the bottom line, we need to provide more, not only do we need to make sure that the trust fund is solvent, but that low income seniors receive higher benefits.

I think that's important.

And that gets at our affordability challenge.

- You've expressed support for red flag laws.

- [David] Yeah.

- And also a national registry for so-called assault weapons during your previous run for the US Senate.

How do you address concerns from gun rights groups that those are possibly a precursor to government confiscation of firearms?

- Well, a couple of things.

One, I grew up hunting and shooting in Old Town, and two of the most exciting things I did as a boy growing up in Maine.

And ever since I worked for Ted Kennedy as a 19-year-old, I've been very supportive of gun safety legislation.

And even when I worked on the campaign, they'd send me around rural Pennsylvania because I had that hunting background.

And I would explain to them, this has nothing to do about taking guns away from law abiding citizens.

So I would wanna make the same case, and nothing in what's been proposed to date does that, and obviously the constitution of Maine protects the right to bear arms very specifically.

So even if you've got trouble with the way, how the national Second Amendment is defined, Maine has a constitutional, a very specific constitutional amendment that protects the rights of law abiding citizens to bear arms.

- Would this topic be a particular priority for you in, if you were elected to the US Senate?

Or is this something that maybe you would speak on if it came up?

- I would certainly speak on it, and I would support, Chris Murphy had a bill a short time ago after what happened in Newtown with those six and seven year olds, which was horrific.

So I certainly would support it.

But I think in terms of a priority, I would look to, and this is why I would try to convince Mainers that it's more important to focus on affordability right now than whether or not you're gonna lose your gun, which I don't think's gonna, certainly don't think's gonna happen, as I've said.

But I think if you look at the affordability challenge, we need to raise income, do two things: raise incomes like we talked about in terms of social security benefits to low income retirees, but also have a national living wage.

You know, so there are things we can do to raise incomes and also there are things we can do to limit costs.

And as we've said, Medicare for all, universal childcare, for instance, you know, ending the war, ending the crazy tariffs, those kinds of things will bring down costs while we're raising incomes.

And I think that'll be much more of a focus of Congress if Democrats take control of one of the Houses in 2026.

- You touched on affordability challenges.

I mean, we're seeing rising gas prices, rising housing costs, healthcare, et cetera.

Could you elaborate a bit more on what you would tackle when it comes to bringing down prices for Mainers?

How do you see that and what do you think you could get done?

- Well, the most immediate would be to try to, and well, obviously Congress is trying to end the war in Iran as well as these ad hoc, hard to understand tariffs.

Very disruptive economically, globally, and that redounds poorly for us.

But specifically I think Congress could make more ground in repealing the big, so-called Big Beautiful Bill because immediately we need to reinforce Medicaid, the ACA cuts, because healthcare costs are impacting Mainers at a very high rate.

And of course we're losing local hospitals and birthing care centers, these kinds of things.

So I think that would be the most immediate is to try to repeal much of what the Trump administration has done in terms of cutting the kind of needed services that are very important to Mainers.

- And beyond the Big Beautiful Bill, any other solutions that you see?

I know Congress is debating a major housing legislation.

Is that something you've looked at or thought about?

- I've looked at it a little bit, and Senator Warnock and Warren actually had a proposal to provide much more.

As you know, the best thing the federal government can do is provide resources and deal with the disparities across the United States in terms of rural areas or poorer neighborhoods in cities that need more assistance, federal assistance.

So this particular bill would've offered up a lot more money for first time home buyers, as well as subsidies for rental assistance for low income families, those kinds of things, and construction.

So again, I think if Democrats do take control, we'll try to put a lot more money into programs like housing and healthcare and childcare that will really help struggling families deal with the challenges we have today.

- When it comes to climate change, you have some experience in this field.

If you were to serve in the Senate, are there priorities there that you would try to tackle?

At the same time, I mean, Mainers are dealing with rising energy costs, that is a major pain point.

Is there something that you think you could do in Congress on that front as well?

- Well, I think so.

A couple of things too, as I see it, climate change is an existential threat, not so much to Americans, but certainly over hundreds of millions of people across the globe, and even, you know, AI and nuclear weapons.

And we have done nothing on nuclear weapons arms control for instance, so I'd support those kinds of initiatives in the Senate.

But back to climate, I think it's awfully important for the United States to have an aggressive national plan, similar to what certain states, what we did in Maryland when I was involved in coordinating the state's climate action plans there, but what California, Massachusetts, and other states have done, we've gotta bring down, we've gotta put a price on carbon.

We've gotta cap emissions.

We've gotta bring those emissions down.

We also have to support efforts to draw carbon out of the atmosphere because we're not gonna stop the worst impacts of climate change unless we start drawing carbon down.

And of course, all of this, a lot of it has to do with supporting, as you brought up, energy prices, supporting the development of clean, renewable energy.

Solar will be most dominant, but wind's important, geothermal, tidal, those kinds of things.

And they are cost effective over time.

So they will help to reduce prices, and they involve generating or creating a lot of domestic jobs.

So we should keep that in mind as we build out a cleaner electric grid, beneficial electricity system, and what those benefits are, not only from a climate perspective, but a jobs perspective and a reduced energy cost perspective.

- David Costello, thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me, appreciate it.

- [Announcer] This "Your Vote 2026 Conversation" with Senate Candidate David Costello is a production of Maine Public and can be seen on demand at MainePublic.org/YourVote.

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