The 1st Massachusetts Congressional District race is getting chippy in its final days.
Incumbent Democrat Richard Neal, who has held the seat for almost 40 years, faces independent challenger Nadia Milleron. It's a rematch from 2024 between the career politician and the aviation safety activist from Sheffield, who lost her daughter in a 2019 Boeing 737 Max jet crash in Ethiopia.
Milleron, who is funding her bid with money from the almost $50 million her family won from Boeing in a civil suit, was the subject of a recent round of Neal campaign mailers that alleged a vote for her was a vote for President Donald Trump.
Her husband Michael Stumo's role in the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget has also emerged as a talking point.
She sat down with Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes to address the claims.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Milleron: The fundamental core is to provide economic relief for families that can't afford their own lives in our district. So, people simply are not receiving a wage that allows them to pay their rent and all their expenses, their basic expenses. They can't afford their own basic expenses, and so we have to immediately address that by having no federal income tax on income under $100,000. That's the income that we need to live in our district. That provides between about $10,000 to $20,000 in the each household of that relief, and it would be the most popular proposal in Congress. So here we get to what you're talking about — the political system. When there is a very popular proposal like that that legislators don't want to pass for their own reasons in terms of their funders, then they just don't bring it to a vote. But an independent in a close [U.S.] House can force a vote by denying vote for leadership, and by denying their participation in some essential processes in the House, in order to say, "If you want me to participate in this, then you have to bring this no federal income tax relief for basic income to a vote." Once you bring it to a vote, a legislator, any representative, would have a great deal of difficulty voting against it because all of their constituents want that kind of relief, and the federal government is spending billions per month on endless war, and so they are not spending our money appropriately. It stimulates the economy incredibly to have people have that extra income by which they can buy products that they need, and then they pay tax on those products. But at least they get material benefit to their family and their communities.
Landes: When you think about the pitch you're making to voters on the fence in this election, which you know is favored towards the incumbent. It's Massachusetts. There's a huge advantage to that in the Commonwealth. How do you try to explain to people why this is a viable option for them?
Milleron: Because Richard Neal is not responsive to these basic needs. In Sheffield, where I'm from, the school district had the health insurance costs go up astronomically this year, and then they had to lay off 21 teachers who work directly with children. What's the purpose of a school district: to educate children or to enrich health insurance company executives? So it's to educate children. It would be much more fiscally responsible and go towards the goals that we need in our society just to pay for the healthcare. In fact, some companies are doing that. They're not getting health insurance anymore. They're just putting the money in a pot and paying directly for their employees' care, the things that they need. Putting this kind of money back into our economy, the money that is being suctioned out by the greed of health insurance companies, would be a huge economic change and a huge economic boost to all of our communities. Richard Neal is against healthcare for all. He does not want that to happen, and so he is denying care, including access to abortion, access to bodily autonomy. He is denying that care to people, and so, who is against access to abortion? A person that denies universal health care for everybody, and that is not me. That is Richard Neal.
Landes: We've seen a round of mailers go out that suggest that a vote for your campaign is to support the MAGA movement behind President Trump. There has been conversation about your husband's work in or adjacent to the Trump administration; could you clear up both your reaction to those mailers and also just how your husband's work features into this, or if it should be part of the conversation at all?
Milleron: I can't be MAGA because I will vote to impeach Trump. Trump, as well as several other presidents before him, is a criminal, and he should be prosecuted as such. Richard Neal, on Sept. 15, voted present when 147 representatives voted to impeach Trump. Richard Neal could have stood up. 90% of Democratic Party voters want Trump to be impeached now, and two-thirds of independent voters want Trump to be impeached now. Those are Richard Neal's constituents. He is not. He is more Trumpy and more in line with Trump by far than I am, because Richard Neal supports tax write-offs and tax credits and the lack of pursuing legitimate taxes that should be paid; you know, he does that much more than I would. I would fund the IRS. To fund the IRS means that for every dollar you fund that agency, you get $10 back in unpaid taxes, taxes that are currently unpaid by corporations. You collect the money that is owed. Richard Neal doesn't want to do that. And in 2017, Trump instituted all these tax breaks for very wealthy Americans, and Richard Neal never walked those back. So, Richard Neal is not making Social Security solvent by putting the Social Security deduction onto income over $184,000. He could make the program solvent, but he doesn't do that because he doesn't want to tax people who make a lot of money. But he could make Social Security solvent, so he isn't a champion of Social Security. He doesn't bring Social Security up to the standard of living of today, even though there's been a bill sponsored by Representative John Larson from Connecticut for many years, asking that Richard Neal support this. He doesn't support it. He didn't support the Social Security Fairness Act, even though now he takes credit for the act being passed. But he blocked it for so many years that a Republican, Garrett Graves, and a Democrat, Abigail Spanberger, had to get a discharge petition and go around Richard Neal and the Ways and Means Committee and bring that bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, to the floor of the House, and it passed overwhelmingly. And Richard Neal did vote for it at that time, but he blocked it all the way along before that. Then he hypocritically sat there with [President Joe] Biden in the signing ceremony, which he hadn't been a supporter. Everything he says is exactly the opposite. He talks about MAGA funding. I'm funding my own campaign. Boeing admitted fault for the death of 346 people. Then a jury awarded each family an amount of money. With that money, I am running for Congress. That is blood money that I am trying to use in the best way I can for the good of our district, for the improvement of the quality of life in our district. Richard Neal has presided for 38 years over the decline of quality of life in our district. He has sent abroad with his trade agreements that he agreed on over 17,000 jobs in the Springfield area, and those union jobs are not part of our economic picture anymore. We have less than 2% now in our district, a manufacturing base. We need over 10% in order to have a viable economy.
Landes: Turning to the question of your husband and his work, you know, that's also come up in this campaign. Can you sort of clarify the work your husband does, and just to sort of dispel the rumor and conversation about this perception that might influence your goals should you be elected?
Milleron: So the work he does definitely influences my goals in a great way. Michael Stumo has been a defender of the American worker for the last 20 years. He fought against the World Trade Organization hegemony and taking over our sovereignty in our country. He fought to get American workers producing the products that we consume right here. His office, the Office for Economic Policy, which is in the Office of Management and Budget, is created by an executive order by Joe Biden, and it was enshrined into law by the Democrats in Congress. And the principal sponsor was [U.S. Sen.] Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Labor wanted that office to exist. Part of his duties is to make sure all the federal departments buy American-made products wherever possible. The federal government is a huge consumer, a huge buyer, and they need to support American industry by first choosing American-made products. That's been the law for a long time, but it hasn't been enforced by any office. That's something that labor really wanted to have in place. My husband has worked with the Biden administration. He worked with Catherine Tai, who actually was the trade ambassador for the Biden administration. But earlier, she was an intern in Richard Neal's office, so she went forward, took the idea of using tariffs in a predictable way, in a moderate way, in an incentive way, to say we don't need to pay any tariffs. Nobody needs to pay the cost of any tariffs. Just produce the items that we consume here. If you have the production in the United States, no tariffs are included, and people don't have that extra cost. But you have to have a predictable environment in order to get manufacturers to invest in our country, and that's what is a problem so far with Trump. Trump does tariff by tweet. He's vindictive. He uses it sort of as a bludgeon for our allies, and that is not a way to create an environment where you get economic investment in manufacturing in the country. So it has to be. We have used tariffs for our whole existence in the United States. You know, the second law that was ever enacted in the United States when we were a new country was a tariff law, and it is a foundation for us developing production here in this country. They also use it very successfully in India, in Germany, in [South] Korea, just to name a few places, to incentivize companies to produce within the country. So they are a tool. They just have to be used properly.
