JAHD KHALIL: Thank you so much for joining us.

So, I want to start in general, what is your top priority if you're elected?

SHANNON TAYLOR: Well, as the top prosecutor in Henrico County, you know, my job is to make sure that my community is safe.

And we do that every day by holding people accountable for their actions.

So, going after and holding people accountable for violent crimes, those human trafficking offenses and making sure that we are holding people accountable for the harms for our vulnerable communities like our seniors and our children.

I'm seeing a different type of harm that's happening here in my district, and that's the harm that is happening from bad policies and bad laws and actions from the corruption in DC that has allowed politicians like Rob Wittman to not focus on their job.

You know, Rob Wittman has had an opportunity to do right by the people here in the 1st District.

But he hasn't.

He's been focusing on himself, which is the self-enrichment, the having his net worth go up 40 times, the stock trading of $2.5 million while he's been there.

And then that budget bill that he voted for and not only gave billionaires the tax break, but gave himself the own tax break.

JAHD KHALIL: You mentioned tax policy, the top tax bracket in the the US is $769,000 for joint filers.

What sort of changes would you like to see to the way that America taxes people?

SHANNON TAYLOR: So, we're dealing with first what I think is an antiquated tax code.

That takes a lot of time to address.

But at the end of the day, we need to see how people are being taxed and where is the money, you know, being spent.

If there's going to be any tax breaks, it needs to be for the hardworking people in the middle class.

I'd like to see that.

And certainly we do count on people who have the ability to earn more, to pay more because they've been blessed with, you know, with the aspect of being very successful.

A lot of changes to the tax code happened in the budget bill that passed Congress.

That affected healthcare a lot.

What changes would you like to see to government-supported healthcare?

I'll tell you right now, the healthcare system that we have is not working, and I would like to see an actual redo of the entire healthcare system.

And that means putting more focus on preventative care and wellness so we can ease up with the pressures that are happening right now in our emergency rooms.

We know that that health bill had an immediate impact on healthcare on Virginians.

I know that it's going to take a lot, but we need to make sure that we can establish that funding that's been taken away from Medicaid and ensure that we're not going to touch Medicare and Social Security for our seniors.

We need to make sure that we can do everything we can to work with Medicare to lower drug prices, and we also need to work on the medical billing transparency.

JAHD KHALIL: A lot of voters are talking about costs.

One thing that, you know, I'm hearing about is data centers.

You've talked about data centers needing to pay their fair share.

Why do you say that?

SHANNON TAYLOR: The data centers that are here, they have to pay their fair share.

Virginians cannot be paying one dime more for electricity or water to function these data centers.

We need to demand that they engage in renewable energy reconfigurations.

We have to give the citizens, who don't have data centers in their community the right to say “No.” We need to establish regulation.

JAHD KHALIL: When you're talking about these two priorities of addressing corruption and addressing affordability, does one take precedent over the other?

What balance do you take when you're deciding what to tackle first?

SHANNON TAYLOR: The corruption is the reason for the rising costs.

I mean, when you have politicians like Rob Wittman who are voting on bills, you know, supporting policies because he is going to financially benefit from that, he's putting his priorities over the people hes supposed to be representing.

I came up with, and I'm going to propose in Congress, this ban of stock trading.

I want to make sure that we are going to ban this Congress-to-lobbying firm pipeline.

Again, making sure that when you're taking action, youre doing it because it's the right thing to do not thinking about what your future job is going to be.

I have not taken campaign corporate campaign funding and I'm not going to take the corporate money while I'm serving in Congress, because I know how people in my district feel about it.

They want to see, you know, that influence removed from politics.

They want to bring back trust and accountability and I'm listening to the voters.

Rob Wittman's not.

JAHD KHALIL: I heard you talk about the Iran war.

How do you think the US should wind down the war?

Should there be something like a unilateral ceasefire?

And what would you not be able to accept if there was some sort of negotiated deal between Iran and the United States?

SHANNON TAYLOR: We are in a war that we had no idea, really, why we are there.

There was all this talk about the nuclear weapons, and now it's talking about oil.

I regret that Rob Wittman has voted six times to continue to support this war and we're talking about taxpayers being asked to spend billions of dollars.

We have no way out of this war right now.

And every day we stay in Iran, gas prices continue to go up, diesel continues to go up, fertilizer is not being accessed and the direct individuals being harmed are farmers and Americans.

JAHD KHALIL: To come back to affordability issues, what else would you you mentioned healthcare and taxes and those sort of things, what other things would you like to do to lower costs for Virginians?

SHANNON TAYLOR: We need to repeal the tariffs that were imposed in the beginning of this administration and again most recently.

The tariffs, again, harming our farmers, harming our small business operators, making products for what we buy every day more expensive.

And Congress abdicated their responsibility.

Rob Wittman did not do his job to stand up to tariffs that were harming the farmers in this district.

To stand up and vote and to say that the war was not going in the right direction.

JAHD KHALIL: So would you like just to return to, sort of, what the status quo was before these, you know, the Trump administration's tariffs came in or would you like to see some sort of other change in the way that America trades with other countries when it comes to tariffs?

SHANNON TAYLOR: I don't pretend that we can go back to exactly the way things were because the tariff has actually changed the way that economic development has been happening and how, you know, international revenue is being generated.

So, I would like to see us go back to a place where costs are going down.

That we don't have tariffs that, by the way, were found to be unlawful to allow administrations to go ahead and singularly take action when Congress has the absolute right to make those calls.

It's Congress's responsibility.

JAHD KHALIL: Can you talk about what the choice that you think before voters is this fall?

SHANNON TAYLOR: It's a matter of whether or not Virginians in the 1st Congressional District want to continue down a road of a corrupt politician who was putting his interests in front of theirs and allowing this corruption in DC to change I mean excuse me, to continue, or do they want a change of someone who's going to bring trust and accountability back to the office?

This is a government, you know, for the people, by the people.

When I'm out to talk to people in the district, whether it's in the suburbs of Henrico or Chesterfield, going to the Historic Triangle area or going all the way up from the Middle Peninsula to the Northern Neck, it's the same concern that everyone's having which is the rising costs of living and the same anger regarding corruption in DC.

I want to give the voters in the 1st an option and I believe that my conversations that I'm having right now, we're feeling that positive momentum and people are ready for a change.

JAHD KHALIL: Thank you so much.

SHANNON TAYLOR: Thank you.