>> Illinois voters will see more than Juliana Stratton and on Tracy's names on the ballot for U.S.

Senate third-party candidate with Field Harrington Junior is running as the nominee of the American Center Party, which he calls a middle ground for Illinois residents who are unsatisfied with polarizing politics.

He's a pastor and former financial services professional with the campaign centered on affordability, health care access and government reform and Whitfield Harrington Junior joins us now to talk more about his campaign.

Thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you for having me.

Brand so you served as a pastor for many years.

You've got business experience, but no political experience.

What made you want to be the next U.S.

senator from Illinois?

>> Well, I don't have political experience as a politician, but I do have public service experience.

And also I grew up the South where the civil rights movement.

My father was also instrumental in the civil rights movement as a civil rights leader.

He was chairman of the NAACP and the county that I grew up doing the actual civil rights movement.

So are some some of the things that I experience and my youth growing up on the my father and then also be involved the campaigns as well as most people start out in politics.

You get sick on your feet wet by being a public servant and being a servant to someone who was already in office.

>> You don't support the platforms of many Democratic and Republican politicians.

As we mentioned, you're running to help build the American Center Party.

What are some of the principles of that party?

>> One of the things that want to focus on American Center Party is making certain that we prioritize the struggles and challenges that Americans right now.

Both the Democratic and the Republican Party, they used to present a vision to the American people and how they wanted to move the nation forward.

And you don't see that anymore.

What you see is just give a are going to bicker.

And and I'm pretty sure it's on full display all across the country.

So what we want to do is we want to begin to present a vision that people can go and look at the vision that we have for the nation, whether it's on the Senate level state level, the local level so people can gauge the vision that we have and see if this is something they want to support because I'm a pastor and I believe when there's no vision, the people perish.

>> Affordability is a top issue for voters across the country.

You've said it's also your top Priority Day one in office.

What would you start working on to make life more affordable for Illinois?

Ends.

>> First thing that I would do is I would send a message to the president of United States.

You need to end the war in Alright, respectfully and probably as quickly as possible.

And number we need to get the prices of order and the way that we do that is we do that by banning speculation from individuals who work in coal markets who have no legitimate reason to actually take possession of the core that can purchase If we can get those individuals out of the or mark, we will see instant decline in the price of coal and everybody will feel the ripple effects of bringing down the price of gold in our economy.

President Trump has been a point of contention for the Democrat and the Republican candidates in this Juliana Stratton and on Tracy.

>> What are your thoughts on President Trump and his policies?

>> of things I want to say is I applaud the president is to desire is to make America great again.

was his motive.

But one of the things that I think he has be questioned about his methods and some of the things that I think people are sort of pushing back from on the methods in which and and I think, you know, as a senator, you have to be willing to work with whoever is to present the printing is going to be the president for the next 2 years.

So we can't go in Washington and hold our breath for 2 years and hope someone from your party gets elected as the president.

But we have to work president meant Or any other elected official.

We have to work with that individual.

>> One of the places where the president has taken some criticism in Illinois is, of course, his immigration enforcement tactics, Illinois being a sanctuary state.

And we also the harsh immigration crackdown with operation Midway Blitz about a year ago.

How should Illinois respond to the Trump administration's mass deportation push and how would you approach immigration and reform?

A lot more.

>> When we get to a point to where we decide that we want to particular laws, we're moving from being nation moving towards being a flawless society to live nation.

That's on the path to becoming a lawless society.

So number one, if we have laws on the books and we think there and just and that's changing because we have laws on the books that should be enforced and we should enforce as it comes to immigration.

We have immigration laws that needs to be in force.

But that doesn't mean you have to and forced in a manner that's disrespectful.

You shooting people in the streets and you just going to end extreme to get the message court to get your math out to where you're throwing people out for just a minute of the things I think we still need to ensure that America is a place where people want to migrate to there's this talk about we need a real path to citizenship.

I disagree a real path to citizenship already exists.

All right.

That's a long.

And so we need to re-evaluate whether or not we should be focusing on workmanship allowing people who are here who haven't gotten the citizenship status yet to simply be able to work in the and still stay on the path that has already been established to become citizen.

Let's find ways to make that pass shorter.

So people will find it easier to come to America the legal way rather than the illegal way.

>> Over the past several years, Illinois has become a safe haven for abortion rights.

More people traveling here than any other state for abortion care where you stand on that issue.

>> I am pro-life candidate base, my beliefs, anything personal, but because I base my buildings on the scriptures and that's where intend to continue to stay in on that matter.

>> Ok, elected, you said that you would work to make the first year of community college free.

How would you propose to fund that?

>> One of the things that think it's worth mentioning that there's a similar program that happening right now in Tennessee.

It's slightly different.

And the reason being it's a lot of things that are going to the Department of Education from as far as the budget is concerned.

I think we need to take a look at the overall mission of the Department of Education.

Right now, President Trump is trying to delete the organization, Democrats of trying to keep it propped up.

But my perspective is we need to re-evaluate the Department of Education.

And the first thing I think that we need to do is we need to make certain that people will benefit from the Department of Education, all the students and the teachers.

All right.

Everybody else should get in line behind us.

And I think this is one of the ways that we can take just a portion of the revenues that has been given to the Department of Education and find a way to make the first year of 2 year college is not for your 2 years.

And this is going to create a competitive nature along universities to be able to compete when a parent can see that they can send their child to a junior college for the first year for free.

Right?

And that's going to become competitive competitive for other universities to make certain that they're bringing their price down as well.

then we think about There are other nations in the world that we spent trillions of dollars over the decades.

Defendant.

They have their college students going school for.

that is you.

We'll get money to strangers, to money, to our own children, to go to school.

right.

That's where we'll have