Transcript: Zach Lahn, Iowa GOP nominee for governor, on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Oct. 4, 2026

Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor of Iowa, appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and defended a campaign that blends farm-state conservatism with a hard line on corporate power. Host Margaret Brennan pressed him on whether President Trump's trade fights with Canada and China, and diesel prices above six dollars, hurt his party. Lahn said farmers have long been squeezed by industry consolidation and treated as price takers, and he pointed to his proposals to cut the state gas tax and ease fuel costs at harvest, according to CBS News.

Brennan noted that his plans to break up agricultural monopolies and tax hedge funds that own farmland sound progressive. Lahn answered that trust-busting began with Republicans and that monopolies are a failure of the free market. He would increase funding for the Attorney General's office to bring antitrust cases.

The conversation then turned to cancer, which Lahn links to nitrates and pesticides, including glyphosate. He said he was among the first to oppose Trump's executive order boosting glyphosate-based herbicides, and he favors incentives so farmers can change practices without losing money. Brennan noted that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has campaigned for Lahn, and asked whether the race tests Kennedy's popularity.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →