- [Jim] Coming up on this week's "A Lively Experiment", protests over the Trump administration's actions break out across the country, and here in Rhode Island.

And a program that gives inmates a better shot at employment when they get out, and a better chance of not going back to prison.

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by- - Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis to the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program, and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, Billy Hunt, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Rhode Island.

Steph Machado, Boston Globe reporter and contributor for Rhode Island PBS Weekly.

And political contributor, Don Roach.

Hello, and welcome into this week's "Lively".

I'm Jim Hummel.

What's going on in Washington and beyond continues to dominate the news cycle with every day bringing head-spinning revelations about directives by President Trump.

This week, a small group of protesters gathered at the Rhode Island State House to join counterparts at state capitals across the country.

The only thing that has stopped the Trump momentum so far, lawsuits and some federal judges stepping in to block his actions for now.

So everyday, something changes.

Don, let me begin with you.

I do know locally, Peter Neronha has joined some fellow attorneys general in filing suit, but it's just like a fire hose everyday.

- Yeah, and I think what people don't realize is that Trump is more emboldened in 2025 than he was 2017.

And just looking at how much more he won the popular vote, so he is going to be running amok until somebody stops him.

Because he's got such widespread support across the country.

- Yeah, from a news perspective, there's just a new thing everyday causing outrage that you have to move on so quickly from the last thing.

I mean, it's been dizzying how many executive orders have come out about a variety of different topics, and people are concerned about immigration enforcement, there's a lot of fear, and a lot of unknowns right now about what exactly is really gonna happen.

- Can you imagine being a White House reporter now?

I don't know if that's the long straw or the short straw.

- I think it's probably just exhausting.

The time in between each gigantic headline is so short for you to actually be able to report on what does this executive order mean, and who is it going to affect?

Not to mention, they get rescinded almost as quickly as they're being issued, either by a judge, or because the White House is yanking it back.

- Massaging it, yeah.

- Like the funding freeze memo, where it was constantly changing.

Medicaid's included, no it's not included, now we're rescinding the whole memo.

Actually no, we're still doing the funding freeze, now it's in court.

Like, it must just be dizzying to be a White House reporter, because it's dizzying to even just cover it from on the local level.

- Exactly.

- I mean, the Democrats really seem to be struggling to find a message and a person to kind of lead their party at this point.

Compared to 2017, when you had the mass protests, the pink hat movement, everybody was going crazy.

It doesn't seem, the conspiracy theorists might say there isn't as much money slushing around to fund those type of protests that they were back in the day, but it's really starting to, I think the word the kids use new is "cheugy".

It's Seth Magaziner and Chuck Schumer on social media doing these clips and protesting, and looking like they're gonna storm the treasury on January 6th, and painting their faces almost, and it's really just kind of a bad look for the Democrats, and they're really struggling to kind of find what the message is gonna be for the next four years, and Trump is really just trying to, I think, get as much done as quickly as possible before the midterms, where he may not have control of the Senate or the House.

So that's really the strategy.

- And it's such a razor thin margin in the House right now.

- Right, exactly.

And so it's gonna be interesting to see if the Republicans push back on him on anything.

You know, I think the suggestion that the Elon Musk led DOGE department might target social security, was in the news yesterday.

That could be something that has bipartisan opposition.

I mean, but at the moment, Republicans seem to be stepping back and letting him do what he wants to do.

- I mean, I don't know what they could do.

I think the point about the Democrats not having a message, or really a clear, a person has a voice against Trump, I think has been just the case forever.

But I think, and Trump's gonna continue to be chaotic, just because whoever he talked to last is going to sway him, one way or the other, and so you're just gonna have a lot of back and forth, and he just likes to be liked by people, and his ego needs stroking.

But having said that, I just continue to be so disappointed in the media coverage, because not every single thing Trump does is, like, bad.

There's a lot of sensational stuff out there, a lot of things that I personally disagree with, but we need, what I'm hoping for this term, is a media that will take a more rounded approach to his presidency, so that things that his administration is doing well and helping, they actually cover that, too, in addition to all of the crazy stuff, like pardoning the January 6th rioters, and things like that, are also covered, too.

- What about that?

- Well, I think what's hard about covering Trump and what was hard in the first term is that he makes grand pronouncements, maybe not in legal letters, but he says something like, "I'm going to do mass deportations in the country."

- Yeah.

- And then- - And everybody's hair goes on fire.

- Now everyone is panicking- - Right, yeah.

- And is terrified that they're going to be deported at any moment, and then reporters report on that fear, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- People don't wanna go to school, they're afraid to go to hospitals.

And then there's pushback at, "Well, ICE hasn't even been in your city, what are you talking about?"

And so it's really difficult to cover someone who says so many things that are considered very controversial, or even outlandish.

- [Don] Yeah.

- And then what he actually does is sometimes less than that.

- Sure.

- Or he doesn't do it at all.

- Right.

- And so it is really difficult, he's a difficult and obviously interesting character to cover, to be honest.

But also a really difficult person to cover, because of what he says, and then the reality that sometimes doesn't match.

- Right.

- I also wonder what the executive orders, he's put out so many, and you wonder whether, and who knows what goes through his head?

Okay, I'm gonna put out 10, and if I get five, I'll be happy.

I mean, that's still a net plus.

If I get turned over by a judge, or whatever, we can blame the whatever, you know, the judges.

But then it's just this fire hose of information, and the end game is if he can get a little bit, that's still a win.

- Yeah.

- Well that's, I mean, he's not the first president to be ruling by executive order, and he's just very transactional, and the art of the deal, as it were, where he's asking for the world and hoping to get somewhere in the middle, that's beneficial to the direction he's trying to move things.

I mean, he made a lot of promises during the campaign.

He's looking to keep those promises.

I'm actually, you know, I'm not a Trump supporter by any means, but I'm very impressed with the fact that he's actually going out and doing what he said.

He was a lot of talk about draining the swamp, and shrinking the size of government in his first term, and it never really materialized.

It seems like he's actually doing some work to hit the ground running this time.

So I'm actually encouraged by that.

- What about policy-wise?

What would you like to see when we get rid of all the sound and fury?

You're a Republican.

- Yup.

- I know you haven't been wild about Trump.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What would you like to see him get done in the first 100 days, and then maybe the first couple years?

- I mean, I've always been a smaller government kind of a person.

So I definitely would love to see some decreases in the size of government.

And I know he's trying to do that, so that's definitely something that I'm looking at, for sure.

But at the same time, to Steph's point, it's like a lot of the things that he says, and what he does, are sometimes inconsistent, like what he said about DEI and the collision in DC, and then also kind of like celebrating Black History Month.

Those seem like in opposition, but again, Trump is trying to, in his vision, quote, unquote, "Make America great again."

But how he's actually trying to do that is he'll say things, and he'll be the bad guy, so his minions can get stuff done, but policy-wise, I definitely would love to see some smaller government.

- And just speaking to the fire hose of information, until you just said it, I had forgotten that he blamed the plane crash on DEI.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Because it feels like that was so long ago.

- That was a week ago.

(Don laughs) - And now the latest outrageous thing that he said is about making Gaza the Riviera of the Middle East.

That's the new soundbite, right?

So there's always a new soundbite, or a new thing that's making people upset, and it feels like it's been a year since he said that, right?

- Right.

- And things like the Panama Canal, and Greenland, and Gaza, which may, I mean- - The Gulf of America.

- The Gulf of America.

- Oh yeah.

- And Jimmy Carter thought he was gonna solve the Middle Eastern problem?

It's been going on for 2,000 years, so why Donald Trump would be come in, like, you know, put haras on the Gaza Strip.

I just, I don't get it.

- I just can't wait to eat my freedom fries on the Gulf of America.

(all chuckling) That's all I know.

It's something that the, you know, again, like I said, he's fighting a war on multiple fronts, and the Democrats just can't keep up with him.

There's too many things, there's too many talking points, and they really just don't have an effective strategy to counter it, and it's really, again, I don't know what their plan is going forward, but they don't have the average working middle class, especially white men in this country that has been supporting the Republicans significantly, and Trump specifically, in the last election, and they really need to have an answer to that to be effective in the next midterms, and the next election cycle.

- I know we're only three weeks into this, but immigration was a big thing, but also the economy.

And I don't hear a lot of reporters pressing him on, look, I know there's a lot of hyperbole with Trump.

Day one, we're gonna do this, so maybe it's the first 100 days, but what they're gonna do to bring inflation down, because actually, the tariffs could do the exact opposite.

So- - Yeah.

- You wonder at some point whether people are gonna have buyer's regret who voted for him, just looking for some type of economic relief.

- Yeah, you know, I saw a press release from Senator Reed the other day about, and it might have been yesterday, about the Egg-flation, right?

- Right, right, right.

- But I don't know that that got a lot of play, because there's a million other huge news stories happening.

He signed an executive order about trans athletes the other day.

You know, there's so many, there's too much news, and so whether Democrats complaining about things like the economy, inflation, are breaking through, I'm not sure.

- But you're seeing stuff that we never would have, Sheldon Whitehouse is referring to the Muskrats.

Would a US senator have done that six years ago, four years ago?

- Maybe during the last Trump term.

- Yeah.

- I don't know, I hate the word "unprecedented", because we've used it too much in the last eight years that now everything is precedented, but there are so many things that continue to be unprecedented.

I think the Musk situation, the way he's going into agencies and seems to be getting unprecedented access and making these wholesale changes is shocking, and so every day, there's something that's a little bit more shocking.

- And for me, with Musk's involvement, I've asked myself, is this really bad?

Because the alternative is just we have just bureaucrats, lifelong bureaucrats, making these decisions.

Is it so bad to have someone who's- - [Jim] Sure, they're gonna protect their terf, obviously.

- Right, right.

- [Jim] He's coming in and shaking it up.

- Like, he's not a politician, policy person.

He doesn't care.

And I do think it is helpful to have different voices in the room.

However, it's definitely threatening.

You don't know what's gonna happen, and it could have catastrophic consequences as well.

- Okay.

Final thought?

- The Democrats, they have their own big special interest.

I mean, the sources and the Bloombergs of the world, and heck, there's reports that Hunter Biden was basically running the White House, and he wouldn't pass a background check, I don't think, himself.

So it's very kind of a lot of manufactured outrage on their behalf.

- But to your point, you know, the midterm elections, the clock's ticking.

Everybody's saying oh, Trump's a lame duck president.

Whatever, four years can be a pretty long time.

But if they're gonna get their act together and have messaging, they're gonna have to do that with an eye toward 2026.

- Exactly, yes.

- Right?

Okay, locally, there was a lot of sound and fury over the weekend, a video that was making its way around social media showed a huge collapse, a part of the westbound side of the Washington Bridge has been demolished, it hit a barge.

There was a lot of is this an accident, but DOT director Peter Alviti came out on Monday pretty strongly in saying, "No, this is part of demolition, there's really nothing to see here."

What was your take overall, just not as much what happened, but kinda the reaction in all that?

- Yeah, I mean, I'm, I guess, as confused as anybody as to whether this was what the demolition is supposed to look like.

I saw the news stories before I watched the videos.

So I saw headlines about a collapse, and then I watched the video and I said, "Oh, that kinda looks like demo."

- [Jim] Right.

- But- - And why would somebody be there- - Why was someone recording it?

- At the right time, getting it?

- Unless they could see that the crane was pulling down chunks of the bridge.

So I don't know.

I have not done fact checking, reporting on this.

My questions that I have are why did OSHA come afterwards if there was no problem?

And I thought that a lot of the demolition activity was happening overnight so that it does not disrupt the drivers on the other side, or pedestrians, people.

And I know that they block the road when they're doing this.

But I guess I was surprised it was happening in the middle of the day.

And so I just think there are questions.

There's gonna be an oversight hearing next week.

And so there are definitely questions about what exactly happened there, and whether it was all, you know, buttoned up.

- Yeah, if they're doing it at night, though, you might have heard that crash in Portsmouth.

I mean, with that thing coming down.

So I mean- - Yeah.

- I'm not sure for the people who lived out off Wickenden Street, whether that's, you know, a good thing- - I know.

I don't know how loud it was.

- What do you think about this?

- To me, it's just really frustrating that folks like Alviti are not helping to restore trust in the public.

To me, it's like, you know, certainly was part of the plan, but why can't you everyday say, "Here's what we're gonna do today on the bridge"?

And just put it out there.

- Right, there was no notification that this was gonna happen.

- Just put it out there to the public.

Everyday, we're gonna tell you exactly what's gonna happen, so you know what will happen.

And I did watch the video.

It does look bad, but it does look like a demo.

Like I don't know if there's any other way you can- - Things crash down, right?

- Exactly.

But to me, the administration is just doing a piss-poor job of restoring trust in the public, versus saying, "Hey, we've already got this in the plans," like okay.

There were a lot of things that were part of the plans, but we've got this situation and this issue, so what is the administration doing to actively or proactively restore trust?

- [Jim] The messaging.

- But to me, that's the big problem.

- I mean, I'm not a structural engineer by any means, but if that's according to the plan, I mean, I'd really hate to see what an accident actually looks like, because, I mean, to have a barge kind of half submerged, like all a-kilter, askew.

I mean, it could just be very well, but it seems to me that a private company would be held to a lot further scrutiny and planning by the CRMC, the DEM, to plan that type of stuff, and the matter of fact is that all those departments report to the governor, and he is the last person that wants to look bad for a problem happening at the Washington Bridge that's already had so many problems.

To me, it looked a lot more like a hastily cleaning up a crime scene of a proper demolition, but that's just, again, my opinion.

You know, it's just something that I think, to Don's point, that's something, it needs to be better communicated, and Peter Alviti does a very good job of getting out, and a lot of exposure, but I think it's lacking a little bit in this case in terms of, again, explaining what's going on, and explaining why OSHA's gonna be there.

That'll be the ultimate test.

- OSHA said they saw the video, and decided to open up an investigation.

- Right.

- 'Cause they thought, you know, maybe there's something amiss.

- And then Alviti- - And I thought- - Sorry, Alviti said it was a small amount of debris that went into the water.

And I'm just like, why in the world would you say something that stupid?

It just destroys trust, completely.

- I'm not an engineer, and I don't know the right way to demolish a bridge that is over a body of water, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned transparency.

There has not been stellar transparency about this bridge situation, and so the public is not giving the DOT the benefit of the doubt.

- Right.

- That's the issue.

They don't have a capital of trust, a bank to go to- - Exactly.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- Because it's a razor thin margin right here.

Are we really gonna believe what you say when we've seen this, this, this, and this over the last year?

- Right.

- Right?

- Exactly.

- All right.

Steph had a great story right here on Rhode Island PBS Weekly about a program for inmates, helping them to code, and eventually get jobs when they leave prison.

She interviewed a young man named Benjamin Delacruz.

Let's listen to a little bit of what he had to say, and then we can talk about it.

Here's his part of her interview.

- So call funk, and patch in the idle.

It's the same cycle.

I would apply for jobs.

They don't know my record yet, you know?

My resume was decent.

I would get the interview.

They would love me in the interview, right?

I'd present well, I speak well.

I can show that I know what I'm talking about.

But then, you know, we have to do this background check.

That's it.

Door slams shut.

I expect you to give me an array, and I expect you to give me a function.

This is an industry that, thankfully, doesn't care too, too much about that.

This is can you do the work?

Do you have these skills?

And if you do, you have a pretty good chance.

- [Steph] Do you see this as a way to prevent you or your fellow inmates from ending up back here?

- 1000%.

- And if you wanna see Steph's fully story, it runs a full nine minutes.

You can see it right on our website.

It's RIPBS.org/weekly.

This is a great story.

How did you hear about this?

- Oh, thank you.

I heard about it from state senator, Lou DiPalma.

He was the one who pitched the idea to the DOC, because he heard about it from an inmate, who read about the program in a magazine, because this program exists in other states.

It was started in San Quentin Prison in California.

- It's called The Last Mile.

- It's called The Last Mile.

They're teaching inmates how to do coding and web development, and you could basically leave this program and be a web developer, or you could go on and get further education, in software, design, and things like that, but that inmate you just heard from, Benjamin Delacruz, was talking about he had been in prison before, and then for 15 years, couldn't get a job.

He was talking about he would try to get all these jobs, you know, something more than just a minimum wage job, so- - They liked him, and then they do the background check?

- Something that was more of a career, and they would do the background check, and he couldn't get it.

He had a family to support, and he went, he told me, he resorted to selling drugs, and that's how he ended up in prison again, and so now, he is in this web development program.

He's hoping to do this for a career when he gets out, and the whole goal of the program is to reduce recidivism, reduce people coming back.

- Go ahead.

- It was a great story.

It's a feel-good story.

I mean, I like the fact that it was being funded by voluntary means and donations.

I don't see any reason why the state shouldn't be facilitating this.

I questioned whether or not we should be putting extra resources financially towards it.

It dawned on me, though, the larger point of his interactions with hiring, and it's a bigger issue of 30 or 40% of males between the ages of 18 and 65 are not actually in the workforce, and a lot of it has to do because of their interactions with police, and this is, you know, again, feel-good story, but it's also a little bit like giving someone a crutch after breaking their leg.

Like, we ruined your life, here's some java script.

I'm sure he would be a lot better if he was not in jail for a nonviolent drug offense, and didn't have the record to contend with.

And that's the larger issue with the prison system, it not necessarily is teaching them job skills, which isn't effective, even for non-inmates, it'd be to not get these people in prison in the first place, and really focus on adjusting and battling the prison industrial complex.

- Yeah, to Billy's point, like the problem is huge, but I think of this, like the parable of the starfish by the ocean, and there's a kid throwing starfish in there, if you can help one, you're doing something.

But my thought is like, do we have programs like this for people who are not incarcerated as well?

I love the idea of helping people who are incarcerated be less likely to go back to prison, but as a person who's employed people over the years, we many times have had people who look great on paper, you do the background check, and they fail.

And I think going to companies and trying to figure out ways to help those companies feel more secure to hire people who have criminal records is also another way for us to take a look at this.

It is a great feel-good story.

Definitely is gonna help some folks out, but it's not gonna address a much, much larger problem.

- But even if, you know, you talked about state resources, and you don't see them, but even if the state put money in, you gotta look at the long game, because ultimately, if it's keeping people out, that's, what, 30, 35, $40,000 a year if they're back in state care.

- So that's the big argument, is that the cost of running the program is nothing compared to the cost of incarcerating people for years on end, so if they can prove, and it's gonna take time to gather the data in Rhode Island, if they can prove that this is decreasing the recidivism rate for people that go through the program, then you can make a financial argument that you're gonna actually save money by running this program because- - But you have to play the long game.

- It's a long game, and The Last Mile, the nonprofit, says that their data shows a 5% recidivism rate in this program, and the other states where it's running, which is really low.

- Yeah.

- Rhode Island's recidivism rate right now is 44%, and that's 44% return as a sentenced offender within three years.

- Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Let's do outrages and/or kudos.

Billy, let's begin with you this week.

- Well, it ties in very nicely.

You know, I was at the Libertarian National Convention, and President Trump made a promise to the Libertarians that he would pardon Ross Ulbricht, who back in 2015 was sentenced to double life sentences, plus 40 years for creating the Silk Road website.

So he's a programmer who created a free market website who was actually put in jail for it unjustly, and very excessively.

Trump, to his credit, followed through on his promise.

He has full and complete pardon.

Now if he could just audit the federal reserve, I'd be a lot happier about having him as a president.

- (laughing) Hey, one day at a time.

He may do that next week, Billy.

You never know.

Don, what do you have?

- So mine is just a personal kudos to my kids, and this is maybe just like a PSA to parents out there.

Your kids who are playing video games, there may be something to it.

And so my kids were playing in a tournament where they could win some money.

They won a little bit of money.

One of my sons in college is on a team, and so just wanted to give them a kudos for doing something they love, and actually making a little bit of money.

- Does that go into a restricted account for tuition in the future, or do they get to spend that money?

(Don laughing) - They get to spend that money.

- All right.

You might consider the restrictive receipt account eventually.

Steph?

- I don't know if this is an outrage, or more of an eye roll, but the people on the internet who are looking up, with the Elon Musk, looking at all the money, who are looking up the receipts, and they see that the federal government has spent money on things like newspaper subscriptions, or Politico's subscription, which is really expensive.

And they're saying, "Look, these news outlets are federally funded!"

No they are not.

Government agencies just happen to think that news outlets are reporting valuable information, and so they choose to subscribe.

- Yeah.

- What a concept.

- Yeah, exactly.

(Steph laughing) That you actually pay for your news, right?

- No, but you can argue that maybe taxpayer dollars shouldn't be spent on newspaper subscriptions.

That's perfectly fine.

People can argue about that.

But to suggest that- - But it's not a direct something- - To suggest though that the New York Times is in the bag for the administration, 'cause they're being funded.

That's not what's happening.

- Yeah, have you read their coverage?

- They're just customers.

They're just customers buying a subscription.

- Exactly.

We have a couple of minutes left.

Billy, the pallet shelters, drum roll, are gonna be opening next week, a year late, and we haven't had you on for a long time.

Delay, delay, delay.

Finally they're gonna do a ribbon cutting.

I'm not sure I'd wanna be a public official there, like for some, I would do a quiet soft opening.

- It's really quite amazing.

I mean, for most of time, my outrage on this show is the fact that in cold weather, warm weather, we haven't done enough to help our homeless population.

It seems like in the budget that we have in this state, we can't find a small amount of money to help what is effectively less than 1% of the population.

I mean, Tara Granahan went ahead and called every single police chief, and got about- - Numbers.

- Numbers.

And it was less than 1,000.

And even if she's underestimating by a magnitude of 10, it's such a small percentage, and is this really about housing the homeless, or is this like a job programs for bureaucrats and nonprofit organizations?

Because that's really what it's turning out to be, because we're spending millions and millions of dollars for such a small percentage of our population.

It seems to me that we should be able to fix this problem, and it shouldn't be a perennial issue.

- And it's gone up a million since they started.

- Yeah, I just wonder what the length of time that it took to deploy these shelters could have actually built a permanent structure, like whether it- - Yeah.

- An apartment building.

- Well they had to build a whole city, basically.

- Right.

- Like they needed power, plumbing, all of that.

- Right.

But the benefit of it was that it was supposed to be rapid, that you could get these shelters up really quickly.

Looking at how long it took, it makes me wonder, could we have just built a real building with heat and indoor plumbing?

You know, in the time that it took.

- Right, but it's another argument for we should have limited government, because when government gets involved and tries to do this, they do a terrible job.

Like, how did they not know what the fire codes they're gonna have to adhere to when the proposal is put forth?

That's just asinine.

- It's a meeting, and saying hey, what are the potential obstacles here?

- Right.

- Get the fire marshal in, right?

- Exactly.

And so I have no faith in our government to help 1,000 people, much less 50 people, or 45 of these pallets.

So obviously love the idea, but I'd rather have a private company come in, and government give them some money, and do it.

- All right, folks.

That is all the time we have.

We appreciate your spending some of your weekend with us.

Billy, good to see you.

And Steph, and Don.

If you don't catch us Friday at seven or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at RIPBS.org/lively, and wherever you get your favorite podcast, take us along.

Just a quick programming note.

I will not be here next week, so we're gonna bring you an encore edition of our Annual Legislative Leaders Program.

You can hear what their thoughts are for the session ahead.

Of course, we're gonna be covering it throughout, but we thought it would be a nice rerun for those who didn't catch it.

And then you can come back in two weeks, as "A Lively Experiment" will continue.

We hope you have a great weekend, and thanks for joining us.

(bright music) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by- - Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program, and Rhode Island PBS.