From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Well, election day is just a few weeks away.

And today we welcome a member of Congress who is running for reelection.

Joe Morelle is the Democrat representing New York's 25th congressional district.

He has held the seat since 2018.

After serving for the better part of three decades in the New York State Assembly.

Morelle is running against Republican Virginia McIntire, who will join us on Connections next Monday.

Today, it's your chance to hear directly from the Democratic candidate.

We'll take some of your questions as we go throughout the hour as well.

Congressman Joe Morelle, running for reelection in district 25.

Welcome back to the program.

It's nice to be here.

Thanks.

Vote.

Morelle.com is the website, and we're going to cover a lot of ground this hour.

I want to start by asking you about some of the things you said to Politico in August about upcoming elections.

And Politico referred to you as, of course, as the House House Democrats point person for election integrity matters.

In August, you admitted that you felt strange saying the following, but nevertheless, you felt compelled to say that you said, quote, I don't know.

I don't want to say we should avoid the Postal Service, but I have deep concerns about Postmaster General David Steiner and his conduct over the Postal Service and what they'll try to do and quote, have your concerns been quelled since then?

I think they're, lessened.

When I started this project, at Hakeem Jeffries request that I lead the national effort, we identified probably about 150 threats, largely posed by the president and his administration to the ability for people to cast votes, have those votes counted, and make sure that the will of the American people is carried out.

Those threats are probably down to about 70, that I go through daily with the team of people that, are working with civil society groups all over this country, thousands and thousands of people.

So I think, you know, the Supreme Court has ruled and stopped the executive order that the president tried to put in place to stop, effectively stop mail in voting.

The Justice Department has lost 26 consecutive, court appearances as it relates to states where they try to give voter information.

You know, they keep losing in court, which is the good news.

So it's a little lesson, but, you know, I'm still encouraging people to check your registration status.

Make a plan to vote and vote as early as you humanly can.

Vote as early as you can.

Yeah.

And, you know, I know it's been pointed out the President Trump himself vote by mail.

Yeah.

And that hasn't seemed to impact his own public statements or the concerns raised by his supporters about it.

But if you're looking at actual concerns about election integrity and there's still 70, what's at the top of the list for you now?

That's a great question.

And by the way, I should point out, not only does he vote by mail a direct contradiction.

Everything he said about mail, but just last week he started encourage people to start voting by mail again.

So you can't really follow the president.

And look, in the western states in particular, California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, what state of Washington, Oregon, they vote almost exclusively by mail.

I mean by the millions and millions.

So I'm not really sure why he does this, because there's no evidence that there's any fraud involved at all.

But that's just the president.

But as it relates to the threats, you know, we're still concerned about the president talked about invoking the Insurrection Act.

So I'm tracking that with literally hundreds of lawyers around the country, tracking anything that relates to anyone armed at a polling place, which is a violation of federal law.

It's a crime to be in a polling place armed.

Last week, I convened, probably 30 plus people, including our Board of Elections commissioners, both Democrat and Republican, to talk about if there's threats at a polling place, what would we do?

Those conversations I'm leading around the country, spent a lot of time on the road talking to people.

The good news is this local election administrators, Democrats and Republicans care deeply about this.

Every state, although they're all different.

There's 50 different systems because that's what the Constitution says.

That the time, manner and place of election shall be up to the state legislatures in the states.

But despite the fact that they're different, they all have procedures and rules that they've been following for decades.

These people really know what they're doing.

And if the president would just leave them alone and let people vote, we'd be fine.

And that's what we're trying to make sure happens.

If the current polling holds.

And it's a big night for Democrats, do you think this presidential administration will seek to suspend or overturn those results?

You know, people talk about this a lot, and my responsibility goes, there's three phases now until November 3rd.

So in the next three weeks and then there's the counting of the ballots.

So I will, have House observers dispatched all across the country to observe the counting of votes.

And I'll do that with my Republican counterparts.

So we'll send teams of people to observe.

And then after that phase, the third phase is the election of a speaker on January 3rd, 2027.

So those are the three.

So the second one you just mentioned, which is the the votes and how that plays out will we'll be observing.

The president has no role to play in the administration of elections despite his constant meddling in them.

There's no role given in the Constitution, no role in state and federal statute.

So I do feel confident people should vote, but they should vote early.

They should not be afraid of being intimidated in any way.

And I would say if anybody encounters any challenges at the polls, they should call 1866.

Our vote or your vote?

Our vote on eight, six, six, our vote.

We have lawyers standing by.

There are literally thousands and thousands of people around the country.

They're engaged in making sure that there's, you know, the opportunity to vote and the votes will be counted properly.

Well, let me grab a phone call in that regard here.

This is Susie in Brighton offering some concern.

Hey, Susie.

Go ahead.

Hi, Congressman.

I'm concerned about foreign interference in the midterms from countries like Russia and China.

They've done it in the past through hacking, disinformation and social media.

I'm wondering how serious that threat is today.

Are you seeing any signs that foreign governments are targeting our election systems or trying to influence voters?

And what is Congress doing to protect our elections from these those kinds of attacks?

All right, Susie, thank you.

Go ahead.

Yeah, it's a great question.

You know, the president sort of did his national address, which I'm not sure everybody covered about, two months ago where he talked about foreign influence.

The truth is that there are vulnerabilities in our system.

The president dismantled the election security unit of the cybersecurity and infrastructure agency Cisa, which had responsibility for this in the past.

So he, on the one hand complained about vulnerabilities but dismantled all the American personnel working for the U.S.

government to try to make sure those vulnerabilities weren't exploited.

But, you know, all of those people are now working with civil society.

Not for profit agencies were continuing to engage with local, administrative.

So I do have confidence I do if I'm fortunate to have the Committee of jurisdiction next January as chair, I'm going to work very hard at increasing resources for local administrators and making sure we, increase our, you know, defense against cybersecurity.

But Social Security or social media, a lot of it is just the bots.

I mean, there's going to be foreign influence.

I mean, you see, it people, oftentimes are arguing with, basically robots that are that are created, online by Russians, by the Iranians, by the North Koreans, etc.. So that's just, you know, we sort of factor that in.

But people should be confident this, that we are going to make sure this works and there won't be foreign interference, at least it certainly in the counting of votes.

Those vulnerabilities the president way overstated.

Well, you talk about if you if your party is successful and you're moving up in the ranks, in your own party, in the house, and you get a majority, that changes some of what you could do.

But that's not what Mike Johnson says.

House speaker Mike Johnson says that if the Democrats win control of the House, they're just going to spend their time holding impeachment hearings and impeach President Trump a third time and get bogged down with trying to pursue the Trump family.

Do you think that's accurate?

Now, this is what's going to happen.

I mean, I am you know, I love history.

And one of the regrets that I think the country has historically about Abraham Lincoln was coming through the Civil War, and he had to balance the interests of holding people accountable in the South, particularly leaders of the South, and at the same time trying to unify people.

I think we will face a similar challenge.

You absolutely have to hold the Trump administration, the Trump family, accountable.

You have to hold people like Pete Hegseth accountable.

So we will do that.

There will be a track that does that.

I think probably the Judiciary Committee and the oversight Committee are going to focus on that.

At the same time, we have to address the needs of the American people.

People are struggling to pay to meet, the cost of, of living, whether it's daycare, health care, the list goes on and on, groceries, gas, etc.

so, you know, but I think we can do both things at the same time.

And we not only have to hold the Trump administration accountable for what they did, we also have to send a strong signal that anyone following this president cannot do the kinds of things that this president is engaged, but you're speaking in generalities.

What are the things that would be worth hearings?

Oh, I think there will be hearings on how the defense secretary is conducted.

Affairs?

I think there's a real chance Pete Hegseth faces an inquiry.

I think the president could face an inquiry for violations of law.

For doing what?

For?

For doing what the president does.

Oh, hey.

So give me headset.

Oh, I think headset.

This vital violated the Constitution.

Violated, the law.

He has not reported to the United States Congress.

We have now been at war.

Illegal, in my view, with Iran now for months and months.

The the United States Congress hasn't gotten a counting of how much money it's cost.

We have no accounting of how he has, put in jeopardy national security.

We have taken armaments from around the world, from other, central, from other commands.

So but he reports in no way to the Congress.

I said to headset that a hearing.

Just a couple months ago, General Washington informed the Continental Congress in a more fulsome and a more timely fashion.

Then he informs the United States Congress in 2026.

It's unbelievable.

So he will.

And by the way, there's also a growing sense, I think, among Republicans in Congress that he has completely I mean, he's fired generals without notice, without cause.

He has made us less secure by, you know, a significant factor.

So there's going to be a lot of inquiries.

And, look, the Trump administration routinely violates the Constitution of violates the law.

I mean, it's a daily occurrence.

So those are investigations that I think those committees that I mentioned will hold, and will investigate and hold people responsible, and, and the other committees will have to do, the kinds of things that are gonna make Americans feel better about their lives.

Let me get back to Iran in a second.

But you raised the the goal of doing the investigations and the hearings that you think are necessary, while also trying to unite the country.

Are you worried that the the, the voters who supported President Trump would feel, that this would not be a uniting move or you think you can do that?

Well, I think that's the challenge.

As I said, it's a delicate balance.

And look, some people are just going to support Donald Trump no matter what he does.

He literally, as he said, could shoot someone, on, on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

And some people would just allow him to do it.

But what is interesting is the number of Republicans now who I think are, publicly or otherwise, recognizing that this is not their this is not the Republican Party.

I saw Chris Christie, you know, not my favorite guy necessarily, but he harshly criticized Tom Emmer, the House majority whip, for coming on the air, on this week on, on Sunday morning program and basically not willing to acknowledge Donald Trump's complicit, actions that have hurt the national economy, that have put us in a war that are getting in bed with a murderer, KGB leader in Vladimir Putin and making a diesel deal with it.

I mean, I think even Republicans are like, what the heck has gone on here?

So yeah, that balance will be hard and some people will never come along.

But I think people are ready to turn the page on what I would argue is the most disastrous president's presidency in American history.

The Secretary of Defense has said, I think the number is still 18 servicemembers killed since the start of the Iran war.

Do you accept that number?

I mean, I accept it until, I mean, I you don't have evidence that that's I don't have evidence that that's not true.

I tell you, what he has done, I'm sure is failed to release any information about how many people are injured or wounded.

Yeah.

He's lied about the United States, USS Abraham Lincoln.

I mean, we had eight attempted suicides onboard that vessel because these men and women have been literally under the worst circumstance, disgrace.

That's documented now, eight attempt.

I mean, that's what's being reported.

And no one in the in the Department of Defense has, is just proven.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So we think about that, that is extraordinary.

I, I mean, it's almost you don't even know what to do.

That's the problem with this administration.

They're so widely out of bounds with anything any president has ever attempted to do that.

And it happens on a daily basis.

So you become numb to it and you kind of forget what that happened just two weeks ago, like, wow, okay.

Now the supporters of the war in Iran have said we had to stop Iran from being on a path to me.

Now, are there any supporters of the the war in Iran?

I mean, there aren't very many any Fox News I've seen.

Okay.

I mean, I've seen some.

And and in Congress, of course, you've got Republican colleagues who at minimum have done nothing to at least exercise any sort of power to.

And that's true.

So to me that is supporting.

And if you're not willing to try to stand up and stop it, but do you think that there is value in preventing that regime from getting nuclear weapons?

Well, there's no question.

But the JCPoA was able to do that.

They Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon.

They have no ability.

They have yes, they have, enriched uranium, and the JCPoA before it, which Trump has ridiculed, except now, if he were to make a deal with Iran now, it would probably be more lenient than the JCPoA.

But there was no way Iran was near having a nuclear weapon.

There was no imminent threat.

The president hasn't limited their ability enriched uranium, by the way.

It still exists somewhere in the mountains.

And we haven't extracted it.

No, not at all.

I mean, we've destroyed centrifuges, but but that's happened before.

And so what have we done now?

We've managed to give control of the Strait of Hormuz, which no one ever heard of five months ago in America.

Now it's become one of the central elements of our politics.

We have ceded control to the Iranians.

They are we are no further along in in getting them to be less engaged in building a nuclear weapon.

We have a more dangerous, more radical regime in place than we had before.

We've lost 18 service members, at least.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars we have wasted to put ourselves in a worse position from a national security point of view than we were when we started this.

Okay, but granted, we can't go back to February.

March?

What should happen right now going forward?

That's a really great question.

I mean, we're going to have to negotiate our way out of it.

And I don't know, because part, part, part of the problem is we don't have all the facts.

This administration has been less.

In fact, I'll share with you this.

I'm a member of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee.

We often meet in secure settings, right.

And classified, briefings.

And I without ever talking about what is talked about.

I can tell you this.

If you were in that room, Evan, and you didn't know better, you would not know who the Democrats and Republicans on the committee are, because the Republicans are as angry as the Democrats are about the lack of information that's been forthcoming in private.

Yeah.

And honestly, yes, absolutely.

So I'm unhappy that they haven't demonstrated that kind of courage publicly, but I you start to see their campaigns around the country.

All of a sudden, Republicans are starting to come out.

Even those who stood by silently and allowed this are now coming out against the war, talking about what a mistake this was.

And so, look, history will be the ultimate judge here, but I think the American public already being the judge.

And I think, you know, again, we won't know for three weeks.

But I suspect the American public are fed up, with the lack of transparency.

And, look, the president doesn't need to report to the Congress.

Just because that's what the Constitution says.

He's got to report to the American people.

And he does that partly through the Congress.

But no one knows what the objective here is.

Any longer, and it certainly is not.

The mission is not clear.

We've not met any objectives, and we have wasted billions and billions of dollars.

We have to get this first very short break, and we're right back with Congressman Joe Morelle.

He's running for reelection.

His opponent, by the way, is Virginia McIntyre, a Republican who will be on this program next Monday.

We're right back with more of your feedback for the congressman.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bob Johnson Auto group.com.

Don't miss your chance to attend a Tiny Desk concert live at NPR headquarters.

Make a donation to WXXI and you'll be entered to win a trip for two.

For a concert of your choice this spring, support WXXI or you can enter without a donation.

Visit WXXI mortgage for complete details.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan dawson.

Let's get Michael in Fairport, I think is next.

Hey, Michael.

Go ahead.

Hello.

Thank you.

I, I think there's a, disconnect between not only Joe Morelle, but a lot of elected officials and the people they represent.

And I get two things.

One, you mentioned his website, but we're really that.

Com on that website I looked last week.

There's information about early voting, but it's from June.

There's nothing on there about early voting that's coming up.

And I even called last week to the campaign and it still hasn't been changed.

And the other thing is that social media, Facebook in particular, is a great way to have, a conversation back and forth.

Joe post a lot of stuff on there, but if you ask a question, it never gets responded to.

And I've posted this question here, I like to know what the plan is.

You know, he wants to be reelected and I'm planning to vote for him.

I'm not anti.

But the question is, what's the plan?

Why should people vote for him?

And if the Democrats regain control of both houses of Congress, what is the plan?

What are they going to do?

We he he criticizes Trump, but I've never heard him or many other people say what they will do when they're in control.

Yeah.

Let me just jump in, Michael.

Okay.

So, yeah.

So fair question.

Let's say you get the Senate and you get Congress, but you get a Republican president.

Yeah.

What are you going to do?

So first of all, Michael, thanks for your support.

Even though, we haven't updated the website, which I will, I will talk to our folks immediately about.

So thank you for that.

And we do want to promote early voting, as it relates to what we're going to do, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I've been asked by, Leader Jeffries, who I hope will be Speaker Jeffries to advance, the most significant anti-corruption and democracy reform package, probably since Watergate.

So I've done a draft.

It's about a thousand pages.

We're going to get started on it, right?

The first week of January.

I mean, here's the problem that I think most Americans are starting to completely lose faith in their government.

They see, members of Congress, they see the president, they see the vice president.

They see members of the Supreme Court who appear to be self-dealing and self-interested, and that their interests get put after that.

So, I'm going to advance legislation, for instance, that will ban stock trading by members of Congress and no longer allow them to participate in the prediction markets that will extend not only to members of Congress, but the courts, as well as the president, the vice president and members of the cabinet.

We're going to try to restore we're going to we're going to make dramatic changes to the Supreme Court.

I think I hope I'm going to continue to advocate for term limit for members of the court.

18 years on the court, then you become senior status.

Every president of the United States will get the opportunity to advance two names to the Supreme Court, and we will have churn.

Every two years, a member would come off and become senior status.

We're going to we're going to deal with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which is supposed to bar the president from making billions of dollars off the office.

He has rejected that, but there hasn't been any sanctions for it.

We're going to have to overturn the Supreme Court decision on immunity, Trump versus United States that gave the president, immunity for what they call preclude seven conclusive acts of the presidency.

His official duties.

We're gonna have to change the pardon power of the United States, which has been completely, skewed by what this party, apparently, willing to do anything for his friends and get them off the hook and give pardons.

There's gonna be a long list.

Not to mention I'm going to start dealing almost immediately with the Voting Rights Act, which was eviscerated by the Supreme Court this year.

So we're going to have to deal with that hyper Partizan gerrymandering, which is effectively eliminating black representation in the South.

And I'm going to work on all the economic development issues, which I've been working on, which is regional tech hubs for our region continue to strengthen that.

We're going to work on this microelectronic supply chain for Rochester, work with the optics and photonics industry, which is desperately searching for more people.

So continue to work on workforce training.

There's there's so many things that we have to do, and we're gonna get started on them.

First week of January.

You mentioned pardons.

Do you think President Biden went out of bounds with some of his pardons?

I do okay, very directly there.

I do and I said it publicly.

And I'll, continue to say that the president of the United States has granted pardon power, clear in the Constitution.

That's a vestige of kings that were given pardon power because there were local magistrates who would, you know, take debtors and throw him to prison for extraordinarily long periods of time.

It was actually a tool of mercy.

But but and by the way, I don't think these are equivalent to me.

What Donald Trump has done, far outweighs anything.

You know?

Never did.

But.

But that's not the question, though.

I mean, no, that's right.

That's what people are going to lose faith in the process that they see.

I think they are okay.

I think they are okay.

The subject that is most commonly raised in our email today, and I do not have time, I apologize to read every email on the subject.

And I it's not going to surprise the congressman.

It's Israel and Gaza.

So I'm gonna try to summarize some of what I'm seeing and give you some chance to respond here.

Yeah.

First of all, you've said on the show and elsewhere that you do not consider what Israel has done in Gaza to be a genocide.

I assume that is still your position.

Yes.

Okay.

So set this, set the word genocide aside.

Yeah.

Do you think what's happened in Gaza is an atrocity?

Well, I think it's a tragedy.

I think October 7th was a tragedy.

I think the the response in Gaza has been tragic, I think has been disproportionate.

You know, I think that it depends on your point of view.

I think if you're looking as an American citizen, probably if you're an Israeli, probably not.

But look, I mean, I think, you know, whatever whatever's happened in Gaza in the past, we need to figure out how to chart a new path forward that brings peace and prosperity to the region.

I've also spoken out publicly against, what's happening in the West Bank.

And the violence there, and the Netanyahu government's continued, support for what's happened in the West Bank.

So, look, I'm praying that the Israeli people, make a decision two weeks, I think, from today, is their election to get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu and start a new chapter.

I'll continue to support Israel's right to, to exist.

I'll continue to support the defense of Israel.

But we need to turn a new page on this, and I'm going to continue to argue strongly for a Palestinian homeland.

You can have peace and prosperity in the region.

Unless the Palestinian people have a homeland that the Israelis continue to have a right to exist, and both sides are protected.

And that will only happen with American leadership, which is, frankly, there is no American leadership in the world right now under Donald Trump.

We don't support democracies.

We support thugs.

We're trying to basically, carve away at the foundation of the Ukrainian democracy as we speak.

So look, but I think Benjamin Netanyahu, is effectively a warmonger, and I think he is not supporting the interests of the Israelis and certainly not supporting peace in the region.

But we still support the Israeli government with our funding.

Is there a line that they would that they could cross, that you would say, okay, I no longer support funding.

Yeah, yeah, but they may interest.

Well, I think that we're getting to a place where the whole relationship between Israel, at least under this government, in the United States, is different.

And I put all the blame for that squarely at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu.

So it's you, me changes happening.

And I think there are many people in Washington who have long supported, like me, Israel, who are now stepping back saying, okay, what's in America's interest?

Is our ally still our ally?

And I know, look, it's a changing world with all of our allies, apparently, most of which I don't support.

But I do think we're going to have to find a path forward.

And look, the idea that Palestinians have that Israel shouldn't exist, I think is, is is wrong.

And I think those who believe that Israel should exist without a Palestine, a Palestinian homeland.

I think you're wrong as well.

Okay.

So let me just turn to one other part of foreign policy.

You raised Ukraine.

Yeah.

And, we hear reports now about the purchase or the purchase or the acquisition of Russian diesel.

What do you think people should understand about that?

And is there any intervention if if the Democrats were in power in Congress, do you have any power to intervene in something like that?

Well, we'll have power.

One if we win the majority, but we'll even have power if we if we go back to Washington, because there are so many Republicans in Congress who join with us in opposition to this deal.

I mean, this is unconscionable.

What does that mean?

It's one thing to ring ring your hands and say, I don't approve of this.

It's another to say I'm willing to actually take some sort of power action that would stop this.

Yeah, I think they I think you would pass in both houses a resolution that bars the president from doing it.

Now, whether the president, you know, we get into murky territory when people start to say to me, well, what are you going to do when the president, just ignores the courts and brings out the military?

Well, then that's a coup.

I mean, I mean, then we are in a much different place.

I mean, if there's going to be no willingness to have any respect for the rule of law, then we're in a basically, the Constitution has been torn up.

Some people will argue it's already been torn up.

I still have faith and hope.

And look, I think the Republican Party, in terms of its leadership, in terms of elected officials and certainly Republicans around the country, many of them are now seeing the danger in Donald Trump.

And I don't know, frankly, why many of them didn't see it before this.

But they're clearly seeing it.

And you look at the number of Republicans who are speaking out against this deal.

I mean, this is basically it.

Two weeks ago, the president urged us to pass the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill on Russia, which I voted against, because, frankly, I knew it was a joke.

I knew the president was never going to, despite what he said, he was really doing it because it gave him more tariff power behind the scenes.

That's really what he was always interested.

And what does he do?

The ink on that isn't dry, and he's making deals with Vladimir Putin to buy his diesel and undermine it.

The the fledgling democracy in the Ukraine.

It is shocking.

I mean, I don't it's yeah, we were saying before, in any generation before this alone would have been disqualifying for the presidency.

And, I'm just praying members of Congress are paying attention more and more of our speaking out.

And it doesn't take very many of them, frankly, because the majority is razor thin, which is why we're not in Washington anymore.

Let me try to get, a couple more emails and phone calls in.

Chuck wants to know what your position on the Save America Act is.

The notion of a national voter ID.

I saw part of your interview with Politico.

You indicated that, I think what what you were gesturing at was when you look at polling, Pew has pulled this, a voter ID is pretty popular, and it's pretty bipartisan.

Popular?

I mean, something like in the 80% plus range.

Yes.

When you just generally ask Americans, are you good with the voting?

I do you think it's a good idea?

Yeah, most people say yes.

Now, I don't know if they would look at the details and change your mind, but in general, it's a popular idea.

Yes.

The Republican Party is obviously talking about this.

What do you make of that actual piece of legislation?

And then let's talk about the broader issue.

Well, first and foremost, the Save America Act and the Save act.

They're not voter ID bills.

I know that's what's been promoted by the Republicans, mostly by the president.

What is it?

I mean, there is a small voter ID part of it.

This is a difficulty in getting registered to vote, not voter ID when you show up, it makes it harder to register to vote.

Absolutely.

I mean, it would make you bring so right now, in almost every state in the country, you want to register to vote, you get to your age, right?

18 years old, you can register, you fill out a form.

Here's where I live.

I'm registered.

Check a box.

I'm a U.S.

citizen and you're registered to vote.

You do it online.

You do it by mail.

That will all end under the Save America Act.

Now you will have to go to a board of elections.

You have to go down either to the Monroe County Board of Elections, and you'd have to bring, you know, documents with you that prove your United States citizen.

There is no evidence in the country that U.S non-citizens are voting in American elections.

Are there a couple here and there?

But I mean here the president, he would spend billions of dollars for something that doesn't exist.

There's no fraud in American elections.

If you go and meet with election administrators around the country, you'll realize this is a really highly regulated effort.

Voter ID is a small part of it.

I would support voter I.D., I have supported voter ID, and I'll pass a bill that I hope has voter ID in it.

That's not what the Save America that was about making it more difficult for women to register.

So you go with your birth certificate, but your name is different on your license because you got to get married.

Yeah.

You'd have to bring now a third piece of information that indicates you have either a marriage license or an affidavit.

It is it's all about trying to stop certain people from registering and then making it more difficult to vote.

That's why the president's trying to remove Mail-In voting.

Even though he votes by mail, he would make it more difficult for students to vote.

He would make it more difficult for black Americans to vote.

I mean, it's all intended to try to make this difficult.

I call it Jim Crow 2.0.

I know some of my colleagues don't like when I use the term, but that's that's exactly what it is.

So forget about voter I.D.. I love when people online say, oh, you are against voter ID?

Yeah, I'm not.

And that's not what the bill was.

It was a tiny part of it that people wouldn't have objected to.

We could have easily made a deal on that.

But what is the right kind of voter ID then?

What would you support?

I would support driver's license, student IDs.

I'll give you a list of things that are acceptable.

All you have to do when you show up to vote is to be able to demonstrate you are who you say you are, right?

I mean, the president.

You said you'll pass a bill.

I putting voter ID, I would certainly yeah, we have in the House.

But you're saying we don't have fraud.

Fraud already.

So why would you need a bill?

Well, 80% of Americans like it of that, if that takes away.

I mean, in New York, for instance, we have signature, right?

That's where it is in a lot of states, by the way, not every state has a voter ID law, but if people want a mandate, I certainly don't object to it.

Most people have some form of identification, and those that don't, the United States government should pay to get them a non driver's license.

But but by the way, in New York is one of the few states that even with the enhanced driver ID that we have under our new license, I have one that shows citizenship on my license.

Most states don't.

So even the enhanced ID from voter, they wouldn't accept that it's they're trying to make things sound as though there are problems when there aren't.

But voter ID, I don't object to it.

If we can get bipartisan support for a bill that makes it easier for people to be able to vote, and doesn't put the barriers that the president would like to put up for women, black Americans, Latino, I mean, the list goes on.

Students, you know, let's get this only other breaking and we're going to come back to more emails, phone calls and questions.

We got to talk about AI and regulation.

And I wonder what the congressman thinks about some of the what he's seen in terms of the testimony of AI executives in Washington about what they are building and what could be coming next.

And the role of Washington, more of your feedback as well.

Congressman Joe Morelle is running for reelection in Congressional District number 25.

His website is vote Morelle.com.

His opponent is Virginia McIntyre, who will be on this program this coming Monday.

We'll come right back.

And Connections support for your public radio station comes from our members and from zealous, Blue Cross Blue Shield, working with members to find health coverage for every stage of life, helping to make care and coverage more accessible in more ways for more people across the Rochester community.

Details online at Excel, USB, CBS, Dot com and bond.

Shattuck and King, a multi practice law firm in Rochester with offices across New York State serving business, health care and educational institutions.

Online at Bascom.

What does Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky think of President Trump's demand that he step down and also stop attacking Russian oil facilities?

NPR's Joanna Kakissis interviews the Ukrainian president, and we'll hear it on the next morning edition.

From NPR news.

We need tomorrow morning at five.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

All right.

A couple more quick emails and then back to your phone calls.

Tim says not to split hairs, but the Abraham Lincoln had eight suicide attempts.

The USS George Washington had 11 actual suicides, most of them while Biden was president and drydock and the USS George W Bush had three actual suicides also during Biden's term.

Does that lessen any of what you've seen on the Lincoln?

No, I mean, I've heard from people.

I've been stopped at places where people had children on board the ship begging for intervention because it was so bad and they had heard from their kids.

I mean, it was disastrous.

And Pete Hegseth is a joke.

Honestly.

I mean, anybody who thinks this guy should be the head of the Department of Defense is kidding themselves.

He is unqualified.

He's really become I mean, I hate to say it about another, but he's a buffoon.

And I've had him in front of our committee testifying on appropriations.

He dissembled he doesn't answer a question.

I. And this notion, I mean, now he's suggesting the public execution of an individual who, you know, clearly should be in prison for the rest of his life.

Did I mean, a tragedy?

I mean, killed 30 people.

So I'm not they've no said that public execution will deter future violence, and there's no evidence of that at all.

But that's typical for PDA.

Except it doesn't have that.

He he doesn't look at evidence.

He has no idea, frankly, what he's doing.

He lives in some Marvel comic universe where he wants every American soldier to be a certain thing.

And his notion of, we're never going to stand that.

We're just going to be aggressive, aggressive, aggressive.

Like, okay, but that's not.

And he's fired all the admirals and generals who know anything.

It's crazy.

Tim, thank you for the email.

Mark wants to know why do you think the Democratic Socialists of America have gained so much influence in your party?

Well, look, I don't know that I. I don't know how I describe so much influence.

I think most of the people who are going to get elected to the Congress if they're not, say, are not socialist, they're more centrist moderates.

They're running in districts where, what I would describe as purple districts.

And so we'll see.

But clearly, what's happened is there's great dissatisfaction in the country.

I think it's economic dissatisfaction.

And, you know, the notion that, our economics is out of whack is not something exclusive to socialists.

I think when you look at what we have done for billionaires in the last year and a half with massive tax cuts, and use and in order to pay for that, cutting health care and cutting, snap benefits for our poorest Americans.

I think when people look at that, they understandably think this thing is out of whack as to why, okay, you know, you're not you don't think DSA has much influence, though, in your party?

I think look, I do I think everybody has influence in the party, but I think it over.

I think people overindex for it.

I think what you will see, elected to Congress and I think the new majority is going to be very thoughtful.

I think they're not going to be extreme ideologically.

And that's where that's why I think America is, and that's why I think the new Congress will be all right and around, to quote Marie is next.

Hey, Marie, thanks for waiting.

Go ahead.

Bye.

Thanks, Ivan.

Hi, Congressman.

How are you?

I'm well.

How are you, Marie?

Okay, thanks.

I so appreciate the work you're doing to protect, our elections, and I do have to say, I'm.

I'm just a little perplexed at some of the language you use around, saying that voters shouldn't be intimidated.

So I guess I would ask if you're doing this work at the national level, how can we be sure that that's that that's genuine?

When this past spring, there was a woman running for town board as a Democrat, and, you effectively ensured that she was not on the ballot despite many of us trying to get her on the ballot town board and classify that as anything.

I'm sorry.

Mary.

Town board around Detroit.

Tomboy.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I guess I'm I'm confused how that in your own home town, in your own backyard isn't voter suppression and intimidation?

This is okay.

Go ahead.

I mean, I, I think this is the Kate Walker story.

I, I'm familiar with the the allegation.

And she did end up leaving the race voluntarily, I think.

Okay.

So I did you put your thumb on the scales is the question.

No, I think what happened is, as I understand it, the folks that were involved in it, objected to petitions.

People came forward who said that, the people who had signed, witness signatures hadn't actually witnessed them and shouldn't have enough signatures.

And, they went to court, and I think she voluntarily at the outset of the court appearance, I wasn't there, I wasn't involved in it, but, that she voluntarily, declined, agreed to step off the ballot.

So the I don't know the story at all.

I don't know the what is typical in signatures.

I, I the reason I know the woman involved here is she was on the show years ago doing, talking about, safe products for kids, environmental work, recycling.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

So she didn't strike me as someone who's gaming the system and should be off the ballot, but.

Well, you have to get so many signatures to qualify.

And she didn't get the, the proper amount.

So that.

Well, I mean, there are certain rules you have to abide by and there's certain things they have to do.

You have to get a certain number of signatures of valid people.

They have to get witnessed.

And that was the process.

So okay, gotta follow the process.

Did I miss anything there?

Marie.

I mean, she at my at my understanding, she absolutely had more than enough signatures and a part of why the congressman's organization pushed to file criminal charges against her earlier threatening to file criminal charges against her is because the Board of Elections wasn't going to find enough errors with her, with her petitions.

And I guess your denying that someone in your organization called her and told her that if she didn't come off the ballot, she would be charged criminally.

I absolutely deny that's that's I don't know where that came from.

That's there's no I mean that that never happened.

Okay.

Marie, I appreciate the phone call.

Are you involved in local elections?

I mean, local politics.

I mean, yeah, I'm a member of the around a committee, and and, do you exert influence?

I look, do I help finance candidates?

I help knock on doors for people I, you know, I always keep my hand in local politics.

I work closely with the county executive.

I work with the county chair.

You know, making sure that at the neighborhood level you have representation, you build an organization is vital.

And, I try not to get too Washington centric that I forget about the Monroe County community.

I spend a lot of time here.

So, Yeah, I'm always involved, but I'm not involved quite at the level that I think people, want to, you know, give me credit for or blame for, as it turns out.

Okay.

Marie, I appreciate that phone call.

Maybe that's a story for another day as well.

Janice in Pittsford says a friend of mine called the 866 number yesterday that Congressman Morelle is sharing regarding election protection.

And they said this number will not be involved in sending lawyers for problems during the election.

Can you please clarify what that number is uses?

Well, that is not I'm going to follow up on that because I've been least made to believe, and it's run by a number of civil society groups and not for profit groups.

And we've been telling folks, if there are challenges at their polling place that there are attorneys.

So I'm going to double check on that.

Thanks for the, thanks for the heads up on that.

Okay.

Be troubling.

Thanks, Janice.

Catherine says when you talked about, what you're doing next term, you talked about many objectives but ignored the factors that many, many people are concerned about the cost of food, the cost of health care, the cost of fuel.

These are pressing concerns for significant portions of the population and for Democrats to ignore.

This would be a mistake.

What are you going to do to address these issues?

Well, look, we are going to make sure that we have things like tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, policies that the Trump administration put an end to.

We're going to address, child care with child care.

Credit, tax credit, and child tax credit, which lifted half of the children in poverty in this country out of poverty during during the last administration.

So there are a number of things you could do.

But at the root of all of this, in my view, is the corruption of the Trump administration.

I mean, the president making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy or sell diesel fuel is corrupt because there are other considerations at play here.

And that is in in the president not wanting to address the impact of Iran on gas prices, diesel prices, the price of groceries, etc.. So I think all of the costs that people are struggling with are at their heart questions of corruption of the Trump administration.

And that's going to be one of the focus points that I have a responsibility for in the Congress.

In 2024, you warned about the risk of artificial intelligence being used to interfere with elections 2025.

You warned about deepfakes?

And I wonder if, you know, listening to Jack Clark this morning of anthropic, Dramedies right hand man, Jack Clark, says he thinks it's now more likely that we will see full RSI recursive self-improvement in 2027, as opposed to 2028.

He thinks it's much more likely in the next year we're going to start seeing full RSI.

That means the programs are improving themselves, they're able to redesign themselves.

They're able to design other AI without human intervention.

And for some people, for many people, that's kind of a red line.

So, I mean, I wonder if you look back at 2024 and 2025, were you not thinking big enough about the risks that were coming, or is this coming faster than you thought?

I don't know if it's coming faster than I thought.

This is exponential growth.

Do you think it's dangerous?

I'll start with that.

Do you think it is dangerous?

Oh, I think that the failure to regulate AI leads us into very dangerous, dangerous places.

And so the last two years, I've been urging, the Republican majority, which had a, AI task force, they've done virtually nothing, and they're following the president's lead, which is to let AI companies self-regulate.

That is an impossibility.

That can't happen, because when you have the motive of just profit, you're going to continue to extend frontier models, to the point where they're dangerous and they're already dangerous.

So we're going to have to end it.

And frankly, we have to do it on a national level.

But truth is, for us to be successful, there needs to be international cooperation around models that are built with their basic foundational levels before you get to the millions and billions of, hidden levels into the software.

But you have to build in foundational level A guarantees that I cannot do certain things.

But this is getting harder and harder.

I mean, to your point where we're getting to a dangerous place where frontier models are now able to essentially mutate because that I don't know if that's the right word, but that's the word when I think of it.

And you'd think of it almost in biological terms.

Now change, grow, improve.

Right?

I mean, at a, at a breakneck pace, outpacing the ability of the programmers and people design the algorithms to control them.

So now what they're doing is they're making adjustments to the baseline foundational programing and then measuring the output to make sure the output was what they expected.

It's almost like it's biological in the way.

And think about it, the the math on this and the way that they're programed is working at speeds which the human brain can't do computationally.

Right.

And so this is dangerous and there's no way AI companies can self-regulate.

And that's been the mistake of the Trump administration.

And the speed is now, in a dangerous place.

Having said that, if it if we are able to institute those guardrails and we can get national and international cooperation, I can do miraculous things.

But but it can't be, regulated by those who are developing it without government intervention in the same way.

And it's not entirely analogous, but the Atomic Regulatory Commission, a nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the things that we've done with tools in the past, we didn't do a very good job, in my view, when it came to development of the platforms on social media that we missed the boat, we gave, a immunity to people who post things online, which was a huge mistake.

We can't make this mistake with AI, so let me just give you a few things that have been floated.

You tell me if you think they're good ideas or bad ideas.

One idea that I hear more often now is ISIS.

I know or I know.

So yes, I know two artificial superintelligence or no, two recursive self-improvement.

And there should be a red line and a an actual got a ban that you cannot attempt to create.

That's what Senator Sanders wants.

He wants 20 year prison sentences for people.

Try to make ACI.

You're laughing.

I mean, I look I think the question is in perfecting the AI.

So the the the the recursive self-improvement is the ability.

I mean, it's AI is now writing code.

Now by itself it is.

Right.

Yeah.

So what you need is human control over it.

And you need at the basic foundational levels of whatever you're building.

The frontier models have to have certain safeguards built in that can't be broken if if so, I think that's the issue.

And I think, you know, I send people to prison, but that's a little bit like, you know, after the horse closing the barn doors, may we have to do something that prevents the artificial intelligence models themselves.

Right.

So ban and ban ASI.

But I think that's a process.

I mean, I want to get into I mean, the recurred and I don't know what artificial superintelligence is that recursive self-improvement.

Yeah, I think I mean, there's not even more autonomous systems.

Yes.

But that's what they are.

I mean, that's what AI is.

I mean, the question is where they put the guardrails on this.

Oh, where would you draw the line.

Yeah.

And I've heard people say we should have a kill switch.

A kill switch.

It doesn't even make any sense.

It's like unplugging the computer.

So that's a whole.

So what I'm trying to understand is what does it actually mean to regulate?

I understand your point, saying don't let Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman regulate themselves.

Yeah, but what are you going to do?

You have to get agreement on the basic foundational levels of the programing so certain things cannot occur because we could have an hour long.

And believe me, I'm not a professional in this.

I don't even play one on TV.

But the, the, you know, asking the AI, for instance, there's this idea you can reverse engineer it.

You can't reverse engineering.

People see those who can see I'm wearing this tie.

I have dozens of ties.

Some reason I picked this tie this morning.

I made a decision.

I like it to go with the suit.

I don't know, but if I had to describe to you the synapses that fired in my brain and the nerve cells that produced this outcome, I couldn't do it any more than people can have.

Reverse engineer why an output of AI was created because there are literally billions of levels now.

It mimics in some ways neural networks.

That's what it's doing, right?

And it is learning.

It uses math to learn.

So you need to start literally at the foundation and say there are certain things it cannot do.

And look, I'm not an expert, but but is there is there a bill out there that could you could go after in the next year if you win this election, that would would do that.

I think there are a lot of bills everybody there's a million ideas now, much of it generated by I believe me, this is happening.

One of my responsibilities be oversight over the office of Legislative Council.

They are now inundated because their staff, people in Congress are literally writing one sentence in ChatGPT and asking it to produce legislative proposals.

So there's a lot of work to be done here.

But I think you've got to foundationally, fundamentally require that every model has certain safeguards.

Literally.

That's baseline model.

All right.

Let me give you one more.

I didn't know more new data centers.

Well, I think there's this confluence of data centers.

And I think data centers are used for many things.

I mean, clearly the explosion in demand for them is driven by AI in many ways.

And it's deliver it.

It's it's partly by the demand that Americans have and others have for the kinds of things that make our lives easier, more productive.

So the question of the data centers, though, as much revolves around who's paying the energy bill, how are we making sure that we're preserving clean water?

How are they environmentally appropriate?

How do they, respect local zoning?

Those are things that we absolutely have to continue to work to make sure that we are protecting people.

But you know, what's also going to happen?

And I think this has begun already.

Fear of data centers are driving companies to get out of outsourcing and putting it in the cloud.

So they're just bringing it in-house.

But the bigger issue is what do we do about regulation of AI itself?

Thank you for making the time to come on the program.

Thank you man.

The website is Vogt Morelle.com.

We always give you the candidates websites.

He does have an opponent in this race.

And Virginia McIntyre the Republican will be on this program this coming Monday.

You'll have a chance to, hear her answers on similar questions and ask some questions if you have them for the candidate as well here.

And we want to remind you, you should sign up for the WXXI newsletter.

Subscribe to the WXXI daily newsletter to get local news in your inbox every morning.

Election coverage, information on what Connections is doing.

wxxinews.org/newsletter.

Do that right now.

We're going to see you tomorrow on member support of Public Media.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience, any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at WXXI news.org.