- Top Rhode Island stories.

The Washington Bridge, it's the gift that keeps giving, and we're gonna be dealing with it for years to come.

- Biggest loser, I think the American poor.

I think people who need help, I think people who need medical coverage, all the things that help the people who are just in the least best position in our society.

- My top local story is the Brown University shooting.

Our heart goes out to the people directly affected by it.

It just shakes the sense of security that we have in our day-to-day lives.

(upbeat music) - And welcome in, I'm Jim Hummel, and we are having one of my favorite shows of the year on "Lively," our year in review.

And of course, we have Ocean State Media's political reporter, Ian Donnis, and Brown University professor, Wendy Schiller.

With another year almost in the books, we pause to look back at the highlights of this year through a political lens and offer up some predictions for 2026 and see how we did on our prognostications for this year.

All right, Ian, let's begin with you.

Top local story for this year.

- Jim, we often focus on what is most recent in our memory, but regardless, my top local story is the Brown University shooting.

It's a terribly sad story.

It's a crossing of a Rubicon in ways because it's gonna have a lasting impact.

Our heart goes out to the people directly affected by it.

It's gonna affect student life at Brown University and other colleges and universities and schools in Rhode Island.

It just shakes the sense of security that we have in our day-to-day lives.

Rhode Island has had a low overall rate of gun violence, and we thought, perhaps unrealistically, that this kind of thing could not happen here.

Of course it could happen anywhere, and it did.

And it's just a whole different world that we're living in right now.

- [Jim] Wendy.

- I have to agree, but I'm gonna turn to politics and just say that the governor's race and the primary that you're seeing challenging an incumbent sitting governor who has low approval ratings, a former candidate and then a potential speaker.

And you see sort of different strains of the conflicts in the Democratic Party, in this challenge that we're seeing nationally.

And for a small state, it's far more interesting politics.

We've had contested primaries before.

We know Gina Raimondo certainly had that issue and a contested general election.

But this is interesting to me that there's this willingness to challenge a sitting governor in a small state like this within the party.

And I think that just shows you that the party organization as a whole is changing in terms of being able to keep a lid on intraparty issues.

- If you had asked me two weeks ago, obviously before the Brown, and we're taping five days after the shooting, I would've said the ongoing saga of the Washington Bridge, 'cause that's gonna bleed in, I think, into the governor's race, that we've had the lawsuits being filed, some of the revelations through some of the discovery, and then the hearing with Peter Alviti.

I thought that over, we usually say one story, but that to me kinda dominated a lot of the narrative.

- Yeah, that would've been my story before what happened at Brown.

I mean, you could just fill in the scorecard for any number of years running, top Rhode Island stories, the Washington Bridge.

It's the gift that keeps giving.

It's very much with us.

It is a big influence on the race for governor that Wendy referred to.

And we're gonna be dealing with it for years to come.

So I think that's still a huge story in the state.

- Let's go to top national story.

Wendy, what do you have?

- I think we absolutely have to say Donald Trump is the top national story.

And the sort of ways in which the second Trump administration has been successful in some of the things that he promised on the campaign trail, but less successful and woefully unsuccessful on the economy in terms of inflation and prices.

And the tariffs are a self-inflicted wound by the president on the economy.

And so I'm surprised that they haven't done better.

They were all prepped and they had the DOGE and they fired a lot of people.

I just read-- - And you got both chambers of Congress, right?

- Right, and I mean, the fact that the Republicans in the House and Senate rolled over completely for the President's not really surprising given his sort of outsized presence in the Republican Party.

He is the Republican Party right now in terms of primary challenges, for example, and thwarting them or encouraging them against incumbents.

We saw Marjorie Taylor Greene leaving the Congress because of it, leaving the House of Representatives.

But to me, the underperformance on accomplishing the Republican agenda, they got a tax bill, but DOGE even, cutting the size of the government.

All told, 2.4 million, give or take, in the federal government, including the armed services.

And they have reduced it by 300,000.

However, they are planning to hire 100,000 back.

So-- - You said 2.4 million?

- 2.4 million civilian and military- - Okay.

- of the federal government, employees of the federal government.

So they cut 300,000 all told, but now they have hired back or are hiring back 100,000 of them.

So all the things that were trumpeted have not really panned out.

- But that was the signature program, and Trump won.

They got the tax cut through and then Congress flipped and he really didn't get much legislatively, there were a lot of executive orders.

- True, but he did not go after the size of the federal government.

He did not try to really just fire and close agencies.

And now everywhere from the CDC to the FDA to the Weather Service, they have to hire people back.

And so this is something I think that has been surprising to me at the end of the year that we're taping this after the president's given a speech trying to sort of tout his accomplishments, smart strategic move by the White House to grab that bully pulpit.

But it almost seemed a little too insistent based on the reality of what people are facing.

- My top national story is similar, it's fissures in the MAGA movement and support for Donald Trump.

As Wendy said, there was this break between Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, which would've been unpredictable a month or so ago.

There were four Republicans who peeled off and who are gonna vote with Democrats in will be a losing effort to extend the health insurance tax credits.

But yeah, I mean, President Trump gave this speech.

It's like he's telling Americans to feel better about the economy.

(Jim laughing) He's still blaming Joe Biden.

And polling shows that a lot of Americans are very anxious about their economic outlook.

And you can't turn the economy around on the dime.

The tariffs have not helped.

And I think it is a period of tougher sledding for the president.

- I was talking to my son this morning driving in, and he said, "Has he never gone to the grocery store?"

Well, clearly he hasn't.

And that's what George HW Bush, remember they asked him about the gallon of milk.

I mean, Trump's not out there buying groceries.

And people are just whispering in his ear what they wanna hear.

- But in all fairness to Donald Trump, Barack Obama didn't go out and buy groceries.

- Of course, yeah, but he didn't say prices were down when they were up.

- No, and Barack Obama has said, what, he hasn't driven his own car- - Car for years.

- in 20 years or something.

So, I mean, there is a level of removal from daily life that all presidents, no matter who they are, have.

But I think the issue is also that Biden is very interesting because Joe Biden did the same thing.

When the economy was getting better- - He was telling people that it was-- - Telling people it was getting better 'cause it was, but it wasn't getting better fast enough.

And George Herbert Walker Bush did the same thing himself in 1992.

- Trump drove the Tesla, remember, (laughing) that was the first time he'd been in a car for years.

Just to put a exclamation point or wrap this up, I have been disappointed, you say, "Not surprised," by the total capitulation of Congress, longtime Republicans, guys who have been there long before and probably way there long after Donald Trump.

You wonder whether that's gonna change a little bit as they get toward the midterms, particularly with people who maybe more worried about their voters than they are about the president's wrath.

- Right now we have almost, I think it's almost a record number of Republicans leaving the House this year.

Not a record number of retirements across the board.

But I think the rise of the supremacy of the executives started after 9/11.

George W Bush expanded the size of the federal government, particularly Homeland Security being created in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security.

So when you think about the sort of shift, or as John Roberts, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, says, sort of the abdication of congressional responsibility for so many constitutional tasks that they have, that started with George W Bush, and it's just sort of so intense now under Trump.

And what Trump's doing with it I think is the surprise because most Americans are relatively unhappy with many of the things that he's doing with this power.

- Trump came in with this maximalist approach, controlling all three levers of government.

I think, to some extent, it's the emperor has no clothes in terms of the economy and voters' ongoing concern about the inflation.

And you live by the sword, die by the sword, if you're gonna... And he cannot really continue to blame that on former President Biden endlessly.

- All right, let's go to biggest winner, biggest Loser.

We'll combine these, what do you have?

- My biggest winner is Helena Foulkes.

If the election for governor was held today, she would probably win in a walk.

Of course, it's a long time in politics to September, 2026.

But she is very favorably positioned.

I think she learned the lessons from her last campaign where she came close.

She's got a very savvy campaign manager in Eric Hyers who has a perfect winning streak.

- Gina Raimondo, David Siciliani, right?

- Yep, and he's won in a number of others.

- Kentucky, yeah.

- Kentucky's one, and some red states.

And she is very favorably positioned.

The big question, of course, is whether Joe Shekarchi gets in, but I think Helena Foulkes, she speaks well, she has a certain poise to her, and she could be on the path to being the state's next governor.

- Biggest loser?

- My biggest loser is an idea rather than a person.

It's the loss of shared reality that we live in these days.

And it's a situation that's only gonna get worse when you have millions of people who buy into mythology, a false mythology that the 2020 election was stolen.

AI is such a problem now that in the aftermath of the Brown shooting, law enforcement of people had to encourage people not to share or rely on AI-generated images online because it's making more difficult the search for the gunman.

And these deep fakes that can be created through AI are only gonna become more prevalent and cause more confusion in our society going forward.

- Hey, that guy walking down the road, he looks like Ian Donnis.

(Ian laughing) Wait a minute, is he the shooter, right?

You never know.

Biggest winner, biggest loser.

- I'm thinking about Rhode Island politics, and I think the biggest winner towards the end of the year was Congressman Seth Magaziner.

He scored a big victory, if you will, in his agenda, vis-a-vis Kristi Noem, and the idea of who's being deported.

- Remind people of what that was.

- So the idea that they had not deported any veterans, and in fact they had deported somebody who served this country and had been here for many, many years.

- [Jim] (laughing) And they brought him in on Zoom, right?

- And basically to tell his story.

Like she said, "No," and then Seth Magaziner produces his individual and says, "Here's my story."

- He's a veteran.

- Right, veteran, served the country with honor, and then is deported somehow after many, many decades here.

And Seth Magaziner has, I think, struggled in some ways to emerge from the shadow of Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, each of whom has maintained their influence I think in the Senate, despite being majority Republican controlled.

And Gabe Amo came out with such splash after winning that contested primary.

And I think he's hasn't found his footing.

And now I think particularly, he was also on site after the Brown shooting, and I think he's finding his footing.

So if you ask me in Rhode Island who's emerging as having a little bit more prominence in the conversation, I think it's Seth Magaziner.

Biggest loser, I think the American poor.

I think people who need help, I think people who need medical coverage or food insecurity coverage, housing assistance, job training, all the things that help the people who are just in the least best position in our society, I think the Republican administration under Trump has helped to demonize.

It's not the first time, Ronald Reagan did it in 1980 and 1984, but it just seems more intensely necessary now and more intensely scarce.

- Hmm, (laughing) this is one of my favorite categories, only-in-Rhode-Island moment.

- My only-in-Rhode-Island moment was when Peter Alviti testified before a joint legislative oversight hearing, and he was perfectly comfortable with explaining how DOT doesn't do anything other than hiring more people, spending more of the taxpayer's money to ensure the integrity of the work done on our roads and bridges.

I think that pointed up a glaring flaw in the state's current approach.

Of course, the approach before that had its own problems too.

But you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the importance of building more accountability into a system, particularly when millions of dollars of taxpayers' money is being spent.

- At first, when I heard him say that, and I watched the whole five hours, five hours of my life I'll never get back.

When I heard him say that, I thought, "Is he trying to preserve the lawsuit?"

And then he tried to say, "Well, this is done in other parts of the country."

Well, the problem is, I mean, they don't totally abdicate responsibility.

And as reporters have shown, they have four inspectors on site, what are they doing all day long?

So that's a good one.

Do you have an only-in-Rhode-Island moment?

- I don't know if it's only in Rhode Island, but I would say just in response to the Brown shooting, there was just this huge surge of blood donations.

Like just almost immediately.

And it just reminds you that Rhode Island is a small community- - We're a city state.

- and that people who don't know anybody else will still step up to do those sorts of things.

And you forget sometimes when you're in Rhode Island, particularly in a crisis situation, that people feel a sense of loyalty.

And I think that's, to me, only-in-Rhode-Island moment.

- That's a really good one.

All right, let's go to my favorite part of the show.

We rewind the tape and we look at last year's predictions.

Now, we were on the old set last year, so it looks a little different, but Ian is wearing his tie.

So let's roll the clip from last year and see how he did.

- My predictions are that tamping down prices and inflation will be more difficult than President-elect Trump suggested during the campaign, and also that I'm a little more gloomy on the outlook for making progress on some of those thorny issues, complex issues in Rhode Island, like healthcare and housing.

I think there can be incremental future, but it's gonna be a long slog to make meaningful improvement on those.

- Quick question, will the pallet shelters be open?

(Jim laughing) - That's anyone's guess.

- [Jim] We could only hope.

Probably on the most beautiful day in June.

- Okay, so Mr.

Donnis, you did pretty well on that one.

I think it's true about, well, let's talk about healthcare, 'cause I think, bringing prices down, I think everybody kind of thought maybe it was gonna be a higher lift than it was.

But what about healthcare?

- Yeah, I think we're seeing a convergence of that as a national and statewide issue because there's a lot of concern about the higher insurance premiums that are gonna be paid by millions of Americans when the Obamacare tax credits expire.

Of course, we have no shortage of healthcare issues in Rhode Island with a lack of primary care doctors.

I've been reporting on the saga of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital for four years.

And that story really came into the front and center this year with the hospitals facing a lot of uncertainty.

There is hope that they will, hopefully they'll be able to stay open, but we don't know that right now.

And if one or both were to close, it would have a big spillover effect in taxing other healthcare institutions.

So there's a lot of ways in which healthcare remains a defining issue, and that'll continue in Rhode Island in 2026.

I'm wearing the tie in a nod to our talented producer, Mary, who said she liked it.

(Jim laughing) And Mary said my predictions last year were a little safe.

So I'll go with one that's a little more out there.

I predict that Ashley Kalus, the Republican candidate for governor in 2022, will not run in 2026.

She spent millions of dollars in 2022 and still couldn't hit 40% of the vote.

- She in effect bought 3% to 4% 'cause 35's baked in, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah, and she's a smart person.

She speaks well.

She gave the fight to Governor McKee very well, but I think she recognizes that it's a real uphill battle for a Republican in Rhode Island.

- Let me just ask you, and maybe you will remember it.

About healthcare, before we get to re-rolling yours, I read in some of the legislative predictions for next year, they're saying, "Oh, well, maybe the state needs to step in and help more."

We don't have two nickels to rub together to begin with, they're talking about potentially eliminating Social Security tax.

The last thing in my mind you wanna do is have the state get (laughing) involved in healthcare, propping it up, or do you have a different opinion on that?

- Well, I mean states already do that in Medicaid.

I mean, it's a cost sharing program between the federal government and state government and counties.

So it depends on your configuration.

But typically states bear anywhere, like Louisiana only pays I think 30% or something of their costs.

But we pay I think close to 50% of our costs for Medicaid.

We're already stepping in.

And in municipalities, when you go and you don't have any insurance at all, then the city or the state picks up that cost.

You write it off, but they pick it up.

So we are already doing these things even though they're not visible.

I don't know that we have any more financial capacity to do anything else.

- All right, I think there'll be more clouds on the horizon for the state budget as well, because there's a lot of uncertainty.

Wendy mentioned Medicaid, and there are indications that there may be less funding from the federal government for that.

As we know, we're in a time of renewed persistent deficits in Rhode Island.

So maybe not this coming year, 'cause Governor McKee has a political reason to wanna have a budget that works, but I think in the year after that, it could be very bleak as far as trying to make it all work out.

- Okay, let's go to Wendy's prediction for 2025.

This is from a year ago, let's roll it.

- I don't think when we tape next year that Donald Trump's approval rating will be anywhere close to 54%.

That's normal, you have a honeymoon period and it goes.

And I do believe that Donald Trump will break up with Elon Musk by the summer.

- Okay, and that's it, nothing more?

- Well, I could say that I think Helena Buonanno Foulkes is probably gonna get in the race for governor.

But I think there's a little bit of a dance between Shekarchi and Foulkes to see who might challenge McKee in the primary, if McKee still stays in the race.

- You did pretty well, Professor.

- I did, yeah.

Two years ago, I didn't, so I'm pretty happy with that.

- (laughing) That's all right, it all evens out, right?

(Ian laughing) - Yeah, so obviously Foulkes is running, and Donald Trump's approval has gone from 54% on inauguration day to the highest I've seen now is 41% or 42%, the lowest is 36%.

But on the economy, 31% of Americans think that he's doing a good job.

So that's only 31% economy.

It's the economy's stupid.

- It's the economy's stupid, right?

- Which is the Bill Clinton line, of course.

So my predictions there is that Trump himself is not running for office again.

I think he had these hopes of momentum among the Republican Party to try to get him a third term, circumvent the Constitution, et cetera.

Now he's just a pretty big liability in a general election, I would assume, just like 2018.

But he still plays a role in primaries.

So they can't sort of get themselves out from the yoke of Donald Trump.

I do think the House will go to the Democrats, although I don't think it'll be as big a victory as we saw in 2018, which is about 41 seats.

I think it's gonna be lower than that.

But the Senate, I think, will end up either tied or in Democratic control.

And I could see-- - Really?

- I could see someone like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska becoming an independent and caucusing with Democrats, because by '26, if that's the case, then you're looking at '28 now.

The president's gonna be pretty diminished, although has legal powers.

So I think that's what's gonna happen nationally.

In Rhode Island, it's always gonna be a surprise.

We have a challenge to Brett Smiley, Dean Morales, and then we also have the governor's race.

So it's kind of hard to know politically what will happen there.

But my prediction is that the governor will not emerge to be the Democratic nominee for governor.

It doesn't mean he won't run as an independent or not run, but I think with these kinds of approval ratings that are consistently in the wrong direction, it just seems that the voters of Rhode Island want an alternative.

- Let's go back to the Senate, 'cause you follow Congress very closely.

If we had talked to you, I remember on the show maybe a year or two ago saying, "The way it lines up and the people who are up, it's gonna be a really tough lift."

What has changed to get you to the point of a potential tie or a Democratic takeover?

What has-- - And the map was really difficult for Democrats.

- The map was thought to be difficult for Democrats because, as you know, only 1/3 of the Senate, usually between 34, 32 and 35, I'm sorry, senators are up for reelection any given two-year cycle.

They're in different classes, so they don't overlap.

A majority of the Senate's not up for reelection, which is why they don't act very quickly on things in any given year because the majority of 'em are not gonna face the voters.

But if you look at the map, Thom Tillis of North Carolina was going to run for reelection, and he barely defeated his Democratic challenger the last time.

He's the former state Senate president in North Carolina.

- [Jim] And Roy Cooper's now the front runner.

- Right, exactly, so Thom Tillis is not running.

So it's an open seat.

And the former governor's quite popular, Roy Cooper is running, and will run unopposed, I think, in the primary effectively.

And he's popular and he's doing well in the polls.

And in Ohio, you have an open seat, you have temporary Senator Jon Husted, but you have Sherrod Brown who lost in '24- - The incumbent, yeah.

- who's now running neck and neck, and seems to have reignited labor, who thought Donald Trump would protect from layoffs and bring back jobs, but it hasn't happened yet.

And Michigan is kind of a messy Democratic primary, that's an open seat as well.

But it looks like the same forces on manufacturing, cost of living, Detroit, the automakers are just in a tailspin, head-spinning situation because of the shift in policy #from E-vehicles to hybrids.

So you're seeing a lot of states that looked favorable, they're gonna have a good strong, Mike Rogers will run in Michigan.

It'll be a strong candidate.

I think that that's what's going on is that the Democrats look like they are finally getting their act together a little bit in some of these key states.

- [Jim] What do you think about that?

- I think that politics is cyclical, and whenever there's a presidential election, there's always some edict about, "This is gonna be a new period of hegemony for," fill in the blank, either Democrats or Republicans.

We've seen this for the last 20 years.

And the voters tend to get pissed off at the party in power and they reverse control.

And that's probably a healthy thing to have a cyclical change over time.

- But if you wonder, if they get both the Senate and the House, does that mean an impeachment for Donald Trump and a conviction?

- No, I think Hakeem Jeffries, if you're main speaker, I see no reason why he wouldn't.

- [Jim] Just don't do it?

- I'm sorry, I misspoke.

He's not gonna remain speaker, if he's elected speaker.

He's now the Democratic minority party leader.

If Hakeem Jeffries is in, he will say, "No, there's no need to do that because there'll be an impending election," and it didn't do the Democrats very much good to do that.

- And don't have oversight.

They can have some check or balance on Congress with some of the cabinet members and other people without going after Trump.

- Well, I mean the issue was they can send as many bills to the desk of the president as they can and he can veto as many bills, but he will have less power over the things that Congress should be doing.

And we'll see how that all works out.

But then within six months of the '26 midterms, you're gonna have the presidential election starting.

And that's the key thing to watch is that you aren't seeing governors and state Senates and state Houses in Republican states saying they wanna keep Donald Trump, that they're gonna overturn the 22nd Amendment, they're gonna try to do something.

They're not saying that at all.

So as that becomes more clear that he will not be staying, then you're gonna see a much bigger free for all on the Republican side for president in '28, and that will start right after the midterms.

- All right, people to watch in 2026.

Do you have anybody?

- Yes, one person to watch is someone who we've been watching for a long time, House Speaker Joe Shekarchi.

(Jim laughing) He cut his teeth running Paul Tsongas's Rhode Island presidential campaign in 1992.

- Wow.

- But Shekarchi obviously has to make a decision about whether or not he's gonna run for governor.

He has the luxury of time because he's got $4 million in his campaign account.

- Yeah, but Helena Foulkes thought she had the luxury of time and got out of the blocks, right?

- Right, sure, yeah.

And I mean, Shekarchi is well liked, but a lot of people have a dim view of the General Assembly, so that cuts both ways.

And he seems like a cautious kind of guy, whether he decides to go for it I think is hard to tell.

Someone to watch who is not as well known is Newport City Counselor Xaykham Khamsyvoravong.

He ran Frank Caprio's 2006 campaign for general treasurer as a 22-year-old graduate of college.

More recently a Newport City counselor.

But I expect he'll jump into the race for lieutenant governor.

He can raise a lot of money, and I would think he might fair well in that race.

- You get the last 45 seconds, people to watch.

- Oh, people to watch in Rhode Island.

I'm still watching Jessica de la Cruz.

I'm still interested in the trajectory of her career.

- She's curiously remained silent on what her intentions are after previously telling me she was ruling out running for governor and then telling Kim Kalunian from Channel 12 that all options were open, so.

- I mean, I see her as being able to mobilize different constituencies.

She's very well spoken, very animated on what she believes in.

And I think that she could attract a really interesting coalition of different voters.

It is hard to win now statewide if you are not supportive of reproductive rights.

I think that's turned the page after Carcieri here in Rhode Island.

So that may be her only obstacle, but I still see her as a potential force in Rhode Island politics.

- All right, another year in the books.

So good to have you, Ian and Wendy.

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy holidays.

And we look forward to a lot in 2026.

Thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time in the new year here on "Lively."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Lively" is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's Lookout.