- We gotta get our arms wrapped around this budget and stop, for heaven's sakes, spending hand over fist.

The average person out there who's a middle class, lower middle class people, they are hurting.

- Rhode Island has gotten a lot poorer than Massachusetts and Connecticut over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

- He's a very smart guy, Shekarchi.

He certainly has the temperament for it.

The issue will be, of course, the law and what they're gonna do about it.

- I wanna see the list.

How many people have applied for this judgeship knowing the House Speaker was likely going for it?

(upbeat music) - Welcome into this latest episode of "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel.

We're joined this week by former Rhode Island Attorney General Arlene Violet and WPRI Politics and Business Editor Ted Nesi.

Is it a conflict for former House Speaker Joe Shekarchi to apply for a position on the Rhode Island Supreme Court?

History and, more importantly, precedent may be working in Shekarchi's favor.

Fortunately, we have our resident legal analyst here with us today.

You've been following this.

Let's start with the Roger Williams Law Professor, Mr.

Yelnosky, and he thinks it's a conflict.

- I think Professor Yelnosky is correct.

And as we remember when another judge rotated in from the legislature, the staff attorney for the Ethics Commission said it was a violation, except the commission voted not to uphold that legal decision.

So I think it clearly, it is.

I think they're going to bug out of a hard decision by saying something that he detrimentally relied on the prior case, but henceforth, they will enforce it.

I think that's going to be the end result.

But yes, I think the professor's correct.

- Well, I'm not gonna do the legal analysis 'cause I'm not the expert on it, but I think it feels like a classic example of what we thought the law was and then we find out in Rhode Island politics that it turns out you can interpret a new way if someone powerful enough comes along with a different point of view.

I just have trouble seeing the commission, if they were willing to make an exception for Aaron Lynch Prada, which is who was put on last time and was in the legislature, the idea that they'd come down hard on Joe Shekarchi it's hard for me to imagine.

It would be fascinating, but it's hard for me to imagine.

- It's troubling though, because the staff, and this has happened sometimes at the CRMC, you have people, the Coastal Resources Management, that sometimes they're making the recommendation, but then the commissioners are allowed to do whatever they want.

Is there any issue, Arlene, in your mind, it's a whole new ethics commission?

I don't think there was anybody on it that was on four years ago when they voted on Aaron Lynch Prada.

Does that make a difference?

- Well, we're certainly gonna find out, aren't we, as to whether that is going to happen or not.

I really felt that the ethics commissioners' years went by deteriorated on their enforcement of ethics.

- They were emasculated by the General Assembly too, right?

I mean, they took a lot of their power away.

- Well, you can take the power away, but some things were pretty clear, and yet they went a different way.

They gave a slap on the wrist when it should have been a punch to the jaw, from my perspective, at least.

But in any event, time will tell what they're going to do.

- I do wonder how much too, Jim, it's that the memories are fading.

I realize as the next generation of reporters comes up, when I came in as a reporter, the memories were very fresh in the press corps of the scandals of the '80s and '90s and Arlene Newell, that you covered, Bevilacqua and the Irons decision and all of that.

Those things are getting further and further away.

So even Tim White and I were talking in the news, Tim was doing a story, and having to re-explain to people, remember what happened with Justice Faye, remember what happened with Justice Bevilacqua.

There was a reason all this happened.

Now, Joe Shekarchi, he would say, "I'm not Joe Bevilacqua, I'm not Justice Faye."

But I think as people aren't, as there are fewer people with direct memories of those years, I think the reason these rules got put in place is getting fuzzier to people.

- That's an excellent point, excellent point.

But I just think they may let it slide now, but at least I hope they stand up for the principle that we shouldn't have this rotating door.

- Well, it almost began with Richard Leach, though, years ago.

When he was working for Linc Chafee, he was what, the administration director?

He had a high level.

- He was admin director.

- Admin director.

If anybody was gonna be ruled out in terms of revolving door, I think maybe the ice got chipped away.

That was the beginning with Leach, right?

- It actually was a total retribution against the statute.

They just totally ignored it and just did whatever they want back then.

So we'll see.

Hopefully it's a new day.

As they say in, "Fiddle around the roof, let it be a new day."

Golda.

- I also wonder with Shekarchi, too, if he didn't have House Speaker next to his name.

I mean, clearly there's a lot working on, was there a deal with McKee?

We'll never know.

But to get- - He says no.

- He says no, McKee says no.

Of course they're gonna say no.

What are they gonna say?

Oh, you know what, I told Joe that I'll get him on the Supreme Court.

Awful, right?

So I wonder as it goes through the process, not only does he have to clear the ethics hurdle, so maybe he clears that, then he has to get through the judicial nominating process.

So explain that a little bit to people who are- - Yeah, so as a buffer, he has applied.

Joe Shekarchi has applied.

He's now any other lawyer, we don't actually know yet how many people have applied, but we'll get the list and they'll do the interviews and then the short list will go to Governor McKee.

It will be, if this all plays out in the coming months, it will be an interesting test for Governor McKee.

I mean, no one can force him to not, if he gets a list that includes more people than just Joe Shekarchi, he could choose someone else and say, no, I think the principle here is important.

We're not gonna put the speaker right on.

I'm not saying McKee will do that, but it is gonna be an interesting moment if McKee does face that question eventually as after these steps have happened.

- Yeah, and I wanna say, I disagree with people who think that he's not competent to take that Supreme Court.

He's a very smart guy, Shekarchi.

He certainly has the temperament for it.

So all things being considered, I think he would be a good candidate, but for the immediate leap into this particular role.

Yes, it is good to have a credential like you've been a judge at a lower level, and that should burnish your biography even better.

But I think he's qualified technically for the job.

The issue will be, of course, the law and what they're gonna do about it.

- But also look it back when you were Attorney General but leading before they went to the Judicial Nominating Commission, a lot of them just came right out of the legislature.

You think of John Boerstler was a, I mean, he turned out to be a great judge.

So you don't know until they get there.

And I also think with Shekarchi, it'll be interesting whether this is a chilling effect for other people to apply.

Would you go through all of that thinking, the die is cast, the fix is in, whatever you wanna call it.

Why would I go through that and then be shot down?

- Well, exactly.

I think that's why, I wanna see the list.

How many people have applied for this judgeship knowing the House Speaker was likely going for it?

And look, the pool of applicants potentially for a Supreme Court judgeship is relatively small.

And so those people would be talking to each other.

They'd be getting through the grapevine and the Bar Association, who's thinking about this.

So that's gonna be one of the questions here is how many people are even competing with him for this judgeship?

- I think they send up six names usually.

We'll see whether there's even a six count.

- Quickly before we go to the new Laos leadership 'cause things are changing as we get into the session, Rhode Island is the only state in the country that doesn't have a mandatory retirement age or our colleague Ed Fitzpatrick from The Globe had a great story on this, or mandatory retirement age or term limits on Supreme Court.

Does that need to change or do you think it's good the way it is now?

- I think the mandatory age perhaps of 75 is a good one to have.

I don't like the term limits basically because you play to the crowd potentially there and one time I used to support election of judges.

Now I'm totally against it because I've seen particularly in Southern states where the judges are elected, the sheriffs are elected, the prosecutors are elected.

They have more cases overturned for death penalty than any area because they're rushed to judgment and they just put things out there.

And I don't like the term limit thing because it's oh, I gotta get this out and this is gonna be my legacy and I'm gonna do this case.

No, no, no, no.

So no term limits but 75, take your social security.

- Let's go to the new House, Christopher Blazejewski.

We know him 'cause he was the majority leader.

Are things gonna change at all, do you think?

- I think they will but I think probably subtly, right?

I think he doesn't want there to be this appearance of this huge swing to the left now and frankly, I don't know that you can have a huge swing to the left because it's not just what he wants, it's what the rank and file House Democrats will have and you have a huge, the ideology goes from David Morales to Doc Corvasi.

I mean, that is a lot of very different opinions across the 60 plus Democrats.

But I do think subtly, I think about it as where does the, we would say the third floor, which is where the Speaker's office suite is, where does the third floor start from?

When Nick Mattiello was Speaker, he started from kind of conservative, moderate instincts and he would listen to his progressive reps about if there were things they should change.

I think it'll be the opposite with Blazejewski.

He starts from progressive instincts then will listen to his more moderate and conservative members on, you know, is there something where we're out over our skis or I should think about differently?

I do think that'll matter over time.

- Can't improve on that analysis.

- Yeah, I also wonder, we're in the homestretch.

You can almost see the budget's gonna be a big deal.

And I think the main thing is, will it be tweaked?

The governor's budget at the end of the day, and we're gonna talk about this a little later, the governor's budget at the end of the day is pretty, it doesn't get changed drastically by legislatures, but Blazejewski has a lot of people whispering in his ear now as did former speakers as he heads into the homestretch.

So I wonder how that's gonna play out.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And look, on some level at this point, a bunch of the budget is baked already, even though they are not really getting down to business on the final negotiations until May into June.

And so I would expect that, you know, there's not as much wiggle room as people think.

Yes, it's a huge budget, but so much of it is on autopilot, you know?

And so Medicaid is $4, $5 billion of the $14, $15 billion.

And you can tweak within there, but it's a battleship and huge swings are hard.

So especially for a brand new speaker who's just trying to land the plane, I would think it'd be more interesting what he does next year when he's had his full session for the first time.

And you know, you'll have a new crop of reps and senators, the governor could change, we don't know how the elections will go.

I have more of an eye on next year.

I think for now it's kind of like just keep things stable.

- Final thought?

- It's baked, but I think it's burnt in the oven.

It's ridiculous.

$15 billion budget plus for the state of Rhode Island.

Ridiculous.

- Budget crunchers at the state house got an unexpected surprise this month.

A lot more revenue than originally estimated, which has further intensified the debate about a proposed millionaire's tax and whether this is the year to implement it.

Let's go to our budget guy.

This is a moving target.

It's good news.

And I guess, Ted, the question is, a lot of people have said, if you're getting this and it's closing the gap, do we need the millionaire's tax?

- Yeah, actually, Governor McKee was on with Kim Kalunian, my colleague and my wife, on 12 News at four this week.

And she asked, you know, well, y'all have all this extra revenue, governor, do you still need the millionaire's tax?

He said, oh, absolutely, because the Trump reconciliation bill is gonna lead to costs for the state.

And until that changes, I need more revenue in the future years.

But certainly that's not what like Mike DeBiase at the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, he says, you just got another 233 for this year, next year.

Do we have to do it this year?

But I think the political pressure is so hot, because I think a lot of the longtime advocates for the millionaire's tax bill, this is their chance.

They have a governor in a heated Democratic primary where both Democrats are supporting it.

You have a brand new liberal house speaker, you have a teachers union president running the Senate.

I think they wanna get it right now before anything else changes.

- And of course, it's a progressive issue.

So I think in fact, it's gonna pass.

There's been some studies and the more legitimate studies indicate that millionaires really do not flee the state.

2.2% are usually over a period of time who do flee.

Regrettably, they take their charitable donation money with them as well.

But basically, the monies that are generated as a result of that tax is far outweighs the exodus out of here.

But what I really think is important the budget period is totally out of control.

And we have these other issues that are being raised by three healthcare professionals about Medicaid and how we're in a healthcare crisis, et cetera.

We've got to look at what the real issues are and not just go, "Oh, we have 233 million.

"We can do this for you in this special interest "or make sure this happens."

We gotta get our arms wrapped around this budget and stop, for heaven's sakes, spending hand over fist.

- You just got this fundamental problem.

And this is what I always tell people when they ask me, "Why is the budget so big?

"Why is it going up?"

Because the state's committed to funding things that get more expensive faster than tax revenue goes up.

It is baked into Rhode Island's state government.

- And are politically difficult to pull away.

- Yes, and by the way, yeah, Medicaid, again, $4, $5 billion of the budget.

Republicans often support Medicaid increases, not just Democrats.

But that's also the fastest growing part of the budget.

And it's always going up a lot faster than tax revenue.

So it's like Pac-Man eating into the rest of the budget every year, which creates more pressure to get even more revenue, which leads to things like the millionaire's tax.

- The issue I have is the last two budget cycles, the governor has proposed a budget which has been pretty big to begin with.

They get extra revenue, maybe not this year, but then the legislature added $250 million above what the governor asked, and that gets baked in for next year.

So when it came to the SNAP benefits being suspended last year, they said, "Oh, we can't really go very long."

What if they put that in the Rainy Day Fund?

That would have given you a better cushion.

And nobody thinks like that.

It's like, if the money's in your checking account, let's spend it.

And I think that's one of the issues they should really look at this year, 'cause it's gonna be baked into next year.

- Yeah, and they certainly pay attention to Mr.

Trump when it comes to what the obvious cuts are.

But look at what's happening with inflation.

And the average person out there who's a middle class, lower middle class people, they are hurting.

They're getting hurt in health, which is what I tried to address with the Medicaid issue.

They're certainly getting whacked with gas.

That goes into how much food costs, because now there has to be a fuel provision for the restaurant and/or for the food that you're buying.

We're going to have hard times ahead.

This Iran war is just dragging out.

I don't see it ending soon, unless Mr.

Trump gives Taiwan to China, like they bossed him, I'm sure, on this trip to do.

But we have to bring some sense into the budget, and it still does not have sense and sensibility for all the people in the state of Rhode Island.

- The other problem is, again, often it's, you learn less by looking so closely at this year's individual budget items, and more when you look at it over 20 or 30 years.

And what you see is Rhode Island has gotten a lot poorer than Massachusetts and Connecticut over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

And so a lot of the things we buy in the budget, teachers, healthcare services, et cetera, we're competing with two much richer states right next to us that can grab doctors, how much can a teacher make flipping from East Providence to Seekonk?

How much can a doctor do better by jumping over the border from Rhode Island Hospital to one of the Massachusetts systems?

So again, these are actually even harder issues to solve, because this is just the predicament the state's built for itself over a couple of generations now.

- We missed the opportunity in the United States Congress to get us designated the state as a rural area.

That's why the reimbursement is higher.

- Oh, you're really in the weeds here.

Yes, the rural floor, yeah.

- You could argue that for Exeter, right?

- Well, no.

I mean, rural certainly is Connecticut and Massachusetts who get the boon from that.

But of course, with Mr.

Trump's administration, we'll never get it right now.

- Did you see Ted's eyes?

He's beaming right now, because you're the only one who understands what he has been looking into over the years.

When you say the rural floor, Ted's like, "You're in my wheelhouse, sister."

- Senator Whitehouse has been talking about the rural floor now for years, about how Medicare... There are all these little designations you can get from the feds that lead to significant increases in your funding.

- I've talked about this before, but when Governor McKee was running against Ashley Kalis, there was a question from our colleague here, Ian Donnis, at one of the debates, and he said, "Look, this is when the COVID money was being injected in."

And he said, "Look, the budget's now 13, 14 million.

"You have to run all that through.

"What do you think it's gonna flush out at?"

And he said, "Maybe 11, 11 1/2 billion."

The next budget came out at 13 billion.

So all of that stuff that Joe Shekarchi talked about, let's do investments, not spending, it looks like they spent, and then that gets baked in for the next year.

What happened?

Why did it go up 50% over five years?

- Some of it's inflation.

We had a big inflation spike.

- I'm holding you personally responsible.

- Yeah, exactly.

So these numbers are going up partly just like all of our bills are going up, partly just from inflation inflating them.

But then revenue has been, look at the economy.

The stock market is doing really well despite all the economic problems Arlene just mentioned.

- So we're taking more money in and just spend it.

- And then it comes in, we spend.

I mean, last week we learned there's gonna be $233 million more to put together this budget than expected.

But then this week, the governor put out a letter saying, "Ooh, by the way, at least $50 million, "probably more is already spoken for "because there's cost overruns."

- ACI, overtime, right?

- DCYF's gonna need more, and the blizzard and other stuff.

And so there's an endless list of things to spend money on.

And so every time there's more revenue, lawmakers say, "Oh, good, we can do this one now.

"We can do this one.

"We can say yes to this person."

And again, in the end, the voters reliably reelect almost every rep and senator.

So they don't necessarily see that the voters are unhappy with this situation.

- I interviewed Joe Shekarchi three weeks after the session.

And I said, "Have you ever thought about budget cuts "or holding the line?"

And he said, "That's not what my members want."

He says, "And they reflect their constituency."

So you have some moderates or conservatives saying, "This is unsustainable."

And Joe Shekarchi at the time, and now whatever who the speaker in the future is gonna be, that's not reflective of the people who are getting elected.

- Yeah, if there was a big swing among the voters this fall and they voted for other people in the primaries, they voted for other people in November, you would see changes.

But until the voters make the reps and senators think they want something different out of their state government, you're not gonna see something different out of your state government.

- Arlene, let's shift gears a little bit.

John Loughlin is running for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican side.

He's a former state rep.

He ran for Congress against David Cicilline.

He's been on WPR on Saturdays for years.

We'll get to his proposal about the Inspector General, but this is the first time I think the Republican Party, which has had a big over for many years, sees a little bit of light that maybe he's their best chance to get a statewide office.

- Yeah, without question, I think he has the best chance of being elected.

And one of the issues, of course, is he still has to raise money.

He has name recognition, but not enough name recognition.

So he has to get his name out there and he's got to talk about these proposals that he has.

But without question, I think he's the strongest Republican candidate.

- Yeah, he did an internal poll.

He actually hopped on that Ken Block poll that came out and did a couple, paid for a couple of Lieutenant Governor questions and he had himself about even with Sabina Matos, but like one in three voters undecided.

And that was a good poll, sir.

I have some trust in those numbers.

I think the challenge for Republicans, I've now seen they're Charlie Brown in the football a little bit because they've gotten over 40% repeatedly in these years they've gone, as you said.

- Well, Aaron Guckian challenged Sabina Matos, he got 45%.

- Yes, he got into the 40s.

Donald Trump cracked 40% last time.

But that's not enough to win, that's enough to have be a good second place.

You've got to find a way to get to 50% plus one or if there's a few extra candidates, the high four.

Alan Fung was within four points of Seth Magaziner, but it's those last few percentage points of voters that would get you over the top.

That it's, especially in a Trump midterm, Loughlin's gonna have to find a way to convince some voters in the middle there that you might not like Donald Trump.

Yes, I'm a Republican, I'm not gonna break with Trump, but I'm independent enough or I'm gonna convince you not to think about Trump at all.

- And are people paying attention to Loughlin at all?

Now you have four, maybe five Democrats beating each other up, which I think helps the Republicans.

But if you listen to Loughlin on his radio show, he is pretty conservative.

He's been pretty supportive of what Trump has done over the years.

And that's a big brick around the Republican's neck in a blue state like Rhode Island, statewide.

- A lot of people, I think, don't understand why people support Trump.

It's all about the economy.

Now, from my perspective, even as a former Republican candidate, he's worse for the economy in terms of the tariff fiasco, in terms of what he's doing with Iran, that unnecessary war, et cetera.

So I think he happens to be a disaster, but his supporters don't see it that way.

But they have economy, it's the economy stupid.

And that's the issue in November here in Rhode Island.

It's the economy stupid.

And the Republicans do not put up enough candidates.

And I think people get discouraged.

But it's a quality of life issue.

There's many people who do not partake of a quality of issue in Rhode Island because they go from paycheck to paycheck.

And those are the people I care about.

- Well, and so he carved out a very popular issue this week.

He holds a press conference and he says, "I'm gonna turn the Lieutenant Governor's office "into the Inspector General's office."

Now, a couple of problems with that, no subpoena power.

But that's, you know, really the only guy who's been standing in the way is Joe Shekarchi.

And by the way, I asked the spokesman for the new speaker, "What do you think about Inspector General?"

Well, I'm keeping an open mind.

Of course, he's not gonna commit.

But what do you think about that as a plank in his platform to lead with, Inspector General?

- The best argument the Republicans have election after election in Rhode Island is look how Rhode Island's being governed right now, right?

And so I think John Loughlin makes perfect sense to say to people, you know, "You're gonna get Democrats up and down the ballot.

"All these offices filled with Democrats.

"Donald Trump is not gonna take over Rhode Island.

"Give a Republican one office and I'm gonna use it "to try to put a spotlight "on some of these governance failures."

You know, this was not a one-party state.

It was not a one-party state until the last 20 years, 16 years since Don Carcieri left office.

And it doesn't mean Republicans are always gonna be a perfect check on the Democrats either.

But you do see, I've seen it as a reporter where there's an omerta, to use a word from a different part of our worlds, around the Democrats who don't wanna criticize each other, which means you can't always have honest conversations about when things go wrong.

And when you have nobody in a big office from the other party to comment on it, I wonder how much that sort of stifles the conversation.

- So what about the Inspector General?

- Bravo for him for bringing up this particular issue.

And yes, I think it's important to have subpoena power, but many of the records are public anyway.

So with the right kind of nerds that he hires in that office, you know, as you know, even mobsters got convicted by the pencil.

And the book's not matching as opposed to, "Hey, we got you for the murder."

We got 'em by the pencil, right?

And I just think it's brilliant for him to bring this up, go for it, and it's a great political issue.

- Maybe he can bring in the firm of Hummel, White, and Nesi for a little APRA tutorial, and then John Loughlin's gonna get a big wake-up call about, "I'm sorry, that's gonna be 10 days.

"I'm sorry, that's gonna be another 20 days."

And, "Oh, I'm sorry, we're gonna redact 75% "of what you asked for."

- Well, it looks like, to Arlene's point, you can see from media news investigations, there's a lot you can find out without subpoena power.

Of course, I wish Tim and I had subpoena power.

We'd do even more, but you can get a lot, even with those APRA fights that, as you say, are so frustrating.

- Well, and you know, from reporters, it's the potential for public embarrassment.

And if you have, you know, if he has a press conference and he says, "I got something big," everybody's gonna be there, and then the spotlight's gonna be on it.

And that's a powerful tool.

- It is, and I think, if anything, he would probably get more media attention 'cause if he were to win, he would likely be the only Republican in a major office unless one of the other races goes in an unexpected way.

All the more reason people say, "Oh, what's our leading Republican in office "in Rhode Island saying today?

"What's he commenting on?"

So it's a big opportunity, but we shouldn't underestimate how tough it will be, even for someone with John Loughlin's experience.

Again, if Kamala Harris had won, I think he'd be in far better shape because you'd probably have a backlash to Democrats coming, but it's looking like a backlash to Republicans midterm.

- The master lever's gone, so does that help him as a Republican?

- I think so.

And certainly, being on talk radio, very high profile.

- Every Saturday.

- Theoretically, at least, well, on Saturdays, we're usually 100,000 different people listen each week or whatever, and I think he has a really good chance.

He's gotta raise money, but it's all about getting his message beyond his audience.

And if he gets the money, I think he's got a great chance of winning.

- All right, let's go to outrages and/or kudos.

Ted, let's begin with you this week.

- Oh, shoot, I forgot to think.

- All right, let's go to Arlene, and then we'll come back.

- Well, I just am upset when I see all these billionaires coming off the plane with Mr.

Trump, and of course, his son in the front seat getting out there, because it just reinforces for me how much this presidency is being used to make money for the Trump family with deals in China, et cetera.

And certainly, billionaires rule the government.

There's absolutely no question about it.

And it saddens me, frankly, to see how many people have bought into the lies of the Trump administration, the myth of the Trump administration that he's good for our economy.

Donald Trump is good for himself.

End of story.

That's the byline on his presidency.

- And you wonder, they've already, the Republicans have gotta start preparing for life post-Trump, because, I mean, it seems like he's been in a long time.

It's not, 2028, it's not that far away, and there's gonna be a reality of him not in office.

So where's the party gonna go, right?

- Yeah, it seems far away for me, because in my view, we're getting less and less democratic in the broad sense, capital D, in terms of civil liberties being violated using the Justice Department, et cetera.

So I don't know.

I just hope that doesn't become the new legacy of the United States of America.

All for me, and not all for all of us.

- Is the light come on over here, or what?

- You know, I thought of someone I've been, someone I wanna give kudos to is the Auditor General, who flies- - Who we never hear from.

- Never hear a lot about, but we've had all this news about the budget problems in Cranston.

It appears, as far as I can tell from the point, the Auditor General's office was the only one really on the ball, saying, "Hey, wait a minute, "this is our second or third largest city," depending on the year, "and what's going on at the airport, "and you've got some real financial problems going on," and he was kind of pressing the case.

And the Auditor General's office, often under the radar, is riding herd on these municipalities, and you wish sometimes we had an Auditor General for the whole state, like we do, they can be a little tougher, I think, with the city's defense.

- How about the Auditor General be a little more available to the media?

What do you think?

You never, I mean, it hasn't been since Ernie Almonte.

He was always available.

Now, I don't think anybody besides us could name who the Auditor General is.

- Dave Bergentino.

So, yeah, we know his name.

But yeah, I think, you know, I was watching with the Cranston, I was like, "Oh, he was sending letters to them "quite a while ago."

And, you know, you have people like that all over the government and the public sector who are trying to keep an eye out for problems.

- All right, Arlene and Ted, thank you so much for your insight.

It was a great half hour.

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 right here on "Lively."

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