- I often say to people, do you feel 40% better than you did five years ago because we're spending that much more?

And no one does.

- Look, there's challenges.

There's no question about that.

Rhode Island has always been the first in and last out of economic downturns.

That's not the case right now.

- Welcome to "One On One."

I'm Ian Donnis.

The race for Rhode Island governor is entering a critical stretch.

Campaign ads are hitting the airwaves.

The September 9th Democratic primary is fast approaching, and voters across the state are starting to pay more attention.

So what is the Democratic frontrunner's vision for Rhode Island?

Joining me to answer that question is Governor Dan McKee, and a bit later, rival candidate Helena Foulkes.

(gentle music) Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, welcome back to "One On One."

- Yeah.

Well, thank you, Ian.

- Let's start with some of the state's most pressing issues.

The Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council recently found that Rhode Island's economy lost ground over the last decade, and WalletHub ranked Rhode Island's economy 47th among the 50 states.

You've been governor since 2021.

Why does Rhode Island continue to lag so many other states?

- Well, first of all, it depends on what you look at.

US News and World Report has it 16th in the country in terms of the economy, and that's a recent poll as well.

You know, so you have to kind of pick and choose.

I think (indistinct) should have kind of, like, had more of a broader, you know, outlook there.

Look, since I've been governor, we have done some, you know, remarkable things in terms of jobs.

Jobs have increased by about 37,000 private sector jobs since I've been governor, which is twice the pace of pre-pandemic.

So, I mean, if he wants to go back that far, but what I'm looking at is the timeframe that we have been in office and I've been in office, and the results speak for themselves.

We're raising the amount of incomes, and that was a direct result of the extra revenue that came in in May.

That was because incomes are increasing in the state of Rhode Island.

Look, there's challenges.

There's no question about that.

Rhode Island has always been the first in and last out of economic downturns.

That's not the case right now.

We know that there's other states that struggle a great deal more than we're struggling right now, and the progress that we've made, bringing in Companies like Amazon, bringing in companies like Anduril for the maritime defense, bringing in companies like Organogenesis and life science.

Life science alone has doubled the amount of jobs since I've been governor.

- Let me hold you there, governor, because we've got a lot of issues to discuss.

The General Assembly recently approved a moratorium on charter schools.

You made your name as a supporter of charter schools.

Will you veto that bill?

- Yeah, so I'm still looking at it.

I've said before, the moratorium doesn't concern me as much as taking away approved charters that have been approved by the education board.

I'll take a look at it.

We'll weigh all the situations.

A decision on that hasn't been made yet.

- You've cited progress in improving student attendance, and we can agree that's important, but the academic results continue to be rather glum, particularly in Providence, where fewer than a fifth of students test at grade level.

Why haven't students made more progress in terms of their academic performance?

- Well, first of all, let's take a look at what Massachusetts is, which was we've set a goal to meet or exceed Massachusetts' levels by 2030.

They're 43% on their reading, 41% on their math.

So let's put that in perspective.

We have closed the gap with Massachusetts on reading by almost 40%, on the math by 30% since I've been governor.

So we are making the right moves and the right progress, and right now, we're the fastest recovering.

You go to Harvard's report.

We're the fastest recovering of all New England states coming out of the COVID on our education.

So progress is being made and you gotta keep, you know, keep working on the things that we're working on.

Like you said, attendance matters.

Math matters.

21 learning centers are gonna open up around the state of Rhode Island now and then this year.

We're gonna really focus on this out-of-school strategy too to help what's happening inside the schools.

There's a lot to be very optimistic about.

- You supported in your budget a new surtax on income over a million dollars.

The General Assembly decided to phase that in over three years rather than all at once.

Why are you convinced that the opponents of this are wrong?

They say that this will be bad for the economy, bad for business.

Why are they wrong?

- Well, I think that you gotta take a look at even Massachusetts.

Massachusetts lost more revenue from the millionaires the year before the tax went in, and they're actually collecting more revenue today than they were before.

So we'll have to take a look at that, the phasing it in, because, quite frankly, my administration has done a good job with raising incomes.

So there was more dollars in May than I had in November.

The phase-in strategy with me, I'm fine with that.

We'll kind of take a look at what's gonna, you know, what results from that, but, again, my whole thought is let's keep people working, let's keep building things, and let's make sure we add to these 37,000 private sector jobs that have been added to the mix since I've been governor.

- What do you say to people who believe that's punishing success to tax more people who have more money?

- No, asking people to pay their fair share and to contribute into a state that's moving in the right direction, I think that's fair.

- About 40,000 Rhode Islanders risk losing health insurance due to Trump administration budget cuts that will strain an already stressed healthcare system in Rhode Island.

What will your approach be if you win reelection to assisting those vulnerable people?

- Well, we've already made moves on that.

You know, the Trump administration is causing multiple problems for us on the healthcare, on the SNAP benefits, the pressure that they put on with ICE, and trying to get information they're not entitled to.

We pushed back on all of that, made sure the Revolution Wind actually moved forward.

So we're gonna handle this in a way that makes sense.

You know, my opponent actually has put money into PACs that actually went into the Trump Victory Fund.

So, were she to say that she would fight Trump, we're fighting Trump every single day, and then our budget reflects that.

We increased the amount of money that went through the Rhode Island Food Bank.

We increased the amount of dollars that are gonna keep about 20,000 people on the health exchange that was approved.

I proposed that.

That was approved by the General Assembly, and we continue to have to fight Trump's taxes in terms of the way he's taxing and the way that he is not controlling cost, and it's hurting people in the state of Rhode Island, and we'll respond to that, and we have in the budget.

We've also put more money into uncompensated care as a direct result of Trump removing health insurance from, you know, as you say, thousands of people.

We're gonna hit those who are really in need, that need it most, and I'm pleased that we're gonna keep 20,000 people on health insurance.

- You recently celebrated the start of in-water construction for the replacement of the Washington Bridge, but the first request for proposals by your administration for the bridge replacement project did not attract any bids.

The cost of the project has gone up over time and this issue has kind of been a cloud for you.

If a voter says to you, "Governor McKee, I'm not gonna vote for you because of the bridge," what do you say to that voter?

- Well, first of all, we've kicked the can down the road a long time on the bridge, on housing, and other things.

I'm actually, you know, taking the bull by the horn and then fixing things, including the bridge.

Look, the first bid went out.

We got what we needed.

It was demolition.

Again, I don't put the procurement out in terms of the way the bids look like.

We've got a world-class bridge builder in place right now.

We're actually ahead of schedule, two years ahead of Maryland, by the way.

My opponent kind of cracked jokes that we were two years behind.

We're two years ahead of Maryland.

So people should understand that, one, we've got the money in place.

Two, we have the bridge builder that is a qualified bridge builder that is actually going to do this project in a way that it's gonna make a major improvement, quite frankly.

Five lanes on each side, working the off ramps to kind of create a better traffic flow than we've ever had before.

So we're in a great position, and also, I'm pursuing the people that I think misdiagnosed the problem and caught.

My opponent has kind of sloughed that off as something that she's not interested in.

So we're gonna do all those things.

We're gonna make sure we keep people safe, we're gonna build a new bridge, and then we're gonna make sure that we hold people accountable that put us in this position.

- The cost of living remains a major issue for voters.

Beyond some tax relief in the current budget, if you win reelection, what would you do additionally to address the cost of living for Rhode Islanders?

- Yeah, a major issue, a big problem for many, many people.

Housing, we're gonna continue to go along, and my opponent denies the fact that we have a housing plan in place.

Over 7,000 houses either started or completed since I've been governor.

We're well on our way to hitting that 15,000 houses, housing units by the end of 2030.

We're gonna continue to work on energy costs.

Look, the energy costs are really hurting many, many people in the state, and we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to lower those costs.

We got $500 million of the billion dollars that I wanted.

I'm gonna continue to go after that extra $500 million, which is gonna control and contain cost.

So we're gonna keep on working on the affordability.

Social Security.

I think that we should finish the Social Security tax issue that I've started to make sure that people are not choosing to go to Massachusetts, because we're one of eight states with a Social Security tax.

This year, we put a child tax credit in, first ever under my administration.

I proposed it.

It got approved by the General Assembly.

So every family that needs some some help is gonna receive some help, a $325 per child tax credit that they're gonna receive.

So we're gonna continue to work on this affordability for all, including higher education, right?

We're probably the most affordable higher education in the country.

I've made the College Promise permanent at CCRI and we have a Hope Scholarship that is at Rhode Island College.

That's gonna pick up the last two years of tuitions for people.

Anybody that lives in the state qualifies for that.

So, on all those areas, we've made significant progress.

This is not the time to go back to square one.

We need to keep on moving ahead the way that we're moving ahead.

Jobs.

Construction on schools.

We're making sure that we are raising incomes and keeping people healthy, right?

I'm the one who stepped in and made sure that the two hospitals didn't close.

We put the $18 million front money for that and then we- - Let me stop you there, governor, because we're short on time.

- Yes, yes.

- The new budget is $15.2 billion.

That's about a 70% increase from 10 years ago.

Can Rhode Island afford to sustain that kind of upward increase in spending?

- Well, on the state side, that is a lot.

The growth there is significantly less, Ian.

So it's a large budget, but we are managing it, and one of the things that I've done as a mayor and now as a governor, I take the budgets that I receive, I manage those, and we return surpluses.

So we're managing it in a way that I think is gonna be really strong for the state of Rhode Island, and again, I have experience governing.

My opponent has no experience governing, which is a real important piece of information that, you know, the voters will have to decide on in September.

- In closing, governor, Speaker Blazejewski, when he introduced his inspector general proposal, said he was doing it because people lack confidence in government.

We can see, over time, going back through various administrations, there have been a number of failures of state government.

What do you say to that?

Why does state government sometimes struggle with competence on issues like the payroll system, the bridge, things like that?

- So we've kicked the can down the road, leaders have, for too long.

When I came in on the payroll alone, we were still doing it by typewriter.

That had to change, and, of course, a change does create challenges, but we're meeting those, but we're also putting a new finance system in as well.

We're building the bridge that should have been repaired before I got into office.

We are tackling things like housing, like I just mentioned, in a way that is really important.

My opponent's housing plan doesn't even come close to what we're doing right now using money that we've already allocated in this current budget, so- - What would you do in your next term if you win reelection to boost confidence in government?

- I think you have to keep delivering.

I think you have to keep delivering on an economy to make sure that unemployment people are working, putting people to work at good-paying jobs.

We already got, we got a pipeline that, with the $600 million bonds that I'm asking people to vote for, that the General Assembly has put on the badget, bullet, you know, on the ballot in November.

We gotta keep people working.

- I've gotta stop you there, governor.

I'm sorry.

- Okay.

- Thank you so much for joining us, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee.

- [Dan] Thank you.

- Helena Foulkes, welcome back to "One On One."

- Thanks, Ian.

Good to be here.

- We're gonna start with some of the state's top problems.

As you know, Rhode Island continues to rank near the bottom in a lot of national business surveys.

WalletHub recently put Rhode Island 47th among 50 state economies.

If you become Rhode Island's governor, what would the keys be to your approach in trying to make a better economy?

- Right.

It's so important for people.

I wanna start by saying that, because this is how people get access to good-paying jobs and can afford to be here and live here.

So I just launched my policy around jobs and the economy, and I call it Believe In Rhode Island, and the reason I call it that is I really do believe that we've gotta invest in our greatest strengths and invest in our people.

From my perspective, our greatest strengths are the ocean economy.

We have 400 miles of coast.

We've got URI's School of Oceanography and Engineering and all that they're doing.

We've got the Naval War College, Narragansett Bay, Quonset.

So I really want us to be investing in this asset.

I've proposed a $150 million ocean economy bond to invest in infrastructure to keep that going, but at the same time, I wanna invest in our people so that they can get great-paying jobs in all of the sectors of the state.

So, for example, I've proposed a $100 million career and technical education bond because I think the best way we prepare our kids for great futures is to give them the skills in high school for a really good-paying job.

You know, if you're in high school today, and let's say you love to be a welder or an electrician, you can, with those skills, be earning $85,000 two years out of high school at a place like Electric Boat, where, by the way, they're adding a thousand jobs because they're building a new submarine.

So we have a lot of things going for us, but we've gotta be investing in the education to support our children, and childcare, that's another area.

- Speaking of education, a lot of attention recently on how the General Assembly approved a moratorium on charter schools.

If you were governor right now, would you sign or veto that bill?

- Right, well, I think that we're really having the wrong conversation.

You know, when I'm talking to families, what they're very, very eager for is to know that their children can get the basics of reading and writing and the mental health support they need, and I was just talking about career and technical education.

So I wish we were talking about those things.

I wish we were talking about the funding formula, which hasn't been updated in 15 years.

I wish we were talking about how do we do everything we can to support our teachers, but at the end of the day, if I were governor right now, I would veto the moratorium that was just passed, and the reason I say that, I don't take it lightly, is that I have met so many families, particularly in places like Providence and Central Falls, where they're on a waiting list.

It's a 10,000-person waiting list to get into a charter school right now with only 3,000 slots and that's because these families want better education for their children.

Their local schools are not living up to their needs, and I think until we can make sure that every single public school in this state is operating where it needs to be, we need to have these as an option, but at the end of the day, the governor's job is to push for great, great public education.

90% of our children are in public education, and that's where my focus would be.

- To your point, we've heard rhetoric for decades about the need to improve public schools in the state.

The needle has barely budged.

You say, if you win the election, you would replace Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green.

What would you do that other governors have not done to move the ball on education?

- Well, it's very hard.

I mean, if you look at Massachusetts, it took them 25 years to get where they are.

A lot of people talk about the Mississippi Miracle.

I met with the person who drove that work and this didn't happen overnight.

So I believe the most important thing we've got to do is make sure that our principals and our teachers are really well supported.

A lot of what I think we have done, because of all the problems, is we have put so much structure on top that we're not allowing teachers to be the teachers that they can be.

They bring great skills and expertise, and, again, think about it.

We only have 300 public schools in this state.

It's the size of the Dallas County public school system, and yet we've got a tremendous amount of administrative overhead driving all of this.

So I look forward to really focusing on this.

I spent a lot of time in the last few years in Central Falls because Central Falls is a school system that was under state control for over 35 years.

The year we started working on this and I was helping the mayor of Central Falls, 6% of the children there had passed their grade-level reading and math.

So we're leaving a lot of kids behind and there's so much more we can do to lift up education in this state.

- Helena Foulkes, you supported the proposal to add a three percentage point increase on income over a million dollars.

The legislature decided to phase that in one percentage point at a time over three years.

Why do critics have it wrong that, in their view, this would hurt Rhode Island's economy, be anti-business, and cost jobs?

- Well, I've really focused on what I think is the most important problem we need to solve in Rhode Island right now, which is housing, and we need 20,000 new housing units to start to bend the cost curve.

It's the thing that's making young people leave our state.

It's holding back business because they can't hire people who can afford to live here.

So the idea that I have is to build 20,000 new apartments and homes and pay for it with the millionaires tax.

So what I would be doing is not using the millionaires tax for the general fund.

I'd like to put it in a constitutionally-protected fund, which could be a revolving fund to make loans to add more housing production, then we get the money back.

So I do think it's a different approach, but at the end of the day, I want Rhode Island to be competitive.

I want this to be a place where we are attracting people, keeping our people here, including our young people, and attracting more businesses and keeping them here so they can add more jobs, and I do think approaching housing as the problem to solve will lift us up as a state and make sure that we have the number of houses we need and the people to stay here.

- Governor McKee says your idea of using revenue from this new surtax is not realistic because that money is needed to counter cuts and effects from the Trump administration.

How do you respond?

- Well, this is a budget which is up 40% under the governor's watch in the last five years, and when I am traveling around this state, I often say to people, do you feel 40% better than you did five years ago because we're spending that much more?

And no one does.

So I think we have to take a really, really hard look at making sure that our money is going to the things we all need.

I believe so strongly in making sure we have great public education, great public transportation, great healthcare.

These are really important to the people of Rhode Island, but I don't think we're doing a good job as a state managing our budget, and that's an opportunity, once I win, to make sure that the money we're spending really goes to the people in need.

I'll use bridges and roads as another example.

Just five years ago, we were spending $449 million a year on the Department of Transportation.

Last year, we spent a billion dollars on bridges and roads.

- [Ian] Let me stop- - And we have the worst ones in the States.

- Speaking of the budget, if we go back 10 years, Rhode Island's budget was $8.9 billion.

Now it's $15.2 billion.

That's a 70% increase.

Can Rhode Island afford to sustain that kind of upward trajectory in spending?

- No, it can't.

This is what I mean about, whether you go back 10 years and it's a 70% or five years and it's a 40%, we're growing at a rate that's unsustainable, and so we have to do what people would do in their own families' kitchens as they're managing their budget.

They think about what they can afford, and I know that there's a lot we can do to make sure that the money we're spending is really going to the people who need it, and that's what I look forward to doing when I become governor.

- Roughly 40,000 people are expected to lose their health benefits because of Trump administration cuts putting even more strain on Rhode Island's shaky healthcare system.

If you are Rhode Island's governor, what would you do to address that?

- Yeah, it's really frightening for people.

You know, you look at what the Trump administration did this past fall with SNAP beneficiaries.

That was devastating to people, and you're right on healthcare.

So many people will be kicked off of their insurance, and so, in particular, what I am proposing is we put together a navigator system, and the idea around a navigator system is we want people in the community, in churches, in schools, in community gathering places who can find people and help them so they don't get kicked off of Medicaid, because the Trump administration is gonna be very sneaky about this.

They're essentially going to make so many hurdles and barriers that people just give up and they don't stay on their Medicaid, and that's why having trusted resources in the community is a very actionable idea to help people.

Now, by the way, this helps not only the 40,000 people who may be pushed off of their health insurance and Medicaid.

It helps the whole state of Rhode Island, because when someone loses access to healthcare insurance and Medicaid, it's not as if they don't have needs.

It's just that, when they no longer have insurance, what do they do?

They show up in the emergency room, and that affects all of us in terms of access to care.

So this is mission critical.

I have experience doing this.

When I was at CVS, I was involved in the rollout of Medicare Part D program, making sure seniors had access to insurance for their prescriptions, and we helped them gain access.

- Let me stop you there because we're short on time.

- Sure.

- Speaking of your time at CVS, you said you acted forcefully against opioids during your time there, but a US Justice Department lawsuit in 2024, according to the DOJ, was filed to hold CVS accountable for unlawfully distributing massive quantities of opioids.

How do you reconcile that with your defense of your record at CVS?

- Yeah, I think it's really important that people know the facts.

So, 2013, the crisis was raging, and a lot of people were affected.

This is something that really devastated America and Rhode Island, and so when I became president of the retail business in 2014, I knew very well what I was walking into, and under my watch, so I was president of retail business for four years.

Under my watch, we had an almost 40% reduction in opioids dispensed.

That is a fact.

We did that because we did more than anyone in the country to reduce opioid prescriptions.

I'll give you three quick examples.

We cut off over 600 pill mill doctors.

We worked on legislation across this country to reduce the number of pills that people would get after minor surgery, because doctors write the prescriptions, and we did the biggest drug take-back this country has ever seen.

So that all delivered an almost 40% reduction in opioids dispensed.

Also, under my watch, we walked away from $2 billion in cigarette sales.

So we cared very deeply about the healthcare of this country.

It was a devastating time, and people who were working for CVS were working very, very hard to do the right thing.

- Also, while at CVS, you contributed to the corporation's Political Action Committee.

Governor McKee's campaign says that PAC directed tens of thousands of dollars to supporting Donald Trump.

How do you respond to the argument from McKee's campaign that it's inconsistent for a Democrat like you to funnel money to someone like President Trump?

- Well, I think this is an unfortunate case of the governor, who is feeling maybe a little desperate, just playing politics here, because he knows full well that, whether it was CVS or my time on the Home Depot board, both these companies donated money to both Democrats and Republicans, and he's also been very willing to accept their help and be part of their communities.

So this is something that, you know, is, I think, what I wish he were doing is talking about what he's done for Rhode Island, because I think that's what people really care about.

People are looking for change right now, and I think the governor is attacking some of our best companies in the state.

Take CVS.

7,000 people work in this company, and I very much hope they stay here and are not bothered by what the governor's doing.

Home Depot has over a thousand people working here in the state.

So big employers trying to do the right thing, and I think it's not really befitting of the governor to be attacking them this way.

- We've gotta leave it there.

Democratic candidate for governor, Helena Foulkes, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks, Ian.

- Thanks for watching "One On One" with me, Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past interviews on the YouTube channel for Ocean State Media.

We'll see you next week.

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