From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made last night in a record setting address to Congress made by President Trump for more than 90 minutes.

The speech was lengthened, in part because Trump freelanced some of his trademark asides into the script and got a lot of laugh lines.

He called Senator Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas.

He lashed out at President Biden for the cost of eggs, which has soared to record levels in recent days.

And he tossed in brief asides regarding foreign policy in places like Greenland.

The white House script has Trump saying that the people of Greenland should determine their own future.

But then in the chamber, he riffed and said, one way or another, we're going to get it.

Republicans in the chamber laughed.

There wasn't much news last night.

Trump did not pull the United States out of NATO, as some predicted.

He made much of what he said reflected his promises from the campaign trail.

Although it is fair to point out that Trump did not campaign on taking Greenland or annexing Canada or taking ownership of Gaza.

But the widespread tariffs, yes, he campaigned on that.

Drill, baby.

Drill.

He campaigned on that, too, cutting off funding to Ukraine and pushing a cease fire based on giving Russia a number of concessions.

That was all on the ballot.

Democrats could not seem to figure out what to do last night.

Some didn't show up.

Others, like Senator Bernie Sanders, walked out when Trump dropped the Pocahontas slur.

Still others waved canes or held up signs with various messages.

Some sounded quite similar in the way that Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene acted when Joe Biden was in the presidency.

This hour, we have a conversation about what we heard last night and what comes next.

Republicans continue to support President Trump in massive numbers, and they see a lot of change and they like it.

Democrats are struggling to coalesce around a strategy.

Writing for The Atlantic, former Republican staffer Tom Nichols says Democrats are acting weakly.

He was critical of Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who gave the Democratic response last night.

Nichols writes, quote, Slotkin address suffered from the same half heartedness that has seized the Democrats since last November.

Her response and the behavior of the Democrats in general, showed that they still fear being a full throated opposition party because they believe they will alienate voters who will somehow be offended at them for taking a stand against Trump's schemes, end quote.

And Nichols has written it.

For all their bluster, Democrats have never really acted like Trump was a real emergency.

Otherwise, he says, they would have made sure President Biden never tried to run again, and they would have chosen a much stronger presidential candidate for last November.

Our guests are here to discuss where we are and where we're going next.

In studio with me is a former congressional candidate, Greg Sedwick, who is also a local business person.

Greg, welcome back to the program.

Thanks, Evan.

It's good to be with you again this week.

Got some good stuff to talk about today.

A lot to talk about.

Jerilyn sparks is on the line with us, a former congressional press secretary.

Jerry, welcome back to the program.

To you.

Thank you for having me.

Greg, I'll start with you.

Long address last night, and he was rolling.

He was getting a lot of laugh lines.

It was a kind of a raucous occasion.

What did you hear?

What stands out to you?

Well, I think he did awesome.

Because you could imagine.

Okay, I think he did.

Some things are really good.

You know, he's 45 days.

I mean, in your line of work, Evan, you're looking for news to keep.

You know, your news station.

Well, we've got a lot.

You have so much stuff right now.

It's amazing.

Okay.

And I think he outlined that very nicely.

Some of it is fabulous.

Some of it maybe not so much, some of it not tested as much.

but overall stuff is being done and the gridlock in Washington has gone on for too long, and it's nice to see something being done.

the tariffs on Canada, Mexico, European business person.

How do you feel about those?

You know.

I think he might be overplaying his hand a little bit, to be frank.

But I also like the fact that he's, you know, reciprocal tariffs are not necessarily a bad thing.

I mean, why are we, why are we hurting ourselves by increasing the cost of our goods overseas?

And then we're allowing those goods to come in here, and it impacts the trade balance.

It impacts employment.

so some of them I'm good with, but I think he does.

We're played a little too much.

It seems, that the market which is down, what, 12 or 1300 points in two days has responded negatively to the tariffs.

Do you think this is a situation where there has to be short term pain in order to reset the kind of trade balance you want?

Yeah, and thanks for saying that, because, you know, America is at a point where we do have to have a little short term gain because things are so far short term pain.

Short.

Thank you.

Short term pain.

Short term pain.

Because things are so far out of balance, the path we're on isn't necessarily sustainable.

Would we let the trade balance keep growing?

Do we let jobs keep going overseas?

I'm all for some short term pain, but why not?

Why doesn't the market dislike it so much?

I mean, Trump has said for years, Trump tweeted in 20 2012 when Barack Obama was president and the market dropped 1200 points in two days.

He said any time the market drops more than a thousand points in two days, whoever's president should be impeached.

I think he doesn't believe that anymore.

But I'm curious to know why you think the markets have responded so negatively.

Well, I think the markets are somewhat short term, although the markets are over the course of the long haul.

The emotional reaction in the short term, I think sometimes, plays negatively on the markets and that's what we're seeing.

Trump did not campaign, though on short term pain.

Oh no, he said, day one.

Day one.

He's perfect.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's that's a Trump ism.

But we're smart guys.

And your listeners are smart listeners.

And they know that it takes a lot to to move this ship to turn the, to a different course.

And it's going to take some time.

All right, Jerry, from opening thoughts from you, what did you hear last night?

so I obviously was not impressed.

I thought that there was a lot of divisive rhetoric and a lot of untruths.

There was, so much that was unnecessary.

And I feel like, as you said, Trump did not campaign on short pain.

He said, you're going to see an improved economy in the price of eggs and the price of gas.

Everything's going to be better.

And he he constantly says, like you've never seen before.

I still haven't seen it.

the price of eggs are going up and, you know, I agree with some of what Greg said.

I think Trump absolutely overplayed his hand on the tariffs, which are going to hurt all Americans.

And the thing is, we don't have American voters.

The American people don't have the luxury of short term pain.

They were struggling before.

And that's how a lot of reasons why Trump got into office to begin with.

So I think there's, kind of a not really an elitist on purpose, but that's an elitist viewpoint, thinking that we have to suffer through short term pain when people are already having trouble paying the heat, buying gas and buying groceries.

It's it's not something that's sustainable.

Jerry, in general, do you agree with the criticism of Democrats that Democrats have been meek, that they've been disorganized, that there hasn't been a cohesive strategy to deal with this, that the party looks adrift?

Absolutely.

I agree with you.

I'm turning back flips on my couch, just waiting for something to be done.

And I feel like that when.

So I worked under Nancy Pelosi.

she was, the speaker of the House when I was a press secretary.

And every morning, we would get the day's messaging and, the talking points, and we didn't have to follow that.

We have districts that we represent, and, they're very different across the country.

But she gave a messaging that was very tight.

And she also worked with the members of Congress to say, you know, do what you need to do for your district.

And then she would do a really good job, in my opinion, of working across the aisle to pass things.

What I'm seeing right now from Hakeem Jeffries is he's not up to the job.

Super nice guy.

But this is a time for strong leadership.

And you know, the way Barack Obama and Bill Clinton came into office, because they were great messengers and they were great organizers.

And Democrats are sorely missing that right now.

So when you say speaker Hakeem Jeffries is not up to the job, and you say you're waiting for Democrats to do something for your party to do something, tell me a little bit more about that.

What is Jeffries not doing?

What is the party not doing?

So let's give an example.

He comes out and says that, he has no problems with Governor Andrew Cuomo running for mayor of New York City.

This is a man who has lots of legal problems, and he doesn't have the backbone to stand up for that.

He's not organizing the thing last night when all the members of Congress lined up and there was no cohesive message with the Democrats, they, you know, they sent tersely worded emails and had photo ops before the meetings.

And some of them, you know, walked out.

But there was no cohesiveness in their messaging.

They should have.

Hey, here's the things I think they should have done.

I think they should have had a national combined town hall at the same time.

A few people like Senator Chris Murphy did that.

I think they should take out billboards and have, in Times Square, you know, all the different things that they actually stand for.

I think that they should have no more of these, you know, little photo ops where they're wringing their hands, but they actually have to have a policy response, an official policy response to project 2025.

And I think they also need to make sure that they run candidates that are popular.

You know, Vice President Kamala Harris didn't win, the primary she didn't come close.

She dropped out before it got in 2019.

Yeah, yeah.

She was brought in the back doorway and then she did the same thing.

Not that she did this, but the same thing happened when she was anointed the candidate for president.

So this is a candidate for president that had never won a popular vote at the national level.

And we expect that to win.

Democrats have got to start playing and leaning into their strengths instead of constantly trying to kowtow about who they are.

And, you know, at this point, I feel like that old philosophy, exercise where you've got to buy the motorcycle in the garage and every night a thief comes in and steals a piece and he starts rebuilding it in his own garage.

When do we find that we've lost our democracy?

But each night the piece of it is being stolen.

Well, we're going to come back to during a second, because Jerry has ideas, that I want to explore a little bit more about what you want to see.

You mentioned more town halls, more activity.

We'll talk about that in a second.

and listeners, if you want to join the conversation, you can email the program connection to your connection to sign that org.

If you're watching along in the news YouTube feed.

Hello there.

You can join the chat on the YouTube chat there.

or you can call the program Toll free 844295 talk.

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You know, Greg, when you talk about the economy, there's this idea that a lot of Republicans have and it sounds like this Democrats got too focused on the social issues, and Republicans focused on the lunch bucket issues.

And Donald Trump won on that, and Democrats got away from that.

And so part of what you're hearing, Jerry, talk about is she's kind of agreeing with that, that the Democrats have to claim an identity and reclaim some turf there.

So when it comes to the economy, what is a you're a supporter of this president.

What's realistic here?

We do have record high prices in food, eggs as high as they were under Biden.

They're a lot higher now.

Gas prices are going up.

Prices are going up with tariffs.

What's realistic.

You're in your mind six months, 12 months, two years out.

What do you expect to see.

And what has to happen for Republicans to keep winning on that turf?

Yeah, that's a great question because it isn't going to happen overnight.

You know, part of this whole economic model is built on the drill baby drill.

You know, we got the liquid gold under our feet.

And that's not going to turn around in 45 days.

So that's a component of his strategy that we need to, that's going to take some time to do the you know, it's kind of ironic that for four years we were told it was transitory inflation.

And no one really, really cared about it on the Democrats side.

Now, all of a sudden, 45 days into this administration, it's you know, now it's a big issue, which it is a big issue.

But I wish it would have been a big issue four years ago as well.

Okay.

The egg crisis you mentioned, I mean, I think you're well aware that the Biden administration killed the chickens that were laying the eggs, and that's part of the problem.

And we shouldn't be I don't I didn't like the fact that Trump blamed it on Biden, to be frank with you.

I mean, because there's things that are if there's bird flu, we're killing the birds.

Well, that's what's got to happen.

but it's going to take time for you, Terrence, as a negotiating tool.

So how long these tariffs going to be enacted for?

We don't know that.

Trump.

We know Trump's a master negotiator.

I don't know that.

Do we?

well, what's an example of something good deal he's ever cut?

Bring me back in a month when the Ukraine war is over.

I mean that that's it's been going on for three years.

Four years has been.

We sacrificed our tax dollars.

You sacrificed Ukrainian lives.

You sacrificed, part of our arsenal.

Okay?

There was there's no good solution there.

So why are we continuing with no good solution?

Know we're going off topic here.

We want to talk more about the economy.

No, no, we'll come back the economy.

But but on this notion of he definitely wants to be seen as a great dealmaker.

his own reality is, is quite different.

I mean, in business, he, he did a pretty bad job for years despite being propped up by family and then becomes this sort of financial monster.

And his deal usually sounds like this.

He calls a company who says, thanks for building the doors on our building.

We're going to pay you 50%.

Try to sue us.

And people go, oh, he's so smart.

He runs people over.

Isn't a good deal supposed to be good for both sides?

The idea that Trump has is that a deal is when you run people over, and now he wants to have this idea that, well, he's going to be the chief dealmaker with Ukraine and Russia.

And one of the things I find fascinating is and this is what made Zelenskyy, I think, lose it last week, understandably so.

Zelenskyy and Ukraine keep being told, you're gonna have to give up a third of your country.

You're going to have to give up mineral and mineral rights and money.

You have to give up NATO membership.

You gonna have to give up security guarantees.

Russia.

What do you have to give up?

Not any.

No one can answer that, Greg.

So it's bizarre to say this guy is a master negotiator when he's already given the store to the guy with the nuclear weapons who did the invasion.

Unless I'm missing something, help me see this.

Okay, so I got two points on that one.

One is again, nothing was happening for three years, and we were continuing to lose lives.

So we can stay on that same path and have another Afghanistan.

he's trying to prevent that.

Okay.

The other aspect is there's a bigger piece to this puzzle that I think is more critical than Russia, and that's China.

And I think I believe that Trump is trying to pull Putin over closer to us than to China, because China is our biggest threat.

He's trying to get Europe to take care of their own backyard so the big brother can go take care of the bigger problem in the world, in the Pacific.

And I think that's part of his master scramble.

I don't think it is.

He's been pretty open about that.

That's part of a strategy.

He's going to pull Russia toward us so that so that what when China takes Taiwan and they know that we're just going to let them Russia will intervene on our behalf.

What happens here?

It's keep your friends close, bitter enemies closer.

You would would you rather have Russia on our side or on China's side?

I would rather not be in league with autocrats.

I'd rather have standards that say, if you come into my house and you try to burn the whole thing down, and after three years you're still living in the basement, in the living room.

The solution is not to say, okay, I guess you get a third of my house.

Please don't burn down the rest of it.

So you're good with the prolonged war then?

Because really, that's the only other option I know.

I think that's a straw man, and that's what Marco Rubio has been saying.

Secretary Rubio's been using the same tactic.

Nobody wants a prolonged war.

Why is everybody blaming anybody but Putin here?

The prolonged war could be over tomorrow if Vladimir Putin chose it.

Right.

You agree with that?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So why is it on Zelensky to say, well, give away a 30 year house man.

They broke in and you don't have enough weapons to keep fighting them off.

Do you think he's done.

Do you think that Putin says, hey, thank you for a third of the country.

Thank you for humiliating Zelensky and giving me this big victory.

I'm good now.

I don't want any more.

I think I'm fine.

I think Trump's tactic of developing a economic relationship to where we are embedded in Ukraine gives us that without putting boots on the ground.

I'm not for boots on the ground.

It sounds like you might, because either a prolonged war or boots on the ground, or bringing this to an end.

And I want to see an end and I, I also what I like about Trump is that he talks often about the biggest threat the world faces, which is nuclear catastrophe.

One weapon flies and it's probably over.

I mean, then 500 fly and then where are we?

It's over.

I understand that at the same time, the person with the weapons, if they're going to march anywhere they want and just say, well, you know, we got the stockpile because if Russia didn't have nuclear weapons, none of this would be happening.

None of it.

It would be this would be done.

But they do so, and everyone's nervous about that.

So a question of what to do is nuanced.

You're not wrong about that.

This is not easy.

But how much of this starts to look like Neville Chamberlain to you?

Do you think this looks like Chamberlain?

No, because I don't think Trump's a Neville Chamberlain.

Okay.

You know, I also think we you know, if you I'm not sticking up for Putin, but if we put ourselves in his shoes, you look at the Black Sea where NATO wasn't supposed to encroach on the Black Sea.

And now six of the seven countries are on the blacks.

Five of the seven countries on the Black Sea are now NATO countries, and now a six.

Possibly NATO is going to be.

If that were that were us, we we'd be upset too, just like we did with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.

Was it, you know, you come into our backyard, we got a problem with that.

How far would we have gone with that?

What NATO country has invaded Russia?

What NATO country has fired weapons into Russia?

We'll make the 1961 Cuba didn't invade us.

Why was JFK so adamant about not having Russia there?

Which I agree with, by the way, I'm not saying that was wrong.

I hear you.

I agree with that.

But we're condemning that leader for the same things we do.

I think when you say it's not, I'm not defending Putin, but it sounds like you're defending Putin.

Well, it may sound like that, but I'm not okay.

But he's all about a man.

But Putin's a thug, okay?

I Putin's a thug.

Should I mean, absolutely.

It sounds like you think the invasion of Ukraine was reasonable.

No I don't okay.

But again, going back to two options that have no motion in them.

Yeah.

You either have a prolonged war, which I'm not for or you're all in with boots on the ground.

I'm not for that either.

So there's got to be some negotiated settlement.

Those are the only options.

Evan, let me ask you, what is the option, then?

Well, you see, I see one keep Biden.

Well, I see a situation where if you're actually going to negotiate, you have to ask both parties to give something up.

No one's asked Putin to give up anything.

What is he being asked to give up?

It is not master negotiating to say, hey dude, you get everything you want here and you get to declare victory.

And your propaganda channel, which they're already doing and laughing at us.

So what are they being asked to give up?

What's the answer?

They're asking then?

The war.

They've they've taken territory.

I don't sense rightfully theirs, but they have that card in their hand so they don't have to give anything.

That's a different.

Well, I don't know.

Trump's proposed to them.

Okay.

I mean he's trying to get both to the table.

I would kind of jump into the race here a little bit.

Actually created a table without Ukraine, which was which kind of upset Zelensky, understandably so.

I think they should probably be at the table, don't you?

Well, I think he's trying to get to get the table.

Okay.

He's getting agreement.

Both of them to get to the table.

Were you okay with how Zelensky was treated in the Oval Office last week?

I thought that was a little over the top.

Yeah, of course that was I mean, I like the fact that Trump was firm, but I think that was a little too far.

Okay.

All right.

So let's leave that aside.

I mean, and the reason part of the reason I think we have to talk about this is this is trying to drive people pull their hair out.

But you have to understand there are Trump is a firm grip on the Republican Party's very popular, Democrats are looking at the last six weeks going, well, this is not going to be a long presidency.

Well, there hasn't been any erosion of support on the Republican side.

And, so it's good to know how people are viewing this, because right now Trump holds the cards to use the phrase that he used in the Oval Office last left, which I don't think so once you understood that phrase.

But yeah, I think you did.

Actually, I think when he said, this is not a game, I thought, I thought he did understand, Jalen Sparks okay.

Now I want to pivot here a bit here.

So you want to take the message in your view.

Democrats have to take the message to districts around the country in a different way.

And Congressman Joe Morelli, for example, he held a virtual town hall and we see some Republicans doing town halls, although they're canceling some of those after some kind of got a little raucous.

But what what do you want to see?

What's the actual the action plan that you want Democrats to undertake here.

So let's expand upon that.

So they need targeted messaging.

And I think it kind of it frustrates the people who are donating to things like Actblue when they're asking for more money, when they keep like wasting it.

But I want to point out one thing.

Trump does not have, the vast majority of Americans.

It was like, what, 33% of people in America because not everybody voted.

So it's not like the vast majority of Americans are supporting him.

So when you say that he's popular, let's really qualify that with actual numbers.

First of all, also for the voting public, he won by about 1.5%.

There's no mandate there.

And another thing I want to say, he's not a master negotiator.

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he had his first million given to him by his father.

So he he, you know, he's out.

He landed at home plate and thinks he, you know, but he was born on third.

So I just want to really level set.

And what we're dealing with here he is president because he was on The Apprentice.

And people like to have a president that they want to have a beer with.

He's got an outgoing personality and people are drawn to that.

And I think that now that they're seeing the reality of it, you're seeing this town halls where people are angry.

The way I became a press secretary in Congress is because representative Randy cool, down in the Southern Tier, locked his doors and didn't let the constituents in.

And our campaign took advantage of that, and we ran with it.

We showed ourselves to be of the people, for the people, by the people.

We didn't wrap ourselves in the cozy blanket of complacent see, that seems to be invading the Democratic Party right now.

They need to get out of Washington, D.C. and onto their districts.

They need new leadership.

Hakeem Jeffries has to go, and they need someone that's on fire and not comfortable.

He he's like that phrase, no drama.

Obama.

This is not a time for that.

This is not normal time.

Rome is burning and we need a concentrated fire hose.

And if you want some specifics, well, so who's is there anybody you've been critical of?

A number of people in your own party.

Is there anybody doing it in a way that you think is effective?

Yes.

I think it's probably going to be divisive just the moment I say her name.

but I think Elizabeth Warren is she has such a great economic background and she's incredibly intelligent, but because she's a woman, she's villainized.

And, you know, as a person, I'm a strong woman.

I take up space.

I take up space in the intellectual sphere.

When I go into a room, I, I'm not going to be put in the corner and told to be silent.

And I think that that's really scary to some people.

If you look at the people the Democrats have put to run against Trump, it was Hillary and Harris.

And I think that there's a thinking that, well, women can't win the presidency.

That's not true.

We just need to find candidates that are likable, you know, and actually are vetted.

And when that popular vote, that's how you get there.

So I think that's the first thing is just really making sure the candidates are vetted.

You have to you can't backdoor your way to the presidency.

You just can't.

so that's one thing.

And I think we also need to go out and look at the young, disaffected voters.

I have four children, and they're all so disaffected right now, they are just ready to just jump from the party.

I had three friends last night that posted on social media that they were so frustrated with the milquetoast response of the Democratic Party last night.

They left the party.

They're no longer in the party, and they're quitting the Democratic Party.

Yeah, somebody you know, actually.

But I'll talk to you about that offline.

I don't think they're they're not done.

They're done.

And it's really shocking to me to see this not getting the message.

You know, one of the things about the congressional office that I was in, we we had more, press clips than any other freshman member of Congress.

And why was that?

Because we understood one way or another.

Plus for district, we were in NY 29.

So we understood, like, you've got to get out there and be amongst your constituents all the time.

No insulated yourself down in Washington, D.C., the congressmen came home every single weekend, and he worked so hard.

And yes, he had issues, but he was absolutely about constituent services.

That's what really he always would say that constituent services, constituent services.

And the reason he said that when he was a Navy veteran, he understood how to stay organized and focused.

He taught me so much that I you still to this day about organization and focus.

So he understood the messaging.

How did he understand the message?

He was out there amongst the people in his district.

And that's really important.

I think the Republicans are making a mistake by not having those town halls.

They're going to suffer in the midterm elections.

So one other point on what you want to see in different districts here.

So you raise the point that when you worked for Congressman Eric Massa at the time, you were in a very hard district for Democrats to win, and you won and and you said that even though there were Democratic talking points sent from the national office, there was this understanding that if you're in a district that's, you know, more centrist or tougher, that you may go a different way, that the messaging may be different.

And one of the criticisms I'm seeing of I know about criticisms, Republicans are pretty, pretty happy with their position.

But certainly there are some Republicans in are plus 50 districts and there's Republicans in are plus one and that's not all the same.

Just as you Gerry, worked in a very difficult district for a Democrat and Republicans, are there's a kind of a dancing in the end zone that it's a pretty festive time in the Republican Party.

But do you see an opening for Democrats based on, you know, the fact that there's going to be a midterm and there's going to be an evaluation on not only Trump, but also how Republican members of Congress are responding to different issues.

I don't see a lot of dissent in the Republican Party.

I don't see dissent on tariffs.

I don't see dissent on we're going to take Greenland, I guess.

I mean, like there's I don't think there's dissent on anything, even though I think Greg Sedwick might dissent on that one.

But but go ahead.

You say this.

So you know the old saying Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love.

And I think the Republicans are, you know, ever since I can remember, really good with their messaging, whereas Democrats tend to see, you know, the gradations of things, the gray areas, you know, and so there's still have that black and white thinking and it's good and bad depending on your scenario.

But right now, like I said earlier, home is burning.

And so with Pelosi.

So she would stand you know every Monday morning we get the talking points for the week.

I hardly ever, I think maybe 1 or 2 times the entire but 14, 16 months that, math was in office, I think maybe 1 or 2 times I did a copy paste of her press release and it was on something, you know, minor.

I always made the press release what was going on in our district, and it really resonated with the voters we had.

We held, and I organized them.

We held more town halls than any other freshman member of Congress.

I was in charge of all of them.

I went all over the district from Rochester to Corning, just everywhere, all these little towns.

You know, I know about them because I personally went there and what they did was it gave us a connection to what the real issues were.

We had a robust constituent services team.

Our office in Pittsford was constantly a revolving door of people coming in and talking about what mattered to them.

And I think that's one thing that we've lost here.

So and then Martha, he told me that he met with Pelosi and he said, look, I can't go by everything you're saying.

My district does not look like what you're saying.

She got it.

And she really understood that.

At the end of the day, you're a representative.

It doesn't mean that you have to like, do you know every single thing that your constituents say because you've got a diverse constituency?

You know, Joe Morelli enjoys, a Democratic advantage in his district now, but we did not enjoy that.

It was really a tough time for us.

and I did see him personally start speaking out last night, and I was really happy to see that I called his office.

I've left messages, but there's still has to be more.

And I really do think it starts with just really changing leadership, I think.

And we really have to have some type of youth movement.

We're just not speaking to the people that are the next.

Are you saying Chuck Schumer is not doing it anymore?

Chair I'm saying Chuck Schumer is not doing it.

I'm not afraid to say that.

So I'm sorry, Chuck, it's time for somebody.

You and John Stuart are just not fans of Senator Schumer.

Joanne Rogers, not a fan of you.

Just as time is over, Joanne Rochester wants to differ with Jerry's point that we need more town halls.

Josie says people don't want more town halls.

Hey, Josie.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for the time.

Yeah.

I'm too tired of all the talk, the talking points.

The town halls came for another study.

What were your feeling in the past 45 days of action?

And that's what we voted for.

I'm a Democrat that voted for Donald Trump because I said, I want to see this action take place.

And that's what we've seen.

Everything he has done, we voted for.

So if we sit here and say Democrats need a cohesive talking points, a piece of, you know, actionable item, there's no action behind it.

Give us action.

Show up.

Josie, did we vote to fire the veterans that voted for Trump?

Because that's what happened.

Did we vote for that?

Did we vote for what?

With veterans?

I'm sorry, did we vote to fire the veterans because Trump fired veterans who voted for him?

Well, you know, a veteran I'm not serving.

I mean, I think you mean Elon Musk did some firing there, Jerry.

Well, so he's acting in the honor of the president.

So veterans were fired under the DOJ's program, which Donald Trump asked him to run.

But what do we not for the did we not fire a bunch of military personnel for not getting a vaccine?

Well, I answered your question.

I would I don't know what that's like.

Did we vote for veterans getting fired?

We didn't vote for mandating vaccines and requiring that, or else you get fired.

So so the answer is no.

We did not vote for veterans.

Actually we did.

We voted for making the government more efficient and making the government more efficient.

I mean, just because you're I'm a veteran, too, just because I'm a veteran doesn't mean I get lifelong employment with the government.

So, Jerry, hold on one second here.

I'm going to follow this point with Greg Jose.

Thank you for that.

And I'm going to follow the point with Greg.

And then I'll come back to Jerry.

So what you are talking about with DOJ's, you're happy to see so far what you've seen from DOJ's.

Yes, we've heard from both sides, both parties that they're going to streamline government.

It never ever happens.

It's good that it's finally happening.

That's what's good for the chaos.

Oh, that's between streamlining and chaos.

This is chaos cutting.

I'm not going to disagree with that, Jerry.

But there's a difference between action and inaction.

And there's been inaction for the last 20 years.

Well, so a couple of things with that.

Number one, you know, would you have been good if we said, George Soros, you get a team of 520 year olds and you get to cut whatever you want.

You're not elected.

you're not even an American.

But go for it, dude, would you would you've been good with that.

I can't say I would have been good or not good with.

I mean, if someone was doing something, I would add a little.

I would add angst for George Soros.

But the fact is, we're back.

So trimming the budget because we are $36 trillion in debt.

And I know that that's a that's a big issue for this country.

something's got to be done.

So your claim is that Elon Musk has now put us on a path to reducing the debt.

No, something is being done to control spending.

Something is being done to control.

I mean, should I go through the list that Donald Trump suggested yesterday?

A lot of wasted spending.

Incredible.

I'm going to give you an example of some of what Donald Trump said last night.

He said $8 million for making mice transgender.

He got a good laugh out of that.

That's not a real thing.

Transgenic $8 million spent on making mice.

Transgenic.

It's not the same as transgender.

A little fact checking would have been helpful.

Transgenic means altering DNA for research purposes.

In this case, research that could help cure human being diseases.

So you may not like that.

You may not want that money spent, but has nothing to do with transgender mice.

And it got a good laugh.

But I'm a little disturbed that the chief executive of this country couldn't fact check for five seconds there.

He also told another lie about Social Security.

They've been lying about Social Security for weeks now.

There are not 300 year olds or 200 year olds, or 150 year olds getting paid Social Security checks.

They exist in the database.

It doesn't mean they're getting checks.

Why does the president keep lying about that?

And why are you not bothered by that?

I agree with you on that.

That's a problem that we have.

What was the number 3 million people in the system?

Well, yeah, we got to find out who's getting paid and wasn't before.

It's a real issue.

No, we know who's getting paid.

There is there is waste every year to the tune of about seven, $8 billion.

It's a lot.

There's $1 trillion of payouts annually from social Security.

Just under 1% is wasted.

It's not good.

This has been studied.

This is not new.

And then Elon Musk, who hasn't done any homework, comes in and sees five seconds of charts and is like, oh, I think 300 year olds are getting paid.

And now the Trump now the president is saying this on national television and we're all like, well, we're doing something.

I don't know what that is Greg.

What is that?

So those are good examples.

But other examples like the 1.9 billion that goes to Stacey Abrams NGO that the previous year earned about $1,000 on their PNL.

I mean, so there are other examples so we can go back and forth.

Finally, something is being done.

Okay, that that's the can I go ahead?

Go ahead.

Okay, so I have three points to make.

My first point is that the way that Greg is justifying this.

So let's say I need to cut out $3,000 for my monthly expenses.

It would be akin to me just going blindly in there and hitting stop payment on bills without looking at what they're for.

So the DOJ's cuts are actually cutting agencies without understanding what it is these agencies actually do.

And so they cut nuclear science.

Are you kidding me?

Or does America great again?

Does America feel safe again?

That's one thing.

you need to have targeted cuts.

And to the the Social Security thing happened because the Trump youngsters I mean, those youngsters didn't understand that the program was written in COBOL, which is an old code that substitutes the thing, the birth year 1825 or something.

And so that made it look like people who had already, you know, gotten checks, but those were for there were blanks in the system.

It's a it's it's just a technicality.

And there's nobody in that list that was getting paid.

And then the third point is for a person who is out there complaining about all the inefficiency, Musk is getting $8 million a day from our government.

Think about that $8 million a day.

Yet we cut Social Security, cut Medicare, Medicaid, fire veterans, park rangers like this summer.

Good luck going to Yosemite or any other national park.

These are not targeted intellectual changes to the government.

This is just throwing a bomb into your bank account and, you know, indiscriminately canceling your maybe your heat that month, I'm gonna look up $8 million a day.

He's getting in cash I haven't seen I mean, I don't know, he's getting Elon Musk that check to him $8 million a day.

He gets $8 million in benefits a day from this government and benefit.

Look it up okay.

So okay.

So because his agency's you got Starlink grants.

You've got Tesla incentives okay.

So he's inviting service.

And we'll take a look at take a look at it.

Do a deeper dive on that.

But the other thing is to to go in here and say that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme was really upsetting for me to see that.

How we all pay into that.

This is a managed fund.

It isn't something that's like a high risk thing.

So he over and over Elon Musk says he doesn't understand this country.

He never fought for this country.

Trump never fought for this country.

He's clean bone spurs.

He golfs all the time.

And then we look at the money that we spend for Trump to go to play golf.

Like if you want to cut out inefficiency, cut out the things that he and Musk are actually doing.

Okay, so a couple things there for for for Greg.

Number one, as an efficiency guy, he does spend a lot of taxpayer dollars on golf.

That's true.

I mean, a lot more lot more than than Biden and Obama.

And they got criticized by Republicans for golfing.

You want to see him golf less?

I want to see him do his job.

Okay.

Probably golf less.

Okay.

But I understand he'd pay for his own security detail.

Super Bowl, if that's true or not.

But that's what they say.

Two other points on spending that you're you're not wrong that people have been saying for years, but we got to get this under control.

And then neither party has gotten it under control.

We're going to see when the budget numbers come out later this year, what the next budget really looks like, because Republicans are in position to pass more tax cuts.

They want to do that.

They want to they say it's going to spark business, etc., etc.

but nothing that Doge is doing is touching the big cash cows, the federal government.

It's it's the military, Medicaid, Medicare.

Now, Trump has said Medicare has not gotten touched.

the the Trump team has talked about reducing 6%, maybe more long term on military.

We'll see.

That's that's a lot of money.

And this idea of Medicaid, it's not clear what could get touched, although that's already kind of being kicked around.

Do you want to see any of those programs get cut?

Because that's where all the money really is here.

Yeah, I think we could agree that the military could be more efficient.

Okay.

So some cuts, there would be businesses, whatever goes on.

And same with Medicare.

You know, there's ways to economize without cutting benefits.

And I believe that's what they're trying to get to.

even even on Social Security.

I mean, if I could go back to the Ponzi scheme comment.

Yeah.

I mean, I've been in Social Security for the last 35 years.

Ambiance.

Hold it may not be there in ten years.

When I retire.

I mean, if that's not the definition of a Ponzi scheme, I don't know what is.

So I mean, there are some troubles with Social Security.

We heard that 20 years ago about Social Security.

I've heard that my whole life, Social Security is not going to be there when they substitute, Social Security for climate change.

That's it's the same arguments we just keep hearing over and over and over.

But yeah, I would agree with your comment there.

I don't know what climate change has to do with that.

Let me let me hear those stories for the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

I mean, we're seeing climate change.

I'm you're not worried about climate change.

The question about climate change is, are we contributing to it or is it a normal phenomena?

I mean, that is a question you could ask.

It's been answered pretty well, hasn't it?

Oh, by the studies that have been done by groups that are getting money from the US aid.

Yes.

Yeah.

We would conclude that.

All right.

One other point here, because Jerry mentioned the kind of, cuts that have either affected veterans or aid and a couple of listeners who have sent notes to us, on our YouTube channel about USAID.

So USAID is an organization that seeks to do all kinds of humanitarian missions around the world.

And now we're I mean, the courts are intervening, literally, I think, today on this.

But set that aside, this idea of cutting USAID, you want to battle China.

Soft power is wielded through USAID.

The idea that, we're going to have malaria nets, we're going to try to cure diseases, we're going to have food for people who are starving around the world.

And that's going to be our flag on that.

And we're going to have that.

Not only the humanitarian and the moral high ground, but also the soft power that can come with it.

Well, now we're pulling back.

Guess who's moving in?

China's moving in on that.

Is that a healthy development?

Depending on what the initiative is?

You know, going back to Jerry Lynn's example, but I just don't go in your budget and take things out blindly.

But you also don't have a budget that has things in that are blindly or that are blind.

So we got to understand where that money is going.

Is it going to is it is it really getting to the people that we want to get to, or is it being funneled back through some other channel for uses that are not what it's intended users for?

So we need to look at that and see.

That's the funny part to suggest.

We got to look at that.

That gets people all upset.

I mean, why are we upset that we're looking into these budget items?

I think it's, and I, I'm really late for break.

It's been kind of a wild hour here.

no, I'm with you, Greg.

It should never offend anybody to say we we just want to look at the budget here.

We want to look at what we're spending on.

Right.

We should all do that.

Everybody should do that.

I think that would offend people.

Is before they even looked, they started cutting it and then they're like, oh, we didn't mean to fire the people who work on nuclear weapons security in this country.

Can you come back?

And then it looks like, well, you're not looking at the budget, you're just throwing darts at a budget.

I think that's what is bothering people.

Yeah.

And it was, Lisa Slotnick when she said you.

She had a good phrase.

It was, I think she had reckless in there.

Oh, reasonable change for reckless change was her comment, and I would agree with that.

You want reasonable change?

One reasonable change.

But more importantly, one change.

Okay, okay.

We we have not had change for 20 years.

So a question for you as we go to break here, you say that you want the reasonable change and it has to be cutting.

We've said we're going to cut forever.

Now what we're actually cutting.

You said you want to see action.

They're actually doing it when we see the budget this year.

If there is not a balanced budget or a surplus, is it a is it a failure because they say that's what we're doing.

That's what this is all for.

If we are directionally getting to a balanced budget, if we can't do it this year, but we're heading in the right direction, we're going to do in 2027.

I mean, that's a win.

If we have another large deficit, is it a failure?

It depends on where that yeah.

If that's not if we if we're not slowing down the rate, we're not slowing down the rate of the increase.

That's a failure.

So reason why you say, well, we don't have to get all the way here, but you got to take steps to get there.

Oh, yeah.

Greg Sedwick is my guest in studio.

He is a former congressional candidate.

Tried to get out of them again if he's going to run again.

But maybe that's a decision for the future.

He's a local business person.

That's what he is right now.

Jerilyn sparks is on the line with us, the former congressional press secretary.

We are way late for our only break.

We're going to take it from right back on connections.

Coming up in our second hour, we lighten things up.

Welcome my colleague from down the hall, a classical 91 five, Steve Johnson.

He's going to join us to talk about the new digital series called In the Key of Z classical.

It's a focus on Gen Z musicians.

There's the stereotype that Gen Z doesn't really like classical.

The classical is in trouble.

You're going to meet some players.

We're going to turn that notion on its head, and we'll talk to them next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from City Magazine, covering arts and culture in the greater Rochester community since 1971, on the web, daily and in print monthly.

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Music, culture.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Ethan emails a program.

Who wants to know who Jerry thinks Democrats can point to as a possible next contender?

And Ethan says, no more retreads.

What do you think Jerry Lynn Sparks a possible next contender?

You know, I like, Governor Andy Beshear out of Kentucky.

I like him a whole lot.

And and I also like, Gretchen Whitmer, kind of Michigan governors.

I like governors, and here's why I like governors.

They've actually run a budget of a state.

They make the best presidents.

If you look historically, our best presidents, the most effective ones who managed the country well were governors.

Bill Clinton ran the country.

I think, you know, for some reasons, really?

Well, he was a governor.

so I really do think those two.

I've been keeping my eye on them.

Sure.

What about Josh Shapiro?

Why don't you mention him?

I like Josh Shapiro.

I don't know enough about him.

so I really had become focused early on on Beshear's and Whitmer.

but I do like governors.

I think you would probably agree with me on that, Greg.

Like if you go into managing a budget of a country and you've had no real experience, that's got to be kind of mesmerizing.

And one of the things I think that makes a really good government officials is people that have actually exercised a lot of the skills ahead of time that gets you there.

And, you know, that's one of the problems, I think with with Trump, I think he's trying to apply business tactics to running a country and they're not the same.

Well, I hope your first choice is the one, Elizabeth Warren.

I hope they go with her, to be frank.

Oh, that's what the Republicans find.

That's what you was talking about.

Elizabeth Warren running for president earlier this morning, being, the messenger leader in Congress, I think she would be good for, new leadership there.

Jeff in Rochester called in to say Dems are bringing a knife to a gunfight.

When will they really stand up?

Mike and Penfield agrees.

Mike Penfield says what DOJ's doing has nothing to do with efficiency.

It's more about retribution.

and, got just a number of comments, from listeners saying that they just want to see more honest and direct responses.

Not a lot of love for Senator Schumer, I have to say, in the in the emails today.

so, Jerry, as we start to wind down here, you know, there's been a lot of talk about what's happened in 45 days, what's happened in the first six weeks here.

But this is a four year term.

There is a midterm election still to come.

And sometimes, you know, I've got a couple emails from people saying everyone needs to calm down.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

I don't know if you agree with that, Jerry, but, you know, how do you feel?

this is not the time to come down.

This is the worst time to calm down.

That's the problem.

What do you say, heartbeat?

Because I honestly think that there is a real risk of, like the the motorcycle, philosophy exercise I mentioned earlier.

Democracy is very sneakily and slowly being dismantled right around the.

So Trump is invoking executive orders that show no understanding of actual how government works and actually what the law is.

There's a lot of legal contests going on right now.

So he really has broken the law and he can't do some things.

Congress controls the funding and I don't know if he knows that.

So that's one thing.

you know, and the other thing is I feel like Democrats need to lean into what their party stands for.

They're just constantly I don't think they like the choice of, Slotkin for the rebuttal.

I just thought that that was a mistake.

She's going, you know, Bill Clinton, moderate working across the aisle.

That's good in some respects, but not when your house is burning.

So I really do feel like their messaging is frustrating me.

As a former press secretary, I was like, on the top of all the issues, making sure that I was writing things for the congressman that represented what my our constituents wanted did.

Okay, let me ask you this.

Do our constituents did we vote to take Greenland and Panama Canal?

Did our constituents vote to to rename the Gulf of Mexico?

Did we vote to buy Gaza?

Did we vote to have Trump, self-proclaimed himself a king and put it out on official white House social media on the cover of time magazine?

I think he's trying to troll you with that one.

but I know you don't think it's funny.

Greg, briefly before I grab a phone call here, should we be grabbing Gaza?

Is that what you want?

You want us to run Gaza?

I don't want us to run Gaza.

But I thought it was a very compelling discussion to have that.

Hey, if we have investment in there, maybe it changes the game.

We've been playing this game for, what, 70 years?

And it's just not a game.

I mean, it's well, you you know, my you said Frazier, you have to run the world like a business.

It's not a business.

Well, but Greg, Greg is arguing that this is a different approach, that will spur a different result will be a different outcome.

Right?

I mean, we've been doing the same thing over and over.

And that Einstein's definition of insanity.

So it is a different approach.

Is it the right approach?

But it's not our land.

It's not it's not Donald Trump's land, not my land.

But we haven't taken it yet.

This is all discussion.

And how do we make it happen?

But I think when we put Trump in again, it's this definition of insanity.

Put him in a second time expecting different results.

He was divisive the first time and he allowed people he encouraged them to come and break the windows of Congress to come in, and then he sets them free on the first day.

I think that I believe in law and consequences, and there's so many.

I've worked for veterans, Gregg, almost my entire career.

I have so much love for veterans.

Many members of my friends and family, are veterans, and I don't really appreciate the way that was done.

I also don't think I have a disabled son.

I don't appreciate the threats to Social Security and Medicaid funding.

Those are we vote for things to make our lives better.

Government is supposed to be good government that makes our lives better.

This feels to me like it's enriching Trump's coffers and it makes me sick.

I want to grab, Jeff, who's on for there?

no.

Teddy.

Hey, Teddy.

Go ahead.

Hi.

and, thank you for taking my call.

I want to ask your, your caller.

Excuse me.

Your, guests.

Do they believe that the United States is representative of its citizens?

Outside of those in the position of oligarchy, do they believe that the that they do.

Do they believe that our democracy represent the interests of persons who do not make hundreds of millions of dollars?

I suspect, Teddy, you do not I, I would argue that the trends economically over I would say longer than 20 years, really affirm the belief that it's us versus them from the perspective of an ownership class trying to impose greater controls, over our democracy, but also, kickbacks and exemptions for themselves to hoard wealth while paying on increasing wages.

It has put all of the people in the bottom 60% in a very unrepresented position.

All right.

Let me just, because about 45 seconds apiece, Greg Sedwick, what do you think?

I think, well, I think you're right.

Washington, DC is an oligarchy.

And I think that that's a problem and we are underrepresented.

But we have the power to change that, and we don't.

We just 95% of incumbents go back to Congress.

We put them there.

We have to change that.

but I look at a CBS news poll and 77% of the people watched last night, but the it was a effective method that Trump's doing.

So yeah, it was a popular speech.

It was it was not those people that answer the phone.

No, it's not all of Americans.

You got to look at health.

It's not a perfect poll of all Americans.

It's true.

But for the people who watched it, they, like a lot of them, liked what they saw.

Getting it wrong, by the way, is Trump an oligarch?

Is Musk an oligarch?

Greg?

No, no.

Okay.

They're oligarchs, but they're not using that.

I don't think they're using it to enhance.

Trump was the only president that left office poor than when he came in.

I mean, that's not a wise oligarch.

Jerry.

Well, he's he's file bankruptcy 6 or 7 times, so I think it's par for course.

I think that the people that like Trump are doing something in psychology for you just you don't want to accept the truth of your pick.

And so you're just doubling down.

You're just going to stick with it.

And I think that those raucous town halls that we saw are beginning, to crack, the armor that he's built himself around.

well, we'll see, Jerry, if, Democrats follow in the direction that you want them to go, or Republicans like Ronald Reagan's turning over in his grave right now.

Come on, guys.

Jerry, thank you for making time for the program.

Jerilyn sparks here.

Former congressional press secretary Greg Sedwick, thank you for making time for the program.

And thanks, Jerry.

Former congressional candidate and a local business person, and we'll see if there's more in the future for him.

But for now, come back and talk some time.

Thanks, Evan.

Appreciate it.

And, we've got more coming up here in just a second.

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