- [Narrator] This week on "A Lively Experiment," Governor McKee has cleared of potential criminal charges involving a three-year-old state contract, but is the controversy behind him?

And just a few days left until Election Day.

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by.

- Hi.

I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program on Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, former Rhode Island Attorney General Arlene Violet, Ken Block, political contributor and founder of Watchdog RI, and Boston Globe columnist Dan McGowan.

Hello and welcome to this week's "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel.

We will get to the presidential race a little later, but first up, Attorney General Peter Neronha released a lengthy report on the so-called ILO contract awarded by the McKee administration in the first days of his becoming governor back in 2021.

The conclusion, what McKee did was not criminal, but he did personally get involved in a multimillion-dollar state contract given to a firm with political connections.

Again, we have another attorney general here.

So, Arlene, just at first blush, there's been a lot of back and forth, the report and then the governor's response.

Yeah, it seems now that Peter Neronha is now issuing these reports.

This is not the first time he's done it, just not, no criminal charges, but this is how we got there.

What do you think about that?

- Well, I'm glad he did.

I did investigative reports when I was attorney general as well, and I don't think he's playing politics.

I think he's competent.

I think he's ethical, but the real misnomer going on here is that of Governor McKee.

He's doing a Donald Trump.

He's exaggerating his exoneration.

"They found nothing."

Well, they did find something, governor, the contract that you had, the no-bid contract, and the side deal you had where they were representing you off the record, et cetera.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You know, McKee seems to be ethically challenged, and, frankly, I'm glad that the attorney general took him to task.

- Yeah.

I think the governor all but said it was the perfect RFP.

- Yeah, unbelievable.

- That's basically the way he made it sound.

You know, I think this continues to hurt him.

What I don't understand about doing the kinda hour-long press conference was who it pleased coming out of that, 'cause he probably felt very good about himself leaving that press conference, but it's to a gang of 11 people that are his inner circle.

I don't think anybody in the public thought, "Boy, Dan McKee really knocked it out of the park today," and these issues are gonna continue to haunt him, I think.

- Yeah.

Arlene stole my Trump line.

(group chuckles) It very much reminded me of the basic denialism.

I'm actually more concerned about Former Speaker Murphy performing free legal work.

- [Jim] We didn't hear any of that until yesterday.

- For Governor McKee defending him, I assume, in this ILO issue, and there's so many potentials for bad things to come of that, right?

Former Speaker Murphy is a very powerful lobbyist at this point, and nobody does anything for free these days.

- [Jim] So where's the invoice?

- Yeah.

Where's the invoice?

And why hasn't McKee just been paying him as a straight-up client-attorney situation?

- One of the good things about doing a report as Neronha did is it focuses on the fact that some things ought to be crimes that aren't.

Shortly before I became attorney general, for example, the bribery law in Rhode Island was six months statute of limitations, so by the time you found out anything and properly investigated it, the statute of limitations was over.

With RIHMFC, also, these people that were getting mortgages that didn't deserve them, they were making too much money.

You couldn't charge them when I was attorney general because they took out the perjury line that said that, what you said about your finances, you swear under oath those are your finances, and you're going to be a first-time homeowner in that house.

They took it out.

Therefore, there was no perjury charges you could bring, and that was a total fiasco.

So I give kudos to Neronha for at least exposing what was going on behind the scenes because those kinds of actions should be punishable, and, of course, the Democrat General Assembly will never pass anything criminally to slap that down, but McKee was dead wrong.

Another example of how he's ethically challenged.

- I will say I do wish, I was appreciative of Attorney General Neronha for putting out the report.

I think it's fair game, and I think it does, to your point, it explains sort of the entire process very clearly.

I just wish he would get off social media.

Stop with the tweeting.

Stop with calling the governor Pinocchio.

You did your job and you did it well.

You couldn't bring a charge.

You issued the report.

Let it speak for itself.

To continue to get into this back and forth, I think it diminishes the real problem here, and it looks like, it does end up looking like a fight between the governor and the attorney general, when it's actually a much bigger problem.

- You know, it's the equivalent for him of what reporters face who say things on Twitter that you would never be allowed to say in print.

- [Dan] That's right.

- They wouldn't make it through an editor.

Oh, it's not my personal opinion, and Arlene, I don't know how you feel about this.

I think Neronha's doing a good job.

I think it cheapens the office when he's spouting off on social media.

- Yeah, get off social media.

I couldn't agree more with Dan's comments.

- The other thing too is, and my father always said this, he wasn't the first, but he said early on, there are things that are legal that are not necessarily ethical.

So the governor came out like, "I didn't get charged with a crime."

Well, is that what you're most proud of?

- Right, there's very few people who look at McKee's press conference and his stance on things who don't believe that, ultimately, what McKee did was certainly improper, if not illegal.

- Yeah.

- There's no escaping it.

- Politically, now we see, and then the other thing too is he's trying to paint it, it is a bit of a deflection with, you know, Neronha and Helena Foulkes and all that.

I wonder whether we're two years out or a year and a half out from an election cycle, whether people remember this or whether this will be part of an ad, the political fall-out on this for the governor.

What do you think?

- Oh, I think it's real.

I mean, what Peter Neronha, and this is a legitimate criticism from Governor McKee because of the Peter Neronha support for Helena Foulkes or his opposition to the governor is what can happen from this report, again, which I think was fair game, is you can pull pieces and parts of it and say, "Look, you know, this is a great campaign ad," that sort of thing.

This thing's not gonna go away.

It will be part of Helena Foulkes' kind of message about Governor McKee, but is it gonna be, you know, the driving force?

No, I don't think so.

I think it speaks to, you know, a litany of other issues.

You can tie the bridge into it.

You can tie lots of other things into it and say- (Arlene indistinctly speaks) Right, and say, "Oh, by the way, also, you know, you improperly gave this contract."

- Yeah, sloppy.

Maybe a little bit more nefarious than sloppy, but I think there is a line between criminal and doing nothing wrong, and the governor seems to, this is certainly not his first time.

He might've gotten a pass.

"Oh, it's early in my thing.

We were in a pandemic.

It's an emergency."

But this is a pattern.

- Well, that would be what the ad is.

It's one thing for it to be a single event, but when there's a string of events, then you've gotta watch out.

So I think it will come up in the next election if he continues on this path.

- Okay, it has been a couple of weeks since the governor and the head of the DoT, Peter Alviti, held news conferences, community meetings.

What would a show be without Ken Block talking about the Washington Bridge?

It's been a couple of weeks, but we still don't know what the timetable's gonna be or what the cost is gonna be and some other questions.

- Yeah, we don't know really much more than what we knew when I last was on talking to you.

What has become clear though is that the DoT is going to ask whoever is doing the job to tear down the piers right down to the mud line, which means we have to pour all new concrete to support the new bridge.

That's a very slow and tedious process.

- But don't you think that makes sense to build on a strong- - Oh, 100%.

- From a construction standpoint.

- Yeah, 100%, but in practical terms, what it means is we're not likely to see a new bridge until 2027, '8, or maybe even '9 depending on if there's contamination in the mud and all kinds of things that can rise up and cause big time delays as they work on it.

- Yeah, I mean, it's clear this is gonna last longer than the initial projection.

I mean, remember, if we go all the way back to the beginning of this, we thought it was gonna be fixed in three weeks.

That's what the original, you know, Department of Transportation said.

Now, in fairness to them, they found other problems.

We want that bridge to be fixed.

It's all reasonable stuff, but I wish that the governor of the Department of Transportation were a little more transparent about, yeah, it's not gonna be 2026, 'cause they're kind of sort of holding out hope that- - I can't say what that date's gonna be, right?

- Yeah, that some miracle is going to happen, and I think all of us that live in the real world know that it's gonna be a bunch more years, especially for you guys that live over the bridge.

Good luck.

- Plus, they're tone deaf.

Why would you go to a meeting on Yom Kippur, have it last eight or nine minutes, because you know what?

That is exactly how they feel.

They couldn't care less, in my view, of what the public thinks.

They're in charge, get this meeting over with, and meanwhile, the people in that neighborhood, it's not just the sound.

It was the silica that, you know, as an environmental lawyer, that's really tough stuff to get in your lungs or whatever.

They really don't give a darn, and that ticks me off, as you can hear.

- Yes, they're tone deaf.

Yes, McKee has absolutely abandoned his responsibility to get control over the DoT.

He is not insisting on any form of accountability.

If there's an issue that's going to doom his reelection campaign, it's going to be the bridge.

- Yeah, and they've kind of boxed themselves in.

We've talked about this many times, but they've boxed themselves in on, we're doing this legal case, so it means we really can't talk about anything else.

We had Joe Larisa on about a month ago who made a great point that you don't wanna start throwing state workers under the bus, 'cause then that undermines your case, right?

- It does, but at the same time, my argument on this is if you could make a decision about, if you wanted to get rid of the Department of Transportation director Peter Alviti, you could say you have bungled this since December 11th.

The communication has been terrible.

The meeting situation.

You've repeatedly, you know, gotten it wrong on dates, and all of that has nothing to do with whether or not the bridge was in any sort of disrepair before, and so I don't see how that has anything to do with the lawsuit, which you could argue all these consultants screwed up.

That's what the state's gonna say, and you could still make changes in your Department of Transportation just for everything that's happened since December 11th.

- It's oversight, isn't it?

I mean, 40 years ago, I started, as attorney general, looking at the Folly Landing.

So, same scenario over and over again.

Who in the Department of Transportation was responsible overseeing those consultants?

Were they blind and couldn't see those rods themselves or whatever?

But we're never gonna hear anything about it, and consequently, the same scenario is going to occur over and over and over again, and we ought to be outraged as taxpayers.

- Look, the biggest legacy to this lawsuit is there are very few construction contractors who are excited or even have any desire whatsoever to engage in a new contract with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.

A lot of people understand what's really going on, and this is in my opinion and in the opinion of a lot of these companies, the DoT and the governor are hiding behind this lawsuit to snuff accountability, and they don't want any part of working with the DoT.

That's one of the problems we have in getting the new contract going.

- And as Arlene used to say, it's all about the dough-re-mi, right?

- Yes.

- Because, now, the costs are gonna go up, but if nobody's bidding and it's a very small pool, they're gonna jack the price, and what choice do we have?

- Well, it's that, plus one of the people who we're defending are the people jacking up the price with so-called change orders, et cetera.

It is totally out of control.

- [Jim] Yeah.

Politically, we'll go back to that again.

- Well, I mean, I think I agree with Ken.

I think this is gonna be one of the issues that's really going to haunt Governor McKee.

Now, is it the one decider?

It all depends on what's happening in, you know, August of 2026.

If people are stuck on the bridge- - Still.

- And it's a terrible situation, then people are gonna remember it.

If not, you know, maybe it fades a little bit.

It's still an issue.

It's still a campaign commercial.

All those kind of things, but I don't think it's going away by any means because the bridge isn't gonna be ready, as Ken said, until far after that election.

- [Jim] Do you think it's gonna be '27, '28?

- Yes.

- [Jim] Yeah?

- At least.

- At very minimum, and cost?

- Much higher than what they're talking about right now.

- [Jim] Yeah?

- Yeah.

- All right.

To be continued.

A lot going on at the State House.

We won't know about leadership for next year until after the election.

Clearly, everybody has to get reelected, but Dan, we've been talking.

Ted Nesi has a sit-down this week with Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, who has mainly been missing in action.

We know he's had some health problems.

I think he wanted to do this interview to kind of allay some of those fears.

I'm not sure this interview helped him that much.

- I don't think it helped him either.

You know, we should say we never wish bad health on anybody, so it's good to see him and good to see him sort of back out a little bit, but he didn't sound very good.

He didn't look, you know, the way the kind of senate president has looked in recent years.

He looked weaker, just quite frankly, and so, you know, I think he's gonna face these kind of questions.

It's not quite like the Joe Biden situation for president.

Senate president is not that big of a deal, you know, compared to being the president of the United States, but I will say I think Ryan Pearson, the Senate majority leader, has accurately painted, you know, this struggle within the Senate, which is the House is kind of the model of consistency right now with Joe Shekarchi over there, and they're getting a leg up on the Senate in a lot of ways.

They kind of control how everything is happening at the State House, and when you don't have a Senate president who's present and kind of running the show on his side, I think it does diminish the chamber.

- And didn't it used to be the Senate would be kind of the, "Hey, let's not go so quickly."

- That's right.

- Right?

- Yeah, well, I guess you're gonna know when to kiss goodbye, and you know, the senator certainly has a legacy and I wish him all the best with his health.

I just think he needs to ruminate a bit about when it's time to take stage right exit.

- Well, you need somebody vibrant in the chamber, and I think it's a demanding job in the best of times, let alone if you've had bad health, and he was not there for long periods of time last year, and I understand has not largely been around on the campaign trail either.

- Yeah, I mean, public service is really hard and the leadership positions require a lot of energy and presence.

I look at what's happened to leaders like Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden.

We have some of our political leaders just hanging on too long, and there is a lot to be said for acknowledging that life's catching up with you and let a younger generation come in and take over.

That's, in my opinion, the right thing to do.

- You know what happens though is, just like Congress, is the old saying would be, you know, the State House is an old boys club.

In many ways, it still is, but that old boys club, it's a club and a social scene for a lot of these people.

I mean, this is Dominick Ruggerio's life for the last 40 years.

He loves that place.

- [Jim] And he says, "I really don't do anything else.

This is my life."

- He jokes about it, you know, and so that's why I think it is so hard to step away.

It's hard to give up that power, and I think, quite frankly, if you're giving him some truth serum, I think he would say, "I'm not sure there's anybody behind me that I see who is quite ready for the job," which is a different problem and a different concern that Rhode Islanders across the state should have.

- Right, okay.

Just a couple more days until the election is here.

It's hard to believe.

Let's shift a little bit to focus nationally.

Ken, no better person to have on than you, who looked at the results from 2020.

How do you see?

I guess we were joking before when we were in the green room.

Will we know this time next week?

We're taping on a Friday.

Who's the president of the United States?

- Probably not, because any of the close elections are going to be contested.

There will be recounts, that sort of thing happening, so it will drag on a bit.

We know that Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don't start looking at their mail ballots until Election Day, which pushes them out all the way to the end of the week before they've done their first count.

So, no, we're not going to know, I don't think, by this time next week.

What I think is going to happen is what happened in 2020.

Trump lost the support of moderate voters, generally speaking, and definitely for Republican moderate voters.

He has made the situation worse with his rhetoric and what's happened.

Nikki Haley took a lot of votes in her primaries.

Those voters aren't likely to go with Trump.

On the other hand, there's some softness, to say the least, with Black male voters supporting Harris.

There's probably some gender bias going on there.

Will it offset the moderate Republican?

I don't think so, and you know, we're just going to have to buckle up and get through some unsettled time here over the next couple weeks, but we're going to come out of it okay, and regardless of who wins, it won't be doom for the United States.

- Well, I'm one of those moderate Republicans who would never vote for Trump.

I can't understand women, who wouldn't have him as a boyfriend because he's such a liar, somehow will vote for him because they think he's going to change, and what he's telling us is gonna be the truth, you know, after you marry him, but I don't think we're gonna know at this time next week.

- What I'm so fascinated about, I did this project for my colleagues in Boston about, I talked to at least one reporter in all seven of the swing states to say, like, what are you watching for the next couple of days?

And every single one of them said, "We've never seen anything like this, this close before."

And you know, even in states where it looks like things are starting to turn, Nevada seems to be, I think Jon Ralston, who's kind of the famous reporter there, seems to think things are turning towards Trump in that place, but they all say, "We've never seen.

I wouldn't make a bet on it."

And that's why I don't think that we'll know who the president is by this show next week.

- And then there's the wild card with early voting and a lot of mail ballots.

Now, not as many mail ballots, but I think a lot of people like early voting.

You know, we've seen the numbers certainly reflect that here.

My wife and I were watching the national news, and every day, Trump says something about, you know, "I'm gonna protect women whether they like it or not."

I said to her, "If he just stayed at Mar-a-Lago and didn't open his mouth for the next seven days, that might be his best campaign strategy."

- Yeah, he is his own worst enemy for sure, and, you know, and his MAGA Fest at Madison Square Garden hurt him with Latino voters.

Now, I imagine there's some Latino voters who regret their early vote, who might have voted for Trump before everything happened there at Madison Square Garden.

You know, everybody I know is terrified.

It doesn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat.

Everybody is just hypersensitive to this election.

They all believe that the health of the country and the future of the country hinges on this election.

All of this overheated rhetoric is harmful, and for all of the polling that happens and for every, you know, it's 0.2% here and 0.3% there, what everybody loses track of is that the polls have a margin of error far larger than the small movements that they're talking about, and it does nothing to help the national mood when we have everybody examining a blunt report that can't possibly tell us, with that kind of detail, what's really happening.

- I think you're right.

Go home to Mrs. Trump right now and end it all, but, of course, he can't because he bathes in the sun and all the adulation, et cetera.

- You also gotta think that, no matter how happens, whoever wins, virtually half of America didn't vote for that person, and so then the real, you know, if Trump gets in, who knows what's gonna happen, and I think Harris has kind of held out that olive branch.

Look, I'll be a president for all people, and you just kind of wonder, if Trump wins, you know, do we get more divided?

- Well, go back to Donald Trump in 2016, right?

He told his speechwriters after they were very surprised that they won, when they started to draft the quick speech for him, he said, "Look, you know, let's bring the country together.

Enough of this."

And he tried to make that argument at least initially.

Remember, I think he thanked Hillary for running against him, again, in his victory speech, and then it all went downhill.

- Well, and two days after he got shot, he was supposed to be the kinder, gentler Trump, right?

- Yeah, I think I tend to believe, I know this is a common saying right now in politics, believe what they say, and I would believe what Donald Trump says right now.

He wants to overhaul the government, and that means things like potentially cutting the US Department of Education.

You know, really slashing regulations, things like that.

Those are concerning to a lot of people.

- But you also wonder, there are three branches of government, and I know that the Supreme Court has now given the president more in that decision.

You can argue that there are things that, there are even Trump-appointed judges who would get in the way of some of what he would like to do if he gets in, right?

I mean, there are checks and balances, no?

- Well, theoretically, yes, but time will tell whether it works out, particularly when we find out who wins the legislative branch and who's in control.

So he may not have any guardrails.

- Finally, what states are you gonna be looking at beyond what you had said in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?

- So, there's now seven swing states.

It's Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

How sad is it that I can say that?

- I know, you say that.

You're gonna be in an accident somewhere and they're gonna go, "Sir, do you know what day it is?"

And you're not gonna know who you are, and they're gonna go, "Do you know what the swing states are?"

- [Arlene] He'll know.

- He'll be fine.

All right, let's do outrages, and then we may have a couple other things to get to.

Arlene, what do you have this week?

- Well, I'm just going to do a little promotion here.

Vote for Question 1.

Approve it.

Constitutional convention, please.

- [Jim] Oh, yeah, we didn't even get to that.

Yeah.

Either way, Dan, what do you have?

- I'm outraged by what's going on in the Providence School Department right now, the threat to cut all school sports, varsity, JV, freshman, middle school sports, and you know, I said this before about the presidential election.

Believe what they say.

I will tell you, from the reporting that I've done, I believe the district that they may actually consider cutting all of these sports, and I do not think anyone in Providence, the mayor and I think the governor, I would count in this way, I don't think anybody is prepared for the outrage that will come from families across the city.

You will have never seen anything like it if they cut all sports at every school.

- That's a tired, old playbook, 'cause even in our town, the middle school sports or the gifted program or whatever it is, I agree with you, but I think when push comes to shove, that's something you don't want to touch.

- It's something you don't want to touch, and somebody should jump in and save the day.

The city council has tried to do this, but the district is holding pretty firm.

I mean, I think that they are ready to do this and people should be alarmed.

- But is that gonna balance the budget?

I mean, that's- - No.

It's $1.7 million.

It's not that much.

- The cost-benefit seems to be a little askew.

- Yeah, there's a lot more cutting that needs to happen there, and probably sports shouldn't be first or bus passes should not be first.

- [Jim] A couple administrators, maybe.

- Maybe.

(group chuckles) - So, as you know, I'm all about the outrage, but I just feel that it's important for everyone's mental health to talk a little bit more about the election and what's at stake and what's going to happen.

Don't make the mistake of getting so wrapped up in whatever media it is that you consume where you're receiving more or less the same message time after time after time.

It's going to be okay, and if you're getting really nervous and upset about things, just tune out.

The election's going to happen.

It's pretty much the die is cast.

It will be okay at the other end of things, and if your person doesn't win, we're still going to be okay, and just remember that the overheated rhetoric is dangerous.

It's wrong and it can lead to violence and everybody should just dial it back and we need to be adults about this election.

It should go down just like hundreds of dozens of elections have happened previously, and we will be okay.

- And should you need some counseling, Ken Block will be available to talk to you after the show.

No.

I appreciate those words.

Let's go back to the constitutional convention.

We talked about that once before.

There doesn't seem to be, I've seen kind of largely Democrats saying we really don't want this.

The opposition doesn't seem to be as organized.

Set the table for those who don't really know what's going on about this.

- Well, first of all, I think they think it's a slam dunk that it's not going to pass, and they have raised the usual bugaboos, right?

That, oh, people will pass the anti-abortion provision.

- [Jim] They're gonna hijack the Constitution.

- Hijack the Constitution, and that didn't happen in '85.

You know, two thirds of the people turned down enshrining the abortion issue, for example, but I think things like line item veto are important and inspector general is important and there's so many other issues that should get an airing.

So it's about time, 40 years now since the last one, that we try to address what needs to be looked at in our constitution.

- It's shocking to me that the folks who are opposed to the constitutional convention are looking back 40 years.

60 years from now, will they be looking back a hundred years and saying, "Oh my God, 19 85, 1986"?

The bottom line is our government is not working well because the balance of power is all messed up.

It's broken.

It's wrong.

The General Assembly is unwilling to make the changes necessary to fix what we need fixed, and the only way to do it is for the citizens to do it via constitutional convention.

It's time for it.

Those who are against it are absolutely misrepresenting what the risks are.

The voters of this state are never going to enshrine anything into our constitution that impinges a woman's right to choose.

The demographics don't allow that, so take that right off the table.

The bottom line is that those who are opposed to it profit from the way things work right now, and they will do anything they can to avoid upsetting their gravy train.

- [Jim] Final 30 seconds.

- Yeah, I mean, my gut tells me it will not pass, 'cause I think there's enough organization to get it to not pass, but I will say that's what I'm looking for on Tuesday.

I think, you wanna know about the mood of the state?

Let's see how close the constitutional convention gets.

If it's a 51-49 kind of thing, that's a bad sign for our leaders.

'cause it's a sign that people are, 49% of them at least are very upset.

- Okay, it is a quick 30 minutes particularly this week.

We appreciate this all-star panel.

Dan, nice to see you, and Arlene and Ken.

Will we know who's the president a week from now?

Well, you know what?

We may or may not, but we will be talking about it here on "Lively."

If you don't catch us Friday at seven or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively.

Come back next week.

We'll see what happens, and we'll be here to go through it with you as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by.

- Hi.

I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program on Rhode Island PBS.