- [Ian] Coming up on this week's "A Lively Experiment."

A federal judge in Rhode Island gets cheers and cheers during the legal dispute about President Trump's funding cuts, and the outlook for cutting waste in government.

- [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 and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, our former Rhode Island, GOP National Committee man, Steve Frias, senior reporter for Rhode Island current, Nancy Lavin, and political contributor, Robert Walsh.

Hello and welcome to "A iLvely Experiment."

I'm Ian Donnis in for Jim Hummel?

There's always a Rhode Island angle or so it seems, and the legal fight over the Trump administration's desire to freeze billions of dollars in aid to states is no exception.

US District Court Judge John McConnell of Providence remains at the center of the court fight over this move.

Elon Musk is calling for McConnell's removal while Democrats in the Rhode Island Bar Association have rallied to his defense.

So let's break it down with our panel.

During a recent appearance on "Newsmakers" on WPRI, attorney General Peter Neronha downplayed the idea that this case was filed in Rhode Island since Judge McConnell is liberal, but he didn't wholly reject that premise either.

Nancy, let me start with you.

Do you think this was a strategically smart move for attorneys general to file this case in Rhode Island?

- I mean, I think that in general, like cases are filed where plaintiffs think they're going to get a judge who's going to empathize with them, and this is likely no exception.

You know, judge McConnell was a Biden, or sorry an Obama era appointee, sort of is known for work with top democrats in Rhode Island prior to becoming a judge.

And the case was, if you look at it, it's New York versus, the state of New York versus Trump.

So it was originally filed in New York before it was moved to Rhode Island.

So that also to me at least makes me think, oh I bet they thought they could find a good judge in Rhode Island, but obviously they're not gonna come out and say that, right?

- Right.

Steve, you're the lawyer on our panel today, you're also a Republican and you decided against seeking your post with the Rhode Island Republican party because you could not support Donald Trump.

Let me ask you, how do you weigh the competing arguments in this case?

- It's actually not as simple as people think it is.

Trump is basically almost making an impoundment argument like, I just doesn't wanna spend money.

- And that goes back to Richard Nixon and how Congress reacted after that?

- Exactly.

This has been something that presidents of both parties have wanted to be able to do.

So it's not unusual.

The problem with what he's doing is that I think he's, it's basically he's going too far in what he's trying to impound.

Basically commitments that have already been made from the federal government to the state for reimbursement for expenses.

I have a hard time seeing a judge saying that the federal government is gonna be able to stop those payments.

I think a president has some discretion, but it's very limited, and unfortunately what I think the administration's doing is by going this far, and in a very arbitrary way, they're creating legal basis for people to challenge them and they'll probably get a setback.

I would just be careful with Judge McConnell is that, temporary restraining orders, broad ones against the sitting president is problematic potentially.

- Bob, before Judge McConnell became a judge, he was a generous contributor to democratic candidates, an active democrat.

Is that experience really unusual for a federal judge before they become a judge?

- No, not in Rhode Island, not in the Northeast, not in the places where Democrats are generally in political power.

I think Jack is, well, you know, he's a friend, so even setting that aside, I think he is a very good judge.

I think he's got good principles, he's very well educated and thoughtful about the process.

This case was gonna start somewhere, it's not gonna end here.

This will go through the circuit court, it will end up in the Supreme Court and we can hope that the Roberts Court, which is not a majority of people I generally disagree with, but these are deep constitutional principles and I hope, I hope that they stand up to this unrestrained power grab that's coming out of the most corrupt presidency we've ever seen.

I mean, Donald Trump makes Richard Nixon look like Jimmy Carter from a principal standpoint, this is scary times we live in.

- Well, speaking of President Trump, he had a tweet last weekend that got a lot of attention saying that, in so many words that, "He who saves the country does not violate any law."

We know, Bob, that President Trump has a practice of saying really outrageous things.

Does this raise a higher level of concern or is he just trolling democrats while his cabinet is filling out, and his program is advancing in Washington?

- This raises a higher level of concern for, well we have PBS so people probably know he's quoting Napoleon Bonaparte, but he's acting like Caligula who wanted to appoint his horse as his counsel, well he's got Elon Musk as a horse's, well you know where I was going with that.

- Caligula.

- These are scary times.

This is a power gripe.

He wants to be worshiped as a demigod in this role.

He wants no opposition.

He does not want to listen to his Senate.

If you go back to Rome, he is, in fact, it was somewhere between Caligula and Nero, I suppose.

Now the good news is the Roman Empire survived for another 400 years after that, but it took its hits, this is a scary time and he is trying to grab as much power as he can and dismantle as many things as he can, and this is hurting folks.

I applaud Steve on his very principled stand not to continue in that role 'cause he couldn't support Donald Trump.

That doesn't make him a Democrat by the way.

He is still- - Thank you.

- No, he is still a principled Republican and when we get back to normal times, we will have great debates about our differing points of view on a lot of issues.

But the future of the country's at stake, we need more folks to step up from Democrats, Independents and Republicans to say this is wrong.

- Steve, how about that tweet?

How did you interpret that?

- Well, I usually prefer American politicians if they're gonna quote a dead general to quote General Washington versus general Napoleon Bonaparte.

Okay, I'll phrase it that way.

I'm not gonna go as far as Bob with Caligula and that kind of thing, but this is a, one reason I did not feel comfortable supporting President Trump is the constitution and the rule of law, that's basically it in a sentence.

And when you have politicians saying, I can break the law as long as I can justify it, you're leaning towards a very bad situation for themselves, for those who support them, and the country as a whole.

I believe that the court is made up of some principled individuals that are going to say no in the end to some of these things that, and that's, you know, we'll see how far Trump goes in some ways.

But that is something that you really... our country's a rule of law, once it stopped being a rule of law and a rule of men, we are headed towards a disaster.

- Nancy, what was your view of this controversial tweet from President Trump?

- I mean it's shocking but it's also at this point like not that shocking.

I think by his actions even going back to these sort of flurry of federal court cases against all of the sort of executive orders and actions that have been taken by his administration, you know, judge McConnell and a second judge in DC have issued temporary restraining orders, stopping the administration from freezing federal grants and funds until these cases play out.

But there still are like millions of dollars of funds that agencies in Rhode Island and across the country can't access.

So they're not really listening to federal judges.

The idea that Trump thinks he's above the law, I think has been sort of proven already, whether he's sort of outright said it and inferred the sort of words of Napoleon Bonaparte or not, at this point, it's like everything that's shocking is not that shocking anymore.

- Good point.

The Trump administration is moving ahead with its attempts to remake government.

One of the latest moves is an effort to wipe out the US Department of Education, at the same time we saw the Trump administration backtrack from firing workers responding to things as disparate as avian flu and the management of nuclear weapons.

Steve, I think we could agree that American people generally support the idea of reducing the size and scope of the federal government, but is the Trump administration moving too recklessly?

- Well, trying to reduce the cost of government, trying to find billions of dollars of savings, I always think is a good idea.

The problem is, is what you just kind of pointed out, which is how you go about it is matters as well.

And when you go about it in an arbitrary ad hoc, we don't know what the hell's going on kind of a process, it creates a lack of confidence and it disrupts people's lives in an inappropriate way.

I think kind of like in the end though, are we gonna find $2 trillion of savings through efficiencies that Elon Musk promised?

I doubt it.

It's kind of reminds me a little bit of the big audit that Donald Carcieri had like two decades ago, and that big audit found like minimal amount of savings, but still if we find a few billion dollars of savings, that's great, but this much chaos and problems creates a lot of uncertainty and it can have negative impacts.

- Nancy, to Steve's point, most of the federal spending the really big buckets of money are in the defense budget, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, closer to home in Rhode Island, you had a good story in the Rhode Island Current this week looking at how the McKee administration is trying to save money with its management of state properties, tell us about that.

- Yeah, so it seems like historically the sort of thinking in Rhode Island and probably across state governments is it's better to own than to lease.

Rhode Island has a couple of agencies that are in leased offices that the leases are coming due, couple of other agencies that are in state owned buildings that are in like pretty bad shape.

And so rather than renew these leases that the administration says are gonna be expensive and put all this money into big repairs, McKees administration wants to buy a former Citizens bank loan office in East Providence and put all of these state agencies there, getting rid of some expensive leases, avoiding some sort of big ticket repairs on state owned buildings.

He proposed this last year as an amendment to his budget.

It didn't sort of make it through in the legislature last year.

This year he's coming out with it at the beginning of the year.

I think the sort of additional interesting piece about this is not just that he wants to buy this property, but it's a citizens' bank property, and we know that last year there was sort of a lot of behind the scenes negotiations between the administration and Citizens Bank, which ended in the state rewriting its entire tax code for financial institutions, expressly to keep Citizens' Bank from moving to Massachusetts.

And that all happened in the last week of the legislative session.

- Bob, you are former executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, one of the state's big teacher unions, what is your sense of how schools and students would be affected in Rhode Island if the Trump administration eliminates the Department of Education and which would be about a $275 million cut for Rhode Island?

- Yeah, if, if we took a $275 million cut, it would be devastating to the students who need the most help, because that is the number of the amount of money we get in federal support into our public schools.

If this is a paper transaction and he's moving the functions, the financial functions of the Department of Education elsewhere, the financial impact could be mitigated, but the rest of the impact is still not insignificant.

The Department of Education has other roles besides just being a pass through for money.

So either way it's problematic, you know, the emergency would be the significant loss of revenue, which would be devastating.

And on the topic you addressed with Nancy, I think those were coincidences in time.

The citizens, we talked about this on the show when I was on in the past, the tax change matched what Massachusetts does, as we often try and do to keep businesses from fleeing.

On the data center thing, I think that's a loan office.

It was originally built as a data center in Rhode Island, coincidence.

I worked in the analog facility at Rhode Island Hospital Trust also in East Providence, and it was well equipped for the type of things you need for your computer operations, which I think is the big gap, the rest of the office space could be used to consolidate offices.

And it's part of an overall program, they're moving part of the Commerce corporation in with the other parts of the Commerce Corporation, save on lease space over an iron horse and trying to be smart about the long term, the boring part of government.

- Yeah.

- The management part of government, we're trying to be smart and do some of this long-term decision making.

It's not sexy but it's important and it's part of the job.

- Let's talk briefly about the politics of cutting government spending.

As we said a little bit earlier, it probably resonates with the public that passed politicians, whether Democrat or Republican at the federal level didn't really go after spending in a major way.

Trump campaigned on that and he is pursuing that aggressively.

Is there a point at which there's a public backlash on this?

At what point do people feel a tangible effect from programs that they care about, Nancy?

- I mean, I think we're seeing that public backlash already now.

You know, protests at state houses nationwide, including in Rhode Island, a lot of really good reporting about the impacts of these funding freezes that, I think when people hear these buzzwords of fraud and waste and abuse in government, a lot of them, regardless of their party, might nod along and say, yeah, there probably is some.

But then when you think about the sick child on Medicaid who might not be able to get treatment, or firefighters in LA who no longer have federal funding to help fight wildfires, I think that the sort of human impacts of that are a lot less palatable to a lot of people.

And I think these federal lawsuits, news reporters have done a pretty good job of sort of laying out the human consequences of this.

- What do you say to the same question, Steve?

- People are are against government spending until the spending that gets cut affects them.

Okay.

That's usually how it kind of works in life, it's human nature.

I will say however, that when we talk about spending cuts, only in government, do I see that people talk about cuts and what's happened is the agency got the same amount of money as last year or maybe a slightly more, but it's still called a cut.

So it's always about reducing usually the rate of growth, that's what usually cuts are in government.

But it's not really a cut, it's just less money being spent going forward, not as fast as before.

So it's a way of how you phrase it, and where the reductions in spending are, that's what's going to come down to, and it's gonna be a case by case basis.

Some people care about this, they don't care about that, we'll just see how it plays out.

- Bob, the general accounting office estimates there's upwards of $220 million to maybe more than $500 million in waste and fraud and federal government spending every year.

We know you're not a big fan of Trump, but is there's something to be said for a reset or recalibration of federal government spending to try and get at some of this?

- Well, a stopped clock can still be right twice a day, if there are areas that we're spending money that we shouldn't be spending it on without the hype, and the craziness, and the personal attacks, and trying to tell people we're spending money on things that he's politicizing versus having a real conversation about those absolutely should be addressed and they always should be addressed, whether it's federally or at a state level.

But they're taking a wrecking ball when they should be taking a scalpel, and you watch the decision and then the reversal of the decision.

You don't cut employees in the parks department, if you want to have a robust national Parks department and have things taken care of.

You certainly don't cut out your nuclear inspectors or your food inspectors or even the Kennedy Library and the kind of have this random, or we're gonna get rid of all the new employees who are hired in the last couple of years.

Well, if coincidence might have it that the new employees are the ones running the place depending on the circumstances, this randomness chaotic approach is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

If there was a possibility of having a big audit since Steve mentioned it that was accurate and useful and gave principled conversation and some real conclusions, then have that conversation.

But don't try and vilify some of these areas without explaining.

USAID is part of our foreign policy service, and having caseworkers on the ground in a lot of foreign countries, it's part of our national security as well as part of our international outreach.

And if we withdraw, others will go in.

And there are a lot of strategic reasons for that.

And this president either doesn't understand it or doesn't care to understand it, or he is more interested in the headlines than doing the actual work.

Look what he did to Zelensky.

Well, if you give us half of mineral rights, we'll still defend you.

- Let me hold you there, Bob.

We have some other issues to discuss.

Rhode Island US attorney, top federal prosecutor, Zachary Cunha, signed off this week, that was not a surprise.

He was a democratic appointee.

It's unclear who his successor will be.

One person who has been named in a report from the Boston Globe is former State Supreme Court Justice Robert Flanders.

Bob, do you Flanders as the front runner here?

- I would think so, and now I'm gonna get in trouble on both sides, Bob Flanders has been a friend of mine since the 1980s.

We don't agree on much of anything from a political standpoint, but he is a highly principled individual and if someone has to do that job, God bless him in in doing that job.

And I will fight with him when he gets the job on things I disagree with him.

But yeah, he should be the front runner, he's very qualified, he's got good credentials in this area.

We serve on a couple of boards together still, I mean, again- - And Bob Flanders was known for his dissent when he was on the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

- Yes.

- Steve, do you think he is the front running choice?

- I don't think there really is gonna be a choice.

And I'll phrase it this way, you gotta navigate between the Trump administration that demands loyalty, and basically you have to agree whatever the Department of Justice is saying, and you have to get through this arcane blue slip process where you have to have your two Democratic senator from Rhode Island agree to the person.

I don't see how this happens, the way with Sheldon White House believing that the Trump administration is, basically corrupt and all this other stuff.

And the person who takes the job has to basically say, yes sir, coming sir, whatever you say sir, on anything.

So I don't know if this is gonna be an acting US attorney there for an indefinite period of time because to get somebody who can make both camps happy is gonna be pretty hard to find.

(indistinct chattering) Exactly.

I mean it's just... it's this blue slip thing.

If there was no blue slip where the hometown senators had to agree, then I could definitely see this, some Republican like Chas Calenda could become to US attorney.

He ran for Attorney General, he's a rock 'em sock 'em kind of guy.

But with a blue slip- - You make a great point, but someone like Chas Kalenda might be more in the Trump mole, but he might face more objection from Rhode Island's two US senators.

How do you think that sugar is off, Nancy?

- I mean, I think to me the process of having the state senators sort of sign off on the process like that's, inherent checks and balances is like what this government is sort of principally founded upon.

And I think a lot of the consternation right now is that that check and balance process is just trying to be done away with.

But yeah, that's definitely gonna pose a problem when it comes to any sort of federal appointees, including in Rhode Island.

- Speaking of Republicans in Rhode Island, we see competition in race for Republican chairman, the incumbent Joe Powers faces Jessica Drew-Day in an election on March 1st.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between them, politically, both are Trump supporters.

What do you make of this Steve?

- Well, I'm still a delegate to the Republican committee from Cranston.

So I'm a rank and file member, and I know both candidates.

I know one, Joe Powers better than the other.

I would say is, when you're in the super minority, it's an uphill battle, whoever is going to be chairperson of the party.

And so there is not a significant amount of, I call differences policy wise, there may be some tactical differences.

The biggest difference, and I don't want to get into personalities too much, but it has personality.

Joe Powers is the slate, on the other, opposed to him is Jessica Drew-Day and Pat Morgan.

Patricia Morgan, I've seen her in operation for 22 years.

She is a hard worker, but she is hard to work with.

(panel laughing) And when you're at a small minority party and you have to have all hands on deck and everybody rowing the same way, style, personality does matter in getting things done.

So I'll just phrase what the differences are that way.

- Nancy, traditionally when we've seen disputes among Republicans in Rhode Island, usually it's been between moderate and conservative factions.

Now the party seems more in Trump's mole.

What do you make of this competition for GOP chair?

- Yeah, I mean, to Steve's point, when Representative Morgan was in the house, she did not caucus with the eight other Republicans.

- [Ian] She was in her own individual caucus.

- Right.

So She is kind of known for, not sort of banding together with Republicans, and in a state where Republicans don't have very many people in positions of power, I think these kind of divisions are going to make it harder for them to win influence, win seats in state legislature, win general office.

- Bob, you are a dyed in the wool Democrat, we've seen the Republican representation in the general assembly remain flat at 14 of 113 members through the last election cycle.

If you gave some armchair advice to the Republican party, what would it be?

- Pick your races carefully, run candidates that can win, match to the districts they're running in.

That would be my armchair advice to the Republicans.

But as a dyed in the wool Democrat, go Team Morgan.

(panel laughing) Atually I met Joe Powells here, he was in Studio LA last time I was on the show with Susie Yankee who was his predecessor in that role.

And you know, I think it's...

I have always said, and it surprises people, we need a principled Republican opposition in the legislature, contained to a relatively small number to continue to surface issues.

- Less than a third, less than a third.

- Less than a third, less than veto, less than... not so many that could team up and cause mischief.

But the Republican party has become much more conservative.

Rhode Island, I always point out to outsiders, when there were five state senators, Republican state senators, when (indistinct) equality passed, all five of them voted for the bill.

It was the democrats that voted against, and Republicans helped put it over the top.

That is not where we are now as a Republican party.

I want more Steve Frias Republicans where we can have debates and he's good at what he does and he knows more than I do about history of politics.

- I'm a little bit nervous by getting Bob Walsh's endorsement if I ever get into a primary.

(panel laughing) - I understand that Steve, you are an outlier among Rhode Island Republicans right now, why is that?

What would it take to bring back more of the old style Republican party in Rhode Island?

- Remember when you say old style, I'm a limited government conservative, so I'm really like even older like Calvin Coolidge kind of style, maybe you wanna put it that way.

- [Ian] Hey, he was from Massachusetts.

- He was from Massachusetts.

I would say that to bring that back, if Trump really turns into a disaster in a second term and his polling numbers collapse really badly, there may be a moment where people go, we can't keep going like this, we need to move on.

When that moment arrives, if that arrives, then possibly Republicans will say, alright, I want to try something different.

And the problem with this state in is this, when 90 to 80% of Republicans agree with Trump and a majority of Rhode Islanders don't like Trump, you automatically have a problem getting to 50% statewide.

And until such time as that kind of changes, the Republicans are gonna be in the super minority in this state.

- Well, let's go to outrages or kudos.

Do you have an outrage, Nancy?

There's a lot to be outraged about these days.

- Well, there's so many outrages and it's so hard to pick whatever is most outrageous.

So instead I figured I'd do a kudos.

Antonia Farzan had a great story in the Providence Journal last weekend about Prudence Island and the people who live there year round.

And as a native Rhode Islander who doesn't leave my little corner of the East Bay very much, I had never been to, I've still never been to Prudence Island.

So from like a anthropological standpoint, it was just fascinating in a well-written story, kind of a nice breath of fresh air.

And in this sea of outrage/ - Antonia comes up with some really interesting stories.

And of course she's an occasional panelist here as well.

Steve, do you have an outrage or a kudo?

- I'll have a kudos, which is to the half dozen employees at the Department of Justice that decided to resign rather than file paperwork to dismiss the corruption case against Mayor Adams in New York City.

One of them...

Some of these people are very conservative and they have a conservative background like Danielle says soon.

And one of them when they decided to resign, said, "You'll get a coward or a fool to dismiss this indictment against Adams, but I will not be that person."

And that person was right, you'd be basically a coward or a fool to do this and politicize the Department of Justice.

And by not being a coward or fool, they ended up being role models for people.

- That was very strange to see a major corruption case against the mayor of New York come undone.

- It was, I mean I thought about like what would happen if Bill Clinton had told the Department of Justice here, Hey, I want you to drop this thing against Buddy Cianci, because we got something, we're working something out.

It would've been like, people would've been out, it's ridiculous.

- [Ian] Bob, do you have a kudo or outrage?

- I have a prevent a future outrage comments.

I was joking before the show started that I've probably helped elect more Republicans indirectly than the Republican party has by being involved in divided democratic primaries.

Or that happened even before I was involved in primaries.

I mean, Ed Dupree won because of a divided democratic primary.

Ron Machtley, Lincoln Ahmond, Don Carcieri, the list goes on and on.

And I'm all for it, I like democratic primaries, I'm good at it, I'm on Team McKee read his 2030 plan, If you haven't already, we've got a pretty good agenda, but we don't need a primary this year.

So if you're out there thinking about running or raising money to run, we have bigger problems coming from Washington.

We spent the entire show talking about it.

Take that money you were gonna raise, I can give you a million good causes to put it into in Rhode Island.

Let's avoid those democratic primaries, let's send our federal delegation back, let's send the government back.

- I've gotta stop you there, Bob.

Just call Helena.

- Alright, you heard it first.

It's been a great discussion.

Thank you so much to the panel, Bob Walsh, Nancy Lavin, follow her reporting at the RhodeIslandcurrent.com and Steve Frias, Ian Donis in for Jim Hummel.

Thank you for watching.

We'll see you next week.

As "A Lively Experiment" continues, (ambient music) - [Ian] "A Lively Eexperiment" 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 in Rhode Island, PBS.