- [Jim] Coming up, on this week's 'A Lively Experiment.'

Money is tight at the State House, so why does the governor want to hand out raises to some of the highest paid state employees?

And it's been the talk of the country this week.

How did a journalist get added to a group chat talking about military airstrikes in Yemen?

- [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, Rhode Island Republican Party Chairman Joe Powers.

Attorney and former State Representative Mike Marcello.

And Brown University Political Science Professor Wendy Schiller.

Hello, and welcome into 'Lively.'

I'm Jim Hummel.

It seems like an annual rite of passage at the State House.

The governor quietly requests raises for his cabinet members.

Kathy Gregg from the Providence Journal finds out, there is a public outcry, then the raises eventually get approved.

This year, though, the proposed increases, including one for DOT Director Peter Alviti, are getting pushback, and a lot of it.

Joe, let me begin with you.

It's not just the House Republicans.

This is an interesting marriage that Speaker Shekarchi is a little concerned about these.

When do you ever put those two groups together?

- You know, and I never thought I would ever tell myself that I would 100% agree with him.

However, I find myself being that person because unlike what people like to think is Republican and Democrat is, I've said this before a thousand times is, I'm a Rhode Island voter.

And when I take a look and see how the government's being run in the state, and then you want to turn around and reward people for failing forward, to me, it's just absolutely ridiculous.

If it's not in the budget, it's not in the budget.

We have so many other opportunities that we could be using money in this state, i.e., the bridge, for one.

Only to turn around and give it to somebody who has been in charge of this exact problem for this amount of time.

And still shocking to a lot of people why somebody hasn't been fired for this or reprimanded in some way and that we want to reward that.

It's ridiculous to me.

- Yeah, the overall amount is not that much.

It's $82,000.

Nobody gets more than a 5% increase.

But, it's the optics here, right?

- Yeah, I mean, I could not have said it better in this particular case with regards to Alviti.

However, you know, I think sometimes there are people who are excellent at what they do and they fall behind for whatever reasons.

And you want to remedy that.

So, if they've been underpaid, then you say, well, it's a raise, but it's really comp.

It's really basically trying to get them where they should be based on their merit and their quality.

If the governor presented it that way, here are a few individuals, not Alviti, who, you know, have really been working hard.

They've fallen behind the comps.

We want to keep them.

That's what we're doing it for, I think the entire reaction would've been different.

- I mean, I think the governor did look at some of the other salaries from neighboring states.

It is 5%.

I don't think it's an awful lot.

I do think the optics are probably bad.

The timing is probably not that great.

The legislature can stop this if they want to.

They have to pass a joint resolution.

I find it interesting, however, those same legislators who are complaining about this raise didn't complain when they got their automatic raise under the Constitution.

So, you know, it's, you know.

- But, they don't get paid a lot of money.

I means, state, as you know.

I mean, I've always advocated for increasing the compensation for state legislatures.

You have almost a $14 billion budget.

The people who control that budget, you want to pay them enough money, so that they can focus on the job at hand.

And, you know, not have to scramble to do other things.

And, you know, we are one of the, I think, lower paid state legislatures.

And so, I don't don't begrudge state legislators.

The raise is across the board.

But I think that, you know, how you explain it, how you sell it, and particularly a time of, you know, it's not yet economically uncertain, but our unemployment rate has just creeped up again.

I think it's 4.7%.

So, I think people are starting to get a little nervous.

And it's just the wrong time to say, okay, we're gonna give it just an across the board raise.

- But the comps are difficult, Mike, because, I mean, the DOT director of Massachusetts is, and not just DOT, we won't pick on them, but Health and Human services, or it's DEM, or whatever, those are bigger departments with a lot more people.

- There's no question.

But, you also have to understand you need to hire people who are qualified to do the job and to keep qualified people there.

Running the state government is not easy, right?

And when we have difficult times, like we're facing at the federal level, you know, all the issues that are happening at from the federal level, you need people who know the system, know how to work it, and have those connections, so.

- But, don't you think those people would be in the private sector?

Okay, so it's 185 versus 190.

These are people who could be making a lot more.

They view it as public service.

So, I mean, I don't think that extra 2 or 3% is gonna necessarily retain them.

- I, you know, I think everybody wants a raise.

No matter what job you are in, everybody thinks they deserve a raise.

So again, is the timing great?

No.

But, is a 5% raise unheard of in this climate?

I don't think it's that bad.

- See, here's the thing where it comes out, I don't mean to cut you off, but, I don't think that raises should be something that's built into your contract simply because it's an inherent type of a thing.

There should be a performance base to it.

And if somebody's gonna get only a 5%, it's only a 5%.

There's people on this list that literally just got a raise last year, and they're getting another raise even though it's only 3%, instead of the 5% that Alviti's getting.

If you have a bad performance record, which you've had for the last since Gina Raimondo was here, because this whole thing with the bridge alone, and you can say it's bad optics, but you shouldn't just get a raise simply for the sake of because you need to get a raise because it's in your contract.

And yet, they can make money in the private sector a lot more, then go do it.

Nobody should be getting into government to be making a huge paycheck.

That should never happen.

And if you are doing that, to look at it as a retirement plan, then that's just the wrong person.

And quality definitely has to play a role in that.

- I think it hearkens back to, and you were probably on the set when we talked about this four or five years ago during the pandemic, there were retention bonuses for state workers.

Some of them went to judges who have lifetime appointments, right?

- That was McKee, that was when McKee took over, yeah.

- And the $3,000 bonus for the vaccine.

So, I mean, I think the skeptics, some of this stuff gets.

You know, look, I don't begrudge somebody another five, 10%, but I think in the optics of when the speaker says, look, we really have no money, except for over here, I think that's.

The budget's gonna be tough, Mike.

And I ask every time I have a former legislator on here, I say, what was the budget when you were there?

What was it, eight million?

- When I left it was eight.

- Was that ten years ago?

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- But, 10 years ago, so, yeah, so, that's 2015.

- It ballooned with COVID, obviously.

- No, but, and the full impact of things like Obamacare, sort of running exchange, expansion of children's health insurance.

I mean, there's a lot of things the federal government has done in the last 10 years that have expanded state responsibilities.

The feds help pay for that.

- [Mike] Medicare was expanded by 25 million when I was there.

- Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, that's one thing we, so much of our budget is passed through and federal.

So, it's either mandated by the feds and funded by the feds, but it still expands the scope of our financial responsibility.

Not all of it, but some of it I think is outgrowth.

Because you see this trend across the entire country.

Like, you know, New York State's budget is, I think, this year, a trillion dollars.

New York State.

I think it was 999 billion or something.

Now I think it's a trillion dollars just for New York State alone.

So, things have just, government is very big right now.

- To go back to your point, Jim, I think this is like the dessert after dinner.

You get finished with dinner and you're so full you couldn't possibly eat another bite.

And then somebody comes up with the tiramisu, or the sorbet, and you're just like, I got another stomach for this.

It's the same thing with government.

It's like, we don't have money to do this except for this.

Like, I'll use this for an example.

The IG department where we were looking to get in an inspector general here.

They kept telling us, all they kept harping on is, you're talking about we don't have an additional $250,000 in the budget to pay for that type of an office.

However, 5% here, 3% here, 10% there, whatever the number may be, suddenly we found money.

That's the dessert.

You found another area to get the money from and they're just gonna reallocate it.

And it's just bad business.

- Yeah, I mean, I think it's also important, and we'll probably talk about this, the governor's office just secured that $220 million federal grant for the bridge.

That didn't happen alone, right?

So, you've got people like Peter Alviti, the governor's office, working to do that.

So, that's where the experience comes in.

- Yeah, that is the good news.

And on Thursday night, we're taping Friday morning, we understand that that money that could have been in flux, it was committed by the Biden administration, that the Trump administration has signed off on getting that money.

But you pointed out in the green room, there's still a lot more to go to pay for that bridge.

We don't even know what the bridge is gonna cost 'cause we won't know until June.

- Well, you talk to some engineers and.

- 600, 700.

- I have engineers in my family.

No, no.

No, no.

I mean, the money, it sounds like a ton, but 400 to 500 million is that kind of like the number that, and they're working on the bids and everything.

And, you know, Sean Duffy's an interesting guy, the Secretary of Transportation.

And Trump likes transportation.

He couldn't get a transportation bill passed through his own Republican Congress.

But he likes to build, we know that.

He likes to see things in better shape than they are.

So, I do think some things will get cut, but I think that's an area where I think he's not gonna be aggressive about trying to take back or claw back monies for things like bridges and roads.

And because he understands that they're really central to the economy.

So, I think that's the thing.

I think there's other things in the budget.

I think government, you know, I don't know, you know, the dessert's an interesting sort of like dinner and dessert analogy, but American voters have gotten used to a very large governmental infrastructure at the state, federal, and even local level, and it will take a long time to wean off that expectation.

And so, it's true, it's gonna take a long time.

I mean, you can cut 10,000, 25,000, 50,000 jobs, but you still have to wean people off this.

And what Trump's longer plan is to get people used to an idea that government isn't gonna do all these things, that is the question mark.

- What were you gonna say?

- No, I was just gonna say that no one's gonna argue that government is big.

We know that.

But it is how you go about doing it, I think.

and how you go about making these cuts.

And for me it looks like they're just kind of like going in, slashing people, and then, "Oh, by the way, we made a mistake, and we're gonna put, bring people back."

And we're all, we're doing this by the executive order, right?

The Republicans control both the House and the Senate.

If you want to make these things permanent, you know, do it the right way.

Pass the legislation to make these cuts and to make those downsizes in the federal bureaucracy.

- Well, we found that it's red and blue states, Joe.

I mean, 'cause it sounds "oh, great the cutting of the government and this is what the Republicans and the conservatives have wanted," but when they tried to cut out the Affordable Care Act, and you had those House members, this is eight years ago, and they went to those town meetings in Louisiana and Mississippi, they were like, "Wait, you're gonna take away my healthcare?"

So, I think that's gonna be problematic.

- Medicaid, too.

- If you go in, right, and you got Republican senators and House members in districts are gonna go, "This is gonna have backsplash on me."

So, I just don't see Congress standing up at this point.

And I don't know what it's gonna take to do that.

- Well, I'll tell you, the government machine, and I won't even put it Republican or Democrat, has done exactly what Wendy was saying, is you've, in my reference, it's more bloating than it is anything else.

And it's gotten people so used to just, you know, working off of living off of the government.

And everything, all the entities that they have out there have just become so overrun that maybe ripping the band-aid so quickly may not be the greatest idea.

But, what's the real plan?

I mean, what could they possibly do to kind of slowly retract things and how they can pull things back?

It's not gonna be able to get done in a short period of time.

It's just gotta be done.

- Are you saying it's a bipartisan swamp?

- Without question.

- The government has grown larger every single year for 40 years.

I mean, we have Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, and it just keeps growing.

- And nobody's talking about the national debt.

You know, if these cuts were going to reduce the debt, but they're going towards tax cuts.

Nobody talks about for your daughter, and potentially your grandkids, and down the line.

- Trump is Hamiltonian, he's thinking.

Hamilton didn't think debt was such a big deal.

If you have a robust economy, which is the big question mark, if you're tanking the economy and you're increasing debt, that's a problem.

But, if you have a economy, Hamilton always thought, you know, a little debt to move, you know, moves the needle forward and, you know, that's okay.

- [Jim] Let's talk.

Go ahead.

- So, I was gonna say what the question bears, going back to Bill Clinton and Al Gore when they first started talking about doing this back in the '90s.

And they had this gung-ho game plan about cutting down on government, bringing everything back.

Then it went to Obama, who did the exact same thing and talked about, they just never followed through.

And I think that's what's most shocking to people is the fact that the president said, "Hey, this is what we need to do."

And people are like, "Yes."

And then they do it And people go, "Oh crap, he's doing it."

Like, everybody else talked about it and everybody thought it was a phenomenal idea.

- But, it's where he's doing it.

- And, is he really doing it?

- He's a hundred percent doing it.

- Is it a show because "I cut this," and then all of a sudden you run to the courts, and the court says you can't do it this way.

I mean, this is why Congress needs to step.

If he really wants to do it, he has both branches of Congress.

- Pass it.

Pass it, legislatively.

- Pass it, legislate it, have they hearings.

- But, he has, a colleague of mine, he's a super expert in sort of executive power.

And he is always reminding me, he always says, "Wendy, the president can move a tremendous amount of money around the executive branch freely.

It's within the president's executive power to implement the law."

So, I think he can't get rid of the programs without Congress, but he can actually reduce personnel.

He can move money around.

My question is, why hit the Veterans?

I mean, the VA, Rhode Island actually has an excellent, highly-rated VA, one of the best in the country.

Why hit Veterans?

I mean, I understand if you want to say USAID gives away, you know, a billion dollars to other countries, and we want to repatriate that back home.

That's an argument you can make.

But, Veterans, I don't understand.

Social Security Administration, I don't understand, except for Social Security Disability, which is subject to fraud.

So, I think if they explained a little bit more why these people are getting fired, I think they would have less backlash.

- So, it's not necessarily Veterans.

So first off, I'm a Veteran, so, I take umbrage with all of the people who are Veterans out there.

And I personally think that Veterans need a better source of care, regardless of Rhode Island being whatever number they are, as far as in the country is concerned.

But, everything that they could potentially do with the Veterans.

And he's not going after Veterans.

He's going after the bureaucracy that's inside of the VA that actually is that bloated government again, where we can actually take this thing, and start streamlining the process, and stop focusing on the bureaucrats and the politicians, and start focusing on the Veterans.

If we're going to talk about Veterans, let's take care of the Veterans.

Let's stop saying "We need to take care of this business, this business, and we need to make it as big as possible."

Bigger isn't always better.

In the military, we have a saying in there that says, "If you aim small, you miss small."

So, you focus on the thing that's most important, which is, the Veterans, so let's focus on them.

And everything they're doing to it, we'll streamline the process, possibly privatize, which will get them better treatments and help them out.

- There's an argument to be made that, you know, private equity firms have bought, as we saw even in Rhode Island, hospitals and nursing homes, and we do not see improved care when private equity comes in and owns and runs public service care facilities.

So, I don't disagree with all that you said up until that.

I think we can debate whether privatizing will actually mean better services for Veterans.

- I just think that it's shoot first, aim later.

That's the problem.

He's shooting first and not aiming.

- Has any of the cuts that he's done given you pause?

Of all the things that he's doing, do you think, maybe that went a little too far?

Or, maybe they didn't quite think this out?

- No, as a matter of fact, I'm one of those guys that I think they haven't done enough.

Here's the thing that good leadership does, great leadership does, is they surround themselves with leaders.

They surround themselves with business owner type people who are actually going to take responsibility for it.

And what I think, and everybody can agree, this is a completely different Trump than 2016.

And what he did is he surround himself with very smart individuals who are willing to go out and do the work.

And everybody that he placed in his cabinet to do what they need to do, they're doing the job, they're doing exactly.

If you'll notice, he's not the one that's taking the forefront.

He's not taking the credit for this stuff.

He's putting this stuff on Elon.

He's putting on Kash Patel.

He's putting on the people that are actually doing the work.

What they're focusing on is just showing us exactly shining the light on.

Shining the light on the issues that we're having.

Where I think the real problem in all of this is, is all of these people that put the propaganda out that you need to attack the person who's exposing the problem, not the problem itself.

And that is happening across the board with all politicians, all the talking heads, and that's all they talk about.

We're talking about in the green room, about different personalities that people have while they're on air and when they're off air.

And when they're on air, they have to follow a certain process.

I don't want to call it a script, but they're gonna follow a certain process.

The problem that we run into is they got people so mesmerized on the people who are investigating all this information as compared to what they're investigating, and that needs to stop.

- But isn't it the same, you can say the same question of like villainize, you know, you're making government employees villains.

"Oh, they're worthless.

They don't do anything."

Or, federal judges.

"They don't do anything.

They're worthless."

But, these are people who are in public service, who are joining to do something in government, and they're all vilified, "They're all worthless, they're all lazy, they're all inefficient."

This is exactly the rhetoric that's being used by the Trump administration when they fire them.

We all agree, you can streamline government, you can cut jobs.

We do have very large employees in HHS and the Veterans Administration.

I'm not against that, at all.

But, you know, just to sort of summarily dismiss everything that these people do as unnecessary or inefficient is also villainizing them the same way you're talking about.

I mean, it's the same kind of stuff.

- I mean, again, you talking about now villainizing, the president has vilified every federal judge who has ruled against his.

- Let's talk about the legal challenges.

So, let's talk.

So, Jack McConnell, local judge here, got upheld by the First Circuit.

Do you agree with some of the Republicans who have said, we need to impeach these judges simply because of the decisions that they've made?

It hasn't gotten to the First Circuit, hasn't gotten to the Supreme Court, which you would think the president would think would be pretty friendly to him given who was on there, hasn't gone through the process that you talked about.

Do you agree with some of your brethren in Washington and others have said these judges have overstepped, they should be impeached?

- So, here's the problem with politics and politicians, is they don't go 30,000 foot.

They don't look down the road, and they don't wait for the real answers to come in.

They automatically knee-jerk reaction for the most part.

And then they actually rule that way as well.

And they get the constituents and the voters to do the exact same thing.

I'm the guy that sits back and I wait.

I want to see what the information is and why they did it.

So, why did Judge McConnell make this ruling?

Was there an influence somewhere along the way?

I'm not gonna turn around.

Was I happy that he did it?

No.

Right off the bat, I'll tell you flat out I wasn't.

However, what was the reason why he did it?

Was there influence coming from an outside?

I want to know all the facts before I make any decisions.

- So, isn't that the way to go up?

You go up through the First Circuit.

If he gets flipped, you go to the Supreme Court.

But, you didn't answer the question.

Do you agree with people who say judges who we disagree with on a decision basis should be impeached?

- Let's, I'll go with this, I think it's premature.

It's a premature result.

It's a premature decision simply because the fact, like I said, is you got to find out all the information on how and why they did what they did.

And it's not them just being holier than thou.

And it's not just them being, "I'm fighting for the average man."

There's got to be some sort of influence.

Tell me I'm wrong, that the state of Rhode Island is not completely left-leaning and has been for years.

- But, let's put Jack McConnell aside.

You got that judge in the DC district, he's been there 30, 40 years.

He may have been appointed by, you know, Eisenhower, and they're going after him.

- This is the biggest attack on the judiciary since Andrew Jackson went against the courts on the institution of the Second Bank of the United States.

This is dangerous.

This is dangerous.

We have federal judges who have lifetime tenure.

Their job is to say what the law is.

That's it.

To suggest that you disagree with this ruling, that's fine.

I get it, you can disagree.

But, the process of disagreement is handled within the courts and it's an appeal process.

To suggest that a judge should be impeached because you don't like his ruling is very dangerous.

- [Jim] And that's coming from the Speaker of the House, Wendy.

Mike Johnson's saying that.

- Well, I don't know what Mike Johnson's motivations are.

I mean, from day to day he was, you know, really steady, didn't shut the government down under Biden, extended the debt limit.

But now, I have no idea what his position.

He said, oh, I'm not sure we need the federal courts.

By the way, you know who agreed with him?

Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson was, especially after Chief Marshall took all the power for the courts, Marbury v. Madison.

So, but Jefferson wrote like, what, nine judges decide everything about the United States?

It's an oligarchy.

So, he didn't like that power.

I think he liked, he goes, state courts have a lot of elected judges.

Some states elect some, some appoint and elect.

So, I think there is, if you go all the way back to the Founders, there is debate about the role of the federal courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, and how powerful it should be since it's unelected.

And this is a court that has veered, if you're conservative, you think it veered far too left.

If you're liberal, you think now it's veered far too right.

And now I think it's trying to find survival ground.

I really think the Supreme Court's saying we want to stay in business.

You know, Trump will get rid of us.

And relevant.

And sort of in-tune if you can figure out a majority opinion, you know, sort of in-tune with the majority opinion on a decent number of things.

And I say sort of majority public opinion.

So, but, I think, look, we have a system and we can't have judges fearing for their life, being threatened, being targeted.

And then in the House, even though there's rhetoric about it, there isn't a majority will in the Republican caucus to go after judges this way.

And that famous case was Alcee Hastings, was impeached in the 1980s, early 1990s, I think.

A judge from Florida.

He was impeached, he was removed from the judgeship.

He promptly went back to Florida.

Ran for Congress.

And spent many years as a Congressman.

So, you know, there's a future after being impeached if you're a federal judge.

- I was gonna say, Professor Schiller is correct, but Thomas Jefferson also feared a unitary executive.

He was concerned about the all power being vested in the executive branch and he was worried about that.

That's why if you go to DC, Jefferson, the memorial, is looking at the White House, right?

So, this is where we're moving.

The courts are the only things that were standing in between a all powerful executive, and they're doing a good job.

They're doing what they're supposed to be doing.

And to have a president of the United States, to have high ranking politicians say they should be impeached for the decisions that they're making is just wrong.

It's dangerous.

And I'm actually very proud to be a lawyer in this moment because lawyers are doing what they need to be doing.

They're standing up and supporting the Constitutional system that we have.

- I think the larger issue, though, it's interesting that, I mean, we didn't even get to the thing with the Signal chat.

You talk to some people, we're so divided now.

It's almost like you read a movie reviewer's review sometimes and you say, "Did he go to the movie that I went to?

I don't think that at all."

So, you talk to some people who say, "That wasn't classified," or "What Trump's doing great".

And then you have half the country that's appalled.

And so, I mean, that may never change, but I just see the division about how things are just so divided right now in terms of how we view things.

Some people think that's not a problem at all going after a federal judge right now.

- First off, Judge Roberts agrees with right now, it's not the right time to go after and try to impeach anybody.

And I agreed that I don't think judges should ever fear for their life, which is why there was such an uproar when you had Maxine Waters and you had Chuck Schumer going out there telling Gorsuch and all these, everyone in the Supreme court, that we see you, we're coming after you, we're gonna make sure that you know, that right there I didn't hear any outcry from anybody about all of that.

However, when it comes from the executive side of things, people have a tendency to lose it.

Now, the whole Signal thing.

Again, people who are in the know, know what the information is.

My question is this again, going 30,000 foot, is that journalist, as soon as he got information on there and he got on there, he should have messaged and say, "I don't know if I should be on here."

But, he didn't.

What he did, is he sat and he waited.

And he wanted to see what else was coming on.

In other words, he was snooping, knowing he wasn't supposed to be there.

But nobody's bringing this up.

Everyone's talking about, they're talking about this, talking about that.

Pete Hegseth, who already said that there was nothing on there.

Donald Trump, and he'll hyperbolize, he'll get a lot of stuff out there, saying it's this and it's that and whatever it is.

But, Pete Hegseth was the one that is in the know on what information's gonna be coming out.

It wasn't like, unlike in Afghanistan, where nobody knew what was going on and that whole debacle got 13 service members killed.

However, this one was a huge success, is exactly what they happened.

But, what about the journalists who sat there waiting for something to come out, so that he can turn around and go, "Look at this.

I got information.

I'm gonna gotcha these guys right off the bat."

- What about that?

- It's like blaming a woman who's the victim of domestic violence, the violence committed against her.

That's ridiculous.

The journalist, these guys made a mistake.

Let's just admit it.

- A reporter's job is to get the information.

- And be sneaky about it.

- Sneaky?

They added him.

- He was on the contacts.

- And he should have said, "Hey guys, I don't think I should be on here."

- Trump said, he broke into the chat.

He broke into the chat.

They added him in.

- Look, in the end of the day, here's what I said on Tuesday with Gene, and I'll say it again.

People make this mistake all the time.

Who has not accidentally put somebody on their email, or WhatsApp, or text chain, and it's not your whatever.

I mean, these people are human and this happens.

So, I actually did not lose my mind over this.

And I read all of the exchanges.

And I thought it was fascinating.

And I would read the exchanges, so people can see JD Vance is a sharp guy.

Like, you read those, what he wrote, and you think, this guy's smart.

Like, you may not like him, you may like him.

I don't know.

But, when he was sort of doing the analysis of it, I mean, he was making really good points.

And I thought, actually, I shouldn't know all this.

I shouldn't, I mean, Hegseth made a mistake.

You don't put the entire military plan in a Signal chat.

Like, that's ridiculous.

But, when you read it, you see what they're thinking.

You see what the rationale is.

You actually have tremendous transparency about why we did what we did.

So, I encourage everyone to read them.

Do I think I should have had access to that?

No.

But, read it because it actually gives you, I know this is gonna sound crazy, more confidence in how they're making decisions about military intervention rather than less.

- All right, I'm making an executive decision, because I want to keep this going.

We're gonna dispense with outrageous 'cause I want to hear what you have to say on this.

And then I have a question for you, sir.

We have three minutes left.

- Well, I think that Nikki Haley was right when she was running for president.

She said, wherever Trump goes, it's chaos, and this is chaos.

- [Joe] Controlled chaos.

- I'll give her that, controlled chaos.

This is chaos.

And to me, it's amateur hour.

There really is now a concern that the reason why they were using Signal is because that's not automatically archived under the National Archives Act, and that's a problem.

- [Wendy] I've heard that.

- We are either a nation of laws or we're not.

And if they're trying to avoid, you know, of having this being archived for later history purposes or for whatever, that's a huge problem.

- Although, that's bipartisan.

You have to admit.

Like, Democratic administrations use side chats too.

- I am not saying its wrong, but this is a military operation where you're telling where the bombs are gonna drop, what kind of weapons we're gonna use.

To me, it's amateur hour.

I'm not in the military.

I respect those people.

I've never served in the military.

But to me, it did put people at risk, I'm sorry.

- Joe, wouldn't it be refreshing if you heard somebody in the administration just say, and just even from a public relations standpoint, "this was a mistake?"

"We shouldn't have done it.

We shouldn't have added him.

This is a bad look and we're gonna figure it out."

Instead, the commander-in-chief, who has never admitted to anything wrong in his entire life, tells Mike Waltz and all these people, "We're gonna back you up.

Just keep moving on.

Don't admit anything."

- No, I thought Trump kind of said something like, well, he's a good guy, he won't do it again.

I mean, it wasn't like it was a mistake, but he did make it clear that it would not happen again.

- Well, and he said, I would do it in a locked room, in a skiff.

- Well, I thought Trump actually in the beginning was sort of like, pretty, like I made a mistake.

And clearly sending the signal, if you make it again, you're gone, which we believe because Trump will do that.

So, I thought in the end, the president, and then he went a little, you know, crazy about the reporter, but I thought he handled.

President was like, did what I expected him to do, backed his people up.

And then he said, don't do it again.

- You get the last 30 seconds.

How about that?

I'm magnanimous today.

I'll give you the last word.

- The last word.

Listen, could it be refreshing that somebody just says, you know what, they screwed up.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, that could potentially be it.

But, I'm more on the bullish market.

I'm the guy that you got to get stuff done, just get it done.

When you are looking at doing the work, it's gonna be, in this world right now, is if you turn on CNN, MSNBC, any one of those left-leaning media outlets, all they're going to do is they're talking about this Signal and they're totally dismissing everything else that's going on great in the country.

- All right, what did I tell you before?

This was gonna be a very quick show with this panel.

So, thank you all coming.

Mike, good to see you.

And Joe and Wendy.

Folks, it's something new every week, so we hope you join us.

We hope you have a good week ahead and come back here next week as 'A Lively Experiment' continues.

Have a great weekend.

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