- [Jim] This week on A Lively Experiment, primary day is in the rear view mirror.

Now it's on to the November elections.

Plus the first and potentially only debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

- [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 in Rhode Island, PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, political contributor Don Roach.

Sue Cienki, national Committee Woman for the Rhode Island Republican Party.

And Bob Walsh, former executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

Hello and welcome to Lively.

It is great to be back with you again this week.

We will have a breakdown of the presidential debate a little later.

But first, closer to home voters across Rhode Island went to the polls to decide more than a dozen general assembly primary races.

The turnout statewide was just over 10%, and the race that got the most attention, a rare Republican primary for mayor of Cranston.

So let's begin with the unofficial mayor of Cranston here.

Don, you've been a long time involved in city politics.

I think what surprised me and maybe some others, was the margin of victory for Mayor Hopkins.

He was running against state representative Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung beat her by 18 points.

- Yeah, I don't know if the margin is as surprising as it would be for me a few months ago, just because the race became so contentious.

And Mayor Hopkins has been in the city for years.

He's very well known, his family's well known.

And Mike Farina tried a similar strategy against him a few years ago and it didn't work.

And it also didn't work with Fenton-Fung, it became more about corruption and less about like the issues that are faced in Cranstonians.

And that's where I think she may have gone awry.

- Yeah, I think it became a nasty campaign on her part.

I think that Ken held back a little.

He's very well liked, he's very popular.

I think it was a colossal error on her point to even run against the incumbent mayor that's very well liked.

There was no upside to her running at all.

She was in a seat that she could have stayed in.

But then people started looking at her record, what did she vote for when she was in the general assembly?

And it was not Republican ideals, it was more on the left liberal side, her voting record.

So I think that that exposed what she was actually all about and it was just a colossal error on her part.

- Yeah, and in that race against Mattiello, when she picked him off, I mean that was really kind of the highlight at that point.

There really wasn't a track record to look at, you know?

You could argue without having issues put her on your neck.

- Right, and with the Speaker Mattiello, I mean you had, Steve Frias had had run against him twice and he was under investigation.

So there was a lot of things, he wasn't gonna survive no matter, he was very weakened by the time he went up for that election.

So no one, anybody could have beaten him at that point, but she did have a track record.

I think it was a mistake.

I think now for both of the Fungs, I think the telephone call has rung and it's the private sector is answering.

Maybe they need to get outta politics for a while.

- You know, since I am the only Democrat on the panel, I just sit back and watch Republican primaries, especially when they're divisive.

When the Republican elephants fight, the Republican grass gets trampled.

- You really haven't gotten to see that for a while - [Jim] We haven't gotten (indistinct) for a long time.

- Yeah, there was one, and you know, Steve Lafayette a Republican opponent and the mayor's always way back when and occasionally there are Republican primaries, but they're few and far between.

I think it helped Robert Ferri, who was the Democratic candidate for mayor in Cranston.

'cause I think there were enough hard feelings in the race.

Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung on election night did not endorse Mayor Hopkins.

I'm sure she's thinking long and hard about whether she can, given some of the issues that she raised, the car thing and all of that, that are still unanswered and they have to be answered.

I mean, you can say they're political attacks, but the press deserves, and the public deserves real answers to those questions wherever they may lead.

And Robert Ferri, who had been a Republican to get elected to the council citywide was a big vote getter.

I'm giving him some advice to the extent I advise a lot of Democrats.

My advice in the primary is stay out of it.

Let them pick on each other.

But the real advice for most municipal positions, there's not a democratic or Republican way to run a city.

You listen to the people, you listen closely to what they have to say, and you respond.

And you don't play favorites.

If somebody needs their sidewalk repaired or their road plowed or basic municipal services, it have to be responsive.

Whether they have your sign on the lawn or someone else's sign on the lawn.

That's so easy.

- Right, you represent everyone.

- I've always thought that local races should be nonpartisan.

- Yeah, I think that Ken has done a good job.

There aren't a lot of complaints about how the city has been run.

So I think he's got the lead going into the general election.

And you're right Bob, Ferri used to be a Republican.

- [Jim] So there'll be questions about?

- we're glad to have him.

We always are recruiting.

- You can have him, you can have Dick and Liz Cheney too.

Take them.

- Well, we'll get to that later.

- Well, I never thought I'd hear that, but okay.

(laughing) - I want Don you know.

- I think Mayor Hopkins has, you know, he's run the city the way I would've expected him to run the city in terms of he's like a people's mayor.

Have there been instances or do I have questions about some of his decisions?

Yes, any reasonable person would.

But the thing about Mayor Hopkins, he has the city's best interest in mind.

And I know Bob well as well.

And Bob also has the best interest.

Yeah, Bob Ferri, the city's interest in mind as well.

However, I don't think this primary is going to hurt Mayor Hopkins in the general election.

Like I said, we had another contentious battle several years ago and Mayor Hopkins won handily and I think he's gonna be a very difficult candidate to beat come November.

- You know, just as an aside, I don't know ultimately what Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung's gonna do, but I find it kind of refreshing that you don't immediately endorse, you rip each other apart and then you say, oh, I'm gonna support this person who I've been.

So ultimately she may be, but I think it's a little disingenuous.

- Well I think given the nature of that race, that's true.

If this is a race where- - But I mean Nikki Bailey to go national I mean- - If it's an open seat race and we both want, well you can be a Democrat for this scenario.

We're both running for an open seat.

We're not attacking each other.

We just have a different position on the issues.

And then you say, all right, I support you- - Or you could be a Republican?

- But it would've been very hard.

Okay, sure, all right, right 'cause they need recruit.

- You know, when you're in politics, you can't take anything personally.

You have to have an alligator skin.

And if you stick to the policies, what are your policies?

Are they moving the city forward?

That's fair game.

I think when you make the attacks personal, I think that's when you cross the line, it's a harder thing to get to.

- This is gonna be an interesting race also because it's in a presidential election year and I'm expecting a fairly sizable democratic turnout statewide and in Cranston.

And I think that the Harris team for presidents is going to prevail in Cranston.

And that turnout could help Robert Ferri in the mayors place.

- Any other races statewide that you were looking at, the Senate president prevailed third time against Lenny Cioe.

There were some local races.

What were you looking at?

- Well I think when you look at the races, because there were several Democratic primaries, the power of incumbency, there was only one incumbent that actually lost and it was Ed Cardillo.

- Yeah, Kelsey Coletta in a rematch.

- [Jim] Right, right, right.

- And he lost to someone that's progressive.

Is that gonna play well in Johnston?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I think Johnston is a much more conservative democratic area.

And if you look at how Republicans have actually done in Johnston, statewide, they've won that seat.

I mean President Trump did win in Johnston in 2016 and 2020.

So I think it's gonna be an interesting race to see.

There are a couple open seats.

You have Senator Lombardo and Lombardi who both left.

So those open seats.

We're looking at Jenn Caputi in the Senate district in Cranston.

I think she's got a good shot there.

And also Karen Gorman who's running up in Johnston because it is a Republican leaning.

- Yeah, that's a tough one for you guys.

- You know, I just wanna look at people and say, are you happy with the way things are being run in Rhode Island?

I mean, I can't believe when we talked about- - Well apparently 10 out of the 11, nine out of the 10 races they say yes 'cause they stayed with the incumbent?

- Well they stayed with the incumbent, but again, low voter turnout.

I mean you look at in District 9 up in Providence and you know the representative Enrique is saying, wow, you know, I won, thank you.

Well 606 people came out to vote.

That's 4% of the electorate.

There are 14,000 residents there.

- But you work, you understand what terms likely to be you managed to your number.

He did a great job, he's great organizer.

- Well worked, and he had two people running against him.

Javier Sanchez and Anastasia jump back in.

- Well, no, he Sanchez was- - [Jim] Santos Xavier?

- Santos.

(talking indistinctly) What else were you looking at?

- Sorry.

One thing that I was thinking about was just the low voter turnout.

I think people are really focused on the presidential race really.

I don't think they're, to Sue's point, I don't think people in Rhode Island are, at least with the General Assembly, are as upset, let's say as they have been in the past.

I think people are very focused on who's gonna be the next president of the United States because that is definitely gonna have an impact on our daily lives.

I think that's probably the cause for the low voter turnout.

I do want to take issue with something Sue said about Fenton-Fung in terms of Fenton-Fung is your prototypical Republican.

How she was stylized as potentially more moderate with some of the things she was accused of voting for is just interesting to me because she has always been pretty steadfast in her principles and values.

And I think one thing she's been like her or not has been, she is who she is and she didn't endorse Mayor Hopkins.

And I think that was the right thing for her to do, to take a second, reflect, pause and decide what to do later.

But I definitely don't think that in her time as a general assembly person, she's shifted to the left.

- [Jim] Final thought on that?

- Well I think that she has, she was the only Republican who did not vote for the Republican minority leader to be speaker of the house.

She went and voted for the Democrat who doesn't need her vote.

She voted for the Green New Deal in Rhode Island.

She voted to give tuition to illegals.

So those are not Republican values.

- [Jim] And so in a Republican primary, that's gonna be an issue.

- That in Republican primary that gonna hurt her.

- [Jim] In a general election it might be different.

- In a general election, it might not hurt her.

- Quickly final thought.

- Yeah, I would just say, doesn't that maybe reflect that she's willing to work with people across the aisle, which I think we need more of in our state not less.

- Well come on over to the Robert Ferri team.

All you Barbara Fenton-Fung people.

There were a few other races quickly.

'Cause I know you want mayor's race in Woonsocket, John Ward and the incumbent now coz Chris Beauchamp inherited the seat, so to speak, that round two will be interesting.

And of course the Democratic primary for Josh Miller seat was big turnout and very close race that Lamos Vargas won.

But that was Dorell Brown came very close and everybody acquitted themselves well in that race.

And that had big turnout.

Everybody worked hard on it.

They got their people out to the polls.

There were places where you worked the race, you realize what your potential vote is and you get them out.

So commendations to everyone involved in those races for turning folks out.

And some start with a head of steam and then people realize it might not work out.

And then they attenuate.

Val Lawson in East Providence had a primary challenge as she won three to one.

- Okay, a lot going on as usual with the Washington Bridge.

Many developments over the last couple of weeks since we were last with you.

So let's begin with the state.

There was a lot of not protestation, but the DOT took issue with people saying, well we're worried about the weight now on the eastbound side because you're putting six lanes of traffic on.

Well it turns out some engineers at DOT were a little concerned about that last April.

Were beginning to find out.

- Shocking, shocking that you're doubling the weight now on the Washington Bridge and you have to worry about it.

This has been going on for more than 12 years.

Where's the accountability?

That there is no accountability for the engineers saying that we have an issue with this bridge, they're not maintaining it and it's just a farce that now they're going with these construction companies that they're suing.

So what's the ultimate result of that?

The ultimate result is the bids are gonna come in way higher than they should 'cause those companies wanna cover the cost when they get sued by the state.

So it was great to see that Peter Neronha during the lawsuit is gonna make all that public documents available so everybody could see where it goes.

But ultimately the taxpayers are gonna be, again, holding the bag for government incompetence.

- I know you have Governor McKee's ear.

He seems to be thinking everything's going great.

We're moving toward an RFP.

We had a little bit of a hiccup, but I wonder if there's a disconnect between what the governor thinks and what the rest of the state thinks.

- I wouldn't say he thinks everything's going great.

I think he's in the lousy position of trying to be a cheerleader for people still going to businesses and crossing that bridge every day while dealing with the incredibly frustrating situation that Sue just outlined.

We are suing everybody and anybody who is involved in building bridges at the same time, we're trying to build a new one.

I don't think, and again, I'm partisan on this, I don't think there's enough credit for two things that happened.

Nobody died, we closed a bridge- - Whoa, that's a low- - We closed a bridge, hold on.

We closed a bridge- - Nobody died, yay.

- Before it fell down.

And there been a catastrophic failure of this bridge, had it collapsed even without a person on it, and it had fallen south versus north, 'cause you don't know which way these things are gonna fall, it would've taken out that other bridge and we would have no bridge.

- [Jim] Are you gonna recommend that as a plan in the governor's platform?

- No, no no, because you can't talk about it because it's a long explanation.

- [Jim] Theme key, nobody died.

- Yeah, but it is the truth of it.

This is a phenomenal inconvenience for a significant portion of the state of Rhode Island, but it wasn't a disaster.

And either in loss of life or in loss of infrastructure on the other side.

And I do have the concern, when you double the weight on what's there, it's gonna shorten the useful life of it.

And there will be accountability.

Somebody messed this up and it was much further back in time than when Dan McKee became governor.

- When I run for office again, I'm hiring Bob as a consultant for my image for sure.

Because to me this is a colossal disaster and continues to be a disaster.

You've got residents who are complaining about the noise at night, alright.

- [Bob] Right 'cause they're taking down the old bridge and they didn't give them any heads up that it was coming.

It's just a pile (indistinct).

- They're not answering their phone calls and it's just like we're taking a disastrous situation.

Sorry Bob, and it worse and compounding it, - [Sue] And making it worse.

- And would that give anybody any- - [Sue] Confidence.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Confidence in moving forward.

- Things are gonna do better.

So to me, I would say to just add to Bob's point, nobody died da da da da, yet.

- Yet, nobody died yet.

- And so how can Rhode Islanders be confident?

I just don't think they can.

So I don't think governor can take any credit for anything.

- Well, and we're paying a $3 million bonus, speed bonus to take the bridge down when we don't even have an RFP yet.

- If we had a billion dollars, we would already be building a new bridge on the other side.

But we don't, because that's the way to do it.

Ignore the one that we have to take down and start building immediately on the other side, but it will cost twice as much.

- You know, the old Fran commercial, pay me now, pay me later.

And there were reports that said, we all know this is out in the public, reports that said we could have fixed that bridge or at least not gotten to where we were now.

Eight, 10, $20 million.

Now we're looking at five, six, seven, 10 years ago, fifteen years ago.

- Okay, and that was well before this guy.

- I get that, but I mean- But the people you know at DOT, nobody has lost the paycheck.

nobody's been suspended for, nobody's lost their job.

- By the way, that's an issue I hope comes up in the accountability study.

And this is again, prior administration.

- We're never gonna see the accountability.

- Why do we continue to outsource jobs from DOT to the outside world so that there isn't going to be accountability.

I mean, there was a whole, and that wasn't the only department where we outsourced a lot of work and now we're paying for it.

- Well, interesting enough, today the governor is having a press conference for a $53 million Green Bond to build more offshore wind turbines.

And I'm thinking fix the bridge.

If you want $53 million from the public on the November ballot, fix the bridge.

That is really gonna have a daily impact on all Rhode Islanders.

- Government doesn't stop in all other categories 'cause we're working on one category.

- They should stop on that category 'cause it's useless.

I don't like the wind turbines.

It is killing marine life.

- I like the winds turbines, go with them.

- Yeah, good, 'cause you don't like whales.

- All right, we're gonna do a whole other show on the wind turbines.

Let's focus.

- Yeah, but I am focused because they're asking people for money for energy production and you've got a bridge.

Now look what happened this morning.

There was an accident on I95.

I mean it that happens on a daily basis, but because you only have one side of the bridge, it exacerbates the problem.

- What would you do differently?

How would you build it faster?

How would you build a new bridge faster?

How would you tear down the existing bridge faster given all the concerns of the noise and damage to the public?

Come up with a better idea.

- I think they've got a PR problem in not communicating well enough.

I think if you tell people like just taking down the bridge, you've gotta tell people what you're doing.

And it seems as if he's kind of lost.

I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen in 2026.

Is he gonna run for reelection?

- Yes.

- Yeah, okay.

He runs for reelection and his theme is gonna be...

But it's gonna impact what's gonna happen.

- [Jim] Last 30 seconds on this- - That it hasn't cost anyone's job is an error.

Like if you do something, if you are the person in charge when this happened, we're not saying it's McKee's fault that the bridge faltered.

But there are people that should be held accountable and should have been held accountable by now.

And why isn't that happening?

So again, there's just no confidence in- - We're suing like 13 different companies to figure out where the liability is.

- But interesting how it was even found out.

It was a young engineer that didn't work for the DOT.

So it was found out by an outside agency- - Because they outsourced so many jobs.

- Yeah, but they outsourced it and it was a young engineer that said, you got a problem.

- I wasn't there an old engineer 10 years ago told us- - Well why wasn't there somebody from DOT saying, hey we got a problem here.

- Because they got rid of a lot of those jobs.

- I wanna save time for the presidential debate.

Just remember nobody died, keep that in mind.

- Nobody died, that's gonna be the theme.

Yeah, thank you Don.

- Yeah, exactly, he's amending that.

Okay, if you watched the debate, and all four of us did, you were among the 67 million who actually tuned in for the first and potentially only debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Let's just get a quick lightning round, I mean we get into it but we only have four or five minutes to do this.

Initial thoughts about.

- No notes.

It was mission accomplished for Vice President Harris and her debate performance.

As you know, I've done debate prep with candidates, you know, at the local and state level for 30 years.

And she achieved all her goals.

We saw a future president on that stage, which was goal number one.

And even beyond that, he took the bait on everything.

She played right up against him and he followed her lead down a lot of rabbit holes he never should have done.

- I think she said a lot, no substance with confidence.

And I think you're right, I think he fell for some bait and he had a lot of missed opportunities.

I think she was of course very well prepared.

She was well prepared with standard answers, but no substance with a lot of confidence.

And that's a low bar, she had a low bar.

I think everybody was watching to see how many gaffes that she had and the fact that she was very well rehearsed, shocked people.

And that's a low bar for president.

Nobody died, nobody died.

- Your guy who wants president of the United States, said that people are eating cats and dogs.

- Guess what, and that's a cultural thing.

People do that.

- I'm defending the bridge.

She's defending eating cats and dogs.

(talking indistinctly) - Whether it happened or not, people do do that.

- The simple answer is she crushed him in the debate.

That's the simple answer.

And I think I saw Trump doesn't wanna have another debate, which is a good strategic move because she would beat him again in another debate.

And she took the approach that was the right approach against someone who is, for me a fear monger as I believe Donald Trump is, is you just stay above the fray and you make the other person look like the lunatic.

And she did that very effectively.

Still, I think the big thing that I found coming from the debate is that 14% of the people are reconsidering their vote.

That's a big number in a very tight race.

It doesn't seem like a big number, but in a really tight race that's big.

And Trump can't afford to have another debate performance like that where you have someone like Sue, former Republican chairwoman of the party really doing her best job to spin it in the debate in a good way when you really can't because his performance against her was that bad in my opinion.

- No, I think that they should have another debate.

I would like to see her do more interviews.

I think it's such a shortened- - [Jim] I think that's gonna happen.

- Yeah, I think it's a shortened- - I think she knows that has to happen.

- Yeah, it's such a shortened election cycle for her.

And when she ran in 2020, she was out early because people saw her as someone very far left.

And I think she's gotta really identify and stop stealing her policies from President Trump.

- You know what's gonna get him to debate?

Every day She's gonna go, Donald Trump is afraid to debate me.

And the chicken things.

Her media team is really like, they're not Biden's media team.

These people are like really going after him and that's gonna trigger him into another debate.

- Yeah, I think he has to.

- I think he should.

- I think he should.

- But I don't know if he can control himself again as much as he is hard to, I imagine he is hard to prepare for debate.

If I'm preparing him for debate, if either one of you or the Republican nominee for president, I'd say, look, these are the two issues that play well with the undecided voters in the seven states you need.

And these are the two issues they're going to use.

So you've gotta de-emphasize my issues and play up your issues.

Not talk about cats and dogs, not talk about how many people were in attendance at a rally.

But he can't help himself 'cause his ego, you know, by the rules that we played with his debate performance was so bad he should drop out.

- He's not a politician.

And it's so funny because- - [Jim] He's not a politician.

(talking indistinctly) - He's not what I would say is a typical politician.

He's not a career politician.

And it's interesting, I was getting text messages from people that were saying she's not answering the question.

And I said, that's good debate prep.

- [Bob] Yes, that's good debate prep.

- You answer the question that you want and that's what she's doing.

(talking indistinctly) - [Jim] First question was that you're better of than you were four years ago.

- And she didn't answer that question because that's it, out of the past 16 years, right, the president, 16 years, 12 of those have been democratic presidents and there's only four that we've had peace and prosperity- - It's dangerous with- - That's what he should have focused in on.

Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

And the answer is no.

- With more than seven weeks to go, we won't be back on before the election.

- I think we should be.

- We should be, 309 electoral votes.

- We should have our own show, we need our own show.

- Let's do this.

We gotta quickly get to outrageous and kudos.

Please keep them tight.

What do you have this week?

- So this is a delayed outrage or kudo, but this is just to Mayor Hopkins and candidate Ferri, please keep the campaign above the fray.

Let's make it about the issues.

And I'll be back to say if it's an outrage or a kudo depending on how things go.

- [Jim] Wow, you are flexible.

You can go either way.

- Exactly.

- Bob, what you you have?

- This is kudo and he hates the recognition.

But my very good friend George Nee is retiring as president of the AFL CIO.

When I started in the labor movement in 1992, he was already a veteran.

He served in every role with the AFL in Rhode Island, executive director and then secretary treasurer and then president.

I was lucky enough to work with him, learn from him, see his expertise in all things labor and all things politics at the State House.

I absolutely think the world of him, he hates being recognized.

He doesn't want a retirement party.

So I'm using this opportunity to say on behalf of 80,000 union members in Rhode Island and a million Rhode Islanders, thank you George for everything you have done for all of us for so many years.

- It's like all those people who say, I don't want an obituary, I don't want a funeral, just let me go quietly.

So anyhow, you got the last minute.

- Okay, two things.

First, recognition of a life well lived in the criminal defense arena.

That's Robert Mann passed away.

He really was an advocate for indigent criminals and did an excellent job.

So I'd like to recognize that.

And the second thing is the $53 million Green Bond, which is nothing green, not clean, not green, industrialization of the ocean.

You're killing marine life, you're killing the fishing industry, you're killing tourism.

We are the ocean state.

We don't wanna be the ocean state littered with wind turbines washing up on your shore.

Every week I've said that.

- Quick story, Bob Mann, of course I covered the Craig Price trial and other ones and he always came in a disheveled mess, but everybody kind of knew that was who he was.

His tie would always flip over.

And I was in TV at the time and I was like, Bob, I'm sorry I gotta do this before we do the interview, I'd flip it and he'd go, "You know it's not gonna stay that way."

And I'm like, what are your magic ties that flip around?

But it's a big loss, he was great.

Alright folks, that is all the time we have.

We appreciate you joining us.

Don, good to see you, and Sue and Bob come back next week.

We will have a full analysis.

We are heading, as Bob said, 55 days until the election, seven weeks.

We'll see what happens locally as the races begin to gear up.

If you don't see us Friday at 7:00 or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively or wherever you get your favorite podcast, you can take us along with you.

Come back next week as A Lively Experiment continues.

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