- [Jim] This week on "A Lively Experiment," Providence School officials finally admit that their computer system has been hacked.

Now what?

And the McKee administration continues to dig in, refusing to release some information about the Washington Bridge.

- [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 with the analysis, Providence Journal reporter, Antonio Noori Farzan, Joe Powers, chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, and political contributor, Pablo Rodriguez.

Welcome to Lively.

I'm Jim Hummel and it's great to have you with us this week.

After two weeks of having little to say about an internet outage in the Providence School District, the superintendent finally admitted on Wednesday what many people already suspected, the system had been hacked and personal information potentially compromised.

It put administrators in a difficult position trying to balance providing families with information while also trying to figure out how to attack the problem.

Antonia, we had a little discourse on this before the show.

It is tough, but it makes you realize how reliant we are now in schools on the internet.

- Totally, that was the most shocking thing to me about this.

I mean, I'm not that old.

I graduated from high school in 2007, but back in my day the teacher wrote stuff on the blackboard.

You took notes in your notebook.

If the wifi went out, you would never have noticed.

And now apparently teachers are on their personal hotspots from their phone all day just be able to teach a class.

I mean, it really makes you wonder if we should be this reliant on technology.

- What about the issue of that balance between the administration?

I mean, because the reporters I think, knew what you know and what you can report are two different things.

But it's ransomware and they want a ransom and do you pay it?

Do you not?

You've got thousands of kids or hundreds of kids, obviously.

- Yeah, and the longer this went on, it started seeming like, okay, this is a real serious attack and not just, you know, a temporary fluke, some kind of outage.

But it's been really frustrating and stressful for families, definitely.

I mean, I haven't even been covering this personally, but I've been getting a lot of messages from people I know who have kids in Providence schools, just readers even asking, you know, can you give us any clarity on what's going on?

We're getting nothing from the district.

Obviously, whenever there's a vacuum, the rumor mill fills that vacuum.

So people are wondering, you know, has personal information about my child, has my information, is that online somewhere?

- [Jim] Mr. Rodriguez?

- Well, let me tell you, if you think it's bad to run a school with a hacked computer, try to run a hospital or try to run a national billing system for hospitals and providers, which is what happened, you know, six months ago here in the United States and complete, complete shutdown on some hospitals and practices that could not see patients simply because they didn't have the information.

This is something serious that we need to take very seriously in terms of the protections that we have to have for all our systems, not just the schools.

Schools, hospitals, election systems.

Everything needs to be protected to such a level that, you know, it's gonna cost money and I don't know where it's gonna come from.

- Yeah, and you know, and I agree with them but I think it's gonna get worse.

The problem that I think we run into is not only do we not have the proper internet security anywhere it goes, is that people get too reliant on one individual thing 'cause it's the ease of use and it just gets more simplistic for 'em.

From the reporting, getting a single source information is probably not the best way to tell a story.

Same thing here is that we have a single source that's actually providing this internet.

And the internet that's coming in can be hacked by any of these people.

And it's not even a cottage industry anymore.

It's a professional multi-billion dollar company and corporations out there that can provide this hacking and hold 'em for ransom.

And that's what they're gonna do.

Do I think we need to go back to books?

I would love that.

(panelists laughing) I think that would be fantastic.

- Old school.

- Absolutely.

- [Jim] Right?

- And from a father of a daughter who is a high school teacher at this given moment, I champion the fact that she just recently, she's all excited.

She bought a a cell phone pocket holder that when the kids walk in the class, the cell phones go in the pocket.

- [Pablo] Yeah, that's a new thing.

- And there is no internet in the classroom whatsoever from their phones.

- The scary part about it is that regulation is so haphazard right now.

So for example, the SEC requires companies four days notification, you know, after a hack, after they discover a hack.

HIPAA says 60 days.

- 60 days.

- 60 days.

And for a hospital or for a provider to report that the information has been compromised.

Here in Rhode Island, the law is 45 days, technically.

Unless there's an investigation that involves criminality.

And that is an exception.

- So far.

- So in other words, it's whatever, whenever the administrators decide to report.

- And the thing we all probably wanna know as reporters is how much would you pay these hackers, right?

As the ransom.

And they never wanna say, I guess because the idea is that it gives hackers an example, but it's tax money.

- Where does that show up on the bottom line?

- [Antonia] Exactly, it's public record, yeah.

- Alright, so we have school books, sports, hacker payoff, right on the bottom line.

You know, when the Equifax breach happened, whenever that was all those years ago, we talked about this on the show.

They said, you know, 93 million people's information, that actually gave me comfort.

I thought they got a lot of people to get to me.

A lot of those people save that information.

They play the long game 'cause when the pandemic money went out that's when they used, they created the fake accounts.

- Yeah, and having the lack of security to guideline everything is just ridiculous to me.

If you're gonna utilize something, a tool such as the internet, you should have the tools to actually fix the tool that you actually have.

To go back on what Pablo said is, to me, what he just rattled off was 60 day notification.

90 day notification.

To me that's bureaucracy at its finest and it's job security, really what it is.

It should be something that's immediate and they'll say, oh, we're not going to report it immediately.

Simply because of the fact that we don't want people to panic.

So we're gonna do our investigation to it.

And they're really not doing much of anything.

It's just who can handle this to go to this, to go to this, and how many people can touch it and get it completely corrupted so that we can say, "It's out of our hands.

We couldn't handle this."

- And it's almost like the pandemic, those days are lost if those kids are not, you know, it's gonna be like, okay, well you know, we really can't do much today.

Let's wait 'til tomorrow.

When are you gonna get that back, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Either way.

Alright, we've been talking about it every week, the constitutional convention will be question number one on your ballot, along with four other bond issues statewide.

All of us will get to decide on it.

Pablo, (laughs) let me start with you.

I noticed your name in the paper and I thought, oh, is Pablo heading the organized opposition as he did 10 years ago?

It was a reference to your opposing this 10 years ago.

You have no official involvement this year.

- None whatsoever.

- [Jim] But you do have some thoughts on it, don't you?

- Oh, I do have some thoughts that like I had 10 years ago and like I had 20 years ago and like I had 30 years ago.

- [Jim] And 40 years ago when you were just coming to this market, right?

- That is correct.

That is correct.

When I first became medical director of Planned Parenthood, I was heading the effort against stop 14, which was the 14th amendment that was included.

That was the last time there was a constitutional convention action.

- How have things changed in 2024?

I know there's discussion about internet, dark money, special interest groups, but hasn't that always been around except maybe for the internet part?

- No.

- No?

- No, no, no, no, no.

The Supreme Court decisions allowing dark money to really be pulled from all over the country is very, very different now.

And you know, aside from money, I think social media is just so pervasive and so negative in terms of people's perceptions.

I can't tell you how many people think that the vaccine is magnetic, okay?

I mean, something as stupid as that, that the COVID vaccine makes you magnetic.

And every time I was out there in the field talking about the vaccine, that was the first question that people would ask.

So the the fact that you can take a lot of money, put it into social media and change people's attitudes and understanding of what a constitutional convention is, is very dangerous.

If you ask people on the street and the surveys have shown it, what's a Con Con?

People think, oh.

- ComicCon.

- That must be a Caribbean rice dish.

(laughs) They don't know what a constitutional- - Is it?

(panelists laughing) No, no, where are you on this?

- Well obviously, I'd like to see Rhode Island change their ways, like they didn't participate back in the 1700s, and I think it's about time that we actually do it.

What I feel is the bigger thing on this is that everyone screams and cries democracy because they want everyone to have a voice.

This is what actually happens 'cause you have double voter approval on this thing.

It's not the government saying, "Oh, you're doing this and you're not doing this."

This kind of goes right in line with what we've been discussing, is the Inspector General, is making sure we just have an oversight that actually is able to take a look and watch to see what the legislation is doing and see what they're actually putting into place.

And when you have this, it takes away people's opportunities for fearmongering, for one, to talk about simple little local, you know, issues that may be happening here or there.

This is going to be something that's gonna go out for voter approval where people are gonna say, "Yeah, I do like this."

And it gives them the opportunity to actually have a voice inside of this so-called democracy, which it's not, but have an opportunity to do this and a potential for term limits.

Take the people who have actually been in office for far too long and are so little effective to actual constituents in the state and actually start bringing in some fresh new ideas and have new faces in the place.

- [Jim] So what worries you?

- Last time we had a constitutional convention, the convention made 25 amendments, condensed them into 14, just scrunched them together.

So you're gonna have, you know, ballots that are going to read like, you know, the tale of two cities and people are going to read all this and understand all this?

No, they're gonna go to social media and get their information from there.

There's so much money coming into the state from the outside that it's going to be very, very dangerous.

And most importantly, there has been reform here in Rhode Island as a result of the legislature.

The four year terms, the judicial nominating commission, separation of powers, all that came through the legislature.

I believe that what we need to do is really begin engaging the population to get more involved civically and to learn more about the electoral process and throw out those people that are in the legislature that are not doing the job.

We have half of people are running unopposed.

I mean, it's really ridiculous.

That is the real problem.

Not a tool that can be very, very blunt and can really affect LGBT rights, reproductive rights, workers' rights, all sorts of of rights are on the line.

- [Jim] Let me bring Antonia in here.

- Yeah, yeah, I do think it's interesting.

This week we started seeing a couple progressive people, former state Senator Janine Cook and current state Senator Jonathan Acosta saying, you know, okay, if you wanna, not signing off on the idea, but saying if you want us to blindly oppose this, you are gonna have to explain to us how we're gonna get to these other priorities that we want.

Like a constitutional right to education that the legislator has not been willing to act on.

And I've been kind of wondering when that was gonna come up from the left 'cause we've heard I think more from the right saying, you know, making that same argument for stuff like an Inspector General, that this is an opportunity and it's been a bit surprising to me, the level of resistance.

I mean, I used to work as a reporter in Arizona where if you don't, if the legislator isn't doing what you want, you can file a petition.

- Voter initiative.

- Get it on the ballot as a referendum.

Here we don't have that.

So your only other option if the legislator won't act is to do it this way.

- Yeah, I want to jump on one part is, yes, you're right.

And there has been reform, but that's the beauty of a constitution.

It's a living, breathing document.

It's meant and designed to be moved and to actually change with what's going on.

Reform is something that should be happening over time.

And just because there needs to be a lot of information to put out there and the ballots are gonna look big and long, I'm not gonna take anything away from the voters to actually get the opportunity to read through it.

I know we could put it online, but then it would probably crash and we wouldn't be able to look at it anyway.

(Jim laughs) - [Jim] Kids in Providence wouldn't be able to read it, right?

- Yeah, if there was more explanation of exactly what the changes were going to be.

The problem is, is that we try to slide things in a little too quickly.

There's always a Trojan horse of some kind instead of actually handling the one subject, topic that we need to cover.

- [Jim] You mean in the the legislative process?

- In the legislative process.

And we put this all out and it's gonna, I don't think, I think the average Rhode Islander has enough wherewithal to make their own decisions and if it's a long document to read through, then they can.

- But do you really think a question on removing LGBTQ rights or abortion would ever pass in Rhode Island?

- You cannot take that risk.

Last time we had only 18% of people voting for the delegate.

- [Jim] And what was?

It was a 10% cushion.

It was the 55/45 on the question.

- No, no, I know, but what I'm saying is that the elected convention, only 18% of people showed up to vote for the delegates.

So if a super minority of the people elected the people that are gonna write the rules that are going to open the rule book, it is not representative.

You know, when you have that little civic participation and we're not gonna have civic participation if we have a ballot that is three pages long.

- Alright.

To be continued.

Interesting story going on down in North Kingstown, the Quidnessett Country Club basically asked for forgiveness rather than permission probably the best way to put it.

- [Antonia] Yeah.

- Antonia has been covering the story.

They put up a seawall, well you set the table.

- Yeah, that's exactly it.

- Put up a seawall.

- They put up a seawall, did not- - [Jim] Without CRMC approval.

- Did not get permission from CRMC.

A couple months later, CRMC gets a complaint about this, you know, like eight months later and says, "What are you doing?"

And essentially now wants them ideally to take it down and restore that piece of the coastline that was protected waters where even if they'd asked permission, those are a type of water that you're not allowed to build a seawall in because they're undisturbed natural state.

So now they're going to the CRMC and saying, "Oh, can you change the classification "of this type of water so we can ask for permission "to build our seawall?"

So people, you know, Save the Bay, Advocates for Coastal Access, they've been pretty frustrated with the fact that this is even happening.

And more frustration this week, essentially.

The staff, CRMC staff, heard all the arguments on both sides.

You know, there's a public meeting where everyone got to weigh in.

They went through the petition and they basically came out and said, "No, you shouldn't do this."

And the subcommittee of the council sat down on Tuesday and said, "Well actually we wanna hear more from the country club, "so we're not gonna make a decision.

"We're gonna put this off and let them give a presentation."

And I do see, I should say their argument, which does make sense, is that a lot of stuff, the CRMC, a lot of decisions CRMC has have made recently have gotten kicked to the court.

Someone challenges it and then the court says, "You guys messed up," and sends it back to the CRMC or overturns it.

- And this is not the first time the council has disagreed with the staff.

And so it goes to the larger issue of what do we do with CRMC?

The people on the council are not really experts in.

- They're not.

They're not.

I mean, if I build a seawall on my property, you know, against the rules, my wall will be taken down in two seconds, okay?

This is about influence and power, you know, and when you have professionals that are going to be determining one of the most existential threats that we have, which is, you know, global warming with increasing the levels of the ocean, we need to have people that are competent in making these decisions.

You can't have political appointees making this decision.

It is too important.

It is too dangerous.

And CRMC needs a complete revamping.

- Yeah, and I agree.

And the political appointees, I mean they prioritize power over protecting the environment.

What they really should be focused on and what's actually truly happening that's actually affecting Rhode Island right now, which is like your wind turbines out there.

When you have dead whales, you've got dead dolphins, you've got dead fish, you've got particles of fiberglass that are floating up on shore.

Half the times you look at them, they're not even working, they're not even moving and all they wanna do, and very rarely does the CRCM get it right at any given time.

It's always like passing it off to somebody else and they come back and say, "Well, you're wrong here."

It's simply because they're not professionals when it comes to doing this thing.

And what they should be doing is focusing on something that's actually gonna keep Rhode Island an ocean state and actually protect the oceans.

- There's been discussion in the legislature about should you bring it, and it's a good discussion.

Should it come under the wing of the governor's office?

Should it be like a cabinet level position or it's a quasi agency now?

I think there might be a solution of, like Joe said, if you brought people on who were a little bit more in tune with the environment, right?

- Right, right.

People who are experts.

I mean, or even really, I mean, I can say sometimes, you've sat through these meetings and sometimes you see people sitting up there asking questions where it's like, oh my God, if you read what was in your packet, this was answered.

So, but yeah.

So I don't think necessarily having people who are amateurs are bad things, but yeah, there's been a lot of frustration.

- Do your homework.

- Yeah, do your homework.

- Alright.

You know, it wouldn't be a show without a little talk on the Washington Bridge.

Where do we begin, Mr.

Powers?

I won't even set it up.

I would just, Joe said to me, Joe emailed me, he said, "We could do an entire show on the Washington Bridge."

I said, "Well that's true every week," - [Joe] Yeah.

- But where are you on this now?

- It's not even, you know, I'm mistakenly put out a tweet a couple of days ago that talked about it being a comedy show, but quite honestly, it's not.

It's pretty pathetic and I think I said to you yesterday, it's the worst written opera ballot comedy that's ever been out there.

It's because, you know, whomever it is that we're gonna sue because you're the one that caused the issue in the first place.

I shouldn't say cause.

You're the one who didn't discover the issue or take care of the issue.

We're gonna put you in charge of demolition.

Oh, by the way, do me a favor.

All those broken bits and pieces that you didn't fix before, make sure you hold onto those and give 'em to us so we can actually take a look at 'em.

It's farcical, it is a joke.

And if anyone thinks differently, then they're misreading the entire situation.

This unfortunately does go back to what Ashley Kalus had said way back in '22, is that there's a no plan Dan in place.

- Way back in '22.

- Way back in '22.

That was two years ago, so Pablo gets it, but my point being is that there's zero plan that's here.

Let's hurry up, let's wait.

Let's get a skeleton out there right now where this thing is just literally hanging and teetering off the side of a bridge.

And now the other side with the reports of the eastbound lane that's having issues and westbound lane having issues.

The idea is that there's zero plan going forward.

We're gonna sue these people, which is, it's all fake.

We're gonna sue these people and we're gonna wait 'til long enough, 'til we get everything finished and then turn around and suddenly these lawsuits are gonna fall apart.

I really hope that the governor doesn't.

- [Jim] Or they're gonna settle and we're never gonna find out what happened.

- And they'll settle for, it's gonna be, you know, teacup and that's about it.

And that's all you're gonna have.

The idea behind this is that the day of reckoning should have happened already.

Not a single person has been fired.

Lemme say it again, not a single person has been fired, but according to some people who have been on this show, at least nobody died, which is the line that I heard somebody say at one point.

The thing is this is they champion themselves the fact that they saved over 90,000 lives because they found the issue.

Technically, they put 90,000 lives in danger of actually dying and it's ridiculous to me.

- We gotta give Joe decaf before the next show.

- [Joe] I haven't had coffee yet.

(panelists laughing) - [Jim] We'll come back in an hour.

- Listen, the emphasis has been on who to blame as opposed to relieving the suffering.

You know, businesses are suffering.

People are suffering every day as a result of this.

The greatest example is the bridge in Baltimore.

You know, where the governor said, "You know what?

"We're not gonna wait for the federal government.

"We're not gonna wait for the lawyers.

"We're gonna get this done."

- [Jim] And only 35,000 people cross that every day.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Imagine if- - Any deaths?

Anybody die?

- [Jim] Nobody died.

Nobody died.

- But imagine, you know, if you sue a doctor, okay?

For malpractice and then you go back to that doctor and say, "Listen, I need another surgery."

You know, that's what we're doing with these companies.

You know, the same companies that are supposedly fixing the bridge are getting sued for the bridge.

You know, it's like for their average Joe, no pun intended, you know, it's like they don't know what the heck is going on.

People lose confidence in government because of these kinds of things.

- Yeah, I think my coworker Mark Reynolds had a story this week that I think really encapsulated what a mess this is.

So he reported, if you've driven by, you've probably seen the tow trucks that are stationed there all the time.

So he found out we've spent 1.4 million on having the tow trucks there on call 24 hours at this.

(Jim laughs) So on one hand you look at that and you're like, what a waste of money.

But then on the other hand, you know, if any of us were in traffic because a car broke down of rush hour there and then you get stuck on the bridge for hours, you'd be wondering, you'd be pretty frustrated and you'd be wondering, well why didn't the state have someone on call to deal with the situation?

So you kind of can't win either way, but it just, I guess we're just gonna keep bleeding money on this until it gets fixed.

- Any, we should do an over under.

What year will the bridge be completely finished?

(panelists laughing) - [Joe] Listen.

- Will you still be employ, will you be retired by then or not, you think?

- I'm retired now, apparently, according to a lot of people on Twitter.

It's not gonna get started before '26.

- [Jim] Yeah.

- It's not even gonna get started.

Right now they're gonna sit and they're gonna do nothing about it.

It's not gonna start till '26.

That size project that started, it's only gonna cost us $200 million.

Which by the way, yay.

The federal government gave us 142 million.

That's not gonna pay for the tow trucks for the next four years that's actually gonna have to sit on the bridge.

- Spit in the ocean.

- Yeah.

It's literally gonna take at minimum of five years and that number is gonna go over a billion.

- Alright, you know what?

Let's go to outrages and or kudos and then we will get to maybe a couple of things if we have time.

Pablo, let's begin with you this week.

- So I have a outrage, as someone who put his life on the line for reproductive rights for my entire medical career, it is offensive that President Trump is calling himself the protector of women after, you know, he's responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade, which has increased maternal mortality, you know, in all the states where bans have been in effect.

It's really offensive and I think it's terrible politics.

- [Jim] Joe, what do you got?

- So I've got a both kudos and an outrage, and they actually go hand in hand is that I'm gonna compliment the DOJ for going after Mayor Adams to take him down.

And the outrage is that he took Buddy Cianci down off of the most corrupt mayor (panelists laughing) that the country has ever seen.

Don't laugh.

It's true.

It's true.

- Is it hard to believe that he's the first city mayor in New York City.

Of all the mayors they've had, wouldn't you think somebody would've gotten jammed up?

- Listen, if the conspiracy theories are true, the reason why it happened is because he spoke the truth and he stepped outta line of the Democratic party and they finally said, "We're gonna slap your hand "and make sure that people know what's happening."

- Well that's a nice theory, but some of these charges go back five, ten years.

I mean all of a sudden they said, "Oh, he's complaining about the migrants, "so now we're gonna go after him."

- So why hadn't they done something prior too?

- [Jim] Well, it takes a little while to put a case together.

- That's true.

- [Jim] That's why they have a 95% conviction rate.

Did you know that?

Antonia?

- I have an outrage although I think it's something I'm more sad about than outraged.

So if you've been to the Providence Amtrak station the past couple of years, there's been this beautiful urban meadow kind of wildflower garden growing outside.

Well, it got cut down this week, and this is something that volunteers and the parks department kind of designed this.

They've been bringing volunteers there every Wednesday to take care of it.

Apparently, I've got a story on it today, apparently the city got a 311 complaint from someone who said it was overgrown and blocking public right of way.

That 311 call got dispatched to DPW by mistake and they came and mowed it down.

- [Jim] Is that on the city side or on the state side outside?

- It's above the parking garage.

Yeah, so on the city side.

- Because I did a story when we launched "The Hummel Report" almost 15 years ago, I did a story that said, "Welcome to Providence, watch your step."

Because if you got out on the city side, it looked like Beirut.

I mean it was awful.

- Yeah.

- And it took 'em years to get the city, the state, and the feds to decide who's gonna pay for it.

And they actually did a beautiful redesign.

- [Antonia] Yeah.

- And that was part of it, right?

- Yeah, and even after they did that, it was kind of, you know, there's a lot of like struggling dead plants and weeds.

It was kind of still landscaping wise and mass very depressing.

So this has really brought a lot of life to it and it's really sad to see that get cut down.

- [Jim] Okay.

- But apparently it'll grow back.

- We have 40 something days left until we all go not only to vote on the constitutional convention, but a little thing called the presidential race.

Joe, let's start with you.

I know you're in too, not only as the Rhode Island party chairman, but you've been traveling all over the place.

Razor thin, as Joe Larissa said last week, "This race is as close as "that car next to you on the Washington Bridge."

- [Joe] There you go.

- Which I thought was a great line.

What do you see right now heading into the home stretch?

- Well, I'll tell you what.

What I think is gonna happen over the next 44 days, I think the number is, is we're gonna see a lot more information coming out regarding Kamala Harris and what her true policies are.

You can't be running a political campaign based on, "Well, I agree with this guy," and kind of repeat everything that he said.

When there's video footage, which you want to talk about internet security, that people forget that we have video and things that people have said prior, have said in the past can come back out and actually show you exactly what their true feelings are and what their thoughts are.

I'm not going into family history, I'm not going into heritage, I'm not going into anything as far as Kamala is concerned.

I'm just going by policy.

All the policies and everything that she thought up over the years that she's actually been in office have fallen short, big time.

And Donald Trump's the only one that has true four year path of showing exactly what he had the ability to do when the US economy was booming and everything was working absolutely perfect at the time.

And Kamala's gonna fall short.

- Perfect.

That's a word I've heard before.

- Well, the name is Kamala and you know, it's disrespectful not to call her by the proper name.

You know, Donald Trump and JD Vance are the gift that keeps on giving.

- [Joe] You're welcome.

- If they don't see a microphone in the next 40 days, maybe, you know, it is gonna be close, but they're gonna continue to put their foot in their mouth.

Especially, you know, with women and North Carolina, Pennsylvania, you know, are going to be the epicenter of this election.

- You know, I also wonder the vice presidential debate is coming up on next Tuesday and normally that's, they're kind of inconsequential, maybe entertaining.

I wonder what weight people are gonna put on this one, whether it's gonna be entertainment or whether it will sway people.

Because I think, look, now the age thing is on Trump.

It was on Biden.

You've got a guy who's 79 soon to be 80 whenever, JD Vance would be the next in line.

Now some people like that, other people are horrified by that.

- Yeah, yeah.

And he seems to say a lot of things that people have a strong reaction to, negative or positive.

So I think there definitely will be, I think that will be very interesting to see what line kind of becomes a memorable one of the debate.

And generally, I'm interested to see what the turnout's gonna look like in Rhode Island.

Obviously we're a safe blue state, but how is that gonna, how enthusiastic are people coming out to vote this year and how is that gonna affect down ballot elections?

You know, like at Princeton for instance, typically favors a Republican mayor, but you know, are you gonna get a lot of Democrats coming out for Kamala Harris, who also then vote for the Democratic candidate?

- And there was a poll that said Trump was behind by 12 points.

- 12 points, yes.

- In Rhode Island, which seemed close to me.

What did you think?

- Yeah, actually at one point there was another poll probably two months ago that had at nine points and then it turned to 12 points.

Listen, if you want to go by polling, go back to 2016 and see what that looked like.

Go take a look at what happened with Allan Fung.

You know, I don't totally subscribe to polling.

I subscribe to people that are out there and I think first off, a safe blue state to me is kind of frightening, to be honest with you.

(panelists laughing) It's the reason why, you know, I keep everything armaments ready to go.

And if mispronouncing her name is what people are focusing on, then we're focusing on the wrong thing.

I could care less what her name is, Tom, Dick or Harry or Sally.

I wanna see policies that are actually gonna help the United States.

And having somebody in this VP debate that's coming up, this is gonna be huge.

JD Vance is actually gonna step up, hand him a microphone and watch him completely destroy.

- Should Trump do another debate?

- You know something?

I actually would like to see him do another debate.

And I think the reason being is because he finally got a taste of the avenue that she was gonna go.

Her prep was good.

She did a good job, she did a decent job.

But I think Trump is gonna, if they do decide to do it again, he'll step in there and he'll completely wipe the floor with her.

- [Jim] Last 20 seconds.

- The eating the dogs, the eating the cats, you know, he'll never- - True story.

- He'll never outlive, you know, those kinds of comments and another debate will just make him sink even more.

- Alright, I'm sure this is gonna, we always have a little post-game show out in the hall that we wish he could show you.

I think that's gonna happen on this one.

But anyhow, that is all the time we have for this show on air.

Antonia, good to see you, and Pablo and Joe.

Folks, come back next week.

It will be only a month left until the election.

You never know what's gonna go on Rhode Island.

Whatever it is though, we will have a full recap and analysis for you next weekend as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great week.

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

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

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