>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made for one hour 47 minutes on Tuesday night.

President Trump delivering a state of the Union address.

At times almost daring his political opponents to stand up with, the Republicans are mocking them while listing what he says are his many accomplishments.

He talked about immigration, the economy, tariffs, violent crime and more.

Today, we welcome a pair of conservative guests, a chance to hear from the political right about how they received the state of the Union.

My guests in studio this hour is let me start with the chairman of the Rochester City Republican Committee.

That's Marcus Williams.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Thank you for having me, Evan, I appreciate it.

>> And the secretary of the committee, Louis Sabo, welcome back to you.

Thank you for being here.

>> Yeah.

Thank you.

>> Marcus.

First thoughts from you.

Let's just open with how you received the an hour, 47 minute state of the Union overall.

What did you think?

>> I thought overall it was actually kind of impressive.

It was better done than I thought that it would be.

You know, there weren't any real attacks on anybody.

It was very direct.

It was forthright, and it was pretty optimistic, honestly.

You know, and this is compared to what a lot of people normally see from his rallies and stuff like that, which are usually self edifying.

This was more uplifting to the whole nation and kind of giving praise to the rest of the administration itself.

>> You didn't think the part where he said he'd give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor if he could was self edifying?

>> I thought that was a little funny and so true that that was.

I believed him when he said I was going to say.

>> I'm with you there.

I think he definitely would if he could.

Yes.

All right.

Louis.

>> What did you think?

>> I, I thought the way I would take it is Donald Trump was celebrating America winning.

Yes.

And by, you know, starting off with the hockey team just to celebrate that he's putting America in a position where they're winning and his moves are to help America win.

And I think that was the biggest contrast of the whole evening, was that those who wanted to see America win stood up and applauded.

Those who didn't didn't really respond.

>> You don't think Democrats want to see America win?

>> I don't think so.

I.

>> What do you think Democrats want?

>> I think they want to see the country divided, and they want to keep their focus groups intact so that they can retain power and they'll do whatever they can to pursue that.

And I'm not trying to be negative on everybody.

I will highlight, Fetterman.

Fetterman.

He stepped up.

He wore a suit, which was incredible.

And he shook Donald Trump's hand.

But he was willing to stand up and clap for those who he saw as important in America.

He showed that they've he values them over an agenda.

And so I thought that was the best foot forward that a Democrat put on that evening was Fetterman.

>> Was Fetterman.

So you see the Democrats as sort of uniquely trying to to do whatever they can to hold on to power.

>> Right.

>> The Republicans in the House have a one vote edge right now.

It's real tight.

and there is a Republican member of Congress in Texas, Tony Gonzales, who recent text messages showed that he was asking for nude pictures from a staffer who was married.

He kept pressing her for them, and she eventually killed herself by lighting herself on fire in her backyard.

And now her husband wants to sue.

Lauren Boebert, Republican, come out and said Gonzales should be gone.

but a number of other Republicans have said, well, he can't resign because then we'd lose power.

Your concern is that the Democrats are uniquely holding on to power.

What do you make of the Tony Gonzales story?

>> That's one we got gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering, districts to try and get more power.

So there's a lot of back and forth that's going on to retain power on both sides okay.

>> You know okay.

>> Go ahead.

>> Marcus I'll chime in here.

So I'm on board with what Lewis is saying.

Here's the deal.

You know you've got the issue with Gonzales.

>> And should.

>> He resign.

>> Everybody is an individual, right?

Yeah.

And not everybody is always the highest caliber of individual.

>> Agree.

>> So sometimes they do things that are wrong and they need to be held accountable to that.

Now, I don't know as far as the procedurally as far as his votes and him upstanding there.

That sounds more like a personal matter.

I definitely if I was the husband of the other woman, I would take him to court.

We'd be in some serious lawfare there.

Yes, but as far as him stepping down, I'm not quite sure on that.

But it's definitely not a good look at all.

And we see this time and time again with many people throughout Congress, whether it's financial fraud on the back end, whether it's cheating or promiscuity or promoting all types of unique agendas, I'll be kind today we see this throughout Congress.

Congress is a cesspool on a whole, and it is really sad that that is the reflection of the American people on scale, where during the state of the Union, we had people that wouldn't even stand up to say, yes, we put American citizens first.

That that's so sad.

>> When the president said, we put American citizens first over, in his words, illegal aliens stand.

If you agree with me.

Yes, you saw that as a moment.

Well, to me, that looked like kind of a litmus test moment that the president knew was going to go viral because he.

>> Knew that.

>> Half the chamber was not going to stand.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

And that's sad, isn't it?

Sad.

And I think that that is very, very telling to the majority of American citizens who say, well, we don't really care for politics, we don't really care for all the division, all of the people that vote should be at least hopefully, are American citizens.

So when you tell American citizens and the population as a whole that you value other people who you don't even represent more than them, that's kind of concerning to everyone.

>> Louis, what did you see in that moment where the president said, stand if you if you think that we need to put Americans first.

>> It it was a watershed moment to show that where people divided the dividing line was pretty clear.

And that tells, I would hope, any thinking American and voting American would see that their interests are not upheld by half of the House or the the congressional side of the aisle.

So, and and frankly, it wasn't half because a number of them weren't even there.

>> That's true.

And there were some empty Democratic seats.

>> Yeah.

Yeah, there were there were a number of them.

I think Joe was probably not standing either.

I know he was there.

Saw him.

>> Congressman Joe Morelli.

Yeah.

He was not standing at that moment.

Correct.

>> Yeah.

So that that comes all the way to home.

Yeah.

What's, what's going to happen.

>> You want to add to that Marcus.

>> Yeah I do and you know and Joe being our representative that hurts.

Right.

Like I've talked to him in person as a human to human basis.

So if we get to the brass tacks, he's my representative.

I've seen him.

I've talked to him.

Person to person, close to me and Louis are right now.

And you're telling me that you care more about the people that are not your constituency, that are not your actual people?

You're supposed to serve?

Then you do me that.

That makes me really look at you.

Not favorably.

>> One of the reasons I think President Trump got elected was the issue of immigration.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

The perception that especially a lot of independent voters had that the Biden administration had failed on the border issue.

You guys agree with that?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

So one year ago.

So Trump was a month into his new presidency a year ago.

And when you looked at polling, he was double digits up on immigration.

So favorability in the double digits to the good Americans thought he was doing a good job.

He'd been elected on it in just 12 months.

He's gone from double digits up to -13 on immigration.

That's a huge swing, Marcus.

Why do you think his support on immigration has collapsed?

>> Well, I'm not sure exactly who they're getting that polling from.

>> No, it's a good point.

It's Gallup and Pew.

I mean, these are good, good organizations.

>> So I'm also very big into statistics.

I'm not we're not going to get into the minutia there.

But most people that I know, including Democrats, are actually in favor of getting rid of a lot of the how can we say let me rephrase that.

Our more so for upholding our border safety and security than they are for just letting anybody come in.

They do believe that they might not be as favorable on ice or something like that, or the way that they're proceeding, but that doesn't mean specifically that they are for illegal immigration.

So I wouldn't say that people are down on that.

Some people just aren't favorable of what they consider to be federal policing.

Okay.

And that's understandable.

>> I would think another telling example would I don't see any Democrats yelling for open the borders.

>> I haven't seen them protesting the cartels in Mexico either.

Have you seen that?

>> No I haven't yeah, I didn't you know, there should have been a big protest.

Yeah.

We support the cartel, but that didn't show up.

>> On the.

>> I was hoping they'd stand against the cartel, but either way, there's neither.

>> Well.

>> I mean, so I mean, look, I know you're.

You guys are.

>> We're.

>> I know you're jocular about that.

I know, but.

>> It has been a big change in a year, and I. Yeah, I have to observe that a big reason for that is probably because the president's support among independents, not Republicans, not Democrats, independents who helped carry him to the white House has collapsed on immigration.

They really do not like what they're seeing with Ice.

What do you make of that?

Go ahead Marcus, go.

>> Ahead first.

>> Yeah, yeah.

So what are we seeing from the news?

What are we seeing from the coverage?

All of the coverage that we see is drastically negative.

And the people who are most pushed out on the internet are the voices of sensationalism.

And the people that are creating these situations where they're doing things that they have no business doing.

They're behaving in manners and ways in which you would say in general, if it wasn't about this, you'd be like, you shouldn't be out there behaving like that.

You shouldn't be in the police's face, acting all while.

>> Preventing this is not.

>> Police proceeding.

Ice are federal law enforcement officers, so they are Leo's.

So let's be clear.

>> They're.

Yeah, but they're not police.

>> So they're not local police.

Correct.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a big, small government person.

So yes, I'm 100% with you on.

>> That actually, Marcus, this is what's curious to me.

You are.

You've always been a small government person.

Yes.

Whenever we I would put you in the small c conservative.

Yes.

And throughout most of my adult lifetime, most of the small C conservatives I know are very suspicious of armed agents of the state.

They're suspicious of the government to begin with.

But when you give the government guns, it's even more important that I've heard small c conservatives say that they know how to behave.

They know what the laws are.

They're not telling you you can't shoot video of them.

They're not they're not pushing you down in the street for no reason.

I, I'm curious to know where why is a small C conservative?

You're good with armed agents of the state.

You know, you say that it's a media coverage thing, but like they are knocking phones out of people's hands, they're telling them you can't shoot video.

Not true.

A conservative judge in Minneapolis who clerked with Scalia said he found 96 instances in Minneapolis alone of Ice agents basically not knowing what the law is.

So what am I missing here?

>> Here's what you're missing.

So while I'm not in favor of the expansion of the of federal policing, we have gotten to a situation where these states speaking of which, in Minnesota, in New York state, we have defunded the police.

We have demoralized the police.

Now there's police.

Have we there are way less police than they are, and they've been told not to engage with these riotous mobs that are going after ice and preventing them from doing their duties.

So that is impacting their level of engagement.

I don't want to see them have to take any types of high level of engagement.

I wish that they be able to collect them from the precincts when they're detained and stuff like that, but we haven't been seeing that just recently with Tom Homan going out there, they've started to change their tune about that.

But we still have a large issue with that.

And because of that, now we're seeing them more move more federal agents in.

And we've seen the level, just the level.

If you look at what happened in Los Angeles, all of those people blocking all the federal agents, it looked like it was.

I wouldn't even say an insurrection.

It looked like it was an enemy attack on a facility.

That's what that looked like.

>> So like a January 6th.

>> It looked far worse than that.

because people were.

throwing bombs and yeah, they were throwing firebombs.

They were doing all types of arrows and fireworks and all types of stuff.

So I understand I don't like it, but I understand how we got there and we need to step back from that precipice.

These people need to slow it down because they're ushering in exactly what they say that they don't want, which is a larger police state.

>> So, Louis, the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, do you think those were justified killings?

>> you're they crossed the line.

They're interfering or threatening a federal officer.

And even in they highlighted in Minnesota law, they have they are approaching with a car or threatening to run over with a car is a threat.

>> Nobody threatened to run over an Ice agent with a car from Renee Good that was not it.

I mean, we've seen the tape.

>> It's perceived.

It's all you know, I'm not a Monday quarterback.

You know I can't Monday.

You just.

>> Said she threatened to run over an Ice agent with a car.

She didn't.

>> She attempted to run him over.

She attempted.

>> I saw, and it looked like she was driving.

>> Straight on him.

Man.

You think she attempted?

She didn't drive straight at him.

The wheel was turned.

>> This is not.

That's not controversial, guys.

>> It's not about it being controversial or not.

It's about being in a high level position.

Okay, let's be honest.

How many people have been in a situation where there is that high level of interaction between individuals?

Most people haven't even been in a fight nowadays.

>> How many police have how many police officers have come out and said, that's exactly what we would have done?

Very.

I've seen very few.

I've seen an amazing amount of police officers come out and say that is not how.

>> So now that man had already been hit and dragged by a car earlier in the year.

So?

So what?

It's not.

>> Do you.

>> Know the circumstances of that?

>> Of course it is.

Do you know the circumstances of the incident in which he broke the back window and was dragged?

Do you know the do you just know that he was dragged, or do.

>> You know what happened?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So I am not discounting your viewpoint.

What I am saying is this there are only so many circumstances that you can go through on a daily basis and still be like, oh hum, I'm not in danger.

My life isn't under threat.

>> There's only so much that an Ice agent can take before they just kill somebody.

>> That's not what I said.

That's kind of what he said, that after getting punched in the face a couple of times, when somebody puts their hand up like they're going to punch you, you're probably going to react.

>> Who was threatening to punch an Ice agent in Renee Good or Alex Pretti?

>> Caine using that as a as a metaphor.

You see what I'm saying there?

>> But but it's not a good metaphor.

Well, Renee Good.

>> Somebody with a car.

You know.

>> Her wheel was turned, man.

She went from.

>> There.

We're talking about a slice in a moment.

>> That's right.

>> This is an ongoing event throughout the day.

>> I agree with that.

>> Antagonizing the the federal officers throughout the day.

And again, it exasperates people's reaction.

People are human, even the Ice officers are human.

At some point somebody's going to snap.

And I don't think the Ice officer nor Renee Good intended to get in that scenario be killed or shoot somebody.

But it's that scenario or that situation that happened provoked a moment.

And why were why are you why are we out provoking.

that part?

officers, while they're doing their job and that is their job.

The Supreme Court said, hey, under Obama administration, it is solely the federal government's responsibility to police and determine the immigration status of people.

They're doing their role.

Ice existed at the time of Obama administration.

>> Of course, it's been there for 25 years.

Yeah.

Yes.

>> And so it's it's doing its regular activity.

But I think going back to what Marcus said earlier, it was an agreement between local police and the federal Ice officers to hand over somebody that had a criminal record that was in the prison system, will take care of it and usher it out.

But no, they released them to the streets.

And then, of course, what Trump highlighted in the state of the Union address was going to not say her name correctly, but the North Carolina woman who was on the train got murdered by.

>> The Ukrainian refugees.

Yeah, murdered by who?

By the way, who who did the president say?

He said that during the state of the Union, she was murdered by an illegal immigrant.

She was actually killed by an American?

>> Yeah, she was killed by an American who had been imprisoned multiple times and released on the street.

Same scenario goes on in that community, too.

>> I'm just pointing out that what the president said in the state of the Union, he was either lying or misinformed.

>> Misrepresented.

>> You think he was misinformed?

>> I don't know.

>> He.

>> Could have misspoken.

He's he talks a lot.

He talks a lot.

>> He did.

He talked for almost two hours.

>> This is what I'm saying.

>> But Louis is right to say this was someone with a violent record, a mental health record.

>> Same with these immigrants that the illegals that they ice is chasing down.

That's not Joe immigrant on illegal immigrant on the street.

Well what's that?

Have a record.

>> A lot of them there.

There are people who are we saw in Rochester this summer became a national incident with two roofers.

The roofers on Westminster were not violent criminals.

They were roofers.

Right?

I mean, you act like anybody that Ice is wanting to detain has committed violence.

And we know that's not true.

In fact, the majority have not been violent.

>> Well, two points on that.

So before that instance, we had his here.

That was the whole blow up with the mayor and the police chief, where the mayor was like the police shouldn't help respond to Ice or whatever the case is.

That is and this was his now his is a serious branch of DHS.

They're like the FBI for them.

So they're investigating human trafficking in our city, which we know is a very serious situation.

And these people are out there on the streets trying to interfere in that, in that.

So we have to look at this holistically, and we have to see what's continuing to be to be perpetuated.

This isn't a standalone issue.

And when you say about, oh, well, the roofers that were here, are they here legally or not, if they're not here legally, I want them gone.

Honestly, I think that Ice isn't doing a good enough job at getting rid of illegal aliens fast enough.

But the problem with that is, is we do also want them to do it in a humane, humane way.

But while people are stopping them from doing their basic duties or even leaving their facilities, how can you even achieve that goal within reason?

>> Okay.

so I hear what you're saying is you want Ice to be aggressive, and despite the fact that a lot of the people they're detaining have not been violent, you're saying they're in the country illegally.

I don't care if they've been here for 25 years.

They run a restaurant.

They're well liked.

They don't have documentation.

They're out of here.

And that's what you want.

Is that.

Yes.

>> That is 100% what I said.

>> Okay.

Louis.

Yes.

>> Yeah.

I agree with that.

>> Okay.

>> When I go to another country, I.

>> Have to.

>> Prove that I'm a U.S.

citizen.

I have to get their approval to go in.

Absolutely.

I can only stay for a certain amount of time, and then I have to leave.

And I often have to show bank records that I can support myself while I'm in that country.

Now, I don't know how all of a sudden America is any different than any other country.

And this is this is 99% of the rest of the world.

And yet we need to have an open wall to open door in this country to anybody that wants to walk into the country.

And I think Trump in Ice are resetting the boundaries of what, you know, true immigration is.

>> Yeah.

>> I think there's a there's a split probably in the Trump voting bloc that said, a lot of independents who liked his stance on immigration heard him say, we're going after the cartels.

We're going after the violent criminals.

They're going to be gone.

And then I think what they see is they're going after the roofers, they're going after the diner owners, they're going after the waitresses, and there's a lot of independents who said, I'm out.

I think that's kind of what you're looking at with the polling.

>> Maybe in Rochester.

I know.

>> In the country.

>> Well, it's encouraging to see that we don't have a a high amount of criminal illegal aliens in the Rochester area.

There are people that are doing their job right, but they didn't follow the law.

Getting into.

>> Terms of documentation.

>> Yeah, right.

And so that is encouraging to know that that we don't have those worst case scenarios.

But Minnesota, Minneapolis, it's not that case.

It's a lot of bad situations that they're chasing down and they're being ostracized in the process of doing that, which comes back to one side of the aisle, not standing up.

If there is that much vigorous activity opposing upholding our laws, we got a problem.

and we don't want to see it spread or grow.

>> And this is new because they did under Clinton, he expanded the deportations and the seriousness of that.

We saw it under Obama.

And now all of a sudden, Trump got in there.

And I mean, for all intents and purposes, he couldn't say, God bless you to somebody and be like, oh, that's okay.

It's kind of serious in nature when we see that this has been what has been done by pretty much every presidency except for Biden.

Okay.

In recent times they have addressed this very serious issue.

They understood that the American people, it doesn't matter what party affiliation that the American people actually care about these issues.

We've even seen the polls on CNN saying that Americans actually care about these issues.

>> Oh for sure.

I mean, there's a clip of Barack Obama, president Obama at the time, saying that he wants everyone who comes here to learn English.

>> Yes.

>> He wants people who are not documented to leave and go to the back of the line and then be allowed back in through a process, but not prioritized.

Right.

That was Barack Obama.

That wasn't Donald Trump.

So you're.

>> Not agree with that?

You know, that's amazingly so.

>> Frankly, both of you probably would agree with a lot of what President Obama had said at the time.

The reason that I have struggled in this conversation, and the reason I appreciate our guests, because they know that they get a chance to speak at length here when federal agents are pulling the trigger on American citizens.

I think the bar should be very high and we should be very careful.

I saw Alex Pretti disarmed when he was the first time he was shot out of ten bullets was in his back.

He was going to the ground.

I didn't get it.

And it's hard for me to hear you guys say, well, he kind of got what he deserved.

>> No, we're not saying he got what he deserved.

>> You're saying.

>> It was a justified shooting?

I didn't comment on that.

>> We didn't, we didn't.

I don't even think we've talked about shooting.

>> So Pretti do you think it was justified?

>> I again, I think it was another provoked incident.

Why would you bring a gun if you're protesting, you're practicing your freedom of expression and protesting something.

Why would you bring a gun?

>> He's a legal gun owner.

I thought that I thought this was like a two way thing for your party.

>> It is, but he's.

He's taking a firearm to a highly volatile situation.

>> He didn't brandish it.

>> I am not disagreeing with you, but I am saying we all know that if you do that, that there are possibilities that something might happen.

It's terrible circumstance.

And from what I saw, I, I don't know enough to actually make a call on that.

It looks really bad.

That's all I can say.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

And I'll say the point you just made about bringing a firearm to a protest is exactly what I've heard from activists on the left for years, on open carry or on concealed carry.

That's what I've heard.

So it sounds like this administration is kind.

>> Of coalescing.

Bring a firearm to to protest and concealed carry.

But why would you go interfere?

>> Yeah.

At that point.

>> With law officers carrying a firearm when you're there protesting an action.

>> He was trying to help a woman up who had been pushed to the ground.

>> You are he was interfacing with the he was you know, pushing away federal officers.

He was getting in a fracas with them.

And then you have a firearm on you.

>> Now, the NRA says you guys are wrong on this.

>> I mean, the NRA have issues.

They're not they're not conservative enough for me.

I can't.

>> They're not conservative enough.

They're saying that you're.

you're a lefty on this.

>> They're not they're not second.

Well, I'm not saying that he shouldn't have had a gun.

I just said that him having a gun makes a volatile situation more likely and in poor circumstances.

>> Okay, I understand that argument, but you're saying you haven't seen enough to say whether the shooting was justified.

>> It it looked bad to me.

I don't have enough angles.

I'm not in the court.

I don't have any dossiers on these people himself or the agents that were involved.

So I don't want to comment.

I mean.

>> I think they're investigating and looking into it, and I think that's, you know, it's unfortunate that that all happened.

But pursuing investigating it and, you know, you learn from bad mistakes or situations.

>> I agree we should all not comment until we get more information.

When a shooting happens.

Right.

Wish the white House felt that way.

Now, do you think the Ashley Babbitt shooting was justified on January 6th, the woman who was killed?

>> I don't think so.

And I don't think anybody looked into it either.

>> You don't think so?

She's breaking in to the Capitol.

Other police officers have been already violently attacked, and she ends up getting shot by an officer of the law.

There.

Now, that one you're confident was not justified.

>> it was swept under the rug.

Nobody looked into it.

We didn't even know who the.

>> Really?

Don't you think that's been really well studied?

What don't we know about the Ashley Babbitt case?

>> So I'd say no.

Honestly, there hasn't been a lot brought to light.

They said her bad.

She was shot by a police officer.

That's all that we've ever heard.

>> You know, I'm legitimately asking is what don't we know about that?

>> Well, I don't know.

You don't know what you don't know.

So you.

>> Didn't know for many months who the shooter was?

>> All I know from it is the guy shot her from the other side of the door.

And this is what I have questions about.

Given what was going on.

You have a limited amount of ammunition, right?

You're telling me that there are a whole bunch of people trying to get through a door, and you're going to fire your ammunition.

You're there by yourself.

You clearly don't have enough ammunition to stop everybody, and you're going to fire off your weapon in that circumstance.

I don't know.

There's something questionable about that.

Maybe he should.

I'm not big on retreat.

I'm a big stand your ground person.

But I just think cognitively as somebody that's a law enforcement officer, understanding what the circumstances are, thinking, that it's that pressure full of a circumstance and having that much area to retreat in and not having enough ammunition.

Yeah, I'd be gone.

I wouldn't I wouldn't have even gotten into that situation.

>> And Louis said, you didn't.

We didn't even know who that officer was right.

>> For.

For quite a while after the.

>> Greg, Greg Bovino said that we should never know who the Ice officers are.

They should keep their masks on and we should not be.

The public should not be told, are you good with that?

>> if the if you're out threatening their families, I there wasn't any.

>> Nobody Alex Pretti didn't threaten a family man.

He got shot by ten times.

>> I'm asking or docking these officers.

And so they're covering their identity so that they can't be traced and found out.

And then people go and threaten their families.

So that's that's a whole different scenario from the actual incident.

>> Here's my take on this.

For the last couple of years since Covid, people have been running around dressed up like banditos, looking like they're highwaymen in the Old West, and nobody said nothing.

Nobody said boo.

I have been highly concerned about this this whole time they've been jacking old ladies at bus stops for the coins in their purses, and nobody said anything.

But now all of a sudden, after we've had the Antifa people, after we've had the socialist people, after we've had the Palestine people, all of these people going out wearing masks, even published in the DNC, make sure you're wearing things so they can't see your face.

This was actually published in the Democrat and Chronicle.

So saying make sure that you leave your cell phone at home so they can't track you and all of this other stuff.

So now you're telling me what's good for you is not good for them.

You make a bad case for what you're trying to support, which in general, I would probably support you on that.

But looking at how you've behaved and what you've been supporting, I can't support any of it.

>> All right.

>> Let's here's what we got to do.

I want to get to other parts.

We aren't going to hold out.

>> We kind of went down a rabbit hole.

>> Not enough on immigration.

We're talking about the state of the union with the chairman and the secretary of the Rochester City Republican Committee.

That's a committee they're certainly hoping to grow.

We have covered on this program the challenge for Democrats in rural areas in this country, the challenge for Republicans in urban areas.

And these are two men who are trying to change that in the city of Rochester.

And so let's take this break.

If you've got feedback, we'll squeeze it in in the second half hour.

And we're going to talk a little bit more about the economy on the other side.

Coming up in our second hour, it's been a weird month in artificial intelligence.

Weirder than normal.

Even Pope Leo is telling priests around the world, stop using A.I.

to write your homilies.

Get back to a human touch.

But Eric Schmidt, the co-founder of Google, says we can't stop A.I.

That's laughable.

It's too late.

So what have we learned from the last 30 days, and what might you have missed?

We'll talk about it next hour.

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>> Let's talk a little bit about.

>> The economy and then going to grab some phone calls and emails here.

The one thing that really surprised me in the state of the Union, I will say you know, I watched Vice President Vance for the last month or so talk a lot about how deep the hole was that they felt the Biden administration left them with the economy.

How challenging it was going to be.

And Vance had give us time.

We are we are putting the mechanisms in place to deal with this.

It's going to take time.

The hole was really deep.

Then the president comes out in the state of the Union and says, no, everything is fixed.

Affordability is over.

Like we're good.

And I want to listen to what the president said about affordability issues.

>> Policies are rapidly ending them.

We are doing really well.

Those prices are plummeting downward.

>> The price of eggs is down 60%.

Madam Secretary, thank you.

The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot.

And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly.

Just hold on a little while.

We're getting it down and soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.

Nobody can believe when they see the kind of numbers, especially energy, when they see energy going down to numbers like that, they cannot believe it.

It's like another big tax cut.

>> So let's start.

>> With rent.

Trump says rent is much lower now.

I have no idea where that's coming from.

Rent is definitely not lower.

It's way up and it is a huge problem for millions of Americans.

What is that about?

>> So it depends on where you are.

One impact on the rental market right now largely has been the deportation of a lot of the illegal aliens.

I saw the the head of Willow on it was not not CBS.

>> CNBC.

>> CNBC.

>> The Zillow CEO.

>> Yeah, I saw him on there and he was basically crying on the TV about them deporting the illegal aliens because he said it's hurting his pockets, essentially saying that the less people means that they have to lower the price because they own a lot of residential real estate.

And I found that to be very interesting.

And I said, you know what?

This is very similar to what we've been hearing people say is actually impacting the rental market.

I do know that not far from where I live, there are whole streets of people that are not in this country, rightly, that are not not saying they're not good people, but they are occupying a large number of homes on this one specific block, not too far from me.

So I do understand that when you have more supply, okay, it's going to lower costs.

And that's a good thing.

But also they've done a lot for deregulation.

So there's more construction going on.

But in places like New York State we don't get the benefit of any of that because we have actual things that have come from the state legislation that has made it more difficult for builders to build.

They've made it more difficult for people to get permitting.

And the other regulations that they have in relation to all of it are crazy.

And now they're trying to put in more things that will prevent people from charging what they decide that they want to, or allowing the market to do what it shall like.

We see these apartments where there are $450,000 for a one bedroom apartment to build it.

Like, what does that do to the rest of the local market?

But that's affordable.

So it's different impacts, and usually it's localized in blue states.

>> But in general, rent in this country is still a big problem.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

>> Oh, I have a big problem with it because it's an issue with the dollar's value.

So the dollar's value has been shrinking year over year over year for decades.

So this didn't happen all at once.

It's a number of factors.

He's doing what he can as the president.

But there are other steps that need to be taken by actual Congress.

He can't do so much that I would want him to because it is actual Congress.

That's the function of their branch of the government to pass legislation.

>> Okay.

He also followed up that statement where he and I think it was an executive order that he announced where investment firms can no longer compete for single family homes.

>> Yes.

>> And I.

>> Think got a lot of applause for.

>> That one.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's been a big impact in a lot of these areas.

Even Rochester people come in.

I've heard about it personally.

Oh, this lady walked in and dropped 100 grand right down on my house on one of the worst streets on the east side of Rochester, across from a drug house.

it's like that doesn't make.

>> She probably lives out of state and works for a corporation.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, it was moving it and it's like, okay, maybe she had that money.

Personally, I don't know.

you know, there's those scenarios.

Are, you know, often an investment firm is behind that and getting properties, getting control of that.

It only stands to benefit the city of Rochester if they can raise their real estate values to get collect more taxes, to try and make ends meet.

so you have a lot of factors that impact the price of our local rent.

and cause it to be a high value.

I think the other part of trying to, whether it's renting or owning, is that our energy bill went up 63%.

I was looking at my January 1st compared to last year.

Same temperatures last year, 63% higher.

>> Oh yeah.

Why?

So why is Trump saying energy is is so much more affordable?

>> Yeah.

>> It's in New York.

It's not.

>> Yeah, it's New York State.

This is what the state Assembly and I've been very big on this situation because right now they're trying to get everybody to focus on Nyseg and Araghchi their their own problems as individual corporations.

But what the real issue is, is the PSC, the Public Service Commission and the State Assembly passing laws, legislations and putting in barriers where they've shut down a number of power plants, including nuclear power plants.

They shut down a number of pipeline projects for natural gas.

When we get about 55% of our electricity is generated by natural gas, they've shut down drilling, they've shut down a number of different projects, which would actually lower the cost of energy and increase the supply.

So much so that now we have to get it from Canada.

And we've never had to do that before.

So Trump right now is fighting for a pipeline for natural gas pipeline to be put through New York State.

He's gone with gone back and forth with Kathy Hochul every now and then over that.

So if New York State would be more open to some of the energy things that are being done, and she has, Kathy has shown maybe she'll do a nuclear plant, or so she said.

But we need natural gas now.

It's safe, it's clean, and it's been servicing us well for generations.

>> last thing real quick here.

I want to listen to what Trump said about tariffs.

And then we're going to get phone calls and emails here.

So the president had some very sharp words for the Supreme Court.

Only four of the nine justices were there.

And the president says he's going to find a way to get his tariff plan sort of resurrected in some form.

And I want to listen to what he said tariffs can do for the country.

>> Not be necessary.

It's already time tested and approved.

And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.

>> so when he says that we're going to eliminate an income tax because of tariffs, I want to know if you believe that that's plausible, Marcus.

>> It is plausible.

It used to be the way that it was.

The problem is, is how fast can we set up things to make it happen like that?

We're on a precipice of we've got A.I.

and high pass automation coming in really quickly, and that's going to do away with a lot of jobs.

So we're going to need some stuff there.

That's also the reason why I'm so gung on the deportations, because I realized that shortly here, we're going to have people that need more social services and stuff like that.

>> And fewer jobs.

Okay.

Yeah.

But do you also think that tariffs can bring manufacturing back to this country?

>> It's already started.

>> But then if tariffs bring manufacturing back and we're not, the idea would be you pay the tariffs.

Now that forces manufacturing back onshore.

And then everything's made here again.

And you're not paying the tariffs.

Well then you're going to need an income tax.

You can't do both.

>> Well yeah.

If the jobs increase you know hopefully they would build facilities manufacturing that would require employees still and not automated robots.

>> Right.

>> That's a whole other conversation.

>> Yes.

I think there's parts of the country that people like to work and like to have a job.

I don't think that's as high a priority in New York State, and we're probably going to feel the brunt of automation more heavily.

but again, if you're losing incomes, then how can you have an income tax?

And the country was run for the first 100 plus years based on tariffs.

That's what financed our government.

>> So the way to make that happen is we have to shrink the government, which is something that he's been going through and actually doing.

I'm not keen on everything that he's done with the whole Palantir and stuff like that.

Not a fan, okay.

But with the shrinking of the departments and stuff, if we want to have a manageable government where we don't have to collect so much money, that's what we need.

So big, gung on small government.

>> Team, just because I don't have it here.

federal deficit.

I want to know and what was the federal budget in this one here?

I just want to kind of get a comparison there.

All right, let's grab some some feedback from listeners here.

Grace in Rochester.

Hey, Grace.

Go ahead.

>> Hi, Evan.

thanks.

I just want to begin with that.

I'm a family friend of the people you guys were discussing earlier.

The immigrants were detained that were roofers.

That was in March.

That made national news.

I want to clarify a couple of things, which is that, first, the DHS targeting, they have nothing to do with anything like sex trafficking or any major crimes.

No criminal records.

DHS has actually reallocating certain employees to do this targeting of nonviolent immigrants with no records, which is taking away from tracking serious crime.

The second thing is that this binary created that, like, oh, you know, I don't want anyone in this country who's not documented is that most of the people being detained are in the process of obtaining documents.

They're in a green card process, or they were moved from a detention facility as a youth to stay with a family member.

So this binary that someone is one or the other is false.

And I also just want to ask, like, what?

What are the problems that you're imagining that these people, like my friends are causing in our community because the ideas that are being used in this, like scapegoating rhetoric against immigrants, is, is not what's actually happening.

And so like what?

How is this scapegoating deflecting from real issues in our community that we're ignoring?

And then if the issue is not from immigrants, is it not that, you know, sending Ice agents in is the source of the chaos because this argument about Renee Good, like there was a justification earlier that this is just a natural human response to chaos being created in the streets of Minnesota.

And obviously somebody's going to have an intense reaction.

But like, where is that chaos coming from?

And the source, because the immigrants being targeted are not people that are fomenting chaos in that community.

So I just find that to be a really disturbing interpretation and also very disturbing to say that American citizens should be sitting in our houses shutting up and not responding.

We have armed law enforcement officers targeting our friends and families and taking them to for profit detention centers to make money off our backs as we donate to support them, and who are in an awful, traumatizing and unhealthy conditions.

So that, to me is a very un-American sentiment.

You know, ignoring the Third Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the reason that we evolved as a nation, which was to resist hegemony and decide our own fate.

and I just, you know, to end this, you know, engaging with selective reality and scapegoating there's very little engagement here with the history of why we have so many immigrants in the U.S.

If you want to take the Guatemalan context specifically, there was a civil war and genocide of the Mayan people, and it was at peak in the 1980s, highly funded by USAID.

And their police department, which learned from the Vietnam War.

So you had police officers, state agents in Guatemala, being funded by the U.S.

government, being trained by the U.S.

government and wreaking havoc and genocide against many Mayan people.

A lot of people that are coming to the U.S., it's the aftermath of that conflict.

And so, you know, someone with an anti-big government could say, oh, great, now we've defunded USAID, but we have all this structural dependance created the world over.

So anyway, I'll leave it there.

But I just think that there's an absence of a of a deep historical interpretation of why we have these problems.

And it's lent.

So maybe some Christian reflection.

I'll end there.

>> All right.

Great.

So there's a lot there.

And I just want to target her call to a specific question she asked, which is the roofers in particular, whom she apparently knows she wants to know Marcus, what was the harm or what was the problem that was going to be solved by pulling them off that roof and sending them away?

>> Oh, I've already.

Well, she missed contextualized what I said I was saying previous to that, we had the issue with his where they were going after the human traffickers.

But yeah, I mean anybody that's here, I just reflected exactly my reasoning on why I believe that we need to accelerate the, the, the, the repatriation of these individuals, because very soon we will not have enough resources for ourselves.

We don't have enough active resources for our own people right now.

We've got homeless people outside on the street.

Right now.

We can go up the block.

You know, we've got people that are struggling to pay their rent.

We've got people that are struggling, that don't have enough access to health care because their providers are no good.

We've got all of these various issues, and we have a school system that's absolutely horrendous.

That has been more burdened by all of these people that come here that do not speak the language.

As Barack Obama said, they needed to speak.

>> All right.

>> I would.

>> Just keep it brief.

Go ahead.

Luis.

>> Yeah.

I this goes on at farms.

They'll go in and the farmers will be fined if they're hiring illegal people that aren't legal working on their farms, if they don't have correct housing.

I don't know how it's any different in addressing a a roofing company that's hired illegal aliens to do their job instead of hiring local U.S.

citizens or even legal immigrants to do the work.

And there are legal immigrants that are doing roofing in the city that's cutting into their job opportunities.

>> Grace, I don't know if you're going to end up on the same page with these guys, but I, I do appreciate the phone call.

Grace.

Thank you.

Aria.

Next in Rochester.

Hi, Aria.

You got to keep it tight.

Go ahead.

>> To I just wanted to comment on the fact that Kyle Rittenhouse had also brought a gun during the Kenosha incidents, and he wasn't ever shot down.

He wasn't ever perceived as a danger, despite everything that was going around.

So I just have an issue with the inconsistencies of a lot of conservatives and Republicans when they want to tout, like, gun rights and, and, and, you know, the amendment and the Constitution.

And then there's clearly a bias or there's there's clearly just an inconsistency on how they want to who is allowed to carry a gun?

>> Let me just jump in.

I mean, I presume their point being, if there's a volatile situation, even if you legally have a gun, bringing it raises the chance of danger.

And it's not a good idea.

>> So interfacing with law enforcement officers.

>> Same with Rittenhouse.

>> Yeah, Sam, he wasn't interfacing with law enforcement.

>> But.

>> But he's walking down the street.

They carrying a gun.

>> They chased him down and tried to kill him.

So I mean, that's that's exactly what.

>> But he did show up carrying a gun openly.

And you're saying that doesn't rise to the level of maybe raising the danger in that moment?

>> It definitely does.

Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to cover that conversation with due diligence.

>> Okay, Aria.

Thank you.

a couple comments on voter I.D.

So the president is pushing for national voter I.D.

This is an issue that polls extremely well.

No matter the party, 83, 84% on the polling I've seen of Americans, not not Republicans, Americans support voter I.D., Charles writes in to say yesterday.

He says everyone has an I.D.

Enough with the narrative that it's too hard.

he says, and if you can't solve these problems for yourself, I don't want you voting.

Charles is very strong, but here's an email from Jen who says, thanks for at least acknowledging the voter I.D.

issue is something that Democrats have to address.

I lean quite left, but I cannot understand this continuous refusal on the part of Democrats to address the voter I.D.

issue.

The argument is simple we need to present a government I.D.

for employment to get a library card to apply to community college.

ET cetera, et and she says you don't hear an uproar because a busy, single working mother can't get a book out at Rundell library.

But in this one case, the most serious case, in my opinion, it is for some reason becoming a problem.

So she says there's no widespread voter fraud.

But for Pete's sake, let's just address it.

Clearly, there's concern out there.

So that's from Jen, who's on the left.

So are we going to see voter I.D.?

>> I sure hope that we tie that voter I.D.

to being able to vote.

>> I would hope so, too.

Thune said that he's going to bring it to the Senate, at least to get people on the floor on the record.

>> Okay.

and Bob even wrote in to say the New York State DMV offers a variety of photo non-drivers I.D.

at very low cost.

This is not my expertise.

>> That's true.

It's like $15.

>> An I.D.

card as opposed to a driver's license.

Yes.

>> Okay.

Jackie wrote in to ask president Trump said JD Vance will head an effort to eliminate fraud.

What does that mean?

dealing with corruption.

Do we trust the vice president to do that?

What do you think?

>> Well, so the vice president is, like, overcharged.

Hopefully he will do a better job than Kamala did with immigration.

but they actually have a fraud czar that there is in hearing right now as to whether it will be approved.

So it sounds like there's two layers of approach.

The frauds are obviously is in the Department of Justice.

but so we'll I think fraud pulling that out of the system anywhere where you have huge amounts of money available like to.

>> Just like for new cryptocurrencies from the president's family.

>> you could say that might.

I don't think there's, that's as much of a concern as billions of dollars that's just written into a budget bill.

Oh, if you just show up with a clearing center, you can get lots of money.

And I'm not just targeting Minneapolis, but that's going on, and you just there's there's too many scenarios of fraud with the amount of money we have of taxpayer dollars that are thrown out there and obligated.

>> Okay.

and Marc is the president also said he's worried about Democrats cheating in elections.

The only president who didn't agree to a peaceful transition of power is worried about his opposition party.

So are you worried about cheating in elections?

>> Always.

>> But do you think it happens widespread?

I mean, there's not.

>> Well, I can't speak for widespread.

I can speak for Monroe County.

When I was little, almost every year the Democrats would be suing other Democrats over election results in New York State.

They only actually go back and relook at 3% of 3%.

That's not even a number.

So how could we even know if there is any fraud or not to actually say that?

I think that basically.

>> This really has been studied.

>> You know, 3% of 3% is what we check in New York state.

Yes.

>> You're you're acting like 95%.

>> Of votes.

That's not what I'm saying.

>> Like no vetting whatsoever.

>> That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying like I believe it was Jan said that people are concerned about this issue.

And if we don't do something to address it, that fear and that concern is going to continue.

>> I think that that's an interesting observation.

Yeah.

There is definite concern.

The reason that 87% of Americans want this is they think it should be easy, it should be doable.

And certainly a lot of Republicans are very concerned about voter fraud.

They've been convinced by the president that the only elections that are valid are the ones he wins.

>> I'll put it like this very simply.

So when Trump got elected the first time, they said, oh, the thing was rigged.

When when, when what's his name?

Biden got in there.

They said, oh, everything's fine.

And then Trump got in again.

And then they said, oh, it's rigged.

I mean, that's what they said.

>> Marcus, let's let's try the logic.

In 2020, Trump said it was rigged against him.

>> Well, I'm saying we're hearing it from both sides.

>> He was the president.

Biden gets the office and then the Democrats lose.

Even though they have control.

They forgot how to rig elections in four years.

>> Well, I mean this the Democrats have said that that's what they've said out of their mouth.

They still today say that Trump stole the election.

So, I mean, maybe we should look into this.

>> I think we should not be talking about cheating like so rampantly.

I think I want faith in institutions.

I want faith.

>> That's where the voter I.D.

comes in, okay?

And that's how we start.

>> That's one aspect.

The chain of custody is no longer is directly connected as the paper ballot.

Yeah.

It's never been checked.

>> Louis and Marcus are with the City of Rochester Republican Committee.

More with them in the weeks to come.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

More Connections coming up.

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