 Hi everybody, this is Andrew Champagne. This is the fabled Live at 525, Burlington's Democratic show. Burlington and beyond, I am joined in studio by my producer and cameraman. And my main guy today, Kevin Harms. Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate you, man. I'd like to thank the staff at Channel 17. It's always good to be on. It's been a month. Boy, it's been a hell of a month. As we start, forgive me for getting my thoughts together here and I've got to put on my button, okay? I forgot this. I want to put on my Peter Welch button and let's see. Hold on here. Okay, hold on. This is live television. Well, anyway, so I'm trying to put on a button because I did a couple of events with Congressman Welch this weekend and we attended the Democratic, sorry here, sorry, it's hard to look at this on TV. We'll get this going in a second. There we go. Okay, how does that look? All right, geez. Sorry, everyone. So we attended a few events this weekend and we had a special guest come on up to Burlington and that was Senator Ed Markey. He is the Senator from Massachusetts and he has been in Congress since 1970. He's been in Congress since 1976 and he was elected when he was 30 years of age and after John Kerry left to become Secretary of State in the second President Obama administration, he was appointed Senator by Governor Devel Patrick and I don't want to take this off. I can't get this going. I hope not too many people are watching this but it was a long, late day for me. I was doing a lot of stuff. It's my birthday, so forgive me. I'm looking out here and I'm trying to get this right. Okay, there we go. All right, I'm gonna take this off and we'll work on it later. Anyway, so Senator Markey was up in Burlington. It was great, he did an event. I'd like to thank the Burlington Beer Works on Flynn Avenue and Flynn Ave in the South End of Burlington. And we had a great time at the, oh my God, I can't believe this. All right, we had a great time at the event and we also, Senator Markey was the head speaker, the lead speaker at our Curtis Awards, our Democratic Awards. And so he's a really interesting guy. He's been in Congress since 1976, as I said, when he was 30 years of age. And he has, by the time his Senate term is up, he will serve 50 years in Congress. That's incredible, there he is. Thank you, Kevin, for putting him up. And of course, of course, a very, very long-term serving Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont's own. Mike, I look up to him, I think he's fantastic. He announced, there he is. I'd like to say hello to he and Marcel. Hi, Mrs. Leahy, I wish you both the best. You're both the best. You see when we get these public servants like Senator Leahy and Senator Markey, you know, their life is public service and that's what they've done their entire adult life. And they're so good at it, they've built amazing staffs in Burlington and Rutland, and White River, Montpelier, all over Vermont, and then all over Massachusetts, all the way over to Great Barrington, or all the way on to Nantucket. Massachusetts is a big state. It's very rural in the West, and then most of the population is around Boston, and then the beautiful Seacoast, the history. It's always been a very proud democratic state. As a matter of fact, in 1972, the only state that was carried by the Democrats was Massachusetts, and when I was a little kid growing up in Connecticut, just down the road from Springfield Mass in Hartford, I would see on cars an old bumper sticker that said, Massachusetts, don't blame us. So it's been, Massachusetts has got that rich tradition of, you know, back to the colonial days, the John Hancock, you know, Benjamin Franklin's original from Boston, and then that tradition all the way through the Kennedys, and now Senator Elizabeth Warren, and I'd just like to thank Senator Markey. He could not have been more gracious. People, you know, in Vermont, all sorts of people grew up in Massachusetts, so everyone had a story, and he had time, and he would sit and talk with people, and you can see why he's been so successful. I don't believe he's ever lost an election. But anyway, what he talked about at the Curtis Awards is gotta be, you know, it's obviously the lead topic of this month's show, and that is the fact of the leaked draft of the Supreme Court argument that potentially could overturn Roe versus Wade. We believe that it was written by Justice Samuel Alito, very, very conservative justice, a someone who believes in the Constitution word for word, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry respectfully, Judge Alito, I think that the founding fathers, James Madison, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, I do not believe that they meant the Constitution to be, I guess, well, I don't wanna offend anyone here, but like the Bible, I think it's meant to be taken literally as a fable, and you look to the story, and Judge Alito supposedly has said before that he thought Roe versus Wade was poorly written, and I would have to respectfully disagree. There's a number of great books about that era of the court and beyond, and I remember reading a book by Bob Woodward called The Brethren, and they worked on that, they worked on that decision for months and months. Now, I'm not sure anyone really approves of a leak. These things usually do not get out. The law clerks are very, they become almost part of the justices' family in a way, so somehow someone felt very strongly about this. Now, I'm not gonna get into whether I think that's right or wrong to leak it. I don't think I personally would have done that, but sometimes things are so grave, like the Pentagon Papers, or like the stuff that has been leaked about what we are, our terrible acts in Iraq and Guantanamo, and sometimes things are too important not to come out. Sometimes some secrets stay, like the Manhattan Project. That stayed a secret. Now, the Russians supposedly knew about it at Yalta, but they were behind us, so this decision is enormous, and I'm very, I'm angry, of course, but I'm also saddened that the Republican Party has politicized the court to the way it has, and that we seem to have a litmus test here on certain issues, and we saw that President Trump's legacy is not as incredible as perfect. I'm trying to think of the right word here. I need to be cautious, and I need to be respectful. His vast array of misdeeds, and including January 6th, where people were encouraged and provoked to attack the United States Capitol, to enter the Capitol illegally, to assault, intimidate, sometimes literally pull the eyes out, trying to rip someone's face off, literally, of Capitol Police, and that's nothing short of treason, and those people are traitors. So when the history is written, and it's being written now, this was a litmus test where you stand. Now, we see the President was impeached, it didn't go through again, but we see, my God, what President is impeached twice in his term, never, ever again. Now, there is a thought that President Trump is gonna run again. I think for the long-term future of the Democratic Party, I'm sorry, of the Republican Party, that would be a terrible mistake. I think the Trump balloon is slowly leaking air, and I think when people realize really what this person was about, okay? He hardly espouses the conservative views of the Republican Party, okay? And I, on this program, this'll be the third time I've talked about it. There he is. Okay, well, he was a former President, so I have to be respectful to him, but I disagree with him on virtually every subject, and I think his attitudes are polarizing and are pulling apart America. I see that when I travel in rural, upstate New York and rural Vermont and rural New Hampshire, I'm starting to see a divide. We don't wanna stick with that picture Donald Trump too long, Kevin, okay, I gotta move on to something a little cooler than that guy on my birthday here. Okay, so this is the third time I've been on this show since March, and that was a town meeting, actually, I was town meeting day, and that was also State of the Union day. And President Biden gave a great State of the Union that day, I know I've talked about it a couple of times, but he's very comfortable at, he's very comfortable at home, at the Capitol, and he gave a great speech. Also, I think he's been doing a great job on the Ukrainian war. We see that it looks like this war is gonna go on for a long time, and it's gonna be painful and horrible. Russia, we'll see what happens. It looks like President Putin's health is a bit spotty. It looks like they're getting literally no support from the rest of the world. China seems to be hedging its bets. We're pretty much all in, except for actual troops on the ground. But I think our management of the war, we're trying to get some supplies over there, primarily humanitarian. So we do not have ground troops there, but let's make no mistake about it, please, that we are supplying weapons. We are supplying technology. We are supplying intelligence. We are maybe not at war, but we are in a very tough situation. We have never wanted to fight the Russians. The famous Elbe River, that's ELBE in 1945, where the Russians and the Americans met, and that was where the line stood, and that's where the line became. For, let's see, 1945 till 1989, that was East Germany, and that was the Communist bloc. We saw communism fell. We see that a lot of Russian or Soviet, excuse me, satellite states have become independent republics, like Belarus, like Ukraine, like Georgia, and it's incredible to me that Russia has really no allies in this. Maybe some former Soviet satellites, but in terms of the West and South America, Africa, they're getting absolutely no support, and you see the good work that the UN is able to do. We're putting a lot of pressure on Putin. These sanctions really work. We are grabbing the material riches of the oligarchs, for example, the Central Park, 57th Street, they call that Billionaires Row, and we are grabbing that stuff. We are grabbing, for example, one of those Putin's henchmen, he owns Chelsea Football Club, the soccer team, the very, very popular soccer team in the UK, kind of like the New York Yankees of soccer, like Manu or something. So these sanctions are starting to hurt. We see that the fighting is fierce, and as usual, it's young men fighting, fighting wars of corruption and danger and horror, and my heart bleeds for the Ukrainian people. We attended a rally with Congressman Welch at the State Capitol in March, and I remember that because it was pretty cold, and it was holding the Ukraine flag with my friend David Zuckerman, former Lieutenant Governor, and speaker after speaker. There's, it's not a large community, but the Ukraine community in Vermont is very vibrant, and just the utter illegality of this. It would be like us invading Canada or something, and I think President Biden has provided very responsible leadership on this, because as we know, we just got out of a 20-year, 20-year, very rough, very, very rough slog in Afghanistan and about a 17-year slog in Iraq, and those wars were very crippling to us, to our economy. We lost so many amazing young people. So many young people were hurt emotionally with wounds. They were exposed to so many different chemicals. For example, President Biden in his State of the Union talked about that how his late son, Beau Biden, maybe he, the poor man died of a brain tumor, and he probably received that because he was near those terrible burn pits that we had over there. So we've just gotten out of these two rough, rough wars. Sometimes the fighting in Iraq, the temperature was 125 to 128 degrees. Afghanistan, it could be bitter cold, bitter hot. So I'm not sure that the support is there for us to put land troops into Ukraine, but President Biden has stated with all seriousness that if they go into an inch of NATO territory that we will respond. And it's easy to say, hey, is that World War III? We certainly hope not, but we see how World War I started from a conflict in would be President Bosnia, Yugoslavia was part of the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and we've seen World War II started with the invasion of Poland by the Nazis and basically our appeasement in Czechoslovakia. But we see how these can turn into very, I'm trying to think of the right correct word, they can turn into worldwide conflicts. So as commander of chief, no politics is taking the politics out for a second and that's hard for me to do. President Biden has been an excellent commander in chief. He has the full support of the Pentagon unlike President Trump where they did not trust him and there was absolute revolving door of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, joint chiefs and they frankly had no trust in his military vision. I think President Biden, he came into office in 1973, he was in January, 73, there he is and Vietnam War was still going, it ended right around that time. So he's seen a lot of conflicts and that's obviously the toughest job of being President of the United States. So we also see with this Roe versus Wade decision how this in a terrible way has kind of energized the Democrats. We realize the Republicans and the Republican-led court they really do not have a respect for a woman's body, their right to choose and as so many senators and congressmen have said, my granddaughter has less rights than my daughter and I think of the long history of woman's suffrage, inequality in America. It wasn't until 1920 that women had the vote so my grandmother when she was 21 was not able to vote, she was born in 1897. So it goes back just to my grandmother's times and all the, what we've had improvements in social causes for rights for everyone, for women, for LGBTQT, for non-binary and it seems like the Republicans are using these shock issues to frighten and that's what Fox News is doing. For example, I refer you to the New York Times Sunday, May 1st and Monday, May 2nd for a very, very long article about Tucker Carlson and his, he's just flaming of racial tensions on Fox News. He has the lead spot at seven o'clock. He and I went to the same college down in Connecticut, Trinity College and Tucker, this article, it's very painful to read. He just found these hot button topics and is just flaming the fires of racial tension and it's frightening, it's dangerous, it's scary, it's nutty and they're so well produced and he's very articulate that it's easy to be taken in by this. So I refer to anyone who wants to take a serious look at what Fox News is doing to the fantastic, the best of the best, the New York Times. On Sunday, May 1st, 2022 and Monday, May 2nd, 2022, front page and for the times it's unusual, it goes on for several pages and it shows the premeditation of the Murdoch family to just for ratings for money. I don't know how they look at themselves. I don't know how they can meet their maker. Love not hate, love Trump's hate. But anyway, the president has been obviously right out front on this Roe versus Wade leak. Now, the president can't be happy the leak occurred. It's not like national intelligence but it's such an important national matter that the leaking's a big deal. We can talk about that on another show but the opinion is what counts. The opinion is gonna try to strike down Roe versus Wade which has been, quote, law of the land since 1973. And you know, that was a Republican court too but those Republicans are not like the Republicans of today, they were fiscal conservatives but they were for social justice. A lot of Republicans were on the front lines of the civil rights movement. A lot of people forget that. Richard Nixon, you know, talking about the most idiosyncratic president of them all. And you know why we're talking about Richard Nixon, I should thank Burlington resident, Mr. Garrett M. Graff. He's got a best seller on his hands here. His one volume history of Watergate is exceptional. It is at the Burlington Public Library. I believe there are two copies. And Garrett, Garrett lives up in the Hill section. He's a fantastic reporter, historian and so great at putting together information but I just finished reading that. It's gotta be the highlight of, it's one of the best books I've read this year. Again, thanks to Mr. Garrett M. Graff. Best seller, New York Times, awesome. Thank you, Garrett. Maybe sometime I'd like to have you on the show and we can talk about Mr. Nixon. All the different Mr. Nixon's, he was quite a man. So anyway, Mr. Biden has shown a lot of leadership. And also I mentioned her on every show but and maybe we can get her picture up for next time. I think she's the greatest. Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady in the United States. Still teaching community college and as first lady living in the White House. She has been forceful in her condemnation of this. The fact that it's an invasion of privacy, that it's a health issue. There, hey, there she is. She will be on the road and I have a prediction that she will be coming to Vermont to hopefully stump for the candidates up here. And Dr. Biden, thanks for your good work as a teacher, educator, mother, crusader, and just friend to every Democrat and just an awesome person. I see that she was on the Poland-Ukraine border meeting with Ukrainian officials. So Dr. Jill, thank you. I hope I see you in Burlington. If anyone's ever seen her speak, she is so dynamic and passionate and she really believes in this mission. She and Joe are a team and she's one of the top first ladies. She's really great and a stunning contrast to our last first lady who had really little interest in the job or in people or helping anyone, it seemed like, except her wearing her designer clothes and helping her rich friends. Dr. Jill Biden's been a teacher for 45 years and she's a real force. So thanks, Dr. Jill. And we also talking about Dr. Jill and Joe, the White House Correspondence Dinner was exceptional for the first time in six years. President attended the dinner. Now, President Obama went, a few times, I don't think he went his last year, President Trump could not take the music. He never came once because I believe in 2013, Seth Meyers said him straight and President Obama said him straight about when President Trump had that phony story about President Obama being born outside of the United States. When we all know President Obama was born in Hawaii, which is a state which is part of America. Boy, was that racist, you know, just thinking about that almost 10 years ago really makes me angry. But so, Mr. Biden, President Biden, Uncle Joe, President Biden, he went, he was great. He was funny, he made fun of himself, but then in the end as he always does, he got serious and talked about America and he was a good sport. He was in a room full of people that were so glad that he was there. And then also, I must commend Trevor Noah, who's a South African comic wit humorist. And he was the emcee and he was great with Mr. Biden. He obviously likes the President, but of course, hey, we need him a little bit. I guess he talked about Hunter Biden a little bit and had a few laughs. And you know what? President Biden sat there and laughed and took it like a good sport that he is, okay? And this is a guy who's been a lot of those dinners and knew a lot of people in that room and cared enough to hang around and take some jokes and give a few back. Gentle with some love and it was a great performance by him and I'm really proud of President Biden. I'm really hoping he's gonna run again and I predict he's gonna run again right now on May 10th, 2022. President Joe Biden will announce in the early 24 that he's a candidate for reelection and his running weight will be our excellent Vice President Kamala Harris. Let me see where I am here. I'm gotta be about, I'm 10 minutes away. So I've gotta go into, I usually start the show with it. I had a little problem with my Peter Welch button here getting it on, the pin is broken. So I got thrown off. But we've gotta talk about COVID, okay? I am quadruple-vaxxed. I've got several of my shots right downstairs in this building on the corner of Archibald and North Winooski Avenue. I'd like to thank the Hinsdale family, Jacob Hinsdale. They provided the rooms for that. I'm really glad I got my second booster. I'm over 50, I'm 59 today. So I feel great. If you're having problems with COVID, if you were scared and you didn't wanna get the shot or you saw some disturbing stuff, please, as I talk to everyone, and this goes out to all of Chittenden County, mostly in Burlington, though, the number that you can call is 211 to get help with COVID and all sorts of social services. 10 minutes I have. Thank you, Kevin. As we know, COVID has taken, it's not just the physical ailments, it's the mental, it's the post-traumatic stress. It was very, very frightening. It's perhaps it affecting other conditions, pre-existing conditions, autoimmune, respiratory. It's also the lack of, it's impossible to find a good apartment in Burlington anymore, the lack of secure housing. We also, anyone who's walking around Chittenden County knows and this is no, this is the truth. We have a terrible, terrible opiate problem. It's not heroin, it's fentanyl or Suboxone or something mixed in, sometimes legal depressants mixed in with basically designer drugs. The days of heroin, I'm told, are gone. People could live for years and years. Doing heroin every day and, but there's fentanyl and there's stuff that's even stronger than fentanyl out there. So this stuff, this stuff is really, really, really rough on our populace and we really need, what we really need is people to get, as my friend, Attorney General TJ Donovan said once, if I was homeless, I had no money, I had no friends. I was alone, I was in the winter. Hey, I'd be getting high, I'd be getting wasted too, okay? And you know what? I thought that was an amazingly truthful statement. I'm gonna get back to TJ because he's announced he's not gonna run. I wanna thank him and Beth Pierce and Jim Condos and Molly Gray. They've all done a great job in their positions. They're leaving, some to retire from the sector, some to run for other office. But as TJ said, when you're alone, when it's cold out, the winter, boy, it gets dark so early. Hopefully we keep with the daylight savings forever. You know, a respite might be getting intoxicated. So what can we do to get some people some good housing? Not crummy, banged up, crummy or beat up hotel, something that can maybe be a home because home's where the heart is and a hotel is not a home. And try to get some people eating nutritionally and see a doctor and maybe get their glasses, prescription done, or maybe get some dental work, or maybe talk to a therapist or a psychologist and maybe wean off some medications and get some nice new clothes and a nice winter jacket. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My friend, if you're homeless, that doesn't work. So we see with the stimulus plan, just yesterday I listened on the radio and read in the New York Times today that President Biden signed part of it that will provide free internet service for low income Americans. We're talking millions and millions of Americans, okay? Now, I don't know, again, hey, there's my buddy, TJ Donovan, let me talk about him for a minute. Good friend of mine, he and his mother representative Joey Donovan. He was a 10-term Burlington Democrat. I saw her at the Curtis Awards. Joey done a lot for Burlington in the state. So is the whole Donovan family from TJ's dad to his sisters to the whole crew. He is a three-term attorney general and he's stepping back. He's taken a break from politics. COVID has been hard. It's hard to do all these meetings on Zoom. I miss seeing people in person. I am not a computer person or a Zoom person, but let's talk about what TJ did, an amazing thing he did. I think three years ago, if you had some tickets, driving tickets and your license was suspended, there was a way to, there was one day where you could come and pay $10 each ticket and get your license back. And a good friend of mine was able to do that. He hasn't had a ticket sense. He's got his license. He's driving legit. He's working hard. So we see some of the things that TJ has done with judicial reform. He's taken a break. I think he'll be back in democratic politics. I hope so. He's a good buddy of mine. He cares about people and I'd like to thank him. Also, I need to thank two other people. I don't know if we have pictures, but maybe next time is State Treasurer Beth Pierce. Beth is stepping back. I read in the newspaper she has some health problems and I'm praying for her. She, five minutes left. So I'm gonna wrap this up, but I've got to do a tribute to her. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman. Lives in Berry City, really cares about people. Has been Treasurer for I think six years now or maybe seven. I wish you the best. She cares about people. Walking around, talking to people with Beth, that keeps it real. Also, State Attorney General Jim Condos is retiring. That's my main man. He calls me the voting man. So helpful with me. We have the best voting laws in all 50 states. As someone who's registered a lot of voters, I've looked over all 50 states as kind of a project and we really have the best. Now let's talk about the primary on August 9th. Little different than the last two elections. We are having, we are not sending out ballots to everyone. You have to request an absentee ballot. In Burlington, you can call 865-7000 and press extension one. Or you can go on the web to Burlington City Clerk's office or stop by in person. 149 Church Street, Church in Maine. They're closed for lunch from 1230 to 130 but they're open eight to 430, Monday through Friday. My great friends down there will help you. They are the best. If you're watching this in another town, Winooski, Essex, God knows where. On the worldwide web, you can call your town hall, email them, write them and get an absentee. Okay, so the ways to vote on this August 9th primary, which are gonna be huge because it's gonna be Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney General, State House, State Senate. Also, Chinden County Prosecutor. So anyone, if you're interested enough to watch this show, I need you to vote on the ninth. You can do it by one of three ways. Requesting an absentee ballot in the way I just mentioned. One, we're also gonna have about a month of early voting. It will start right after July 4th. Takes time to get all the petitions in and get the ballot set and the election is Tuesday, August 9th from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Any grateful deadhead will know that's the day Jerry Garcia died. So that's a sad day for me but it's a happy day because it's democracy. Tuesday, August 9th. In the next couple shows before this, we are gonna talk, we're gonna talk about the down ballot races. I have an endorsement to make, obviously, full disclosure. I am working on Congressman Peter Welch's U.S. Senate campaign. I'd like to say hi to my friends on the staff, Ryan McLaren, Theo Wurtzberg, Meredith Woodside. I'd like to thank Congressman Welch himself, his wife, Margaret Cheney. Ms. Cheney, you are doing a great job on Public Utilities Board. We did that great event with Senator Markey. And if you wanna, you can meet Congressman Welch. Sorry, I can't call him Senator yet. He's gonna be traveling all 14 counties of this state. So Addison, Bennington, Caldonia, Chittenden, Essex, Franklin, Grand Isle, Orleans, Rutland, LeMoyle, Windsor, Washington, and Wyndham, that's the 14 counties. He's gonna be traveling them. So I believe I have two minutes left. So okay, we're gonna get back to the COVID. If you need some help, if you need some help maybe with some food money, what they call food stamps now called three squares, if you need access to insurance, Medicaid is unbelievably great insurance and low income Vermonters can apply for that. It's a very simple application. Please, can you dial 211? Hopefully we can get that up on the upfront before we go off in about 90 seconds. But COVID again is raging in Chittenden County and in Burlington. I have some friends who have it. I wanna wish them the best. Stay safe, when in doubt, wear a mask. Please, if you have any questions, dial 211, please. If you need some assistance on voting or getting an absentee ballot, you can just call me at home. I work best off phone. My telephone number is 802-540-0717. That's 802-540-0717. We're down to about a minute left. So I must thank town meeting television. They are doing splendid work here in the heart of the Old North End. Kevin Harms is doing double duty today as he's doing the photography. He's doing the stills. He's doing the production work. The teen sympathy. He's always so kind to me. So I'd like to thank him and also all the people here. We are getting down, I think, to about 30 seconds left. And so let's just talk about the election, August 9th. Okay, if you need an absentee ballot, call your town hall, email them, send them a postcard. Early voting will start about July 4th. The election is Tuesday, August 9th. And that's 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. This is a very important election. The ballot's gonna be long. There's a lot of good candidates. So take your time, do your research. I will, and thank you so much.