Prof. Lawless Defends Whitehouse, Questions Foulkes’ Purdue Pharma Ties, Talks Raimondo
Prof. Lawless Defends Whitehouse, Questions Foulkes’ Purdue Pharma Ties, Talks Raimondo
Whitehouse Traveling and Missing Key Vote
First, Lawless came to the defense of U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who missed a critical Senate vote.
Democrats in the Senate were looking at their first legislative victory against Trump on Tariffs, but Whitehouse missed the vote due to traveling to attend a conference in South Korea.
The resolution failed 49-49.
Regarding Whitehouse’s miss, Lawless said, “The Senate alone can't pass any sort of legislation, so it probably wasn't a huge policy fail."
"But it's certainly not ideal, especially when the Democrats are trying to demonstrate that they're unified, that there are certain cases where they can get a few Republicans on board and try to put the brakes on Donald Trump," added Lawless. "In the broad scheme of things, I think it's probably not determinative.”
In response to an ongoing series by GoLocalProv on Rhode Island Democratic gubernatorial candidate Helena Foulkes and her ties to the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, Foulkes has refused to give comment.
“I’m a big believer in you're not judged by the company you keep but if you're not going to be judged by the company you keep, you better differentiate yourself from that company and she's not doing that,” said Lawless about Foulkes' response to a series of investigative reports about her ties to the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma.
“So if she wants to say ‘Look do not judge me based on who my uncle is, do not judge me based on who my grandfather is, do not judge me based on the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma, do not judge me based on my role at CVS — these were mistakes that I made. These were relationships that I had, and these were connections that were unfortunate,’ say it,” said Lawless.
“[Foukles’] silence just feeds this general sense that she's in bed with all of these people. And maybe she is, I don't know, but she's certainly allowing a narrative to be written that I don't think is particularly helpful for a gubernatorial campaign, that's certainly not very helpful for voters who are looking for a fresh face and new ideas and that's certainly not helpful if you want to vote for somebody that you think holds themselves up to the highest levels of integrity. So, I think the silence and the just sort of ‘oh I'm so disappointed’ kind of language needs to be supplemented with a little bit more substance,” added Lawless.
This past week, the former governor of Rhode Island and Secretary of Commerce made noise that she was considering a run for President.
Gina Raimondo, when asked by veteran political operative David Axelrod at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event if she was considering a presidential run, said yes.
As GoLocal previously reported, Raimondo made the case for her "successes" in Rhode Island at a recent Harvard Institute of Politics event.
Lawless said about Raimondo’s strategy, “Well, broadly I think the fact that anybody is willing to utter those words so early highlights how competitive and how crowded this primary field will be. There is no question that there will be dozens of Democrats emerge who think that they can take on JD Vance or whomever the Republican nominee will be and by positioning themselves and trying to come out of the gate early."
"They're hoping to do two things," said Lawless of that strategy. "The first is to ward off potential challengers who might occupy the same lane as them and the second is to signal to donors that they're going to be calling very very soon."
“Anybody that was successful in the Biden administration, anybody that is a Democrat in the United States Senate, any Democratic governor would be crazy not to take seriously the idea that 2028 might be their year,” said Lawless.
Lawless warned that Raimondo does not have an office to run from and that is a disadvantage.
When asked if there was a crowded field for the Democratic nomination, would Raimondo be able to be on the top-tier and the primary debate stage, Lawless said, “I think probably (Raimondo) is at the four o'clock plate special debate for a couple of reasons — the first is she doesn't currently hold elected office and she's not currently able to use her political profile to bring about any kind of change so any current governor, any current Democratic member of the United States Senate who's interested in emerging can position themselves to get a lot of media coverage and attention right now.
"It's not to say that she can't do it but it's more difficult,” added Lawless.
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