Seattle Elections Heat Up and Trump Gets Punitive

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde with the most prolific reporter in Seattle, the hardest working woman in show business who laughs at the idea of eight hour days, try 12 hour days, Erica C. Barnett of Publicola.com. Hi, Erica. Hello. Now I'm feeling like this week is a bad example because I've only put up three stories this week. But, you know, every week can't be the most prolific.

[00:00:36] Plus guest stories, plus some additional, right? Also with us, as always, Seattle's answer to Machiavelli political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Thank you, David. So KUOW had another explosive story this week about Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. The headline, woman says she was eight months pregnant when Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell pulled a gun on her leading to his 1996 arrest.

[00:01:03] Doesn't seem like a great headline to me if you're running for reelection. And he's accused essentially of pulling a gun on someone. There's some dispute about that over a parking lot dispute, which reminded me of that Seinfeld episode. But it's kind of not not as funny as that. Erica, what can you tell us about the latest in this story?

[00:01:23] Yeah. So KUOW, Ashley Hiruko, reported an update on a story that, you know, I think kind of some folks were poo-pooing when it came out initially without all these details. But then Omaha resident Bruce Harrell allegedly, according to this story, was in a dispute over a parking space at a casino late at night when he was living in Omaha, Nebraska.

[00:01:46] And according to the woman that this, you know, allegedly happened to, pulled a gun, drove up on her and her husband and her mother while she was eight months pregnant, pulled a gun and flashed it and said, you stole my parking space. There was a dispute after that. They ended up going to casino security and the police were called. A officer came and tried to handcuff Harold while she was looking into his car for the gun that turned out to be there.

[00:02:15] And he, you know, allegedly sort of scuffled with her and refused to be handcuffed initially. And this was all in the context of him trying to get a seat on a local housing board. And his response to this whole story today has been that the whole thing was a matter of racial profiling, that he was getting death threats for his appointment to this board. And that's why he was carrying a gun. And, you know, he is we can get into this more.

[00:02:45] But, you know, in the story, he continually refuses to take any responsibility for any of this. And it says that the reporters essentially are getting the story wrong or that it didn't happen this way. You can check out more on Ashley's story on KOW.org. Sandeep, I'm wondering, you know, what you think of the story? What's the fallout? Is the mayor's race a race this year? Some folks have been thinking maybe not so much. Has anything changed? Well, it's certainly not a great headline, as you point out, David.

[00:03:15] You know, whenever there's a headline about, you know, eight month pregnant women and the mayor waving around a gun. Right. That's not a great headline. Right. That said, this incident dates back to 1996. So 29 years ago, if I'm doing my math right. And the circumstances of what happened are disputed. As Erica mentioned, the mayor has sort of disputed some of the portrayal of this and said there were some other things going on. There was a reason he was carrying the gun.

[00:03:45] There was a kind of he felt that he was being racially profiled during this incident. The charges that this incident resulted in were dropped. So there was never any any real charges brought against him. It's way in the past. So not a great headline. But so far, at least I'm not picking up some big public. Political problem for Bruce Harrell.

[00:04:11] So Erica Sandeep saying, at least for now, it doesn't seem like it's going to necessarily think Harold's chances of getting reelected this year. What do you think? Well, I mean, just to semi correct one thing Sandeep said, it's true that there were no. So the charges were dropped as part of a deferred prosecution, according to the story. And I think that's important. I mean, that is something that happened in the background.

[00:04:37] But it's not as if the charges were dropped because they were untrue or because the prosecutor believed they were untrue. You know, I'll say, yeah, it was 30 years ago, almost 30 years ago. But a lot of times it isn't, you know, the original offense that is so much the issue as the way somebody, a politician reacts to it becoming a live issue now. And, you know, I mean, there's a couple of things here.

[00:05:00] I mean, Harold changed his story about this incident repeatedly, both at the time between when he was at the casino, you know, being interrogated by the security guards and when he was prosecuted. But also now, I mean, he's changed his story in response to KUOW discovering more facts about the case. And I think that is, you know, it might not hurt his election chances. I agree with Sandeep. There's not a real viable candidate right now. But just reading the story personally, it makes me feel like the mayor is not being an entirely honest player.

[00:05:29] You can't have two contradictory stories both be true, you know. And the way that this incident was described, I mean, you know, he said that he, one way in which his story changed is he claimed that there were multiple Hispanic men coming at him. And, you know, as it turns out, at least according to this woman who was pregnant at the time, it was her, her mother and her husband going out after his night shift at the meatpacking factory to have a little fun at the casino.

[00:05:59] And this guy just kind of pulls up on them. And it sounds very scary from their point of view. Now, he is now claiming that this was all racial profiling and that this just shows, you know, how hard it is to be, you know, someone, a person of color being targeted by all these different authorities.

[00:06:17] But he has never once said in any of his public response that there was like maybe a problem with brandishing a gun at the very least, you know, pulling a gun on somebody, potentially driving up to them while they're walking, which is their story, and pulling a gun on them. So, I don't know. I mean, I just, like, you can fuck up in life. Everybody fucks up in life. I fucked up in life. You know, I mean, I have talked about this. I got busted for shoplifting coming up on, I don't know, 17 years ago now. What?

[00:06:46] We've never heard that. Oh, my God. I know. Scandal. I know. And it's in my book. And, you know, and, like, guess what? Like, I did it. I had community service. And I, you know, and it was a fuck up. And I owned up to it. And to me, I mean, maybe this is just, like, me being self-righteous and moralistic. I don't know. But, like, yeah. Like, I mean, hoops among us hasn't pulled a gun on somebody.

[00:07:16] But, you know, it just seems like it would be better for the mayor to say, this is 30 years ago. I regret my actions. Here's what I've learned from it in those 30 years. And here's how I live my life now. So, and that has not happened. One thing I will say, again, I qualified that with a yet, but I don't think the political fallout from this, so far as I can sort of determine at this point, is all that significant.

[00:07:45] But there are lots of, I would say, rumors swirling that there's, you know, oh, there's more to come. And KUW is working on other stuff where other reporters are working on stuff. Erica, you kind of telegraphed mistakenly, accidentally, that you have a story coming about, you know, mayoral staffer, longtime mayoral staffer who's been accused of sexual assault. And that there's more to that story as well. And we're waiting to see your, you had sort of inadvertently posted an early version of it or a draft of it.

[00:08:15] Literally, my finger slipped and I hit publish and unpublished it immediately. But unfortunately, it goes out in email automatically. Yeah, I saw it, right? And so, so everybody, you know, we know you've got something to do. Yeah. And, and, Sandeep, potentially more candidates to come that we haven't heard about. Well, that's right. The word on the street is that there's going to be a candidate of the left getting in in this upcoming week. I think, Erica, you've heard the same thing.

[00:08:41] I'm not going to step on their announcement by, by naming who it is, but, you know, a credible candidate on the left. So, yeah, there's a candidate getting in. Allegedly, rumor is there's more stuff coming out. We'll see whether any of that's true or not. I have no freaking idea. And I'm not going to characterize what the, what the rumors are about what supposedly it is. Because, again, I have no basis to know whether any of this is true or not. So we'll see what happens, right?

[00:09:07] But there's, there's definitely a swirl of conversation among the political class about what exactly is going on here and who's behind this leak, right? How did KUW get this story from 1996? And the Seattle Times. Yeah, and the Seattle Times, right. Yeah. There's a lot of content. But KUW broke it, just to give them credit. KUW first. Yes, yes. We gave them lots of credit on this. Almost too much credit on this.

[00:09:33] One thing I do want to add, because checking in about the political ramifications of this KUW story, I did talk to somebody, a prominent person in the labor community, right? If you're going to have a candidate coming in from the left, typically for them to be viable, they need really, really strong support, funding support, which most often comes from progressive labor unions, the big labor unions.

[00:09:57] So I checked in with somebody in labor who told me that at least as of this point, they said the big unions are going to be sticking with Bruce Harrell, not moving over to support this new challenger that's supposed to get in. If that remains the case, I think then the mayor's sort of political position remains pretty solid. But it seems like we're still waiting for some other shoes to drop in terms of stories. Maybe. Candidates. Speaking of candidates, Erica, you have a story out, an exclusive, right?

[00:10:26] With a challenger to city council president, Sarah Nelson. Yeah, that's right. Dionne Foster is running. She's been, I mean, we've been kind of all dancing around the fact that she was planning to get in, you know, as of, I want to say like December, January. But she finally made it official and she is a candidate who's going to be running against Nelson somewhat from the left. I mean, yeah, from the left, not from, you know, the super far left, as I, you know, is sort of clear in my interview with her.

[00:10:55] But but she is the director of Progress Alliance of Washington, which most recently fought for the statewide capital gains tax. And she's she's a really interesting person. I mean, she like I said, she's not she didn't come out swinging, you know, in favor of a local capital gains tax, for example, or against, you know, police funding. I mean, she really came back over and over to we need to hire more police in our interview. But I think she's going to be a really strong candidate.

[00:11:24] She's you know, she has a lot of support in the communities that she's part of, you know, from labor, I think, and also just from the kind of progressive world. So I think she's going to be really formidable. I think Sarah Nelson is probably quite, I mean, scared to be too long, too strong of a term. But I think she is going to take this challenge very, very seriously. Sandeep, this is a real race. It is a real race. Yeah. You know, Erica's right. Dionne, I know Dionne, smart person, credible candidate.

[00:11:55] You know, this is a real challenge. Unlike what I was just saying about labor sticking with the mayor, I think they're in the opposite place when it comes to Council President Nelson. They basically put a bullseye on her back. And there's Erica's absolutely right. I think they're they strongly encourage Dionne to foster to get into the race. I'm already hearing talk that they're pulling together what will be a very significant, well-funded independent expenditure campaign in support of her.

[00:12:23] So this race is shaping up to be a kind of classic, you know, Seattle kind of business on one side, supporting Sarah Nelson and labor on the other, supporting the challenger, Dionne Foster. Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low.

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[00:13:22] That's Ike's.com. I think, too, you know, her stances that she took with me and kind of her posture as not the candidate of like of the far left. She, you know, not that I mean, she didn't say this, but, you know, not the Tammy Morales necessarily, not certainly not Sandeep's favorite, Shama Sawant.

[00:13:49] You know, it's not that different than Alexis Mercedes Rink, who is now on the council. You know, she might be a little bit less to the left than than Rink. But, you know, we talked about housing in industrial lands, for example. And she has like clearly been convinced that this is a bad idea because it'll harm port and maritime jobs.

[00:14:11] Sarah Nelson, of course, is proposing to allow some housing in the industrial area or the industrially zoned non-industrial area near the stadiums. I asked her about capital gains tax locally, and she said, you know, it's a great idea at the state level, might not make sense at the local level, just in terms of, you know, how much money it'll bring in and the fact that it's volatile. So, you know, a lot of very nuanced positions that I think the left are already saying on social media.

[00:14:39] You know, some of them are not thrilled with this stuff, but I think she's going to be the candidate that's that's holding down that left lane that Sandeep likes to talk about. It seems like progressive candidates have learned something over the last few years, Erica, from what you're saying. Well, I think these are just different candidates.

[00:14:57] I mean, I don't think that, you know, I mean, I think they're just it's just a different group of people that actually, you know, I mean, not to say that politicians aren't craven and don't change their positions based on, you know, what they see other people losing on. But I also think that we're just seeing different candidates than we might have seen four years ago. I'm not calling somebody craven. And I'm simply saying, perhaps these are strategic choices as much as they reflect people's values. And, you know, that's that's what politicians do.

[00:15:26] It's not a doesn't make them bad people. But I wasn't saying that. I mean, but I but I do think that, like, I mean, just real quick, like Christian Senderman consultant worked for Alexis and is now his consulting firm is working for Dion. And I think, you know, he is kind of trying to I mean, his candidates are representative right now of that sort of I would call it center left. And I would call Sarah Nelson more conservative. And I think Sunday would probably bump those both a little bit to the left.

[00:15:53] But but but certainly not the not the far left candidates. Yeah, a couple of things about this. One, I do think the way Dion is positioning herself on public safety. David, to your question, is an indication that the left is trying to learn from the excesses of the last two election cycles. She was at least rhetorically very moderate sounding on public safety. And, Erica, as you pointed out, she was not talking about cutting cops, but about hiring them.

[00:16:21] She didn't take many substantive positions there on the public safety stuff. But at least the rhetoric sounded was very moderate sounding and definitely is a break from where left lane candidates were in previous election cycles. I will say, though, I'm glad you brought up the stadium district housing issue because I thought that was a mistake on Dion's part. She took a no position on that.

[00:16:41] And look, we just saw in the strong vote for Proposition 1A, it seems very, very clear there's a there's a strong desire and hunger out there for more action on housing, particularly affordable housing in the city of Seattle. I should preface this by or add in here as a disclosure that I'm working on this stadium district issue. So I'm not a neutral person. I consult for the stadium authorities.

[00:17:09] And so we are in support of this housing. But I just think from a campaign perspective, coming out and saying I'm against a thousand units of housing because even though it's been studied in multiple studies that say that it can be compatible with the maritime and industrial operations to the south. But I'm against it because the port of Seattle doesn't like it. Like and, you know, is a mistake. I think there's a way I mean to get into like pretend to be Sandeep Kashuk for a second.

[00:17:38] I think there is a way. I think there is a way. And I, you know, I mean, of course, like I think we should have more housing everywhere. I know a lot of progressives think that this is a bad thing because of port jobs. But I think there's a way to thread that needle if you actually do believe the port and think that housing in this area will be you know, will decimate the port or whatever. To say Sarah Nelson is a NIMBY and I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying from a candidate perspective, this is how I play it. Sarah Nelson's a NIMBY. She doesn't want housing in single family neighborhoods.

[00:18:06] So she wants to dump it in the industrial area where it's dirty, where it's dangerous. And this is, you know, a craven political move to keep housing out of single family neighborhoods. That's how I would play it if I was her political consultant, perhaps. But, you know, I think she does seem to have kind of bought this argument that it is bad for union jobs to have housing there. And on this podcast, we don't care about those port jobs. We've already established that.

[00:18:36] If you want to talk about you want to talk about union jobs. Right. I mean, there are now, I think, more than a dozen unions on the side of the housing. Right. There's one longshore union. A very small union is on the other side. Right. And so we've talked about this issue before and how it's distorted the normal sort of tribal divisions of Seattle politics, where a bunch of the urbanists out of kind of their hatred of Sarah Nelson seem to be like cozying up to the port on this. Whereas you've got like some very progressive unions supporting Sarah Nelson's legislation,

[00:19:04] as well as the affordable housing developers, as well as, you know, the kind of neighborhoods, Biner Square. I think you explained it right there. I mean, she's she's drawing sharp distinctions with Sarah Nelson and siding with some progressives. And that's not the dumbest thing she could ever do politically, despite the fact that, you know, you're you're wearing your like nobody should oppose me on on on these. No, I again, if I'm I'm not playing. But I actually play a political consultant on TV.

[00:19:29] And if I was doing that right now, if I was working on Sarah Nelson's campaign, I would be I would be using that that that that my opponent came out against housing. I would be using that message. Erica, speaking of craven and cynical politicians, I think you probably want to say that about our own and Davison, Republican city attorney who is making a decision that you probably consider a little bit craven. Am I right or am I wrong?

[00:19:56] I mean, I think you're I think that's overstating it a little bit. I mean, let's hear it. Let's hear it. So city attorney and Davison signed on to a lawsuit that was filed by the city of San Francisco, Portland, a bunch of other cities signed on as well against a executive order from the Trump administration saying that they're going to pull money from sanctuary cities that don't enforce federal immigration law. And of course, Seattle is a sanctuary city. It's not a term that really has a legal meaning.

[00:20:22] But here it just means that city employees don't provide don't ask for immigration status and don't provide it unless legally required to do so. So, yeah, I mean, Craven goes a little far. But I think that Ann Davison, who became a Republican during the Trump administration and, you know, joined the walk away movement that was started by one of the people who was later convicted in the January 6 riots.

[00:20:52] That's that's who she, you know, was associated with prior to this iteration of the Trump administration. And now I think she's trying to distance herself. I did think that her statement and she put out a statement to supporters as well. You know, she is making it about local control, which is, I think, different than the way that Bruce Harrell and others have made their own statements about the Trump administration and immigration.

[00:21:16] And, you know, I mean, she did say something about like our vibrant immigrant community, which is not quite the same thing as saying, you know, we will protect immigrants against the Trump administration's illegal and outrageous attempts to, you know, do mass deportations on every brown person in the country. So, yeah, I mean, I think she's up for reelection. I think this is a reelection.

[00:21:43] I don't think this statement would necessarily have happened in the same way and been even as forceful as it is if it was not a reelection year. Sandeep, tell me why I'm wrong. Yeah, I think this is a case of both good policy and good governance as well as good politics. Right. She is up for reelection. I think that's probably right that her strong statement that she issued today and she's kind of leaning in on this, the fact that she's joined this lawsuit is is obviously, you know, part of her campaign message.

[00:22:09] But I also think, look, we've had a seemingly endless stream of these far reaching and in many cases probably, you know, illegally or unconstitutionally overreaching executive orders that have come out of the Trump administration on pretty much everything under the sun, but basically threatening any other jurisdiction or government or whatever that might disagree with him and his positions on certain policies and saying,

[00:22:36] we're going to basically rip away all of your federal resources and support. And some of this stuff is probably legal on his part, but a lot of it probably isn't. And I think it's the right thing for whether it's the Democratic attorney generals of I think it's 22 or 23 Democratic attorney generals that have been filing a whole series of lawsuits or whether it's blue cities like Seattle and Ann Davison coming together with other blue cities to

[00:23:06] to file lawsuits against the overreach of the Trump administration on this. So that's good policy, but it's also good politics for Seattle. Hopefully, Erica, you know, she also learned something over the last few years. One thing of which is winning in Seattle right now where people feel like they're under threat of autocracy and fascism and are quite, quite alarmed about what's happening federally.

[00:23:31] The idea of being identified with Trump just seems like a complete nonstarter right now. I don't know that this is enough. You know, I mean, if she burns her Republican Party card maybe publicly, that would be a better gesture. On the other hand, don't we need more Republicans like her standing up to the Trump administration? I mean, shouldn't we be celebrating this? I mean, who gives a crap if it's political or not?

[00:23:55] In some ways, let's see more Republicans standing up to the Trump administration on this and everything else, because that's what we need more of. We've got plenty of Democrats standing up to the Trump administration. But guess what? Democrats have no say and no power right now. So so why aren't we applauding her for this, Erica? No, I don't think we should be jumping up and down and celebrating her and giving her cookies and wreaths. I will answer that in part by going back to Sandeep's statement that she put out a statement that was very strong.

[00:24:22] She did put out a statement a few days ago as we're recording this on Friday. But the statement you're referring to, Sandeep, is a campaign mailing to supporters. And the statement is actually very Republican. She doesn't, you know, unlike in her public statement where she at least said, you know, our vibrant, you know, and lively immigrant communities or whatever she said. She didn't even mention immigrants in her statement.

[00:24:45] She said that we need this so that we can appropriately crack down on crime, because if we have immigrants being afraid of deportation, they won't come forward and talk about crimes that have happened. And, you know, she pitched it entirely as a matter of local control versus federal control. And so this statement is, you know, Trump wants us to do his job. And, you know, I mean, she's not disavowing that this is Trump's job to do these, you know, mass deportations.

[00:25:13] Now, I don't know that in her heart of hearts she agrees with this idea or if she doesn't. But I don't think that she is trying to when she's talking just to her supporters, I don't think that she is trying to appeal to our better nature. It's more, you know, if immigrants won't testify, then we can't crack down on crime as hard as we want to. I'm not here to defend any Republican, including Ann Davison. And honestly, I think that she's infinitely beatable by virtue of still being Republican.

[00:25:40] However, we're kind of mischaracterizing her statement here when we say it's only about local control because, Erica, you're leaving out the other part of that sentence, which it's local control over federal authoritarianism. That's a pretty significant thing to leave out. I mean. Well, to be clear, it wasn't that sentence. She said local control about six times in this campaign to supporters. I was not quoting from that specific sentence. So I had to. Right, right. We're saying, oh, she's only poo poo. She's only talking about. And again, I don't know if she's sincere or she isn't. I don't really care.

[00:26:10] I'd prefer she burned her Republican card. But again, local control over federal authoritarianism. Who's she talking about? Who is she talking about when it comes to federal authoritarianism? Go ahead and read that next sentence. If you want to ignore this point that I'm making, you can. I mean, I just don't. I don't think I'm not as impressed as you by the use of the word authoritarianism. I don't know what you mean by impressed, but I'm trying to be accurate. You can certainly cherry pick a word. But the very next sentence is this race.

[00:26:35] We don't need cookie cutter protests or another rule book resistance defined by divisive, alienating, extreme politics. There can be an example of basic civility for those who even have differing views. I think that a lot of people who have protested the Trump administration would not describe their protests as cookie cutter. And, you know, in the next sentence, she says it's not about partisan politics. It is about partisan politics, actually.

[00:27:00] It is it is the Republican Party that is in charge now, the MAGA Party versus sane people. You know, reading between the lines, isn't she saying something like Republicans with a conscience stand up to authoritarians? Look, I think it's a strong statement of condemnation of the Trump administration. Right. I think to the local control point, look, there may be some legal ramifications here, too. Right. I mean, remember, she's a city attorney who's suing the Trump administration.

[00:27:28] A lot of these are these arguments are not going to play out primarily in the court of public opinion, though. Obviously, that's the politics side of it. But we'll play out in a court of law. Right. And I'm not a lawyer, but there may well be kind of legal arguments that are going to be brought to bear here about local control versus federalism and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. She came out strongly for this.

[00:27:56] I think what she ran the first time, remember, you know, she was never a Trump Republican, right? She said she had caucused. And I think there's evidence of this. She caucused for Hillary Clinton in 2016 when Trump ran the first time. So I think she's trying to say, yeah, I may have that scarlet R on my forehead, but I'm not a Trump Republican. I'm a different kind of Republican. I think that's a political mess. I agree with Erica. I think she needs to state that a lot more clearly than she has done so far. And the fact that we're having to argue about the word authoritarian. I agree with that. I agree with that, too. She needs to do a lot more of this, right?

[00:28:26] Because, David, I think your point in this context, in this environment, running as a Republican in Seattle is a huge anchor, political anchor around her neck. And so this is a good start for her. But I'm with you. She needs to do more shit like this if she's going to convince Seattle voters that she's not, in fact, you know, covertly aligned with, you know, the authoritarians in Washington, D.C.

[00:28:51] But let's just move on to the Small Business Administration, which is another instance here of the city of Seattle under siege because it's a sanctuary city. Small Business Administration leaving Seattle. It's millions of dollars, essentially, in loans. Does it mean those loans go away now that this office is closing, Sandeep? What is this story's impact, do you think? We don't know yet, right? I mean, what they're saying is they're pulling the offices, the Small Business Administration

[00:29:19] office in Seattle out of Seattle. And they're doing it in a number of other big blue cities as well. They're small business administration offices. David, as you point out, the Seattle office of SBA, you know, is kind of a pass through. And they issue a lot of loans to a lot of small businesses all around Washington state, as well as that office covers some counties in Idaho as well. Right.

[00:29:44] So what we don't know is, does that mean they're now going to cut off all that loan money to any businesses, small businesses in Seattle? Or are they just moving the office in some symbolic, you know, kind of fuck you to the city over their disagreement over the sanctuary cities and immigration policy stuff? So I don't think we know the answer to that yet. I will say this, though, I do think it's another example of the egregious politicization of federal

[00:30:13] government functions that we're seeing coming out of the Trump administration in this kind of disturbingly, you know, ideological, partisan way where, you know, what's next? Are they going to start asking the people who get the actual small business owners who get the loans, who they voted for, right, before they give them loans and stuff like that? Well, look at Perkins Coie. What about Perkins Coie? Oh, the Trump administration is going after them and, you know, banning them from federal

[00:30:42] buildings. And I mean, there's just all kinds of stuff. And that's another Seattle-based business. Yeah, these are all super, I mean, these are massive violations of the basic norms of good governance that have stood the test of time in a bipartisan way for decades, if not, you know, a couple of centuries in the United States of America. This is something new. It's bad. It's anti-democratic. It's anti-good governance. And David, I think you and I were talking before the episode started.

[00:31:12] This seems like the first shoe dropping in what is going to be a very difficult period that we go through over the next four years. In terms of federal funds and the Trump administration targeting cities like Seattle that are going to stand up to them. Where we have different values and different beliefs. Yeah. Yeah. So the Trump, I mean, for another example, the Trump administration is, you know, has said it's going to shut down the Seattle-based office of the Department of Housing and Urban

[00:31:40] Development, which, you know, is not just a Seattle office. It's the entire region around us. And I think only keeping open eventually something like six offices, but ours is the first. And, you know, what that means when you start pulling out of HUD and you start, you know, banking HUD funds. And again, none of this has happened yet, but it is promised. You get into a situation where affordable housing can't be financed. You know, I mean, they finance or they insure mortgage loans.

[00:32:09] It's a lot of stuff for people, you know, trying to get into housing from being homeless or from being insecurely housed, you know, all the way up to people being able to purchase homes who couldn't afford to otherwise. And I mean, this action with HUD is blatantly illegal. It violates a number of laws. And yet, you know, obviously, like many things, he's doing it anyway. And I think it's going to be pretty devastating. All right. Well, we'll have to wait and see.

[00:32:35] And it sounds like we've got some exciting news to be reporting next week. There were some teasers in this episode. A couple of new candidates. I'm curious to see what, yeah, what news brings. Yeah, I also hear there's a candidate coming again, another candidate getting in against Ann Davison, right? Just to add on to that, but who hasn't announced yet. So, yeah. Yeah, I have an interview with both those candidates coming next week. Or two interviews with both those candidates coming next week. There you go. All right. All right. There's the teaser. There's the teaser.

[00:33:06] There's the teaser. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. She's Erica C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kaushik. I'm David Hyde. Our editor is Quinn Waller. And thanks, everybody, so much for listening.