Cowbells and handshakes open Magaziner-Mellor debate, but little agreement follows

Clang clang clang went the cowbells as supporters of Republican congressional candidate Vic Mellor gathered outside WPRI 12’s studios Friday ahead of his first TV debate with incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, who had his own posse of fans congregating before his arrival.

Inside was at first quieter, with Magaziner and Mellor shaking hands before and after the taping. While cordiality reigned over their limited offscreen interaction, the televised back-and-forth was decidedly more acrimonious, with each man impugning the other’s character as much as his politics.

“So he wants to abolish ICE,” Mellor, 56, said of Magaziner’s stance on the immigration enforcement agency at one point. “That’s basically what he said there. He just doesn’t have the gonads to say it.”

Magaziner, meanwhile, described his opponent as a fly-by-night opportunist.

“Vic Mellor is treating Rhode Island like a pit stop between Florida and Washington,” the 43 year-old congressman said, a reference to Mellor moving from Florida back to his native state and beginning his congressional campaign within the same month.

“He hasn’t lived here since 1997,” Magaziner noted, and twice said that when Mellor last lived in Rhode Island, “‘Titanic’ was No. 1 at the box office.”

The candidates also clashed over Iran, healthcare and stock trading.

And inevitably they engaged on Mellor’s embrace of the Jan. 6, 2021, march on the U.S. Capitol, a choice which he reiterated Friday came with “no regrets.”

“You know he tried to do a stunt, and that backfired on him,” Mellor said of Magaziner’s Sept. 10 press conference outside the Rhode Island State House, in which Magaziner enlisted police officers who had been harmed in the events of Jan. 6 to make the case that Mellor’s participation that day was repugnant and disqualifying.

Magaziner calls a press conference to vilify his ‘J6er’ opponent. His opponent showed up.

“Rhode Islanders don’t care about Jan. 6,” Mellor said, then turned to his opponent, “What they do care about is the riots that happened here in Providence with the socialists, the DSA, and the defund the police movement, which you marched with in solidarity.”

“I have covered the criminal cases of those arrested for their actions on Jan. 6,” WPRI-12’s Tim White, who along with Ted Nesi moderated the debate, said at one point. “Mr. Mellor is not one of them. Are you simply lumping him in with the rioters for political gain here?”

Magaziner did not directly answer the question, but accused Mellor of being “lost in a sea of conspiracy theories” about Democrat-led puppetmasters manufacturing Jan. 6.

Magaziner recalled the Capitol police officers who had traveled to Rhode Island for his press conference, saying: “It’s so serious that some of those Capitol police officers who bravely defended our Capitol on Jan. 6 came up here to Rhode Island to say, ‘Don’t vote for Vic Mellor.’”

Mellor also showed up to that presser — less than a day after his primary win against state GOP-endorsed candidate Dr. Stephen Skoly — and clarified to the media that he had never been charged or involved in any sort of legal action for his Jan. 6 participation. And while he stood less than 30 feet from Magaziner that day, he did not speak to the congressman.

“I’m sure at some point him and I will have face-to-face conversations,” Mellor told reporters then.

Friday’s face-to-face saw the two men spar most sharply over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement strategies. Mellor defended the feds, parrying questions about federal agents’ shooting of civilians, illustrating them as something like a death wish.

“The people that were shot by ICE were for death,” Mellor said. “They were — they were causing death reasons for ICE agents, and they unfortunately got what they deserved.”

Magaziner’s reply: “Mr. Mellor just made a claim that everyone shot by ICE was doing death stuff, or whatever that means.”

He turned to the July fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, and questioned whether federal agents were being held accountable for excessive force. Perhaps some of ICE’s immigration enforcement powers should be transferred to another agency, Magaziner suggested.

When Nesi asked Magaziner if he supported abolishing ICE, Magaziner replied, “I don’t think that ICE, as it is currently constituted, has the culture necessary to enforce the law while also upholding people’s civil rights and civil liberties.”

That triggered Mellor’s assessment of Magaziner’s words as lacking fortitude.

“He’s got the political answer going on,” Mellor said.

Both candidates faced questions about their residential histories in the district they seek to represent. Nesi pressed the second-term Magaziner on his unfulfilled promise from earlier campaigning that he would move to the 2nd District.

“I told you before, my family situation changed,” Magaziner said. “Specifically, my wife got a job that requires her to commute to Boston, so we had to be close to the train station, and I live in Providence, which is one of the 21 cities and towns that I represent.”

Both the 1st and 2nd Congressional District represent Providence, depending on which part of the city you live in. Magaziner technically lives in the part of the city that falls within the 1st District.

Mellor, meanwhile, is a Woonsocket native who lived in Florida for about three decades before moving to Warwick last year for his campaign.

“How can you represent a state in Congress that, until recently, you hadn’t lived in for several decades?” Nesi asked.

Mellor replied that he was “born and raised” in Woonsocket, by a single mom on welfare, and that a dearth of opportunities drove him out of the state.

“Nothing’s changed here in 30 years. It’s gotten worse,” Mellor said.

“Why not, though, run for Congress in Florida, where you have made your life for the last 30 years?” Nesi asked.

“I can make a bigger, bigger, better impact here in Rhode Island than I can in Florida,” Mellor replied.

The candidates also sparred over the war in Iran, which Mellor declined to describe as a war, and congressional stock trading, with Mellor accusing Magaziner of voting against his own proposed ban. Magaziner had actually voted against a Republican-led bill that combined the stock trading legislation with unrelated stipulations on voter identification requirements.

On health care, Mellor advocated for the expansion of health savings accounts, while Magaziner called for the restoration of federal funding.

You can watch the debate online. It will also air Sunday at 10 a.m. on FOX Providence.

Early voting begins Wednesday, Oct. 14, ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.