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Connections

An economist reviews his biases

Two men wearing headphones sit at a table in a radio talk studio: a man at left has short grey hair and is wearing a beige sweater with multi-colored stripes; a man at right has short dark hair and is wearing a navy puffy vest over a white button-down shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes.
George Yeadon
/
WXXI News
Kent Gardner with host Evan Dawson on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Wednesday, February 4, 2026
WXXI News

The first year of the new Trump administration has been a chance to test a slew of economists’ conventional wisdom — on tariffs, on markets, on trade alliances.

Kent Gardner has been an economist for decades, and we wanted to know: has anything in the past year surprised you? Has anything caused you to reconsider a long-held belief?

Vice President Vance says economists are out-of-touch eggheads. We examine that claim, too.

In studio:

Evan Dawson is the host of "Connections with Evan Dawson." He joined WXXI in January 2014 after working at 13WHAM-TV, where he served as morning news anchor. He was hired as a reporter for 13WHAM-TV in 2003 before being promoted to anchor in 2007.
Megan Mack is the executive producer of "Connections with Evan Dawson" and live/televised engagement programming.
Julie Williams is an associate producer for "Connections with Evan Dawson." She started at WXXI in 2019 and has been working on Connections since 2022.