- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum," we're diving into the hot topics that have been shaping the narratives for black Americans in North Carolina all year.

From abortion rights to Medicaid expansion and continued gun talks.

North Carolina government officials have been busy, and as we talk about how to prepare for and bring in the new year, we'll take a look back at 2023.

Stay with us.

- [Announcer] Black Issues Forum is a production of PBS North Carolina, with support from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation.

Quality Public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum, I'm Kenia Thompson.

From local battlegrounds to the national stage, a lot has transpired over the last 12 months, and we find ourselves going into 2024 with issues that have yet to be resolved.

It's now time to reflect on a year that has left unforgettable marks on North Carolina politics and to talk about what we can expect to continue battling with in 2024.

To break down the timeline of events, we welcome to the show, North Carolina Senator Natalie Murdoch, political analyst, Steve Rao and PR and communication strategist, Pam Purifoy.

Welcome to the show.

- Great to be here.

- Hi, how are you?

- I'm doing well.

I can't believe we're already here, right?

It's the end of the year, and taking a look back there is a lot that has happened.

Senator, I wanna start with you.

Tell me about what have been some of the highlights and some of the top issues that we've been dealing with this year?

- Yes, thank you so much Kenia, for having me and so much, where do we even begin?

As someone who ran really to expand rights and access for women, for reproductive rights, I have to begin with the heartbreak and abortion ban that is now in place here in North Carolina.

We now have a 12 week abortion ban.

When we were unable to uphold a veto proof, veto proof minority in the house and the Senate, we knew that we were gonna have changes to the laws here in North Carolina, as soon as Dobbs fell immediately the next day, 1500 folks just from Georgia alone came to get safe abortion care right here in North Carolina.

We now know how that ended.

We now have a 12 week abortion ban, and the month after that law was enacted, we saw a 30% decrease in abortion.

So we knew, as we feared, that it would have a quick, quick impact, but what we're also seeing is women that can afford it are going to other states to get their care.

So they're not ceasing their care, they're just having to go farther.

So those that lack the resources are by far the ones that are suffering the most.

Also at the national level, all the back and forth with, we couldn't decide on the speaker.

You know, true Democrats continue to support the same speaker, and we waited with baited breath for a moment, North Carolina's own Patrick McHenry served temporarily as speaker of the house.

And so a lot of chaos in Washington, which is helpful for my side going into to next year.

But all jokes aside, just having to deal with a budget freeze and a shutdown, and folks not knowing what to expect, luckily they were able to strike a compromise so that during the holidays you don't have federal employees wondering about if they're gonna get paid or not.

The same for here in North Carolina took a really, really, really long time to get a budget, but the highlight was we finally were able to expand Medicaid, after 10 years plus 600,000 people right here in North Carolina will finally get Medicaid expansion.

So difficult session with a lot of culture wars, attacking trans youth and LGBTQ plus people here in North Carolina.

But the light at the end of the tunnel by far is that North Carolinians will finally get the Medicaid and the healthcare that they deserve.

- Pam, speaking of Medicaid, like Senator said, it was a battle for a very long time, although some people still have concerns about Medicaid expansion and if it's gonna follow us into 2024 as far as are they gonna get the coverage or the AId that they need medically, what are your thoughts on that, Pam, and what do you foresee happening in the next year?

- Listen, I am so excited for Medicaid expansion.

I am a cheerleader for it.

So let me just say hooray, hooray for Medicaid expansion that folks now, some 600,000 North Carolinians, ages 19 to 64 are now eligible for healthcare.

And in my humble opinion, and I hope for most humane people, that healthcare is a human right.

And I can't even imagine that we have fought this inevitability for 10 plus years as our good senator has said.

So I think that it is a great thing.

And I wanna add a plug.

If you need to apply for Medicaid, go to epass.nc.gov.

That's epass.nc.gov.

Now that I've given you my commercial, I do think that, I believe that we are going to be okay.

One of the things that, what I've read from other states who have already institutionalized Medicaid expansion was they had some issues with specialized care and therefore, those people who came in on Medicaid, there were some delays in services for specialized care.

But I am hopeful, I am optimistic, that has not happened here yet.

Albeit we're just what so many days in since December 1st.

And I'm just too excited to get upset or worried about anything bad happening therefore going forward.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Let's just sign up and go forward.

And we, and you know, we do have managed Medicaid now with various plans and whatnot, so I think that North Carolina's ahead of the game on that.

- Steve, do you wanna add anything about Medicaid expansion?

- Oh no, I mean, I want to commend Senator Murdoch and her colleagues.

I think it's so great to offer healthcare to 600,000 North Carolinians.

You know, it's the first time, you know, since the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid now is based on income, 138% poverty level, family making less $30,000 a year, $20,000 a year can afford it.

Just take out the out-of-pocket expenses and also mental health.

We don't see, you know, the fact that, you know, a lot of these Medicaid services can use for mental health, preventive tests.

And I'm not so concerned either.

I mean, I know Treasurer Falwell has talked about concerns about increasing costs with the state health plan, but I don't necessarily agree with that.

I think that there's gonna create 37,000 jobs, over $2 billion of investment, 40th state in the union to do it.

Congratulations, Governor Cooper and Senator Murdoch and all the colleagues.

At least we had some good news in the most gerrymandered state in the United States.

- You know, one thing that I forgot about in getting ready for this was AI.

AI has been all over conversations this year.

What are your thoughts on that, Senator?

I'll go to you.

And then we'll do a round table, Pam and then Steve.

- Yeah, yeah, perfect timing.

And I actually did have that on on my list of highlights for the year.

I feel like now folks are finally waking up to how transformational AI is gonna be.

I think this show is ahead of the curve in talking about the racial disparities that you'll see with AI.

It's not as if they're just machines working on their own.

Humans also have their own implicit bias.

And so that can be built into technology if you don't do something about it.

So it was actually a part of a round table right here in Durham with a lot of our tech companies.

Google had a presence there as well as Apple talking about what are they doing about this next wave.

But it's also a huge opportunity.

Our HBCUs here in North Carolina can be on the cutting edge of AI.

There's a lot of good that can come with it, but as government officials, we need oversight.

We need more hearings on it.

We've even had the CEOs of the main social media companies all come out and say, we are not ready.

We are not prepared.

So I definitely think going into next year, you're gonna see so much more work to make sure that we have the oversight we need at the federal and the state level for AI And I'm looking forward to being a part of that next session.

- That's great.

Pam, what do you have to add about AI?

I know you've got some thoughts.

- Yes, yes and I thank you.

Before having me on your show, the first time I was ever on, to discuss AI.

I am optimistic.

I am optimistic in that I know that the president has signed some executive order or some type of, forgive me for not knowing exactly.

- [Kenia] No worries.

- To give control or try to harness AI and get the government involved in it right away so that we do have regulations.

And I'm thrilled that our good Naval Senator Murdoch, my Senator Murdoch, is at the table to discuss those things.

We have to, because the implicit bias is very real.

We know that.

But one of the things that I know that I've been doing with Sessions that I've had at the National Association of Black Journalists is to, we are encouraging people to get in the game, people like us, so that you're not outside of it, you're inside of it.

And so that you have some controls of it as well, be at the table.

So that's the only way to go.

And the government regulations.

- And yeah, I'll just add a couple comments.

I mean, you know, I think first of all, well ChatGPT celebrated a birthday this year, so happy birthday.

- [Kenia] And how old are they now?

One or two?

- One year old, I try to wish it a happy birthday and it came back to me and said it didn't have an emotion.

I talk to chat GPT now.

So, but I talk a lot about this issue and I'll just say two things that haven't been mentioned.

I did have an interesting conversation with John Chambers from my home state of West Virginia, who used to be the chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems.

He's now a venture investor.

And he said that he's never seen innovation occur so fast.

And this is a man who ran a $47 billion company, acquired 180 companies over a 20 year period and employed many people in triangle across North Carolina.

So there is gonna be significant job loss, which is kind of, you know, people are really concerned about that IBM saying 8,000 white collar jobs.

But I walked away from the conversation very positive because John reminded me that just like the cloud came along, order entry jobs went online, productivity gains, but then people were put in jobs where they were more valued.

And we actually saw economic growth.

Point number two is the amount of new jobs that could be created.

And this is gonna be a tremendous opportunity to invest in community colleges, HBCUs, to train people for the new jobs, the new economy.

And you know, out of the 16 companies that Chambers has invested in the last four years, three are AI companies, and they're all billion dollar companies and $79 billion of venture capital is coming into AI.

And I, all myself, have seen a lot of AI startups, 'cause I work in the technology sector and you know, an example would be if I'm a resident, I could do a search to talk to a chatbot on, you know, how many people are visiting my park?

Where is crime occurring in my neighborhood?

We've heard about, you know, gun detection systems, right?

Or even staffs and cities can do a search for documents and these kinds of things.

So this kind of automation, I think is gonna make our lives better, more productive, save time and money.

So I think that's the positive thing.

So I'm looking forward to AI.

Although I think chatGPT and I are becoming a little too close.

[all laughing] - It's been pretty helpful.

I saw the other day an article that said, I think beginning next year in Europe, they're gonna have AI hosting and anchoring news shows.

- Oh wow.

- Right.

So that's a little scary for folks like us in journalism.

Let's go on and talk about the abortion ban.

So we saw Roe versus Wade overturned in 2022, right?

And that followed us, the abortion ban followed us since last year into this year.

And many talks have been had about seeking ways to exercise rights without having challenges.

You said this a little bit just a few minutes ago, you know, we're taking this into next year as well.

Steve, I'll come to you.

How do you see things playing out?

Will the elections impact what might happen in this state and, you know, nationally?

- Well, absolutely.

I mean, I think we already have kind of like precursors of that.

I mean, you know, let's go flashback a year 2022 conservatives were rallying about, you know, Dobbs v Jackson, the overturning of Roe v Wade.

But then you, if you look at the midterm elections, Republicans didn't do so well in states that they were supposed to do well in like, you know, Virginia, Pennsylvania.

So they underperformed in the 2022 elections and the Democrats were able to went, you know, came close to winning back the house and held onto the Senate.

So I think that's concerning to some Republicans because as they go into the next election, they're gonna have to really worry about, you know, how do they appeal to moderates and independents and general election voters that might be a little bit more prone to having abortion rights.

The second thing I would add is that if you look at many states, even red states that have put abortion on the ballot, have done quite well.

Like in Kansas, like in Ohio, right?

And so this is, once again, I think for Democrats, if I were Josh Stein, for example, running for governor, I think it could be a good sign for a General Stein because you know, Mark Robinson, lieutenant Governor, who's probably gonna be the nominee or may be the nominee, although Falwell and Graham, you never count Dale Falwell out.

But you know, Robinson has said he would make abortion illegal in all cases.

And so would that help Attorney General Stein, would that help Jeff Jackson?

Would that help other Democrats across the state?

So I do think that this abortion issue in my political analyst's opinion, do believe for swing voters in swing states, this could be a deciding factor and hopefully helping the Democrats take back the super majority so that whoever, if Josh Stein is the governor, that he can really be a stronger governor than being held hostage to the Republican majority.

- And also just have to add with Kate Cox and everything she's going with in Texas, I hate that she's going through that, but she has become the face of what happens.

There are consequences when you have legislation that does not allow doctors to do their jobs and have renewed resolve this year, have the opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic where teenagers are dying left and right.

They had a 16-year-old that had leukemia and was assaulted and pregnant and said, you have to wait until the fetus is 20 weeks old.

And she died before that happened.

So it was haring for me because it was a look into what can happen right here in North Carolina if we have a governor, Steve laid it out, and a house and Senate that won a full abortion ban, with no exceptions, people will die.

You will not allow doctors to do their jobs.

And it also prevents the ability for those who wanna have children to have children.

You'll have fewer OBGYNs, residencies in my district and Duke University are down for OBGYN because they can't get the training that they need.

They cannot practice under hostile conditions if our state doesn't allow them to do their jobs.

So it actually has an impact on maternal health as a whole when you have doctors leaving the state because they no longer wanna practice here.

So it is a global issue, but it will be a top issue for voters next year.

We've seen it state by state.

- Major, major issues.

Pam, no pressure.

But do you have anything you wanna add to that topic?

- I just wanna know where all these legislators got their MD degrees.

I wanna know, you know, what medical school are they from, did they go, where did they attend?

Because how dare they override what a physician tells you that is best for you.

And not to mention if a woman becomes so septic that she has her inability to even have children again, period.

- Yes.

- Right.

- It's crazy, and right to life is a right to life from beginning to end, not where you decide, oh, well, we're not gonna give people healthcare, or, oh, well, we're not gonna have food programs, or, well, we're not gonna have adequate education and things like that.

Right to life is every stage in life, so let's not cherry pick on where we're celebrating people or helping people or whatnot, is from beginning to end in all facets.

- So much there.

And hopefully we can see some change in 2024, you know, Senator, what you shared about Dominican Republic and that young lady, that is disheartening.

And what if something like that does happen here?

I can't even imagine.

I can't even imagine that.

At the top of the year, we were talking a lot about gun control and you know, we had some shootings that happened and some police incidents and as I had said, it trickled, the conversation trickled down, you know, and we're here at the end of the year, and I haven't heard, I know that that doesn't mean the conversations aren't being had, but I haven't heard much about it, right.

And I'm afraid that something's gonna come up again next year and we're gonna be back having that conversation.

Where are we with gun control?

Senator, I'll pivot this question to you.

What's going on?

- Yeah, nationwide, I was in high school when Columbine happened, and after the school shooting in Las Vegas, it's my understanding, we have had over 340,000 students now that have been impacted by gun violence.

Just in the schools.

Just in the schools.

So we did see some federal movement after Uvalde last year when those babies were massacred.

This year, the rallying cry has really been outta Tennessee.

The Tennessee three, two or three were expelled.

One is now running for US Senate, wishing her well over gun rights.

And what I found had the opportunity to rally with one of the Tennessee three, representative Justin Jones, who was amazing.

A movement leader.

It is a multiracial, intergenerational fight.

When we had our our rally in Raleigh earlier this year, you saw everyone there.

I saw middle schoolers, I saw folks who were six years old, teenagers, college age students, seniors who said, I'm tired of my grandchildren going to school in fear.

So it really is horrible that there's nothing that we can do.

I've said that we are failing young people.

They're looking at us to do something.

And when you have the shooting at UNC Chapel Hill, those students had the opportunity to go all the way to the White House.

They were greeted by VP Harris and President Biden.

They just rolled out a new task force that will look at gun violence provision, including in African American communities.

So there's a separate committee on that.

So we have filed the legislation, and it is just sitting there as far as here in North Carolina to not see the light of day and common sense solutions.

Better gun storage, we've found with a lot of mass shootings is typically guns that they got from their home.

So if we just were to focus on safe storage alone, lives would be saved.

So for us to not come to the table, find out things that we agree on, we know that North Carolina, nationwide, I believe is number four, with gun ownership.

We are for safe and responsible gun ownership.

Our issue is the shootings, our issue are bad actors getting guns.

We made it easier to get guns here in North Carolina.

We repealed the pistol permit.

A number of sheriffs statewide came out against that legislation.

So we are not doing what we should be doing with this topic, but particularly millennials and Gen Z, we have had enough.

So the future looks very bright when we'll finally get this right.

One decade, we'll finally get it right.

- I hope so.

Steve, any thoughts?

- No, I mean, I think, you know, I've heard Speaker Moore and other Republicans who I work with, you know, say that it's a mental health issue, but I disagree.

I mean, we have 4% of the world's population and 50, 60% of the guns.

And the, you know in Japan, you're 250 times more likely to get a gun homicide here than Japan or 150 times than in, you know, than in Germany or Britain.

It doesn't mean that we have 250 times more mentally ill people.

The fact is, we've got too many guns getting in the hands of the wrong people.

And at the end of the day, I'll say this, you know, it's a mental health issue for our children.

I mean, do we want to have our schools- - Creating those mental health- - Yeah, do we wanna have metal detectors in our school?

Do kids want to think that with southeast Raleigh, there was a stabbing at Southeast Raleigh High School.

Every day we wake up, there's another person bringing a gun to school.

I've lost count.

And there was 40,000 gun homicides in 2023.

So Senator, thank you for bringing this up, and we thank you for your work on this, but we need to come together on this.

This is an issue for all Americans, Republican, Democrat, independent.

We have to stop the murdering of our children and our schools and innocent Americans in places of worship and our theaters and our grocery stores, it just has to stop.

- It does, it does.

Well, we came into 2023 talking a lot about DEI and diversification and inclusion, and we've kind of transitioned into the end of this year talking more about DEI being discriminatory.

Some are putting out there and they're challenging the inclusiveness of some of the large institutions and organizations within this state.

Pam, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

And there are some reversals that are trying to be made out there on some scholarships that are for minorities only, right.

And so now the conversation has spun in a different direction.

What are your thoughts on this and where do you see DEI going next year?

- I'm very, very, very concerned about DEI programming and whatnot.

You know, at the very basis before DEI became a thing, a program or that has become institutionalized, is at its basic core is just fairness.

Well, how do we remain fair , and hospitable, and kind to another and accepting of others.

The governor of Oklahoma, just this past Wednesday, signed an executive order that he was banning all DEI across state agencies, public universities, and institutions and whatnot across the state.

And my thing is, is that it's become a very partisan issue.

And it's all by design.

So that if we see each other as so different, we'll stay with this argumentative split point of view towards each other when we really, you know, there's nothing much that separates us really.

- Many of our struggles are similar.

- They are, they really are, and so- - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Pam.

We're getting close to the end, there's so much more that I wanna pack in there.

Can you believe it, right?

We've only got like two to three minutes left.

Couple things.

We've got the war in Ukraine, we had our debt ceiling, right?

And then we have the stop gap that was in place that could potentially put us in another pandemic like situation.

Senator then, Steve, if we got time and we're getting close, but what are your thoughts and how's that gonna impact voting in 2024?

- Yeah, huge, huge impact on voting and also have to add the conflict in Gaza, it's gonna have a huge, huge impact on voting next year.

Unfortunately, funding is gonna all be lumped together, which is, I think, a political mistake.

I think Ukraine is a separate issue.

We've already been there, but definitely with Gaza, I think you will see a trend to say, we've gotta stop the loss of innocent lives, of Israeli lives, of Palestinian lives.

We've got to figure out a way to not kill innocent people.

And you're feeling the American sentiment is changing and saying enough is enough.

So I think that that will continue to be a fight for future budgets to come.

And as we, you know, come into a season where folks are just looking for some relief, you're also gonna see a change in interest rates next year.

We're hearing interest rates may cut.

So as far as inflation in the economy, hopefully everyday people will get some relief next year.

- Yeah, there's a lot to talk about and I wish we could continue talking about it, but we'll have more time next year.

A lot to consider for the elections.

So Senator Natalie Murdoch, Steve Rao, Pam Purifoy, thank you so much for being here with us.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- We invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.

As we close out this year, Black Issues Forum and PBS North Carolina wishes you a safe and happy new Year.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Kenia Thompson, I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Announcer] Black Issues Forum is a production of PBS North Carolina with support from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation.

Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.