- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum," Election Day may be over, but the impact of the results has just begun.

[audience claps and cheers] - And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family, and your future.

Every single day, I will be fighting for you and with every breath in my body.

I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve.

- Both national and local results are shaping our nation and our neighborhoods, from the 47th president to our new North Carolina governor.

Our experts discuss how these leaders and policies could affect our communities, coming up next.

Stay with us.

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[light electronic music] ♪ - Welcome to "Black Issues Forum."

I'm Kenia Thompson.

Well, with the ballots counted and the results in, many Black communities are asking, what do these election outcomes mean for our communities, our schools, and our future?

To help us explore the answers to these questions and more, let's turn to our guests for today.

I want to welcome Senator Natalie Murdock, representing North Carolina District 20.

And joining her, we have attorney Harold Eustache of Eustache Law in Winston-Salem.

Welcome.

- Hi, thanks for having us.

- Thank you, Kenia.

- Of course.

I cannot start the conversation without acknowledging your win and saying congratulations.

- Thank you.

- How's it feel?

- It feels great to be elected to a fourth term and just honored to continue to serve the state where I was born and raised.

So thank you to Durham and Chatham County and looking forward to going back to the General Assembly.

Rumors have it we may go back sooner rather than later, but for sure in January, looking forward to Long Session.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I'd love to get both of your feedback.

We have a winner.

We know what the future holds now.

47th president is future and past President Donald Trump.

Harold, I'd love to get your feedback, your thoughts on the campaign and just kind of the momentum leading up to that victory.

- Yeah, it's a historic campaign.

I think it's one of these campaigns that we will look back on for many, many years and talk about just because of all the things that happened.

I mean, we're talking about, you know, the president stepping down, the vice president stepping in, assassination attempts.

I mean, there's a lot to this campaign.

But I think ultimately, you know, I think the groundwork for it was laid about a year ago when you kind of started to see Donald Trump get this momentum, and I think it just sort of carried through.

And I think, again, it had a lot to do with the economy.

- Yeah, well, what is this gonna, I guess, indicate for our future?

What is this saying that Americans want?

- Definitely, as renowned political strategist James Carville will say, "It is the economy, stupid."

I mean, that's really what we saw.

Overwhelmingly, you saw voters, around 2/3, just did not feel that the economy was working for them.

As someone who not only is in the state senate, worked on the Harris-Walz campaign full-time as political director, we knew numerically, for various demographics, unemployment was at an all-time low, you know, folks are hiring, but people still feel what they feel at their kitchen tables, in their pockets.

And inflation, they just felt the higher cost of gas and groceries.

I believe President Biden and VP Harris had the best plan for that, but folks just could not escape what they were feeling in their pockets.

But I will not gloss over the historic campaign of Vice President Harris jumping in, being thrust into running for president in a matter of 107 days, put a phenomenal campaign together that we are very, very proud of, and also historically, we know when the economy, when people don't feel the economy's doing that well, it can be difficult for the incumbent party to continue to remain in power.

History has showed us that time and time again, so instead of folks saying, "Oh, let's completely throw out the playbook," a little bit of it was the history and just trying to continue to swim when those tides are just continuing to shift.

It's difficult for any candidate to do that.

- Indeed, indeed.

Go ahead.

- I would say too, I think what we really saw in this election that's important to think about as far as the results is that the working class, the sort of shift in the realignment in the coalition that President Trump built, I mean, it's a different coalition.

I think he's sort of taken the Republican Party from something that was, 20 years ago, was a party, the country club party, to the party of the working class.

And I mean, that's what we really saw, saw across every demographic, that he's been able to reshape the Republican Party in a way, and I mean, because even looking at the exit numbers, I mean, Kamala Harris, Vice President, the only group she did really, really well with was college educated white voters.

I mean, that's who she won better than Biden.

But every other group wasn't as good.

So it's just this sort of realignment of what's happening in politics, and that's America.

We reshape ourselves all the time, I think.

- Yeah, and I would add, I don't know if necessarily I would say that President Trump built a coalition, former President, I think that he gave people a space to kind of thrust their frustrations upon someone and kinda stirred it up.

And I think people felt a little bit heard, but I think when you have candidates that refer to the vice president as trash, that admonish entire countries, I don't think that's necessarily coalition building, I think what we found that honestly we do have to wrestle with is folks have, they have the ability to compartmentalize.

They can look past the hateful, harmful, divisive things that he says and vote with their pocketbook.

- Well, that's where I was going next.

North Carolina turned red back in 2008, hasn't looked back since.

But when you look locally, we do have a lot of blue, right?

So what, I guess maybe expound on that, and you jump right in too, what was it that caused the ticket to just be so different?

- Yeah, and thank you for that.

That's why I always push back when people say that our state is so very red.

We will now have a Democratic governor for 12 years.

We've had eight years of Governor Roy Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein was Attorney General for eight years, Governor Cooper and AG Stein, governor elects Josh Stein, have won elections with Donald Trump on the ballot consistently in North Carolina, the same for Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.

We have not had a Democrat to lead the Department of Public Instruction since 2016, and we now will have a Democrat lieutenant governor in Rachel Hunt, so resoundingly in North Carolina, they really rejected the more extreme wing of a lot of the Republican candidates, that one was a full on insurrectionist who went live while she was there at January 6th.

We all know how problematic the current lieutenant governor is to where he physically evacuated his office before his term even ended and staff was just leaving in droves, and we were able to break the supermajority in the House, so we very much have a mixed bag here in North Carolina and where I sit in the Senate, don't wanna gloss over, if we had fair maps, we would've had a better night.

Gerrymandering is real.

A lot of those House and Senate districts at the state level, if you add another two to three precincts to some of those districts.

We could have more wins in the state Senate.

We came in knowing we had the more difficult maps, but that is why we can't say that, oh, Democrats just don't have a message and we don't connect.

The elections, particularly in North Carolina, shows that fighting for working people, wanting to raise the minimum wage, fighting for public education, fighting to expand Medicaid expansion, we finally did that, fought for it for over 10 years.

Voters responded to that here in North Carolina.

- I wanna bring Harold in.

- Yeah, I would say that, I mean, you mentioned 2008.

I mean, you know, on the federal level, on the presidential level, North Carolina has voted for a Republican, I think, in every election since 1970 something.

So, I mean, Republicans have done well on the federal level, and we've seen them do well even in the Senate races recently with both of our senators being Republicans.

So, there's this weird duality in North Carolina, I think North Carolina voters are very savvy in their ability to say, you know, I want this person, but maybe not this person, no matter if Party.

And Democrats have obviously done well in the council state elections, you know?

I think as a Republican, I would love to see us do better, and that's something that Republican Party in North Carolina is gonna have to look at and see why are we able to win these federal elections and not able to do as well in these state elections.

- And the other thing I'll add, 'cause we did see that trend nationally with the compartmentalizing.

When you look at candidates like an Attorney General Josh Stein, they have been voting for him for eight years, now he'll be serving another four.

And so, when I think people look at the differences with how the vice president performed and some folks at the state level, they have been campaigning for two to three years.

The vice president only had 107 days to make our case.

And so, I think when you look at a lot of the council estate candidates that were successful, they ran well-funded campaigns, they raised the money, they got out there, communicated their message.

They had a lot more time to build and connect with voters across the state of North Carolina.

- You know, I think we've seen a lot of emotions on both sides, right?

I knew that, regardless, whichever way it went, there was going to be things that we would have to deal with, that we would be hearing that would surface.

And just in the, what?

Two days?

We've seen some things locally and nationally that's kind of been disheartening, right?

But unfortunately, it's kind of supported some of the narrative that's been happening.

We'll show some images here, but we've got, recently, I think this happens yesterday, UNCG, there were images or a picture that was shown where there was a water fountain where one said Whites Only and Coloreds Only.

We have another image where there was a man, a white man who assaulted a black female with a, pointing a gun at her in a sports goods store, sporting goods store.

And then we have a tweet that said, "My body," I mean, "Your body, my choice.

Forever," by Nicholas Fuentes.

You know, and then now most recently, even after pulling this together, we've heard of mass tweets happening that are going out to Black people, Black Americans, essentially saying, get ready to be picked up, you know, get ready to, and specifically to HBCU students, right?

Is this just the beginning of what we're seeing as far as the division that I feel like has been happening?

- I hope not.

I mean, it's, that sort of stuff is unacceptable.

I mean, it can't, it's unfortunate that it's happening.

But I mean, you know, we have a country that is divided.

We have a big country where people are gonna say all sorts of stuff.

I think, you know, and we're so connected now that any one person can send text messages or make some sort of news in some way.

We have those extreme people.

I mean, we saw that the former president almost got shot.

I mean, there is a serious divide in this country.

My hope is that President-elect Trump can bring this country together, I think he will.

And, but that's gonna be his task to do that, to bring the country together so that, you know.

- We can turn the temperature down.

I mean, we've had a tough election, but it's time to tamper that.

- And to be fair, to that point, we did hear a different emotion, I think, in his acceptance speech.

It wasn't as fueled as I think I've heard him speak before.

- Yeah, I mean, part of what he said was, he said, he talked about building this coalition that looks like the entire country, and he said that, and he said it's a coalition based on common sense.

I mean, and that's so different from...

He didn't say, "I'm a conservative.

I'm gonna do conservative things."

He said, "It's just a common sense coalition."

And I think that that is important part of why he won.

But I hope that he continues that.

I believe he will, to bring the temperature down.

You know, the election's over.

You know, this sort of stuff that people are doing at UNCG and mass texts and that sort of stuff is unacceptable and shouldn't happen in this country.

- Do you think that energy from him was because of what he's seen come about?

- I wish I could say that.

I think, unfortunately, it is just the beginning.

I think when people show you who they are, you should believe them.

I think there's one thing to be conservative, and there's nothing wrong with being conservative.

I have friends on both sides of the aisle.

I think the MAGA movement is what's concerning to me, where they lean into the division and the hatred with the rally at Madison Square Garden.

For you to have an individual that's a part of your rally to call an entire country trash, and a lot is concerning about the MAGA movement.

But the doubling down, the, "I'm not gonna apologize, I'm not gonna acknowledge when something's wrong."

And I think with the texts, the, "Go back and pick cotton," the "For colored only," "For whites," I think all of that, you're gonna see more of that.

We've already seen it on X after it was purchased by Elon Musk, which is why a lot of people are leaving that platform.

I've stayed there to try to put a little light over there on that side of the internet, as frustrating as that is.

But I think, unfortunately, you'll see a lot more of it.

And I think that's by far what is the most harmful consequence of the election.

Yes, the American people have spoken, but I just, we've seen that folks become more emboldened when Donald Trump is in the White House.

They feel as if they are justified and validated and just the ferocity of how harmful those attacks are to marginalized people, people of color, to women.

The comment of basically saying women should not have control of their bodies.

We knew that all along.

It's not simply about if people believe in abortion.

It's about controlling women's bodies, which is why then it became even more difficult to get IVF or birth control.

We're going to continue to see that, unfortunately, for these four years, and it will be up to the courts, what's left of them, state legislative bodies to push back against not only the rhetoric, but the actions that will proceed that, and we'll close with the Department of Justice and the FBI have to remain independent bodies.

That's exactly why it is very scary that Project 2025 wants to consolidate all that power under the president.

We need someone that will not be biased to proceed with investigations when these sorts of things are happening en masse across the nation.

- I would just say, I mean, the Project 2025 thing is a smoke screen, I think, in my opinion, that folks in the Democratic Party have said is an issue.

Donald Trump has said that that's not a part of his campaign and won't be part of his administration.

But from my understanding, the FBI is going to investigate, I heard this morning, is gonna investigate those texts, those mass texts to Black college students, which they absolutely should, and those folks should be prosecuted.

I think that's, again, unacceptable.

But lastly, I would say that, you know, the rhetoric has been very heated on both sides.

This is not a one side heated rhetoric thing, and I will admit that Republican rhetoric has been heated.

But I also think that the Vice President saying that Donald Trump is a fascist, the President saying that the supporters are garbage.

I mean these are our leaders saying this type of stuff.

And it's just been, I'm hoping that now that Trump is gonna be our 47th president, all of that will be tamped down, I'm hoping.

- Is there anything that you can tell us about Project 47?

What does that look like?

What are going to be some of his top priorities?

We've already heard a lot of them and that's what's causing a bunch of this division.

What are gonna be some of his priorities?

- I think you'll see him start out with, I mean, what he said he's gonna do with the border, which I mean, he said over and over that we've let 15 million people into this country.

Which I think for a lot of people, including me, is unacceptable.

That's more than the population of the state of North Carolina.

He's gonna do something about that.

And I think we outta do something about that.

- Lemme ask you a question.

So part of that conversation also addresses natural born citizens.

What do you feel about that?

- No, I mean, natural born citizens, that shouldn't be an issue.

This is about the people that have come in this country because of the Biden-Harris administration since 2017, excuse me, since 2021.

That's, I think, what the president's gonna address.

I think the second thing he's gonna address is try to deal with the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza and in Israel.

Those are potentially existential threats to our country.

I think he's gonna make that a priority to try to end those wars.

So I think those are the two things I would say you would see.

- What are your thoughts?

Are you hearing anything?

- No, I'm hearing concepts of a plan that we just haven't seen quite yet.

And I guess we'll be flushing out some of those concepts, but I do think Project 2025 is real.

I think what's concerning to me with Project 2025 is I don't know if Donald Trump has fully read it.

I think it's more so the people around him, his advisors, we do know there are conservative think tanks that have crafted this document.

It is real.

It's out for us to read and we'll learn very quickly.

They want to accomplish in and around 180 days.

That was a big part of why we did everything we could to communicate to the American people, this is real.

It's not a fictional novel.

It is a plan for government and things that conservatives wanna do for years, getting rid of the Department of Education.

We definitely know they're gonna focus on cutting taxes for the wealthy.

I have not seen a lot that's gonna help the working class in Project 2025.

And so, I don't think it's gonna do a lot for the vast majority of Americans.

I think a small slither of folks are gonna be pulling a lot of the strings and do everything they can to implement it.

But can't stress enough, we have three branches of government for a reason and consolidating so much power in the executive when we've lost a lot with our courts, particularly with the Supreme Court.

Having even more Supreme Court justices that he will likely be able to appoint, I definitely think the impacts will be quick.

They'll be fierce and I think folks will feel them very quickly, especially when it comes to things like his policy on tariffs.

I think those are effects that people will feel immediately.

- Yeah, and obviously it's "Black Issues Forum".

So let's talk about the Black community and how will Black communities be impacted by many of these decisions?

Really quick though, we saw that in 2020, Black women supported Biden at 91%.

They supported Harris at 77%.

That's a significant decrease when you look at that number.

Their support for Trump, 13% Black men supported Biden in 2020.

That was 12%.

They captured as much as 20% of Black male votes on the Republican side.

What is that trend telling us?

about our black counterparts, and then, more specifically, our black communities.

Now, some of those folks are in these communities, and so how is that gonna impact?

I'll open it up to Harold first.

- I would say that it... Part of the trend, I think it's about Donald Trump a little bit, but I think it's just a greater trend that's happening, where you're seeing this divide between college-educated Americans and working-class Americans, and so I... And I bet that if you looked at college-educated black men...

Excuse me, non-college-educated black men, that number would be significantly higher than 20%.

And the same thing for Hispanic men and white men.

So it's just a trend that's happening in this country that's irrespective of race I think, where we're seeing, you know, working-class men, particularly, feel left behind and feel that they don't have a voice, and I think that the Republican party has sort of been able to capture that voice, particularly... As far as black voters, particularly, I think that, you know, we're not a monolith, I mean, I think that we are the bedrock of this country, we've been here forever, we've built this country, and, you know, you would see... Black voters want, I think, what every American wants, and so I don't think it's just about our skin color, but it's that we want to be able to afford groceries, we want to be able to afford rent that's really high, and mortgages that are high, and those sorts of things, so... - Yeah, just a few minutes left, so I wanna get Natalie in on this question.

Knowing that, having that knowledge as a Democrat, what are we going to do, or what are you guys going to do stateside to combat that knowledge that that trend is happening?

- Yeah, with the black votes still, with black men and women, we're still at or around 80%, with the exit polls, we still have to remind people those are exit polls, so for black women, we still were in the 91% to 92%, with black men, it... Back to the exit polls, it kind of depends, 78%, some still think it's over 80% depending on the demographic, because I think it's very dangerous for us to blame election results on the black community when there are plenty other demographics voting at far lower levels, so I don't think we should do that, we're still doing great with black men, there are amazing black male strategists that were on the campaign.

What I do think we need to do is listen, I think that it didn't take off the way that it should have, but the vice president spoke to entrepreneurship, helping you to build your business, providing $25,000 in down payment assistance for you to purchase a home, getting a handle on corporate greed that is causing a lot of these increases with your groceries, and so, unfortunately, for us, she had the policies, it's just people didn't feel it, it's one thing to propose a plan, but you're still going to the grocery store every day, so that's the disconnect that I think was demonstrated with the electorate this cycle.

- Knowing that trend, we know that, historically, you know, trends happen, and seeing that, we know that it may play out for a little while.

What are some of the priorities in North Carolina?

And I know we probably just got about three minutes here, but what are some of the priorities that we really need to focus on in 2025 in this state?

- What I do love about our state coming together, you know, I know things look horrible on TV, but even in my chamber in the Senate, being able to work with my colleagues in the midst of COVID, we worked on a bipartisan budget, we finally expanded Medicaid, and so I think that mix of... From gubernatorial to other democratic leaders along with conservatives, figuring out what is it that we agree on, hashing it out, working on it together, I definitely think North Carolina will be a model of how to do that, I'm looking forward to us working on a bold policy with Mo Green as our public instruction superintendent elect and a governor, and being able to uphold vetoes, we will be that check to say you cannot overreach, so it will force us to work together on things like public education, making sure that we continue to support Western North Carolina.

I lived in Asheville for five years.

My heart bled for what I saw with my own eyes out there.

Western North Carolina recovery is definitely gonna be top of mind.

And continuing to build a stronger economy where everyone can have an opportunity.

- Yeah, I mean, North Carolina, it's a microcosm of the whole country.

It's just a unique place.

It's a beautiful place, from our mountains to our coast.

We're just a microcosm.

And I think in our politics we are too.

And so I hope that we can lead.

Obviously, we have great legislators that are gonna be able to do that and lead the country into coming together, into how to legislate and how to make common sense sort of laws that work for every American and every North Carolinian.

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's been definitely historic.

Either way, it was gonna be history-making.

And, you know, I'm holding out hope that we can come together more than we have come apart.

Any last words or thoughts?

I just was told one minute.

So last thoughts or words from either of you.

- Saying I look forward to us coming together, because we have to.

- Yeah.

- After huge presidential elections, folks are exhausted.

They're tired of the commercials, tired of the division.

We do have to come together.

But I will say, I think folks, as they did under the previous administration, will galvanize under a Trump administration.

And look forward to holding him accountable.

- I would say, you know, from a Republican perspective, now that Donald Trump has won the election and he's the leader, it's on him to bring this country together.

I do believe that.

Now, I would love to see the Democratic Party be more, you know, accommodating to that.

But I think he's the leader now, so it's gonna be on him.

I'm excited to see it.

- Yes, it's on him.

Harold Eustache, Senator Natalie Murdock, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Well, that's all we have for today's show.

I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, 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.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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