- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up, critics push back on Disney's political agenda, new guidelines for Medicaid postpartum care in North Carolina, and Congressman Ted Budd takes the lead in the Republican primary for US Senate next.

- [Announcer] Major funding for "Front Row" is provided by Robert L. Luddy, additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, and by.

[dramatic music] Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation, NC Realtors, Mary Louise and John Burress, Rifenburg Construction, and Helen Laughery.

[dramatic music] A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/FrontRow.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back, and joining the conversation, Robert Reeves, the Democratic leader in the House, Donna King with Carolina Journal, Democratic State Senator Sydney Batch, and Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation.

Donna, why don't we begin with the controversy surrounding Disney's political agenda?

- Sure, the Disney Corporation, as part of a campaign called Reimagine Tomorrow, has made some statements, some policy changes that are what a lotta people are calling just woke politics, and that's something that a lotta families and critics of Disney are saying, "This should be a protected place where we can escape from politics and we can escape from some of these, you know, some of the polarization that we're seeing in our communities, on social media, places like that."

Among the new policies, one of the executives there have said that moving forward within the year, all characters, 50% of all of their characters are going to be representing underrepresented groups, groups that are traditionally underrepresented in American media, including, you know, transgender, LGBTQ, all of those.

They wanna make a concerted effort to have half their characters represented from these communities.

They've also gotten rid of, "Ladies and gentlemen," and, "Boys and girls," and they're gonna substitute, "Dreamers," and a lotta these sort of, you know, low-impact, but they really are striking a lotta nerve on social media for Disney.

The big question, though, is what will Disney committed folks do, the people who are paying to go to the parks or renting or subscribing to Disney Plus?

Because Disney Plus is now their reach out into the world, and it's growing into lots of new countries.

12 of those countries outlaw homosexuality.

So mixing that Disney image, that traditional Disney image with these sort of woke politics is really stirring up the mix 'cause a lotta families are saying, "Look, we have ratings for a reason.

We have PG-13, we have R because we want our children to have some sort of isolation from talk of sexualization regardless of what it is."

- Are gender politics better taught at home, do you think, Sydney, than in school, and we're talking also about the DeSantis legislation that they're opposing.

- Right, so I mean, the DeSantis legislation, for better or for worse, however you wanna look at it, at the end of the day, no one is talking about these things in third grade.

People are acting like we're in our third-grade classrooms, and we're saying, "These are all of the different ways in which you can identify with gender," and that's actually just not happening.

It literally is looking for a solution - That's not happening in Florida?

- to a problem that's not happened.

Well, I don't teach in Florida.

I can't say that, but what I am going to say is that I doubt very strongly that in the third grade, when you're supposed to deal with math and arithmetic, that they're sitting there talking about all of the different ways in which a person can actually identify.

I think the real issue with regards to this is that corporations are damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Disney didn't say anything at first.

They got pressure for that.

They finally say something.

They get pressure for that.

At the end of the day, inside Disney, a lot of those individuals and employees who had pushback and said, "You know what, we want you to say something.

We want you to take a stand."

- It's been both sides of the coin with the employees, but let me just ask you, Mitch, is critics say this is an anti-gay bill.

- Well, the bill from DeSantis, yeah.

Obviously, it's gotten that label.

The label is, "Don't Say Gay," and basically, what the folks who are supporting this bill are saying, it's a parental empowerment bill.

It's ensuring that parents keep the charge on what's taught when it comes to things other than English and arithmetic and the things that you expect to have outta school.

I think the interesting thing to me on the political debate here is that Ron DeSantis, unlike many other right-of-center political candidates, has done a pretty good job of being able to fight back against the woke, and I think that's one of the things that has helped him as he has tried to continue his administration in Florida is he doesn't really back down when people say, "Hey, you're doing something that's against the grain."

He says, "Look, I'm with the people, the people who put me in office."

- Robert, is woke politics good for the corporate bottom line?

- Well, I think one, it's kind of a misnomer to call it woke politics, even though I know that's what everybody calls it, because you've got a group of people who really don't even identify with particular parties, just like you have groups of people who are considered conservative groups, who I think most conservatives say, "Hey, that's not us," and so I think what it really is is that Disney's doing just like Senator Batch was saying.

They're getting pushback on both sides, and they're trying to make a statement and trying to make it as quiet a statement and as little of a footprint as they can, and the problem is in this day and age, because of Twitter, which we'll talk about later, and Facebook and all social media, you can't make a quiet statement, and so as soon as you say anything one way or another, it happens.

What Disney's gonna do is what all corporations do: they're gonna look at their bottom line, and if their bottom line starts shrinking, they will act one way.

If their bottom line starts increasing, they will act another.

- Great conversation.

I wanna move on, talk to Syndey about the new rules for postpartum care in North Carolina.

- Yeah, so it's great news for North Carolina and women who are pregnant and on Medicaid, so effective April 1st, women who are on Medicaid will actually have extended benefits for Medicaid up to a year.

In the past, and then prior to April 1st, it was 60 days, and we know, as a mother myself, you're gonna need healthcare past 60 days.

What this also means is that what most people don't know is that North Carolina has abysmal rates with the gross maternal and infant mortality rates.

Maternal rates, we are at 30th in the country, and infant mortality, we're 39th, so this actual policy will help save the lives of mothers and children.

12% of women in North Carolina, mothers, actually have postpartum depression, so the expansion of this will allow for them to get mental health treatment and also to get medical treatment to help with postpartum depression, et cetera.

The bigger issue is that as hospitals are closing and shuttering their doors in rural areas, women who are pregnant have a very difficult time accessing care for both OB-GYNs and then also subsequently giving birth.

Some of these hospitals are shuttering their doors.

So while this policy is great, and we've expanded it up to a year, it's not gonna solve the issue with rural hospitals shutting down, which is why we need to actually expand Medicaid.

- Robert, this is part of the American Rescue Plan.

It had to go through the General Assembly, correct?

- Yes, and we passed it in the budget, and that was a good thing, and it really needed to happen.

- Does this sunset out, what, in five years?

- I believe so.

Now, I don't have the legislation in front of me, so I can't tell you, but I do believe that's correct.

- That's '25, '27, yeah.

- Donna.

- Yeah, I mean, I think it is a good thing, you know.

It certainly provides more women longer care after birth, but I think that the key point that Senator Batch mentioned is access.

You know, that is something that we're struggling with a lot, scope of practice, con laws.

There are lots of laws on the book that limit the access.

So even if you have Medicaid, can you get an appointment?

That's a big thing that we're wrestling with right now is allowing those doctor to care for those women, get their reimbursement rates up and open more appointments available for them.

One of the things that we talked about a lot is Medicaid expansion.

A new poll we had out this week said that 58% of likely GOP voters are opposed to Medicaid expansion for a variety of reasons, among them is that we can no under the Biden administration have waivers for work and volunteer requirements or small copays.

There's lots of reasons.

And when they find out why the reasons that we can't get these waivers anymore, that disapproval number jumps to like 65.

So, you know, it's something we really have to work through.

And I know that there's a committee talking about it in the general assembly right now.

- Let's put this in context.

- Well, the interesting thing to me is that some people will see this change and say, oh, this is evidence of a reason for us to do the overall Medicaid expansion as it was initially spelled out in the Affordable Care Act.

And the problem with that is most of the people who would be covered by Medicaid expansion are working age adults with no children.

And if you expand coverage to that group, you basically cut out the opportunity for Medicaid money to be going to the places where it really needs to go.

Something like this, the pregnant women, the indigent people, once it gets to people who are a little bit higher up on the income scale and who are working age, and don't have kids, that squeezes out the opportunity to have Medicaid go toward where it was originally designed for.

- Sydney, wrap this up in about 30 seconds.

- So the problem with that Mitch is that, at the end of the day, what we're looking at is that rural hospitals are closing, right?

If you're in Wake County, I can throw a rock and I can hit five hospitals and I can choose the best care that I possibly can.

But rural mothers in rural North Carolina are dying and not getting the treatment because they don't have access.

We can't just expand it for a small group, because again to what Donna said, they don't have the ability to go ahead and get an appointment, by expanding Medicaid, these rural hospitals can open, these doctors can actually stay in rural North Carolina and we can provide care for 600,000 north [indistinct] that currently don't have it.

- Okay, we need to move on.

Mitch, talk to us about the US Senate race, the GOP Senate primary.

- Yeah, less than six weeks from the race.

It's getting a little bit clearer how people are planning to vote.

There's really no competition to speak of on the democratic side.

You don't even see any polling because former state Supreme Court Chief Justice, Sherry Beasley is seen as the presumptive winner of that project.

- And she's down in the money too.

- She's getting the money and not having to spend it 'cause she doesn't really have a primary challenge just waiting to see who she has to run for.

- Almost four million on hand.

- Yeah, waiting to see who she'll have to run against in the general election.

All of the action has really been on the Republican side.

And the poll back in January suggested that former governor Pat McCrory had a small lead but a lead in the race, but we now have had a series of polls over the past couple of weeks that show that Congressman Ted Budd who has the endorsement from president Donald Trump is now certainly in the driver's seat.

There was a poll from the North Carolina Values Coalition that gave him a three point lead that last week.

But this week, several more polls that gave him double digit leads.

- Right.

- One that gave him a 16 point lead, another 13 point.

And then the Civitas poll that my employer, the John Locke Foundation put out gave him an 11 point lead.

The bright side for Pat McCrory who's 11 points down in that poll was that there was almost 40% of the electorate, the Republican primary electorate still undecided.

- But isn't he the incumbent in this race really?

- In many respects, he is, he's the one who has the greater - It's traditionally, folks, if they're undecided at this point, they don't don't break for the incumbent.

- It tends not to go that way for the person who has the higher name recognition.

So the bright side is 40% that are still uncommitted.

The downside is that same poll show that 55% of people said that they would support the Trump endorsed candidate.

And of course, president Trump is going to be in Johnston County this weekend pumping up Ted Budd.

So that's another way that is going to help him going into the primary.

- Robert, what struck you about these polls?

- Well, I really wasn't as surprised about the polls.

I mean, I've never had a doubt that Ted Budd's gonna be the Republican candidate.

I mean, I think it's hard for Pat McCrory to overcome the fact that he's got a voting record.

- Are you gonna give him an endorsement today?

[laughing] - I didn't hear you.

- Yeah, and I think even when you look at moneywise, like we were just talking about with justice Sarah Beasley, the there's gonna be a $100 million spent in this race.

So nobody's money right now is what matters, what matters is after the primary.

- Donna.

- I think so.

And one thing that this race from the very beginning has been thinking about testing, what a lot of people are watching is how powerful is an endorsement from Donald Trump.

I mean, that is something that a lot of us have been asking on both sides of the aisle, trying to figure out what this means in the grand scheme of things and in 2024.

And I think what we're seeing right now is it's quite powerful.

There was a ton of money spent on advertising for Ted Budd.

And there's a lot going on out there.

- Through ad sequence, he's been very good on immigration and other.

- Yeah, it's very powerful.

And can Donald Trump come in and pick the winners?

And that's the question that a lot of folks have had because Pat McCrory, governor of North Carolina, mayor of Charlotte, very active in the community over the years.

And can that endorsement overpower that when you combine it with millions and millions in ad spending?

You know, it could be - Sydney.

- Yeah, I think it's also kind of struggle for Pat McCrory because then you look at the suburbs and excerpts, he's doing well, or he at least ties, but in rural areas he's.

- McCrory got a point.

- But he's not doing well at all.

So it really turns it's gonna turn on voters who come out and if the suburbs come out, they can actually help him because he is doing really well there.

But rural North Carolina, it's pretty abysmal for him.

It's not looking good - Mitch.

- The other thing that's important to know about this is that same poll that we were talking about from the Civitas poll said that basically it's about two to one Trump Republicans versus the traditional conservative Republicans, Budd slams McCrory among Trump Republicans and McCrory has a slight lead over Budd among those traditional republicans.

- And there was also in the Locke Foundation poll a lot about the Supreme Court crack.

- There was something about the Supreme Court and that is the other big statewide race.

82% of the people who are Republican primary voters know nothing about any of the candidates.

One candidate got 10%, another 8%.

So they still have a lot of work to do.

- Okay, I wanna move on and talk about Elon Musk.

He's shaking up the Twitter world my friend.

[chuckles] - Well, Elon Musk is the master of getting attention, I gotta give him that.

He now owns 9.2% of Twitter.

He has made a couple of statements initially when he bought it, he bought it as a passive shareholder and stated, hey I'm just getting the stock.

And then a couple days later, he says, well we're gonna change the way Twitter does business.

- He's the majority stakeholder now.

Yes, he's the biggest stakeholder above even of outgoing chair.

- Yeah, so what do you think is gonna happen there?

- I think that it's gonna be a lot of fuss about nothing.

I think that Twitter, we get caught in Twitter 'cause we're in politics and things of that sort, most of the world doesn't notice a difference with Elon Musk being a head.

- Donna, I think you're gonna see major changes.

And by the way, will Donald Trump be back on Twitter?

- That's the big question, right.

We were just talking about that.

I think that should he get back on Twitter, if Elon Musk pulls his 9% strings and gets him back on there, I think we will hear a lot from the President, because I think Twitter played a huge role in his popularity, his ability to bypass mainstream media and go straight to the voter.

Twitter played a huge role in that.

But there are a couple of things, the Wallstreet Journal had a really interesting article on advice for Elon Musk if he was gonna revamp and change some of their policies.

The big one is to leave more content up, come up with a better system to appeal content that's come down.

And basically stay out of the way, stop playing the policemen on the platform and make sure that your process is transparent if stuff is taken down.

And that guidance is what I think we're gonna see a lot from Elon Musk, because he has been of better or for worse, regardless of what the issue is and whether you agree with it, he has been a huge vocal proponent for free speech.

- I agree with that and he's a Libertarian too, right, Mitch?

- Certainly is.

If you saw him on the Joe Rogan Show, he was smoking a marijuana blunt throughout his interview and drinking some whiskey I think.

The interesting thing to me has been the reaction to Elon Musk.

I think a lot of folks who are interested in more free speech and openness on Twitter, were interested in seeing Elon Musk.

Those who don't like what Elon Musk put on Twitter have been very concerned about his initial and additional involvement in the company, and they say look this is a guy who's been spreading things that are disinformation about COVID and about other issues.

Do we really want him in charge of Twitter?

- Are conservatives applauding this or do they have reservations you think?

- I think there's a mix of reactions, because Elon Musk generates a mix of reactions among conservative.

Some people like the fact that he is an entrepreneur, others say look this is a guy who made money from Tesla by taking a bunch of money from the government.

- The stock has gone up significantly though since he put in his dollars hasn't it?

- Yeah, and the thing is, Elon Musk is going to be someone who will shake things up.

We know that he does that through Tesla, through Space-X, anything he's involved in, he's gonna take a slightly different angle than people have in the past.

- Cindy, is this a good thing?

- I think that if he cares about free speech, he should go and work with Trump on truth.

[laughing] - Tell the truth is.

- And the truth is, President Trump's, at least his social media brand, and his application that has actually faltered and floundered and done very poorly.

But in all seriousness, I think the issue is is that, as Representative Reece said, with regards to Elon Musk, he lied about why he was getting in there, he wanted to be an activist an activist supporter and investor in Twitter, he didn't even file the report that he was supposed to with the FCC and waited over a week after doing so.

He has plans and he should've been forthright and forthcoming when he actually said that.

I say he takes his billions of dollars and starts his own app.

- Donna, do you think this will change politics now?

- I don't know, a change is so short-lived right now in politics, particularly when-- - But there is a lot of censorship on Twitter.

- There is, but unfortunately, it's kind of, I would compare it to the VHS and the Beta Max, if you own the biggest platform, right now regardless of how poorly you're running it or regardless of the skepticism about it, it's really hard to compete with that and that's what we're seeing with some of these other social media platforms.

They're getting a spark, they're getting a little bit initially, but it's hard to sustain.

- Okay, I want to go to the most unreported story of the week, Robert.

- Under reported is Leah Carper of Guildford County, was named North Carolina's 2022 Teacher of the Year, she's an English teacher at Northern Guildford High.

And one of the things she wants to do is to use her platform to encourage others to get into teaching.

And I'm very glad to hear that, because I think teachers have taken a little bit of a tough road in all aspects coming into this year.

But she emphasizes how important teachers are to teaching students importance of character and leadership, and I wish her the very best.

- Donna, great feel good story by the way.

- Sure, absolutely.

Now, this one's here close to the Capitol in North Carolina, group of about 68 city employees, fire fighters, police officers, lots of others, have filed a lawsuit against Mayor Baldwin, the Major of Raleigh and against the city, saying that they've been told that the policy is very clear, that if you are not vaccinated, you will not be promoted.

You have to test every week.

But they have some interesting grounds in their lawsuit, among them was that the city has a policy on the books that says that they won't discriminate based on DNA, that's one of the elements in this lawsuit.

So one of the things that's important is these police and firefighters were never able to work from home like many people, they were out there facing the increased crime, increased domestic violence, accidents.

They were doing that all throughout COVID and now they're not gonna be promoted if they decide not to be vaccinated.

So, I'm really curious to see where this lawsuit goes.

- Where do you think it will go?

Will it go to North Carolina Supreme Court?

- It could, actually Mitch is probably the expert more on that part, than I am.

- Yeah, it certainly could if it, many other cases end up with the North Carolina Supreme Court, so it's entirely possible.

- Or could it go all the way to US Supreme Court?

- It would have to be in the federal courts to go for the US, to the US Supreme Court.

- Sydney, under reported please.

- My under reported is that Wake County is among the least affordable housing markets in the entire country.

We are only second to St. Louis.

And that percentage of affordability just in one year, dropped to 25%.

So, the average home price in Wake County this year was $410,000.

In order to afford that they say that you need to make about $76,000.

And the average salary for Wake County residents is $67,500, so they're in a situation where the teachers for instance, that you just talked to, the teacher of the year, will not be able to actually afford to live in Wake County and have to go farther out in order to find affordable housing.

- This is becoming a national problem too, correct?

- Absolutely, and one of the issues when you're talking about cities that are over a million, and that's why we are one of the cities, Wake County is, when the county it's over a million, is that you see a lot of growth.

And so, people are moving in to the area in a influx.

We just don't have the ability to actually provide at least without partnerships with the government and with the state legislature-- - What are some of the solutions you think?

- I think some of the solutions and very creatively has been Habitat partnering for instance with Wake Forest, which they did one time where they bought a certain part of land.

- Brought mixed use housing.

And mixed used housing, definitely needs to be, case in planned communities need to have townhouses, and also other houses for middle class, because the middle class is the one that's actually being eliminated from the ability to even get into home ownership.

- I see people, our community, all the way from Burlington now down to Raleigh.

Mitch.

- If the North Carolina Supreme Court takes up this case dealing with felon voting, and they haven't as we're talking right now, but it'll be the fourth time in recent months that the Supreme Court has short circuited the normal appeals process.

It also happened with redistricting, with the Leandro school funding case, with the voter ID law.

And this is something that prompted one of the the legislator's colleagues, Senator Warren Daniel, Republican for Burke County, to call out both the Supreme Court for changing this process, but also the plaintiffs.

He says they're engaging in forum shopping.

They look at the Court of Appeals, they see 10 Republicans, five Democrats.

They look at the Supreme Court and see four Democrats and three Republicans and they think, let's get our result from that Supreme Court now, before the election, 'cause there are two seats up for grabs in November, both held by Democrats.

It's entirely possible we will have a Republican state Supreme Court starting in 2021.

- Sydney, you have thoughts on this, quickly, in about 30 seconds.

- Yeah, I mean, I just think that at the end of the day, when you're looking at the race and why it's so important is that 56,000 individuals who would be able to vote.

And there are tons of counties where that narrow margin would've made the difference between whether or not you had a Democrat or a Republican.

So there's definitely a lot of investment with regards to whether they could.

- Okay.

I want to go to the lightning round.

Who's up and who's down this week, my friend?

- Hubert Davis, Hubert Davis, Hubert Davis.

[panel laughing] That's my up.

- He's up?

- He is up.

And what's down, number of rural nurses.

That's something we've gotta work on as a state.

- Donna, who's up and who's down this week?

- Oddly and wouldn't have thought this, but my up is actually Sarah Palin.

She has filed for, to run for Congress from Alaska.

She is facing 51 primary candidates in that Republican race.

- How many?

- 51.

Now she has probably, believe it or not, the second greatest name recognition in that race because-- - Bet you didn't file then.

- No.

[panel laughing] - Well Santa Claus, literally somebody named Santa Claus, is in that primary as well.

So I'm gonna say she has the second greatest name recognition, but I think I give her a good chance of winning that primary.

- Close to the North Pole.

- Down.

- Yeah, it is close to the North Pole.

My down is actually Joe Biden's handlers.

I don't know if you saw that video of president, former President Obama, sort of captivating the room there at the White House.

And everybody surrounded him after his speech, and poor poor President of the United States just looked lost and confused.

Nobody was with him.

And I really blame, he's the president of the United States, I blame the people around him for not having a better plan than the way that turned out for him.

- I talked to several democratic strategies that were very unhappy with that.

- Yeah.

- Sydney.

- So my up is North Carolina rent.

Just in the past year, it's up 20%, which is very unfortunate for the rest of us, and it's above the national average.

My down are populations in rural North Carolina, while the ex-urbs and urban areas are doing really well.

Unfortunately, if you are a rural area, and you don't have a Metro center near you, you actually are having a lot of attrition with regards to population loss.

- Mitch.

- For my up, representative Reeves will remember from college.

They're not booing they're chanting, "Hugh."

- There you go.

- My up is a teacher pay in North Carolina.

If this proposal that's being discussed now goes forward, the standard pay now for someone who has bachelor's degree could jump from 35,000 to 45,000.

You could get up to 73,000 under this seven layer system.

The catch is there would be a change in the way that teachers are paid, and some have some concerns about how it would happen.

- Is that performance based?

- It would be somewhat performance based, also taking on some advanced teaching role, like being a mentor teacher, that sort of thing.

There's some concern about the formula that would play out.

My down, cities in North Carolina that want to limit short term rentals through a registration scheme.

A couple in Wilmington, challenged Wilmington's ordinance and won in court, couple of years ago.

The appeals court just upheld that ruling, saying state law blocks these cities from trying to limit short term rentals through having some type of registration.

- Robert, headline next week, my friend.

- Headline next week is 2022 Midterms Heat Up As Voting Starts.

- Headline next week.

- And to that end, I think that the rally, the safe America rally in Selma North Carolina this weekend is really going to energize the Republican base here in North Carolina for the coming week.

- I think it has some problems though, with some of the folks who are gonna be on stage.

They could excuse some bad press on that with Kathorn and others.

Headlines next week.

- So with the primary races heating up, the legislature goes quiet until May.

- Headline next week.

- New Leandro Judge Hears Arguments on Court Ordered Education Funding.

- How long has this been going on?

- The case started in 1994.

This judge has only been on there for a few weeks.

He recently got appointed to it.

So he's just getting up to speed with what's happening.

- Okay, we gotta roll.

Great job, panel, that's it for us.

See you next week on Front Row.

Have a great weekend.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Major funding for Front Row was provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen, through the Yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, and by.

Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation, NC Realtors, Mary Louise and John Burress, Rifenburg Construction, and Helen Laughery.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪