(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is "Carolina Business Review."

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- Well, happy Easter, happy Spring, and welcome to the dawn of the hopeful summer slash beach travel season in the Carolinas.

Welcome back and thank you for supporting the most widely watched and longest running program on Carolina business policy and public affairs.

In a moment, we start with our expert panel about what may be going on this week, and despite our upbeat hopes for warm sunshine and beaches, what are those things beyond tariffs that might be important to know.

We'll start in a moment and later on.

He is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the Palmetto State, South Carolina Attorney General Allen Wilson joins us again.

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(upbeat music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," Patrick Woodie, president and CEO of the North Carolina Rural Center.

James McQuilla, president of the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce and special guest Alan Wilson, South Carolina Attorney General.

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to our program.

I can say happy Easter and happy Summer.

And I, you know, everybody's kind of upbeat about it now, right?

- Yes.

- Feeling good about it.

- Absolutely.

- Okay.

This is my Easter Summer colors.

- It's working for you, man.

It's working for you.

You know, by the way, I take this little side, we can pull video from when you were first on the show.

- Yes.

- It's a different guy.

You clearly have a wardrobe consultant and it's working for you.

- And I'm grayer.

- So thank you.

So thank you.

I don't even know what made me go down that route.

I'm not going to pick on you, I promise.

Patrick, you just had the rural summit, big annual conclave that you do every year.

You had a Crabtree Valley Mall area in Raleigh and sold out 700 people, brought together some real leadership in the region and in the state.

- [Patrick] Yeah.

- Was there anything that really surprised you about it that you didn't expect?

- So we have a lot of new leaders in North Carolina.

New governor, new lieutenant governor, new leadership in both houses of the General Assembly, a lot of turnover last election.

So we really wanted to introduce our audience to that new leadership.

I think one of the things that was a takeaway for me was there was a lot of consensus in the issues that we talked about, particularly around K 12 education, around our community colleges.

As we go out and talk to rural leaders around the state, we had a real reordering of our priorities in the last couple of years.

We've addressed a lot of our broadband infrastructure problems.

People feel like there's progress being made there.

And now education and workforce is really top of our rural agenda and probably top of the state agenda.

And they're not necessarily easy answers to those things.

- Now, and I'm going to come back to you on this, but James, bringing into the conversation, so Patrick talked a little bit about North Carolina and larger issues that were looming for a long time before trade and tariffs grab center stage, the Trump administration's idea that they were going to start this, we'll call it a trade and tariff war, whatever you want to call it.

But as much as that has dominated, does that cause people to be concerned or fearful?

What are you seeing in your area, Orangeburg?

- Well, right now it's still early.

So it's more concerned.

More concerned than fear.

And the reason is there's still some uncertainty around what's actually happening.

There's an announcement about tariffs.

There may be a pullback as we recently saw, people saw the markets react to that, the stock market, the bond market.

Which probably drew the bond market, probably drew a lot more interest in what happened there.

But no, I don't think fear is what we're seeing.

Just concern, because people want to know that there's going to be a positive outcome to what's happening.

- Yeah.

What about you, Patrick?

How do you feel?

- Definitely concern, a lot of concern.

- Has it risen to fear and anxiety, high anxiety?

- Well, around tariffs, definitely have talked to rural business owners that can articulate how that's going to directly impact their business center or rural community, and quite a bit of concern about that.

I think there's a lot of hope among those people that there is a greater plan, you know, an end game to kind of the tariff bidding war that's going on a little bit at this point.

- Yeah.

I want to be careful about not being political, but it's important to keep in context the agnostic nature of this, whether you like the president or not.

And I'm not saying I'm not asking neither one of you your personal opinion.

But as he moves forward with a lot of things, shock, awe, and some things get caught up in this.

I guess the question is, what wisdom are you hearing from people?

And I'll come back to you, Patrick, and especially your rural communities that can be supportive of the president, but are feeling this very acutely.

- Well, I think our communities have really been struggling with change.

The whole world, the whole globe is struggling with the pace of change.

And that's been particularly acute in the aftermath of COVID.

So for several years now and years in which President Trump wasn't in office, and there's a real, I think, there's an exhaustion with that pace of change.

And then, you know, we've kind of had this acute period over the last two or three months of just, it's a daily thing.

And so that's what I hear from folks is just, you know, they're worn out with it, you know, they need, you know, let's just settle down and get back to business and, you know, where's the normal in all this?

How's it going to shake out?

- Well, good question is that, is do we have a new norm?

Is there a normal?

- Well, I think we're headed towards a new normal.

We're not going to go back.

And I agree 100% with what Patrick was saying, business, especially small business owners, they need some certainty, right?

And right now they're concerned because they just don't see, they see too much change.

But I think they still believe that we're headed in the right direction.

And as you mentioned, not politically, but economically, that we're going to have to go through this part to get to that prosperity within the country that's shared throughout the country.

- In about a minute left, immigration also comes to mind.

Was one of job ones for the Trump administration when he was elected and gotten off sworn in.

Patrick, does immigration and the deployment, the rapid deployment of it, and the rapid deportations of it, has that changed the way that hiring is done in rural communities?

- I don't hear so much about hiring, though a lot of fear about that the labor force being disrupted at a time when labor is such a scarce commodity.

You know, we have a mismatch of jobs and skilled people ready to fill those jobs in North Carolina.

We even see that in rural parts of the state, no matter where you look in rural North Carolina, there's more of a Hispanic population than there used to be.

And in some states that has grown by leaps and in bounds.

You particularly see the impact of that changing population at younger ages.

So, you know, kids, young kids under 18 years old, much higher populations of those, students.

We work with a lot of nonprofits that are Latino led and served that community.

And I think that is an area where I do see absolute fear.

I would not describe it as, you know, a lot of anxiety, but it's not just concern, it is fear.

It is literally fear.

- You're seeing fear in Orangeburg and in the low midlands, upper low country.

- You do see that in the Hispanic community, right?

Because, you know, we are a very rural agricultural led.

The economy of Orangeburg.

And then there's some construction that's going on, and in both of those industries, agriculture and the new construction that you see that population is starting to show more of the Hispanic group working there.

And so if you believe that there's a chance that you may be deported before you could clear up any misunderstanding that is fear.

- [Chris] Do you see this on people's faces?

- I hear about it with those who are in the community.

- [Chris] Yeah, okay.

- That I just spoke about.

So a lot of those are here legally, but they have some relatives that don't match that designation.

- Okay, yeah.

Thank you, gentlemen.

We're going to keep this going in just a second.

Coming up on this program, the new Secretary of Commerce from North Carolina, a gentleman named Lee Lilly is being widely praised as a good appointment by Governor Josh Stein.

He will be a guest on this program that's Lee Lilley Secretary of Commerce from North Carolina.

Also coming up on this program, Scout Motors made a pretty big splash with their announcement in South Carolina.

CEO Scott Keogh will also be a guest on our program.

The courts jurisprudence, the rule of law, law enforcement, much of all other government systems, This one too seems to be being tested now as well.

State Attorneys General have been handed a pretty tough responsibility when elected, not just law enforcement, not just litigation or policy leadership or regulatory oversight or public advocacy, but the common denominator for these AGs is guardian of the public trust.

So what defines the public trust?

Especially now.

Joining us again is the South Carolina Attorney General, the Honorable Alan Wilson.

Your Honor, welcome to the program.

- It's great to be with you, thank you.

- It's good to see you, sir.

- So what does the public trust mean?

What do you hold in your hand?

What do you guard?

- Well, years ago I thought about this question, and I came up with kind of an internal test of what good government means.

Government should have five attributes to it.

It should be responsible, predictable, accountable, profitable, and stable.

And I'll repeat that.

Responsible, predictable, accountable, profitable, and stable.

The last two are, you know, profitable and stable are really byproducts of the first three.

A government that is responsible with the power that you give it, responsible with the taxes it assesses, creates predictability in the market.

I mean, people react to the policies of government in a regulatory administrative state.

And then of course, accountability.

You know, how do you hold elected officials accountable?

How do the branches hold each other accountable?

When those three things are all balanced, then you create the conditions for profitability in the private sector.

And then of course, stability.

Whether it's stability in our communities, our infrastructure, law enforcement, public safety, that's what people want.

So when you talk about public trust, public trust has gained it, or I should say earned when those five criteria are met.

- So how...

I want to drill down a little bit more, Mr. Attorney General.

Is it different now given new Trump administration, just new politics in general?

And it's not all about Donald Trump, of course, but this whole dialogue, as Patrick said, if things are moving faster and faster, quicker and quicker, better and better, worse and worse.

Is it different now than it was when you were elected over a decade ago?

- I mean, it always feels different because the world changes around you.

And I would have to say that, I mean, yes, I honestly think when Donald Trump got elected, I think he defied the laws of political gravity, both in his first and his second term for very different reasons.

I mean, I'm able to work across the aisle with my colleagues of different parties and different political perspectives.

But it does, I think what has changed the most over the last 20 years is the advent of the social media world.

People get most of their news, they do most of their interactions through social media platforms, and it's easier to hate people when you're not looking them in the eye, when you're just tweeting at them or posting against them, it's created a lot of polarization.

And so in that way, the internet has really changed the world from where it was 15 years ago.

- [Chris] Patrick, question.

- Yeah.

So you are now, I guess, the longest serving Attorney General in the United States, State Attorney General in the United States.

And one issue that really has impacted every family that I know and in our rural areas in particular, but it's failed everywhere in our state, and I'm sure South Carolina's the same, is the opioid, fentanyl crisis.

I imagine you've spent an enormous amount of time on that one issue.

And I'm curious, in your tenure, how you've seen that issues around opioid abuse and fentanyl evolve and do you think we're making headway?

- I do.

I think, first off, the fact that we're talking about it right now is improvement.

I mean, years ago we weren't talking about the opioid epidemic, we weren't talking about fentanyl.

Now you're asking me this question for a reason, because people that you represent are concerned about it.

I'm concerned about it.

There's been a lot of bipartisan across the aisle work over the last several years, obviously with the opioid lawsuits that happened several years ago.

And the settlements, you know, we've gone a long way for opioid abatement, the addiction abatement.

What's interesting about this issue is everyone sitting in this circle right here can name a person they know who died of a opioid or a fentanyl overdose or at least know a family in their community who's suffering from that.

This really hits close to home.

So we have worked with our colleagues around the country in the civil courts to deal with this issue.

But also on the criminal side, I tell people all the time when they say, "What keeps you up at night?"

"I think the fentanyl stuff does, because I've known so many young people who have took an Adderall or a Xanax or an opioid pill thinking it was legit and it was adulterated or laced with fentanyl."

Fentanyl is deadly.

It is insidious, it is evil.

We have had, we...

In the last five years, the fentanyl market, and when I say it's evil, I mean the people behind it are evil.

We have seized probably about 144 kilos of fentanyl in South Carolina in the last four to five years.

One kilo of fentanyl, which is about the size of half a brick, is enough to kill half a million people.

And we've seized 144 kilos, and it's being piped in from south of the border.

Mexican drug cartels working with violent gangs like MS-13, Tren de Aragua, piping the stuff into all the states.

We're all border states now, and it's coming into South Carolina.

And this is something that we're having to deal with.

And so that is why I've taken such an aggressive posture on combating gangs, illegal immigration, and obviously from a public safety standpoint, you know, going after the trafficking rings.

- [Chris] James.

- Let me ask you this.

Do you think that we could message what you just talked about in a different way so folks could be educated more about the fact that this is what's happening, these are the results and you're being affected?

Because some people, I think just from those that I've taught with, there's a disconnect between the fact that there's fentanyl out there, that it creates a criminality and then they're affected by that.

And it's hard for... And it makes it such that everybody's family is suffering, but how do we get the message across in a better way and educate them about why you're doing and what you're doing is important?

- Right.

That's a great question.

Obviously you can always improve messaging.

I mean, let me use a completely unrelated issue or distantly related issue.

Human trafficking, people weren't talking about human trafficking 12, 13 years ago in our state, we had no human trafficking task force.

There were no human trafficking laws.

When I ran for Attorney General in 2010, I never once mentioned the word human trafficking.

Now, it's one of the things I talk about the most because of the public, the awareness I have personally given and the public awareness I have promoted.

Same thing with the fentanyl and the opioid epidemic.

We weren't talking about the epidemic until all 40 plus states got together and brought these lawsuits to deal, to address that issue.

And then you bring in hundreds of millions, billions of dollars back to the states for opioid abatement and opioid education.

Same thing with a fentanyl issue you're talking about.

We can always improve our message, but it starts with conversations like this.

What we're doing right now is a component of the very thing you were just asking me about.

So yes, we can do a better job of messaging, but it requires all of us talking together, requires the media playing their role, law enforcement playing their role, schools, parents, you know, various associations, special interest groups.

We all have to come together and address this together, but it requires all of us talking about it to really affect real change.

- Mr. Attorney General, you know, you talk about opioid and fentanyl opioid, and this is not the right way to say it, but is almost self-inflicted, something internally in the US that we're managing through.

Fentanyl, it's kind of scary.

We see headlines that may or not may be sensational, may be completely true, maybe not true.

Do you feel like you are making a real impact in slowing down the incoming fentanyl from Mexico in this case?

Because it gets most of the headlines.

Do you feel like you are arresting and deporting enough of those members of gangs and cartels?

Is is it happening in your state?

- Well, I mean, I was listening to Secretary Kristi Noem the other day, Homeland Security Secretary say that I think, 98, 99% of the illegal crossings at the southern border have stopped.

So again, I, the analogy I've used is America's a big boat and we had a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom of the boat.

We have plugged the holes in the boat, but all the water that's been leaking into it is still in the boat.

So now we have to bail it out.

Now we have to do it in the appropriate way, the right way.

But we need to bail out the water, the water meaning Tren de Aragua, MS-13, cartel activity, the fentanyl, the drugs, the guns, the other illicit narcotics that are coming across the southern border.

The human trafficking that is being fed by... We can't find 300,000 unaccompanied minors that crossed over to the southern border over the last several years.

Homeland Security from last summer said, "We don't know where they are."

These kids are possibly feeding the human trafficking trade.

The point I'm making is it's in the boat, we got to get it out now.

We've stopped it at the southern border, but there's still so much more to do and it has it's impact is at the end state.

It's in the communities of our respective states.

That's where it goes.

- [Chris] Patrick.

- Yeah, so I'd like to shift gears just a little bit.

Talk about our young people, and I know that's something close to your heart as a parent, but also as the Attorney Generals thinking about how do we protect our kids online from predators, from bad actors, but also just from the technology itself.

One of the issues that, a bipartisan consensus that's really coming through in North Carolina right now is a belief that we need to control kids' usage of that cell phone technology throughout the day as they're in school.

And that was an issue we weren't talking about very long ago, but a consensus that it really is having an effect on young people and their isolation with their device.

And I just wonder, what's your perspective from your office of the threats against our kids that really are tied to that technology?

- Parents have gotten a false sense of security that if their kids are sitting up in their room under the roof while they're downstairs watching TV, that they're good, they're safe, everything's good, right?

Back in the '80s, back when we were all coming up, you know, '70s, '80s, you had to go out in the woods and play with your friends or across the neighborhood, and you were out in the world, right?

But there's this feeling that if you're in the house, you're safe.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I tell parents all the time, would you let your child go around the world by themselves?

And they say, "No."

Then I say, "Why do you let them go around the world wide web by themselves?"

I mean, there are so many things out there.

Our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, we've prosecuted thousands of people over the last, you know, 10, 15 years, there's this new movement called 764 Gore.

It derives its name from an area code in Texas.

It's got its roots in neo-Nazi satanic organizations.

It's decentralized, but these are young teenagers getting other teenagers to engage in self-mutilation, bestiality, suicide, and film it for the pleasure of the viewing audience.

And they use these videos of these kids to recruit more kids.

And that's actually now in South Carolina, I just met with the FBI about it, but that's happening under the roof while parents are downstairs watching TV.

So yeah, kids are the end user, but parents are the last line of defense.

Cops can't be in that bedroom with your kid while they're on their device.

So we have got to change how we think about the use with the internet.

Another thing that's scaring me is AI.

AI is today in 2025, what the internet was in 1995.

- [Patrick] That's right.

- It's an innovative technology that's going to change the world in ways we can't imagine.

But with the good comes the bad.

So I was very proud.

Josh Stein, your governor joined, when he was Attorney General.

He and I co-led a bipartisan letter to Congress, 54 State or Attorneys General.

Attorneys General signed it saying Congress needs to address the AI issue because someone can, we know it's bad to take a video or a picture of a child engaging in an inappropriate act, but what about people using AI platforms to create fake kids engaging in it, thus feeding child porn, the industry.

And we need to address that in the law, and then we need to educate parents about it.

But AI is a good thing that has has evil applications.

- [Chris] We have about two minutes left.

I'm going to give you the last.

- I need more than two minutes.

I mean yeah, there's so much I want to get into here.

- [Chris] Two minutes.

- Okay, two minutes.

I want to go back to crime and the economy.

In South Carolina, I think we need more jobs and better jobs, industry, technology, because I think there's a correlation between those who work and aren't committing most of the crime and those who don't work and are out here committing crime.

What are your thoughts on how the economy is directly connected to the crime, especially violent crime?

- Immediately people talk about employment workforce, they talk about regulatory policy.

They, you know, judicial policies of states and communities, they talk about regulatory policies, tort reform, all these things come into play, but none of that stuff matters if the community or the neighborhood you live in is crime ridden.

No one wants to live in a place where their children- - Could be killed.

- Right, I was at a press conference the other day with a woman.

- You can take a drink of water.

- I'm going to power through it.

- Yeah?

- I was with a press conference the other day with a woman whose 6-year-old son was shot sitting on his couch.

From Orangeburg.

- [James] Right.

I know.

- And you're aware of that.

And it just wrenched my heart that, you know, what good is a good economy if people are shooting each other in the streets.

And so I think until, I mean, public safety, regardless of where you're on the political spectrum, everyone agrees that the core function of government is public safety.

And if we can't have safe communities and neighborhoods, none of the other stuff matters.

- Has public safety become more acute since the beginning of COVID?

Has it become more acute?

- I mean, I think public safety is always acute.

It's never not acute.

And, you know, it's always important.

It always matters.

Obviously, when the economy is bad, when people are scared or afraid or angry, they act out.

We all remember this summer of George Floyd.

Obviously there was a lot of anger.

When people are afraid, they act out.

When people are starving, they do things.

I mean, people are compelled to do things that they would not normally do when the economy is bad, when they can't feed their children or when they feel lost or hopeless or scared.

And so I do think public safety is always going to be affected by one of those emotions in the general electorate.

- Your Honor, thank you for being here.

You've been here at least a couple times in the past, and I always come away with something else I've learned and I've learned that you're up for Brigadier General in the National Guard.

We hope you get that.

- Well, we'll see.

I've had 29 years.

- [Chris] Well, that counts.

- I got one more year.

And if it happens, great.

If not, I've had a wonderful career in the military.

- But still thank you for your leadership in that.

We appreciate that.

- Thank you.

- Nice to see you again, sir.

James, keep it up.

Good to have you here.

Patrick, thank you.

- Thank you.

Until next week, I'm Chris William.

Hope your Easter's good.

See you next week.

Goodnight.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta.

Truliant Federal Credit Union.

Foundation for the Carolinas.

Sonoco.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina.

High Point University.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)