- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on "Front Row," Speaker Pelosi travels to Taiwan.

Will North Carolina's Green Party be on a ballot this fall?

And the U.S. Senate passes a bill to help veterans exposed the toxic burn pits.

Next.

- [Narrator] Major funding for "Front Row" with Marc Rotterman 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... funding for the lightning round provided by: Nicholas B. and Lucy Mayo Boddie Foundation, A.E.

Finley Foundation, NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stephen Gleason.

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

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining the conversation, Mitch Kokai with the John Lock Foundation, political analyst, Joe Stewart, Michael Hyland with CBS 17 and Nelson Dollar, former senior policy advisor to North Carolina Speaker of the House.

Let's begin with Speaker Pelosi's trip to Taiwan.

Michael, kick us off.

- This situation really has escalated just about every day this week.

We had heard this talk, this concern in the weeks leading up to Speaker Pelosi's visit from people within the Biden Administration.

Even the President, at some point, was saying there were some concerns about how this would ultimately all end up going.

She ended up being in Taiwan for a little less than 24 hours.

And then on Friday as the week has gone on, we heard that China's cutting off talks with the United States on climate and military issues.

There have been missile strikes.

That they have military exercises going on around Taiwan in the time after Pelosi- - They're encircling Taiwan.

- They are.

They're circling Taiwan, right now.

Interestingly though, she got bipartisan support for taking this trip.

There was actually a letter that 25 Republican Senators had put out earlier in the week, including Senator Tillis and Senator Burr, saying they supported Speaker Pelosi taking this trip.

She had said that she thought it was important to show solidarity with Taiwan and for their democracy.

And she felt like it was still necessary for her to undertake the trip.

But the Biden Administration has been calling out China since then, and saying that they're acting irresponsibly in response to Speaker Pelosi's visit - Mitch, clearly the White House didn't want her to go.

- Yeah, that's certainly true and that was something that was a point of contention between Speaker Pelosi and the Biden Administration.

At the end, once it was clear that she was going to Taiwan they basically said, "Okay, yeah, "she has the right to do this," but certainly the Biden Administration didn't want her to go.

And that shows a sign of an interesting break between the Speaker of the House and the President of the United States.

Two of the most prominent Democrats in Washington DC.

To see that much of a disconnect between them is bad news for that party.

- Well, the last time we had a speaker go there was 1997.

I think Joe, that was Newt Gingrich?

- Absolutely and, you know speaker Pelosi wanting perhaps, as you said, show some solidarity, the first woman-president of Taiwan, wanting to stand with her in a very public way.

Unfortunately, the aftermath is the Chinese military conducting these now exercises around the island of Taiwan.

In effect it's almost like a complete blockade of Taiwan from an economic stand point.

- Is it a dress rehearsal, do you think?

- Well, I think a perhaps even in the short term, yes.

I think it is a dress rehearsal to some extent, but in the short term, Taiwan, a major supplier of microchips to the world.

If we have other supply chain issues again, in the United States, because shipping is not possible out of Taiwan to supply chips to American manufacturers.

I think the Chinese will have made as much of a statement as they are making militarily by launching missiles and doing those sorts of things, that they do have the ability to cause trouble for the United States.

Not necessarily just with military intervention in Taiwan but by shutting down commerce on the island.

- Nelson, is China a competitor, as the president says, or an adversary?

- They're an adversary.

The Taiwan relations act, passed by Congress in 1979, was in response to President Carter's ditching a mutual defense treaty that had been in effect for the prior 25 years.

Today, China is in a slow motion implosion and that's why you're seeing them become very aggressive culturally nationalistic country.

You see it in the south China Sea, the takeover of Hong Kong, threatening the invasion of Taiwan.

What the U.S. wants to do is to keep China bottled up behind the First Island Chain, because the winner gets to dominate Southeast Asia.

And that's where the global economic growth is gonna be for the next 30 to 40 years.

- Let me just jump in here real quickly.

We do have the U.S. Ronald Reagan and the Seventh Fleet over there within 10 miles of Taiwan, right?

- Oh, that's right.

I mean, right now China is not capable of an amphibious invasion.

So what we need to do is use this time to continue to build up Taiwan's defenses and build up our own military logistics.

We have the hardware, the submarines, the planes, but what we need are the logistical support for a long term conflict.

- And we need the will, right?

We need the will.

- You have to have the will.

And have the Alliance.

If I were Biden, the first thing I would be doing right now is on the phone with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the Philippines.

I would be going to to the Philippines to visit and talk to them about Subic Bay.

- Mitch, wrap this up in about 20 seconds, my friend.

- Yeah.

This is gonna be very interesting.

I think China, as Nelson alluded to, because it's having so many economic problems, it's looking at issues, like it's foreign policy and trying to get the nationalism going, to hide its other problems.

That's bad news for the rest of the world, including the U.S. - Great conversation.

I wanna change gears.

Talk to you, Joe, about the prospects for the Green Party in North Carolina this cycle.

- Yeah, by way of quick background, the Green Party came in prominence in the United States, or existence really, in the early eighties.

It's really born out of the West German and Canadian Green movements.

A lot of ecological types of issues, anti-nuclear energy issues, but it was certified as a political party in North Carolina, but in the 2020 election, their candidate for president wasn't able to achieve 2% of the total votes cast and so they were de-certified.

Attempting to get a candidate on the ballot.

This time they have to submit petitions to the state board of elections, which they did.

There was some question about the authenticity of the process and some of the names.

Ultimately the state board did say, "No, you can't get on it in June."

And now they have reversed themselves and said, "Yes, we'll certify you as a party."

The question is can they get a Green Party candidate on the ballot in the U.S. Senate race in 2022 in North Carolina.

It's all tumbled into- - When would that decision be made?

- Well, it's all tumbled into federal court now and a decision will come next week.

The courts have, at least initially, said that the candidate can get on, as long as they have the certification and all the paperwork to the state board of election by mid-August.

The interesting part of this is the Democratic Party is resisting allowing a Green Party candidate on the ballot.

In part, as daddy used to say, "You can tell what a dog's interested in "by what it barks at."

[Marc laughing] And so they've gotten involved in this.

It's clearly of concern to Democrats.

That another non-democratic or Republican candidate particularly Green Party candidate is likely to draw more Democratic voters away from their nominee for the U.S. Senate than of the Republican.

- Mitch, that's a great point because they could be a spoiler in the U.S. Senate race, couldn't they?

- They certainly could and in fact, there are only two candidates that the Greens want to put on the ballots.

One as a state Senate candidate and the other is Matthew Hoh who was their candidate for U.S. Senate.

- [Marc] What's his background?

- He was in the military and he comes across as very businesslike and sometimes Greens will come across in a way that you think, yeah, there's a reason you're a third party.

Matthew Hoh is not that type of candidate, he will come across as very mainstream and I think a lot of Democrats or people who might lean toward Democrats but are kinda lukewarm might see Matthew Hoh as a good alternative.

Democrats don't wanna see that.

Joe mentioned questions about the Greens and their petition signatures.

Those questions almost all came from Democrats including Democratic operatives working with the Elias Law Group, and we know that Mark Elias is an attorney- - Who's Mark Elias?

- Mark Elias is an attorney, worked with the Hillary Clinton campaign.

He's worked on other campaigns.

His sole goal is get Democrats elected, that's why he's involved.

- Nelson?

- Well, a few years ago, we actually lowered the threshold to get these smaller parties access to the ballot and that was not- - [Marc] We being who?

- The Republican General Assembly.

And it wasn't for all for altruistic reasons.

Third parties can make a difference.

I mean, the Democrats still blame Ralph Nader and the Green Party for the election of President Bush in 2000 because of what happened in Florida.

In a very close race, those minor parties can take votes out from swing candidates from the major party candidates and the big prize this year is the United States Senate.

So the Libertarian Party is on the ballot, that splits maybe a few more votes outta the Republicans than Democrats.

The Greens would probably even that up.

- [Marc] Michael, jump in here.

- Yeah, people I've talked to have been kind of all over the map on just to what extent the Green Party could end up being a spoiler in this.

There's some people who think it might be a wash like you said, with the Libertarians being on there.

- You think they have a threshold of what?

Two or 3% - Perhaps, I think in the governor's race, they got less than 2%, I think in 2020.

So granted, we don't know just how close the Senate race is gonna end up being.

One of the things I found fascinating about all this, we've probably spent more time talking about the Green Party in the last six to eight weeks or so than we have talking about Cheri Beasley's campaign and Ted Budd campaign- - It's the summer.

- The last couple months.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

But this process has been so interesting to follow 'cause this is the first time that I've kind of watched this from beginning to end and one of the things that struck me about this with the concerns about the signatures that they had, in the contract that they had to get them, they said they only had to have a 70% validity rate and then the contract was good in terms of people going out and getting signatures for the Green Party to be on the ballot.

We might see some changes to law over this perhaps in the future, because there have been concerns about paying people to go get those signatures.

- Mitch, I wanna move on and talk to you about a major Senate bill that's gonna help veterans.

- It's called The Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins Act which is one of these congressional terms where you get the nice acronym PACT Act and basically it expands the eligibility for free medical care for veterans at the VA if they have been exposed to toxic chemicals or burn pits.

There's also a piece that has a very North Carolina specific element to it and it would help people who were exposed to the toxic water at Camp Lajeune.

So this was a bill that in June made it through the U.S. Senate with no problems, overwhelming support.

Went to the house, got past there but in a slightly different version, came back with a technical change.

But then some Republicans in the U.S. Senate held up a final vote And some were saying that it was because of a $400 billion gimmick that was thrown in there.

But others said the real reason was because Chuck Schumer had just sprung a new deal that we'll be talking about in a couple of minutes- - The Inflation Reduction Act.

- Exactly and so, as it turned out that after that initial no vote, it ended up passing the Senate by an overwhelming margin.

It ends up that Richard Burr voted for it.

Thom Tillis voted against it.

And the reason that Tillis says that he voted against it is he doesn't believe the VA has the resources it needs to deal with all of these claims and that once these claims start coming in, people will face backlogs and delays.

That was his reason.

- Nelson, Senator Tillis did work on this issue when he was in the house, correct?

When he was speaker of that North Carolina house.

- Oh, that's right.

And what you're talking about is the Camp Lajeune Justice Act in Congress of which he was a sponsor in the Senate and bipartisan sponsorship for the bill in the house, Representative Murphy, Representative Price and a host of others.

And what that would do is allow these veterans and their families and civilians who served or worked on the post down there for 30 days sometime between August one of 1953 and December 31 of 1987 to bring cases in federal court for any harm from exposure to toxic well water which was the case there for decades.

So North Carolina had a quirk in its law that doesn't allow for parties to pursue these claims that are more than 10 years old.

So that was the need for the federal legislation.

But Tillis did work on this when he was speaker of the house on the North Carolina side of the legislation to get that statute of limitations out.

- This was a rare bipartisan effort though.

I think it was what?

86 to 11?

- Right and Senator Tillis was one of the no votes obviously at the end of the day- - [Marc] He has concerns about the caseloads in the VA, right?

- Can the VA actually handle all the new claims that are gonna come in as a result of this?

I think it'll be interesting to see if this also ends up being a continuing issue in the Senate race as well because Republican Ted Budd, he had voted against the bill originally and then when it came back to the house he voted for it.

At that time, Democrats were on a tour for about a month across the state trying to call attention to that.

And potentially, we might see that brought up I bet in the next few months as we get closer to the election as well.

- Joe, put this in context.

- Senator Tillis's point is taken.

I mean, there have been issues with the Veterans Administration in the past in terms of their capacity to provide healthcare services to military veterans.

I think we do need to make sure that the people that serve our nation in the armed services are provided with the types of healthcare that they need to deal with- - [Marc] We put 'em in harm's way.

- Well, absolutely.

- And war is a messy business and you're exposed to a lot of things.

I remember after the war in Iraq, I mean, the amount of contaminants that soldiers and sailors and Marines had taken in because of the burning oil fields and those sorts of things, it is a tremendously difficult thing to have to go into with all of these hazards, not only your life is threatened because you're facing an enemy but you're exposed to all of these other environmental conditions that can lead to very serious illnesses.

But we do need to make sure that the Veterans Administration is organized, equipped and staffed in a way that makes it possible for veterans to get the medical care that they deserve.

- Okay, I wanna move on.

I think the President is poised to pick up a major win in the U.S. Senate on the Inflation Reduction Act.

- Yes, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

Senator Sinema is now on board.

She got a few minor tax changes.

Progressives are not totally happy.

I mean, they're getting- - [Marc] Democrat from Arizona, right?

- Yes.

Democrat from Arizona.

She's gotten some minor tax changes that helped get her on board.

Progressives are not completely happy with this.

The Bernie Sanders crowd and some others because of what is not in the bill.

Republicans are solidly in opposition but the big hurdle right now, that'll play itself out over the next few hours, is the parliamentarian who will decide if any of the sections do not comply with the Senate rules.

Those would have to be taken out.

- Vote is likely on Saturday.

- Vote's likely this weekend on Saturday.

And there's really three things to know, first is, as confirmed by Penn Wharton, the bill does not reduce inflation despite the name.

In fact, it slightly increases inflation in the early years.

- Penn Wharton is an economist?

- That's right, Penn Wharton is the business school at University of Pennsylvania.

It also does not significantly reduce the deficit, which is what Senator Manchin has said.

He's been in opposition to these bills prior to this, especially if the Obamacare subsidies, healthcare subsidies in there are continued past 2025, then the impact on the federal debt is less than 1%.

The deficit, it doesn't help at all in terms of the long term.

And finally, and probably most importantly, is the bill adds an estimated 87,000 new IRS enforcement agents.

Just what every American needs right now.

- And there's already 77,000 IRS agents, correct?

- Yes.

It more than doubles.

And they say, "Oh, we're not going after the middle class."

That is not true.

- Mitch, they're subsidizing green energy and EV cars.

Are they picking winners and losers?

- Well, certainly if you pick that sector and say that you are going to give them incentives or make it easier for people to pick them other than the combustible fuel options.

To me, it's amazing that truth in advertising laws do not apply themselves to congressional legislation.

- Politicians, come on.

- Inflation Reduction Act that does nothing for inflation as the Wharton School so adequately described, that to me is the biggest thing about this bill.

I think that it is a win to some extent for the Biden administration, but as more facts come out about this bill, it'll end up not having a major impact.

- Manchin got a sweetener though, didn't he?

$6.6 billion for a pipeline in West Virginia, Joe.

- Well, isn't that strange, too?

The fact that sometimes the legislation doesn't do what the title does and that somebody that was an obstacle to its passage ends up with something back home that's really useful to the sale.

I think the bottom line here is the Biden administration feels they have to have a win.

They need something to try to counterman what going into the midterm elections looks like a bad season for Democrats because of the president's relative unpopularity.

I think the White House put everything into trying to negotiate something out, including whatever it took to get Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema to go along with this package.

And if you don't think it's a win for the Biden administration, just wait 'til the Biden administration talks about it because that's all they're gonna say, "Win, win, win."

- Is this a win for the American taxpayers, you think, for families?

- Well, in terms of the Democrats, looking for something positive, you know, to run on over the next few months, 'cause a lot of the focus has been on, oh, well don't vote for the Republicans for X, Y, and Z, right, one of the things they're absolutely gonna be harping on is the changes with Medicare and one of the things that the Democrats have wanted for a long time was giving Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices.

And there's also a provision in there.

There'd be an out of pocket cap of $2,000 a year for drug costs, I mean, they're gonna point to that and say, "Yeah, the bill itself might not be inflation reduction, you know, vehicle, but there are individual parts that could save people money."

And they're gonna talk about that a lot the next few weeks.

- Okay, I wanna move on to the most under-reported story of the week, Mitch.

- We've been talking a lot about various lawsuits that deal with elections and election rules, but one that kind of was thrown in there that hasn't got as much attention, the elective center activist group, Common Cause, is suing because unaffiliated voters cannot serve on the state board of elections.

They say, "Look, unaffiliated voters make up the largest voting block, more of them than of Democrats or registered Republicans, but yet state law says that on the five member board of elections, three, no more than three could be from one of the major parties," which as it turns out is always the governor's party 'cause he's the one who appoints them, "and then the other two have to be from the other major party."

So, there's this lawsuit saying that look, this discriminates against unaffiliated voters, it violates their constitutional rights.

And not only should a court throw this law out but it should block the general assembly from passing any other board of elections law that discriminates against unaffiliated voters.

We'll see whether this goes anywhere.

- Joe.

- I think only unaffiliated voters should be on the board of elections.

That would make a lot more sense to me.

- [Man] The general assembly passed that and the governor vetoed.

- [Marc] Okay.

- A lot of focus on China and Russia, North Korea now, but our strong military and economic ally, Great Britain, a little bit of trouble, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, stepping down with his trust coming in place behind him.

She will inherit some difficult situations.

But the one thing I think that gives her a good chance is the fact that Boris Johnson, to his credit.

- [Marc] Conservative.

She's a conservative.

- Yes, has helped lower the rate of debt that the country has had and it gives them a little cushion.

They could perhaps provide a tax cut to the citizens of that country, though it would be something very popular at this point.

But this is an important ally for us and the fact that Boris Johnson, there's a difficulty, self-inflicted wounds in some ways politically, holding parties during COVID, that sort of thing.

But hopefully the government will solidify.

They'll be able to get through the Brexit thing.

And once again, we'll have that strong ally.

- Michael, under-reported, my friend.

- There was a report by the New York Fed this week that really got my attention.

It was related to the amount of debt we're all taking on, that credit card debt in particular jumped a hundred billion dollars or last year, that was a 13% increase and that was the largest in more than 20 years, there's all this concern about whether we're going into a recession potentially and what impact that's gonna have on families.

Another big driver was mortgage debt because you know, prices of houses are going up and people are, you know, who are getting into that market, they're taking on all of this debt, as well.

So what shape are people gonna be in if we do see a significant downturn?

- Nelson, under-reported?

- Stagflation, so while the debate goes on about whether we're already in a recession, growth has clearly stalled, inflation remains high.

That's the definition of stagflation.

Now, the president is saying we're not in a recession because employment, unemployment appears low.

Here's the problem, we're just- - Well, they did get a good report on jobs report today, too.

- Well, they did, but here- - [Marc] Over 500,000 new jobs.

- And that's a good thing, but here's the problem.

We're just now, with that report, getting back to the number of workers who were employed pre COVID.

That's two years of a loss of job growth.

So we're actually short in the economy about four to five million workers who ought be there.

So we are still currently in a secular as well as a cyclical downturn.

We're behind the curve in terms of policy coming out of Washington.

Most of the global economies are already in recession or headed there, so at the moment, we are stuck in stagflation.

- Well, don't you think the economy kitchen table issues are gonna be the issue going into November?

- That's what the Republicans need to focus on.

They need to laser in on the economy, laser in on inflation, and where the country is headed as well as prime issues that are concerning folks as well.

- Okay, let's go to the lightning round Mitch.

Who's up and who's down this week?

- Who's us, NATO.

95 to one vote in the US Senate including both of North Carolina's US senators voting to add Finland and Sweden to NATO, these two Nordic countries.

Now of course for this to happen there's also an overwhelming vote in the house, but every one of the existing NATO countries would also have to endorse this for it to happen.

The critics have said, look, NATO's too overextended, why add a couple of more countries?

But as I said, there are very few of them.

- Is this the reaction to Ukraine you think?

- Oh I think it's reaction to Putin, to China, to everything that's happening, but specifically Ukraine.

My down is this 1931 North Carolina state law against lying against political candidates.

So far, and extended through next Tuesday there is a federal court order blocking prosecution of that law of attorney general Josh Stine.

- Joe.

- Up I think the continued tension between congressional Democrats and the White House, or the Taiwan issue with speaker Pelosi notwithstanding.

I think those running for office, for re-election and for election to congress in the cycle on the Democratic ticket are feeling a little pressure because all of the negative feeling among voters seems to be driven by impressions of the president.

Down I think we're gonna see some good news on a retail basis, some big retailers saying they have a surplus inventory of things that now have come into stock that were in short supply during COVID, so prices may drop a little bit on some consumer goods, maybe helping people that are feeling the pressure of inflation.

- Michael.

- As you just eluded to, who's up, the fact that we had more than 500,000 jobs last month is a significant number given the fact it was much higher than expected.

- White House is gonna crow about that.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

And then down, there's unusual circumstance involving the ongoing case of the Leandro school funding issue.

There was a group of business leaders who had submitted to the court that they were supporting having the state put this money toward the Leandro school funding plan.

- You didn't get a memo from Mitch, did you?

[laughing] - But then the chamber came out later, the chair of the chamber of commerce was like wait a minute, I didn't say I was a part of this necessarily, so an unusual wrinkle in all of that.

- Nelson.

- Who's up, social media regulation.

Two bipartisan bills cleared key senate committees this week and could be taken up next week before the recess.

One would ban online ads targeting children under 16, the other would better protect children and teen privacy.

Both provide greater parental controls for their children's online surfing.

Down, representative Liz Cheney.

While she is leading the charge against Trump on the January sixth committee in Washington, back at home in Wyoming, with just a week to go in her primary election she is down by over 20 points.

- You know her father is doing an ad for her now, and it said the single biggest problem with democracy is Donald Trump.

Okay, headline next week.

- Federal judge announces action, or at least next steps for North Carolina's 20 week abortion ban.

- Joe, headline next week.

- The one democrat may be pulling for republican takeover of the US senate is the vice president, who would have her time freed up to campaign for president if she doesn't have to be in Washington to break ties between a 50-50 senate.

- Michael, headline next week.

- Finally get a decision on whether the green party is gonna be on the ballot, and we finally know who the candidates are gonna be for the upcoming election.

- Nelson, headline next week.

- Congress goes home for the August recess with some modest wins for the Democrats.

- Does it make a difference?

- I don't think it will make a difference, the jobs decision may make a difference in turnout in the fall.

- You know, I wanted to just take one mention here, one personal privilege.

Bill Russell died this week.

Not only was he a great basketball player, but he was a great American.

He marched for civil rights with King, and he stood by Ali during the Vietnam War.

Okay gents, that's a great job.

Thank you for watching, hope to see you next week on Front Row.

Have a great weekend.

[dramatic music] ♪ - [Narrator] Major funding for Front Row with Marc Rotterman 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.

Funding for the lightning round provided by Nicholas B and Lucy May Boddie Foundation.

A.E.

Finley Foundation.

NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stefan Gleason.

A complete list of funders can be found at PBSNC.org/FrontRow.

[dramatic music] ♪