- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on "Front Row", we'll discuss President Biden's State of the Union speech.

North Carolina will receive its first payment from an opioid lawsuit, and tough times for North Carolina's top crop.

Next.

- [Narrator] 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.

[intense music] 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.

[intense music] - Welcome back, and joining the conversation, Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation; Morgan Jackson, chief political strategist for Governor Roy Cooper; Jay Chaudhuri, the Democratic whip in the Senate; and Nelson Dollar, Senior Advisor at North Carolina Speaker House.

Mitch, let's begin with President Biden's State of the Union address.

- With approval ratings in the 30s, President Biden was looking at the State of the Union as a chance for a great reset, and despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some disturbing levels of inflation problems at the Southern border, President Biden said during the course of the speech that the State of the Union is great.

Among the the more interesting things that he talked about, he had some messages like let's forget about this defund the police thing, we need to fund the police, keep people safe.

We also need to have a situation where people could take off their masks.

We also want a situation where we boost American manufacturing.

All very interesting messages, and he went on for about an hour, but there were some downsides for him.

One, he flagged a little bit during the course of his speech, reminding people that he is an older president and that feeds into this whole idea that perhaps he's a little bit past his sell-by date.

Also some of his messages, I mentioned the thing about the police and about the mask, fly in the face of some of the things that you're hearing from the left-most part of his party.

And in fact, in addition to the traditional response that you hear from the opposite party, there was a response from his own party, from the leftist part of his party.

A squad member, Representative Rashida Tlaib who came out and said that President Biden isn't being progressive enough, blasted him on the failure- - Not doing enough on green energy.

- In fact, blasting the failure of the Green New Deal and talking about other areas in which he's not being progressive enough.

That's gonna be a challenge for the president; trying to appeal to the people in the middle while also keeping the base satisfied.

- Morgan, you have the floor.

- [Morgan] I'm very shocked at Mitch's take on the State of the Union address- - Let me ask you this, are the American people buying his message right now?

Buying what he's selling?

- Here's what I gotta tell you.

I think this was peak Joe Biden.

I think what you saw from Joe Biden was empathy, which is Joe Biden, which is optimism and a deep love of country.

I think it was a good speech, I think he did a good job.

State of the Union speeches are hard, they're a laundry list of ticking things off.

I think one of the things that I noted about- - Very few people tuned in, really.

- Well, it's a declining audience in the last 40 years.

People watch- - Yeah, I mean, Obama and Bush did better.

- But also people stream now and so they could do other things.

- Right, right.

- But listen, one of the things that really struck me was how much Biden talked about bipartisanship and the things that Republicans and Democrats had accomplished together.

Infrastructure plan, the American Rescue Plan and others.

You haven't heard bipartisan talk in a State of the Union in many, many years.

Another thing I would say, I think he was really strong on Ukraine.

He showed an America that was united, which was what we needed to see.

The last point I'll make, and this is the job of a president, he said to folks after two long years of COVID, we're gonna be okay and we're gonna be stronger.

People need to hear that from your chief executive.

- Jay, he doubled down on green energy; is now the time to do that?

- Well, I mean- - [Marc] Or should we be pumping more oil in this country?

- Well, I mean, the president, the president has talked about green energy, but my takeaway from the speech was less about green energy.

I think if we're talking about responses, I think the Republican response was as marginalized as the one from Rashida Tlaib.

But I think the president exhibited competence and strength.

He got elected 'cause he was elected to address the pandemic and the crisis and I think what we saw from the State of the Union was a president that's elected that has the competence, certainly compared to Donald Trump, in dealing with the pandemic.

And secondly, I think it was strength.

I think his response on Ukraine was strong, and I agree with Morgan.

I think what he closed that speech out with was on unity and patriotism, which is what the country needs, and which is why independents and Democrats elected Joe Biden.

- Nelson, jump in here.

- Well, Biden's speech was like listening to Nero's fiddle.

We've seen democracies threatened and falling across the globe.

Biden offered no strategy for how we're going to actually reverse that trend, or even how we're gonna reverse the trend in Ukraine right now.

There are a lot of sleepless nights in Taipei, and on the domestic front we heard a laundry list, like Mitch said, but no serious strategy for lowering inflation or addressing the energy crisis which is actually a worldwide crisis right now.

- Quickly.

He told businesses, okay we want you to lower costs, not wages.

That's great, but how are we gonna address the labor shortage and higher prices for energy and commodities?

There just weren't serious policy prescriptions on the table.

- Okay, I wanna move on, change topics.

Jay, Attorney General Stein negotiated a very good settlement for North Carolina in the opioid front.

- Yeah, that's right, Marc.

Recently Attorney General Josh Stein announced that North Carolina will see $750 million in payments in a few months that comes from a national settlement that was made with four pharmaceutical companies over their role in the opioid crisis.

According to Attorney General Stein, more than 20,000 North Carolinians have died from opioids.

Those companies will pay a grand total of $26 billion that was part of the national settlement that took place and all 50 states will participate with it.

- He was really the leader on this one.

- He was, I'd say a couple of things about the settlement.

One, every county in the state and 47 municipalities are gonna participate in the money that Attorney General Stein is gonna distribute that's gonna focus on recovery and treatment.

Secondly, the way that money's gonna be used will be done in a transparent way, and to your point, Marc, I think it also seals Attorney General Stein's reputation as a national attorney general, 'cause he played a real lead in that national settlement negotiation.

- Well, that's an interesting point, because, Morgan, he's been tough on high tech too.

- He has been, he has been a very consumer-focused AG.

This was a huge win.

- Not just for the AG, but more importantly, for the people in North Carolina.

And don't forget, there's actually another one he's working on right now, that could get a hundred million dollars.

This is against the Sackler family which is the ones behind the OxyContin.

But listen, what this gets down to at the end of the day, is we're finally bringing people to bear for all these deaths and all these addictions.

You've got pharmaceutical companies who have incentivized doctors and pharmacists to over-prescribe these-- - [Marc] This is about the churn.

- Really, really addictive pain medicines.

And you've created, as Jay mentioned, over 20,000 opioid deaths in North Carolina alone.

And it's like a pandemic, I mean, when you look at the number of deaths.

And so kudos to Attorney General Stein for leading the way on this.

And I think again, when you add another a hundred mil, excuse me, another a hundred million to it, it's gonna be great for North Carolina.

- Mitch.

Mitch [laughs].

- To me, there are two different things.

One, the money flowing into North Carolina to help deal with the opioid situation, good news.

I, like Morgan, being shocked at my take on the State of the Union.

I am shocked that he would like to give a lot of this credit to Attorney General Josh Stein.

I'm sure he played a role, but these groups did not settle this multi-billion dollar lawsuit because one Attorney General in North Carolina said so.

This was a national thing.

They had to take this on or risk facing even many more billions of dollars in lawsuits from across the country.

So it is good this money is flowing in and it will deal with the opioid.

And also, the fact that a lot of this money goes to local communities and not to some sort of slush fund for the Attorney General is also a good thing, but let's kind of tamp down the credit.

- I guess you don't count that he led the effort.

- Let Nelson jump in here.

- Well, look in 2017, we passed the STOP Act and that worked on addressing prescription opioid abuse with physicians and pharmacists and a whole range of individuals.

We funded overdose reversal drugs, and long-term addiction treatment and that's my concern at the local level.

We need to make sure these funds are going in to address the actual causes of addiction, mental health issues, family issues, job security issues.

And we also have to be very concerned about the worst of the now synthetic opioids, like fentanyl and others that are coming from China and Mexico.

They're sort of the real life "Breaking Bad" labs that are out there.

We've gotta continue to work on the enforcement, particularly at the border.

And we've got to in the communities, make sure we're addressing the causes of addiction, as well as the actual physical impact.

- That legislation was led by Attorney General Stein, too.

- We need to move on, I want to talk about North Carolina's top crop having some problems.

- Listen, for 200 years, North Carolina, the cash crop has been tobacco.

It's been king of agriculture, it's been king of North Carolina business.

They've had a lot of setbacks over a long time.

You know, I grew up in a community that there were tobacco farms in front of my house on all sides of my house.

Those are gone.

The large majority of those are gone.

Tobacco not only drove these local economies, it built the communities.

There's a study that showed that a dollar, a tobacco dollar in a local community turned over seven or 10 times before it left-- - Multiplier effect.

- The multiplier effect before it left the community.

It filled cash registers of stores, restaurants and car dealers.

It built schools, the tax dollars, it built the communities.

But listen, it came with a real health impact.

I mean, the truth of the matter is, as more data became available, as people understood what smoking did to folks and the health impacts of it, we've been declining in US use of tobacco for many years now.

That led to the demand.

A lower demand led to looking overseas for buyers.

- China.

- When Trump started trade war with China in 2018, the fact is Asia stopped.

China stopped buying North Carolina tobacco.

- Great point.

- By the-- - By the time they worked that out in '20, we had the lowest production of tobacco in over a hundred years.

Now, they're faced with a new challenge.

They're faced with not only rising prices for suppliers, they're having a hard time finding labor, but one of the biggest issues is the competition for land.

Used to you could make a living on tobacco by farming 10, 15, 20 acres.

Now, it takes at least a hundred acres, sometimes three or 400 acres.

And the competition with the developers, as new developments spring up all across North Carolina in a growing state, leaves these farmers with a lot of debt and a hard time forward.

We saw right now that there is such a decline in the number of farmers and many in the store were saying, this is gonna be their last year.

- Mitch, jump in here.

- Yeah.

This is something that's been a long term issue.

The decline of tobacco and Morgan mentioned the trade war and the fact that people who were outside of the US buying American tobacco have now looked for alternatives because of that.

So that's a challenge.

You had the COVID situation.

You had the inflation now driving up supply costs.

Prices are expected to go up for this latest crop but not enough to cover for the excessive cost.

We're now down to 1300 farms in North Carolina when years ago, as Morgan said, almost everyone had some sort of connection to a tobacco farm.

I think this is gonna be something that is not gonna go away anytime soon.

these tobacco farmers are really gonna have to come up with something.

- Nelson.

- Yeah, well, Zimbabwe is now a larger producer of tobacco than the United States, and that's happened over the course of the last five years.

But crops change, agriculture changes over time.

Originally, we were the leader in naval stores, you know, pitch and tar.

That went way.

Now we are leaders in poultry and swine and soybeans and eggs and sweet potatoes and cotton and nursery plants, Christmas trees.

Our agricultural mix is actually far more diversified now than it has ever been.

And we are investing, General Assemby's been investing in the new Plant Sciences Building at NC State.

They call that 180,000 square feet of genius, along with NC A&T in Greensboro and the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis.

North Carolina's actually putting itself in the forefront of food, agriculture and life science research in the world.

And that's the future.

- Jay wrap this up in about 40 seconds, my friend.

- So three things.

I think, you know, the stories were heartbreaking to read about the decline of tobacco farmers.

One is the tobacco settlement that was championed by then Attorney General Mike Easley actually had a buyout of tobacco farmers.

So I think that accelerated the decline.

Secondly, Morgan talked about the trade wars.

I think that's pummeled tobacco farmers.

But I think lastly, which I think is probably the most interesting question is about crop diversification and actually what the role of industrial hemp is for the future of the state, which we're seeing a migration to that.

I think it opens up a serious debate and discussion about whether we should legalize marijuana, which is a way to diversify crops for farmers.

- Becuase we've seen this happen now in the state of Virginia, as I've said, I think that Virginia tobacco farmers have a leg up against us.

- Okay, I wanna move on, that was a great wrap.

Nelson, the EPA is being challenged in the US Supreme Court on climate change.

- Yeah, that's right, Marc.

The Supreme Court heard a case this week with far-reaching ramifications.

West Virginia versus EPA.

It started with rules to implement Obama's Clean Power Plan in 2015.

The effort was abandoned and replaced with a more focused set of rules under the Trump administration.

With Biden in office, the push is again on what it's called regulating beyond the plant gate, beyond the power plant gate.

Coal operators, red states and a number of others have objected to the EPA's potential rules on carbon emissions, basically saying they're going well beyond their statutory authority.

The legal issue here is that- - Are they making law, really?

- Well yes, the legal issue here is the definition of a major question, and a major question is a policy choice for Congress not to be decided by a regulatory agency.

So in this case, the question really comes down; does the EPA have the power to eliminate fossil fuels from the US economy without a very clear authorization from Congress?

- Is there a war on fossil fuels, Mitch, in this country by the Biden administration?

- Well, there's certainly a war on fossil fuels and the Biden administration has done nothing to stop it or to kind of prevent it.

I think one of the interesting things, and Nelson alluded to this, is part of this discussion is just how far can these large federal agencies go beyond what Congress has specifically told them they can do?

And this is the case where- - These are unelected officials, not congressmen.

- They are, they're bureaucrats, they're not accountable to anyone really, and so that's one of the major issues.

I think one thing that is going to be a wrinkle in this case is because there's not a particular rule right now that's being opposed, the Supreme Court could punt and basically say, look, you're asking us to make some sort of declaratory judgement about something that hasn't happened yet.

We're not willing to do that.

We've seen the Supreme Court do that in the past.

- Jay?

- Well, look, I agree with Nelson that it's a far-reaching case, but I disagree with him, and I disagree with you, because the fact of the matter is there is no rule before that the EPA has issued, and I think that's one of the arguments that the Biden administration is making, is that there is a hypothetical rule that we're discussing on greenhouse admissions that doesn't exist.

Secondly, we've got precedent by the Supreme Court in stating that the Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.

And lastly, I find one of the most interesting points of this case is actually large power companies are against the courts hearing this because they, in the end, want some kind of flexibility to be able to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

So it's not necessarily one side, it's not one side that's advocating for this.

Frankly, it's the coal companies and Republican-led attorney general that have been advocating for this case that it be brought before the Supreme Court.

- But the Supreme Court has indicated in argumentation that they're getting beyond that original initial question and that they are gonna have a substantive ruling on whether or not this is a major question.

- Let Morgan in here.

- This is about a dying industry, and states like West Virginia are trying to protect it.

You see utilities across the country that are moving away- - [Marc] Joe Manson would disagree.

- He would be one of the only ones to disagree with that.

[Marc laughs] But listen, I wanna say this.

Jay mentioned utilities.

A lot of the major utilities across the country you would think would be in lockstep with the coal companies.

They're against the coal companies on this.

But I would say one thing about how it actually impacts us in North Carolina.

North Carolina has been a leader in moving away, moving towards cleaner-burning fuel, cleaner-burning energy and away from these kinda coal burning plants that make you sick, guys.

I mean, that's ultimately its ability to regulate greenhouse glasses.

The legislature passed last year and the governor signed a sweeping broad piece of energy legislation that will remove coal fire plants from North Carolina, transition us away from those.

So big kudos, North Carolina, but at the end of the day, it's about West Virginia hanging onto a dying industry.

- Okay, let's go to the most underreported story of the week, Mitch.

- State House Speaker Tim Moore has said that he wants to see a vote on a veto override of this Free the Smiles legislation that would end the mandatory masking in schools.

If that ends up coming to pass, it will be the first vote to try to override a gubernatorial veto in a year.

The last time it was tried was in March 2021.

The Senate came up one vote short.

- He got the votes?

- [Nelson] We will see next week.

It goes to the Senate first.

- Right.

- Okay.

- And a year ago, the Senate came up one vote short of overturning the veto on the bill that would have in-person instruction in schools.

The State House hasn't voted on a veto override since July of 2020.

Three bills were up there, they all three failed to clear the override.

There hasn't been a successful override of a Cooper veto since December 2018.

- Morgan?

- He's freeing my smile when he talks about [all laugh] veto overrides, brother.

And let me tell you, there ain't gonna be one next week either.

So here's why I'll say underreported.

Rick Scott, the leader of the Republican campaign arm in the Senate, major gaffe in the last two weeks against the- - Republican Senatorial Committee.

- The Republican Senatorial Committee.

Against Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader's wishes, Rick Scott rolled out a Republican agenda for 2022 to try to take back the majority.

- Consultant-driven.

- Bad consultant-driven.

In this, one of the pillars of his plan is to raise taxes on 75 million Americans.

This has Republican Senate candidates running for the fences saying, no, I'm not a part of this plan.

And frankly, I think in a year that looks like it's trending towards Republicans, it's given- - [Marc] Trending.

[Marc laughs] - Too right.

It's early, it's early.

But it's given Democrats a real weapon to use against these Republicans Senate candidates that didn't exist two weeks ago.

- I agree.

Jay?

- Great story in "Politico" magazine about a woman named Constance Baker Motley, who was the first African-American woman appointed to the federal bench and then touted back in the '60s as a Supreme Court candidate.

She was part of the Civil Rights movement, she litigated Brown v. Board of Education, she represented Dr. King in Birmingham, and she won nine out of 10 state US Supreme Court cases, but that never seemed to be enough.

The American Bar Association gave her a middle-tiered rating.

She was opposed by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, who was really a white supremacist.

- A couple decades ago.

- It was a couple of decades ago, but it's worth reading that article in "Politico", because it's a reminder of the confirmation battle that's coming up with Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman nominated for the United States Supreme Court.

When Jackson is confirmed, she will stand on the shoulders of Motley and it's a story worth reading.

- It's must-read.

Nelson?

- Yes, commodity and food prices are set to soar worldwide.

In addition to oil and gas prices going up, commodity prices wheat, corn, soybeans, metals, are all globally on the rise.

You have to keep in mind that Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of metals like aluminum, iron ore, other things that go into chips for example.

Russian and Belarus are combined, the number one exporter of potash, that's fertilizer.

Russia is the number one exporter of wheat and combined with Ukraine.

They constitute 29% of the world supply of wheat.

So the war and the sanctions are gonna cause major commodity suppliers to be taken offline.

The financial system is gonna be stressed with all of the the sanctions.

Shipping costs are obviously going up.

We are not only set for higher energy prices but also higher food prices and potential major food shortages in areas like Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Poor countries around the world, could begin to experience famine conditions within a year.

- Let's go to the "Lightning Round."

Who's up and who's down this week, Mitch.

- Well, back to Morgan's trend.

Who's up is Republican voters in primary elections, we saw in Texas, there were 900,000 more Republican primary voters than Democratic primary voters, - [Man] Trending.

- That doesn't necessarily tell you how the results gonna be but you certainly would rather be in the GOP position than the Democratic position.

Who's down?

U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn.

Initially he wanted to move from his current district to a district a little bit east of it.

With the new redistricting maps, he's going back to the 11th district but with multiple primary challengers and some people who want to disqualify him from running for office at all.

- All emails go to Mitch Kokai.

[all laughing] - What's up this week, is American unity.

I wanna say I've been so proud to see Americans of all shapes and stripes and everything standing behind Ukraine and supporting Ukraine.

I mean, for God sakes, even Tucker Carlson who's been pro Putin for years, has now turned on Putin.

I guess it has taken an invasion.

Who's down this week?

I'll go to candidates filing, candidate filing ended on Friday.

Lots of primaries, a lot of folks who had had free rides on both sides of the house.

- Up for consultants.

- Yeah, up for consultants.

Down for candidates, the new districts combined with a lot of open seats and double bunking.

We got a lot of primaries as Mitch talked about.

Not the congressional, but general assembly this week.

On both sides of the aisle.

- Jay?

- Who's up is unaffiliated voters.

Independent voters are poised to become the largest group of voters in the state.

They outnumber Republicans and they're catching up with Democrats.

They now comprise 2.5 million of our states 7.2 million voters.

And who's down?

Masks.

So Governor Cooper on Monday, starting Monday will make masks optional for state employees and visitors.

And he's also urging local governments and schools to make masks optional by March 7th.

- Nelson?

- Republican Hispanic women in Texas elections.

This last Tuesday eight Hispanic Republicans won their party's nomination or will be in runoffs for congressional seats.

Six are Hispanic women.

Republicans also saw a high Hispanic turnout in key counties along the border.

Who's down?

International institutions.

Whether it's the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, NATO, the United Nations they are all failing their missions in the post 1945 global world order as it comes apart.

Not only as a result of the pandemic but also the Ukraine war.

This is being accelerated at an incredibly rapid pace.

- Mitch, headline next week, my friend?

- With candidate filing over and legal issues resolved the political focus turns to May 17th.

- Morgan?

- I think the invasion of Ukraine will continue to lead every newscast next week.

- Yeah.

It's a sad situation.

We need to pray for those people, really.

- Yeah.

- Headline next week?

- General assembly finally adjourns the longest legislative session ever.

- When are you coming back?

[all laughing] - Three days later, right?

- Hopefully in May.

- [Marc] Nelson?

- Yeah.

I wanna get a break too, right?

Headline next week.

Biden announces new nuclear deal with Iran.

And if it does happen you will see bipartisan opposition in Congress.

- Will that be a treaty?

Or can he just make that deal?

- Well, he says he can make the deal but Congress passed a law that says that any deal that's made with Iran has to pass through Congress.

So there's gonna be a question between the branches.

- Great job gents.

That's it for us.

Thanks for watching.

Hope to see you next week on "Front Row."

Have a great weekend.

[dramatic music] - [Announcer] 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 differences in our communities.

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

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

[dramatic music] ♪