Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on Front Row, a new WRAL poll finds support for stricter gun laws in North Carolina.

Student Loan forgiveness faces major legal challenges, and the debate over Biden's energy policies intensifies.

Next.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [announcer]: A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining the conversation, Democratic State Senator Jay Chaudhuri, Political Analyst Joe Stewart, Nelson Dollar, former senior policy advisor to the North Carolina Speaker House and Public Relations Consultant Pat Ryan.

Jay, why don't we begin with the recent WRAL poll that shows support for stricter gun laws in North Carolina?

- Yeah, Marc, this is a timely topic to discuss this week because on Thursday night, October 13, a 15-year-old boy allegedly shot five victims including a law enforcement officer and injured three others in Raleigh on Thursday night.

The WRAL poll, in fact, when it did the poll a couple of weeks ago, actually said that they were 47% of families were concerned about a mass shooting, which now the city of Raleigh has experienced.

The poll actually focused on two areas on stricter gun laws.

One is they looked at polling on raising the purchasing age of assault weapons from 18 to 21.

64% of North-Carolinians supported that, including Republicans by 16 points, which I think some folks found to be surprising, and the other area they pulled on was about making sure that we ban high-capacity magazines.

Again, 55% of the North-Carolinians, a majority of them, supported that, including 45% of Republicans, and I think what is an interesting takeaway is, even though Congress just passed a historic gun reform bill, 61% of North-Carolinians still feel like Congress should do more in this area.

- I think people feel like violence is overwhelming in this country, don't you, Nelson?

- It is.

You have an entire generation that is coming along in this age, particularly in adolescence, that are suffering from, essentially, a mental health crisis.

As you've talked about on this show, Mark, the suicide rates for the last decade are up dramatically, all across the country.

And we're seeing greater alienation among these kids that are, you know, whether it's the Parkland shooter who was sentenced this week, as well, down in Florida, and others.

There are patterns there, so we have to begin to do far more in the area of mental health, particularly with our young people identifying folks that are alienated from the system and get people the help that they need who are in crisis.

And in some cases, in these rare cases, but all too often, turning to violence.

In some cases, violence to themselves, but in the case of these shooters, violence against the community.

- A lot of police are being killed, aren't they, Joe?

- Yes, and it is a particularly difficult time for law enforcement, for a lot of reasons.

Covid made things challenging for everybody including law enforcement, number of agencies across the state and state law enforcement groups also report being down in the number of officers in their roster, having a hard time finding individuals willing and interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement, in large part because of the cultural conflict that we're feeling now, relative to law enforcement in the communities that they serve.

I think one of the challenges that we face on this issue, and Nelson alluded to this, this is a complex issue, and very rarely are complex societal, or cultural issues, able to be fixed by a single remedy.

There are any number of things that we undoubtedly need to do, the enhancement of mental health services- - [Mark] Right.

- Critically, an important part of this, but so many more things to bring law enforcement and our communities back together, to realize that the police are really just citizens like us, who have been given the responsibility to provide safety to the public.

- Well, let me ask you, Pat, do you think the NRA has lost a lot of street cred in this debate?

- So I think, there's this narrative out there, but for the gun lobby or the NRA, republican legislators in the state or in the country, would pass this panoply of gun control measures.

I don't entirely buy into that, I think there's another dynamic at play which is, particularly in primaries I think that candidates express support for the Second Amendment and gun rights, almost as a signal of a broader political philosophy.

And so, you can roughly translate, I think, "I support gun rights."

Into, "You can trust me that I'm a Republican."

And you can roughly translate, "Well, there might be some gun control measures I would support."

Roughly into, "I might side with Democrats on some core issues."

And that's an image problem in primaries.

- You know what I think though, Joe, you just don't see the NRA doing many ads anymore, in these races, do you?

I haven't seen any.

- Well, you know, that may be intentional, in the fact that we still see contributions coming from the NRA, to support these candidates.

But I will say, just kinda building on Pat's point, I think one of the interesting issues that'll face the General Assembly next year, is the federal gun reform bill that was passed, that Thom Tillis as a Republican broker, actually gives money to states for putting in place a red flag law.

That's a law that would separate an at-risk individual from their weapon, if they're viewed to be a threat to their family.

There's an opportunity for the General Assembly- - [Mark] Okay.

- To do something.

And I hope we can, that's generally had bipartisan support.

- Okay, great conversation.

I wanna move on, Joe, and talk to you about student loan forgiveness.

It's facing some major hurdles.

- Yes, this is an announcement that President Biden made back in August, in an attempt to honor what he considered to be a significant campaign promise, to try to do something about the burden of student debt many Americans face.

43 million Americans hold a little over a trillion and a half dollars worth of debt.

Although the Federal Reserve says the vast majority of these folks have less than $25,000 in loans, still outstanding.

The President's suggestion was that $10,000 of that debt would be forgiven for individuals that earn up to 125,000, or couples making 250,000.

A little bit more, 20,000 available, if you held a Pell Grant, which are income targeted, student assistance loans.

The challenge now is six states, the Attorney Generals have decided to sue the federal government to try to block the US Department of Education, actually forgiving these loans.

They say- - They're supposed to give these out October 23rd, I think.

- Yeah, there are about 8 million of these debt holders that the Department of Education already has income information on, and would be able to grant the loans.

The original proposal that President Biden put forward, is early October the application for the rest of the debt holders would be available, but I think this litigation puts a significant question mark around whether this is actually gonna be possible for the Biden Administration to accomplish, before the midterm election.

- Is this an election year ploy, you think Pat?

- So, you just look at the timing, right?

That Joe just articulated, and it's weeks before the midterm election.

There's no question in my mind that politics plays into the decision.

So, I think certainly, it's an attempt to one, to fulfill President Biden's campaign promises, and two, an effort to, I think, do anything to avoid what looks to be a red wave coming in a few weeks.

- Let me just ask you this, is there an accountability mechanism in this?

We know that people are making X, Y, or Z, and not 400,000 a year.

- There is no accountability in this program.

So here's a new $400 billion program, and you determine if you're eligible.

And it's really worse than you think.

The GAO, the Government Accountability Office released a report back in July, it shows over the past 25 years, the US Department of Education not only didn't generate a promised $114 billion in income outta these student loans, it actually cost $197 billion.

That's a $311 billion swing, right there.

And of course, it's the same flawed repayment system, information system, they had, that's gonna manage the new program.

And here's the kicker, student loan reform back in 2010, was supposed to generate $70 billion off of these loans, to help offset Obamacare.

That's gone.

This is just more hundreds of billions of dollars of rocket fuel on our soaring inflation.

- My friend, jump in here.

- Well, I'd tell you a couple of things.

I mean, I think one is we haven't seen the application yet, and so the lawsuit's not right yet.

- It's online.

- Well, it's not online.

'Cause they haven't finished it online.

And I think there's a question about whether to ask for your income.

But if we're gonna talk about income disparity, I mean, certainly we weren't having this debate when we were talking about PPP loans, and whether folks were gonna get PPP loans, but I- - Equitable, I mean, is it fair to the person who didn't go to college?

Is it fair to the person who went to college and paid his student loan debt off?

- Well, I mean, I think what the Biden administration did was they focused on those that made $125,000 or less.

It was giving them $10,000 in forgiveness.

I think it's important for us to look at the fact that student loan debt can saddle someone for generations.

We've had for-profit predatory colleges that have taken advantage of it.

That's disproportionately affected a lot of college students.

And there is public support for something like this.

- At the end of the day, will it happen, quickly?

- Well, I think the Biden administration's gonna go forward with it, but I think it's immediately gonna go to court because of the State Attorney Generals filing the lawsuit.

- Okay, all right, let's talk about the President's energy policy, it's under fire.

- Yes, former Clinton Treasure Secretary, and Obama's top economic advisor Larry Summers recently said that Biden's reluctance to build more US oil pipelines is quote "Kind of insane."

We have really, the worst energy policy that we've had since the 1970s.

And back then we were at OPEC's mercy.

We got smart, we pioneered the Shell revolution.

We won our energy independence over the course of this last decade.

But now Biden is actively wanting to give it all back.

He is discouraging any new investment in US energy production.

Today, we have, as an example, $100 billion worth of gas liquification projects permitted in the United States with no source of financing.

We don't have the capital to do what we need to do.

So where is Biden's policy headed?

Right now, for example, the Germans are paying the oil equivalent of $500 a barrel just for the natural gas that they're gonna need for their industry and to heat their home this winter.

The answer is not in Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or Russia.

It's right here at home, investing in our own energy resources that we have.

We could be fully independent with much lower prices today if we would do that.

- Jay, do you think when the Ukraine war started up, that the President should have pivoted to domestic production?

- Well, look, I think one is, I think it's debatable and certainly not correct that we're not energy independent.

We've been on a start of being energy independent since 2005.

We achieved that in 2017.

Yes, it did happen under President Trump but that wasn't because of just President Trump.

That happened under previous administration too.

I would also take issue with what Nelson said about domestic gas permittings.

'Cause actually, the administration has issued more permits for oil and gas leases on public lands than the Trump administration did in their first year.

In fact, there've been 9,000 leases that have been given.

- Even if you have a permit, if you can't build, if you don't have the capital to build the facilities, if you don't have the pipelines to transport the product, it doesn't matter if you have a permit.

- They are discouraging banks, aren't they, Jay?

From investing with oil companies?

- No, I don't think they have.

And in fact, I mean, I think the financing has to come from the marketplace, not from the federal government.

But this idea that they haven't granted oil and gas leases is false.

I mean, I think the other thing that I wanna say really quickly is like, the portfolio model for at the end of the day in 2050 has to include renewables.

And we're certainly moving in that direction, but doesn't mean that we can't have a mix.

- Why can't we have an all-above strategy, Joe?

- Well, there are a lot of competing interests when it comes to this issue, in terms of- - Is it a national security issue, energy policy?

- It significantly is.

And we're seeing this, you mentioned Ukraine.

I mean, that's a great example, where European markets need the energy sources out of Russia.

It's created a complexity in terms of our efforts to try to support the Ukrainians.

But the end of the day, Jack and Jill energy consumer in the United States are Jack and Jill voter.

And they're gonna go to the precinct this election.

And they're gonna vote on their perception of whether their financial wherewithal is gonna be significantly impacted by continuing increases in utility costs, above all other issues they probably are gonna consider in this election.

- The President, I think, Pat, has been very hard on Saudi Arabia recently.

- Right, so that's I think a whole story in and of itself.

It came out this week that the President had asked the Saudis to delay the announcement of their production cut until after the midterm elections.

Which, you know, I think in most people's minds calls into question how much midterm election politics is influencing American foreign policy, right?

The two I think, in most people's minds, should be somewhat separate.

- Well, let me mention one thing to you, Nelson.

I mean, if Schumer and them tried to penalize Saudi Arabia, could that backfire?

- It will be backfired, geopolitically.

I mean, what Europe needs right now is natural gas, not oil.

Biden is concerned about the oil because of gas prices in the election, but when you look at the Ukraine war, that's more of a natural gas issue for Germany and all of those countries in Europe.

So there's all sorts of disconnects but fundamentally, what it comes down to is we have to have the capital.

You have to be able to invest.

- Okay.

- The money to be able to bring our resources.

- We'll continue this conversation, obviously.

I want to talk to Pat about a memorial that was unveiled this week at Camp Lejeune.

- Sure, so just a brief context.

The Navy corpsman have a wide variety of applications in the United States Military, and one of those is to deploy in battlefield situations with marines.

So for example, in World War II, Navy corpsman landed at every Pacific beach with the marines, and their role is to, even at risk to their own lives, render medical aid to wounded marines in those contexts and so with that in mind, of course, the Navy corpsman have a very special relationship with the United States Marine Corps and so this week, Camp Lejeune, a new memorial to the Navy corpsman was unveiled.

It's a statue that was designed by a North Carolina artist, and it depicts a Navy corpsman, shielding with his own body a wounded marine and so in just researching some background on this, you just come across dozens of accounts of just indescribable bravery and heroism.

There are a number of Medal of Honor recipients that were Navy corpsmen.

Of course, many of them died in service to our country, and so, you know, we're discussing here what we think to be some pretty important political debates and questions, but to spend just a few hours looking through those accounts, I think, even just temporarily, gives a sort of different perspective on where we are and what really the issues of today are.

- Joe, this is long past due, isn't it?

- Oh, absolutely, and so many times the heroism and the acts of bravery that are provided to our nation in its defense by our combat veterans is overlooked.

We owe a great debt to the folks that are willing to put themselves in harm way and for those that are willing to serve in the assistance and support for those compat veterans, and I'm reminded of the fact that they said in the years after the Second World War, when so many veterans came to Congress, people had had battlefield experience that their willingness to work collaboratively and cooperatively across party lines was so much greater, as a result of the shared experience that they'd had in combat.

When you have a difference of opinion with some marine that you're in a foxhole with, you put that aside to work on the mission that is in front of you and to provide for that defense.

I hope that our nation can learn a little bit from these types of experiences and see we have a lot more in common than what actually separates us, and veterans are a great example of how you can accomplish great things putting aside those differences.

- Great comments.

Jump in here, Jay.

- Yeah, Mark.

I'd say two things.

I think, one, the memorial is a testimony that military history is a big part of our state's history and that it makes sense that we're doing that and then secondly, I think, to Joe's point, I think it's interesting 82% of young people today have not experienced war and armed conflict.

The memorial's way of attaching the past to the present and even thinking about issues in the future.

- Nelson, wrap this up in about 30 seconds, my friend.

Real quick.

- [sighs] Yes.

North Carolina's trying to do a lot to honor the sacrifices of veterans.

Last year the state ended taxation on military pensions.

We've been doing a lot more in terms of investing and traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The General Assembly also helped invest in a lot of other folks in the new Veterans Life Center up in Butner that are helping struggling veterans who are trying to return to civilian life.

We've also been doing a lot more in terms of offering in-state tuition to the families of active duty military while they're here in North Carolina.

- Okay.

- As well as supporting the National Guard.

- I wanna move on, go to the most under-reported story of the week, Jay.

- Mark, there's a New York Times article this week about how hospitals around the country and regional centers, from regional centers to smaller facilities have been closing down their pediatric units, and that's because it's straight up economics.

Hospitals make more money from adult patients that they do from patients that are children, but that's also due to staff shortages, inflation and low medical reimbursement rates.

- Joe.

- President Xi of China is about to go before the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to secure, in all likelihood, of the consolidation of the power that he's been affecting a third term in that role, but he really represents a return to a ideological rigidity within China.

Chinese leaders in the late '70s started to migrate away from the malice theories and were, in effect, running what was state-run capitalism, but Xi has become more of a hardliner in many regards and taking a strong nationalist view on foreign policy matters with China.

As we continue to do battle with China on an economic basis, important to realize some political shift that's taking place within that country makes their leadership a little bit more rigid to the old Marxist, Leninist ideals of the past.

- They're flexing their muscles around the world, aren't they?

- Absolutely, and there are significant investment places like - [Mark] Taiwan straights.

- Well, in places like Africa where they're making huge capital investments.

- [Mark] Actually, South America as well.

- Absolutely.

- Nelson.

- Yes, you've seen catchy TV ads and new mandates for electric vehicles to take over the roads in the near future.

What's under-reported is the actual challenge of mass-producing electric vehicles.

It's not just a shortage of chips right now.

To mass produce EVs, affordably, for Americans, it will take a vast global supply chain of raw materials, rare earths, including from countries like China, Brazil, the DRC and of course, Russia 'cause you're gonna gonna need a whole lot of copper, and they have the largest reserves.

So you're gonna have to have a lot more mining, a lot more base power generation, and that's gonna have to include natural-gas-powered plants, nuclear plants.

EV sales are growing, but they- - What type of carbon footprint do they give out?

The EVs, Teslas.

- The production could be quite a bit.

I mean, and there's some that say that carbon footprint is as much as the production of other vehicles.

And I know that's a debated issue.

And for right now you only have 1% of cars, SUVs, and trucks on US roads, Tesla dominates the market but it's very expensive and you're gonna have to have the base power, the base power generation from somewhere.

So that carbon footprint is gonna have to include the entirety of the system.

- Pat under reported please.

- Sure, this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, just weeks after explosions at the North Stream one and two pipelines said that any critical infrastructure anywhere in the world regardless of who operates it or where it's based is quote under threats.

And what that means, we can debate but the reality is bringing it back here to North Carolina, our state relies entirely on a single pipeline to deliver all of our natural gas.

And we saw last year, with the hacking of the Liquid Fuel Colonial pipeline that it's very possible for there to be supply shocks and were there to be a similar supply shock to North Carolina's natural gas pipeline, the effects would be immediate and devastating.

Duke power burns natural gas in real time.

Manufacturers rely on natural gas feeds for their operations again, in real time.

And so I think it's just another example to take a look at our critical energy vulnerabilities in North Carolina.

- Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Let's go to lightning round.

Jay, who's up and who's down this week?

- I'm gonna say who's up is the Raleigh Police Department and State law enforcement that responded quickly and subdued the assailant with the mass shooting that took place in Raleigh.

It was a tremendous, I think scare that a lot of citizens experienced and they should be commended in their quick response.

And who's down?

I'd say Infowars host Alex Jones.

- Way down.

- Way down by a billion dollars.

The eight families of Sandy Hook shooting victims won that jury verdict against Jones.

I think the message sends a resounding message that Jones' repeated lies that led to death threats against the families have real and crippling consequences.

- Joe.

- The potential price of pork.

There's a US Supreme Court case involving an animal cruelty law enacted in California that would compel pork producers to abide by certain standards, even if the product is produced in some state other than California.

The justices ask a lot of questions about other things like apples and fruit and vegetables.

Will that also be subject to this?

And just a real quick shout out to Eastern and Western style barbecue.

There's no reason to pick one or the other.

They're both delicious.

- Okay.

- Now, it is the American's perception of our role and relationship with adversaries around the world.

Down a recent poll said 60% of Americans say they feel the condition of American relations with countries like Russia and North Korea are only gonna get worse going forward.

- Nelson?

- Well, who's up?

I'm actually gonna praise Biden administration on something.

It's a surprise yes, for moving to restrict the sale of high end semiconductors their designs and their manufacturing equipment to China.

This is easily the best geopolitical and economic move that Biden has made.

Now, if he would just apply this appropriate logic to energy policy, we'd be in good shape.

Down is transportation.

A drought in the Mississippi Basin has left hundreds of grain barges stranded.

A key railroad union has rejected Biden's pay deal.

They may soon be on strike and diesel fuel is now back up over $5 a gallon for truckers.

So trouble in transportation.

- Pat, who's up and who's down?

- Sure, up is core inflation, which is a measure that excludes volatile energy and food prices.

It hits 6.6% last month which is the highest level since 1982.

And going hand in hand with that, down is I think the Democratic party's prospects for avoiding a wipe out in a couple of weeks.

Polls and momentum seem to be swinging at a critical time towards Republican candidates in very important swing states.

- These are all about kitchen table issues you think my friend?

- So yeah, point was made earlier that every time somebody goes to the grocery store or the gas station, they're thinking about politics.

That's not true of almost any other issue in the political sphere.

So yes, I think pocketbook issues are the biggest factor.

- Headline next week, my friend.

- North Carolina State Fair sets an attendance record attributed to new Rattlesnake hot dogs.

Mark, I know you and I are gonna go try some out.

- Headline next week.

- Yeah, I'll be there.

I think playing off of what Pat said I think the higher price of gas is probably gonna lend itself to the red wave being a tsunami.

- Headline next week.

- Playing off what Joe said, China's President Xi wins a third five year term at the Pirate Party Congress next week.

He is now the most powerful leader in Chinese history.

- Headline next week?

- Shockingly Republican gubernatorial candidates in New York and Oregon are within striking distance of victory.

- I think they are on the precipice.

Great job, gents.

That's it for us.

We gotta roll.

Hope to see you next week on Front Row.

Have a great weekend.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [announcer]: A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow ♪ ♪ ♪