- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum," Russia's moves around Ukraine prompt a stand for democracy, the inequality of inflation, and a wave of bomb threats at HBCUs comes to North Carolina, stay with us.

[upbeat theme music] ♪ Welcome to "Black Issues Forum," I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

For weeks national headlines have been all afire about the Russian threat to Ukraine and what this means for U.S. support for democracy throughout the world.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden addressed the nation to clarify the current threat, and how the United States is responding.

- Right now, Russia has more than 150,000 troops encircling Ukraine in Belarus and along Ukraine's border.

An invasion remains distinctly possible.

That's why I've asked several times that all Americans in Ukraine leave now before it's too late to leave safely.

If Russia does invade in the days and weeks ahead, the human cost for Ukraine will be immense, and the strategic cross for Russia will also be immense.

Today our NATO allies, and the alliance is as unified and determined as it has ever been.

And the source of our unbreakable strength continues to be the power, resilience, and universal appeal of our shared democratic values.

The United States and our allies and partners around the world are ready to impose powerful sanctions on export controls, including actions that we did not pursue when Russia invaded Crimea in Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

We will put intense pressure on their largest and most significant financial institutions and key industries.

These measures are ready to go as soon and if Russia moves.

- Let's get our panels take on what's happening.

I wanna welcome political analyst Steve Rao, Forsyth County GOP chair, Harold Eustache, and Dr. Wilmer Leon of Sirius XM's "Inside the Issues with Dr. Wilmer Leon."

I wanna open up with you, Steve.

The president has already made clear the seriousness of this threat and what we're willing to do as a nation should the threat become an invasion.

How do you measure the situation?

- Well, this continues to be an increasingly dangerous situation.

An invasion of Ukraine would be the largest invasion of Western Europe since World War II.

And I think the president and other allies in Europe have done a good job of addressing how serious this crisis is by sending troops there, France, Netherlands, United States, everybody sending troops, having a strong presence, and then also the economic sanctions, which I think are very important.

I think Putin's reasons for invading, in my opinion, are twofold; one to weaken Ukraine, to minimize the ties with the west, and also NATO.

But I think he also realizes the reasons to not invade still, which gives us leverage in these negotiations, is the economic devastation this would have on Russia.

Hurting their oil and gas exports, driving Europe into a recession, gas prices are already up 300%.

During the Gulf war, many years ago in the 90s, oil prices went up 17%.

So we could face a major energy crisis.

So I think he realizes that, and at the end of the day, Deb, I think Putin realizes that by just threatening war, he could perhaps be calling a bluff and wanting concessions.

Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, said that NATO could be off the table, and President Biden, I think, is doing what he has to do with the combination of deterrence and diplomacy to try to figure out whether we could avoid conflict.

- And Putin is pushing it as far as he can.

Harold, how do you read the situation, particularly Biden's response so far?

- Well, I think part of the issue with the President's response was what happened last year.

I think Russia had several cyber attacks against the United States, against companies that we have here, and the President's response and the administration's response was; well, we'll only act strongly if you attack these certain industries that they named.

Which, I think, gave Putin, this sort of emboldened him and said, well, the United States under Biden isn't gonna react strongly to the things I do.

And so that has led somewhat, I think, led to this.

In addition to that, I think the President's press conference with regard to calling it potentially an incursion rather than invasion, and the White House said that was a misstep.

But I do think that we've gotta have a stronger response.

I mean, do we need to send troops to Ukraine?

No.

But, I think Putin needs to know that the United States will not back down and won't tolerate his actions at all- - What would be a stronger response than threatening sanctions you think?

- Well, I think it's full throatedly not allowing Putin to maybe just go in a little bit to Ukraine and saying that, we will do whatever it takes to aid Ukraine, to give them every bit of arms needed, which we are giving them arms, but do everything it takes to repel him in every single way and be full throated about it.

- So stronger words, stronger words.

Dr. Leon, what are your thoughts?

And particularly, where Putin is in this situation at this moment.

He's sent more troops out, and so it seems really close.

The longer things go on Biden is saying this is just about certain.

What are his choices if he doesn't want to invade, or do something more?

- Well, this is really a fiction created by Joe Biden.

The first thing that Americans need to understand is that Russia is a sovereign country.

That means that they are able to move their troops anywhere within their country, within their borders that they want to.

And the United States has no right, has no business trying to tell a sovereign nation what to do with its own forces.

Where is the evidence that Russia is going to the Ukraine?

None has been presented.

We've seen this movie before, it was called Iran.

I'm sorry, it was called Iraq.

It was called weapons of mass destruction.

It was called yellow ake uranium coming from Niger.

Where is all of that stuff?

- Well, how do we interpret the surrounding of Ukraine by these Russian forces?

What was that?

- What you do is you expand the map, and you look at the fact that NATO and American forces, there are more NATO and American forces surrounding Russia then there are Russian forces at the border.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

Poland, Romania, those are all NATO countries that have NATO and US forces surrounding Russia.

And the secretary of state James Baker promised Russia that NATO would not move any further East.

And that's all that NATO has done.

And so Putin is finally saying enough of this folks, I'm not gonna let you put more missiles in Ukraine, and threaten Russia.

We're not playing this game.

And Putin is not joking.

This comes down to the adage from the corner.

Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.

And this really also has to do with...

Primarily energy.

And the fact that Russia and Germany have built the Nord stream two pipeline, which is taking $7 billion of gas transit fees away from Ukraine.

And the United States wants to sell natural gas to Europe, that's what this is really all about, is the United States trying to control the energy market.

- Well, what happens in Russia could indeed impact gas prices, and further stress an already inflated economy.

So let's talk a little bit about this worry about inflation.

And if you've filled your tank lately, or done a double take at the grocery store, you're seeing these prices go up.

You're not imagining things, and economists are blaming inflation.

Of course, this is hitting low and middle income Americans the hardest.

And all the fun we've been having with low interest rates is coming to a rude end.

Steve, is inflation outta control, or is this part of the cycle?

- Well, I think, clearly...

The situation is becoming increasingly worse.

Inflation is around seven and a half percent.

It was higher in the late 70s, in the beginning of the decade up to highs of about 12%.

And I think the inflation that we're seeing is really the result of so much money in the economy.

Which is what a lot of the Republicans say with all the stimulus, supply chain disruptions.

China's no COVID policy, we're in Olympics right now, about to end it the winter Olympics.

But that's shut down a lot of manufacturing plants.

But Deb, I think at the end of the day, the economists that say, "Well, it's not that bad."

Unemployment is down.

Here's the deal, unlike unemployment which only a affects a small percentage of the population, inflation affects everybody, all right?

And so for those families, black families, poor families, people that are spending so much more of their money on buying groceries, on paying more for gas.

And let's not forget housing prices, especially where we live in North Carolina housing prices are going up, right?

So we need more affordable housing, and so I think we have to be realistic that it's easy for an economist to say, "Well, it's not that bad."

Unemployment is down, but we have a labor shortage.

The economy, the stock market is up.

But this is really affecting the lives of people in America.

And so it's gonna really come down to raising interest rates, while not slowing down the economy.

And making sure that we are being sensitive to how this is affecting people's pocket books and their savings.

- What are your thoughts Harold?

Because what Steve has said this is coming down, and it's gonna impact the middle class, it's gonna impact working Americans.

What are your thoughts about next steps in terms of the policies that are still out there that the administration is fighting for?

Continuing to fight for, a part of Build Back Better pieces of it?

What can we expect?

- Well, Steve alluded to it, I think part of the problem is we have the supply chain issues, which are partly with COVID.

but we also have a country that has amassed quite a bit of savings.

Because of the influx of money that has gone to people via the government.

And, and I think luckily we have Joe Mansion who stopped the administration's onslaught of giving government money away to people.

Which I don't think would help the situation.

Really right now the average person, two thirds of people in the United States don't have $500 for an emergency.

And so ultimately the average person is feeling this, I think it's gonna have major, major issues for the administration when it comes to the midterm elections.

I think it'll play a major role, and ultimately see Republicans win 40, or maybe even 50 seats in Congress because of this.

Because the average person's feeling this in such a distinct way.

- So all of this money that came in from COVID you're saying, people are saving it or they're not saving it.

Because they don't even have enough savings to prepare for inflation and a hardship.

- Right.

The average person still doesn't have $500, but there is a large percentage of the population that does have have savings at this point.

And so when you can't spend it there's a supply chain issue, that's where this inflation's coming from.

What the administration should do is have more money influx into the economy.

I think, of course, the feds are gonna take care of some of that.

But I also think politically it's just one of those issues that whether it's the president's fault directly or not.

It is gonna stand at the feet of the president of the Democratic party, and be hashed out in the midterms.

- Well, what's your take on this Dr Leon, because... Inflation is happening, it's growing.

There's gonna be blame shifted to the people who are in charge right now.

And are there missteps that they're taking right now, with regard to trying to either control inflation, or control the narrative?

- The misstep that the current administration is taking is trying to turn this over to the fed, to have the fed solve the problem by raising interest rates.

Because this inflation is not from people wanting to buy too many things.

That's not what's going on here.

What we're seeing is a global supply side problem, that changing interest rates is only going to make the situation worse, than make the situation better.

Because when you raise interest rates, what do you do?

You make the cost of buying a house more expensive, you make the cost of buying a car more expensive.

You make money that small businesses would want to go through their banks and borrow, you make that money more expensive.

So that's really going to exacerbate the situation, that's not going to solve the situation.

And the... Money from Build Back Better.

Or whatever the program was that was injecting money into the economy during COVID, that has absolutely nothing to do with this.

Because when you look at the timing of when that money was in injected into the economy, and you look at when inflation started, there's way too time between those two events to say that one caused the other.

And what did people that received those benefits do with that money?

- [Deborah] They spent it.

- Did they go out and buy boats?

Did they go out and buy televisions?

Did they go out and buy cars?

No, what did they do?

They bought food.

- [Deborah] They bought food.

- They paid rent.

- Yeah, they did the things that they were normally going to do, but because of COVID, didn't have the money to do at the time.

So really, blaming that injection of capital into the economy at that time, is really a Republican excuse for not wanting to take care of Americans.

That's what that is.

- Steve, let me give you just a minute, as we wrap up this particular segment.

What are your thoughts on raising the interest rate and solutions to inflation?

- Well, I mean, as you know, economists will tell you, in the history of our country, when we had the crisis in 1979, when President Carter was in The White House, we did raise interest rates.

And it was the balance between not raising interest rates too fast, where you really slow economic growth.

So, I think we have to tread with caution in terms of just doing drastic rises of interest rates, because we don't wanna contract the economy, especially after a pandemic.

But traditionally I would say, but I think at the end of the day, it will be up to the Fed and they really haven't made a clear decision of what they're gonna do, but I do believe that it would be a way to counter it.

And eventually inflation, other nations around the world have dealt with inflation, many around the world, sometimes thousands of percent of inflation.

And it really comes down to making sure that you're developing and implementing economic policies.

But I agree with Dr. Leon that I think that the money that we pumped into the economy was necessary to keep the economy moving and to put money in the hands of people that were struggling during a pandemic.

So, I don't think it's fair to just blame and say, well, it's just, because we put a lot of money in the economy I think we were doing our job in the administration.

- Well, regardless of who's to blame, Americans had better buckle up because we'll see either way with what happens in Russia, with what happens with inflation.

People need to be prepared for the economy to change.

- Yeah.

- A wave of bomb threats to HBCUs across the nation has hit home here in North Carolina.

On Wednesday, both Fayetteville State University and Winston-Salem State University, received bomb threats.

That brings the count to 17 reports of bomb threats to HBCUs since the start of Black History Month.

No explosives have been discovered on any of the campuses, and FBI investigations have named six persons of interest, all teenagers who appear to have been racially motivated.

Dr. Leon, what does this attention tell you about what's happening in our nation?

- What this tells me is that the racial hatred that has been endemic in this country since people of color arrived on these shores in 1619, is alive and well, and living in America.

It tells me that these kids are listening to their parents, and that these kids are listening to social media, and that they are internalizing the racism and the hatred, that again, has been endemic in this country since the country was founded.

We were expecting, many people that heard a lot of this were expecting that it was going to be adults, that it was gonna be skinheads, that it was going to be neo-Nazis.

This just shows you the power of the internet, the power of social media, and how pervasive and how deep this racism runs in America.

And I say this as as a proud graduate as a Hamptonian, and I say this also as a Howardite, graduate of two HBCUs, that I'm surprised that this hasn't happened sooner, honestly.

- Well, I don't know about surprise but it is very disconcerting to me also, that it's young people.

It's disconcerting period, that this is happening.

And the reaction, the response, seems to be just, well this is a shame that this is happening and the FBI will do what investigations it can, and then we move on.

But Harold, I wanted - - Just really quickly.

- to get your thoughts.

- Just really quickly.

- Yes.

- How old was Dylann Roof, the shooter of Mother Emmanuel?

See, this is, that, they're all linked.

- Mother Emmanuel?

- Yeah, the church in South Carolina where Dylann Roof went in and shot up, killed, like what, 19 people?

- Nine.

- And, nine?

How many, I can't remember.

- Yeah, nine.

- Yeah, how old was Dylann Roof?

So, I'm looking at that atrocity, looking at these bomb threats against HBCUs, and I'm looking at the age of the perpetrators, to see a trend.

- So that's the focus.

Harold, let me get your thoughts about all of this.

What do you think?

- I agree with Dr. Leon.

I think that the fact that these are young people, I think, made me sort of raise eyebrows.

I thought the same thing.

It's gonna be adults doing this.

And I think it's even more concerning on some level, that it's children.

Of course, I'm happy that there are no actual physical threats in the sense that there haven't been any bombs found.

But HBCUs are extremely important to our country.

They're extremely important to, of course, the black community as a whole.

I mean, my family has many, many HBCU graduates.

My brother went to Howard, A&T, I started at Morehouse.

So, it's near and dear to my heart and it shows that HBCUs are still needed, without a doubt.

And they ought to be protected in every sense, and I hope that the FBI does a full investigation and brings these young people to justice.

And also, we make sure that we highlight our HBCUs and everything that they have done in extremely positive ways, for not only just the black community but our country as a whole.

- Absolutely.

And I'll do a shout out to my two alma maters as well, Howard University and Saint Augustine's University.

Certainly, HBCUs have had a very significant role in my development.

Growing up as a military kid, getting to go to an HBCU, I got to be exposed to a complete student body of brown people, of African Americans from all parts of the nation.

And it exposed to me the great intelligence and the great variety of people who are in my own ethnic community.

Steve, it is disturbing that these are young people, and we see some of this play out, even not in terms of bomb threats, but in the high schools, inaction and so forth.

But, what do you think could be done, more than what's being done?

Or do you think that authorities are on track with just investigating this?

- Well, I've said this on the show before.

I mean, I think, just like any disease, we talk a lot about COVID and the pandemic, but one of the greatest diseases that this country has faced is racism, which courses through the veins of Americans from the founding of this nation.

And at the end of the day, I think we have to really realize that racism and white supremacy and systemic racial bias, are serious problems in America.

And we need to make sure that we just face it and deal with it, whether it's in cities developing policies, or in states or in the federal government, that are looking into this issue, making sure that we try to eliminate racial bias, and making sure that we do work with the authorities that these kinds of acts that are full of hate and white supremacy have to be called out, and we have to address it.

- And we know that we've seen, we know that we've seen a rise in these - - Yes - in the last year or so.

- And the fact that it's on Black History Month, a month when we're celebrating black brilliance and the remarkable contributions of black Americans, these kinds of attacks are coming.

And I think that it's just, we have to come together as all Americans, black Americans, white Americans, Asian Americans, all Americans, every citizen of this country, and send a message to our children or grandchildren that we don't wanna be a racist nation, but we have to face it and say that it's a problem.

We can't act like we're gonna all hold hands and get along.

- Keywords, face it.

Gotta face it.

- Gotta face it.

- That means looking at the truth.

That means studying the truth, knowing the history.

Dr. Leon, I'm gonna give you the last word, we've got about 30 seconds here.

It's Black History Month and here come these threats.

Do you think there's a tie in?

- We also, we also have to understand that we have to stop looking at these events as though they're isolated incidents.

And we have to start connecting these dots and understanding that each of these is an element of a much larger problem, instead of trying to look at them as one-offs.

No, this is a deep, deep issue that is plaguing this country.

And as long as we continue to treat them as isolated incidents, we will never get to the root of the problem.

- Dr. Wilmer Leon, thank you so much, as well as Harold Eustache and Steve Rao.

Always a pleasure to have you on Black Issues Forum.

- Pleasure to be here.

Have a great weekend.

- Thank you as always.

- I wanna thank all of our guests for joining us today.

We invite you to engage with us on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum, or listen at any time on Apple iTunes, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

For "Black Issues Forum," I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

Thanks for watching.

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