- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up, critics push back on Biden's student loan plan.

We'll discuss the debate over North Carolina's election rules, and if crisis at the Southern border intensifies.

Next.

- [Announcer] 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, Stefan Gleason.

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

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining in the conversation, Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation, political analyst Joe Stewart, Travis Fain with WRAL and Nelson Dollar, former Senior Policy Advisor to North Carolina Speaker of the House.

Travis, why don't we begin with your thoughts on President Biden's student loan plan.

- All right, so he's canceling $10,000 if you make up to 125 grand a year, $250,000 for a married couple, you get an extra 10 grand so 20 grand canceled if you got Pell Grants to go to college.

The idea is to kind of clear up some of this debt.

There's something like $1.6 trillion in student debt in this country, just the federal student debt 'cause this doesn't affect private loans, spread over 45 million borrowers in this country.

This helps as many as 43 million of them.

It's a full cancellation, so they'd go down to zero for about 20 million of those people.

Now, anytime you're forgiving a debt, there's a fairness issue involved, right?

Because I mean, who's ultimately bearing the burden here?

It's all of us, but the White House says 90% of the impact will be for those earning less than $75,000 a year.

Other worries, does this really address the high cost of college?

Does it actually bring it down or does it kind of incentivize go ahead and continue charging those high tuitions?

What will it do to inflation?

Already at our highest rate in 40 years in this country.

Of course the answer is maybe it hurts inflation, economists differ.

I've seen cost analysis anywhere from 240 billion to 600 billion.

I saw one as high as a trillion, but that's over 10 years.

And so we can't really say exactly how this will impact inflation.

If you dribble out the benefits over 10 years, if you're working off the 600 billion, all right, that's 60 billion a year if you just amortize it.

That's something like, it's well under.

It's 0.3% of annual GDP.

How much that's gonna impact inflation?

I don't know.

- Mitch, is this good public policy?

- I don't think it's good public policy because basically you're saying we're going to wipe out debt for people who are generally above the average in terms of their income and their household's ability-- - Well, does have the authority to do this?

Nancy Pelosi said that he doesn't have the constitutional authority to do this.

She said that about a month ago.

- Yeah, well generally that has been one of the concerns about this program from the beginning.

Is this is something that an executive, that the President could do, or if this was going to happen, should it be something that Congress would take up?

Congress could pass a law to do this, but can a president come in and do this on his own?

We have seen throughout the most recent presidential administrations much more executive overreach and this is a good example of it.

- Politically is this smart?

I see that Tim Ryan, who's running for Senate over there, Joe, said it's not good messaging, it's not good public policy.

He's running in Ohio against J.D.

Vance.

- Yeah, I think it probably cuts both ways.

As Travis said, the people that are beneficiaries of this think it's a great idea, but people who maybe paid their own way through college or didn't attend college and went to trade school and are working in a job now say wait a minute.

Why do these people that obtained a college degree, was supported in effect underwritten by the American taxpayers because we believe getting a college degree, help get people into the middle class and thus made it possible for 'em to earn the wages to pay the money back.

Well, if that's not working, hey, who gave me money so that I could get my job and no one did and so it may be that among some voters, there's a lot of frustration that this appears to be an attempt in an election year to try to curry favor with a particular constituency to some extent and maybe there is a backlash.

I don't know how much of a backlash there will be, but it does seem a little unfair to say somebody that saved their money and paid their own way through college was the beneficiary of none of this giveaway of the money that was borrowed.

- Nelson, are we becoming an entitlement society?

- Well, I think we are and I think there's also a difference between the elites and working folks.

So if you look at what Biden did this summer, if you're Joe the Harvard grad making a hundred thousand dollars a year, you now get 7,500 for your new Tesla, you get $10,000 off on your student loan.

If you're Josephine the plumber, she's paying twice what she was two years ago for the diesel in her truck and inflation is now twice as as her wage growth over the last year.

And oh, by the way, she's gonna pick up the tab whether this year or over the next 10 years, she's still gotta pay it.

The Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen even said that this was a bad deal.

And if you think about things long term, not only is this constitutionally questionable as Mitch was saying but the clock is ticking on the Medicare and Social Security trust funds and no one is addressing that.

- Mitch, I want to talk to you, change the subject here.

Talk about the poll workers in North Carolina, there's been a little bit of controversy about that.

North Carolina election rules.

- The State Board of Elections put together some new rules dealing with both poll workers who work for the election staff and election observers who work for the parties watching to make sure that things are on the up and up at polling sites.

And basically, this came out of some of the things that were seen during the May primaries.

Some concerns about these election observers who were talking to, maybe harassing or intimidating some voters trying to get into areas-- - Was it widespread?

- Well, that was the concern among those who came up with these rules that it was more widespread than they wanted.

Now I think one of the things that has been a response is that it wasn't as widespread as what had been put forward by the people who wanted the new rules.

But basically the idea is new rules telling people where they could go, what they could do, when they could do it.

And the response from critics is that these are kind of broad, vague, ambiguous.

It would give the elections officials too much power to kick people out without any good reason to do so.

This idea went before the Rules Review Commission which unanimously voted against the rules saying that it didn't really-- - Those are appointed positions.

- They are appointed positions by the General Assembly.

We'll get to that in just a moment too, saying that these rules were ambiguous and unclear and they were not reasonably necessary.

So now there's also been a political element added in because the Rules Review Commission is appointed by the Republican led General Assembly.

The State Board of Elections while bipartisan is led by Democrats.

Many of the activists who want to be election observers are Republicans.

So you're seeing some partisan political play as well.

- Do you think Travis this is a reaction by Republicans in 2020?

- Somewhat, yeah.

and I mean, look, it was a unanimous bipartisan State Board of Elections that asked for these rules and then this much broader group, a group that doesn't just focus on elections saying nah, we're not gonna do that.

A colleague of mine had a story a few months back.

43 out of the 100 election directors over the last three years in this state have left the job.

It takes a lot of people to put on an election.

These people are asking for your help because they're tired of being threatened and intimidated by people who woke up one day and decided without any evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

It's not conspiracy that I worry about bringing down our election system.

It's conspiracy theories because if you don't appreciate people, if they're asking you for help, if they're asking you for change and you don't give it to 'em, eventually they go away.

- Is this an overreach by Republicans, you think, Nelson?

- No, because look, here's the broader issue, and the Governor has gone into court to try to take over a majority, get the court to go along with him to take over a majority of the Rules Review Commission.

That's actually the bigger and more important issue because the Rules Review Commission makes sure that every rule that is promulgated based on a law that the General Assembly has passed is done by the proper procedures, that public consideration is part of the rule-making process, and that administrative agencies are actually following the law and not exceeding their authority.

So for the Governor to wanna appoint members, that's like bringing the fox to guard the henhouse.

It should be for the public's elected members to determine that the rules are following the laws that they passed, not for an autocratic governor.

- Joe, wrap this up about 30 seconds, my friend.

- Yeah, of course, we need to have confidence in our elections, and we do depend very heavily on well-intended citizens to assist with the electoral process, to work the polls, to usher people through the precinct, to make sure things are moving smoothly.

The parties do have the right to have people observe that process to make sure that it is fair and that one party or the other's not given some preference.

The challenge is people are so divided now in America.

I'm not sure we can do anything short of perhaps having to appropriate enough money to make all of the positions involved in electioneering paid staff positions so that we can guarantee some level of standard in these elections.

- Go to a paper ballot.

Show an ID.

That's what France does.

Okay, I want to talk to you about the crisis at the border, a lotta ink and a lotta media about the crisis at the southern border this week.

- Right, encounters on the southwest border are set to far exceed 2 million for 2022.

That breaks record for 2021.

It's twice as many as were there in the previous year and four times as many border encounters as what we had in 2019.

68% of these folks are single adults, mostly male.

But more and more are not being sent back to the country of origin.

They're being released around the country to await for a hearing.

Biden has, of course, ended the remain in Mexico agreement, and his budgets and policies basically limit enforcement.

And what we essentially have in the southern border is a defacto open border.

And for that reason and many other reasons, we are seeing an uptick in drug and human trafficking.

- Fentanyl.

- Fentanyl.

- Coming in all shape and forms, really.

- Well, that's right.

- Candy.

- And the authorities over this, Raul Ortiz, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, has confirmed many of these same issues in terms of the drugs coming across and the situation at the border.

- Well, he blamed Biden policies for the surge at the border this week.

- He certainly agrees that they have led to far more crossings 'cause basically, what's happening is you're not taking folks and sending them back or keeping them in Mexico or back to their home country.

You're paroling them into the United States, and where it hit home here in North Carolina is a few weeks ago with the Wake County sheriff's deputy who was murdered.

The criminals who've been accused of that murder are, in fact, brothers who were illegal immigrants here in North Carolina.

- Let me ask you, Travis, does it bother you that these people aren't being tested for COVID before they come in?

- On the list of things that concern me about this, that's pretty low at this point, I think.

But look, our legal immigration system is a mess.

Go on the State Department's website, and look up the wait time for visas, both immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

- Well, how about just enforcing the laws are on the book?

- Well- - That's not happening.

- You've gotta have manpower to do that, right?

I mean, Ted Budd, who's running for the U.S. Senate here, he's gotta bill to put, I believe, billions of dollars in to beef up enforcement, to hire more judges to hear these cases so that people aren't paroled for months at a time and then expected to show back up.

So it's clearly a manpower issue.

It's clearly a regulatory issue.

We've been talking about it for most of my life.

At some point, maybe we ought to try fixing it.

- Well, it was way down under Trump.

Is it a national security issue, you think, Mitch?

I mean, Wray of the head of the FBI says it is.

- I was gonna say, you could ask me, or you could ask the people who actually care about this like Christopher Wray of the FBI and like Raul Ortiz, the chief of the Border Patrol.

It's not just Republicans ranting about the border, as some Democrats like to say.

It is an actual issue that people who have to work on this topic will say is a security issue, and I think one of the more telling pieces of this story is the fact that when pressed on this, President Biden's press secretary said, "Well, it's not as if they're just walking across the border," and Border Patrol people were saying, "Uh, yeah, that's exactly what it is.

They're just walking across the border at numbers we have not seen before."

- Well, Biden just is gonna hire 87,000 more IRS agents, not one border patrol agent.

My friend.

- Yeah, I thought it was interesting this week, the new president of Peru alluded to the fact that he may wanna consider legalizing drugs in that country, seeing that a lot of people fleeing Central and South American countries are doing so because of not only the economic, lack of economic opportunities in their home country, wanting to come here where there is greater chance for them to provide for their families, but because of the violence associated with narco-terrorism.

If South American countries start to legalize the drugs that have been coming into the United States, it might shift to the balance of power a little bit in this formula.

If it's the demand of the north- - But there'll still be a huge demand by the American public for drugs.

Don't you think?

- Well, it's the demand in the north that causes the trouble in the south, as many people from the South American countries say.

So we'll have to see, but I think Travis is right.

We need to wholesale modernize and improve the whole body of immigration law in this country, get this right.

There are a need for workers, people that wanna come to this country, that wanna hold jobs, that wanna fill positions.

- Right, legal immigration or visas.

- If we had a better system, I think we would have a better opportunity to provide for the jobs that are needed.

- We gotta move, and I'm coming right back to you.

I know you were glued to the tube watching President Biden's speech last night.

Talk to us about it.

- Well, interestingly enough, I was not glued to the tube because this was a speech not broadcast on the news networks, only on cable outlets.

President Biden, where he started his campaign at 2020, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, in a address to the nation that he referred to as the "Battle for the Soul of America."

Now, far be it from me to question a president who wants to have a serious conversation with the American people about a serious topic, but this felt a little bit like perhaps it had more to do with the midterm elections- - No, no.

- Than it had to do with the President's concern.

He referred to MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump by name, referred to them as dangerous and violent, said that they were- - 13 times, MAGA Republicans.

- Said they were a small minority that had exerted greater influence over the Republican Party, that they were not pro law enforcement, that they wanted to take away your right to choose, take away your right to marry people.

The President said at one point, "Politics is tough.

I know it."

And the crowd of protestors behind Independence Hall shouting, "Let's go, Brandon," could be heard, and he alluded to that as an example.

But he concluded his speech with "Vote, vote, vote," so you gotta assume a little bit, and that- - By the way, that was paid for by the White House and not by the campaign.

- Well, it- - It's an Incon contribution.

- And a big part of the address was talking about some of his recent legislative accomplishments.

So some part of this, I believe, that Democrats have seen a little bit of favorable movement in the polling, I think they wanna make this election as much as they can about trying to get independent voters to think of Republican candidates as being too extreme.

- Right, he's trying to change the topic, don't you think, Mitch?

But let me just ask you this, two words I didn't hear, compromise or common ground.

- Yeah, that was the biggest thing that struck me about this, is we remember back when Joe Biden was running for office, what he was talking about was he wanted to cool the temperature, he wanted to get things back to normal.

After four years of Donald Trump, don't you want something different?

This was one of those strident speeches that we could have expected from a Donald Trump saying, my opponents are evil, these MAGA Republicans, they're terrible, they're doing terrible things, they wanna do terrible things to you.

I wish that Joe Biden had stuck with his initial plan of wanting to be the person who would be about compromise, who would be about saying, look, let's get together and get some deals.

And that hasn't been the hallmark of his presidency so far.

- Nelson?

- Well, it strikes me as it's almost like a 1950s style campaign speech.

The threat to the country is not inflation, it's not recession, it's not rising crime rates, it's not even climate change, it's MAGA Republicans.

And it's not- - Don't test the MAGA Republicans.

- Oh, obviously.

But it's not political violence that's taking over our cities, it's criminal gangs, it's drug cartels, it's some of the issues that are coming over for the border, but not just from the border.

It's police officers not being supported out there around the country and retiring in record numbers.

There was nothing in the speech that actually said, this is how we are going to solve the problems, this is how we're gonna bring desperate groups together, this is how we're going to address a litany of things, like inflation, recession, long term debt, rising crime, that are actually the things that should be part of this.

And I thought it was very instructive, right after the speech, local news story on the cable was the rising price of eggs.

I would argue that working people are far more worried about inflation than they are at the big, bad MAGA monster - Is this a misdirection play you think?

Is he trying to get to people to focus on this and not on the economy, you think, Travis?

- I mean, it certainly was a political speech, I can't get that granular with it.

And certainly, yeah, we got other problems and there may be other problems that should be higher in mind.

But when... Society is trust, right?

That's what society is based on and we all have to understand what the facts are.

And when you start pulling at those foundations, I think things change in ways that you really don't understand.

And I would just call on Republicans in power, there are plenty of Republicans in power who don't believe the election was stolen in 2020, but they're happy to let that myth persist.

- [Marc] We'll see if he keeps talking about this message.

I want to go to the most under-reported story of the week, Mitch.

- The state's largest public school system puts into writing what I think most parents would've expected was already clear.

There's a draft policy in the Wake County public schools that says teachers should not share their personal political beliefs while in the classroom.

Now, this draft policy that was before the board during the past week says it's not blocking impartial discussion of political, or controversial issues that are part of the curriculum, it's just that teachers shouldn't be sharing their personal political views with the students in the classroom setting.

And you might remember this was an issue that Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson had brought up earlier when he put together a website for people to report on political indoctrination, so it's interesting to see where this will go.

- Joe.

- Well, as bad as things here are on earth, NASA reported again, some spectacular galactic images that came as a result of the new telescope floating up there.

32 million light years away, the Phantom galaxy.

- [Marc] Are you a frustrated astronaut?

- Well no, [Mitch laughing] I think I wanna get on the rocket and leave.

Clearly there's better days ahead far, far away from here.

But the mission to return to the moon had to be scrubbed this week, the Artemis rocket systems, because of the weather, but we're looking to go to the moon and then maybe onto the Mars, so as bad as things seem today, perhaps there is some future far beyond us in the heavens.

- [Marc] Travis.

- Former President Donald Trump called this week to be reinstated as president of the United States, or to have the 2020 election just redone over.

I mean, that's not- - [Marc] Are you undecided on Trump?

- That is an outlandish, silly thing to say.

We hardly even blanket it anymore.

- [Marc] Put it in context, what was he responding to there?

He was about Zuckerberg.

- He was upset about- - And Facebook.

- Facebook suppressed a story and then that's why he...

Okay, but it doesn't mean- - [Marc] Was it tongue in the cheek?

- You can't just be president now.

- Was it tongue in cheek or do you think he was for real?

- Who knows with him.

- [Marc] Okay.

- Who knows?

- Who knows, but you know what, if you say it enough... Kurt Monett used to say we are what we pretend to be, so we better be careful about- - [Marc] Well, I don't think we running the 2020 elections is gonna do Republicans or Donald Trump any good at all.

Okay my friend, under-reported.

- Feel better, Travis.

70% of Americans want somebody other than Trump or Biden, so maybe there's hope down the road.

- My underreported is Europe's green energy failure.

You really have to look back to the aftermath of the Suez crisis in '56 to understand Europe's energy markets.

France turned to nuclear, Britain turned to the North Sea, Germany, unfortunately, turned to Russia.

Fast forward to the '90's and climate change politics began to drive European energy policies.

They've adopted some, unfortunately, unrealistic goals.

So, even with trillions of euros invested, here's what's true.

Wind and solar only work where it's sunny and windy, like Southwest U.S.

The large-scale technology that we need to store energy, particularly solar and wind energy, renewables, just simply does not exist yet.

Natural gas and nuclear energy are essential to the long-term transition.

You gotta have those.

And currently only about 4.4% of total energy used worldwide comes from solar and wind.

So, Europe is already in a recession right now with soaring energy prices, looming fuel shortages.

They're not in control.

- Is there a lesson for America here?

Quickly.

- They are not in control of their own destiny.

And that's the lesson for America.

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

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

- My what's up is attention to public school spending in North Carolina, as that long running Leandro school case went back before the state Supreme Court for the umpteenth time, it seems.

And there have already been a couple of major state Supreme Court rulings in this case.

What's at stake, initially, is whether a court and a judge can force the state to spend more money, bypassing the General Assembly.

My who's down, apparently workers who build such things as roads and buildings.

The Associated General Contractors of America just did a survey.

96% of them would like to hire more people and 100% of them are having a hard time doing it.

- You really get in the weeds.

Okay.

- Flood waters in Jackson, Mississippi showed that there was a real problem with the infrastructure there to provide drinking water to the population.

Many times these natural disasters do show weaknesses in our infrastructure.

North Carolina, significant number of water systems that are long overdue for up-fits and modernization, something we probably need to focus on here.

Who's down?

Well, at least an attempt to put down misinformation.

In a paper that was released this week by the publication Science Advances, the idea of prebunking as opposed to debunking, where you put out a short video explaining a topic in advance of information being released.

They said it had a positive impact on their subjects.

They characterized that false claims generally contained emotionally charged language, personal attacks, or false comparisons between two unrelated things.

And a little knowledge up front helped people distinguish between fact and fiction.

- Okay, who's up and who's down this week, my friend?

- My up is temperatures.

There was a piece this week in Scientific American positing that as hot as this summer's been around the world, it likely will be one of the coolest summers of the rest of our lives.

If you look at the trend line on temperatures, it's clear and it's disconcerting given, as you've noted in Europe, we are dependent on fossil fuels and will be for some time.

Down, North Carolina state NAACP.

This is a sad story.

We learned recently the group lost its tax-exempt status.

Apparently, it did not file tax returns for three years.

- [Marc] Can it get it back?

- I'm sure they're working toward that.

There's an audit, looks like some money's missing.

The former president, Anthony Spearman, found dead in his home earlier this summer.

Police are investigating.

It's just a tragedy stacked on top of what sounds like a mess.

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

- Well, this again follows on Travis.

Who's up?

Coal.

According to the International Energy Agency, world consumption will top 8 billion tons this year.

That matches the all-time record.

The IEA projects that coal consumption.

- [Marc] Who is that?

- The International Energy Agency.

They are projecting a new record for coal consumption in 2023. Who's down?

The FBI.

In the 1960s and early '70's, it was the left that was at war with the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover.

Now it's the right that's distrustful of the FBI.

According to a recent survey, 46% of Americans now have an unfavorable view of the bureau.

And this is really following a growing trend of distrust in all institutions by both sides of the spectrum.

- Headline next week, my friend?

- With Labor Day in the rear view mirror, campaign ads start to ramp up.

- I'm hearing about 30 million in super PACs are gonna come in on behalf of Ted Budd.

- Not surprising.

- Headline next week?

- Despite the fact for the first time in 25 years, there's not a named hurricane in the month of August, ding dang, there's Hurricane Danielle now off the coast.

- Headline next week?

- Same as Mitch.

- Campaign season looms as Labor Day passes.

- I love it.

Headline next week?

- Something hopeful.

Serena Williams keeps winning at the U.S. Open.

- Does she win the U.S. Open?

- I'm very, very, very hopeful.

The last individual over 40 to win was in 1926, Molly Mallory.

- Okay, we gotta roll.

Great job, gents.

That's it for us.

Have a great Labor Day weekend.

See you next week on "Front Row."

[dramatic music] ♪ - [Announcer] 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, Stefan Gleason.

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

[dramatic music] ♪