Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 North Carolina Governors Debate 20240712

Debate. The 2020 gubernatorial candidates debate is presented through a partnership with the North Carolina association of broadcasters education foundation. Good evening and welcome. Im the North Carolina tv news anchor your moderator for tonight and welcome to the 2020 North Carolina Gubernatorial Debate produced in association with the North Carolina association of broadcasters Educational Foundation and umc tv. We introduce the candidates tonight, the governor of North Carolina democrat roy cooper. And the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina republican dan forrest. And we should note the debate is happening of course during a critical time for the state, the covid pandemic. Many north carolinians have died of the virus. You will probably notice several precautions tonight inside of the studio to help ensure safety against covid19 including the fact theres no Live Audience tonight only the two candidates, the moderator and some studio technicians. In the last 12 hours, everybody in the building and in the studio tonight has tested negative. We quickly you want to review the rules of the debate and it will last for one hour. Then i will submit candidates and the radio Digital News Association of the carolinas havent been read or seen by the candidates or their staff. Each candidate will have one minute to respond to each question and a 32nd rebuttal opportunity. I will reserve the right to ask followup questions as needed. The debate will end with the 92nd closing statements by each candidate. A device will notify them added their remaining time. We ask the candidates to adhere to the time limits so we can do just that. In earlier claim tossed to determine the Opening Statement and first question response tonight. Mr. Cooper, you won the coin toss, please begin with your one minute Opening Statement. Thanks for joining everybody. Today the world is different. A Global Pandemic has turned our lives upside down and killed over 215,000 americans. Tonight is different because of the plexiglass that is separating. Its there because for the last eight months including last night, theyve been having in person events with no masks or social distancing. Thats reckless and its dangerous including to the staff in the room. Leaving our neighbors in harms way and risking lives, that is in the North Carolina way. Overcoming challenges and taking care of one another we will beat this pandemic working together. And tonight you will hear the difference and see the choice more clearly than ever before that in this pandemic or any other issue im going to keep putting you and North Carolina first. Thank you mr. Cooper. Thank you to the Broadcasters Association and Governor Cooper as well for having this debate tonight. Its been an honor to serve you for the last eight years as your Lieutenant Governor. Im proud of the accomplishments. My natural habitat isnt in politics, its architecture and i served there for 22 years of my life as an Office President and senior partner with the largest Architecture Firm and i enjoyed every minute of it. I love the design process. We are all in this together so im thankful for this opportunity here tonight and i do this for you. Thank you very much and now we will begin the question and answer segment and we begin tonight with mr. Cooper. One of your opponents most recent ads alleges that your administrations Pandemic Response and protocols havent protected the people of North Carolina that left some of the most vulnerable behind and hurt the economy. What do you say about that, how has it affected the state . Its taken thousands too soon and left people hurting and jobless and separated from their loved ones. But at every single point, ive used science and data to make the tough decision and theres s no question our strong actions early and the persistence of most north carolinians have saved lives. When i mandated masks, the cases leveled off but then dan forrest live to the public and said masks dont work. He even sued me to stop the Safety Measures. Thank goodness he lost. Politicians like this who hold these in person events and discourage masks, they are part of the problem. They make it harder for us to ease our Safety Measures and get our children back in school where they need to be and harder for us to slow the spread of the virus. Thank you. Mr. Forrest, same question. What about the protocols . It is no surprise to anybody why Governor Cooper has spent tens of millions of dollars and negative ads against me during the campaign talking about masks. Its a great cover for what he really doesnt want to talk about, the over 1. 5 Million People that he left unemployed, thousands of businesses that have been shut down, the thousands of businesses that will never reopen again. The suicide and drug addiction, alcohol addiction and anxiety, depression, you name it, thats wreaking havoc on the state all over from one end of North Carolina to the next. So there is a lot of things in the record he doesnt want to tell you so he spends a lot of time talking about masks. Now you are not just ignoring science but common sense. You cannot wish the pandemic away. It doesnt work like that. It requires all of us doing our part. Its going to take us dealing with the pandemic and slowing the spread to get the economy fully going again. When you are out there pretending there is no pandemic, that is going to hurt the number of jobs we have. Look, ive taken an oath to be faithful to the state of North Carolina, and ive been doing that every single day making sure we are putting health and safety first during the pandemic. 30 seconds. There is no doubt there is a pandemic and its real. Half of the deaths in North Carolina have come from Nursing Homes which are under the control of Governor Cooper. If he spent half the amount of time and energy and money just focusing on the most vulnerable, we would have have the amount of deaths in North Carolina as well. We need to make sure we can do two things, protect the most vulnerable, allow the healthy folks to get back to their livelihood. Next question for you. The virus, the subsequent issues politically and economically have certainly heard the states economy. A graduated return could make things even worse or result in worse things. What would you do now if you take the Governors Mansion in january to get the economy jumpstarted again . I think we would do what we just said, protecting the most vulnerable, they are 70yearsold. They have multiple comorbidities and that is where we should be spending our time and attention to get our kids have missed almost an entire year of school for no reason whatsoever. The virus is about 17 times more likely to get an impact. Our kids actually need to be in school right now. We need to get peoples livelihoods. Its devastating across the state to th the businesses thate been closed. What we are doing is training Public Health. There is a crisis on the side of the coronavirus and a Public Health crisis on the other side with the complications of the virus. What do we do to recover economically. Slowing the spread helps us recover our economy. Weve been recruiting tens of thousands of jobs even during this pandemic. Forbes magazine ranked North Carolina number one in business for three years and those are the three years that ive been governor. We even had to overcome the house bill that they pushed on the state but we have been able to do that. Now our Small Businesses have been hit hard and we need to help them. I put forth funding to help them. We need to Push Congress to do more and provide more for the unemployed. We have one of the worst unemployment systems in the country and ive pushed this legislature to do more for them but they continuethat they cont. We can improve the economy but we have to slow the spread of the virus and that is what we are doing right now. We cant have people being irresponsible telling people they dont need to worry about the pandemic. I agree we should never tell people their jobs are not important, they cannot burn a living for themselves, there is no such thing as a mom the essential job. The governor laid off over 1. 5 million. He cant claim all the jobs he created when he laid off 1. 5 million. We need to protect the most vulnerable and we can do two things at once. We are the most innovative in the world and one of the most innovative states. Mr. Forrest, we now are going to go to the rebuttal for mr. Cooper. You talk about protecting the most vulnerable. We are doing that in our Nursing Homes, but the problem is you treat Nursing Homes like an island in that everybody can do whatever they want and you can still protect Nursing Homes. That is in the way it works when you have people out there discouraging masks and trying to prove that there is not a pandemic, you end up having more people affected. It could be a visitor to the nursing home. That is a problem. It works together and we need strong measures to make sure we slow down the spread of the virus. Who would have thought that the mask issue would get this big. Despite the order, we see a lot of people not Wearing Masks. We see neighbors, people in the churches. Still largely voluntary, and without any real enforcement of it, how effective has it been and when might you lift the mandate . There is no question that it has been ineffective because once we required masks, the cases leveled off. Most north carolinians want to do the right thing. And we work closely with retailers. I told them look, its good for your bottom line to insist people wear a mask when they come onto the Retail Establishment because the employees want that and the customers want that. We need to make sure we continue to push this. Weve talked to Law Enforcement. Its a little hesitant to enforce the mandate, but many of them talk to people and tell them they should be Wearing Masks and a member of Law Enforcement have agreed to come to Retail Establishments and to say to them okay we will remove someone for trespassing if they are not wearing a mask like they ought to. The thing is if we have the leaders across the board who would tell people masks are important. You heard the chair say that this mask is the most important weapon we can have, we need all of the leaders talking about this so we can slow the spread. Same question. How effective has the order been and are you personally against it . I am not personally against people deciding. Ive said it should be a personal responsibility choice. It doesnt need to be a governor mandate. We need a governor that protects us but doesnt treat us like little kids. Doctor fauci said masks dont work and the Surgeon General said masks dont work, the cdc said masks dont work. There are scientists and doctors all over the world that have come together under the declaration 35,000 of them today from leading universities and leading hospitals all over the world, nobel Prize Winners coming out saying the lockdown mandates and masks are actually causing more harm than good. We need to protect the vulnerable and do that right now. We need to let all the Healthy People get back to a normal way of life. Thank you. Mr. Cooper. Really, masks dont work . Scientists say they dont . That isnt true. You are finding that on the dark corners of the internet. Acrosstheboard scientists, doctor fauci and doctor redfield say they are the best weapon to slow the spread and there is no cost to this. People can wear it. Theres no kind of restriction you can just wear the mask. We are talking about looking after your neighbor. You wear the mask to protect other people particularly if you do not know that you have the virus. Thats amazing. The cdc released their case, 85 of the positive cases in america are from people who say they wore it all the time or at least almost all the time. 80 of the cases. Governor cooper says they went down when he made his mask mandate. They leveled off for a short period and then they went back up again so you are not seeing the impact we should be seeing. That just isnt the case. The next question, the States Employment Security Division has come under great scrutiny during the pandemic of poor customer service, slow processing of claims and complaints. If elected, what do you do to change that . The governor failed the people with Employment Security. Its pretty unbelievable when he was getting ready to lay off half a Million People, i said are you prepared for 500,000 people to be laid off. There was silence on the phone but apparently he wasnt prepared because in fact the Employment Security folks didnt respond to people for months. My office that isnt even responsible for Employment Security helped over 25,000 people get their unemployment because when they called the governors office, there was a busy signal. When they called the unEmployment Security office, they didnt get any help so they heard they could come to the Lieutenant Governors office and we would help them, we would transform and help make sure when we have an issue that we need to provide this service and that its going to be available for the people of North Carolina. People are getting their unemployment payments now. In fact when the pandemic hit, North Carolina had the worst, the shortest unemployment system in the country because of the legislative leadership. The system that was built to take thousands of claims a month all of a sudden had hundreds of thousands of claims. But despite that, the department has pulled together 8. 2 billion to almost a Million People. A lot of people when they lost jobs they also lost their Health Insurance, so one of the things we could do to help these people is to expand medicaid, to help these hundreds of thousands of people that they enforced into the legislative leadership saying no to expanding medicaid even in the middle of a pandemic. That is hard to believe. But weve got a lot of work to do and to make sure we help everyone find a job and make sure people have the help they need. 32nd rebuttal. What we can do is help them to give their job back. You can open the economy and protect the most vulnerable. We know how to do that. We knew how to do that months ago and we can do that now. But your time and energy and effort into protecting the vulnerable to keep them from getting the virus. Let everybody else go to to work. They will have a job again and insurance. Thats the most important thing you can do. We want to get people back to work and in fact we provided funding for Small Businesses to help them and i issued executive orders to try to protect people and to not have to look for another job while they are on unemployment so they can go back to the business they left. I even proposed significantly more to help the Small Businesses during the pandemic even if you remove the safeguards, people will not be able to come back to places where they are crowding together. But you and the legislative leadership rebuffed it and scaled back significantly the amount of money i asked for for the Small Businesses they definitely need right now. Next question, schools and learning. Mr. Cooper, the schools are still not fully open or not even close. Do you see a time when the entire state can reopen again and what has to happen first . The priority for me is to make sure that we get our children back in school again. We want our schools back to normal what we have to make sure that its safe for teachers and students and while im using science and data to help make those decisions, they are holding a press conference saying we will fill all the classes back up immediately. We wont have any social distancing. Its stunning to me that he would use children as a political pawn during the middle of a pandemic. What he really wants to do with our Public Schools, he wants to starve them for funding and then use the tax dollars to help rich people send their kids to private schools using vouchers. That isnt what our schools need trying to come out of the pandemic. We need to do more for Public Education, not less and we need to put safety over politics. And we will get to that in just a few minutes. Same question. When will school return . As soon im governor, schools are open all over the world and in fact private schools have been open for 12 weeks in North Carolina with no outbreak, no trouble from anybody. They can be open the same way. The governor wont take advice from anybody. I talked to multiple nurses that are frontline nurses tha frontd to contact the governors office, the superintendent saying we will help you get open. We are dealing with it frontline every single day. We can keep kids safe and teachers safe. Lets get the schools open because this is more dangerous for the kids not being in school than it is dealing with this on the other side. So they are having massive struggles right now. Anxiety, depression, screen addiction, abuse. 50 reduction in child abuse right now because kids are not in school. If they were in school the teachers would be able to discover it but they are locked at home with their abusers and its a horrible situation. There are a lot of cases in the schools, but i want to make sure we get our children back to school too, but safely. The Lieutenant Governor is on the state board of education where the School Opening plans are discussed and voted on. While im working with them and Public Health officials, hes missed almost half of the meetings during the pandemic. You cannot play hooky, skipped of decision, skip the tough loads and still be a leader in Public Education in the state. Ive been to almost every one of the meetings especially every voting meeting my staff sits in the education experts and advisors. We dont miss a beat in the education meeting. Weve always been present at them and in fact from the very beginning, the governors plan a, b and c never worked. I asked him i said what are we trying to achieve the added there was 15 seconds of silence on the phone and nobody knew the goal and how we would be ready to get back to class. That isnt a plan or leadership and thats why i voted against it. A couple more covid issues here. There will still be concerned when kids go back, even if you are governor, as you said, in january. What do the teachers think about this, the workload is so heavy, are they going to be held responsible for making sure everything is clean, the personal hygiene of every child is met well . The teachers have all kinds of responsibility on their hands every day. Its unbelievable they are doing triple their work right now teach online part time, in class parttime and deal with the others struggles they have to deal with. What we said in the press conferences and for the governor said. We said let the local communities decide how to safely open and deal with teachers. If there are some that have comorbidity issues let them deal with the principal to teach online or virtually. If parents dont want their kids to go back to school, let them make the decision but for those who do want their kids in the classroom they should have the option and the right to get them back in the classroom where they can learn again. Our kids are missing a year of school. You missed almost half of them during the pandemic me tell you about teachers and schools, we cannot leaving our teachers behind and expecting them to lead our children into the future. The legislative leadership shortchanged education over and over. We need to invest we are asking them to do more than ever in the middle of the pandemic, learn how to do Remote Learning, go into schools and help teach our children in person and many are doing it right now. We have to support them. Mama was a Public School teacher. Its important to me and when to make sure we get it is pandemic and get our children back safely in the classroom in the right way and fund Public Education like we out to. If the governor paid attention to the numbers, he know North Carolina is number one in the southeast for increased funding in Public Education but he probably doesnt know that because hes vetoed every budget since being governor including every teacher pay raise. He claims he for all teacher pay until time to pass for the budget. With increased 20 since the publicans have been in control but hes vetoed every single budget, every single one so weve been doing those things. Mr. Cooper. A big concern here among students is the large number of disadvantaged students but your rebuttal on the teachers in the classroom when they go back. We need to make sure we are funding education properly. No question the General Assembly is then more marie established scholarship, expanded prek it is because i made education front and center but the reason i vetoed the budgets is because they put operations of our classrooms. This General Assembly wants to continue with sweeping tax cuts that hurt our schools along with the Public School vouchers that hurt our schools and we need to do a lot better than that. About the disadvantaged students, theres a large number, they are following becomes of the Digital Divide. What you do to level the Playing Field for this percentage of kids to get them back up to speed and caught up . Every household needs access to highspeed internet exit in North Carolina, we provided millions of dollars to try and do that. I have my hometown strong effort its getting Digital Learning to the students but now we know closing the Digital Divide is more important than ever not only because Remote Learning which we need but telemedicine in Small Businesses. Ive proposed to 50 million going along with the School Construction bond because that is part of our infrastructure but once again, they enforced in the legislature turning it away. We have to invest more highspeed access to internet and make sure we arent to swing hotspots everywhere it is what we are trying to do now shortterm but with got to do better and we need them to pass that bond. In the question is about special needs kids, they are especially getting hit really hard here during this special needs parents about every day, multiple times a week saying their kids are learning nothing. They lay on the sofa and log on, all kids need teachers in a classroom, thats the way it is supposed to be weve got to get back to that so that his first informant. He likes to claim his success with the program, he vetoed that as well. Legislature funded that, too. Hometown strong, nice slogan but hes done nothing for North Carolina. I love the effort for Broadband Connectivity in the classroom, where the first state in the nation to have every single classroom connected to highspeed happened. When im governor, will be the first state to actually have all of the last mile connected to highspeed broadband. We talk about special Needs Program also is advantaged, economically disadvantaged. Theres no question special Needs Children need help and they do not respond well for about 40 minutes one of the reasons we went ahead and implanted plan a where k five and go back fully into school with appropriate Safety Measures as long as the local board of education approves it. We know special Needs Children need special attention. Its one reason why i put forward 35 million out of the governors discretionary money from the cares act specifically for special Needs Children. Talking about getting k5, great. Im all in favor. I voted to get k5 open but i proposed an amendment to allow the counties who want to open k12 to be able to do that, theres no reason. The county is ready and prepared and parents want they should be able to. I tried that but its controlled by democrats and they said no, the governor has all authority here k5, hes not willing to open up the rest. Thank you for the comment about covid. Lets move on to state budget questions. Whoever wins the Governors Mansion is needing to work with the General Assembly to balance the budget, very possibly against certain revenue streams. Would you consider attacks increased or tax rollback to do that . I dont know how this will be funded, i believe the government now, because of governors shutdown and the businesses going bankrupt and people having to take out loans for the first time in people who have never had to spend a dime on the business through loans they are having to do that now, i think the governor has a moral imperative. The government of the u. S. , his leaders like our government, they shut this place down. The businesses did not do that on their own. In the beginning, is closed down for just two weeks and everything is going to be okay. Two weeks turned into a month and a month turned into two and to turn to for and forth turned to eight. Were going to have to figure this out. Its one of the most difficult things weve ever done in State Government is going to take years to bail this out long after hes gone. You see a tax increase is necessary, at least a rollback of cuts . We do not need to increase taxes to handle this budget what we need to do is talk stop the tax giveaways for the wealthy and tax cuts they enforced in the legislative leaders continuing to put on people. We need to help the businesses but what we need is leaders who are going to get out there and help slow the spread of the virus. There are a lot of businesses hurting that have no economic restrictions on them that is because a lot of people are going to engage in the economy until they feel safe and if we have leaders out there trying to say everything is fine, you dont need to wear a mask or worry about it, open everything up, everything is fine, denying science, that is wrong. It will end up hurting us more economically. You complain about the autonomy but you wont do the simple things you need to fix it and it slows the spread of the virus. Rebuttal. Im not complaining about the economy, and with these people who are dying right now. Not just from covid because their businesses are going out of business and they dont know what to do. This covid science is interesting because you cross the border into South Carolina and South Carolina is open and people are going to restaurants and doing things and you cross into tennessee and tennessee is open georgia is open and they are learning how to live with the virus and protect the vulnerable and get people back to work. They are learning how and we need to hear. Mr. Cooper. Dragon rebuttal . Okay, its interesting hes mentioning georgia. Wants to be like georgia. Georgia is about the same size as North Carolina if they have almost 100,000 more cases, almost twice as many deaths and almost 600 more nursing home deaths in North Carolina. Thats the kind of state you get with forth as governor. More cases, more deaths, more deaths in Nursing Homes. I dont think the people of North Carolina want that. Mr. Cooper, the legislature in past years as targeted across the board, increases for certain segments of state employees, perhaps teachers at one time and then Correctional Officers in different percentages. You think its necessarily equitable . What would be your next classification . The first thing, pay our teachers. The got to get teacher pay to at least national average. I do know State Government needs to recruit good employees across the board and sometimes you need to pay more to get the engineers and technicians and people you need and State Government but i think it is important for us, i collected this Corporate Tax cut, this legislative leadership that hes been part of, has cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of our tax space that could have gone for pay raises for teachers and other state employees that have been given away to corporations and the wealthiest among us thats where we have our biggest difference. Theres no question we have to pay our teachers and Law Enforcement more. We are doing it with Corrections Officers but one thing i do know is weve got to stop the Corporate Tax cuts in order to have the money to be able to do it. Who deserves the next race . Let me hit on Corporate Tax cuts. Governor rails against tax cuts all day long but he loves giving away incentives to corporations when they come to town. We went back to the legislature and asked for more money so he could give more money away to corporate interests coming to our state. You cant have it both ways. We dont want tax cuts but we are going to give people tax money, it doesnt work that way. Thats not the way it works but yes, we continue to increase teacher pay, we dont year over year over year. Weve done seven years in a row and a republican control. He vetoed it. Vito, vito. We are passing as republicans and will continue to. We have hardworking state employees that deserve a raise and we need to make sure we can attract and retain the best workers, work on their Work Environment and drive their morale up, its the lowest its been in years. The Highway Patrol has the lowest ive seen in eight years under Governor Coopers leadership. Need to get that back get the pay up and other state employees as well. You obviously dont know how incentives work. You only Pay Incentives to corporations when they have a job is been created they get tax credit for that. Its very specific. What you have been doing, which is a big difference, sweeping tax cuts across the board, state corporations benefit from that dont create one single job in North Carolina youve got to learn how this works if youre going to be government, the. Thank you. Thirty seconds. I know how this works, ive been in the Business World most of my life. Worked to bring products to North Carolina before i was in politics, i know exactly how incentives works and how the tax system works but in North Carolina, cut taxes. Personal income, corporate income, but the government said its going to go broke, and said we had surpluses. We had a minute, 600 million 900 million surpluses before this has allowed us to put money away in Rainy Day Fund since weve had multiple Rainy Day Funds and the governor has appreciated that. You do support homeschooling, School Vouchers and school choice, put all of your philosophy for education and together with Public Education. Parents should be able to choose. We should continue to improve all forms of education, we should have excellent education for everybody. It is out of the flavor. Parents chooses homeschooling, great. Charter, great. 85 of parents still choose traditional Public Schools, thats great. You should allow choices to happen because thats what the parents are choosing. The governments onesizefitsall approach to education doesnt work anymore, we need to check it out a little bit and make sure we have excellent education for everybody. As far as opportunity scholarships we put money aside for the poorest kids in our state to have opportunity to get out of a Failing School so they can have excellent education. The governor said he would get rid of opportunity fellowships wouldnt allow for kids to get out of the Failing School to go to a good habit school if the parents want that. Since his government daughter to a private school but its not okay for others to send their kids to private school. He talks about the surplus weve had every year, we have. Why dont we pay teachers more . Thats what i have been trying same time and again but they wont do it. Private school doctors, had your own your own plan says everybody gets it. That means which parent would be able to use the factors to send their children to private schools. Two of my children and their entire career in Public Schools in months most of our children shouldnt have anything to do with this debate but got to stop Corporate Tax cuts, invest in education increase expenditures. Yes, i am for charter schools, they can work well and we need to do things to make education better, treat teachers like professionals and make sure we recruit the very best and brightest and we need people to stand up for our Public Schools to tell about the good things going on there like i do. The second about. Instead of becoming every budget we done with education increases, number one in the southeast for increased funding and education. Instead of that, he has vetoed them all. He has done nothing for education. Zero. Weve been working on Financial Literacy and economics, every high school in North Carolina, top priority for kids to learn these things, computer science, we are working on diminishing testing so our teachers can actually teach in the classroom thats what we should be working on. He satisfied with teacher pay. Ask most teachers and parents whether its something they are proud of and they will tell you no. We have the ability to do more and we should do more. We have to increase investment in Public Education, it is the foundation for our future. I recruit companies North Carolina all the time and talk to ceos, they dont ask me about Corporate Taxes but they asked me about his workforce and they ask can you provide the education so we can have a workforce to do the jobs we create . Thats why we need to invest. A question about race next. Matter of racism is very hot in the u. S. Right now. Governor cooper, do you believe systemic racism exists in North Carolina . What you do to address it . The death of george floyd opened painful wounds we need to listen to people who lift up their voices for equality and justice we cannot tolerate violence and destruction and anybody who does that should make sure they are held responsible. Our communities are working very hard to keep themselves safe, start their economies going and dan forrest right now is doing what no leader should do, using they cried footage pretending it was hurting the economy. It is unacceptable dan forrest is using this issue for fear and decision, he thinks thats going to win this race for him and i think he is wrong. Let me answer that, i dont think the stomach raisin, we should reject it every single time. The governor said we should also reject violence and destruction and looting when he stood by. Hes locked in his mansion, surrounded by a wall, police cars and Police Officers in riot gear and two blocks away downtown raleigh was being destroyed. Downtown asheville was being destroyed. The government didnt do anything about it he had the ability to send in the national guard. I will never allow an angry mob to destroy our citys actual footage, we had to get other footage and thats why we couldnt use it, but it is all the. People in these cities no, i was eating at a restaurant downtown raleigh the other day that still boarded up because they are scared to take the plywood down because they are scared the governor will protect them. When i am governor, you wont have to worry about that. Ignoring my record, top Law Enforcement for 16 years. As governor, i signed a bill double penalty for anybody who would attack a Law Enforcement officer with a gun got to make sure we have strong Law Enforcement. Dont forget he was dan forrest supporters in the middle of the street and rally bernie mass and calling Police Officers takes dan forrest said and did nothing about the. That is the most bizarre, i never heard. My supporters in the street calling Police Officers takes . Those are my supporters, closer your supporters, derided in the downtown raleigh when you had that mask dangling around your ear and not your face, thats what we are dealing with right now. Thats why the vast majority, almost every single Law Enforcement organization in North Carolina is endorsed force because they know the government doesnt support Law Enforcement didnt as attorney general either. Medicaid and teacher pay as we have seen in the last few years, the democrat guy and long running battle but what it is resulting in his teachers not getting pay raises and on the other side, the medicaid not being expanded to people who would otherwise qualify what in the state. Is there a way to do this . What we have to do to serve both groups . We just need a new governor. Given teacher pay raises every single rate year until Governor Cooper became governor and vetoed every pay raise. We were able to pass them but he keeps be killing them. Once i want better pay but zero is not better than something. If given the 20 increases. We increases teacher pay every year end we will keep doing it so we are keeping working on that but as long as you keep be telling budgets, we cant. We will come up with a plan not just for Education Funding for things for the other things we need as well the governor has been obstruction ever since hes been in office. It never even tried to work with the government assembly. Im not going to rubberstamp everything they do like you are but healthcare is one of the most important issues we face right now and closing healthcare coverage gap particularly the middle of the pandemic. A moral imperative. We have a way to get healthcare to construction workers Early Childhood educating, 39 listings have done including indiana when mike pence with governor. I was talking to an Early Childhood teacher who was mourning the death of a coworker who died of a stroke, she was treating herself at home with Home Remedies for high Blood Pressure because she didnt have Health Insurance is North Carolina expanded medicaid, she might be alive today. Is wrong to withhold coverage from over half a million working North Carolina ants. All we have to do is say yes and the Republican Leadership continues to stop he is elected, you know its not going to happen. 1 million and a half working North Carolina ants, they were working until you like them off. There are 1. 8 million jobs. Everybody needs healthcare, we know that. You cannot survive in this world today without healthcare coverage. Need to continue to drive down costs drive up quality medicaid is not the way to do it. Onesizefitsall Government Program not to do that. The governor wants more money to expand the Largest Agency in the state you cant manage the doc or hurricanes deaths in Nursing Homes, want to give him money to increase the Largest Agency in North Carolina, not good business. We can expand medicaid in North Carolina and will cost the state any additional money. It is time to do it now. The people of the desert to get healthcare coverage. Dan talks about getting a job, there are hundreds of thousands of people in the state who have jobs but dont have employer sponsored Health Insurance and cant afford it. They want to keep working to support the family, we can expand medicaid to get those working people Health Insurance. You have no plan. Land at all. We have time for one more question and rebuttals tonight, we want to talk about hurricanes. They have decimated the flooding has decimated large portions of the state in the last four years, three major hurricanes and flooding. What specifically needs to be done to prevent future flooding and how can we be sure this will be constructed to simply set up the same thing to get flooded again . Weve inherited broken longterm recovery system in North Carolina and i became governor we fixed it. We set up North Carolina office of recovery and resilience. We understand we have to rebuild smarter stronger weve got 3. 5 billion for people to rebuild their homes and business and infrastructure i spoke with a woman in johnston county, federal health, she didnt have Flood Insurance but we were able to provide state grants to her for her to be able to build a new house. That is the kind of thing we need to do. North carolina is strong and resilient we have to fight Climate Change. They deny Climate Change. You have to make sure we are setting forth Renewable Energy and make sure we get to pop in general not only to fight Climate Change also the good, Clean Energy Jobs in North Carolina and we will continue to do that with my energy plan in North Carolina. Is a real issue, there are still thousands of people across North Carolina reading to be helped from Hurricane Matthew and dorian. When Governor Cooper got elected, he was out there with his camera and microphone in front of everybody taking pictures but there are still people who have not gotten help from the hurricanes. In i will do better. When it comes to flooding, the governors plan was to put 300 breezes on the road. My plan will be to drench the rivers that are flooding, thats a real plan. There is plenty we can do talk about, we need to start with the basics. We are rebuilding stronger and smarter, buyouts in areas we know they are going to flood. Eating out in rivers sounds good but its not going to work to reduce. We have to be smarter and build our infrastructure to be more resilient we also had to fight Climate Change and you even said the other day something crazy like the world is cooling as you denied Climate Change. We got to step up and do the right thing to protect our planet for our children and childrens children but the thing this will help our economy, clean energy, jobs will come to the state and we will make sure more money are in peoples pockets. I was green before the green new deal. I was one of the first leed professionals in the state of North Carolina, i built Green Buildings all over the world and i know plenty about that, governor and we will continue to work for sustainability across North Carolina but when it comes to flooding and hurricanes, this is a human issue, its not bigger than that. Thousands of people right now who are still hurting and having been helped after four years of your leadership. When im governor, we will make sure they are getting help. Weve covered a lot of ground tonight and the question and answer segment is over, time for statements. By going toss, mr. Forrest, you get the first was a statement of 90 seconds. Thank you. Thanks to all the people of North Carolina for taking time to watch tonight, i hope this helps you figure out your decision and who you want to vote for the governor. I believe we live in the greatest country in the world, the most innovative country in the world. I believe we can do two things at one, five to ten things at once. We can protect the vulnerable and allowed people to get back to that life again in North Carolina. Time to stop fear and Panic Campaign and move on to opportunity for people. We need a government who can cast a vision for the state of montana. Governor cooper has been here 34 years and has never had a vision for the state. My vision is based on unity, possibility, creating unity for our entire state to bring us together, opportunity for education and the economy but we need a governor that can in short the people of North Carolina we are going to come through this stronger than ever before. I met a man named blake, a wounded warrior. He was in the hospital recovering from his wounds, he was told he would never walk again and the Commanding Officer came in the hospital and handed him a purple heart challenge coin and said, youre going to walk again and come back stronger than ever before. When blake told me this story, he said ive been hearing that going with me eight years. He took it out of his pocket and handed it to me and im giving you this coin because i know you give hope and courage to the people of North Carolina and you are going to allow us to come back stronger than ever before. Thank you so much. You have a choice tonight yu have a governor that believes in science and a candidate who doesnt. A governor who believes in our Public Schools and a candidate that wants to shortchange them. A governor who believes everybody ought to have healthcare and a candidate that wants to deny over half a Million People the health care that they need. You have a candidate that values diversity and thinks it is our strength versus a candidate that wants to use diversity to divide us. The choice is clear we need leaders who are going to find real solutions. Im grateful to my wife and god and to my three daughters, my brother, all out there working so hard and i promise you we are going to create a North Carolina that works for everyone. That concludes tonights debate and thanks to both men for a civil engaging debate on behalf of all citizens. Thanks also to the North Carolina Broadcasters Association, Educational Foundation for providing the opportunity for the citizens of the state thank you for watching and please remember to vote. Good night. Hello, its joe biden. I want to congratulate Muslim Advocates on new years for work on justice. You are prove how much the community it does and can do to make the nation so strong. Healthcare workers, educators, artists, organizers, essential workers. Advocates like you bring us closer to our founding ideals. Muslim american voices matter to our community and to our country. I know you havent alwaysot