The Daily Signal - 'We Can Protect Lives and Livelihoods,' Says North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest

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Starting point is 00:00:38 I'm Rachel Dutas. And I'm Virginia Allen. State and local leaders across America are working to determine when it is safe to begin reopening economies. And with summer quickly approaching, business owners and employees are eager to get back to work. Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest of North Carolina joins the podcast to explain how states can safely get people back to work and save both lives and livelihood. He also shares stories of some of the individuals. He has had the privilege of helping during the pandemic. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Now on to our top news. Deaths from coronavirus are projected to reach 3,000 daily deaths by June 1st, according to an internal document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was obtained by the New York Times. deaths are currently at 1,750 daily deaths, the New York Times reported. White House spokesman Jeddeer responded to the document saying, This is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed. The president's phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific-driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with. The health of the American people

Starting point is 00:02:14 remains President Trump's top priority, and that will continue as we monitor the efforts by states to ease restrictions. GOP leaders want to know if China has been using its power to influence American universities' research of COVID-19. On Monday, the ranking members of seven different House committees, including Representative Jim Jordan, Virginia Fox, and Devin Nunes, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos asking for the Department of Education's assistance on an investigation into China's influence on college research efforts. The letter begins, under your leadership as secretary, the Department of Education has sought to improve transparency and reduce reliance on foreign investments in U.S. higher education.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Recent revelations of China taking steps to suppress academic. research into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the importance of your efforts. We write to seek a better understanding of the department's efforts to address unreported foreign direct investment into the U.S. higher education system. This joint inquiry is in furtherance of congressional Republicans' efforts to investigate the Chinese government's propaganda and cover-up campaign surrounding this pandemic. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is parting ways with Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in their call to forego Trump's offer to provide Congress with rapid results coronavirus testing, Politico reported. In a virtual interview on Monday with Politico Playbook authors Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, McCarthy said,

Starting point is 00:03:59 I do believe it would be critical to have the testing here because there would be a flare-up. Remember how many people from other parts of the country come to this. location. On Monday, Trump tweeted, interesting, by Congress not wanting the special five-minute testing apparatus, they are saying that they are not essential. In any event, we have great testing capacity and have performed 6.5 million tests, which is more than every country in the world combined. In a statement issued Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Congress is grateful for the administration's generous offer to deploy rapid COVID-19 testing capabilities to Capitol Hill, but we respectfully decline the offer at this time.

Starting point is 00:04:42 Our country's testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide, and Congress wants to keep directing resources to the frontline facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly. The Supreme Court is breaking traditions. On Monday, the justices heard arguments via telephone conference, and for the first time ever, the general public was allowed to listen in in real time. The case was regarding a dispute involving the travel service booking.com. The hearing was further made novel by the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas, who usually remains quiet during the hearings, ask a number of questions. The court postponed arguments in March and April to abide by social distancing measures,

Starting point is 00:05:25 but now plans to hear nine more arguments in the month of May by telephone conference, including a case on May 12th involving President Trump's financial financials. records. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest about his work to help the people of North Carolina and his plan to begin reopening local economies. It's our priority at the Daily Signal to keep you informed during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's an important message from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Taking care of your mental health is critically important as we stay indoors more often. It's important that people get enough sleep because we know sleep promotes mental health. It's important that you get exercise when you can while still engaging in proper

Starting point is 00:06:15 social distancing. And most importantly, seek help if you need it. Telehealth services are available and call a friend if you just need someone to talk to. Now more than ever, we want you to pay attention to your mental health. I am joined by North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest. Lieutenant Governor, thank you so much for being here. Virginia, thanks for allowing me to. Well, you have made it clear that your greatest concern during COVID-19 is helping the people of North Carolina. You've personally donated over $200,000 to the people in your state during the pandemic. Can you tell me about some of those people that you've helped? Well, it was obvious, Virginia, right out of the gate when things started shutting down that this was going to have

Starting point is 00:07:06 devastating effects to people's livelihoods to a lot of business owners who, as you well know, and I'm sure you've covered them, have poured their life savings and their heart and soul into growing their business, maybe even over decades. And then you can see how fragile things actually are and how quickly things can turn the wrong direction. And so what we decided really at the beginning was this is we were going to just start spending our time helping people across the state. And that's what we did. My wife, Alice and I, we've spent the last six weeks traveling around the state and just trying to help people where we can. And so we've, you know, sometimes it's helping a restaurant owner, write them a check and help them to make their payroll or pay their rent or keep their lights on or even keep their employees fed.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Sometimes their employees have been furloughed and these restaurants are still trying to feed them and their families. And it just goes on and on. And I know you've heard all the stories, but it's truly devastating out there. there's two sides to this virus. There's the virus side, which is devastating to a lot of people. And then there's the economic side, which is devastating. Last week, you learned about a retired Army officer who was struggling to pay his bills. And he was considering selling something very special and valuable to him. Can you tell me a little bit about that Army officer?

Starting point is 00:08:26 Well, you know, we actually found out about this online. And the Bronze Star recipient, and he was helping. to help his wife keep her business afloat. And so he posted online that he wanted to sell his bronze star to the highest bidder, which is sad enough in and of itself. So we contact him and said, listen, we will come and purchase your bronze star from you on one condition that we can give it back to you at the same time. So last week it was, I went to Winston-Salem and met him and his wife and daughter. and purchased as Bronze Star and then turned around and handed it back to them. You know, obviously, people that have put their lives on the line for our nation and earned

Starting point is 00:09:14 medals shouldn't have to be selling their medals in a time of crisis. But like a lot of people, they've fallen through the cracks on the bailout programs, the stimulus programs and all those kinds of things, as you well know. So we just, again, just trying to do a little part to help people out, to let people know care. I think that's important during times like this. It's so important. It really is. And those are the stories I think that just are giving all of us hope right now to, you know, be reminding ourselves that, all right, you know, when you turn on the news, it might look bleak. But then on the other hand, we're seeing so much generosity of individuals. And I do just want to take a few minutes and talk a

Starting point is 00:09:53 little bit about that issue of not only protecting lives, but also livelihoods, like you mentioned, You've made it very clear that you think North Carolina needs to begin reopening the state once again. And of course, this is a big concern as well of the Heritage Foundation as we've been having those same discussions with the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. What plan are you advocating for in North Carolina to begin reopening the economy? Well, you know, the president laid out two platforms. One was state by state and the other was the states have the ability to open up county by county. Our state is very diverse. Obviously, we have several large cities.

Starting point is 00:10:34 The impact of the virus has been felt in those cities in particular, but not quite as heavily in many of the other counties. So we still have many counties that don't have any deaths. We have many counties who I would suppose if we were getting the correct data from our state that we would find out that the people that have had the virus have recovered from it. And so the approach that I've suggested is the one that the president suggested to. You can go county by county and open up.

Starting point is 00:11:03 We're the second most rural state in the United States of America, even though we have 10.5 million people and we're the eighth largest state. So very diverse in nature and geography and so forth. So I believe right now many of our counties could start to open back up, and you could start to do that in a safe and healthy way. And Virginia, I've said it from the beginning. This is the United States of America. We can protect lives and livelihoods at the same time.

Starting point is 00:11:27 And you've seen governors across the country doing this. I mean, you have these kind of two schools going on. You have governors who really have the perspective of saying, we need to get the economy going and we're going to protect the most vulnerable. And then you have those governors who say, we've got to lock everything down until there's no other case of coronavirus left. And that's not a reasonable approach for our country. So in your mind, how can North Carolina really balance both public health and reopening the economy? Is that kind of held within that county by county plan? Well, I think you just have to look at the facts here.

Starting point is 00:12:06 The statistics line up really across the world. We know who the people are that are actually at real risk of this virus. It is the people that are the elderly and those that have immune issues already. So people that are at risk fall into those categories. And so you can protect those people by. you know, quarantining them, having them stay at home for extra periods of time, creating shopping hours for those folks that don't interfere with other people, creating times at restaurants where those people could actually go and get their food without coming into contact, all these

Starting point is 00:12:43 kinds of things. We know the demographics of the people that are hospitalized and the people that are dying. And I think we need to let the healthy folks get back to their livelihoods and allow freedom to rain again in America. I mean, personal responsibility and freedom is really important, but the government picking winners and losers in the economy based on their own preferences is, I think, a pretty bad thing. And, you know, you look at small town America. A lot of these shops that exist in small towns have just a handful of visitors a day. And you're saying they can't remain clean and they can't social distance, but you're going to close them down because they're not essential.

Starting point is 00:13:21 I think every business is able to set. those rules for themselves, and then if they don't, then you come in with the stick. But I think the government should offer the care at first and assume that personal responsibility is going to rule the day in America. When the nation shut down about seven weeks ago, there was still a lot that we didn't know about COVID-19. What have we learned about the coronavirus since the lockdown and has that information affected your views? Well, I think everybody was probably in the same position a couple months ago, people were fearful and, you know, the statistics that people were presuming were going to be, you know, two million people were going to die in the United States. And this thing was going to be devastating. So from a political leader's perspective, I, you know, I don't blame anybody for any of the decisions they made with a lack of information. I think that that is kind of, you know, the reactionary approach that people take when, you know, mayhem is on the line. So I think what you've seen is, again, you have seen the the statistics start to tell us who the people are that are being hospitalized and who the people are

Starting point is 00:14:32 that are dying from this. And we know what categories they fit into. So extra measures taken to test those population, extra measures taken to screen people going in and out of those populations of things like nursing homes and places like that. And extra precautions, taken by the business class of folks when they start to reopen again to continue to protect that population. So we know a lot now. The statistics are really starting to show us who the vulnerable are and who the vulnerable are not. And we can go on about life and livelihood while protecting people at the same time. How do you think that the president has handled the situation with COVID-19 and have you and the folks of North Carolina been working with the Trump administration on this?

Starting point is 00:15:29 Well, you know, I have conversations, obviously, separately from our governor or governor as a different party. We don't really communicate much, which is too bad. I wish that was the case, but it's just not here. And so, yes, I've had conversations with the administration. I ask them a lot of questions. I get feedback. They're very responsive. I think the president actually has shown amazing restraint through all this. I think the first thing is, you know, he and his team had the foresight to close down travel from China as early as they possibly knew about this while China was doing the opposite and sending people around the world still. The president said, hey, let's shut that down, as you well know, and I'm sure you've talked about a lot. He got criticized heavily for doing

Starting point is 00:16:12 that, but that was probably a great major step. And then after that, Virginia, I think he's really shown amazing restraint. He has allowed federalism to do its job, allowing the governors to make the decisions for their state. And I think that is really the way it should be. Again, just like I believe there's not a one-size-fit-all approach for our counties across our state. There's not a one-size-fits-all approach for the United States of America either. And so he laid out a framework and said, here's a healthy framework for moving forward and you guys go make the choices. Now, we are beginning to see kind of different states, like you say, take different actions. You know, North Carolina has about 11,000 cases compare with a state like Georgia that has over

Starting point is 00:16:56 28,000 or Texas, that has over 30,000. But the governors of those states and many others have already begun to reopen their economies. Do you think that this is wisdom? I mean, should many, many states now be reopening specifically across the South? Well, I think they should be. I think ours is, you know, we're doing incredibly well compared to other states our size. If you line us up against the top 10 states, we're at the bottom of the list for cases and deaths and so forth. So we are doing extremely well in that category. I think we are in a position to pass through the first gates. And we are not receiving the data from the state that we should be receiving that other states are producing. I've been asking for that for a solid six weeks now. We need to know how many

Starting point is 00:17:47 people have recovered from this, continuing to count the number of cases and watching that hockey stick go up, you're going to, as you test more and more and more, you're going to continue to have more cases. You're going to have more cases until you have a reliable vaccine for this thing, in fact. So how many people are actively infected with this virus right now is a really important number. How many people have recovered? Obviously, is an important number. But also, we've asked for the data surrounding people that have been hospitalized. What's the exact number of people hospitalized?

Starting point is 00:18:14 Not the daily number because that's not as important as how many people. And then on the people that have been hospitalized or the people have died, what's their exact age, not within a broad range category? What's their exact age? And did they have other complications associated with their situation as well? They're just basic questions to help give the kind of data that we need to make clear intelligent choices in our state about how to protect people and how to move forward at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. Well, summer's right around the corner. And of course, many parts of North Carolina and states all across the country really depend on tourism during the summer to fuel a lot of the business. Are you optimistic that we can reopen our economy and time for summer vacations and trips?

Starting point is 00:19:01 I'm very optimistic. In fact, I think the people of North Carolina are ready for it. I think the people of North Carolina have done a phenomenal job of making great sacrifices to protect their state and to protect their neighbors and do all the right things. And we've seen that across our state, happened to be down east a couple days ago. I guess it was on Friday, Saturday. And there were hundreds of boats out in the water. People were out there. You know, the sun was shining. It was a beautiful day.

Starting point is 00:19:28 It was a warm day. There are so many people that are just eager to get back about life right now. And I don't think you can really hold them down. That's why, you know, leadership is tough during these things. It's very difficult. And you have these two schools of leadership, one that is kind of the, police state that's going to try to tell everybody what to do every second. But the government here is not, you know, is here to protect us, but not to run and control our lives. And that's really,

Starting point is 00:19:53 really important. I mean, we have to make sure that when we come through this thing, we learn a lot of lessons. But I think the biggest lesson we're going to learn through this is how do we protect our constitution and our constitutional freedoms as we move out of this and make sure that we don't move into a police state mentality every time something starts to go down. in our country. So that's going to be a very tough one to navigate, and I'm sure it will play out in the elections coming up in November. Absolutely. Well, you've been serving as lieutenant governor since 2013. You have certainly witnessed a lot of policy and political changes over the past seven years. From where you sit in a place of leadership, how have you seen America

Starting point is 00:20:36 change over the past several years? Oh, boy, it's, I think it's actually been quite drastic. I think that, you know, this whole notion of identity politics and dividing people into identity politics subgroups out there and then using fear to divide and separate is a dangerous thing. I think we've seen that over the last handful of years, especially. And I'm hoping that, you know, one of the things that usually happens during a time of disaster, whether it's a natural disaster or something like this, is people come together and they get unified, you know, So I think that, you know, we have a lot of work to do in America to unify people and unite people. And we even see different schools during a pandemic.

Starting point is 00:21:23 You kind of have those that say at all costs, stay home and stay locked down. And they cross all political spectrums and ideologies. And then you have people that say, let's get back to work. Let's get the economy going. And they cross all spectrums and ideologies. So it's not just a right versus left kind of thing. So it'll be very interesting to see how that unity plays out as we go forward. I think we can have empathy and compassion for both the sides of this challenge that I mentioned earlier.

Starting point is 00:21:54 And we should have empathy and compassion for it. And again, I think protecting our freedoms based on our constitutional ideas is the most important thing we can do going forward. Yeah, absolutely. What policy issues do you think? feel like you've been most proud to play a role in implementing in North Carolina? Well, we do a lot of policy work behind the scenes as lieutenant governor. I preside over the Senate. I don't have the opportunity to actually put my name on a lot of policy, but we have a lot of friends in the House, a lot of friends in the Senate, and we write a lot of policy. So it's

Starting point is 00:22:31 really across the board. I spend a lot of my time in education. So I'm really proud of a lot of things we're doing in education to move to competency-based education. We were the first state in the nation to have every single classroom connected to high-speed broadband and, you know, providing the kinds of access and technology, especially to people who haven't had it before across our state. That's been important to me. Human trafficking. We've spent a lot of time on the human trafficking issue. We were number six in the nation for human trafficking in our country on the bad side, not on the good side. So we have a lot of work to do there, and we've passed some really good bills to help push that forward. So, you know, I think that I could go on, but there's a lot of things

Starting point is 00:23:15 that we do at the small level as Lieutenant Governor that I'm very proud of. We have a great team. Well, Lieutenant Governor, we certainly thank you for your service to our country, and we just really appreciate your time today. Well, thank you, Virginia, for having me on, and thanks to Heritage for all the great work you do to protect freedom in our country. And that will do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate your patients as we record remotely during these weeks. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback.

Starting point is 00:23:50 Stay healthy and we will be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Philea Rampersad, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.

The Daily Signal - 'We Can Protect Lives and Livelihoods,' Says North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest

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