Lenny Friedman Explains Forward Party Solutions for NC

Peter Pappas: And everyone welcome back to the Carolina cabinet. I'm your host Peter Pappas here with the lovely Laura Musler and the ⁓ Enigmatic Lenny Friedman when it comes to technical difficulties. We're gonna figure all this out, sir, but we got to work around so it's good to have you back Lenny ⁓ Laura was gonna pepper you with a light question. Yes, I think she had right before we decided to just timeout. So Laura take it away. I said the forward party talks a lot about solutions and unity But critics say the platform is intentionally vague. So I'd like to know what the actual policy positions are on major issues like immigration, taxes, and public safety.

Lennie Friedman: Thanks for the question. So I first want to respond to the intentionally vague. ⁓ So we're not intentionally vague, but we do put out, we do want to have a broad coalition of people that support the forward party. So we're not going to dictate that you have to be conservative, you have to be liberal, you have to be Republican, you have to be libertarian or democratic. We want people from across the political spectrum and we're going to have guardrails, right? So We're going to say things like you asked about immigration. If you believe in an open border, you're not going to be part of the Forward Party. ⁓ If you believe that there should be no immigration, you're not going to be part of the Forward Party, right? We're looking for people that are in the middle of the political spectrum, the middle 70 % of this country, who believe in a strong border. I don't know of many countries that don't believe in a strong border, where the Forward Party will have some umbrage with You know, the past few years is the enforcement of when people are already in country. So how are we treating them? Are we treating them fairly? Are we treating them decently? Do they have their day in court? That's where the Forward Party is going look at what we've done the past few years and have some pause. But does the Forward Party believe in a strong border? Unquestioned.

Peter Pappas: Okay, okay, so because when I hear you know, we're open to everybody I'm like, yeah, they're probably open it and not you Lenny, but you know, ⁓ yeah They're probably open everybody as long as they're progressively in but that's not what I'm hearing here. So you truly are open I mean you're you're on the phone the phone. No, he's he's he's for borders, but he did what how What what is the policy as far as the people that are here that came here illegally? Okay, so

Lennie Friedman: That's what on.

Peter Pappas: So Lenny, you have you guys, have, that sounds like you have a platform. North Carolina Ford party has their platform, but have you really built out to, to answer a granular question like what Laura's getting at?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so it's a good question. So the North Carolina Forward Party is focused much more on North Carolina than the big national discussion. So for where the National Forward Party stands on what to do with illegal immigrants in country, I can't answer that. I will say from my standpoint and what we want here, we don't want people coming to the country illegally. We want, we do want strong borders. We do want a path to people to come in the country that want to be here. We want to make sure that we're supporting the workforce, we're supporting the country's needs. People that are here illegally, we should be finding ways to get them back to their home country. But to do so with respect to their humanity, with respect to communities, we certainly shouldn't be kicking down doors or sneaking up to people at Home Depots. But should people that came here illegally go back to their home country? Yes.

Peter Pappas: I don't think they really snuck up on those guys at Home Depot. They just pulled up a rider truck. Right. And they just, but anyway, ⁓ okay, go ahead. Okay. So, ⁓ voters already struggle to trust elections. So if we introduce more complicated voting systems, how is that going to help the electorate become more secure in our voting? And do we really want to implement a system where you need a video to instruct you on? Because there are a lot of low information voters that just vote to vote and how does it affect if we have to have a video to explain how to vote?

Lennie Friedman: So you're talking about instant runoff. So I don't think you need a video or a deep understanding to say, rank your candidates from your number one choice, second choice, third choice, or fourth choice. If I put a menu in front of you and say, give me your top five choices for dinner, you'd be able to do that fairly simply. It's the same thing with ranking candidates. Give me your top five candidates or if you only like one or two, just your top one or two. That's not a complicated ask. When you have long ballots that have a bunch of ⁓ different elections, whether it's for sheriff or ⁓ congressman or mayor or city council, you're doing that now. It's not complicated to say rank who you think is your favorite top two or three.

Peter Pappas: and

Lennie Friedman: I think that comment is a little bit exaggerated. We all rank things all day, every day. It's not hard to do so. Saying that ranked choice voting or innocent runoffs is too complicated is BS to be quite honest.

Peter Pappas: Okay. I mean, I haven't seen a video telling me how to vote right now. That's what instructed me. So maybe it is. But if row rank choice voting is such a clear improvement, then why are so many States actively banning it instead of adopting it?

Lennie Friedman: So don't think states are actively abandoning instead of adopting it. I think the Republican Party after the Alaskan elections got upset because their preferred candidate didn't win because the voters didn't want them. So this isn't because of it's a poor election choice. It's because the Republican Party at the time lost and the president and head of the Republican Party said, I don't trust it. I don't want to do it. That has nothing

Peter Pappas: Well, that's, and then he's talking about Lisa Murkowski who won because she collected second choice votes. And so the more conservative candidate lost and she's more of a moderate like.

Lennie Friedman: So in this particular race, in this particular race, it wasn't Murkowski that most people talk about. It was Sarah Palin. And it was Sarah Palin who lost to, and I'm gonna butcher her last name, ⁓ but Mary Polotta, I can't remember her exact last name, who was a Democrat. And you had a centrist Republican. So you had a centrist Republican. You had ⁓ Sarah Palin who ran far to the right. and you had a centrist Democrat. And what happened was in the second round of voting, those who voted for the centrist Republican said, if I have to choose between a centrist Democrat or a far right Republican, I'm gonna choose a centrist Democrat. And that's what happened. So the voter said, no, if I have to choose between extremists or two centrist, I'm gonna go with the centrist. That's what happened.

Peter Pappas: And, and I didn't spar with you earlier, Laura, I thought I'd save it for the show, but you mentioned, and I agree with, uh, in our current situation where we have, um, Republicans are outnumbered three to one here in Cumberland County specifically. how it hits home is that with ranked choice voting, and if only Democrats turn out to vote, we're going to have solid Democrats winning everything because then the Republicans aren't putting forth a candidate that's worth a damn. Well, we don't do that anyway. So, well, I know we've had that problem here locally, also all the cities that do it major cities using it's a New York city Democrat, San Francisco Democrat, Oklahoma, Oakland Democrat, Minneapolis Democrat, Seattle Democrat, Portland Democrat, Salt Lake City Democrat. They're all Democrat one and what, and it's hard for Republican to gain any traction when. And so look, yeah, we're.

Lennie Friedman: So that's not because of instant runoffs, though. ⁓ If anything, instant runoffs would support ⁓ other candidates.

Peter Pappas: Well then why aren't Republicans winning any of these where we do have the ranked choice voting? Why aren't Republicans or centrists winning?

Lennie Friedman: Why aren't Republicans winning the New York City mayoral election? That has nothing to do with that. That nothing to do with that. That's like, that's like.

Peter Pappas: Well, I know why they're not one of that. No, but like Salt Lake Salt Lake City is that Utah is a Republican state, right? But in.

Lennie Friedman: And the GOP uses instant runoffs.

Peter Pappas: The GOP uses instant runoffs. what, ⁓ okay. So I think just rain choice voting here locally in Cumberland County would essentially hand, hand the wind to the Democrats for the next, don't know how many years. Because that.

Lennie Friedman: in Utah. So why do you say that? So let's talk through that. So I have two comments there. One, you guys are assuming general elections. What about if you use ranked choice voting in the primaries for the Republican candidates or the Democratic candidates, and you've got to get 50%. So let's talk about a Republican primary. And to come out of the Republican primary, you're going to use instant runoff, ranked choice voting, and you have to get 50 % support from just the Republican party, right? Republican primary. If you are an extreme Republican candidate that can garner 30 % of the vote because they've got a really strong base but can't get to 50%, then what Ranked Choice Voting is gonna do is it's gonna get a more centrist Republican who's gonna beat the extremists and then in the general going against a Democrat is gonna have a better chance for winning. So you guys are automatically going to the general but you don't have to. I think they're outstanding in the primal, right? ⁓ That's what the GOP used to, sorry, I saw that you have a question, Laura. Have you guys heard of this guy, Glenn Yonkin? Do you know how Glenn Youngkin came out of the GOP primary in Virginia?

Peter Pappas: When it's intra party inter party, I'm not opposed. Yeah, but when you're going against another party, I don't because then nobody ever gets to hear the Republican candidate because it doesn't matter what the Republican candidate says or does or or suits because See, but I'm not gonna whine that you know, Republican can't win It's that here our history has been Democrat, but also we've had a history of having craptastic candidates run as Republicans. have people that are running simply because, well, I'm a Republican. You should vote for me. Well, that's not really a value proposition for the voter. you know, let it.

Lennie Friedman: So let me interject, because I actually think we're mixing some things. So you guys are going to a jungle primary. You guys are going to a jungle general, right? Where everybody gets to run and you have ranked choice voting. That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting, so let's take it this way. Let's have ranked choice voting in the Democratic primary and the Republican primary and the Libertarian primary and the North Carolina Forward Party primary, okay? So coming out of that, you've got a strong Democrat. A strong Republican, a strong Libertarian, and a strong Forward Party candidate. Now you go to the General. You have right choice voting again. You only have four candidates running. Why wouldn't the Republican be heard?

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Fuck, God...

Lennie Friedman: You guys are thinking of a jungle primary the way it's done in other places. That's not what I'm referring to.

Peter Pappas: Well, we have open primaries here, so the independents and the unaffiliateds can vote for whomever they choose. And I don't believe it. I don't like open primaries. think you need to choose a side, either you, because people can flip sides back and forth and affect your elections and that. don't like that. Pick a side.

Lennie Friedman: So we have semi-closed primaries. You can't be a Democrat or a Libertarian and vote in Republican primary. You can be an Independent.

Peter Pappas: Right. Right. And I, I, think more people would pick sides if they were forced to, but now you can just vote for whomever you want in the primary. I don't, I don't like that at all. Well, that's the trend of an independent voter. They just don't want to belong to anything. Okay. Well then don't vote for the people that I want. I feel strongly about my Republican roots and I don't want somebody who hasn't chosen a side to decide who my candidate is because if that were the case then perhaps we wouldn't have the same candidates right now running for a major office here in the state because a lot of the diehard republicans were not necessarily for one of the major candidates in the state right now

Lennie Friedman: So do you have any data on that though, Laura? So I understand your concern. I'm just not sure there's anything there. So do you have data showing how many people were ever registered as an independent that voted in the Republican primary? And if that swayed the primary, because that should be relatively easy data to find.

Peter Pappas: I'm gonna look it up and next time you come on I'm gonna have that data for you. You see what you started. Yeah, she's gonna bring the fact No, and you know what? in general I would say that my my ⁓ my information is anecdotal based on the people that I know and having conversations and they're unaffiliated and they went to this Voted for this person because they didn't want that person Anybody but that person and then well, a minute. Yeah, they voted against the person or the party. Yeah, right

Lennie Friedman: That'd be great.

Peter Pappas: So mine is anecdotal at this time, I will try. Well, like you said, that data is easily available from state board of elections to find out, you know, if they were independent, what, what ballot they pulled. Yep. So, um, well, let's leave that little bit of little bit of next time. That means you have to come back again. Yeah. And, uh, next time you'll be in studio though for Jiminy Christmas. Yeah. We're going to get you in here eventually. Yeah. Yeah. So, so.

Lennie Friedman: Great, great. Yeah, I'll have better headset. Absolutely.

Peter Pappas: Let's talk about, actually, this was before the show you and I discussed, you know, like, what are we going to talk about? And I says, well, I was going to make it a surprise, but you mentioned gerrymandering. I wanted to talk about like what the parties do well, not so well, whatever. And you brought up gerrymandering, which look to me, gerrymandering, both parties do it. It's almost as bad as this lawfare we had against president Trump now being used against his perceived opponents. You know, when the shoe's on the other foot, you normally run rough shot over the other. So traditionally the Republicans don't run rough shot. And that's the problem I have with the Republican party. need to be running rough shot over when we power. Explain the super majority we had when we ran rough shot for governor Cooper. I mean, I don't mind that so much because it was Cooper, but you yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it later. So, um, you know, in my opinion, the politicians now where they're choosing the voters instead of the

Lennie Friedman: Thank you.

Peter Pappas: voters choosing the politicians, the way they have gerrymandered some of these districts. ⁓ They have, let's look locally here in Cumberland County, our state Senate seats, we have two. have Senator Tom McGinnis and we have Senator Val Appelwhite. Both are in very safe D plus and R plus. So it's almost like they were, my opinion was they gerrymandered it this way so that they don't have to make. Cumberland County a contentious race. Right. It's kind of tried and true. We're going to have one and one move on. Republicans can gerrymander things or the Democrats can gerrymander things, but they make it so that Democrats going to win by 70 to 30. Well, why not make it a 60 40? You still win 60 40. You still win 55 45. So make it closer so that there is a chance that moderates or centrists can win because I don't like extreme left and I don't like extreme right. am conservative down the middle. I have some right leaning things and I have some left leaning things. So I like the centrist. So Lenny, what's your take on the gerrymandering situation here in North Carolina?

Lennie Friedman: I think it's got a terrible history. I think when the Democrats were in charge of the General Assembly, they gerrymandered the hell out of our state. And I think then when the Republicans took power in 2010,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: And Laura, they certainly would have made you proud if you want them to play hardball. They played hardball because they gerrymandered the hell out of our state. And then they just gerrymandered again to try to get Don Davis out of Congress. So, Peter, what I agree with you 100 % is those in power try to stay in power. Right? So I don't care if it's the Democrats that are in charge or the Republicans are in charge. They're going to try to tilt the playing field as much as they can. And I think it's disgusting. And something I was thinking of before I came here, if you look at the last 16 years in our country, now I am talking higher level, the leader of the Republican party, I think everybody would say Donald Trump, the leader of the Democratic party, I think everyone would say President Obama, ⁓ they both came out strongly supportive of gerrymandering in the past X amount of years, right? Donald Trump said, let's have a ⁓ mid decade redistricting in Texas, like that was literally what he said. The Texas Republicans ⁓ jumped up and said, yes, sir, how high? And then what Virginia did is, ⁓ well, if they're going to do it, we're going to do it. President Obama came out and pushed hard for the Virginia Democrats and for the Democratic electorate to support the gerrymandering they just tried to get done in Virginia. So the two leaders of the two most powerful parties in this country were both pro-gerrymandering, and that's awful. And that to me tells you all you need to know because when the chips are down, both sides are gonna try to gerrymander it and what gerrymandering is Peter to your comment, it's the candidates picking the voters. And there are ways that we don't need to do it. And it's really sad to see, it just is because then we don't know where the North Carolina voters truly are, where the American voters truly are because I think the statistic is in 430, ⁓ congressional seats only like less than 10 % are actually competitive. 10 % are actually competitive. So 10 % can swing the votes. So 10 % of this country is dictating what the rest of this country ⁓ lives with. And I think that's terrible.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. So how do you recommend that we pick districts? Yeah, well, slow down. So yeah, let's solve the whole world's problem right now. So ⁓ what would be a good, what would be maybe your first suggestion on maybe a good step in the right direction?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so the two most common things would be an independent or bipartisan redistricting committee. Now you and I, I think all three of us can agree there's no true thing as a independent redistricting committee because who picks them? Yeah, 100 % 100 % so.

Peter Pappas: Right. I might give you a big old wink, Lenny. Well, then today I identify as a Democrat. So put me on as a Democrat. If we're going to have open primaries, then I'm going to identify as a Democrat and be the Democrat on the gerrymandering line drawing.

Lennie Friedman: So there, there, there's a- Absolutely, but so that's one. I do wanna get back to that. The other is there are actually lots of mathematical models that are based on density, smallest possible circle, and then ratios of like, and don't quote me on all this, the ratios of like the circumference of the circle to the area, those types of things that are just, look, all we're trying to do is you gotta have districts that are as tightly packed as possible and as close to a circular shape as possible, right?

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: and there are mathematical ways to do it. And yes, we can poke holes on both of those things for sure. But to give an example, I've got four dogs, right? And my dogs were destroying my backyard. So I had a choice. I could build a fence and prevent them from getting into my backyard and I can do it myself and it's gonna get 80 to 90 % there or I can try to get the perfect fence and spend $50,000 on someone coming in to build a fence. 80 to 90 % is pretty damn good. So if the independent redistricting committee or the mathematical models aren't perfect, but they're 90 % and we're at like 0 % today, I'll take them. I'll take an imperfect but really good solution than what we have today. North Carolina should be a 55, 45, 50, 50 state one way or the other, and it's not.

Peter Pappas: Right? want to go off on a tangent, that's going to lead us into something I'm going to talk about next. Lenny, as far as the demographics and stuff like that, that we're able to obtain today, the granular data down to the street of who lives where and what, do you think maybe it's an improvement in technology that maybe is going to allow us to have better elections and better districts that we didn't have access to 50 years ago? I mean, what role do you think technology is gonna play in this?

Lennie Friedman: think that's what's... I think technology's made it worse, right? So because we have such great information, the group in power can so closely align the districts, right? Because they know how people voted, they know all the specifics on everything, that they can carve that out where, Laura, I think you made a comment earlier where why do the Democrats have to win 70 to 30 or Republicans 70 to 30, make it slightly closer? I mean, they can make it so close now that they can say,

Peter Pappas: Really? Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: The Republican district is just plus two or 3%. That's really narrow. And the only way they're able to get there is because we have such great technological data. ⁓ The flip side for the mathematical stuff is also true though, but you don't need to... So when I talk about gerrymandering, I don't think we should build districts on race, on political persuasion, on gender, on any of those things. I don't think we should have any of those things. I think it should be based on population, how tight of an area we can have, and how to take all biases out. So I think I more than answered that question. I think I went even a little bit over there, sorry.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Mm-hmm. Yes, you did. I didn't think of technology being a detriment, but the way you put it, you know, it does allow them to super hyper-focused and hyper-local. know my definitely without a doubt, my neighborhood is gerrymandered because it goes all straight up Rafer Road. It comes in one little block, goes back out to Rafer Road and continues on. One block is down and into another district. And then I do know that they gerrymandered to make. One Democrat one they brought down and included this one person that they wanted to run into position and then went back around. know for sure your councilman probably said, I don't want her. So he drew the line right around your house. No, no, no. I'm in the main area. They, they cut it out with this little street into the other side. So like, no, Laura's there right around, right around. Um, so from what I'm hearing, uh, the voting rights act has been essentially kicked out from the Supreme court. ⁓ the voting rights act of 1965. It was originally passed to stop to racial discrimination and voting practices like literacy tests, poll taxes, and voter intimidation targeting black Americans specifically during the Jim Crow era. Now the major save act Jim Crow, Jim Crow, point, The major turning point came with Shelby County versus holder where the Supreme court struck down the federal preclearance formula. God, this big words. Pre-clearance formula used to monitor certain states so people that support the ruling say that We can't permanently govern like we're 1965 ⁓ Citizens should increasingly be treated as individuals rather than racial groups but the critics argue that voter discrimination still exists to which I'm going to ask where and Removing oversight weakened protections for minority voters, and I want to know how so let's ⁓ Go around the room a little bit. So first off, do we need the Voting Rights Act in 2026? I don't think so. don't think so? Lenny, do you think? This is personal opinion now. This is not of the North Carolina Forward Party.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, that's fair. will make a comment though on the Forward Party, and this is we talked about with guide rails. I guarantee you there's people in the North Carolina Forward Party that are going to look at it differently than I do. I'm probably going to be more on the conservative side, and that's okay. That's what we want. We want debate. I don't know if I can talk

Peter Pappas: Right.

Lennie Friedman: that intelligently about the entire Voting Rights Act. I can talk about what just happened with the Supreme Court. ⁓ where I think we left some on the table is I'm fine saying you cannot create districts based on race, right? Because part of what's going on is why is it just districts based on ⁓ color of skin? Why are we just worried about the black voter right now, not the Hispanic voter, not the Asian voter, not the white voter, not the female voter, not the Jewish voter, not the Muslim? Like so that it was just one group that was being protected for good reasons, right? That group was absolutely, was absolutely put in terrible positions throughout America's history, right? So that's why it was created. But where I think the Supreme Court left it on the table, left something on the table and Congress left something on the table, is saying, ⁓ you can't do racial gerrymandering, but you can do political gerrymandering. Well, in today's world, that's almost the same thing, right? So if you think about, The percentage of black Americans that vote democratic, it's extremely high percentage, right? Not 100%, but let's say it's 80%, 85%, 90%. So you're saying you can do it on a partisan basis. Well, you're kind of doing the same thing, right? Just the flip side of it. I wish the Supreme Court said you can't do any of that. You can't, and that's what we were talking about earlier, you can't take immutable characteristics into place, which is gender, race, religious belief, you can't, but you also can't take party into place.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Well the pup your your party isn't a protected class though. That could be why they did part is not a protected deal, right?

Lennie Friedman: And the fact that we're allowed to say party under police. I just don't think, I don't think that's right. That's what gerrymandering is doing, right? That's the politician selecting the voters that are the other way around. I don't think we should be able to take any of those things into account.

Peter Pappas: So what in practice, what would this look like? mean, let's stick to our hometowns here. So Lenny, where are you located? In Raleigh. Okay. So you're in Wake County. We're in Cumberland County. we have about 400,000 people here. So what would our, what would the districts look like? Does anybody remember what it looked like before we got into this gerrymandering BS? I mean, were divided down. Yeah.

Lennie Friedman: I'm in Raleigh, Wake County. I don't think we've ever not been in it.

Peter Pappas: I mean, would you just be dividing among geographic boundaries or? And where is it? Where does the circle first circle start in order to not have to least effect? Because if you start the circle at the Capitol and then you work out from there, circled, circled, circled, or whatever. ⁓ or do you start in the city center or where does the circle start? Because if you start in all the city centers, then you're going to have a straight up Democrat for the most part, a Democrat in the city.

Lennie Friedman: So

Peter Pappas: Well, and let's just take party out of it right now. Cause I mean, populations population, like Lenny said, about 60 or 80 % of the black voter is going to be Democrat. so going along party lines is almost as bad as racial profile. if you do it by demographic, I mean, but if you do it by numbers only, just numbers of households or people that, that. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: Mm-hmm. Number of voters. So I think it's like 760,000 people is what makes on average makes up a district.

Peter Pappas: But then, then, then that would make some districts so large, would be undue burden on people to have to go all the way over somewhere to vote because the districts would be so large because in these rural areas where I own, you know, 400 acres, I'm one house. Where would I have to go to vote? I didn't tell you to move the damn boonies. I wouldn't live in the boonies because I love the great outdoors from the great indoors. But I'm just saying if I were one of these moved to where the people are, so yeah, but see, we still have a very good system of precincts within the districts. I, so the actual physical act of voting would not be much different than what it is now, but I'm just thinking like, you know, we've got two Senate districts here in Carmelin County. It's basically a reverse C. You've got Mr. McInnes's from west of us from Moore County. comes in, goes out across the river and then comes back south. And gets home in whole mills area and then goes back and then you've got Senator Applewhite that pretty much takes the center of that. See how the hell do they come up with that? Right. So would they just take Cumberland County and split it in half and say all the guys on the East or one district and all the guys on the West? mean, where do we start? Don't know.

Lennie Friedman: It's a good comment, Laura, to your question, have you seen, I think it's North Carolina District 1 right now, which is the one that they tried to gerrymander out? And how massive that is from a geographical standpoint?

Peter Pappas: coast. Yep. That's that to me is that's horrible. That's for Congress. I was trying to keep it. I was trying to keep it rational down here right now. ⁓ But yeah, no, for Congress, they do all kinds of crazy. Yeah.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so. So it would start. I mean, it would start there, right? And to answer you, Laura, I don't know the starting point, right? But it's not circles and then a circle on the outside of it. It's it's as many tightly knit circles as you can based on population in the state. And yes, to your guys point, you're much more granular, which is exactly right. Gerrymandering people forget that Gerrymandering happens on city councils, on town commissions. ⁓ But it's.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: with and this is where Peter with the technology we have, it would not be hard to come up not without some inputs, but it would not be hard to come up with mathematical models that bases it purely on the tightest circle you can make with even population with the caveats of trying not to break up, know, large communities and those types of things. And when I say large communities, like literally like your if you live in a development of 3,000 homes, not to have that split 50 different times. ⁓ But it's not gonna be perfect.

Peter Pappas: Right. There might be where all the districts come together in that one section. That is possible. Anything else?

Lennie Friedman: Anything's possible, but I'd rather a 90 % solution than what we got today.

Peter Pappas: Yeah. I just, I don't know. I'd like, said earlier, it's like, does anybody really remember what it was like before we really dug into the gerrymandering, you know, the whole construct, you know, does anybody remember how it was done? No, I don't.

Lennie Friedman: No, a slight change on that when our districts and representatives were first thought of ⁓ by our founding fathers. Do know how many people were in a district? A national level congressional district on average.

Peter Pappas: No

Lennie Friedman: 35, 40,000 people. You know what it is today? Closer to 800,000.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Go ahead. pieces.

Lennie Friedman: So if you're a congressman, how can you be, if you're a congressman or congresswoman, how could you be responsive to 800,000 voters? Because the House of Representatives is supposed to be for the people, right? That's what it is. ⁓

Peter Pappas: Well because... Because ⁓ only 12 % of that 800,000 people are voting anyway. So you're really only representing 12 % of the 800,000 to be quite honest, because people don't show up anymore.

Lennie Friedman: That's true when it comes to voting, but what about the person, to use the tried and true example, that just wants their streetlight fixed? Or wants their pothole fixed? You have 800,000 people sending you emails or texts or phone calls or written letters. It's humanly impossible to really be a representative with 800,000 people.

Peter Pappas: Right. Show me your voting record and I'll decide if I'm going if you haven't voted in the last one I don't care if your light works. No, I'm just joking totally joking. That was a joke Lora's harsh man. She gets she gets gerrymandered out of a damn district and she's all about keeping everybody else down. She's like, oh hell no well Look it is a complicated situation I agree that I would like some simplicity in what's going on. I think having an equitable

Lennie Friedman: I don't know. Are students.

Peter Pappas: a system of different districts would be nice. ⁓ but I am focused hyper local, you know, the city council and county commission, the way we do that. ⁓ I think right now, county commission of Cumberland county is completely upside down and bass backwards. mean, two districts, 400,000 people. And one of the districts only has what, ⁓ a quarter of the landmass. And it includes Fort Bragg. So there's most people that don't vote in that district. So we, we have lots of change here. We need to get the military voting in local elections. we do. Well, and we'd like them to vote Republican. However, I'd like them to vote. We need to offer a valuable proposition on why they should vote for conservative things over liberal things, but that's our fault as a party. We have to get good candidates. I was going to say it's not our part is a party because I think our party platform is solid. It's the people that have tried to people are party encourages that are just dumb as a box of rocks. I'll just leave it as that. So, yeah. So Lenny, I already got criticism this past weekend and like a watch out Fayetteville group that I bashed my own party. And then they were going to boycott the restaurant. was like, I don't w what, you didn't see that. See, to me, I like holding. Okay, so I discipline my children because I love my children because I want them to be the best versions that they could possibly be. So I want to discipline the public Republican party because to me it is the best party out of our current options. Not saying it's the best party ever, but out of the current options that we have. It's the best it has or to me for me personally, I don't agree with a lot of things that other parties agree with. There are some things that I do. So to me, I reprimand them or call them out because I love them because I want us to be the best version of ourselves. Fair.

Lennie Friedman: As you should and I agree with both of you guys and and Peter and Laura I'm really glad to hear that you guys are willing to criticize Your own party. I think we need more of that. I think this whole loyalty requirement I want my dogs to be loyal, but I don't want people in my life to be loyal, right?

Peter Pappas: ⁓ It doesn't matter how close we are. Peter and I are pretty close. I would say he's almost a friend. He's my friend and we're not going to agree on 100%. So how can you expect me to agree with an entire party of hundreds of thousands of millions of people? That's just not going to happen. We're not going to agree on everything. Period.

Lennie Friedman: ⁓ But look what the parties are doing to their own politicians who disagree. We've got great examples, right? We had three Democrats in North Carolina that just lost their primary because they dared to not vote the party line, right? Terrible example. And then what just happened, and you can go back to my history with the Indiana senators, I believe it was Indiana senators, ⁓ that would not vote. to gerrymander the one district out of Indiana, right? They stood there and said, we're not gonna do this, it doesn't make sense. And what the Republican party do, led by Donald Trump, they said, ⁓ if you're not gonna support me, we're out. And they spent like $13 million on local elections. And I think only one of the people that stood up and said we shouldn't gerrymander, won his primary or their primary. So they're being punished for standing up for what they believed in. Peter, you just said that you're.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: being punished for calling out your own party. That's terrible, right?

Peter Pappas: Well, they say, okay, they try to, don't feel the punishment. Okay. But the same thing like Tucker Carlson, the same thing like, um, what's his name? Um, Ben Shapiro, um, Marjorie Taylor, Marjorie Taylor green. were all MAGA. They believed in conservatism and then they have a disagreement and then they're trash. That doesn't make any sense. That's one thing I do not agree with. Um, Donald Trump about is he, if you don't agree with him a hundred percent and walk the line and tote that

Lennie Friedman: later.

Peter Pappas: The Donald Trump line, not necessarily the Republican line, but the Donald Trump line. He's like, you're trash and you're just a gork. You know what? Just let it go. Just let it go. Let people have their own opinions. My thing I like to joke around is that people here, they love Donald Trump, but as soon as they get so they like the way Donald Trump speaks sometimes and he's a little harsh. But then when I Trump somebody and speak to them in that manner, they clutch their pearls. Yes. You're not allowed to.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah.

Peter Pappas: ⁓ Lord, say, you like it on national TV. I guess you don't like it because what you're stupid. I don't know. ⁓ I just tell them, look, I don't have to look at that in the mirror every day. And I walk off and you know, they're, they are puzzled. ⁓ but, so yeah, no, he is not the best example. And I wish some of that would stop. That just goes back to the decorum of the office and things of, ⁓ the people, just don't know. I, I agree. I just think it's very public. The way the party. cannibalizes itself. We're supposed to be the party. We're bringing people in and we keep cannibalizing our own. And that's just not okay. Right. The same, the Democrats do the same thing. So I'm not saying that the will say that too. We need to bring people into our party. You know, they want to bring people in just as much as we do, but you have the, the crazy blue hairs and the crazy red, red hats and the middle 90 % of our country's like chill out. Just, you know, we don't need this BS here.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah.

Peter Pappas: Let's move on to so Lenny you were up there in Wake County the teachers decided to close school a couple Fridays ago and March on Jones Street. ⁓ Have you seen any progress since then? I haven't.

Lennie Friedman: I haven't seen progress. mean, it's I understand what the teachers are trying to accomplish and I certainly think they're underpaid, especially when I mean it's it's a free market, right? So in our market, if you're a teacher and you can get paid more in Tennessee or South Carolina or somewhere else and you're looking for a job, you know, you're going to certainly take that into consideration. Shutting down the schools is tough. It's tough on the parents that have to find babysitters or take off work. and those types of things. understand what they're doing. I do think we should be paying teachers more. Shutting down schools is tough.

Peter Pappas: I don't think you're going to find many people that are going to publicly say, you know, screw them teachers. there are a lot of people that do, I think, justifiably say, look, you knew you were not going to get rich doing this. However, ⁓ like you said, it's market driven. And if we're losing talent to those neighboring States, then we need to bring it up. Now, governor Stein was on another podcast recently and, ⁓ his take on how we pay the teachers and state troopers and things like that. I think the quote was essentially, ⁓ North Carolina is paying people as if we're a poor state, but we're not a poor state. So a little bit free with the checkbook. think he wants to be, but I think he had a point that, ⁓ perhaps we have not kept up with the market on certain. Well, the teachers, the teachers have, or whatever, but the administrators, the administrators are making bank. We need to get rid of some of these administrators. There's a school board meeting tomorrow. want to watch? Yep. Okay. We'll watch. I'm not going down there. It'd make me drink. ⁓ I have a, ⁓ GOP board meeting. ⁓ do you? Yeah. I'm coming in dressed as Maleficent. Yeah. See I Trump people Trump speak them and she comes in and just, you know, she wears the costumes and I am the evil Laura Musler and I am going to be evil tomorrow night. Evil Laura Musler of the clan GOP. Yeah. so anyway, the teachers.

Lennie Friedman: Yep.

Peter Pappas: The teachers, firemen, policemen, they always are political footballs. They always get screwed. the biggest thing right now is that we don't have a budget that would have given them their cost of living raise and stuff like that. Now Cumberland County has increased the supplement that they paid to teachers this year by fully funding the budget for the school system. But they don't pay the salaries. No, they don't. But they pay those supplements that are, like I spoke to my teacher friend that she says it was a tangible.

Lennie Friedman: Okay.

Peter Pappas: amount of money. was, was consequential this year. but so, yeah, cause the county's responsibility is for the buildings and for the capital stuff, but they do have some flexibility. I mean, teachers shouldn't have to buy their own damn pens and pencils and they don't pay parents by them. I know four boxes of Kleenex and I need some paper towels and I need, ⁓ Sharpies the kids ⁓ send your little rug rat to the school. should send them with something.

Lennie Friedman: No.

Peter Pappas: Isn't that just Southern hospitality? guys somebody's should take a plate. I do send them with something. I send them with my taxpayer money. Oh, there we go. All right. Yeah. She's the girl gets pulled over and says, pay your, I pay your salary. I would never say that. And then I have to bail her out. No, I would never say that. I always say to a plea. I know, do you know why I pulled you over? Cause I'm cute. That's my go-to. I did tell one, uh, cause she pulled me over twice in like a three month period. And I said, look, if you wanted my number, you could have just asked, you know,

Lennie Friedman: Nice.

Peter Pappas: Exactly, but I got the ticket anyway, so I haven't gotten a ticket I've been very very nice the last one I got was on Thanksgiving Day on my way to my mom's and The lady says we'll try not to have you here too long. I said listen lady. Just give me the give me the ticket I'm more scared of my mom than I am your ticket. So let's go. So, you know, my mom doesn't like that joke, by the way So, all right, so we still have the teachers being played. So the only thing I have a problem with the rally again, and we played video last show, but again, it turned into a lot of the advocacy on behalf of the teachers, the NCA and stuff like that. Unfortunately, and I can dig these videos up, but a lot of the NCA is in doctrinal instead of instructional. And I have, I have to draw a line at that social indoctrination stuff. I need these kids learning to graduate and be able to read and write. Yeah. know, I need to look up the Pidea way of learning. Not yet. ⁓ okay. See, I'm not as a forthright as you are when it comes to threatening to have it ready by the next show. I know you will though. ⁓

Lennie Friedman: And new math. ⁓ So, you know, my standpoint within, I've got several teachers in my family and it is a tough job and they are way more patient than I am. I do think we should pay teachers more, but I also think we should have more accountability, right? Meaning, know, Peter, to your comment, first, let's make sure they can read, write and do math, right? Because that's what's gonna serve them well ⁓ post their academic career.

Peter Pappas: Agreed. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: And then after they do that, if we have the extras and we can afford it, so be it, right? But if we're not doing that, then there should be no other classes that are taking priority, right? And we've got states that are paying teachers less, that are paying less per student, that have shown great achievements in that regard. ⁓ So we've got models out there. I would love to pay teachers more. I would love to be able to hold students and teachers more accountable than we do.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: and let's focus on getting our kids educated for success.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, and we have the example of the the US Department of Education that the Trump administration wanted to disband because we have those numbers from like 1970 when it was put in and how much more we spent and how low the test scores started now the one that came the scores are based on how well you test not necessarily how well you are and that was a large mistake from Bush Bush 42 Bush 40 was it four to three? ⁓ Anyway, young George Bush, you know, that was his no child left behind thing. So I kind of feel responsible as a Republican that we put that in because we were trying to base and have some kind of metric to grade the teachers essentially. So they tried, but what it turned into was teaching for the test, not to teach for thinking. Right. That's why the critical thinking, Pidea way of learning is about logic and about deducing ideas and, and

Lennie Friedman: Thanks, Matt.

Peter Pappas: coming to a conclusion instead of just being told what the answer is. Yes. More like, okay, touch the hot stove, stupid. Go ahead. No, thank you.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so. So I'm not knowledgeable of what Laura is referring to, but I have taken a lot of math tests and you can't give a kid an answer on what the, know, of how to do division, of how to do multiplication, of how to do algebra, because there's just too many numbers for anybody to memorize, right? So if you can, based on grade level, math tests are gonna be really hard to teach to, because if you're teaching to a math test saying, well, I'm gonna force you to learn division, great. That's what I want you to do. ⁓ yeah, think it you know, there's other some of the social sciences some your history if you know that they're gonna test you on who the first president United States were and you just constantly remind them of that sure but something like math and You can't you can't give them the answers if you're giving them a long division problem or algebraic problem

Peter Pappas: Well, we, the schools, I think have replaced the family unit in some sense. You you drop, they drop off maladjusted little Johnny at seven 30 and think he's going to be well adjusted by three 30 or four. And it's not enforced in the home. So that's a whole other, like there's a social aspect of it that we do have a decline of, ⁓ dads and households and you know, mothers that aren't working three jobs to maintain. ⁓ so we have those things happening, but let's, let's move to. The budget, I don't want to talk much about it, but the way I was thinking about it when I knew you were coming on this evening, ⁓ it's a stalemate right now. ⁓ it turned out that the budget not being passed was really a personality conflict between, ⁓ Phil burger, ⁓ state Senate pro tem pro tem, and then Jason Simmons is he the one in the state house speaker.

Lennie Friedman: Thank you.

Peter Pappas: Not Jason. That's the GOP guy. Yeah, that's the GOP guy. But Bell. No. You know these guys, the Speaker of the House, North Carolina. Yeah. Okay. So basically the two speakers. No, I don't know. Maybe I should have dug in deeper. But all I know is it was a personality conflict between the two houses, the Senate and the legislature. ⁓ And we couldn't get a budget passed.

Lennie Friedman: I'm deferring to you guys.

Peter Pappas: The angle here is, know, Lenny, do you think this dysfunction between the two parties is fueling why you can exist? Why a third party, why another party can maybe swoop in and take advantage of Hall Speaker hall. These Destin Hall. There you go. sounded like a young guy. I was like, bell. I'm going through the alphabet. So Lenny, do you think that this is maybe a Enemy of my enemy type of stuff here. I mean, these, guys are in a pissing contest between each other and it was personality. I have that on good authority. So does that give you room to promote your brand? What are you doing? Yes.

Lennie Friedman: Oh, earthquake. So what it does is it shows how if you had just three or four people elected for the Forward Party, that they could move the needle, right? So you don't need 50 % of the General Assembly to be all Forward Party members. You get three or four, and then you can really help sway votes, because it's that tight of a thing.

Peter Pappas: I got excited. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: ⁓ So I do think it shows why a third party with, you know, common sense ⁓ centrist people can really have an impact. You don't need 40 or 50. You need a few people with a paper when there's such a narrow majority. You just need a few people that are willing to compromise with others that can really move the needle on something like a budget.

Peter Pappas: Okay. So with that in mind, I don't want you to divulge state secrets here, but do you have maybe a list of a dozen races or counties? Maybe you're looking to snipe and pick off to get us to that few in the legislature next cycle. I mean, are you guys planning to that extent or okay.

Lennie Friedman: 100%. So we talked about technology. I mean, we can get all the data on, you know, different districts, different races, where it makes most sense for us to for us to play. And absolutely, we've got our teams looking at that now. And I won't divulge where. But the first the the first job for us is getting on the ballot to get on the ballot. We need our 15,000 signatures. We're well over 50 % there. But yes, that's exactly right. We don't we don't we know we're not going to get 50 people in the General Assembly. But four or five, we move the needle.

Peter Pappas: So you want to be like the house freedom caucus where you have a few people that are, we'll move the needle. Yeah. But the freedom caucus, aren't they, they're still a Republican Republicans. Well, these are Republicans and Democrats of the, party. says he'll take Democrats or Republicans. He will, but they're going to be in there on the North Carolina forward party, but they're not going to be, they could be a Republican to be part of the Republic. Okay. So it goes, so they can caucus with either side, but still be aligned with you guys.

Lennie Friedman: Absolutely. Absolutely. Sure.

Peter Pappas: Right. So the free. Okay. I think I missed one of the fundamental steps here. My bad, Lenny.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so, and... Well, no. I mean, so let's say we have four or five ⁓ forward party candidates, elected officials, right? And then you find four or five Republicans and four or five centrist Democrats that just want to get shit done, that are not there, you know, to say something, to put a TikTok video or an Instagram reel out. Then you've got, you know, you've got a coalition of the willing, coalition, to use an older term, coalition of problem solvers, another common term, to get things done.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: And then you really start swaying things. ⁓ So that is a big part of what we're trying to do.

Peter Pappas: All right. Well, look, the legislature bone the whole budget thing. So you guys better swoop in and pick up some people then I expect to see some people on the ballot then Mr. Friedman. Okay. Yeah. Let's get to that. So, ⁓ I'm to wrap up here. ⁓ I want to bring up the last part that I wanted to just acknowledge. ⁓ so independent journalist, Steven Horn, who previously has been a guest here. ⁓ he, he cracks me up sometimes. He was a January 6th, ⁓ guy. actually.

Lennie Friedman: We're working to it. That's right. We're working to it.

Peter Pappas: I was convicted up there. He was there as a, he was there in the capacity of journalists and I'll let him tell his story again. But essentially he's like, I'm here as a journalist and they're like, screw you. they arrested him. Nice. So, ⁓ all kinds of rights violated that day for him. And again, whether I agree that they should have been up there acting like fools either that they were all idiots. do appreciate the one guy that did take a dump on Pelosi's desk. I mean, come on, come on. It's sophomoric, but. I mean, she's been doing that to the whole country for the last 50 years. No, no, that's disrespecting the office. It's disrespecting the people's house. No, if she was lucid enough to understand where she was. Okay. I, if there's one thing that Nancy Pelosi, I don't agree with her on anything at all underneath the sun. She is a smart as a whip and she is very lucid. You think I do.

Lennie Friedman: .

Peter Pappas: One side of the face doesn't agree with the other. Anyway, whatever. That's just personal attacks. mean, that's whatever. But anyway, I feel like she's been dumping on the whole country for 50 years and we can just agree to disagree on that. So independent journalist, Mr. Horn has created a website called Cooper released him. I'm going to share that so that everybody can see. Let's see here, tab Cooper. Okay. So, ⁓ we should be seeing should be coming up now. ⁓ first off, a very simple, but you know, nice design here. what has been proffered is that approximately 50 % of the people that governor Cooper released during COVID for overcrowding or whatever it was, reoffended. So four to 200 offenders.

Lennie Friedman: Okay.

Peter Pappas: 2412 recidivist people that went back to jail So more than 50 % yeah, yeah it is 52,000 pre-release offenses and 6100 post offense releases so that's almost like each one of the recidivists committed three crimes each nice, isn't that nice and I do want to well congratulations to the 42 % that didn't right right Yeah. You, you did what you were supposed to do, which is not act up in public. Are we rewarding the absolute, ⁓ bare minimum now? I mean, if let's pretend for a moment that I was a criminal and I was in jail and I got a second chance, I would not go back. Yeah. You wouldn't want to. No. So congratulations to those people that did the right thing. Some people like to be amongst their peers. Yeah. You know, ⁓ so this is, I do want to share this, ⁓ whether we agree or disagree. So part of the Cooper released him. This was the motivation behind it. ⁓ if you can see that it is a billboard in Charlotte, welcome to Charlotte. We hope you don't die. That's nice. And it's a, of course this is Irina, ⁓ who of course this gentleman was her, or this man was her murderer on camera. He was released a bunch though. Yeah, he was. Well, the excuse there was mental illness and Roy Cooper wasn't there releasing people. No.

Lennie Friedman: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Peter Pappas: No, he wasn't. So...

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so I have a few questions about some of this. So I don't dispute the data, right? So let's just take the data as accurate, right? 5,000 people released, 50 % of them got arrested even. Yep. So let's leave that as is. My question would be is what control did, and this is an honest question for the reporter, what control did Cooper actually have to release them?

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. re-offended.

Lennie Friedman: was it because I don't believe the governor can just decide to release people, right? So what is the process that was put in place? What were the decisions that went into releasing them? Why were they released? Who was part of it? Because I find it really hard to believe when I see some things like that that says Cooper released all these people, did he? Because you had the North Carolina General Assembly there and they typically have an it or the rule.

Peter Pappas: Well, let's. So let's, if we peel back that onion for a moment, let's remember who the attorney general was for governor Cooper, current governor style. So, so no, see Lenny, you're having a rational thought process of he probably wasn't the one with the keys in his hand, ⁓ that there were other things in place, but you know, that appearance is politics and it's just as you know, Donald Trump closing the border and sending ice and doing all this crap. That's a Donald Trump's at the border. but that's him doing it, you see? So it's the perception, and that's what this is about. It's whether we believe that Cooper went and unlocked 5,000 hardened criminals is not the point. ⁓ Send me your questions, because I'll ask him. Rational people will ask the questions you're asking, and rational people will step through it and be like, yeah, He didn't actually go and release them. Maybe he ordered it. I don't know. I would like to know how this came about. they were released while he was the governor. That doesn't necessarily mean that Cooper released him and I'm not a governor Cooper fan. but I, I like to like, no, I don't like to speak about. and I look, so the website existing is, accusatory of governor Cooper, but you know, we hold our political elected officials, you know, accountable. And this happened on his watch.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah. Yeah. And I think so I think we should separate a few things. First is probably a very good ad if you are anti Cooper, right? So from a political ad and perceptions reality, it's a good ad, right? I've seen those type of things out there. And I'm certainly not expert in any of this. And as the governor, you can certainly push for policies and push for things that you want to get done and you were helping to steer the ship, which is a big ship. But I'd like to, to Laura's point, I'd like to pull the thread a little bit more, right? So how long were, what was the policy? What were the decisions on to release someone? Those decisions clearly weren't well thought out if 50 % are going back to jail. So there's a problem there. Who all was involved? What is the real decision process? I would just like to...

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: I would like to understand the data, understand the details before jumping to two assumptions or conclusions. But as an ad, it's an effective ad.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Agreed. Agreed. ⁓ I'm going to run that ad all over the place, but I just want to know. I kind of do want a little truth on advertising. Like I do want to know. And I would want to step through it. ⁓ like Lenny's saying, you know, that's right. That's what rational adults are supposed to do. Right. We're not supposed to read the headline and just go absolutely crazy. That's what I'm saying. I want to know. I want to know the. before this guy comes on, I'm going to do a deep dive to figure out exactly what it was that made them say governor Cooper released them. and like I said, it's just an emergency, like, cause he could have given like an emergency executive order. And I think it was around COVID when a lot of the stuff happened. look, we gave up so much in COVID. We really were just at shame on the American people. Yeah. Well, not me. I didn't get a jab. didn't, I refused to put on a mask, all of it. I got a job because my parents were living with me and they still got the damn COVID. So I got it. Now I have weird, weird DNA now, cause I was trying to protect people. You have weird DNA anyway. didn't say it was started off normal. you know, Jesus. right. Well, you know what, before we go too long, I just want to remind everybody tomorrow, ⁓ Mr. Bill Bowman's wife's memorial is at Rogers and Brees at 11 AM. ⁓ this coming Wednesday, we welcome Mr. Tom Hatch.

Lennie Friedman: you

Peter Pappas: ⁓ principal, former principal of Terry Sanford high school, a former candidate for school board district three, I believe, ⁓ very vocal advocate for the school system. ⁓ we're not going to agree with him on school vouchers. We already have, I think I've already told them, we're just not gonna, we're not going to spar much on that. ⁓ we're not going to spar. I like Tom, know, he just, he just doesn't see it way I do. Hold on just a second. Just because we like somebody doesn't mean we don't challenge their thought process. ⁓ So you're saying you can't start? began my day very challenged. but no, we're going to challenge Tom, but it's going to be a rational debate. We are not going to be a- ever a rational? Behind the scenes maybe. was gonna say. Okay. Yeah. All right. We know you outside of here. Okay. Right. So look, I guess my final thought here, know, Republican, Democrat, independent, North Carolina forward party. Are we just politically exhausted? think one thing everybody can agree upon is that North Carolina politics, we are definitely an interesting bird. And I feel like we're the house of misfit toy sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. So I want to thank everybody for, we ask where, where ⁓ listeners can hear more about the forward party? How about let's give, let's let him plug a little. Okay. And I will put it on, on the screen since you're shaming me right now. I'm not sure. Go ahead, Lenny, give me your website. I'll put it up.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, absolutely. North Carolina NC Forward Party.com. We're on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. We try to be at events every weekend, multiple times a week. We were just down at the Fayetteville Dogwood Blooms Festival. We were in Apex. We were all over the place. So come check us out, ask us questions. Yep.

Peter Pappas: I a question. I have a very specific question. need, I am the president of the Fayetteville Republican Women's Club. And I would love if you have somebody in your forward party that is a registered Republican that come and could come and speak to the Republican party too. Cause I'm not allowed to have anybody that's not a Republican speak. You can attend our meeting, but you can't speak and can you speak to each other? You can speak to each other, but you can't. put on a presentation unless you are a registered Republican. So if you have anybody in your forward party that is a registered Republican, I would love to have you come down and speak before the Fayetteville Republican Women's Party. So maybe win some hearts and minds.

Lennie Friedman: So I can tell you that the Republican mayor of Concord is ⁓ forward aligned. Now can't say that he's going to come and speak with you guys. And a Republican commissioner out in Wake Forest ⁓ is also forward aligned. We say forward aligned because we're not official party yet until we're on the ballot. ⁓ But yes, absolutely. I will look into that and I'll get you some names.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Mm-hmm. Thank you so very much. appreciate you. Thank you, Lenny. So thank you to everybody that jumped in and out of our live today. Even though I was a little staccato with the beginning and you have homework to do. ⁓ you know, you can always catch our shows on the carolina cabinet.com please visit and you can like share or follow of course the usual stuff, but you can also send us a voice note and you can sign up to be a guest. And we're going to figure out if there's a phone call number that we can phone call in and we will have a phone number at some point. Yes, we will.

Lennie Friedman: Absolutely.

Peter Pappas: Well Lenny, it's always a pleasure having you. We look forward to seeing you again soon, And to everybody watching, enjoy your evening. We'll see you back here Wednesday at 2 PM. Take care now.

Lennie Friedman: Thank you.

Peter Pappas: stop. There we go. We're out.