RALEIGH — Approximately two dozen legislators from both chambers of the General Assembly attended a recent Carolina Partnership for Reform event featuring remarks by CNN contributor Scott Jennings.
Carolina Partnership for Reform is a 501(c)(4) organization that “educates the public about the benefits of policies that adhere to those principles and the advantages of the free-enterprise system.”
Jennings’ remarks centered on the importance of free speech and were followed by a fireside chat with his longtime friend, veteran lobbyist Jonathan Felts.
Jennings said he got his start in 2000 with then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his “mentor in politics is Mitch McConnell, who recruited me into the business in the first place.”
“Today, my work on CNN revolves around explaining to our audience and half the country about why Donald Trump is doing what he’s doing and why it’s OK,” said Jennings. “And in replying to what are objectively crazy arguments that are made by my compatriots on the stage.”
Jennings drew a comparison between Republicans and Democrats, with the Republicans currently being a “pro-American, pro-free speech and pro-Western civilization” party. He also drew attention to efforts globally to silence speech.
“The left, here and abroad, especially in Europe abroad, has become, I think, a movement of censorship,” said Jennings. “Can’t beat them in an election? Silence them; say that speech is violence to justify it. Really dangerous stuff.”
Jennings said Trump upended the traditional conservative-liberal political schema.
“Today, he represents a political and cultural axis that blends the restoration of common sense to our culture, the defense of Western civilization in our world and the promotion of free speech first,” Jennings said.
Jennings also discussed the public’s historic low trust in legacy media and institutions, citing a Gallup poll that showed just 31% of Americans trusted the media, and 36% said they have no trust in the media at all.
“We are living through a crisis of trust in institutions, and no more place is it more prevalent than in the institutional media,” said Jennings. “So as a result of this crisis, people are looking elsewhere for information. They are more willing to question what they are told by official sources than they have ever been.
“Elon Musk has adopted a tagline for his platform X. He says, ‘We are the media now.’ He is doing with information what Trump did to politics in 2016,” Jennings remarked. “They both found a market demand for something different, and they both met the moment.”
The free speech theme continued during the chat with Felts, during which the pair discussed the media’s recent use of the phrase “Constitutional crisis” with regard to spending audits conducted by Musk through Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Jennings said that phrase didn’t happen by coincidence, and it was an example of how the left “fundamentally controls the biggest channels of the political information distribution complex.”
“Not only do they control it, but they’re willing to exercise control over it,” Jennings said, adding that people are now catching on to such tactics.
Breakout sessions before Jennings’ luncheon remarks included presentations from policy experts on energy, health care and taxes.
David Gattie, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Georgia and a senior fellow of the school’s Center for International Trade and Security, focused on the nation’s energy production as a national security issue.
His presentation contrasted Biden’s energy priority of cutting fossil fuels with Trump’s focus on U.S. energy dominance as a matter of national security, especially when it comes to combatting China, which is not ceasing its use, production or dependence on fossil fuels.
Gattie said accelerating the U.S. energy transition to alternatives will put the U.S. behind as a superpower, noting that China already occupies a vast amount of space in the alternatives sector.
“This is not a denial of climate change; it is about our response to it,” Gattie said. He later summed up some of his remarks on the acceleration in decarbonization efforts as a “unilateral disarmament.”
Gattie also called attention to China ramping up the addition of data centers, which have immense electricity demands, and presented data showing the U.S. is not even remotely keeping pace.
“The governors are going to need to get on board with this,” Gattie said about energy infrastructure needs. “If the governors don’t do it, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Tanner Aliff, a visiting research fellow focusing on state policy reform and research for the Paragon Health Institute, offered a look at the serious issues the state faces in the health care sector.
Aliff’s presentation highlighted Kaiser poll data showing two in three North Carolinians have put off care visits or procedures due to fear of costs, with 58% fearing they are unable to afford the care they need even with insurance.
Per Allif’s presentation, costs in North Carolina include the consolidation of health care providers, lack of price transparency, no patient agency and health care professional shortages.
Allif also underscored the need for the state to eliminate Certificate of Need laws (CON), referring to the state’s CON laws as “some of the worst in the country.” He also said lawmakers should be holding nonprofit hospitals accountable for their charity services.
On taxes, Abir Mandal, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, examined the legislature’s tax reforms to date and how they compare to tax reforms enacted in other states.
North Carolina ranks 12th in the Tax Foundations’ 2025 Competitive Index ratings, which takes into account personal, corporate, sales, property and unemployment insurance tax rates.
Mandal focused on the state’s franchise tax, which currently taxes businesses based on worth instead of profits, as ripe for repeal or reform. Such actions would raise the state’s overall competitive ranking.
It was also mentioned that more people are working from home following the pandemic than any other time in history, which has ramifications for employees living in one state but performing work in another state. This type of nonresident taxation is another issue Mandal said lawmakers should look at.
