SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
An alarming report about a candidate for North Carolina governor has upended that race and is also affecting the presidential contest. Ron Elving joins us. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: CNN reports a Republican candidate, Mark Robinson, left a number of disturbing and shocking comments on a porn site many years ago. NPR has not confirmed them. Mr. Robinson has denied the words are his. What kind of problem might this be for former President Trump?
ELVING: Mark Robinson has been a problem for North Carolina Republicans since he was elected lieutenant governor four years ago with Trump's endorsement. Now, as the nominee for governor, with Trump's support, he's been running well behind the Democratic nominee, Josh Stein, even before these reports.
Robinson has denied the comments but without addressing the array of evidence tying him to them. And just before the deadline for removing his name from the ballot this week, a lot of Republicans were trying to get him to drop out. Now, the Trump campaign says this is all about Robinson. But this is an African American who Trump has said was a far better speaker than Martin Luther King, calling him Martin Luther King on steroids. Some were suggesting he would help Trump get some Black votes in North Carolina this fall, even while firing up the base. But if that was once a prospect, the Republicans now fear he will hurt their turnout, and that's the key.
SIMON: Let me ask you about yesterday's decision by the Georgia Board of Elections. A majority of members - all Trump supporters - ordered that the state must count its ballots by hand come November. What effect could that have?
ELVING: If this decision stands, it means hand-counting 5 million pieces of paper. It means we aren't going to have Georgia's results for days, if not weeks - a flashback to Florida in the 2000 election, a nightmare of epic proportions, perhaps. And it means more doubt, not less, about the accuracy of the count. It's been condemned by officials in both parties, but it's been praised by the Trump campaign.
SIMON: Ron, the Federal Reserve cut its target interest rate by half a percentage point this week. Former President Trump accused the Board of Governors of doing this as a favor to the Democrats. How do you read their decision?
ELVING: The Federal Reserve Board of Governors determines borrowing costs for financial institutions and individuals. For more than two years, it's been raising those costs to throttle down the economy, to fight inflation. That's made it harder to start or expand a business, to buy homes or build new housing, and it's worked. The economy has slowed enough to reduce those price pressures without a recession - a soft landing, at least so far.
So consumers and investors are eager for the Fed to ease up again, and now it's done so, and economic activity should follow. Now, that may not serve Trump's interest at the moment, so he says it's political. We should note that the members of the Fed Board are appointed for long terms, so they don't represent just one president. They tend to represent both parties, as the current board does. And in fact, the current board chairman, Jerome Powell, who announced this rate cut this week, was appointed by none other than Donald Trump.
SIMON: And, of course, the week can't end without me asking you a question that's based on polls. Number of polls, Ron, have come out showing that the debate between Vice President Harris and Donald Trump did not give Vice President Harris as much of a bounce in the election as had been predicted. Are you surprised?
ELVING: This is an enormously consequential election, and most voters seem to be deeply dug in on one side or the other. It's going to take a lot to produce a measurable movement in the head-to-head polls nationwide or in the swing states. It was notable that the post-debate polls so consistently called the debate for Harris.
Now, that helps establish her candidacy up against a former president. It gets her over an enormous legitimacy hurdle. In the long run, it may prove to have been pivotal. But in the short run and in such a polarized environment, it's hard to expect anything to produce a dramatic shift.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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