Walz to announce rural policy plans on vice presidential campaign trail

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CATHY WURZER: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Later today, Governor Tim Walz will unveil Vice President Harris's plan for rural voters. We'll learn more details about the plan, whether it might have any sway with rural voters and how it will actually affect people in rural communities across the state of Minnesota.

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Acadia Healthcare is facing a federal investigation over its practices in its psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, it's partnering with Minnesota-based Fairview Health Services on a new mental health hospital in St. Paul. We'll learn more about the investigation and whether it throws a wrench into those plans.

Plus, I am really looking forward to talking to two musical legends-- a member of the Swedish group ABBA and Minneapolis group VocalEssence. We'll learn more about their new collaboration. All that and a whole lot more coming up right after the news.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. A Trump town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, last night went from a standard Q&A session to an impromptu music fest. At times, former President Trump swayed and closed his eyes as the operatic voices of Pavarotti played over speakers. It was a side of Trump the public doesn't often see. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben explains what led to the unusual event.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN: The town hall part of the event lasted nearly an hour and was moderated by South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem. The event was paused twice for incidents in which the crowd called for a medic. Audience members shouted that the room was too hot. Later, Trump ended the question segment and asked the audience to stick around.

DONALD TRUMP: You could sit and listen. We'll play a couple of songs. Some of you will be a little warm, but that's OK. It's not a bad thing. And if you want, we're going to do that. But I think it would be beautiful, don't you think? A little different.

KRISTI NOEM: I think it'd be amazing, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Nice to have imagined. Isn't it a nice thing to have imagination?

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN: Trump remained on stage for more than half an hour while an array of songs played. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Vice President Harris is scheduled to campaign today in Detroit, Michigan, to take part in a live iHeart Radio interview. Hurricane Helene recovery is stretching into yet another day in North Carolina.

This comes after officials say workers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency temporarily halted some operations because of threats over the weekend. The decision stemmed from false information that the federal agency is unable to adequately respond to storm victims. Alongside FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell, Governor Roy Cooper issued a blunt message today.

ROY COOPER: There's still a persistent and dangerous flow of misinformation about recovery efforts in Western North Carolina that can lead to threats and intimidation, breeds confusion, and demoralizes storm survivors and response workers alike.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The warning comes after the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office reported that an armed man had threatened FEMA officials outside a grocery store that was being used as a storm relief site. Boeing is seeking to raise billions of dollars to replenish its cash flow. NPR's Joel Rose reports the troubled planemaker is dealing with the fallout from an ongoing strike by its machinists' union.

JOEL ROSE: Boeing told federal regulators it plans to raise up to $25 billion by selling stock and other securities, and that it's opened a new $10 billion line of credit. Those announcements come as the company is losing $1 billion a month, according to one estimate, because of a strike that has effectively shut down the factories where the company assembles its most popular jets.

About 33,000 workers, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, have been on strike for over a month, as they push for higher wages and better retirement benefits. Last week, Boeing said it would lay off about 10% of its workforce in order to, quote, "stay competitive." Joel Rose, NPR News.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The Dow Jones Industrial average is down 117 points at 42,947. From Washington, this is NPR News.

ANNOUNCER: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations. Other contributors include Bank of America, offering access to resources and digital tools designed to help local to global companies make moves for their businesses. Learn more at bankofamerica.com/bankingforbusiness.

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CATHY WURZER: Around Minnesota right now, skies are sunny. Temperatures are cool. Upper 40s, mid 50s for highs today. At noon in Fergus Falls, it's 43, 46 in Red Wing, and outside Betty's Pie-- it's on the North Shore of Lake Superior, north of Two Harbors-- it's 44. I'm Cathy Wurzer with Minnesota news headlines.

A Minneapolis woman charged with murder in a hit-and-run is likely to remain in jail after a judge ruled today to keep bail at $1.5 million instead of lowering it. Estelle Timar-Wilcox has the story.

ESTELLE TIMAR-WILCOX: 22-year-old Latalia Margalli allegedly drove her car into a crowd in downtown Minneapolis last month, killing 16-year-old De'Miaya Broome and injuring five other people. At a hearing Tuesday, Margalli's attorney requested a lower bail amount. He said Margalli has three young children and said she's been facing poor treatment in jail from other inmates and staff.

Judge Carolina Lamas ruled instead to keep bail at $1.5 million. She cited the seriousness of the hit-and-run and Margalli's criminal record, which includes a 2021 assault conviction. Margalli's next hearing is scheduled for November. I'm Estelle Timar-Wilcox.

CATHY WURZER: Former President Donald Trump's campaign owes the city of St. Cloud more than $200,000 for expenses related to a summer rally. Kirsti Marohn has more on that.

KIRSTI MAROHN: The city billed the Trump campaign for the expenses it incurred related to the Republican presidential nominee's July 27 speech at a hockey arena at St. Cloud State University. The event drew thousands of people. City administrator Matt Staehling says the bill totaled nearly $209,000. It included overtime expenses for the police and fire departments to provide extra security.

MATT STAEHLING: There was certainly, I think, a heightened sense of importance with the former president coming to town within just a week or two of that assassination attempt. So I know there was a feeling of, we need to get this right.

KIRSTI MAROHN: The invoice also covered changes to a road construction project to allow the Secret Service to travel through a previously closed roundabout. Staehling says the bill was due October 10, but the city has not yet received payment. I'm Kirsti Marohn.

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CATHY WURZER: This afternoon, Governor Tim Walz will unveil Vice President Kamala Harris's plan for rural voters during a campaign stop in rural Pennsylvania. The plan has an emphasis on rural health care, which includes loan forgiveness for doctors and nurses, expanding rural telehealth services, and expanding ambulance services. The plan also includes building new streams of income for mid-sized farmers and producers.

Joining us right now to break down this plan is Matt Barron. Matt's a rural political strategist who worked with Governor Walz congressional campaign back in 2005. He's familiar with Walz's record in rural Minnesota. Matt, good to hear your voice again. Thanks for joining us.

MATT BARRON: Hi, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Well, this plan's interesting. The big focus on rural health care and maintaining access-- I mean, you've seen it in rural Minnesota. Maternity wards are closing. There's burnout across the board among health care providers. When you look at this plan, do you think it effectively addresses some of these health issues?

MATT BARRON: Oh, for certain. I mean, I live in the most rural part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I live in a medically underserved area, as designated by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

I also live in what's called a rural HPSA, a Health Professional Shortage Area, which means you don't have enough primary care physicians, dentists, and mental health professionals. So my neighbors and I, I mean, we're living this problem. So I think it's very strong on some of the policy prescriptions for addressing the needs in rural health care.

CATHY WURZER: We've had problems in Minnesota-- I don't know if you have in where you are living in Massachusetts, but there are big problems with volunteer EMS programs. They don't have enough individuals. They're running out of money. Boy, the number of Americans living more than 25 minutes away from an ambulance has grown. And evidently, this plan will help when it comes to rural ambulance services. What's the situation where you live?

MATT BARRON: Yes, it's very similar. I mean, we have volunteer fire departments and there's a problem of recruiting people to serve in those. Years ago, people worked in town. They worked on the farm. When there was a fire, they got off the tractor and got on the fire truck. Now people commute far away, and it's a serious problem.

CATHY WURZER: Rural voters, as you know, Matt, are a generally strong, Trump leading voting bloc. Former president carried rural voters by nearly 2 to 1 margin back in 2020. Why do you think this plan could maybe sway some rural voters?

MATT BARRON: I think what's interesting about it is the Democrats look at rural America more holistically than the Republicans. Republicans tend to look at rural America as just farmers and ranchers. And in this plan, there's an emphasis on health care, child care. Clearly, the ag sector's mentioned. But I think it's sort of well rounded. I mean, there's things that I wish were also in there, but--

CATHY WURZER: For instance?

MATT BARRON: Well, trade is only given one little paragraph, and I would have loved to seen them come out for having exports to Cuba, which is something that Senator Klobuchar has really championed her Freedom to Export to Cuba Act.

Texas A&M University has estimated that if we allowed Cuba to buy our farm, forest, and fisheries products on credit, like all our other trading partners, instead of cash, that would be worth $1.25 billion in annual sales and would help create more than 31,000 American jobs, including 1,259 in Minnesota. In fact, Minnesota would get $46 million a year. So out of all the 50 states, it would be number eighth in exports.

CATHY WURZER: I wonder, though, Matt, because you mentioned trade here, I wonder if it's not emphasized in this plan because the Biden-Harris administration has taken hits from Trump on NAFTA and other trade deals.

MATT BARRON: Well, I mean, there have been no trade deals under Biden and Harris. I mean, I think a lot of members of Congress would like to continue doing free standing free trade agreements, but that's not happening.

But in the case of Cuba, I mean, they're a net importer of-- they're a deficit milk producer, so they import 100,000 tons of milk powder annually. They import 10 million board feet of [? software ?] lumber. Instead of coming from Brazil and Spain and milk coming from New Zealand, it could come from Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Say, I'm wondering here, I mean, you know Tim Walz really well.

MATT BARRON: Sure.

CATHY WURZER: How has he been doing in his appeal to rural voters? I mean, he's out in rural Pennsylvania today. He's evidently in a new ad specifically focusing on rural voters. When you look at what he's been doing, what do you think?

MATT BARRON: Well, I think it's good that they've deployed him to rural counties, because clearly, that is his strength. Whether it's going to high school football games in Pennsylvania or going to farms in some of the other battleground states, it's clearly in his comfort zone. We'll find out if it's making a difference. I mean, they are doing all the right things as far as the messaging and trying to do targeting on rural radio and ads in weekly newspapers and things like that. I can't ask more than that.

CATHY WURZER: Do you think rural voters are going to be a bloc this year that could really make or break the election?

MATT BARRON: Well, I mean, the Democrats have to cut the margins in rural counties. They can't let Trump just run up winds of 70%, 80%, like he did in 2016. And in 2020, he even increased those margins in many places. So they have to compete. They have to address these issues. They have to show up. They have to put paid media money behind their rhetoric. And we'll see.

I mean, a place like Wisconsin is 33% rural. So it's one of the closest, if not the closest, battleground state. So you're not going to carry it unless you really get into these rural counties and get into the weeds about some of these things that directly affect those rural voters.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Matt Baron, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

MATT BARRON: Great. Have a great day.

CATHY WURZER: You, too. Matt Baron is a rural political strategist. Now, we wanted to talk to someone who's living in rural Minnesota about how these policies, if enacted, could actually affect our rural communities. So joining us right now is Aaron Brown. Aaron is an author and instructor at Minnesota North College in Hibbing, also a columnist for The Star Tribune. Good to hear your voice, my friend. How have you been?

AARON BROWN: Hi, Cathy. Good. How are you?

CATHY WURZER: Good, good so far. Only three weeks left to go until the election. So--

AARON BROWN: That's right. Different.

CATHY WURZER: --there's that. Yeah. So we've had you on the program a lot about rural health care access. You mentioned your mom had been sick, and it's been a pretty big deal in your life. When you look at this plan-- and of course, we're going to drill down to the specifics here later this afternoon.

But when you look at this plan being unveiled today, there's a big focus on that, the loan forgiveness program for nurses and doctors. I think the state of Minnesota, gosh, I think passed a similar bill. When you look at what's in this particular plan, what do you think of it?

AARON BROWN: Well, I think it's a bold step towards one of the most important parts of rural communities, which is the health care community. If you think about it, not just in terms of health outcomes for people, how they get served, the economy really depends on health care workers. I'm sitting here in Hibbing right now. And of course, people know about Hibbing Taconite, the big iron ore mine. But the biggest employer in Hibbing is actually the Hibbing Hospital and the system that surrounds it.

And so, whether it's nurses, or CNAs, or the doctors themselves, this is a huge part of the economy. And so the whole middle class is really buttressed by this health care community. So what it might impact is actually these are some of the swing voters, too. They can see a solution to their problems.

They're understaffed. They need more people. If they can get their loans forgiven while attracting new people to fill out the shifts that are going half-filled, I think that could make a difference, especially because a lot of those folks are not, I would say, overtly political. The biggest thing going on in rural Minnesota is this large number of somewhat apolitical people. A lot of attention is paid to the loudest people at the bars or cafes. And a lot of those people do support Donald Trump.

But there's a lot of people who are coming into this election, I won't say open-minded, but not with a strong-- not with a lot of specific optimism about the election changing their lives. But they could see how the election could change their lives. There is growth there, particularly for Harris, because she's so far behind in rural areas.

CATHY WURZER: I want to ask a little bit about the tactics here in just a moment, but I also want to address something that Kamala Harris unveiled a couple of weeks ago, I believe. And it was the plan to strengthen Medicare and help pay for home health care aides. With your mom in a rural area, what'd you think of that plan? It didn't get a whole lot of traction, but it was certainly interesting.

AARON BROWN: I was fascinated because I think just writing a piece about the sandwich generation and the challenges that families face in finding care for their parents and kids and all this chaos going on in that point in life. And it was that very day that Harris released this plan.

And yeah, it didn't get a lot of attention. But I think if you look at the things that could change people's lives day to day, it's one of those things that actually could. I don't know if people are too cynical to believe that it could happen. Maybe they imagine a divided Congress and White House that couldn't pass anything, and maybe this won't pass either, because that's happened before.

And that's actually probably the biggest challenge with these kind of proposals is, they're good. You can maybe find reasons why they're good, but getting them through a divided Congress, or even a narrow majority Congress, is really challenging, particularly in the Senate, because of the filibuster. So it's really challenging that way.

So, I mean in terms of day-to-day life, though, heck, the one question I have, as a person living in a rural area where so many people are older and so many people need care, is, how sustainable is a federal program to provide home health care. Because to be honest, the numbers, looking ahead at the baby boom generation, are so incredibly tilted towards the people who need care versus the people who are physically available to provide the care. And that's going to be a big balloon that's going to pop in the very near future.

CATHY WURZER: And who's going to pay for that? Yeah. Matt Barron had some interesting things to say just tactically about rural voters when it comes to Harris Walz. And I'm sure you heard him. President Trump, former President Trump is pretty popular among rural voters. And Matt said Democrats got to cut the margins. They got to compete. How's it looking out there in your neck of the woods in rural Minnesota?

AARON BROWN: Well, I'm not a polling firm. I talk to people. And I would say that here, on the range, which, as you know, shifted to the right ever since 2016, when Donald Trump carried some of these precincts and counties and legislative districts for the first time in generations for a Republican, that's solidified. 2020 kind of solidified and even expanded those gains.

2024, I'm not sure. I talked to some people who are getting tired of the Trump act, and they think maybe that there could be a bit of an ebb back towards Democrats. I'm not saying a big shift, but an ebb.

And then on the other hand, there's some people who are as devout and believing in Trump as ever. And so what will those-- like I said earlier, those fairly apolitical voters, they go to work, they send their kids to school. They really are bothered just by the talk of politics. And what will they do? Will they recognize the issues at stake, the differences between the candidates' proposals and styles of leadership, and will they respond to that? Or will they go along the trend, which, in rural areas, have been towards Trump?

CATHY WURZER: All right. Well, we'll see what happens. Three weeks left here, Aaron. It's going to get pretty interesting. All right. I appreciate you taking time and talking with us. Thank you so much. It's good to hear your voice again.

AARON BROWN: Yeah, you, too, Cathy. Take care.

CATHY WURZER: Aaron Brown is an author, instructor, Minnesota North College in Hibbing. That's where he works. He's also a columnist for The Star Tribune. Say, by the way, we have one of our politics reporters, Dana Ferguson, with the Walz campaign right now in Pennsylvania. And she'll be at the event unveiling this rural plan, this rural voter plan. You can hear her report this afternoon on All Things Considered.

[BATHTUB CIG, "MARRY ME"]

It is time for a Minnesota Music Minute. This is the song "Marry Me" by the indie pop band Bathtub Cig. This song is off a new album that the lead singer, Hilary James, released on what would have been her mom's birthday. She says it is an album about relationships, grief, and ultimately, love.

BATHTUB CIG: (SINGING) I'll be in the field

With crickets singing and the frogs

Will jump around our legs

As we're wading through the creek

Buzzing bees will fly around our hair

I'll turn to you

Marry me

Marry me

Marry me, Addie

CATHY WURZER: We're going to turn now to a national investigation that could have implications here in Minnesota. Acadia Healthcare is under scrutiny after New York Times reporters discovered some of its psychiatric hospitals held patients against their will, even when it was not medically necessary. Acadia agreed to pay nearly $20 million in a settlement over its practices last month.

And it's now facing a new federal investigation, according to The Times. The company runs mental health hospitals in 19 states. Minnesota is not yet one of them, but Acadia is partnering with Fairview Health Services on a new hospital that's under construction right now in St. Paul. The 144-bed facility is part of an effort to address what the State Department of Health calls "a mental health bed capacity crisis."

Given these plans, we wanted to learn more about the investigation. So we've called up New York Times reporter Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and she's on the line. Jessica, thank you. I know you're busy. Thanks for making the time.

JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG: No, no, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: As you know, there's always something that sparks a reporter to get on to a story. What was the seed of this reporting project for you?

JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG: Well, my reporting partner, Katie Thomas, and I, we've been writing about health care, focusing on a range of health care investigations. And last year, in the midst of reporting a totally separate project, we kind of heard a whisper, something like you should look into this company, Acadia Healthcare. And at the time, it didn't mean all that much to us.

And then at the start of this year, we started to dig in. And we started to-- just for people who don't know Acadia Healthcare, the company is the largest for-profit company that focuses exclusively on behavioral health. And it has inpatient psychiatric hospitals all over the country.

Like you said in your introduction, it is not yet in Minnesota, but it already has a joint venture with another hospital system to open an inpatient psychiatric hospital. So the company has a very large footprint. And what we started to do is request information, things like complaints, health inspections, complaints filed.