Mo Green says Michele Morrow's calls for a Trump coup on Jan. 6 are 'disturbing'

Can we please get your name and title Yes my

name is Maurice Green

I go by Mo and I'm a candidate for the

position of North Carolina superintendent of public instruction

And you are of course the Democratic candidate

That's correct

Yeah

Um So I realize you had appeared on CNN

I think it was last night talking about some comments

that were made by your your um your rival uh

Michelle Morrow the represents the Republican candidate for this

What was your reaction when you heard about some of

the videos and especially the one that has been you

know most recently in the headlines

What was your reaction to that So my reaction was

um first of all that I thought it was deeply

disturbing

I thought it was uh incredibly dangerous as well

Yes

So I I think about it in the context of

what we're trying to do in running our public schools

and wanting to be sure that we have safe and

secure learning environments and to think that we could have

someone who you know said what she said on that

video in charge of our safety and security of our

uh 1.3 million public school students was deeply disturbing to

me

Um yeah also you know certainly think about the fact

that uh whoever is elected uh is gonna have to

swear to an oath to uphold the constitution

And it causes me to question whether um you know

she could actually be trusted to uphold the constitution when

she says in the video to put it aside and

essentially put in a military coup

Yeah absolutely

And um to be fair I mean in that video

she did um basically denounced the people who committed violence

that day

Um You know and said that they should have been

arrested the people at the at the January 6th protest

But you still feel like there's there's concerns there in

terms of how seriously she would take safety at the

schools

Oh no question about it

I mean so we've got to think about this as

part of a pattern

Uh If you think about some of the other things

that she's also said for example calling for the executions

of many including President Biden including President Barack Obama and

actually said that he uh she would like to see

him executed on publicly on pay for view of our

own Governor Governor Cooper and many many others

And so when you put it in that context uh

when you put it in the context that she actually

took her own Children to this uh insurrection uh if

you put it in the context of all of the

folks who I mean there were folks who lost their

lives there to then come back and put yourself on

video and talk about

Now we're gonna talk about putting aside the constitution

Um And we're gonna install the military and we're gonna

arrest many for treason absolutely deeply concerning and incredibly dangerous

Sure

I mean I did also want to address another comment

that has surfaced recently

Um she was apparently recorded without her knowledge in Milwaukee

um during the Republican National convention uh by a Democratic

operative who was posing as a conservative um and was

asking her about um Bible studies in schools and she

said that she would approve or she would approve of

or want to see Bible studies in public schools as

an elective

Now I mean he was egging her on to be

fair

But what do you make of that So um you

know I've seen just this morning a clip of it

and uh so I I don't know that I've seen

all of it first of all

Uh but the part that I saw uh she did

say elective uh Bible study in schools

And so those already exist in many many of our

schools

Um And so you know that is something certainly that

local districts can make a decision about um as to

whether they want to to do that

Um the thing that I think we need to be

thinking about though is let's be sure that we think

about what are the significant issues impacting our schools uh

today

And I would lift up uh things like uh the

woeful underfunding of our public schools in general

I would also lift up uh how much we are

disrespecting our educators and not paying them what they uh

deeply deserve

Uh that we need to be focused on being sure

that we provide differentiated uh uh resources such that each

child can get what uh they need to be successful

uh when they leave high school

So yeah along with what we've already discussed safe and

secure learning environments those are the things that we need

to focus on

Um And so this issue certainly folks should have the

freedom to um you know believe in their faith and

uh read about it and certainly in an elective uh

you know course um you know districts are already allowing

that to happen and that happened

Um One more question I wanted to ask about um

what do you I guess what do you see as

the biggest difference between yourself and Michelle Morrow as a

candidate for this office So um if I might just

say that I think about maybe three things

Um And so the first would be experience

Um And so I have um I've been blessed to

have a lot of experience actually um leading uh schools

and participating in our public schools you know so having

served as the superintendent of Guilford County Schools uh for

seven plus years

Uh and in addition to that having been the deputy

superintendent and general counsel for Charlotte Mecklenburg schools for seven

plus years uh deep deep experience in uh running and

leading our schools compared to my opponent who home schools

her Children

And I wanna be abundantly clear

Now I don't have anything against home school but you're

talking about the Chief administrative Officer for public schools

This is the person who will be over uh 2500

schools 1.3 million students a budget of uh $11 billion

annually that is administered through that department

So that's the first thing

The second would be belief in our public schools

Um Yeah I certainly believe in our public schools and

uh that they are the entity that can transform uh

students their families communities the state and the yacht

Uh and I go further and say as a personal

matter my wife and I were blessed to have two

wonderful Children

We were also blessed to be in a situation where

we could choose where to send our Children

We chose them to send them to our public schools

And they both graduated from our public schools

And six years ago when our youngest graduated from uh

high school I wrote a letter to the educators in

Charlotte Mecklenburg schools where they started and Guilford County schools

where they ended thanking them for the marvelous job that

they had done in educating our students our Children

That is something that uh has been published

So you can see it uh for yourself

Uh My opponent has called our public schools all sorts

of things including indoctrination centers and cesspools of evil and

lies and deception and um socialist centers uh call our

educators all sorts of things including rumors and the list

is long and encouraging parents not to even send their

Children to our public schools

And so this position in addition to being the chief

administrative officer I would contend is also the chief advocacy

officer for our public schools

And so I believe that uh if you wanna run

our schools um if you wanna advocate for our schools

you have to believe in our schools

That's number two and then number three would be character

character

And here what I'm really talking about is for me

um what we did in Guilford County schools well we

made character equally as important as academic outcomes to the

point that character uh the district was recognized as a

national district of character

We helped our students understand how to comport themselves how

to be in relationship with each other

Uh Even when they're in disagreement with each other and

also um how to be of service to their community

I've got an opponent who is as we already have

discussed uh call for things like the executions of uh

many elected officials and others um has um certainly shown

herself uh as someone who um would call for setting

aside the constitution of the United States of America who

would call for a military coup and would want to

have a rest of many for treason if they help

certified an election

And so those would be the three things that I

would say set us apart experience belief and character

All right great

I think that's about all the time I have

Um I say thank you very much

I'm talking to Mo Green WRL

Thank you