It's 5.05 and good Monday morning to you. Welcome into the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-99.3 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. The United States Department of Education is releasing a $6.8 billion in education funding that originally froze on June the 30th.
Including over $165 million across the state of North Carolina. The cuts would have made up nearly 10% of the state's federal education funding. The agency made the announcement late in the day on Friday. Back on July the 14th, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined 24 other mainly Democratic-run states in suing the federal government to prevent them from freezing funds from North Carolina public schools. Jackson joined the lawsuit that was originally filed in Rhode Island by, again, the attorney generals of about 24 states.
Jeff Jackson said in a press release on Friday, quote, national reports indicate that the United States Department of Education has backed down on its freezing all funds of $6.8 billion nationwide, including $165 million for North Carolina, after we filed suit last week. This should end weeks of uncertainty. Our schools can now plan, hire and prepare for a strong year ahead. My absolute best wishes to our state's one point five million students who are ready to make up who are ready to make this their best year yet. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mo Green, also commented on the release of the funding, noting, it is good to see that the federal government is honoring its commitment to our students, our educators, and our schools.
I hope this resolution and release of funds next week marks a return to predictable, reliable federal partnerships that our schools need to serve students effectively. Democrat Governor Josh Stein also commented on this, publicly thanking Secretary of Education Lynda McMahon, who if you didn't know is originally from New Bern, North Carolina, posting on his ex-profile, thank you to New Bern Native Education Secretary McMahon for releasing much-needed grant funding to help schools across North Carolina better serve our kids. We shared a candid discussion about serving North Carolina children and families. I look forward to working together to expand the workforce in public education. In addition to the lawsuit, 10 Republican senators joined together last week to urge the Trump administration to reverse this decision to freeze those federal funds.
The congressionally authorized education funding was currently under review by the Office of Management and Budget, that's OMB, to determine if the programs grossly misused government funds to promote a, quote, radical left-wing agenda. The Wake County Public School System had instituted a hiring freeze in anticipation of that funding being no longer available or frozen, and CMS, the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System School Board, sent a letter to the Department of Education asking officials to reverse their decision. Nine of the ten school districts that would have lost the most money per student are in rural North Carolina. These are those counties, of course, still reeling with the impacts of Hurricane Helene, facing a roughly $18 million cut. Friday's announcement comes a week after OMB unfroze more than a billion dollars in after-school and summer learning funds that had been under review.
A senior administration official said that states would have to adhere to new guardrails moving forward, with many of the programs also being told That they received the after-school and summer learning funding earlier last week.
So, the lawsuits, the money being frozen, the changes being made by the school districts, only temporary as OMB was going through the process of determining where that money should go. It is now going back exactly where it was supposed to, more than $6.8 billion back to public education. You can read those additional details this morning by visiting our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline: Department of Education releases frozen education funding to North Carolina and other states. It's now 5:10.
You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. United States Senator Tom Tillis, of course, has been in the national spotlight a lot over the last couple of weeks with his announcement that he is not running for re-election.
However, in the meantime, he is still a sitting member of the United States Senate and has said he will continue to work not only for people of North Carolina, but the country as a whole. We are tracking some details this morning from Senator Tillis and a litany of other lawmakers up in Washington, D.C., dealing with housing supplies and high costs in home ownership. To get some details on that, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, and joins us on the news hour.
Some pretty bad figures here, Teresa. Home sales dropping to their lowest level in nine months. That's not the sign of a good economy moving forward. No, no, no, it's not, Nick. Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, took a look at this, that Senator Tillis. Issued a press release recently about bipartisan legislation that he and his fellow senators hope will increase the housing supply and reduce costs. Yeah, and getting back to what you just said: home sales dropping to their lowest level, they're also on track to me being the worst in 30 years.
So, yeah, this is why this bill was so important at a time like now.
So, it's called the Housing Supply Expansion Act of 2025. He along with Senators Tim Scott out of South Carolina, Republican Senator Tim Scott, also Democrat Senator Reuben Gallico of Arizona, Republican Kitty Britt, Alabama, and then we have got Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii. And Republican Mike Crapo of Indiana and Alex Spedelia, Democrat Senator from California, all were on this legislation. Basically, what it does, it modernizes the federal definition of manufactured housing. That could be any kind of like a The housing you would see, maybe even like a trailer or something like a modular, it's a better, better tone, better word for it, where it would include modular or prefabricated houses built without a permanent chassis.
So, what right now the chassis has to stay on these types of houses.
So, they thought this would be.
Okay. Get it removed so it has a better chance of being approved. There's also local zoning laws that don't allow certain ones like this.
So they introduced this bill to hopefully get the ball rolling so that more people can buy more houses, have more choices. I think also accessory dwelling units is another type of housing that this would fall under as well. Yeah, and you talk about that litany of senators that have signed onto this bill all across the country from California all the way here to North Carolina. But specifically, honing in on our state this morning, Teresa, this is a major issue, especially in our larger metropolitan areas. You look at the Charlotte area, the Raleigh area, out towards Asheville, of course, other situations affecting homeownership out west from Hurricane Helene and then to the eastern half of the state down in southeastern North Carolina.
This has been a big-time issue for quite some time now. It has. And you said even before Helene struck, we're looking at the Asheville area, a new there was a housing market tracker. It was from American Enterprise Institute said Asheville's housing shortage is about Almost 5,000 units or 10% of the city's existing units. That's the shortage.
That's how much they need. And you go down the line, you mentioned Charlotte, that's at 5.2%. Raleigh is at 5.2%. And you go over to Fayetteville, like going the southern half, it's a little less. It's 0.9%.
But a lot of these areas are up. Wilmington, too, is at 6%.
So, yeah. And the median home price in North Carolina is a little over $467,000. And that's with basically $139,000 the income needed to qualify for a home at that price. I mean, and a lot of people. They're not making that.
So it's very hard, and it's very hard in the state to get really good housing at a good rate. And we have the interest rates have been stuck for so long. A lot of people were lucky, lucked out at two percent, three percent. Of course, that all went up. And now we're stuck at around seven percent or maybe a little bit under, it fluctuates.
So hopefully, Maybe, you know, President Trump We were talking about this pushes or nudges Jerome Powell to maybe cut some of those interest rates to help people along. Yeah, the Federal Reserve does have a meeting coming up this week. A rumor has it that those rates will at least stay the same the way that they are right now.
However, the president continues to pressure the Federal Reserve chairman pretty heavily on that. And, Teresa, you look at that new median home price, that's up significantly from where that was just about five years ago, which happens to also coincide with the same time that interest rates for mortgages jumped from that 2.5%, 3% where they were 2020 into the early parts of 2021 to where they are right now. It's completely unaffordable for the vast majority of folks across North Carolina. It is, it is. I mean, you're seeing houses move, of course.
It depends what bracket. I know, basically, it looks like maybe there are people who. Really don't have to worry about money million dollar houses, two million dollars. I mean, obviously, they're still selling, but you look at houses maybe that are under 300,000 in that price range. Right now, that is the new starter range, if you want to get down to it.
I mean, there are some houses that are at a lower rate, but a lot of them also are still sitting now. They're sitting longer than they were. Going back to Realtor.com, they had their housing forecast mid-year update. They said this year's housing market's going to look similar to last year's, with affordability concerns weighing heavily on sales volume and national home prices growing at a sluggish pace. You know, and everybody's moving to the state at a rapid pace.
But of course, things have slowed down. In that study or in that update, it said Raleigh had the 10th slowest market with the home staying on the market 10 days or longer than last year. That's a long, it just doesn't sound long, but we remember 2022 when we're coming out of the pandemic. And prices jumped. People are paying like, oh, it was $100,000 over asking price, sign on scene, no inspections.
Those days are gone.
So we'll just have to keep an eye on that. It's a great update this morning. We appreciate the details. Teresa Opaca from CarolinaJournal.com joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is the story of the One.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-99.3 WBT. We, of course, have been keeping a very close eye on tariffs and trade deals over the last couple of months, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. And after months of negotiation, President Donald Trump announced yesterday in Scotland that he has reached a trade deal with the European Union. The president announcing that saying, We have good news, we have a deal. He was sitting alongside European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland.
In a preview of the deal, Trump said that the United or rather that the European Union will buy $75 billion worth of energy from the United States and that tariffs on EU imports into the U.S., including automobiles, will be set at a hard rate of 15%. The EU will also invest an additional six hundred billion dollars beyond its current investment in the United States and will purchase additional US military equipment. This agreement comes just days before a looming August the 1st deadline, that's Friday, when higher U.S. tariffs on European goods were set to take effect. Back in May, the President threatened to impose a 50% tariff on nearly all of the EU imports, but then later reduced that proposed rate to 30% in a July the 12th letter to the President of the EU.
After the meeting with the EU president concluded in Turnberry, Scotland, members of both delegations shook hands and clapped with the announcement of the deal.
Now, back in 2024, the United States had a good trade deficit of $235.6 billion with the European Union, which actually was almost a 13% increase compared to where that number was just a year prior in 2023. The president of the European Union told reporters during a meeting, quote, the starting point was an imbalance, a surplus on our side and a deficit on the U.S. side. And we wanted to rebalance the trade relationship, and we wanted to do it in a way that trade goes on between the two of us across the Atlantic. Trump said that the two sides wanted to make a deal, and that's exactly what they did.
With the president noting this started months ago, this negotiation, so we knew that we were going to get into this over the long-term period, adding that the agreement was satisfactory for both the European Union and the United States. The president noted that this is a quote giant deal with a lot of different countries because, as it stands right now, the EU has 27 member states, with the president acknowledging that it's not easy to reach a unified agreement with all of those groups. Trump earlier accused the 27-member bloc of dragging its feet in the ongoing negotiation projects, ongoing negotiations, which have been happening for months. His threats to impose higher tariffs prompted EU officials to schedule emergency talks aiming to reach a deal with the administration while the president continues his international visit over in Scotland this morning in lengthy reporting detailing foreign trade barriers. In March, the Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, that's here in Washington, D.C., criticized the EU for imposing tariffs and non-tariff barriers that disadvantage the United States and its exporters into European markets. Trump called the new EU investments, quote, substantial, and told reporters all of the countries will be opened up to trade with the United States at zero tariff. And they've agreed to purchase a vast amount of military equipment. We don't know what that number is just yet, but the good news is that we make the best military equipment in the world.
So you've just got to sort that out until somebody tops us, which is not going to happen.
Now back to cars. Automobile tariffs will also be capped at fifteen percent.
However, steel and aluminum tariffs will stay where they are because that's President Donald Trump and trade advisers noted that, that's currently a worldwide rate, and that's where that's going to stay. The European Union has been subject to U. S. tariffs at ten percent on most goods, with twenty five percent tariffs on automobiles and fifty percent on steel and aluminum. Commerce Secretary Howard Ludnick said that within two weeks, the United States will give an update on its plan with microchip tariffs, suggesting that that was a key reason for the EU's desire to negotiate with President Trump.
Lutnick said, quote, I'll let you wait for two weeks until you get to announce this plan, but we're going to bring back chip manufacturing to the United States. The U.S. and the 27-member bloc EU had been negotiating since parts of early July to strike a trade deal. Trump imposed baseline tariffs on the EU in April before pausing them for 90 days, as he did with most other countries, to bring forth that negotiation, but had recently threatened to raise them to 30% if the 27-member bloc did not reach an agreement with his administration by August the 1st. Back on july the twenty fourth, the EU Member States voted to approve one hundred nine billion dollars in counter tariffs on US goods, including soybeans, almonds, cars and pharmaceuticals.
Soybeans, by the way, is one of the largest crops that is produced here in North Carolina. Before the deal that was reached yesterday, those tariffs were scheduled to take effect on August the 7th. President Trump arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, back on July the 25th to begin a planned five-day retreat to discuss trade with a variety of nations, bilateral trade talks with not only leaders in the United Kingdom, Scotland, and the EU, but other nations.
So that trip does continue for a couple of more days. The president will make his way back to the U.S. later this week as we continue to watch trade deals, tariffs, and the impacts on the United States economy. We'll continue to bring those details to you right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. And of course, up to date, we've done a lot of very in-depth reporting on a variety of industries and companies here in the state of North Carolina that can and have been affected by some of these trade deals and some of these ongoing tariff escalations.
Those details available over on. on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Um It's 5.36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993. WBT, I'm Nick Craig.
Good Monday morning to you. With U.S. home sales hitting a nine-month low in June and prices reaching record highs, North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis has joined a bipartisan group of senators introducing the Housing Supply Expansion Act of 2025. This piece of legislation is set to address the housing shortage and affordability crisis that exists in many portions of the United States. The bill aims to expand access to modular and prefabricated homes by updating the federal definition of manufactured housing.
to include units without a permanent steel chassis, a change expected to reduce costs and increase design flexibility. Senator Tillis says that the legislation will help hardworking families, especially in fast-growing states like North Carolina, where the housing supply has been struggling to keep up with ongoing demand. The state gained over 165,000 new residents in 2024 and is projected to face a housing deficit of over 760,000 units by 2029. Local shortages are especially severe in cities like Asheville, Boone, Chapel Hill, Wilmington, and Charlotte.
Meanwhile, high prices continue to hurt affordability. with a median new home price in the state of North Carolina at more than $467,000 and a required income of more than $139,000 a year to purchase one and to qualify for a mortgage. Experts and real estate data suggests that affordability challenges and supply chain constraints will continue to weigh heavy on the market through the rest of the year. Senator Tillis said, quote, I'm proud to support this common sense legislation that expands housing options for hardworking families in North Carolina and across the country. By modernizing the definition of manufactured homes, we can encourage innovative and affordable designs and help more Americans achieve their dream of home ownership.
One of the other struggles that the housing market is seeing right now is continued high interest rates. That's according to President Donald Trump, who continues to slam the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, as they head into another meeting coming up this week. Rumor has it that the rates will stay unchanged as of right now.
However, that meeting is expected to take place Wednesday and Thursday. We'll watch those details, see if there is anything as it relates to those interest rates and home sales across the United States, and pass those details along to you right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, where it's now 5:39, News Talk 11:10, 99.3, WBT. A former North Carolina Supreme Court member is continuing his quest for what he calls fair elections to give us the latest. This morning, Mitch Coke from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, fair elections.
I don't think many folks would argue with the blanket phrase fair and free elections.
However, there may be a little bit more nuance here. What's the latest you're tracking in the Bob Orr case? Yeah, what happened is Bob Orr, the former state Supreme Court justice, went to court after the last redistricting process for new election maps in North Carolina. And representing a group of nine Democrats and two unaffiliated voters, so a total of 11 plaintiffs, he sued basically saying that some of the districts in the congressional map and a couple of districts in the state House and State Senate map fell short of a constitutional right to fair elections.
Now, this constitutional right to fair elections is spelled out nowhere in North Carolina's Constitution, but Bob Orr's lawsuit basically argues that this is an unenumerated right, that clearly North Carolinians have a right to fair elections and that the courts should spell this right out. That is an argument that he made. A trial court heard this argument last year and threw it out, basically saying, No, you've not proven your case. This is a political question because there's no way that a court could come up with some sort of standard to decide what is a fair election and what is a fair election map. And in fact, the state Supreme Court has dealt with this issue in the Harper v.
Hall case, one of the last major redistricting cases in the North Carolina courts, when basically Chief Justice Paul Newby said the idea of a judge trying to decide what is fair is impossible in the context of election maps. Yet Bob Orr has been pushing for this. And after losing at the trial court level, he took this case to the Court of Appeals.
So the latest development in this case is that all of the briefing has been done in the Court of Appeals. And basically, the court could just decide to deal with the case based on only what's been written about it. But Bob Orr and his fellow lawyers and the plaintiffs and The case are seeking an oral argument. They would like to be able to present a half-hour of arguments in front of the three judges who will decide this case for the Court of Appeals. And while that court filing has been made, there has not been a court filing yet on the other side.
But apparently, Orr's court filing suggests that the legislative leaders who are defending the election maps are against an oral argument. They basically think that this is kind of an open and shut case. The fair elections idea is a bogus concoction from Bob Orr, and that there's no reason for the judges to have to draw all the attorneys in and sit for an hour and listen to them haggle back and forth about this, that this is something that could be decided just based on what's already been submitted in written briefs.
Now, if Bob Orr is successful, This, of course, could have a huge impact on elections in North Carolina because if courts decide that there is some sort of state constitutional right to fair elections, then as lawyers for the legislature have argued as this case moved forward, anytime someone loses an election, they'll go to court and say it wasn't fair. And then it'll be up for the courts to decide if it's fair, not having any real clear standard about what is fair and what is not, which the critics say would basically open this up to the courts then being the ultimate deciders about elections and election maps when it really should be based on constitutional standards, not what a bunch of people in robes who happen to be dealing with a particular case think.
Well, let's take a couple steps back on this, Mitch. Redistricting is something realistically that we're only supposed to be talking about every 10 years or so when you've got new census data out of the federal government. Here in North Carolina, over the last five or six years, there's been a plethora of map redraws, redistricting back and forth in the court system. But when we get to this term fair elections, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but when the General Assembly is drawing maps, there are things that they are set to uphold as it deals with population, trying to keep counties together, contiguous districts. There are a set number of standards that they do and have followed in the past when they are drawing maps.
This whole question over what is a fair election seems a little bit ambiguous to me. And it seems ambiguous to the judges who've been dealing with this case and to the legislative leaders who have been working against Bob Warr on this. They're basically saying that fair is in the eye of the beholder. And what this lawsuit is asking for is the beholder to be whatever court is dealing with a particular challenge at one time, rather than the types of standards that you were talking about. Districts all have to have about the same number of people.
They have to be as compact as possible. They have to be contiguous. You can't have districts that are split in two sections with no connecting point at all. There are other things that are spelled out. You're not supposed to cross county lines anymore than you have to, which is something that has been part of redistricting in North Carolina for decades.
And so one of the things that this case is saying is that there should be this additional standard that the maps have to comply with some sort of determination. Of fairness, but the criticism. From the legislative leaders who have defended their handiwork, and also the three judges who initially decided against Bob Warr at the trial court level, is this something that a judge cannot decide. This is not the type of thing where you can create a reliable, consistent standard that everyone could apply equally. If you say that an election has to be fair and that an election map has to be fair, what you will ultimately be saying is that whatever judge happens to get this case when a losing candidate files and says the result was unfair is that you will end up having the judges decide this on an ad hoc basis every time.
Yeah, and of course, that brings forward a whole nother set of potential problems. Mitch, real quick, any idea when the court will determine whether they will take this these these oral arguments up or a potential decision from them? Or is it just kind of up in the air at this point? There's no deadline, but I would suspect that there will be a fairly quick decision. The Bob Orr court filing this week suggested that legislative leaders were going to file their own response.
And so once that happens, I would guess that we would probably know about an oral argument within a matter of weeks.
So probably we'll learn within a few weeks whether there will be an oral argument. And then if there is an oral argument, that probably wouldn't be set for maybe another month or two. It's definitely an interesting discussion. We appreciate the details. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Good morning again. It's 5:52. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT. It is shaping up to be a very busy week in the state of North Carolina. Imminent announcements from both former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper and current RNC Chairman Michael Watley.
We could both learn this week whether both of them are going to jump into the Senate race or not. Seems highly likely at this point those announcements could be coming up later this week. Plus, the North Carolina General Assembly returns to Raleigh tomorrow to attempt to override 14 of Democrat Governor Josh Stein's vetoes. Let's start with the U.S. Senate this morning.
Former Governor Roy Cooper spoke at a Democrat Party unity dinner in Raleigh Saturday night, talking about his efforts and talking about the things that he worked on as governor in North Carolina. Slammed Republicans in Washington, D.C., and made some hints and some jokes indicating that he is all but just to make his announcement for the United States Senate saying, Look at what's happening in Washington, D.C. They're running up the debt, they're disrespecting our veterans, they're cutting help for the hungry, and they're ripping away health care from millions of people. All of that to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. That's not right.
North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Matt Mercer responded to that, saying, We've seen enough of elitist Roy Cooper and politicians like him who make their living off of taxpayers while supporting policies that make life harder and unaffordable for North Carolina families. During his speech, Cooper urged all Democrats who were expected to run for office to stand up without acknowledging whether or not he himself would run. Then the governor, former governor, noted, Hey, I'm not sitting down, am I? That remark then drew a standing ovation.
So that's the latest from Cooper. We'll keep an eye on his announcement potentially sometime later this week. Turning our attention to the GOP side, former NCGOP chairman, now head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Watley, has received a key endorsement from President Donald Trump with the president posting on Truth Social late last week, quote, I have a mission for my friends in North Carolina. North Carolina, and that is to get Michael Holly to run for U.S. Senate.
He is strong on the border, stopping crime, supporting our military and veterans, cutting taxes, and saving our always under siege Second Amendment. I need him in Washington, and I need him representing you. Watley is originally from North Carolina, as I mentioned, former head of the North Carolina Republican Party. He left that position in 2023 to lead the RNC and, of course, help secure President Donald Trump his election victory back in November of last year.
Now turning our attention to the North Carolina General Assembly, what was a, for the most part, a pretty good relationship between Republican lawmakers and Democrat Governor Josh Stein has soured in recent weeks as Governor Stein has vetoed 14 pieces of legislation passed by the Republican-led GA. That is setting lawmakers up to deal with those veto overrides starting tomorrow as lawmakers will make their way back to Raleigh after a couple of weeks, July 4th recess that has been ongoing and been going on over the last couple of weeks. Many pieces of these legislation, many of these pieces of legislation, I should say, deal with the legislation. With diversity, equity, and inclusion, whether that be in state government, K-12 education, or higher ed, three bills there vetoed by Governor Josh Stein. There's also a couple of pieces of legislation dealing with firearms.
One, constitutional carry passed by the General Assembly, vetoed by the governor.
Some of the other pieces of legislation also deal with the border crime in the state of North Carolina and the Rains Act. That's been a popular one that we've been keeping our eye on over the last couple of months, which would put greater restrictions on government agencies to impose burdensome regulations that have a major financial impact across North Carolina. The math on all of this is set to be very interesting in the Senate. Republicans do have that super majority, meaning if every Republican is there and votes in favor, they are able to override a veto.
However, in the North Carolina House, Republicans are just one vote short. Meaning that there needs to be a couple of Democrats absent or voting with all of the Republican delegation to override those vetoes. Strap in, it's going to be a very busy week in North Carolina politics. We'll keep you up to date with everything right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You can also stay up to date with breaking news around the clock by visiting our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Monday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on News Talk 1110 to 99.3, WBT.
