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It's 5.05. Welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Vice President J.D.
Vance was in Concord Wednesday delivering remarks focused on law and order while honoring men and women of first responders, more particularly law enforcement. This visit comes about two weeks after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the exact same week that the North Carolina General Assembly passed ARENA's Law. That bill was introduced in response to the horrific August the 22nd murder that took place on the Charlotte light rail of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Irina Zaruska. That legislation, which we have been tracking, seeks stricter penalties for violent offenders and tightens pretrial detention procedures laid out for judges and magistrates. The Vice President opened on the importance Of law and order, the importance of law enforcement at his comments in Concord on Wednesday.
But I want to just say that being here in North Carolina, we're here to talk about law and order. We're here to talk about law enforcement, and we're here to talk about the basic fact that you all pay your taxes. They go to safe streets and safe cities. You ought to be able to enjoy the places that were built by your tax dollars. You ought to be afraid, or excuse me, the criminals ought to be afraid of you.
You ought not be afraid of the criminals. It's very simple. And I think for too long in this country, we actually took the exact wrong approach. We told people that if you were walking down a city street and there was a crazy person over there yelling and screaming at your kids, you ought to walk to the other side of the street rather than possibly be accosted by a violent person.
Well, you know what I think? I think that if a person is being violent and threatening to young children and young families, they ought to send their asses to prison instead of telling people that they got to cross the other side of the street. You know, a couple years ago, I took my family to New York City. This was when I was in the United States Senate. We spent a few days there.
It was a wonderful trip in a lot of ways. But you know, every time we went to the subway, I'd have one of my kids grabbing onto my leg or afraid because there was a crazy person yelling, hollering, and screaming at a three-year-old little kid. Why do we live like this? Why do we accept this in our communities? And the answer is because of bad political leadership.
We have accepted for too long this idea that we ought to give over our streets to criminals and to vagrants and to people who are screaming at us instead of taking back our streets with our incredible law enforcement. That's J.D. Vance in Concord really hitting on some of the major talking points and concerns of the Trump administration as we have seen over the last couple of months with the crime crackdown in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump continuing to talk about sending National Guard troops and other federal law enforcement to other major cities across the United States that are dealing with out-of-control crime. The Vice President also commented on the importance of having law and order and the importance of law enforcement in Concord.
So, this is what it means. Being pro-law and order is actually not that difficult. There are some things we do, some issues we address, that are so complicated and so challenging, but supporting our local law enforcement is actually pretty easy. It's just a question of political willpower. Here's thing number one, very simple.
If our great police officers find a violent criminal and lock them up, we ought to keep them locked up instead of letting them back on our streets with a slap on the wrist. That means we want to give our police officers the very best equipment and the very best protection anywhere in the world. We want you guys to have the very best, and we're going to fight every single day to make sure that they have it. It means punishing state and local jurisdictions that restrict your ability to do police work. If they just want to do their jobs, they ought to be allowed to do it.
That is a major talking point as well, and something that has been a large divide between the political left and right over the last couple of years. Not only having fully funded law enforcement, you'll be familiar with and do remember, of course, the defund the police movement that picked up some steam four or five years ago. Law enforcement, as you just heard there from J.D. Vance, according to the vice president, needs to have the resources available, the equipment, the tools available, and they also need to be allowed by their local governments. Whether we're talking about a city council, a county commission, or even a state as a whole, they need to have the ability to do their job and hold violent criminals accountable, according to the vice president.
Now, obviously, a lot of attention has been brought to North Carolina over the last month or so with that horrific murder that unfolded in late August on the Charlotte light rail. The vice president did talk about the murder of Irina Zaruska in Charlotte as well. As far as I can recall, it is you have a violent criminal. Who has been arrested 14 times, often for very violent offenses. who gets on a bus.
With an innocent young girl, 22 years old, and slits her throat and she dies. She died because she was coming home from work. She worked at a pizzeria. She came from a beautiful family. She had a young boyfriend.
She had her entire life ahead of her. And she was actually a refugee from Ukraine.
So she came from a war-torn country. She sought shelter in the United States of America, and because of soft-on crime policies, she was murdered here, not in the war-torn country she came from. Isn't that a disgrace? And isn't that an insult to the incredible law enforcement officers who arrested this person 14 times? They did everything that they could to keep this thug off the streets, and it was the political leadership that failed, and we got to be honest about that.
I saw former Governor Cooper say, and this is Michael Watley's opponent, former Governor Cooper said just a couple of days after the attack. That we have got to do more when it comes to law enforcement to keep people like this off the streets. And my response was: Governor. He was arrested 14 times. Law enforcement did their job.
It's time for you to do your job. Taking a shot there at former Governor Roy Cooper, of course, now seen as the frontrunner in the Democrat Senate race that Senate primary that will take place in March, and then the general election coming up next November, that likely against a Republican opponent and frontrunner there as well, Michael Watley, and echoing some of the commentary that we heard in the General Assembly this week as well. Democrat members of the North Carolina legislature also pointing the finger at law enforcement as to the situation that unfolded in Charlotte back on August the 22nd. We heard some of those comments earlier in the week from members of the North Carolina General Assembly, the vice president, completely deconstructing those claims and pointing the finger back at politicians that he and others on the right will claim are soft on crime. After his prepared remarks were set and done, members of the local and national National media had the opportunity to ask the vice president a litany of questions about what was going on.
And there was a question about these local municipalities, areas like Charlotte, North Carolina, other major cities that might be dealing with crime. This is what the vice president had to say in response. You can tell how many carjackings there are. You can tell how many armed robberies there are. There's way too much violent crime happening in our country.
And when we look at an American community, again, we don't care about their politics. When we look at an American community where people are suffering because of violent crime, our response is: we want to help. Just let us. And I'd encourage everybody to talk to your local officials. I know we're a little far away from Charlotte, but to talk to your local officials and encourage them to ask for the help of the Trump administration.
We are willing to provide it. We want fewer people to be affected by violent crime, but these guys have actually got to play a partnership role with us. And unfortunately, way too many of them, some of these people, it's crazy. They are ruling over cities that have violent crime rates that are worse than Mogadishu, and they say, no, no, no. We don't want Donald Trump to come in.
Well, excuse me, if you don't need the federal help, then why is your murder rate so terrible in the first place? You do need the help, you just need to admit it. That's Vice President J.D. Vance in Concord yesterday hosting an event really honing in and highlighting in on law and order and law enforcement. That event took place at a hangar at the Concord Regional Airport, drew a very large crowd, supporters lining up hours before the Vice President's arrival, and the venue quickly filled to capacity with the event organizers having to close the doors earlier than anticipated, leaving unfortunately for those that went out there, a line of cars and a line of attendees that were unable to get into the event.
We've got some additional quotes and a full, actually a full copy of the Vice President's comments over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. That story's headline, Vance visits Concord to call for law and order honors police.
So those details and all of those clips available over at CarolinaJournal.com. It's 521. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 1110, 99.3 WBT. As we look at almost one year now since Hurricane Helene affected the state of North Carolina, left so much devastation and destruction in the western half of our state.
The tropics are heating up this morning. A couple of areas, you've probably seen some panic posting on social media about it. Here's where we stand this morning. Two areas that the National Hurricane Center was keeping an eye on yesterday. One of them they have officially designated as Tropical Storm Umberto.
That is currently traveling through the Atlantic. The current forecast track does look like it will split the gap between the continental United States. And Bermuda.
So we're kind of watching that right now. That storm currently is a tropical storm, and it is expected to strengthen in the coming days. At this point, it's more than close to 550, 600 miles off the north of the Leeward Islands.
So that does not look like it will be an immediate threat.
However, something to keep an eye on. There is another area, however, south and west of that that the National Hurricane Center has tagged as Invest 94L. That area is set to develop somewhere over the Leeward Islands over the next couple of days. And early model tracking does show it making a very close, very close call or even an impact across portions of North and South Carolina. That storm has a 50% chance of development over the next 48 hours and an 80% chance of development over the next seven days.
So there is a possibility if that system gets its act together over the next day or two, it will be named by the Hurricane Center and impact. Impacts could be felt as early as Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. We'll keep an eye on those details coming up not only throughout the day today, but tomorrow and over the weekend as we get that news and that information. We'll bring it to you right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, where it's now 5:23, News Talk 1110-993, WBT. This week marks one year since Hurricane Helene left so much devastation and destruction across the western half of North Carolina.
And over the last 12 months, there's been a lot of focus on not only the state but the federal government as to how the $60 plus billion dollar storm is going to be paid for. Governor Josh Stein recently in Washington, D.C., demanding more federal action as it relates to those ongoing recovery efforts. To walk us through a pretty big announcement as it relates to our road infrastructure across North Carolina, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, in Governor Stein's press conference last week, he made it abundantly clear that the roadways and major arteries like Interstate 40 in western North Carolina were top priority. A new influx of cash from the feds will hopefully help with that.
Yes, yes. Thanks so much, Nick, for having me this morning. You're right.
So, the announcement was made earlier this week. The U.S. Department of Transportation is Be able to give NCDOT about $1.15 billion in additional emergency relief funding for Hurricane Helene repairs. And they say that that is the largest single allocation under the Federal Highway Administration's emergency relief program for a state in the department's history.
So that's. That's amazing and remarkable in itself. What that program does, it provides funding to help states perform repairs caused by major natural disasters and also extreme weather events. Also the in the announcement, The Fed said that the state has received nearly $2 billion in ER funding, that type of funding, from USDOT for Hurricane Helene repairs.
So pretty remarkable numbers. And as you say, we are at the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene slamming Western North Carolina. Yeah, and with those major arteries, it is amazing to see that that's the largest amount of money. Obviously, Teresa, I'm not trying to underscore that a billion-plus dollars isn't a lot of money, but we've seen hurricanes in Florida that have destroyed bridges and a lot of infrastructure there. It's a little shocked to see that that was the largest allocation ever given out by the U.S.
Department of Transportation to any individual state. Right, right. And of course, we had Hurricane Katrina. It was 20 some years, 20 years anniversary, I think we just had. Yeah, so it's.
it's um it's amazing, you know, that that is the highest number. For any state. But yeah, it's a very good idea. Pretty remarkable. When we look at some of the details on this, the Transportation Secretary Inshawn Duffy has been in North Carolina a couple of different times since he got into his position earlier this year.
I believe he was in Haywood County earlier this year, touring some of the damage. Fortunately, things have recovered at least somewhat since then. But as the governor noted last week, and you've heard from local officials over the last 12 months, Teresa, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Oh, yes, absolutely. You mentioned about um uh secretary Sean Duffy coming to Western North Carolina, Haywood County, specifically in February to Tour the damage along I-40 near the Tennessee line.
They were able to reopen that stretch in March, but only in one going one way in each direction. It's temporary repairs, which was great because it is a major lifeline between the two states for commerce, for people going back and forth if they work in either state and going back home.
So that was well needed. But of course, now we need to make permanent repairs to that road and other roads and bridges across Western North Carolina. Yeah, and for anybody that hasn't gone out that way since Helene, the interstate, as you noted, Teresa, is open. It is one lane in each direction, and the speed is dramatically reduced in many areas due to the fact of those temporary repairs being put in place.
So, while the road is technically travel, you can travel on the road, it does slow down commutes big time for folks traveling and for the big commerce. A lot of trucks driving back and forth on Interstate 40 between Tennessee and North Carolina. That's a big deal for them. I'm sure that adds a lot to some of the bottom end of these businesses. You're right.
You're right.
I believe the max speed is 45 miles per hour, which is a bit slower than you're going to find on an interstate. But I guess the main thing is that they did get it reopened, but now definitely need to see that permanently fixed. I believe Governor Stein said last week to not only fix everything, but make everything actually stronger and more capable of withstanding such a storm such as Helene, if that is at all possible, but at least reinforcing it and making it stronger and better than it was before. $1.15 billion, not a small sum of money. But, Teresa, this money is going to be given to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which let's just be honest about it, does not have the greatest track record with getting projects done on time and on budget.
I'm sure that's going to be on maybe the General Assembly, people like State Auditor Dave Bollock and Governor Josh Steinsmind as these repairs take place. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's definite to keep things in check. And we're seeing that with Auditor Bollock over many, many different state agencies, including he had the big DMV audit released a little while ago.
And of course, he'll be keeping an eye, I'm sure, on DOT. And we also have now a new DOT secretary.
So, yeah, it's critical, you know, talking about all this stuff and keeping a watchful eye. Where it's going to benefit all North Carolinians, especially, like I said, as we mark this. this somber anniversary one year later this week. Absolutely somber indeed. We appreciate the details this morning.
We will keep an eye on how this money exactly is going to be spent here across the state. You can read some additional details on that story by visiting our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Teresa Opeka joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's pro savings days at Lowe's. Get up to 35% off select major appliances and save an additional $1,000 when you buy four select LG major appliances.
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News Talk 1110-99.3 WBT. The North Carolina House and Senate have been in session this week dealing with a variety of issues. The House recently approved the Regulatory Reform Act of 2025 by a vote of 72 to 37. Among some of the policies in there, the bill includes provisions that curb local limits on displaying official government flags on private property, requires occupational licensing boards to verify social security numbers, and creates zoning exemptions for state-managed construction projects in three different counties. The bill also worked its way through the Senate earlier in the week on Monday.
So that has now officially gone through both the House and the Senate. And like some of the other legislation we've talked about over the last few days, is now on Democrat Governor Josh Stein's desk for either a signature or a veto stamp. Section 12 of House Bill 926 would bar cities and counties from prohibiting or restricting a property owner from flying official government flags on private property. Local governments could regulate only when necessary for public health and safety, but to enforce against a specific property, they would have to produce written findings of fact documenting that concern. If a city claims a traffic hazard, the bill requires a site study by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to show traffic problems would in fact arise before limiting a flag's display.
This is all in reference to a story that has been ongoing for years. Over in Greenville, North Carolina, Camping World has a massive 3,200 square foot American flag that flies atop a 130-foot flagpole, which apparently, or at least for many years, has exceeded city code. In March, the Greenville City Council voted 4-2 to deny an ordinance to make changes to their code that would have allowed the large flag to remain. The city later authorized litigation against the Greenville branch of Camping World that has that massive 3,000-plus square foot American flag.
So with that, the General Assembly saw what was going on there and took some action. Another measure within the Regulatory Reform Act requires every occupational licensing board to not only collect but verify the authenticity of an applicant's social security number. It also authorizes sharing the number with the Social Security Administration, where they would, of course, go to cross-reference and check that number. Representative Dennis Riddell out of Alamance County, the Republican there, said, quote, Section 27 would require occupational licensing boards to verify the authenticity of an applicant's provided Social Security number and would authorize the board to share that number with the Social Security Administration for that purpose. We have heard concerns about boards receiving but not necessarily verifying social security number information.
This is simply clarifying already existing state law. There are some other provisions within this legislation as well. You can read those additional details by visiting our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com, some local zoning questions and reforms in some areas across the state. That article headline, NC House passes flag protections, social security number checks, and zoning exemptions. You can read those details over at CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 539, News Talk 1110, 993, WBT.
There has been some increased attention on Medicaid, not only in the state of North Carolina after Medicaid expansion back a couple of years ago, but at the national level, with President Donald Trump's one big beautiful bill passing earlier this year in the month of July, lawmakers in Raleigh are taking action on Medicaid to walk us through some of those details on what has been a busy week in the North Carolina General Assembly. Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com. Teresa, Medicaid is turned into a pretty hot-button political issue, but it does appear, at least on the House side, there is some unanimous thought on what needs to happen to go forward. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Nick. You're right.
Yeah, it was. Um They've had dueling bills this past week in both the House and the Senate specifically about Medicaid, the Medicaid rebase. This is not to do with Medicaid expansion. That's a separate issue entirely. This was Medicaid rebase.
So, what that is, is about how much different providers get paid as far as that is concerned.
So, on Tuesday evening, we had the House voting in favor, it was 111 to zero, and passing a House committee substitute to Senate Bill 403 that basically fully funds the Medicaid rebase. But unfortunately, that may not matter because the Senate most likely is not gonna take up that measure before an October 1st deadline.
Now, the Senate passed their own version of a bill. On Monday evening, after they discussed it earlier in the day at their appropriations committee. Um so Unless they come to some agreement on this program and get the extra funding by that date, there will be cuts to paid reimbursement rates. From what I've been hearing, the Senate is not coming back until You know, sometime in October.
So, this seems highly unlikely this is going to get taken care of unless.
Somebody has an epiphany before Oct October 1st. Yeah, and you talk about that rapidly approaching deadline as it stands right now. The adjournment resolution passed by both chambers. Teresa doesn't have the General Assembly back until the 20th of October at the earliest. Obviously, there can be flexibility with that, and I'm sure if they needed to come back and do something, they could.
But this kind of draws on a larger conflict that we've seen earlier this year as budget negotiations took place, where even though the House and the Senate are both controlled and there are both majorities there for Republicans, there are just some major issues that they just can't seem to get together on. Right, right. You know, yeah, we don't don't have a new budget, right? They passed a mini budget because the Senate had their version, the House had their version. They can't come to a consensus about it.
So here we are. They passed another, what, another mini budget, I believe you said yesterday. We're looking at that.
So, yeah, they can't come to much of an agreement. Same thing with this. There's not much of an agreement when it comes to this. Should mention the only thing that was similar in both bills is that they would have the state auditor set standards for timeliness and accuracy and Medicaid redetermination, which giving tools, enforcement tools to ensure the county, all the different counties have compliance with that issue. That was about the most similar thing.
I think they did also maybe. Want to eliminate some different positions, like, say, at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. But other than that, a lot of it was different. You know, in the Senate version, we had funding for the children's hospital that was approved back in 2023. That's supposed to be located in Apex, and that's in the Triangle region.
And there were other things in the Senate bill that. Or you know that um Or basically, the House said, you know, they were not comfortable with. They said the House passed. a clean bill, meaning it was strictly for the Medicaid rebase. They didn't add anything to it versus what the Senate did.
So yes, basically, there has been no consensus when it comes to this or many other items this year.
Well, that's exactly what I was going to ask you about. We saw a lot of this from members in the House, both Republican and Democrats, talking about the inability, I guess, or unwillingness, maybe is more accurate to say, of the Senate to pass that clean bill as the power struggle between Destin Hall and Phil Burger continues. Yes, yeah, you definitely saw that. You know, we were seeing that discussed yesterday when the House took up this bill. You know, we had Representatives Donnie Lambeth and Maria Servania, and also I believe Zach Hawkins.
He's a Democrat out of Durham. You know, he told legislators yesterday: it's going to be devastating as to what's going to happen with these cuts. You know, it's ranging from 3 to 10 percent across every corner of the care system. It comes from group homes, therapy, personal care, primary care. We also had another really primary force with this representative Grant Campbell, who was also a doctor himself.
You know, he said there's people getting ready to make cuts in staff. All of this. I mean, that was a critical factor in this. And you've had all those representatives talking about this yesterday. There's just not a good consensus.
And yeah, it's going to have a definite effect on health care in the state.
Well, and Teresa, turning this political for a second, I think it's important to bring up, obviously, with some of the changes in the Big Beautiful bill earlier this year, Republicans took a lot of flack over alleged changes to Medicaid and Medicare across the United States, getting a lot of negative political pressure on that. And I would imagine as we roll closer to this October, the first deadline, we'll probably see something here in North Carolina unless, as you noted, some sort of epiphany happens in the next couple of days.
Okay. I would imagine so, because right now it looks like, you know, if you're looking at this from just a standpoint of just reading the story, not getting into the weeds with the politics, you're going to see is the House is being more agreeable on this side versus the Senate. You know, the Senate has been like the stalemate in all this, thinking, wow, the House is voting on this. Why can't the Senate come to an agreement on this?
So it is definitely a political football, and it really shouldn't be if it comes to health care for people across the state. One other noticeable Difference, which no one's really mentioning, and it was actually noted originally on the headings of one of the bills. The Senate's original version of 403 included work requirements for Medicaid. That was dropped in the House version, and it was not included in the Senate bill passed on Monday. They were going to have work requirements for Medicaid, and that just quietly went away.
So, no one's been talking about that either, which is quite interesting. No question about that. Teresa, there are a lot more kind of in the weeds details in an article you've got over on our website this morning. Where can folks go and read that? Sure, they can head on over to CarolinaJournal.com.
We appreciate the details this morning. Teresa Opeka joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Ever wonder why most teen period products look like they were designed by people who've never met an actual teenager? Yeah, that's what we were thinking too. We're NYX, North America's number one leak-proof underwear brand, and we created KT by NYX, the first period brand designed specifically for teens.
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Where it's now 546, News Talk 1110, 993 WBT. We will head back to the traffic center on your Thursday early morning commute and get an update with Boomer von Cannon. All right, thank you, Nick. In West Charlotte, near the airport, the intersection of Billy Graham Parkway and West Boulevard. First responders on the scene with an incident in the intersection, so it's created a bit of a delay, especially on Billy Graham Parkway.
If you headed out to the airport, you count on a little extra time to reach the terminal of this morning. Billy Graham Parkway at West Boulevard. Also to the east now, Situation Clearing, Hickory Grove Road at Harris Boulevard, and the interstates are collision-free, pretty much at posted speed on 7785 and 485. Boomer von Cannon WBT traffic. For many of us, it's happening.
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Slope territory. You know what's missing? Grace. A refusal to recognize the grace of God. in other people.
People are going to fail. They're going to slip up. Vince Coakley, this morning at Tad. With the break. Your emergency situation station.
The sixth annual WBT Little Heroes Blood Drive continues today, September the 25th. WBT and the One Blood Big Red Bus will be at the Dog House in Uptown Charlotte from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. We'll be broadcasting live and are encouraging you to make a life-saving blood donation as the sixth annual WBT Little Heroes Blood Drive continues today at the Dog House 10 to 3 in Uptown Charlotte. Visit WBT.com this morning for location details and to schedule your appointment.
It's now 5.53. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110, 993 WBT. As we continue to track what has been a busy week in North Carolina politics, Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Concord yesterday delivering remarks focused on law and order and honoring first responders, law enforcement. This visit came two weeks after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and just a couple of days after the North Carolina General Assembly.
Assembly went through the process of passing ARENA's law. The vice president said that following law and order, that's really not a complicated task.
So, this is what it means. Being pro-law and order is actually not that difficult. There are some things we do, some issues we address, that are so complicated and so challenging, but supporting our local law enforcement, it's actually pretty easy. It's just a question of political willpower. Here's thing number one, very simple.
If our great police officers find a violent criminal and lock them up, we ought to keep them locked up instead of letting them back on our streets with a slap on the wrist. That means we want to give our police officers the very best equipment and the very best protection anywhere in the world. We want you guys to have the very best, and we're going to fight every single day to make sure that they have it. It means punishing state and local jurisdictions that restrict your ability to do police work. If they just want to do their jobs, they ought to be allowed to do it.
That's Vice President J.D. Vance in Concord. He also did talk about, of course, the major national story that drew so much negative attention to North Carolina, the tragic murder of 23-year-old Irina Zaruska on the Charlotte Lightrail back on August the 22nd. And here's the basic summary. as far as I can recall it, is you have a violent criminal Who has been arrested for the moment?
14 times, often for very violent offenses. who gets on a bus. With an innocent young girl, 22 years old, and slits her throat, and she dies. She died because she was coming home from work. She worked at a pizzeria.
She came from a beautiful family. She had a young boyfriend. She had her entire life ahead of her. And she was actually a refugee from Ukraine.
So she came from a war-torn country. She sought shelter in the United States of America, and because of soft-on-crime policies, she was murdered here, not in the war-torn country she came from. Isn't that a disgrace? And isn't that an insult to the incredible law enforcement officers who arrested this person 14 times? They did everything that they could to keep this thug off the streets, and it was the political leadership that failed, and we got to be honest about that.
I saw former Governor Cooper say, and this is Michael Watley's opponent, former Governor Cooper said just a couple of days after the attack. That we have got to do more when it comes to law enforcement to keep people like this off the streets. And my response was: Governor. He was arrested 14 times. Law enforcement did their job.
It's time for you to do your job. Obviously, this story has become a major political issue for both sides of the political aisle. Commenting there on some of the commentary from former Democrat governor Roy Cooper, now turned Senate candidate. Also, calling out and echoing some of the claims made in the North Carolina General Assembly this week by a variety of lawmakers in both the House and the Senate. Arena's law did go through both chambers.
If you're just joining us for the first time this week, it now sits on the governor's desk. We continue to track its progress over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Thursday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3 WBT.
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