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Book in minutes at vaccassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. There is a major political scandal rocking the state of North Carolina this morning.
Out late yesterday, federal transportation officials are providing details estimating that more than half of North Carolina's commercial driver's license, those are CDLs, things you need to drive, heavy machinery, trucks, things of that nature, issued to foreign nationals did not comply with federal law. In an official warning letter set Thursday to officials here across North Carolina, federal auditors reported that a review of 50 sampled commercial driver's license found that 27 of the 50 they sampled were issued illegally. While in eight cases, the state, quote, could not provide any evidence that it verified the driver's lawful presence with an unexpired EAD or unexpired foreign passport, as well as a form I-94 documenting the driver's most recent admittance into the United States prior to issuance. The letter from the DOT says that the serious deficiencies in the state's CDL program could result in the loss of potentially tens of millions of dollars in federal highway funding, and it's possible for the feds to completely decertify the state as an authority to issue commercial driver's license. This is a major story rocking North Carolina this morning, and it builds on a larger trend of concern and frustration that we have seen across the United States in recent years of individuals illegally in the United States of America getting commercial driver's license.
We have seen some horrific. Horrific trucking accidents over the last couple of years. One of the most prominent included a crash in Florida in the early parts of 2025. We will continue to follow this, and you can read additional details and coverage over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. We will be joined by the editor-in-chief of Carolina Journal, Donna King.
She'll join us coming up a little bit later on in the program this morning. In some other statewide news this morning, despite tariff wars and trade deals taking a toll on American consumers and business owners, the economic outlook for North Carolina in 2026 appears to be strong, according to experts both nationwide and here in North Carolina. Dr. Michael Walden, an economist and professor at NC State, says that North Carolina is in a much stronger position heading into 2026 than most of the country. He recently spoke to Spectrum News One saying, I've been doing this for almost 50 years.
North Carolina always looks better on virtually every metric, and here in the triangle, probably another step higher than that.
So we are in a good place to weather some of these economic challenges here in North Carolina. Walden, however, acknowledged the weight felt by American consumers as they watch prices rise in some sectors. That remains due to inflation and tariff costs from the Trump administration, with Walden saying American businesses have been paying these billions of dollars that are going into the tariff fund, if you will, and they are increasingly passing those on to the consumer. Consumers and customers are feeling the impact as many of their salaries are unfortunately not keeping pace with the rising prices due to inflation and tariff costs, according to Walden, who is expected to release his 2026 economic outlook report alongside NC State University in the coming weeks. Walden told the Carolina Journal that he compared the growth rate of this first three quarters of 2024 to the first three quarters of 2025, as fourth quarter numbers are not yet available for the 2025, the latter part of last year.
The growth rates are for real GDP, which is the value of total outputs of goods and services adjusted for inflation. Walden told the Carolina Journal the growth rates are very similar for the two years: 1.93% for 2024 and 1.86% for 2025.
So, a very minor difference there. As North Carolina saw a growth in manufacturing in 2024 with an economic output of some $108 billion, accounting for about 14.5% of the state's GDP. That is, according to data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce, as manufacturing is divided into durable and non-durable goods. In 2024, manufacturing generated some $62.6 billion of the state's GDP, or 60% of manufacturing durable goods, and that accounted for $41.3 billion, or about 40% of GDP manufacturing in 2024 as well. Experts are predicting an optimistic economic.
Forecast nationwide as well, with Fox News recently reporting that Goldman Sachs economists wrote in their 2026 outlook that a greater than expected impact from tariffs on the 2025 economic growth. Goldman Sachs economists projected faster growth in 2026, forecasting a 2.6% increase in real GDP throughout this calendar year. Economists also over at Vanguard, they are a major financial firm as well, also expect the economic growth to accelerate in 2026, putting the GDP growth rate at 2.25% according to an Investopedia report. The unemployment rate is also predicted to drop to 4.2% from the November 2025 levels of 4.6%. Vanguard's economists are also on track to be among the most accurate on Wall Street for their 2025 forecast.
Josh Hurt, a Vanguard economist who helped prepare the forecast, said, We always have some humility with these forecasts. There's no question about it. But I think that we are in a very good range. According to the latest report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the real GDP increased 4.3% in the third quarter of 2025 and 3.8% in the second quarter. The price index for gross domestic purchases also increased 3.4% in the third quarter, followed by 2% in the second quarter.
According to the report, the personal consumer expenditures known as a PCE price index, that's a little bit different than the CPI, this is the PCE, increased 2.8% compared with an increase of 2.1%. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 2.9% compared with an increase of 2.6%. While these are only predictions for 2026, the economic analysis does not wield a crystal ball necessarily as experts have been remarkably accurate with their forecasts in recent years and continue to remain optimistic about the continued growth at both the state and national levels as we dive deeper into the year 2026. The economy is going to be on a lot of folks' minds, of course, as we. Look ahead later on this year.
Major midterm elections taking place, not only here across the state of North Carolina, but across most of the rest of the United States. Obviously, a lot of emphasis on North Carolina as there is a major United States Senate race that will take place. Republican Senator Tom Tillis announcing in 2025 that he would not be seeking re-election, leaving an open seat here in North Carolina on the Democrat side. Former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper is the candidate that will be in that race. There will be a Republican primary coming up here in just a couple of months.
And so, as we look at the economy, that is likely to be one of the largest factors that drives voters out to the polls as we get into the latter parts of this year.
So, its impacts and the work that can be done on it at both state and federal levels will have a major, good potentially, I should say, have a major impact for the party that is able to champion some major economic. Wins and some major economic successes. You can read some additional coverage on this story over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. That headline story there: Economic Outlook 2026, North Carolina remains strong. We will also talk coming up in just a few minutes with Teresa Opeka from CarolinaJournal.com.
As this month's council and state meeting has now come and gone, we got some additional economic information from state treasurer Brad Breiner. Teresa Opeka joins us coming up here in just a couple of minutes. Let's go! You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it, but your immune system, it weakens as you age.
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Don't forget, if you miss any portion of the Carolina Journal News Hour, you can take the show on demand on your own time in your favorite podcast app. Just search for the Carolina Journal News Hour, tap the subscribe or follow button, and take a new program with you each and every weekday morning. You can also watch the show live and on demand by visiting our Carolina Journal YouTube channel. As we start off the year 2026, many folks may be looking at their yearly or monthly budgets, figuring out what their finances are going to look like in the new year. And we're asking, of course, some similar questions here in North Carolina as well.
What is the financial health of the state? To walk through some details this morning, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, we talked earlier in the week about this month's Council of State meeting. You learned some information from State Treasurer Brad Breiner. Question to you: How's the state's finances looking as we kick off the new year?
Good morning, Nick. Thanks for having me. State's finances are looking pretty good. That's the report that Treasurer Reiner gave at the Council State meeting earlier this week, noting that debt is down and pension liabilities are also down, and earnings on pensions are up.
So, very good news. To give more specifics, beginning of 2025, the state owed a little over $54.5 billion. And that comprised of about 34 billion from the State Health Plan, $18 million in pension liabilities or rather billion, rather, in pension liabilities, and $2.5 billion in tax supported debt. One year later, remarkably, the debt has been reduced, total debt, to $34.5 billion, a $20 billion reduction. Of that amount, $10 billion was, he said, determined by Treasury rate and federal policy.
But the rest came from two major initiatives. We could talk about further changes to the state health plan and also replacing the state's sole fiduciary model for its pension fund with a five member North Carolina Investment Authority Board.
So those are pretty remarkable numbers that he gave out at the meeting on Tuesday. I'm sure some folks, Teresa, are probably saying, man, if we could only do the same thing in Washington, D.C., cutting $20 billion off the deficit book in the span of just a year. And yes, it is a year, but let's not forget that the new treasurer came in January the 1st. He had to get his office set up, get the people around him.
So you're talking about in a less than a 12-month period of time, that reduction. As you noted, the state health plan was a large contributor to that. Teresa, throughout the summer, you walked us through spring and summer of last year. You walked us through some of these proposed changes. There was a lot of criticism, a lot of outcries from state employees because there was some pretty significant increases.
However, as we've heard from Treasurer Briner over the last six or eight months, these things are necessary to make the plan solvent. It appears it's having a strategic impact here across North Carolina. Right, because the plan's premiums were frozen for a number of years. Former state treasurer Dale Falwell took from reserves, those were depleted.
So, on one hand, everything looked pretty good. People weren't getting an increase in premiums, but this had to be done to make the plan solvent. And Treasurer Briner now had to be the bearer of bad news for people on the end of the increase, which was on a sliding scale. The lower salary you made, the lower your premium went up, and vice versa, the higher it went up. But it had to be done.
They projected a $1.3 billion deficit for 2027 for the state health plan that was going there. Plan's original projected deficit was about $507 million in 2026.
So they really, really got that down to a very lower level. And, you know, they did a lot of different changes. They looked at also getting different providers who would go in on this one that's called Lantern, something where they would cut costs for their members if specific providers would join that as well. And some did, but the treasurer said during the meeting on Tuesday, a lot of providers did not. He says, so he warned different state leaders.
You may hear from them this year that it's not fair that basically the treasurer's office is picking on these providers. But it's really to cut costs and get cut. cut the costs down in state government, which we're seeing that from state audit or Dave Bolick. A lot of different people are cutting costs in state government and trying to save money. And that's a good thing for the taxpayers.
It is. And, you know, Teresa, this goes into a larger and broader policy discussion that we don't have time for this morning, but about things like certificate of need, which has consistently put North Carolina very close, if not at the top of the list, for some of the highest health care costs in North Carolina. If you have been a state employee over the last couple of years, it's been great that you haven't seen those premium increases. Everybody in the private sector has, and it's almost like a little bit of a slingshot effect here with these new changes from the treasurer's office. But as you walked through some of those numbers, I mean, you were looking at billions of dollars worth of the deficit in just a couple of years had these changes not been made.
So while it's unfortunate that folks are paying more, I guess the alternative was bankruptcy for the state health plan. I can't imagine that would have been taken very well by state employees either. No, no, because, you know, what are you going to end up with? I mean, you're not going to have anything. You're going to have to fend for yourself, so to speak.
So, yeah, this this had to be done. It was like, I guess, ripping a bandaid off if you want to talk about health care, just getting it right off, getting it done. But yeah, it it needed to be done for the position that they were in. Let's talk about the other piece of this, this new investment authority board. And I actually didn't know about this.
We talked about it back during the General Assembly's long session. Previously, the state treasurer was the sole fiduciary responsible party for all investment decisions being made throughout the state treasurer's office. Teresa, not only is that a lot of responsibility, but you could get into a situation where maybe you end up with some blinders on, where you're not being challenged maybe on some of the investments being made. Walk us through some of the details on this new five-member board and why this is something that not only the treasurer called for, who was a Republican, but the Democrat governor also agreed to the legislation, praised it, and signed it into law. Right.
So, and this is, you mentioned this is something that Treasurer Briner campaigned on. He said it was the best thing to do because not saying anybody was, you know, committing fraud or doing anything illegal in the state, but it's better to have more than one person overseeing all the different financials when it comes to the pension fund. The board assumed the fiduciary responsibility. It's that the state pension plan is $139 billion. I mean, they started overseeing that on January 1st.
So that's a lot of money. And as he said, basically, it changes fundamentally how they make investments in the state. And this is a quote from Breiner, which matters a great deal to everybody, not just state employees. The program earned $16 billion this past year, which is a record for the year. He said now the second half may end up eclipsing the first half as the most profitable half a year in state history.
And he said he wasn't going to go through all the specifics, but basically, in plain English, they reduced the deficit by going through all of this, looking how to cut costs and maybe investing more wisely, getting more advantage in the investment system. They reduced the deficit by 40%.
So they said we still have about 10 million to go to eliminate the deficit, but that's quite a number as well.
So, you know, they took a look at all this, where they can make maybe better investment choices versus just having one person overseeing it. And look at the difference it's made in the past year. Yeah, no question about it.
Some very significant impacts there. Teresa, I know we went through a lot of numbers and some different percentages this morning. Maybe for folks that want to go and read some of this, you've also got some additional quotes from the treasurer from this week's Council of State meeting. Where can they go and do that? Sure, they can head on over to CarolinaJournal.com.
We appreciate the update this morning. Teresa Opeka joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Uh You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it, but your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FMWBT continuing our coverage of a major North Carolina story this morning. A letter recently sent from federal officials to the state of North Carolina is threatening to pull nearly $50 million worth of federal government funding after a big problem has arisen with CDL driver's licenses across the state of North Carolina. To get some additional detail on that this morning, it's my pleasure to welcome the editor-in-chief of CarolinaJournal.com, Donna King, to our airwaves this morning. Donna, this letter dropped late Thursday evening. This seems to be a major political scandal across North Carolina.
What are you following? Yeah, good morning, Nick. This really is a huge story. It's coming from the federal Department of Transportation. And they found that in an audit they did of states across the country on CDL licenses, that they pulled a sample of about 50 of North Carolina's CDL licenses.
And of the 50 they pulled at a random sample, 27 were issued without following federal law, so issued illegally. In eight of those cases, the state couldn't provide any evidence that it ever verified the driver's lawful presence in North Carolina, whether it would be like forms or an unexpired passport, lots of different ways they can verify the driver's presence, lawful presence in the United States. And they said eight of the 50, they couldn't provide any information. In 27 of the 50, they weren't following the law.
So this reveals a major hole in the way North Carolina issues these uh what they called non-domiciled CDL licenses.
So nondomicle means that the person who has this license is typically a foreign national, somebody who's not permanently residing in a U. S. state. Typically, they're foreign nationals authorized to work in the U. S.
But that authorized to work in the U. S. is a key part of the puzzle to following federal law with these CDL licenses. And, Donna, from a national standpoint, this has been a growing concern over the last couple of years. We've seen stories from all across the United States.
There was a big story in Florida last year, a couple of other states, California and New York, being under the hot seat over the last 12 months or so from the federal government for some of these same issues, giving out CDL's commercial driver's license. We're talking about big rigs, trucks that are towing tens of thousands of pounds worth of goods, potentially giving these licenses to individuals who may not legally be in the United States. There's been some deadly car accidents as a result of it. That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly.
And that's why we've had so much more attention on this. Um, in recent months, because of the frightening situation, uh, I think it was in Florida of these deadly car accidents. Um, and I think that it doesn't indicate that all, of course, CDL licenses are at risk of this, but it does reveal this big hole in the system that there's such you know a shortage of truck drivers. And sometimes, when you have a bureaucracy like we do in many places of things like the license process, they you know just want to crank them out, and that's maybe the problem is that they're not going through the process.
Now, what this does is the consequences, that's the big part of it now, right?
So If the state doesn't come in compliance with federal law in issuing these CDLs, Um the letter threatens to um uh put at risk about $48 million for fiscal year 2027 in federal funding for highways and things like that. And that's what this letter says: that says, look, we're going to give the state 30 days. To explain it, but either bring into compliance, bring the system into compliance, or tell us why we're wrong. That's what the letter says. If not, they could put at risk, one, North Carolina's authority to issue CDL licenses in the first place.
And then ultimately, millions and millions of dollars in federal funding for our highways. Yeah, you talk about some of those consequences, which are pretty substantial. And before we get back to some of the details on this story, Donna, the DMV, obviously the licensing and issuing agency for these CDLs, has been in the hot seat here in North Carolina for quite some time. There's a new commissioner in there. Folks find themselves ever more frustrated with the DMV.
And as you noted, in eight of the 50 licenses that they looked at, the state could not provide any evidence that it verified the drivers. This is unfortunately another black eye for North Carolina's DMV system. Huge, and that's actually what it brings it down to. The DMV has been under a lot of scrutiny in the last few years, anyway. Of course, you know, long lines and during COVID, people not being able to get in there and get driver's licenses, not doing not being able to, you know, get in there and expanding their hours to Saturday hours to try and resolve some of that backlog.
But this has been a constant issue. It seems in the last in the few recent years that we've had North Carolinians saying they just can't get an appointment anywhere. They can't get service. They can't hold on to employees. There's a morale problem and just all kinds of issues.
And this is something that Commissioner Tyne, who came in and he's going to be, you know, he's heading it up. Paul Tyne was a former legislator and now is kind of running the show over there and has been. Um before that it was a good one. And so now time is sort of inherited a lot of these issues and is trying to tackle them. It's just not moving fast enough.
And that's kind of what we're seeing. We've seen lawmakers have bring them in to answer some questions at the state legislature. But yes, this is just yet another instance of some real serious problems over at DOT. Yeah, and we've seen just in the last couple of months, four or five months, a major report out from the North Carolina State Auditor's Office highlighting some of the deficiencies in DMV as well. Donna, we've talked a lot in the last six or eight months over appointment authorities throughout the state of North Carolina.
The General Assembly has made some changes there. There's obviously, as you would expect, going to be a lot of finger pointing on who is actually responsible for this. Can you walk us through who is responsible for the DMV here in North Carolina? Who makes those appointments? And who does the buck eventually stop with?
Sure, yeah.
Well, first, the state, the DOT secretary, this is the responsibility of the executive branch, and this is Governor Josh Stein.
So it's certainly going to get a lot of his attention. And we're seeing that DOT is kind of an ongoing problem. It was for Roy Cooper, now it is for Josh Stein.
So the state legislature, which is a Republican run state legislature, is uh looking into it and they have some oversight committee meetings that they've recently Talked about changing that authority and what do they do about it, right? Because there is a huge problem. People are increasingly frustrated about what's happening over at DOT. This is going to be the latest. This is the one that I think is going to get a lot more attention than others.
because I think that they're seeing that this is an actual this is a real danger to North Carolinians on our highways. We don't want to see a situation like what we saw happen down in Florida. Yeah, no question about that. Donna, as you would imagine, there's going to be a lot of reaction coming in across North Carolina. This letter was sent kind of late in the day on Thursday, so reaction necessarily hasn't started pouring in at a full force yet.
Where can folks go and get some additional details on this and follow the continued breaking news as we get reaction, likely from lawmakers, both in our congressional delegation and those lawmakers here across the state of North Carolina? Sure, sure. You head over to CarolinaJournal.com. We'll be following it. Certainly, the next step is the state has about 30 days to respond to this federal letter.
We'll keep a close eye on it. We appreciate the information and insight this morning. Donna King, the editor-in-chief of CarolinaJournal.com, joins us this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour, recapping the headline on our major top political North Carolina story this morning. The state could lose upwards of $48.7 million, according to officials at the federal level, who has more than half of North Carolina's commercial driver's licenses. Those are CDLs that are issued to foreign nationals who did not comply with federal law.
As Donna mentioned, continued coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it. But your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in.
They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need. Book in minutes at vaxassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. Yeah.
Good morning again. It's 5:50. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM, WBT. North Carolina's finances are heading in the right direction in the new year. This is according to information out of state treasurer Brad Breiner.
He provided an update to the entire executive branch, the entire council of state earlier this week at the beginning of 2025. That's when Brad Breiner came into office. He was successful in his election victory in November of 2024. The state owed $54.5 billion, comprising $34 billion from the state health plan and $18 million in pension liability, as well as about $2.5 billion in tax-supported debt. Just one year later, 12 months later, the total debt has been reduced to $34.5 billion, a $20 billion reduction of that amount.
Amount $10 billion is determined by the Treasury rate and federal policy. All the rest of the savings came from two major initiatives, one that we talked about pretty consistently here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, changes in 2025 to the state health plan, as well as replacing the state's sole fiduciary model for its pension fund with a brand new five-member North Carolina Investment Authority board. That board assumed fiduciary responsibility of the nearly $139 billion state pension fund on January the 1st of this year. The state treasurer told the Council of State at their meeting on Tuesday, quote, it changes fundamentally how we make investments in the state, which matters a great deal to everybody, not just state employees. That program earned $16 billion, which is a record for the year.
And it looks like the second half may end up eclipsing the first half as the most profitable half year in state history. I'm not going to try and go through all of the actuarial math of how we get some. Pension deficits, how we calculate them and how they come into being or disappear. But in plain English, we have reduced the deficit that we owe within the pension system by 40%. We still have about $10 billion to go before we eliminate that deficit completely.
Brynn also acknowledged that the changes to the state health plan were not the most popular or comfortable for himself and many across North Carolina.
However, he remains continuing to promote that they were necessary, they were needed in order to make the plan solvent and financially stable long term. A whopping $1.3 billion deficit was expected for the state health plan projected in 2027.
However, changes implemented by the state health plan in 2025 and the General Assembly were able to reverse that trend and bring the plan about $30 million above its reserve rate. This is according to Thomas Freeman, who is the executive administrator of the state health plan. The plan's original projected deficit was $507 million in 2026 and between $800 and $900 million in 2027. Back in August of 2025, the board agreed to raise Plan premiums for the first time on a sliding scale. That meant that it was based on income, with the smallest increases going to the lowest paid state employees that are on the state health plan and take advantage of that.
Former state treasurer Dale Falwell maintained a policy of not increasing premiums. Instead, he used cash reserves, which are, of course, one-time monies, for continuing rising costs to offset some of those increases for years. On May the 20th of last year, the board reconvened and approved changes to those state health plan benefits, raising annual deductibles for singles and families under both their standard PPO and plus PPO plan. With those benefit packages kicking off in 2026 with the standard enrollment period, the treasurer told state leaders that he wants to prepare them for what's to come in 2026, telling his fellow members of the Council of State, you're going to get a different kind of consistent outreach in 2026.
So I want to prepare you for that. What that looks like is providers coming to you complaining essentially as we go towards transparencies for pricing and running competition for our members' business. The providers will call you or email you and say that we are unfairly putting them out of network and that our members won't have access to credible services and that their existence is threatened by our actions. You should know that that is simply not. Not true.
Bryner said that they have run competitions for their own 750,000 member businesses and invited every high-quality provider in the state to participate.
Some have decided not to, and some of them, quote, did not win. Those who either decided not to or did not win inevitably will reach out saying that this is unfair in some way. But I assure you, we ran transparent and fair competition for our business. This is the only way that we're going to address the underlying root cause of healthcare costs in our state. By applying added pressure.
So, we've done that, but not everybody is going to like that, and you will hear about it. Please reach out to me directly or reach out to Thomas Freeman directly. We are as transparent as we can be on this point, but again, not everyone will like it.
So, this is setting the stage for what is an improving financial situation here across the state of North Carolina. This tacked on with some additional reporting that we are getting out of North Carolina this morning as the economic outlook for the state, both for the internal state, as I mean, things like the state health plan, things like the pension fund, that is incredibly strong as well. And according to details from Dr. Michael Walden, who is an economist and professor at NC State University, he also is reporting in recent days that North Carolina is in a much stronger financial position as we get deeper into 2026 than most of the country. This is, of course, continuing to be a major concern for American consumers as the concern, the risk over tariffs and increases in various prices and sectors is on the minds of many Americans, many small businesses and large businesses alike.
The economic forecast and outlook for 2026 is also likely to turn into a major political fight across the nation as we watch midterm elections roll through. Many important United States House and Senate Seats and races will begin to unfold and take place as we get deeper into the year, and the economy is likely to be a large issue for both Democrats and Republicans running for those various positions and offices. We've got additional coverage on that, all of that this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition. You can visit our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it, but your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in.
They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need. Book in minutes at vaxassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. Mm-hmm.