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It's 505 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. We start off with some major business news here in the state of North Carolina that we have been tracking over the last couple of years here across the state, dealing with the Vietnamese car maker Vinfast. North Carolina and its attorney general is now officially suing the Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer for breach of agreement with the state for a planned EV factory in Moncure, North Carolina.
That is in Chatham County. Announced yesterday, state attorney general Jeff Jackson filed the suit on behalf of the state's Department of Commerce with the AG saying in a press release that through the lawsuit, the state is exercising its contractual right to acquire the property. therefore protecting the taxpayers investment while preserving the site for future economic development opportunities. Jeff Jackson said in a press release, VinFast agreed to build a factory and create jobs for North Carolinians. It didn't do either.
When North Carolina makes a deal, we build in protections for taxpayers. VinFast broke the deal, so we're using that protection to find a project site for this job to create, or for this site that will create jobs. The lawsuit states that the company has defaulted on its agreements with the state, which was to create 7,500 jobs and over $3 billion worth of private investments in order to receive all grant payments with the state, and that VINFAST's continued inaction all but guarantees further imminent default. Noting that the State will continue to defend its obligations in several key ways, noting that each gives the state the right to take back the land contractually. The first way, according to the suit, is that the company failed to commence what is called what they describe as vertical construction of buildings and structures on parcel A of the site.
That was scheduled to be done by January the 1st of 2024.
So we are well behind schedule on that, with VinFasts defaulting, therefore giving the state contractual rights to purchase said site. As a result, the suit says it is now impossible for the company to meet its contractual deadline to have an operational manufacturing plan on the site by July the 1st of 2026, and that the company has admitted publicly that it will be unable to construct any operational facility until at least 2028. It also states that. That the new plans that the company announced in March of this year would not meet the jobs or investment commitments that they had originally agreed to with the state of North Carolina. Additionally, Jeff Jackson's suit says that since the facility wouldn't be operational until 2028, the company known as VinFast, the Vietnamese EV maker, won't be able to meet its commitment of creating its new 1700-scale down jobs for the site by December 31st.
Finally, the suit states that VINFAST ceased operations on the site and really hasn't done anything since December of 2024, saying in part, quote, VINFAST has failed to take any concrete action that shows it can or will fulfill its obligations to the state. According to the press release, the North Carolina Department of Justice notified VinFast months ago, back in January, that it had defaulted on its agreement with North Carolina and that the state intended to protect its investment by exercising its right to acquire the site. In response, VinFast argued that it had met its construction deadlines and would have a facility opened on a delayed 2028 timeline. The state's action seeks to protect taxpayer investments and enforce the commitments tied to the project. The news of this lawsuit comes on the heels of some announcements earlier this week.
That VinFast plans to sell its two main factories and shift $7 billion worth of debt, which, of course, is raising concerns in the broader market for VinFast with questions about what exactly the future of this company looks like. Democrat Governor Josh Stein said in a press release associated with this announcement from Attorney General Jeff Jackson's office: North Carolina will always compete aggressively for jobs and investments. But we will also protect taxpayers by requiring the company to hold up its end of the deal. VinFast has not fulfilled its commitment, and today's action is about protecting taxpayers and getting the Chatham County mega site back on the market to support future good-paying manufacturing jobs.
So, well, how did we get here? We have to go all the way back to 2022. Then, the embattled company received a job development investment grant known as a J Dig that would have been worth or could have been worth upwards of $316 million in state reimbursements over 30 years, along with another $400 million incentive package from Chatham County. We're talking about well over or very close to three quarters of a billion dollars worth of incentives for VinFast, all of that being contingent on the company meeting its hiring goal of some $75. 7,500 employees and an investment of nearly $4 billion.
With this announcement at the time, it was major fanfare here in the state of North Carolina. Then Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, who of course is now running for a U.S. Senate on the Democrat side of the aisle, attended the groundbreaking that took place on the facility in July of 2023, which did include many company officials. This is not the only financial investment that the state had with VinFast. The state was also set to spend and did spend a significant portion of $450 million on infrastructure around the site, including a new highway to gain access in and out of the facility.
Unlike the JDIG grants, which are contingent on the company's agreement with the state, before the company receives any funding. And unfortunately, there was some collateral damage with this deal. Mary Oaks Baptist Church, which stood on the border between Moncure and New Hill on the corner of old US1 and New Elm Church Road, that church had been standing there since 1888, was met with a wrecking ball in June of that year to make way for the highway that now leads essentially to an empty site in Chatham County. The church alongside 27 homes and five businesses had to forfeit their land under imminent domain to make way for the new Department of Transportation Highway. The company, VinFast, which has received very poor reviews over the years, has been whittling away at its original plans over the years in building its factory.
A 995,000 square foot building was originally planned for the General Assembly facility, but in December of 2023, that square footage was scaled back pretty substantially to just over 782,000 square feet. In April of 2024, the company submitted revisions to the building with a new size of 810,000 square feet. VinFast's focus shifted to Asia back a couple of years ago in 2024 with a groundbreaking on an EV plan in Indonesia. It also pivoted to markets in India and the Philippines. Philippines and has remained somewhat strong in its home country of Vietnam.
However, for those that are familiar with the EV industry and market, financial markets still speculate about VinFas's chances in the United States and European markets. According to several reports in August of that last year, financial and investing advice company The Motley Fool called the company a quote money pit, echoing Inside EV's article in which they described the financial state of the company. It added that in addition to the CEO dumping billions of dollars worth of his own money into the company, capital from other groups and other external lenders amounted to more than $14 billion company capital from other groups and other external lenders amounted to more than $14 billion that were sunk into the company. With according to a recent economist, Yeah. The company losing somewhere in the ballpark of $11 billion since 2021.
Brian Balfour, the senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal, in what was arguably the largest corporate welfare deal in state history, Roy Cooper endorsed a deal worth potentially $1.2 billion with an untested Vietnamese electric car manufacturer. He said in part, this deal would have committed North Carolina taxpayers to this company for more than 30 years. Going on to say, it is amazing while politicians continue to engage in doling out political privileges and tax handouts to favored corporations, given these programs' terrible track record. For instance, more than 80% of completed J-Dig deals ended with a failure to meet their stated goals. It is long past time to give up on these schemes of.
Government direction of the economy and instead embrace a free enterprise system that has a proven track record of success. And there's no question about it. The numbers speak very loudly on these J-Day programs. Most of them turn out to be complete and total failures, many cases not even coming close to the original agreed-upon terms with the state of North Carolina. Teresa Opeka, who has been covering this story for many years over at our website, CarolinaJournal.com, did reach out to both VinFast and Chatham County officials.
But as of a publication of this article yesterday afternoon, we had not heard back. Presumably we will in the coming days and weeks. This is a major business and economic announcement here across the state of North Carolina. We'll keep you up to date with the details. You can read more on this story, all the background, all the history of VinFast.
It's over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for the story with the headline: NC Sues. to reclaim failed Vinfast factory site. Here, there are beaches, as wide open as your plans. and waterfront towns more charming than you could ever imagine.
Ready for the perfect spring getaway? Visit crystalcoastnc.com slash booking now. 522, welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, with the arrival of Memorial Day weekend, known as the unofficial start of summer. That is coming with North Carolinians paying a pretty penny at the gas pump, the state average $417 for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline and $539 for a gallon of diesel. Even that 36 cents better than the national average for traditional transportation and gas across the United States, it's an expensive proposition for travel this year as AAA forecasts travel of at least 50 miles by 45 million Americans nationwide over the holiday weekend, honoring military personnel who died in the line of duty.
The pain at the pump is directly tied to Operation Epic Fury in Iran, the joint military strikes launch. Launched by Israel and the United States back on February the 28th, declared a conflict won by the United States within hours of the start by the second-term Republican President Donald Trump. Earlier this week, represented the 80th day since it began. A nearly three-month journey with hints of a stoppage, even as ceasefire announcements and wedge is further driven between political opponents both nationally and internationally. A day before it started, the statewide norm for a gallon of unleaded gasoline was around $2.75.
That was up modestly from a low on January the 5th of this year of $2.61 a gallon, meaning that the price is up some 60% since the first of the year, 3 cents from a week ago, and $1.32 from a year ago, with North Carolinians recording $4.67 for a gallon of gasoline on June the 13th of 2022, the month that former President Joe Biden's administration was trying to explain 9.5% inflation. The Trump administration is explaining going from 2.4% inflation in February to 3.8% in April. where it was 3% for January of 2025 when the President retook the White House. The national average for unleaded gas is now $4.53 the same day after Rubio's declaration with North Carolina's $5.39 average for diesel down $0.04.
So maybe a little bit of relief there from a week ago and down $0.25 from a month ago, where on April the 7th, it was nearly $6 a gallon on average across the state. According to the Environmental Protection Agency rules, June 1st to September the 15th is the time for the least volatile summer blend fuel to be sold. And in general, summer fuel is considered 10 to 15 cents higher per gallon on average. That, of course, is regardless of any other external factors. Combustion engine consumers make up more than 8 million vehicle registrations in the nation's ninth largest state here in North Carolina, as the state's electric vehicle charging rate, according to AAA, is 40.5%.
Cents per kilowatt hour, with the national average being 41.7 per kilowatt hour, with more than 100,000 zero-emission vehicles being registered in the state at the start of 2025, according to details. 12 states have lower averages for a gallon of unleaded, 18 are lower for diesel, and 18 plus the District of Columbia are lower for those charging EVs. No state currently is lower than $5 per gallon for diesel, and only Texas by a penny is below $4 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. Among the 14 major metro areas, the least expensive average for unleaded gas in the state of North Carolina is in and around what is determined the Fayetteville market at $4.02 per gallon on average, the most expensive being the Asheville metro area at $4.27. Diesel is the most consumer-friendly, $4.
Known in what is described as the Hickory-Lenore-Morganton market out in the western half of the state. North Carolina's 41 cent per gallon gas tax for 2026 is only less than California's 61.2 Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland, with one of the more expensive gas taxes anywhere here in the nation. With motor fuel taxes in the state funding, the Department of Transportation's highway and multi-model projects accounting for more than half of the state's transportation resources. Those revenues go into the highway fund and highway trust fund to complete what is supposed to be road and bridge projects across the state of North Carolina.
So, as we have seen over the last couple of months, travel specifically here over what is described as the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day is going to be a major pain financially. for many individuals. At the pump, as according to AAA, more than 45 million Americans will travel during this holiday period. Reading from the AAA Memorial Day travel forecast, they say this year's domestic travel forecast is slightly higher than last year's and sets a new Memorial Day weekend record with an estimated 39.1 million people traveling by car, 3.66 million expected to fly to their holiday travel destinations, while gas prices are significantly higher. AAA projects that 39.1 million people will travel by car, noting that driving is the most popular way to travel for the holiday weekend and makes up some 87% of the share for Memorial Day travelers throughout the United States.
This, of course, remains a major topic of discussion here across the United States and here in the state of North Carolina. We'll be keeping an eye on the impacts as we continue through now officially the summer months here on the Carolina Journal News. We'll, of course, have continued coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. If you work in university maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip-off. And Granger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from HVAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more, and all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win.
Call 1-800-GRANGER, visit Granger.com, or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. It's 5.36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. A good Friday morning to you.
We have been keeping a pretty close eye on an interesting lawsuit taking place here in the state of North Carolina between the Republican Party and the North Carolina State Board of Elections as it relates to non-citizens registered here in the state of North Carolina. We appear to have, I guess, it might be accurate to call a conclusion, at least in this phase of the case, to walk us through some of the details this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, as we get into some of the details, this is an interesting case because it has to deal with individuals that were found to be non-citizens when they were summoned for jury duty here across the state. Pretty interesting details.
What's the latest? That's right. This case started in 2024 when the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party sued the state board of elections, saying that the board was not complying with the state law. And the state law said that once elections officials got information from clerks of court across the state identifying people who said that they could not go forward with jury duty because they're not citizens, that the elections officials should then scrape those people off of the voting rolls. If they are not citizens and can't be jurors, then they're not citizens and can't be voters.
That's the idea behind the law.
Now, at the time, the Board of Elections protested and said, wait a minute, this is not correct. We are complying with the law. The only reason that we can't remove people from the voting rolls now at the time of that suit is because it's too close to the election. And federal law says we can't remove people from the roll. But otherwise, we are complying with the law.
We get this information from county clerks, then we go through and we go through a process to make sure that these people actually are not citizens and then should be removed from the list.
So, that lawsuit had kind of been sitting in the background among all of the other election suits that have been going on through the end of the 2024 election cycle and into 2025. Fairly recently, the Republican groups and the State Board of Elections had come together on a deal that would resolve this lawsuit and basically went to a Wake County judge and said, we've got a deal. Let's go ahead and finalize this deal and end the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, A couple of groups had intervened in the case fairly early on, the North Carolina Asian Americans Together and El Pueblo activist groups that were working with the Elias Law Group. Democratic operative Mark Elias' law firm. And they had entered the lawsuit initially trying to defend what the then Democratic-led state board of elections was doing and to be basically the opposition to what the Republicans wanted to do.
Well, of course, by the time that there was a deal in this case, you had the Republican Party groups and a board of elections led by Republicans. And so the two activist groups working with the Elias law firm, they basically objected to this deal and they had one. Piece, one major piece of objection to it, and that was that the deal called for the State Board of Elections to place on its website. the names and other voting information about these voters who were identified as not being eligible to vote because they're non-citizens. And the objection from the ELIAS groups, the ELIAS clients was, well, this could have a chilling effect and would stop some people in immigrant communities from registering to vote because they might be identified as non-citizens and have their names spread on the website.
So the most recent development is this case went before a Superior Court judge in an online hearing that only lasted almost 20 minutes, not quite 20 minutes. And the judge heard from the representatives of the State Board of Elections, representative of the Republican Party, and the lawyers speaking on behalf of the Elias clients, what their various positions were. And after hearing them in a hearing that took less than 20 minutes, the judge signed off on the deal. She basically said, I understand what the objections are, but this is a good piece of transparency. These are public records.
The State Board of Elections website already has a ton of information about people, including your name and your address, what you're registered, how you're registered to vote.
So there are all kinds of information that's already there. And since this information is public record, it makes sense to have this information displayed. The deal seems to have been made. Made knowingly and without any coercion of any sort.
So she accepted that deal regardless of the concerns from the Elias clients.
So, what that should do is shut down this lawsuit.
Now, it's entirely possible that the clients working with Mark Elias might want to come back and file another suit. and say you know that this this violates people's rights in some way, but they would have to file a new suit because they really weren't the people who were involved in this suit initially. The suit was initially the Republican groups against the state board of elections, and those groups have decided to come together and settle this case. That's what I was going to ask you, Mitch, not in exactly that order, but you just kind of led into it. At what point does a judge or the judiciary step in here and say, hey, you guys really aren't parties to this case at all?
This is between the Republican Party and the North Carolina State Board of Election. As you noted, a very different political makeup of the state board of election when this was filed just months ahead of the 2024 general election. I guess maybe that would be an issue if they try to re-file this and maybe try and run it up the ladder of the court system here in North Carolina?
Well, this case is probably going to end as it is.
Now, what would likely happen is if these groups still have concerns about this process, they'd have to file a new suit of their own. That actually was one of the questions that the judge asked of the lawyer representing North Carolina Asians American, Asian Americans Together, and El Pueblo: Well, do you have an active claim? Is there something that you're that you are actually pursuing on your own rather than just objecting to this deal? And the lawyer admitted, no, we don't have an active claim. We're just noting that we don't consent to this agreement.
So, I think that if something else is going to happen on this front, it would be through a new lawsuit, not this current litigation that was filed by the Republican Party. Another thing that's important to note is I mentioned that the one objection that was raised was to putting these names out on the State Board of Elections website and displaying them in that way. As the Discussion was going forward before the judge. John Branch, who's the lawyer who's representing the Republican group, said, Look, this was an important part of the deal. We filed this suit only after we asked for this information.
And for two months, the State Board of Elections wouldn't give us any information. They only gave us the information after we filed suit. And we want to make sure that doesn't happen again.
So if it's spelled out that once the clerks of court provide this information to the election officials, that they'll go ahead and put the information on the website. We won't have to go through a public records request and then eventually file another suit if the records request isn't answered in a timely way. This ensures that the information gets out there, that anyone who wants to find this information will be able to find it. And we won't have to go through future lawsuits just to make sure that the state board of elections is complying with this state law.
So there was a justification made about why this information should be out there. The state board of elections is complying with this state law.
So there was a justification made about why this information should be out there. And that is that there was some concern that without that piece of the deal going forward, that a future state board of elections could drag its feet and not provide this information if someone asked for it. Mitch, you mentioned this a couple of minutes ago, and for those that are not that politically involved here in North Carolina, their immediate reaction to, oh, you're going to be publishing people's names and information on a website. For those that have not had the opportunity to look at the voter search tool here in the state of North Carolina, which is provided for free by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, you can look up literally anybody that is registered to vote here in the state, and it will spit out their entire address unredacted, their details about where they vote, how long they've been registered. I know there's been some discussions over that information, but just to kind of lay that out there for our audience, this is not necessarily a doxing or invasion of privacy concern because all of this information is already publicly available to anybody that has an internet connection here in North Carolina already.
That's right. You could find that information on the State Board of Elections website anyway. It is considered to be a public record. And that was one of the things that weighed into the judge's ruling. She mentioned that this is information that they're talking about.
The folks who are identified as potentially being non-citizens and thus ineligible to vote, that is public information. It's a public record. There's nothing different about posting that than having the information of the voters and their addresses and their voting history and their party registration, having that posted online.
So I think that's one of the reasons why this was a very short court hearing and why, even though an objection was raised that the judge, who is a Democrat, not someone who's basically going along with some sort of Republican Party agenda, was willing to accept this deal. She saw that this is something that made sense given where the litigation was going and what the State Board of Elections had promised to do. in terms of making sure that this information was addressed going forward. She also, the judge, Jennifer Bedford, said that this is in the interest of transparency and that she's glad that groups are paying attention to this and making sure that this type of information is available and that not only the court system, but also other agencies like the elections officials are taking advantage of this information, that someone self-identifies that they're not a citizen and can't do jury duty.
Well, you know, that information ought to also tell someone that they shouldn't be a voter because they're a non-citizen. Yeah, great context there. And let's also make sure we lay out there's a variety of different reasons why somebody who is a non-citizen could be registered as a voter. One example could be that they are, in fact, registering as a voter knowing they're not a citizen and voting illegally in elections. But, Mitch, we've also seen a lot of issues with the DMV over the last couple of decades with people who expressly checked, no, I do not want to register as a voter, being registered anyway.
We've seen a lot of those issues, even regular everyday people renewing their driver's license, seeing their party affiliation randomly changing as well.
So there's a variety of different reasons, not necessarily people in the country trying to commit voter fraud that could end up on this list of individuals who are registered to vote in North Carolina, but are in fact non-citizens in the United States. Yeah, there could be various reasons. It could be operator error. It could be someone who, as in the case that just happened in North Carolina's Eastern District, where a Canadian who's lived in the country for 60 years but never became a citizen was voting in New Hanover and Bender counties ever since the early 2000s and ended up being sentenced to a couple of months in prison plus a year of supervised release for doing that. That could be the situation you have.
I think one of the other things that comes out of this is that someone who wants to get out of jury duty and say, oh, I'll just tell them I'm not a citizen, that this will come back and get them. Because if they do, if they try to use that, then and they actually are a citizen, then they could lose their right to vote because they identify themselves as a non-citizen.
So I think this has the potential to be a win-win for election integrity and also ensuring that people are serving their jury duty if they are a citizen. and eligible to do that. It seems like we've hit the last stop here, at least on this rendition of this legal challenge. We'll keep an eye to see if something maybe is refiled or maybe a different version of something props up in the North Carolina court system. We've got continuing coverage this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 554. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, as we head into the Memorial Day weekend.
Well, here's a very concerning study and a very disappointing study, if I do say so. This study reveals that almost half of Americans don't know that the Memorial Day holiday is for honoring those who died in service to their country, with 35% of respondents confusing Memorial Day with Veterans Day, which that holiday is a day that honors all those who served in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Memorial Day is traditionally observed in the last Monday in May, with Veterans Day being celebrated on November the 11th, also marking the end of World War I. The survey conducted by Talker Research asked 2,000 Americans this question and found that 48% did not know.
That Memorial Day is a holiday honoring those who died in service of the country. Of those surveyed, 35% confused it with Veterans Day and 5% mistakenly identified it as a holiday honoring all public servants, military and non-military, who died in service. Donald Bryson, the CEO of the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal: Memorial Day is more than the unofficial start of summer. It is a solemn reminder of the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. The fact that nearly half of Americans don't recognize the meaning behind the holiday is a wake-up call for all of us.
We have a shared responsibility to preserve the stories, service, and sacrifice that Memorial Day represents so that future generations never lose sight of the freedom that they inherited. And this is a problem across a variety of different ages. Baby boomers scored better, but still only identified Memorial Day correctly at 50%. 26% compared to Gen Z, abysmal numbers here, just 27% correctly identifying Memorial Day, with millennials, 38% of those identifying it correctly. According to Austin Holmes, who is a Navy special operations veteran and president of Publicity for Good, he told the Carolina Journal: Even with having family members who have served, it is very hard to see the sacrifice that goes into just serving.
And so that's why we honor our veterans and because they're giving away a part of their lives. For Memorial Day, the guys who end up giving it all, those are the ones that we need to be thinking about frequently. Holmes emphasized that while the sacrifice is absolutely still part of our society, it is becoming less and less due to consumer and convenient mentality that is almost universal in society right now. Very concerning statistics as we head into the Memorial Day holiday. We'll keep you up to date with this over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. We are back with you Tuesday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM WBT.
