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It's 505 and welcome in to a Tuesday 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.
Well, it was a busy Monday in North Carolina as Vice President J.D. Vance was in Greensboro to support Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley, delivering remarks at the Curry Convention Center less than a week after President Donald Trump campaigned for the same candidate in Michael Watley in Gastonia. Watley, the former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee in that race against former Democrat governor Roy Cooper for that open seat in the United States Senate that was vacated by Republican Senator Tom Tillis, who announced back last year that he would not be seeking reelection. While the vice president's comments were about half as long as the president's, Donald Trump speaking for about an hour in Gastonia last week, and the vice president just around 30 minutes in Greensboro on Monday, well, J.D. Vance started right off by taking shots at the former governor and Roy Cooper talking.
voter ID. And that brings us to the great state of North Carolina. Because we gotta ask ourselves a question. Do we want a man? Who will stand up fearlessly to these lunatics?
Or do we want one of these lunatics who pretends to be a moderate? I mentioned a minute ago that in recent years the story of the Democrat Party has been that the establishment. Has surrendered to deranged radicals. We all know that the Democratic Party, we may not have agreed with them on tax policy or regulatory policy, but they had some reasonable people out there. Unfortunately, that is not the story of the Democrats today.
Here in North Carolina, That establishment that has surrendered to the radicals, it is perfectly embodied. by one man in particular, and you know that his name is Roy Cooper. For eight years Governor Roy Cooper had left-wing activists in his ear. screaming at him to do their bidding. And each time they shrieked, Each time they threatened, each time they demanded that Roy Cooper bend the knee, do you know what he did?
He obeyed them. A few years back, Your state legislature here in North Carolina passed an amazing piece of legislation with the help of Michael Watley. It was simple. to require voter ID. Because in the Republican Party, we believe, and frankly, most in the Democratic Party believe.
That if you've got to show an idea to get on an airplane or show an ID to buy A six-pack of beer, you've got to show an ID to do the most important thing we do as citizens, which is to elect our leaders. And to their great credit, my friends, I know that we're all Republicans here, but North Carolina Democrats working with North Carolina Republicans in the state legislature, they got that bill passed. But we all know how it ended. Because far left activists got in Roy Cooper's face and they said that he was a bigot if he signed that legislation into law.
So Roy Cooper. Ever the loyal servant of the hard left. obeyed them and he vetoed voter ID in the state of North Carolina. That is Vice President J.D. Vance in Greensboro on Monday claiming that the former Democrat governor and Roy Cooper consistently was bending the knee to what he called those on the far left.
The vice president then hit the governor on another piece of legislation he vetoed as it related to voter rolls. In another case, your General Assembly passed important legislation to cut non-citizens from the state's voter rolls. And again, to give credit where it was due, it was not just our fellow Republicans. North Carolina Democrats working with North Carolina Republicans in the General Assembly tried to kick fraudsters off of the voter rolls. And you know what Roy Cooper did?
Again, he bent the knee to the far left. He did what he was told, and he killed the bill. This is who he is, ladies and gentlemen. Give Roy Cooper a choice between upsetting the crazies and doing his job, and he will side with the crazies every single time. And that's why we don't need a coward in the United States Senate.
We do not need a person who bends the knee to the far left. We need a fighter in the United States Senate. We need somebody who's going to stand up for the integrity in our elections. We need somebody who's going to pass the Save America Act, not fight against it. We need someone who will never back down when it comes to making sure American elections are decided by American citizens.
And that's why this fall we are going to send Michael Watley to Washington to get the job done for the great people of North Carolina.
Some very strong words there from Vice President J.D. Vance calling the former Democrat governor and Roy Cooper a coward, claiming consistently bends the knee to those on the far left. Just as President Donald Trump did in Gastonia last week, Vance spent a long portion of his comments on Cooper's record on crime, echoing many of the television, radio, social media, and mail ads that you have received, text messages and emails as well. Over the last couple of weeks, the vice president started the crime discussion talking about the release of thousands of violent inmates and criminals during COVID-19. when he was governor.
The far left repeatedly demanded that Roy Cooper turn his back on our great men and women in law enforcement. Let me give you a couple examples. During COVID, Activists sued him to empty your state's prisons and flood North Carolina streets with violent criminals. And no surprise. Roy Cooper did what he always does: he bent the knee.
In 2021, Roy Cooper released thousands of inmates from jail, half of whom. half of whom went on to commit another crime in this great state. The year went on to be the deadliest in state history when it comes to violent crime. Thanks to the people that he released onto your streets.
Now, of course, the argument was that it was unsafe to keep these prisoners during the outbreak of a pandemic. But I don't know why Roy Cooper prioritized the safety of prisoners over the citizens of this great state. What he should have done is kept those prisoners in jail and kept the people on the outside of the prison safe. That is Vice President J.D. Vance in Greensboro on Monday, shortly after 12 noon, shortly after lunch, as he visited the state just five days after the president in Donald Trump stumping for Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley, hammering former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper.
The vice president continued talking about crime, highlighting the brutal August 2025 murder of Irina Zarutska in Charlotte aboard the Charlotte Light Rail. On decision after decision, Roy Cooper has made choices that put the public safety and put the citizens of this state at risk. And as the murder rate ticked up, Under Roy Cooper. A culture of lawlessness took root. And then, most horrifyingly, we saw what can happen.
When violent criminals are allowed to remain on the streets, when we saw that beautiful girl. Irina Saruchka killed in sk in Charlotte.
Now, you all remember the story, and you remember the video. It's so hard to watch. She was a young woman who'd fled the war in Ukraine. Seeking to build a promising new life in this country. thinking that the United States would be safer than Ukraine.
only to have her life snuffed out By a violent psychopath who should have never been on our streets to begin with. It's unacceptable. It's disgusting. It's not who you are, it's not what North Carolina is, and it's not what this state will ever have so long as you elect Micah Watley. That is once again Vice President J.D.
Vance stumping for Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley in Greensboro. He wrapped up his comments on former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper and his stance on crime and public safety. Ladies and gentlemen, we're fighting for the American dream here. But you can't have the American dream if you're afraid to walk down your street. You can't raise a family or build a business or enjoy the fruits of your own hard work if your community isn't safe.
We used to believe that, Republican and Democrat, in this country. We used to believe that whether you were rich or poor, you deserved to have public safety. That if you went and worked a hard day's work, you ought to be able to take your kids out to a nice meal downtown again, whether you were black or white or whether you had the ability to afford private security. But Roy Cooper surrendered that public safety to the far-left criminals. And what we need to say to Roy Cooper in November is we are done with your BS.
We are done with you prioritizing the criminals over us. We're going to send Michael Watley to fight for us because you won't. That was the vice president in J.D. Vance. We'll hear more from him coming up here in just a couple of minutes as he talked about more pieces of legislation, really trying to hone in on the former Democrat governor's record as this race that we have now been talking about for months has really not materialized.
Looking at our most recent Carolina Journal poll from last week, the former Democrat governor in Roy Cooper leading Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley by 15.1 percentage points as we look less than 45 days until Election Day, early voting kicking off here in mid-October across the state of North Carolina. We'll have more from Greensboro and the vice president coming up here in just a couple of minutes. Uh Many people believe buying a home requires a large down payment and years of saving, but that's not always the case. Across the country, there are programs designed to help first-time homebuyers take the next step toward home ownership.
Some of these programs offer down payment assistance or grant funding that may help cover part of the upfront cost of purchasing a home. Grants are especially helpful because they generally do not have to be repaid. There are also organizations that provide homebuyer education, financial counseling, and guidance to help individuals understand the home buying process before they begin. The goal is simple: to help more families become informed and prepared for home ownership. If owning a home is something you've been thinking about, start by visiting Tools4Homeownership.com.
This message is brought to you by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling's Paving the Way Forward initiative. It's 5:22. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, we are recapping what was a busy Monday in North Carolina as Vice President J.D. Vance spoke to a crowd in Greensboro just five days after President Donald Trump was in Gastonia.
Both of them campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley in a race, according to our most recent Carolina Journal poll that has yet to this point materialized less than 45 days until Election Day. Our Carolina Journal poll from last week gives the former Democrat governor in Roy Cooper a 15.1% advantage over Watley in this final stretch towards Election Day. Early voting beginning October the 15th, Election Day rolling around. November the 3rd. We've already heard from the vice president about Cooper's vetoes of multiple pieces of legislation as it related to voter IDs and cleaning up the voter rolls, his policies on crime and public safety in North Carolina.
The vice president also talked about the governor's veto of the parents' Bill of Rights in the General Assembly multiple years ago. For eight years, he treated North Carolina families, moms, and dads, and the kids that they're trying to protect like garbage. As Governor, Roy Cooper again listened to the far left and vetoed the parents' Bill of Rights. This was a bill that said that parents, not hospitals, not teachers' unions, not anybody, should make big decisions about their kids' health care and education. It was a bill that said schools shouldn't teach about sexual topics to kindergartners.
or secretly call those kids by their pronouns. Why would a kindergartner ever need a preferred pronoun unless somebody else in their life is a sicko? And Roy Cooper.
Now, we know, of course, that 99.9% of our great teachers in the state of North Carolina would never do this. But if you're unlucky enough to have one of those teachers who wants to give your kid, a five-year-old, a different preferred pronoun. You need a senator who's going to fight for you, not fight for the sicko who's trying to give your five-year-old a different pronoun. It's just common sense, ladies and gentlemen. It is common sense to say that, of course, there are certain topics that are not appropriate for a five or six year old child.
Another issue of common sense is that we want to have girls sports for girls and boys sports for boys. But again, Roy Cooper vetoed legislation to keep boys out of girls' sports. And he vetoed legislation that would have stopped these terrible mutilating surgeries on kids. And while Roy Cooper kept throwing normal moms and dads to the curb. You know what he managed to find time to do?
To create what he calls gender expansive Parents' Day. Does anyone even know what that means?
Well to use Roy Cooper's words, we're going to help you out. It's to celebrate, and I quote. The work and sacrifice of non-binary A gender and other gender expansive parents. Roy? I don't know if you're still listening.
But I still have no earthly idea what gender-expansive parents means. And I gotta be honest, I'm not sure you do either. But given that you've literally run away from reporters after being asked softballs, like how many genders there are. I don't think any of us should hold our breath waiting for an answer. That is the vice president in JD Vance in Greensboro on Monday.
Similar to what we saw and heard last week with President Donald Trump, there are more high-profile races in North Carolina outside of just the United States Senate race, two congressional districts that we've been talking about a lot over the last couple of months, and we will continue to focus on in this home stretch towards Election Day. The first in North Carolina's 11th congressional district, as about six weeks ago, that race was turned on its head as a Republican, current Republican congressman Chuck Edwards announced that he would not be seeking re-election. That came just 36 hours after the House Ethics Committee released a report in Washington, D.C., indicating that Edwards likely broke rules as it related to sexual harassment and making members of his team, two young female staffers, feel very uncomfortable. The vice president giving a shout-out to the new Republican. Republican candidate in NC 11 in Jennifer Balcombe.
State Representative Jennifer Balcombe, your next Congresswoman for the 11th District of North Carolina. Jennifer has one of the largest congressional districts in the entire United States. You've got a lot of driving to do over the next couple of months. Jennifer has been an amazing fighter for lower costs and parental rights in Raleigh, and she's going to take that exact same spirit, that exact same spirit of fighting for North Carolina to Washington, D.C., and that's where we need it. Thank you.
We also will continue to follow another important race in North Carolina, the first congressional district, the opposite side of the state, northeastern North Carolina. The lines on that district recently redrawn by the North Carolina General Assembly, a rematch of a contest we followed in 2024. That was the race between Lori Buckout and Don Davis. Davis, the current sitting congressman in that district, the Democrat, Lori Buckout, the Republican challenger, the vice president commenting on that race as well. We have the amazing Lori Buckout.
Lori, where are you? Lori is an amazing public servant, and she is the exact right person to send Don Davis packing, send him back home to North Carolina. We don't need him in Washington, D.C., Lori. This will be her second time serving the American people because, of course, she honorably served in the United States Army. Like Donald J.
Trump, Lori doesn't need this job. Lori is going to take a pay cut to take this job, but Lori wants to do this job for the simple reason that the people of North Carolina need good congressional representation. They don't need radical left Don Davis. They need Lori Buckout.
So let's send Lori to Congress to fight for you. That is Vice President J.D. Vance in Greensboro on Monday. Two very high-profile visits in the span of just five days in North Carolina. The President of the United States and Donald Trump in Gastonia late last week, stumping for Michael Watley, the vice president in Greensboro on Monday.
As North Carolina does remain, in many senses, the tip of the political spear, we are going to be keeping our eye on all of these high-profile races, whether it's the United States Senate or on multiple congressional races. We'll do that over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. And as always, right here on the Carolina Journal NewsHour. For many people, renting is a convenient option. It offers flexibility and may require less responsibility for maintenance.
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Good Tuesday morning to you. Unless you've been living under a rock over the last couple of months, it's been very hard not to follow in news and in social media a lot of data center moratoriums that are popping up, not only across the state here in North Carolina, but we're really seeing this grow across the nation as well. One of the million-dollar questions has been, do these moratoriums hold up in court? That is some of the details that we're going to walk through this morning as we welcome Mitch Coke from the John Locke Foundation to our airwaves this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, our focus this...
this morning is on Chatham County, a data center moratorium there, a legal challenge that has ensued since then. What's the latest that you're tracking out of the judiciary?
Well, the latest is that there's a particular data center project in Chatham County that is going to be able to move forward despite the fact that Chatham County Commissioners put a moratorium in place in February.
Now, this doesn't answer the question that you posed in the intro, in that it doesn't say that moratoriums in and of themselves cannot stand. I think that's something that potentially could be addressed by other litigation. But in this particular case, a judge, a Superior Court judge, decided that Chatham County could not put in a moratorium that blocked a data center project that was already underway and that already had some sort of indication from the county that it was going to be okay. Basically, the decision was this project called EcoTip West, the company is EcoTip, had already gone through the planning process months before the moratorium had had conversation. Contact with county officials, had some sort of paperwork that suggested that, yes, this project can move forward.
And thus, by the time that moratorium was in place, there was enough of a vested interest in this project for it to move forward.
So that is one legal issue that's a little bit different than the general issue of whether a moratorium on its own can stand. This is basically the case of if a project's already underway, can you then put in a moratorium that would stop the project that's underway?
Now, some other interesting things about this: this was a project that is scheduled to be put into the Moncure area in a mega site, which is already being zoned for heavy industrial use. And the plaintiffs who are challenging this moratorium are saying, look, if you're going to have a data center in Chatham County, this is exactly the place that you would put it because you would want it in a place that you've already designated for heavy industry. industrial use. We're not talking about putting a data center right next to a school, right next to a neighborhood, right next to a busy shopping center. This is exactly the type of place where if you're going to have a large-scale data center, you're going to put it in place.
And county commissioners or county officials had already suggested that this was a type of project that they were comfortable with. And the only reason that they were trying to block this project after it had already initially had, if not final approval, enough approval that millions of dollars were invested in it. The only reason to do that is for political cover once people generally decided that they had some sort of dislike toward data centers. Yeah, I'm glad you used the word there, political cover, Mitch, because that seems to be a lot of what we're seeing in these municipalities here in North Carolina as many of these moratoriums are coming forward. I appreciate you walking us through some of the timeline on this.
After Chatham County moved forward with this moratorium in February, did they go back to the data center company that they had already been working with and say, hey, halt this project moving forward? Is that what spawned this legal challenge? I'm not sure if those exact words were used, but as the moratorium was going forward, the folks who were involved in this project spoke at the public hearings and said, look, we want to have some sort of guarantee that our project is going to be able to move forward. They did not get that guarantee. They basically were given the cold shoulder.
So I think they saw the handwriting on the wall that this moratorium was designed, at least in part, to block their already existing project that was moving forward. And in fact, in their court documents, not only did they use the political cover language that I mentioned earlier, but they also suggested that if not the entire reason, at least the main reason for coming forward with the moratorium was to block this particular project. It wasn't just this project getting caught up in a general sense of wanting to have a moratorium, that this project was underway. People were starting to raise some concerns about it. County commissioners decided that by putting this moratorium in place, they would be able to block this project, even though it was months already in the planning process and millions of dollars had already been spent.
One of the court documents said that $11 million had been spent on this project by the time that it was basically blocked because of the moratorium.
Well, in Chatham County, Mitch, in comparison to everything that we've seen over the last couple of months, was relatively early in this process. It's really only been the last six or seven, eight months that we've really started to see a lot of this discussion over data centers. You may even look at the last three or four months, and you've seen a plethora of municipalities move forward with these moratoriums.
So, this was kind of on the radar and discussed, at least approved originally, and then this moratorium put in place before I think this spawned into the much larger debate that is seemingly taking place not only here in North Carolina, but every facet and every factor in the country right now. Yeah, you could say they were early adopters on this, and perhaps that was because of the fact that there was a lot of publicity about this data center project that was moving forward and that people in the community were starting to raise some concerns. And that's why you started hearing the discussion about a moratorium. As we said a little bit ago, the folks who are working on this project were well aware of the discussion of the moratorium, but they said that as those discussions were taking place, Chatham County did not. Come forward to them and say, Look, we're going to have this moratorium, but you're allowed to go forward because you've already had some approval.
Nor did they come out and say, Look, we're going to have this moratorium, and that's going to stop you. Basically, they just did not get good responses or at least intelligible responses to their questions about how this is going to affect us. You've already given us an indication through some paperwork and through some discussions that our project is fine for this area and that it's going to get approval. what is this moratorium going to mean if it if it goes forward chatham county uh according to the the plaintiff's court documents was not forthcoming about what what was meant and that it was really only after the moratorium was in place then that the the data center uh project manager or the the developer learned definitively that chatham county meant to block not only future data centers but this one that was already in the works can you reiterate for me again in our audience this is not dealing with this specific data or this is just the specific data center we're talking about the moratorium as it stands obviously there could be another legal challenge against that there may already be one in progress but this is just that one specific data center in chatham county where this uh has an impact correct Yes, that's right. This does not apply to any other moratoriums that are taking place across North Carolina, nor does it apply to the legality of Chatham County's moratorium in and of itself.
Basically, the argument was Chatham County could not use its moratorium to block a project that was already underway. And in fact, the judge who ruled on this just basically a couple of weeks after holding a hearing didn't write any kind of lengthy description of why. It was a very short order, but basically said, based on the briefing, based on the hearing, based on the arguments, as a matter of law, the plaintiffs win. And I think it was fairly clear-cut to the judge that enough had been done on this project and there had been enough assurances from the county to the business that the project could not be blocked by a moratorium because it was trampling on a vested property interest that came about because of what had already transpired. Between Ecotip, the developer of the data center, and the county government.
So it remains to be seen whether other moratoriums will be able to stand or not. And I suspect that if there are other projects that were already underway, they will be pointing to this particular ruling and saying, hey, judges in our jurisdiction, you ought to do the same thing that this judge did in Chatham County. But if there are projects that have yet to be built that want to challenge moratoriums, they're going to have to do it on a different ground. They're not going to be able to say, we already have a vested interest. They're going to have to say that your moratorium stands in the way of our right to use our property in the way that we want, or some other legal argument.
And I wouldn't be surprised to see that if there are other projects that are. that are planned but have not yet started and the people think that they have a valid property interest in being able to move forward with the data center and think the moratorium doesn't stand on solid legal ground. Mitch, let's very quickly wrap up on this. You've been in the political game a long time. These moratorium discussions are real interesting.
You've got Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals. It doesn't seem to matter where you fall on the political spectrum. There's a big push, especially in these local municipalities across the nation, to put these moratoriums in place. We don't see issues like that often where there's unity from people that practically don't have anything else in common as it relates to policy. That's true.
And in fact, the most recent Carolina Journal poll had some interesting numbers on this, about three out of four people. And it basically was across the board, ideologically, men, women, blacks, whites, age, about three out of four people didn't want to see a data center in their own community. And when you asked whether North Carolina has enough data centers, has too many, or needs more, the needs more answer was the lowest one. I think it was 18% statewide. Republicans were most likely to say that we need more, but even among Republicans, it was only about 25 or 26%.
And the already have enough or have too many together was well in the majority. It was certainly a super majority in terms of people who basically don't want to see any more than what we already have now. And as you mentioned, this is something that is rare in the sense that people of all political persuasions seem to be anti-traditional centers. Data center right now, which from the perspective of the John Locke Foundation is a bad thing because we need data centers.
Now, certainly there could be some safeguards and you can make sure that they aren't forcing other electric customers to pay more than they would have to and that they aren't causing any kind of environmental damage that's not being accounted for. But certainly, you need this type of data center so that North Carolina and the United States could be competing with China to be on the cutting edge on things like artificial intelligence and everything else that these data centers help put into place. Yeah, we've seen a lot of that recently echoed by President Donald Trump as well. This data center debate is not going to go anywhere anytime soon. We'll continue to follow that.
You can read more on this Chatham County dispute this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Many people believe buying a home requires a large down payment and years of saving, but that's not always the case. Across the country, there are programs designed to help first-time homebuyers take the next step toward home ownership.
Some of these programs offer down payment assistance or grant funding that may help cover part of the upfront cost of purchasing a home. Grants are especially helpful because they generally do not have to be repaid. There are also organizations that provide homebuyer education, financial counseling, and guidance to help individuals understand the home buying process before they begin. The goal is simple: to help more families become informed and prepared for home ownership. If owning a home is something you've been thinking about, start by visiting toolsforhomeownership.com.
This message is brought to you by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling's Paving the Way Forward initiative. It's 5.56. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. We are going to be tracking a big story out of Wake County throughout the day today. As late last night, the Wake County Board of Commissioners voted to let a proposed merger between Wake Med and Atrium Health move forward.
The meeting was full of protesters and disputes. That was a 5-2 vote. We'll be tracking that throughout the day over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
Well, that's going to do it for a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We are back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.
