Pat McCrory

It's Due South Friday News Roundup.

Pat McCrory has birthday candles tomorrow.

The former seven-term mayor of Charlotte is the only Republican governor of North Carolina this century.

He's also the only incumbent governor in the state's history to lose a re-election bid.

McCrory is 70 years old tomorrow.

Can I share my favorite Pat McCrory story, Jeff?

You sure can.

So remember HB2, House Bill 2? You have to-

The official announcement came in a press release from the J- Justice Department.

And joining us now is the former governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory.

Pat, how are you?

I'm doing good.

Pat, when-

And it just amazes me what they're getting away with.

Pat McCrory, former governor of North Carolina.

Governor, we thank you so much for your time here today.

Not when Ronald Reagan was still alive, but when Ronald Reagan was still in office.

[laughs] And so, you know, a career politician that's just like Pat McCrory back in the day, um, you know, got the golden Rolodex of donors, so you knew he'd be able to raise a lot of money.

And the 100% name ID, it's, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of money to get up to, to match that and everything like that.

And so, uh, you know, all the polls obviously are closing.

You can get the podcast also, get the newsletter, and also a contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer.

And he's also the author of the book, The Change Agent, Pat McCrory's Rise, Reckoning, and Legacy.

Andrew, how are you this week, sir?

Oh, I am doing fantastic.

I've been following his career for more than a decade now as a political observer and journalist.

And as this campaign, his latest campaign for U.S. Senate comes along, I just continue to get reminded about email where Cooper, well, I mean, I know Cooper's not writing this email himself, but his campaign is complaining about weaponizing the justice system.

It reminded me of the 2016 debate between Cooper and then Governor Pat McCrory, where in the middle of the last debate, Cooper just kind of comes out with this unfounded claim, basically accusing McCrory of being under active criminal investigation by the FBI.

And It's not true.

But what they don't understand is North Carolina does not like Cooper.

He almost destroyed our state back in twenty fifteen when he was the AG and Pat McCrory was our governor, and he worked with the mayor of Charlotte and a convict, a convicted pedophile named Chad Turner to create this bathroom crisis in Charlotte.

They wanted to allow men into the women's bathroom.

And you may remember it, John, because it was a, it was a big hoopla.

So listen, first and foremost, we've been through this many times.

And I go back to 2016 when in public polls, Cooper was leading in the 1st of October by 12 points over Pat McCrory, and we won by 10,000 votes.

Uh, and in, uh, 2020 in the reelect, uh, some of the public polls had him up 14, 15, 19 points on Dan Forest, we won by three and a half.

North Carolina's a 50/50 state.

I mean, we saw it in '24.

We saw it in '22.

You know, Pat McCrory was the original delection, election denier in 2016 when they challenged a ton of voters that were legally registered voters and rightfully voters and said they shouldn't be able to vote, uh, just to try to th- throw, uh, question marks about the election results, and, and that's only gotten worse under Trump in the last 10 years.

What has it been like, do you think, for Roy Cooper to run for Senate versus for, for governor? Has it been much different or no?

But invariably, we talk ourselves, the party in power, talks themselves into an overreach.

Today, we went one-on-one with former Governor Pat McCrory, who worked closely with Tillis when he served on Jones Street.

We got along extremely well and are still friends.

But we had a big fight about separation of powers when he was speaker of the House and I was governor.

Longleafpol.com is the website.

You can also catch him every now and again over at the Charlotte Observer and pick up his book, The Change Agent, Pat McCrory's Rise, Reckoning and Legacy.

Andrew, thanks for your time, buddy.

Appreciate it.

You know,

I think the deflation is a little bit like Pat McCrory, where people like to point to the I-77 toll lane as the reason he lost.

I think there's a lot of little reasons he lost.

The fishermen on the coast were mad about some of the things he did out there.