Nick Craig Subs for Pete (11-18-2024--Hour2)

[00:00:00] We've been talking a lot about the election almost two weeks ago and things are still

[00:00:04] unraveling here in North Carolina. To get details on that, the editor-in-chief over at CarolinaJournal.com,

[00:00:10] Donna King, joins us this afternoon on The Pete Kaliner Show. Donna, am I reading this headline

[00:00:15] correctly? 24 votes separate the North Carolina Supreme Court race right now?

[00:00:20] Donna King, The Pete Kaliner It's crazy and actually now it's up to 34 votes

[00:00:23] with rigs still at an advantage. And it is starting to look like that's not going to change as we move

[00:00:30] through this. There were a dozen or so counties, a little less, that had not completed their canvas

[00:00:38] by close of business or by the end of Friday, which was the requirement in state law. It has to be,

[00:00:43] canvas has to be 10 days after. The State Board of Elections announced on Friday that the counting

[00:00:48] would continue into this week. So we are seeing that more coming in today. The big one that's

[00:00:56] outstanding that might, you know, give rigs more of an advantage as they go through this process is

[00:01:01] Forsyth County. So it's these absentee ballots that are coming in and being tallied.

[00:01:07] Yeah, and these absentee ballots, all of these came in before election day. You know, years past,

[00:01:12] there was this kind of gray area, gray period of time, Donna, where ballots could come in a couple

[00:01:17] days after the election, as long as there was a postmark, there was some ambiguity as to

[00:01:22] what that postmark needed to be. But that's all changed, correct?

[00:01:26] That's correct. So now these absentee ballots must be in by 730 on election day. They are not

[00:01:35] calculated until they're part of this canvas because they take some time to, because, you know,

[00:01:40] actually I'm saying absentee, I mean provisional. Provisional ballots is what we're talking about in

[00:01:44] most cases. So they must be in there by seven, absentee ballots must be in by 730 on election day.

[00:01:52] Provisional ballots are the ones that are someone perhaps goes to the wrong precinct,

[00:01:57] they've moved and didn't update their address with the Board of Elections, or perhaps they didn't have

[00:02:02] the qualifying identification to vote. They're allowed to cast a provisional ballot. Now it takes

[00:02:09] some time for elections officials to confirm that these are qualified, verified ballots that can be

[00:02:16] cast. And so that's why you see this 10 day canvas process and the provisional ballots being added to the

[00:02:22] total. When we look at where we were two Wednesdays ago, the morning after the election, the Republican in

[00:02:31] this race in Jefferson Griffin had about a 10,000 vote lead. As you noted, that's been a whittled all

[00:02:38] the way down. And Donna, this is not the first time that we've seen a Supreme Court race like this

[00:02:44] come down to the wire. It was back, what, four years ago with Chief Justice Newby?

[00:02:49] It sure was. That was a very closely watched one. In that case, we really saw Chief Newby and

[00:02:55] the Republican Republican was running there. And that ended up being separated by about 410 votes,

[00:03:01] maybe 407 or something like that. But that was a very, very tight race. If we see this one emerging

[00:03:07] with fewer than 100 votes, that's huge. The important is that this does not change the right,

[00:03:16] more conservative lean that we have to the North Carolina Supreme Court, because right now,

[00:03:21] conservatives have or Republicans have about a five, they have a five to two majority on the

[00:03:27] state's high court. So this would not change it. If Jefferson Griffin were to win, they'd have a 6-1

[00:03:32] with Allison Riggs, they'd keep that 5-2. I think the important thing is that Democrats really saw this

[00:03:38] as the first in a domino of trying to retake that high court, because this was on the ballot,

[00:03:43] and then we're going to see in 2026, Democrat Anita Earles, her seat is on the ballot.

[00:03:49] So I think it was the first step in a long-term, it is the first step in a long-term plan for

[00:03:55] Democrats to try and retake the high court in North Carolina. But it's very difficult to say how that

[00:04:01] would pan out, because we've really seen Republicans emerge victorious in most of these statewide

[00:04:07] judicial races, certainly in 2022. Jefferson Griffin, he ends up losing this race. It would be the first

[00:04:16] loss for Republicans at that highest level in quite a while, quite a long time.

[00:04:20] And it's just amazing. And I'm done. I'm sure you know, people and a bunch of folks listening this

[00:04:24] morning have friends or family members that say, ah, you know, my vote doesn't count. Who cares?

[00:04:30] 5.7 million votes and just a couple of dozen votes separating them. It's, it's absolutely remarkable.

[00:04:36] It really is. But it also points to, and I think that this is important as we have a larger

[00:04:41] conversation about the electoral college. It certainly has nothing to do with the North

[00:04:46] Carolina Supreme Court, but what this really shows is the power of large counties to cancel out,

[00:04:54] counteract smaller counties, certainly because we have Wake County and Mecklenburg County made this huge

[00:05:02] shift over the weekend during the canvassing process. So he was leading by 10,000 votes coming

[00:05:07] into this. But then the provisional ballots come in from Wake County, which is heavily blue,

[00:05:12] Mecklenburg County, which has a, which is largely blue. That is what made the shift. And then we're

[00:05:18] going to probably have Forsyth County come in and just, you know, galvanize it just so to speak. So

[00:05:23] it really does show the power of just much more condensed Democrat leading voters in our urban area.

[00:05:31] It's going to be interesting to follow and likely heading into recount territory. All those details will be

[00:05:36] available over at CarolinaJournal.com. Don, I want to turn our attention to the North Carolina General

[00:05:42] Assembly. They're back for four days, which is for all intents and purposes, a full calendar,

[00:05:47] a full session for them. As we speak right now, there is a meeting going on in terms of the North

[00:05:53] Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that

[00:05:57] organization and what's going on up in Raleigh right now? Sure, sure. So there is an oversight hearing

[00:06:03] going on right now as we speak. We've got Carolina Journal's Brianna Kramer over there,

[00:06:07] and she'll have a report on it later today. The North Carolina Office of Resilience and Recovery

[00:06:13] was started by Governor Roy Cooper back, way back when we were having damage, widespread damage,

[00:06:20] with Florence and Matthew, Hurricane Florence and Matthew, to try. I think the intention was for this

[00:06:28] office to air traffic control, the money coming in, the rebuild process, the grant-making opportunities,

[00:06:37] the grants and those kind of things that we see coming from the federal government, get people with

[00:06:40] a roof back over their head, get the work done to really recover from the hurricane. That is not how

[00:06:46] it has turned out. This has been just a bureaucratic nightmare for a lot of families who were impacted by

[00:06:53] Florence and Matthew. Some are still living in hotels. The state general assembly has had to have

[00:06:59] oversight review commission meetings about this to find out what went wrong. So we're looking at it

[00:07:05] really closely as we go into this recovery process for Helene. We don't want the victims of Helene to

[00:07:11] fall in the same problems that victims of Matthew and Florence have had. So I think this is the first of

[00:07:17] what we're going to see many of lawmakers really reviewing this office to see if it is living up

[00:07:23] to its promise and its mission. Well, and I think the context for our audience is important. You talk

[00:07:29] about those storms, Florence and Matthew, there's still, as of October, there was still 1600 people

[00:07:35] displaced from those storms, Donna. You can imagine if you're somebody living out in western North Carolina

[00:07:40] reading that headline, that's got to sink your stomach into deep pits. That's just unacceptable.

[00:07:47] It really is. And one of the things that over time has emerged about this is that it's just not being

[00:07:55] run very well. It's not being run efficiently. It's not operating on a sense of urgency that folks who've

[00:08:01] been impacted by these storms really need. When we saw South Carolina set up something sort of similar,

[00:08:07] but different in that it pushed more control over this process to emphasize efficiency and getting

[00:08:14] people with a roof over their heads faster. They recovered much more quickly. I think theirs even

[00:08:19] was disbanded several years ago, and we're still struggling with it. So we don't want recovery from

[00:08:25] Helene to fall in the same category because that can be devastating because they're dealing with something

[00:08:29] completely different there. Just terrain alone is going to create new challenges. So being able to

[00:08:37] hire contractors, make inspections, do all the things that they need to do at the local level,

[00:08:43] and get people back in their homes as quickly as possible. That's the goal of these lawmakers. Get to the

[00:08:48] root of where the problems are. Real quickly turning our attention, the House and the Senate do convene

[00:08:52] tomorrow right around noon. They'll be dealing with a veto override. What are the details on that?

[00:08:58] Absolutely. So they're going to be tackling HB 10, House Bill 10. I believe the Senate has already

[00:09:05] overridden it. We're looking at the House to do the same. This has overridden a veto of House Bill 10.

[00:09:11] House Bill 10 contains kind of a catch-all of some priorities that we saw over the summer, including

[00:09:17] requiring sheriffs in North Carolina to cooperate with ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement. But it also

[00:09:23] ends up clearing the wait list for opportunity scholarships. And this is something that

[00:09:29] Governor Cooper has really opposed, vehemently opposed. And I would anticipate Josh Stein would

[00:09:36] probably be similar because I think in policy he will be a little bit to the left of Governor Cooper.

[00:09:41] So these opportunity scholarships, though, support for them cross political aisles. Certainly you see

[00:09:47] people on both sides saying opportunity scholarships do not know political boundaries,

[00:09:52] and it's got support pretty widespread. So I anticipate that this override would be completed

[00:09:56] by the end of business today or tomorrow. Yeah, a lot going on. Where do folks keep up to date with it?

[00:10:03] No, for sure. Yes. Head over to CarolinaJournal.com. We've got all the details on those stories,

[00:10:08] and then we will have a fresh post-election poll coming out on Thursday.

[00:10:13] Very exciting. Donna King, the editor-in-chief over at CarolinaJournal.com. Donna, thanks for the time.

[00:10:18] Great talking to you.

[00:10:19] I want to go back to this North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. The acronym for it is N-C-O-R-R,

[00:10:27] which is a great acronym. This organization, this office spun up by Governor Roy Cooper, which

[00:10:33] obviously I think it's safe to say whether you like Roy Cooper or not, I think was probably well

[00:10:38] intentioned. You had hundreds of millions of dollars coming in from the federal government after

[00:10:43] Matthew and Florence, and you needed some agency, some group to handle this. Again, well-intentioned

[00:10:49] in all likelihood at the start. Whether you like Roy Cooper or not, I doubt he spun up this department to

[00:10:55] purposefully keep people out of their homes, right? I think I can say that, and I feel comfortable

[00:11:01] saying that to you this afternoon. However, the department has been an absolute unmitigated disaster.

[00:11:08] I mean, they had a relatively simple task. Oversee the distribution of $779.1 million worth of federal

[00:11:17] money that was allocated to the state due to Matthew and Florence. Now it's a large sum of money, sure,

[00:11:23] but that's your only job, right? All you're doing is dealing with this pot of money,

[00:11:28] dealing with the natural disaster, which were in this case two hurricanes.

[00:11:33] So with that though, as of October of this year, October of 2024, last month, there is still

[00:11:41] approximately 1,600 hurricane victims that are displaced from their homes. And making the matters

[00:11:49] even worse, the agency is now claiming that they are facing a $175 million budget deficit,

[00:11:57] which they claim is due to fluctuating construction costs. Now during COVID, that was absolutely the

[00:12:07] case. You did see the prices of lumber and things like that absolutely skyrocket. But ladies and

[00:12:13] gentlemen, we have examples of other states very close to ours, AKA South Carolina, right across the

[00:12:21] border that dealt with similar damage and similar amounts of federal dollars. You know what's not

[00:12:28] happening in South Carolina and wasn't happening there in October of this year? You still didn't

[00:12:34] have 1600 hurricane victims displaced. They were able to figure it out in South Carolina.

[00:12:43] So this is not something that, oh, well, everybody struggled with this, right? This isn't a COVID

[00:12:48] situation where everybody struggles. Nobody has any idea what to do. And you make bad decisions now.

[00:12:55] This is unfortunately an example of complete and total incompetence when it comes to state government.

[00:13:01] And the oversight of this is not the General Assembly, not Phil Berger, not Tim Moore,

[00:13:06] not the Republicans in the House or the Senate. This solely is the responsibility of Governor Roy Cooper.

[00:13:13] So that hearing is going on right now. I was checking in on the commercial break and the

[00:13:18] head of this agency is getting absolutely lambasted by the General Assembly. She's been there, I think,

[00:13:24] three or four times in front of the GA and they have not been fun events. She has sat up there and

[00:13:30] been just absolutely lambasted by them. And you say rightfully so. And I think that's the case

[00:13:36] because it's unexcusable. There is no reason an organization tasked with one job like this should

[00:13:44] have mismanaged it so poorly. And so let's just look at where we are. You've got 1600 people

[00:13:49] still displaced from Matthew and Florence. What about all of the folks in Western North Carolina?

[00:13:58] What's going to happen with them? I mean, this folks, this is a very real question that you should

[00:14:02] be asking yourself. And that's a little bit of the conversation I heard during the during the break

[00:14:06] was exactly that. What are you going to do about the people out in Western North Carolina?

[00:14:13] Matthew and Florence, you're talking about what, 2016 and 2018?

[00:14:17] You haven't been able to figure that out in the last six, seven, eight years.

[00:14:23] And so what are you going to do with all the federal dollars that come flowing in

[00:14:26] because of Helene? It's a very fair and valid question. We've got a couple of breaking stories

[00:14:34] as we are on the air this afternoon. We were chatting earlier this hour with the Donna King,

[00:14:39] the editor in chief over at Carolina Journal. And somehow we're still looking at election results

[00:14:44] now almost 14 days after election day. And there's some county canvases going on right now. And this

[00:14:50] really has a big impact on the North Carolina Supreme Court race. Seat number six is open there.

[00:14:57] Incumbent Allison Riggs, who was appointed to that seat as the Democrat and Justice Jefferson Griffin,

[00:15:04] is the Republican. And as of right now, there is a 66 vote lead for the Democrat and Allison Riggs and

[00:15:12] getting us some information from the North Carolina State Board of Elections is coming in just like

[00:15:18] two minutes ago. There's a couple of counties that are still left. They include Chatham, which started

[00:15:26] reconvening at one o'clock. Craven County, their Board of Elections reconvenes at two. Cumberland,

[00:15:32] four o'clock. And it seems like most of the other counties are done and then Forsyth at two o'clock as

[00:15:37] well. So in all likelihood, when all of this canvas is complete, Riggs will have a could have a 60,

[00:15:45] 70, maybe 100 vote advantage, very much will be within the recount threshold, how that whole process

[00:15:52] is going to shake out and unfold over the next couple of days and weeks. Not exactly sure as of

[00:15:57] right now, but it's, it's something we're tracking. And if we get any additional details before three

[00:16:02] o'clock, we'll pass it along to you. So that's, that's the first thing breaking. The other is that

[00:16:06] the White House is apparently preparing a nearly $100 billion disaster aid relief package that could

[00:16:14] be sent to Capitol Hill as soon as today. That's according to multiple sources that are bringing that

[00:16:20] information up in the last couple of minutes. And so the question with this is, what does Congress do

[00:16:26] with this? Because now they're in a lame duck session. Obviously the election results are for

[00:16:32] the most part are finalized up at the congressional level. Republicans will hold a majority in the

[00:16:36] House, a majority in the Senate. And of course, Donald Trump, now president elect will be in the

[00:16:42] White House. So what does the, what does Congress do in the lame duck session? And how does Speaker Mike

[00:16:48] Johnson handle this in the house with his very tight threshold? We've heard in the last couple of days

[00:16:55] from senators, Tom Tillis and Ted Budd, as well as Chuck Edwards and some other congressmen across

[00:17:02] North care, congressmen and women across North Carolina, that they continue to push the president

[00:17:08] in Joe Biden for additional monies for a variety of different issues, whether that be more money

[00:17:15] towards FEMA, some other towards the SBA. That's the small business administration. Apparently they're

[00:17:21] also out of money. Isn't that amazing? What, let's see. We, we look at the current debt clock,

[00:17:29] right? And you see where the national debt is. And as I look this, this, this afternoon, we are $36

[00:17:36] trillion in debt. Yet somehow everybody is always out of money. Isn't it remarkable?

[00:17:45] I mean, you do at a certain point have to kind of sit back and ask yourself, are we doing any of this, right?

[00:17:55] We're spending against the deficit day after day, minute after minute, second after second,

[00:18:02] 30 over $36 trillion in national debt. Yet there's still never enough money. Always a need for more.

[00:18:12] I, I'll tell you what, one of the things I'm looking forward to the most over the next couple of years

[00:18:17] is this Doge administration, the department of government efficiency. It's going to be led by

[00:18:25] Elon Musk and Vivek Rabaswamy. I am very much looking forward to that. Or we can look at, you know,

[00:18:32] $36,000 toilet seats and $8,000 soap dispensers, all the fun things that the federal government spends our

[00:18:39] money on and just cut all that garbage out. Yes. Budgeting. And yes, the budget itself is a very

[00:18:47] complicated thing. It's a lot of money that's already set aside for programs like Medicare and

[00:18:53] Medicaid, social security, defense, and in war spending. I understand it's very complicated.

[00:18:58] And this is not a situation where you wave some sort of magic wand and clean it all up.

[00:19:06] Obviously, I don't think anybody would sit, sit and tell you with a straight face that there's not huge amounts

[00:19:11] of issues within the government, specifically spending wise. And I'm very much looking forward to this

[00:19:18] department of government efficiency, just kind of shining a light on this stuff and really showing how bad

[00:19:25] it is. Because unlike what you and I deal with as regular everyday individuals that have to manage our

[00:19:32] finances, individuals that at the end of the month have to reconcile a checkbook or reconcile a bank

[00:19:40] account, make sure we're not spending frivolously, make sure we're not racking up debt on credit cards or

[00:19:46] small personal loans. We have to do that stuff. And obviously, we're held accountable by ourselves and

[00:19:53] our family to make sure that we aren't burying ourselves in debt and digging ourselves a hole

[00:19:58] that we can't climb out of. But the federal government seems to have no way of dealing with

[00:20:03] that. Somebody is selling a product, it may cost tens of thousands of dollars more than you and I

[00:20:11] would buy something for, and they don't care. I mean, the joke about $10,000 toilet seats is not a joke.

[00:20:18] It's a real situation. And it's how the government operates. Hundreds of dollars for door hinges. I mean,

[00:20:26] it's absurd. You and I could go to any hardware store for eight bucks, pick those up. Yet the

[00:20:32] federal government spends $700 on them, and then it takes six months to get them installed at the cost

[00:20:38] of you and I, the taxpayer, right? Because the federal government, they don't particularly care.

[00:20:42] They don't really generate a whole lot of revenue. It's just reallocation of what you and I pay in

[00:20:47] with a variety of taxes. We are learning additional details just in the last little bit about some

[00:20:54] new disaster relief, federal disaster relief that could be coming forward. This is being brought

[00:21:02] forward just in the last couple of minutes, a potential allocation of some $100 billion dealing

[00:21:08] with disaster relief. Because as we were just talking about, all of these agencies are out of

[00:21:14] money. Always. Doesn't matter what day you're looking at, what year you're looking at, what

[00:21:21] government you're looking at. They're always out of money. And I think it just goes to show,

[00:21:28] when we were talking about the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency a little bit earlier on in

[00:21:33] the hour, just the complete and total incompetence of government. And it's so frustrating because in

[00:21:39] the cases of we're talking about hurricane relief or disaster relief, whether it be floods, fires,

[00:21:45] hurricanes, whatever, you're talking about people being impacted. People's lives literally being

[00:21:52] completely washed out. That's what we saw in Western North Carolina. In the case of Matthew and

[00:21:58] Florence, their homes literally being wiped off the foundation, completely destroyed. Government tries to

[00:22:06] help. But in so many cases, their so-called help, and we'll put that in quotes, ends up leading to

[00:22:14] more agony, more turmoil. And in the case of what we're seeing here in North Carolina and hearing

[00:22:21] ongoing up in the General Assembly right now, a whole bunch of stuff going on, a whole bunch of

[00:22:27] people in the room and a whole boatload of money, some $800 million. Yet they're out of money and

[00:22:35] you've got some 1600 people still without homes. How is that even possible? I'm not a construction

[00:22:42] guy. I'm not a foreman. I'm not a contractor. But how can something be so mismanaged? And same

[00:22:50] thing up at the federal level. What did we hear right after Helene devastated Western North Carolina?

[00:22:55] Oh, look at this. FEMA's out of money. Surprise, surprise. They overextended their budget for the year

[00:23:02] again. And when you had Milton impact the west coast of Florida, they said, you know, we just don't

[00:23:11] have any money. Oh, and by the way, if you're a Trump supporter and we're FEMA, we're not actually

[00:23:15] going to visit your house because you might be hostile towards us because we're FEMA.

[00:23:21] Hey, talk about stereotyping. Talk about painting with a broad brush. Hey, I'm the federal government.

[00:23:27] I'm here to help. Oh, unless you have a Trump sign in your yard. Then, you know, you probably don't

[00:23:32] need any help. We want to deescalate the situation. That broke in Florida. And then what did we find

[00:23:39] out just a couple of days later? The exact same thing was happening in portions of Western North

[00:23:44] Carolina. So let's see, they're out of money. They're discriminating against who they're helping

[00:23:51] based on their political ideology. And of course, now they're begging for more. It's going to be very

[00:23:59] interesting to see what Congress does with this hundred million dollar disaster relief bill that's

[00:24:05] apparently on its way out of the White House and over to Congress. I'll have to preemptively

[00:24:11] apologize for not having more details. This is just all kind of breaking right now. Some posts popping up

[00:24:17] on X in the last 15 or 20 minutes talking about this. It's a real sad sign of the times, though,

[00:24:25] is it not? A task that, yes, is complicated in nature. Absolutely. You're talking about people's

[00:24:33] homes being destroyed, having to get resources reallocated and try to figure out how to help

[00:24:38] these folks. It's complicated, sure, but it's not impossible. And with the amount of money,

[00:24:44] with the resources of the federal government, for better or for worse, it's something they should be

[00:24:48] able to figure out. So I've just got a copy of the letter that Joe Biden sent to House Speaker Mike

[00:24:56] Johnson. It says this, with Congress now back in session, I write to request urgently needed emergency

[00:25:04] funding to provide for expedited and meaningful federal response to Hurricane Helene and Milton,

[00:25:11] as well as other natural disasters. That letter is dated today from Joe Biden to Mike Johnson.

[00:25:17] The administration on Monday submitted a funding request that includes $40 billion for the Federal

[00:25:24] Emergency Management Agency, that's FEMA, $24 billion for the Department of Agriculture,

[00:25:30] and $12 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I don't see anything in here about

[00:25:35] the SBA, the Small Business Administration, which is another area that at least we've heard some

[00:25:42] Republican, some of our Republican delegation talking about in D.C., comments from senators and

[00:25:47] congressmen and women talking about how the SBA needs to get refunded. It doesn't appear that this

[00:25:54] almost $100 billion in disaster relief includes that. And the reason that's important is that the SBA

[00:26:01] offers very low interest loans. Why is that important with what's going on? Well, so many of these small

[00:26:09] businesses in Western North Carolina, and they are truly small businesses. Similar to what you see

[00:26:15] in the East Coast of the state, the busy tourism season during the summer, we can fund a lot of these

[00:26:20] business operations around the clock year round. It's similar out West, just at a different timetable.

[00:26:27] It's the busy fall and winter season that funds many of these families and these operations around

[00:26:33] the clock. So with them, many of these businesses being in states of disarray and disrepair, they truly

[00:26:41] need access to these low interest rate loans from the federal government. But would you look at that?

[00:26:47] The SBA is also out of money. So does anybody have any money? I mean, it's not going to be too long,

[00:26:55] just a couple of weeks before you might be getting a W-2 or 1099 from your employer as you begin

[00:27:02] compiling all of your paperwork to fill out your taxes next year. Look at some of those numbers,

[00:27:07] you'll have a heart attack seeing the kind of money that the federal government is siphoning out.

[00:27:13] Yet, nobody has any money. $36 trillion in debt. And anytime anything goes wrong, which, you know,

[00:27:22] surprise, surprise, during the busy summer months, we have a risk of hurricanes here in North Carolina.

[00:27:27] Obviously, the situation with Helene unprecedented in the true definition of it.

[00:27:35] Yet, nobody's got any money. All of these organizations are out. So now the federal

[00:27:39] government, now Joe Biden is saying, hey, we need another $100 billion to fund these things.

[00:27:48] For the most part, this has been a pretty mundane hurricane season, not dismissing anything that

[00:27:56] happened out West. But it was not the over-anticipated hurricane season like we were expecting.

[00:28:02] Yet, they still don't have any money.