Would never did. Donald trump i hate to say it, but he is kind of like a high and slumlord for seemingly his whole life. I knew from the time he got into the Republican Party that he was going to split the Republican Party in half. I taking a live to the North Carolina governors debate. Governor patrick or he is being challenged by democrat roy cooper. It is moderated tonight by meet the press host chuck to chuck todd. Carolinas the north gubernatorial candidates debate. This program is sponsored as a service to the citizens of the state by the North Carolina association of podcasters Educational Foundation of broadcasters Educational Foundation. Chuck todd good evening, i am chuck todd. Welcome to the North Carolina association of broadcasters Educational Foundation gubernatorial candidates debate between governor pat mccrory, and democrat roy cooper. We should note that this debate is happening at a difficult time. Hundreds of thousands of north carolinians are without power. Threading still remains a threat for so many desk flooding storm is a threat for so many. We want to thank both candidates and the viewers come and hope that things return to normal as soon as possible. We want to begin by covering the rules of the debate. It will last one hour, and will begin with one minute Opening Statements from each candidate. I will then post questions directly to the candidate. These questions have been determined by me and an association, and have not been reviewed by the candidates or their staff. Each candidate will have a minute for response and a 32nd rebuttal. I do reserve the right to follow up as needed. Secondill be 92nd 90 closing statements. We ask the candidates to adhere to these time limits so that we do not have to be time cops. Welcome the Current Governor pat mccrory come and the attorney general, democrat roy cooper. [applause] there is a live audience. , by virtue of the coin toss, you will go first with the one minute opening statement. Gov. Pat mccrory first, welcome to North Carolina. This is a difficult time for our state. Sadly, i had to announce two hours ago at the Emergency Center that we have now lost 17 people in these recent floods. Our hearts and prayers are with those families. I am also extremely proud of our team. Our national guard, i am proud of the president for working with us, i am proud of our emergence the Operations Team come at all the state and local officials. I do want to make an announcement that if you are in work out the and live below would like to am woodlake dam, you need to evacuate the area immediately. Engineers have not certified the strength of that dam, and i need to make that point very strongly. If youre one of the 60 holdouts, leaves. Do not put yourself or our Emergency Operations at risk. I have had to deal with many natural crises, but ive also had to deal with manmade crisis. Those were crises that i came into just three and a half to four years ago. We dealt with those crises, and we solve them. We are going to continue that during the next four years. Our hearts and our thoughts and our prayers go out to the victims of flooding tonight. Over the next few weeks and months, we have to do everything we can to help them. Tonight, we will be talking about our future. For the last four years, governor mccrory has taken our state backwards. Throughout this campaign, he has not been honest with you about his record. He has failed to make education a priority. We are 41st in teacher pay. He signed house bill two, writing discrimination into our law. With a stroke of a pen, he damaged North Carolinas brand, costing us thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars. We have had twice as many layouts as last year. So many people in the middle class are asking when they are going to see the gains of the growing economy. We need good jobs, governor. Good jobs and schools are my priority. I am going to work to make sure we spread the word across this country that North Carolina is open for business for everyone. Chuck todd mr. Mccrory, first question. Has know, since it businessesassage, have all moved events from here, a majority of voters come even want to support it, believe it has hurt the states reputation. How do you fix the states reputation without repealing the law . Gov. Pat mccrory the thing that is embarrassing is that a very liberal mayor of charlotte with support from our very liberal attorney general started this whole mess. It is one of the biggest bids in our mashed fibs in our natural press that the bathroom also made by republicans. We had not want this issue up. It was the mayor of charlotte with strong support from the attorney general, who decided to put a mandate on the entire private specter who had public facilities, and say we will find you, unless you recognize a brandnew concept of gender identity and gender expression, a major change in culture. Not just in North Carolina, but our cold but our country. It was not needed, it was not called for. It was the liberals who brought it up. As governor, i dont care if youre in the private sector and what your bathroom rules are. That is none of our business. , ifou are in our schools you are a man, youre going to go to the mens locker room, restroom or shower. If you are a woman, you go to their appropriate shower. No change whatsoever. Roy cooper house bill two has to be repealed. It writes dissemination into our law. It has been a does discrimination into our law. It has been a disaster for our economy. The acc, the ncaa, this legislation was passed in one day, and signed in the middle of the night. Governor mccrory continues to go across the state, telling people that this is not hurting our economy. He attacks businesses who are opposed to it, and says that everything is going fine. Governor, what planet are you on . Ishave to pull the this community together. We have to get this law repealed. We have to quit blaming it on ,ther people, blaming it on me blaming it on the president , blaming it on charlotte. What we have to do is repeal house bill two now. Gov. Pat mccrory the attorney general does not refute the claim that they started this mess. It has been a swindle of things. It has embarrassed North Carolina. If they just leave this new definition of gender expression and gender identity, which changes the whole definition of man and woman, boy and girl, and our privacy rights, if were not going to have leaders stand up for the basic rights of either see in our nation, and our state, and our state, then we our then we are losing strong leadership. Roy cooper im glad he admits this is an embarrassment to North Carolina, because it is. We had investors come in to tell they controlled 2 trillion worth of assets, and they told us this is essentially State Government inflicted recession. Governor mccrory attacked them. Three days later in wilmington come at a speech to the chamber of commerce, said we need to bring more investment and capital into North Carolina. Gov. Pat mccrory i got a standing ovation at that chamber of commerce event. Chuck todd i have followups were both of you. Each have 32nd responses 30 second responses. Youre the chief Law Enforcement of the state. If you pick and choose lost to defend, arent you setting an example setting telling the citizens to pick which lost to follow . I took a nose to follow the constitution just like governor mccrory did. I told him not to sign the law. I told the legislature not to pass it, because it like because it right discrimination into the law. It costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars. The governor has spent so much time and money, and it has hurt our brand. It has to stop. Has statedcrory he that he is running a multimillion dollar commercial right now saying he will stop talking about social issues. That is all he talks about. He wants to cover up the incredible progress we have made in this economy. We have lowered on a point is to record amounts. We have created 300,000 new jobs. We have lowered taxes. All he was to talk about is a social issue. He is fooling the people of North Carolina. Lets get off the social issues. Lets get out of bathroom politics and start creating jobs in North Carolina as we have done over the last three years. Chuck todd government curry, as a conservative governor mccrory, as a conservative, you said you did not want to get involved in City Politics across the state. Why is it ok for writing involved in charlottes politics . I was mayor for 14 years. Our line of responsibility is not to create new mandates for business. I dont think Hillary Clinton and barack obama should do it through the justice department, either, which is exactly what they are doing in changing the definition of vendor. In thell be resolved Supreme Court where it should be, not in a politicians hand. 21 other states in the country have joined the in that effort to stop government overreach into this very private issue. Roy cooper governor mccrory used to trust local government. Now he does not. What you have here is legislation that is hurting our state, and taking us backward. He is the one who has been all over national tv talking about house bill two, and talking about how important this legislation is to protect people , when we all know these are political scare tactics. ,his law was born in politics and unfortunately, now people are suffering because of it. It has to be repealed. Gov. Pat mccrory we do agree that it was born in politics. You are looking at the individual who has raised millions of dollars on starting this initiative. Chuck todd let me ask this. Perhaps the most famous transgender person is caitlyn jenner. What beth and can she legally use in charlotte whats bathroom can she legally use in charlotte . This is therory problem roy cooper this is the problem. We should not be getting involved in his issues. It gets us involved in these issues, and we should not, because not only is it hurting our economy, but it is embarrassing our state. The governor just admitted earlier. They did not have to do this. They should not have done this. There are cities all over this country that have these kinds of ordinances. You should trust local governments to make these decisions. The mostmccrory recent ncaa best club with noship was played kitchen by your barack obama are anywhere else. Where she should go . In the private sector, wherever the private sector wants her to go. If she is going to a shower facility at unc chapel hill after running around the track, she is going to use the mens shower. Chuck todd im going to change the subject to the economy. Mr. Mccrory is running on a carolina comeback. Unemployment has been cut in half, in, summarize income is on the rise. Why should vote is not reelect him . Roy cooper the governor wants to be carolina comeback governor. I want to be a come back to carolina governor. We need paypal to come back. We need the jobs to come back. We need the ncaa to come back. You go ask everyday working people whether they have seen a carolina comeback, and most of them will tell you they are working longer and harder and for less money than they did before the recession, and they would be right. Wage growth is stagnant. The middleclass is not seeing the gains from the growing economy. The governor tells people that their taxes are down when many people have taxes in the middle class that are up because of him and legislative leadership, and continues to say that house bill two is not hurting our economy. That is wrong. Just did acrory he commercial where he said no more social issues. He has brought it up or times already. No more social issues. Lets talk about the economy. Unemployment was a record 9. 4 when i came into office. It was lot worse under easily and pretty you purdue. 12 years of extreme high taxes. We had the highest input highest income tax and the highest Corporate Tax. Even South Carolina was beating us. That was unacceptable. When i came to office, we lowered our income tax, we lowered our corporate and business tax. We got rid of a 2. 6 billion debt that we owed to the federal government. 2. 6 billion. If you had been governor, you had a barn another two ilion dollars 2 billion. Then he wouldve put another tax and drove on of women up even more. This is the philosophy that you followed as a state senator. This is the philosophy that you follow with your fellow leaders, it has got to end. Roy cooper the governor promised people a tax cut. He came through for the corporations, and for those at the top. Everyday working people got tax increases. In 67 different ways, governor mccrorys governor has raised in cap raise taxes on middle income families. Literally from birth to death. Movie orou go from a get your car repaired or you buy , you look ates that receipt, and the taxes are courtesy of governor mccrory. He continues to tax the middle class. That is why the middleclass is hurting. Gov. Pat mccrory the income tax was as high as 7 . We have reduced it to 5 . Business and Corporate Tax was 6 , now it is 3 . We are recruiting is this is again. Mr. Cooper, if you become governor, are you going to raise the income tax again . Are you going to raise the Corporate Tax again . Are you going to raise those taxes again because you were against our tax reform . Are you going to be less competitive with tennessee and virginia and the rest of the nation . We do not have to raise taxes in order to fix what is wrong with our economy. The problem is the middle class is hurting. Wage growth is stagnant governor, whether you like it or not. With your tax cuts, you have mostly benefited those at the top. The statistics show that you are leaving out the middle class. This is why you are having trouble being honest with your record. We have seen it time and time again. Is mr. T mccrory it cooper that is raising half 1 million at goldman tax. . 5 million at goldman sachs. Ofis raising millions dollars. The people in San Francisco dont care about the middle last in North Carolina. Tell them where youre getting your money. It is not from people who care about North Carolina and our economy. The average teachers our next year will be over 50,000. According to the North CarolinaPublic School salary schedule, a teacher with a bachelors degree does not get to make 50,000 until the 25th year of teaching, or their 20th year if they have a masters degree. Teacheryou raise salaries early on so you do not risk seeing teachers moved to other state for higherpaying jobs . My firstmccrory in year and second year as governor, i put together a group of the best teachers in the united dates of america. , theydemocrats leaders had not raised to japan five to seven years they had not raised teacher pay in five to seven years. Before you get pay raises to anyone else, help those teachers with 127 years of experience. Experience. Ars of that is progress. I am the only one on the stage with a teaching degree, and understands what it is like to stand in front of a class and teach kids. I know how hard it is, and i am proud of our teachers. Respect andn them the pay raises they deserve. Roy cooper my mom was a Public School teacher. I have seen how hard they work, and i understand the challenges that they face. Just like his record, time and time again, the governor is not being honest about these years. And do notntrived reflect reality. The fact is, we are 41st in teacher pay, and 44th in person expenditure per student expenditure. We have teachers leaving North Carolina for better pay and more respect. We have teacher assistance being fired. Go listen to teachers and parents and ask if governor mccrorys changes have made it better difference in the classroom. Just listen to them and see what they say. Try to find the teacher who was making 50,000 a year. Governor, you need to be straight with people about public education. You need to get your facts straight, and to represent your record correctly. Gov. Pat mccrory you are about as straight as another trial lawyer who became a politician North Carolina, and that is john edwards. The facts, not the rhetoric, saying was the governor that help the teachers. Not only did we help the teachers with pay, we also have a 15 to 16,000 a year for benefits. We tripled the rate of money for every school for supplies and books, something that was clearly missing under the previous administrations. Roy cooper when i was a summit democratic majority leader, we moved teacher pay from 42nd in the country to 21st in the country in four years. Had fourmccrory has years. It is now 41st in teacher pay. That is wrong for our state. What i will do is invest in education. I will not just talk about it and distort my record. I will invest in early childhood. I will make sure our classrooms have resources, and i will get our teacher pay to the national average. Chuck todd i have a 32nd followup. Mr. Mccrory, you have said it is not enough. Where is it . To. Pat mccrory i had rebuild the economy, where we. Inally have a surplus just three weeks ago, the attorney general just recommended that a Rainy Day Fund was too high. We have had a lot of rain lately. You are just telling people we should have spent more of that money and not hold it over. That is fiscal responsibility. Another thing you deceived the people on when i came into teacher office, teachers pay was 48. We reduced it to 41. Next year is teacher pay is going to be in the low 30s in North Carolina. Roy cooper whered you get the money . When youre talkin