he ran for north carolina's 12th congressional seat. she originally from oklahoma and served in the army. he has never held elected office. democrat roy cooper is finishing his fourth term as north carolina's attorney general. he was first elected in 2000 after serving in both the statehouse and senate. he was born and raised in nash county and graduated from unc- chapel hill. republican pat mccrory is north his term beginning in 2013. he was charlotte's longest serving mayor, a record seven terms. he grew up in guil ford county and graduated in catawba college. we have many topics we would like to cover and want led like this to be an over conversation. there is sure to be follow-up discussions and question and we each other. >> at the end of the evening, each of you will have a for a closing statement and before the broadcast, we drew to see what would take the first question and it would go to mr. mccroryy and mr. cooper and mr. cecil. >> if elected, what would you do to make sure the tens of thousand was people directly the floods are taken care of. mr.mccrory? >> i am first want to say that my prayers are with the tens of thousands affected. not only did we have a great team that was deployed early and deployed across the state anticipating every type of money in our rainy day fund to pay for mondayy that we'll have to have in the future to help the people recover. sadly, the attorney general just last month in lumberton, 1 of the hardest hit cities spoke against having so much money in a rainy day fund which would have been a huge mistake if he was governor and we didn't have the rainy day fu things, the most rain we have seen in decades. i am putting together a long- term hurricane task force with people in the east, and we'll look at housing, our number one goal and repairing the infrastructure, water, sewer, and repairing our roads. in the short term, my main goal is to get people out of short- term shelters and into housing. >> their -- mr. cooper? and it's unfortunate that people got hit there again. in 1999, hurricane floyd devastated north carolina. i was living in rocky mount at the time and i remember governor hunt calling and wanted me to meet him at the airport and i couldn't get there because all the roads were flooded. as a state senator and senate majority leader at the time, i introduced legislation that provided for hundreds of millions of dollars for relief for i know what kind of rebuilding process that it takes to make sure we get people back on their feet again. i've been all over eastern north carolina and talking with people and we need to help them immediately but it will be a matter of weeks and years to make sure we get housing, to make sure we get businesses going and this is one of the most difficult places in our that i've always supported a strong rainy day fund. that's where we got the money to help eastern north carolina before because i have supported it, my entire career. governor mccrory asked for money from the general assembly. they passed a bill that provided for 5 deliver00,000 to defend and bring lawsuits and house bill 2 of all things, that is earmarked in the disaster release fu governor mccrory didn't even veto the legislation. we need to make sure that north carolina is ready for that and we need a strong leader that knows about rebuilding. we have done before. eastern north carolina is tough. i know because i grew up there, and we can do it again. we have to. >> mr. cecil? >> i moved here in 1997 and was immediately struck with the flooding from flied when that eastern north carolina with the flooding this time, i know it's just a repeat of a previous flooding, and it indicates a lot of things that weren't corrected the first time. i-95 was closed again. you have to learn from reach flood. you have to spend the money to correct those things that happen, and that's going to be money that comes from the taxpayers one way or another whether federal or state. but we people and a lot of them need a lot of help. >> everybody is talking about hurricane floyd that came through only 17 years ago. >> i might add that this governor was the one who said this was going to be worse than hurricane floyd. a lot of people mocked me, and i might add that the attorney general is dead wrong. he hasn't always supported a large rainy day fund. just two weeks ago, a month ago in lumberton, he stated we have we need to spend more of that money on other things, and thank god we didn't have the governor that had the short- term political aptitude to look at the next election as opposed to the next storm or hurricane that is going to hit north carolina. >> talking about spending money wherever it comes from, a lot of these areas that were hit this time, princeville being one, seven springs, and look at windsor in eastern north of it has had its share of more than just the two storms and high 12 along the outer banks. we see destruction happening and rebuild. destruction, rebuilding. should these areas be rebuilt again? mr.mccrory to you first and then mr. cooper? >> sure. i would be glad that. that's part of the belong-term plan, and i talked with bobby jones, one of the most remarkably men i have ever in the in princeville. we will have that discussion, where and how and what methods doee use to rebuild? that has to be asked in every area that has long-term flooding. i will have engineers as part of this long-term committee. i'm going to have architects and environmentalists. we're going to have people who think, what is the long-term sustainable plan on how to rebuild these communities? the most tragic part of these hurricanes is it hits the people that it. that is the part that grabs my heart. we have to help those who can least afford hurricanes and make sure the plans are not putting people in that position. >> mr. cooper? >> well, the question is what kind of leader do you want to help rebuild north carolina? what kind of governor do you want? and one of the decisions that were made after floyd is we did it was a wise thing because they were flooded again. but clearly, we had some places like princeville and others that were hit twice, and we will have to have strong conversations about that, but governor mccrory talks about people who can least afford it in rural eastern north carolina and here he is proposing medicaid expansion that could 816-932-4357 care in eastern north carolina that's all 100% federal dollars difference in the rural economy, and he is talking about the people who can least afford it when we have had ways to help rural eastern north carolina, and it's time that we take a long-term view of this. >> mr. cecil, should we rebuild the areas? >> some of them will be rebuilt. and we need to learn from the lessons of katrina. we are not rebuilding in the lowest lands. we are not building flat to the ground. transportation, build homes just like we do along the coast. those houses are built with the presumption there will be a hurricane, with the presumption there will be another flood. if they rebuild, it should be with that knowledge. there is a lot of areas that probably should not be rebuilt. people are living there and have lived there for many years because it was low-cost land. it was low cost because it was subject to flooding. >> let me tell you something else that we just did and you need need ton. for the people who have hurt the most and the poor, we extended the unemployment benefits and food stamps and cut through the bureaucracy, people food and supplies. >> mr. cooper, very quickly, but it seems like when mr. mccrory is making a statement, you are shaking your head. >> talking about extending unemployment benefits, he pushed legislation to make north carolina's benefits the most restricted on the country and did it on the back of working people and there are a lot of people in eastern carolina looking for work, and about half of our counties, there are more people looking for work now than there were before the recession. and what we gotta do is have a leader who s that, who will have policies to help the working poor, help the middle class and not those at the top. >> you got a leader right here. when i came into office, i inherited something from beverly purdue, one of roy's debt that north carolina owed the federal government. we borrowed $2.6 billion for unemployment. had i continued the same program that mike easley and purdue and roy supported, we would be $4 billion in debt. guess what we did? we paid off the debt, and now if we have another recession and by the way, if we need to help these people, we have $2 billion in reserves in case there is a downturn over case these people need the extra benefits which i extended. that's the strong leadership we need now more than ever, not the old leadership, spend everything we got. >> gentlemen, we will return to the economy but we need to move on and get to a few more questions tonight. staying with matthew for a moment, we learned last week that floodwaters from hurricane matthew carried coal ash into the neuse river in goldsboro. in pits in goldsboro at six of duke's 14 cites around the state. do we need to rethink the question, mr. cooper? >> one of the things i will do as governor is listen to the scientists who are providing the advice unlike governor mccrory. governor mccrory's scientists decide that does well wate unsafe and sent a notice to the families that the water was unsafe and governor mccrory for political reasons or the fact that he worked at duke energy or for whatever reason told them to change it. and they recinded the order. and the chief scientist in the state resigned saying publically that she was not going to be part of an administration that deliberately misleads the public. now, what we need is public officials who are going to going to believe what they say, who act on that, who use data and facts and don't let mr. political ideology rule the day and particularly when you are not being honest with the public like his administration is when the top scientists, non- partisan person with a good paying job resigns and yet another scientist, too, saying that the governor is on the phone talking information officer in the room telling them to rescind this order. that's wrong. and i'm not going to be that kind of governor. >> mr. mccrory, we'll let you respond but we'll have mr. cecil answer the question next. >> i spent a lot of time in the eastern part look at the lowlandss going, wow. i see how hurricane floyd made so many problems but the people are telling me that their problem is the well water. they are fearful of using it with their animals. several of them commented that it was only in june of this year that they finally started getting the bottled water delivered. hb 6-30 law contained a provision that they will have to put in public water lines to certain areas, and the basic date on that is by the end of 2018, in goldsboro they will tell me they absolutely do not believe in any way, shape, or form that the waterlines will be put in before 2020. >> do we need to rethink the decision to leave coal ash? goldsboro plans to be exvacated. >> as an engineer, i understand where the problem is and the particularly, the underground water, can never be cleaned. surface water will clean itself or can be cleaned like they did with the dan river but the pits themselves are continuing hazards. the only thing we can really do with that is properly mitigate them. but there is a tremendous amount of ash in those things. when you start looking at it and say how many truckloads have we got to haul to a pit bury it, we will need major highways and a lot more trucks. >> mr. mccrory? >> he is right about the engineering and environmental damage. you can't move them all. you would cause more environmental damage to our state moving them all. each individual coal pit is a unique situation. but i have to correct the record of three years of false advertisements by roy cooper's super pac as though i did the ridiculous. what is iron sick i -- ironic is i resigned from duke in 2008 and jim rogers endorsed beverlyly purdue and gave her a lot of money and gave roy cooper a lot of money for his reelection for attorney general and his job is to help oversight the coal ash. there is not one e-mail in his 14 attorney general where he expressed concern about coal ash. not one email and he only has 14 e-mails in 14 years. not one e-mail or one action taken to duke energy, and duke energy gave a $10 million loan to the democratic national convention which are they have yet to pay back. he has received during his time as attorney general tens of took no action except he did approve some action during the pursue administration, an e- mail which we have a record of and in the public document and an e-mail approved by the attorney general's office which allows duke to grandfather some of their coal ash ponds from further dam inspection, and had we had the dam inspeculation, maybe dan river wouldn't have happened. and second, it alloweduk we wanted to fine them $25 million because of the e-mail approved by the attorney general's office and beverlyly purdue. we have to pull back that fine based on lawyer recommendations. his lawyers been this. sadly, the commercials don't been this. >> mr. cooper? >> the question was should we excavate? so the state legislature disieted they would create a experts to make this decision. the head of the senate, the republican leader of the september said we need this commission because we are concerned about governor mccrory's ties to duke energy because he worked there for so long and governor mccrory sued the state legislature because he wanted sole control over the issue of what happens with the coal ash pond. governor mccrory didn't somebody looking over his shoulder. i talked about coal ash publically. i have a strong environmental record. i've been endorsed by most all of the environmental groups, and to hear governor mccrory talk about coal ash and my record, the in the fact checkers have said you were wrong every time you said something about that. >> let me-- he has not refuted anything i said about the monies he's accepted, the lack years. he didn't repute any of that but changed the subject which roy cooper is good at doing, changing the subject. i'll tell you this is that duke energy did not want-- they wanted the coal ash commission. they did not want me to veto the bill. their lobbyists were all over the house and senate. i vetoed something they didn't want to veto because of a bad deal for the people whose water i had the courage to veto important legislation and i might add that the september did not override my veto because they said you're right, governor. you're right. this would be harmful to the neighborhood for the people of winston-salem. >> we will move on to cover an economic comes comeback since the recession. what do you say to those still struggling and how you will help them? >> when i moved here almost 20 years ago, the economy was good. the taxes were high, and things were actually going quite well. it was a long down quickly through 2004, 2008. and a lot of people lost their jobs. i lost my job at one point with that recession. there has been quite a bit of comeback but it was industry specific with high-technolgy and the more critical industrys have done well with it. i worked with rf microin greensboro with the cell phone industry and those related know a lot of our classic industrys and the furniture and whatnot have not come back as much because they can get labor wore a dollar a day and are strictly labor dependent. i think we have made a comeback. leadership has done a good job of getting us recovered but we have a long way to go and i think some of the new taxes have been a little burdensome on poor people and finding out they have to pay sales tax on getting a car repaired hurt a lot of them. >> mr. mccrory? >> i can say when i came into the office, north carolina's america at 9.4% and adjusted to 8.9%. we have had one of the greatest economic recoverys, 4.7% below the national average. you know, we are-- our economy is so much better than it was three years ago. is it still good enough? absolutely not. is there still more we need do? absolutely. but one thing we found out coming into office, we owed $ 2.6 billion for unemployment. the second thing, we had a $5 million misforecast on medicaid spending. it was so broken. a $500 million misforecast. we had the highest income tax and highest corporate tax. us. nicki hailey told me we don't consider north carolina competition anymore. we had to make immediate changes or keep trying the same things under my predecessors, and we could have kept trying them and continued to be the 4th or 5th highest unemployment rate. i am completely proud of what is happening in north carolina and let the progress continue. >> their cooper? >> since the recession, was a national economic recovery but north carolina is lagging behind. ask the every day working people if there is a comeback. most am tell you they are working longer and harder and for less money than before of the recession. and statistics though they are great. wage growth is languishing class. governor mccrory did pretty well for those at the top. he gave the corporations and those at the top good tax cuts but every day north carolinians, many of them have seen a net tax increase and that includes small businesses. he has raised taxes on people in 67 different ways and governor mccrory is putting more of a burden on the middle class and small business with taxes at a time we need to be helping small business in middle class, and i will work to do that. i will also work to invest in public education which will be a key. the new economy with the new job and community colleges has got to be the drivers of workforce development. our universities have to be the centers of innovation and governor mccrory is talking about house bill 2 all over you talk with economic developers and they will tell that you it's costing us jobs and costing us money. we need a governor that is looking out for the middle class. >> let me ask roy cooper a question. are you going to change the tax that is we initiated in the last 3 years? you were against them. if you are so against them and you become governor and are you going to repeal it on every person who gets a working paycheck? believe me. you were at goaled man sacks raise egg lot of money in new york city. everyone who earned a paycheck got a net increase in pay from school teachers to nurses to independent business people. we were the highest income tax -- >> let's let him answer. would you repeal the tax cuts? >> we don't need increased taxes? >> so that's an absolute no. what we need to do is fix some of the taxes he put on the middle class and small business and take some of those taxes off of them is what we need to do. >> help me understand the math. if you are not going to repeal it and you are going to change it, ultimately, there is going to be a difference in the income and the tax paid; right? >> it's about priorities, david. i mean, the economy-- i believe the economy is going to grow. there is a national recovery. the economy will over the last four years, governor mccrory has made the decision when tax revenue has come in, he wants to do corporate tax giveaways and tax cuts for those at the top. i want to invest in education. i want to invest in teacher salarys. >> but you say you can-- but you say you can do that without raising taxes? >> absolutely. i did that when i was in the state senate for four years. we were able to cut taxes for the middle class. national average. we can do that again. i know we can. >> i am trying to understand how you have it both ways. >> it's not both ways. >> it you can do it without raising taxes, it would appear that the gop tax cuts you criticized didn't hurt the budget. >> it hurt our investment in public education and it has hurt the fact that he has put taxes on the middle class to help make up for it. and that's what we have to do making our decision about priorities. >> let me talk real >> just real quick. we lowered the income tax and we have more money coming in this year with a lower income tax. we have more money coming in this year with a corporate tax than we did three years ago. that's incredible progress. that's letting the economy work and i have reinvote of that immediate school at carolina and a science building at western carolina university and that's the best-- . >> 30 seconds. >> when that new money comes in again and he is reelected, you bet your boots that the choice for the new money will be corporate tax giveaways, corporate tax cuts instead of investing in education. that's what we are talking about for priorities. >> i like the part you get re-elected. [laughter] >> let's move on. let's move on. >> that's a big if. >> much has been said about house bill 2 in this election season. we've heard ad infinitum about restrooms under the law. i want to talk about something else. perhaps the most controversial part of the law is it examineds bans the government from passing ordinances from protecting them. mr.mccrory i ask you about the lack of protection. why was this necessary? >> it was necessary because there was a bathroom provision. >> couldn't the law have been written without the antidiscriminatory -- >> there was a concept of gender identity, and by the way, the left brought this issue up. not th one of the great political scams is roy cooper and the mayor of charlotte brought the issue to north carolina with a powerful group, the hrc, which has helped roy a lot, and they had to have a portion of the bill which said the following. you must have gender identity or gender expression to get into a private sector restroom, locker room, or shower in the sector. had that not been there, i don't think we would have had a problem because i don't believe on discrimination. >> and i have the legislation here and i read about all the people protected, and i don't see anything about the lgbt community -- >> by the way, none of that was there when roy cooper was the attorney general. there was no formal protections in north carolina history at all. >> by the way -- . >> oh, in the united states history. >> time for formal >> i think since the supreme court decision regarding marriage, i think there needs to be protection at the federal level and i wrote a letter as such. but i will not accept the radical changes that roy cooper brought to north carolina-- do ya'll know-- do you know, roy, what the penalty was in charlotte for someone who did not accept gender identity as the new requirement on boy or a girl? do you know what the charlotte law says? let's tell the audience. it was a fine of $500 and/or a 30 day jail sentence. this is what the liberals brought a bathroom-restroom- locker room ordinance, a 30-day jail sentence in the city of charlotte. this is what we overturned. that's the first time i i-- i think any of ya'll knew that. >> mr. cooper? >> this is all he can talk about. he goes all over national tv and talks about this. this is why north carolina is continuing to have a problem with the repetition. he continues to talk about that. david, what a lot of people don't know about and what i think your question is trying to get to is if a local government wants to protect can't do that. if a local government wants to raise its minimum wage, house bill 2 says you can't do that. if a local government wants to provide discrimination protection for veterans in a couple of the cities that had the ordinances that were wiped away by house bill 2. this is one of the reasons why house bill 2 has been pointed out as laws in the country and why we are suffering such economic damage. because it's wrong, it writes discrimination into our law and it's wrong, period. >> mr. cecil, do you believe lgbt people should be specifically protected under the state's antidiscrimination law? >> i think we need to have all people under the aspect- discrimination laws. coming back that they don't want boys in the girls bathrooms. other than that, repeal hb2, and let's sit down with a reasoned discussion, look at the bill and write something that takes more than one day to get through the legislature. >> mr. mccroryy, mccrory-- mccrory, if you were re- elected, would change house bill 2 so lgbt people will be protected? >> i actually agree with that and have been looking for a compromise for months but i'll make a deal with him right now. if you agree to take out the gender identity and expression with access to the schools and locker rooms and bathrooms and showers i will make sure we do firing and i signed an executive order for all state employees buried in your newscast and the north carolina news and newspapers which forbids discrimination of hiring and firing for anyone based on the sexual discrimination. do not say we raised millions to now identify gender based upon what you think >> okay. but help me understand before we get to mr. cooper why that matters more than an anti- discrimination policy. >> i don't your question. i'm sorry. >> why is the gender identity issue balanced -- >> let me give you an example. the governor of north carolina runs the state prison system. i have principler now after this radical decision has come to north carolina, male prisoners who want to be transferred to the female prison. carolina issue. the justice department under the obama administration wants to change the official definition of gender to gender identities, and charlotte wants to add gender expression. the next governor this, governor right here is running the state prisons right now. now, schools and the prison system, when someone has an individual situation regarding their identity and gender, we have segregated and separated thos special arrangements. that's what principals have been doing for years in north carolina. the attorney general roy cooper, he is supporting a-- he sadly on promoted the boycott, the head of the democratic governor's association helped announce the millions to his campaign. >> mr. cooper? >> again, that's all he can talk about but i have to address the boycott. i have been working very hard to encourage businesses to come to north carolina and help us fight house bill 2. many of them have said i think we are not going to come. we are not going to expand. pharmaceutical companies were coming to north carolina and house bill 2 was passed, and then they said, well, we may not i contacted them and said you need to come and help us fight house bill 2. and i had told them that we were going to fight it together and they were coming and then governor mccrory like he has almost every business that has busied house bill 2, he attacked them and even the companies who have jobs here and have worked for people in north carolina, he is attacking them. that's bad for the economy. and one of the reasons why -- chairman of the democratic governor's association who has given him $7, $8 million for commercials. the governor of connecticut called on a boycott of north carolina. roy cooper said nothing. jerry brown, the governor of california -- >> 15 seconds. >> mayor cuomo, members of the democratic governor's association. this is all >> that is flat out not true. and mr. mccrory know its. he had a contributor who said he wanted something for his contribution in rawrn and gave him a private prison contract over the objection of his staff. he is talking about political contributions all night tonight. so if you want to talk about political contributions, governor, or the one with the >> as attorney general, you should be resigned right now for saying that. that is absolutely not true. there is no fbi investigation. you should -- >> it's absolutely true. >> you should apologize. >> gentlemen, we have to move along. the next topic, the state crime lab. mr.cooper, you said you have inherited many of the problems from your predecessor. you have been attorney general for 16 years. are the problems if not, why not? >> we still have resource issues with the state crime lab and need to make sure there are more scientists and more equipment and we still have a lot of work to do. but this is about leadership, and when i came into office, there were 5000 dna rape kits sitting on local law enforcement shelves, and there were years of shoddy investigation. we came together, put people in charge who knew what they were doing. we worked to help law enforcement straighten out these investigations. the crime lab is helping to convict thousands of people and having to exonerate people. this crime lab is the only one in the country that has certified scientists. and this tremendous progress has been made and we found the problem. we fixed it. we didn't blame it on someone >> mr. cecil, what are your thoughts? >> i am not familiar enough with the interms of the crime lab here to know completely how it's working or how much it's still with problems. but i was asked by several people over the past few weeks you on in -- how in charlotte they got a gun and said there the dna testing who the gun belonged to and who was carrying it but saying my daughter's rape kit is 4 months old and still no response. so apparently, there is a lead tame - - time is something that needs to be fix. >> you should call your own crime hotline and turn yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on commercials but it's broken. they can't wait on a crime lab anymore. and durham, greensboro, and fayetteville and other cities, that's just a fact. >> do the two of you talk to each other about issues like that? or the chief executive of the top lawyer. seems like you would be talking about what is going on are you impunging your former attorney general mike easley that you inherited that from him? >> i know there were 5,000 untested rape kits. >> what does that mean for dna to be matched against and also, the technology was evolving. >> it was. no question. >> to say 5000 sounds like a huge number, which it is, but missing. >> the context is the crime lab wasn't necessarying no suspect rape kits. >> this leads me to-- we are getting tight on time. i want to talk about transparency. you brought up the lack of e- mails coming from the attorney general's office in 16 years. we have tried to get public record's from the governor's office and ootsd like running to get things. both talk about transparency. it seems opaque in trying to get information to the public. mr.cooper, as attorney general, i am told that you like talk on the foafn and -- phone and go down the hall and talk with people. but how you can do that as governor? isn't there a paper >> absolutely. there are thousands of document that is our office has produced. i believe strongly in transparency, and governor mccrory has been stonewalling not only the media, the people who ask for public records. had to be sued three times for public record that is he has failed to produce. >> if you are elected governor, are you ready to make a statement tonight that you 30 days, for example? >> it will be as quickly as possible. and people who deal with our office at the department of justice know that we work expeditiously and work hard to get the information out to the public. as governor, i will make certain that all of our cabinet numbers know this is a directive and they have to get this information. >> mr. mccrory in all i know oftentimes, so many people come for discovery and are looking for reams of information and it can over power any office doing it. but at the same time, we havey waited months and months to get information. you when folks from duke energy for dinner -- . >> you saw that on my public >> there is no record of what was discussed. >> i didn't take notes but i can tell you that i was going to veto the bill that he is criticizing saying i'm going to veto this. it's totally upacceptable, and the democrats and republicans supported and so did jim hunt and jim martins. when i took this to the support court, i got support from jim hunt and jim martins and with only one dissension. i am pretty proud of that. i sued my own republican legislature. >> is there a way to cut through the legalese? >> my dilemma in my years as governor is it's not the media causing the problem but the super pacs. it's the progress-- north carolina's progress, they are they are making more requests and going on witch howpts, and we have to go through every record to ensure there is not personnel information which would be against state law if i released personnel information on individuals. so there is an issue of a middle ground. it's not really the legitimate news organizations that causes the problem but the super packs going on witch hunts and they get the headline, sadly, on wral that mccrory can't produce the documents. >> i advocate be as transparent as possible. as governor mccrory said, will personal information of how the employees have to be protected, and the recent law, the body cameras for the police addressed some of that, and i think in a proper way, it's set up so the judges look at that and the judges can make the it's not up to the individual city council or town council of every little town to make those decisions. i am fully in favor of transparency everywhere we can. a lot of this stuff will be difficult to get hold of simply because it's paper record only, and that's the only way they sort it. >> next question for you, mr. asked what additional restrictions on an abortion you would support, and you said none. since then, north carolina's waiting period for abortion has been extended to three days, the longest of any state in the country. are there further restrictions you would support and how do you qualify that? >> first of all, what i had to do was i stopped restrictions from being done. believe me if i put further restrictions on women's legal according to the supreme court the court would have challenged the law and over ruled us. i refused to do that. yes. now a phone call, 72 versus 24 hour but in doing that, i stopped much more extreme legislation proposed by the senate as you well and i threatened to veto. as roy knows and everyone knows, you have to make a compromise and that is a 24- hour phone call versus a had i not done that the senate and house would have had the ability to have a much stricter very tee much like texas. and we had an abortion clinic in charlotte that treated women like they were going to a meat market as opposed to seeing a physician with a very serious operation, a very serious procedure where they were not between abortions. it was revolting. thank god my secretary said that's unacceptable, governor. we need to shut it down. and we have re-opened them because of the restrictions have to do with the actual medical care of women. i don't know where the attorney general was in the 14 years this clinic was open but it's unacceptable. >> mr. cooper? >> at this very 2012, when you asked governor mccrory if he would support new restrictions, he said no. not only the restrictions that you discussed so far but signed legislation to require women's ultra sound to be sent to state government bureaucrats. regardless of how you feel about this issue or this policy, to have a woman's is wrong. it is a restriction, and it shows you whether you can trust governor mccrory. i don't think you can. i think this is just one of the many issues where he has said one thing and he has done another. >> 1 second. >> i want to say bureaucrats is quite a word but medical professionals to ensure that doctors are following the law after five months and i am sure roy agrees there shouldn't know an abortion after 5 months. >> mr. cecil, would you perform tighter restrictions or the same or loosen? >> not at all tighter. as i told many people as a libertarian, i feel an abortion is between a patient and her there or the woman and her there and the government should have have virtually no say or control in it and should abortion is a serious problem to the woman. i've got four friends that over the past 50 years have had one and it has long, lingering effects. throw in the big hand of government in there to stir it around does not help. no further restrictions. >> mr. cecil, i'm curious. you never held public office in your life. >> no, sir. >> why some voters have the confidence you government? >> i have not held public also. that means that i don't have a long string of promises to people that are expecting me to pay back the favors. i've had very few contributions to my campaign, no pack contributions or anything like that. i spent a year in vietnam foreign operations and how we thought the world should be run. when i left and came back to the united states, i had had about all the public policies i wanted for a lifetime. i went into private industry and i got a patent in 1980 that turned into the atm machines where, when you put in your card, the screen comes on and it says what is your pin number? and you type and that references my prior art. i worked in the 1990s to get the keyless entry in cars. most of the new cars you get today do have that. i have a tendency as an engineer to look at what options are available and all options first and i think that is what is required for essentially a ceo position. >>thank you for that. minute before closing statements but very quickly, if you can give me a 10-second answer. should we move per-pupil spending some have us ranked 42nd or 43rd and can we do that without raising taxes? we are 44th in per student spending in north carolina. >> without raising taxes? >> absolutely. >> their mccrory? >> my record steek speaks for itself, 48th in low teacher pay, and our university spending is very strong, one of the best in the nation. >> on note, i'm going to say that each candidate will have one minute to make a closing statement. it's your one minute to convince these voters that they with lon cecil and roy cooper and mr. pat mccrory. mr.cease still --cecil? >> thank you. i want to thank wral for hosting this debate tonight. i think it will be helpful for voters to go out and make their choices in early voting starting october 20th. we have a lot of revenue sources in north carolina. i know all of them are being tapped in but we do need more money for the schools. we need more choice for the kids in education. only 3/4 are handled well in high school and we need more online and home school being and charter schools and vocational schooling. part of the funding of that is to perhaps tap the currently untapped resource. we have a tax law but if we go ahead and set up a medical lead of states like colorado, washington, oregon, and nevada. >> mr. cooper? >> thank you, david and laura. all the debates are now over and it will be up to you to decide who leads north carolina the next four years and who you trust to rebuild it. we are facing the worst disaster in eastern north carolina since hurricane floyd, and we need a governor who knows how to rebuild communities. we have kids who are in under funded schools and many teachers leaving our state for better pay and more respect. we need a governor who knows how to rebuild the education system and north carolina's grand has been tarnished, and our economy has been damaged because of house bill 2. we need a governor who knows how to rebuild north carolina's north carolina can be one of the most admired states in this country. i'm going to work hard as your governor to rebuild north carolina. thank you for your vote. >> mr. mccrory? >> let's have more debates. i am welcoming more debates so people don't have to take decisions over multimillion dollar tv ads. i welcome more. i love our state and i love our people and i am so proud of the people in the coming together leadership that helped in the recovery with volunteer agencies, and i was proud of my leadership team responding four weeks ago to the charlotte incident where we decided to bring the national guard long before the mayor requested it. sadly, roy cooper was against working with the mayor and the mayor's office. i was having to work with the police chief and coordinate with the police chief and hand the powers of the police chief and i showed the leadership as i came in the office assed 74th governor when the unemployment was the 5th highest in the country. we needed to make change and lowered the income tax and business tax and increased teacher pay and paid off the debt. that's leadership for the future. >> thank you, and thanks to all three of you. we hope the debate will help you make the decision on who will be north carolina's next governor. early voting begins thursday, the 20th and saturday november 5. >> we would like to thank the candidates for being here and thank you for joining us. ?cause nothin ever gonna make this world better? ?if we don't start believin? ?love really really really is the answer? ?all over the world? ?spread it all over the world? (salsa music plays) oh. i'm glad i stretched. welcome to salsa for beginners. i ask you to relax, be loose and enjoy. let me demonstrate. can we go? we haven't even danced yet. hed my knee getting out of the car. you said it was your left knee. i can have two bad knees. and a bad attitude. you said you were excited about this salsa class. 'cause i thought it was a different kind of salsa. the salsa is a whole body dance. the music is the soul that triggers the spirit of the dancing. follow me. oh. yeah, i'm just letting you know right now, my body does not do that. as you step forward, turn your hip