North Carolina Gov. Pat McCory has been avoiding questions from the press ever since the one-two punches of being ditched by both the NCAA and the ACC over his anti-LGBT HB2 law. He knew how to fix that: Just fabricate his own questions and plant them at an event. This story from Charlotte Observer reporter Taylor Batten reveals so many Pat McCrory pants-on-fire lies that it's hard to keep track, so let's number them, shall we?
1. McCrory lied to attendees at a Hood Hargett Breakfast Club in Charlotte about the source of the questions: himself.
McCrory’s staff planted questions at a lunch event in SouthPark on Thursday with the crowd under the impression that they were coming from the media or the audience. The moderator, a volunteer from the lunch audience, introduced three questions by saying they were from the Charlotte Observer.
He apologized to me afterward, saying it was his understanding all the questions on one of his sheets were from the Observer. In fact, they were from the governor’s own staff, an event organizer said.
2. McCory even micromanaged the audience questions, then lied about that to the audience.
Speakers at Hood Hargett Breakfast Club events routinely take questions from the floor. McCrory required that all questions be submitted in advance in writing.
When the moderator asked how to get started, McCrory said, “Anything you like. No filter here.” Sure, who needs a filter when you posed the questions yourself?
3. When a real reporter tried to ask a question that wasn't self-generated by McCrory, he lied to the audience about already having taken media questions.
When I tried to ask McCrory a question, the filter went up. “We’ve got three Observer questions answered already. I think you guys dominate the news enough.”
Of course, those weren’t Observer questions. They were softballs from his staff about what he wanted to do with his next term; how he wanted to reduce the state’s rape kit backlog; and how the state crime lab performed under McCrory’s opponent, Roy Cooper.
4. Following that entire lie of an “event,” McCrory skipped out without taking any questions from the reporters gathered to cover the "event."
He ducked out a side door and down a hall that led to a back exit. I followed him to try to ask him about HB2, but his staff blocked me.
5. His spokesperson lied, telling the Observer reporter that his staff had been "asked" to send questions in advance of the event.
Jenn Snyder, executive director of the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club, said that’s not true. She said she had expected the governor to take live questions from the audience but the campaign insisted on this other format and wanted to include questions of their own along with ones from the audience. All the questions were portrayed as coming from the audience and the Observer, and the crowd was never told that many of them actually came from McCrory’s campaign.
This is what happens when you pass an asinine law as governor, find yourself five points down in the polls, and absolutely refuse to take responsibility for your asinine law. Face it, McCory—if you lose this election, you have no one to blame but yourself.