Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Thursday, April 10, 2025, and Donald Trump has caved.

Trump backed down on his threat to impose massive tariffs on countries across the world after the stock market crashed and investors fled the bond market.

Trump’s retreat caused the stock market to rally and eased fears of a recession.

Trump left a 125% tariff on all goods from China so we still face the prospect of rising prices and a return to more inflation.

Trump’s toadies tried to put a good face on the capitulation, implying that he planned the whole thing.

Well, if he did, he cost Americans billions of dollars and got nothing for it.

Nobody reached any trade agreements with him.

Besides, Trump admitted that he was spooked by the bond market.

But don’t worry. The people surrounding Trump probably made bank.

Trump telegraphed his intention to pause the tariff scheme in plenty of time for his friends to buy while the market was low.

The spike in the NASDAQ began minutes before Trump’s announcement.

Somebody clearly knew something.

If, as Trump’s people claim, the whole thing was planned, then that’s market manipulation.

Never take your eye off the grift.

This administration is about bilking the American people and enriching Trump and his cronies.

While Trump may have backed down, he’s still left us in a world of uncertainty.

A lot of the money that left the market won’t come back.

Investors want stability, not the unpredictability of Trump’s on again off again tariff threats.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a rough ride.

I’m Thomas Mills, signing off for PoliticsNC.

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Tuesday April 8, 2025 and we’re getting a little comic relief here in the Old North State.

According to a twitter account called Media Right News, Donald Trump is secretly recruiting freshman North Carolina Congressman Pat Harrigan to primary Senator Thom Tillis.

And that’s not even the best part. According to Media Right, Mark Robinson will run for Harrigan’s seat.

That’s right.

The guy whose campaign for governor famously imploded after graphic revelations about time spent on porn sites wants to be a U.S. Congressman.

And where did they get this information?

Why, Mark Robinson, of course. Apparently, somebody who Media Right knows was at an event with Mark Robinson at a Box Car restaurant in Claremont.

Lord, let this be true.

Regardless, I think we need to stop and give thanks right now.

The North Carolina Republican Party has blessed us with some of the most comically stupid politicians in the country.

Texas may have had Louie Gomert, but we have Mark Robinson, Michelle Morrow, and Madison Cawthorn.

Damn, I miss Madison Cawthorn.

But let’s take a moment to unpack all of this.

Mark Robinson told somebody at an event that Donald Trump was recruiting Pat Harrigan to run against Thom Tillis.

First, why would Donald Trump or Pat Harrigan tell Mark Robinson anything?

And why would anybody believe anything Mark Robinson said in the first place?

It’s all about the lie.

Donald Trump has made lying a feature of the modern GOP and Mark Robinson has learned well.

More importantly, though, the Republican base has been conditioned to believe anything, regardless of the source.

Just for the record, Mark Robinson lost to Josh Stein in Harrigan’s district.

So even if Robinson is telling the truth, which he’s not, he would be a terrible candidate in that race–or any race.

God, I hope he runs.

This is Thomas Mills signing off for PoliticsNC.

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Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Friday, April 4, 2025 and democracy is slipping away in North Carolina.

Today, a three-judge panel ruled along partisan lines to allow Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin disqualify more than 65,000 votes. Griffin lost the election to justice Allison Riggs by about 730 votes.

The ruling gives voters 15 days to cure their ballots, but it would be very difficult to address 65,000 individual ballots.

The ballots in question include more than 5,000 military ballots cast by service members stationed overseas. The legislature said they didn’t need to have a photo identification, but the Court of Appeals disagreed–five months after they cast those ballots.

Another 60,000 voters had voter registration forms with incomplete identification, even though they all showed photo voter IDs at the time they voted.

This ruling is a travesty for democracy. Griffin and the Republican Party cherry-picked the ballots they challenged. If the same standard was applied to all voters, then Griffin would almost certainly have lost the election. Instead, the court is only considering the voters that Griffin singled out. The contested ballots are overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning constituencies.

Never again will a North Carolina voter be able to vote in an election and be sure that his vote will be counted. Creating this level of uncertainty around elections undermines our democracy.

The decision doesn’t only undermine faith in our elections, it undermines the credibility of the court. Legal experts from both parties voiced their opposition to the case. It should never have been heard in the first case.

Justice Riggs will appeal the decision to the State Supreme Court. With Riggs recusing herself from the case, six justices will vote to decide the case. A split decision will leave today’s ruling intact.

I only hope that four of those Justices have enough respect for the voters and the integrity of the court to rule against Griffin. Right now, I’m not optimistic.

I’ll be writing more about this decision and this case in the next few days, but these are my initial thoughts.

I’m Thomas Mills signing off for PoliticsNC.

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Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Thursday, Apr 3, 2025 and the Republic is still standing, but your 401(K) is not.

Donald Trump introduced blanket tariffs across the globe. He even put tariffs on two islands off the coast of Australia that are inhabited only by penguins. Not sure what they did to insult the president, but it must have been bad.

You know who didn't get tariffs? Russia. So penguins did, Putin didn't

In response, the stock market is crashing. The Dow Jones industrial average has dropped more than 1,000 points since opening.

Donald Trump once said that if the Dow dropped 1,000 points in two days, the president should be impeached. Today, it’s almost 1,500 points in a single day. I doubt he’s saying much now.

Congress could have reeled Trump in on his tariff debacle. He’s acting under emergency powers that they granted him. Now, Trump is abusing those powers. Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to hold the president accountable, but they won’t.

Last night, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation to rescind the emergency powers. Four Republicans voted with Democrats to stop the economic bloodbath. Our Senator Thom Tillis lacked the courage to stand up to Trump. He voted against the measure.

I’m sure he’ll be very concerned about the economic impact on families and farmers. But he won’t do a damn thing about it.

I want to take this moment to urge everyone to call Senator Thom Tillis and thank him for tanking your retirement plans. If you’re a farmer, you can thank him for cutting off your markets. If you’re in manufacturing, thank him for making parts more expensive.

Tillis has another chance to hold Trump accountable. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has introduced a bill that would require Congress to approve new tariffs within 60 days or they expire. Let’s hope Tillis has guts to support the bill, but don’t bet on it.

Thom Tillis is no longer the Senator for North Carolina. No, he’s now a candidate in the MAGA primary to keep his seat. He won’t do anything that risks the ire of Donald Trump.

He’ll throw farmers under the bus and tank your IRA to stay in Trump’s good graces.

As always, Thom Tillis will say one thing and do another. He’s a man who sold his soul to party that abandoned its values.

It’s all just pathetic.

I'm Thomas Mills signing off for politicsNC.

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is April 1, 2025 and the universe is smiling down us today.

According to reporter Bryan Anderson, Michele Morrow is considering a primary against Senator Thom Tillis. This is not an April Fool’s joke.

Morrow is a bat-s**t crazy woman who ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction last year. She took out the incumbent Superintendent in the Republican primary and came within three percent of winning the general election.

Morrow is deep into MAGA conspiracy theories. She called for the execution of a host of Democrats including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Roy Cooper.

She was also in Washington during the January 6 insurrection and recorded a video claiming that Trump had the authority to use the military to arrest all of his political enemies including incoming president Joe Biden.

She believed that Chinese troops were amassed on the Canadian border ready to invade the US and take over the country as soon as Joe Biden was sworn in. Maybe that’s why Trump wants to make Canada the 51st state.

Morrow’s got an opposition research book full of crazy statements. She called public schools socialist indoctrination centers and said cameras in school bathrooms would help prevent school shootings.

She’s full of so many great ideas, I can’t wait to rehash them again.

I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been pretty bummed since I heard that Mark Robinson decided not to run against Tillis. Nothing would be more fun than reliving the sordid details of Robinson’s life while Christian nationalists swoon over his crazy nonsense.

But Michele Morrow is a pretty good consolation prize.

Let’s be serious for a moment. The fact that Morrow is even considering running shows the challenge Tillis faces next year. Nobody likes him.

He’s a phony and MAGA knows it. Tillis knows that most of the stuff he’s spouting off is wrong but he’ll say anything to keep his seat. He’s been pandering to the Trump base for six years. He voted for all of those incompetent Cabinet nominees hoping to show his loyalty, but they see right through him.

MAGA doesn’t want to vote for Tillis. Morrow offers them an alternative. Even if she loses the primary, the Republican right flank will be sluggish about turning out to support a guy they don’t trust.

I suspect the 2026 turnout in North Carolina will look more like 2018 than 2022. 2018 was the best midterm for Democrats since 2006. If there had been a Senate race in North Carolina that year, Democrats would have won it.

That’s what Tillis faces–a dissatisfied base and a motivated opposition.

For now, I’m going to take my joy in knowing that Michele Morrow still has a political future in the North Carolina Republican Party.

I’m Thomas Mills, signing off for PoliticsNC.

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Thursday, March 27, 2025 and the Republic is still standing but it’s being sabotaged by its own government.

The bumbling National Security Team that allowed an independent reporter, Jeffery Goldberg, into a Signal group chat about an airstrike in Yemen keeps stepping on the rake. They’re like a bunch of Keystone Kops. I hear Benny Hill music every time I see one of them on the screen.

When the story broke, Director of Defense Pete Hegseth called Goldberg a liar, only to find out that the administration had admitted the mistake. In other words, Hegseth revealed himself to be the one lying.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told Congress that nothing in the chat group was classified. Then they attacked Goldberg and claimed he was overstating what was said in the chat.

So, Goldberg released the chat and made them all out to be liars.

So how did we end up with such a bunch of Bozos as Members of the Cabinet? Well, people like Thom Tillis, who knew better, approved them.

Way back in December, when people of all political stripes were criticizing the Cabinet nominees, Trump and his cronies started putting pressure on Republican Senators to approve them. They threatened retribution, like primarying incumbent Senators.

Back then, Thom Tillis was still pretending to have a spine. He told the press that the pressure campaign might back-firing on the Trump administration.

Just a month later, Tillis was the one bending to the pressure. He voted to approve Hegseth and every one of the nominees he knew to be incompetent.

Now, he’s trying to cover up for them. On Monday, Tillis told the press it would be a one-day story.

We’re on day four now and pressure is mounting for somebody to take the fall.

But Tillis isn’t just defending incompetence. He’s defending an assault on our government. He said yesterday that he would support closing Social Security offices even though the Administration is ending phone support for many senior citizens.

He supports Musk’s order to freeze FEMA grants. We still have thousands of people in Western North Carolina waiting for that support. And now we have wildfires in the mountains that might force people to abandon their homes. Thom Tillis will leave them high and dry.

Thom Tillis is covering up for incompetence in the Cabinet he supported. He’s hanging senior citizens out to dry. And he’s abandoning victims of disasters in own state.

And next year, he’s going to ask for your vote. Don’t forget.

I’m Thomas Mills signing off for PoliticsNC

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Tuesday, Mar 25, 2025 and the Republic is still standing–but’s it’s being run by a comically inept government.

Yesterday, we learned that our national security team is running our foreign policy on insecure cell phones and commercial apps and while inadvertently leaking classified information to reporters.

It seems that National Security Advisor Michael Waltz set up a chat group to discuss the pending strike on Houthis in the Persian Gulf. The group included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—and editor of Atlantic Magazine Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg has no idea why he was added to the chat group but he stayed on for several days. At one point, Hegseth gave operational details about the strike on the Houthis. None of this should have been done on cell phones because they’re easily hacked, but none of our national security team knew that or cared enough to raise the alarm.

Hegseth, in particular, is a clown. Just after he was confirmed as Secretary of Defense, he gave away negotiating tactics to the Russians. Over the last few weeks, he’s been scrubbing Department of Defense websites of African American heroes.

When Hegseth was confronted with the leak to Goldberg, he lied about it. I guess he didn’t know that the White House had already confirmed the f**k up.

Hegseth should never have been confirmed as Defense Secretary. Republicans knew better but they didn’t care. Our Senator Thom Tillis was going to block Hegseth because of numerous troubling aspects of his nomination. He admitted having a drinking problem. Several women, including his sister-in-law, accused him of abusive behavior. On top of all that, he had no experience.

He isn’t a military guy. He’s a Fox News reporter who served in the National Guard.

Tillis knew he wasn’t qualified but caved to pressure from the Trump administration. Thom Tillis did what he always does. He knows right but does what’s wrong. He will put his political career before his country or the people he serves every time.

Pete Hegseth is Thom Tillis’ man at Defense. What an embarrassment. It’s time to send Thom Tillis packing.

I’m Thomas Mills, signing off for PoliticsNC.

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is March 23, 2025 and the Republic is still standing–and the resistance to authoritarianism is taking shape.

Over the last few days, Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, have been touring swing states and drawing huge audiences. Rallies in Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona tapped into the anger Democrats feel toward the Trump administration. Bernie was the headliner, but AOC got as much attention as the heir-apparent to his movement.

AOC moved away from her roots as a Democratic Socialist and embraced a role as the leader of an opposition movement. She said the divide in the Democratic Party is not between moderates and progressives but between those who will fight and those who won’t.

She was clearly taking a shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Earlier this month, Schumer folded in negotiations over shutting down the government when he brought the votes to pass a Republican funding bill. Schumer claimed opposing the bill would allow Donald Trump and Elon Musk to indiscriminately shut down government programs. He said passing the stop-gap measure would protect programs funded by the bill.

But that didn’t seem to pan out. Within days, Trump and Musk shut down Voice of America and issued an order to dismantle the Department of Education. They seemed to be thumbing their noses at Schumer’s move.

Regardless, Democrats wanted a response to Trump and Schumer failed to give it. AOC is picking up the mantle of leader of the resistance. She’s focusing on economic issues in an attempt to broaden the Democratic coalition and she’s offering a new generation of leadership.

It’s too early for Democrats to start focusing on presidential candidates in 2028, but they need to fill the leadership void that’s emerged since the election. AOC is stepping up. More leaders are likely to follow. Expect to see Pete Buttegieg start moving around more now that he’s announced he isn’t running for the Michigan Senate. Watch Jasmine Crocket, the firebrand Texas Congresswoman who’s made a sport of ridiculing Republicans. And there are others.

Right now, Democrats want fighters and need leaders. They’ll reward politicians who take stands against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They are looking for a vision for our future that is more inclusive than divisive. Expect the opposition to emerge organically. It will be broader and less ideological. It’s a reckoning the Democratic party needs.

Whether you supported Bernie Sanders or AOC in the past is largely irrelevant. What they are doing right now matters. They are giving voice to the frustration felt by Democrats across the country. They are providing an outlet to that frustration at rallies that bring people together.

We have plenty of time to argue over who would be the best presidential nominee in 2028. Right now, we need leaders willing to stand up to authoritarians and give people hope and a sense of purpose. AOC and Bernie Sanders are doing just that. The resistance is rising. Get on board.

I’m Thomas Mills signing off for PoliticsNC.

Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Thursday, March 20, 2025 and the Republic is still standing, but it appears to be run by a bunch of racist a******s.

The Trump administration repealed Lyndon Johnson’s executive order that banned contractors from having segregated facilities. They claimed the order is part of DEI. It’s really just poking African Americans in the eye, showing them what he can do.

And it gets worse.

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Over at the Department of Defense, Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a DEI purge. He’s removing the names and images of African Americans and other minorities from Department of Defense websites. They’ve removed the name of Colin Powell from a list of notables buried at Arlington National Cemetery. They scrubbed the Tuskegee Airmen from the site. And they took down most of the women mentioned.

They even removed Jackie Robinson, the hall of fame baseball player who broke the color barrier. And the list goes on. They removed Medgar Evers, the Civil Rights leader who was gunned down by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1963. They took down Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian who was one of the soldiers who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and who was immortalized in a Johnny Cash song.

They removed a tribute to an all-Japanese American unit who signed up to fight despite many being held in internment camps when they volunteered.

Administration officials admit that they have made mistakes because of the algorithm that identifies DEI and promise to restore them. But all of the mistakes concern African Americans or other minorities. In other words, the algorithm is racist. If it weren’t, some of the mistakes would include White heroes, right? But they aren’t.

Trump and company are doing all they can to whitewash American history. They are obscuring the history of people who overcame discrimination and injustice in pursuit of the American dream. They are erasing the stories of people who believed in this hope of this country enough to fight for it, even though they were considered second class citizens.

People like Pete Hegseth are showing us who they are. They believe that America is a white country for white people. They believe that minorities have gotten unfair advantages that diminish their accomplishments. They want to go back to a world where white leaders dominate and Black people know their place.

They are, in a word, racists.

I’m Thomas Mills, signing off for PoliticsNC.

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Transcript:

I’m Thomas Mills for PoliticsNC. Today is Sunday, March 16, 2025 and the Republic is still standing, though its very foundation is under assault.

In North Carolina, Jefferson Griffin and the Republican Party are attacking our democracy by trying to throw out the votes of more than 60,000 North Carolinians who cast their ballots in November.

This week, Griffin’s lawyer released a statement saying that his wife suffered a miscarriage. The family blames stress from threats and harassment that have come on social media. Their address has been posted publicly and people are making angry comments on his Facebook page. Griffin says he’s received death threats in the mail and Marshalls for the Supreme Court are investigating the incident.

I don’t condone threats or violence. The ballot box is where we should resolve our differences. We have elections to enact a peaceful transfer of power. Democracy is one the greatest accomplishments of our country.

And there’s the rub. Jefferson Griffin’s attempt to disenfranchise 60,000 voters is an assault on our democracy. He’s trying to take away the voices of people who were told on election day that their votes were legitimate.

When people believe that they no longer have a say in how we are governed, there’s gonna be violence, either by the people out of power or by the people wielding it.

The last time we ended democracy in North Carolina was at the turn of the twentieth century. For the next 70 years, we lived under a reign of terror–at least you did if you were Black. It just ended sixty years with a blaze of carbombings, shootings, and riots that marked the integration of our schools.

Republicans in North Carolina have effectively ended democracy in legislative and Congressional elections through extreme gerrymandering. Democrats will likely never hold power in the legislature in my lifetime despite having the support of half the state’s population. The GOP will hold lopsided majorities of Congressional seats in rigged districts that eliminate political competition.

Griffin’s lawsuit is an attempt at stealing statewide elections where Democrats regularly win. If Republicans can steal a Supreme Court seat, they can also steal a governor’s election or attorneys general election.

Voting is the most basic First Amendment right and people who fought hard to earn it in the 20th century aren’t going to surrender it easily in the 21th century. History tells us that authoritatians who restrict access to the ballot box will use violence to protect their power, often with approval courts controlled by Justices elected under the same rigged system.

We should condemn threats of violence against Jefferson Griffin or any other elected official. People who make those threats should be held accountable.

But Griffin’s lawsuit is a threat to our democracy. If he’s successful, we will be one step closer to the political violence that elections are meant to deter.