00:00:17
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Great to be with you today. Thank you for joining me. This is a Faith and Values program that tries to intersect faith and values with different things going on locally and globally. It's been a pleasure doing this show now for almost 26 plus years. Thank you, folks, for listening on a regular basis. And thank you, Perry Fine Jewelry, for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Well, honestly, I've been looking forward to this show for several weeks since I was able to book it. It's with a friend of mine, and I consider him a friend for many, many years. His name is Pat McCrory, a former mayor of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, 12 years, I think. Fourteen. Fourteen, Pat.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Good. And then another six as city council.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: Okay, longtime government employee.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: It's a past life.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: But also the former governor of our great state of North Carolina.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Nice gig.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: You gave me the privilege of one of the great memories of my life, and you allowed me to do the invocation at your inauguration, and my wife Marilyn and I were there. We'll never forget it. It was one of the very special times in our lives, going to the governor's mansion and having a meal there. with you and Ann. It was just a great time, and thank you for allowing us to do that.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: It was an honor for me to have you there, and it was an honor to hold that position. All my positions, I took being called honorable seriously.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: You know, I think we're in a culture that doesn't understand honor anymore. It's a word that means prized or valued, and it's really one of the Ten Commandments. Honor your mother and father. Romans 12 says, honor one another in the church. I mean, this idea of valuing one another, it's kind of been eroded, hadn't it, Pat?
00:02:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely. In fact, I remember when I was elected to the city council, I got the fourth open seat for city council by 300 votes over a guy named Dick Prim, who was a wonderful ex-Navy guy. I felt guilty that I beat him, in fact, because I was so impressed with him. But I got my first piece of mail saying the Honorable Pat McCrory and Ann My wife said, who's this? But I took it very seriously. And when they call you honorable, like someone's called teacher or police officer.
00:02:37
Speaker 1: Or pastor.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Or pastor. I think there's a responsibility to come with it. And I do expect you to have higher norms and values. You're not going to be perfect. You're going to sin. But you're going to try like the Dickens to be a role model. And also, you expect people to treat you with respect since you have that title. And we're losing both sides of that. With all those professions we just talked about, where police aren't often respected, and frankly, we have some police who abuse their uniform. We have politicians that often don't respect their position and let it go to their heads and do things that they shouldn't do, that no normal person would do if they were called honorable. And sadly, even in your profession.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: In all professions, we have bad people who are not operating as they should.
00:03:28
Speaker 2: We have people that do bad things. And it's discouraging to me that, in fact, we don't shame more of this type of attitude. I remember a calling pal told me about, you know, his dad would shame him. He wasn't worried about being spanked. He was worried about being shamed.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: You know, I think about behavior that I might do that would reflect negatively upon my father's name because I think he is so important in my life. I would do nothing to ever embarrass him. And he's gone on to be with the Lord. He's, you know, birthday's coming up pretty soon. He'd be 108 years of age, but he was just such a great man. I wouldn't want to dishonor him in any way.
00:04:11
Speaker 2: Well, there's no doubt about it. In fact, in the book, we're going to talk about the change agent that was written by Andrew Dunn about my career. In that book, I was reluctant to tell him this story, but on election night for mayor in 1995, my dad got up out of his wheelchair. He died a week later due to cancer, but he got up out of his wheelchair and hugged me. And he was very proud. I mean, I could feel his pride. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. You know, who gets to have your dad hug you the night you get elected mayor? And he hugged me and said, I've got one thing to tell you. And he whispered it in my ears.
00:04:47
Speaker 1: I said, what, dad?
00:04:49
Speaker 2: And I was waiting for some poetry. And he went, keep your zipper up. This is before Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. That's how long ago it was. And I went, what? And he said, just listen to me. Keep your zipper up. He had already seen that night all these people surrounding me and telling me how great I was. Because the minute you're elected, they laugh at your jokes. You're better looking. You're smarter. By the way, I learned later when you're at office, you're not good looking. You're not as smart. People aren't asking for your opinion anymore. You know how that works.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: Well, and you're powerful and you have influence.
00:05:29
Speaker 2: And I appreciate my dad telling me that because, yeah, politicians, you know, you had Representative Edwards out west recently. And I go, what was this guy thinking? And I thought about it. Yeah, he started thinking he was someone special.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: He deserves this. It's something he should have, and therefore he thinks he's able to get it.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, the trappings of power are incredible. And I've caught myself in it, and I've had ego checks like you around me during my career going, don't get caught up in this stuff. And you need to have the ego checks, especially when you're called honorable. And right now I don't think we have enough politicians that have the ego checks around them.
00:06:14
Speaker 1: We have lost the art of honor. That's something I've said on several occasions, and you look at it across the board with both parties all.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: Around the globe.
00:06:26
Speaker 1: It's the human agenda, really. It's our own problem that we have in our pride. But what I'd love to do today, Pat, is let's talk on the other side of the break about your career and what you've been through some, but also I'd love to talk about your faith because how you and I met years and years ago and you've helped me in my life and I hope I've helped you.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: In your life. It's because of these studios.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: That's how we met. And it was a great ride together and just trying to help you when I could and helping you maybe help people understand the behind the scenes of temptations. But I also want to get into today, this whole world in which we live, the culture that we're facing. Should we be concerned about the Islamization of America and those kinds of things as well? We're facing 9-11 and some of the things that you went through back in Charlotte when that happened as well. This is going to be, I hope, a great ride today as you go down memory lane with me and all of our listeners. Join us as we talk with former Mayor Pat McCrory, former governor of the state of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, but mostly for me, my friend, Pat McCrory will be right back. I'm ready now. That's my friend Travis Green. Sing on, Travis. Nor can I, Travis, think of a day without the love of Jesus. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Welcome back to the show with my friend Pat McCrory, former mayor of the city. of Charlotte, North Carolina, former governor of our great state. And, Pat, I just want to talk some about your faith. This is a faith and values program, and God brought us together in almost a supernatural way, a friendship that began 20-plus years ago. Tell folks how we met.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: Well, we met.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: I heard you on BT Radio.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: And this is before I was part of BT radio for several years, but I was going through a very difficult time as mayor. I think it had to do with police shootings.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: I remember that.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: Yes. We had just had our third or fourth police shooting and there were racial implications and, uh, I was starting to get threatened and my family was getting threatened. Never did I know that would continue throughout the next 20 years. But, uh, And I could feel the pressure building up in my chest. I'd never dealt with this type of public pressure. And I heard you on the morning BT show. I think probably Danny Fontana or something. Could have been, or Al Gardner. I have no idea. And I called you up. I got your number, and I called you up and said, I've heard about you. I want to meet with you. And I even told the story how I got your autograph at the Sedgefield Ender in an ACC event. basketball tournament.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: I remember you sharing that with me.
00:11:18
Speaker 2: When I was probably in ninth or 10th or 11th grade, we were seven years apart.
00:11:23
Speaker 1: And you used to tease and say, and you didn't ever give it to me. You were too arrogant and prideful.
00:11:27
Speaker 2: That's right. No, I tease you about the, they didn't have nets back then. They had a bucket. That's how long ago. I appreciate it a lot.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: Make me feel good today.
00:11:38
Speaker 2: But then I realized we're only seven years apart. So I called you up and we got together. And I grew up in a church. My dad helped start a church, in fact, when I was in fifth grade in Ohio. And then he got disenchanted. I remember him getting disenchanted. He got to know the minister too well.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, that's a problem.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: You always told me, don't get to know your minister too well.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: We got clay feet, just like everybody else does. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:12:08
Speaker 2: But I remember from that moment, we've known each other extremely well, and we started doing a Bible study together. And then during my campaigns and elective years, I'd often call you. And during your times, you'd sometimes call me.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you do with this, Pat?
00:12:25
Speaker 2: Well, we started comparing the difference between a minister and a politician. And I don't mean to— we were both public figures. And people expected certain things of us. And it was tough to have you in the newspaper and me in the newspaper. And we've both been through some trials and tribulations. So we'd have conversations in confidence with each other going, because I think we trusted each other that we couldn't trust other people. Because as a minister and as a politician, you can't show your weakness. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Because if you show your weakness, they'll go, I don't want this guy in office. But I could show my weakness to you, and occasionally you would show your weakness to me, which you couldn't show at times to your elders or your congregation and so forth. So it's been a good friendship.
00:13:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for it. And one time I remember when a light bulb went off into your head trying to explain to you the uniqueness of the Christian faith, it revolves around this one word, grace.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Grace and mercy. It sounds so simple now. But, you know, I grew up. reading the Bible, but never understanding it. And I still don't. I'm still at second grade level, maybe. I'm up to third. I'm getting there. I'm between second and third grade having the acumen. But when you told me about grace, especially in the concept of we have more than we deserve, and in mercy, we should be punished more than we are for what we've the sins we've committed.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Mercy not receiving what we deserve, grace receiving what we don't deserve.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: The two words are so equal. So when I get through the tough times, even now when I'm dealing with my age and health issues with my family and myself, I keep going, yeah, but I have more than I deserve. It's such a great word. And those two words are the difference in our faith. Or they're the Pinnacle of our faith.
00:14:29
Speaker 1: The foundation.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: The foundation is a better word. You were always better with coming up with words. But grace and mercy, what it's all about. So as I go through losses and victories, it's the same. Grace and mercy are the same regardless if you're up or if you're down. And sometimes we forget when we're up.
00:14:49
Speaker 1: We're going to get to your book in just a little bit, but let me just ask you this question. As you look back over your 14 years as mayor of the city of Charlotte, what do you look back on with your greatest pride, your greatest success, something you go, I'm really glad that I was mayor and helped make that happen?
00:15:05
Speaker 2: Well, I could talk about all the projects that we did that are still around. I'll tell you one thing I am proud of, people don't think about, I required sidewalks in all new developments, and the developers were furious with me. What's this conservative guy doing requiring sidewalks? And I'm going, well, my nephew was born, and he's partially blind, and I can't walk him outside on Province Road because there are only ditches out of his neighborhood. You know, it's a little small neighborhood. There's no place to walk. And so I said, I mean, it's stupid to have neighborhoods where you have to walk out in the middle of the street with a baby carriage to to get people. So I required sidewalks to make the city more walkable. And then on the light rail line, yeah, I get all this, yeah, McCrory line, McCrory built it and all this stuff, both pro and con. I'm proud of that, but I'm more proud of the path that goes along what used to be referred to as the McCrory line when it wasn't working, now the blue line. But the path that goes along that line, I drove by it today on the way into the studio. And that came up at a 15-minute conversation with Ron Tober. He said, we've got bike racks on the, in the design of the new light rail buses or trains. I'm like, that's great. Who's going to ride on South Boulevard? They'll get killed because we had no sidewalks. Sidewalks are right next to the street. You know, you wouldn't dare do that. And I said, why don't we put a path along the light rail line all the way to I-485 and all the way to downtown, including a bridge going downtown. And I said, plus, I'm worried that we won't have any development but at the stops. But if we have a sidewalk and a development occurs in between the stops, they can walk to either stop. And he said, Mayor, we don't have the money. And I said, oh, we can find the money. And I said, this art money, why don't we take the art money and call it art? And that was a 15 minute conversation. I said, we got to do it. We got to do it. We'll have a path all the way down. And now the developers and others call me and said, the path has made more of a difference to the development than the light rail line. And I see these young people walking up and down, hundreds of people walking up and down that path. And that gives me pride, but more pride than anything. I followed my dad's commitment of ethics during that 14 years. And during my time as governor and city council member, I don't think there was any legitimate challenge to my ethics. There were attempts, but I'm proud to leave office, even in defeat, going, my reputation, my dad's reputation is intact, the name.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: And you and I both hold that so important in our hearts.
00:18:01
Speaker 2: I knew your dad, the low voice. Your dad had the best voice.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: Voice God was envious. Oh, it was God.
00:18:07
Speaker 2: Your dad was God. There's no doubt about it.
00:18:09
Speaker 1: Great, great man. But I feel that, Pat. And I know you did as well. And you did leave honorably in every office that you served.
00:18:17
Speaker 2: I attempted to. I made mistakes. And I'm sure there's some things where the ego got out of control. My wife would remind me of that and friends. But I'm pretty daggum happy.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: Well, when we come back, let's talk about your book that you have just recently written with Andrew Dunn, who's a wonderful author. And I want to talk about looking back, what might you have done differently as well? And then let's look generally at America, the state of the politics in our nation. It seems like it's never been more ragged than it ever has been, more muscular, if you will, fighting with one another. And I really don't know where it's all headed, especially with this democratic socialist movement as well. It's just going to be fun to talk to a man who has been in politics for many, many years.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: I've played the game. I've been played by the game. I'll be here to expose the game. That's what I used to say on my show. Well, that's a great statement.
00:19:09
Speaker 1: Let's use that to talk on the other side of this break. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:21:36
Speaker 3: When life has got you going strong.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden things are wrong We tend to stumble day.
00:21:46
Speaker 1: To day.
00:21:49
Speaker 3: And wonder when we'll be okay There are times when we have to just push through.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: And see the light ahead of you And when we reach the finish line.
00:22:06
Speaker 3: That's my friend Parker Robinson, worship leader at Moments of Hope Church, reminding all of us that sometimes life goes strong, sometimes life goes wrong.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: But when life goes.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Wrong, you have a great God who can pick you up and let you move forward again.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, former mayor, former governor of the state of North Carolina, Pat McCrory. Mostly, I just call you my friend. It's been wonderful knowing you all these decades, and thank you for being on the show today, Pat. And by the way, folks, if you'd like to hear this interview from beginning to end, go to WBT.com, scroll down to the weekend shows. The David Chadwick show is there. You can hear it from beginning to end. Just fascinating insights. And Pat, Which leads to my next question of you. What are you most proud of in your years as the governor of the state of North Carolina?
00:23:12
Speaker 2: That I put together a talented team of change agents on my cabinet and other people that changed so many things in North Carolina that are still impactful today, even after only four years. And the Sharon Decker, for example, who's been on your show, I think. Yes, she has been. She was my commerce secretary. She completely blew up the Commerce Department and started all over again. And the new organization she created to recruit new industry... By the way, it was a recession at that time that I inherited. That organization has had so much success. Governor Cooper tried to blow it up, get rid of it, because it had our name, you know, administration on it. And he couldn't because it was working. And then I had... Susan Klutz, former Mayor Salisbury. I mentioned women. She helped pass a bill by campaigning all over the state that my own Republican legislature said they would never pass, got named Phil Berger. We won't get this. It was a tax credit to save historical buildings in small towns and large towns alike. And now, 10 years later, I'm seeing all these old mills rebuilt and facades in downtown. I believe in preserving main street and these buildings that are being converted to condos. It wouldn't have been done without this. And we were told you will never get that bill passed, but that wasn't me. That was Susan Klutz, a change agent. Um, Aldona Voss, my secretary of health and human inherited a $ 500 million deficit and, uh, and spending on, uh, Medicare and Medicaid. And she resolved it. Um, We owed $ 2. 2 billion to the federal government unpaid by the previous Purdue administration. I had a team of people pay it back by cutting out fraud and waste and people really abusing the whole system. So transportation formula, Nick Tennyson, Tony Tata, they completely revamped. You know how you used to have wide highways? You'd go two lanes and eight lanes and two lanes. And wherever it was, eight lanes was named after some senator or a governor. That's where the power was. I took away all that. I didn't allow each DOT member to have a little bit of cash to pass around, which was very corrupt. I completely cleaned up the DOT. Tony did that. Tony Tate and Nick Tennyson, former mayor of Durham. I put a lot of ex-mayors in.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, guys who knew what it was like.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. The book is entitled Change Agent. The Change Agent. Written by Andrew Dunn.
00:25:57
Speaker 2: Right.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: And he came to you and said, I'm going to write this book. You can give me some input if you want to, but I'm going to write this book.
00:26:03
Speaker 2: I said, he called me up. I didn't know who he was. We had never met before. He said, there's been a book on Jim Martin and Jim Hunt and a few others. There's no book out on you, and I've been studying you. A lot of the stuff you did is still around, but I want to know the history behind it and why you did it. and then do an examination of whether that was good or bad. And I was, I don't know, who's this guy? So I read some of his writings and I said, okay, I'll cooperate with you and I'll tell my team, I gave him the phone numbers to everyone on my team. And then he called some people I've run against and opponents. So it was odd reading this book about me or my team. And he came up with a term to change it. He said, how would you describe yourself in politics? really had a tough time doing that. And I finally said, you know, I really was a change agent. I stepped on a lot of toes, both Democrats and Republicans. And I hated it. But if you're going to get elected, you got to solve problems. And so he made the title of the book, The Change Agent. And he made the whole theme about when I was mayor, even when I was a city councilman with a crime, you know, I You know, when I came as mayor pro tem and as mayor, we were averaging 125 murders a year. And no one was doing anything about it. So I created a teen curfew. How ironic now they're talking about it. I don't know why they stopped it. I don't think they ever voted to stop it. They just quit. I was the one who said, we're going to do a teen curfew. I did tolerate no truancy where we picked up kids in the middle of the day. Wonder why a 13-year-old kid's hanging around the Eastland Mall at the time. Pick them up and call the parents and make the parents then maybe get arrested for letting their kid out and not going to school. We did a program called Target 100. These are ideas I'd come up with at 4 o'clock in the morning, simple ideas, where I went to Chief Nowicki and I said, why don't we target the top 100 people that we're arresting 50, 60 times? And next time we arrest them, make sure we prosecute.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: And keep them in jail so that they don't come out and commit another crime. Quit the parole.
00:28:13
Speaker 2: Quit giving them bonds where they get out before the ink dries. This is when we had ink, not computers.
00:28:21
Speaker 1: And they all worked.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: We got the murder rate down to 35 murders a year in Charlotte. And for some reason, after I left, kind of the woke crime fighting ended. We're the woke crime fan began not only in Charlotte, but other cities. So that's an example in the book, the change agent, uh, by Andrew Dunn, where he goes, you know what McCrory did then and his team. I had a great team as mayor to Pam Seifert was great city manager, Boyd Cobble, who I missed tremendously died five years ago. And, uh, and the transit and, uh, other things we did. Uh, yeah, I'm proud of it.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: Great accomplishments as excuse me, the governor, uh, But yet you lost after four years. How would you counsel anyone listening to handle great disappointment in life? I mean, Pat, from my standpoint, you deserved another four years. It looks like such numbers of successes, but it didn't happen for several different reasons. But how would you counsel people who go, gosh, how do I deal with life when there's great disappointment?
00:29:26
Speaker 2: Well, I'm still going through that. But, you know, you move on. But, you know, it's still a painful part of my life because I loved it. I love my team so much. And I said, God, if we get a second term. And of course, the guy who beat me now is going to be the next U.S. senator. But after reading this book, the book, The Change Agent, basically concludes by going, what McCrory's team did as governor and as mayor, he lists the things that are still in place today and that are working. For example, all the hurricanes that occurred, I had to deal with Hurricane Matthew, but then I got defeated. But we put in place things, including the money. I inherited a reserve of almost no money because all the politicians were spending the reserve. We had 1% reserve, approximately 1% to 2% reserve. By the way, state law was 8%. And I lost on that. Roy Cooper at the time, then Attorney General, said, we need to spend that on pay raises for state employees. And I went, no, we need to save the reserve for a crisis. And Hurricane Matthew and two other hurricanes came. Thank God what we did, they had money for the hurricane relief. Three hurricanes later, I never got a thank you note for that. My team didn't get a thank you note, but that's where you got to go You know, we had an impact on saving lives and impacting lives based upon those decisions.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: So handling disappointment, one good way of doing it, and I've had to go through it myself, is to remember the good that you accomplished.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Remember grace. We started the show with grace, and I keep going. I pinch myself.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: I go, can you.
00:31:09
Speaker 2: Believe I had that opportunity? Yeah, I would have loved it to have it been eight years, but how many people get the chance? And we had a book signing yesterday. in Raleigh last week with over 200 people for the change agent. And some of my people that used to work with me, I looked at all of them and I went, what an opportunity I had. It was four years of the best time and toughest time of my life, but I would never replace that four years. You know, as people say all the time that dealing with life, you just got to accentuate the positive and de-emphasize the negative. When you get in the pits, and we all do, and I do every day, I'll go, gosh, darn. And then I have to go, but wait a minute. But for the grace of God, did I have that opportunity? So if everything ended for me today, which it almost did eight weeks ago this week, I had a heart surgery. I was still right before the heart surgery. I was going, yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Well, I think your life is built on a firm foundation, Pat, and you know where you're going. You know this life isn't all that there is, but you've done the best you can with what God gave you, and you can look God face to face.
00:32:22
Speaker 2: My dad said, fulfill your potential. That was fulfill your potential, son. And you did that, Pat McGorry.
00:32:30
Speaker 1: Listen, when we come back, let's talk about the state of the world and the parties that exist today and how we handle that. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:34:17
Speaker 3: Christ is my firm foundation The rock on which I stand And everything around me is shaking I've never been more.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Glad That I put my faith in Jesus.
00:34:41
Speaker 3: Cause He's never let me down.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: May we all build our lives on the firm foundation of Jesus so that when the storms come and the winds blow, we will still stand strong because our life is built on Him. Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio Network. My guest, Pat McCrory, today. Pat, I want to get into what's going on in the world. We may have to get you to come back, but I just want you to talk about this heart surgery. We were talking off air about that, and they literally had to pump the blood out of your body into a machine. You were sitting there. Eight weeks ago. Eight weeks ago. Not that long ago.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Blows my mind.
00:35:36
Speaker 1: And you Ubered to the hospital that early morning.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: Fourth, they said, you have to be there at 430. And I got there at 425. And the door's locked. The door's locked.
00:35:46
Speaker 1: I had to walk.
00:35:46
Speaker 2: Around to the emergency room because I got there early by the Uber driver. Uber driver relaxed me, though. He told me stories about who was riding in his car at beforehand. It's something I'm not going to say on your show, but I'm going, wow, that's the story. Well, they had my mind off of it.
00:36:03
Speaker 1: They had to stop your heart for five hours and you're there with the light and everything going out. Well, right before they put me down.
00:36:09
Speaker 2: This had happened within a two week period. I went in for pneumonia. I thought maybe I had this cough forever and it was getting bad. And I went in and one doctor said, thank God for him. He said, he put a stethoscope to you and you know how doctors put us in.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: You're going, what, what, what is this? You know?
00:36:31
Speaker 2: And he went, you've got a heart murmur.
00:36:34
Speaker 1: I said, what's that?
00:36:34
Speaker 2: He says, you got to get it checked out. Now that doesn't mean it's automatically, you got to get it checked out. Then the next day I got an appointment for the next week. The next day I went to Lake James and I wasn't feeling good. I was feeling, I went to the emergency room in Morganton and then they put me through all these tests and they said, you got a heart leak. And, um, on one of the, Valves. Valves. And I went, what? And he said, yeah, you need to. And so I found another doctor who then got me to a surgeon who was a robotic surgeon, didn't have to cut my chest open. This is all within a week and a half. And next thing I know, I'm laying on the, you know, after taking the Uber at 4.30 in the morning. It was a black Uber. It reminded me of being governor. I paid an extra $ 15. I said, I'm going to pay an extra $ 15 for the executive Uber, which I'd never done. I always get the cheap one. Because I said, if they're in a wreck, I want to be able to survive it to get to this operation. I cannot miss this operation. Isn't that weird, the thinking?
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's strange.
00:37:38
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about being governor. I was riding back of an SUV. I went, this is kind of like the SUV I used to have drivers, but this was Uber. Yeah, God gave you that moment. So anyway, right before they put me down, the doctor went. And I had the big light. It was like the TV movies, all these doctors around me. And they said, Pat, do you know we are about to stop your heart for five or six hours? And I remember going, what? And I got emotional. the tears started going down my eyes because I didn't realize they were doing that. And he said, don't worry about it. You're going to be out in five seconds. And I'm like going, no. Four, three, two. You know, I've had the shoulder and the knees and all that stuff, but this was different. And I remember thinking, I don't want to go this way, but in one way I was very calm, but I was emotional. And I still, the doctor told me, you know, He does three of these a day. So I spent five days in the hospital, four nights, five days, and take a look. I walked nine holes of golf yesterday. Later on today, I'll be swimming Lake James, and I'm doing 100-yard sprints freestyle in the lake. Wow.
00:38:56
Speaker 1: Okay, quick question. What did you learn from all of this?
00:38:59
Speaker 2: Oh, I just told you during the break. You know what you're going to hear. I appreciated life so much more as I was healing. And now that I feel great, I find myself complaining again, reverting right back to the way I was, and I'm more healthy, my heart, no damage. I'm so appreciative, but I find myself reverting right back to writing back into anxiety and sin and all these other things.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: We get caught in the traps, don't we? Yeah, we do so easily, and we are what we focus on. So I pray that God will continue to give you thanksgiving for the health.
00:39:39
Speaker 2: Well, I remind myself of that operation now. Don't waste that operation. Don't waste it. All these people spent a lot of time.
00:39:49
Speaker 1: And nurses.
00:39:49
Speaker 2: The nurses are incredible.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you start complaining, it's an insult to them. Great point. Listen, we've got to make a quick statement here on the condition of the politics. And I'm going to set this up so that you can come back on the show later on. But where are we? The democratic socialist? I mean, the Islamization of America? Pat, where are we headed?
00:40:11
Speaker 2: Well, I think this goes back of the lack of teaching our kids civics. I really think this goes back generational.
00:40:19
Speaker 1: The value of our Constitution. No one knows our Constitution.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: No one knows how we got here, what our founding fathers did and the brilliance of the founding fathers. I have so much confidence. I'm so down about the socialism and the communism and, frankly, even people in my party, the insults, the language, the lack of morals. And the people who still send me notes that are the cruelest notes, if I say something on X or Facebook, McCrory, go to blank, blank, blank. And I'm going, where is... But I think it goes back to this secular type of attitude in our spiritual. And I also think it goes back to schools forgetting to teach the basics, including history and civics.
00:41:10
Speaker 1: And we forget sometimes civics and the word civil... are connected etymologically. Same word source.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: But I still, and on a positive note, I still have confidence in this thin piece of paper we call the Constitution and that it's stronger than any politician, any Congress, any court. That thin piece of paper was written by brilliant, brilliant people with separation of powers, which was brilliant. And we're having fights about it. I had fights about that with my own Republican legislature when I governed.
00:41:49
Speaker 1: Everything's about power now.
00:41:51
Speaker 2: And you know why? Power brings money, and then money brings more power. And this money that's taken over the crypto, the gambling money, that's the biggest donors in Washington and Raleigh right now. No one talks about it because the media is being bought off by the same thing, crypto and gambling and drugs. Money and power.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: We got to call it out. Well, that hasn't changed over the decades.
00:42:16
Speaker 2: No, but the type of money and the type of power is changing and the type of media. Well, will you come back again? We talk in greater depth about all this. I really don't have a lot to say.
00:42:28
Speaker 1: I can tell that. You always have something to say.
00:42:30
Speaker 2: I don't have many opinions.
00:42:32
Speaker 1: I think we can learn from you so greatly, and the world needs your voice. The book is called Change Agent.
00:42:39
Speaker 2: Change Agent by Andrew Dunn. You can get it at Park Road Books or you can get it on Amazon. It's a history book of Charlotte and North Carolina and governing. And we need to learn history.
00:42:53
Speaker 1: Or we're doomed to repeat the mistakes that have been in the past. Pat McCrory, love you, my friend. Thank you for years of friendship. Thank you for your deep faith in all you've been through and coming out on the other side still believing, still positive in so many different ways. Everybody, please love God. Love your neighbor. Do those two things. You have a lifetime's worth of work to do. I'm David Chadwick. This is 107.9 FM WBT. Great to talk with you, and I'll talk with you all next week.
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Great to be with you today. Thank you for joining me. This is a Faith and Values program that tries to intersect faith and values with different things going on locally and globally. It's been a pleasure doing this show now for almost 26 plus years. Thank you, folks, for listening on a regular basis. And thank you, Perry Fine Jewelry, for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Well, honestly, I've been looking forward to this show for several weeks since I was able to book it. It's with a friend of mine, and I consider him a friend for many, many years. His name is Pat McCrory, a former mayor of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, 12 years, I think. Fourteen. Fourteen, Pat.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Good. And then another six as city council.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: Okay, longtime government employee.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: It's a past life.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: But also the former governor of our great state of North Carolina.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Nice gig.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: You gave me the privilege of one of the great memories of my life, and you allowed me to do the invocation at your inauguration, and my wife Marilyn and I were there. We'll never forget it. It was one of the very special times in our lives, going to the governor's mansion and having a meal there. with you and Ann. It was just a great time, and thank you for allowing us to do that.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: It was an honor for me to have you there, and it was an honor to hold that position. All my positions, I took being called honorable seriously.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: You know, I think we're in a culture that doesn't understand honor anymore. It's a word that means prized or valued, and it's really one of the Ten Commandments. Honor your mother and father. Romans 12 says, honor one another in the church. I mean, this idea of valuing one another, it's kind of been eroded, hadn't it, Pat?
00:02:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely. In fact, I remember when I was elected to the city council, I got the fourth open seat for city council by 300 votes over a guy named Dick Prim, who was a wonderful ex-Navy guy. I felt guilty that I beat him, in fact, because I was so impressed with him. But I got my first piece of mail saying the Honorable Pat McCrory and Ann My wife said, who's this? But I took it very seriously. And when they call you honorable, like someone's called teacher or police officer.
00:02:37
Speaker 1: Or pastor.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Or pastor. I think there's a responsibility to come with it. And I do expect you to have higher norms and values. You're not going to be perfect. You're going to sin. But you're going to try like the Dickens to be a role model. And also, you expect people to treat you with respect since you have that title. And we're losing both sides of that. With all those professions we just talked about, where police aren't often respected, and frankly, we have some police who abuse their uniform. We have politicians that often don't respect their position and let it go to their heads and do things that they shouldn't do, that no normal person would do if they were called honorable. And sadly, even in your profession.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: In all professions, we have bad people who are not operating as they should.
00:03:28
Speaker 2: We have people that do bad things. And it's discouraging to me that, in fact, we don't shame more of this type of attitude. I remember a calling pal told me about, you know, his dad would shame him. He wasn't worried about being spanked. He was worried about being shamed.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: You know, I think about behavior that I might do that would reflect negatively upon my father's name because I think he is so important in my life. I would do nothing to ever embarrass him. And he's gone on to be with the Lord. He's, you know, birthday's coming up pretty soon. He'd be 108 years of age, but he was just such a great man. I wouldn't want to dishonor him in any way.
00:04:11
Speaker 2: Well, there's no doubt about it. In fact, in the book, we're going to talk about the change agent that was written by Andrew Dunn about my career. In that book, I was reluctant to tell him this story, but on election night for mayor in 1995, my dad got up out of his wheelchair. He died a week later due to cancer, but he got up out of his wheelchair and hugged me. And he was very proud. I mean, I could feel his pride. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. You know, who gets to have your dad hug you the night you get elected mayor? And he hugged me and said, I've got one thing to tell you. And he whispered it in my ears.
00:04:47
Speaker 1: I said, what, dad?
00:04:49
Speaker 2: And I was waiting for some poetry. And he went, keep your zipper up. This is before Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. That's how long ago it was. And I went, what? And he said, just listen to me. Keep your zipper up. He had already seen that night all these people surrounding me and telling me how great I was. Because the minute you're elected, they laugh at your jokes. You're better looking. You're smarter. By the way, I learned later when you're at office, you're not good looking. You're not as smart. People aren't asking for your opinion anymore. You know how that works.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: Well, and you're powerful and you have influence.
00:05:29
Speaker 2: And I appreciate my dad telling me that because, yeah, politicians, you know, you had Representative Edwards out west recently. And I go, what was this guy thinking? And I thought about it. Yeah, he started thinking he was someone special.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: He deserves this. It's something he should have, and therefore he thinks he's able to get it.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, the trappings of power are incredible. And I've caught myself in it, and I've had ego checks like you around me during my career going, don't get caught up in this stuff. And you need to have the ego checks, especially when you're called honorable. And right now I don't think we have enough politicians that have the ego checks around them.
00:06:14
Speaker 1: We have lost the art of honor. That's something I've said on several occasions, and you look at it across the board with both parties all.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: Around the globe.
00:06:26
Speaker 1: It's the human agenda, really. It's our own problem that we have in our pride. But what I'd love to do today, Pat, is let's talk on the other side of the break about your career and what you've been through some, but also I'd love to talk about your faith because how you and I met years and years ago and you've helped me in my life and I hope I've helped you.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: In your life. It's because of these studios.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: That's how we met. And it was a great ride together and just trying to help you when I could and helping you maybe help people understand the behind the scenes of temptations. But I also want to get into today, this whole world in which we live, the culture that we're facing. Should we be concerned about the Islamization of America and those kinds of things as well? We're facing 9-11 and some of the things that you went through back in Charlotte when that happened as well. This is going to be, I hope, a great ride today as you go down memory lane with me and all of our listeners. Join us as we talk with former Mayor Pat McCrory, former governor of the state of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, but mostly for me, my friend, Pat McCrory will be right back. I'm ready now. That's my friend Travis Green. Sing on, Travis. Nor can I, Travis, think of a day without the love of Jesus. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Welcome back to the show with my friend Pat McCrory, former mayor of the city. of Charlotte, North Carolina, former governor of our great state. And, Pat, I just want to talk some about your faith. This is a faith and values program, and God brought us together in almost a supernatural way, a friendship that began 20-plus years ago. Tell folks how we met.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: Well, we met.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: I heard you on BT Radio.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: And this is before I was part of BT radio for several years, but I was going through a very difficult time as mayor. I think it had to do with police shootings.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: I remember that.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: Yes. We had just had our third or fourth police shooting and there were racial implications and, uh, I was starting to get threatened and my family was getting threatened. Never did I know that would continue throughout the next 20 years. But, uh, And I could feel the pressure building up in my chest. I'd never dealt with this type of public pressure. And I heard you on the morning BT show. I think probably Danny Fontana or something. Could have been, or Al Gardner. I have no idea. And I called you up. I got your number, and I called you up and said, I've heard about you. I want to meet with you. And I even told the story how I got your autograph at the Sedgefield Ender in an ACC event. basketball tournament.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: I remember you sharing that with me.
00:11:18
Speaker 2: When I was probably in ninth or 10th or 11th grade, we were seven years apart.
00:11:23
Speaker 1: And you used to tease and say, and you didn't ever give it to me. You were too arrogant and prideful.
00:11:27
Speaker 2: That's right. No, I tease you about the, they didn't have nets back then. They had a bucket. That's how long ago. I appreciate it a lot.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: Make me feel good today.
00:11:38
Speaker 2: But then I realized we're only seven years apart. So I called you up and we got together. And I grew up in a church. My dad helped start a church, in fact, when I was in fifth grade in Ohio. And then he got disenchanted. I remember him getting disenchanted. He got to know the minister too well.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, that's a problem.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: You always told me, don't get to know your minister too well.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: We got clay feet, just like everybody else does. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:12:08
Speaker 2: But I remember from that moment, we've known each other extremely well, and we started doing a Bible study together. And then during my campaigns and elective years, I'd often call you. And during your times, you'd sometimes call me.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you do with this, Pat?
00:12:25
Speaker 2: Well, we started comparing the difference between a minister and a politician. And I don't mean to— we were both public figures. And people expected certain things of us. And it was tough to have you in the newspaper and me in the newspaper. And we've both been through some trials and tribulations. So we'd have conversations in confidence with each other going, because I think we trusted each other that we couldn't trust other people. Because as a minister and as a politician, you can't show your weakness. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Because if you show your weakness, they'll go, I don't want this guy in office. But I could show my weakness to you, and occasionally you would show your weakness to me, which you couldn't show at times to your elders or your congregation and so forth. So it's been a good friendship.
00:13:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for it. And one time I remember when a light bulb went off into your head trying to explain to you the uniqueness of the Christian faith, it revolves around this one word, grace.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Grace and mercy. It sounds so simple now. But, you know, I grew up. reading the Bible, but never understanding it. And I still don't. I'm still at second grade level, maybe. I'm up to third. I'm getting there. I'm between second and third grade having the acumen. But when you told me about grace, especially in the concept of we have more than we deserve, and in mercy, we should be punished more than we are for what we've the sins we've committed.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Mercy not receiving what we deserve, grace receiving what we don't deserve.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: The two words are so equal. So when I get through the tough times, even now when I'm dealing with my age and health issues with my family and myself, I keep going, yeah, but I have more than I deserve. It's such a great word. And those two words are the difference in our faith. Or they're the Pinnacle of our faith.
00:14:29
Speaker 1: The foundation.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: The foundation is a better word. You were always better with coming up with words. But grace and mercy, what it's all about. So as I go through losses and victories, it's the same. Grace and mercy are the same regardless if you're up or if you're down. And sometimes we forget when we're up.
00:14:49
Speaker 1: We're going to get to your book in just a little bit, but let me just ask you this question. As you look back over your 14 years as mayor of the city of Charlotte, what do you look back on with your greatest pride, your greatest success, something you go, I'm really glad that I was mayor and helped make that happen?
00:15:05
Speaker 2: Well, I could talk about all the projects that we did that are still around. I'll tell you one thing I am proud of, people don't think about, I required sidewalks in all new developments, and the developers were furious with me. What's this conservative guy doing requiring sidewalks? And I'm going, well, my nephew was born, and he's partially blind, and I can't walk him outside on Province Road because there are only ditches out of his neighborhood. You know, it's a little small neighborhood. There's no place to walk. And so I said, I mean, it's stupid to have neighborhoods where you have to walk out in the middle of the street with a baby carriage to to get people. So I required sidewalks to make the city more walkable. And then on the light rail line, yeah, I get all this, yeah, McCrory line, McCrory built it and all this stuff, both pro and con. I'm proud of that, but I'm more proud of the path that goes along what used to be referred to as the McCrory line when it wasn't working, now the blue line. But the path that goes along that line, I drove by it today on the way into the studio. And that came up at a 15-minute conversation with Ron Tober. He said, we've got bike racks on the, in the design of the new light rail buses or trains. I'm like, that's great. Who's going to ride on South Boulevard? They'll get killed because we had no sidewalks. Sidewalks are right next to the street. You know, you wouldn't dare do that. And I said, why don't we put a path along the light rail line all the way to I-485 and all the way to downtown, including a bridge going downtown. And I said, plus, I'm worried that we won't have any development but at the stops. But if we have a sidewalk and a development occurs in between the stops, they can walk to either stop. And he said, Mayor, we don't have the money. And I said, oh, we can find the money. And I said, this art money, why don't we take the art money and call it art? And that was a 15 minute conversation. I said, we got to do it. We got to do it. We'll have a path all the way down. And now the developers and others call me and said, the path has made more of a difference to the development than the light rail line. And I see these young people walking up and down, hundreds of people walking up and down that path. And that gives me pride, but more pride than anything. I followed my dad's commitment of ethics during that 14 years. And during my time as governor and city council member, I don't think there was any legitimate challenge to my ethics. There were attempts, but I'm proud to leave office, even in defeat, going, my reputation, my dad's reputation is intact, the name.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: And you and I both hold that so important in our hearts.
00:18:01
Speaker 2: I knew your dad, the low voice. Your dad had the best voice.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: Voice God was envious. Oh, it was God.
00:18:07
Speaker 2: Your dad was God. There's no doubt about it.
00:18:09
Speaker 1: Great, great man. But I feel that, Pat. And I know you did as well. And you did leave honorably in every office that you served.
00:18:17
Speaker 2: I attempted to. I made mistakes. And I'm sure there's some things where the ego got out of control. My wife would remind me of that and friends. But I'm pretty daggum happy.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: Well, when we come back, let's talk about your book that you have just recently written with Andrew Dunn, who's a wonderful author. And I want to talk about looking back, what might you have done differently as well? And then let's look generally at America, the state of the politics in our nation. It seems like it's never been more ragged than it ever has been, more muscular, if you will, fighting with one another. And I really don't know where it's all headed, especially with this democratic socialist movement as well. It's just going to be fun to talk to a man who has been in politics for many, many years.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: I've played the game. I've been played by the game. I'll be here to expose the game. That's what I used to say on my show. Well, that's a great statement.
00:19:09
Speaker 1: Let's use that to talk on the other side of this break. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:21:36
Speaker 3: When life has got you going strong.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden things are wrong We tend to stumble day.
00:21:46
Speaker 1: To day.
00:21:49
Speaker 3: And wonder when we'll be okay There are times when we have to just push through.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: And see the light ahead of you And when we reach the finish line.
00:22:06
Speaker 3: That's my friend Parker Robinson, worship leader at Moments of Hope Church, reminding all of us that sometimes life goes strong, sometimes life goes wrong.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: But when life goes.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Wrong, you have a great God who can pick you up and let you move forward again.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, former mayor, former governor of the state of North Carolina, Pat McCrory. Mostly, I just call you my friend. It's been wonderful knowing you all these decades, and thank you for being on the show today, Pat. And by the way, folks, if you'd like to hear this interview from beginning to end, go to WBT.com, scroll down to the weekend shows. The David Chadwick show is there. You can hear it from beginning to end. Just fascinating insights. And Pat, Which leads to my next question of you. What are you most proud of in your years as the governor of the state of North Carolina?
00:23:12
Speaker 2: That I put together a talented team of change agents on my cabinet and other people that changed so many things in North Carolina that are still impactful today, even after only four years. And the Sharon Decker, for example, who's been on your show, I think. Yes, she has been. She was my commerce secretary. She completely blew up the Commerce Department and started all over again. And the new organization she created to recruit new industry... By the way, it was a recession at that time that I inherited. That organization has had so much success. Governor Cooper tried to blow it up, get rid of it, because it had our name, you know, administration on it. And he couldn't because it was working. And then I had... Susan Klutz, former Mayor Salisbury. I mentioned women. She helped pass a bill by campaigning all over the state that my own Republican legislature said they would never pass, got named Phil Berger. We won't get this. It was a tax credit to save historical buildings in small towns and large towns alike. And now, 10 years later, I'm seeing all these old mills rebuilt and facades in downtown. I believe in preserving main street and these buildings that are being converted to condos. It wouldn't have been done without this. And we were told you will never get that bill passed, but that wasn't me. That was Susan Klutz, a change agent. Um, Aldona Voss, my secretary of health and human inherited a $ 500 million deficit and, uh, and spending on, uh, Medicare and Medicaid. And she resolved it. Um, We owed $ 2. 2 billion to the federal government unpaid by the previous Purdue administration. I had a team of people pay it back by cutting out fraud and waste and people really abusing the whole system. So transportation formula, Nick Tennyson, Tony Tata, they completely revamped. You know how you used to have wide highways? You'd go two lanes and eight lanes and two lanes. And wherever it was, eight lanes was named after some senator or a governor. That's where the power was. I took away all that. I didn't allow each DOT member to have a little bit of cash to pass around, which was very corrupt. I completely cleaned up the DOT. Tony did that. Tony Tate and Nick Tennyson, former mayor of Durham. I put a lot of ex-mayors in.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, guys who knew what it was like.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. The book is entitled Change Agent. The Change Agent. Written by Andrew Dunn.
00:25:57
Speaker 2: Right.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: And he came to you and said, I'm going to write this book. You can give me some input if you want to, but I'm going to write this book.
00:26:03
Speaker 2: I said, he called me up. I didn't know who he was. We had never met before. He said, there's been a book on Jim Martin and Jim Hunt and a few others. There's no book out on you, and I've been studying you. A lot of the stuff you did is still around, but I want to know the history behind it and why you did it. and then do an examination of whether that was good or bad. And I was, I don't know, who's this guy? So I read some of his writings and I said, okay, I'll cooperate with you and I'll tell my team, I gave him the phone numbers to everyone on my team. And then he called some people I've run against and opponents. So it was odd reading this book about me or my team. And he came up with a term to change it. He said, how would you describe yourself in politics? really had a tough time doing that. And I finally said, you know, I really was a change agent. I stepped on a lot of toes, both Democrats and Republicans. And I hated it. But if you're going to get elected, you got to solve problems. And so he made the title of the book, The Change Agent. And he made the whole theme about when I was mayor, even when I was a city councilman with a crime, you know, I You know, when I came as mayor pro tem and as mayor, we were averaging 125 murders a year. And no one was doing anything about it. So I created a teen curfew. How ironic now they're talking about it. I don't know why they stopped it. I don't think they ever voted to stop it. They just quit. I was the one who said, we're going to do a teen curfew. I did tolerate no truancy where we picked up kids in the middle of the day. Wonder why a 13-year-old kid's hanging around the Eastland Mall at the time. Pick them up and call the parents and make the parents then maybe get arrested for letting their kid out and not going to school. We did a program called Target 100. These are ideas I'd come up with at 4 o'clock in the morning, simple ideas, where I went to Chief Nowicki and I said, why don't we target the top 100 people that we're arresting 50, 60 times? And next time we arrest them, make sure we prosecute.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: And keep them in jail so that they don't come out and commit another crime. Quit the parole.
00:28:13
Speaker 2: Quit giving them bonds where they get out before the ink dries. This is when we had ink, not computers.
00:28:21
Speaker 1: And they all worked.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: We got the murder rate down to 35 murders a year in Charlotte. And for some reason, after I left, kind of the woke crime fighting ended. We're the woke crime fan began not only in Charlotte, but other cities. So that's an example in the book, the change agent, uh, by Andrew Dunn, where he goes, you know what McCrory did then and his team. I had a great team as mayor to Pam Seifert was great city manager, Boyd Cobble, who I missed tremendously died five years ago. And, uh, and the transit and, uh, other things we did. Uh, yeah, I'm proud of it.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: Great accomplishments as excuse me, the governor, uh, But yet you lost after four years. How would you counsel anyone listening to handle great disappointment in life? I mean, Pat, from my standpoint, you deserved another four years. It looks like such numbers of successes, but it didn't happen for several different reasons. But how would you counsel people who go, gosh, how do I deal with life when there's great disappointment?
00:29:26
Speaker 2: Well, I'm still going through that. But, you know, you move on. But, you know, it's still a painful part of my life because I loved it. I love my team so much. And I said, God, if we get a second term. And of course, the guy who beat me now is going to be the next U.S. senator. But after reading this book, the book, The Change Agent, basically concludes by going, what McCrory's team did as governor and as mayor, he lists the things that are still in place today and that are working. For example, all the hurricanes that occurred, I had to deal with Hurricane Matthew, but then I got defeated. But we put in place things, including the money. I inherited a reserve of almost no money because all the politicians were spending the reserve. We had 1% reserve, approximately 1% to 2% reserve. By the way, state law was 8%. And I lost on that. Roy Cooper at the time, then Attorney General, said, we need to spend that on pay raises for state employees. And I went, no, we need to save the reserve for a crisis. And Hurricane Matthew and two other hurricanes came. Thank God what we did, they had money for the hurricane relief. Three hurricanes later, I never got a thank you note for that. My team didn't get a thank you note, but that's where you got to go You know, we had an impact on saving lives and impacting lives based upon those decisions.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: So handling disappointment, one good way of doing it, and I've had to go through it myself, is to remember the good that you accomplished.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Remember grace. We started the show with grace, and I keep going. I pinch myself.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: I go, can you.
00:31:09
Speaker 2: Believe I had that opportunity? Yeah, I would have loved it to have it been eight years, but how many people get the chance? And we had a book signing yesterday. in Raleigh last week with over 200 people for the change agent. And some of my people that used to work with me, I looked at all of them and I went, what an opportunity I had. It was four years of the best time and toughest time of my life, but I would never replace that four years. You know, as people say all the time that dealing with life, you just got to accentuate the positive and de-emphasize the negative. When you get in the pits, and we all do, and I do every day, I'll go, gosh, darn. And then I have to go, but wait a minute. But for the grace of God, did I have that opportunity? So if everything ended for me today, which it almost did eight weeks ago this week, I had a heart surgery. I was still right before the heart surgery. I was going, yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Well, I think your life is built on a firm foundation, Pat, and you know where you're going. You know this life isn't all that there is, but you've done the best you can with what God gave you, and you can look God face to face.
00:32:22
Speaker 2: My dad said, fulfill your potential. That was fulfill your potential, son. And you did that, Pat McGorry.
00:32:30
Speaker 1: Listen, when we come back, let's talk about the state of the world and the parties that exist today and how we handle that. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:34:17
Speaker 3: Christ is my firm foundation The rock on which I stand And everything around me is shaking I've never been more.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Glad That I put my faith in Jesus.
00:34:41
Speaker 3: Cause He's never let me down.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: May we all build our lives on the firm foundation of Jesus so that when the storms come and the winds blow, we will still stand strong because our life is built on Him. Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio Network. My guest, Pat McCrory, today. Pat, I want to get into what's going on in the world. We may have to get you to come back, but I just want you to talk about this heart surgery. We were talking off air about that, and they literally had to pump the blood out of your body into a machine. You were sitting there. Eight weeks ago. Eight weeks ago. Not that long ago.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Blows my mind.
00:35:36
Speaker 1: And you Ubered to the hospital that early morning.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: Fourth, they said, you have to be there at 430. And I got there at 425. And the door's locked. The door's locked.
00:35:46
Speaker 1: I had to walk.
00:35:46
Speaker 2: Around to the emergency room because I got there early by the Uber driver. Uber driver relaxed me, though. He told me stories about who was riding in his car at beforehand. It's something I'm not going to say on your show, but I'm going, wow, that's the story. Well, they had my mind off of it.
00:36:03
Speaker 1: They had to stop your heart for five hours and you're there with the light and everything going out. Well, right before they put me down.
00:36:09
Speaker 2: This had happened within a two week period. I went in for pneumonia. I thought maybe I had this cough forever and it was getting bad. And I went in and one doctor said, thank God for him. He said, he put a stethoscope to you and you know how doctors put us in.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: You're going, what, what, what is this? You know?
00:36:31
Speaker 2: And he went, you've got a heart murmur.
00:36:34
Speaker 1: I said, what's that?
00:36:34
Speaker 2: He says, you got to get it checked out. Now that doesn't mean it's automatically, you got to get it checked out. Then the next day I got an appointment for the next week. The next day I went to Lake James and I wasn't feeling good. I was feeling, I went to the emergency room in Morganton and then they put me through all these tests and they said, you got a heart leak. And, um, on one of the, Valves. Valves. And I went, what? And he said, yeah, you need to. And so I found another doctor who then got me to a surgeon who was a robotic surgeon, didn't have to cut my chest open. This is all within a week and a half. And next thing I know, I'm laying on the, you know, after taking the Uber at 4.30 in the morning. It was a black Uber. It reminded me of being governor. I paid an extra $ 15. I said, I'm going to pay an extra $ 15 for the executive Uber, which I'd never done. I always get the cheap one. Because I said, if they're in a wreck, I want to be able to survive it to get to this operation. I cannot miss this operation. Isn't that weird, the thinking?
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's strange.
00:37:38
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about being governor. I was riding back of an SUV. I went, this is kind of like the SUV I used to have drivers, but this was Uber. Yeah, God gave you that moment. So anyway, right before they put me down, the doctor went. And I had the big light. It was like the TV movies, all these doctors around me. And they said, Pat, do you know we are about to stop your heart for five or six hours? And I remember going, what? And I got emotional. the tears started going down my eyes because I didn't realize they were doing that. And he said, don't worry about it. You're going to be out in five seconds. And I'm like going, no. Four, three, two. You know, I've had the shoulder and the knees and all that stuff, but this was different. And I remember thinking, I don't want to go this way, but in one way I was very calm, but I was emotional. And I still, the doctor told me, you know, He does three of these a day. So I spent five days in the hospital, four nights, five days, and take a look. I walked nine holes of golf yesterday. Later on today, I'll be swimming Lake James, and I'm doing 100-yard sprints freestyle in the lake. Wow.
00:38:56
Speaker 1: Okay, quick question. What did you learn from all of this?
00:38:59
Speaker 2: Oh, I just told you during the break. You know what you're going to hear. I appreciated life so much more as I was healing. And now that I feel great, I find myself complaining again, reverting right back to the way I was, and I'm more healthy, my heart, no damage. I'm so appreciative, but I find myself reverting right back to writing back into anxiety and sin and all these other things.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: We get caught in the traps, don't we? Yeah, we do so easily, and we are what we focus on. So I pray that God will continue to give you thanksgiving for the health.
00:39:39
Speaker 2: Well, I remind myself of that operation now. Don't waste that operation. Don't waste it. All these people spent a lot of time.
00:39:49
Speaker 1: And nurses.
00:39:49
Speaker 2: The nurses are incredible.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you start complaining, it's an insult to them. Great point. Listen, we've got to make a quick statement here on the condition of the politics. And I'm going to set this up so that you can come back on the show later on. But where are we? The democratic socialist? I mean, the Islamization of America? Pat, where are we headed?
00:40:11
Speaker 2: Well, I think this goes back of the lack of teaching our kids civics. I really think this goes back generational.
00:40:19
Speaker 1: The value of our Constitution. No one knows our Constitution.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: No one knows how we got here, what our founding fathers did and the brilliance of the founding fathers. I have so much confidence. I'm so down about the socialism and the communism and, frankly, even people in my party, the insults, the language, the lack of morals. And the people who still send me notes that are the cruelest notes, if I say something on X or Facebook, McCrory, go to blank, blank, blank. And I'm going, where is... But I think it goes back to this secular type of attitude in our spiritual. And I also think it goes back to schools forgetting to teach the basics, including history and civics.
00:41:10
Speaker 1: And we forget sometimes civics and the word civil... are connected etymologically. Same word source.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: But I still, and on a positive note, I still have confidence in this thin piece of paper we call the Constitution and that it's stronger than any politician, any Congress, any court. That thin piece of paper was written by brilliant, brilliant people with separation of powers, which was brilliant. And we're having fights about it. I had fights about that with my own Republican legislature when I governed.
00:41:49
Speaker 1: Everything's about power now.
00:41:51
Speaker 2: And you know why? Power brings money, and then money brings more power. And this money that's taken over the crypto, the gambling money, that's the biggest donors in Washington and Raleigh right now. No one talks about it because the media is being bought off by the same thing, crypto and gambling and drugs. Money and power.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: We got to call it out. Well, that hasn't changed over the decades.
00:42:16
Speaker 2: No, but the type of money and the type of power is changing and the type of media. Well, will you come back again? We talk in greater depth about all this. I really don't have a lot to say.
00:42:28
Speaker 1: I can tell that. You always have something to say.
00:42:30
Speaker 2: I don't have many opinions.
00:42:32
Speaker 1: I think we can learn from you so greatly, and the world needs your voice. The book is called Change Agent.
00:42:39
Speaker 2: Change Agent by Andrew Dunn. You can get it at Park Road Books or you can get it on Amazon. It's a history book of Charlotte and North Carolina and governing. And we need to learn history.
00:42:53
Speaker 1: Or we're doomed to repeat the mistakes that have been in the past. Pat McCrory, love you, my friend. Thank you for years of friendship. Thank you for your deep faith in all you've been through and coming out on the other side still believing, still positive in so many different ways. Everybody, please love God. Love your neighbor. Do those two things. You have a lifetime's worth of work to do. I'm David Chadwick. This is 107.9 FM WBT. Great to talk with you, and I'll talk with you all next week.
