00:00Michael Watley will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say.
00:06I don't think the people of North Carolina want a senator like that.
00:11Look, I'll work with this president when I can.
00:14I showed that during my first term.
00:23Well, welcome, Mr. Governor, down here.
00:29And I want to say once again, hello, everyone.
00:32My name is John David, and I serve as a region.
00:35I serve as a field organizer with the North Carolina Democratic Party Coordinators campaign.
00:40In the week since starting this job in this community, I've learned that the people in our communities are ready
00:47to help their neighbors,
00:48want to talk about the changes they want to see.
00:51I'm so happy to talk to you all about the ways of getting involved and making those changes.
00:58So what is this coordinated campaign?
01:00It's all of us working together across North Carolina to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
01:08Instead of doing things separately, we move as one team so that conversation, every event, and every door we knock
01:16on builds towards something bigger.
01:19It allows us to reach more people, stay organized, make a real impact from local to federal, especially in communities
01:27like ours.
01:29For me, this work is personal.
01:31I grew up in a small rural community in Appalachia where my family were farmers, homemakers, person of faiths, persons
01:40who believed that all work had dignity.
01:42My mom just retired as a lunch lady in the elementary school system back home.
01:48My dad was a meat cutter at the local grocery store, and my sister is a teacher working with pre
01:54-K students.
01:56Growing up in a rural community, I learned the value of faith, family, hard work, and what it means to
02:02work with dignity.
02:03Work should put a roof over your head and food on your table.
02:08Today, it is even more expensive to afford the basics.
02:12In almost every conversation I've had with voters this year, people have mentioned the cost of living.
02:18People are struggling to pay for their groceries, their gas, their rent.
02:23I've seen people work hard every day and still feel like their voices are not heard.
02:30That's why we are here, to make sure North Carolina is seen, heard, and represented.
02:37And we can't do that alone.
02:40We need you all.
02:42We need volunteers.
02:44Whether it's knocking on doors, making phone calls, or attending events like this one.
02:49Right now, every conversation matters.
02:52You don't need experience.
02:54You just need to care.
02:56If you want to see real change here in your hometown across North Carolina, this is your moment to step
03:02in and to step up.
03:04At the top of the ballot this November is a man who has always fought for us.
03:15As Governor Roy Cooper worked to expand affordable health care for hundreds of thousands of working North Carolinians.
03:22He grew our economy, and he never forgot about rural communities.
03:28Roy Cooper knows the stuff just costs too much right now.
03:32Roy is running for U.S. Senate to make stuff cost less and deliver results for families.
03:38He's ready to take on big corporations that are making life way more expensive for the rest of us
03:44and ready to go to Washington, D.C. to be an independent fighter for North Carolina.
03:50Without further ado, our next U.S. Senator, Roy Cooper.
03:58Thank you very much.
04:01Hello, Anson County.
04:06Thank you, John David.
04:08Thanks to all of the volunteers who are here.
04:10Thank you for coming out today.
04:12Before I leave, I want to talk with every single one of you who want to talk with me
04:17to tell me what's going on, the things that are affecting your life right now.
04:22Take a picture if you want, and then let's go out and win this race, okay?
04:28You know, I'm running for the U.S. Senate for Kawana, who's a teacher in Durham,
04:36who's really struggling every single week to keep up with what her grocery bill costs.
04:42It seems like every week it's more and more.
04:46I'm running for Meredith, who has a child, Vivian, who is on Medicaid because Vivian has cerebral palsy.
04:54Meredith is scared to death that the people in Washington are going to attack and take away Vivian's health care.
05:03And we know that in the one big beautiful bill, the Medicaid cuts are scheduled to come in after the
05:10elections.
05:10So already, thousands of people have lost their health insurance, but there will be more to come unless we can
05:18stop it.
05:19I'm running for people like John, who owns a small business in Black Mountain.
05:24He's seeing his utility bill go through the roof, both at home and at his business.
05:31I'm running for Pender, who's a farmer, who's seeing the effects of these tariffs,
05:36and his fertilizer and his equipment are costing more.
05:40We need a senator who will go to Washington, who will pay attention to the people.
05:52We need a senator who understands that health care is a big problem,
05:57and that we need to make sure that we restore federal health care benefits to people.
06:04We need senators who will protect Social Security, which is critical.
06:12You know, we need a senator who will work to roll back these chaotic tariffs
06:18that are ending up costing everyday people and small businesses.
06:22That's the kind of senator that I want to be.
06:27And, guys, I have to admit to you is that I didn't know that I would be standing here
06:33because I left that governor's office in January of 2025, and I ripped off my tie,
06:38and I kicked off my dress shoes, and I put on my MJs,
06:43and I thought I'd do something else, maybe teach,
06:46but I saw two or three things begin to happen every single day
06:51when this administration took root,
06:54and I saw people hurting every day.
06:58And as I would sit in church on Sundays,
07:02I kept thinking about that verse from the book of Luke.
07:04Luke, to whom much is given, much is required, right?
07:10And I thought about all that I had been given in my life,
07:14starting with my mom and dad growing up in eastern North Carolina.
07:17My mom's a public school teacher.
07:19And even as governor, people would come up to me and say,
07:23I want to pay you a compliment.
07:24I think it's about me, and they say,
07:25your mama was the best teacher I ever had.
07:29Shows you the power of public education.
07:31It shows we shouldn't be, Washington shouldn't be eliminating the Department of Education,
07:37particularly with the federal money that we need to help children with disabilities.
07:42My dad was a small-town lawyer and farmer,
07:45made me work so hard on the farm every single summer until I went to college.
07:50And I learned hard work.
07:51I learned dedication.
07:53I learned that I really wanted a job with air conditioning when I grew up.
07:56And I'm grateful for that.
07:57And I'll tell you, when I ride down the road, I see people working in the field.
08:03When I see people working on the rooftops, it makes me remember those days.
08:08And it makes me even more determined to make sure that workers in North Carolina get paid fair wages.
08:21Because right now, there's too much month at the end of the money for too many North Carolina families.
08:29But I had those blessings of my parents.
08:32I had the blessings of getting a chance to serve as Attorney General.
08:37I had the blessing of practicing law in Rocky Mountain.
08:40I had my own law practice for 18 years and had to meet a payroll.
08:44I had the blessing in 2016, you all elected me your governor.
08:52And I got a chance to wake up every single day for eight years leading the state that I love
08:59with all of my heart.
09:01And I think about the good things that we've done.
09:04640,000 new good-paying jobs, expanded paid parental leave.
09:08We even got a Republican legislature, which I had all eight years.
09:13And look, we fought on some things.
09:15But we worked together to get things done on a bipartisan basis, like finally expanding Medicaid in North Carolina.
09:25And now 730,000 people have health insurance in this state.
09:29More than 2,000 of them living right here in Anson County, making a real difference in their life.
09:35And thinking about all of those blessings, and my last year as we had expanded Medicaid,
09:41we found that a lot of people were suffering from medical debt because either their insurance company would block a
09:50payment
09:50and they would owe money, or they didn't have health insurance and couldn't afford to pay the bill.
09:57And many people had civil judgments against them.
10:01When you have those, you can't get a credit card.
10:04You can't buy a house.
10:06Sometimes you can't even qualify for rent.
10:08And so we leveraged some federal money.
10:11We pulled all 99 of our hospitals together.
10:15And we agreed and created the largest medical debt relief program in the entire country.
10:25And so far, we've been able to wipe away $6.5 billion in medical debt for more than 2.5
10:33million North Carolinians.
10:35And as I've traveled the state, I've talked with a lot of people.
10:39And I had a woman named Mary come up to me the other day, and she said, I want to
10:43tell you something.
10:44I was between jobs.
10:46I didn't have health insurance.
10:47I got sick.
10:49$54,000 medical bill from the hospital, and they sued me, and I had a judgment against me.
10:55And I want to pay my debts, and I'm on a fixed income, but I was paying $80 a month.
10:59And she said, Governor, that may not sound like much to you, but it was important to my budget.
11:04And I paid it every month.
11:06But then I got this letter in the mail, and she had tears in her eyes.
11:10And she said, the letter said $54,000 had been wiped away.
11:16And she said, it changed my life.
11:19And I thought about all of the other people that we were able to help, and I thought about all
11:25of those blessings and the good things we've been able to do in thinking about what's happening in Washington and
11:31recognizing that all of it is at risk.
11:34And so thinking about to whom much is given, much is required, I knew what was required of me.
11:43That's why I'm a candidate for the United States Senate.
11:51Now, I did look at all of those committee chairs in Washington, and I thought, I might be a little
11:55young for this.
11:56But, hey, I'm ready.
11:59I'm ready to do this job.
12:03I need your help, though.
12:04This is going to be a tough race.
12:08We've got a lot of people in Washington who believe in keeping the status quo.
12:13There's so many people in Washington right now who just want to be something instead of wanting to do something.
12:20I want to do something.
12:24And you can go to RoyCooper.com, and you can see all of our policy proposals.
12:29You can sign up to volunteer.
12:31You can sign up to help us.
12:32We'd be grateful for that.
12:34But we know that a lot of money is going to come into this state, and they're going to try
12:39to convince the people of North Carolina that I'm someone that I am not.
12:43We just had a Supreme Court decision that is the worst campaign finance decision since Citizens United.
12:51They're going to be able to funnel a lot of money into North Carolina attacking us with lies.
12:57We have to be ready to set the record straight.
13:01I'll say something about my opponent.
13:04Michael Watley.
13:05Michael Watley is the former chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, recruiting stellar candidates like Mark Robinson.
13:14And that's a joke for those who don't know who he is.
13:18He was a lobbyist in Washington for more than a decade and represented big oil and utility companies in Washington,
13:31working to help utility companies raise their rates, working to help oil companies make more profits.
13:39He also was chair of the Republican national committee, and this president anointed him to be the candidate.
13:49Now, Michael Watley will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say.
13:58I don't think the people of North Carolina want a senator like that.
14:02Look, I'll work with this president when I can.
14:05I showed that during my first term.
14:07I think we have to be ready to work across the aisle, but you've got to be ready to stand
14:12up, too.
14:13And right now, right now, we need to stand up.
14:19I'm going to be an independent senator, a strong senator, a senator who's going to put the people before power,
14:28the people before party, the people before politics.
14:33And I'm going to need your help to help us get that message out.
14:38I told my kids the other day that my parents left me a better country, but that we all have
14:45work to do to leave our kids a better country.
14:49I know you're here because you love North Carolina.
14:52You love your country.
14:53You love your communities.
14:54We've got elected leaders here, the sheriff.
14:57We've got county commissioners and city council members, and I'm grateful for your public service.
15:02I know there's a challenge of this community right now with water, and I want you to know that that
15:09is on the forefront of my interest.
15:11When I was governor, we worked to help provide more than $2 billion for aging water infrastructure.
15:17We need to do a lot more, and in Washington, I want to do a lot more to help communities
15:22like yours to get through times like these.
15:25But I'll tell you this, it is time for all of us to stand up and do whatever we can
15:32to make sure that we make this country the kind of country that we love and we know we can
15:39be.
15:40We know that stuff just costs too much for too many families.
15:44We know that there are ways to bring prices down and to make people's paychecks more than their cost.
15:52And as your senator, I'm going to work every single day to do that.
15:57Thank you for being here.
15:58Let's go win this thing.
