It's time now for a fact-check of North Carolina politics. This week, we're looking at two claims.
The first is related to an expansion of internet access in the state under a Biden-era law. In a recent post on his Truth Social site, President Trump called the Digital Equity Act racist and illegal and said he will end it.
For more, I'm joined now by Paul Specht of WRAL.
Marshall Terry: North Carolina received $22 million under the Digital Equity Act. Other states also received money. What were the funds used for?
Paul Specht: Well, they're supposed to be used for things like digital literacy and expanding broadband. Internet access studies from the last decade have shown that as many as 10% of Americans don't have access to high-speed internet; that figure could be down, but there's still a significant number who still lack that access. So that's what this is supposed to go toward, not only in North Carolina but in other states with large rural populations across the country.
Terry: So the Trump administration has sent letters to states and organizations terminating the grants because the president said the Digital Equity Act is "based on race and illegal." Can he terminate them? And also, how did you rate the president's claim?
Specht: We couldn't find any evidence that this was (a illegal or (b that he has the authority to do it. Since this was passed by Congress, the Digital Equity Act, was actually rolled into a much larger bill passed during the Biden administration. It actually had bipartisan support.
And when we went to look at his claim, we were looking for evidence that it was benefiting racial minorities — and racial minorities only. And that's not what we found. This bill was meant to help people who lack internet access. Now, that includes racial minorities, but it also includes the elderly.
People who live in rural populations and other subgroups like that just historically lack this internet access. So one racial group is not getting preferential treatment under this bill, and that's why we rated it false.
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Terry: Let's turn now to a claim involving former Gov. Roy Cooper, who is considering a run for U.S. Senate next year. A recent post on X by Politics and Poll Tracker promoted an event with Cooper in Winston-Salem this week that seemed like it could be a clue about his intentions. What did the posts say exactly?
Specht: It showed what looked like an invitation to some sort of event. It said "Coffee with Cooper" and then it had a date: July 18. It had a location, a coffee shop in Winston-Salem and then it even had a band mentioned that would play live music either before or after this Roy Cooper event.
And the social media account said, oh look, something to the effect of Cooper is teasing a run for U.S. Senate, that gained a lot of traction and local media here in Raleigh even included in some stories about Roy Cooper potentially running for U.S. Senate.
Terry: OK, seems simple enough. But you found it really wasn't. How did you rate that claim?
Specht: That's right. We called Cooper's campaign. They said they never scheduled such an event. We called the coffee shop. They had no idea that they were even part of this rumor. And just to be safe, we called the band, too, and said, 'Hey, did one of your guys make up this invitation in earnest or as part of a joke, or what's happening here?' They said they've never even heard of this coffee shop. They have no idea where it came from. So, it seems completely fabricated, and that's why we rated it false.
