It’s time for a fact-check of North Carolina politics. This week, we’re looking at recent Republican claims that Roy Cooper, while governor, was far from North Carolina when Hurricane Helene hit the state in September 2024. Cooper is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in next month’s election. For more, Paul Specht of WRAL joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry.
Marshall Terry: There are a couple of different claims about Cooper’s whereabouts during Helene that have come up recently with the two-year anniversary of the storm. What do they say specifically, and who made the claims?
Paul Specht: Back on Sept. 21, the social media account known as Team Trump posted, “This Saturday marks two years since Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina and nearby … states. Where was Roy Cooper when Helene slammed into North Carolina? In New York, speaking at a New York Times Climate Forward event.” And then a couple of days later, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is a big political action committee, tweeted something that was essentially the same thing, and on down the list. We saw the Republican National Committee put out a similar claim in an email to supporters on Sept. 28.
Terry: OK, so where was Cooper when Helene hit North Carolina?
Specht: So I want to start by saying that we wanted to go by the timeline of the hurricane as put out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. On that note, Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina on Sept. 27, 2024. Roy Cooper was in Raleigh that day and held a briefing when it happened, and we found no evidence that he left the state or was anywhere else.
Terry: When these claims say that he was in New York, what are they talking about there?
Specht: He did travel to New York on Sept. 25. That was two days before Helene officially hit North Carolina. Cooper attended an event hosted by The New York Times, as one of those social media posts pointed out, and it was about climate change and he was one of many speakers. He spoke, and he flew back, and, according to media reports, he was back by 3:00 p.m. that same day. Again, September 25, two days before Helene hit North Carolina. On the 25th, there was some rain in Asheville, but it wasn't necessarily from Helene's outer bands. The rain that day was the result of a stalled front pulling in moisture from Helene in the Gulf. That's where Helene was at the time, way out in the Gulf. Even when Cooper was in New York, he had already formally asked top members of his state’s executive branch for approval of emergency powers. On the day he left, he had declared a state of emergency before flying back that day.
Terry: Didn’t this claim come up already in the lead-up to the 2024 election?
Specht: It did. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was running for governor back in 2024 against now-Gov. Josh Stein. And he accused Cooper of hobnobbing with rich folks in New York around the time that Helene hit North Carolina. We looked into it at the time, but we didn't do a full-rated fact check then like we did now.
Terry: So how did you rate these claims?
Specht: We found no proof that Cooper was out of the state when Helene hit on Sept. 27, so we rated it false. The other day, Michael Whatley, Cooper's opponent in the U.S. Senate race — he actually got the timeline right. He was at an event in Pittsboro on the 25th, and he said, “We're here on the 25th, and on this day two years ago, Cooper was in New York at a climate change ball. He was not preparing this state.” That's his opinion, and he’s certainly entitled to that. We pointed that out here to show even Cooper’s opponent, Republican Michael Whatley, knew what day Cooper left and when Helene actually hit North Carolina. At the same time, some of his supporters and allies, whether they’re individuals or groups on social media, are sharing a false narrative about where Cooper was when Helene hit on Sept. 27.
