Editor's note: An embedded version of the video, uploaded to YouTube by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has been removed due to a complaint by the Charlotte Observer. A transcript of the exchange is available at the bottom of the article.
The top spokeswoman for North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham interrupted a reporter who joined the candidate’s interview with the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer's editorial boards over a question about his controversial involvement with a development project.
The awkward exchange was mistakenly uploaded as part of a full video earlier in the week, then removed, and then edited out of the full editorial board interview officially posted to the Charlotte Observer website Thursday.
Cunningham and communications director Rachel Petri were caught off guard during the meeting when Raleigh News & Observer investigative reporter Dan Kane pressed the candidate regarding the development.
Cunningham, a former state senator and Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, has a narrow average polling edge on incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in a race that could decide who controls the Senate next Congress.
But his advantage comes after considerable criticism of his work as a lawyer for Southern Durham Development, particularly its 751 South Development in Durham.
Ground was broken on the luxury, 166-acre, multiuse development, estimated to be worth $500 million, in 2018 after years of litigation and resistance from neighbors and environmental groups. Cunningham, who represented the project in court, allegedly leaned on Republican state Rep. Tim Moore, a college friend, to introduce a bill securing water and sewer services for the site, against the wishes of county officials.
In a report last year, the Intercept noted that despite Cunningham's opposition to corporate PAC donations, Southern Durham Development was affiliated with a super PAC that backed county commission candidates who supported the project.
In the back-and-forth, Kane pushed Cunningham on whether there was a conflict of interest regarding the development, citing details from his own previous reporting.
Petri interjected, “I’m going to jump in here.”
“You’re telling me things that I don’t know here,” Cunningham said.
Petri added, “I’d like to direct it back to questions from those on the board if possible.”
Editorial board members declined to intervene.
“And just to be frank here, Rachel, I reached out to you by phone and email, and I did not get a response,” Kane said.
Petri replied, “I responded to you and said that we could not, that we did not have time to be interviewed.”
The video was found earlier this week in an automatic video player on a Durham Herald-Sun article and was later replaced with a video about Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, according to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer, and the Durham Herald-Sun are all owned by McClatchy.
The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer each published a lengthy joint editorial board interview with Cunningham on Thursday, but the video was almost six minutes shorter than the one that apparently mistakenly appeared on the Durham Herald-Sun page — 50 minutes and 56 seconds versus 56 minutes and 28 seconds. The edition released earlier this week does not include the exchange with Cunningham’s spokeswoman.
NC opinion editor Peter St. Onge of the Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer, and Durham Herald-Sun told the Washington Examiner that the unedited version including the discussion was published “inadvertently and in error.”
“Our editorial board’s deliberations and opinions are separate from our news coverage, but we do invite news reporters to sit in on candidate interviews and ask a question at the end, if they’d like,” St. Onge said. “Their questions are for news-gathering purposes and are not part of the editorial board’s recommendation process. Because News and Opinion are separate and because the reporters' questions may be part of their reporting on future stories, we have opted to edit the reporter’s questions and responses out of the video. Those clips also could be later used with the reporter’s future stories.”
In response to a request for comment about the interaction, Petri told the Washington Examiner: “As you can see, Cal did answer the questions posed, and many others, in the course of the editorial board interview.”
Cunningham and Tillis are due to take part in their final debate Thursday night before the Nov. 3 election.
Video transcript:
KANE: I’d like to ask Cal a question. Cal, as you know, one of the Democratic strongholds in the state is Durham, and several years ago, you were involved in basically getting through the 751 South development, which basically took the authority away from the city — the state took the authority away from the city to make a decision on providing water/sewer to that project. There are people here still bitter about that, what do you say to them?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, Dan, I’ve been engaging them in conversation for a long time, and I make no bones about the fact that I’m an attorney, I’m, I practice with some specialty in real estate. I obviously represented the developer in that project. And, and I recognize that there were folks in Durham who supported the project, there were folks in Durham who opposed the project. And — but we do a better job of, when we are engaging with communities, and I draw lessons from the experience that I had as an attorney through that process about the importance of hearing from local communities, from engaging local communities. And Dan, I have had conversations with some of the leaders of groups that opposed that project, not just about the merits of the project, but the way that I, as a person, humble enough to learn and grow, can see that we need to build legitimacy in our communities, rather than undermine legitimacy in our communities. And in the case of 751 South, the president of that entity is a childhood friend of mine, we grew up together. He had needs, I had particular specialties in the areas of the law that he needed help with. And my commitment in Durham is to be a listener and an engager and a community-builder. That project, as you well know, Dan, has divided Durham. I’m hopeful that today, after a lot of months and years of effort by the developer and that team, that they are in a better place with the leadership in Durham than they have been in the past because it was incredibly divisive, and it wasn’t good for Durham that it was divisive, and I think, hopefully, everyone has learned and moved on and is ready for the next challenge to come.
DAN KANE: You know, I’ve looked at that, what happened there, and one of the things I’m seeing is that there’s another attorney who was involved in that, by the name of Gene Davis, and I wanted to ask you, when did he get involved in that, and how did he get involved in that? And I guess even, why?
PETRI: Peter, is this germane to the editorial board’s decision? And, I, this is…
CUNNINGHAM: Let me just address that because as an attorney, what I think is best is that that question be put to the client, and that is the president of Southern Durham Development at 751 South, I certainly know my own role, and want to [sic] totally transparent about that, I think it’s best that question be put to Mr. Davis and to Mr. Mitchell who would have had whatever that attorney-client relationship was and when...
KANE: Yeah, that was an issue in Durham, and I think people would like clarity about that piece of it. And can you tell me — You’re directing me to the developer here, but you were the lead attorney on this and in roughly September, October after that legislation comes through, Gene Davis is there basically working on behalf of the developer to get an approval through utility extension, I believe. As you probably know, he’s pretty close with House Speaker Tim Moore. The two work legal cases together. Speaker Moore uses his legal offices when he’s in town and can’t do his legal work in Cleveland County. Is that a conflict of interest here that — that should be dealt with?
PETRI: I’m going to jump in here.
CUNNINGHAM: You’re telling me things that I don’t know, Dan.
PETRI: Peter, I do not think that Gene Davis or Tim Barger [inaudible] to a conversation about Cal’s qualifications to the U.S. Senate here. And I’d like to direct it back to questions from those on the board if possible.
ST. ONGE: Well, we did open it up to reporters as well, and I’m not going to prejudge or pre-edit any questions that come during this interview. So, if Cal doesn’t want to answer them, he’s welcome not to, but I’m not going to edit questions upfront.
KANE: And just to be frank here, Rachel, I reached out to you by phone and email, and I did not get a response.
PETRI: I responded to you and said that we could not, that we did not have time to be interviewed. So.
KANE: And I said fine. You know, let’s make a time. That was roughly two weeks ago. I’m happy to make that time if you want to.
