‘Garbage and lies’: Senate candidate Michael Whatley lashes out at media as campaign flounders

During a Rocky Mount rally last December alongside President Donald Trump, former RNC and NC GOP Chair Michael Whatley walked over to the press area to hold court.

“You’ve got to make me look not goofy,” he quipped as the gaggle began.

In the months since, as polls have grown worse and unflattering stories have emerged about his tenure leading the state Republican Party, Whatley has increasingly withdrawn from nonpartisan media, cutting reporters out of event invitation lists and retreating to friendly, right-leaning podcasts and outlets where he can avoid potentially embarrassing slips.

Down by double digits to his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Roy Cooper, in nearly every poll this year, Whatley has adopted the pugilistic approach of his political benefactor, Trump, whose endorsement cleared the way for Whatley’s nomination in the Republican Senate primary.

“He sees a political advantage for going after some in the press that he considers to be not supportive of his candidacy,” said David McLennan, a professor of political science at Meredith College. “Whatley is a political animal, been the chair of the state and national GOP, and so he’s well-versed in attacking the media, making them the story as opposed to himself.”

But unlike Trump, most voters do not know who Whatley is.

“He needs to make himself known, because all the public opinion surveys I’ve seen say most North Carolinians don’t know much about him,” McLennan said.  “You’d think, well, is my strategy to become better known to make myself more available, or less available?”

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When reporters tried to attend a campaign event in Raleigh Thursday where Whatley was accepting the endorsement of the Police Benevolent Association, several were denied entry. Event organizers called the police on The Assembly reporter Bryan Anderson, he wrote in a social media post.

Reporters for NC Newsline attempted to RSVP to the event but were denied entry because of a deadline in an advisory that was not provided to NC Newsline. “You will not be credentialed to attend this event,”  campaign spokesperson DJ Griffin wrote in an email to NC Newsline.

Griffin declined to address the police response or a request by NC Newsline for an interview with Whatley for this article.

“Left-wing activists, like you, posing as ‘journalists’ already have their narrative written,” he wrote in a statement to NC Newsline Friday. “Whether they’re inside the event or standing on the sidewalk makes no difference. They’ll publish the same garbage and lies either way.”

NC Newsline previously covered a March campaign event in which Whatley accepted the endorsement of the North Carolina Troopers Association. The campaign shared and quoted NC Newsline’s story on its official Facebook account.

Ahead of coverage of an April 8 roundtable with the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, the campaign expressed a positive view of NC Newsline. “I am adding you to our press list now so we don’t miss you in the future,” Griffin wrote then. “We’d love to have you attend that if you’re interested.”

Two weeks after the April 8 roundtable, NC Newsline published a story on Whatley’s pattern of failure to appear in court for traffic violations, which at one point led to an order for his arrest. Since that story posted, NC Newsline has not received notice of a Whatley campaign event.

The campaign did not respond to several calls and emails for comment from NC Newsline for that story, but in an indicator of its evolving media strategy, his campaign spokesman made his only public comment to WCAB News, a regional news website operated by a Rutherfordton country music station.

“It’s not a shock that Roy Cooper would rather talk about his opponent’s speeding tickets instead of talking about the murderers, rapists, and pedophiles Cooper gave a get-out-of-jail-free card to,” Griffin told WCAB. “While the mainstream media refuses to hold Cooper accountable, the families of victims will.” Cooper was not quoted in NC Newsline’s story. 

The Assembly reported it’s also being cut out by the campaign’s press office after an interaction with Whatley in June.

The Whatley campaign, cheering on the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup playoffs, posted an AI-generated image of a hockey player on social media. After observers noted that the image was AI, Whatley said he is a fan of the team. But when asked by Assembly reporter Anderson to name his favorite player, the Republican from Michigan did not name a single player for the Carolina Hurricanes.

“Last chance: Can you name one Hurricanes player?” Anderson asked at the end of a press gaggle with Whatley, a question the candidate ignored, turning his head away and giving a thumbs up.

Whatley’s retreat from the media started around the same time as the revelation that the former NCGOP chair had appointed convicted sex offender Harvey West to a committee tasked with writing the state party’s planning document, and that Whatley had supported judicial fundraisers hosted at West’s home for years. He has refused to discuss the issue with reporters.

“Probably the better question would be, ‘Why did Roy Cooper release thousands of hardened criminals from prison?’” Whatley said when a reporter with NC Newsline asked about West in April.

Cooper’s administration entered into a civil rights settlement that required the release of thousands of inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whatley has continued to make regular appearances on right-leaning podcasts and media outlets. He was interviewed last week on the “Sean Spicer Show,” hosted by Trump’s former press secretary, and has also made appearances on Fox News, Newsmax, and Breitbart Radio.

Whatley’s events have followed a similar trajectory. They’ve generally been limited to allies, supporters, and donors, and are not widely announced to the public — a stark contrast with Cooper, who has held dozens of well-publicized “Make Stuff Cost Less” rallies crisscrossing the state in the last few months.

McLennan says tightly controlled media environments where the candidate can avoid hostile questioning may be safer for campaigns, but they shut out swing voters who may want to know more about a candidate before casting their ballot.

“It’s all those North Carolinians who don’t know who you are that you need to vote for you in order to beat Roy Cooper,” McLennan said. “People are just asking questions about, who are you, and what do you believe, and what would you do as U.S. Senator? And those are pretty standard questions.”

“[Whatley] had no campaign experience as a candidate,” McLennan added. “So is this lack of experience as a candidate, not as an operative, really showing with Michael Whatley? I would say probably, yeah.”