Cardinal & Pine: “You rarely get to say without hyperbole that some candidates are taking a position that would actively poison you.”

New reporting from Cardinal & Pine is highlighting Michael Whatley’s record of backing budget cuts that risk North Carolinians’ health.

Amid budget cuts, the Department of Defense “quietly delayed” the clean up of PFAS at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro by five years. Whatley has been a staunch supporter of government cuts, calling DOGE cuts “vital.” Whatley also praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who spearheaded the cuts, as the “next generation of leadership” and said he would “work very closely” [1:42:28] with Hegseth.

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Cardinal & Pine: Why some politicians might literally be making you sicker

• In 2023, the head of the EPA called PFAS “one of the most pressing environmental and public health concerns in the modern world.” PFAS takes a long, long time to break down in nature, or in your body, and they’re linked to cancer, birth defects, thyroid and liver issues, immune system deficiencies and a lot more. 
• Testing at Seymour Johnson found PFAS concentrations on levels thousands of times beyond EPA’s health advisory level…
• Many parts of the federal government are undergoing big budget cuts this year under President Trump. Because of that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has quietly delayed the cleanup at Seymour Johnson by five years, according to the New York Times. 
• For years, Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina GOP and the Republican National Committee, was a lobbyist for oil and gas companies, pushing back against government regulations. It doesn’t really track that he’d do that and be a crusader for regulating and cleaning up PFAS, right?
• Whatley’s been an enthusiastic supporter of the President’s administration, and earlier this year called Elon Musk and DOGE’s Budget Cuts, quote, “vital”. 
• You rarely get to say without hyperbole that some candidates are taking a position that would actively poison you. But that’s not farfetched when it comes to PFAS. 

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