Reworked GOP attack ad back on the air after North Carolina TV stations pulled it
Editor’s note: This story has been updated throughout to reflect new information.
A Republican attack ad against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham is back on the air in North Carolina with editing after television stations in Raleigh and Charlotte pulled down the original version last week.
The original ad said Cunningham benefited directly from the Paycheck Protection Program, a claim that his former company WasteZero and his campaign have said is not true.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee paid for the TV spot. The group reworked the ad and it went back up on Friday afternoon.
In the original ad, Cunningham is shown on screen saying “we’ve seen that money end up in some of the wrong hands.” Then a narrator says, “But those wrong hands were Cal Cunningham’s. His company got caught taking up to $2 million from the same program he condemned.”
The new ad says “those wrong hands are tied to Cal Cunningham.”
WasteZero, a Raleigh-based waste reduction company, received a PPP loan of between $1 and $2 million, according to a federal database. David Bryla, its CEO, told PolitiFact NC that Cunningham, who left the company’s payroll before the PPP became law, “was not involved in the application for PPP funds and did not benefit from them.”
The PPP offered companies loans that would convert to grants that did not need to be paid back if the companies used them to keep workers on their payroll.
Cunningham is running against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in one of the key races for determining control of the U.S. Senate. Cunningham has led in a series of recent polls. Libertarian candidate Shannon Bray and Constitution Party candidate Kevin Hayes will also be on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The PPP has been a central point of contention in the U.S. Senate race for weeks, with Republicans, including Tillis, the NC GOP and national groups, attacking Cunningham on the issue.
“Senator Tillis and his allies are lying about Cal, and the ad is so false that TV stations refuse to air it. They have nothing good to say about Senator Tillis’ record so they’ve resorted to these desperate attacks,” Cunningham campaign manager Devan Barber said in a statement to McClatchy.
WRAL and WRAZ, both owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, took the original ad off the air. So, too, has WSOC in Charlotte, according to emails from the stations. The Cunningham campaign called it “a blatantly false advertisement” in a July 30 letter to the stations.
NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a statement to McClatchy. that Cunningham has been “hypocritically criticizing PPP while the company where he spent seven years as an executive used a PPP loan to stay afloat.” She said the group stands behind the ad.
PolitiFact NC, whose article was posted on WRAL.com, found a Tillis tweet about the issue to be Half True, which means it’s partially accurate but leaves out important details.
“Now, Capitol Broadcasting, whose CEO is a maxed out Cunningham donor, is trying to keep North Carolina voters from hearing that fact. This is the kind of backroom, windowless basement politics that North Carolina voters will reject when Cunningham is defeated this fall,” Rodriguez said.
James F. Goodmon Sr., who is the CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Company, donated $2,800 to the Cunningham campaign in December, according to campaign finance reports. His son James F. Goodmon Jr., who is the company’s president, has not donated to the Cunningham campaign.
The PPP
The Paycheck Protection Program was created in the CARES Act, one of several bills passed by Congress to combat the health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on March 27.
The Cunningham campaign objected to several parts of the original ad, saying in its letter that “WasteZero is not Cal Cunningham’s company, nor did he receive a penny in PPP funding.” The campaign further said that Cunningham is not a founder of WasteZero and he does not hold any kind of ownership interest in the company.
Cunningham served as the company’s vice president and general counsel until March 20, before the loan program was passed by Congress. He reported earning more than $382,000 from WasteZero from January 2018 to September 2019, according to required Senate financial disclosures.
After first reporting that Cunningham had left the company March 20, The Charlotte Observer discovered that Cunningham’s electronic signature appeared on a 2019 annual report dated March 31. Cunningham said he has continued to work as a contractor for the company. Contractors cannot be included in small-business payroll calculations for PPP.
NCGOP chairman Michael Whatley said earlier this month that Cunningham “has changed his story three different times on it.” Both versions of the ad say that “Cunningham denied working there, admitted it, then changed his story again.”
“I have been clear and completely transparent,” Cunningham said on July 10. “I worked for Waste Zero. I left the payroll on March 20. I have been available to them, to help with things since then, to transition to my successor the work that I had been doing.”
“I was aware they were applying for a PPP loan, but I was not involved. In fact, to this day I have never seen the application nor the amount.”
In an email to PolitiFact, Bryla wrote: “The decision to pursue a PPP loan in order to help keep our employees on payroll was made at the board level and spearheaded by me and our CFO. Cal left company payroll on March 20, before the PPP loan application process even began, has not been on payroll since, and therefore was not among those on staff who have benefited from the loan, which has helped us maintain workers.”
Tillis and his allies, including the NRSC, have accused Cunningham of hypocrisy because they say he critiqued the program at the same time WasteZero was benefiting from it. WasteZero said the loan saved 115 jobs.
Cunningham has called for greater oversight of the program and for making sure more money gets into the hands of minority- and women-owned businesses. He has said on several occasions that he is a supporter of the program.
Tillis said in the past the PPP needed to reach more small businesses.
“Cal Cunningham just can’t keep his story straight when it comes to his Paycheck Protection Program hypocrisy,” Tillis tweeted Friday.
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This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Reworked GOP attack ad back on the air after North Carolina TV stations pulled it."
CORRECTION: This story been updated to correct donations from the Goodmon family. James Goodmon Jr. has not donated to the Cunningham campaign.
