Edwards silent, but his record speaks for itself
Chuck Edwards. File photo
The legacies of Western North Carolina’s two previous Republican congressmen, Mark Meadows and Madison Cawthorn, haven’t exactly aged well.
Meadows is in all manner of trouble over dubious behavior related to Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, while Cawthorn’s “oversharing” cost him his job during the 2022 Primary Election at the hands of then state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson).
Edwards, who failed to respond to a Smoky Mountain News interview request, was initially hoped to be an improvement and has taken a divergent path from Cawthorn — not by oversharing, but by keeping constituents in the dark about what he’s really doing, according to his opponent.
“He hasn’t been responsive to anything that voters have asked of him,” said Caleb Rudow, a Buncombe County rep and Democratic nominee for the 11th Congressional District. “He didn’t respond to the Mountain Xpress questionnaire. He didn’t agree to debate. He didn’t agree to the basic tenets of our democracy, which is open discussion about issues. And he didn’t agree to that because he doesn’t have good answers.”
Edwards also failed to show for a debate hosted by The Smoky Mountain News and Blue Ridge Public Radio during his 2022 campaign, that after criticizing Cawthorn’s debate no-shows. Instead, Edwards appeared on a television network owned by the right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, where he’d already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising.
Shortly after taking office, Edwards hired Macon County activist/journalist Brittney Lofthouse as an aide, but after complaints from his constituents about Lofthouse’s support for the LGBTQ+ community he quickly fired her.
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The next month, SMN informed Edwards of a troubling development at the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton — one of the mill’s four papermaking machines was idled by management. Edwards refused to interview with SMN at the time. A month later, Pactiv announced the mill would shut down completely. Edwards refused to tell SMN what, if anything, he’d done in the meantime to prevent the loss of around 1,000 good-paying union jobs.
“First thing I would do would be to try to confirm it, and work my way up the chain of command,” said the Fairview native Rudow, who holds a bachelor’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in philosophy and a master’s degree in Global Policy Studies from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. “And then I’d work my way up to the to the folks at Pactiv and talk to them about it. Those folks got big grants and big money from the state, and this is the challenge with our economy right now. It feels like we have a system in which — and I think Chuck Edwards ultimately believes this — that we should be giving big money to corporations, and they shouldn’t be responsible to anybody.”
Months later, at a town hall discussing the mill crisis, Edwards repeatedly refused to answer questions posed by SMN about what he’d done to save the mill after being informed of the situation by SMN a month before the closing was announced. Edwards responded by saying he’d only speak with media outlets that give him favorable coverage.
Shortly after the mill closed, a maintenance backlog in the National Park system resulted in the implementation of a parking fee at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park because Congress has repeatedly failed to fund adequately what many call “America’s best idea.” Edwards refused to tell SMN what he’d done to prevent those maintenance costs from being passed on to visitors that drive Western North Carolina’s economy, or what he’ll do about it in the future.
“I think the Republican Party to begin with, they don’t want to support the public institutions that make this country great,” said Rudow, who works as a data consultant. “They want to slowly remove the amount of money from, whether it’s national parks or it’s public schools, the institutions that actually have made this country what it is. It’s that slow kind of weakening of all those institutions. That has been their goal.”
Later that spring, an action group asked Edwards to pledge to protect Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits. Edwards ignored them, just as he’d done the previous October.
That fall, Edwards threatened to withhold federal highway funding from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ sovereign tribal government, after voters there decided overwhelmingly to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Some, including SMN, decried Edwards’ meddling in tribal affairs. Recreational cannabis sales began on the Qualla Boundary a few months ago.
Buncombe Democratic Rep. Caleb Rudow (center) poses with supporters at the Buncombe County Democratic Party headquarters on Oct. 26. Cory Vaillancourt photo
“Classic Chuck Edwards,” Rudow said. “That position doesn’t help any of the folks in the Eastern Band. It’s attacking a group of people that have been attacked for a very long time. What’s so funny about it is, you have somebody who’s an arms dealer attacking folks for smoking cannabis.”
Near the end of 2023, Edwards sent a representative to Murphy to present an award to a fringe law enforcement group that has ties to white supremacy, espouses COVID-19 conspiracy theories, embraces election lies and promotes the thoroughly debunked “sovereign sheriff” movement. Now, according to a recent story in WIRED magazine, Richard Mack — the recipient of that medal — and his colleague Dar Leaf “say that they have ‘posses’ to patrol polling stations” and openly discuss seizing voting machines.
On the rare occasions Edwards chooses to speak, they’re notable — but not always in a good way.
He was mocked for a social media post commemorating D-Day by mentioning the “five beaches of Omaha,” and subject to derision for posting a photograph of a “migrant caravan” and blaming President Joe Biden for its existence. The caravan, in this case, was photographed on Oct. 27, 2018, when Donald Trump was president.
This past April, Edwards earned a censure from the bipartisan House Communications Standards Commission for violating federal law and the rules of the House of Representatives by using his official newsletter to conduct personal attacks.
There was, however, one shining moment where Edwards actually took an interest in the truth — four days after The Smoky Mountain News first reported on dangerous misinformation being circulated in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Edwards made national news for finally condemning the lies spread by Trump and members of his own party.
Unfortunately, Edwards’ commitment to truth lasted less than two weeks. Despite announcing that he’d suspended his political campaign in the wake of Helene, Edwards showed up to a Trump campaign stop in Swannanoa on Oct. 21 and silently stood behind Trump — literally and figuratively — as Trump repeated lies Edwards himself had debunked.
Edwards, who owns several McDonalds restaurants, then presented Trump with a lapel pin designating him a certified french fry cook — highlighting a campaign stunt by Trump the previous day. National media called it “tone deaf” at best.
“He suspended his campaign because he’s never wanted to have to answer anybody’s questions, because it benefits him when he can be in the dark and act like this office is owed to him,” Rudow said. “He sat right behind Donald Trump when [Trump] said immigrants took all of the money for FEMA. I mean, it was just crazy. He sat behind him and while Trump said it’s OK for people to threaten FEMA. I would really like to be able to say that he stood up and is doing the right thing. That’s what we need. We need somebody who’s going to be above politics. But unfortunately, he continues to play the dark political game, take as much money as he can from corporate PACs and not really make any strong stances against anybody in power.”
