Governor Pat McCrory says that HB2 is not to blame for the billions of dollars and thousands of jobs lost in North Carolina. His sweeping anti-LGBT law, parts of which were declared illegal by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Wednesday afternoon, has been specifically mentioned by countless corporations and performers as the reason they are refusing to do business in the Tar Heel state. McCrory denied any and all responsibility for HB2 and its effects, despite having called for the law after Charlotte passed a nondiscrimination ordinance, and despite having signed HB2 into law less than 12 hours after it was first introduced into the General Assembly.

"I don't think it was HB2 that caused it, regardless of what you and the national press might say," Gov. McCrory said early Wednesday evening at the N.C. Chamber Annual Government Affairs Conference.

"This was started by the left," the Republican governor insisted, despite the fact that nine other North Carolina municipalities have had the same or similar ordinances for years, with no push back from previous governors or state lawmakers. "In fact most of the national media thinks the right started this issue, it was the political left," he repeated.

McCrory, after having discussed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, and ignoring Charlotte's failed nondiscrimination ordinance last year, then claimed "this was never an issue until just recently, and it came out of the woodwork. And it came, this particular issue, came from the political left," McCrory again repeated.