Trump’s stance against the law helps highlight the gulf in the Republican Party between a more religious, socially conservative-oriented wing and the pro-business wing—and the ways Trump has transcended that gulf. On the one hand, he touts his business credentials, and in his comments on HB2, he focused on the economic impact. Yet Trump has also taken plenty of stances that are explicitly unfriendly to big business—it’s no surprise that Wall Street and corporate donors aren’t flocking to him. His fierce criticism of U.S. corporations that take jobs out of the country, and his advocacy for high (and likely illegal) tariffs stand in opposition to free-trade conservatives.

In fact, those positions represent a different sort of cultural conservatism—a method of appealing to white working-class voters who have been left behind by the economy. He’s paired that with a strong racial element, especially bashing immigrants, whether Hispanics or Arabs. But Trump has not emphasized gay-rights issues. He has generally opposed gay marriage, but has a mixed record elsewhere, and in any case has not made LGBT issues a major priority. That tack has won him the support of evangelicals across the country, and in particularly in the south—though the most religious voters still favored Cruz or other candidates. Trump is a culture warrior, but he’s a different sort of culture warrior.

North Carolina’s law was passed hurriedly in response to an ordinance in Charlotte that barred discrimination against LGBT people and required businesses to accommodate transgender people in bathrooms, with either unisex bathrooms or allowing people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. The General Assembly’s bill preempted city rules on both, and required transgender people in state buildings and schools to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate. (The law also preempted local living-wage laws.)

The law has created a conundrum for Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, who is caught in the same business vs. culture war conflict. The former mayor of Charlotte, he campaigned for the governorship as a pragmatic pro-business moderate. But on issue after issue, the more socially conservative legislature has pushed him to the right. Although he declined to call a special session to consider HB2, he quickly signed the bill when it was passed.

Since then, McCrory has staunchly defended the law, including over the weekend, when he appeared on Meet the Press. McCrory is up for reelection in November, and Roy Cooper, the attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, has opposed the law and used it to argue that McCrory and the Republicans are bad for business.

McCrory’s campaign released a statement pushing back against Trump on Thursday:

Governor McCrory has always said that North Carolina was getting along fine before the Charlotte city council passed its unneeded and overreaching ordinance. Now that it has been overturned, businesses can adopt their own policies—like Target has—instead of being mandated to allow men into women's restrooms by government. Where the governor disagrees with Mr. Trump is that bathroom and shower facilities in our schools should be kept separate and special accommodations made when needed. It's just common sense.

In an effort to tamp down criticism of the law, McCrory issued an executive order last week “clarifying” the law—mostly an effort to communicate the ways in which the law still allowed private corporations to institute the policies they wish, including creating transgender bathroom accommodations. So far, the order doesn’t seem to have quieted the backlash, as criticism of the law from companies and entertainers continues.