Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Alrighty, so, North Carolina's Democratic former governor, my
good friend Ray aka Roy Cooper apparently quote seriously considering
a twenty twenty six Senate run against Tom Tillis. Wow. Well,
with a record of success that Roy has as he does,
I mean, it just makes sense that he would that
he would want to share that success with all the
rest of America, much like Gavin Newsom wants to National
Review and a piece by Audrey Fahlberg reports, a few
weeks after leaving office as a two term chief executive
of a purple state, former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper is
still weighing a run for GOP Senator Tom Tillis's seat
in twenty twenty six. This is got Oh my goodness,
I put this out on Twitter today and like the
horror that people are responding with, because on the one
hand Tom Tillis and on the other hand Roy Cooper,
and so you know, there is an urgency to get
somebody to knock off Tom Tillis. And by the way,
if you do that, and I don't know who that
might be, obviously, you know, I've always said the candidates matter.
So if you've got somebody in mind that you want
to see knock off Tom Tillis and they can actually
do it, that's the other thing. Can they actually do it,
then you're going to be putting up a non incumbent
against essentially an incumbent Roy Cooper, unless, of course, I mean,
we need we do need to keep in mind that
if say Sherry Beasley decides to get into the race
and run for US Senate again, I think the Democrat
Party requirement there is that Ray has to step aside,
he cannot run. I think that's I think that's the rule.
I mean, Jeff Jackson did it, remember, and he was
like time for a woman of color to run for
the seat. And so he, you know, as a white man,
stepped aside checking his privilege in all so, I suspect
that unless like maybe or it doesn't have to be
Sherry Beasley, it could be some other you know, female
as American Democrat candidate in the US Senate race, and
the Democrats, I'm assuming, would not allow Roy Cooper to win. Now,
I suspect that Roy Cooper will line up all of
the Democrat machine power brokers way ahead of time, and
if he is going to get in, nobody else will.
That's my suspicion. Well, I say that there may be somebody,
like some also ran from you know, some tiny little
district somewhere down east or something. They may throw their
name in the hat or something, But I don't I
don't foresee, you know, Governor Cooper getting any kind of
serious challenge in a Democrat primary. And in fact, I
suspect this kind of news is put out there in
order to warn others, don't bother right, look for some
other race, because Roy is going to do this. I
don't think that you. I don't think that you put
the word out that he's seriously considering it. If he's
going to say no, he's of course going to say yes.
This is what he has been building for you know,
for a very very long time, and so I have
no doubt whatsoever. Now the problem for him is not
going to be obviously in the Democrat primary. He's going
to get a ton of money from outside interests, right,
He's going to tap the all of the the out
of state special interest groups that have been funding his
campaign since HB two. So he's going to continue to
suck up that money. I think the problem he may have,
and that's a big may, is his record. His record,
which isn't much. He doesn't have a lot. He's going
to claim credit for Medicaid expansion. Yeah, that's it, Like,
that's about it. That's the only thing. And he didn't
even do that himself. That was the Republican legislature that,
after years and years and years and years of saying
we're not going to expand Medicaid, went ahead and did
it based on the promises that the Feds would totally
keep paying for much of the cost, like ninety ninety
five percent of the cost of Medicaid reimbursements. So and yeah,
well we'll see if that actually happens. But the Republicans flipped.
They did not flip because of Roy. They did not
cave to Roy Cooper's you know, demands. Over the course
of eight years, he kept demanding medicaid expansion under Obamacare,
kept demanding and demanding and demanding. It's not like that
he wore them down. It became actually a joke among
Republicans that Roy Cooper cited medicaid expansion as the solution
to virtually every single problem in the state except hurricane
recovery efforts that he didn't have an answer for. Actually
that he didn't do such a such a great job,
in fact, such a terrible job he did on recovery efforts.
That Josh Stein, the new governor, or as I call
him Ray two D two or Roy two D two,
he I haven't yeah, I haven't figured out what to
call him yet. And he look so far he seems
to be. He seems to be doing some good things
with regard to the western North Carolina recovery, I think,
and so I am. I'm withholding judgment and a nickname.
And so Josh Stein got in there much like the
backlog of the testing of all of the rape kits
at the State Bureau or the State Lab rather the
SBI's lab that Roy Cooper claimed he had cleared He
said he had cleared the backlog when he ran against
Pat McCrory, because Roy Cooper was the attorney general for
like sixteen years, ran against Pat McCrory, defeated Pat McCrory.
McCrory was hitting him over the backlog of untested rape
kits in the SBI that he oversees as attorney general.
And he claimed during that campaign that he had cleared
the backlog, and that was a lie that did not happen.
And we know that did not happen because when Josh
Stein became Attorney General, he cleared the backlog. And when
I say he cleared the backlog, actually the Republican Legislature
cleared the backlog. So Roy Cooper lied about So he
can't run on that, although unless he lies again, it's
going to require a media in North Carolina that holds
Roy Cooper accountable. And yeah, so there's that, but it's
more of a national profile race and so maybe we
get media outlets that come into North Carolina and peel
away some of this stuff around Roy Cooper much like
they did with Cal Cunningham. Right, Cal Cunningham, that story
got broken by what was at the National Post, some
conservative blog. Yeah, the people whose job it is to
cover North Carolina politics had no idea that these rumors
were out there regarding cal Cunningham, much like they had
no idea that John Edwards was having an affair and
fathered a child with his mistress. Right, that's why, Uh Brandt,
what's Oh gosh, what's Clifton? I think it is his
last name? I forget now, but he runs he runs
a blog, a North Carolina politics blog, and Daily Haymaker
is what it's called. And yeah, Brent Clifton. And uh
he calls Rob Christiansen, formerly of The News and Observer.
He calls him Rob reel who Christensen? Because reel Hunter
was the name of John Edwards's mistress. And you know,
this was the Raleigh press corps that followed John Edwards
around for like everything he did, and had no idea
that any of this was happening. No rumors whatsoever, Which
is weird because somehow or another, I all the way down
in Charlotte am aware of rumors about various Republican lawmakers
and candidates and such that are circulated among Democrats. But
never ever do I ever get rumors of Democrat lawmaker.
I wonder why that is. I know it's different, all right.
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create a Video dot com. So I posted this up
on the Twitter machine at Pete Calender. That's ka l
I ny R, and that's where we do the wet work.
And people have some thoughts. People have some thoughts about
my good friend Ray Cooper, former governor, who, according to
the National Review, I believe this is an exclusive for them.
Cooper is in communication with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Senate Democrats campaign arm and is very aware that they
are interested in recruiting him for the upcoming cycle. A
source close to Cooper confirms to National Review. The sixty
seven year old former Attorney general is a veteran of
North Carolina State legislature, where he jerry mannered the bejeebus
out of our maps to the point where we got
sued repeatedly and they had to redraw the maps. And
he has long but I added that part, by the way,
just anyway, has long been considered a possible candidate for
US Senate in twenty twenty six or even the White
House in twenty twenty eight. That's not a joke, people,
I'm not no, he has never lost an election and
is seen as an especially formidable purple state Senate recruit
in a twenty twenty six cycle with few pickup opportunities
for Democrats. That's just by the nature of the fact
that the Senate has six year terms, and so you
always have this kind of rotation of you know, which
seats are coming open in certain certain states, you know,
or red or blue, or you know, toss ups or whatever,
and so you've got a map that favors the Republicans,
just like in twenty twenty four, the map for the
US Senate favored Republicans. They had more a clearer pathway
to get a majority of the seats, and they did so.
And so apparently the upcoming twenty twenty six cycle doesn't
have a lot of opportunities for Democrats to pick up
new seats and to win back their majority. A twenty
twenty six Senate run by Cooper would present a major
electoral challenge for Tom Tillis, the incumbent Republican who is
expected to attract tough primary and general election competition next cycle.
So this is what we are going to be presented with.
I wonder if, like, for well, considering the primary, do
you think that Roy Cooper's entrance into the race actually
helped Tom Tillis, maybe not in the general but in
the primary, because Tillis will be making the argument that
he would be the most likely, best able candidate to
defeat Roy Cooper. Remember, Tom Tillis was the guy who
orchestrated the takeover of the Republican or by the Republicans
of the General Assembly. He had his PowerPoint. He drove
all over the state, recruited a boatload of candidates and stuff,
got all of the the donations and you know, the
big time donors to fund the effort, and then one
control of the North Carolina House and that's why he
became the Speaker of the House. Because of those efforts,
he is able to raise a lot of money. He's
got a lot of backers that are maybe not in
North Carolina, but like Roy Cooper, he has a lot
of backing from outside of the state too. So, my goodness,
that would be a that would be a very expensive race.
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National Review reports that Roy Cooper is seriously considering a
run for the US Senate, challenging Uh probably you know,
well it's the seat that Tom Tillis holds right now.
But Tom Tillis has already picked up a challenger in
a Republican And you know, look, Democrats have long thought
that the winning formula for this type of a national
race is a is a white guy in a white
Democrat dude in a in a southern state. That's that's
their formula, because you know, they see everything through the
racial prism, and so it's like, gotta have a white guy,
you know, Cal Cunningham for example, John Edwards. And that's why,
you know, they kick around this idea that Roy Cooper
would be a fantastic nominee for president at some point,
or maybe Josh Stein when he's done being Gouvna. They
really like the idea of a southern white male Democrat, uh,
to run for these national seats. Well, we'll see a
couple of emails here. John says, I am shocked, shocked.
I tell you that my good friend Roy may consider
running for that Senate seat. Nobody saw that coming, right, Yeah, No,
everybody saw that coming. Well, I don't know why you
earned a rimshot on that, John, I'm not sure why
it's not uh oh, there we go. I don't know
why I didn't work there for you. It's weird. Is
from Alan Pete. Who to vote for in Tillis versus
Cooper race comes down to merely a coin toss for me,
and Joseph says if the choice is between Tom Tillis
and old Roy Cooper for Senate, then my vote is
to move to South Carolina. That's Chip says. I seem
to remember hearing a while back that Cooper's wife was
not excited about the possibility of moving to Washington, d C.
And this might play into his political future. May I
submit j Roy Cooper Stein as a possible name for
our current governor if he eventually runs true to that's
a good one, Josh Roy Cooperstein. That's got a ring too.
I mean it's both, it's a combo of both names.
Jay Roy. Yeah, that was the rumor. By the way,
that was a rumor for several years that Roy Cooper's wife,
I think her name is Kirsten or Kristin anyway, she
didn't want to go to Washington, d C. But that
might have changed now that their daughters are older. They've
gotten married at least. I forget how many daughters he has.
I think it's two or three. I forget. One of
them definitely got married. I don't remember what the status
of the other two are. Not that there's not that
I'm saying anything about them being married, but just that
you know, if they're married, they may have relocated for
work or something, but you know they're they're on they've
started their lives and this and that. But you know,
one of the other things a Senate seat means that,
I mean, what are the senator's work schedules. It's like
two days a week or something for three months a year,
so it's not like a huge burden. And Roy could
just get one of those, you know, one of those
town homes or something in the DC area and just
live there with a bunch of other Democrats that just
travel up there for when they need to be in town.
And his wife can stay in the Raleigh area. So
that might be part of the deal too. Right, being
president is a different thing. Right, you got to be
up in the White House. You got to live there,
and you're in the security bubble and your life is
forever changed. So I don't know if so that might
still be the case. I don't know, but those were
the rumors. You are correct, Chip, those were the rumors.
I don't know if anybody ever got her on the
record saying one way or the other. John says, the
original rumor was Roy was going to run in twenty
twenty two against Ted Bud but Mark Robinson won the
Lieutenant governor's race and there was no way he was
going to step down and let Mark be governor if
he won. I remember that as well. So, you know,
maybe he missed his window or something. I don't know.
I think waiting another four years, you know, where he
could probably amass at least one victory or something that
he could point to that again, that's going to be
Roy Cooper's problem is that he may, and again this
is a big may. He may have to answer for
some of the biggest failures of his administration that the
media in North Carolina don't seem interested in pinning on him.
His COVID response. There's been no post mortem done on
his response, whether the things he did worked or didn't.
There's been no analysis of that. It was just, you know,
he saved lives, he did what he thought was best
and all this. Did he make any bad decisions? We
don't know. I think he did. I think that's pretty clear,
but there's no there's never been any kind of accountability
for those decisions. And I only say that not to
smear him or tag him as a failure, although I
probably totally would do that. But no. The point is,
so this way, you don't make the mistakes again. You know,
when Fauci and his China run lab release some other
toxic brew onto the population, we need to know what
was the proper response and what wasn't, What states and
what countries got it right and which ones didn't, so
we don't make those mistakes again. Then there is email
or no, sorry not, he already did the emails from
the Twitter machine. Iron Dad says we have to primary
Tillis with a real Maga guy. Asap Maga sees Tillis
as the phony he is. There's no way to unsee it.
Swing voters will vote Roy if given the choice. In
my opinion, though the thought of that disgusts me. Right,
So I don't know. That might not be the case.
We don't know that. We don't know if the swing
voters will pick Roy over Tillis or we don't know
if the swing voters will pick Roy over some MAGA candidate.
We don't know. That difficult to say. Again, the candidate matters.
And also, Mark Robinson's not going to be running for
this seat. That's what he said, So he's not going
to be running for elected office next year. He made
that announcement after dropping his lawsuits against CNN and that
guy that made the music video, the former porn shop employee.
Drop the lawsuits on that. Dave four dea Yeay says
Roy Cooper is going to have to answer for his
failure to help the people of western North Carolina. CP
in DC says still weighing it. Lol, he knew six
years ago. Mister, I don't use email. Yeah, that's another
thing that might come out again, is that he doesn't
use email. We are supposed to believe he prefers to
talk in person or over the phone. He never uses email.
And that's totally not to skirt Foia requests. Foyer requests right.
Once again, it's wake and Mecklenberg against the rest of
the state. Tillis is terrible, but no one has stepped
up to take on the machine. Right Well, like we're
going to be. If it turns out to be till
Us versus Cooper, that is going to be quite the
test of the machines in North Carolina. And they're funding
from outside interests because there will be a ton of
money poured into Roy Cooper's campaign. But also tell us
is all right, if you're listening to this show, you
know I try to keep up with all sorts of
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Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which
is why I've been so impressed with grant News. It's
an app and it's a website and it combines news
from around the world in one place so you can
compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out
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The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored
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Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. A couple more massages here from the people
on Twitter. These are repeat tweets in response to thennouncement
that Roy Cooper is seriously considering a run for Senate
twenty six. Kim says, the problem is Tom Tillis is
barely any better. We have a real chance of losing
this seat to a Democrat, whomever they run. Joshua says
Roy is like a hemorrhoid that won't go away. That's
oh my gosh. How have I never seen Hemroy? How
have I not seen wel? Because he's back now, so
now it makes more sense. Carry says to run or
not to run? That is the question modern day Hamlet.
We all know he's gonna run. Mandy says she'd rather
have two different choices and based North Carolinian says, good grief.
Imagine that goober on the national stage. I'm getting a
lot of emojis of the the smiley face puking, for
whatever that's worth. And this is our Ramsey who's says,
I'm pretty sure that this has always been Pooper Scooper's plan.
Captain Merge says, what a disaster. Unbanned North Carolinian says,
since we have to hear his plans, please commit to
sharing how oh this is from Josh Steint. I'll get
back to that one. We absolutely cannot have Roy Cooper
representing North Carolina in any way, shape or form ever again,
says Maggie. He has got a ton to answer for,
says Andy. There's another puky emoji. If we don't have
a strong candidate in the primary, we will lose that seat.
And Carolina Girl says, it's just replacing one Democrat with
another right So you could tell from the reaction here
that a lot of Republicans not exactly fans of Tom Tillis.
Andrew Dunn writing over at long Leaf Politics, he's actually
now got himself a gig as a contributor to the
News and Observer and Charlotte Observer opinion pages, trying to
add a little conservative insight, he says, to an editorial
that's more liberal than an Ashville drum circle. And so
in his column, his first column up there, he talks
about what Tom Tillis needs to do. He says, in
the interest of full disclosure, he says, I have no
relationship with Tillis. Andrew Dunn worked for Dan Forrest when
he was lieutenant governor, worked on that campaign. He's worked
in politics. He's been a former reporter as well. He says,
I have no relationship with Tillis. I don't think he's
a bad guy, and I think the grassroots right is
a lot harder on him than it should be. However,
Tillis really doesn't do himself any favors in this regard
with his campaign strategy. He says, if you want to
be charitable, you would call him a maverick or a
bipartisan leader. Unfortunately for him, not many people have that desire.
The grassroots, they don't have that desire to call them
those things. The grassroots right calls him a rhino, while
the left calls him gutless, but neither quite hits the mark.
That's actually driving Tillis is being a little too comfortable
in Washington at a time when that's decidedly not what
North Carolina Republicans are looking for. Tillis I said this
a couple of years ago, right, the only way this
gets fixed is if somebody is if enough people, a
critical mass of people get into office and into power
who don't care about getting re elected, and they are
able to take a flamethrower to the place. And that
is what Donald Trump and his merry band of reformers
are doing. And that's what's got a lot of the
establishment types very, very upset the stuff that's coming out
now about us aid I went over a little bit yesterday,
and then Democrats yesterday they went down and tried to
storm the building. Kind of seems insurrectiony, but like that's
what got them all motivated to do a protest march
on a government facility. How dare you take away the
funding for our transgender book clubs in Ecuador? Like that's
the stuff that that's the stuff that they get really
riled up about. Tillis and his top consultant, Paul Schumaker
ran a distinctively old school campaign. Old school meaning raise
a ton of money, focus group a couple messages, and
then dump millions of dollars onto TV. It's been plenty
successful over the last few decades, but the political world
is changing. Candidates, I did not mean to do that.
Candidates today have the ability to speak unfiltered to their
supporters in real time. He says, you have the ability
to be authentic with your constituents and build meaningful relationships
with them over a period of years. Tillis does not
do this at all. His website hasn't even been updated
since the twenty twenty campaign. So he recommends that, you know, Tillis,
go out, spend a bunch of money. Don't hoard it
all now, spend today. Hire a field team, show up
at every county GOP meeting, make videos and stuff, Send
them along saying what you're doing for every county, what
you're doing for them, Send weekly emails, direct to camera,
videos and stuff telling us what you are doing. All right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
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