Before marching with the mob, Roy Cooper fled from it | Hour1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio and Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Alrighty, so, first off, great to see everybody last night at the WBT News and Bruise at Heist Brewery and Barrel Arts. That was a fun event. I hope you got as much out of it as I put into it, which was a lot. Not really, but I hope you had a good time. It was great to meet so many of you guys out there last night. I never have enough time to talk with everybody, and so I do regret that that. Like, there's so many people that show up that want to talk and you may not always get an opportunity, which just means you have to come to all of them. Right. So anyway, Yes, there was some spirited discussion last night surrounding the Iran War as well as Thomas Massey. I'm going to get to some of the Iran stuff later on in the program, but I want to and not the Massy stuff, because like, I really don't care about that guy up there. But I do want to go over one of the stories that we were able to discuss a little bit last night because it broke yesterday by our pal ap Dylon at the North State Journal, and it's about Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray. I call him that because that's what Hillary Clinton called him when she was campaigning here in North Carolina back in twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen, or cut him loose Cooper as I'm trying to make that name stick now, Wattley team, feel free to use that. It's it nicely sums up the messaging around all of the released inmates that Cooper agreed to set free. So this story from the North State Journal nsjonline dot com. I was unaware that ap was working on this, but she apparently got a bunch of either retired or reassigned Highway Patrol officers granted anonymity to discuss the matter. But what she describes in this piece is the days around Roy Cooper and his famous stroll through the mob during COVID with a mask dangling from his ear, fist raised in the air in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protesters, remember the famous photo walking around. He had a couple of Highway Patrol security detail because they're the ones who provide the security detail to the governor. Well unknown until yesterday, Roy Cooper and his family had to be secreted out of the governor's mansion because the rioters were attacking the mansion. This was not known that the mansion was evacuated. And I'm trying very hard not to say that he was evacuated because people don't get evacuated unless you put like holes in them and. Then stuff pours out. That's what evacuation means. So the building can be evacuated people generally speaking, they're not okay, So he was. He was whisked away by Highway Patrol, which Highway Patrol to this day refuses to confirm this. The actual office they apparently still don't acknowledge that they did this. But the officers who apparently were working the detail, some of them have told ap at the North State Journal that they did in fact evacuate the building. The governor, his wife, maybe both of his daughters or one of the daughters, I'm not sure, but they were in the building and the riot outside became so dangerous that they had to be whisked away. Why is this important, Well a couple of reasons. Number one. Is that Roy Cooper first put out a bunch of pro solidarity statements with the BLM folks. He also refused to deploy. A National Guard force to put down the protests even after they turned violent. He knew that they were violent because they took him to the Emergency Operations Center, where they would have been overseeing what's going on in Raleigh. I mean, after all, you don't evacuate the governor's mansion, bring them all to the emergency Operations center and not be monitoring the situation. Right, So he puts out this social media post I stand with you guys. He makes the leftist commentary that people are more important than property, which is basically a green light to burn stuff down, right, loot stuff, damage the property because people are more important. Right. And then he goes out jeopardizing his own security detail by walking through the crowd in order to show solidarity. And then he goes back onto social media and gives more positive affirmation for this kind of behavior. So that's one reason there's hypocrisy reason going on. There's also the lack of disclosure from the state. They're not telling us, they're not confirming that this occurred. Whyational security, Really, I'm not sure that that's operational security at this point. It's been six years. But also the. Very same time frame that we're talking about May thirtieth, May thirty first, June first, those three nights in twenty twenty, those three nights, do you remember what else was going on? I mean, yes, fiery but mostly peaceful rioting and burning and looting and murdering all over the country. But also. This was the same timeframe when a little protest erupted around the White House. Remember May twenty ninth, twenty twenty, President Donald Trump was rushed to the White House underground bunker as Black Lives Matter protests intensified near the executive mansion following the murder of George Floyd. The Secret Service moved Trump, first Lady Milania Trump, and their son Baron to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center for nearly an hour after protesters clashed with law enforcement, through objects and breached temporary barricades near the Treasury Department. Attorney General William Barr later confirmed the move was due to the severity of the protests, which injured over sixty Secret Service agents, not an insurrection, Just to be clear, because I know, like as I start describing this, I know some people are going to be thinking, oh my gosh, this sounds like J six. Okay, not at all like J six, Nothing at all like J six. I mean, yes, there were way more agents injured, eleven hospitalized, right, and yes there was like there were you know, things being thrown, assaults being made, fires that were set. Remember they burned the church across the street. I mean, yes, there was all of that stuff going on. Yes, it was you know, targeting the executive branch, the seat of power in America, right, the person who occupies the office. Yes, yes, yes, all of that you could reasonably consider to be very similar to the actions on J six. But here's the key distinction. These rioters were leftists. That's it. That's it there. They were leftists, and so it's not an insurrection because it's different. When democrats do it. See that's the standard. J six's worst day in history, May twenty ninth, merely a footnote, if even that. But do you remember, and I'm old enough to remember six years ago, what happened in the wake of this news when we found out that Trump had to be taken down and his family had to be taken down into the bunker. Do you remember what the left and the media, but I repeat myself, do you remember how they how they frame this. They they mocked Trump for that, calling him a coward. Oh, just like Vietnam, he got out of fighting. What's there to be afraid of. It's just the people giving voice to their you know, uh, redress, seeking redress from the government, their grievances. It wasn't even that bad. Oh my gosh, what an overreaction. And then do you remember what prompted or what that prompted? Donald Trump then walked out across the street to the church and he held up the Bible, remember, and then everybody made fun of him for doing that, mocked him for doing that, and criticized that action. Ah, he's making things worse, right, But when Roy Cooper does it, when Roy Cooper has to be whisked away to a secure location, it's different. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. A couple of messages from the text line. This is from Beth's favorite Russ, who was at the event last night. It's good to see Russ Pete. Are you really suggesting that, with two very similar stories about evacuation during riots, that the left slash Democrats covered them completely differently based on who was involved. Yes, and yes, that is what I'm saying. Absolutely. Yeah, one gets mockery, one gets covered up, Gary says Pete. It sounds like you're saying the media is double standard with protests and riots, is causing more violence, harm and division in the country as they can only find fault and blame on one side versus the reality of political situations. Yeah, and this has caused a lot of the problems. And look, part of this is, okay, if you are of a certain age, I will say probably, I don't know, maybe over the age of forty, maybe forty five. Right, if you're over the age of like forty or forty five years old, you're not even aware that you're wet. You're the fish. You don't know you're wet. And what's happening now is the crumbling. Well, this is where the analogy breaks down because the water won't really crumble, but the water is evaporating. Okay, and we're starting to see how much of this governing infrastructure has been built up over the last eighty years and has in order to the benefit of Democrats. And this goes for not just media institutions, right, But we're seeing it with the reaction from all of the Supreme Court rulings. Right, we finally have a conservative originalist court majority and they're issuing rulings based on the text and the original intent of the laws. And you're seeing the left just increasingly lose their minds because they have had complete narrative dominance and control for decades through Hollywood media, through the elected institutions. Redistricting is another one. They're losing their minds. They're making just completely ridiculous arguments right now. They're saying, you. Know, oh my gosh, they're gonna get rid of there's going to be no black representation in South Carolina. Meanwhile, South Carolina again has a US Senator who is black. He's a Republican, right, but Democrats have enjoyed a liberal interpretation of the Section into of the Voting Rights Act, when the liberal court interpreted it to mean that you have to draw majority minority districts, but not too much. Right, you can. Pack a bunch of minorities into one district, but not too many. Well, what's too many? Don't know. We'll wait for the litigation and once we get once state gets sued and it comes to the court, then we'll make up a new rule at that point to help the Democrats. And this is why, like they complain about, on the one hand, Jim Clyburn in South Carolina, though now it looks like the South Carolina Republican leadership isn't going to redistrict. So if you're in South Carolina, you guys probably should start looking around for like a crop of candidates to run against your Republican quote conservative leaders right. Oh my gosh, they're gonna get rid of Jim clyburn seed, Oh my gosh, they're getting rid of the you know, the one minority district in Memphis, ten See, which is represented by a black or sorry, a white guy, Steve Cohen, and he's being challenged by a black female Republican who would win under the new maps, likely would likely win. But it's racist, don't you see. They will make whatever argument they need to make at any particular moment because it's about power. And this is what we're seeing, is this sort of crumbling, this dismantling of this infrastructure that has existed to their benefit for the last eighty years. So that's why they're very upset. They're they're they're losing control over these systems that have benefited them and kept them in positions of power that they never actually should have been in. Let me see, David says, why do they say it, Pete. If it weren't for double standards, Democrats wouldn't have any standards at all. Yes, that is the axiom, Steven says, Pete. You are sarcastic as can be. Please keep it up. Okay, we'll do so. Let's get to some of the details of this story. From ap Dillon at North State Journal So again May thirtieth, thirty first, and June first, in the year twenty twenty, following the death of Saint George Floyd downtown Raleigh. Each night the protests gave way to riots, with businesses and government buildings damaged and looted, public property vandalized and arson, including a drug store that was set on fire North Stage. Because the drug store is racist, I believe that's my understanding of why they burned that place down. But why otherwise, why would they that doesn't make any sense. Why would you burn down your own drug store unless it was a racist drug store, maybe engaged in police. Brutality systems of oppression. Not sure. Going over the story from ap Dyllon from the North State Journal about Roy Cooper's extraction thank you from the Governor's mansion during the fiery but mostly peaceful riots by Black Lives Matter in twenty twenty coincidentally, the very same days of the riots that were occurring in Raleigh that forced Cooper to flee the mansion. Also riots at the White House. Trump was taken to a bunker in the basement, Cooper was taken off site along with their families. And only one of those two elected officials were mocked for fleeing. And if you guess the guy who stayed in the building, he was the one mocked for fleeing, you'd be correct. That was Donald Trump. He was actually still in the White House Roy Cooper. We did not know this until yesterday. We did not know that Cooper had been whisked away out of the Governor's mansion. The North State Journal has learned from former law enforcement officers who were in Raleigh helping to quell the rioting that then Governor Roy Cooper was evacuated from the executive mansion to outside the city during the unrest. The officers, including former members of the North Carolina State Highway Patrols, spoke to the North State Journal under the condition of maintaining their anonymity due to fear of reprisal for themselves, their families, and fellow law enforcement. So May thirty first, some time between six pm and eight pm, Cooper and his family were extracted. They were taken to the Emergency Management Operations Center or the EMOC, or as I call it, the EMOCH. One former officer said a team was tasked with following Cooper's motorcade to the EMOCH, and once there, the team then turned under round and went back to aid Raleigh police. The officer also said Cooper had to know what was going on in downtown Raleigh because key leadership for various law enforcement agencies were also at the EMOCH. Attempts to gain access to records of Cooper's movements that night, such as travel logs, memos, and emails related to the evacuation have all failed, with how a patrol refusing to release any documentation saying quote if any logs had existed, we would treat them as sensitive public security information under General Statute one thirty two Dash one point seven, and therefore not consider those documents to be a public record. That's the official response that was given to North State Journal in the past. They've been seeking these records for six years. Additionally, the Journal also sought other official records, voting emails, and relevant documents from Cooper's tenure. However, the State Archives of North Carolina claims Cooper's papers are not yet in their possession. It's it's been about a year and a half since he left office. Why does the archives not have his stuff yet? What's going on there? So? On night number one, May thirtieth, between five hundred to one thousand people were estimated to have gathered in the downtown Raleigh area to protest, and skirmishes with police began early that evening. Now, earlier in the day, Cooper posted a up onto the Twitter machine and he even signed it with his initials RC. That's how you know it's him and not some you know, young staffer intern running his social media account. And here's what he posted the day of the first protest quote George Floyd and so many others should be alive right now. But he did a lot of drugs. I'm just kidding. He didn't say the drug part. People are angry, frustrated and say it, and I am too. If we don't force our communities towards accountability and action, then we haven't learned anything. I'm trying to do that. Like this is how Cooper delivers these types of sentences, with this like the whispery sort of false impact emphasis. You know, the protests around the country offer a space for people to make their voices heard, but they must happen without violence and further loss of life. It's time we have the difficult conversations needed to stamp out racism and end these unjust killings. And Cooper was not heard from again until about ten hours later when he issued a statement on social media. So that first post he put up was at just like three o'clock in the afternoon. So what one am he says? I am in continuing contact. Yeah, I am in continuing contact with emergency management leaders about violence occurring in some of our cities. Frustrating that planned peaceful protests about real systemic racism are marred. I am grateful for those seeking justice peacefully. This is the line that Democrats were trying to walk right while saying all the institutions are racist and all the cops are racist. Right, everything's racist. We got to have the conversation about racism, and oh my gosh, people are burning stuff down. Oh we don't agree with that, but I mean that drugstore was racisty So, a former officer confirmed to the North State Journal that protesters had approached the area of the governor's mansion on the night of May thirty one, and were observed throwing objects, including water bottles and bricks. By the way, a neat little trick that they do is they freeze the water bottles and then they throw those and then they're acting as bricks. Right. Former Highway patrol members on duty that night said they were ordered to split off from assisting Raleigh police and were diverted on foot to intervene at the executive mansion because the law enforcement presence at the mansion was quote worried that they were going to be overrun by the mostly peaceful mob that was totally not engaging in skirmishes with law enforcement. Because we learned during the j six stuff that it's the Democrats that actually care more about law enforcement. That's why they want to defund them, right, and why they call them all fatherless children. Cooper was not heard from again until four o'clock the next day, when he held a pandemic briefing that was broadcast out of the eMac, the Emergency Management Operations Center. His remarks focused on the protests and the rioting. In part, Cooper express disappointment in who or in whom the media coverage that the media coverage had focused on the riots. See now you reporters that I allow you to ask questions on a pre approved list of reporters, and anybody that's going to ask me a tough question about COVID or anything, you guys get segregated into this other camp, you know, on the software platform, so this way you don't ever get through. So this is a message to your legacy outlets like your wrals, your news and observer like you guys need to focus more on. The good stuff at the protests. By the way I saw, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has now picked up on this story from the North State Journal because Roy Cooper is running for US Senate here in North Carolina, as you know, against Michael Wattley for the Republican nominee and Chris Olmsted. He is the NRSC regional political director, and he tweeted the following as North Carolinians and police in Raleigh were overrun by rioters. In twenty twenty, Roy Cooper abandoned ship while keeping the guard outside of downtown, only returning for a photo op to put his troopers safety at risk. What a perfect synopsis of his nearly forty year record. That is correct, that is what he did. Now. You could say he was monitoring the situation from the emach right, but the fact that he kept giving aid and comfort to these protesters after being forced to flee and then hiding the fact that he fled the governor's mansion right, that has not been disclosed until now. So yes, it's six years late, but better late than never. This is another example of what I've been saying. Roy Cooper is not used to the kind of examination that he is going to get now in this race, ever in his career. So the day, second day of the protests, Cooper holds his pandemic briefing and he chastises the media. He says Unfortunately, today the headlines are not about those protesters and their calls for serious, meaningful change. They are more about riots and tear gas and broken windows and stolen property. That's what's wrong and must be stopped. But I fear the cry of the people is being drowned out by the noise of Let me be clear, people are more important than property. Black lives do matter. There you go, and there's your permission structure. Because that line, people are more important than property. This is what the left was saying while cities burned. This was the justification. It's okay to burn down all of these cities, destroy people's livelihoods, even maybe kill some people in the process. Got to break a few eggs for the omelet, right, as long as we're having the national conversation. By the afternoon the same day, he said this. By that afternoon, the Raleigh Mayor Mary Anne Baldwin had signed a state of emergency declaration giving her the ability to request the National Guard, but a city spokesperson indicated that she had not yet opted to do so. It is unclear exactly when Cooper returned to the Executive Mansion from the emoch, but he was next seen in person on June first, prior to rioting, returning to the streets of Raleigh for a third night, so he had two nights of rioting. He gets evacuated at some point, he goes back to the mansion, and on June first, Cooper, in violation of his own executive orders on masking and social distancing, marched in front of the executive mansion alongside Black Lives Matter protesters. He was seen with his mask off, raising a fist and waving as he walked from one of the gated entrances of the mansion to another one of the gated entrances, flanked by members of his security detail. One former law enforcement officer said Cooper's march put officers in danger. Quote Cooper decided to come out of the mansion, putting his detail at risk, our guys at risk, because he wanted to show that he was a man of the people. The officer also said it was a photo op for the cameras to see him with his mask off in all his smirking glory. After hours of riot had stretched into the early hours the first night May thirty. First, you'll recall the Speaker of the House, Tim Moore. He was in an apartment in downtown Raleigh and he was watching the chaos. He shot a video of it. He posted it onto his Facebook page. He said he was hearing glass windows being smashed, He heard the chanting and the shouting. He heard gunfire. That was corroborated by the way by one of the former Highway patrol officers who told the North State Journal shots were fired at them that evening near the Old Capitol Building, which is the office of the governor. In a formal statement that followed, Moore said he had urged the governor directly by text message to deploy the National Guard to downtown while witnessing and filming rioters set fires and shatter windows this past March. The Journal asked Tim Moore, now a congressman, about that text message, and he recalled sending a text and a voicemail to Cooper, but he'd got no reply for a couple of days. He said, I was upset because I had discovered through and I can't remember through which law enforcement agency, but I discovered that the National Guard. Were staged in North Hills. I was told the governor had told them not to come downtown, not to deal with the rioters, and to this day, I am shocked that that happened. I am not. Moore said. What happened in Raleigh was shameful. He noted that businesses attacked that night all the nights were already struggling due to Cooper's pandemic shutdown orders. Quote the governor kept North Carolina closed, and for people who may need to hear this, I will say this, in the legislature, we did not have a super majority, so we couldn't do anything to force anything open. People try to blame the Republicans in the legislature for allowing Roy Cooper to keep everything locked down, but they did not have Democrats, a Democrat that would cross Cooper, and so they couldn't do anything because they Cooper could just veto something and then they couldn't override the veto, he said, So we were powerless. I mean, it was just a real, real sad chapter in our state's history, and I do think the governor failed miserably in his job on that. Moore said he has fielded a lot of calls from people in different law enforcement agencies who were just beside themselves when they saw the footage of Cooper marching with the protesters. A member of Cooper's past security detail who did not want to be identified, echoed what Moore said, saying he had quote always been a political on the job, meaning the officer was that he was always a political But when Cooper marched with the protesters, he said, quote I was just done. Just done. Yet, like some of us have been pointing this stuff out for a long time in the North Carolina non mainstream media. I don't know what to call I don't know what to call us. At one point radio news was mainstream media, but I don't think it has been for a while. I don't know. That's why I prefer the term legacy media, or state media, or as Rush would. Call it, the drive by media. Right WRAL is the eight hundred pound gorilla, the News and Observer. Likewise, they drive statewide coverage, and they gave Roy Cooper a pass his entire term. They honestly did. And but for people like ap Dylan at the North State Journal, this story never would have seen the light of day. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to vpetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone. M m hm