Border Patrol union endorses Whatley for Senate in NC | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeatcalendarshow.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. And it's my pleasure to welcome to the program, Paul Perez. He is the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Welcome to the program, sir. How are you? It's great to be with you today. Thank you. Thank you for making some time for us. We appreciate it. So For folks who are not aware, what is the National Border Patrol Council? The organization that represents all the frontline Border Patrol agents that are stationed along the southwest and northern border. So I've been doing the job 29 years and been stationed along the southwest border, worked on the northern border. And, you know, we advocate for strong border security policies to make sure that we can protect Americans. I saw a story, and forgive me, I don't know all of the details, but I saw, I guess it was yesterday, something about overtime issues for, I guess, certain members of Border Patrol. Can you tell us a little bit about that, what that issue is about? Yeah, we've got some legislation. You know, our overtime system hadn't been time and a half for a long time, and. We were able to get under. Under the NDAA, we were able to get time and a half for some of our agents, and now we've got legislation to make time and a half available to the rest of our agents as well. So how was it– wait, so were you all getting paid any additional money for overtime, or is it like salary where you just. It was pretty much straight paid. There was no time and a half. There was no real true time and a half. Any overtime was at a straight hour. And so, as you know, our agents have worked many, many hours over their regular shifts over the years. And so this is only the right thing to do. And we appreciate specific members of Congress for taking that fight on and advocating for us. So that has not passed yet. Is that correct? Correct. It's, it's in the proposal stage. And so they're working on, uh, Andy Barr out of Kentucky has introduced that language and, uh, we're, we're grateful to him for doing so. All right. So we, I'm not sure you, you probably are aware, uh, we have a Senate race going on here in North Carolina. Um, we have, uh, Michael Watley, the Republican, uh, former, uh, North Carolina Republican party chairman, also, uh, an advisor to, and, and head former head of the, uh, uh, NR, uh, the Yeah, the National Republican Party and advisor to Trump. He's the Republican candidate. We have Roy Cooper, the Democrat, former governor, former attorney general. He's got a bunch of ads running right now talking about how tough on crime he is and has been and how safe he has made the state and all of that. Have you guys, well, I guess you guys do some endorsements. Do you endorse in all races or is that just like sort of you pick certain races to weigh in on? We only endorse in certain races. And, you know. In this race, we were with soon-to-be Senator Michael Watley this morning in Mount Pleasant. And we'll be with him again this afternoon and early evening. You know, letting people know in South in North Carolina why it's important to elect Michael Watley over Roy Cooper because of the policies that he'll support, the policies that President Trump put into place that have made the border the most secure in the history. Of this country. Right. So you so your organization has endorsed Watley now? We have. We're proud of that. So can you walk us through just a little bit of whatever process you guys use? Like, do you do like interviews of the candidates? Do you examine? I'm assuming you examine the records and their platforms. Yes, sir. We look at their records. We look at the platform. We look at the candidates themselves. And we were fortunate enough to have Michael Watley on the border with us in South Texas. And he was able to see exactly what we deal with on a daily basis. He was able to talk to frontline agents and get a good understanding of what it is we need to make sure that we can continue securing the border. So, uh, somebody like Michael Watley, who, who, who knows, you know, politics very well knows how to get the job done, um, is who we look at to be a strong candidate. And so we, it was a no brainer for us. We, we, we were happy and proud to endorse him. So one of the criticisms, um, like a former, uh, border patrol commander, Greg Bovino came, uh, uh, through Charlotte last weekend and, had a YouTube video that, uh, that we covered as well, where he had this lengthy conversation with the local baker, uh, who closed down his bakery during last year's operation, Charlotte's web. And one of the things that Bovino said has been saying is that the Trump administration has been scaling back, uh, all of the deportation efforts that, uh, that, that Trump initially launched. Is that, is that your understanding? Is that your, um, No, our experience on the border, number one, you know. Uh-oh. I think we've lost... Oh, I'm sorry. Paul, I'm sorry. You dropped out for a second. So could you start over? The whole first part of your sentence dropped out. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, Greg Bovino was the commander of At Large, which was primarily tasked with interior enforcement. On the border, we've been able to do exactly what President Trump has wanted us to do. And so what Greg Bovino is talking about is the interior enforcement efforts. The numbers that I've seen, of course, that's mainly dealing with ICE. The numbers that I've seen is they've increased and continue to increase the number of deportations. deportations, removals of those criminals that are in the interior. So I haven't seen a drop. I understand, you know, Mr. Bovino's concern with with His opinion is that President Trump's not getting the information that he needs from the front line, but I can assure you that on our end, for border security efforts, we have a constant communication with President Trump and his administration. We've made sure that he has the accurate numbers that he needs to make sure that we're doing the right job. Okay, so tell us, what are you seeing then on the borders? So on the borders, our numbers have decreased 94 to 97 percent. Depending on the areas, compared to the Biden administration. Drug seizures, everything has increased because, of course, we've got Department of War, we've got. The National Guard, and we've got our agents that have been deployed out to the front lines doing the job that we were hired to do, which was the opposite of what was allowed under the Biden administration. So we've got the ability to intercept and interdict anybody coming across, whether it's with drugs, southbound weapons and money, or just illegal aliens that are trying to come across with the cartel's help. So one of the tactics that I remember reading about during the Biden term was that you would see these massive floods of people coming across at certain points on the border. And then. The information was that the cartels were basically Taking advantage of that as a distraction to tie you guys up at the border and then smuggle a bunch of other stuff at another point farther down the line, farther down the border. So this way you wouldn't be able to get there or even maybe see it. Is that stuff still occurring? Not at all. So that tactic, they took full advantage of the fact that the Biden administration pulled all of our agents off of the line. Now what we have, like I said, is all of our agents forward deployed. So yes, they would employ that tactic as a distraction. And so for them, The cartels operate in a gain-loss, so they could lose a couple hundred pounds of drugs in order to move thousands of pounds if they thought that they could trick us and have us respond to a small crossing. But now we're able, with the technology that we have, with the personnel that we have out on the front lines, we're able to stop that. And finally, I wanted to ask you, from your perspective, what more needs to be done and what do the Republican leaders in Congress, what do they need to be pushing for? Well, we need to make sure that we can make sure that we can put the policies that President Trump has in place. We need to make sure that we can codify them in the law so that no other president can undo the strength and security that we have on the border. Is that a real fear that whoever comes in next is just going to reverse everything? It is a real fear. I mean, we saw with the Biden administration, we saw. That they had to do absolutely nothing but keep the policies in place. And what they did on day one was undo them policies. And that led to the flood of millions of illegals crossing our border. Yeah. Well, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much. And thank you for your work and all of your colleagues on the border. We appreciate it. Paul Perez, the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Thanks for your time, sir. Thank you, sir. All right. Take care. Stay safe. That's Paul Perez. All right. 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Matt Mercer, writing at Breitbart.com, former North Carolina governor and Democrat Senate candidate Roy Cooper, cut him loose, Cooper, has received zero endorsements from law enforcement organizations, a notable development in a campaign centered on his horrendous record while leading the state. Three major organizations supporting law enforcement have now shunned Cooper, Remember, the former Attorney General, the top cop, if you will, in North Carolina. He has failed to secure any law enforcement organization's endorsement. The North Carolina Troopers Association, the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, as well as the North Carolina Fraternal Order of Police. The Troopers Association endorsement is especially notable for given Cooper's tenure in state government, right? These are the people, the troopers association represents the highway patrol, which directly reported to and work closely with and for Roy Cooper for eight years as governor, right? These are the people that would be his security detail, right? These were people that would do crowd enforcement and such around the governor's mansion. These are, and the Trooper Association, and this is all underneath the executive branch under Roy Cooper when he was governor. Now, it may have something to do with some of the things that he did as governor. For example, as you may have heard, he agreed to release 4,200 convicted criminals in 2021. Generally speaking, law enforcement is is not a fan of that kind of a thing because the law enforcement, they're the ones that put the criminals behind bars in the first place, right? They're the ones that responded to the scene, sometimes of horrific crimes. They investigated them. They then, you know, tracked down the guilty party. Maybe sometimes they had to engage in fisticuffs in order to get them into cuffs. And then they get convicted based on the evidence that the law enforcement agencies developed. They get put away. And then some left-wing activists sue, saying it's not fair that they're in jail during COVID. And Roy Cooper's like, OK, twist my arm, let them all out. And entered into a collusive settlement, as they are called. A collusive settlement because, again, these were left-wing activist groups, the NAACP, the ACLU, and these organizations and the people in them, they back Democrats, they back Roy Cooper. And so they're suing, quote, you know, suing, wink, wink, Roy Cooper in order to get something that Cooper generally agrees with them on. And if he doesn't agree with them on it, he can't really fight back too hard because if he does, then he risks alienating the a portion of his own base, which he needs if he's going to run for higher office, which he totally wasn't considering doing when he was governor in his second term. The farthest thing from his mind. I mean, after all, when he announced his run for U.S. Senate. He said he didn't intend to run for anything else. He was just totally happy after 40 years in political office. He was like, oh, I'm done. I've served the public as much as I can serve. But they pulled me back in because that Donald Trump, he just he made me do it. These are extraordinary times. These are dangerous times. And my country needs me. So he's doing it for us. He's doing it. Roy Cooper got into this race for us, for you and me, which is completely separate from his decision to release 4,200 criminals from prison. And that's not like jail. They're not awaiting trial. These are convicts. This was the largest mass prison release in state history. I mean, I've been calling them cut-em-loose Coopers. merely for alliterative purposes. But maybe jailbreak Roy? I don't know. He was the only governor in the country, by the way, who signed a legally binding agreement requiring the state to release prisoners, something even blue state governors in Colorado, in Illinois, in New Jersey, none of them did this, right? They didn't sign legally binding agreements. They just started releasing some people, doing it on their own, This way there wasn't any kind of, you know, prescribed number that they had to meet. But Roy, you know, he got sued and what could I possibly do? I mean, we had to settle the lawsuit. And by the way, you will hear people defend this by saying, oh, you know, a court ordered this. Not really. Not really. A court did not order him to release all these people. He agreed. along with his attorney general at the time, Minnie Cooper, now our governor, Josh Stein, they agreed to the settlement. And then they brought that to the court and the court rubber stamped it. Okay. So yes, a court did finalize the order, but the terms of the order were set by Cooper and the left-wing activist crowd that had sued him. This is what they also did during COVID and in order to change our election laws for the 2020 election, right? They wanted more mail-in ballots. They wanted easing of restrictions and stuff. So they wanted all of these things to be done. And when they didn't get it through the legislature controlled by Republicans, they didn't get everything they demanded. So then they, they got sued. Oh no, we got sued again. And what did they do? entered into another settlement with the left-wing groups that sued them, completely adversarially, obviously, right? And they entered into the collusive agreement. And then, oh, we just have to do this. And so confident were they that this was such a great deal on the election settlement was that they completely cut out of the negotiations the other plaintiffs in the case, that being the Republican Legislature. They didn't even tell them that they were doing this deal. Because that's how confident they were, right, in how awesome the deal was. North Carolina's Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found in a 2024 report that the recidivism rate, so the reoffending rate for released convicts, was 48%. That is higher than the rate for the nearly 13,000 released over the course of fiscal year 2021. So in other words, the batch that he released had a higher recidivism rate than the batches that were released just on their own based on the expiration of their sentence term. And that's why Roy Cooper wants you to believe that he's tough on crime. From the text line, the grumpy major says, wait, so we have a grumpy major and a grumpy guy, I think, on the text line? I think they're two different people. But I feel like we have hit our quota for grumpy people. Oh, well, grumpy dudes, I think. Although the major could be a female. I take it back. So I think, all right, so we may have room for a couple more grumpies. Anyway, the grumpy major says, there is a video ad with the Charlotte Observer's favorite Republican in name only, Bob Orr. Yeah. Yeah. Bob or touts my good friend, Ray Cooper's law and order background. And that should be all anybody needs to know about how useless cut them loose. Cooper is when it comes to public safety. Yeah. Um, if, if you are a, if you're a Republican in a race and Bob or endorses your Democrat opponent, like that, that should like, that should give you, encouragement. That's good. Yeah, Bob Orr hadn't been, ever since Donald Trump came down the golden escalator and broke Bob's brain, yeah, he's firmly never Trumper. Anyway, and he's former North Carolina Supreme Court judge, Bob Orr. 980 number says, isn't Roy Cooper's reason for running for Senate the exact same reason Joe Biden gave to run for president? They are similar, are they not? It's almost as if there's some sort of a script. Like, I didn't want to serve the public, but I was called to do so because nobody else could do it like me. I'm just that good. I can do this thing that no one else can. So I am going to volunteer my leadership for this squad. I'm sorry for this state. Yeah. Joe Biden said the same thing. Remember that the big speech he gave and everybody swooned. He said something about it was the good people on both sides. And that's what, I mean, that was his, well, I was going to say origin story, but like Roy Cooper, uh, Joe Biden was a creature of the political realm for decades. So it wasn't an origin story, but that was the story he told to get back in. And, you know, I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to get into this race. I wasn't going to serve the public anymore. But then I, you know, saw MSNBC saying that Trump said, you know, Nazis find people on both sides, which we have gone over and over and over. That is a lie. Donald Trump did not say that the neo-Nazis were the good people on both sides. He was talking about the rally that had occurred the previous night, but the media. took the one comment and said he made it about the neo-Nazis, which he did not. He actually condemned them specifically, but they cut all of that out. And that's what Joe Biden saw. And that's what we are to believe is the reason why he selflessly volunteered his leadership again, right? Had nothing to do with anything else. Like, I don't know, you know, corruption that may be uncovered or anything like that. No, nothing like that. Couldn't be like all of the deep state actors that wanted Trump out. They couldn't get him impeached and tossed or anything like that. No, no, no. It was the good people on both sides. So much like that line from Biden. Yeah. Roy Cooper's message of, you know, well, I have to go up there because these are dangerous times and no one else can do it. And I, you know, I was done with public service. Yeah. Says the, the 40 year career politician who doesn't know how to do anything else. Sure. Now, Roy Cooper wants everybody to believe that he is a tough on crime guy. Always has been. Always has been. Always will be. He's got campaign ads running all over the place, right? Keep your family safe and lock up criminals. That's what most North Carolinians want. It's not too much to ask. As your attorney general, I put drug dealers and rapists and murderers in prison and kept them there. Okay. First off, that's not what the attorney general does. Okay. This is what they say they do when they're running for office, particularly Democrats. Jeff Jackson, a.k.a. Baby Jesus, our current AG, he ran on this same platform, right? But no, that's actually not what you're supposed to be doing. The attorney general does not do those things. The attorney general is not going to court to try rapists, okay? He's not acting as a lawyer, okay? But this is what they say, particularly when they are soft on crime, when they have the policies that Roy Cooper and Mini Cooper, Josh Stein, and baby Jesus, Jeff Jackson, right? When they have this left-wing view of justice, they run on these platforms of, I'm the attorney general, ergo, I'm tough on crime. I put rapists and murderers behind bars. As your governor, I toughened bail laws. Oh, really? Huh. You toughened the bail laws. Is that right? Because I seem to recall a certain task force that you put together that implemented cashless bail. I seem to recall that after the summer of fiery but mostly peaceful rioting. He says he went after the drug dealers pushing fentanyl and no way do we defund the police. I'm Roy Cooper. I approve this message because you deserve to feel safe and there's nothing political about that. Now, center square, Alan Wooten did a fact check on this ad and factual history of keeping prisoners in jail, toughening bail laws, and standing with police is not exactly where Cooper has been. In February 2021, as governor, right, he settled that lawsuit and released 4,000 plus inmates. While he said at the time no violent offenders were among those released, public release of the inmates' names this year revealed actually More than 50 of them came off death row. And I don't think you get to go on death row unless you did something violent. I feel like that's the case. Published reports that track the criminal records of those released indicate 25 North Carolinians have been killed by the group that he released. That was his doing. He claimed credit for it. He entered into the agreement. 25 North Carolinians are dead today because of that deal. 99 have been sexually assaulted and more than 600 felonies have been charged against the people that were released in that jailbreak. Added to those groupings are Cooper's commuted sentences of 15 people convicted of killing others. Cooper has also been an advocate of the cashless bail. Despite what he says in the advertisement, he created the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice as his first term drew to a close, a group that he handpicked to, quote, reimagine public safety. And by reimagining public safety, he means making it less safe. So let's reimagine the words public safety to mean insecurity. So we're going to reimagine it to be the opposite of what it is. They made 125 recommendations. One of those was the elimination of cash bail. But he's, he toughened the bail laws, he says. Even amid his executive orders for people to mask and not gather in crowds, lest they risk arrest, he infamously removed his mask and marched with the activists who wanted to defund the police. And remember, he vetoed the legislation that would have required sheriffs to cooperate with ICE in removing criminal illegal aliens. So this is why I am utterly fed up and disgusted by the North Carolina political press corps that when they get an opportunity to ask him a question, they ask him stupid questions. They ask him stupid things. rather than about this stuff. I'll give you an example in a minute. From the text line, Anonymous says, during the early years of my career as an NC SBI, State Bureau of Investigations, SBI special agent, Roy Cooper was the AG, our boss. Anytime he flew into Charlotte, we had to drive him around. He never spoke to us, discussed anything regarding our jobs or our cases, nothing. He did not advocate for us in front of the legislature. The only time he acknowledged the SBI's existence was to interfere in investigations involving his friends in Raleigh. I thought Mike Easley was horrible, but Cooper is about Cooper, period. Also, I believe, yes, the nice Marie... She said, everybody knows the top job of the North Carolina attorney general is to clear up the rape kit. backlog. Okay, so for people who don't know the history here, Roy Cooper, as Attorney General for 16 years, he claimed that he had cleared the rape kit backlog. And he made this claim when he was running against Pat McCrory for governor in 2012. And Pat McCrory kept saying, that's not true. There is a rape kit backlog and you have not cleared it. But Roy Cooper kept saying, yes, he did. And then Mini Cooper becomes attorney general and He then claims that he cleared the rape kit backlog. And nobody ever thought, hey, wait a minute. How could there be a backlog for Josh Stein to clear as Attorney General if Roy Cooper had already cleared it? It's so weird. By the way, another little tidbit on the backlog of rape kits that were not tested by the SBI Crime Lab. He then attacked... Somebody else. Was that him? Oh, wait, hang on. Am I getting my Cooper confused with my mini Cooper? Maybe it was mini Cooper who accused his opponent of not clearing the rape kit backlog as a DA, which the DAs actually cannot do that. It's the crime lab. That might've been mini Cooper. I feel like that was more recent. Roy Cooper got sued for lying about his Republican opponent and fought for like, I think it was a decade, in court, trying to defend his right to lie about his political opponent. So that's what Roy Cooper does in court when a lawsuit is filed against him. But when a lawsuit gets filed to release 4,000 plus criminals during COVID, I can't possibly defend us on this one, folds immediately, folds immediately. But when it's to protect his right to lie about a political opponent, well, he's all in. He will fight for a decade, which I think he eventually lost that. He had to apologize. And by the way, Josh Stein also lied about his opponent, also claimed the right to lie about opponents in a political campaign. I believe that one went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled that you are allowed to lie. So victory for Josh Stein and liars. One of my problems, my frustrations with the North Carolina press corps, pretty good example of it just came down yesterday when our pal Brian Anderson, formerly of the Raleigh News and Observer, and then I think he did a stint at WREL, and then he went out on his own and parted. It was not an amicable split from the last news organization he He took to Twitter and was complaining about non-competes and making these veiled accusations and stuff, whatever. And then he launches his Substack newsletter. And he's the guy who went to Watley at a Watley campaign event and demanded that Michael Watley name for him three players on the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team. Because a staffer had sent out a tweet supporting Watley. the Carolina hurricanes when they were in the Stanley cup championship games. And because they used an AI generated image of a hockey player on the tweet, Brian Anderson thought this was the biggest story that he really needed to get to the bottom of. And so he shows up at a Watley event. They were talking about taxes and no tax on tips and that sort of thing. And he presses Watley to get an answer to the burning questions of our day. How many players can you name? He has since been banned from the Watley campaign events. But he is allowed to the Cooper events. Surprise, surprise. And here's the question that he tossed to Roy Cooper. Because this is what the public has a burning desire to know. Will you be participating in any debates today? My team is happy to sit down and discuss the potential. For a debate. And what are your thoughts on what that would look like? My staff is ready to sit down and talk about it. There you go. Are you going to debate? Are you going to debate? Tell me, are you going to debate? Notice, he doesn't even get an answer to his question. Cooper just says, we're ready to sit down and talk about it, about a potential debate. So Cooper doesn't even answer. He doesn't say he will debate. He doesn't just say yes. That's a yes, no question. Will you debate Roy Cooper? Will you debate Michael Watley? And the answer there is yes, I will. Or no, I won't. But what does he say? My staff is ready to sit down and talk about it. So no promises. So he's not actually. He's not answering your question. He avoids answering the question, and the reporters let him. I don't know if they're like blinded by his star power or something, like his electrifying persona, his charisma is so overwhelming that you don't realize he's not answering your question. But the fact that he repeats it twice, what does that also tell you? That that statement was crafted ahead of time. They knew that at some point someone's going to ask him this question, will you debate Michael Watley? And you don't want to say yes. You don't want to say no. Chances are you don't want to because you're leading in the polls. So why would you debate Michael Watley? The only thing that could happen there is you come out worse, right? So you don't want to debate him. That's the answer. He doesn't want to debate him. Makes no sense for him to debate Michael Watley. Watley would want to debate because he's trailing in the polls. So you craft this statement of, oh, we're ready to sit down and talk about it. Which means what? You crafted this statement to avoid answering the question and our reporters in North Carolina let him get away with it. So this is the question they ask rather than, I don't know, hey, Roy, where do you stand on abolishing ICE or abolishing the Electoral College or statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.? What are you going to do about the Social Security Trust Fund that's going to be depleted in 2032? You're going to be in office if you win. How about packing the U.S. Supreme Court? You down with that? impeaching Donald Trump? Or how about defunding aid to Israel? Or how about the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and their influence in your party? Or how about this? Would you welcome Hassan Piker to your campaign events? Anything like that? Any of those questions? Maybe throw one of them at Cooper before people go to the polls to vote for this guy. Can we maybe get some clarity on one of those? 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 the Pete Kaliner show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.