NC Governor's flimsy excuse for bailing on Veep (08-06-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_03]: 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 ThePeteKalinerShow.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.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So my good friend Ray Cooper, governor of North Carolina, and by the way, I call him that because that's what Hillary Clinton called him. And I believe Kamala Harris called him that at one point. And so if that's what his good friends call him, then I assume we should do. Oh, sorry. Cooper. Cooper. Cooper. You gotta, because remember there was the big article that WRAL did a couple months ago about the pronunciation of his name. Everybody calls him Cooper, but it's Cooper. Like Cooper Riverbanks.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Bridge Bridge, Cooper. Anyway, I digress. So a couple of days ago, I was perusing, which by the way, does not mean skimming. Perusing means to actually read something in depth. I always thought it was the opposite. But I was perusing a political story before Kamala Harris picked Tim Walsh as her VP pick.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, Kamala Harris was preparing for the final stage of selecting the running mate. And that was the face to face interviews and the accelerated timeline set off a mad scramble by candidates to publicly audition for the job on cable TV and campaign rallies.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And I've seen that Tim Walsh. And I've seen that Tim Walsh, by the way, has been picked, uh, after, well, I should say this way. Um, it is a sign of the strength of the online crowd, which I don't know how you could go wrong.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, just listening to Twitter, which I think it's like 10% of people are on Twitter, something small like that. So I'm sure nothing could go wrong there by listening to them, the most vocal screeching part of the population to help you pick your vice president.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_03]: But, uh, the, the, Tim Walsh and his, his online surrogates pushed him very, very hard. And the other day, you know, we mentioned the weird thing and I'm going to get back to that. I'm going to passack you back to that topic here today. But, um, the, the weird branding that was apparently from Tim Walsh and his surrogates, his, his backers, his supporters.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I guess they were so enamored with Tim Walsh, you know, in his record up in Minnesota, watching all of the cities burn four years ago during the summer of fiery, but mostly peaceful protesting. Um, but not only that, he's got online game for a, you know, 60 something year old white dude, but whatever. He's got online game. His people online, they're awesome. They, they were all about the weird J J D Vance is weird. He's just weird. I mean, look at him married with, with, with,

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_03]: a couple of kids, three kids, two kids, whatever. He's just weird. And the irony there is that J D Vance is probably the most normal one of the four that are, uh, that are on the ballots. Um, but, uh, and yes, I have the story about Kamala Harris's husband and the nanny. That story came out finally, which makes you wonder why it didn't come out earlier, but whatever it's out now. He had to address it.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But back to the Politico piece, some of the aides and allies involved in the vice presidential nominee decision-making process are Harris's chief of staff, Sheila Nix campaign chair, Jen O'Malley, Dylan, and former representative Cedric Richmond, as well as her brother-in-law, Tony West. So her brother-in-law. So that would be Emhoff's brother in law, Emhoff sister.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I, I guess. Um, the vetting team has already met with, uh, you know, Shapiro. They met with walls. They also met with Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Uh, they met with Senator Mark Kelly and others. Her primary consideration was not who can excite the base. Again, this is Politico from before the pick.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And the people that were talking to Politico, right. On condition of anonymity, right. They were saying it's not about exciting the base, which look at who they picked.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Harris has already brought plenty of excitement to the party's core backers. The question is, how do you get to 270 electoral votes?

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And is that impacted by the choice that you make? So were these people lying to Politico? Because Minnesota has not voted for a Republican president in my lifetime.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So I, I don't know why you are, why you're trying to count Minnesota towards your electoral college tally when you already had it, but I guess you got to lock it down. Maybe not a play for the base. No, no. That's why you picked the solid blue state Democrat, which is weird. Um, or governor rather. Um, Harris has told aides.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_03]: She wants someone ideally with some sort of executive experience and with whom she has a good rapport. One of the people familiar with the process at Harris is quote, looking for a governing partner above all else. Also somebody who could, um, yeah, somebody who could cover for her. If she becomes cognitively impaired.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I kid, I kid, I kid. Later on in the piece though.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Says Harris was personally fond of North Carolina governor Ray Cooper and some in her orbit were crestfallen to see him depart the race. According to one of the officials, as for the other candidates, booty gig and walls have impressed the campaign team with their public appearances. Okay. So Roy Cooper goes on to MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And, uh, he explains why he took himself out of the running. And you'll recall maybe that the reason he gave was that it wasn't the right time for him and the state. It wasn't the right time.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I was asking and pleading with the North Carolina political journalisters. Hey, maybe ask the guy. Why? Why isn't it the right time for you? Is that like, what is the right time to be considered for the vice presidential pick?

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Why isn't it the right time for you? Why isn't it the right time for you? Here was him on MSNBC. Here was Cooper sort of addressing this. And it may shock you to find out. It's those evil Republicans.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And that SLB Johnson in this war. That's the reason I had to whip up on. Nevermind.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, first, Andrea, I told the Harris campaign early on that I did not want to go through the vetting process because it wasn't the right time for me or my state. So I never did get into the vetting process.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the concerns is our lieutenant governor, who is the most extreme right wing statewide candidate in the country. I'll match him up against anybody.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: We have one of these provisions that a number of states have in our Constitution. It goes back to the horse and buggy days saying that the lieutenant governor, who is separately elected, by the way, becomes governor when the governor leaves the state.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't believe that that is true now. It hasn't been litigated in our courts. Litigation in other states has found that with modern technology, that shouldn't have to be the case.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But the real concern is like he has done in the past, is that he would call a big press conference, claim he's acting governor, try to do something.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what the legal ramifications of that would be at the end of the day.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: But he likes attention. And if I had been on a national ticket, we could see him calling a press conference every week when I'm out on the campaign trail, attracting attention to himself.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It being a distraction to the presidential campaign. And that was certainly part of my analysis to tell them early on that I did not want to go through the vetting process.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is, is OK, so hang on a second. So wait a minute.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So with the like one time he went overseas, I want to say.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And remember, Mark Robinson, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who's running for governor against Attorney General Josh Stein, who, as I understand it, does a ton of appearances all the time.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. Right. So Robinson came out and did a proclamation.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_03]: To support Israel. Remember.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what Roy Cooper is afraid of more of that kind of thing happening.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_03]: That Robinson would do proclamations and that that would be a, quote, distraction.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my gosh. He's sacrificing himself.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't even realize it.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_03]: He's sacrificing his own future.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_03]: He's like Joe Biden, everybody.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Just putting.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Putting the state and the country ahead of his own personal ambition to be U.S.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Senator in two years. I'm sorry. No, he didn't.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, OK. He did not say that, but I suspect that's probably the case.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Really selfless act right there.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Was apparently one of the people that was in consideration for the vice presidential pick.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_03]: But he claims he couldn't leave the state to campaign because if he left the state, then Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who's the most radical and extreme right winger ever, that he would.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I also think he's a Klansman, I believe.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, W.R.A.L. Brandon and such.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, he's a black man.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, can't leave the state because then Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson might do some press conferences and that would distract from the race.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And so can't do it.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing to do with Roy Cooper's own political aspirations or ambition.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing like that at play here at all, even though he said in that clip with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, he did say that they don't believe.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_03]: That the law, as it's written right now, would withstand a legal challenge.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_03]: In other words, the law was crafted at a time, as he said, you know, horse and buggy days when if the governor was out of state and they couldn't fulfill the duties of the office, then the lieutenant governor would assume control.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But with the modern technology, it's kind of an antiquated law.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't really it doesn't really matter anymore.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_03]: But rather than try to settle that once and for all and say, look, this is an archaic law, we don't need it anymore.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Rather than go to court, because we all know Roy Cooper does not like to go to court right about legislative and executive branch duties and separation of powers or anything.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the guy sues all the time.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: He has gone to court all the time for all sorts of things.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_03]: But this is the bridge too far.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Don't want to test it.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Just be a distraction.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_03]: So setting aside his own personal ambition, it's just not the right time.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, it might also have something to do with his record.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_03]: You are a state senator, Phil Berger.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_03]: He wrote a piece that appeared at The Washington Reporter down east.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: He says Governor Roy Cooper as a VP pick to the casual outside observer.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Governor Cooper is a mild mannered, moderate sounding politician who has spent decades in office.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_03]: But strip away the veneer and you see a left wing politician following the Biden Harris administration's left wing progressive playbook to a tee.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Governor Cooper spent his last four years intent on garnering the attention of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as the national media.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_03]: What's missing in all the current hoopla is any consideration of his actual policy preferences and how, if he had been left unchecked, Governor Cooper would have transformed North Carolina into just another failed blue state.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: He vetoed income tax credits for all North Carolinians.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03]: He vetoed expansion of the zero tax bracket, as well as efforts to cut bureaucratic red tape.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And when national praise he won.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, sorry.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: When national praise for North Carolina's standing as a low tax business friendly state came rolling in, he took a victory lap, even though he didn't have anything to do with it.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It was the legislature.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_03]: He shut down the schools and vetoed legislation to restart in-person learning and to do it safely.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_03]: When Republicans expanded the wildly successful opportunity scholarship program, he created that fictional state of emergency.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Or as I called it, the stunt of emergency.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_03]: He vetoed teacher pay raises and increases in public education funding.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, the emergency declaration.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I said he was the ED governor.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_03]: But he pulled out of the VP selection process.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_03]: If he had his way, schools would keep secrets from parents.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Men would play in women's sports.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And inappropriate topics like sexuality would be mandatory in K-4 classrooms.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_03]: So weird.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, the people who are promoting these policies are trying to call other people weird.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it'll work.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_03]: The media seems to think it works, but it just works for them.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_03]: They're already converts.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's sort of like preaching to the choir there.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_03]: They think the weird line of attack is brilliant.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not so sure that I'm going to take my cues on what's weird and what's not from people that were celebrating that opening ceremony in Paris and the Last Supper tableau.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_03]: You know?

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Got a message from Andy who says,

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Wasn't 1984 the last time we had a Minnesota-California ticket?

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And how'd that go?

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_03]: How fitting that we revisit 1984.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Dun, dun, dun.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That's true.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Because instead of Don, oh, if we had picked Ron instead of Don, we could see another landslide.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_03]: We could have seen it.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine how different it would be.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's and that is part of the calculation here.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_03]: The Democrats are making, which is that there are a lot of people, and I know people who love Donald Trump don't want to hear this, but it is true.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_03]: There are a lot of people that will vote for anybody other than Donald Trump.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_03]: They hate him so much.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_03]: So is it critical mass?

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess we're going to find out again.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And then another Andy sent me a link to, not a link, but a tweet here from Guy Benson from Fox News, who put these two things together, which I had this clip as well.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And this blurb.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_03]: So first, here's the clip.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_03]: This is Kamala Harris's vice presidential pick.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And here was here was a comment he made that I suspect you're going to hear a lot of over the course of this campaign.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, don't ever shy away from our progressive values.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_03]: One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_03]: It's always funny to me how they reject the socialism charge.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_03]: When people call me a capitalist, I say, yeah, I am.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_03]: That is correct.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_03]: They go, Pete, you're just a libertarian.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, true.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're conservative.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I am on a great many things.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_03]: That's true, too.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Conservatarian, I guess, is probably a closer fit.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_03]: But people who are socialists never want to be called that.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder why.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_03]: It probably has to do with like the hundred million people, the body bags attached to the philosophy of Marx.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_03]: But I don't know.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just spitballing on that.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So anyway, he says one person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_03]: So what does neighborliness mean to a guy like Tim Walls?

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Well.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_03]: He set up a hotline during COVID to monitor compliance with his stay at home order.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_03]: It generated thousands of reports from Minnesotans who snitched on their neighbors for things like playing basketball in a park, walking their dogs and throwing small parties.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_03]: The hotline was launched in March of 2020.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And law enforcement continued to monitor it until November, well after the stay at home order ended.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_03]: In October 2020, it was used to alert authorities to a church service that didn't fit with the governor's legal requirements.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_03]: These complaints were common.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_03]: These complaints were common.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's neighborliness, which I guess that's true then.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_03]: One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Because this is one of the hallmarks of these types of societies.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Low trust societies.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_03]: This was one of the things where after the wall fell and the USSR disintegrated and a whole bunch of the records and documents started being published and people had access to see them.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And started realizing that in these totalitarian regimes, it wasn't that the secret police.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yes, they existed and they did this kind of, you know, this work against their own citizens.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_03]: But the most prolific snitching occurred amongst the citizens.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_03]: They would rat each other out for all sorts of stuff because that's what you get in a low trust society.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And we saw a little bit of that in COVID.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And so when, you know, an agent of the state, in this case, Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota, sets up a snitch line where you can call and rat out your neighbor because the neighbor's playing basketball outside during COVID.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Engaging in physical activity outdoors during COVID.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And you're going to rat them out.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, it laid bare, you know, a lot of the rot.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's what his idea of, I guess, neighborliness is.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Vice President Kamala Harris and her Democrat allies have been emphasizing this new line of criticism against Republicans, branding Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, as weird.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Weird.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_03]: They're weird.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Democrats are applying the label with gusto, according to the AP, in a piece by Meg Kennard.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_03]: The weird message appears to have given Democrats a narrative advantage.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_03]: This is a little bit of wish casting here by the AP.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's giving them an advantage.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my gosh.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03]: This is so, this is so impactful.

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm so moved by this name calling.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what it is.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just name calling.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, this is the John Stewartification of, or the Daily Showification of politics, right?

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_03]: John Stewart, Ben Shapiro had a great takedown of John Stewart on this the other day, where he talked about the damage that John Stewart has done to our polity with his Daily Show.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And I have watched the Daily Show.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of it was, you know, funny.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I laughed at some of their jokes, to be sure.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_03]: However, you know, John Stewart, as Shapiro pointed out, John Stewart went on to crossfire on CNN.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And for folks who don't recall, that was when CNN put Paul Begala from the Clinton White House administration, they put Paul Begala on against Tucker Carlson.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And they would argue different issues.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_03]: They called it crossfire.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And there were previous iterations with different, you know, conservative and a liberal.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And they would argue about stuff.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was like an hour-long show.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_03]: They would go into policy and express these different philosophies and stuff.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And John Stewart went on to that program and said that they were harming America.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And what John Stewart's pattern has always been, is sort of his formula, is to not actually engage in the idea.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just to play a clip and then make a clown face afterwards.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And then get the clapping seals to clap and laugh.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's the extent of the discussion.

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_03]: There is no discussion.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And that has now become all of our politics.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's kind of that the comedian, clown nose on, clown nose off, if you've never heard this term before.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's like these comedians get up, like John Stewart does.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And he makes these attacks and he takes these positions.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And then when pressed about his position, he simply says, I'm just a comedian.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, that's why I say I'm just a little old radio host.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I say that.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a joke.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a mockery of these people who pretend that they're not involved at all in any of the thing that they are discussing.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03]: When, in fact, they are.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I know I am.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you're listening to this program, chances are you are too.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I, for one, am happy that Tim Walz is the Veep pick by the Veep.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Because now we get to explore and talk about, as part of the campaign, the 2020 riots.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_03]: The summer of love and the COVID restrictions and the lockdowns and such.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, if I didn't know any better, I would think that whoever it was that recommended Walz as the pick to Kamala Harris might have been trying to sabotage her campaign.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_03]: But, hey, who am I to look the gift horse in the proverbial mouth?

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_03]: There's also this.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, like, this whole idea, like, that J.D. Vance is weird and Donald Trump is weird and everybody's weird.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Republicans are weird, weird, weird, weird.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the narrative.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Now they're rolling out folksy.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_03]: That Tim Walz is folksy.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_03]: He's a folksy kind of guy.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just narrative crafting, right?

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's messaging.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And the media is delivering on, you know, this messaging opportunity.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And there are all sorts of examples.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_03]: David Harsany at The Federalist has been listing them all, all day.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_03]: All the different references in the media to Tim Walz being folksy.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_03]: But the weird narrative, you know, when you are, when you're stupid or mean or evil or corrupt or mentally ill, I would submit if you are any of those things, normal looks kind of weird.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_03]: You should, for example, if you are ever in a room full of people and you start to think that everybody in the room is wrong except you or everybody in the room is stupid except you, right?

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_03]: You might want to, like, reassess that because chances are you might not be reading the room correctly or, like, there might be a sign that there's something wrong with you.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_03]: If you think every room you walk into that everybody is wrong and you're always right, that sort of thing.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_03]: That's not the best for, like, mental health.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay?

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_03]: If you think lots of normal people are weird, you might be weird.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_03]: You might be the weird one.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Just going to throw that out there.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Just something to consider.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Something else to consider.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_03]: 92% of voters blame Kamala Harris for the cover-up of Joe Biden's health.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_03]: 92% of voters.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I talked about this, I think, two weeks ago before I went on vacation, but there was the poll that came out.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a YouGov, Times of London poll.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_03]: It had found 92% of respondents believed that Kamala Harris knew at least a little bit about the president's progressive deterioration,

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_03]: which became too much for even mainstream media to deny after his debate debacle against Trump in Atlanta.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Right after that debate performance, Tim Walls went to the White House.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_03]: He was there with New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And he was asked about Joe Biden's fitness for office.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And Tim Walls said he is fit for office.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Here is what he said.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Is he fit for office?

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think he's fit for office?

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, fit for office.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_01]: President Harris.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Three and a half years of delivering for us, going through what we've all been through.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: None of us are denying.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Thursday night was a bad performance.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a bad hit, if you will, on that.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But it doesn't impact what I believe.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_01]: He's delivering.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_03]: He's delivering.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a bad hit.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a bad performance.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But he is totally fit for office.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And now he's got to step aside.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_03]: He's now got to step aside.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Kamala is going to be the presidential nominee.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Why?

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Why?

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Why did you say he was fit for office and now he's stepping aside?

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Why?

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_03]: See, here's the problem.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: You've picked a guy who had the same position as Kamala Harris.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_03]: So the 92 percent of the people that think that Kamala was at least somewhat aware of the deterioration.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_03]: How is it any different than Tim Walls, who went to the White House after the debate performance and then came out and tried to gaslight everybody and say he's still fit for office?

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Because he's got the same baggage.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_03]: That'll do it for this episode.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for listening.

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[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_03]: You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendorshow.com.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, thank you so much for listening.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And don't break anything while I'm gone.