Roy makes it official (07-28-2025--Hour3)

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 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 dpeakclendershow 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. It is Monday at two o'clock and that means we chat with Ap Dylan from the North State Journal and her substack publication is called more to the Story, Ap. How are you today? I'm doing well. How are you pe? I am doing all right. Earlier in the program, I was informed by a listener that over on the NPR affiliate here in town, there was apparently an episode of one A, which is like, I think that's the New York Times podcast or show that they do or maybe not. I don't know, but it's over on NPR, and they were apparently talking with Democrats that were now going to grow facial hair and that's going to win voters back to their side. They believe it's a lack of facial hair, which I was not aware of this. Have you ever have you heard of this analysis? No, no, I don't think. It's I'm not a I'm not opposed. Facial hair is great on guys, But it's just more about winning the winning the mail vote back. I think so. Yeah, so I think because they see they got a curse and they got to say y'all and they got to have they got to have facial hair apparently because it's not they were very clear, it's not their uh, their policies. It's just their messaging hasn't broken through somehow, and so that's the real problem. It's the it's their inability to message because they don't control enough platforms to push messaging. Yes, that's kind of bizarre, which is now also bizarre that you got another poll you write about at your sub stack. This new polls show people think the Democrats have gone a little too far to the left. It's not their policies though, I'm sure it's just the messaging here right. Well, yeah, this was an I and I Tip Insights poll. It had about over four or fourteen hundred adults and the poll was taken from June twenty fifth to the twenty seventh, and I asked the participants do you think the Democratic Party has become too radical in its views and policies? And the result was forty five percent of voters currently viewed the Democratic Party as too radical, thirty six percent said the opposite, in eighteen percent said they were unsure either way. Right now, that's largely I mean that forty five percent that's driven by the Republican response, right because the Republicans were at seventy three percent saying, yes, Democrats have become too radical. Well, yeah, when you broke down by party, that's how that's how it shook out. But I mean even in independents were saying, yeah, this is this is too much. Yeah, that's a problem that's at. Yeah, and they didn't even know who their leader of their party should be. Thirty six percent was the plurality in that question, and they said they weren't sure. The top percentagegethers were Vice President Kamala Harris with ten percent, Chuck Schumer with nine percent, former President Barack Obama eight percent, House Meminori leader King Jeffrey seven percent, and tied with five percent, where AOC California governor Newsom and former President Joe Biden. Yeah, that's that's pretty sad too. But and look, this is the problem. You know, when you don't win the White House, then yeah, who is the leader of your party? And Republicans have enjoyed now a decade where Trump has been the leader. It's been very clear, right, So that and but I remember, you know, after w was out and Obama came in this the Republicans kind of suffered the same sort of dilemma as they you know, they tried to find, you know, who's going to be the leader of the party. And I guess that's why we got Mitch McConnell. I don't know, it looks like it. Yeah, I did think this was interesting that that Republicans in this poll they at ten percent, they have Harris Kamala Harris tied with Barack Obama. So like Republicans have I think this view that Obama is still in charge, and it's like the Democrats they rated Obama at just seven percent, which is odd, Like why wouldn't still be the leader of the party, And like all of Biden world was basically retreads from Obama world, So like why why would you not be aware that Obama still is very much involved in this stuff. It's kind of I don't know, it's kind of weird that that the results showed that. So this is going to be a problem. I mean, unless, of course, everybody grows facial hair, then maybe they will be able to uh to get Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray as I like to call him, made it official. He is going to run for the US Senate because he just wants to serve us so badly. Yes, you are not surprised by this announcement. No, no, nope. Several weeks ago, right around July eighth, I had multiple sources telling me that he was running, and that that was confirmed by an event at which Attorney General Jeff Jackson had said in the current tense that he was endorsing h Now, neither one of those parties would go on the record, because if I had identified the event or anything like that, it would have put the finger on who they were. Oh. So, you know, a local outlet here decided to try to mock me for that, and it turns out I was correct. Ah vindication. Yes, it's good, it feels good. All right, So what was the local who attacked you? It was w r L like the like on Twitter. Uh No, they used one of their PolitiFact things to pick one piece out of the article that I wrote wrapping that information there. It was about a coffee with Cooper invite which she said he was going to be talking about the future of North Carolina. It was gonna take care take event in Winston Salem, and I had originally put it in the article and it was pending requests for comment from from the venue. And once I finally got a hold of the people at the venue and asked if anything was planned for that day, they said no. So that was that was out. And not only that, but the band I think, you know, after after I looked at it again, the band was not something that was going to be there, either there or somewhere else. So it looked like it was fabricated. But they held that up as though it was important, right like it was really the smaller part it was, you know, they The bigger part of it was that I had gotten this information that this was going to happen right ahead of them, and they weren't happy. Obviously, not because I would have thought Cooper had him on speed dial, because I mean, they were one of the only ones that he would ever let on the phone to ask questions during the COVID briefings and stuff, which that's going to be fun to revisit. Right, So I made a list the other day pros and cons for you know, Cooper and Wattley, and I mean the stuff that Cooper is going to have to answer for. Right. You got the COVID response, his terrible you know, disastrous disaster relief and response HB two, which you know, the vibe has shifted on that whole issue. Also all of the vetos, right, And in his announcement he was talking about balancing budgets and stuff like, dude, you vetoed every single budget that came down the line except for the last one. Also, I'm kind of curious, is what's his take on Gaza. I'm very curious because he's gonna run for US Senate. You're going to have to do some foreign policy stuff. So I'm wondering that he's. Been working at Harvard as a as a lecturer there. Harvard has been under the microscope for its anti Semitic issues and protests. I mean, that's obviously going to get dragged in there. Yeah, you mentioned COVID. Yeah, there's a lockdowns. You know, our schools and our kids are masked longer than just about any other any other state in the nation. There's you know, how he treated the George Floyd riots where you know, everything was burning down, and then two days later he goes out walking around with the protesters with the mask dangling from his face. And then the reopened NC protesters who you know, staged arrests against one individual there to you know, send a message. There's the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the alleged slush fund that went along with. Oh I forgot about that one. Pipe, the DOT budget that just went completely off the rails, and he had to replace the chief that he had in place there. The DMV is completely disaster. And why Goodwin was out there, you know, and then coming into office, you know, he he had the crime lab issues and the Duke Lacrosse issues and was involved in the Jim Black trial and all that. And then you know, just as he's heading in there and Josh sein is taking over as AG, we find out that North Carolina had the number one back backlog in the nation. He cleared out, said he cleaned Yeah, he said he cleared the crime lab stuff, so you know, but there it is, you know, and then what else was there? There was one other thing that came up, his his penchant for for punishing Democrats in his own party in the st Legislature. You know, there was Kirk devieer In, several other Democrats who we threatened. You know, Tricia Coffin went Republican and it was mainly over school choice. She she's a very strong school choice supporter, and so when she switched over, you know that that kind of turned everything upside down. Record on anti vouchers probably not going to play very well. But and here's the other thing too, Like, he has never been the target of the amount of negative ads and fundraising outside of the state that he's about to be. So like, I'm genuinely curious to see how this campaign unfolds because I don't know if he's ever I think what he's about to experience is going to be out of the norm for him. I think so too. And you know the other you know, on the other side, we've got you know, Michael Wattley. He was the NCGOP chair and he led several successful campaigns which you know, flipped the judiciary in the state to Republican and kept Republican majorities there. He was largely responsible for helping coordinate the judicial races. You know, he's he's run successful campaigns to keep super majorities in both chambers for the most part. That was you know, some success. And then he went off to the RNs and along with Laura Trump got you know, President Trump elected to second term. His his election background, you know, it's he's got strong on wasn't and winning races, just not one of his own yet, which is going to probably be the focus of the Cooper campaign. I can see them going after him for not having any real world experience as a and Mark Robins. So Mark, they're going to hammer him on Mark Robinson. It's just gonna you are going to see more Mark Robinson in this election. He's not even running it, you know. I know, but I think that I think that the electorate, you know, that's going to play to his bass. But I don't know that that's necessarily going to play at large, because I mean, you're backing a candidate and then suddenly that that candidate turns out to be a problem, right, you know that that's happened in both parties. I can think of John Edwards being one yes, uh, you know, to which you know, Attorney General Austin used to work for that campaign. He was he was worked for that work for him, So there were there's that tie in there. And then you've got know the question of the North Canty Democratic Party and their own issues with their anti Israel platforms. You know, if it's if they're endorsing him, you know that that can be flipped on its script and go back at him with that. But you know, I think the fact that Botley has not been elected to an official office before, that's that's what they're probably going to harp on that. I would say, you know, the counter that would be that, you know, he's been in politics the vast majority of his adult life. Elizabeth Dole, he was her chief of the exactly. He knows how the sausage is made, so it's not like this he was. This is new waters for him. And I think the fact that he's got the backing of both the President and Laura Trump, who had been you know, it was her seat to turn down pretty much, I think that that's gonna help. That's going to play in his favor and if the if the economy continues to go the way it's going, things getting better that the tariff de iers are having problems, you know, coming up with arguments of how they're networking when Trump keeps sealing all these deals, the latest one with the European Union. I think that the economy issue, as well as doing what he said he was going to do with deportations and immigration and cutting crime. I think those two things, if they continue into next year, we might see the Republicans hold onto more seats than people think they might. Yeah. I mean, look, it's the trend is always to you know, the party that controls the White House loses seats in the Congress at the mid terms except for right after nine to eleven. So I mean it is possible. Like it's it's a trend, it's it's not a rule. So we'll see. I got to leave it there, Ap Dylan, I appreciate you joining us. As always. You can read her work at North State Journal that's nsjonline dot com and subscribe to her sub stack publication called More to the Story. AP. Thanks so much, Thank you, Pete. Take care. Here's a great idea about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. 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Call her text eight two eight, three, six, seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Thanks again to ap Dylan for joining us as she does every Monday at two o'clock and we chat about the news and such, which, yeah, like I kind of feel like we already we already did all of this on the Roy Cooper thing, right, I mean, I know it's the campaign's just starting and all, but we covered this last week, and I mean, I'm glad AP like listed those things. I gotta keep this. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to make a list of all of the of all of the weaknesses of Roy Cooper Roy Cooper, and that's one right there. Like now we're all confused about how to pronounce his last name. Guy's been in public office for like forty years and uh like career politician. And then a year ago maybe two Wira l I think it was, or maybe it was the McClatchy papers, they did this whole big story about how do you pronounce Cooper? Like I didn't realize there was a different way to pronounce it it's Cooper or Cooper, but not really Cooper something like that. Anyway, my good friend Ray, and I call him that because that's what Hillary called him when she campaigned for him in twenty sixteen. She came to North Carolina. They traded endorsements and such and oh, my good friend Ray Cooper, well nine do Elinedray go back. You know, Gosh idged a bullet on that one. So also we got the new facial hair approach. Uh, this is one of they. So Democrats are going to win back some mail voters by apparently growing facial I am reminded of the Steve Buscemi scene where he approaches some high schoolers and he is obviously like fifty years old, but he's dressed like a skater kid and he's like, hello, fellow high school students. Like that's what That's the image I'm getting of this operation facial hair effort. But there's also a gender gap. Women are becoming Democrats, men are becoming Republicans. I'm sure nothing bad will happen to our entire civilization at this rate. So there's a Gallup poll on that. I will get to this after the news. Also, I have purposefully not watched Roy Cooper's Senate announcement video. I am going to watch it after the news when we come back, I'm going to watch it for the first time with you. Okay, all right, If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. I know you do too, and you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground 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 at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news as they make the media landscape more transfer parent. All right, so I have the clip of my good friend ray former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. I've not watched it yet, so this will aside from the one SoundBite that I've heard in our newscast, it will all be new to me. I don't know what he says in all of this is only like two minutes. All right, So here's here's the let me make sure that's on. Okay, good, here's the clips, say. Governor Cooper. Yeah, why do you support men being able to play women's sports? Can you let me, Governor Cooper? Why do you support men being able to play women's sports? He's getting into the back of the Governor. Cooper, could you please answer the question? God nice, Governor Cooper, are there are more than two genders? Sorry? Sorry, that was not his announcement. That was the video of him at Harvard. Somebody went up to him with a with a cell phone video recording and asked him those questions and then he ran from them. And he it was funny too, because he went like there was a car. I guess an uber was picking him up, and he goes to get into the back of the uber, but it's locked, and that's when he's like, can you open the can you open the door? And then the guy pops the locks and Cooper then gets in, and then there's a woman who jumps in, so he has to move his seat over, but he didn't even let her go in first, like he just didn't want to answer the question. You're gonna have to figure an answer out to that question, Guvnor. I suspect it might come up in this campaign for US Senate. Okay, here's the actual video. It's two minutes and twenty eight seconds. He sent out a tweet with the video. It's just him wearing a blue blazer with a light blue collared shirt, no tie, and he's just staring straight at the at the camera and he says, I have, oh, look at that. His picture on his Twitter avatar is from this clip. He's wearing the same it's the same shot, so they updated his avatar. He says, I have thought on it and prayed about it, and I have decided I am running to be the next US Senator from North Carolina. And here's the statement. It wasn't always a hard because being in the middle class. Minute, hang on a second, is this the beginning? Oh wait, maybe I'll skip ahead. Let me see zero zero go. It wasn't always a hard because being in the middle class meant something. You could afford a home, your kids went to good schools, your job paid enough to cover the basics, and most summers you could get away for a few days. For the most part, life was pretty good. I'm Roy Cooper, and I know that today for too many Americans, the middle class feels like a distant dream. Meanwhile, the biggest corporations and the richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth at your expense. Oh nice, Okay, good, so he's going full on class. Are fair, nicely done? I knew. See m gosh, he's gonna you're you're going to bring back the middle class. You are going to do this, and I'm sure you're going to cite all of the balanced budgets and the economic growth and that North Carolina has experienced, and like the boom that this state has enjoyed, largely due to the Republican legislature. Mmmm, I don't know. Why I expected it. I don't know why. I don't know why I expected anything different. He just he this is the thing, Like he comes across as this folksy, charming you know, uncle Ray, kind of a character or as a producer. Nick, do you want to do your you want to do your your impression. You got to turn your mic on. You gotta turn your mic on. Yeah, turn your mic on. You're a great Thank you for that. All right. So here's so here's Nick's impression of my good friend Ray. Just a simple country law. There you go. That's the image that this guy presents himself as. And it's so to me, transparently fake. It's like this guy is a political animal and we've documented an ap Dylan mentioned it. You know, he targeted his own fellow Democrats, like he drops the hammer on people like this all the time. Anyway, all right, let's go back to the video. I'll try to let it play along, all right, no promises. Actually it's time for that to change. I grew up in Nash County, working on the farm every summer. My mom was a public school teacher, my dad a small town lawyer and farmer. It's where I started my family taught Sunday school for years and started my law practice that helped everyday people in small businesses. When you made me your attorney general, I prosecuted criminals. He skip over your whole terms in the in the House or Senate, Like, why'd you This dude is a career politician, he was in the legislature, he was a Senate leader, like, and then he became attorney general. Why'd you skip over all of that? Is it? All the gerrymandered maps? Is that why you're a little embarrassed about all the gerrymandering that you did when you were in the legislature, got sued every single year over crazy drawn districts. Anyway, now it says I'm running for your senate. And took on scammers, big banks, and drug companies. When you made me your governor, we balanced the state budget every year. You have to do that by law. You have to have a balanced budget. It is the law every state does. This is so absurd, Like you don't get to print money like the federal government does. You're touting balanced budgets. You vetoed every budget. You vetoed every one of the accept the very last one. Your final term or final year in office. You signed that one because I had the Medicaid expansion in it. Right, Come on, Roy, you held teacher pay raises hostage, like as part of your your budget maneuvering. Just this guy, Oh, it's just terrible. All right, we'll pick it up again. And worked with Republicans to raise teacher pay. Oh I recruited thousands of better paying jobs and expand Medicaid to more than six hundred and fifty thousand working North Carolinians. You didn't, Okay, you did not do that. The Republicans did that on their own. They flipped. They they are the ones that did that. You were along for the ride. You didn't pressure Republicans into doing that. They found out a way to offload the costs onto the federal governm and then they expanded it. I opposed it, but oh I worked with him to give teacher pay raises. You literally vetoed all of their pay raises. You always said it was never enough. You wanted to give him bigger pay raises, so you would veto budgets. And now you're claiming that you worked with Republicans on teacher pay raises. Just shameless. But right now, our country's facing a moment as fragilous any I can remember, and the decisions we make in the next election will determine if we even have a middle class in America anymore. Oh my gosh. So there's your catastrophizing right, there's your doomsday pitch. You gotta panic people. There's gonna be no middle class. Like if Roy Cooper doesn't win in twenty twenty six, the whole middle class goes away. There's no more middle class. Do people believe this, well, they believe in a lot of things. Actually, stories are powerful. 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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 guy, I still got a minute of this thing. Yeah, there is some production. It's not the whole video of Roy Cooper. He's not I mean, he is staring at the camera and he's you know, delivering his his script. But when you know he's like when I was Attorney General, they're like showing his you know, old video and pictures of him doing stuff, you know, walking with cops. You know. I am unclear. Yeah, I got some some movement on the WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick gmc pete. There would be this is from Steve in China Grove. Whoa, whoa China Grove, Pete. There would be a benefit if our friend Ray is the next senator, he would at least be more conservative than his predecessor Tom Tillis, Audios Tom, that's from he asked. He asked for the rim shot. I don't know. Andy says, we actually did have a much better middle class before all of the policies, all of the policies of the Democrats made the middle class shoulder load for people who don't work. And I think that might need to be edited. Didn't our Cooper teach at one ivy League school? Yeah, he's up in Harvard. He was up in Harvard on like one of these little scholarship programs that they give democrats after they are out of office and you know, need a soft landing pad with a lot of money just to tie them over till the next run. So, yeah, he was up at Harvard. Didn't he receive a salary? And does that not increase the cost of tuition? How is that helping the middle class? Major dumbassery help. The spelling is correct, it is Brian from Fort Mill. And Andy also said, why did say that our best days are ahead of us and then turn around and say that the middle class used to be so much better and so much more wealthier. Yeah, and actually there is this bifurcation, but it's you've got a lot more people that are making more money. We have a larger wealthier population. Now anyway, all right, let's go back. I got to finish playing this thing. Just it's like medicine. I gotta take it. I gotta watch it. It's it's you know, it's news. All right. So here's the second half of Roy Cooper's announcement video. I never really wanted to go to Washington. Oh my gosh, you don't have to. You don't have to. Nobody's making you go to Washington. Oh. I Like I heard Nancy Mace, the quote of hers that's on the newscast when she's like, I'm for I'm going to be forced to run for governor. Like, no, no, no one's forcing you to run for governor. No one's forcing you to run for Senate. He's like, oh, I didn't want to go to Washington, Well, then don't don't go to Washington. Oh no, no, But it's a sacrifice I'm sure that he will make for us. I just wanted to serve the people of North Carolina, right here where I've lived all my life. I knew it that these are not ordinary times. Politicians in DC are running up our debt, ripping away our healthcare, disrespecting our veterans. If I'm cutting health for the poor and even putting Medicare and social Security at ah. There we got. You gotta throw in the good. They're coming for your social Security, they're coming for your medicare. Always got to throw that in there. I mean, he is a Democrat. This is just all boilerplate, bumper sticker stuff, you know. But he says it with a smile and that folksy accent, that slow, lilting droll, so you can trust him. His hair does look good, though, I will say that he's got good hair. Just to give tax breaks to billionaires. That's wrong. And I've had enough. Oh I've thought on it and prayed about it, and I've decided I want to serve as your next United States Senator because even now, I still believe our best days are ahead of us. I love North Carolina, and I know you do too. I need you to be with us, and I can't wait to see you out there. And then it just as Roy Cooper for North Carolina, Roy Coop paid for by Cooper for North Carolin. There you go, that's it. That's the end, all right, we made it. Oh my gosh, I just I feel like I'm going to be really annoyed this campaign season. Just I just feel like that I mentioned some polling. I got to pay this off because I mentioned it. The gender gap in the country is widening and is especially stark among the younger set. David Strom at hot air dot com as this linked up. As women have taken the lead in college attendance, pay and all sorts of measures of well being, they have grown to despise men more and more, and the male backlass just keeps growing. Democrats are the party that booted David Hogg out of his elected position because he was a heterosexual, white dude. And this is a Gallup poll that Strom is talking about, and it's this widening gap, this separation of the sexes more pronounced among the younger people. Gen Z women and gen Z men have the widest gap between them. Men moving right and also becoming happier by the way, women moving left and they become unhappier. Young women have rates of depression three times higher than young men. And then they are blaming men, which is such a woman thing to do. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Leftism is toxic for nearly everybody except the technocratic elite who are selling it to great profit. Yeah, most young men aren't buying what the Democrats are selling. And it doesn't matter if you've got facial hair or not when you're trying to sell us this stuff. Right, I know that they think this might be this might be the key. They're gonna say y'all a lot like this is the North Carolina Democrat Party chair Anderson Clayton's thing is like say y'all all the time costs a bunch. Make sure you use a bunch of bad words. Shows you're fighting, maybe get yourself arrested at like an ice event or something. And now facial hair sounds like the Democrats are are well strategized for the upcoming election. 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 thepetecleanershow dot com. Again. Thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.