Transcript of Roy Cooper Has Bad News for Trump in North Carolina

Donald Trump is collapsing in North Carolina, his approval hitting all-time lows there. This as his handpicked stooge to run for the United States Senate seat there, MAGA Republican Michael Whatley, is literally running away from questions about affordability and how he intends to make things better for the people of North Carolina after Donald Trump's lies have screwed up the people's lives in North Carolina so badly. The latest Economist YouGov poll has Donald Trump's approval at net negative 25 points in North Carolina. Let me repeat that. Trump is underwater so badly in North Carolina. It's net negative 25 right now. So Michael Whatley, former chair of the RNC, Donald Trump's handpicked stooge to run in North Carolina after Donald Trump forced out Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina. Watch as Whatley runs away from his press conference as the media tries to ask him a very basic question about the economy in North Carolina. He does not want want to talk about the economy in North Carolina. Here, play this clip. Any questions about the economy? What do you plan to do to make North Carolina more affordable? He wouldn't take questions on that during an event today, even though we sent the Watley camp questions more than 24 hours ago.

Well, no wonder when you take a look at the latest polling from Elon University over there. They do really good polls in North Carolina. Amongst likely voters, Roy Cooper, uh, the former governor of North Carolina, the Democratic candidate running for that Senate seat, is up 53% to 42%. Amongst registered voters, Cooper's lead is even bigger. Governor Cooper up 51% to Watley's 36% right there. Now, JD Vance took a visit recently to North Carolina, and despite the fact that inflation is surging, that gas prices are at an all-time high in United States history on a nationwide average basis, at this time in August, despite the fact that people can't afford homes, they're having healthcare ripped away. As people know, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which is a disastrous bill, screwed up people's lives so badly. As the cost of living has become even more of a major issue by far under this despicable Trump regime, you had JD Vance in his recent visit say, don't worry, we're doing our best and things are so good and we've delivered actually. Mission accomplished. The cost of living has been fixed. And people of North Carolina are like, huh, the hell are you talking?

The hell are you weirdos talking about? Here, play this clip. My friends, the president is impatient. He's the most impatient person I have ever met. In fact, he constantly is pressing on the gas. He wants us to do more. But I stand here proud to say that after the first year of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans' leadership, We are rebuilding the American dream and we're taking back this country for the people of this state. And it may be perhaps a warning sign was when Donald Trump was campaigning in North Carolina in 2024. And he was saying that Mark Robinson— saying Mark Robinson is scandal-plagued would be a compliment to Mark Robinson. But remember, Donald Trump would say, and Mark Robinson is my guy. He's Martin Luther King on steroids. Yes, probably, probably was a red flag. There's probably other red flags too. Like, I don't know, him being a felon, like him being a sexual predator, like being found civilly liable for sexual assault and bankrupting business. But all right, how about this one? This is what he was saying in 2024. Play this clip.

I heard him. And by the way, his wife is much, much more lovely than he is. I can tell you that. And she's my friend. Thank you, darling, for being here. But, you know, I heard him coming in on the plane. I was listening and I said to the people on the plane, watch this. This is Martin Luther King on steroids. Okay, now I told that, I told that, I told that to Mark. I said, I think you're better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times 2. And he looked at me and I wasn't sure, was he angry because that's a terrible thing to say, or was he complimented? I have never figured it out. But I'm telling you, he's one of— right when I said that to you, you looked like, I don't know if I like that.

Also, Donald Trump's approval just absolutely sinking amongst independents. Uh, the— that Elon University poll shows 64% of independents disapprove of Donald Trump, and that number continues to grow and grow. And I mean, if you look at the type of stuff that Donald Trump's doing as well, I mean, what was in the past 2 weeks? Rather than help the people of North Carolina or help people in the United States, he and the Treasury Department devised a scheme to bail out the Japanese yen and give billions of dollars to bail out the Japanese yen because the Trump regime was terrified that in Japan, uh, they were going to sell treasury bonds and further hurt our treasury yields here. The 30-year being at 5, getting close to 5.3%, which is absolutely wreaking havoc on our country. So it was like, let's bail out the Japanese yen. And the American people like, huh? And by the way, the Trump regime can't even execute anything competently. The bailout didn't work. We can see right here, the Japanese yen has already weakened again. Again after the bailout. And so now the Japanese, uh, central bank is going to do what we thought they were going to do.

They'll probably have to sell treasuries, and it'll further screw up our, uh, bonds situation here because they're the biggest bondholder right now of American Treasury— of American treasuries. At the same time, you have Donald Trump announcing that he is imposing personal sanctions against Judge Akane Tomoko, the president of the International Criminal Court, that the Treasury Department is personally sanctioning the head of the International Criminal Court. Like, that's what the Trump regime is. How about you just help Americans get healthcare and help American people afford things and focus on helping people get homes and get paid with dignity? Like, what the hell are you doing, man? Not to mention the never-ending catastrophic war in Iran. Absolutely horrific. Now I want to bring in former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. Governor Cooper, great to see you. Governor Cooper running for the open Senate seat in North Carolina. Wanna talk about a few things. Wanna start off though just by talking about some of the latest polling we're seeing in the state with Donald Trump, not just, you know, we see very low approvals, but when you look, he's just getting crushed amongst independents and he's been losing a massive part of his base as well.

You've been traveling the state, Governor, as part of this Senate race. You know the state better than just about anybody. You know, there, given your background, are you seeing something that's actually different this time? Are you noticing things right now, even maybe more so than when you and I spoke a few months back?

Well, when the president and his administration promised that cost of living will be the day one focus, people are saying, hey, they haven't done anything. And in fact, they've made it worse. So I think that's a reflection of why the numbers are so bad, is that people are feeling it themselves. Their families are having to pay more utility costs and housing costs than rising groceries, grocery prices. And this war in Iran, we weren't going to get into any foreign wars, and this, this war has no strategy. Alex, who is a military spouse, I talked with her on the base. They're all concerned about spouses who have been deployed overseas, and I am deeply grateful to the men and women in uniform who step up to defend this country, but also the costs of this war, not only in lives, but in the cost of gas and groceries and utilities that people are facing just simply because this war has been going on so much longer than was promised. That frustration is building up. They recognize that Washington is broken. Ben, it's hardly a political event that I have been to, uh, this entire campaign where someone hasn't come up to me and said, this is the first political event I've ever been to in my life.

And these are Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated people who come to my events understanding that we've got a lot to do to make a better country for our children and grandchildren. And, and they're there because they want to make a difference. They, they're there because they believe that, uh, that we should have the checks and balances that the framers of the Constitution intended. And they want a focus on the cost of living and the fact that paychecks aren't keeping up with inflation. They want leaders who will get us out of this foreign war, and they want people in, in power who will pay attention to them and not the billionaires and corporations that we're seeing time and time and time again from this administration. And I think all of the corruption that is occurring throughout Washington, D.C. Then they were going to drain the swamp. It's deeper than ever, and, and people are frustrated with that as well.

Yeah, you mentioned when it comes to Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war in Iran, this never-ending war, no strategy. And I think you can kind of define this entire Trump administration, and I call the Trump regime, as no strategy with anything other than how can Donald Trump And perhaps Kushner and Whitkopf and a small cadre of people enrich themselves, but there's no strategy of, okay, if we do tariffs against the world, are they going to respond with retaliation? And then when you see retaliation, then the United States is like, oh, we're mad that you— how dare you retaliate? It's like, well, what do you think, everybody's just going to be okay? And then similarly, with what we see in this, you know, catastrophic war in Iran. It's the fake deal where Trump has this— whether it's delusional, whether it's just that he lies about everything, probably both. You know, he just lies. Okay, we did a deal. And people like, no, we didn't. We didn't do it. Stop freaking lying and saying that. The same thing, 90 deals in 90 days. Tariffs are making us rich. And I think the people showing up to your events, even though they're going to technically a political rally, I think what they like about you is that this is just life.

This is life stuff. And they see a guy in Trump in the Oval Office taking their money and lying, and they don't like it. And they want people who are going to fight against it.

I think, I think that's right. And one thing they know is that my opponent, Michael Whatley, will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say, regardless of whether it's good for the people of North Carolina. The president still has a lot of supporters in our state, but I think that they are at the end of the day going to want an independent senator who is not afraid to stand up to him. And this is one of the reasons why we are in the place we are, is that the Republican leadership in the legislative body hasn't stood up. And we know that a lot of money is going to come into this state to try and defeat me because they want to hold this seat. Uh, this has been a Republican seat for a long time, and we haven't elected a Democrat since 2008. And yeah, we're a little bit ahead in the polls right now, but already almost $100 million in ads have already been bought and placed against me by these outside Republican groups. We expect a lot more. We expect a lot from Donald Trump's PAC, So we need people to help us, and people can go to roycooper.com and not only help us with financial contributions, but they can sign up, uh, to help us do so many things to help get out the vote.

Because I do believe that turnout here is going to be a big issue, and if we turn out, we can put some checks and balances on this administration, not only refocus on cost of living and healthcare and all of the things that are affecting families, but we can take those first steps in making sure that we shore up our democracy, which is desperately needed right now.

You're running against a MAGA extremist puppet of Donald Trump, Michael Whatley. He ran the RNC before. If you take the politics out of it, though, I saw a recent ad in, uh, this political period right now about Michael Whatley that I didn't know, and that he hired this guy Harvey West. Convicted sexual predator. And I saw in the ad you had a former Supreme Court justice in North Carolina, former top sheriff in North Carolina, and others just saying, like, just look at that judge. But talk to us— for people in North Carolina, they probably know the story in North Carolina a little bit better, but for people outside, what's going on there? Who, who did he hire? And, and obviously this is a, a major deal. By the way, just— I read another story today, like a DeSantis type D2, you know, was, you know, brought on a guy who was also doing underage child sex, raping underage kids. And I'm just like, what the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? What's going on in this world?

What Michael Watley claims to be tough on crime, and in fact he is attacking me on that issue when in fact I'm the only one in this race who's actually prosecuted violent criminals and work to keep them behind bars. When Michael Whatley was chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, he appointed a guy named Harvey Lee West, who, uh, was convicted of molesting children, was convicted and served 6 years in prison, was on the sex offender registry Yet, as the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley appointed him to an important position because the guy could raise money. He held fundraisers. And a lot of Republicans at the time didn't like it. And in fact, challenged him on it, saying, hey, we can't have this in our party. Finally, this past June, This issue has come to light publicly. The Republican Party has always been wrestling with this thing since Michael Whiteley did it, but it's finally come to light, and the Republican Party finally passed a resolution preventing someone like Harvey Lee West from being appointed to a position of power within the Republican Party. So that's the kind of thing that we're dealing with here— people who pretend to be tough on crime, yet when it comes to politics politics.

They want to protect people who are child predators. This is the same guy who, who hasn't demanded that Trump, uh, fully disclose the Epstein files. Uh, this is a guy who has other situations where he's been in Word of Faith Fellowship, a church that has been accused of having people who have abused children He's been with them quite a bit. This is the kind of, kind of person who is saying one thing and doing another, and I think at the end of the day, people aren't going to want that.

Governor, before we go, what's your final message to the people in North Carolina about why they should elect you? As you've been touring the states and he's touring the state and you've been hearing what the people are experiencing, what's your message to them? And we've got a broader base, of course, throughout the United States, and we have a big international audience as well that's looking at our country and saying, what's going on? What's going on, guys? What's happening over there? They said— they say a lot more than that.

We'll just—

we'll leave it at that for this one. But what's your final message to people watching?

Yeah, there's too many people like Stephanie, who's a teacher in Wake County, who's had to change the way she buys groceries because grocery prices have gone through the roof, mainly affected by these tariffs. There's too many people like Meredith whose kid is on Medicaid. She has cerebral palsy and she's scared to death that these attacks on healthcare from Washington are going to take Vivian's healthcare away. There are too many farmers like Pender who are having to deal not only with these tariffs that are driving up the cost of his fertilizer and equipment, but this war in Iran that's driving up fuel prices and taking away his profits. People like Mike in Charlotte who is talking about he and his spouse, maybe one of them having to quit because childcare is so high. And I have a plan for a childcare tax independent credit, while Donald Trump has said that we can't afford to fund childcare. Michael Whatley is going to do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say, regardless of whether it's good for North Carolina. I'm going to be a strong, independent senator fighting for these people whom this administration has left behind.

I'm going to need your vote. Go to RoyCooper.com to help us. This race is going to get very close at the end. It always does in North Carolina, and a few votes can matter. And it matters because we need a course correction for this country, and we all need to look within ourselves as to what we can do to make sure we leave a better country to our children and grandchildren and future generations. This election matters a lot in whether we're going to do that or not.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. We've got to restore sanity, accountability, democracy. and a politics that focuses on the people, we the people, not one Mar-a-Lago bloated buffoon who's out there really harming our country every day and hiding in, uh, cafeteria containers and whatever the hell that is going on. Governor, thank you, we appreciate you.

Thanks, Ben, appreciate being on your show.

Everybody hit subscribe, let's get to 7 million subscribers. Before you go, our book WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.