Governor Cooper Discusses Iran War and NC Senate Race
3/20/202619 mincomplete
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1:24Donald Trump is panicking as Vladimir Putin just put him on blast and made a
1:29public ultimatum trying to call Donald Trump and Trump's regime out.
1:35Putin said that, yes, he is giving intelligence to Iran.
1:38But he said that he would stop giving intelligence to Iran to help Iran target
1:44American soldiers, kill Americans, and harm American interests so long as the United States cuts
1:52off support to Ukraine, Politico reports.
1:56Now, it's being reported that the U .S.
1:59at a military level is rejecting this proposal, although Donald Trump has not commented.
2:04But this has left many across the world incredibly nervous that this is a deal
2:09that Donald Trump is contemplating.
2:11Moscow proposed a quid pro quo, and you know Donald Trump loves quid pro quos
2:17to the U .S., although Donald Trump never makes good on his side of the
2:20quid pro quo, unless it's Vladimir Putin, under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence
2:25information with Iran, such as the precise coordinates of U .S.
2:29military assets in the Middle East if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intelligence about Russia.
2:37Two people familiar with the U .S.-Russian negotiations said that such a proposal was made
2:42by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his other envoy,
2:49Jared Kushner, during their meeting at the end of last week.
2:53It's being reported that the existence of this proposal has sparked major concern among European
2:59diplomats who worry Moscow is trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the United
3:04States at a critical moment for transatlantic relations, to which Donald Trump posted this morning
3:11the following. Again, while this war is raging out of control in the Middle East,
3:16Trump attacked NATO, right? So Putin makes this offer to Trump.
3:19Trump's response is to say the following.
3:21Without the U .S., NATO is a paper tiger.
3:24They didn't want to join the fight to stop a nuclear power.
3:27Iran. Now the fight is militarily won with very little danger for them.
3:32They complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don't want
3:36to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single
3:41reason for the high oil prices.
3:43So easy for them to do with so little risk.
3:48Cowards. And we will remember Donald J.
3:52Trump calling NATO and our European allies coward.
3:57And right now the markets are reacting horribly to Donald Trump's abhorrent and unlawful war
4:04against Iran. Investors are now betting that the overall U .S.
4:09inflation in the next 12 months will surge above 5%.
4:13We're now talking about likely interest rate hikes versus lowering interest rates as a result
4:20of this disastrous war and the inflation that it's going to cause.
4:24I don't think it will be surprising if the price per barrel of oil hits
4:29$200. Saudi Arabia is predicting it will be at least $180 per barrel.
4:35And Donald Trump continues to panic.
4:37As I reported earlier today, Donald Trump is sending more troops for a possible ground,
4:43to use Donald Trump's words, excursion.
4:45But other people would call it an invasion of Iran, specifically the Karg Island, which
4:51is in the northern Persian Gulf, right by the Strait of Hormuz.
4:55Donald Trump considering doing a blockade against the Strait of Hormuz.
4:59And this as all NATO allies and essentially every country that Donald Trump has reached
5:04out to, while Donald Trump has begged like a dog for help after Donald Trump
5:09went this war alone with him and Netanyahu, without telling anybody that they were going
5:14to invade Iran. Now Donald Trump is out there calling NATO cowards.
5:19By the way, do you remember just a few days ago, as Carl Quintanilla writes,
5:23when Witkoff told Quintanilla on CNBC that Vladimir Putin was not sharing any intel with
5:31Iran and that we had to, quote, take him at his word?
5:35Take me at my word, everybody.
5:37They're not doing it. The issue is this regime is led by total liars.
5:43Just a reminder, here is what Witkoff said last week, right at the same time
5:49that Russia told Witkoff, we are providing Iran with intelligence.
5:54By the way, why do you think Iran has been effective in being able to
5:58shoot these American Reaper drones and able to shoot these assets and these energy facilities?
6:04They're being helped by Russia.
6:05They're probably being helped by China as well.
6:07Here's what Witkoff says. Play this clip.
6:09I can tell you that yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said
6:14that they have not been sharing.
6:16That's that's what they said.
6:17So, you know, we can we can take them at their word, but they did
6:21say that. Now, here's what Senator Joni Ernst had to say this morning about the
6:26possibility of a ground invasion of American troops in Iran.
6:30Play this clip. Senator, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon is sending three
6:34warships and thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.
6:38Now, the president says he doesn't want boots on the ground in Iran.
6:41So what are these Marines doing there?
6:44Well, they provide a lot of leverage, Stuart.
6:48And I just love the president when he keeps the reporters on their toes.
6:53We shouldn't be telling people what we are going to do and when we are
6:57going to do it. But believe me, President Donald J.
7:00Trump has the best interests of the United States at heart, but he also loves
7:05our men and women. women in uniform, he will not engage them unnecessarily.
7:11I know that to be true.
7:13So this is why it's so important that we do have partner nations stepping up,
7:17whether it's to assist in the Strait of Hormuz or whether it's to help stabilize
7:21in the Middle East. But President Trump is very good about this.
7:25He's going to use what leverage he has, and we all will be so much
7:30better for it, Stuart. I'm going to change the subject.
7:33Now I want to bring in North Carolina's former governor, Governor Roy Cooper.
7:38Governor Cooper, great to see, obviously, a big Senate race in North Carolina.
7:43Everyone's saying it's the must -watch Senate race.
7:46You versus the former chair of the RNC, Michael Watley.
7:49I want to chat about that race, but I want to get your reaction, of
7:52course, to what's going on with this disastrous war in Iran, unauthorized.
7:58I mean, obviously, our troops are first -rate.
8:01They're going to do everything that our troops are going to do.
8:05The issue becomes, is there even a plan, any coordination with allies?
8:10And of course, now how this is impacting the people here at home.
8:13So I wanted to get your reaction to everything, Governor.
8:16Yeah, I am grateful for our troops who have stepped up courageously and have eliminated
8:22some of the leaders and damaged weapons of an evil and oppressive regime.
8:27And we mourn the loss of service members who've given their lives.
8:32But right now, we don't know which of the many reasons that have been given
8:37are true as to why we got into this war.
8:41And we certainly don't have an exit strategy.
8:45And now I see that $200 billion is being requested from Congress to fund this
8:54foreign war in the Middle East.
8:56That'll pay for a lot of affordable health care.
9:00We already know that families are struggling with costs.
9:03So many families having too much month at the end of the money, struggling with
9:08rent and utilities and health care and child care.
9:11And now comes gas prices, which have increased almost a dollar a gallon, just in
9:19the last three weeks. That's frustrating from the American people.
9:24We deserve answers here. And we're not getting them.
9:29Not only are we not getting answers, we're just seeing zero leadership at all.
9:36And people like Michael Watley, who you're running against in that Senate seat, and all
9:41of these kind of MAGA Republican senators, are just pretending this is normal.
9:46When Donald Trump says, you know what we're going to do?
9:49We're going to remove the sanctions against Russia.
9:52While, as I showed in the intro before we did this interview, while Putin is
9:57out there saying, if you remove certain sanctions against me, I'll stop providing intelligence to
10:06Iran in order to attack American troops.
10:09And then Donald Trump's out there pretending that that isn't even happening at all.
10:13We were floating the idea of removing sanctions against Iranian oil.
10:17It just seems like they're winging it, like someone who shows up for a high
10:22school project without preparing for it, except this is life and death, war and peace
10:27stuff. And he's out there, Trump and all these MAGA Republicans, just setting aside your
10:32political party. It looks like amateur hour of amateur hour right now.
10:37So my opponent, Michael Watley, in this race will be nothing but a rubber stamp
10:43for Donald Trump. He says what Donald Trump says.
10:47He does what Donald Trump wants him to do.
10:50So if Donald Trump is in this foreign war, even though he said that he
10:55wasn't going to enter such wars, then Michael Watley is going to be for it.
10:59He's also in North Carolina trying to convince the people here that prices are down
11:05and that we have defeated inflation and that our economy is great.
11:10And the people of North Carolina know that's not true.
11:15Michael Watley has been a partisan Republican Party leader for years.
11:22He has spent a lot of time in Washington.
11:25He is the consummate Washington, D .C.
11:28insider, having worked on the Hill for Republicans, became a big oil lobbyist, made a
11:35lot of money doing that.
11:37He was the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and recruited right -wing candidates
11:44like Mark Robinson, who ran against Governor Stein last night, the self -described, I mean,
11:50last year, the self -described black Nazi Mark Robinson said he was.
11:55This is the kind of candidate he is.
11:58And in fact, he is also an election denier.
12:01He still insists that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
12:05We do not need that kind of person representing North Carolina.
12:10And folks, this is going to be a close race.
12:13Even with what's happening right now in this country, it's hard to believe.
12:18But North Carolina hasn't elected a Democratic U .S.
12:24Senator since 2008. And that year, North Carolina voted for Barack Obama.
12:31Polling shows this race close.
12:33I'm going to need your help because this is the number one flip from red
12:37to blue U .S. Senate seat in the country.
12:39The way we deal with this administration is put the checks and balances back in
12:44that the framers of the Constitution intended.
12:48And helping us, you can go to RoyCooper .com and help us and learn a
12:51little bit about our campaign.
12:53Learn about our Make Stuff Cost Less tour, which I'm very excited about.
12:58But I know the frustration level is high out there.
13:00We just got to channel that frustration to win elections right now.
13:05And this is one we have to win.
13:07Look, if we were going to do this interview without this war taking place, we
13:15would have talked about how difficult the economic situation is for most Americans other than
13:21Donald Trump's Epstein class, you know, billionaire, you know, billionaire crew.
13:26We would talk about how the Trump regime has ripped away health care from so
13:31many people in North Carolina and across the country, how people are struggling to make
13:37rent if they're able to make it at all, how they are psychologically tortured, living
13:41paycheck to paycheck, how inflation was rising, how Donald Trump's tariffs against the world were
13:47an absolute disaster, and how after losing with the Supreme Court, he invoked another law
13:53unlawfully to make even worse tariffs after the Supreme Court said no.
13:57So that's what this would have.
13:58Now you add on top of it, the war.
14:01And I know we're talking a lot about, you know, the Strait of Hormuz, the
14:05oil being shut down there.
14:07But we should also be talking about fertilizers, helium, how that's impacting our farmers.
14:13Our farmers are saying they need at least another 12 to 20 billion dollar bailout
14:18again because of the fertilizer costs after Trump screwed them with his trade war against
14:24the world. So everything now that we would talk about feels like it's compounded.
14:29And again, your opponent, Watley and others are acting like this is like great.
14:34Like, I think Hegs had said, we should be saying thank you.
14:38Thank you. Yeah. Not only are people frustrated that this administration is not focusing on
14:45what it said it would, which from day one was to lower costs from people,
14:51and instead is focusing on a foreign war that we still don't know the reason
14:57why they got into it.
15:00But they're making, they're compounding the problems that people are facing because things cost too
15:07much. These tariffs, we know the damage that they've done.
15:11But now with the war, we don't even really know how bad the economic repercussions
15:19are going to be. We already see it at the gas pump.
15:23You're going to see it very soon because every business that has to transport something
15:29from one place to the next is going to have to pay a lot more.
15:32And it eventually is going to come down to the small businesses and the consumers.
15:37So we know that this is going to hurt people in the pocketbook when they're
15:42already struggling. And then putting our brave soldiers, their lives on the line here.
15:50Look, some good things have happened, but we don't have, it doesn't seem that we
15:57have a plan. And I think it's critically important that in Congress, we have senators
16:04and members of Congress who will stand up, take constitutional authority back, make true checks
16:12and balances in place. You know, the constitutional authority on trade and tariffs, Congress needs
16:18to grab that declaration of war, Congress needs to grab that budgetary issues, Congress needs
16:25to grab that to make the system work like it's supposed to work so we
16:30can actually help those everyday people who are so frustrated right now because Stephanie, who's
16:37a teacher I just talked to last week, can't make her ends meet at the
16:42grocery store. Meredith's worried about her child, Vivian, who has cerebral palsy and is covered
16:47by Medicaid. This one big, beautiful bill threatens that.
16:51Tim, who's a veteran, is having problems with the VA with the cuts that they
16:58have made there. John's a small business guy.
17:01He's seen his utility bills go up, both in his place of business and his
17:05home. It's so tough for people.
17:07This war is making it worse.
17:10And we need to elect people to the U .S.
17:13Congress, to the U .S.
17:15Senate, who are going to understand this and are going to work to take this
17:19authority back and really focus on helping those people.
17:23Governor Cooper, one more time, where can people learn more about the campaign and where
17:27can they reach out to you?
17:28You can go to RoyCooper .com.
17:31Remember, guys, this is going to be a tough race.
17:35There are going to be hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to come
17:37in here to North Carolina, a lot from outside groups directed by Donald Trump to
17:44try to defeat me. Trump has put my name a lot in his tweets lately.
17:51And we've got to make sure that we are ready to fight back because we
17:56can't have a path to taking back the Senate majority without taking back North Carolina.
18:01We're ready to do it, but I'm going to need your help.
18:04And people go to RoyCooper .com and help us out.
18:08Thank you very much, Governor Roy Cooper, running for that open Senate seat in North
18:13Carolina, running against the MAGA Republican extremist, Michael Watley.
18:18Thanks, Governor Cooper. Appreciate you.
18:20Thank you, Ben. Grateful. Everybody hit subscribe.
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