Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist, Dr. Carol Swain, to the studio.
During the second hour, Swain talked about her upcoming travel to Philadelphia where she will participate in door-knocking with the group Mighty American Strikeforce. She also continued to describe her experience in the 2016 door knocking in White affluent neighborhoods and some of the responses she got as a Black conservative advocating for Trump.
Leahy: We are joined in the studio now by our good friend, former Vanderbilt professor, former mayoral candidate here in Nashville, all-star panelist, Carol Swain. Good morning Carol.
Swain: Good morning. How are you?
Leahy: I am delighted to have you here. You know, we’ve missed you. You’ve been traveling. You were in last week, but you travel so much and you have so much to say to people who want to listen about the future of our country. And I guess you’ll be traveling tomorrow as well. Where are you going?
Swain: I’m going to Pittsburgh to knock on doors for the president. And in 2016 I went to Philadelphia the weekend before the election and I’m taking credit (Laughter) of Philadelphia. No, I’m just joking.
Leahy: Well look, so let’s talk a little bit about this. Five days to go. The polls are tightening. I don’t believe most of the polls for a number of reasons we’ve gone into ad nauseam. But we just finished. You know every day at 6:15 we play with our listeners, we play electoral college roulette and they get to pick who’s going to win which battleground state. The first day was Tuesday and we had Trump winning 274 to 264 in the electoral college.
You need to 270 to win. Today and yesterday it was 294 to 254. And one of our callers moved to Pennsylvania kept it in Trump’s column because he said that the reaction of people in Pennsylvania where oil and natural gas plays a big role, Joe Biden made a huge mistake in saying he was going to end oil. My question to him and I’ll pose this question to you. Will Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania this time be greater than the margin of voter fraud?
Swain: (Laughs) Trump is going to win Pennsylvania hands down. And they have lots of boots on the ground. And so I’m deploying with the Mighty American Strikeforce and Black Voices for Trump. They have boots on the ground. And so there are people including Karen Moore. And she has a group from Nashville. We are going to take Pennsylvania. We going to keep Trump in office. And eventually, we’ll take back our nation.
Leahy: So Karen Moore is putting together a group that’s going up to Pennsylvania to knock on doors?
Swain: They’re already there.
Leahy: I had a good friend of ours call who had participated with us back in 2012 when we had this project called Volunteers for Virginia where we went up to the Roanoke area.
Swain: That’s my stomping ground.
Leahy: I know. We went to your stomping grounds and on 10 consecutive weekends we took Nashvillians up to Roanoke and we knocked on doors for Mitt Romney. I was there in Roanoke on election evening. And I could tell you and then on election morning of 2012 and I knew Mitt Romney was going to lose.
Swain: Well Mitt didn’t even try to win.
Leahy: Did not try to win.
Swain: I love Donald Trump. And I love the fact that you know, he clearly is doing everything that you would do if you wanted to remain in office. And he’s out there among the people. He loves the people. And the American people need a president that cares about them. And the data that I am seeing is showing that President Trump has greatly increased his approval rating among Black people. And even though the approval rating is high all of them were not voting Republican this time. But I’m still saying, you know, 15 to 20 percent will. That’s enough to cause the Democrats to lose.
Leahy: Yeah, and now this effort that you’re taking to knock on doors in Pittsburgh, if our listeners and as I said one of our volunteers who was part of Volunteer for Virginia in 2012 wants to do the same thing this year. And if they want to go up to Pennsylvania and knock on doors if they’ve and they’ve got sometime what should they do?
Swain: Well, first of all, there are some other states that are in play. I’m going to Pittsburgh but there are other states where we could use you. They can email me at [email protected]. Or they can contact directly at the Mighty American Strikeforce. And I can give information or the Strikeforce can give information about the states where we need more boots on the ground. And there are some scholarships. Not a lot. We don’t have that much money. But if someone really wants to go I think there’s some assistance as far as hotels once they get there. But we really need resources. But we are able to help some people.
Leahy: So the Mighty American Strikeforce is knocking on doors. Is that right?
Swain: It is. They do that in every re-election. They’ve been doing it since George W. Bush was elected. It started in Texas and now it’s national.
Leahy: Well, so here’s the thing about that if you look at Tennessee, so I guess the option you’ve chosen to go to Pennsylvania. Why have you chosen Pennsylvania?
Swain: I was asked to go to Pennsylvania.
Leahy: Okay. Well, that’s a place where you could have a huge perhaps of all the states and in the most important right now.
Swain: Right. In 2016 when I was knocking on doors I was assigned a young Black man as my partner.
Leahy: Yeah, it’s mine because you go to people your partner’s right?
Swain: And we were in an affluent upper-class affluent White neighborhood.
Leahy: Oh really? And so the two Black people knock on the doors of the affluent White people and say what?
Swain: That we’re supporting Donald Trump and it was necessary because there were all these Republicans that want to say that Donald Trump was racist and he was bad for the country. And I think it mattered to have two Black people at their door supporting Trump.
Leahy: How did they respond?
Swain: Most people were very kind and receptive and they listened. There were some people that were friendly until they realize we were supporting Trump and so every now and then you accidentally knock on the door of a Democrat. But for the people that are going to deploy, we’re supposed to be knocking on doors of Republicans to get out the Republican vote.
Leahy: It’s to get out the vote and not to persuade a Democrat.
Swain: It’s not to persuade a Democrat. But every now and then you run into one.
Leahy: Yeah every now and then. So now I’m just curious in 2016 when you and this young Black man were knocking on doors in a White neighborhood affluent Whites neighborhood of Philadelphia. Did any of them if you knocked on the door of a Democrat did any of them use Joe Biden’s line looking at you saying, well, you’re obviously not Black if you’re not supporting the Democrat.
Swain: No but there was this woman that said I can’t handle this. I can’t do this. And she kind of slammed the door in our face.
Leahy: Slammed the door in your face. Now some might call that racist.
Swain: Well, if you don’t tell Black conservative, it’s not racist.
Leahy: It’s one of these rules, you know, if you if you’re a liberal White person and you slam the door in the face of a Black conservative, you’re not racist. Just like, you know, the coronavirus cannot be spread in rallies for Black Lives Matter and Antifa, right?
Swain: Well, I want to share with you that there’s a neighborhood that will remain nameless where I sometimes walk. And there was a man that was very very friendly until he recognized me as Carol Swain. And then he became very very hostile. And it was just, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. He was a retired educator.
Leahy: A purveyor of left-wing indoctrinations is what I call it.
Swain: There is hatred on the other side. I mean the danger like yeah, the danger that will come next week. And I’m expecting the president to win by a landslide. The political left never accepted the results of the last election. And so you can expect a massive meltdown.
Leahy: I might call it a temper tantrum.
Swain: Once President Trump is re-elected then he can start really putting them, you know laying down the law when it comes to conduct. And I think that the riots that have been taken by Philadelphia. I think that helps the president.
Leahy: I don’t see how you can come to any other conclusion. It’s a consequence of the failed Democratic policies on policing. Right?
Swain: I’m not sure about that. But I think that the Black community has gotten the wrong message. They seem to think that you cannot shoot a Black person regardless of what they’re doing. They can have a gun. They can have a knife.
Leahy: They can be committing a crime.
Swain: But you can’t shoot them.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
Who pays this woman’s bills? She does not work. She is a professional politico I guess. Sad