Live from Music Row Monday 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 the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
During the third hour, Carmichael weighed in on the media, re-opening schools in the fall and the chaos in Portland, Oregon.
(Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany clip plays)
Leahy: That’s Kayleigh McEnany doing a pretty good job as Press Secretary I think Crom. She’s kind of turning it around on the mainstream media which hates Donald Trump.
Carmichael: Yes. She’s very good. She’s done a very very tough job because if all you do is stand up there and let those folks ask questions and you don’t push back at all…
Leahy: They’ll trample you.
Carmichael: You’ll just end up getting pummeled because there is nothing friendly about that audience. There may be one or two in the audience because of the social distancing you are in there like every third day or something like that. I saw one thing that was kind of interesting when Kayleigh McEnany was interviewed on Fox. I don’t remember who interviewed her maybe Laura Ingraham. She made the comment that Jim Acosta off camera is a very nice guy.
Leahy: Really?
Carmichael: Yes. And then she said that Jonathan Karl is a very nice guy off camera. She named two or three of these people.
Leahy: Interesting.
Carmichael: Here’s what’s interesting. On camera, they are all nasty.
Leahy: I wonder why that is Crom?
Carmichael: They are told to be. This is what is so interesting to me. Kayleigh McEnany asking the question, why does nobody ask me these questions? The answer is that they are told what questions to ask and the ones she wants are not one of them.
Leahy: They can’t keep their job and ask a reasonable question.
Carmichael: That’s right. If they ask questions that Trump can use, to tell the truth about his side of it instead of having a straw man question asked they will lose their job. It’s kind of like Don Lemon. Don Lemon in 2013 he gave a list of things that Black people needed to do to be successful.
Leahy: He could not say that again or he would get fired if he did.
Carmichael: But not only can he not say that he says the opposite. So which Don Lemon is the real Don Lemon? (Leahy laughs) And the answer is both.
Leahy: Yes because he says what will get him paid.
Carmichael: Money. All about the money.
Leahy: Money talks and the walk walks.
Carmichael: Yes. Now here is what is interesting along the lines we were talking about before. In California, there are many private schools in California. There are many government-run schools in California and charter schools in California. So you have a mix of all of them. The governor does not even want the private schools to be able to open this fall.
Leahy: The reason is that he doesn’t want any competition.
Carmichael: I’m saying that the teachers’ unions have told Newsom it will embarrass us if the private schools open and those children get to go back to school. And they are even attacking the Catholic schools. All across the board what you are looking at here is it’s as if the Black Lives Matter and the Democratic party have made the decision that we want to be sure that Black children get a lousy education.
Leahy: There’s no question about it.
Carmichael: Or no education.
Leahy: Here’s the rationale. This is clearly a political play. They think that they are gaining the upper hand against President Trump who wants to open schools up. Because that’s the right choice for kids. It’s going to stunt their development dramatically.
All of the evidence shows that kids are really not at risk from this. I saw a study from the Pasteur Institute in France confirming that. But what they want to do is they want to shut everything down. Blame Donald Trump for it. And use that to usher in a Biden administration.
Carmichael: It’s going to be interesting to see. It’s kind of like these Democrat-controlled cities with all the violence and how it still continues now. In Portland, they’ve had 50 consecutive nights of it. 50! It’s going to be interesting to see how the citizens of Portland, what do they think is the reason? By the way, if the citizens of Portland think that violence is a function of the whiteness of the citizens of Portland, Portland’s doomed.
Leahy: Right.
Carmichael: If that’s what their conclusion is rather than these are violent thugs taking advantage of a situation and that the authorities need to take proper precautions to protect the law-abiding people.
Leahy: It’s very clear that the Democratic mayor of Portland has absolutely no common sense. That’s very clear.
Carmichael: Well, he may have common sense. He may actually know that the people of Portland are suffering the Stockholm Syndrome. He very well may. (Leahy chuckles) Because Trump did send in some federal troops.
Here you have 50 consecutive nights of violence and property damage. 50! Trump sends in the federal troops and they go around in unmarked cars and jump out and arrest people. And the people who are being arrested go what! They aren’t supposed to do that!
Leahy: I’m supposed to be able to break windows and burn down buildings just because I oppose Donald Trump.
Carmichael: Right. So the mayor was outraged that the federal troops were there to protect private property.
Leahy: Yeah, terrible things.
Carmichael: If the people of Portland side with the mayor why would anybody want to own private property in downtown Portland.
Leahy: Nobody would want to. Here’s what is going on in Oregon. Did you see this? The counties in Eastern Oregon want to leave the state and join Idaho because the people in Idaho are not crazy.
Carmichael: Now that’s interesting.
Leahy: Yes isn’t it?
Carmichael: Do they have anything in the Oregon Constitution or the formation of Oregon as a state that gives them the right to do that?
Leahy: I think there is a right but the process is very lengthy. The people that oppose it have typically and when this has come up in California and other states they’ve been able to thwart it.
Carmichael: Let me suggest a better idea.
Leahy: I’m listening.
Carmichael: The better idea is for the people of the Eastern part of Oregon to vote to form a separate state. That way they have two senators and at least one member of Congress. Because if Washington, D.C. should become a state as tiny as it is then many states could be a state. Cookeville should be a state. Jackson should be another state.
Leahy: We should take Tennessee and break it up into five states right?
Carmichael: And make Nashville and Memphis and one state combined.
Leahy: There you go. (Laughter)
Carmichael: By the way, this is how the left now sees things. They are going to want to pack the court by increasing the number of justices. Now here’s a question for you, but I don’t think there is an answer. Let’s just assume the Democrats take control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency.
Leahy: Let’s assume. Worst case scenario.
Carmichael: And they decide to increase the number of justices by five. And then in 2024 after the Democrats had just dam near destroyed the country the Republicans take back control. Could Congress pass a bill signed by the President that reduces it to nine and says the last five members are off the court?
Leahy: I don’t see why not. I don’t see why not because of the way the constitution is set up that’s the number of members is determined by Congress.
Carmichael: In fact what would really be interesting is if we know we want 7. We want seven. (Leahy chuckles) Here are the seven that will leave. So if there are seven liberals on the court and they want them to be gone and they reduce them to seven. That just shows you how political this is.
You see the old stories in school how the little kid is bullied and punches the bully in the nose and then all of sudden the bully stops bullying the person. I don’t know if that’s true all the time but it happens in movies a lot. Like in the Equalizer with Denzel Washington stands up, the Equalizer wins. So you wonder, at what point do Republicans start playing the same tactics.
Leahy: Democrats as bullies. Yep, that’s 100 years of American history. (Laughs)
Carmichael: Condensed into 10 seconds.
Listen to the full third 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. Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the media, re-opening schools in the fall, and the chaos in Portland, Oregon.
