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 questioned why people were coming from outside of cities rioting and looting highlighting that these efforts appeared to be coordinated. He later discussed Kanye West’s chances of getting on the 2020 presidential ballot and how it would be a problem for Democrats.
(Mark Meadows clip plays)
We offered help. Help was denied. Obviously there were multiple gun shots and people lost their life. We made a repeated call then the next day. Sent in National Guard, FBI agents, and the US Marshall’s to restore peace in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And that’s what needs to happen in Portland.
Leahy: That’s the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows talking about the riots in Kenosha where a couple of people were killed in the gunfire. And the President had told the Democratic governor he wanted to send the National Guard in there. The governor said no. No, I don’t want you in here. Well, it didn’t turn out so well.
Carmichael: Well the governor himself could call out his own National Guard. Can he not?
Leahy: Yeah. And he didn’t.
Carmichael: He didn’t. Then Trump offered to send in additional help and the governor rejected that. The mayor of Kenosha also rejected.
Leahy: I don’t think so. I think the mayor wanted him to come in.
Carmichael: But the governor overruled the mayor.
Leahy: I haven’t seen the specific comments from the governor. But I’ll check that out and see. We’ve got this craziness going on here Crom.
Carmichael: The mayor of Portland said, he said, let the rioting burn itself out. That’s the quote. Burn itself out. From the mayor of Portland as long as its somebody else’s private property that’s being destroyed the mayor is perfectly OK with letting the mayhem go on. I noticed over the weekend that there were some people who opposed the protesters. Who opposed the looters who drove into Portland.
And I think Michael you said one person was shot in cold blood. I’ve not seen the video on what happened in Portland where the person and I think it was a Trump supporter. Do you have more details on what happened there? Because the only report I know is that a person was shot in Portland that had to do with the protests.
Leahy: Late Saturday night there is a video of his murder. And what it looks like is that there is a little bit of mayhem going on.
Carmichael: You mean shouting?
Leahy: Yes. And he’s walking across the street. A lot of people running around all over the place. And you see in the distance he’s wearing a dark shirt I guy that looks like a guy wearing a white shirt moving towards him. Then you see a flash and a puff of smoke. And the White guy falls and the Black guy runs away.
Carmichael: OK. The other guy?
Leahy: The other guy runs away. He appears to be Black.
Carmichael: It was night time so it’s hard to say.
Leahy: Hard to say.
Carmichael: But the flash looked like it came from a gun? And this was all caught on video.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: The video will be able to I assume identify.
Leahy: I think they will probably find out who it was. We’ll see. But obviously very bad news. And the mayor lets this violence go on in Portland. And the governor does too. By the way, I haven’t answered your question. I will stand corrected.
Carmichael: OK.
Leahy: Yesterday, NPR that bastion of fair and accurate reporting taxpayer-funded, not. Very left-wing. Headline. Kenosha Mayor Does Not Want President Trump To Visit ‘At This Point In Time.‘ President Trump will travel to Kenosha Wisconsin on Tuesday to survey the damage on last week’s protest in the police shooting of Jacob Blake. But, the city’s Democratic mayor, John Antaramian would rather he didn’t.
‘Realistically from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time. All Presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But I think it would have been better for him to have waited for a better time to come.’
Carmichael: Trump has announced he’s going.
Leahy: Yep.
Carmichael: And let’s assume that Trump is going and that’s tomorrow.
Leahy: Yes, tomorrow.
Carmichael: So when I’m on Wednesday we’ll see whether or not he went and we’ll know what happened as a result of his going. But I’m willing to say that the violence in Kenosha because my understanding of reading many reports is that much of the looters were not from Kenosha.
Leahy: A story at TheFederalist.com where an eye witness interviewed many people said that all of the rioters were from out of town. Here is Democratic mayor John Antaramian with his interview with NPR. He said the situation in Kenosha was ‘not the situation I think that people perceive. That the people in Kenosha are rioting.
They are protesting and have absolutely every right to protest. He said the city supports peaceful protests but not the damage and destruction. Peaceful protests are not a problem. Our biggest problem did come from people coming from outside the area causing a great deal of damage and destruction.
Carmichael: So the question is why? If people are coming from outside and the President of the United States offers help to quell the violence, it just is a very fair question to ask why neither the mayor nor the governor will accept help?
And in fact, the governor purposefully refused to send even the help that the governor himself could have sent. And I don’t get that. If Scott Walker was governor of Wisconsin they would not be having the problems in Wisconsin that they are having now.
Leahy: I would say if Scott Walker were governor of Wisconsin, and he may run again. He was in for two terms as governor. He was defeated narrowly by this Evers character in 2018 I guess it was.
Carmichael: So there is another election in 2022?
Leahy: I think yes. He was a very good governor I thought. But had he been governor this time around Sunday night he would have sent the National Guard into Kenosha.
Carmichael: And he would have asked for help.
Leahy: He would have asked for help.
Carmichael: He would have accepted help.
Leahy: Boom.
Carmichael: Because those cities where you have a strong police presence the rioters and the thugs and the looters, they stay away. And so this is not some uncontrollable emotional response. The protests are. The looting is highly calculated. And the people who do it believe that they can get away with it which is why they do it.
Leahy: I do have a little bit of bad news on this. Scott Walker has already declined to run in 2022 for Governor.
Carmichael: Well, that was quick. (Laughs) I’ll tell you Michael (Leahy chuckles) we are very quick in providing news on the news.
Leahy: He actually said that he would not run back in July.
Carmichael: OK. Do we know what Scott Walker is doing now?
Leahy: Takes a new job. Says he won’t run for office in 2022. I’ll tell you when I can get past the Google blocker here. (Laughs) I got to fill out a couple of stupid…Young America’s Foundation elected Walker to become president of the group in early 2021.
Carmichael: OK.
Leahy: So that’s a good job.
Carmichael: And it’s an important job. And he’ll do a good job.
Leahy: He’ll do a great job.
Carmichael: As we kind of look across the country Kanye West, his story is very interesting to me because he is going to end up on the ballot in a number of states.
Leahy: Probably in Tennessee. I would guess.
Carmichael: Sounds like it.
Leahy: Doesn’t matter in Tennessee because you know, Trump is going to win.
Carmichael: Trump is going to win.
Leahy: But battleground states, that matters.
Carmichael: And the people in Ohio and the election officials there are trying to use every opportunity that they can to keep Kanye off the ballot.
Leahy: But they are Republicans, but they are DeWine Republicans.
Carmichael: Not necessarily. I don’t know. We need to find out. We’ll have to Google this to find out and get the answer. The director of elections Amanda Grandjean informed the campaign that the application had been denied.
Leahy: The filing though is against the Republican secretary of state Frank LaRose. Ultimately he’s the one that made that decision.
Carmichael: They are claiming that some of the signatures, not of the people that signed but of the application itself whether are questioning whether or not that the right person signed their name correctly on the application.
Leahy: Sounds like they are really looking for a way to keep him off.
Carmichael: I think that Kanye’s interest in running is a negative probably for Democrats in any event.
Leahy: Absolutely.
Carmichael: If Kanye comes out for Trump I think that it helps him in a lot of the battleground states.
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. Â
