Live from Music Row Tuesday 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 and Tennessee state Senator Kerry Roberts to the studio.
During the second hour, Leahy and Roberts discussed Saturday’s rally where Mayor Cooper sat and listened to local left-wing social justice warrior Justin Jones advocate for overcoming oppressors and de-funding the police department. They noted that it was at that point Cooper should have left the rally but instead stayed and was followed by violence in downtown Nashville.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by our very good friend state Senator Kerry Roberts. Good morning Kerry.
Roberts: Good morning.
Leahy: Well?
Roberts: Well?
Leahy: Well. What a week it’s been since you were last here.
Roberts: Yes. And pretty unbelievable. I was listening earlier talking about this thing in Nashville with Mayor Cooper attending. What we’re you thinking Mayor?
Leahy: I mean really. (Laughs)
Roberts: All you had to do was take a look at the list of organizations that were sponsoring the thing and if you had followed any of them or read any of their ideology, do you really want to be in the audience when a Justin Jones starts having conversations about disbanding the police force?
Leahy: Apparently he did!
Roberts: Well of course he did. If you are paying attention that’s what he does you know? He’s receiving a high-quality education at Vanderbilt University in theology and of course, that’s what they teach people at Vanderbilt University in theology. The only way to have a successful and orderly society is to get rid of the oppressor? How did he say it? You overthrow the oppressor. And are you willing to de-fund the police apartment?
Leahy: By the way, this is Justin Jones who is kind of a caricature. He’s just a dopey kid who’s looking for press. He’s not the brightest bulb but he’s pretending to be Martin Luther King Jr. with a violent element to it right?
Roberts: And he has the media on his side. Let’s not forget.
Leahy: Oh goodness gracious. The way the media reports this guy in town.
Roberts: He walks on water.
Leahy: It’s ridiculous. But you are quite right. The Tennessee Star is the only media outlet in Tennessee that is accurately reporting the facts of what’s going on here. The rest of them are kind of whitewashing it.
Roberts: When you hear that kind of rhetoric and if you are the mayor of a major metropolitan area, that’s when you get up and you leave.
Leahy: But he didn’t! He was there yeah nodding his head. The exact language from this left-wing kid Justin Jones. He said you don’t just vote out your oppressor. You overthrow them. So the mayor is sitting in the audience right there and this kid is saying you overthrow them.
Roberts: And he’s asking, will you de-fund the police department? Disband or de-fund the police department?
Leahy: Now the mayor had also invited every member of the city council to attend this rally. It was entirely predictable that there would be a contention of people there who were violent thugs that would then go out and wreak havoc on downtown Nashville.
Roberts: Right. Right. Right.
Leahy: I mean how could you not see that? (Chuckles)
Roberts: Here’s the funny part about it. In a pre-mask era, Mayor Cooper would be standing there with a fake smile on his face but at least he got to grit his teeth (Chuckles) because he had his mask covering his facial expressions. I’m just sitting here thinking, why would you be there? Then you set yourself up. This is the textbook definition of pandering. This is pandering to the greatest extent.
Leahy: And weakness. Weakness. Manny Sethi called him cowardly. That wouldn’t be the word that I would use. I would say that he was just being weak. He’s being like Neville Chamberlain and misreading there. Manny Sethi called him cowardly and it’s one of our top stories.
Roberts: I don’t have a problem with that. (Leahy laughs) What he said was, cowardly Democrat mayors like John Cooper. He kind of lumped them all into that category.
Leahy: Bill DeBlasio yesterday said, “Oh now it’s all nice and peaceful.” And an hour later they were looting Macy’s in downtown Manhattan.
Roberts: And what bothers me about this media coverage is they are not differentiating protesters and thugs. I mean people who want to protest, more power to you. And if I believe your cause I’ll be right there with you. But the moment it turns violent they are thugs, not protesters.
Leahy: They planned that to be violent.
Roberts: They are no longer protesting George Floyd.
Leahy: They are rioters.
Roberts: Yes, they are rioters. What bothers me is when you look at the media coverage of this, I had my TV on last night for five minutes, and then I turned it off. I don’t normally have it on at night and it was a mistake. But I wanted to see how stuff at the capitol worked out last night. And it’s the same thing. Rioters are not protesting George Floyd.
Leahy: They are rioting.
Roberts: They are absolutely rioting. It’s just ridiculous the whole thing.
Leahy: I think you are exactly right. I look at the way the mainstream media or the Manchurian media reports it around the country and its all, oh, these peaceful protesters. They are rioters folks. I don’t know if you saw this in Las Vegas. Did you see about the Las Vegas story?
Roberts: No.
Leahy: A protester literally shot a police officer in the head.
Roberts: Amazing.
Leahy: Came up from behind and shot him in the head. He’s now on life support. If you get shot in the head…
Roberts: Multiple police officers across the country have been injured in these protests in a variety of ways. There have been multiple shootings.
Leahy: So this is all about justice for George Floyd right?
Roberts: It’s anarchy. No.
Leahy: It’s anarchy. Now the other part of this is, so who do we have kind of promoting these false narratives? All of the mainstream media except maybe FOX and even they are a little suspect in some of their reporting. At least some of the way, like Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace is just terrible. A very much kind of an Antifa leaning kind of guy in his reporting at least from what I’ve seen. Yes. Chris Wallace. That guy.
Roberts: Honestly, I don’t have cable. And I barely get the Nashville stations. I’ve sworn off the TV. I can’t tell you that it’s that I’m even worse off for it.
Leahy: The Nashville stations here, I’m talking WKRN, WSMV, and News Channel 5. Their reporting on this, none of them have reported that Mayor Cooper before the rally on Saturday that then became immediately violent after it invited all 40 metro council members to attend. None of them has reported that Steve Glover said, “I’m not going, this is a bad idea.”
Sharon Hurt council member, mayor real bad idea. Don’t do it. It’s not going to end up well. Carol Swain who is the former mayoral candidate had told Mayor Cooper before it, don’t do it. You are doing the wrong thing. What you should do mayor is hold a press conference with the police chief and get the national guard in there and say we are not going to tolerate violence. You will be handled with overwhelming force. Cooper didn’t do that. And guess what? Nashville burned.
Roberts: They also didn’t report some of the crazy things that were said at the protest. That bothers me too. When you start reporting some of the, I’m going to call them the outlier speakers, the ones with crazy ideology, then you start losing a lot of people real quick. But as long as it’s about George Floyd, oppression and racial oppression and things like that, people are very sympathetic. But as soon as you start reporting some of the crazy stuff they said, whoa. These are the conspiracy theorists.
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.
Photo “John Cooper” by John Cooper.
