Political scientist Chris Cooper on Trump, Greenland and FEMA staffing pause
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Transcript
18 segmentsChris Cooper, who's also Robert Lee Madison, distinguished professor and director of the Hare Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Cooper, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Yeah, thanks for having me. Hopefully you survived the storm in Western North Carolina, okay. We did, we did. We live a little west of Asheville, and it turns out we were in this kind of pocket that we got some ice. Kids are off school today. Western's off school today, but everybody's safe. Well, speaking of ICE, one of the topics that we've seen so much in the news for the last, really, for most of this year, has been the renewed emphasis of the Trump administration on Greenland. How do you think this is playing politically across the country? The majority of people that I've heard say something about it don't seem to have much interest in the United States acquiring Greenland. Is it playing well, though, with the Trump base? I think to some degrees, the strongest space, but... That's a pretty small group of people really who think, yes, I think we should take over Greenland. There are some of those folks out there, maybe some of those folks are listening, and that's great. But I think public opinion poll, after poll, after poll, shows that this is a pretty unpopular position. And it's been interesting to watch Trump waffle on it a little bit even over the last few days, although just when I thought he was going to kind of give up the ghost on this one, then he posted a picture of him. walking with a penguin in Greenland, so you can't make this stuff up. Yeah, a lot of this renewed emphasis seemed to start when Stephen Miller's wife had posted that meme on Facebook a few weeks ago. It had sort of died down for a little while. We'd heard about it last year, but you never know what's going to pop up. Now, the one thing that seems to be consistent right now, though, is the... situation in Minnesota, the conflict between demonstrators and ICE there. And we heard North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis speaking out about that this weekend in terms of wanting an investigation. Yeah, that's exactly right. Thom Tillis has, you know, once he announced his retirement, he has been... Certainly speaking with more of an open mind and a free mind, one where he appears to be more willing to take issue with President Trump's statements. Not that he wasn't before, I think to some degree he's always been a little bit, a little bit more likely to speak out, definitely more of a kind of a pragmatist, hey, what's policy we can actually pass as opposed to ways to rattle folks' chains. But since the announcement of the retirement, particularly on this issue, He's been pretty outspoken. We also saw Bill Cassidy from Louisiana be pretty outspoken, but Bill Cassidy also somebody who may not be in office again. So it appears that the Republicans who aren't going to be running again aren't going to be in office again. Those are the ones who are most willing to take issue with President Trump's policies.
I think kind of standard fair in some ways. If you're not running for re-election, it does give you a sense of freedom, I guess. But, you know, Dr. Cooper at the same time, Thom Tillis, probably because of some of these statements, has, I would think, a higher national profile now than he had before. Yeah, I think that is absolutely true. His national stock is rising, and it's going to be really interesting to see what he does with this newfound capital. I think he has... Kurtz on the capital with the MAGA base of the party, but certainly increased his profile with the average voter in Portland, Oregon right now, or in Salt Lake City, Utah. You know, it's interesting, the changing nature of politics these days with the primaries being so important that often your strongest general election candidates can't make it through primaries. Yeah, that's exactly right. We have this real... issuing American politics were primaries of the things that mattered. Let's look at the state of North Carolina. We had one congressional general election that was supposed to be a toss-up, one that was supposed to be tight. That was the first congressional district. The only toss-up district in the whole southeast. And guess what? That one was redrawn. We no longer have any race in our entire state, out of 14 congressional districts that is considered to be a toss-up according to Cook Political Report anyway. And so what that means is the primary is the thing that matters. If you go back to that first district now that it's been redrawn, it is possible. Obviously, Don Davis can hold on as the Democrat, but I think the more likely outcome is whichever Republican gets out of that primary, that's who's going to be the next member of Congress from the first. And speaking of elections tomorrow, the Court of Appeals will be hearing arguments in that Steinbe Hall case. And that's the one where the governor's power to appoint the State Board of Elections all got handed over to state auditor Dave Bolick. The situation there with the Court of Appeals, that comes after a split decision, one from a lower court, and then the Court of Appeals overruling the lower court in that case. Yes, exactly right. And this is definitely one for folks to watch, right? So what happened was for going on 100 years, the party of the governor got the most seats on the majority of the seats on all 100 county boards of elections plus the state board of elections. And so there was the legislation that came out last year that was attached to some Hurricane Helene funding that gave that power to the state auditor, the only state in the country that's the case. Dave Bullock, you know, whether you like or don't like his policies, is definitely the most powerful auditor in this history of North Carolina. And this decision, if it were to go against him, I think if it were to go against a Republican, if it were to go against Hall in this case, would fundamentally change that. It would make the auditor the position it has been in the past. maybe change who has majority control in the short run over the boards of elections, which would have huge implications. So this is definitely a big case for North Carolina. Dr. Cooper, while we have you with us, we want to salute you for your book last year. It is an excellent one on North Carolina politics. Where can we acquire anatomy of a purple state?
Thanks so much. I think wherever books are sold. So if you're into the local independent bookstore, give them a shout. If not, if you ought to go to the big guy, you can certainly buy it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Walmart.com or any of those places. And if I were recommending books on North Carolina politics, the two I would recommend right at the top of the list are anatomy of a purple state and Rob Christensen's Paradox of Tar Heel Politics. And hopefully a few people have gotten ordered the books for that reason, too. I appreciate that. That's an impressive company to be able to rock. So I thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Chris Cooper. Hope to talk to you again real soon, Professor Political Science at Western Carolina University.