Staff Reports
Breitbart published an exclusive audio clip this week that puts Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper on the hot seat. In the recording, Cooper is heard telling supporters that “criminals need ‘health care, not handcuffs.’” If true — and the clip needs to be publicly verified — that line should alarm any voter who puts public safety ahead of political virtue signaling.
Audio blows the lid off Cooper’s soft-on-crime messaging
The quote comes from an event Breitbart says it recorded. The wording echoes Cooper’s past public comments while promoting Medicaid expansion and behavioral-health funding, where he framed addiction and mental illness as health problems rather than strictly criminal issues. Fine — treatment matters. But saying criminals should get “health care, not handcuffs” inside a campaign rally reads to many like a shrug toward victims and a lecture to law-abiding citizens. Voters want safety and accountability, not slogans that sound like a policy memo from the left’s happy hour.
Record matters: prison releases, task force recommendations, and the political fallout
Cooper’s opponents have been hammering him over a 2021 COVID-era settlement and related early-release actions that critics say led to thousands being transitioned out of custody. Numbers floated by opponents range roughly from 3,500 to 4,200; those figures and any direct link to specific violent crimes are disputed and have been the subject of fact-checks. Cooper also created a Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice that recommended “reimagining public safety” and alternatives to arrest. Supporters call it reform. Critics call it soft-on-crime. Either way, it’s central to the case Republicans are making against him in the North Carolina Senate race.
What Republicans will do with the clip
Republican Michael Whatley and allied groups will use this audio like a flashlight in a dark room — highlighting what they say is Cooper’s pattern of prioritizing offenders over victims. Major law-enforcement groups in the state have already endorsed Whatley, and the clip will be used to widen the gap between Cooper’s friendly-sounding reform talk and the real-world consequences some voters fear. That’s politics 101: when your opponent’s private words confirm your ads, run the ads and make him explain himself on camera.
Bottom line: this audio demands answers. Breitbart has published the clip and quote; Cooper’s campaign should make the full recording available and explain exactly what he meant. Voters deserve clarity on whether the Democrat running for the U.S. Senate thinks handcuffs are obsolete. If public safety is your priority, you’ll want to hear that answer loud and clear — no campaign-stage softball, no PR spin, just accountability.
