CNN "The Lead" - Transcript: Interview with Roy Cooper

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

One of these states is North Carolina and its Democratic Governor Roy Cooper joins me now to discuss.

And, Governor, Republicans in your state have introduced legislation which would restrict when people could obtain and return absentee ballots. Is this predicated on the big election lie that Trump and his allies pushed? Or is there something else going on?

GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): Well, that seems to be the latest excuse. We know what this is all about. Jake, we should be making it easier for people to vote and not harder, and under the guise of election security, you're seeing all kinds of legislation being proposed across this country to make it harder for people to vote.

And my legislature in North Carolina, the Republican legislature does not have a good history, and, in fact, in -- in legislation that they passed that was struck down by the courts, they actually looked at when and how black people voted and passed laws to try and curb that, and the courts struck it down saying that they had discriminated against African-Americans with, quote, surgical precision, and you're seeing the same kind of thing happen in Georgia.

Here in North Carolina, we're going to stop that. We have enough forward thinking Democrats in the legislature who would sustain my veto of that kind of legislation. Unfortunately, Georgia does not have a Democratic governor. It's one of the reasons that I'm going to be working really hard in 2021 and 2022 to get strong Democratic governors elected across the country.

We've seen how important governors are during this pandemic. They are important to stop this kind of regressive legislation that hurts people's right to vote.

TAPPER: So, Governor, one of the things that's so odd about this to me is perhaps the biggest proven instance of voter fraud in the last ten years in the United States took place in North Carolina but it was done by Republicans. It was done by Republicans. So --

COOPER: Yeah.

TAPPER: -- if they are so concerned about vote fraud, why are they doing -- taking these steps instead of the steps that would have prevented their fellow Republicans from being so fraudulent that it actually required a whole new congressional race to happen.

COOPER: That's right. You saw some absentee ballot harvesting by Republicans.

You do need security to make sure that people's vote counts and that people aren't cheating, but the problem is you don't see widespread problems with things that they are trying to attack, like voter ID.

People don't pretend to be someone else to go in and vote. You just don't see that kind of fraud, yet you have legislation that is making harder and harder and harder for people to vote. They have to have more stringent voter ID requirements.

The same thing -- we should be letting people vote on Saturday and Sunday and making it easier for people who are working, and when you restrict those times, when you say you can't give water and food to people in line to vote, I mean, what you're trying to do is to win elections by restricting people that you don't think are going to vote for you.

TAPPER: Yeah.

COOPER: And that's wrong on so many levels, and I'm concerned with this U.S. Supreme Court that Trump has now appointed are we going to be get relief as we have in the past from the federal courts?

TAPPER: Yeah.

COOPER: You don't know.

So, it's deeply concerning and one of the reasons we need to pay attention to governor's races across this country and state legislative race across this country.

This is a redistricting year. You're going to see a lot of shenanigans going on, and it's so important, these elections that we have coming up in 2021 and 2022.

TAPPER: Governor, I want to ask you about coronavirus because you moved up the timeline in the great Tar Heel State, and announced that anyone 16 and older can get the vaccine starting in April 7th. But you also say that the state does not have enough supply right now for everyone who wants to be vaccinated, to be able to.

Are you worried about a surge in demand overwhelming your supply?

COOPER: We're in constant contact with our providers across the state, and we're listening to them as to what they are seeing. We're so proud of what we've done in North Carolina. We've done this in a way that's fast and fair.

My instructions to providers are to make sure you get these vaccines off the shelves and into arms before the next shipment comes and make sure those arms look like North Carolina.

We've been cited by the CDC in the top ten states for equity. We've built our own databases so that we can see the race and ethnicity of everyone who gets a shot. You can't tackle a problem until you see it.

And so, we're going after people, making sure that they get vaccinated.

Right now, we have 57 percent of people 65 and older fully vaccinated, 71 percent of them have gotten at least their first shot so we feel pretty good that by April 7th and the predictions that the supplies that we're going to get before then that we'll be able to handle it and get people vaccinated.

What I'm concerned about is when the demand falls below the supply.

TAPPER: Yeah.

COOPER: And we're out working trying to get people vaccinated. I don't know what that percentage is going to be. It looks like it's going to be throughout all kinds of demographics, and we're going to have to have different strategies to convince different kinds of people, but it's really important to get vaccinated because that's our path to recovery. It's our road to normalcy.

TAPPER: Absolutely.

COOPER: It's the most important thing we have going on right now.

TAPPER: Absolutely.

Governor Roy Cooper of the great state of North Carolina, thanks so much for your time today, sir.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source