A Hot Mic Caught This Top Democrat Telling His Supporters That Criminals Deserve Health Care Instead of Handcuffs

September 7, 2026 Cat2, Politics
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Iryna Zarutska boarded a Charlotte light rail train on August 22, 2025, and never came home.

Now the man who spent two terms as North Carolina's governor is running for Senate – and a secret recording just blew his entire crime narrative apart.

And a hot mic caught this top Democrat telling his supporters that criminals deserve health care instead of handcuffs.

Cooper's Own Words Expose the Lie

Breitbart News obtained exclusive audio from a Cooper campaign event where the Democrat Senate candidate told his supporters that criminals deserve "health care, not handcuffs."

The man who has spent months running ads claiming he "prosecuted violent criminals and worked to keep them behind bars" just told his donor base the answer to crime is medicine, not consequences.

This is not a one-time slip.

This is the belief system Cooper has been carefully hiding behind poll-tested talking points about public safety.

In 2020, Cooper convened a racial justice task force that produced a manifesto calling on North Carolina to "reimagine public safety" and push law enforcement to use "citations and summons in lieu of arrests."

The same task force declared it "impossible to divorce racial equity in the criminal justice system from racial equity in our larger society" – the kind of academic language that means police should back off.

Cooper signed off on it.

Three Law Enforcement Groups Have Already Made Their Decision

The NC Troopers Association does not endorse soft-on-crime politicians.

Neither does the NC Police Benevolent Association.

Or the NC Fraternal Order of Police.

All three have endorsed Republican Michael Whatley. Not as a courtesy – as a verdict on Roy Cooper's record.

Last week the National Border Patrol Council joined them, sending its president, Paul Perez, to campaign events across North Carolina for Whatley.

When every major law enforcement organization in a state lines up against a candidate running on his crime-fighting record, that tells you everything you need to know.

Cooper's explanation for why he released 3,500 prisoners under a COVID-era settlement has shifted depending on who is asking.

His campaign's answer to Iryna Zarutska's family – whose alleged killer appeared on that release list – is that the timing does not technically add up to a direct connection.

What no one on Cooper's team can explain is why a man with 14 prior arrests was free to board that train at all, or why the judges Cooper's coalition championed kept sending DeCarlos Brown back to the streets of Charlotte each time he was caught.

Cooper also failed to process rape kits as governor – a fact conveniently absent from the crime-fighter ad his campaign is running statewide.

The Pattern Democrats Cannot Hide Anymore

Trump predicted this moment at a Cabinet meeting last year.

He called crime "a trap" for Democrats heading into 2026, and he was right.

The same week a DNC speaker told party members that migrant crime and carjackings "don't matter to that many Americans," Cooper was on tape telling supporters that criminals need health care instead.

These are not isolated moments – they are the actual Democrat Party platform dressed up in focus-grouped language for general election audiences.

Cooper believes criminals are a health care problem.

Law enforcement is a last resort.

The communities that get victimized – Charlotte neighborhoods, suburban families, women riding public transit – are secondary to the feelings of the people doing the victimizing.

Cooper spent eight years deciding who deserved a second chance in North Carolina.

The tape just told you it was never you.

Sources:

  • Matt Mercer, "Exclusive: Democrat Roy Cooper Says Criminals Need 'Health Care, Not Handcuffs,'" Breitbart News, September 3, 2026.
  • Matt Mercer, "Democrat Roy Cooper Lied About Why He Released 4,200 Criminals from Prison," Breitbart News, August 6, 2026.
  • Matt Mercer, "Democrat Roy Cooper Created a Soft-on-Crime Manifesto," Breitbart News, August 13, 2026.
  • Matt Mercer, "Democrat Roy Cooper Shunned by Law Enforcement in North Carolina Senate Run," Breitbart News, August 27, 2026.
  • Gary Robertson, "Ukrainian Refugee's Murder Becomes Flashpoint in 2026 North Carolina Senate Race," Associated Press, September 22, 2025.