A newly circulated undercover video shows North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper repeatedly declining to apologize to the families of murder victims whose killers were released from state prisons during his tenure as governor, according to footage shared by conservative X user Matt Van Swol and reviewed by Breitbart News.
The nearly 90-second interaction, which Breitbart reported it matched by timestamp to a September 2 campaign rally in Cabarrus County — a rapidly growing suburban area outside Charlotte — has reignited a dispute over the 2021 release of thousands of inmates that has become a central line of attack in the state’s Senate race.
Cooper Points to Court Order
In the clip, an unnamed person asks Cooper what he would say to the hundreds of victims of violent crimes tied to the releases. Cooper responds that the state simply followed a legal directive.
“Look, we followed the court order,” Cooper says in the video. “The state followed the court order to have those inmates released and it was critical that the state follow the court order.”
Breitbart’s account disputes that explanation, asserting that Cooper himself agreed to the order — making him, in the outlet’s characterization, the only governor in the country who signed a legally binding document allowing the releases. The report notes that Democratic governors in Colorado, Illinois, and New Jersey all fought similar release lawsuits rather than consenting to them.
Dispute Over Whatley’s Claims
Cooper goes on to say that Republican opponent Michael Whatley has lied about the details of the release, though according to the video he does not point to any specific factual evidence to support that claim.
When the person in the clip presses Cooper again on what he would say to victims, he denies signing the order, then adds: “anyone who has that situation, is in a terrible, terrible situation, I pray for them and have sat with many victims’ families.”
The questioner asks twice more whether Cooper has apologized. He responds by repeating a campaign talking point — that as attorney general he prosecuted violent criminals and kept them in jail — a claim the Breitbart report describes as debunked.
Cooper also says that as governor he signed tougher laws for violent criminals and tougher bail laws. The report says he offers no evidence for that assertion, and notes that among the measures he vetoed during eight years in office were bills to increase penalties for rioting and to require cooperation with ICE. The report further points to a 2020 executive order Cooper signed that created what it calls a “soft-on-crime manifesto,” with recommendations to reimagine public safety and weaken bail laws in the state.
Confrontation Ends Abruptly
Toward the end of the video, Cooper appears flustered. “This whole campaign’s been based on lies, okay?” he shouts, before motioning for a staffer to move the unnamed person away from him. The clip ends at that point.
The exchange adds to an already contentious Senate contest in North Carolina, where Cooper’s record on criminal justice and prison releases has drawn sustained criticism from Republicans. The video’s emergence gives the state’s GOP another opening to press the former two-term governor on a decision that, per the reporting, he has consistently attributed to a court mandate — an explanation his critics reject.
Neither Cooper’s campaign nor the Whatley campaign issued an immediate public response to the video referenced in the report. The identity of the person who filmed the interaction has not been disclosed beyond the social media user who shared the footage.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/18/undercover-video-shows-democrat-roy-cooper-refusing-to-apologize-to-murder-victims-families/