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Crime In Nation's Capital - Before and After · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Speaker 1: Good ay, mates, and welcome. It's the third hour of
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  Speaker 1: the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I got to turn
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  Speaker 1: the page on the rundown and here we go into
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  Speaker 1: the third hour. It is show fifty five eighty one.
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  Speaker 1: That is Jose in Studio one A. I'm here in
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  Speaker 1: Studio one B, and I'm pleased to have with us
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  Speaker 1: a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, manager the
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program at Heritage, co author
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  Speaker 1: of Roague Prosecutors, How radical Soros lawyers are destroying America's communities.
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  Speaker 1: He is our friendy Zach Smith. How Zach, how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing well, Preston. Thanks for having me on the show.
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  Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by what is the straw that breaks
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  Speaker 1: the back when writers choose to pick a topic and say, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I'm now writing about this. Was this a culmination of things?
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  Speaker 1: Or did Was there one story, one event, one community
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  Speaker 1: that brought this article out?
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  Speaker 2: Now it's really a culmination of Thanks Preston. Look, as
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  Speaker 2: you mentioned, I've written a lot on crime, police and
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  Speaker 2: criminal justice issues over the past several years, and I
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  Speaker 2: travel a lot for my job. I have an opportunity
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  Speaker 2: to go into many of these communities, places like Washington,
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  Speaker 2: d C, Memphis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and I saw
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  Speaker 2: a firsthand just how bad things had gotten in many
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  Speaker 2: of those cities of the past four or five years.
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  Speaker 2: And recently I noticed a turnaround in some of those cities. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there's still a long way to go in many of
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  Speaker 2: these places, but particularly in Washington, DC, compared to the
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  Speaker 2: state of things three years ago, it is a much
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  Speaker 2: much cleaner place today, is a much safer place today.
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  Speaker 2: And I said, well, let's take a look and let's
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  Speaker 2: find out why this sudden turnaround has happened.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to do a deep dive into Washington,
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  Speaker 1: DC because in your column you cite some things that
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  Speaker 1: I want to get into. But I want to back
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  Speaker 1: up just a little bit. You know, there were some
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  Speaker 1: of us that looked at the election in New York
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  Speaker 1: City and the proclamations that now Zoron Mom Donnie has made.
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  Speaker 1: And now he's told us that he is the Grand
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  Speaker 1: Puba of all things, that he will overrule the police
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  Speaker 1: commissioner as needed. Yeah, Flintstone's reference, You're welcome. I look
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  Speaker 1: at New York City and say you know what they
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  Speaker 1: voted for this, But this is going to be a
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  Speaker 1: good thing for America to see, to see how things
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  Speaker 1: so dramatically change and not for the better, because it's
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  Speaker 1: not possible for it to work to move towards the better.
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  Speaker 1: What's your view of New York City and what you're
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  Speaker 1: going to see from a crime perspective there with Mom
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  Speaker 1: Donnie's positions.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's a sad state of affairs, Preston, There's no
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  Speaker 2: doubt about it. And I think in some sense we're
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  Speaker 2: going to get a real life, real time natural experiment
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  Speaker 2: where you're seeing New York, Chicago, a couple of these
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  Speaker 2: other deep blue cities who are doubling down on their
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  Speaker 2: fell policies when it comes to criminal justice. So you
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  Speaker 2: have Zoron momde who obviously is pushing policies that I
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  Speaker 2: think will make New Yorkers less safe. He's pushing policies
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  Speaker 2: that will likely lead to a rightist level staffing shortage
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  Speaker 2: among the New York Police Department. The NYPD there, you've
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  Speaker 2: already seen record numbers of retirements, record numbers of officers
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  Speaker 2: leaving for our home state of Florida and elsewhere around
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  Speaker 2: the country as well. And then keep in mind, on
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  Speaker 2: top of that, you have Alvin Bragg, who is the
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  Speaker 2: rogue Soils backed prosecutor there in Manhattan, continuing to push
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  Speaker 2: his problematic policies. Now, the one silver lining for New
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  Speaker 2: York maybe that things aren't going to hit absolute rock
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  Speaker 2: bottom immediately because you still have the Trump administration, the
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  Speaker 2: Trump doj going in aggressively prosecuting violent crime at the
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  Speaker 2: federal level. That's something that the Biden Justice Department wasn't
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  Speaker 2: doing well, wasn't doing very much of, to be perfectly frank,
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  Speaker 2: But the Trump administration is doing that now. If that changes,
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  Speaker 2: I think that would be really a night nurse scenario
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  Speaker 2: for New York City.
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  Speaker 1: And what's really interesting to me is that Mom Donnie
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  Speaker 1: is so extreme he's even having to fight the liberal
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  Speaker 1: government of the State of New York on some fronts.
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  Speaker 2: Well, whenever you see New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul
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  Speaker 2: coming out trying to be the voice of reason, that
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  Speaker 2: should be a red flag for everyone that something has
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  Speaker 2: gone terribly wrong, terribly off the rails in a lot
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  Speaker 2: of ways.
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  Speaker 1: Zach. You brought up the nation's capital at the very
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  Speaker 1: beginning of this. Tell us, give us a retrospective here.
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  Speaker 1: When Joe Biden took office, what started happening?
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  Speaker 2: Nothing good? Preston, Now that's kind of part for the
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  Speaker 2: course for stuff coming out of Washington, DC. But it
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  Speaker 2: was really sad. Things got really bad in the District
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  Speaker 2: of Columbia. It was leading our nation in terms of murders,
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  Speaker 2: is leading our nation in terms of carjackings, leading our
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  Speaker 2: nation in terms of violent crimes being committed. And they
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  Speaker 2: were really at least two causes behind that. The first
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  Speaker 2: is you had local radical city council members who pledged
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  Speaker 2: to defund the police. I talk about it in my article.
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  Speaker 2: One city council member was giddy that the funding cuts
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  Speaker 2: would lead to the largest decrease in the local police
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  Speaker 2: force in nearly fifty years. And guess what that turned
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  Speaker 2: out to be. Right, DC police are shorthanded by almost
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  Speaker 2: four hundred sworn officers today. That's a fifty year low
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  Speaker 2: in terms of manpower for the local police force. And
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  Speaker 2: then you had the Biden US Attorney for the District
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  Speaker 2: of Columbia, who essentially serves as the districts of local
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  Speaker 2: elected DA but he's appointed by the president because of
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  Speaker 2: the unique status of the district. But the Biden appointed
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  Speaker 2: US attorney essentially took a soft on crime approach. Wasn't
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  Speaker 2: prosecuting a number of crimes, just cutting sweetheart plea deals
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  Speaker 2: with repeat violent offenders. And so of course you start
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  Speaker 2: to see those violent crimes exponentially increasing.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we always hear the left throw out how
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  Speaker 1: there are so many minorities in prison that the numbers
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  Speaker 1: are disproportionately high, but they ignore the other disproportionately high
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  Speaker 1: part of the equation that you quantified in your in
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  Speaker 1: your article, the victims.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody talks about the victims, Preston. That's often the
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  Speaker 2: forgotten component of this conversation. Whenever we talk about murders. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we talk about the numbers. But keep in mind each
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  Speaker 2: one of those murder victims, that was a person with
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  Speaker 2: a families, people who cared about them, who loved them,
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  Speaker 2: a community that suffers as a result of it. And
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  Speaker 2: to your point, you know, one of the sad realities
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  Speaker 2: is that young black men are disproportionately victims of violent crimes,
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  Speaker 2: particularly murders and shootings. And so whenever you see those
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  Speaker 2: violent crime numbers increasing, the shootings, the murders increasing, that
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  Speaker 2: fortunately means more young Black men are being victimized, and
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  Speaker 2: so the very individuals so many of these policies are
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  Speaker 2: designed to have it actually ends up hurting those individuals
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  Speaker 2: the most.
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  Speaker 1: You talked about murders, You talked about carjackings. Give us
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  Speaker 1: quantify that just a little bit. Give us some numbers
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  Speaker 1: that you have.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's go back about fifteen years or so.
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  Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, the district had a forty nine year
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  Speaker 2: low of eighty eight murders. Now, for a big city
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  Speaker 2: like DC with a long history of violence, with a
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  Speaker 2: long history of crime, that is a tremendous accomplishment eighty
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  Speaker 2: eight murders. By twenty twenty three, the district was experiencing
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  Speaker 2: a twenty five year high of two hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 2: four murders. So you went from eighty eight to two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and seventy four murders carjacking in twenty nineteen. As
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  Speaker 2: recent as twenty nineteen, there was a relatively low number
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  Speaker 2: for DC of one hundred and fifty two carjackings that
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  Speaker 2: occurred in the district. If we fast forward to twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty three, there were nine hundred and fifty seven. Think
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  Speaker 2: about that present nine hundred and fifty seven, almost one
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  Speaker 2: thousand carjackings inter nation's capital in just that short period
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  Speaker 2: between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty three. That's an increase
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  Speaker 2: of almost five hundred percent. And keep in mind you
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  Speaker 2: even had members of Congress being carjacked outside of their
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  Speaker 2: own apartment buildings. That's how bad things got, and it
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  Speaker 2: was a really unfortunate and very sad thing to see.
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  Speaker 1: When we come back, Zack Smith will stay with us.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how George Sorow's factors into
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  Speaker 1: any of this, and whether it's quite so isolated as
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  Speaker 1: maybe some of you might think, because it's really not.
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  Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about the after because things
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  Speaker 1: have changed. The old adage there's a new sheriff in
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  Speaker 1: town has literally proven to be accurate in the case
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  Speaker 1: of Washington, DC, and we'll talk about it next with
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  Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation. Zach Smith, friend of the program, been
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  Speaker 1: with us for many years, senior legal fellow, and we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about an article that he wrote highlightings up before
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  Speaker 1: and after, if you will, a snapshot of how these
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  Speaker 1: rogue prosecutors across the country are causing really big problems
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  Speaker 1: for communities across the country. Communities large and small, because
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  Speaker 1: the effort by George Soros is in communities large and small.
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  Speaker 1: And Zach, I want you to just share a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: How does George Soros factor into this whole equation? What
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  Speaker 1: does he have to do with state attorneys across the country.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, George Charles, he's very good at finding arbitrage opportunities.
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  Speaker 2: He's very good at finding where his money, his resources
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  Speaker 2: can be most effective. And he realized that state attorneys
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  Speaker 2: are local DA racist typically are very low profile, low
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  Speaker 2: dollar affairs, and for a relatively modest investment when we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about political donations, he could have an outsized influence
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  Speaker 2: on those races. And he was also smart enough to
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  Speaker 2: realize that he didn't have to do the hard work
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  Speaker 2: of convincing legislatures to change their laws to overcome a
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  Speaker 2: governor's veto to get new policies put in place. He
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  Speaker 2: just had to change who is in charge of enforcing
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  Speaker 2: many of those laws. And so he has funded, to
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  Speaker 2: the tune of millions upon millions of dollars directly funded
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  Speaker 2: many of these DA races. He's put in place an
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  Speaker 2: entire infrastructure to support their work. And unfortunately, even though
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  Speaker 2: there have been a lot of successes recently in pushing
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  Speaker 2: back against this radical movement. It's still very much alive
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  Speaker 2: and well, I mentioned New York earlier, there's still row
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  Speaker 2: prosecutors and places in California, places in Texas, and even
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  Speaker 2: in Florida. Montiq Correl in Orlando is still in office
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  Speaker 2: and still promoting a number of very problematic policies.
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned that things changed with the election of Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Let's quantify that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, Donald trumk he came into office. The first
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  Speaker 2: thing he did he appointed a new US attorney, Jean Pierro,
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  Speaker 2: Judge Jenin, who said she's actually going to prosecute crime.
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  Speaker 2: She made clear that if you commit a sense in
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  Speaker 2: the District of Columbia, you're going to be prosecuted and
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  Speaker 2: appropriate cases of prison sentence is going to be sought.
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  Speaker 2: Or even if you murder someone, she will seek the
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  Speaker 2: death penalty for you if the circumstances warranted. So that's
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  Speaker 2: a big change in and of itself. And then the
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  Speaker 2: other thing that the president did he deployed the National
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  Speaker 2: Guard to Washington, d C. Now, he got a lot
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  Speaker 2: of blowback for that. Many people on the left were
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  Speaker 2: very unhappy about it, But essentially what he did by
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  Speaker 2: deploying the Guard to Washington DC, he solved the immediate
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  Speaker 2: man power shortage. I mentioned it before the break that
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  Speaker 2: Washington DC's local police force was at a fifty year
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  Speaker 2: low in terms of manpower. Well, by deploying the Guard,
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  Speaker 2: he essentially solved in some respects that manpower shortage. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the Guard is not a permanent solution. I don't think
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  Speaker 2: anyone thinks that it will be a permanent solution, but
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  Speaker 2: it helped immediately solve that manpower crisis and press them
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  Speaker 2: the numbers the results speak for themselves. I mentioned in
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  Speaker 2: twenty three that the district had two hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 2: four murders. Well, guess what. So far this year, there
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  Speaker 2: have only been twelve murders in Washington DC. That's a
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  Speaker 2: sixty eight percent decrease from this same time period last year.
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  Speaker 2: And if that number holds, this will be the lowest
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  Speaker 2: year for Washington DC in terms of murders committed really
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  Speaker 2: since good records were kept beginning all the way back
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  Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties. Of carjackings have also plummeted this year.
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  Speaker 2: So far, there have only been thirty seven reported carjackings.
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  Speaker 2: That's down by about forty four percent compared to this
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  Speaker 2: same time last year. And so this idea that we
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  Speaker 2: cannot police, we cannot prosecute, our way out of a
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  Speaker 2: violent crime crisis plaguing many cities today, I think these
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  Speaker 2: results show that that is just not true, that these
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  Speaker 2: tactics work, and that more cities should be adopting them.
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  Speaker 1: Let's take thee before, because I think it's a harbinger
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  Speaker 1: for what we're going to probably see in New York City. Zora,
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  Speaker 1: Mom Donnie's talking about cutting five thousand police officers from
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  Speaker 1: the New York City Police Department.
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  Speaker 2: That's terrifying. There's another way to put it. It's terrifying. Look,
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  Speaker 2: we know that putting police officers on the street, empowering
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  Speaker 2: them to appropriately and responsibly perform their jobs, is one
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  Speaker 2: of the most effective crime finding tools available. And you
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  Speaker 2: know what, preston, if you go into many crime ridden neighborhoods,
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  Speaker 2: the residents of those neighborhoods will tell you we want
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  Speaker 2: more officers on the street. We want more officers in
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  Speaker 2: our neighborhood to help enforce the law, to help enforce
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  Speaker 2: community standards. And so whenever you're talking about that drastic,
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  Speaker 2: that dramatic of a decrease in the number of sworn
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  Speaker 2: officers is going to cause many problems. And I think
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  Speaker 2: what happened in Washington, d C. On a much smaller
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  Speaker 2: scale shows just how bad it can get how quick.
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  Speaker 1: So is the big takeaway. I feel like there are
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  Speaker 1: two big takeaways here, and you correct me or amplify
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  Speaker 1: or change whatever. One is. Defunding the police does not work,
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  Speaker 1: and two, funding the wrong people to become the district attorney,
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  Speaker 1: state attorney, or what have you, the lead prosecutor in
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  Speaker 1: a given community can have a remarkable impact on the
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  Speaker 1: quality of life in that community.
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  Speaker 2: One percent agree with both of those things full stop.
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  Speaker 2: What I would add on top of that is, look,
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  Speaker 2: we're not trying to reinvent the hill the wheel here
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  Speaker 2: when it comes to protecting communities. Think back to the
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  Speaker 2: early nineties in New York City, Rudy Giuliani and goll Braddon.
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  Speaker 2: They employed what's known as broken windows policing. Basically, they
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  Speaker 2: enforced the small things, stop small problems from becoming big problems,
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  Speaker 2: and we saw a record decreases in crime when that happened.
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  Speaker 2: We know that by putting officers on the streets by
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  Speaker 2: prosecuting criminals, particularly repeat violent offenders. That that is how
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  Speaker 2: we protect our communities, how we enforce law and order.
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  Speaker 2: And yet so many on the left today say that
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  Speaker 2: we don't have to use those techniques, that those techniques
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  Speaker 2: are harmful, and again, nothing could be further from the truth.
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  Speaker 1: Zach is always great intel. Thanks for writing it and
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you joining us this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Talk to you soon, of course. Thanks for having me on.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. Zach Smith with us from the Heritage Foundation,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Senior legal fellow, manager of the Supreme Court and Pellid
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Advocacy programmedt Heritage and co author of a book Appropriate
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Huh Rogue Prosecutors, How radical soorros lawyers are destroying America's communities. Look,
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  Speaker 1: this is as important a topic as you can imagine.
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  Speaker 1: In the upcoming election cycle. Are you in a community
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  Speaker 1: where the state attorney's up for a re election or election?
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  Speaker 1: Pay attention to who is funding who. That will tell
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  Speaker 1: you a lot of what you need to know.