Latest / Sid & Friends In The Morning / Miranda Devine | NY Post Columnist Expands on Central Park Crime Surging as NYC Criminals Cash in on Class-Action Settlements

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Miranda Devine | NY Post Columnist Expands on Central Park Crime Surging as NYC Criminals Cash in on Class-Action Settlements · Sid & Friends In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I saw this story a couple of days ago,
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: and I remarked on it for days, and now I
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: get it on, which is great.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Central Park crime surges.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Rapes!
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  Speaker 1: You know, five girls have been raped in Central Park
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  Speaker 1: in like the last, I don't know, so far this year,
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  Speaker 1: I think. That's way too many.
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  Speaker 2: And yet, New York City criminals are making cash. Not
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: kidding you.
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  Speaker 1: $ 36 million in payouts.
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  Speaker 2: Miranda Devine, best writer in the country. New York Post,
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  Speaker 2: best writer. in the country. I love her. Miranda, good morning.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: How are you?
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  Speaker 4: Good morning, Sid. That's very exciting that you have political ambitions.
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  Speaker 4: It's good news for the country. You never know what
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: your wife may have a change of heart at some point.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: She may. I mean, you know what it is?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to sound really obnoxious when I say this, but,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I emcee so many events, you know, Miranda,
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  Speaker 1: so many events for these politicians.
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  Speaker 2: And inevitably I go home and I go, I was better.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I was better. The people were more excited to see me.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: They laughed. They clapped.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I've studied all these politicians, especially Trump,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: more than I studied in college for four years.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that. So I think I can
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: do it. And I think I'd be really good.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And God knows the Republicans, we need better candidates.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Our candidates suck. You know that, right?
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely, they do. And look, particularly for some reason in
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  Speaker 4: blue cities, and I think part of that's just because
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: the Democrats are so completely vicious and unhinged when it
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: comes to attacking Republicans. And yet, if someone like Vivek
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: puts forward an ad that's You know, unsavory, I guess. Oh,
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: my gosh. The media just goes into meltdown for days.
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  Speaker 4: Everyone's outraged. And the Democrats do that every single day.
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  Speaker 2: Worse.
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  Speaker 4: Look what they did to Lindsey Graham.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that was terrible. And look what they're doing. Not vicious,
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  Speaker 2: but oh, my God. It is maybe the most blatant
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  Speaker 2: cheating I've ever seen. Alaska Miranda. What is that?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's just classic Democrats. They cheat every which way.
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  Speaker 4: The thing about them is that when it comes to elections,
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  Speaker 4: they're extremely creative. And that's why it's sort of difficult
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  Speaker 4: to pin them down, because when you say, oh, they're
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  Speaker 4: cheating and it's fraud, everyone goes, oh, you're talking about
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  Speaker 4: the machines or you're talking about this. That's not proven.
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  Speaker 4: And it's like, no, they cheat in every single way.
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  Speaker 4: They go to the courts and change the laws. They
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  Speaker 4: do mail-in ballots. They just nudge the ball over the
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  Speaker 4: line and rig the system so that, really, Republicans to win,
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  Speaker 4: like Donald Trump did in 2024, they have to get
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: a massive landslide just to squeak over the line. And obviously,
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  Speaker 4: it's because the Democrats' policies are not attractive to most Americans.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I've got a very, very bad feeling about Tuesday.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 1: I want to feel great. I have a lot of
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  Speaker 1: friends that are running. So do you, Miranda. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of people in New York that I love. Like, I
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  Speaker 1: love Bruce Blakeman. I don't like him.
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  Speaker 2: I love him. Mike Lawler, all these guys. And maybe
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  Speaker 2: they'll win.
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  Speaker 1: But I think overall, I think in an honest conversation,
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  Speaker 1: despite President Trump going to 50 states in 12 days,
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  Speaker 1: I think we're in big trouble on Tuesday.
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  Speaker 2: I really do.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, look, the House was, you know, always going
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  Speaker 4: to be difficult because history tells you that the president's
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: party is always going to lose. I think it's really
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  Speaker 4: not happened. But look, I don't know. Everyone's predicting a
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  Speaker 4: blue tsunami, et cetera. But the polls have been drastically
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  Speaker 4: wrong before. And I think when it comes to the Senate,
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  Speaker 4: if you look at the individual Senate seats, Maine, which
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  Speaker 4: the Democrats thought they had snapped up. Susan Collins has
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  Speaker 4: just been trudging, doing her usual magic, you know, just
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: slow and steady wins the race.
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  Speaker 2: I think, by the way, by the way, I think
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  Speaker 2: she's going to win.
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  Speaker 1: And people forget that the only reason why the only
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  Speaker 1: reason why Graham.
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  Speaker 2: Plattner is Exited the race. It was not because of
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  Speaker 2: the allegations of rape. It would have been nice if
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  Speaker 2: they actually cared.
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  Speaker 1: It was because even then, with all his momentum with
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  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, he was losing to Collins.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 4: That's right. Nazi tattoo, it wasn't enough. Rape allegations, not enough. No.
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  Speaker 4: If he'd been winning, they would have kept him.
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  Speaker 2: 100% true. That's right. And he wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: He was down by about four points. But Paxton is,
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  Speaker 1: according to a poll I just saw this morning... Now
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  Speaker 1: down five or six. Again, these polls are liars. We
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  Speaker 1: get that. But now down five or six in Texas.
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  Speaker 1: Looks like El Sayed may have a two-point lead very
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  Speaker 1: close in Michigan.
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  Speaker 2: But if those two guys.
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  Speaker 1: Win, specifically Tallarico and El Sayed, that is a horrible
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  Speaker 1: look for our country.
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  Speaker 4: Horrible. Really horrible. And look, I mean, Ken Paxton obviously
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  Speaker 4: isn't a great candidate, although he was a great A.G.,
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  Speaker 4: but he has a lot of problems. And I mean,
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  Speaker 4: Texas is Texas. So let's hope that Texans just remember
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  Speaker 4: the border, remember what Democrats did to them. And then El-Sayed, look,
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  Speaker 4: the margin of error in these polls is like 4%.
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  Speaker 4: So I just can't see. There's so many hairs on El-Sayed.
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  Speaker 4: He makes all these soft and fluffy videos of him
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  Speaker 4: as the lovely father and girl dad putting his daughters
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  Speaker 4: to bed. He's Muslim Brotherhood. So, you know, people, I hope,
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  Speaker 4: are smart enough to see through it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the Muslim Brotherhood's becoming a big deal in
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  Speaker 2: this country, Miranda. You know, we're being invaded.
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  Speaker 1: This is going to be a Muslim country before you
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  Speaker 1: know it.
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  Speaker 2: And people go, Sid, don't say that. There's nothing wrong
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  Speaker 2: with the Muslims.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to me, okay? I'm going to say it. Don't
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  Speaker 1: chime in here, okay? I got an issue with the Muslims.
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  Speaker 1: Not because every Muslim's a bad person. The overwhelming majority
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  Speaker 1: are good people, okay? But every time a plane is
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  Speaker 1: hijacked lately, it's a Muslim. When they send airplanes into
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  Speaker 1: the towers, it's a Muslim, okay? When you get these
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  Speaker 1: DSA people all over across the country saying, They're Muslims.
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  Speaker 1: So don't tell me I should have a problem with
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  Speaker 1: the Muslims when whatever percentage it is, whatever percentage it is,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the bad things happening in our world.
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  Speaker 2: Today are the Muslims. Somebody argue that with me, please.
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  Speaker 3: Please.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, there would be a lot less war
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  Speaker 4: and America would be a lot wealthier if it hadn't
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  Speaker 4: had to go to war against various Muslim countries. Right.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's unrest wherever they go. And unfortunately, individual
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  Speaker 4: Muslims that you meet are lovely. And I mean, most
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  Speaker 4: of our Uber drivers in New York seem to be Muslim. Yeah. But... But,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: you know, you just look at France, you look at Australia,
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  Speaker 4: where the numbers get big, there just seems to be
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  Speaker 4: a push by the imams to bring in Sharia law
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  Speaker 4: and to radicalize, you know, some group of them. And
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  Speaker 4: you don't need very many radicals to really disrupt your country.
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  Speaker 1: Especially, right, when you've got the billions of Muslims around
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  Speaker 1: the world today, if it's a very small percentage, and
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  Speaker 1: it is.
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  Speaker 2: Very small.
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  Speaker 1: It's still millions, millions of people that hate America, hate Israel,
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  Speaker 1: millions because of the invasion.
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  Speaker 4: And destabilize their Muslim countries. I mean, Jordan doesn't want
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  Speaker 4: the refugees coming in from Gaza because they're afraid of
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  Speaker 4: the Muslim Brotherhood.
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  Speaker 2: Egypt, too. Egypt, too. Egypt didn't want them. None of
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  Speaker 2: those countries wanted them.
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's because once the Muslim Brotherhood gets in and radicalizes,
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  Speaker 4: it's very difficult. It's brainwashing. I mean, it's like, I
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  Speaker 4: don't know, TDS is another form of brainwashing, but Muslim
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  Speaker 4: Brotherhood brainwashing is TDS multiplied by a zillion.
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. By a zillion, you're right. And
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  Speaker 1: a lot more dangerous, I will tell you. But look,
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  Speaker 1: we've got our own issues right here in New York, okay?
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  Speaker 1: We don't got to go to Jordan or Egypt or
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  Speaker 1: any one of these.
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  Speaker 2: Or Michigan, for that matter, or Maine.
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  Speaker 1: What's going on, and you wrote this column this week,
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  Speaker 1: and I talked about it a lot yesterday, and it
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  Speaker 1: really bothered me.
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  Speaker 2: This is unreal.
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  Speaker 1: Let me just read the first couple of paragraphs from Miranda.
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  Speaker 2: A woman was raped at night point in.
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  Speaker 1: Central Park at 8.30 Saturday night after being.
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  Speaker 2: Dragged off Fifth Avenue near East 66th Street. It was
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  Speaker 2: the fifth rape in the park this year.
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  Speaker 1: Yet instead of protecting women from rapists, the city is
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  Speaker 1: paying criminals, listen to this, paying criminals up to $ 35.
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  Speaker 2: 5 million in a class action settlement. This is not fiction,
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  Speaker 2: is it?
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  Speaker 4: No, it's unbelievable. I mean, I only know this because
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  Speaker 4: a friend spotted the sign on the subway that was
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  Speaker 4: advertising for takers to come and get this money. Well,
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  Speaker 4: initially it was, I think, $ 22 million. And then after
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  Speaker 4: they started advertising and mailing at our expense to all
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  Speaker 4: the people who'd been locked up by the cops in
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  Speaker 4: that period, mailing them little advertisements, hey, if you want
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  Speaker 4: some free money from the government, you can apply. They
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  Speaker 4: had another 75,000 people applied. So now the judge last
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  Speaker 4: week said, oh, yes. Oh, if you've got more people,
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  Speaker 4: then yes, let's make the city pay $ 35 million. So yes,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just a scam, a grift. It's not
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  Speaker 4: the first time it's happened. It's the lawyers, and it's
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: often the same law firms and the same lawyers just
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  Speaker 4: go back to the trough and the city just... signs
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  Speaker 4: off these settlements and the judges don't intervene. No one
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  Speaker 4: cares because it's our money and there are a lot
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  Speaker 4: of people making a lot of money out of it
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  Speaker 4: and I would say that the lawyers get a lot
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  Speaker 4: of money because in this particular settlement, from the $ 21 million,
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  Speaker 4: they were going to get $ 3 million on top of
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  Speaker 4: that from the city, three law firms. And so what
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  Speaker 4: does that tell you? They get it for nothing. Even
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: if only five people put their hand up for the money,
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  Speaker 4: the lawyers still get the $ 3 million. Wow. So, of course,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: they're incentivized to come up with new schemes, new reasons
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: to get people compensation, especially criminals. Because if a criminal
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: wants compensation, you know that Namdani, Namdani's city officials are
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: going to say, yes, of course, we love criminals.
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  Speaker 2: Unbelievable. I saw it. I couldn't believe it.
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  Speaker 1: But it does make sense. when you think about the
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  Speaker 1: leaders in this city and how they feel about crime.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am really rooting so hard, Miranda, for
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Saritha to beat Letitia James.
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  Speaker 4: Isn't she great?
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  Speaker 2: She is great.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And Letitia James is a lying fool. She's black, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: she's a woman, and she hates Trump. Those are the
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  Speaker 1: three things she has going for her. Otherwise, she's done
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  Speaker 1: nothing to help this state.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing.
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  Speaker 4: No, nothing. I mean, the time and the money and
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: the resources that she wastes going after her political enemies,
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: going after Donald Trump, just wasting time, not going after
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Medicare fraud and visa fraud and all the other fraud
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: that's just ripping off this city. She's just there doing,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: playing games, acting like she's butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: Who knows? what other shenanigans she's got up to.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, sure.
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  Speaker 4: Between her and Hochul and Mamdani, the city is really
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: in bad shape. And you just need a little break. Honestly, people,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: if you're Democrats, it's not saying that the city is
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: going to go Republican. It's not going to be like
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Giuliani comes back. Don't worry. Bruce Blatman is just going
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: to be a sensible person who is going to hold
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Mamdani back and stop him from really wrecking the city.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And that's what we need. I mean,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: she's so afraid of him, Hochul, and Bruce isn't. And
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing, that proves it's not. Because
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: last I checked, the governor is supposed to have more
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: power than the mayor, except in this city, where Hochul
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: runs scared every day, every day of Mamdani. One more
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: thing about your story is, I love Jessica Tisch.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I love her. I think she is a tremendous police commissioner.
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  Speaker 1: For my money, she's second behind Ray Kelly, okay? That's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: what I believe. But I keep hearing about how the city...
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is doing great. Crime numbers are great. City is safer
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: than ever. Letitia James said that.
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  Speaker 2: Wait a second.
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  Speaker 1: The subway crime is up tremendously. Rape, that's become a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: big issue, and it's back in Central Park. Hate crimes
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: are going through the roof. So the question is, despite
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the numbers, how safe is this city?
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, you don't need... I don't never trust these
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: statistics because they always massage them. And, you know, when
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: you look a little closer at them, you see that
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: they're not comparing apples with apples when they pretend that
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: crime is going down. I don't believe any of it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: It's all politicised, it's all massaged through City Hall. And
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: you just have to live in this city and walk
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: around it and talk to your friends and understand that
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: it is not safe. It is.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Honestly, I lived in New York in the bad old
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: days before Giuliani. I was a student. And I remember
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: what the mood, the vibe was like. And it's very
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: similar to today. Yes. The difference is that it's not
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: quite as bad yet, but it's heading very fast in
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: that direction. The difference was I felt like... You know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: in the 80s, 90s New York, there were sort of
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: no-go zones for criminals. There were no-go zones for regular
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: people too, for law-abiding citizens. But certain parts of the
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: city were completely safe. The cops used to keep– and
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: also the cops were stronger then. Now I look at
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: the cops milling around Times Square looking at their phones
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: and ignoring crimes going on around them. And I just
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: think to myself, they're not the same caliber of cop
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: that used to be there that Giuliani managed to deploy.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the difference, you're right, you're right, you're right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And some of them are actually out of shape, which
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is another issue that they allow.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Right, the fat. Right, I know. Small women.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Right, but the truth is with a lot of these cops,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: they are the same, but they don't have The political backing.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Those cops knew, hey, a bad guy walks across the street.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to bash him across the face. Giuliani's going
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to have my back. These poor bastards, they do something
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like that. They'll never work again. And the mayor will
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: hold the press conference and the AG. So, yes, yes,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: there are some that are on their phones. They're not
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: being a cop. But the majority of these people are
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the same. They have no backing from the people in charge.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: None.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: None. You're absolutely right. And I'm being unfair because, of course,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: if anyone was in that position where they know that
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: the city doesn't have their back, then what else are
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: you going to do? You can't really, like, as one
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: cop said to me, you know, if I intervene and
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: start completely, you know, arresting this pickpocket or whatever, then,
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: and he attacks me, I could lose my house.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: You know, I could be sued. They've lost their qualified immunity. Right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: So they're very judicious about when they intervene. And I
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: look at some of these cops who are getting injured
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: and shot, and I think you are heroes because you've
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: intervened despite all that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: You are doing your job to keep us safe despite
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: all that. Agreed.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: You're 100% right, Miranda.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It's very tough for these people. Very, very tough. You
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: are amazing.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: You really are.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: You've got to read this column, folks.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Miranda Devine, Central Park crime surges as New York City
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: criminals cash in on class action.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Settlements.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You got to read her stuff every day. The best
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: columnist in the world. Great podcast every week. Trump loves her.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Sid loves her. New York loves her. The great Miranda Devine.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, sweetheart. You're great.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Sid. Bye-bye.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Have a great weekend. Miranda Devine right there, back on
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Sid and Friends in the morning.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Sid and Friends in the Morning.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: You can hear Sid and Friends in the Morning weekday
• 16:44
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• 16:47
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• 17:02
  Speaker 3: and X. See you next time for a new episode
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: so you never have to wonder.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: What the heck is going on here?