0:00

So we alsold the images out of Philadelphia

0:02

when young people looted

0:05

and ran stacked Ohahua store

0:07

in the city's northeast side, including

0:09

outside of the parking lot, with large groups

0:12

engaging and fighting with each other, just complete

0:14

lawlessness. In the city of Philadelphia.

0:16

At least twenty people were shot four

0:19

deaths over the weekend. Chicago,

0:21

almost forty people were shot this weekend.

0:23

This last weekend, seven were killed. So

0:26

what's happening in America cities? How

0:29

has it gotten this bad? And how

0:31

did we arrive at this place where somehow criminals

0:33

are the victims. People put up

0:36

statues of George Floyd, a guy

0:38

who put a gun to a woman's stomach as

0:40

him and his friends robbed her in her house.

0:43

Kamala Harris, our own vice president,

0:45

told Jacob Blake, who had showed

0:48

up at a woman's house to re victimize her

0:50

in Wisconsin then pulled the knife on police

0:52

officers. Kamala Harris told him

0:54

that she's proud of him. So how did

0:56

we get to this place where criminals

0:59

are somehow the victims and

1:01

in the instance of George Floyd, we're actually lionizing

1:04

them. And how responsible is

1:07

someone like George Soros and getting

1:09

these d A s elected. We're gonna ask

1:11

all these questions to Heather McDonald

1:14

that you know her. She wrote that book with the War

1:16

on Cops. It's an incredible book. She's an author

1:18

of seven, several books in fact,

1:21

always smart, always sistaining. She's also

1:23

a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a

1:25

contributing editor of the Institute's

1:28

City Journal. So we're

1:30

gonna ask her about all these things.

1:33

And this is obviously becoming a big issue

1:35

heading into the midterm elections

1:37

as well. So how is that going to play out? So all

1:39

these questions to Heather McDonald, you're gonna

1:41

want to listen to this. She's always great, always smart,

1:44

always insightful. Here she has Heather

1:46

McDonald's Heather,

1:57

I talked to you. I think it might have been maybe

2:00

a year ago about some of these issues.

2:02

But it doesn't seem to be letting up. This crime

2:05

sweeping America. You know. Senator Ted

2:07

Cruz just tweeted talking about violent crime levels

2:09

and Democrat runs cities like Baltimore,

2:11

l A, Philly, d C. New

2:14

York all on track to beat their two thousand

2:16

one violent crime levels. You

2:18

know, violent crime up in cities like New York.

2:21

I think forty from last year is what he

2:23

tweeted. How bad is

2:25

it right now in American cities? Well,

2:27

it's very bad. It's particularly bad depending

2:30

on where you live. The fact remains,

2:32

Lee says. It always has been the

2:34

case that the vast majority

2:37

of violent street crime is committed

2:39

in minority neighborhoods against

2:41

minority victims, committed by minority perpetrators.

2:45

But since the George Floyd riots,

2:47

not only has UH the homicide

2:50

and drive by shooting rates in those

2:52

inner city neighborhoods just gone up

2:54

massively, but it is

2:57

also spreading into safer

2:59

neighborhood We saw last

3:01

year places like Chicago

3:04

that established police presence

3:06

at designated hours at gas stations

3:08

in the suburbs because people

3:11

were getting car jacks. You could go and fill

3:13

your tank when despite

3:16

the high prices, you get ripped

3:18

off that way, but at least your car wouldn't

3:20

be stolen. Uh.

3:22

And people are getting robbed

3:25

on in restaurants, you know,

3:27

their their their watches are being stolen.

3:30

And there's also just an appalling

3:32

level of gratuitous violence that

3:36

the knockout game has been resurrected

3:38

where where inner city youth

3:40

are coming up and just bashing people

3:43

on the back of their heads. Uh.

3:45

The anti Asian violence is particularly

3:48

egregious. The mainstream media and

3:50

the Biden administration have a phony

3:52

narrative that this is all white supremacy.

3:55

Uh. If you've seen any of the videos of these

3:57

anti Asian hate hate attacks,

4:00

they're almost exclusively committed by blacks.

4:03

Uh. So, so you have a rapid

4:05

disintegration of social

4:08

norms and the rightful expectation

4:11

of safety that all Americans deserve

4:13

to bring when they go outside. You

4:15

know, you look at a lot of these cities, like, for instance, I used

4:17

to live in the West Village in New York. It was a pretty

4:20

safe city, right, So crime

4:22

seemed even more specific to certain neighborhoods.

4:25

If you avoid those neighborhoods, you're largely

4:27

okay. As you just mentioned, a lot of these cities like

4:29

New York, Chicago, it's seeping out into the

4:31

suburbs, is expanding. Why

4:33

why do you think that's happening just

4:35

because we've given such a green light

4:38

to criminals. Why not? You know,

4:40

you can you can expand your

4:42

range of victims. Uh.

4:44

And there's just a sense of entitlements

4:47

these, you know, I would say, I

4:49

go back and forth in my mind over this,

4:51

Lisa, which is worse the mass

4:53

looting, the mass retail theft,

4:56

or the or the physical violence and

4:59

in it are Arguably it's

5:02

the mass looting that is even

5:04

more disturbing

5:06

as to what's happening in our society because

5:09

the one of the primary missions

5:12

of government is to protect property.

5:14

Not because you know, we're greedy or

5:17

or you know, fiendishly averages

5:19

are capitalistic. It's because property

5:21

is what human beings create when they go about

5:24

the miracle of trade

5:26

and commerce. And if you can't secure

5:28

property, if the government cannot

5:30

secure property, it has no legitimacy

5:33

left. And and that is now

5:36

absolutely pervasive. Here in New

5:38

York. You can't buy a tube

5:40

of toothpaste. The toothpaste is locked up.

5:43

The criminals aren't. The

5:45

most trivial items of daily

5:47

youth truth. Toothpaste, shaving cream,

5:49

lotion are all locked up behind

5:51

plexiglass barriers because

5:54

the shoplifting problem is so great

5:57

and stores would rather this,

6:00

you know, make make it very difficult for

6:02

customers. If not closed down entirely,

6:05

then a cost shoplifters and be inevitably

6:07

accused of racism. Do we have any idea

6:10

what the net economic impact of all this

6:12

is? You know, we look at places, you know, companies

6:14

like Starbucks announcing its closing sixteen

6:17

locations, and some of these major cities

6:19

like DC, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philly.

6:21

The list goes on. McDonald's

6:23

chief executive officer recently, you

6:25

know, warned about crime gripping Chicago

6:28

at being an issue for his company. We've seen companies

6:30

or financial groups like Citadel heading out,

6:33

heading to Miami leaving Chicago.

6:35

Do we have any idea what the economic

6:37

impact has been on some of these cities

6:39

because of crime and not being able to get it under control.

6:42

Well, it certainly is in the hundreds

6:45

of millions of dollars, I would think. And it's

6:47

of course the business owners that suffered

6:49

the most that lose

6:52

customers when people go online. You

6:54

know, why why go to Dwayne

6:56

Read or Walgreens and have to wait for

6:58

somebody to come and unlocked your toothpaste

7:00

if you can just buy online. You've got

7:03

a white flight going on like crazy

7:05

from cities where all these progressive

7:08

liberals won't talk about crime because

7:10

they think it's racist to do so, but they're

7:12

voting with their feet. Uh. So you

7:15

have a redistribution, but it's it's really

7:17

hurting uh inner city corps.

7:20

And we saw the reverse happen in

7:22

New York City in the in the under

7:24

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, where he

7:27

threw proactive constitutional

7:30

color blind policing brought

7:32

crime down, and it continued

7:35

to go down until we had married to Blasio

7:37

and the George Floyd rights to be ultimately

7:39

crimed up. The

7:42

economic power of that was

7:44

massive. The tourism industry

7:46

came back, restaurants you

7:49

know, started up all over the city.

7:51

Uh. And so you can just put that

7:54

in in reverse gear and understand

7:56

how it affects things

7:58

where people are worried about staying

8:01

out light late and taking the subway

8:03

home. You know, you're not going to go to that

8:05

late night show. If you're worried about that, You're

8:07

not gonna stay around at a

8:09

restaurant or go out to a restaurant. Uh.

8:12

If you if you don't want to pay cab fare

8:15

and and fear that the subway you're gonna

8:17

get bashed or pushed into the into the

8:19

tracks. I wouldn't take the subway

8:21

in New York. I lived there for three years.

8:23

I used to take the subway every single day

8:25

to work to Fox or not every

8:27

day, but most days to the Fox headquarters

8:30

in Midtown. I took it every single day. I never

8:32

really worried about it. Mean, I wouldn't take it super

8:34

late at night. I wouldn't take it if I had been, you know, drinking

8:37

at all with friends. But I always felt

8:39

safe. I wouldn't take it now. And that seems to be the sentiment

8:41

of most of the people I talked about I talked to in the city.

8:44

Absolutely. I just got back to New

8:46

York from California, and I'm really, I'm

8:48

really making that calculation. It's

8:50

so much easier to use than surface streets.

8:53

But there's just been such a regular

8:56

string of a violent

8:58

crime in the subway ways, and you just think,

9:01

is it Is it worth it? And and this

9:03

was another sign of the rebirth of New York.

9:05

And I could get out at my local

9:07

subway stop on the Lexington Line

9:10

at at eleven PM and there'd be

9:12

people pouring out because

9:14

they felt safe about staying late

9:16

at work or work going out for drinks.

9:19

That's not happening now. I can guarantee

9:21

you well, and you got to this earlier.

9:23

But we're in this weird time where

9:26

the left almost sees criminals as

9:28

if they're the victims. Yeah, we've put

9:30

up statues of George Floyd. You know, Kamala

9:32

Harris told Jacob Blake, who showed up at a

9:34

woman's house to re victimize her pulled

9:37

a knife on police, that she was proud of him.

9:39

How do how do we arrive at this place

9:41

where not only are criminals somehow the victims,

9:44

but in the instance of George Floyd, were lionizing

9:46

them. Well, I'm going to broach

9:48

a very difficult topical, Lisa, which

9:51

is race. And it's something that well meaning Americans

9:54

just don't want to talk about. You know, we're

9:56

the opposite of white supremacists. Uh

9:59

we we don't want to say the obvious.

10:02

It's because the vast majority

10:04

of violent street criminals are black

10:06

into a lesser stent Hispanics

10:09

and well meaning Americans turn their

10:11

eyes away from that reality,

10:13

and we are unwinding law enforcement

10:16

in the name of avoiding so called disparate

10:19

impact, which is the fact that if you police

10:22

in a color blind neutral fashion, you

10:24

will have a negative disparate impact

10:26

on black criminals because their

10:29

rates of crime among

10:31

blacks is so much higher. For example,

10:33

in New York City, blacks

10:35

are the population, but

10:38

they commit about three quarters of all drive

10:40

by shootings. If you add Hispanic

10:42

drive by shootings to that, you account for

10:44

virtually all drive by shootings

10:47

in the city. All whites are not committing

10:49

drive by shootings. That is the reality

10:51

in every single American city.

10:54

And so we've decided that rather enforced

10:56

the law. If if if arresting

10:58

those retail all theft vandals,

11:02

the people that are walking into stores with

11:04

with trash bags and just filling them out and

11:06

filling them up and strolling out, uh,

11:09

that will result in disparate

11:12

arrest of minority shoplifters. We've

11:14

decided we'd rather not enforced the law. We'd

11:16

rather not increase so called mass

11:19

incarceration of blacks, which is not

11:21

mass. It is incarceration, It

11:23

is not mass, It is not disproportionate

11:25

to the crime rate in our country. Nobody

11:27

wants to acknowledge that. Uh.

11:30

And so if there were not racial

11:32

disparities and incarceration in

11:35

police saying, we would not be

11:37

unwinding the law system.

11:39

We would say, block

11:42

them up and throw away the key. But

11:44

it's because of our understandable

11:48

guilt about racism in

11:50

the past in this country

11:52

that we are turning our eyes

11:54

away from what's happening now in the streets

11:57

and and the irony, Lisa, you

11:59

know, the AFT the mainstream

12:01

media, the New York Times

12:04

just routinely put scare

12:06

quotes around the crime.

12:08

You know, they say, all these conservatives they're talking

12:11

about crime, you know, little

12:13

little air quotes being being ironizing

12:16

the topic, as

12:18

if this is all just a figment of the

12:20

racist conservative imagination. When

12:23

they dismiss this current

12:25

crime increase, which is what they're doing. What

12:28

they're saying is to us, black

12:30

lives don't matter. We

12:32

were not gonna we're not going to acknowledge

12:34

that there's this massive homicide increase

12:37

because we're we to do so, we'd have to acknowledge

12:40

black on black crime. So they're

12:42

basically saying, don't pay attention to it,

12:45

it doesn't matter. Well, it does matter

12:47

because there are thousands

12:49

upon thousands of hard working,

12:52

law abiding residents of inner city

12:54

neighborhoods who deserve police

12:57

protection, who are terrified to go

12:59

out, especial stually the elderly, and

13:01

we're turning our backs on them too.

13:03

Well, that's also I mean, if you look at who

13:06

the victims are, aren't they predominantly minorities

13:08

and a lot of these cities, yes, absolutely,

13:11

So it's like you think they would care about them, you

13:13

know. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying

13:16

for for for the media, for the New York

13:18

Times to to scoff at the idea

13:21

that crime has gone up and to

13:23

say, oh, this is just some sort of conservative

13:25

talking point. They are essentially

13:29

saying black victims don't

13:31

matter, that we don't think there's

13:33

a crime increase. To to to

13:35

deny the crime increase means denying

13:38

that thousands more blacks died

13:41

in homicide were killed by homicide

13:43

in two thousand and even more. You

13:47

can't have it both ways. You can't say black

13:50

lives matter and then say

13:52

we're not going to be

13:54

concerned about this crime increase. Click

13:56

commercial break more with Heather McDonald.

13:58

On the other side, how

14:06

responsible is George Soros and

14:08

getting some of these das elected

14:10

for the increase in crime in America cities? Well,

14:13

I think he's very responsible for getting

14:15

these these progressive das elected

14:17

who are saying they're not going to

14:20

enforce a whole host of laws

14:22

because those laws have a disparate impact

14:24

on black Again, Lisa, I can't stress

14:26

enough the the ruling principle

14:29

in our world today is avoiding disparate impact.

14:31

That's everything that you see that's going on

14:34

in the criminal justice system today, it is

14:36

driven by disparate impact. Soros

14:38

has put these guys in, uh

14:40

you know, they're saying, we're not gonna we're not gonna prosecute

14:42

churnstyle jumping in the subway systems

14:45

because that has a disperate impact on blacks. We're

14:47

not gonna uh prosecute theft

14:49

larceny because that has a disperate impact on blacks.

14:52

They're even not prosecuting resisting

14:54

arrest, which is the natire

14:57

of civilization. If you're not going to punish

15:00

people who disobey cops, then

15:02

there is no more civilization. So

15:04

that's a very big factor of

15:07

the lack of prosecution so that there's no

15:09

criminal consequences. But I would

15:11

say responsibility also

15:14

rests with Joe Biden

15:17

and the rest of the democratic establishments.

15:19

Biden is still harping on his racism

15:23

and white supremacy defines this country.

15:25

Theme Uh. He is. For

15:28

maybe the less couple of months, he has not

15:30

been as explicit about saying,

15:33

uh criminal justice system

15:35

is racist. But that's been a

15:37

constant refrain, both as

15:39

a candidate for president uh

15:42

and and since the day he

15:45

took office and ever since. He keeps bashing

15:47

the cops as racist. And and

15:49

when they hear that, if they're being

15:51

told that they're racist for going into minority

15:54

neighborhoods and making stops

15:56

of of known gang bangers, not

15:58

surprisingly cops are gonna do less of it because

16:01

policing is political, and they're getting

16:03

the political message that this is not what's

16:05

wanted in society. So the cops

16:07

have backed off, and that's allowed again

16:10

the criminals become emboldened well.

16:12

And also just not having enough police officers

16:14

and a lot of these cities, right, I mean, I was reading

16:16

in you know, Chicago, something like nine hundred

16:19

officers had left the Chicago Police Department

16:21

between January and October of

16:25

one while only fifty one joy And and

16:27

you know, I know we talked about this the last time You're

16:29

on about this issue arising and so

16:31

many of the city, So how big of an impact

16:34

is that happening of police officers just being

16:36

like to your point of after, you know, just getting

16:38

beaten up so badly being like, you know what, I'm out,

16:40

Like I don't need this. I'm gonna go into a different

16:43

career field or move to a safer

16:45

city, like I'm out. Oh, it's huge. Minneapolis

16:48

is down a third since George

16:50

Floyd Race riots. Um,

16:53

and you know the burning down of the of the

16:55

third precinct in Minneapolis.

16:58

Uh, there is a total recruiting crisis

17:00

in this country. You know,

17:02

everybody's trying to poach everybody else.

17:04

But I don't know a single police

17:07

department that isn't facing the

17:09

difficulty of trying to replace the

17:12

officers who have took off and

17:14

and they just can't do it. Uh.

17:17

You know that you can offer larger salaries

17:19

all you want, but if people are getting excrement

17:21

thrown at them, Uh, you know,

17:24

when they try and make an arrest or rocks and

17:26

bottles and people cursing at them,

17:28

that's not really a profession

17:30

of choice that anybody would go into.

17:32

Who has a choice. Well,

17:34

and it looks like the left isn't slowing

17:36

down with some of this stuff. I mean, the state of Illinois's

17:40

has a law going into effect I believe

17:42

in two thousand, twenty three January one two

17:44

three, ending cash bail

17:47

in the state. And it's ironically

17:49

named the Safety Act, which is clearly

17:51

not uh, and what it's being called

17:54

is the Purge Act. You know, what kind of impact

17:56

do you think that is going to have when

17:59

Illinois specifically looking at you know,

18:01

the Chicago area is already just with

18:04

crime and murder. Yeah,

18:06

well, Uh, the Illinois

18:09

legislature is a real problem.

18:12

Uh. It used to be Rama

18:14

Manuel in his his police chief used

18:16

to say, we need stronger gun

18:18

laws here to prosecute illegal gun

18:21

possession and use of guns in

18:23

in crimes, and we

18:25

need longer sentences. And the

18:28

Illinois legislature in Springfield would

18:30

inevitably block that in

18:33

the name of disparate impact. Because

18:35

if you prosecute gun

18:37

criminals at a higher

18:39

rate, you're going to have a disparate impact on blacks.

18:42

Blacks in Chicago,

18:44

or a little under third of the

18:46

population, they commit about eighty percent

18:49

of all murders and drive by shootings.

18:52

If judges and prosecutors have no mechanism

18:56

for holding people who have a very

18:58

high, high likelihood of

19:01

um committing another crime

19:03

while awaiting trial that

19:05

that does add to the criminal

19:08

burden. Quick break more on the

19:10

crime problem.

19:16

At what point do people wake up politically?

19:18

You know, you do look at this race

19:20

between the Attorney to General

19:23

Tis James against Republican challenger

19:25

Michael Henry. I mean, he looks like he's potentially

19:28

in the margin of error. I think it looks

19:30

like or you know, you've got Lee Zelden running against

19:32

Governor HOCl Yeah. At what point

19:35

do people wake up politically and

19:37

realize that they're just gonna keep

19:39

getting this if they elect some of these liberals

19:41

in these cities and givenatorial

19:44

races. Lisa, I defer

19:46

to you on that one. I am just astounded.

19:49

I am utterly astounded that there

19:51

continue to be races

19:53

where the left winds. Whether

19:56

it's in in Venice Beach,

19:58

in in Los Angeles, or

20:00

the failure of the recall of George

20:02

Gascon, I do not know.

20:05

And it seems to be that

20:08

the left will just define

20:10

deviance down and define its

20:12

own tolerance down in

20:15

order not to have

20:17

to face the fact that their philosophy

20:20

has been a total failure. And

20:22

so they'll just say, well, okay, so there's

20:25

another you know, twenty

20:27

vagrants on my street

20:29

shooting up drugs in front of my children.

20:32

That's just what it is means to live in

20:34

a city today. Heaven

20:37

forbid. I say that the police

20:39

actually should move people on, that

20:42

they should not allow this, that the law

20:45

abiding residents deserve

20:47

to be the primary focus of

20:49

public policy, not the deviant,

20:52

not the anti social. And yet

20:54

I see again and again, Uh,

20:57

people still willing to put up with this. So

20:59

we'll see. I mean, I

21:02

frankly, I hate to jinx the racer

21:04

or be negative, but in

21:07

in Los Angeles, Rick Caruso

21:09

should be a shoe in as mayor. He's

21:11

a got an extraordinary record

21:13

as a uh developer

21:17

of of shopping malls.

21:19

He's got an exquisite sense of taste

21:22

and design. And yet uh,

21:25

the career politician

21:27

Karen Bass is out

21:29

polling him there and and Los

21:31

Angeles looks like

21:34

hell at this point. If

21:36

they don't, if if people continue

21:39

to tolerate this, I I just

21:41

I shake my head because you would think that

21:44

at some point self interest takes

21:46

over the preening sense

21:49

that oh, I'm being so virtuous by

21:51

allowing people to decompensate

21:55

on the streets, and uh,

21:57

rob everybody else blind one of

22:00

you know, you've got John Fetterman running for SENNA in Pennsylvania

22:02

who's previously called for mass release

22:04

a prisoner, specifically one third of

22:07

the statewide criminal population.

22:09

So you know, it's it's it's sort of boggles the

22:11

mind. But I think what's really sad to me

22:13

is just I just don't understand

22:16

how we got to a place where we're so desensitized

22:18

to the loss of life. Like one of my really really good

22:20

friends, Gianno Caldwell lost his

22:22

little brother eighteen in Chicago.

22:26

Look at over the week as his little brother was only

22:28

eighteen years old. I mean, you look at even just over

22:30

the weekend, there's forty people shot, seven

22:32

killed in one week. It's like, how

22:35

did we arrive as at a place in

22:38

society where we're just so desensitized

22:41

to the loss of human life. Well, Lisa,

22:43

it's it's because the left

22:45

actually is racist. The

22:48

people that are being shot every weekend

22:51

in Chicago, in Minneapolis

22:53

and Baton Rouge in New Orleans are

22:56

overwhelmingly black. You

22:58

know, you it is spreading, It is

23:00

spreading, and at some point black

23:02

kids are gonna, i mean white kids rather going to start

23:04

getting gunned down. But basically,

23:08

uh, the politicians

23:11

and democratic politicians turn

23:13

their eyes away from this black

23:15

on black slaughter. It is amazing.

23:18

The only people talking about it are

23:20

white conservatives. It's

23:23

it's remarkable that's the only people talking

23:25

about it. We're the ones that are supposed to be

23:27

the white supremacists. No excuse

23:30

me, you people who

23:32

are who are pretending this is not

23:34

happening. You are turning

23:37

your backs on black

23:39

victims. What steps should

23:41

these cities take to reclaim

23:44

their city? You know, what what steps should these leaders

23:46

take to you know, rid their cities

23:48

of this crime and this violent crime that we're

23:51

saying, what do you think the most important steps

23:53

would be the most important step

23:55

is to say to the police, we expect

23:57

you to go where the crime is. We expect

24:00

you to use your your legitimate

24:02

power in a constitutional

24:04

matter, in a color blind manner. But if

24:07

you generate disparate

24:09

stop and arrest statistics, which

24:11

you will, if you are fighting

24:14

crime where it is happening, we will not

24:16

come after you and accuse you of

24:19

racism. We know that

24:21

you cannot police it's

24:24

constitutionally in this country

24:26

without having a disparate impact on blacks.

24:29

And that is because you're trying to save black

24:31

lives. Officers have to believe

24:34

that they're not going to be attacked.

24:37

UH. We have to support them

24:39

when they're forced to use uh lethal

24:42

force because somebody is resisting

24:44

arrest and and putting them in

24:46

the fear of their lives. Uh

24:49

And and so we know how to do

24:51

this. This is how you fight

24:53

crime. There's three things you do. You

24:55

arrest, you prosecute, and

24:57

you incarcerate. We

25:00

are not doing any of them,

25:02

and it's no surprise that crime is

25:04

going up. UH.

25:07

Incarceration is not an end in itself.

25:11

It's not ideal. We

25:13

all wish we didn't have to do it. But

25:15

the alternatives that the left cause

25:17

it's all the time of well, we're

25:19

just going to do more welfare services

25:22

and do diversion and keep people in the

25:24

community. Those programs

25:27

don't work. They have not worked since the sixties

25:29

and seventies when we tried them,

25:31

and they're not working now. It is very hard

25:35

to rewire somebody who

25:37

has spent the first twenty years of his life

25:40

in a dysfunctional home

25:42

with single mother, series of boyfriends

25:45

going through the house. If we

25:47

knew how to do it, it would be great. It

25:49

would be great if we could empty the prisons,

25:52

but we we haven't figured out how to do

25:54

that yet. And so now you

25:57

don't get a second chance, You

25:59

don't get a benefit of the doubt. We are

26:01

we should start giving the benefit of the

26:03

doubt to the law abiding,

26:07

to those who respect everybody else's

26:09

property, not to those who violated.

26:12

Well, I think we really need to have a revival of the family

26:15

and the importance of you know, encouraging

26:17

families, encouraging both parents to stick

26:20

around and be there for their kids and

26:22

you know, to to raise good kids. Were

26:24

Republicans wrong to embrace criminal justice

26:27

reform? They were wrong to

26:29

have embraced the rationale

26:31

in which it was done. They

26:33

were very wrong to for Trump

26:36

to say, oh, yeah, this is racist.

26:38

The reason that Alice, whatever her name was,

26:40

is in prison was because the criminal justice

26:42

system was racist. No, it wasn't.

26:45

It was the Black Cock Congressional Black Caucus

26:48

that said, we need higher penalties for

26:50

crack cocaine because crack cocaine

26:52

is the worst oppression

26:55

that this this UH community has

26:57

experienced in slavery. Uh,

27:01

you know, can we can we fiddle with

27:03

with penalties here? And they're sure, I'm willing

27:06

to do that. But what

27:08

But when you say that you're doing it in the name

27:10

of fighting racism,

27:13

that's where things get very bad,

27:15

because that then becomes the

27:17

excuse for unwinding

27:20

everything else. Is there anything else

27:22

you'd like to leave us with before we go, Heather, vote?

27:25

Yeah, I mean, do not think that

27:29

that the country can be

27:31

saved under the present

27:34

political leadership. And

27:37

uh, you have to if

27:40

you have a close race in your in your

27:42

jurisdiction, you have to vote. If it's not a close

27:44

race either way, you know, if if

27:46

Republicans look likely to win, vote

27:49

if they don't vote anyway, Like, just get

27:51

the bodies out there. This

27:53

thing can be turned around. Giuliani

27:56

did it. It's not rocket science. The

27:59

question is do we have the will to do so? I

28:01

think that's the question. And hopefully people

28:04

heed your your warning and your words

28:06

and and get out and vote in November and encourage

28:08

their friends and family to do the same. There's a

28:11

lot on the line this November. Heather McDonald,

28:13

thanks so much for joining the show. Always insightful,

28:16

uh and always honest. I appreciate you taking

28:18

the time. Thank you very much. Lisa I appreciate

28:20

talking to you. Thank you. So

28:28

that was Heather McDonald, the interesting

28:31

conversation. She's great. I've had her on before.

28:33

She's so smart. All her columns are smart.

28:35

She's written a ton of books as well, which are obviously

28:38

all really well done and including The War

28:40

on Cops. So appreciate her

28:42

time. Appreciate you guys listening every Monday

28:45

and Thursday. But you know what you can

28:47

do. You can listen throughout the week. I also want

28:49

to thank John Cassio, my producer, for putting

28:51

it together. Leave us five stars,

28:53

leave us review. I love reading those um and

28:55

please share with your friends and family. Thanks so much for

28:57

listening.