Following CNN’s The Arena host Kasie Hunt’s tough interview Tuesday with D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) about his role (or lack thereof) in addressing crime in the nation’s capital, her panel did nothing to defend hin. Rather, they doubled down on the city continuing to have issues with crime and even admitted part of it nationwide has stemmed from police officer shortages caused by large scores of the public coming to hate the profession
Hunt went to former colleague Chuck Todd and doubled down on her comments to Schwalb that life in the District now is far different from what she recalled it being “10, 15 years ago and now, especially post-pandemic.” Todd agreed and cited the police shortages:
Todd then said what too many in the liberal won’t admit, which is the “politiciz[ing]” of “policing” has now “scared potential police officers from wanting to be” on the force:
Axios’s Alex Thompson came next and took aim at those on the left trying to dismiss current crime levels in D.C. because they’re down from the destructive 2023:
After Garland Justice Department official Xochitl Hinojosa argued D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser failed to ward off this federal takeover and the city is underfunded, former Congressman Peter Meijer (R-MI) defended the use of the National Guard as a deterrent from a simple standpoint of manpower to fight back on the comfort criminals have become used to:
Thompson returned to the issue of police shortages, which led Meijer to note the #DefundThePolice rhetoric had real consequences nationwide:
Defund the Police may have been empty rhetoric, you know, in the long term — right — that a lot of Democrats are distancing themselves from it. But if you’re — if you’re a young man or woman coming out of high school or college and thinking, what am I going to do? Do I want to go into a profession where, depending on which party is in control, I may or may not get paid, or they may or may not invest in it? So, I think that is the challenge is in some places, yes, reality drives perception, but then in others, perception can drive reality, whether it’s criminality in the idea that a criminal can get away with committing a crime, or on the belief that you will have support from the taxpayers or from the people they elect, so you can continue to have your job as law enforcement struggles with.
Hunt replied this had her “flashing back to like the Giuliani broken window crime theory” while Todd said he’s “old enough to remember when Joe Biden and — and Bill Clinton surged more police officers onto the street, and that was a big bipartisan effort — right — back in the in the 90s and then they ended up apologizing for it.”
“[L]ook, the fact is, we do know this: If you surge resources, you can — you get results. We know the answer to this. And for whatever reason, we’re now having — we’re having the same debate over and over again...Look, we need better trained police and we need more police, right? That’s what the left wants and the right — right wants and the idea that we can’t figure out how to come to that agreement is quite frustrating,” he concluded.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from August 12, click here.
