Speaker 1: All right, I hope you enjoyed part one of that
Speaker 1: conversation that was very much focused on the military, we
Speaker 1: delved into some larger issues. My second interview Herman Lopez.
Speaker 1: He's actually a New York Times reporter that is now
Speaker 1: part of the editorial board and actually at the end
Speaker 1: of our conversation about policing in America, and he's been
Speaker 1: on the criminal justice beat for decade in various news organizations.
Speaker 1: So I think you'll really appreciate the expertise that he provides,
Speaker 1: and frankly, a very sober and dispassionate explanation of you know,
Speaker 1: what are the explanations as to why, as to why
Speaker 1: we have so many unsolved murders. But I do want
Speaker 1: to make one quick point about DC. There's an interesting
Speaker 1: little various generational divides and the question is DC safer
Speaker 1: today than ever.
Speaker 2: Before or not?
Speaker 1: Well, some of this, by the way, depends on how
Speaker 1: old you are. So for instance, I moved here. I
Speaker 1: moved to d C in nineteen ninety. That's when I
Speaker 1: went to school. GW moved here in the June of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, and in fact, my first week was when
Speaker 1: there was the whole Marion Barry, you know, the the
Speaker 1: at the crack cocaine bust, and that was just consumed
Speaker 1: the city's politics and was consuming and it was sort
Speaker 1: of in the nineties in general, it was a low
Speaker 1: point for d C as a community as a and
Speaker 1: it was sort of really So, I look at d
Speaker 1: C today and while if you compare d c's you know,
Speaker 1: the security of d C today to say, ten years ago,
Speaker 1: you feel as if things are not as good as
Speaker 1: they were. If you're someone like me and you compared
Speaker 1: to where d C was and to the nineties, you think,
Speaker 1: what do you, guys, this is you don't understand more
Speaker 1: parts of DC today are are are great places to
Speaker 1: hang out and all of those things than ever before.
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering in some ways why you're hearing
Speaker 1: different descriptions of d C, do take note of how
Speaker 1: old the person is that's telling you this. I think
Speaker 1: if you're somebody who's who's been in DC for the
Speaker 1: last fifteen or twenty years, you have won. You know,
Speaker 1: It's all depends on where you where your baseline was, right,
Speaker 1: and if that was your baseline, it feels as if
Speaker 1: DC's a little less secure than it was fifteen or
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. If you're someone like me and remembered
Speaker 1: when the waterfront was not the best place to be
Speaker 1: that where the Nationals Park is, and when you had
Speaker 1: to go get your car inspected, you were you literally,
Speaker 1: you know, you did so as in as sunny of
Speaker 1: a day as possible. There wasn't It wasn't just that neighborhood.
Speaker 1: There were lots of neighborhoods that felt that way.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: The trajectory of DC in my lifetime has been safer
Speaker 1: and better and more of the city more open to everybody,
Speaker 1: more more, you know, just feels like a better place
Speaker 1: to live. But so I think if you're wondering why
Speaker 1: there's sometimes a disconnect, do take note, you know, are
Speaker 1: those people like me who've been in d C since
Speaker 1: the late eighties, early nineties, or is it people that
Speaker 1: came to d C, say right after nine to eleven. Anyway,
Speaker 1: just thought i'd make that little notation there. So with that,
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Herman Lopez. And
Speaker 1: joining me now from The New York Times is Herman Lopez.
Speaker 1: When I booked him, he was a reporter on the
Speaker 1: reporter side and now he has joined the opinion section,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to in a minute, but he was
Speaker 1: the author of an article a few about a month
Speaker 1: ago on some new data that was released about how
Speaker 1: nearly half of all murders in America go unsolved. The
Speaker 1: point is that essentially, if you murder someone in America,
Speaker 1: you got a fifty to fifty chance to get away
Speaker 1: with it. And that is not quite fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: But we're going to get into the reasons for this.
Speaker 1: But I can't think of a more timely conversation given
Speaker 1: suddenly the President is currently interested in crime that he
Speaker 1: in the visuals that he can see, when if this
Speaker 1: were the focus, that the real issue of criminal justice,
Speaker 1: of the issue of crime in America arguably.
Speaker 2: Might be this.
Speaker 1: This is a nationwide problem that isn't something that can
Speaker 1: be solved one jurisdiction at a time, and yet it's
Speaker 1: something I thought this was one of those headlines and boy,
Speaker 1: this should get people's attention, and it seemed to land
Speaker 1: with crickets. So what happens when that happens, You do
Speaker 1: your best to try to surface it. So I've invited
Speaker 1: Herman onto the podcast because I really want to explore
Speaker 1: this issue more, and because if we really want to
Speaker 1: solve feel safe in America, perhaps, you know, we might
Speaker 1: want to start with solving the most egregious crimes to
Speaker 1: take place against humanity, like murder. Herman, Welcome to the podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. So let's start with the piece.
Speaker 1: You've been covering criminal justice issues for over a decade,
Speaker 1: so this is obviously on your beat. I just found
Speaker 1: this framing to be really clarifying and I real because
Speaker 1: here's this one story that once you start to peel
Speaker 1: the onion, you realize, oh, we don't have enough cops. Oh,
Speaker 1: we don't have enough these resources. Oh we don't have
Speaker 1: enough these resources. And so when you think about people's
Speaker 1: complaints about law and order in general, that if you
Speaker 1: actually began with this focus, perhaps everything else sort of
Speaker 1: falls into place if you can crack this part of
Speaker 1: the code. But it is, but you're the expert. This
Speaker 1: is your beat, So tell me how you went about
Speaker 1: this and what kind of why you framed it the
Speaker 1: way you decided to frame it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I've been fascinated by clearance rates. That's what
Speaker 2: the statistic is called. Essentially, how many murders are cleared
Speaker 2: means how many resultant in arrest. I've been fascinated by
Speaker 2: this for years because the US has historically been very
Speaker 2: behind rich countries like where we're talking about, like Japan
Speaker 2: or Germany or Australia, those kinds of examples, like they
Speaker 2: have clearance rates in the nineties like ninety plus percent.
Speaker 2: Japan famously solves almost all of its murders. They have
Speaker 2: fewer of them, so it's easier for them to do that,
Speaker 2: but they have fewer of them. So the US historically
Speaker 2: is usually around fifty to sixty percent, especially after COVID.
Speaker 2: The most recent data suggests it's bumped up a little too,
Speaker 2: around sixty percent. But I should say that even that's
Speaker 2: a little misleading because that includes murders that happened in
Speaker 2: previous years that were solved in the year where the
Speaker 2: data was reported. So if you actually subtract those pre murders,
Speaker 2: the clearance rate is more around forty percent depending on
Speaker 2: the city, which is even obviously even more than half
Speaker 2: of people who kill someone in that year will get
Speaker 2: away with it, at least for that year. And for me,
Speaker 2: this is just this is just arming that there's a
Speaker 2: thing in criminal justices somewhere. There are three ways to
Speaker 2: deter someone. One is the severity of the punishment. So
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody thinks they're going to face long
Speaker 2: prison punishment, they might decide, I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: that crime. If they think they're going to get away
Speaker 2: with it, then that's the other thing is a certainty
Speaker 2: of punishment is important. So if somebody thinks they're going
Speaker 2: to get away with it, then you know they might think,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this crime anyway. I mean, a
Speaker 2: long prison punishment penalty isn't going to matter if you
Speaker 2: think you can get away with the crime. And the
Speaker 2: third thing is the speed of punishment, because people not
Speaker 2: only have to be certain, but it has to come fast.
Speaker 2: Like I murdered someone and a few days later I
Speaker 2: was arrested. That sends the signals to the rest of
Speaker 2: the community that like, look, the police are taking this
Speaker 2: very sore and you're gonna get caught exactly, and yeah,
Speaker 2: how does this compare to thirty years ago?
Speaker 1: Has this always been the case? Is this historically a
Speaker 1: consistent pattern here of essentially unresolved murder cases.
Speaker 2: Now it's clearance rates in general have gone down over
Speaker 2: the past few decades. I should say that there's some
Speaker 2: discussion among criminal justice experts about how much of this
Speaker 2: was like, you know, police were just locking up anyone
Speaker 2: they could pick up, Like you think about the level
Speaker 2: of evidence that they gather now you know, DNA evidence,
Speaker 2: the forensic stuff, like they and also generally they had
Speaker 2: to clear a higher bar because like, courts no longer
Speaker 2: accept just police picking up anyone off the street and
Speaker 2: claiming that they're a murderer, and so prosecutors will send
Speaker 2: back those cases and police know that, so they'll be
Speaker 2: more careful with their arrest. So in general we've seen
Speaker 2: a decline in clearance rates, but it's not clear how
Speaker 2: much of that is that, Like you know, to some
Speaker 2: it might be that police have gotten better at their
Speaker 2: jobs because they're not being as abusive with criminal slice.
Speaker 2: But to some degree, it probably is that police aren't
Speaker 2: taking this as seriously as they once used to. It
Speaker 2: used to be a big part of policing in the
Speaker 2: US that they focused on clearance rates, and over time
Speaker 2: we've transitioned to this model of more proactive policing, so
Speaker 2: we try to stop crime before it happens. And as
Speaker 2: we've done that, we've put less emphasis on actually solving
Speaker 2: crimes once they do happen, and yet we have more
Speaker 2: data than ever right DNA.
Speaker 1: It's you know, between I look at two things, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, let me frame it another way.
Speaker 1: The perception of safety in America I think has gotten
Speaker 1: better in my lifetime, not worse. And I think the
Speaker 1: number one reason is this surveillance, meaning every you know,
Speaker 1: the likelihood that you're going to be on camera doing
Speaker 1: the crime, whether it's violent crime or petty crime, but
Speaker 1: the idea that the likelihood the will be evidence that
Speaker 1: you did it is never been higher. The ability to
Speaker 1: use DNA evidence to find a particle that will connect
Speaker 1: a suspect to the crime and make it possible to
Speaker 1: get a conviction.
Speaker 2: We've never had more tools at our disposal.
Speaker 1: And yet the counter point is here, we have all
Speaker 1: of this, all of these extra tools that the police
Speaker 1: didn't have.
Speaker 2: So obviously it does.
Speaker 1: Mean, oh my god, how many people got convicted for
Speaker 1: crimes that they probably didn't commit. So that's one thing
Speaker 1: you worry about when you look at the twentieth century
Speaker 1: versus of twenty first. But why is it that these
Speaker 1: new tools haven't been able to actually increase the likelihood
Speaker 1: that police can solve these crimes.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a few things going on. In
Speaker 2: some cases, police just haven't really caught up with a
Speaker 2: modern era and are not using cares as much as
Speaker 2: they could be. There's also like civil libertarians really take
Speaker 2: issue with the idea of surveillance, and they have tried
Speaker 2: to legally restrain police, and like, look, they have some
Speaker 2: legitimate complaints. I'm not saying that like the police should
Speaker 2: have access to like every new technology and abuse it accordingly,
Speaker 2: but like there is some pushback there, and police have
Speaker 2: to deal with that. They ultimately answer to you know,
Speaker 2: city councils and mayors and governors and all that. But
Speaker 2: another issue is frankly just just funding police. That there
Speaker 2: are actually if you walk around a modern city. I
Speaker 2: live in Cincinnati, So when I walk around, there are
Speaker 2: these like polls of that old cameras and actually audio
Speaker 2: devices at the top, and they can hear gunshots, they
Speaker 2: record people on the street. People can actually see these
Speaker 2: probably never modern city, and they become more popular recently,
Speaker 2: but police haven't adopted them as widely as you would think.
Speaker 2: So you know, when you think about like how people
Speaker 2: are getting away with murder in this modern surveillance state.
Speaker 2: That's part of it is that they can't necessarily access
Speaker 2: all the cameras, and they really might not have cameras
Speaker 2: around to begin with, depending on what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: All right, but what about on the DNA side of things? Right?
Speaker 1: In some ways, there's never been more ways to find
Speaker 1: evidence that. Frankly, it was evidence that existed before, but
Speaker 1: we didn't have the technology to.
Speaker 2: Identify it.
Speaker 1: Right now we have the technology to identify DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: Is this another case of lack of adoption or is
Speaker 1: this it's just not as easy as it as TV
Speaker 1: makes it look.
Speaker 2: I would say that it's not as easy as TV
Speaker 2: makes it look. And the biggest thing you have to
Speaker 2: consider is the proliferation of guns in the US. You
Speaker 2: are just much less likely to leave behind the evidence
Speaker 2: if you're if you're shooting someone, then if you're stabbing them.
Speaker 2: So you think about, you know, if you think about
Speaker 2: like a CSI episode, it's often like a husband killing
Speaker 2: his wife or something along those lines, like people who
Speaker 2: intimately know each other, and the episode's about uncovering that.
Speaker 2: Those are usually crimes where you know they're they're up close.
Speaker 2: There's physical evidence everywhere in a lot of these shootings,
Speaker 2: I mean, people are just driving by a house and
Speaker 2: gunning people down, and nobody even sees the face of
Speaker 2: the shooter. Like they might still know who the shooter
Speaker 2: was or have their suspicions, but they might not have
Speaker 2: actually seen them. So so if you think about it
Speaker 2: in that situation, that that makes it much much harder
Speaker 2: to salt these crimes. Is it easy to classify the
Speaker 2: unsolved cases? Is there a pattern here?
Speaker 1: It's it's more of it's it's the murders that are
Speaker 1: harder to are for our murders that take place where
Speaker 1: the where it is a gunman and where the gunman
Speaker 1: is you know, ten feet away or more like, is
Speaker 1: there is it that can you can you divvy it
Speaker 1: up that concrete?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are, Like I would say, there are layers. One,
Speaker 2: if it's a shooter, then distance obviously matters as well,
Speaker 2: and then gang related because if the crime gang related
Speaker 2: crimes are more likely to be not necessarily anonymous, but
Speaker 2: the victim and shooter might not know each other, at
Speaker 2: least the victim's family might not know the shooter. That's
Speaker 2: more likely to happen also gangs are just better at
Speaker 2: covering up crimes since they have more experience with it,
Speaker 2: so they might know how to avoid getting caught to
Speaker 2: begin with. And so those I think those three factors
Speaker 2: really play a big role. And the US does generally
Speaker 2: have more shootings and more gang crime than other countries,
Speaker 2: so that would explain some of the discrepancy when you
Speaker 2: look at Japan, which has very few guns, very little
Speaker 2: gang activity that results in murder, so that I think
Speaker 2: that's one of the biggest things driving it is just
Speaker 2: you know, the US has a lot of guns and
Speaker 2: gangs are using them. So okay, that's another part of this.
Speaker 1: If how many of these unst murders are likely gang related,
Speaker 1: it's hard to.
Speaker 2: Say because it depends on the city by city, and
Speaker 2: the statistics frankly aren't that great. But in some cities
Speaker 2: it's the vast majority of shootings are are gang related.
Speaker 2: Well maybe not some cities, but at least in some neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of shootings, I should say, our game related.
Speaker 2: So when you're looking at that level of things, there
Speaker 2: can be like, you know, your entire community might be
Speaker 2: riddled by crime that's unsolved, And that's another thing that's
Speaker 2: striking I should say about these clearance rate statistics is like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're talking about national statistics, right, but when
Speaker 2: you start looking at the city and neighborhood level, there
Speaker 2: are some places where clearance rates can drop to like
Speaker 2: single digits like nine percent and lower because there's so
Speaker 2: few attention going to the issue.
Speaker 1: Well, part it's that or is there fear like eyewitnesses
Speaker 1: don't want to cooperate.
Speaker 2: There's that aspect as well. That's absolutely part of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's also just a vicious cycle. Right, If
Speaker 2: you know that people are getting away with murder, you
Speaker 2: are less likely to testify as a witness because you
Speaker 2: have no confidence that the police can actually protect you
Speaker 2: if you come forward, speak up, testifying court. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system fundamentally relies on our belief that
Speaker 2: it is protecting us our trust, and if you don't
Speaker 2: have that then pretty it starts fraying. And I think
Speaker 2: that's what we see when we look at these clearance
Speaker 2: rate numbers, especially in minority and poor neighborhoods. They have
Speaker 2: lots of reasons, not just the clear low clearance rates
Speaker 2: to not trust beliefs, and that leads to all sorts
Speaker 2: of problems and solving murders.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about I grew up in Miami
Speaker 1: in the eighties, seventies and eighties, and in the eighties
Speaker 1: we were the murder capital of the world. And I
Speaker 1: will tell you I never fell unsafe, right because it
Speaker 1: was there was a belief and I think over time
Speaker 1: we learned this is that ninety percent of these murders
Speaker 1: were both the victim and the shooter.
Speaker 2: It was all part of the same world. Right.
Speaker 1: It felt like as if, yes, this was happening in Miami,
Speaker 1: but this was disputes between cartels. These days, we you know,
Speaker 1: the difference between gang and a cartel is just the name, right,
Speaker 1: Arguably it's the same thing. And you know, and there
Speaker 1: was this feeling that, well, if you're not involved in
Speaker 1: the various activities, you're going to be safe.
Speaker 2: Is that still the case?
Speaker 1: Is that how you would tell people that you know
Speaker 1: they because you know it's you know, because.
Speaker 2: I've always felt I felt that way when I was
Speaker 2: here in d C. Too.
Speaker 1: Is that I lived in DC when it was the
Speaker 1: murder capital of the world in the early nineties, and
Speaker 1: yet I never felt all right, I know, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I remember I had had my grandfather's wife when I
Speaker 1: went and decided to go to school in DC. This
Speaker 1: is in nineteen eighty nine. She goes like, it's so
Speaker 1: unsafe there, and I went and Ella, we live in Miami,
Speaker 1: like we just like they made an entire television there's
Speaker 1: a huge television show called Miami.
Speaker 2: Vice that that is, you know. And yet I said,
Speaker 2: do you feel unsafe? You know?
Speaker 1: And it was sort of like having this conversation and
Speaker 1: so and that's this sort of you know, and how concentrated.
Speaker 1: I guess it goes back to it's always felt as
Speaker 1: if these things are concentrated in these communities. Is that
Speaker 1: still the case?
Speaker 2: Yes, that is definitely the case that crime is just
Speaker 2: super concentrated in general. I mean, some cities had programs
Speaker 2: where they literally focus on like just dozens or even
Speaker 2: hundreds of people within the city and demonstrably brought crime
Speaker 2: down that There's a famous example in Boston called the
Speaker 2: Boston Miracle, where they famously focus on just like these
Speaker 2: slivers of offenders, like people they knew were doing certain crimes,
Speaker 2: and crime just plummeted by fifty percent in the city
Speaker 2: throughout the course of this program and it's that can
Speaker 2: hide it from other people. But I think the reverse
Speaker 2: of that is in those communities where there are all
Speaker 2: these people committing crimes, it feels much much worse than
Speaker 2: even the crime statistics might suggest.
Speaker 1: So why, I mean, this seems like the obvious thing,
Speaker 1: which is you surge law enforcement resources to your most
Speaker 1: vulnerable neighborhoods. Why if it worked in Boston, why isn't
Speaker 1: this replicated around the country.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of you know, political interests that go
Speaker 2: into policing. I would say, so, you know, one thing
Speaker 2: is actually solving crimes or deterring crimes, right, Like, we
Speaker 2: have good evidence that if police are just in a block,
Speaker 2: people are less likely to commit crime. Who's going to
Speaker 2: be stupid enough to shoot someone else in front of
Speaker 2: a police officer, right, It's called a scarecrow effect in criminology.
Speaker 2: And so yes, you can just you can surge resources there.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is a perception of crime, and
Speaker 2: I think this is just as important. There are plenty
Speaker 2: of neighborhoods. I see this in cincinn where there are
Speaker 2: like police patrolling all these nice businesses because the business
Speaker 2: owners in the area want to feel safe. And of
Speaker 2: course they're entitled to feel safe, but the reality is
Speaker 2: crime is probably not happening in those places where there
Speaker 2: are lots of wealthier businesses, right like just in nature,
Speaker 2: that's not how crime works. So I think police have
Speaker 2: to deal with that conflict, and that limits their resources.
Speaker 2: And you know, you often see this with like surges
Speaker 2: of police in cities where they just start targeting what
Speaker 2: are frankly the wrong neighborhoods. They're like the idea of
Speaker 2: surging police officers in a block or neighborhood or whatever
Speaker 2: that does a strong empirical evidence and it does have
Speaker 2: some effect no matter where you are, but it could
Speaker 2: have a bigger impact in the neighborhoods that frankly just
Speaker 2: have less political capitals, so they can't really ask for
Speaker 2: police help as easily as you know, wealthier businesses could.
Speaker 1: So are we in a situation where we know what
Speaker 1: would work, We just don't we don't have the political will,
Speaker 1: or we're still trying to figure out best practices.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say it's a little bit of
Speaker 2: both in the end, but I would mostly lean on
Speaker 2: the first thing, which is we know what to do
Speaker 2: and we just have not really used the resources for it.
Speaker 2: You see this kind of thing all the time in politics.
Speaker 2: So in his first term, for example, President Trump actually
Speaker 2: his budgets repeatedly suggested cutting police funding. And I think
Speaker 2: one thing that's interesting about that is not necessarily that
Speaker 2: it led to police cuts, because Congress by and farded
Speaker 2: but for the most are did not pass those budgets.
Speaker 2: But there was no conversation about whether they should increase
Speaker 2: funding in certain neighborhoods, right, Like, the conversation was like,
Speaker 2: should we do Trump's budget or not? And the answer
Speaker 2: was not okay, so like should we? There was never
Speaker 2: really a conversation about this. And obviously you have the
Speaker 2: defund the police movement, which which had a big effect
Speaker 2: as well, And so I think in the end, the
Speaker 2: conversation has been really focused on, like, you know, how
Speaker 2: limited can we keep police resources? Like what's the least
Speaker 2: we can spend on this? But I think that runs
Speaker 2: into a bunch of problems. Number one, you can't solve
Speaker 2: crimes easily detectives. You know, you want smart people on
Speaker 2: those jobs, and smart people are going to demand higher
Speaker 2: salaries and too, Like even if you're just worried about
Speaker 2: the police accountability issue, that we've heard so much of
Speaker 2: with Black Lives Matter and all that. Like, one way
Speaker 2: that you make sure police officers are better is by
Speaker 2: making sure that you know that they have higher education,
Speaker 2: or go through certain training, or are just smarter better people.
Speaker 2: And like, smarter better people are generally going to be
Speaker 2: able to get jobs elsewhere with more competitive pay, So
Speaker 2: why would they go to a police department? And like it,
Speaker 2: I think in this way you can really think about, like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a dearth of resources going to these
Speaker 2: department and a lot of them have dealt with shortfalls
Speaker 2: in recent years, like staffing shortages where they cannot hire
Speaker 2: nearly as many cops as they want to hire. Here
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati, the police apartment is supposed to be staffed
Speaker 2: at around one thousand, one thousand, one hundred cops. It's
Speaker 2: missing one hundred to two hundred people in a history
Speaker 2: in every major METROARREA. Yes, I was about to say,
Speaker 2: that's the story in every major metro area. And some
Speaker 2: of that is, you know, it's social, like liberals do
Speaker 2: not want to become cops anymore because they do not
Speaker 2: see it as a good profession, right, And some of
Speaker 2: it is political. Is political in that sense, and then
Speaker 2: some of it is just financial. They literally can't entice
Speaker 2: enough cops to come in with proper pay. Well you
Speaker 2: hear this.
Speaker 1: You know, some police officers feel like they're not respected anymore,
Speaker 1: So why bother? Right, you hear that conversation? And right,
Speaker 1: you just talked about the divide. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about Joe Biden and Bill Clinton in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties and one hundred thousand cops the street and
Speaker 1: the surge of that, and how that was universally popular,
Speaker 1: and of course then it became a divisive issue inside
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party a generation later. Right, And because incarceration
Speaker 1: rates seem to be rise among more vulnerable groups that
Speaker 1: you know, it looks like a lot of profiling was
Speaker 1: taking place. So you know, I guess that this is
Speaker 1: the problem. If you could take politics out of this
Speaker 1: issue and just made it a hey, do you want
Speaker 1: to solve this problem? And here are best practices to
Speaker 1: do it. These are the funding levels we need, this
Speaker 1: is the training levels we should have, and these are
Speaker 1: the metrics police departments have to meet. And if you
Speaker 1: don't meet it, you lose certain funding. I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like this isn't you know, like most things in
Speaker 1: our political sphere of debate, the solution isn't that there's
Speaker 1: seventeen solutions sitting on a shelf. You just got to
Speaker 1: decide which one is politically viable in the moment, right.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes it tricky is that the concerns and criticisms are
Speaker 2: legitimate to some degree. Right, A lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of bad cops get away with things that they should
Speaker 2: not be getting away with, and so it's understandable that
Speaker 2: people feel the way they do. I mean, we've all
Speaker 2: seen the police shooting videos of the last few years.
Speaker 2: They're horrendous, and like.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, if you're an African American male in this country,
Speaker 1: you do have a lot I understand why you have
Speaker 1: some distress to the cops because you feel singled out,
Speaker 1: you feel profiled.
Speaker 2: Well, not only do you feel profiled, but you feel
Speaker 2: like they are not protecting you because of the clearance
Speaker 2: rates stuff we're talking about, right, Like, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think are a majority.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, do we know as
Speaker 1: a majority of unsolved murders people of color?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's a majority necessarily, Probably depends
Speaker 2: on the year, but the clearance rates for black black victims,
Speaker 2: like murders where there are black victims are much worse.
Speaker 2: So in general, we do know that's the case, and
Speaker 2: I think it's useful for people to just put themselves
Speaker 2: in the shoes of someone living in that environment where
Speaker 2: you know, police harass them for petty nonsense that that
Speaker 2: doesn't really do much for for anyone's public safety. There
Speaker 2: are murders all the time and shootings all the time.
Speaker 2: They literally hear gunshots when they're just going to bed, and.
Speaker 1: Byether, if there are gunshots in my community, there'd be
Speaker 1: outrage and there'd be all sorts of politicians surging around.
Speaker 1: And you sit there and you're like that happens in
Speaker 1: the south part of the county. Everybody just says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just another night where I hear gunshots, right exactly.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, you know, whoever did
Speaker 2: the shooting is probably going to get away with it.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, just imagine living in that environment. What's
Speaker 2: that tell you? You think I have there's no one
Speaker 2: who can protect me here. I shouldn't. I can't trust
Speaker 2: the police. It's understandable to have that sentiment and I
Speaker 2: think that the fact that those criticisms, those complaints are valid,
Speaker 2: just makes it much harder to, you know, as a politician,
Speaker 2: argue that we should be spending more on police.
Speaker 1: You grounded your story in Louisville, not too far from Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: and in some ways they're very you could I guess
Speaker 1: there's probably some similarities between the two cities. Louisville has
Speaker 1: been a little bit more in the news for its
Speaker 1: actions of its police department, and they've had they've had
Speaker 1: some federal oversight and what they've done and haven't done,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Brianna Taylor obviously, the incident, the murder of
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor being sort of a touchstone there so unpacked
Speaker 1: Louisville's police department. You know, it was sort of your
Speaker 1: It was your the example you led with what would
Speaker 1: it take to make that a better police department?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the first thing and they would
Speaker 2: tell you this because because I asked them a lot
Speaker 2: of questions and this is the one that they emphasized
Speaker 2: is they just need to have full staffing. They are
Speaker 2: there are The last time I look at the numbers
Speaker 2: they were they were like severely understuffed, like by the
Speaker 2: hundreds of police officers. It's a big city, so you
Speaker 2: know that number might sound like big, but that's how few.
Speaker 2: That's how many police officers they need to hire. I
Speaker 2: think that's the first thing. That The second thing is
Speaker 2: they really do need to rebuild trust with like the community,
Speaker 2: trust that they've lost. I mean, they have losso for
Speaker 2: very understandable reasons, like the community is upset for very
Speaker 2: legitimate grounds, and now they need to work to show
Speaker 2: the community that they're protecting them. That makes it difficult
Speaker 2: to to actually get to the job of solving murders right,
Speaker 2: Like the community doesn't trust you. You know, solving murders
Speaker 2: requires witnesses, so they need those people. And the third
Speaker 2: thing that I heard from a lot of experts is
Speaker 2: just look, they should increase the use of modern technology.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about cameras like that that's a
Speaker 2: big thing, and they've said that they've started to do
Speaker 2: some of that. They told me this much. But at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you know, there are still
Speaker 2: a lot of places where there are blind spots. There
Speaker 2: are still a lot of shootings where they will tell
Speaker 2: you they have no physical evidence or surveillance footage or whatever.
Speaker 2: So that to me suggests they could be doing more
Speaker 2: along those grounds, even if it's not like, you know,
Speaker 2: how many people want a camera installed in the middle
Speaker 2: of their street. But like you could try to work
Speaker 2: with a community. People have cameras all over their houses nowadays, right,
Speaker 2: So like you could try to work with the community
Speaker 2: to like actually know that those things are there, that
Speaker 2: you can access them and so forth. So those are
Speaker 2: three big steps, but I think it would make a
Speaker 2: tremendous difference. I would. I will say though, that the
Speaker 2: hiring part of this is probably the most difficult, just
Speaker 2: because you know, they simply cannot find enough officers, and
Speaker 2: especially enough officers from Louisville in a community that does
Speaker 2: not trust them, right.
Speaker 1: I mean the biggest thing is, you know, you want
Speaker 1: your police force to look like the community you're policing, right,
Speaker 1: And that seems to be a challenge for many of
Speaker 1: these forces, right.
Speaker 2: I think you know, in other countries they've done like
Speaker 2: reconciliation things like that when when there are the government
Speaker 2: messes up and they want to rebuild trust and all that,
Speaker 2: and they basically come forward admit their mistake. They do
Speaker 2: these long reports, And I'm not sure how much that
Speaker 2: stuff helps, but I doubt it can hurt. Like, at
Speaker 2: this point, many police departments have seriously lost the trust
Speaker 2: of their communities and they just they need to show
Speaker 2: that they care. Hear them. I hear the officers too
Speaker 2: all the time, who are very upset that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: they feel underappreciated because many of them are doing good
Speaker 2: job and still they're being lumped in with all these other.
Speaker 1: Criticis welcome to every industry, right, Like in the middle
Speaker 1: of journalism, right, you're like, yes, they're bad actors, but
Speaker 1: like they're in the minority, I swear right, right, I
Speaker 1: mean we talk about this in so many walks of
Speaker 1: life and that the you know, the five percent of
Speaker 1: bad apples end up defining ninety percent of the actors,
Speaker 1: and that that doesn't help anybody, right, But I.
Speaker 2: Think frankly, like if you're an officer, I mean you
Speaker 2: should know your your public accountable. Like that's just how
Speaker 2: things work, right, This is a job serving the public,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you're going to hear things that you don't like,
Speaker 2: and like it's just somehow police departments have to figure
Speaker 2: out how to build that resilience and I think sometimes
Speaker 2: the messaging back and forth, I will say, like from
Speaker 2: from critics and from their supporters just does not help.
Speaker 2: It seems to escalate the conflict rather than toning it down.
Speaker 1: Well, because the politicians are weaponizing it. They're exploding if
Speaker 1: they're exploiting the anger among cops. We see politicians do that.
Speaker 1: They don't people don't care about cops. Thin blue line, right,
Speaker 1: you know, back to the blue and we don't. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you see it. You see it with
Speaker 1: those who feel as if the cops have been abusive
Speaker 1: and all of that. So you this is a I
Speaker 1: feel like the politicians have made the conversation between the
Speaker 1: actual police and community and the communities themselves harder to
Speaker 1: have because of the political I don't know if we
Speaker 1: call them overtones or undertones in this case, but right, I.
Speaker 2: Think that's exactly right framing though, because it is basically
Speaker 2: Paul to if you talk to like actual people on
Speaker 2: the ground, they have much more i would say, moderate views,
Speaker 2: but the conversation is dominated by extremists. I think a
Speaker 2: classic example of this is in around twenty twenty, when
Speaker 2: it was a height of defund the police. If you
Speaker 2: went into community meetings with police officers. Very often, what
Speaker 2: you would see it was white progressives saying defund the police,
Speaker 2: and then it was black mom saying no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I want my cops on my street. Yeah right, I
Speaker 2: want my son to be protected. Please get these drug
Speaker 2: dealers out, et cetera. And like, I think, to me,
Speaker 2: that's really because those those are the stories I heard.
Speaker 2: I mean, I talked to a bunch of family members
Speaker 2: of victims, and they were all black, because they are
Speaker 2: the disproportionate victims of these murders, and all of them
Speaker 2: said the same thing, like, look, I know that cops
Speaker 2: do a lot of wrong things things, but ultimately I
Speaker 2: want them to have my back when something this bad
Speaker 2: happens to me, when I lose a family member and
Speaker 2: so forth. And I think, you know, I mean, we
Speaker 2: say that's of all sorts of political issues, right, that
Speaker 2: the extremist kind of take over the conversation. But I
Speaker 2: just don't think that that is not really representative of
Speaker 2: the everyday American, And I think it's important to keep
Speaker 2: that in mind.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the puzzle solvers themselves, meaning the actual
Speaker 1: homicide detectives. I would think that to recruit in that
Speaker 1: is actually is that also difficult that specific part of
Speaker 1: the law enforcement community, or is that actually seen as
Speaker 1: sort of a more prestigious, prestigious gig in the world
Speaker 1: of policing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's certainly seen as more prestigious, But I
Speaker 2: guess it depends on some cops. You know, some cops
Speaker 2: really revel in the idea of like being a patrol
Speaker 2: officer and their bid and their neighborhood and all that.
Speaker 2: But I think generally police departments to treat as like
Speaker 2: a higher, prestigious, more position. But the thing is that
Speaker 2: it requires a lot a lot of work, right, Like
Speaker 2: you might be called odd hours because a murder just happened,
Speaker 2: and as we know, murders are much or any really
Speaker 2: any prime is much easier to solve if you're on
Speaker 2: the scene fast. So that's one thing. It requires a
Speaker 2: lot of training and intellectual work that you might not
Speaker 2: do in day to day policing. And it's just and
Speaker 2: then on top so once you start stacking those requirements,
Speaker 2: I come back to the issue of pay. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: somebody who is really well equipped to be a detective,
Speaker 2: you know, they might also choose to do other investigative work.
Speaker 2: They could work for authentk tic, they could be a journalist,
Speaker 2: they could do all sorts of things, and those jobs
Speaker 2: generally pay higher than a police detective might make, especially
Speaker 2: when we're talking about you know, smaller towns and so forth.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it as simple as police departments if
Speaker 1: you hit a certain funding level, you get bonus money.
Speaker 1: Is that an incentive that's worth pursuing or would that
Speaker 1: be the equivalent of putting bounties out there that might
Speaker 1: actually backfire right where there's an incentive to just find
Speaker 1: to just close the case.
Speaker 2: And you know, yeah, I guess that would worry The
Speaker 2: thing I would worry me about something like that is
Speaker 2: like it would basically help the winners, you know, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like, if you're already hitting a
Speaker 2: seventy percent clearance, right, let's say, do you really need
Speaker 2: the more funny than somebody's struggling at forty percent? Like
Speaker 2: that would be my concern with it. But I mean,
Speaker 2: in general, I'm not totally sure how to do it,
Speaker 2: but I think we need to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to fund, like funnel resources into places that are solving
Speaker 2: or struggling the most with solving murders and dealing with
Speaker 2: more murders is the FBI at all?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I don't want to get into the
Speaker 1: current leadership of the FBI because I really fear what
Speaker 1: we've done, and politicizing the leadership of the FBI is
Speaker 1: a very dangerous course. But let's let's let's pretend we
Speaker 1: live in this neutral world right now and the FBI
Speaker 1: is sort of the FBI you and I have been
Speaker 1: used to dealing with, which is functionally has tried to
Speaker 1: be a political right up up until this most recent
Speaker 1: set of leaders this most current leadership.
Speaker 2: Are they too you know?
Speaker 1: I get the sense that we've that in some ways
Speaker 1: the FBI is less and less helpful to local police
Speaker 1: because we've now asked the FBI to do so many
Speaker 1: other things, whether it's having to do with terror, counter terrorism, UH,
Speaker 1: domestic intelligence and things like this. But is there a
Speaker 1: better role for the FBI in helping increase the possibility
Speaker 1: that we solve more murders?
Speaker 2: I mean, police departments can ask for FBI to succumb
Speaker 2: in and help them sometimes when they do, but you
Speaker 2: are right that to some degree, and all police departments,
Speaker 2: including the FBI, have suffered this from the past few
Speaker 2: years where we just asked them to do more and
Speaker 2: more and more. So on the FBI level. You know
Speaker 2: you mentioned counter terrorism, they also just drug trafficking in general,
Speaker 2: and dealing with like all those kinds of.
Speaker 1: Cyber They're dealing with CYBERBRT right in a way that
Speaker 1: I think domestic police forces just I mean, I look
Speaker 1: at it everyone to get to cyber because that's a
Speaker 1: whole separate conversation. But I'm going to assume that neither
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati or Louisville police departments know what they're doing
Speaker 1: on cyber And I don't mean that in any criticism.
Speaker 1: That's just not what they were designed to do.
Speaker 2: No, And at the same time, the local and state
Speaker 2: police departments are dealing with their own like over right,
Speaker 2: they're asked to like response to these mental health care cases,
Speaker 2: where what do they do. They're not psychologists, they're not psychiatrists,
Speaker 2: And they have to be on the scene in some
Speaker 2: cases because if people are acting violently or might have
Speaker 2: guns or whatever it might be. But like they don't
Speaker 2: know how to deal with that person, and like you know,
Speaker 2: it's in the end. You see a lot of police
Speaker 2: officers say this, like I took this job to become
Speaker 2: a police officer, not a social worker, and often the
Speaker 2: work can feel like like you're doing social work. But
Speaker 2: in terms of the FBI, I think, you know, it
Speaker 2: can play positivele. I think one of the biggest things
Speaker 2: that can do is just lead by example, Like it
Speaker 2: can show like the country what exactly the federal government
Speaker 2: is prioritizing. And I would say not just the FBI,
Speaker 2: really all federal law enforcement agencies can play that role.
Speaker 2: And you know, we haven't, at least in the last
Speaker 2: under this administration, we haven't really had proof of that
Speaker 2: that they're like taking this issue seriously by any means.
Speaker 2: And frankly, crime only seems to come up when it's
Speaker 2: like politically convenient for the president more than when it
Speaker 2: he's actually taking as seriously as an issue. So I
Speaker 2: think that that makes it difficult. Like you know, the
Speaker 2: ultimately a lot of policing work, a lot of criminal
Speaker 2: justice work happens at the state and local level. The
Speaker 2: vast majority of it happens there. But one thing the
Speaker 2: federal government can do is like tell you where what
Speaker 2: you should be prioritizing. And because to put it charitably,
Speaker 2: we're getting mixed messages from the federal government over the
Speaker 2: last year. It's really difficult for police departments to do that,
Speaker 2: and they're not getting clear messages on what the priorities are.
Speaker 1: Big picture here, let's talk about the issue of the
Speaker 1: crime rate. Is in the news right what to believe,
Speaker 1: what not to believe? I sort of look at it.
Speaker 1: I feel like the further away we get from COVID,
Speaker 1: the more obvious it is that, yes, there was a
Speaker 1: spike in COVID in all sorts of crimes, right, violent
Speaker 1: ones and nonviolent ones, and now that we're back sort
Speaker 1: of engaging in the society that we had on February first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, that we're back to sort of typical crime rates.
Speaker 2: I hate to put them in.
Speaker 1: Those terms, but essentially, you know, yes, that might be
Speaker 1: a spike here there in a specific incident or a
Speaker 1: specific gang war, things like this, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: what we've experienced in the first two decades of the
Speaker 1: twenty first century is where we are today.
Speaker 2: Is that a fair way of putting it. I would
Speaker 2: put up optimistic and pessimistic spin on it. The optimistic
Speaker 2: spin is it's actually the murder rate this year is
Speaker 2: on track to be much lower than it has been
Speaker 2: for at least sixty five years. That's when the FBI
Speaker 2: started tracking national data. So on a national level, the
Speaker 2: murder rate has really collapsed, and that's that's great news.
Speaker 2: The pessimistic spin on it is that, like the murder rate,
Speaker 2: based on this year's numbers, will probably come at four
Speaker 2: per one hundred thousand. I don't expect anybody to know
Speaker 2: off the top of their head what that means. But
Speaker 2: if you compare that to like European or like Japan
Speaker 2: or Australia, like other countries, wealthy countries, that's not great.
Speaker 2: And like that's really the fundamental problem in the US
Speaker 2: is that like, even when crime is coming down, it's
Speaker 2: still at a at a at a default baseline much
Speaker 2: higher than it is, particularly murders, than there is in
Speaker 2: other places.
Speaker 1: Just by curiosity, would you was this that also true
Speaker 1: thirty five and forty years ago, that our baseline was
Speaker 1: higher than the baseline of the rest of the western world.
Speaker 2: Oh, especially if you're looking at thirty five years ago.
Speaker 2: Pretty much everybody saw like murders rise and fall after
Speaker 2: starting around the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: But the US, it's pretty clear now that was all
Speaker 1: drug trafficking related, right, the spike it well, you know,
Speaker 1: the cocaine stuff and crack.
Speaker 2: I think that's a big part of it. There are
Speaker 2: also other theories, like there's honestly like a billion theories
Speaker 2: about it. One is that you know, lead and gasoline
Speaker 2: was making people more aggressive, because we have good evidence
Speaker 2: that like lead is warps people's minds, right, and like
Speaker 2: leaded gasoline took off around the era preceding that, and
Speaker 2: then we got rid of it. Asked crime started talking
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: I've heard that view too. I get it right the whole,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the thing I find persuas about that is
Speaker 2: that it would explain of global drop since that was
Speaker 2: a global attin. But it's also true, you know, we
Speaker 2: saw drug trafficking obviously take off in the US with crack,
Speaker 2: cocaine and so on and so forth. I also think
Speaker 2: there was a lot of social discord at the time.
Speaker 2: So you know, you had Watergate, you had the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: you had the Cold War in general.
Speaker 1: In the background, you had civil rights movement, which was
Speaker 1: a civil truths right we were becoming that was I
Speaker 1: always remind people we've only been a multi racial democracy
Speaker 1: for about fifty five sixty years r right exactly, And
Speaker 1: what you're describing is the first decade of US as
Speaker 1: a multiracial democracy, and you could argue that maybe that
Speaker 1: also created tension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something that's just much harder to measure empirically.
Speaker 2: But when you have periods of like you know, the
Speaker 2: social fabric kind of collapsing, and we saw this with COVID,
Speaker 2: it seems like crime just spikes, and like you know, again,
Speaker 2: the criminal justice sim relies on trust, so does our
Speaker 2: government in general. Right, So when it makes sense intuitively
Speaker 2: that if people don't trust the government, they might bring
Speaker 2: the laws more.
Speaker 3: Okay, trust is down, and yet crime is down. Yes,
Speaker 3: So that is another thing. You pointed to phones earlier.
Speaker 3: I think it's an understated aspect of this. And I
Speaker 3: wouldn't just say phones, I'd say screens in general are
Speaker 3: keeping kids inside, right, Like, that's that's a big thing.
Speaker 3: The other thing is in the nineties especially, we did
Speaker 3: a lot to improve policing in the US, Like you
Speaker 3: talked about Bill Clinton's measures to like flood streets with
Speaker 3: police officers.
Speaker 2: I was a big thing. But also they learned how
Speaker 2: to use like all sorts of new technologies to actually
Speaker 2: track crime, see where it's happening on a map, flood
Speaker 2: police officers in the area. The New York City Police
Speaker 2: Department in particular, is really good at this, and it's
Speaker 2: one of the It's well, it's the safest city in
Speaker 2: the country, but even when you compare to like other countries,
Speaker 2: it's it's relatively safe. It's interesting with the NYPD.
Speaker 1: Right, here's here's a law enforcement agency that fifty years
Speaker 1: ago didn't have the best reputation, and now it's considered
Speaker 1: the crown jewel, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean obviously they still have problems. Like anytime
Speaker 2: you say something like you just said, you're going to
Speaker 2: get people saying out, how about this, this, and it's
Speaker 2: like there's plenty of this, this and this. Yeah, true,
Speaker 2: it's true. Also, it's just a giant city. When you
Speaker 2: with a lot of police officers, some of them are
Speaker 2: bound to be doing stupid, bad things all the time.
Speaker 2: But yes, it really is. And I think the the
Speaker 2: other thing I would add is just like you know
Speaker 2: that even though trust and government didn't improve, the end
Speaker 2: of the Cold War really brought this like whole America
Speaker 2: and America is good. It's like sense of patriotism that
Speaker 2: didn't really exist. And I don't know, I don't have
Speaker 2: a study telling you that that's probably but my that
Speaker 2: that caused the decline crime, But my hunt is that
Speaker 2: probably helped. I mean, it was just a moment where
Speaker 2: Americans were more united in general because they felt that
Speaker 2: they had just won this long, ongoing conflict. Before we go,
Speaker 2: tell me about your journey to become.
Speaker 1: A criminal justice reporter.
Speaker 2: You know, it's always right. This is literally the the the.
Speaker 1: You always you know, they say the first, the best
Speaker 1: first job you should have vice be the you know,
Speaker 1: is to be the beat cop journalist, right to walk
Speaker 1: the streets in here. You've made it. You've made it
Speaker 1: a beat for quite some time. How'd you get there?
Speaker 2: Well? Often when I started a workplace, I figure out, like,
Speaker 2: what is the niche that's missing. I'm generally I'm a
Speaker 2: generalist reporter, so I could really cover anything. I love
Speaker 2: learning about new things, all reporting and telling people what
Speaker 2: I've learned, And.
Speaker 1: So I tell people about journalism. It's the you get
Speaker 1: to go to grad school every day exactly because you
Speaker 1: don't know that, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Like I'm always thrilled to be I know
Speaker 2: a lot of reporters are not like this, but I'm
Speaker 2: usually thrilled to be assigned a new topic because I
Speaker 2: get to learn about something new.
Speaker 1: So I'm a big fan of the I think one
Speaker 1: of the things we have too much of a journalism is,
Speaker 1: you know, people atrophy and their beats because I've been
Speaker 1: there done. I call it been there, done that disease.
Speaker 1: I worry about it in politics. I think about it
Speaker 1: all the time. Oh that that kind of candidate can
Speaker 1: never win until that candidate wins. Right, that's been there,
Speaker 1: done that disease. And you can get it on any
Speaker 1: beat that you're on, which then actually can make you
Speaker 1: miss a story.
Speaker 2: Right, And there's a little tangential to the point. But
Speaker 2: often going on other beats helps you and your original beat, right,
Speaker 2: like you figure out like if you're covering politics, I
Speaker 2: mean covering literally anything else at any point will give
Speaker 2: you new insight into politics and how they want it, right, like,
Speaker 2: because it's the everything issue. So that's so Anyway, when
Speaker 2: I started at City Beat, a local alt weekly here
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati, I was always I was just interested in
Speaker 2: crime because I thought that, like at City Beat, it
Speaker 2: was underserved because I mean I was literally the only
Speaker 2: news reporter at city Beat, so like, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to cover they did gossip at city Hall.
Speaker 1: Right, that was probably the you know, look, I love
Speaker 1: my alt weeklies around the country and a lot of
Speaker 1: times or you might get one investigative piece, right, Right,
Speaker 1: that's all they had the resources for.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it's just a limited resource problem. So I
Speaker 2: always thought like that was an important issue. Then at Vox,
Speaker 2: I saw the same thing where I was like, you
Speaker 2: know that they had one other criminal distance reporter. When
Speaker 2: Vox launched. I was there at the launch and I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, I could probably contribute to this, especially
Speaker 2: when the Ferguson Missouri protests happened. It was an all
Speaker 2: hands on deck effort, and I was like, yes, this
Speaker 2: is what I'm interested in, the topping, and I should
Speaker 2: cover it. I just kind of went from there. I mean,
Speaker 2: but it is striking to me. I have found this
Speaker 2: consistently that in national media they often you know, obviously,
Speaker 2: in local and state news like outlooks, you have to
Speaker 2: cover crime, like it's usually a bigger deal. But at
Speaker 2: the national level, I think it gets less attention. I
Speaker 2: think it's seen as US prestigious and for me it
Speaker 2: is I don't know, it's the issue that one of
Speaker 2: the issues that affects people on their day to day
Speaker 2: lives and most so I've always tried to just keep
Speaker 2: an eye and find interesting frames to get people's attention,
Speaker 2: including by writing headlines like nearly half of murderers get
Speaker 2: away with it. So look, I love the fact, by
Speaker 2: the way I think the most.
Speaker 1: And this is this is why I feel like The
Speaker 1: Times is thriving in an era where a lot of
Speaker 1: news organizations are not.
Speaker 2: I love that you're based in Cincinnati. You're not in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: Can I don't my My sort of my cheap talking
Speaker 1: point these days about about about journalism is we have
Speaker 1: too many reporters in Washington and not enough everywhere else, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and not enough in other topics.
Speaker 1: And you just sort of have given a pretty good
Speaker 1: insight of of you know, for various reasons. Right, the
Speaker 1: prestigious speed is the White House beat, you know. And
Speaker 1: I would always say, yeah, the best stories are on
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, you know. And that's just in the world
Speaker 1: of public policy and politics, right, you know that that
Speaker 1: and frankly, if you really want to understand healthcare policy.
Speaker 1: You're better off going to a rural clinic, uh in
Speaker 1: pick any state in the middle of the country than
Speaker 1: you are covering the Department of Health and Human Services, right,
Speaker 1: So it is sort of one of those you know,
Speaker 1: So it is I'm curious, is it a Was it
Speaker 1: important to The New York Times that you were based
Speaker 1: not in New York or in the East Coast? Was
Speaker 1: that an asset or was that was that at times
Speaker 1: of liability? No?
Speaker 2: Actually, the day the Katie Keeksburry, who who heads the
Speaker 2: opinion department at the time, she was excited about it.
Speaker 2: So I think it's great. I think they like that.
Speaker 2: I would say too. I always tell this story because
Speaker 2: when I when I actually lived in DC for a while,
Speaker 2: when I was working at Box, and I moved to
Speaker 2: Cincinnati where where my family is, and that's why I
Speaker 2: moved back, just where you grew up. You grew up
Speaker 2: in sentience. Yeah, I moved here from Venezuela when I
Speaker 2: was six, and yeah, my family is based here and
Speaker 2: my husband's family is here as well, so so yeah,
Speaker 2: but I remember at the time I was I told
Speaker 2: my bosses at Box, like, look, we need geographical diversity
Speaker 2: and to be frank, I was kind of bsing. I
Speaker 2: didn't really know how much it mattered, but once I
Speaker 2: moved here it is. It is really crazy. I mean,
Speaker 2: just going from DC to here. In d C, people
Speaker 2: have an easy time imagining not talking talking to a
Speaker 2: Trump voter right like they can. They can go through
Speaker 2: their day to day lives literally never conversing with anyone
Speaker 2: who supports Trump.
Speaker 1: How about New York, you actually bore, Like I always say,
Speaker 1: DC are more likely to run into somebody, at least
Speaker 1: that's for Trump in New York. Good luck ever running
Speaker 1: into a Trump support right here. You can't live here
Speaker 1: and socialize here without knowing how to talk to Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: And like my in law is, some of my in
Speaker 1: laws are Trump supporters.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not gonna if I don't want to ruin
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving every time because I might disagree with something Trump did,
Speaker 2: like I have to learn how to talk about it
Speaker 2: in like.
Speaker 1: A nice you know, cordial man, well dispassionate is I
Speaker 1: always say, I've always thought that our problem in mainstream
Speaker 1: media and the national level was our tone sometimes was wrong,
Speaker 1: our facts were correct, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think there's there's really this. There's a way
Speaker 2: you can tell someone that you think they are wrong
Speaker 2: without insulting them, and that, I think is what really
Speaker 2: you suffer. You lose that a bit when you live
Speaker 2: in a place where you are living in a bubble essentially.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think when I moved here, it just,
Speaker 2: you know, it helped me see issues in a different light,
Speaker 2: like like anything from crime to immigration to whatever it's
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of.
Speaker 1: I've always said that the one piece of diversity newsrooms
Speaker 1: never focus on is geographic.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I honestly think it's a big deal. Again,
Speaker 2: I was basic at first when I want to I
Speaker 2: wanted to move, but now I'm I totally believe it.
Speaker 2: It's it's definitely the case. All right, let me get
Speaker 2: you out in here. In this Bengals are reds.
Speaker 1: Like what's the what's the what's the obsession in your household?
Speaker 2: Definitely the Bengals, if not not. I mean we don't
Speaker 2: watch sports much, but I do not like baseball at all.
Speaker 2: I can I can watch.
Speaker 1: Wow, you're Venezuelan and you don't like baseball, You're not
Speaker 1: going to be allowed back in.
Speaker 2: I am I fem the Dodgers photo behind you and
Speaker 2: like I'm sorry to say this, Chuck, but I'm just
Speaker 2: not a fan of baseball but Bengals, and I will
Speaker 2: also add, you know, Cincinnati soccer team is great. It's
Speaker 2: actually one of the best in the country. And I
Speaker 2: love soccer so well.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, Cincinnati is you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that they lost the Cincinnati Royals, which goes way
Speaker 1: back when it comes to the NBA. One of the
Speaker 1: greatest players of all time played for Cincinnati, Oscar Robertson.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting about soccer. I feel like the state.
Speaker 1: Of Ohio and general between Columbus, Crew Beclean Cincinnati that
Speaker 1: there really is a uh it's it's it's a really
Speaker 1: fast growing fan base, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think I'm allowed to say anything nice
Speaker 2: about Columbus and living in Cincinnati. It's a real rivalry.
Speaker 2: It's a real Actually, I think there was a game
Speaker 2: recently people were yelling at each other in the street.
Speaker 1: I was eating outside, and yeah, it was great. Let
Speaker 1: me that's the other dumb Cincinnati question. How do you
Speaker 1: what's that chili you're supposed to like? Is it okay
Speaker 1: if I say I.
Speaker 2: Don't love it? Yeah, it's book I think what everyone
Speaker 2: gets wrong about Skyline Chili, which is amazing, is that
Speaker 2: it's it's spaghetti sauce. It's not really chili.
Speaker 1: Like, thank you, okay, and I'm good with spaghetti sauce.
Speaker 2: Call it that, right, Yeah, you can also put it
Speaker 2: on on like Chief Coney's right, like that, that's fine.
Speaker 2: But like, it's just that I think that's a big
Speaker 2: thing people wrong. It's a sauce. It's not a true
Speaker 2: chili in any sense.
Speaker 1: Well, look enjoyed Joe Burrowy and not every fan base
Speaker 1: gets to have a quarterback like that. So even if
Speaker 1: you even if you guys don't get get another get
Speaker 1: a super Bowl with them.
Speaker 2: It's a joy to watch him play football. Yeah, hopefully
Speaker 2: it delivers this year. We'll see.
Speaker 1: Are you fired up about being opinion What does that mean?
Speaker 1: How does that change you change your beat?
Speaker 2: Well? Before I had zero opinions, chuck, and now I do.
Speaker 2: But now I think I am fired up about it.
Speaker 2: I'm working. I'm actually a member of the editorial board,
Speaker 2: so we're like, I'm doing a lot of the editorial
Speaker 2: board work right now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, by the way, not a lot of people
Speaker 1: know what that means.
Speaker 2: Just very quickly. You remember the editorial board.
Speaker 1: What does that? I know what it means, but I
Speaker 1: think people hear that. Do you write the op edge?
Speaker 1: Do you write the editorials? What does that mean? Specifically?
Speaker 2: Basically? When when whenever you see the New York Times,
Speaker 2: is the editorial board is telling you something. There's like
Speaker 2: a group of five people. We talk together, and we
Speaker 2: we decide on like you know, what things we agree
Speaker 2: with and whatnot, including our publisher. He also chimes in,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say times in he is more of a
Speaker 2: mister Salzburger gets to say what he wants to say.
Speaker 2: He got to say, what's his newspaper?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yes? And it's so, And then usually one of us
Speaker 2: writes it, so you won't see our byline necessarily on there,
Speaker 2: but it was. It was written by one of the
Speaker 2: members of the board.
Speaker 1: Who do you guys vote, Like, if you guys are
Speaker 1: divided on an issue, it's three to two, say, do
Speaker 1: you note that division in the editorial itself?
Speaker 2: Or do you pick another topic?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I think, uh, that's an interesting question. I think we
Speaker 2: would generally. This has not happened during my time at
Speaker 2: the editorial board yet, so I can't tell you that
Speaker 2: this from experience, But I think generally we would try
Speaker 2: to find some consensus. I mean, I think with basically
Speaker 2: any topic you can, you know, you can find some
Speaker 2: sort of agreement and make the editor about that while
Speaker 2: acknowledging that like people are divided on other aspects of
Speaker 2: the issue.
Speaker 1: You are a New York Times reporter, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: many at times you would say, hey, the editorial page
Speaker 1: is the editorial page.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm reporting. How mindful are you of that?
Speaker 1: Now you're going to be on the other side, right,
Speaker 1: and you know your editorial could make the beat reporter's
Speaker 1: job a little bit harder.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's definitely something that I think The Times
Speaker 2: has publicly discussed over the past few years. I Mean
Speaker 2: you've seen a lot of journalists come out and be like, like,
Speaker 2: should we be endorsing presidential candidates for example, and like
Speaker 2: obviously with the Washington Posts that led to a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, backlash, But I think it's it's a
Speaker 2: general conversation because at the end of the day, like,
Speaker 2: if you endorse Kamala Harris, like all the people covering
Speaker 2: her campaign, they are going to look unfairly or not
Speaker 2: like like they're biased, right, and because people just do
Speaker 2: not know. I mean, we try really hard to put
Speaker 2: a pain at theatah and all that, but like most
Speaker 2: people just are not aware of those divisions, and like
Speaker 2: it makes it much more difficult. So it is something
Speaker 2: that we we're definitely very very mondful. I lived it.
Speaker 1: We used to say, the cable channel a second, let's
Speaker 1: tell our op ed page.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't always.
Speaker 1: You know, if the logos in the same place, right,
Speaker 1: the same person signs our checks, right, the same person
Speaker 1: it is, I understand why somebody who's not in our
Speaker 1: industry goes I don't get the difference.
Speaker 2: Well, especially a lot of people get their news through
Speaker 2: social media, TikTok whatever, they legitimately do not see like
Speaker 2: you know, if you go to the New York Times
Speaker 2: own page right now, it is very clearly divided between
Speaker 2: opinion and news. But you're not seeing that on social media.
Speaker 2: When you click a link, you just know, and it's
Speaker 2: so easy to just scroll pass like it's saying opening
Speaker 2: and whatever, and like look like at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, I think it is important for newspapers to
Speaker 2: have both opinion and news sides. So like and we
Speaker 2: do our best to like present those differences. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: it is something that I think every news solid is
Speaker 2: grappling with harm on. This is great. I appreciate you
Speaker 2: coming on.
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know, sometimes you see a piece
Speaker 1: and you're like, why isn't this this is the type
Speaker 1: a headline that some politicians should be exploiting for the
Speaker 1: right reasons, right right, And we did every single thing
Speaker 1: I write, of course, no no, no, no, I.
Speaker 2: Feel that about every monologue I do. At the beginning.
Speaker 1: This should really fire people up. Luck with that, but look,
Speaker 1: it's it's that's the job of a journalist. It's it's
Speaker 1: one story at a time, and if you get one
Speaker 1: person to think about something differently, you've done your job.
Speaker 1: So look, I thought it was a great piece so
Speaker 1: and well framed and well reported and sort of well explained, right,
Speaker 1: which is what made it so compelling.
Speaker 2: And you were a terrific guest here, So I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I love to hear that, and also like you just
Speaker 2: kind of suggest that one of the ways you actually
Speaker 2: make an impact is by doing follow ups. You don't
Speaker 2: just report a story once and leave. So you know,
Speaker 2: just being on here, it's it's great that you're getting
Speaker 2: the story out.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate it, all right, her appreciate it, TUXI
Speaker 1: all right, So it was, you know, like everything these days,
Speaker 1: everything feels heavier, right, everything feels so consequential, And I
Speaker 1: do wonder what kind of precedents are being set, and
Speaker 1: I think we're all concerned with that. But in many ways,
Speaker 1: you know, you look at the conversation I had with Herman,
Speaker 1: and you realize, my god, we have the tools and
Speaker 1: we have the playbooks on how to do this. We
Speaker 1: just have to have the political will.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We all want more security in our neighborhoods, and we
Speaker 1: want better training of our police officers.
Speaker 2: Is that so hard?
Speaker 1: Is that so hard to create a bipartisan agreement on
Speaker 1: something like that?
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a few questions, ask Chuck.
Speaker 1: This comes from Tim in Springfield, Illinois, and he says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime listener back to the Daily Rundown days. Hey,
Speaker 1: soup of the day. I'm loving the continuation of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I have a follow up question on your proposed constitutional
Speaker 1: amendment that could add two new states.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you like that.
Speaker 1: Democrat's been more aggressive about pushing for statehood for the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia and Puerto Rico State could help to
Speaker 1: address some of the systemic policy issues both locations face. Politically,
Speaker 1: these two new states would likely make it easier for
Speaker 1: the Party to hold the Senate majority. Oh and fully
Speaker 1: enfranchising four million of our fellow Americans is morally the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. It seems like a much better
Speaker 1: solution than embracing gerrymandering. Sincerely, Tim from Springfield. Look, you know,
Speaker 1: the Democrats have always been hot and cold on that,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why either. Every Democrat has the
Speaker 1: correct position on the District of Columbia, which is yes,
Speaker 1: I'm for statehood is usually the answer you get. But
Speaker 1: how right there are some There's still always been some
Speaker 1: disagreements about whether you know, I think no, But I
Speaker 1: think there's general agreement that it is unfair that district
Speaker 1: residents have fewer rights than the resident than Americans everywhere else.
Speaker 1: The question is how do you resolve that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: There's some that argue, well, make d C part of Maryland,
Speaker 1: make DC part of Virginia, right, you know, one way
Speaker 1: or another, so that they can have proper representation. But
Speaker 1: the fact is it would be a bigger state than
Speaker 1: I think what six or seven other states on that
Speaker 1: front already. And you know, look, I ultimately, when your
Speaker 1: motivation is political power, you're going to have a harder
Speaker 1: time selling things. When your motivation is giving people rights,
Speaker 1: you have an easier time selling it. And I think
Speaker 1: all you know, at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: this is all a compromise, right, and that's why you
Speaker 1: know you're not going to get DC by itself. And
Speaker 1: you know, we have a whole group of people in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, not just Puerto Rico, but the Virgin Islands
Speaker 1: as well. Who are you know, basically are American citizens
Speaker 1: with second class rights and like those in the district
Speaker 1: are American citizens with second class rights.
Speaker 2: That's not fair.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you're a political party, you know,
Speaker 1: it goes to you know, it's why I hate this
Speaker 1: whole jerremyanering thing. Go run a campaign, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think any you know, most states eventually that start
Speaker 1: as one party states do eventually there is an opposition
Speaker 1: that develops. I also think that Puerto Rico has elected
Speaker 1: quite a few Republican governors over the years, including I
Speaker 1: think most recently, so I think that's why if you
Speaker 1: do it as a pair so that it feels as
Speaker 1: if you're not you're not trying to do it as
Speaker 1: a power grab, but you're doing it more as a
Speaker 1: way to give every American citizen equal rights.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think that it's pretty clear that if you don't,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't have statehood, you have less
Speaker 1: rights than you're a fellow American citizen. So I think
Speaker 1: that's the best argument. But I think that that for I,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I don't know why it's
Speaker 1: not been a bigger issue. Maybe this triggers it, right,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's this federal takeover, there was some
Speaker 1: thought about, hey, do you do it at least change
Speaker 1: some of the rules that give marye make the mayor
Speaker 1: sort of have the same powers as governors do when
Speaker 1: it comes to the National Guard, you know, do you
Speaker 1: do things like that? Do you carve out like I
Speaker 1: also think, you know, we could create a federal you know,
Speaker 1: there's been the other compromises. You create an actual federal district,
Speaker 1: which would be essentially the government buildings. Think, you know,
Speaker 1: for those of you geographically, I think essentially you know,
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Avenue to to through you know, through the southwest
Speaker 1: going that way right from Pennsylvania Avenue northwest, say between
Speaker 1: oh Foggy Bottom and the Arena, and that you know,
Speaker 1: you make that federal district all the way through the
Speaker 1: mall and the capital and then the actual the rest
Speaker 1: of the neighborhoods or are part of its own state rights.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of ways to I think, I think
Speaker 1: do this, but ultimately the reason should do it would
Speaker 1: be to make sure every American citizen is treated the same.
Speaker 1: And it's it's pretty clear if you're in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: in an American territory, you're in the District of Columbia,
Speaker 1: you're an American citizen with second class rights, and that's
Speaker 1: that's that's wrong. Right doesn't matter if you're a dn R,
Speaker 1: you should view that as wrong. Our next question comes
Speaker 1: from Bill W. Hey, Chuck, just finished your podcast with Rocana.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Well, I appreciate keep catching up. We'll take
Speaker 1: the downloads. Very insightful and refreshing. Your question about what
Speaker 1: type of presidential candidate Democrats should look for got me
Speaker 1: thinking about Bobby Kennedy. He wasn't shy about using political power,
Speaker 1: yet had a heart for the poor and working class
Speaker 1: and knew how to connect with people, like a speech
Speaker 1: in Indianapolis after Mlk's assassination. What are your thoughts? Is
Speaker 1: this the kind of candidate voters are hungry for? Best
Speaker 1: regards Bill W Go Detroit Liones. Yeah, good luck to
Speaker 1: your lines. I hope they finished second place. And yes,
Speaker 1: my son and I are are are sort of very
Speaker 1: upset and nervous about this Jordan Love thumb surgery. Let's
Speaker 1: just say it was the news alert that truly upset
Speaker 1: my household earlier today. But I digress. Look, I go
Speaker 1: back to something I said earlier in this podcast. I
Speaker 1: think the country needs a pastor for patriotism, and I
Speaker 1: think in many ways, the Bobby Kennedy campaign of sixty eight,
Speaker 1: you know, and we can have larger discussions about, you know,
Speaker 1: what he did in office, like you know, by sixty eight,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Bobby Kennedy of sixty eight may
Speaker 1: have may have been uncomfortable with the Bobby Kennedy that
Speaker 1: worked for Joe McCarthy, right, So you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a reminder that everybody has their flaws or certainly learns
Speaker 1: along the way. But I think that that is you know,
Speaker 1: that's constant. It is always what democrats are looking for.
Speaker 1: They're looking for that sort of that larger than life
Speaker 1: figure that is a bit you know, is the Great Hope,
Speaker 1: right John Kennedy. And in some ways we do this
Speaker 1: when when leaders are slain, we almost see more in
Speaker 1: them than maybe they ever could be right if they
Speaker 1: remained alive. Like I'm one of those who thinks that
Speaker 1: James Garfield might have been the president that had you know,
Speaker 1: given us a civil rights Act that might have made
Speaker 1: us a multiracial democracy in the eighteen eighties and might
Speaker 1: have finished reconstruction and been able to and instead of
Speaker 1: having to wait till nineteen sixty five to finally give
Speaker 1: equal rights to all Americans, equal voting rights to all Americans.
Speaker 1: And so but you know, we all have that luxury
Speaker 1: because his life was taken too quickly as president. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a big advocate of Bill mcgrave,
Speaker 1: and I think some and this is why I think
Speaker 1: it may take somebody with military experience, who is you know,
Speaker 1: when you're overseas, it's just you know, it's Team America.
Speaker 1: And I think somebody needs to be able to realize that, hey,
Speaker 1: disagreement is part of being on Team America. You know,
Speaker 1: being in the loyal opposition is part.
Speaker 2: Of being on Team America.
Speaker 1: Speaking out against your president is is patriotic of a
Speaker 1: thing to do is speaking out in support of your president.
Speaker 1: And our president is our president, even when we disagree
Speaker 1: with that president vehemently, right. I just think we need
Speaker 1: somebody that wants. Like I said, it's sort of I'm
Speaker 1: not a religious person, as many of you know, and
Speaker 1: yet I think about the tone and tenor of a
Speaker 1: pastor or a rabbi that just knows how to de
Speaker 1: escalate and sort of speak to a speak to our
Speaker 1: better angels, right, speak to but in many ways reteach
Speaker 1: about about the idea. You know, America is an idea.
Speaker 1: America is not a was not meant to be an
Speaker 1: ethnic based democracy, or a white Christian nationalist movement or
Speaker 1: a Judeo Christian country.
Speaker 2: It is it is.
Speaker 1: It is an idea, and it's unique of any other
Speaker 1: country around the world. Right, it is not supposed to
Speaker 1: be based in anything to be you know, when we're
Speaker 1: at our best right as a as a country and
Speaker 1: when when when do we really get to flex our muscles?
Speaker 1: That America is different than it's always at the Olympics, right,
Speaker 1: because we are a destination for those that want freedom. Right,
Speaker 1: we accept it. You know, anybody can become an American. Right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what race you are, what ethnicity, what
Speaker 1: religion you hold, and that diversity of where people have
Speaker 1: you know, come from all ends of the earth to
Speaker 1: be to choose to become Americans. Right, That's why we're
Speaker 1: a power in the Olympics.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We come now in all shapes and sizes, and so
Speaker 1: we can dominate any Olympic sport you name it, Right,
Speaker 1: We've got somebody, somebody who can do it.
Speaker 2: And you know that that's it's.
Speaker 1: Sort of it's embracing America as an idea rather than
Speaker 1: trying to remake America into something it never was that
Speaker 1: the founders never intended, even if they didn't quite get
Speaker 1: it right at the start, right, which is why I
Speaker 1: think the most important phrase that comes from the Founding
Speaker 1: documents is more perfect Union, because the implication is we're
Speaker 1: not perfect and we should always strive to get better.
Speaker 2: So you know who is that?
Speaker 1: You know, I thought a guy like Bill McRaven, who
Speaker 1: is you know, who was the head of the Joint
Speaker 1: Special Forces and sort of essentially led helped lead lead
Speaker 1: the mission. He wasn't physically on the mission, but sort
Speaker 1: of was the command and control of the mission that
Speaker 1: got in laden. You know, here's somebody that worked for
Speaker 1: Democratic president, worked for Republican president. You know, in his
Speaker 1: mind he just worked for a president and him without
Speaker 1: political party rights as an independent. That sort of sobers
Speaker 1: up red and Blue. Right. I think we're probably destined
Speaker 1: to stay at two party system, whether we like it
Speaker 1: or not. But sometimes the parties might need a time
Speaker 1: out and we need somebody to sort of help teach
Speaker 1: us again of what patriotism really is and what America
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. So who best represents that? Right,
Speaker 1: let's just say that's a test I'm looking for going
Speaker 1: into twenty eight. All right, Next question, Joshua would be
Speaker 1: if you were a twenty eight DEM strategist and you
Speaker 1: had to pick one of the DEM fighters to represent
Speaker 1: the party, who would you pick between AOC, Gavin or Beto.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, it's sort of like who.
Speaker 1: I think it's a AOC between the three of them.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 2: I think she's the savviest of the three. I think
Speaker 2: she's the one.
Speaker 1: I just think about it just tactically, I think she's
Speaker 1: would make the least amount of mistakes. Now, you know, perhaps,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure any of them could get elected.
Speaker 2: I think that I don't.
Speaker 1: Know if we're going to want to replace Trump with
Speaker 1: you know, a more combative progressive right, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of the in what some might view as a mirror
Speaker 1: image in that sense, right sort of. So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's where the country is going
Speaker 1: to be looking for. Perhaps they will, maybe maybe that
Speaker 1: is where we end up if things if things deteriorate
Speaker 1: in different aspects, right, deteriorate and economy and things like that.
Speaker 1: But if you're asking me just who those three do
Speaker 1: you think would would be the probably run the best campaign,
Speaker 1: make the least amount of mistakes, you know, between those three, right,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'd probably go with AOC because
Speaker 1: I think that she's the most genuine working class of
Speaker 1: the three.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Gavin, while he wasn't raised rich, sort of came you know,
Speaker 1: sort of there's always a product of the elites. I
Speaker 1: think Beto of course was was sort of had his
Speaker 1: you know, sort of came from some wealth. AOC really
Speaker 1: in that sense, I think she is the best chance
Speaker 1: of connecting with working class in America if you're gonna
Speaker 1: pick those three. But I'm I'm skeptical any of them
Speaker 1: could win a national race for president. I'll be I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, but but but I do respect the skills
Speaker 1: of AOC, probably more so than than than any of us. Look,
Speaker 1: and I got to give to Avin new some this
Speaker 1: the I've written, you know, I think we've all written
Speaker 1: him off plenty of times when he briefly ran against
Speaker 1: Jerry Brown for governor and then lost and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, So he is. He is certainly no shrinking Violet.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if America is going to elect
Speaker 1: a former mayor of San Francisco president. I think that
Speaker 1: is that that the symbolism of San Francisco is just
Speaker 1: culturally too far out for swing voters in a Michigan
Speaker 1: right at the end of the day. And maybe you
Speaker 1: could make the same argument at AOC. But in some
Speaker 1: ways I think her working class roots might might be
Speaker 1: more of an asset, uh than if you're making me
Speaker 1: pick between those three. All right, last question, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take cares from Christina, so like I've contacted members
Speaker 1: of Congress requesting impeachment proceedings against RFK Junior. But I
Speaker 1: also have a question as head of CMS, would doctor
Speaker 1: memet Os be allowed to override some of OURFK Junior's
Speaker 1: policy changes to keep Medicare and medicate more in line
Speaker 1: with science. That's an interesting question, and I probably should
Speaker 1: have read it first and tried to do some I
Speaker 1: think there's some things that he can do. He is
Speaker 1: in a Senate confirmed position, and so yes, I think
Speaker 1: that they're But the real issue is, you know, it
Speaker 1: is with some of the you know what what Kennedy
Speaker 1: did so by by pulling back a recommendation on a
Speaker 1: vaccine all of a sudden, insurance companies won't cover. The
Speaker 1: question is what if medical you know, does Medicaid and
Speaker 1: Medicare follow suit or does he make sure that Medicare
Speaker 1: and Medicaid will still cover preventative vaccines for COVID and
Speaker 1: for pregnant women, et cetera. So I believe in that
Speaker 1: sense he still has that authority and that and that
Speaker 1: Kennedy wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be able to have that impact.
Speaker 1: But look, I think it's pretty clear in this response,
Speaker 1: by the way, what I mean, I singled out the
Speaker 1: whole lack of federal response to the CDC attack, But
Speaker 1: my goodness, it's getting short shrift, right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to play partisan here, you know, here
Speaker 1: here President Trump seems to care about care about crime
Speaker 1: in d C, but he doesn't care about crime at
Speaker 1: the CDC. That that federal government workers were targeted by
Speaker 1: a crazy man who was inspired with fringe conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: that were that that Robert F. Kennedy Junior consistently trafficked,
Speaker 1: then that's alarming, uh, And that that should be something
Speaker 1: that that should worry this White House. And again I
Speaker 1: go back I the silence of Republican elected officials about
Speaker 1: Kennedy in general and specifically the lack of you know this,
Speaker 1: I think the lack of attention that this CDC shooting
Speaker 1: has gotten. Part of it is that it was in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: not d C. So maybe the the d C media,
Speaker 1: uh world didn't cover it is extensively. Perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: Trump is the shiny object right now, and he he
Speaker 1: decided to focus on d c's crime, and there was somehow,
Speaker 1: But I just I do think we've we've left that
Speaker 1: cd sort collectively traditional media left that CDC story way
Speaker 1: too soon. This is a much bigger problem. This is
Speaker 1: a problem that is that the person who's who's largely
Speaker 1: responsible for the atmosphere that we have about vaccines and
Speaker 1: COVID in general is actually, you know, the call is
Speaker 1: coming from inside the house, right is sitting there at HHS.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a head scratcher to me. I
Speaker 1: think at some point Kennedy becomes a political liability for
Speaker 1: all Republicans. The question is when do Republicans realize he's
Speaker 1: going to become a political liability.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: So with that, I appreciate the questions this week. Look
Speaker 1: tomorrow's episode. Normally I do my sort of political update
Speaker 1: on the midterms. I do that wednesdays. This is a
Speaker 1: special day. This is a two parter, So coming tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I will update you on some of the interesting developments
Speaker 1: and campaign twenty twenty six, including what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on in the California governor's race. Is there a
Speaker 1: front runner? Let me just tell you this, the potential
Speaker 1: front runner has yet to announce. That's my teas for you,
Speaker 1: And when we come back tomorrow, I'll let you know
Speaker 1: who I think the new front runner for governor of
Speaker 1: California may very well be. And with that I'll see
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours until we upload again.