Speaker 1: On this episode of the News World on June twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Jihna Caldwell's life was forever changed when
Speaker 1: he lost his eighteen year old brother, Christian, an innocent bystander,
Speaker 1: to senseless gun violence on the streets of his hometown
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Christian was a young man with a bright
Speaker 1: and promising future, and one of over one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty people murdered across the United States on that day alone.
Speaker 1: Think of it. In his new book, The Day My
Speaker 1: Brother Was Murdered, My Journey through America's Violent Crime Crisis,
Speaker 1: Gianna describes his deeply personal experience with urban violence. He
Speaker 1: dives deep into the heart of America's big cities, telling
Speaker 1: the stories of eight other murders that occurred on the
Speaker 1: same night his brother died, shedding light on the tangible
Speaker 1: human tragedy while providing readers with valuable lessons, insights, and
Speaker 1: a roadmap for creating safer communities. To talk about his
Speaker 1: new book, I'm really pleased to welcome my guests and
Speaker 1: good friend, Gianno Caldwell. He has a political analyst for
Speaker 1: Fox News Channel, the founder of Caldwell Institute, a bipartisan
Speaker 1: firm in Washington, d C. Providing strategic advice and counseling. Jhona,
Speaker 1: Welcome and thank you for joining me on News World.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to be with you.
Speaker 1: Speaker, as always, describe your brother Christian, what kind of
Speaker 1: person was he?
Speaker 2: Well, my brother Christian, he was eighteen years old. He
Speaker 2: was innocent when he was murdered. This is a kid,
Speaker 2: it's sixteen years old, begging me to take him on
Speaker 2: a college tour because he wanted to focus on what
Speaker 2: was next. So we went to UCLA or we did
Speaker 2: a tour there, and you know, we talked with other
Speaker 2: schools as well. But this is somebody who was focusing
Speaker 2: on his future. This was somebody who enjoyed sports, friends,
Speaker 2: he joked a lot, just an overall good kid. Is
Speaker 2: such a tragedy of what happened, but I will hold
Speaker 2: with me, dear, the memories that we had, and we
Speaker 2: had many of them.
Speaker 1: How did you hear that he'd been killed?
Speaker 2: Our sister calls me on the morning of June twenty
Speaker 2: fourth and she says that Christian has been killed, and
Speaker 2: I said, well, how do you know that? What are
Speaker 2: you talking about? Where did this happen? Where's his information
Speaker 2: coming from? And she said someone called her and told her,
Speaker 2: and then we sent someone to the scene and they
Speaker 2: talked to the police and said he had been sent
Speaker 2: to a hospital. So we had a little bit of
Speaker 2: hope that he was still living at that point, but
Speaker 2: when we got to the hospital and my family, they
Speaker 2: wouldn't give them any information. So I ended up reaching
Speaker 2: out to some elected officials I knew in the area
Speaker 2: who made some calls and they confirmed that he was
Speaker 2: at the hospital, and they also confirmed the ed passed away.
Speaker 1: And what did the police tell you about the killing himself?
Speaker 2: Well, the police told me that he was not the target.
Speaker 2: There was an individual and this is one of the
Speaker 2: theories of the case. The police has giving me the
Speaker 2: same theory, and I've talked to someone else who told
Speaker 2: me about this when I initially heard apparently what happened
Speaker 2: was there was a fight between two guys that took
Speaker 2: place six months prior and one of the guys got
Speaker 2: beat up really badly and it was on tape. Somebody
Speaker 2: recorded it and they put it on social media. So
Speaker 2: the guy who got beat up really badly wanted to
Speaker 2: kill the guy who put it on social media, so
Speaker 2: six months prior they tried to kill him. This guy
Speaker 2: runs away to California, comes back thinking the coast is clear,
Speaker 2: and they saw him out. My brother happened to be
Speaker 2: standing next to him, along with some other folks, and
Speaker 2: they shot everyone. But my brother was the only one
Speaker 2: who happened to die that day.
Speaker 1: I almost hate to ask this, what was your feeling,
Speaker 1: What was your reaction personally when you learned all this?
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, when my sister and I just
Speaker 2: didn't believe it. I couldn't believe. He come from a
Speaker 2: very faith based family. We believe in the power of prayer,
Speaker 2: and it's something that I grew up with. So I'm
Speaker 2: saying to myself, there's no way that my brother could
Speaker 2: be dead. Maybe he's injured and he'll recover. I told
Speaker 2: my sister, let's pray right now. And there's a scripture
Speaker 2: that says he shall live and not die and declare
Speaker 2: the works of the Lord. And you know, that's what
Speaker 2: we did. But it was too Lady was already gone.
Speaker 1: As I understand it. I mean, he's standing there and
Speaker 1: a black ass uf pulls up. Several people get out
Speaker 1: with guns and just start faring into the crowd.
Speaker 2: That's correct, and the individual that they wanted, they shot
Speaker 2: him a bunch of times. He still lived. My brother
Speaker 2: was shot maybe once or twice, and then there was
Speaker 2: a young lady that was shot. And this individual that
Speaker 2: they wanted is just honestly miraculous that he survived. He
Speaker 2: had to have multiple surgeries that day, and then weeks
Speaker 2: after he had to have multiple surgeries. But my brother
Speaker 2: is it's just hard to fathom. It's been three years
Speaker 2: since it's happened, nude three years, and it's still hard
Speaker 2: to think about. The Only thing that really gives me
Speaker 2: a sense of purpose in his murder is me having
Speaker 2: started at the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, which our
Speaker 2: focus has been George Source funded and back district attorneys
Speaker 2: across the country, and now we've expanded out to gubernatorial races,
Speaker 2: mayoral races, because I know for a fact that the
Speaker 2: reason that my brother was murdered and people across the
Speaker 2: country you mentioned on that day, is because of soft
Speaker 2: on crime policies in many of these large cities. We've
Speaker 2: seen it time and time again. Soft on crime isn't
Speaker 2: just a policy as an ideology in which the criminal
Speaker 2: knows that there's not going to be any punishment for
Speaker 2: what they do. We see it in New York City,
Speaker 2: We've seen it in Chicago. We've seen it in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles where we got involved in the George gascon race. There.
Speaker 2: Supported Nathan Hackman, who's now the district attorney, did advise
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff to ensure that Nathan Hogman would
Speaker 2: win that election. Because it's one district attorney at the time.
Speaker 2: We got to pull him down, and we got to
Speaker 2: bring those local municipalities back into good conscious, good governance
Speaker 2: and law and order.
Speaker 1: Johanno, one of the things you do is you talk
Speaker 1: about eight other murders who to day your brother was killed.
Speaker 1: Can you describe briefly those aid?
Speaker 2: Yes, I talk about people like James, who's my first chapter,
Speaker 2: Army veteran who had ETSD. Couldn't sleep at night, so
Speaker 2: you would often go to a park to a walk
Speaker 2: in a park at two am. On one particular night,
Speaker 2: June twenty fourth, that day, he goes to the park
Speaker 2: as a bunch of kids out there, teenagers, some even
Speaker 2: younger than teenage, and he says, hey, what are you
Speaker 2: kids doing out here this late? You should go home.
Speaker 2: It's two a m. They end up killing him with
Speaker 2: a traffic home. Terrible set of circumstances. I talk about
Speaker 2: someone named Catherine, who was a mother, grandmother, sixty five
Speaker 2: years old, chemical engineer, white woman out of Texas, who
Speaker 2: was going home from work when gunfire broke out on
Speaker 2: the freeway. It was a drug deal that went bad.
Speaker 2: The guy who was selling the drugs was trying to
Speaker 2: rip off the guy that was buying them. They were
Speaker 2: trying to rip each other off. They jump in the cars,
Speaker 2: they run out on a highway. She's coming home and
Speaker 2: they end up killing her baby. Cecilia six months old,
Speaker 2: who was murdered miles away from my brother on the
Speaker 2: same day, June twenty fourth. Of course, this baby, six
Speaker 2: months old was murdered next to her baby brother in
Speaker 2: a car seat in Chicago. You know, we often talked
Speaker 2: about being at the wrong place, wrong time in some
Speaker 2: of these cities, but honestly, thinking about Chicago, you can
Speaker 2: be in your bed and a bullet comes through your window.
Speaker 2: It's no safety and security there.
Speaker 1: I think for people to understand the scale of what
Speaker 1: you are responding to, beyond the immediate personal anguish of
Speaker 1: your brother. In twenty twenty two, Chicago alone had six
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty homicides and twenty six hundred shootings. It
Speaker 1: seems to me you really got drawn into dealing with
Speaker 1: and exposing the scale of the problem on a nationwide basis.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. These consequences of policymaking in these
Speaker 2: freckless politicians who like Brandon Johnson in the City of Chicago,
Speaker 2: who supports many of these criminal activities, and by doing so,
Speaker 2: saying things like, don't demonize these kids. Well, if these
Speaker 2: are the kids they're shooting people, then why wouldn't you
Speaker 2: demonize them. You know, at some point they're not children.
Speaker 2: They're acting as adults. They're murdering people, and this is
Speaker 2: the reality that we live in. If they're fourteen or ten,
Speaker 2: they should go to jail if you're going to pick
Speaker 2: up a gun and kill someone. But we have to
Speaker 2: focus on tougher centizent, punishing those who commit these crimes,
Speaker 2: ensure the assault on crime policies are not a logo
Speaker 2: on the books. We need to talk about fathers at
Speaker 2: a home because a lot of this stuff can be
Speaker 2: stopped if we focused on the family structure. That means
Speaker 2: in what I really appreciate about you, Speaker, because you've
Speaker 2: done this with Bill Clinton, when you put together the
Speaker 2: ninety six welfare reformat, making people go to work or
Speaker 2: get educated. Those are extraordinarily valuable components and tools that
Speaker 2: bring a person to the point where they can have
Speaker 2: the independence that do things on their own. It gives
Speaker 2: you confidence, it gives you a sense of worth, a
Speaker 2: sense of pride, and that's largely missing in many of
Speaker 2: these areas.
Speaker 1: I was really surprised as you did your research because
Speaker 1: I've always thought of murder as the one thing we
Speaker 1: really focus on clearing. Your work indicated that only fifty
Speaker 1: nine percent of the homicides in twenty twenty one, only
Speaker 1: fifty nine percent were solved. That forty one percent, almost
Speaker 1: half of all homicides go unsolved, which has to make
Speaker 1: the criminals more confident that they can do it and
Speaker 1: get away with.
Speaker 2: It, exactly right, and especially in places like Chicago. And
Speaker 2: when you look at these numbers even deeper, and when
Speaker 2: they break them down by race even less way, less
Speaker 2: of the African American numbers are actually solved. And that's
Speaker 2: in part because of this no snitching policy that's been
Speaker 2: in place for many, many years. In the African American community,
Speaker 2: where you don't talk to the police and inform them
Speaker 2: on a crime that took place. So what does that do?
Speaker 2: That leads to many cases being unsolved, unresolved, That leads
Speaker 2: to many families never seeing justice for their own loved
Speaker 2: ones because no one's willing to talk. And that's another
Speaker 2: thing that I talk about in this book The Day
Speaker 2: my Brother was murdered. My journey through America's violent crime
Speaker 2: crisis is we must work with the police as a community.
Speaker 2: For many African Americans, that is necessitous because at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it used to be and where
Speaker 2: I was growing up, if you told, then something may
Speaker 2: happen to your family. But if the gang found out
Speaker 2: who did crime, they would turn the person into the
Speaker 2: police or they would handle let themselves. Now, if you tell,
Speaker 2: you don't tell, you're in the same set of circumstances,
Speaker 2: something could happen to your family. So I'd rather be
Speaker 2: a person who's willing to work with the police and
Speaker 2: get their protection and their guidance and to solve the
Speaker 2: crime than to allow there to be a set of
Speaker 2: circumstances where this person who killed your family member goes
Speaker 2: out and kills several others. And that's what happens in
Speaker 2: many of these areas is the shooter, one particular person
Speaker 2: is committing a lot of these farms. We saw that
Speaker 2: in New York. I remember when the New York Post
Speaker 2: came out with a story on a lot of the
Speaker 2: crime that was being committed was by like two or
Speaker 2: three hundred people in the city. The majority of the
Speaker 2: crime that was insane. But that ends up being the
Speaker 2: reality in many cases that you have people who do
Speaker 2: it over and over again because they've gotten away with it.
Speaker 1: How much of the difficulty in some neighborhoods comes because
Speaker 1: people are just frightened that if they do testify, that
Speaker 1: they and their family will then be targeted by the
Speaker 1: very same forces of violence.
Speaker 2: I think that does play a part, and that's why
Speaker 2: I think is in some of these jurisdictions. We know
Speaker 2: that the Democrats went out and took us wing to
Speaker 2: defund the police, etc. When the police really need more
Speaker 2: funding than many of these locations. But I also think
Speaker 2: they need funding for witness protection. That's important. That's an
Speaker 2: area in which we don't often talk about and why
Speaker 2: people like Mayor Er Goddams was talking about raising taxes
Speaker 2: for migrants to take care of them. He should be
Speaker 2: ensuring that the tax base he already has is being
Speaker 2: rightly spent on the folks who are Americans and who
Speaker 2: need to help protection from the police. They need to
Speaker 2: make sure that these budgets are where they should be
Speaker 2: and they treat the police fairly, because these are the
Speaker 2: people we rely on for our safety and security.
Speaker 1: One of the things you reported is that the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice indicated there had been a fifty five percent
Speaker 1: increase in violent crime over four years, with an amazing
Speaker 1: seventy five percent spike in twenty twenty two. And then
Speaker 1: you went on the US Government of Justice in September
Speaker 1: of twenty four reported and overall fifty five percent increase
Speaker 1: and instances of reported rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, And
Speaker 1: the estimate was that only forty percent of violent crimes
Speaker 1: are reported to the police. Why would people not report
Speaker 1: a violent crime?
Speaker 2: Well, in some cases, I know, in some cases people
Speaker 2: think is not going to matter. As an example, in Chicago,
Speaker 2: they need two thousand new police detectives to handle the
Speaker 2: current murder workload. So those murders that are happening in
Speaker 2: the city, they need to be able to solve them.
Speaker 2: They don't have enough police for that, and in some
Speaker 2: cases they may not come, and that's the unfortunate reality.
Speaker 2: Police now in some cases they don't want to be demonized.
Speaker 2: They don't want to make a quick decision to save
Speaker 2: a life that may cost them their job, cost them
Speaker 2: their reputation. That's an issue in and of itself. We
Speaker 2: have a nation where people have been unfortunately scarred. They've
Speaker 2: seen what happened in twenty twenty with George Floyd, and
Speaker 2: that was an issue. Police departments are overwhelmed and we
Speaker 2: continue to see that upticking crime in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: which is rather interesting in a way because you know,
Speaker 2: we had already surpassed the ryots and all those different things,
Speaker 2: But then that was a policy issue. As an example,
Speaker 2: in Illinois, there's something called the Safety Act Safe t Act,
Speaker 2: and what it does is it ins cash bail in
Speaker 2: the state of Illinois. But there's other policies that it
Speaker 2: impacts even more directly. As an example, they have these
Speaker 2: ankle monitor braces that you've seen people wear. They're on
Speaker 2: house arrests. That's what is usually for well in Illinois,
Speaker 2: they sometimes put murderers on house arrests as they await trial. Well,
Speaker 2: with the Safety Act, now you can go out and
Speaker 2: murder the person who may be the witness of the
Speaker 2: crime because the police are not allowed to come to
Speaker 2: your house for seventy two hours. So it used to be,
Speaker 2: you know, the monitor goes off, the police call are
Speaker 2: you home, and then they may stop by to verify
Speaker 2: that you are home. In this case, seventy two hours,
Speaker 2: you got a full runway to go do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Police cannot respond, and then in seventy two hours they
Speaker 2: can finally respond, So you've already done all the dirty
Speaker 2: work at that point.
Speaker 1: Why do they have this seventy two hour rule?
Speaker 2: That's a really good question, Newton. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 2: I went out for Fox to Chicago because when you
Speaker 2: look at the list of things this covers, threddning a
Speaker 2: public official. That's something that's been decriminalized in a way.
Speaker 2: Many of the things that were in that law. People
Speaker 2: did not believe it. You know, I say, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: what do you think of the new Safety Actor that
Speaker 2: Democrats are proposing. You tell them, you go down the list.
Speaker 2: They say, there's no way that this can be true.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no way people who vote for Democrats, and our
Speaker 2: Democrats said there's absolutely no way. And then people found
Speaker 2: out that it was absolutely true, it was accurate, and
Speaker 2: they passed it. They ended up passing it. JB. Prisker
Speaker 2: put money behind it, the billionaire governor of Illinois, who's
Speaker 2: so far left now he's a progressive, is what it
Speaker 2: seems to me. And how did it pass? I mean,
Speaker 2: you got an electorate is still voting for these kind
Speaker 2: of people. That's how it passed.
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing to me. It's almost as though
Speaker 1: the modern left is pro criminal that the adopt a
Speaker 1: series of procedures and a series of rules, all of
Speaker 1: which are to the advantage of the criminal and to
Speaker 1: the disadvantage of the victim or the innocent citizen. You
Speaker 1: cite Chicago, which is your hometown, you get the same
Speaker 1: pattern in New York or in California. In Philadelphia, as
Speaker 1: you know and have written about, the district Attorney Larry
Speaker 1: Krasner is just insanely soft on crime. And a lot
Speaker 1: of these folks were supported by George Soros, who in
Speaker 1: one election alone put up a million dollars to help
Speaker 1: Krasner win. And yet Krasner's clearly openly in favor of
Speaker 1: the criminals and against the police and against the victims.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you explain all that.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you it's not that they seem that they're
Speaker 2: pro criminal. They are pro criminal. That's the reality of it.
Speaker 2: They have been pro criminal for a long time. And
Speaker 2: you know, they went under the guys of criminal justice reform.
Speaker 2: It was a noble, noble effort writing some wrongs, but
Speaker 2: what it ended up becoming is justice for the criminal.
Speaker 2: And that's where we are as a country right now.
Speaker 2: Because people they saw a moment with George Floyd and
Speaker 2: they thought it was a welcome Matt to say, listen,
Speaker 2: we're going to be in favor of the criminal because
Speaker 2: we think that our voters would like it. In some
Speaker 2: of these major cities, they did like it until they didn't.
Speaker 2: You think about California. Remember just last year there was
Speaker 2: the repeal of Prop forty seven. Now, Gavin Newsom and
Speaker 2: for people who don't know about this proposition in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: it was a ballid initiative which lowered the penalties for
Speaker 2: crime criminal activity, So you get less time for this,
Speaker 2: less time for that. Do you criminalize this or that?
Speaker 2: Et cetera. So folks know that crime exploded in California
Speaker 2: after George Floyd, especially in places like Los Angeles, and
Speaker 2: they wanted something done about it, and they thought their
Speaker 2: proposition was one in which wasn't helpful. For that time.
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom was against repealing it. He said, Oh, this
Speaker 2: is going to hurt our black communities. What how dare
Speaker 2: you even say something like that Black communities are being
Speaker 2: hurt because of crime, so you need to put those
Speaker 2: folks in jail one percent. So that's the Martyn left today.
Speaker 2: They don't want to repeal it. The voters did, Thank
Speaker 2: god that they did, because it's such a shame that
Speaker 2: they allowed it to go on for as long as
Speaker 2: it did.
Speaker 1: I mean, you point out, for example that in Chicago alone,
Speaker 1: the progressive prosecutor Kim Fox dropped more than twenty five
Speaker 1: foul and phoning cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, including rape and murder.
Speaker 1: I mean just basically said that these folks you're free, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sending a signal course to other people that they can
Speaker 1: get away with rape and murder.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned that during Gascon's term in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: property crime increased by forty nine percent and sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the arrest made by the San Francisco Police Department
Speaker 1: were just dropped by Gascon in his office as if
Speaker 1: they'd never happened. I mean, how can people put up
Speaker 1: with them?
Speaker 2: Well, George Gascone is I think a really good example
Speaker 2: that you just referenced because he helped author that proposition
Speaker 2: was lowered the penalties statewide, So that was a big
Speaker 2: part of his formula. And he's also someone the George
Speaker 2: Soros backed supported for not only some of the roles
Speaker 2: that he did in San Francisco, but he also ran
Speaker 2: for District attorney in Los Angeles County. So he's a
Speaker 2: really interesting fellow. And thank god he's no longer in office.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you for a lot of the people
Speaker 2: they seen, And you know, I'm African American. I think
Speaker 2: many people know that about now. But there has been
Speaker 2: some wrongs in the African American community for sure. But
Speaker 2: you don't right them by saying we're going to give
Speaker 2: criminals a free pass because many of these criminals happen
Speaker 2: to be black. If I'm just going to be plain
Speaker 2: about it, that's been the case. Many of the victims
Speaker 2: happen to be black. The perpetrators oftentimes happen to be
Speaker 2: black as well. They do this thing to pander to
Speaker 2: African Americans and some Hispanic and then some liberal I guess,
Speaker 2: well meaning whites who think that black folks the only
Speaker 2: way to help them is allow criminals to get off
Speaker 2: the hook, which is asinine. To be clear, that's part
Speaker 2: of the reason that they've done it. But I think
Speaker 2: people are in some cases waking up to this. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say the same for some of the good folks
Speaker 2: in New York who willing to put a socialist in
Speaker 2: offices mayor. I don't understand how something like that happens,
Speaker 2: but I guess if you're in pain and you're suffering
Speaker 2: under the weight of the financial burden of being a
Speaker 2: New York or maybe you're willing to do whatever you
Speaker 2: can try to take some of that burden and pressure
Speaker 2: off of you. Maybe that was a part of the
Speaker 2: calculus for some of those voters, even though it was
Speaker 2: a very low turnout race, this idea that you can
Speaker 2: cure all ills in the black community if you just
Speaker 2: let criminals off the hook, and it's just totally wrong.
Speaker 1: You make a point good. You can't really explain the
Speaker 1: rise of the progressive, pro criminal, anti victim district attorneys.
Speaker 1: Without looking at George Soros's role, Were you surprised by
Speaker 1: the scale and scope of what Soros has done?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm gonna tell you, I'm very surprised.
Speaker 2: And honestly, what he did was it was an evil
Speaker 2: genius idea. Instead of going nationally and putting all his
Speaker 2: money in nationally, he go locality, local, put in He
Speaker 2: funded over seventy five soft one crime prosecutors candidates that
Speaker 2: ran for office, many of them got in, and he
Speaker 2: only put in a little money to do it. And
Speaker 2: then it created a trend across the country. One city
Speaker 2: did it, the other one adapted, and that's how they
Speaker 2: played it. And then I find out through the work
Speaker 2: of Elon Musk Indulged how much his nonprofits have been
Speaker 2: receiving in federal funding. So now the question becomes, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously you can't use federal money for politics per se,
Speaker 2: but many of them do. Like we see these protests
Speaker 2: et cetera that they hire, and I talk about that
Speaker 2: in the book Today My Brother was Murdered, My Journey
Speaker 2: through America's Violent Crime Crisis. Many of these protesters are
Speaker 2: bought and paid for it through sores, and he uses
Speaker 2: money through his charities to get them in these particular places,
Speaker 2: like these ice protests they did in Los Angeles, these
Speaker 2: riots and the looting that they did. Much of this
Speaker 2: stuff is paid for by your sores. But we were
Speaker 2: really surprised to find out that they were receiving all
Speaker 2: this money from my very own federal government through USAID.
Speaker 2: Now that was the real shocker, I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of people. So he may not even be using
Speaker 2: it all money to do a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2: He's using our money, which is the biggest lap in
Speaker 2: the face for many Americans.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, what President Trump has done in
Speaker 1: cutting off the flow of that money to basically anti
Speaker 1: victim pro criminal das is a significant step in the
Speaker 1: right direction.
Speaker 2: And there's others too. You got people like Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 2: What was it, a billion dollars that her charity was
Speaker 2: going to receive and it was over for a month.
Speaker 1: It's impossible for me to believe that she could possibly
Speaker 1: spend that kind of money intelligently. Well, I was stunned.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like Christmas, let me give you
Speaker 1: a gigantic gift. Good luck. Yes, on the shift gears
Speaker 1: because I think one of the most provided how could
Speaker 1: Eve comments in your book you say the greatest violent
Speaker 1: threat to Black Americans is other Black Americans. I mean
Speaker 1: that's a very provocative point. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Well, just like I mentioned the numbers in terms of
Speaker 2: us dying at the hands of each other one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I've been a conservative for two decades, well over twenty years.
Speaker 2: I think I might be coming up on twenty five
Speaker 2: years and now at this point. And the people who
Speaker 2: really were opposed to me being a conservative, we're black people.
Speaker 2: People who disparaged me for being a conservative, more likely
Speaker 2: than not African Americans and folks when it comes to
Speaker 2: the work that I'm trying to do, once they find
Speaker 2: out that there's a Republican association to it, that's when
Speaker 2: a demonize or attempt to demonize our work when we're
Speaker 2: just simply trying to save lives. We're trying to turn
Speaker 2: the country around, put it back on track, and the
Speaker 2: law and order posture. We want to make sure that
Speaker 2: there's safety and security for everyone. But more than likely
Speaker 2: they're a post to it. And the reality is many
Speaker 2: on the left, whether they be white, black, or indifferent.
Speaker 2: It can be something that's the greatest thing you ever
Speaker 2: the cure for cancer. They find out Trump is a
Speaker 2: part of it, then all of a sudden they're against it.
Speaker 2: And it's reprehensible at this point that we cannot just
Speaker 2: be a free thinking society at people, no matter what
Speaker 2: color you are. People make their own decisions. So long
Speaker 2: as doesn't impact me in a negative way, it's fine.
Speaker 2: But certainly a lot of us are dying at the
Speaker 2: hands of each other, and that has become, I think
Speaker 2: a sticking point in many of these communities, and that's
Speaker 2: why many of us just leave these communities.
Speaker 1: You make a very important point. The poverty by itself
Speaker 1: doesn't explain the violence, but that there are much deeper
Speaker 1: breakdowns in family, education, and opportunity. What can be done
Speaker 1: to break that cycle?
Speaker 2: I think we need to get back to family and
Speaker 2: the homes is where I think a society that has
Speaker 2: been largely lost. I think that's part of the reason
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump's win was so decisive, because people wanted
Speaker 2: to go back to some form of normalcy and they
Speaker 2: thought he was the only same person to run. You know,
Speaker 2: between him and Kamala Harris, this was the only same
Speaker 2: person that you can vote for at that particular time.
Speaker 2: But we got to get back to the core root
Speaker 2: of family and education nude. I think that's the most
Speaker 2: important thing. We got to get back to that. We
Speaker 2: got to get back to the value of hard work.
Speaker 2: That's why I support work requirements on welfare, and I
Speaker 2: appreciate what it appears to be. Congress has that same
Speaker 2: mentality and mindset. And you know, hopefully we'll see that
Speaker 2: in a big, beautiful bill. That is the hope. But
Speaker 2: if we can get back to our roots a family.
Speaker 2: Faith is also important, extremely important. I interview a guy
Speaker 2: in a book who runs a network or charter schools,
Speaker 2: and these are underprivileged students that he has in his
Speaker 2: particular schools, and he says that it doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: the religion is, whatever it is. You can be Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian,
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. He said, if a kid
Speaker 2: has some sense of faith in their life. I believe
Speaker 2: he said, it was like a seventy five percent chance
Speaker 2: that that kid was going to do well in life
Speaker 2: if he had that core of faith in his life.
Speaker 2: And I believe that because that's why I grew up.
Speaker 2: I grew up with that. I grew up knowing the
Speaker 2: difference between right and wrong, knowing that God is here
Speaker 2: to protect us and guide us and lead us the
Speaker 2: Ten Commandments, which I think the governor Abbot of Texas
Speaker 2: now is putting it him in every classroom now has
Speaker 2: to display the Ten Commandments. If we can get back
Speaker 2: to those foundational principles, I think we'll be a society
Speaker 2: that can get back on track for sure.
Speaker 1: One of the steps that you've taken, you've been very
Speaker 1: outspoken against the defund the police movement. What do you
Speaker 1: think has been the real world impact of that movement.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of cities recognize right away that
Speaker 2: it was a disastrous decision to defund the police in
Speaker 2: any capacity, and many of them decided to put the
Speaker 2: funding prop the funding back up, et cetera. But it
Speaker 2: was very problem and it impacted our officers in a
Speaker 2: very deep way. I mean, our officers begin to believe
Speaker 2: that as a society, we really actually don't care about
Speaker 2: the police. And some of these cases we see police
Speaker 2: officers get attacked. I think it was in Times Square
Speaker 2: a migrant attacked one or two police officers and he
Speaker 2: was out of jail the next day or a couple
Speaker 2: of days later. These policies, the rhetoric from elected officials
Speaker 2: do have consequences. The unfortunate reality is the morale in
Speaker 2: many of these local municipalities, these local police districts has
Speaker 2: gone way down, retirements have gone way up, and people
Speaker 2: just don't want to deal with it anymore. And that's
Speaker 2: not okay for us as a society to have our
Speaker 2: officers feeling like that, because we depend on them, we
Speaker 2: need them.
Speaker 1: I really think that your book is very impressive and
Speaker 1: the range of things you cover, the need for a
Speaker 1: serious continuing prison policy initiative. Once only yos of prison.
Speaker 1: Once we would like to make sure when they come
Speaker 1: out that they're prepared to re enter society and not
Speaker 1: go back to prison. Talk for here about that whole
Speaker 1: notion of how do we reduce what they call recidivism,
Speaker 1: which is simply people getting out of being sent back
Speaker 1: to prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the recidivism rate is extraordinarily high. I know that
Speaker 2: it was at one time seventy five percent. After five years,
Speaker 2: people recidivising and going back into prison. Because oftentimes prisons
Speaker 2: become a place where people get more educated on how
Speaker 2: to commit more crime. Except for an example that I
Speaker 2: utilize in the book doctor Bill Winston, who's a pastor
Speaker 2: out of Chicago. He is actually my pastor to twenty
Speaker 2: thousand member church. And what he does is he has
Speaker 2: a program that goes into the jail. They teach them
Speaker 2: financial literacy, job skilled readiness. They bring corporations into the
Speaker 2: jail to recruit prisoners those who are about to get out.
Speaker 2: So you want to ensure that they the skills that
Speaker 2: are needed so that they do not recidivize when they
Speaker 2: come out. If you got a job or a skill
Speaker 2: or something, somebody's going to take you in, then you're
Speaker 2: less likely to be in that set of circumstances. I
Speaker 2: think programs like doctor Bill Winston is one that should
Speaker 2: be expanded throughout the country. They did a wrong, they're
Speaker 2: accepting their punishment obviously by being there, and they don't
Speaker 2: have a choice but too. But now we can give
Speaker 2: them skills that when they come out they're in a
Speaker 2: better position to be effective citizens and taxpayers. And I
Speaker 2: think that's what we really would want as a country.
Speaker 2: We want to be able to give people an ability
Speaker 2: to do right after being in a set of circumstances.
Speaker 2: Like that.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I wanted to share this conversation
Speaker 1: with folks who listen to our podcasts is that after
Speaker 1: the death of your brother Christian, you founded the Caldwell
Speaker 1: Institute for Public Safety, which is a nonprofit dedicating to
Speaker 1: ensure our justice system is the safety and security of
Speaker 1: all law abiding citizens. Could you talk about that point
Speaker 1: or two. I think it's a very important organizational effort
Speaker 1: on your part and one that I have great admiration for.
Speaker 2: Well. Thank you. People can go to Caldwell Institute dot
Speaker 2: org and learn more about us there. So what happened
Speaker 2: newd is I wanted to ensure that after what I
Speaker 2: experienced with my brother working with the police. I worked
Speaker 2: for Fox News, so I had all the press, but
Speaker 2: many people don't. I put together manuals, and people that
Speaker 2: are on our board of advisors did it the same.
Speaker 2: We have former prosecutors, police chief legislators, etc. That are
Speaker 2: on our advisory board and they put together e manual
Speaker 2: how to work with police and prosecutors. I put together
Speaker 2: emanual how to get pressed for your family members, how
Speaker 2: to work with mental health services. Doctor Drew put together
Speaker 2: a manual on that those resources can again be found
Speaker 2: at our website calledwell Institute dot org. It was necessary.
Speaker 2: I wanted to really help people because I didn't realize
Speaker 2: that I was going to go through all these things
Speaker 2: and have these particular sets of experiences, but certainly I did,
Speaker 2: and I want people to have an easier time. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I'm saying that to navigate this situation because it's incredibly difficult,
Speaker 2: hard and emotional. So the institute started off as being
Speaker 2: a place for that, as well as going after soft
Speaker 2: on crime George Soro's funded prosecutors, and now we've expanded
Speaker 2: our tent to get involved with the gubernatorial races, the
Speaker 2: mayor or racist because public safety and crime is an
Speaker 2: expansive area where it's not just about the das, it's
Speaker 2: about the governors. It's about the legislatures. But the governors
Speaker 2: have a great impact, the mayors have a great impact,
Speaker 2: and the das have a great impact, especially if they're
Speaker 2: actually applying the law and not utilizing politics. So this institute,
Speaker 2: I think is extraordinarily important, is the only one that's
Speaker 2: on the right because we don't really have these same
Speaker 2: kind of issues that they have on the left. And
Speaker 2: I just wanted to give a place for people to
Speaker 2: be able to get what they need during their time
Speaker 2: and need well.
Speaker 1: I think you're doing an amazing job. I really want
Speaker 1: to thank you for joining us. It's a very personal story.
Speaker 1: You've responded with great courage and great discipline. I appreciate
Speaker 1: your sharing your story by your brother Christian. Your new book,
Speaker 1: The Day My Brother was Murdered, My Journey through America's
Speaker 1: Violent Crime Crisis is available now on Amazon and in
Speaker 1: bookstores everywhere. I encourage everyone to get a copy. We
Speaker 1: will list the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety on our
Speaker 1: show page so people can come and see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you personally, Giano, for you
Speaker 1: the commitment you've made as a citizen and for your friendship.
Speaker 2: No, thank you for your friendship. And we got who
Speaker 2: were dates coming up here. They can go to call
Speaker 2: and listen to dot org and see what city on
Speaker 2: in the next.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest Giana Caldwell. You can get
Speaker 1: a link to buy his new book, The Day My
Speaker 1: Brother was Murdered, My Journey through America's Violent Crime Crisis
Speaker 1: on our show page at neutworld dot com. Newtild is
Speaker 1: produced by Genglish three sixty and iHeart Media. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Guernsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
Speaker 1: artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to the team at Gingrish three sixty. If you've
Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast
Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us
Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of Newtsworld concerned from a three freeweekly
Speaker 1: columns at ginglestree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.
Speaker 1: This is Newtsworld.