Buck Brief - Has Trump Made America Safe Again?
4/3/202620 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast.
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0:13your podcasts. Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General as of today.
0:18What the heck is going on at DOJ?
0:21Also, Trump giving her a high five on the way out about a national violent
0:25crime drop that he says she played a role in and who should be the
0:29AG, how's that whole anti -crime approach working for this administration, and also talk a
0:36little bit about Kami Mamdani and NYC and his crime policies.
0:39Rafael Mangual is with us now, Senior for the Manhattan Institute.
0:43He's a crime guy, not that he commits them.
0:45He knows a lot about them.
0:48He is an expert in the crimes.
0:51He is not an expert in doing the crimes.
0:55So, anyway, my friend, great to have you here on the program today.
0:59So, we got the Rafael Mangual is here.
1:02We got the Attorney General is out, Pam Bondi.
1:08And we're going to get into a replacement talk here in a second.
1:11But I wanted to read something to you from Trump's Truth Social.
1:15He says, Pam Bondi is a great American patriot and a loyal friend who faithfully
1:20served as my Attorney General the past year.
1:22He did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in crime across our country with
1:28murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.
1:31Let's drill down on that for a second, whether Pam Bondi was really the one
1:36mainly in charge of that or not.
1:38Put that aside for a second.
1:39Is that right? Are we really at this massive murder drop nationwide?
1:43Talk us through the numbers and the reality.
1:46Yeah, yeah. So, what people are predicting is a 125 -year low on homicides in
1:52this country. And that, look, I mean, data, you know, prior to 1950 is probably
1:57significantly more shoddy than, you know, post -war data.
2:00But it is what it is.
2:02There's no question that we've been making progress on that front nationally.
2:05I always tell people there are kind of two cautionary notes here whenever you talk
2:09about this stuff. One is resist the temptation to nationalize the conversation, right?
2:13Like, a 125 -year low for the national homicide rate doesn't really mean a whole
2:18lot because the national homicide rate doesn't mean a whole lot, right?
2:21It doesn't describe accurately what life is like where any person is at a given
2:26time, right? The national homicide rate doesn't describe almost any locality, right?
2:31So, you can be living in, you know, West Garfield Park, Chicago, and maybe the
2:35homicide rate's 100 per 100 ,000.
2:36If the national homicide rate is 5 per 100 ,000, that doesn't mean a whole
2:40lot to you because you're just living in a very different reality.
2:43So, resist the temptation to nationalize and just resist the desire for a very clean,
2:51neat, and sort of unifactorial explanation.
2:54The reality is that, yes, we are moving in that direction.
2:57Yes, homicides are at a significant low, but there are probably a dozen, if not
3:02more, factors that are driving this.
3:04And I would put them into two buckets.
3:06I would put them into policy -related buckets and non -policy -related bucket.
3:09And on the non -policy -related front, I mean, there have been a lot of
3:13real changes in America over the last few years that I think have helped drive
3:16this. Since the pandemic, more and more people are working from home, which means a
3:20lot of them have decided to move out of cities altogether.
3:23So, the urban population is dropping, the suburban population is increasing.
3:27That's important because crime tends to be an urban phenomenon.
3:30So, if urban populations are losing people, then there are fewer opportunities to commit serious
3:36violence against those individuals. People are drinking less in America.
3:40Alcohol consumption is way down.
3:42Attendance at bars and nightclubs is way down.
3:44What that means is that alcohol is a criminogenic substance.
3:48People tend to get into fights and stuff at bars and nightclubs that spill over
3:51into more serious kinds of violence outside those places.
3:55And then we had massive homicide spikes in the lead up to 2020 and then
4:00certainly in 2020 and 21.
4:01And the reason that that's relevant is because there's a lot of overlap between people
4:05who kill and who get killed.
4:07We tend to think of homicide victims, when we hear that term, we think of
4:11like the cases of innocents who are tragically killed.
4:15But the reality is that if you were to look at the prior arrest history,
4:18the likelihood of gang membership and demographics of, you know, both homicide victims and suspects,
4:24which you're going to see are, you know, a relatively indistinguishable pair of groups, right?
4:29So, homicide victims tend to have similar numbers of prior arrests, similar likelihood of being
4:33in a gang. And what that means is when you have a massive spike in
4:37homicides over a short period that's multi -year, you're taking a lot of chess pieces
4:42off the board and that's going to help reduce crime.
4:45And then, of course, you have the policy stuff, which is where Bondi comes in.
4:48And look, I think what the federal government has done has helped.
4:51There's no question that the task force is...
4:53Can I ask you specifically about some of this?
4:55Just because, you know, go place by place.
4:57Like on radio, we have, for example, a station in Memphis and we have a
5:01big listenership in Memphis. And they are saying that since Trump started his...
5:05And now, to be fair, the mayor of Memphis, we invite him on the show.
5:08He hasn't come on yet.
5:09We're hoping he will. He's a Democrat.
5:11But he was willing to say, you know what?
5:14Let's work with the federal resources here to bring down crime.
5:16People are saying Memphis is in a different place.
5:19I mean, callers are telling us this.
5:21We're getting emails. And is that one reflected in the data?
5:25And what do you think the changes are that caused it?
5:29Yeah, you're seeing more than a 40 % decline in crime since the launch of
5:32the Memphis Safe Task Force.
5:33I was just in Memphis a couple of weeks ago, actually.
5:35Oh, so you were there?
5:36Wow. Okay. Yeah, I did some ride -alongs with some of the task force members,
5:41and it was eye -opening.
5:42I mean, there were a couple of things that were really surprising about what I
5:45saw. One was just how much community support these guys have.
5:49And we walked into a restaurant, and it was like they were celebrities.
5:52I mean, a very different reaction from the people on the ground, from the public,
5:57than what you were seeing in places like Minneapolis and Chicago, where these guys were
6:00getting hounded with cameras and yelled at and doxxed.
6:03People are very, very happy to have these agents on the ground in Memphis, and
6:08that's because that city has been living with insane levels of crime.
6:11I mean, Memphis has consistently been one of the most dangerous American cities in the
6:15top 10 for my entire lifetime.
6:18And so, you know, flooding that zone with a massive amount of federal resources that
6:23have also partnered with state and local.
6:25So every single team on this task force has either a local Memphis police officer
6:30or a Tennessee highway patrolman riding with them.
6:34And that's been important because not only does it allow them to take an integrated
6:38approach, there's intelligence sharing, but also, you know, it gets over some of the jurisdictional
6:43limits on federal agents, right?
6:45Like, for example, if they are looking for guns and, you know, there's a known
6:50gang member that they've been tracking and he gets into a car, they would really
6:54love to pull him over, but the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction on traffic, right?
6:58They can't make car stops for traffic offenses, but they always have a THP or
7:03a Memphis PD guy who can pull them over for the broken taillight, and then
7:07that can lead to the gun arrest.
7:08And so that kind of teamwork and that integration and that cooperation, I think, has
7:12been central to a really super steep crime decline that we've been seeing in that
7:17city. And we saw the same thing in Washington, D .C.
7:20with that task force. You know, and so I think those are two really positive
7:25models that tell a compelling story about the federal government's capacity to help drive some
7:30of this stuff down. Now, does that explain the national level decline?
7:34No, but it has certainly helped, especially when you couple it with the immigration enforcement
7:38and the focus on criminal aliens.
7:41You know, and then just look at what states like Tennessee and other states like
7:46Louisiana and Florida have been doing on the policy front.
7:48You know, the last 20 years have kind of been characterized by policies aimed almost
7:54exclusively at decarceration and depolicing.
7:56But the last handful of years, you have seen some parts of the country really
8:01turn it around. Tennessee, I think, has been a great example of that.
8:05You know, Cam Sexton, the Speaker of the House there, he's been leading.
8:10No relation, by the way.
8:11No relation. I was going to ask.
8:13But he's done truth in sentencing.
8:16There's a three strikes proposal making its way through.
8:18They just passed a constitutional amendment that will allow judges to jail people pre -trial
8:24if they're dangerous. Right. So in Tennessee, you have a constitutional right to have bail
8:28set in your case as long as it's not a capital offense.
8:31Well, that's going to change the blended juvenile sentencing, a repeat offender statute for misdemeanants.
8:36I mean, Louisiana rolled back a bunch of its 2017 criminal justice reforms.
8:42So you're seeing a lot of these trends.
8:44Same thing in Texas, Florida.
8:45I mean, the country is changing its tune, even California.
8:50I mean, you know, Prop 47 got partially reversed by Prop 36 in November 2024,
8:55which was a year in which you had a lot of progressive prosecutors lose their
9:00reelection bids, get successfully recalled or, you know, decide not to run for reelection.
9:05So, you know, Chicago, Kim Foxx is gone.
9:08You know, Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby's gone.
9:11You got Ivan Bates now taking a much more aggressive approach.
9:13George Gascon in L .A., gone.
9:15You got Nate Hockman now.
9:17Pamela Price in Oakland. She's gone.
9:19Chesa Boudin in San Francisco.
9:21He's gone. You know, Athens, Athens, Georgia, where Lincoln Riley was killed.
9:25That DA is gone. So, you know, there's been a lot of change on the
9:30policy side. Police departments are reasserting themselves.
9:33Arrests are up. And for the last two years that we have data, the prison
9:36population nationally is up, which, you know, is a reversal of a more than decade
9:40long trend. Very interesting stuff.
9:43We'll come back with Raphael Mangual here from Manhattan Institute in a second.
9:47Talk about the New York City situation specifically on crime and on policy in general
9:52and Mayor Mamdani. But our sponsor is Pure Talk.
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10:33Pure Talk. All right, Raphael.
10:36Kami Mamdani in New York City.
10:39How is it going? Is there any chance that any of these major cities you
10:44think, given what you laid out about the federal -local partnership and how effective it
10:49is in reducing serious crime, the bad crime that everyone really wanted to suffer?
10:52How do you falar? wants to uh to get rid of or lower as much
10:55as possible i should say is there any chance of of a more sane police
11:01approach in new york city under the momdani administration that was maybe thought where do
11:06you stand on that yeah look i do think that there's absolutely a chance of
11:10it because we're seeing it happen right now i mean so far looks around momdani
11:13is not a mystery right we understand what drives him politically he has a very
11:19long and clear record of being a police antagonist right he doesn't like cops he
11:23doesn't like the criminal justice system he wanted to abolish them until up about five
11:27up to about five minutes ago right so his change in tune is really just
11:32about political expediency and i don't really care what it's about as long as he
11:36keeps his powder dry on some of these more radical ideas i'm a happy guy
11:39and i think new york city will be better off for it and so far
11:42that's what we've seen in the first what hundred days or so of his mayoralty
11:46um you know on the campaign trails or on momdani took some pretty radical positions
11:51but he also backed off of some others right he backed off of defunding the
11:54police and dismantling the police department and abolishing jails um but he did also take
12:00radical positions like committing to abolishing the new york city police department's gang database he
12:06committed to taking disciplinary authority away from the police commissioner and executive command staff and
12:12handing it to the civilian complaint review board which would be a disaster in part
12:16because the ccrb is perceived by the rank and file as being very anti -cop
12:20and not without reason um and you know he wants to get rid of the
12:25srg the strategic response group which is part of the nypd's critical response command and
12:29you know it was a unit that has counterterrorism capabilities and is meant to respond
12:33to large gatherings and do crowd control and uh respond to mass casualty events so
12:38you know these are some pretty big deals um and so far he has not
12:42pulled the trigger on any of them and i think the reason for that is
12:45one that he tied his hands uh with jessica tish right he on the campaign
12:49trail committed to keeping her on board before the election and what that meant was
12:54that he had to keep her around for at least some significant period of time
12:57after the election so as not to look like he was breaking a campaign promise
13:01and my guess although i have no inside information on this is that she has
13:06used that leverage to keep the nypd in the posture that has allowed it to
13:12make progress on the crime front and that progress has been very real new york
13:17city has you know really seen tremendous declines in shootings and homicides in particular and
13:22that's gotten a lot of media attention as it should but what hasn't gotten a
13:26lot of media attention is that new york city is still very much in a
13:31worse place when it comes to all of the other uh crime measures so if
13:35you look at robbery robbery rapes felony assaults car thefts i mean car thefts are
13:41150 percent higher last year than they were in 2018 so this is really interesting
13:46by the way i felt what you're talking about because i i would used to
13:48be that everyone assumed in the in the crime stat business if you will and
13:53in the media side of it at least that murders because you can't hide a
13:57dead body and people pay attention that murder is the you know that's the big
14:02thing and everything else will kind of move in tandem with that if it's going
14:05up everything else is getting worse like 1991 new york 2200 murders give or take
14:10i mean there were so many robberies and everything else it was totally right totally
14:14like hundreds of thousands of robberies it was completely out of control but what you're
14:18telling me is that it is actually possible to see a situation where shootings are
14:23going down murders are going down which is a good thing but everything else is
14:27still actually really bad what's going on like what's causing that dynamic in new york
14:31as you see it yeah so i think what's happened is that the mypd understood
14:35that this was such a dire problem that has redirected so many resources to controlling
14:40that problem right so the homicide and the shooting problem is a very discreet problem
14:45it affects a very narrow slice of the population and it happens in a very
14:48small slice of the city so what the mypd has done really well is directed
14:53and flooded those zones those high crime zones with more resources with more patrol officers
14:57and it has really dedicated its resources to developing the intelligence on the gang front
15:02to figure out who the gangs are that are driving most of the shootings and
15:06then using that intelligence to do these gang takedown prosecutions so in 2025 i think
15:12the mypd did almost 70 gang takedown prosecutions which took over 400 gang members off
15:18the street now that doesn't sound like a lot 400 in the city of eight
15:21that's a lot i mean yeah yeah if you're talking about 400 of your real
15:26shooters i mean that's a lot especially when you're talking about only about 1500 shootings
15:31a year you know during the spike um you know you can make real progress
15:35by by getting people like that off the street and i think that the department
15:39has been incredibly effective with that sort of precision and gang -led policing strategy um
15:45but on the other side of the coin right there are other problems in the
15:48city that require a different approach that you know you need more resources to get
15:53your arms around and i don't think it's been a secret that the mypd has
15:56been short officers um how much of this let me ask you you know as
16:00as a former new yorker sorry i fled for florida eventually we'll see you down
16:05here rafael eventually you'll love it you'll love it down here but you know maybe
16:08it'll be when you retire but maybe sooner some people are saying maybe sooner um
16:12but but let me ask you how much of what we're seeing in new york
16:16is the uh the decision by prime prosecutors and because i would assume this is
16:22true in other cities as well large cities that are run entirely by democrats that
16:26basically unless you kill somebody or do like a violent rape you can get arrested
16:30a hundred times like how much of the other stuff is that we're just actually
16:34refusing to is that the main reason is it the is it the mental health
16:38thing of we have true wackos and i mean that people who are really just
16:42extreme mental health cases who keep committing crimes short of throwing somebody in front of
16:47an oncoming subway train but they get arrested 50 times yeah no i think that's
16:52a big part of it and i do think that the prosecutors are playing a
16:55role in that problem but it's not just the prosecutors it's the criminal justice reforms
16:59um you know new york has not undone a lot of the reforms that it
17:03did in the lead up to these spikes that you had you know raise the
17:06age in 2017 which went into effect in 2018 which made it you know basically
17:11impossible to send teenagers who commit even serious crimes to prison and jail um and
17:16you know not coincidentally the one group where you haven't really seen a reduction in
17:22the serious violence has been in the juvenile sector so juveniles have kind of resisted
17:27the broader trend of declines and serious violence and i think that has a lot
17:30to do with that reform package uh that is still very much in effect bail
17:34reform discovery reform has made it you know significantly more costly uh to carry a
17:39criminal prosecution from uh inception to a case closure and so a lot of cases
17:46are getting dropped they're getting dismissed at significantly higher rates or not being brought all
17:50together not just because of the ideological commitments of the prosecutor but just because of
17:54the structural barriers to prosecuting cases um you know that these reforms have erected and
18:00then of course bail reform makes it so that even if you get arrested the
18:03vast majority of crimes that you can get arrested for in new york city are
18:06not bail eligible so there's basically zero chance that you're going to end up in
18:10pretrial detention which means that if you can get arrested over and over and over
18:14again you're still going to go back out into the street as long as it's
18:17not for one of those really serious crimes that are bail eligible which are you
18:21know rarer kinds of offenses and so it's not at all surprising to me um
18:25that you see this sort of disparity between you know crimes like robberies and burglaries
18:32and felony assaults and then crimes like homicide and shootings um you know you can
18:37pay really close attention to those most serious problems but in a world of limited
18:41resources um which the mypd is very much living in you know you can't wrap
18:45your arms around the entire crime problem and now you're starting to see that divergence
18:48and look i think what the mypd has done is defensible right i mean like
18:52if you have to pick and choose where you're going to put your resources save
18:54lives sure save lives yeah oh that's great stuff rafael thank you so much rafael
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19:38rafael great stuff my friend thanks for being here thanks for having me appreciate you
19:43this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human