| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
On defense, we have her Secretary Beston talking to Board that he wants a more comprehensive audit and review of the Fed. | |
| I'll let Secretary Beston speak for himself. | ||
| He does that quite eloquently. | ||
| Okay, thanks for your time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Coming up Saturday morning, we'll talk about changes to state and federal nutrition assistance programs with Urban Institute senior fellow Elaine Waxman. | ||
| And then Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy Senior Research Fellow Angela Watson on the findings of a new survey focused on homeschooling in the U.S. C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
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| Welcome back to the Washington Journal. | ||
| Joining us this morning is the mayor of Savannah, Van Johnson, and he's also the president of the African American Mayors Association. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, thanks for being with us here to talk about Trump control of D.C. police and the threat of doing it in other cities. | ||
| Before we get your take on that, sir, I just want to show our viewers what the president had to say and have you respond to him last week when he announced the takeover of the DC police. | ||
| He talked about other cities as well. | ||
| We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You look at Chicago, how bad it is. | |
| You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have other cities that are very bad. | |
| New York has a problem. | ||
| And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't even mention that anymore. | |
| They're so far gone. | ||
| We're not going to let it happen. | ||
| We're not going to lose our cities over this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And this will go further. | |
| Mayor Johnson, your response to the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, it's unfortunate that our president feels that way, but the president's assertions are just not based in fact. | |
| The reality is that cities around the country, particularly those that are led by black mayors and mayors and members of the African American Mayors Association, have experienced dramatic decreases in crime. | ||
| Mayor Bowser is experiencing historic lows in violent crime in Washington, D.C. | ||
| And the reality is when you look at the top 30, I mean, sorry, the top 30 cities in terms of crime issues, about 67 of them are not led by mayors that are of color. | ||
| And so I think, you know, the reality is there's the rhetoric and then there's the reality. | ||
| And the reality just says it's just not true. | ||
| If it's retribution, then say it's retribution. | ||
| We get that. | ||
| We know elections have consequences. | ||
| But to say in the public safety context, the statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation from these cities just does not bear out. | ||
| Here are the numbers that NBC put together. | ||
| They pulled the data from each of the city's police departments. | ||
| Los Angeles and Baltimore data is through August 2nd. | ||
| Chicago data is through August 3rd. | ||
| And Oakland data is through August 10th. | ||
| New York and Washington, D.C. data is through August 11th. | ||
| You see the numbers down 31.5% in Oakland, down almost 16% in Los Angeles, Chicago seeing a drop of 13%, Baltimore, a drop of almost 12%, Washington, D.C., 7.1. | ||
| New York, 4.9%. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, what do you make of those numbers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, your own independent research bear out the magnificent work that mayors have been doing. | |
| We don't have the comfort of really dancing in the end zone. | ||
| We're charged with solving problems. | ||
| We don't have the opportunity to be partisan. | ||
| The reality is that people look to us to be able to solve problems. | ||
| And so you have mayors not only in D.C., but in New York, in Baltimore, around the country, in LA, that have been working very hard trying to find ways to be able to lessen violent crime, in violent crime, in their country. | ||
| We want partnership with our federal government. | ||
| We expect partnership from our federal government. | ||
| And there are ways and there are things that we can do. | ||
| But I think the way to achieve that is to ask us a partnership is you have willing partners. | ||
| But to be able to just do a unilaterally overreaching step as the president has done, certainly to us is just nonsensical. | ||
| It certainly does not follow good policy or good sense. | ||
| Respond to Anthony Coley. | ||
| He was the director of the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs from February of 2021 until January of 2023. | ||
| So the Biden administration, he says this, if Democrats want a governing majority again, they must meet voters where they are, not where they wish they were. | ||
| That means facing hard truths, like the one playing out in our nation's capital. | ||
| Even as crime rates fall, many Washingtonians do not feel safe. | ||
| The Washington Post recently found that 50% of D.C. residents and the overwhelming majority of D.C. residents are Democrats view crime as, quote, an extremely serious or very serious problem. | ||
| Noting stark divides along lines of race and income. | ||
| Black residents and lower income residents were significantly more worried about crime than white residents and those with higher incomes. | ||
| Black women are among the most concerned, with 65% saying crime is a very or extremely serious issue. | ||
| Mayor Johnson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think there is an intersection. | |
| I think there are two sides of this. | ||
| The first side is that people need to be safe and statistics bear that out. | ||
| And then they also need to feel safe, which is an issue of perception. | ||
| And so I think mayors are working very hard in their communities to be able to make sure that people not only are safe, but they feel safe. | ||
| To that end, the African American Mayor Association, we're a nonpartisan organization, and we have mayors that are all over the political spectrum. | ||
| We don't ask where they are because the reality is mayors are charged to be able to solve problems. | ||
| We know that in majority minority communities, that we know that crime is an issue in there. | ||
| But to us, instead of helping us in creating ways like community-focused police programs, intervention programs, prevention programs, youth programs, jobs for young people, things that are working in our communities, helping us to end the iron pump pipeline that has guns going all over the country from places like Georgia, that we could work together to be able to help make those things happen. | ||
| Human trafficking and drug trafficking. | ||
| And so I think there are ways that our federal government, and we would expect our federal government to be able to partner with us. | ||
| And unfortunately, that has not occurred. | ||
| We'll go to calls. | ||
| Carol's up first in Appleton, Wisconsin. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Carol? | |
| Yes, thank you. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Washington, D.C. gets its money from the president and Congress. | ||
| Mayor Bowser has been begging Congress to give her enough money for 500 more police officers. | ||
| And what did Trump do? | ||
| He took away a billion dollars from Washington, D.C. when he was president. | ||
| So they don't have the money. | ||
| And what he is doing right now is just a show. | ||
| He is sending in troops for tourist areas so that the press can come. | ||
| He's not sending them into areas where there is actual crime. | ||
| And he just causes a problem and then makes a big show of trying to solve it, where he really isn't solving it. | ||
| If he really wanted to solve it, he would take some of these ICE officers and try to solve drug problems and stuff. | ||
| But he'd rather have it be a show president than a work president. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Mayor Johnson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think Nicola is correct. | |
| The reality is that these are distractions. | ||
| These are diversions from the real issues that Americans are talking about. | ||
| We're still talking about the economy. | ||
| We're still talking about the cost of things that are too high. | ||
| We're still talking about these conflicts that are going on in Ukraine and what's happening in Gaza. | ||
| We're still talking about the examination of these files that people have been asking to talk about. | ||
| So these are diversions. | ||
| The reality is, again, mayors continue to work and do hard work. | ||
| You know, we're working in a very strategic way. | ||
| And we want, we think our residents expect that our federal government, our state government, our county and local governments are being able to work together. | ||
| We serve the same people. | ||
| To that end, I think it's very important also to note that black folks, as you said earlier, although concerned about crime, they don't want to see the militarization of police in their communities as well. | ||
| We survived that during the pandemic and, of course, with George Floyd. | ||
| We ended militarization of police because we knew that they had disparagedly affected black communities. | ||
| Phillips, next. | ||
| In Brooklyn, Independent, you're talking with Savannah Mayor Van Johnson. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that you mayors are more concerned about your own well-being and how you look to the public because any help against crime should be well welcomed. | |
| I mean, I think that's all it's all about. | ||
| You're only concerned about yourself and your next election. | ||
| I would accept, if I was there in Washington, blacks should come out and thank the president for what he's doing because in the last six or seven days, they said there haven't even been one homicide. | ||
| You should welcome them. | ||
| It's the same old story. | ||
| You don't want to hear the truth about yourselves and don't want to take responsibility for your actions. | ||
| All right, Phillip, let's take those two points, Mayor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, I'm from Brooklyn, but secondly, that being said, we don't live like that. | |
| We live to be able to solve problems. | ||
| And the reality is that the military is a much different function. | ||
| Military is formed for war and not for municipal or urban policing. | ||
| It's a different skill set. | ||
| And the fact is, although they're there at a very impressive show of force, they're not doing policing. | ||
| They're not doing policing. | ||
| They're there. | ||
| Many of the folks that have been reported, they're just standing there. | ||
| They don't know what they're necessarily doing. | ||
| They're just kind of standing around in a show of force. | ||
| Again, we welcome the partnership with our federal government. | ||
| We've certainly asked for it, the African American Mayors Association. | ||
| I think we should be able to work together. | ||
| But the reality is ask us how we can work together. | ||
| Let's find ways of common ground that we can make this work. | ||
| I think our residents, our populace expects us to be able to work together harmoniously, not necessarily one-sided actions that are not getting to the root of the problem. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, the caller also brought up a murder-free week here in D.C. Fox News reports D.C. has murder-free week as A.G. Bondi touts 77 more arrests and federal takeover. | ||
| The Attorney General reports 53 federal arrests plus 24 ICE arrests and 10 guns seized in a Wednesday operation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I think the D.C. police could also show you where they have crime-free murder-free weeks in which they have also confiscated guns. | |
| And of course, ICE's operations are federal operations, so those operations would not be conducted by a municipal police department anyway. | ||
| So again, I think, you know, it could be a force multiplier. | ||
| I think Mayor Bowser and her team has done a great job being able to make lemonade out of limits and being able to try to marshal these federal forces in a way that makes sense to our community. | ||
| I think is a testament also to the Metro Police Department in D.C. and Mayor Bowser's leadership. | ||
| And again, you know, working with what they have to work with. | ||
| Fox also says that since the president federalized the D.C. police on August 11th, 630 people have been arrested in total and 86 illegal guns have been confiscated. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jay. | |
| Let's find ways to stop the illegal gun flows into Washington, D.C. We'll go to Jay next, who's in Houston, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm sure you're familiar with our late Mayor Turner. | ||
| I believe he had your position before he passed away. | ||
| This time last year, it was reported here in Houston, fourth largest city in the country. | ||
| 256,000 cases got rerouted with some kind of a different code, and they weren't reported. | ||
| I'm not saying 2,500. | ||
| I'm saying 256,000, of which 4,000 were rape cases. | ||
| At the time, the police chief Troy Finner got canned. | ||
| And we got a new mayor, John Whitmire, still a Democrat. | ||
| And I haven't heard anything about it. | ||
| It was reported in the news briefly. | ||
| And Jay, your question then for Mayor Johnson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How come Houston doesn't make the list? | |
| It's, you know, we are the fourth largest city catching up to Chicago. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, do you have any thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't have the slightest idea, to be honest with you, about what is happening in Houston that is no longer an AMA city. | |
| But again, these are isolated issues that happen in cities, and of course they have to be addressed locally. | ||
| Ron in Maryland Democratic caller. | ||
| Ron, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thanks for C-SPAN. | |
| The problem with all these guns in our cities and everything, that's the reason we have so much crime. | ||
| The Republicans are putting all these guns in our cities. | ||
| Now, I don't know if most Americans know, but just about every town you go in, these young kids got glocked. | ||
| We only have one manufacturing company in the United States that makes clock guns. | ||
| And our president, he's not talking about that. | ||
| All the kids that have been killed in these school shootings, man, if you want to bring crime down, that's what you need to do. | ||
| These people that's got all these AR-15s, these military-style weapons, if they want to use those weapons, they should join the military. | ||
| We don't need those in other communities. | ||
| Okay, Ron. | ||
| Mayor, I'm going to have the mayor jump in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, I agree. | |
| We talk about the demilitarization of not only police forces, but also the iron pipeline guns that are all over the place here in Georgia. | ||
| Georgia has very, very liberal gun laws. | ||
| It is easier to get a gun in Georgia than it is to get a driver's license. | ||
| As a result, more guns come from Georgia that show up illegally in other cities than anywhere else. | ||
| We need our federal government to help us in that way, come up with comprehensive common sense gun policy that respects the rights of Americans to own a gun, own as many guns as they want, but also respects the right of communities to be safe from those guns. | ||
| So I agree with you. | ||
| We'll go to Green Crove Springs, Florida. | ||
| William is watching there. | ||
| Independent color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm from Georgia. | |
| I've moved down here to Florida. | ||
| And this mayor here, I wish you'd go back up to Brooklyn because if you check his past, you go down River Street. | ||
| I worked down at the paper mill and I've worked at Elbow Island for 30 years. | ||
| And the crime has just climbed up there. | ||
| You go to evening meal with your wife and they'll be caught calling you across the street. | ||
| If it gets dark, you're lucky before 10 o'clock to get back to your car without somebody hustling you. | ||
| All right, let's take those points. | ||
| Mayor Johnson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, obviously, you have not been to Savannah in quite some time. | |
| Our crime is down over 20%. | ||
| And the paper mill announced yesterday they were closing after 88 years. | ||
| Savannah continues to be an international city with over 17 million visitors a year. | ||
| And so I don't think you have a clue about what you're talking about. | ||
| You might want to get your facts straight. | ||
| We'll go to Boyd, Texas. | ||
| Billy, Republican, you're on with the mayor. | ||
| Billy, in Boyd, Texas, it's your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is Billy. | |
| I wish the mayor would just address the criminality in the black community with kids being raised by single mothers. | ||
| There's no father. | ||
| That all leads to crime. | ||
| I bet you could go out there any day and ask them kids they got a father in their homes. | ||
| There are hundreds of them running up and down the street. | ||
| Billy, how do you, Billy, how do you know that? | ||
| It's common knowledge that, what, 75% of all mothers are single in the black community. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Mayor Johnson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is absolutely foolishness. | |
| The reality is from the beginning of time, we've had people raised by single mothers. | ||
| That did not mean that they had a propensity to do crime. | ||
| Crime is a function of some environment, but it's also a function of choice. | ||
| I know single mothers around this country, certainly also here in Savannah, every day to get up and bust their behinds, raising strong children that are ready to grow up and take on the world. | ||
| And that does not mean because they don't have an active father in a home that they're going out to commit crime. | ||
| I think that's part of that crazy narrative that's being pushed. | ||
| It's just, you know, nonsensical. | ||
| Jim is in Delaware, Democratic color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Thank you for taking my call and thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| I also want to take a second to applaud your anchoring of the coverage of the summit meeting the other day. | ||
| It was very informative. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, welcome. | ||
| Thank you for coming on. | ||
| In regards to D.C., I lived and worked in D.C. for a very long time. | ||
| The president's comments about his concerns for crime don't add up when you factor in the billions of dollars he took away from the DC budget back in March. | ||
| And part of the issue that is, I think, not talked about enough is that there are more than 700 vacancies on the Metropolitan Police Department right now. | ||
| And I don't even know how many judges and U.S. attorneys or prosecuting attorneys are vacancies right now. | ||
| And they're crowing about all the arrests they've made. | ||
| Let's talk in a couple of weeks and see how they go through the system and what happens. | ||
| Also, Jim, I'm going to have the mayor respond to the vacancies point that you're making. | ||
| Go ahead, Mayor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we know, and as a former law enforcement officer, I will tell you that it is a hard, hard job right now being a police officer. | |
| God bless our police officers that get up every day, put on their uniforms, and go out into this world where oftentimes they're outmanned and outgunned. | ||
| Therefore, we have municipal police departments around the country that are finding it hard to be able to actively recruit because people can make more money with less dangerous jobs. | ||
| And so we find ourselves in a war for talent. | ||
| Well, obviously, the federal government can help us to be able to come up with creative ways to attract law enforcement officers to our municipalities. | ||
| To your point earlier, if this is retribution, then say it's retribution. | ||
| It's not good public policy. | ||
| Again, as I said at the onset, out of the top 30 cities that are challenging with violent crime, 67% of them are not led by black mayors. | ||
| They're not, but yet the ones that are always called are the ones of black mayors. | ||
| We understand elections have consequences, but for mayors and for cities around the country, we're not afforded the ability to be partisan. | ||
| We have to play with who's on the field. | ||
| And so when President Trump took the oath of office, he became our president as well. | ||
| And so we hope, we wish, we expect that we have partnership with our federal partners. | ||
| We're going to go to your state there in Macon, Georgia. | ||
| Gwen is joining us, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| My hometown is Vidalia, Georgia, which is not very far from Savannah. | ||
| But I'm concerned when I see black children being murdered all across this country, predominantly in cities run by black mayors, particularly Washington, D.C. | ||
| And I agree with a caller who said you should be glad to have the president step up. | ||
| When you have three-year-olds being shot by scray bullets, it makes no sense. | ||
| And then they want to criticize the president who's doing something. | ||
| And even though they're cleaning, now, if you have the city council who have, who give these children, who I say children because they say they're 13, 14, 15, 16 years old, and they don't have a severe consequences for them, you're not going to be able to clean things up. | ||
| You have to send these kids to juvenile detention or to prison. | ||
| Or maybe you should even bring back the form schools. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| Gwen, let's have the mayor respond to what you just said about juvenile detention punishment. | ||
| Mayor Johnson, how does it work in your community if a juvenile commits a crime? | ||
| What is the process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's two things. | |
| And of course, we love Bildalia, Georgia, and our friends up in Macon Bibb County. | ||
| What she's saying is really talking about state issues. | ||
| How juveniles are treated when they commit crime varies from state to state. | ||
| It is not a federal issue. | ||
| And again, the federal government can come up with uniform ways of being able to address that. | ||
| However, they don't. | ||
| The other issue the caller has missed is let's talk about how these guns get in the hands of people who should not have them. | ||
| I believe that we can protect the Second Amendment and second of graders at the same time, that we can be smart enough and wise enough to come up with ways to protect people to have guns if they want to and responsibly have them, but then at the same time, make sure that they are not in the hands of people who should not have them and make sure we have strict penalties for those that are engaged in them. | ||
| I think to be able to say that this is happening exclusively in cities run by black mayors is terribly short-sighted. | ||
| For us, we live as long as our next election. | ||
| So why does the narrative change like in Houston when you have a black mayor and then the next mayor happens to be of another hue and then it goes away? | ||
| I mean, again, it's steeped in racism. | ||
| Lisa's in Alexandria, Virginia, a Republican. | ||
| Lisa, welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| Mayor, I just want to say that I agree with you on one thing, that it's not just happening in black brand cities. | ||
| I'm here in Alexandria and there's no black mayor or commissioner running the city and we have crime rampant here. | ||
| But I do think you should walk it back some because we need to be protected. | ||
| So if Trump brings in the National Guard and it deters people from committing crime, let it happen. | ||
| We need to stop all this partisan, and that's what you're doing. | ||
| Partisan saying, well, Trump's coming in the wrong way. | ||
| If help comes, you know, you need to take that vote or you need to take that plane or you need to, you know, take the help that's coming and just work with it so that they have a united voice saying, we're getting crime off the street. | ||
| You're not going to be mugging old lady. | ||
| You're not going to be breaking into our cars just to go in Walmart, come back out, and your window broke just because you left packages on the seat. | ||
| And it's ridiculous. | ||
| So all I got to say to you is, man, work with him now. | ||
| Stop all this. | ||
| He's not coming the right way because we know there is crime and we need to deal with it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mayor Van Johnson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for your call. | |
| Again, I think you might have missed what I said at the beginning. | ||
| Our mayors are not necessarily Democratic, not necessarily Republican. | ||
| We are nonpartisan. | ||
| We run the spectrum of political ideologies. | ||
| Again, we're saying we want to help. | ||
| We want to be a part of the solution. | ||
| But I think there is a reality that we were also elected. | ||
| We were also elected by the same individuals that have elected the president of the United States. | ||
| We think that home rule, local rule is important. | ||
| We understand our cities better than the federal government. | ||
| And so work with us to help us find ways to be able to do the right things that we need in our communities. | ||
| No two communities are alike. | ||
| So therefore, there might be some that might need one type. | ||
| They might need federal prosecution. | ||
| They might need investigatory services. | ||
| The reality is the National Guard, in many cases, don't have arrest powers. | ||
| So, I mean, the fact that they're there is doing what? | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| We should be working together. | ||
| As I've said before, the African American Mayors Association stands ready to work with the Trump administration because we recognize we are all serving the same folk. | ||
| Mayor Van Johnson, Mayor of Savannah, Georgia, Democrat and also the president of the African American Mayors Association, we thank you for the conversation this morning. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. and across the country. | ||
| Coming up this morning, we'll talk about changes to state and federal nutrition assistance programs with Urban Institute Senior Fellow Elaine Waxman and then Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy Senior Research Fellow Angela Watson on the findings of a new survey focused on homeschooling in the U.S. C-SPAN's Washington Journal. |