Defund the Police Is Proving Political Poison

BUCK: Welcome back to Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. Buck here with Clay, and I gotta tell you the Democrats might be heading for some rough times ahead politically based on a number of things that we’re all seeing play out that we’re all quite aware of right now. In fact, Axios has a piece called, “The midterm gusher. Inflation, the border, and crime could create a midterm gusher,” i.e., a tidal wave, a big kaboom of political reversal.

I know it sounds so amazing, doesn’t it? I’m getting excited just telling you about it. But we’re not there yet. We’re about a year and a couple of months away from it actually happening, but we gotta start this momentum now. On the issue of crime, Clay and I were just talking to you about just horrific numbers out of Chicago, eight killed, a dozen shot… I’m sorry, 14. What was it?

CLAY: Thirteen killed, 86 shot over the weekend, including a police officer, a 29-year-old woman who was killed. But 13 killed, 86 shot over the weekend in Chicago, no discussion about it. No massive movements or marches. No contemplation.

BUCK: Where’s the national discourse, where’s the national focus on crime in major U.S. cities like Chicago that are completely out of control? There are plenty of cities around the world, there are cities in other countries where you don’t have people — almost entirely in gangs, involved in the drug trade — shooting and murdering people all the time. There are places. It’s not like we’re trying to create the impossible here. But we have to be realistic about what’s going on and serious about stopping it. Here’s the mayor of Chicago who maybe is forced to have a moment of clarity about who are the good guys, so to speak, and who’s not?

LIGHTFOOT: (whispering) The police are not our enemies. They’re human, just as we are — flawed, just as we are — but also risking their lives every day for our safety. We have a common enemy. It’s the guns and the gangs.

BUCK: Look, what she’s saying is true. But, Clay, isn’t it remarkable that a mayor of Chicago even feels the need to say, “The police are not our enemies”?

CLAY: It’s also pretty unbelievable how swift the pivot has become. From defund the police — and I know we still got imbeciles like Cori Bush out there arguing for defund the police. But the vast majority of people out there, it’s amazing how quickly all of this has pivoted. And, by the way, here’s Cori Bush. She went on CNN’s State of the Union again (laughing) calling for defunding the police despite all the data to the contrary. Check it out.

BUSH: I think what we have to look at is the fact that I made it to Congress (sputters) in 2020, I was elected to Congress, and we are still fighting this same fight. We’re still fighting to save black lives. When we adding more money to the police but — but we’re still dying. So something has to change.

BUCK: Policies like hers, Clay, are costing black lives, among other people’s lives.

CLAY: It’s so transparent, and there are so few people who call it out. Look, Black people in America represent somewhere around 12 or 13% of the overall population. They represent over half of all murders, and the vast majority of people who are killing black are not police officers. That’s madness. It’s other black people, right? People tend to be killed by members of their own race.

I know we have this obsession in the media with cross-racial violence, usually white on black. But the most recent FBI data statistics that I’ve seen, 93% of all black victims of homicide are killed by other black people, and so when you look at those numbers and you say, “What’s the best way to protect black lives?” it’s more police officers because no one protect black lives more than police officers.

BUCK: And it’s not even just more police. That’s certainly a big part of it.

CLAY: The freedom to do their jobs.

BUCK: It’s police that that have the freedom to do things the way they should, the way they know how to and to have that political backing. We have so many law enforcement people listen to this show every day, and we’re honored that you men and women actually spend your time with us, whether you’re on patrol right now or you’re on a day off. But, you know, Clay, they have to know when it’s nighttime and somebody takes off during a traffic stop and they’re chasing them and having to go 90, a hundred miles an hour on back roads or whatever?

They have to know when they chase a fleeing felon down a dark alley and they don’t know if they’re gonna be waiting around the corner with a sharpened screwdriver or a gun or whatever for them, that if they act within good faith — as honorable public servants, which 99.99% of them are — the system will have their back. That’s essential in all this. And what BLM did was remove that basic understanding, and more people died as a result in the last year and two months.

CLAY: There’s no way to argue against it. One of the biggest increases in murder that we’ve ever seen… One of the smartest things I ever did, Buck, when I was a law student was do a ride-around with a police officer. If you are out there right now and you are listening to me and you’re involved in any way in the criminal justice system or involved in the legal system at all, doing a ride-around with a police officer and actually seeing how insanely difficult their jobs are is one of the best ways you can spend your time.