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Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, August 20th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that has enough to worry about without the threat of radioactive shrimp at Walmart. Yes, you heard me. The FDA announced Tuesday that some shrimp available for purchase at Walmart may have been contaminated by a radioactive isotope. Again, we’ve got enough going on. We don’t need radioactive shrimp. [music break] On today’s show, Oklahoma rolls out a special assessment for teachers moving from New York and California to determine if they’re too woke to teach. And the federal government tells workers, nah, we’re good on your feedback and cancels an annual employee survey. But let’s start with Washington, DC. The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday it’s launching a criminal investigation into DC’s crime statistics and whether or not they’ve been, quote, “manipulated to make the crime rate seem lower. Now, this isn’t a new accusation. Back in May, the Metropolitan Police Department put one of its police commanders on leave amidst allegations that he made changes to crime data. But of course, this really isn’t about facts. I mean, it never really is. Remember that President Donald Trump fired his Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner for a bad jobs report like three weeks ago? Case in point, according to Trump speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, DC was the worst city in the world, up until he took over the D.C. Police Department, and now it’s great! Amazing! 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We have a thing going on right now in D.C. We went from the most unsafe place anywhere to a place that now people, friends are calling me up, Democrats are calling me up, and they’re saying, sir, I want to thank you. My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years and Washington, D. C., is safe. And you did that in four days. 

Jane Coaston: Now, typically, this would be where I say, sure, the thing I say whenever someone says something objectively insane based on absolutely nothing. I mean, as a general rule, I don’t really buy Trump’s law and order thing. Like, he pardoned January 6th defendants who beat cops and now he’s very worried about people being mean to law enforcement? Come on. But here I actually want to ask two questions. Was DC’s crime problem really that bad? And is it better now, roughly two weeks into Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department? I lived in DC for more than a decade. I lived in a variety of neighborhoods across all four quadrants of the city and I loved it. But I also knew and know that crime is an actual issue in that city. The New York Times spoke to one woman in Congress Heights, a DC neighborhood who said, quote, “If Trump is genuinely concerned about safety of DC residents,  I would see National Guard in my neighborhood. I’m not seeing it and I don’t expect to see it.” I don’t think Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect Black babies in Southeast. Crime is bad and Democrats have a hard time talking about it. So how should they be responding to a man who’s been charged with dozens of felonies sending the Louisiana National Guard into my old neighborhood? To find out, I spoke to Josh Barro. He’s a journalist and co-host of the podcast, Serious Trouble. Josh Barro, welcome back to What a Day. 

Josh Barro: Hi Jane, thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: On your substack, you wrote a piece–

Josh Barro: Yes. 

Jane Coaston: –called Democrats Must Do Better Than Ignore Elevated Crime in D.C. And there’s a line that got me thinking. It reads, quote, “So the president is broadly correct to identify Washington as a city facing a public safety crisis.” Now, there are two questions that stem off that. If the president said, like, DC is a city facing a Public Safety Crisis, what would that mean normally? And then what does it mean when it’s Donald Trump? 

Josh Barro: Right, I mean, well, so the federal government has an important role and important powers related–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Josh Barro: –to Washington, D.C. that don’t apply to other cities. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Josh Barro: Um. The Constitution gives the federal Government a lot of authority over D. C., some of which has been devolved by statute, and the system that has been set up for enforcing laws and prosecuting crimes in Washington, DC, requires a lot a partnership between the federal government and the city. And that has gone pretty awry in a lot of ways over the last few years. There’ve been problems with a surprising number of crimes where people get arrested by the police in DC and then the federal prosecutors who are supposed to prosecute never bring charges. And there’ve also been issues with, for example, the city has not had a functioning crime lab for a number of years. Just recently gotten that back, but it went through a number years of that. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, it was uh decertified a couple of years ago, um. 

Josh Barro: Right. 

Jane Coaston: And you know I lived in DC for 13 years. So this is something that we thought a lot about. Um. Yes, like the partnership with the federal government hasn’t been working. 

Josh Barro: Right. 

Jane Coaston: But it seems like those are actual steps that could be taken. 

Josh Barro: Yes. 

Jane Coaston: But that’s not what’s happening. 

Josh Barro: No, I mean, you know, for example, there are a substantial fraction, something like a fifth to a quarter of the judgeships that exist that are supposed to try ordinary criminal cases in Washington, D.C. are vacant. Um. You could have a push by the White House to try to get those judges confirmed, but he’s barely nominated anybody for those positions, in fact. Um. There’s been an exodus of staff from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington DC, in significant part because of political choices that Donald Trump has made. You know, the pardons of the January 6th rioters and, you know, going after certain career staff who were involved in prosecuting the January 6th rioters. There’s a lot of specific things that Donald Trump could be doing or that Congress could be doing that would be constructive here in terms of actually improving law enforcement in Washington DC. It’s unfortunately not what we’ve seen him actually doing, but it’s also not something that’s not his business or not his concern. 

Jane Coaston: I want to ask about that. Why do you think that hasn’t been happening? It seems to me that those are all steps that could be taken by the White House. Why hasn’t it been? 

Josh Barro: Well, I think it hasn’t been happening in part for the reasons that this isn’t ordinarily how we structure criminal justice in a city. The same Congress that has to confirm judges to trial courts in Washington, D.C. also has to confirm judges to appeals courts um and has to pass you know the federal budget and all sorts of things that are higher priorities for national legislators than the local issues of Washington, DC. Some of it even has to do with the managements of parks in Washington. You know, they’re part of the, when people say they’re concerned about crime. Often they’re concerned broadly about disorder, uh you know homelessness, and you know you get homeless encampments in parks in Washington DC. You also have parks that just aren’t maintained very well and make the public spaces look shabby. Most of those parks, even little tiny neighborhood parks are the responsibility of the National Park Service. And so you could get the NPS more focused on that, but they also have to focus on Yellowstone National Park and all sorts of other things that are of probably greater concern to members of Congress and to the president. Um. And so it’s unsurprising that some of these things fall through the cracks, and were already falling through the cracks before Donald Trump had come back into office. The big problem with an insufficient number of cases being brought in Washington, D.C., a lot of that was happening in the Biden administration. And again, it was an issue of people knew this was a problem, but there’s a long list of problems that have to be dealt with in Washington. And municipal governance has a way of not getting to the top of that. 

Jane Coaston: Now your piece is about how Democrats have been talking about this issue and talking about the issue of crime more broadly in the wrong ways. And as you can imagine, Democrats in Congress and in blue cities and pretty much everywhere have been very noisy about the federal takeover and the rollout of national guard troops coming from Louisiana and West Virginia and all of this. So I want to break this up into two parts. One, what’s wrong with how Democrats are talking about this issue right now. 

Josh Barro: Mm-hmm. 

Jane Coaston: And two. How should Democrats be arguing about the issue of crime, even outside of DC? 

Josh Barro: Well, I think the problem arises when the statements Democrats make are dismissive of the problem that the president is talking about. And you see this, you know for example, in you know the urge to fight with him over the statistics and you know the to say violent crime is at a 30-year low in Washington, D.C. and there are official government statistics that say this, but there’s a couple of problems with that. One is that if you look at murder, which is one of the most reliably reported crimes, it’s really hard to conceal the fact that there’s a dead body. That has been falling for the last two years, but it’s nowhere near a 30-year low. The murder rate is still, as of last year, is about twice as high as the recent low, which came in 2012. And even at relatively low levels, compared to recent years in Washington, D.C., D. C. continues to have much higher crime than other comparable you know mega cities in the United States. There’s about the murder rate in Washington is about six times as high as it is in New York, about eight or nine times as high as it is in Boston. And so the city, not only does it have a crime problem, it has a crime problem that is worse than a lot of its peer cities by quite a wide margin. Some of the DC crime that’s been in the news over the last few years has been members of Congress being victims of violent crime. Henry Cuellar got carjacked not very far from the Capitol building. Angie Craig was the victim of an assault in her own building, which she escaped from by throwing hot coffee at her assailant. Um. And so, you know, I think the precipitating event that got Donald Trump into this, this, you know, the attempted carjacking of this young staffer, widely known as Big Balls, which also occurred in quite a nice neighborhood in DuPont Circle. This meets a pattern that, you know, that journalists and that staffers and that elected officials are familiar with, that this is something that you worry about in Washington, D.C. more than you might in New York or in San Francisco or in many other cities, although not all other cities. Where that knowledge is held, I think those these lines that Donald Trump is making up the problem or that there isn’t you know the DC if you just point to the 30 year low numbers I don’t think you’re getting at the fact that there is this ongoing significant elevated concern about violent crime that isn’t a comparable problem in other places and that really does cry out for some sort of policy solution even though sending out the National Guard to stand around with their with their rifles is not something that’s likely actually be effective about it. 

Jane Coaston: I love D.C. 

Josh Barro: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: I lived there for 13 years, like, I love D. C. Huge fan, D. C. stan. But I also recognize that crime is bad and crime is a real issue. But when Trump starts talking about Baltimore and Oakland and New York, New York, actually quite low crime, large city. 

Josh Barro: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: It becomes to me and to, I think, other people clear that this isn’t really about crime statistics. That’s the challenge for Democrats, especially Democrats in blue cities, because you could do crime stat off all day with thinking about New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or something like that, and more about a general conservative objection to blue cities writ large. Cities are full of crime because they’re full of Democrats. And that that is why it is permitted to send the National Guard into D.C. and you know I think that that’s the concern for me, that this is not a good faith conversation about actual issues impacting actual people, and more about the kind of ancient hatred between urban liberals and less urban, maybe rural, maybe suburban conservatives. 

Josh Barro: Look, I don’t think that the administration is operating broadly in good faith here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the best avenue for Democrats is just to complain that the administration’s not speaking in good face because they are speaking about a problem that people do have real good faith concerns about. And if you’re setting up a contest between the showmanship that the president is doing, where he’s sending in troops in a way that is you know likely to create a spectacle and not likely to actually fight crime. And if your alternative is basically to complain, that’s the wrong thing to do, and you don’t have your own alternative about what to do instead, then it’s a battle between something that’s probably not gonna work and something that isn’t something at all. Um. But I think you know the good news in Washington, D.C. is that several of the idiosyncratic problems that Washington has are really well identified, and we know what to do about them. You need more judges appointed there. You needed the crime lab re-accredited, which has happened, fortunately. Um. And you need higher prosecution rates uh for cases that are brought in. It’s kind of strange that the US attorney, Jeanine Pirro, has been very focused on a few laws that allow for relatively light sentences for youthful offenders in Washington, which is not to say minors, it’s you know up to age 25, um and is basically complaining, well, you know they’re supposed to be mandatory minimums and they don’t apply and people get short sentences. I really don’t think that’s where to focus. You know criminals are usually not especially good at doing mathematical calculations in their head about how severe a penalty is going to be. The thing that seems to really–

Jane Coaston: Stunning. 

Josh Barro: –determine, right. 

Jane Coaston: Stunning news. 

Josh Barro: The thing that really seems to deter crime is believing that you will be caught and punished. Um. And if the federal government wanted to put money toward it, in addition to you know filling those vacant jobs in the prosecutorial offices and the judgeships, is that you could fund an increase in headcount at the local at the Metropolitan Police Department, which is low compared to what it has been you know over the last few decades. Unfortunately, you know the president, I don’t think, has a lot of interest in sending more money to the District of Columbia for its own budget. In fact, they passed this bizarre law that prevented the district from spending some of the money that comes in from its own tax revenue. Um. But I think it would be good to hire more police there. 

Jane Coaston: Why should people outside of DC and even outside of blue cities care about how this plays out, even if you know your area is not likely to have national guard troops coming in, which is a baffling thing to need to say, why do you think that this matters more broadly? 

Josh Barro: Well, I mean, first of all, I’m not sure how much people, individuals nationally should care about the crime situation in Washington, D.C. I do think that you know people might care is if the Trump administration starts doing counterproductive things in Washington and then seeks to take them national. Now I would note again that the president has much broader authority to do things in Washington than he does elsewhere. He can control the National Guard there–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Josh Barro: –directly. So just because he does something there doesn’t necessarily mean that he would legally be able to do it in other cities, but he could try. Um. And it could set up, you know contested questions in the courts about exactly what the president can do with the National Guard elsewhere I don’t think he can fully pick up his playbook here and do it anywhere else But maybe people should be somewhat concerned that he’ll take pieces of it and take it elsewhere. 

Jane Coaston: Josh Barro, thank you so much for joining me. 

Josh Barro: Thank you, Jane. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Josh Barro, journalist and co-host of the podcast, Serious Trouble. We’ll link to his work in the show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Charlie from Fox and Friends] Mr. President, what kind of assurances do you feel like you have that going forward and you know past this Trump administration it won’t be American boots on the ground defending that border? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president, and I’m just trying to stop people from being killed, Charlie. Look, they’re losing from five to seven thousand people a week in that ridiculous war that should have never happened. 

Jane Coaston: President Trump called into his favorite morning program, Fox and Friends, Tuesday, promising that U.S. Troops will not be sent to Ukraine. That’s after leaving the possibility open Monday, when he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders at the White House. You know what? It’s actually so refreshing to hear that Trump cares about people dying, like maybe he actually has empathy. Oh wait. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] You know, if I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that’s a pretty I want to try and get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole–

[clip of Charlie from Fox and Friends] Did the first–

[clip of President Donald Trump] But if I can get to Heaven, this will be one of the reasons. 

Jane Coaston: You know, he’s not wrong, but who is telling him he’s not doing well in the race to get into heaven? Anyway, Trump said he’s optimistic a deal can be reached, but that Ukraine will have to make a few concessions, specifically giving up any hope of joining NATO or getting Crimea back. Trump says he’s arranging a one-on-one talk between Zelensky and Putin first. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Putin has agreed to that meeting, but the Kremlin has yet to confirm. 

[clip of Marco Rubio] If you come to this country as a student, we expect you to go to class and study and get a degree. If you’ve come here to like vandalize a library, take over a campus and do all kinds of crazy things, you know, we’re gonna get rid of these people. And we’re going to continue to do it. So when we identify lunatics like these, we take away their student visa. 

Jane Coaston: That was Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House back in April. And well, it seems like he delivered. The State Department has revoked more than 6,000 student visas so far this year. This is according to a senior State Department official via a statement to Fox News. The official said the visas were retracted because the students either broke the law or, quote, “expressed support for terrorism while in the United States.” About 4,000 visas were pulled for things like assault, DUIs, and burglary. But as for terrorism, the definition is loose. The State Department accused between 200 and 300 students of supporting terrorism and gave the example of allegedly raising money for Hamas, the official told Fox. But of course, they did not elaborate on exactly how that’s being determined. Like for instance, does donating directly to people in Gaza count as giving money to Hamas? Unclear. We also know the administration has been reviewing the visa status of students who participated in campus protests deemed by them to be pro-Palestine. Rubio said at a Senate hearing in May that he would target students who came to quote, “lead campus crusades.” Some Democrats have pushed back, arguing that this is a violation of due process and in some cases, freedom of speech because it is. The Trump administration is canceling an annual survey meant to gage job satisfaction across the federal workforce. Hmm. I wonder why. Maybe because of Trump’s hostile takeover of federal agencies or the gutting of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices or the on-again, off-again mass layoffs, aka the doge-ing. Nah, I’m sure government employees have absolutely nothing but good things to say right now. According to the Office of Personnel Management, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, quote, “serves as a tool for employees to share their perceptions regarding critical topics including their work experiences, their agency, and leadership.” Back in February, OPM postponed the survey because it said it needed time to update it. Those updates? They included removing 13 questions about DEI to keep in line with Trump’s backwards and seemingly racist policies. Ditto for one’s, unquote, “gender ideology.” Looks like the agency needs a lesson from Elon Musk on efficiency though. Last week, OPM said those updates were totally going to be on time next year. 

[clip of Ryan Walters] If you’re coming from these states, you will take a test to the State Department to show you align to our standards. You’re not going to come in here and teach that there’s 27 genders. There’s boys and girls. That’s in our science standards. You’re going to to come and you’re not gonna undermine American exceptionalism by teaching anti-American, anti-Semitic hate. 

Jane Coaston: A new rule for the Oklahoma Public Schools requires teachers moving there from the liberal bastions of New York and California, yes, just those two states, to pass an ideology test before they’re allowed to teach. Oklahoma, are you okay? I mean, clearly something is going on. You just heard Oklahoma Public School Superintendent Ryan Walters at a state Board of Education meeting in July. The same Ryan Walters, whom you might recall bulk purchasing the Trump-endorsed We the People Bible for use in schools. The assessment was created by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative non-profit which, despite the U, is not an accredited university. The company gave the Associated Press the first five of the 50 questions that appear on what Walters is calling the America First Test, and good lord, here we go. One of them asks why religion is quote, “important to America’s identity.” The other are just basic trivia about the government, like how many U.S. Senators are there. But the CEO of PragerU, remember, U, not for university. Said there are also several questions that related to, quote, “undoing the damage of gender ideology.” Maybe they can explain where the 27 genders thing came from, because I got to 10 and then gave up. Walters gave his word that as long as he is superintendent, Oklahoma children will be safe from the radical leftist schemers who are, quote “trying to turn them into social justice warriors,” as opposed to Walters, who is trying to turn them in to social justice warriors just in a different direction. He also said that he might expand the test to teacher applicants from states beyond California and New York. In a very related note, Oklahoma is ranked 50th in education. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, celebrate Major League Baseball announcers asking the big questions, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how during a blowout victory for the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday, analyst John Kruk got to the real heart of the matter, the question that haunts us all. 

[clip of John Kruk] So you know how I think of things when I have free time and I shouldn’t? 

[clip of unnamed person] Yup. 

[clip of John Kruk] So I was wondering, the person who invented the clock. 

[clip of unnamed person] Yeah, which one the digital or the hand? 

[clip of John Kruk] The first clock ever.

[clip of unnamed person] Okay.

[clip of John Kruk] How did that person know what time it was? 

Jane Coaston: Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and honestly, more baseball announcers should be asking the kinds of questions that eight-year-olds torture their parents with. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Shawna Lee, and Gina Pollock. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with our headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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