This show proudly sponsored by Real American Freestyle Wrestling. Rachel Bay joins us now. Rachel, a lot to discuss, including what just happened in Qatar, but just your, and great to see you, your take on where we're at now with crime, because now this Charlotte murder is front and center on their transit system. And the Democratic mayor came out and said, I'm really in deference to the family, I don't want to make a big deal of it, which is the most bizarre approach I've ever heard. Absolutely, Brian.
First of all, thanks for having me on the show. Happy to be here. Yeah, I mean, that murder just absolutely horrific, and obviously symbolizes. Why are a lot of people across the country concerned about crime, why it consistently is one of the top issues people list as things that they're concerned about in polls. On video, an innocent woman just walking, looking like potentially home from work.
uh on her phone and she gets stabbed to death like The shocking nature of it, and just the thought that it could be anyone. That is, it's obviously really moved people. And Republicans, they're pointing to this. as a reason For why Donald Trump needs to be doing what he's doing in terms of cracking down on crime. I mean, I've written about this before in my column, I've talked about it on TV.
I feel like Democrats are just. completely walking into a trap with this issue and just The fact that they haven't had a response on crime other than to say, Trump doesn't have authority to do what he's doing with the National Guard. It's not going to cut it with the American people. I mean, there's a lot of polling out there that shows Republicans are way more trusted on crime than Democrats, and that's because they take it seriously. And while President Trump's actions with the National Guard, there has there has been some polling showing that a majority do not support that, When it comes to people's safety, That's what they care most about.
So I think this is a problem for Democrats. It continues to be in the headlines, and this murder is just. Once again, bringing it to the fore. Especially in North Carolina, where you know there's going to be so much political at stake because you got the open Senate seat, and so you have there's going to be a big battle. The popular Democratic governor against Mike Wadley, who did a great job for the RNC.
So they're going to come out hard and they're going to go after this because Donald Trump has won North Carolina every time, right, Rachel? Yeah, absolutely. One scene is more of a purple state, but definitely leaning red these days. And we're already seeing that with Watley, he's already come out. And slammed Roy Cooper, the popular governor there, Democrat, who's going to be running against him, saying that this is a Democratic problem.
What are you going to do to respond? And look, there's a playbook for this with Democrats. Go back to Clinton's years. Clinton was accused of being soft on crime. And you know what he did?
He came out swinging and said, No, I'm going to fund 100,000 more police officers. Right. Where is the commentary like that with Democrats? You're just not seeing it. And it is going to be a political problem for them.
We know we got about 2,000 short in New York, maybe more. And then we have 1,000 short in Chicago compared to where they were in 2019. And we know that they have not been empowered to really do their job. What I couldn't believe is the mayor who came out and said, the mayor of Charlotte. We cannot arrest our way out of this.
We can't uh arrest away we can't stop some lunatic from randomly getting up. And stabbing people on trains.
Well, you can if that lunatic's been arrested 15 times. And whose mom and lawyer say he's a danger? It's the judge that said. He wasn't. There is a number of issues.
Like policy issues and criminal justice issues that are problematic with this murder. The first one being that he was a repeat offender. How many times had he been arrested? I mean, how does that happen? And that's beyond the crime issue and people feeling like safe or not safe on, you know, metro rail or when they're going out and walking around in big cities, there's the issue of accountability and justice.
And that there was this sort of like, Movement after the George Floyd murder and the riots and the protests, where there were a lot of cities across the country, Democratic leaning cities that sort of decriminalized and sort of changed thresholds for putting people in jail and prosecuting and that sort of thing. There's been a holistic rejection of that experiment. Even in blue cities like Portland, but you're still, this is still a problem, right? With repeat offenders. There's the issue of crime, as we talked about, people not feeling safe.
Like, do you need more police officers? Do you need the National Guard? That question. And then there is a complicating factor with this murder, and that is mental health. This guy, clearly sick.
Um clearly had, I don't know what schizophrenia or what it was, but Wasn't getting the help he needed, wasn't being put into some sort of, you know. Hospital or asylum of some sort where clearly he should have been. And so that brings up another more complicated question about mental health and that's work. It's also pretty sticky in terms of people's rights and what do you do with them. And that's just a very complicated issue.
This is what I'd love to see the president's team do. I want them to go in with the team. You know, how much National Guard, how much ICE, how much federal troops, how much FBI and investigators? You know how many people in these towns say, and cops say, I don't have enough people to investigate these crimes, big and small. Find a way to reduce the wait time for 911.
You come in with the teams, you leave some people behind to help with investigations and maybe teach people how to do it expeditiously, and then go.
So, for example, when they finally pull everybody out of DC, is the crime going to come back?
So instead of you could just say my residual group will stay. And stand something up in its wake. And also massive recruiting for that month, whether it's federal funds that incentivize people to join the force in that state, in that city, something to do with longer lasting than the thirty days. Yeah. You bring up uh you bring up a This question of following through when a crime was committed.
I mean, I've talked about this before. My house was robbed, my car was stolen when I lived in Washington. It was one of the reasons I left. The thing that's most upsetting about that is actually not the crime itself, it was how it was handled. Um, you know, we were told right away, my husband and I, then my fiancé and I, that.
There wasn't going to be anyone arrested. Like, we shouldn't count on it. And this was even after we realized that the person had stolen a device that was my husband's, and he had entered in a phone number and an emoji and a name. And we had the name and the phone number that had come up on my husband's phone, like through the cloud or something. We'd given that to the cops.
We'd said, look. This guy is putting stuff in his phone. We have it. Go find that person. Go find that number.
Have no idea if they ever did it. No, like never got any follow-up. It's that sort of stuff that people really care about. Clearly, in cities like D.C., it's just not happening.
So, Rachel, in one of your columns, you wrote about this story about Scott Besson going at it in Georgetown with Bill Pulte, who he wanted to physically fight him because he allegedly was bad-mouthing. Bessett to President Trump, you expand on this very specifically, and you had very few people pushing back on it. I didn't see anybody push back on it. This happened. Absolutely it happened.
I mean, um the only thing Sort of people on both sides of this fight disagreed on was who started it. Did Bill Pulte, the housing finance chief, come up and start talking to the Treasury Secretary, or was it vice versa? I mean, look, this was. A long time coming, it seems like. I mean, back in May.
President Trump tweeted that these two guys were supposed to be working together to privatize Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants. And yet there's been this sort of fight brewing between them, both in terms of personality, in terms of turf, and then in terms of who's talking about who behind their back. I mean, they're very different types of, you know, top Trump officials. Besson sort of seen as very cautious. He has warned President Trump against firing Jay Powell, the Fed chair, because he worries it could destabilize markets.
You've got Pulte, who's on the opposite side, super pugnacious, tweeting hundreds of times against Jay Powell, saying he's got to go, drafting a firing letter for Donald Trump to say, like, if you want to fire him, here you go.
So opposite ends on that. And then, you know, Besson, I'm told from people close to him, has sort of felt that Pulte was sort of using his sort of newfound fame with the White House and with MAGA, the MAGA movement that he has right now to try to weigh in on issues that are very much in Besson's turf. And Besson doesn't like that. And Fulty has felt like Besson is being dismissive of him. But I think the final straw.
Before Besant went up and threatened to punch Pulte in the face at this private cocktail hour the other day, was that he had heard from people that Pulte had been badmouthing him to Trump and he wasn't about to act like, oh, nothing's wrong, we're just gonna chit-chat at this cocktail party. He was gonna address it to his face. I mean, I don't have to tell you that it wasn't too long ago when When Howard Luttnick tried to become Treasury Secretary with the backing of Elon Musk. And that Scott Besson had to go there and go back and push back and fight for that job. And maybe.
That distrust has never rekindled, never repaired itself. Yeah, I can tell you've been talking to people in the tone format there, Brian. You're right. There's. Another complicating factor that's very inside baseball, but Bill Pulte is very close with Howard Luttnick.
And that That sort of rivalry between the Commerce Secretary and the Treasury Secretary, who were sort of duking it out during the transition to try to get that Treasury job, it's just continued to fester. And so, you know, in terms of them working together, there's just this layer of distrust that continues to sort of cause issues in terms of when they're trying to work together. But just to put a finer point on what happened in terms of this brawl or this threat, I mean, this was a. A huge opening night for a new nightclub in Washington, D.C., for sort of the MAGA, rich and famous, owned by Don Jr., Omid Malik. Who is very close to Don Jr.
and very a wealthy businessman and financer who's close to Donald Trump. Everybody, like it was like the who's who of Trump World who was there. Cabinet officials, top aides, like the most powerful CEOs and You know, everybody's just having a grand old time chit-chatting and then This starts to happen, and the club owner, Malik, actually had to try to. Separate them. He ended up trying separating them.
And at one point, Besson said to him, You need to decide, it's me or Pulte who's going to stay. And then he looks at Pulte and says, Or do you want to go outside? And Pulte's like, to talk? And he's like, no, I'm going to beat your.
So, like, it was an ugly fight at like the most. A sought-after dinner invitation in town.
So quite the gossip here in Washington. And the Treasury Secretary also didn't he now didn't he push Elon Musk into the wall? I don't know that if that ever got physical. I know there was reporting in April, obviously, about the two of them coming to blows right, not coming to blows, almost coming to blows right outside the Oval office, such that President Trump actually heard. The altercation, right?
And that also, by the way, was about a turf war, right? It was about who. Who was choosing to be the acting IRS commissioner? And IRS is under Treasury's jurisdiction. And yet, Elon had sort of found a way to convince President Trump to pick a guy that he was backing over a guy that Besant was backing.
Now, Besant won that fight. And I don't mean the physical fight, he actually got his guy in at Treasury or at the IRS. But, you know, it's just so funny because he comes across as so like measured and soothing on television. And yet the man has some sharp elbows and a temper. Rachel Bader, yes.
And my last question to you, Rachel, is your reporting. Does it show that he's being well respected on both sides, the Treasury Secretary? He seems to be a voice of calm, even for Democrats. Rather, hear from him mostly. I know he does very well on the Sunday shows.
Oh yeah, I think there's no doubt that in terms of if you pick who Democrats would say they're most comfortable with, he's one of them. And not just them. I mean, like it's it's Wall Street, it's business CEOs, it's more traditional Republicans on Capitol Hill. There's just sort of a comfort and a belief that he knows what he's doing. I mean, there's a reason he became so wealthy and he is very successful and that he knows economic issues and that he's going to be a good counsel to the president.
And I think that's why President Trump keeps him around. He's sort of Trump's Wall Street whisperer. Yeah, he does listen to, they listen to each other. How about that? Rachel Bate, always great.
It's an exciting time to have your job, right? It's never stopped. I don't care what you think, it never stops, correct? I have said to people, I don't know what we're going to do when President Trump isn't the president anymore. Like, are we going to go back to Biden days?
Because it's going to be a lot less exciting. Absolutely. Yeah, a lot going on.
So, thank you for having me on, Brian. Go get him, Rachel. Thanks. This is Jimmy Fala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding, it's only a three-hour show.
Listen live at Noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com. Mm.
