Jim Jordan Takes on Alvin Bragg’s Crime-ridden Manhattan

Today on Sekulow, Jim Jordan takes on Alvin Bragg's crime-ridden Manhattan, bringing hearings right to the Big Apple. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your calls on this too, 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear, you know, we talk to a lot of folks all over the country. But a lot of us, whether you're in the suburbs or in major cities, I want to hear from you if you've seen a change, too. It's not just been in New York. I mean, we've seen crime on the rise throughout the country, but a lot of this tied to the leadership in major cities. I mean, you can live in a very red state, but your big city is likely run by a Democrat with DAs that are likely Democrats.

They're not all bad. But a lot of them have gotten very weak on crime because they were these Soros-backed DAs that are coming in with a political agenda, much like Alvin Bragg, for instance. And why this hearing is going on by the Judiciary Committee is to show, you know, why is Alvin Bragg using the resources of the people of New York, but also federal resources, to try to make up a crime to prosecute Donald Trump?

I mean, that's literally what he's doing. His own assistant DAs have written books about that very fact that they are making up a charge that does not exist previously under New York law or federal law. They're trying to combine the two. So why are you focusing on that so much when you've seen a surge in violent crime? And that's even when you've downgraded how we track violent crime. For instance, in New York, 52 percent of what used to be a felony case have been downgraded to misdemeanors. So more than half of the initial felony cases are now only misdemeanors. So when you're tracking felony crimes that have been committed, he's taken out half of those from even the tracking database.

So when the mayor of New York gets up and says, we actually have less crime, that's because they're not tracking it the same way that your city likely is. Because you probably don't live in a place where they've cut off half of the crimes as being potential felonies. On top of that, when they do bring an actual case, they're so weak that they're only getting 51 percent of the people convicted. When you're the prosecution of a violent crime, by the time you bring the case, it should be very difficult for someone to win. Or else, Logan, you're pointing to an out-of-control judicial — because if law enforcement, like the DA's office, half of their cases fail, that means they should not be bringing even half those cases because they're either charging people who aren't guilty, or they're doing such a bad job that it's not even worth trying the case because these people are able to then clear their name, who may in fact be violent criminals, but aren't getting the full force of a prosecution against them. There's only two options.

They're either not guilty, or you're just doing a really bad job. That's right, and we are taking your calls. I'd love to hear from you again if you're experiencing this in your local community, or if you're just maybe even concerned about going to places like New York, about traveling, and the options that you have is you're planning summer vacations. I know my kids have been asking to go to New York, and we've been trying to decide when's the right time to do it. Is it now when you have such these major problems that are happening in some of these major cities?

And some of the best cities in our country, if I'm being honest. So 1-800-684-3110 if you want to have your voice heard on the air. Again, that's 1-800-684-3110. I also think we are about halfway through the month, Jordan, and we are in the middle of our matching challenge.

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800. Welcome back to Sekulow. One of these topics, too, I wanted to get your thoughts on. If you live in a major city or you're suburban but you commute in to work in a major city, have you experienced, I mean, I think we all have to some extent. You see a lot more. This happened, especially under COVID. There were a lot more people, drug addicts back on the street. These tent cities that popped up even in a neighborhood not far away from mine. There was one of these tent cities that popped up.

And how do you deal with it? The police really didn't want to mess with these people. They really only went in with their dead bodies of overdoses. And ultimately, you know, they'd get cleared out and they'd be rebuilt.

Like the people would come back and then they'd get cleared out. And again, very dangerous situation for law enforcement who are trying to do a good job. Then you go to a place like New York and they've really hamstrung the law enforcement. When you take half the cases that were felonies and you just say now they're misdemeanors.

Not felonies anymore, yeah. That's how New York can tell you, well, our crime rate is actually not that high because they're not tracking it the same way. So remember, they're just playing with numbers. But what's even worse is that when they do bring a prosecution, they're only convicting half the people.

So there's only two options there. They are either bringing those cases, the few cases that they are bringing are either wrong and they shouldn't have brought them in the first place. Which after you see what they did to Donald Trump, isn't outside the mainstream. Or they're so politically woke as prosecutors that they're not making a good case to a jury to actually put someone behind bars.

And that's the only two options. Either they're bringing cases against the wrong people, which is fairly unlikely considering in a violent crime situation, those people are, you have the evidence from the law enforcement to tie them to it. Or second, they go in there and they put such a weak argument forward that the juries just say, okay, we're just not going to convict. We don't buy this whole story.

That's a serious problem. So you have Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee held hearings this morning in the federal building in New York, the Javits Center, just blocks away from where President Trump was arraigned. And one of the individuals they brought forward, I thought this was a horrible situation, was Jose Alba, who was charged for murder, secondary murder, when he was attacked as a store clerk at a bodega in New York. And all he did was fight back.

And by fighting back, the person ended up losing their life. He then got prosecuted by Alvin Bragg for second degree murder. He spent time at Rikers Logan. This wasn't just like a couple of days in a holding cell messed up, because that would have stayed in New York.

He got shipped out to Rikers. And ultimately, the only reason they didn't move forward with that prosecution, which by the way, that would have been one of those 49% of cases they lost, because a jury would have said, this is insane. But it took public outcry to influence the DA's office to drop the charges. We should not be living in a country where you have to protest a DA's office to make the right decision. That is scary.

Yeah, just to protect their own business and to protect their own lives. Let's go ahead, let's take a phone call. Let's go to Dudley who's calling in New York. I'm sure you're seeing it, Dudley, you're on the air. Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys.

Absolutely. Listen, we have to understand something. New York City, if they want things to change, the city has to change. Too many people, like you said, are afraid for their lives in the city, because they don't have the ability to protect themselves. In a place that is so densely populated and has so much crime, you're doing the opposite. Why would you give a rural state with less people, less population, and tell them everybody can carry guns and protect yourself? And they have maybe ten shootings a year. And then a place like New York City, which is completely the opposite, with lots of crime, densely populated, and then tell the people, oh no, you can't carry a gun to protect yourself, because there's too many people here. Like 40,000 cops are going to protect millions of people throughout five boroughs of Rhode Island. And what happened, first of all, I totally get it, it's also a change in culture.

And what I mean by that is the drug culture, the people that were put on the streets during COVID, the emptiness, the feeling of emptiness when you walk down a street, and it used to be basically 24-7, there was action going on. So if something happened to you, it felt like all you had to do was say something, and someone would at least help you, but people now are scared to help. And the reason why they're scared to help is, in red states we have stand your ground laws. You come attack me, I can do whatever I need to to stop you attacking me, that even can mean killing you. I'm not going to be the one that's judged wrong.

You attacked first, all I'm doing is defending myself, if by defending myself you end up losing your life, that is on you. And I'm not going to have to face criminal prosecution or end up in Rikers. It will be investigated, because someone's lost their life, but I will not go to jail, and likely will not even be incarcerated.

Just go down to the police station, do your report. And now with all the cameras everywhere, it's very easy to see if that's the case, and that's it. But you don't have that in New York. So that gives the DA's office flexibility to decide, oh, we think that Bodega clerk overreacted. You can judge anyone's decision making in a situation where their life is in jeopardy, where they're being violently attacked, beaten, and because they respond, oh, they're not police officers, they're not held to that same standard, where it's, was this the right level of response?

We are just citizens, and I think that's where that collar hits on. People are angry. Yeah, people are angry, and people are trying to figure out what they can possibly do, especially if you're in these cities where crime has gotten out of control. And as we know, like you said, during COVID specifically, New York was pretty much the only thing on the streets that was happening felt like it was crime. And we felt like we got to this point, which was awesome in America, where our major cities, for the most part, we had seen the crime of the 90s, the gang violence, that had calmed down. There always is going to be criminal elements in cities with 15 million plus people, but they felt generally safe from New York to Chicago to San Francisco to LA.

They became places that people went on family vacations. That wasn't the case in the 70s and 80s, but they got cleaned up, and so we did get used to it even after 9-11, which was seen as like a one-off terror attack, not a criminal element that was going to be ongoing. People went back to New York. Within a few years, people were back in New York. It took a little bit of time just for everyone to feel comfortable, but it was not very long before me. I was living there within two years, and it was a very normal thing.

It was a thriving area, and hopefully you'll see a massive comeback as well. This is interesting because you have Matt Gaetz up there talking with a Democrat council member, the exchange here. This is just interesting because it gets to the heart of these issues, and it kind of shows you when you get outside of Washington, which is good for these committees to do sometimes, the partisanship that we all feel online or on Twitter and all that, when you get down to just talking about violent crime, everybody cares about it. Take a listen. Mr. Holt, Councilman Holden, you and I are from different parties.

If we talked about a thousand things, we'd probably disagree about a vast majority of them, but here's my simple question for you. Is fear a rising feature of life in New York, or is fear a declining feature of life in New York? It is increasingly worrisome what we're going through in New York City. Fear is an everyday event in New York City. Taking the subway, my wife is Asian American. She will not get on a New York City subway. My daughter will not get on a New York City subway for fear because many Asian Americans have been attacked. But Mr. Kessler says there's just a lot of people here in Manhattan. You just have to take it.

You just have to understand that this is going to be a violent place. Which I found that insulting. That's a Democrat city council member talking about his own family. Those cities don't work if those transportation... Everybody does not have a car.

You can't afford it. It's not even convenient if you're really having to traverse a long distance. I think what you're seeing from Republicans, it's not to beat up on the council members who might, like Matt Gaetz said, we don't agree on anything politically except for this. Because we want our major cities to be shining symbols of the United States.

We want them to be the hubs of the world. They're doing this actually in California. Seems like a lot of the candidates that are coming up to take over from the Adam Schiff spot, they are as progressive socially as you can be.

They are the codify-ro kind of group. However, the key difference is they are all going, most of them are going pretty hard on crime. That is why they feel like they can win. Is if they show that they are the pro-police, pro or the anti-crime candidate.

Even if they are as liberal as you can be in terms of social issues. So you're going to see that start happening in New York as well. These are people who have seen their cities get destroyed and they're tough people with extreme liberal points of view. They don't want to abandon their city or see it destroyed. That's not good for America to have these cities abandoned.

Our hubs are at Cockney. They're a place where immigrants go and you can make it. And you can also make a difference and change your life by working hard. There's usually an unbelievable amount of jobs available for people from the very bottom to the top. And culture, business, everything.

And we have them coast to coast. But we're seeing it now, it's also in your communities. I bet if you don't live in a major, major metropolitan area that you've seen a rise in crime. So it's not like everything is just the bad political decisions. But your neighborhood, your community is probably doing something different. Unlike in Chicago, where they elect someone who's even worse. And then this weekend, teenagers put out a social media thing, let's go riot in the best area of the town, the city. And it kind of starts out in South Chicago, then ends up right in the heart of where it used to be.

Lots of businesses and storefronts and kind of luxury goods, they're all gone. We'll talk about that for sure coming up. We got Mike Pompeo too. He made a big announcement just on Fridays. He's joining us next time.

Yeah, he may be able to join us for a little bit longer. So Mike Pompeo joining us coming up in the next segment. But if you have a call or question, if you're in one of those cities, you're in Chicago, you're in New York, we'd love to hear from you.

1-800-684-3110 or anywhere around the country at the cloak. We are going to continue to take your phone calls too. We've got a second half hour coming up. But we are joined now by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, made a lot of news over the weekend. Beginning on Friday, Secretary Pompeo, who is our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, joining us now. Secretary, you made some news at the end of last week, made your decision on whether or not you were going to be a candidate in 2024 and ultimately decided not to be a candidate. What factors for audience who are used to hearing from you a couple times a week as part of the ACLJ team, and I think many of them were hoping you might run, certainly, what factors played into that decision? Well, Jordan, thanks. And thanks to everyone out there who's been so kind and so supportive.

I've heard from thousands of folks across the weekend just with encouragement. In the end, Jordan, Susan and I, my wife, Susan and I, decided that this wasn't the right moment for us. For things such as Momentous, as putting yourself forward to be the President, it's just got, everything's got to be right. And while we had spent the last year out talking to folks, learning, listening, preparing to run a campaign, we concluded at the end of the day that for a series of personal reasons, it just wasn't the right time for us. It doesn't mean the fight is not worthy. It doesn't mean I'm not going to continue to stay in this very battle that you and I, Jordan and Jay, are engaged in.

But to run for President just didn't make sense for us at this time. Yeah, I actually respect it because I think a lot of people get pushed by consultants and kind of the business around campaigns and then ultimately don't always make the decisions, feel like they make the decisions on their own because they feel like, oh, I've gotten too far down the path. And I respect it because, again, you're not going to lose your voice as a former Secretary of State. And one of those issues, because you did spend the time going around the country, what do you think is like the most pressing issue from state to state that you would hear kind of over this past year? Jordan, it is a fear amongst Americans that is right that we are losing the most basic ideas that built this great country. It's the things you and I talk about every week, our ability to practice our faith, our ability to have the ability to speak freely, to carry firearms, the fact that we're teaching our kids garbage in schools.

Those are the things that I heard most often. They want to keep America safe. They want to keep America secure.

But the things that impact families, that most important institution, the things that impact families most are the things that people are most worried about. And the things I hope whoever is this next President will confront in a very serious way inside our schools, inside our homes and inside our churches, synagogues. Secretary Pompeo, I want to also address, you have a new article up at ACLJ.org called Biden ducks accountability where America grows weaker. You highlight the administration's response to the relationship between Xi and Putin and Macron's Taiwan comments. The Intel leaks as President has been letting us down once again. What do we need to see out of the White House or what did we need to see out of the White House last week? How would have been a better response?

Oh, goodness. You know, you just have to talk about the things that make America special and exceptional and great. Not about arrogance, not about hubris, not about like we're better than you. It's that this country with our Judeo Christian heritage, our Declaration of Independence, our founding ideas is special and unique. And when you hear folks denigrated, when you when you see Putin say America is not worthy, when you see Xi say that America is in decline, or when a President Macron, an ally, a member of NATO, says we need to be closer to China and we need to distance ourselves from America. The White House, the President has a responsibility to speak on behalf of the American people and clear that up and make make very clear that we're not apologizing for our country.

We're going to continue to build it and make it even more exceptional and even a greater beacon to the world. You know, you're going to play an important role in this Presidential cycle. You also mentioned your age.

It's not like you don't have the opportunity to do this in the future. But I think you'll play an important role to anybody who ultimately becomes a candidate looking to your advice on foreign policy and national security. And one of the issues, too, which we know is going to be front and center, is how the Biden team tried to, we haven't had this chance to talk to you about it yet, tried to change the Afghanistan withdrawal narrative and really blame it on the Trump administration. And you called it a ridiculous, fantastical report and this claim that it was their hands were tied and it wasn't their fault that 13 Americans died or their policy decisions. It was all the previous administration, which would, of course, put the blame on you as well. And it did seem absurd, I think, to most of the American people who pay attention. But we know there's a lot of people who don't pay close attention, still vote Presidential elections. So what would you just to kind of push back on that narrative?

What would you say? Well, first of all, Jordan, it was it was a ludicrous proposition that somehow President Biden didn't have the freedom to defend America. He's the President of the United States, for goodness sake.

He had every flexibility to make whatever decision he wanted about how to proceed in Afghanistan. We'd made a set of decisions. We drew forces down on my watch from about fifteen thousand to twenty five hundred, but could never get all the way out because we knew that the risk of what happened was real. And President Biden just made a different decision and to try and shift blame for something as serious as this. Frankly, it's not about protecting my reputation or, frankly, that of President Trump either. It's about the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who served there for 20 years. And what President Biden did there, his decision was indecent. It resulted in the death of 13 Americans and countless Americans left behind hurt our standing and resolve in the world in ways that we are still suffering from. That that happened under President Biden and on his watch and was his direct decision and to try and either shift blame or move accountability. The American people aren't buying that story and it is indecent for a President to try to do that. Yeah, no, it seems so disingenuous when it was done because, as you said, I mean, when you become President of the United States, you're the commander in chief. You make the calls, you make the decisions, you get your advice from all of your counsel.

But ultimately you make those calls and you have a lot of flexibility, especially, you know, 18 months in. To me, it was just living in a fantasy world, but they obviously feel like to some extent they can get away with it and that people will believe them and just kind of not second guess even those kind of absurd claims. And we're talking about a lot of the rise in violent crime today. The final question to you, too, is I feel like that probably ties back to when you're going around the country and people feel like they're kind of losing what our country was about. Because when you feel like your community is out of control, whether it's drugs and or mental illness and all these issues that kind of piled up and we're seeing that they're just they're going untreated. And whether the treatment is prosecutions and being tough on crime and supporting the police and making sure we have police and communities or it's mental health programs, it's probably a mix of both. It just feels like we're not getting the job done for our communities.

No, I think that's right. And it's certainly the violent crime is the fact that we're not prosecuting folks who steal stuff from Walgreens. And the second order ramifications, right? The follow on from that is more for homeless people on the street, more risk. People having to stay at home when they want to go out. Drugs available widely, cheaply because they can cross our southern border because we're not enforcing our basic laws at our southern border. These are the things the American people can see. We need American leaders to step up. This isn't political. There's no Republican and Democrat laws.

There's only a border to enforce and basic criminal codes that would need to be enforced. And when you don't do that, whether it's at the federal level or district attorneys, Americans across the border are worse off for that. Secretary Pompeo, we appreciate you, Joyce, appreciate you being part of our team. And one of the benefits will be that Secretary Pompeo will continue to be on the ACLJ team. So throughout this process, throughout the Presidential campaign as well, seeing that insight because, again, he was doing all the steps you would take, Logan, and travel around the country talking to people. He's going to continue to do that.

He's going to be a huge voice when it comes to foreign policy, international security. But I guess to continue on, and hey, I know some of you have tuned in, some people have asked about, hey, we've got other people coming on too. We're going to talk about that later on, later in the week. So join us for that later in this week. But hey, if you want to give us a call, 1-800-684-3110, we have another half hour coming up. So if you don't get it on your local station, find us broadcasting live right now on your favorite social media platforms.

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ACLJ.org slash help. Be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome back to Sekulow. For people who are online too, Rumble's back up.

So I didn't want to reset too. We were just joined by Secretary Pompeo. He's a team member of the ACLJ. And we knew he was getting close to making his decision about whether he was going to run for President.

That was no secret. But of course that would impact his ability to stay with us for that period of time as a member of the ACLJ. I think what's great, and again, a lot of people wanted to see him run because I think he would have had a very interesting and necessary voice in the party.

I think he'll continue to have that. But he'll be able to stay with us through this process as well. And I think anybody who becomes the Republican nominee will go to Secretary Pompeo.

I don't know for what exact position, but I think that's definitely for advice as they go then into the general election. Because we're going to have to, one, fight back against these narratives like it was their fault, the Republicans' fault for the withdrawal in Afghanistan. Because too many people we know just listen to that in the news and there's a lot of liberal media outlets that will play that.

And even though it's absurd, if you don't question it right away, that becomes a narrative that people believe. And they think, oh, that was not really Biden's fault. He didn't really have the decision-making power.

And that's how they try to act. They seize on his weakness and the kind of way he looks weak, and they sometimes try to use that to their advantage. Like, how can you blame this old man? He didn't have any power to do this.

His hands were tied. He has no power as President of the United States, which sounds so absurd. We've also seen the rise in violent crime. And I'm not doing this to pick on New York and Chicago and L.A. I love those cities. My wife is from L.A. We have our office in Washington, D.C. And this is unique, but I want to see these cities flourish. I don't really care about people having a D next to their name or an R. It's just good policy when it comes to running cities, which I think has always been what New York has been about. That's why you would see Republican mayors.

They're still part of a country, and they're maybe some of the biggest parts. When people outside of America think about America, it's New York, it's Hollywood. Those are the two spots, whether you agree with them or disagree. And Chicago. And Chicago.

You want to make sure these areas are safe. Yeah, I mean, we all have lived in these cities. And what I think the big takeaway, one of the big issues is the emptiness feeling. So when you have an emptiness feeling and you have a lot of bad actors on the street, it gets even worse. But it's also worse when the people who are put in charge of not policing, but then enforcing after the police make an arrest, making the decision to prosecute someone. And when they decide that they're going to cut out half their felony cases. And when they're losing 49% of their cases in court. That's New York.

That's Alvin Bragg. Could you imagine your local prosecutor getting elected and having a record where they take half of the cases to court and lose? That's a lot of wasted taxpayer dollars. And the reason why they're losing, I don't think, is because the police are arresting the wrong people, Logan. They are losing because they were going to bring a second degree murder charge against a store clerk who is defending himself from a violent crime. He was physically attacked and they were going to charge him.

They were going to lose that. That's how you get to 50% of conviction. So the police are arresting the right people, but they're not being, as Secretary Bob Harrison, they're not being put in jail.

No, it's really a disturbing thing that's happening all across these cities. Let's actually, well, we only got a minute left, so we're going to go. We have some calls from Illinois and from Chicago and other places. I want to take those. We'll save those and take them in the next segment. And look, we're trying actively to figure out also how we can get involved in these as well as the ACLJ. How do you take on crime at this level? How do you take on what's happening in New York, what's happening in L.A. and Chicago? How do you get involved in that conversation? I think that's something we have to do a deep dive on.

On more just exposing the truth, obviously, showing you what's happening there, then also taking action. That's what we do. Does it really have to feel this chaotic?

Does it really have to feel like there's nothing you can do? I think that's wrong. I think that the problem is that the good people there, the police, who are trying to make the arrest, it's like, is it even worth making the arrest if they're going to let the person right out? Who's a, you know, may not be a violent offender, but let's say they've robbed the same Walgreens 20 times.

And by the way, you go to the Walgreens, everything's locked up or off the shelf. Why is it worth arresting that person and going through all the paperwork and going through all the trouble if they're going to get out in two hours? So it's going to take you longer to arrest them than it is for them once they're actually held in custody.

Because the DA won't prosecute them after 10 or 9, 10 or 11 offenses doing the same thing. We'll be right back. One second. Welcome back to Sec No. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. Logan, let's get to some of those calls too. And what we've been asking too, because there's more to talk about here.

There's even talk from Mayor Pete, we're getting to this next segment. Just the absurd statements that the reason why we're seeing more traffic deaths is because of racism. And again, he starts talking about where Native American reservations, which we don't have much authority over, by the way, is how the law gets set up. That kind of thing. That is racial. It's not economic.

It's racial. Which I think, again, everybody can complain about their roads. But when you talk about deadly incidents on the road, the big ones, usually it's teenagers, unfortunately. Big tractor-trailer incidents on major expressways, which, again, those are professional drivers.

But they've got a lot. If something happens, it causes a lot. Or drunk. Or impaired drivers. Again, there's things you can do. Why blame that on race?

But we'll get into that next. Because we do want to talk about this rise in crime and this kind of feeling that you just can't put… Even if you know your city's one where you've got to watch your back, you don't expect necessarily a riot to always break out. Yeah, that's what happened in Chicago over the weekend. And look, I'll be honest, a very small, nonviolent version of this happened actually in my neighborhood. I'll say this happened, which is a social media… This time it was a Snapchat that went out when I was in my neighborhood that somehow got spread aggressively to come to a house party in our neighborhood. Not my house, but someone's house.

A teenager. Instead of just their friends showing up, it ended up being thousands of people on our streets. It was the craziest thing ever. And we live in the very suburbs of suburbs. That did not happen.

To me, it was quite entertaining. But that happened in Chicago, and as you'd expect maybe in Chicago, it turned more violent, it turned more extreme. And we have a call coming in, Mary Ellen from Chicago, and I'm sure she's got some comments on this. Mary Ellen, welcome. Oh, thank you.

And thank you for taking my call. Yes, over the weekend I had seen, because I live far from this on the outskirts or the far end of town, and I see mobs jumping on cars, beating each other up, smashing windows, attacking people, shots being fired. Hundreds of these kids running around, and I had seen a posting.

I see it in daylight, and then I see it at nighttime. The police were overpowered. They only made one arrest. But I know the police's hands are tied. And then, you know, we have the communist mayor that was just recently elected.

Only a third of the population votes for this. And now I hear he's defending them. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the wild – They said don't demonize them. Right. And again, they call them – we can put some of the images down – they call them kids. They're teenagers capable of violence. I mean, at that point.

You're big enough, you're strong enough. And what these are, these are unplanned. So in a sense is if you're a big city and you know there's going to be a big event or a big protest, you can plan for it. The police can plan for it. The fact that you can get this many people out of the street and acting this violent because they know they're going to overwhelm the police and the police – like, I don't think it's their fault they didn't make a lot of arrests. At that point, you're just trying to secure the situation, not trying to make – you can't make arrests yet and trying to get the situation done. But it's a gimmick of obviously real cultural issues that we have to address. Like, why do kids, those high school kids, feel like that's a good decision to make or this is a decision that they're going to make with no consequences? And unfortunately, what the consequences usually end up are is they end up dead because they end up killing each other and beating each other. And then all they're doing is instilling that fear from people who say, maybe I want to open up a business.

Maybe I want to get one of those storefronts. And the cops don't know what to do either. And the cops are getting stuck now in this situation.

No, you've got to leave at that point. You can't put it on them to deal with these outbreaks of unplanned mass people rioting in the streets. Like I said, they can plan for a protest. They can plan for a riot even. But when they have no warning – I mean, it's like, you know, a few minutes on social media.

I think it started outside the White Sox stadium, south side of Chicago. It's a little bit tougher as far as this always has been. But it ended up right on Michigan Avenue, which has lost a lot of storefronts. And that's a bad thing for our country.

Yeah, in the tourist areas, essentially. It is bad for our country. And it also shows you the power of social media. Remember when you're dealing with it, it is something that is very different. If the wrong person – and this may have happened.

I don't know what the origin is of the original posts that shared and all of these things. But you imagine if the wrong people really know how to work the algorithm, really know what they're doing. This is the kind of chaos they can cause just by saying, hey, let's have a party in the streets of Chicago. And all of a sudden, chaos breaks out.

Imagine if the even worse people get a hold of this concept, how crazy it could become in our cities. Yeah. Let's go back to the phones. Charles in Colorado online 3. Hey, Charles.

Oh, thank you for taking my call. I think there are two basic reasons for the majority of these cases. One being that if they can front load the system with a bunch of bogus lawsuits that can never be prosecuted, that gives them an excuse to create a bigger and more forceful government. And then secondly, and even more hideously, the cases – and using Donald Trump's arrest as an example – it has nothing to do with actually being able to prosecute someone. It's all about publicity. It's the perp walk.

Yeah. Well, that is so true. I mean, Charles, how much of that DA and that office's time for years has been spent on are we, are we not going to prosecute – to the point where they have trouble with the statute of limitations. Because there's questions about even under New York's tolling laws, which stops the time legally and then restarts, because they took so much time.

And just listen to Jim Jordan go through straight up facts. Because remember, when the mayor of New York says, oh, are crimes not as bad, they have changed the definition of what is criminal. So you can now rob the same place 15 times and you're still treated like a misdemeanor. Instead of like three strikes you're out kind of situation, they've gotten rid of all those policies.

Take a listen to Jim Jordan just going through the facts by three. In 2022, Mr. Bragg's first year as district attorney, New York City saw a 23 percent surge in major crimes. Felony assaults rose 13 percent, robberies spiked 26 percent, burglaries in New York City went up 23 percent, grand larcenies were up 26 percent, and auto theft increased 32 percent, transit crimes surged nearly 30 percent.

Imagine that. You leave criminals on the street, you get more crime. When you get a quarter of more crime in New York, think about how many more criminal incidents that is. So you've got, you know, 15, 20 million people and your crime rate goes up 25, a certain kind of crime goes up 25, 26 percent in burglaries. In a burglary situation, you've got a violent act and a theft.

So you've got that, you know, these two situations going on. That's up nearly 30 percent. That is a lot more people having to experience that as part of just their daily life. And it doesn't just hurt us internally as a country. It hurts us because investors around the world say, maybe we don't want to be based in New York.

Maybe we don't want our currency tied to the U.S. dollar. You've definitely seen that we don't want to be based in New York or we don't want to be based in New York. That's why cities like we're in in Nashville have exploded in terms of bringing in major corporations that you would never expect to be coming out of here. I mean, really in five years. Yeah, a lot of it's happened yet. It's definitely all happened in the last decade. And a lot of it's happened, like you said, the last five years where major, major corporations have moved to cities like Nashville or to Austin, Texas, or these areas where at least, I mean, even as a crime is crazy. It's not New York crime. Because our tax system is much lower.

We have no state income taxes in these states. But that is not the only calculation the business make because that's not the same for business taxes. That's where the people are going to live, where the staff is going to live, who they're recruiting. A lot of things happen.

Right. Can they get the talent they need? And that's what it takes time for cities like where we live, because you've got to get the people that they've got to have enough talent pool to be able to hire. You've got to have enough schools. You've got to have enough housing for executives, for all of your different staff needs. And a lot of the big ones are not even open yet here.

Yeah. They're just starting the process of moving themselves here. Of moving here. I mean, you had In-N-Out Burger, probably the mainstay of California, one of their biggest fast food chains, announced they're moving to the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, making historic moves. It's got a corporate office, but finally going to open restaurants this side of the country.

But you're talking about that's a three years down the road plan. Yeah, but they're starting to do it. They've invested into cities, they felt like they've been pushed out of where they are a brand associated with Southern California. Again, and they feel like because they're not treated great as a company and they have some Christian values. And so they're being pushed out because they put a Bible verse on the bottom of the cup.

Yeah, John 3 16th on the bottom of the cup, those kind of things, but still, those are the interesting things that are going to happen at Shake. But we don't want these cities, like you said, like New York and Chicago to happen to. Our country is totally different.

I mean, it's fine to see growth in other cities, but I will tell you about this about Nashville. It cannot become New York. We don't have the infrastructure ever.

No. It wasn't built that way. There's going to be a point where you reach maximum capacity. Yeah, we're getting close. It does feel like, yeah, I mean, there's only like so much you can do. There's not enough schools. There's not enough. It's not that you don't have enough police. It's just the roads.

The airport is not ready for that. I mean, it's being expanded, but it's not Atlanta. And yet and so and so that also affects, you know, it's a certain point you're going to grow. You have to plan for growth.

And then also, like, what do you live with? Then they'll start looking at other places. But our major hubs, you want to be your major hubs because it's a symbol of America's strength abroad.

It's a reason why people want to come here and do business here and live here. We'll be right back. We'll take your phone calls.

1-800-6431 10 Road Fatalities and Race. There Pete brings that to the equation. I guess you can't blame him for that. I have to hit this one today because it ties into all this because it's where you put responsibility of of problems. So, you know, we talked about the trade derailments and the kind of like this the administration acting like again. Well, there were there were changes made by the Trump administration policy changes and we're relaying it on them.

And though they've been in office now nearly three years and like they can't if they think these policies are a problem, why did they change them? Why did they address them? Why don't they go?

You know where these incidents occur. We had a mass shooting in Nashville. The President never showed up. The vice President came for political reasons not not because of this not to visit privately with any of the victims but for to visit with politicians, which is so disgusting.

I don't care if they were what side of the aisle they're on that. That's the reason she came surprised to Nashville not to visit with the families or even offer to visit with the families totally off camera, you know, doesn't need to be it's just part of your job when you're used to be part of your job when you were President and certainly vice President of the United States. But then we see the shift into blame. So they're talking about now road fatalities are up but don't blame Mayor Pete who's actually the secretary Pete of transportation because South Bend, Indiana had no major roads. So he has no idea what he's dealing with just like with airports. I mean, these are not he's blazing he goes just like we see with other things is blamed on race.

Take a listen. We've got a crisis when it comes to roadway fatalities in America, we lose about 40,000 people every year. It's a level that's comparable to gun violence. And we see a lot of racial disparities black and brown Americans tribal citizens and rural residents, much more likely to lose their lives, whether it's in a car or as a pedestrian being hit by a car. There are a lot of reasons related to discrimination related to the even the ways that roads are designed and built who has access to a safe street design that's got crosswalks and good lighting, who doesn't have that access that can drive disparities.

And we have a responsibility to act on that. Major cities have for everybody who doesn't live in a major city have plenty of crosswalks stop and go signs lighting. You do take a more risk by being in a congested area. Yeah, busier urban areas, but also people are going as fast. So I'm not sure that that would explain the fatalities. Because in those areas, it's usually so congested that if you were hit by a car, it would not take your life necessarily, because the vehicles not moving at that high speed. So that's part one, when he throws in the tribal areas, and we have listeners in tribal areas, they have a lot of autonomy.

What is he talking? They control their decision making on their roads, and who gets in and out? He throws that into the equation. Some things are just based off, you're in charge of a lot of federal roads, highways.

There will be some massive, unfortunately tragedies. That's part of the calculation. But you cannot blame this on race. And I think, Logan, they always want to get us racially divided, because it's an issue that works for Democrats. They're always afraid they're going to lose two votes, black votes and Hispanic votes. Donald Trump got a lot of them. Time is showing that. DeSantis got a lot of them in his last election cycle. So they're always figuring out, okay, how do we get those votes back? We're going to blame traffic incidents on racists.

It's a pretty absurd statement. You can go back, and when they push him on it, they do say, when you say a road is racist, what does that mean? And there are some things we look at, sure, some of these roads that are hundreds of years old or a hundred years old, you go, okay, yeah, this was created at a certain time, and maybe this was created to keep certain people out.

That is not how things also have, that's not what happened in the last, this is what we're talking about here. Like you said, we're talking about drunk driving, teenagers who are distracted driving is a huge problem right now. It's phones, if there's any increase, it's legalized drugs, so you've added a new element, whether you support that or not. And texting. So you've got alcohol, we already had the problem with drunk driving, now you have basically legalized some kind of weed, almost every state.

Some kind of, that you could buy at the gas station, just like you could buy alcohol. So that's an issue. Add the phones to it. We know it's another, that's a side issue. It has really, that's nothing to do with race right there. It impacts, you see the instance where we are, it's mostly, again, teenage drivers, late at night, people who are somehow incapacitated shouldn't be driving, whether it's drugs or alcohol or both, or tractor trailers. And if there's been an increase, it's because we have more distractions, not less, because we have more safety than ever before in vehicles. Oh, absolutely.

I can't really blame that. The standards the manufacturers have to make is way more than they had to do in the 1970s or when we were kids. Yeah. One more they had to do 10 years ago. I mean, so much has changed.

There were no child seats when we were kids. Yeah. They were just starting to come around.

Right? I mean, you definitely were out of them earlier. There was maybe babies. I think maybe as a baby, we probably were.

I don't know. Oh, a baby egg was in something, but I don't know that it was a baby. No, no, you were dancing on the dashboard, it's just what happened there. You rode the front seat. All the front seat stuff.

Yeah. I think I rode in a trunk. I mean, not in a trunk, but there was those seats that were in the trunk. No, no. You're talking about the station wagon.

Yeah. And you were facing the other way. It was terrifying even then.

But no, that's true. The safety changes have happened. You can still get those in cars, but they don't consider them actual. They're jump seats now. They're jump seats, yeah. And they don't let you... You can't put a car seat...

It doesn't anchor in. They don't have clips. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, because they're pretty cool and nostalgic. You're not doing a lot of rural or you're not doing a lot of highway driving. Yeah. No, thank you.

A hard pass. You can know... There are a lot more safety precautions, like you said, that have come into automobiles even in the last decade and what's changed. But it's really... I don't know all the stats in front of me, but we know what is leading to a lot of this problem. And a lot of it is not driven by people being racist or attacking. That's what he's saying.

He's saying it's racist policies that have led to it. People's position... When they're behind the wheel of a car, that's not the decisions that are being made.

No one wants to be involved in these cars. And again, if you're seeing more incidents in urban areas, it's because there's less people on the street, less cars on the road. So they're going faster. But it's also...

It's a distraction. Why they won't address that, I don't know. There's so much tech in cars, but they love controlling us.

I'm surprised they're not putting more control there. But the fact is, they actually want to ban all of us from having these vehicles. Yeah.

Inevitably, we'll all be in self-driving cars. It's just... That are electric. Yeah.

Maybe it don't work. I want to get to those tubes that Peter Thiel and Elon Musk do, like the Hyper. Yeah. They have those in Las Vegas. The Loop.

Or you could test... It's just a Tesla. You just hop in. It's like an Uber Tesla and you just hop in and it takes you all around. Underground? Underground. Yeah.

You avoid the traffic. It's pretty cool. All right.

Well, we only got a minute left. Yeah. We got a podcast today.

That's right. Join us... There's even more absurd things to talk about. We're going to talk about more on the Secular Brothers podcast if you want a little bit more of a casual, sometimes lighthearted, sometimes a little bit more intense, podcast. Join us at secularbrothers.com. We'll be on Rumble as well.

Find our channel there, so you search for Secular Brothers. But we'll be doing that this afternoon, so you can find us there. That goes up around 3 p.m. Eastern time. Yeah. Go to 4 p.m. Eastern.

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