Rush Transcript: SCARBOROUGH: “Symone, let me start with you. This is an interesting thing where I’ll hear — you know, I actually heard a Reporter — heard from a Reporter when this happened going, ‘Well, you know, if he doesn’t overreach, this is actually a good thing for quality of life, etc., etc., etc., because D.C, right now, I had this happen to my family and I had that,’ and they go down the list. And then I saw him tweet something completely different. So, D.C., there has been a problem in D.C. It’s not as bad as it was 2 or 3 years ago, but it’s not — it’s not as safe as Manhattan. It’s not as safe as the nation’s capital should be. By the way, I’ve lived here for 30 — I’ve lived in D.C. for 32 years. I can — I can go chapter and verse if you’d like me to.”
Sanders-TOWNSEND: “Yeah. I mean, well, Joe, I’ve lived in D.C. for the last 10 years. My husband runs the restaurant association, I think as most people know, and it used to be the nightmare. So I think that some of — and I do think that you had David Drucker on earlier, and I think he hit the nail on the head that it is perceived violence amplified by some actual real acts of violence. But the way I’ve heard D.C. being described this morning is like it’s a city under siege, like it’s a dangerous place, clutching your pearls, you’ve got to keep your bag under your dress when you leave the house. And that’s — that’s just not true. What we are talking about, though, is these instances of Juvenile crime. That is what Jeanine Pirro came to the White House press briefing yesterday and zeroed in on. I was surprised I didn’t hear Brian Schwalb talk more about it. He mentioned the Juvenile courts and the judges. But my concern is that the president is using instances of Juvenile crime in the city of Washington, D.C. as a pretext for what I would describe as his authoritarian overreach. And because there are — there is enough there there for folks to say, ‘Oh, well, you know, maybe it’s not all that bad what Donald Trump is doing,’ just like there are people that said the same about immigration until until, you know, the Marines were rolling down the streets of their city and ICE was snatching up their neighbors in neighborhoods that people have been there for years, there’s just enough there for people to say, ‘Oh, well, maybe this isn’t that bad,’ ignoring the fact that more police officers on the street are not going to fix the issue of Juvenile crime. What about the policies? What about the laws? What about the judges? What about the Juvenile — the policies of the Juvenile Assessment Center in Washington, D.C.? How are — where are the wraparound services? Jeanine Pirro talked about children getting let out and kids getting let out for arts and crafts. Okay. Well, what are the real policies, the wraparound services to address what is happening with the Juvenile justice system in Washington, D.C.? Is the National Guard and the military going to address that? I don’t think so. So until we start talking about that, we are really adding to the fear-mongering, in my opinion, and amping up the rhetoric when we should be tamping it down, because Donald Trump has given us rhetoric and not the reality.”
SCARBOROUGH: “You you don’t think more police make streets safer?”
Sanders-TOWNSEND: “No, Joe. I’m a black woman in America. I do not always think that more police make streets safer. I — when you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don’t see a police officer on every corner, but you don’t feel unsafe. So what is it about talking about places like southeast D.C., right, Ward 8, if you will, that people say, ‘Well, we need more officers to make us safe?’ I think we have to rethink what safety means in America.”