Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott on Reducing Violent Crime

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Al Franken Podcast Episode: Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott on Reducing Violent Crime (September 14, 2025)

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Overview

In this episode, Al Franken interviews Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to discuss the city’s significant reduction in violent crime and homicides—the lowest in fifty years. Mayor Scott shares his personal journey, outlines the city's comprehensive violence prevention strategies, and responds to national political attention sparked by President Trump's repeated criticisms of Baltimore. The conversation explores the intersection of public safety, policing reform, equitable community investment, and effective, data-driven policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Baltimore’s Progress in Reducing Violent Crime

• Historic Lows in Homicides

  • At the time of this interview, Baltimore is experiencing its lowest homicide rate in 50 years (03:37).
  • August saw only seven homicides, the lowest on record for that month (03:48, 07:28).
  • From 300+ homicides per year for nine years down to 201 last year, now pacing for a further reduction (08:42).
  • Emphasis on acknowledging progress, not celebrating:

    “We are acknowledging this historic progress, not celebrating…understanding that we have a lot more work to do.”
    — Mayor Brandon Scott (04:16)

• Critique of Federal Intervention Proposals (Trump & National Guard)

  • Addresses President Trump’s suggestion to send the National Guard, arguing it’s unnecessary and politically motivated (03:24, 39:33).
  • Notes prior lack of federal interest when violence was higher (04:08).
  • Advocates for restoring federal investment in local anti-violence and community programs over militarized interventions (37:41, 40:23).

Mayor Scott’s Personal Connection to the Issue

• Growing Up in Park Heights, Baltimore
  • Witnessed a shooting before age eight, which motivated his public service ambitions (05:33, 09:14).
  • Describes a childhood marked by neighborhood violence, systemic disinvestment, and deep community pride (08:59, 13:21).

  • “Despite living in a neighborhood where seeing someone get shot before you’re eight years old…is not normal...But we had this strong sense of community and pride...I would not replace my childhood...it made me who I am.”
    — Mayor Brandon Scott (09:14)

Comprehensive Violence Reduction Strategies

• Treating Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue

  • Reframes violence as a public health crisis requiring an all-of-government approach, not just police action (20:32).
  • Multi-pronged effort involving data analytics, law enforcement, social services, and community engagement.

• Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS)

  • Focuses on small groups most likely to be involved in violence; offers at-risk individuals life-altering resources or, if they refuse, prioritizes them for law enforcement (05:33, 21:00).

  • “We know that…in every city…it’s a small group of people…committing acts against another small group…”
    — Mayor Brandon Scott (21:00)

  • Many former participants now employed by city government (22:11).

• Community Violence Intervention (Safe Streets & More)

  • Employs people with lived experience in crime to mediate conflicts and prevent reprisals (22:46).
  • Notes that much of today’s violence is driven by interpersonal disputes, not drug wars (23:05).

• Strict Focus on Illegal Firearms and Accountability

  • Aggressive prosecution and partnerships to disrupt gun trafficking and sales, including:
    • Lawsuit against Polymer 80 (ghost guns) resulting in significant local and national impact (24:00).
    • $62 million lawsuit win against a gun store selling to prohibited buyers (24:00).
  • Police seized 2,500 guns in one year (24:00).

  • “We sued Polymer 80, the nation’s largest ghost gun company, and won…Just last week…jury ruled in our favor, awarding…$62 million…against Hanover Armory...”
    — Mayor Brandon Scott (24:00)

• Investments in Education & Recreation

  • Record funding for city schools; 12+ new or renovated schools since Scott’s tenure (25:39).
  • Boost to Rec & Parks (40% budget increase), new pools and recreation centers, youth employment, literacy, and summer programs (25:39–26:53).

Police Reform and Accountability

• Progress under Federal Consent Decree

  • Substantial improvements in police practices and accountability post-Freddie Gray (15:22).
  • Moving from a “warrior mentality to a guardian mentality” (15:45).
  • Improved diversity, technology, and de-escalation training in the force, but acknowledges more work remains.

• Neighborhood Trust and Racial Justice

  • Candid about legacy of racism in policing and government; highlights the real-life impact of broken windows/tough-on-crime policies, systemic poverty, and infrastructure decisions (e.g., “highway to nowhere”) (16:58–19:19).

Addressing Vacant Housing and Long-Term Plans

• Vacant Properties

  • Reducing vacant properties from 16,000 to 12,000 since 2020; new $3 billion, 15-year plan to eliminate vacants through community partnerships and financing tools (35:14).

• Looking Ahead

  • Continued focus on crime reduction, equitable city growth, and family health.
  • Plans to seek reelection for a possible third term (34:17).

Community Engagement & Political Approach

• Personal Leadership Story

  • Entered public service as a direct response to community trauma; mentored by prominent leaders (29:49–31:33).
    • Notably influenced by Congressman Kweisi Mfume (“my congressman gave me my voice” [31:32]), Elijah Cummings, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

• Advice for Democratic Party

  • Urges more local leadership within the Democratic Party; says victory and progress are driven at the community level (41:38):

    “They need to pull in leaders at the local level…because we are the ones that are closest to the ground…They have to allow those of us…closest to the people to be a part of leadership.”
    — Mayor Brandon Scott (41:38)

• Rejects Political Grandstanding

  • Insists he does not want Baltimore used as a political prop; open to genuine federal help, not hollow photo ops (39:33–40:06).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On National Guard Proposal:
  “Why now? Why when the city has…the last two now going on three years, set records for reduction on violence, are we now sending in the National Guard?”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [04:08]

• On Childhood Dreams:
  “Since two days after that, that first shooting, I said I was going to be the mayor of Baltimore.”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [29:14]

• On Community Investment:
  “We were seen as a problem to solve, not a resource to invest in, which is the opposite way that I look at the young people in Baltimore today.”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [14:17]

• On Ghost Guns and Legislative Hurdles:
  “Some 12 year old can go online and order three separate parts…Ghost guns are a very dangerous thing.”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [24:03]

• On What the Federal Government Could Do:
  “They could…ban ghost guns…repeal the T Harden amendment…restore the grants and things that they have cut…”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [39:42–40:23]

• On His Son’s Name:
  “I love Baltimore so much, my…the 19-month old’s name is Charm. That’s his name.”
  — Mayor Brandon Scott [42:57]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:21 – Start of Interview; National Guard and violence reduction
• 05:33 – Mayor Scott’s motivation and background
• 07:28 – Homicide data and progress contextualized
• 13:21 – Park Heights and growing up in Baltimore
• 15:22 – Police reforms; consent decree process
• 20:32 – Treating violence as a public health issue
• 24:00 – Attacking gun violence and ghost gun lawsuits
• 25:39 – Education, summer jobs, youth engagement
• 29:07 – Early political career and inspirations
• 35:14 – Tackling vacant housing & future goals
• 36:12 – Opioid settlement independent from state
• 39:33 – Rejecting Trump’s political overtures; what real federal support should look like
• 41:38 – On Democratic Party direction and local leadership
• 42:47 – Closing and discussion of Baltimore's nickname

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Tone & Style

The episode is candid, personally resonant, and policy-detailed. Mayor Scott is direct, impassioned about public service, and enthusiastic about Baltimore’s progress, while grounded in the realities and ongoing struggles of urban governance. Franken’s questioning is supportive, often drawing out personal anecdotes and offering space for Scott’s policy expertise.

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Summary prepared for listeners who want a comprehensive, engaging breakdown without sitting through the full episode.

Transcript

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[Mayor Brandon Scott]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

Hey everybody. Before we start this episode, I just want to say something about the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk. He was 31 years old, and while I obviously was not a fan of his politics, there is no place for political violence in this country and we've seen far too much of it recently. And unlike what President Trump said, unfortunately, we've seen this violence on both sides. I spoke a few months ago about the assassination of Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota state legislator who was a friend of mine. The increase of political violence is absolutely chilling. Now, today's show is about violence. Not political violence, but criminal violence. My guest is Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Mayor Scott is in his second term as mayor, the first Baltimore mayor to be reelected in over 20 years. Baltimore has been in the national news recently because Trump has called it a hellhole and wants to send the National Guard. Mayor Scott doesn't want them there because frankly, they won't help address the problem of violence in his city. You're going to be very impressed with Mayor Scott, I can tell you, because he has been incredibly successful in reducing homicides in the city to a 50 year low. And he's done it through a very comprehensive, multifaceted approach that he would tell you that Trump wouldn't have the first clue about. Mayor Scott told me he saw a person get shot for the first time when he was just 8 years old. So he takes the issue of crime and violence very seriously. So we're here today with Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. It is a great one, you know, or a change. Joined today by Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Mayor, thank you for joining us.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Now, you've been in the news. Your city, because of the President, wants to send the National Guard there. And neither you nor the governor want the Guard there, right?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

No, we do not. We do not.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

President wants to send the Guard there. It's called Baltimore a hellhole. But this year you're at a 50 year old low in crime or in homicides in Baltimore.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah, I think that. Listen, this isn't the first time that the President has been infatuated with the city of Baltimore. We had similar comments from him during his first term. It's unfortunate when the person who's supposed to be the leader of the free world and supposed to exude a dignity and respect for the whole world, especially Americans in American cities, does the opposite. But that is what it is. But the reality is, is that we just finished in August where we had seven homicides, which is seven too many for me. But those seven homicides are the lowest August for homicides on record for Baltimore. And through you and I talking right now, we have 92 homicides. That is the lowest amount of homicides through this day in September, in any year on record. So why now? Why when the city has the last two now going on three years, set records for reduction on violence, are we now sending in the National Guard? Why not? In his first term, when we had significantly more gun violence in the city of Baltimore, and we're saying that in the way that I say this every week when I give my weekly press conference and talk with the media, that we are acknowledging this historic progress, not celebrating acknowledging this historic progress and understanding that we have a lot more work to do.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

I just want my audience to know that you've been mayor. Now is your second term.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yes, is my second term.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And you have started in your first term doing initiatives to bring down crime.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. Gun violence is the reason now that I'm even in public service, having seen someone be shot for the first time before I was even eight years old. But when I came into this office during the height of the pandemic, I said that we had to tackle two dueling public health issues, Covid and violent crime. We laid out our comprehensive violence prevention plan in 2021 to say that we were going to set a goal of reducing homicides by 15% from one year to the next. And people literally laughed at me until in September of 2022 is when we saw our strategies be fully implemented. And it just fell off a cliff from there. So we, this isn't something new for us. We've been very intentional in dealing with gun violence in the city of Baltimore through our group Violence Reduction Strategy, where we focus on the small groups of people who are most likely to be the victim or perpetrator of gun violence. We offer them the opportunity to change their life through a letter from me. And if they don't, we remove them. With law enforcement, we have our community viol, violence intervention ecosystem where we pay folks who used to be involved in the wrong type of activity to prevent violence from happening. We have our partnerships that we focus on guns, everything about guns, the person using them, the person trafficking them, the stores that are giving and selling them to folks in the wrong way, holding those folks accountable, working with our partners in the State's Attorney and Attorney General to prosecute cases through my police department's work each and every day. This isn't something that we just came to overnight. These reductions that we've had this year and the year two previous two years are a result of the hard work of so many people in Baltimore. And we're not going to let anybody disrespect that, even the President of the United States.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You said there were seven in the months of August.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yes, seven. When you think about the August before last August, it was 18. Right. And there have been many. August is normally one of the most violent months for us. And there have been in my lifetime, August in Baltimore, where there's been 25, 30, probably 40 in some cases of homicides in just a month. Imagine having 30 homicides in just one month. So when you go from those numbers down to 18 into, from 18 down to 7, you're talking about a significant change in a community when it comes to violence. And that's what we, that's what we're trying to help folks understand. You don't hear me celebrating. You don't hear me saying we totally solve this issue. But where we were a few years ago when the question in the media to me every day was, Mr. Mayor, what are you going to do to get homicides under 300? Right. Because we had nine straight years of having 300 plus homicides to last year, having 201 to this year, being on pace to have the fewest on record. We have to acknowledge that progress in all the lives that were Saved in that work.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

So this is your second term and you're the first mayor in some time who was reelected, right?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

20 years. The first mayor in 20 years. I was a college student the last time a mayor in Baltimore was reelected.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Tell me about your family and growing up in Baltimore.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

So my family, I'm a first generation Baltimorean. My dad's family is from rural North Carolina where my grandparents ran a pig farm literally until. Until they died. But my mom's family is from rural Virginia, right outside of Richmond. My mom has lived in Baltimore since she was a very, very young child. My grandparents escaped that rural poverty. My dad came later following my uncles and older cousins who escaped that rural poverty in North Carolina to come here and work at the port. That is really the epicenter. But having that family and all of us basically being in Park Heights provided the opportunity for it to be like heaven and hell at the same time. Because despite living in a neighborhood where seeing someone get shot before you're eight years old, it's not normal. And knowing that some of your friends, parents, are dealing with severe addiction, having to give some of your, one of your friends some of your Christmas gifts because their parents sold their Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve is not normal. Having to see people your age, people losing friends, right to violence is not normal. But we had this strong sense of community and pride in our community that many of us could not only survive, but thrive and be the ones to try to help change that community. I would not replace my childhood or anything that I experienced at all for one single moment because it made me who I am and made me want to be the public servant that I am today.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Mayor Brandon Scott. Hey, everybody. We got a new sponsor, Ollie, A tasty and nutritious food for your dog. And the Ollie folks sent Peter a couple weeks of the product for his dog Nellie. And she. Nellie loves it. Peter, tell us about Nellie.

[Peter Ogburn]

You met her once. She's kind of a bigger girl. She's a kind of a bigger dog.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And she.

[Peter Ogburn]

She loves Ollie, but she loves Ollie. She loves Ollie, Al. She gets so excited when it's breakfast time. When it's dinner time, she waits by her bowl and she licks the bowl clean. She's never done that before.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

She just gobbles it up.

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

Her step now, it says here that protein pack recipes. What are those meals like?

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

That sounds good.

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

So you're going to be sticking with Ollie?

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

So we'll keep tracking how Nellie's doing. How's that?

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Really?

[Peter Ogburn]

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

Fantastic. Well, thanks. You know, dogs deserve the best, and that means fresh, healthy food. So head to ollie.com Franken, tell them all about your dog, and use code Franken to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box. If you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's Ollie. O l l I e.com Franken and enter code Franken to get 60% off your first box. And we are back with Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. You said you grew up in, in Park Heights. Tell us a little bit about that, that neighborhood and how that helped you form your interest in public service.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

So I grew up in Park Heights, the neighborhood most famous for a horse race known as Preakness. That's. That's where I grew up. So Im imagine living in a neighborhood that's the center of the sports world every third Saturday in May and then not being treated as human every other day of the year.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Okay. And that when you say it, not being treated as human is. That was the police force.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

It wasn't just them. It was how we were viewed. So, of course, I'm born in 1984. So my formative teenage years in the early 20 years are during the years of zero tolerance or tough on crime policing or broken windows theory policing, or as we would say, breathing while black policing. So when I walked outside of my house every day, especially as a teenager and in my early 20s, I knew that I could just be set in handcuffs just because I was outside. Happened to me seven times. Right. Just because I was outside. Meanwhile, the violence in my neighborhood persisted. Meanwhile, the folks that I knew at in my neighborhood were carrying guns and dealing drugs and doing all these things, never seem to end up in handcuffs. When you, when you go through that, when you see the. The struggles with addiction that my friend's parents had, when you live next to vacant houses, when you have your library in your neighborhood closed, or your rec center in your neighborhood close, the pool in your neighborhood closed, you go to school and you don't have an air conditioned classroom until you get to ninth grade. You see that the world looks at you a certain way. And we were seen as a problem to solve, not a resource to invest in, which is the opposite way that I look at the young people in Baltimore today.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

What have you done with the police department? How have you worked with the police department to make sure that that legacy of racism in the police department is not carried on?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. The great thing, Al, for us is that we have made significant progress on our federal consent decree, which was centered around the policies and the disproportionate impact that it was having for black people in Baltimore. We've been able to get out of some of those sections of our consent decree, making sure that we are doing things in a different way.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Explain the consent decree. This is after Freddie Wright.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. The consent decree is with the federal. Federal government coming in and saying that we're going to a monitor and a judge that are going to monitor our progress on meeting goals to correct these kind of issues. And there are so many of them that I can't. You and I could have a whole hour to talk just about those. But for many years, the consent decree was languishing and we would have been able to get out of the sections on the consent decree. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We had to change, really the mentality of our police department to go from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality. When you think about training folks in everything from dealing with mental health crises, from de escalation, from how we now have a more diverse police department, how we have better technology, how we have better systems for accountability, how we have been focusing in on all of those things have helped us become a lot better police department. But we still have a long way to go.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Talk about racism in law enforcement. 2015 was when Freddie Gray was killed in. In police custody.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. And I think that for. For those outside of Baltimore, they. They point to the death of Freddie Gray, but for those here, they understand that that was just the tipping point for all the things in the policies that happened before. And when you think about about that. And I always, I always make sure that I say this, right, because this wasn't even just a white on black thing. Right. I say this to folks all the time. There were black mayors around the country after the 93 crime bill that were putting into place those same policies. Right. And those same things. Because what my predecessors in elected office were trying to do was solve a problem. They had a significant amount of gun violence and they were looking for a simple way to solve a very complicated problem. And the, the policies that they put in place, especially in a place like Baltimore that is the birthplace of racial redlining. So the neighborhood I grew up in was one of the first neighborhoods that went through that process. The first redlining bill was, was signed in the room next to the one that you and I are talking in today. Right. So when you live in that, the city that birthed that, that also has the poster child for these highways that were built and destroyed. Black neighborhood, predominantly. But in Baltimore's case, they destroyed this middle class black neighborhood in West Baltimore where there were businesses, homeowners, schools, all of these things. And the Interstate 70 and 95 do not connect today. They just blew what we call the highway to nowhere because it doesn't connect to.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

They did that in Minneapolis as well. The way they.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Rondo.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Yes, the Rondo neighborhood.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I've actually, I've been, I've been there and been out there with my, my good brother, Mayor Carter, just a few years ago. In, in Baltimore's case, there is no highway. It does not connect. It's just there. They, it actually does not connect when you live in a place like that.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Really?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yes, it doesn't. Interstate. It was supposed to connect Interstate 70 to Interstate I95. They do not connect at all.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Okay. So it was a, it broke up a neighborhood that was a thriving neighborhood.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Thriving. And when you live in a city that is at the time that we're talking about dealing with all of those things and simultaneously the flight and simultaneously the deindustrialization, where Bethlehem still went away, General Motors, where my granddad went away, all of these things. And then you have drugs just showing up in these communities, you're talking about a melting pot of bad things to, to create those environments. And then when you add in policies that are just going to say, well, these folks in these neighborhoods, they're just so prone to violence, we're going to just focus on every little thing. If someone's loitering, we're going to arrest them. If they're addicted to drugs, we're Going to arrest them. If they're walking down the street in jaywalk, we're going to arrest them. All of those things, those policies are what really led to what you saw after the death of Freddie Gray. And we have come a long since then, and we have a long, long way to go. But the way that we're. We're operating public safety now in Baltimore is light years different from that.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Well, tell me what, what you've done and you've laid out a pretty comprehensive approach to violent crime and regarded it as a public health issue. What does that mean when you say that and how have you achieved these, these record lows?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Well, we, we've achieved it because we have treated it as a public health issue, because that's what gun violence is. Right. We can't look at gun violence as anything other than a public health issue. So when you understand what I would say to my counterparts here in city government is that and across the country, for too long, we put the sole responsibility of dealing with gun violence on the backs of our police officers. Was never their responsibility to bear alone. Now we have a all of government, all of community approach here in the city of Baltimore. So this is how we do that. I talked earlier about our group violence reduction strategy. So how that works is we have the data. We know that not every black person that lives in West Baltimore, East Baltimore, is most likely to be the victim of perpetrator gun violence in every city, in every community. It's a small group of people who are normally committing those acts against another small group, group of people. So what we did is we found out who those folks were. We built up a program that's a partnership with my office, the police commissioner and the police department who work for me, our State's Attorney here in Baltimore, our Attorney General of Maryland. But we have our community more voice partners where we actually go and give what we call custom notifications to these individuals with a letter from me. I know who you are. I know what you do.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

We want you to stay alive, but you cannot do that doing what you're doing. And we will not allow you to continue to do what you're doing. You can either take us up on whatever assistance you need for you and your family to live in a better way, or we will remove you from, from the neighborhood. Many people have taken us up on that. We have folks that are working for city government and other places around the city who were gvrs participants. Right. And then we have others that we had to remove the police arrest.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Sorry gvrs. What, what does that stand?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Group Violence Reduction Strategy.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Okay, I'm sorry.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yep. And so that's one section of it. And then when they don't, we police arrest them, turn them over to the state's attorney or the attorney general, whoever's taking the case, to remove them. Then we have our community violence intervention work, be it through Safe Streets, which is a city program, we play violence intervention workers, folks who used to be involved in that life, to go out and prevent and mediate basic conflicts from happening. Because contrary to popular belief and folks who think that all, all of this violence that's happening in cities is just like the 90s where it's always drug wars. No, overwhelmingly these days it is interpersonal conflict. Even if a person is involved in that life, a lot of times it has nothing to do with what they do for a living. It can be something as simple as someone sending someone's girlfriend a message on Instagram. But those folks intercede and try to calm those things down. Now we also have a deep, deep focus on guns. People that are using guns and trafficking guns. Right. We hold them accountable. We've been able to hold gun manufacturers accountable. We sued Polymer 80, the nation's largest ghost gun company, and won, ending their business in Baltimore and in Maryland.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Explain ghost guns for me.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Ghost guns are these very hard to trace guns that don't have serial numbers where you go online. And they do not, not. They do not check for background or aids. Right? So some 12 year old can go online and order three separate parts of this, of this kit and put together a gun at home. Very dangerous thing. And we saw this in the increase in ghost gun Recoveries go from 20 something in 2019 to 400 and something in 2022. It was a huge problem for us and we knew that we had to handle that issue. You. But our suit not only ended in their business ending here in Baltimore, but the state of Maryland. And that company also now is basically out of business. Just last week we announced that a jury ruled in our favor, awarding the city of Baltimore $62 million in a lawsuit against Hanover Armory, a gun store in Anne Arundel county, for selling ghost guns to folks in Baltimore without background checks, without checking for id. But we also arrest the individual. Just last year alone, my Police Department seized 2,500 weapons. But at the same time, we're making historic investments into education, into reckon parks, into job opportunities, and to housing because we have to have an all and above approach to dealing with this issue.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And what are you doing in Terms of schools and particularly summer. You've just come through a summer. What's your approach to kids in school?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

So one, no mayor in the history of Baltimore has ever put more money into city schools than I have. Right. It's the largest we've opened, I think, in my time as mayor now, 12 new or renovated school buildings. And we have another that we're going to be doing very shortly. But it's not, it doesn't just end there. Our Department of Rec and Parks budget, operating budget has increased by 40% since I took office. We have a $200 million capital campaign. Just this summer, I opened three new pools. I have five rec centers under construction right now, and we've already opened three others. But then we keep our young people engaged. We had 12,000 summer seats in city schools across the district. 29 literacy focused programs with opportunities from pre k all the 12th grade. And we also hired here in the city 8,500 young people for our summer Youth Works jobs program. We had 42 summer camp sites through recreation and parks and midnight basketball team pool nights, rock the block parties, all of these things to keep our young people positively engaged during the summertime and allowing some of them to make money.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And these are all programs that you initiated.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

So Youth Works has been a program in the city for a long time. I was once a youth worker, but the 8,500 that we have funded is a record. We want to keep it that way. Just a few years ago, we were at 4,000, and now we have 8,500 young people, people. This focus on recreation and parks is a new thing because Recreation and Parks had been underfunded for many years. I'm a former employee of the agency and really wanted to invest in those facilities. For example, when I came into office, I went to my childhood rectangle of Tawanda, and it looked exactly the same as it did when I went there first. In 1989, it was closed. We reopened it. We renovated, reopened it and then this summer added an aquatic center to be right next door to, to it. That is the kind of investment that we're making in our neighborhoods, especially these neighborhoods that have been disinvested in. For example, right now, we, in just a few, few months, we're going to open a new Parkview rec center right up the street from where the epicenter of the Freddie Gray unrest happened.

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[Podcast Host (Al)]

You served on the city Council, right, For. For quite some time?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I did. A long time, yes.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And so you wanted to be in public service from. From the get go, right?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah, since. Since two days after that, that first shooting, I said I was going to be the. The mayor of Baltimore.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

How old were you then?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Eight? I was seven or six. Maybe seven at the time when I. When I said it first. But this is now my 18th year in city Hall. I came to City hall in 2007 as a intern return and then worked for a council president and mayor before going out and running for office on my own in 2011 and winning city council at the age of 27.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

So who were your inspirations in public service at the time?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

My inspirations in public service at the time. I was very, very lucky that I had the opportunity to. I've known my. Who's now my congressman again. Congressman and fool mate since I was a very little kid. And he. And I didn't really start to tell this story publicly until last year because back then, you might remember, Al, we didn't have a football team, NFL team. We had a CFL team, the Canadian.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You were in the Canadian Football League?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. Baltimore had a Canadian football team, the Baltimore Stallions. We were really good. We'd actually won the championship. But in old Memorial Stadium, my uncle bought tickets, season tickets for him and I. And just so happened that the congressman's tickets were right next to ours. And we. One day I actually had surgeries on my throat for ad noise and all these other things, Al. And I had lost the confidence in my voice. I very rarely talked, which is a shocking thing for me.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Yes.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

But one day I had to go to the Bathroom at the game, and my uncle said, kwaisi is going to take you. And he took me aside in that bathroom, and he had this conversation with me about he knew what I wanted to be, and he reminded me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, that it was in me, but I had to believe in myself and remember the lineage and the people that I come from. And that's literally what gave me the confidence to be confident in my voice again. So when people hear me say that my congressman gave me my voice, I mean that he literally did. So I had the blessing to have him.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

This is Mfume.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah, Congressman Nfume. And then I had the blessing to, as a young staffer and young councilman, to be a personal mentee of Congressman Elijah Cummings and who pulled me aside at a time where basically at that time, no black male elected official in Baltimore would really talk to me other than him, because I came in and disrupted an old guard. I beat a machine to get my position, and he took me aside. I love them both dearly, but my big sister, Mary Rollins Blake, is the person who brought me to City Hall. She's the one that allowed me to be the intern. She's the one that, as a staffer, put young staffer at 23 years old, put me in every room and allowed me to see things that, quite frankly, made my transition to being mayor really seamless, because I'd been there before. I had seen it before before. So those are the three.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And. And how long were you on the City Council?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I was on the city council from 2011 until 2029 years.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And what kind of work did you do in the City Council?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

My work was focused on public safety, actually. This comprehensive violence prevention plan that you and I are speaking about is required by law. A law that I pass as a city. As a city council member, but that I was the. Yep. I was the chair of the public safety community. Even before the unrest and the death of Freddie Gray. Bal. There was this video of me talking about this spike in violence in 2015. Prior to that, that was my focus. The first bill that I did around anything was about the police department. That's what my focus has been. I did a lot of work about young people as well, creating more opportunities for young people, changing our curfew law to focus on providing services and things for young people and our families. I passed Baltimore City's open data law. There's been a lot of them. I've probably forgotten. Gotten many, most of them at this point.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And was your Goal always to be mayor.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Always. That's it. I'm living my lifelong dream.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And are you term limited or what's the deal there?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

This is my second term. There were some folks who sought out to put term limits on the mayor of Baltimore, most notably Sinclair Broadcasting. So they did. There was a law passed about that, that. But it goes into effect starting this term, not my first term. So I actually can do another term. I can do four.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You can do four. So that means you can do two more. I said, okay. And you plan to do that?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I. I take it right now my plan is to, To. To run for reelection. That obviously that, that can change. I will have to when it. When the time comes. I have to talk with my family about that first, obviously. But that's the plan right now, today, is to stay in this position for, for another term. Now that could change. Right. I think that we just. But right now I'm just focused on being the best mayor I can be for the city of Baltimore, being the best husband I can be to my wife and the best father to my children.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

How old are your kids?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

10, 19 months and soon to be six months. Wow.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Okay.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah. Two into two is a real thing.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

In the teen months. Wow.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

So what are your plans to do in the next term or to build on what you've been doing?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yeah, we want to build on this success. Right. We want to continue this historic reduction of violence. We want to be fully into our 15. We're beginning now our 15 year plan to eliminate vacant housing in Baltimore, which has been another longstanding issue. When I came into office in 2020, we had 16,000 vacant properties. In December of 2000, we had 16,000 vacant Properties. We've been able to reduce that now to 12,000. And we have a $3 billion plan. We're going to be using tax instrument financing, or tiff on vacants that I'll be putting out with the council in a few weeks. We have a partnership with the business community, the actual community and religious community, the state, to deal with this issue over the next 15 years. That's a big part of us, of what we're going to be focused on in the next term and continuing to grow the city in an equitable way.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You won a victory over. You didn't agree to be part of an opioid settlement and actually won a big victory. Tell me about that.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Yes, we know that many states were suing drug companies for pills and opioids that were driving overdoses in their communities. The state of Maryland was One of them. And when I came into office, a good friend of mine, actually our Attorney general at the time, Brian Frosh, asked me and my city solicitor to join on the state's lawsuit. We decided not to do that. We knew that Baltimore had a outweighed impact from those pills and overdoses, and we decided to go on our own. And we've won close to $600 million in restitution funds that will be put out into the community in Baltimore to help us deal with this opioid and addiction crisis.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And how much was the settlement for?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Total, it's close to $600 million.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And if you had been part of the state thing, how much would the city have received?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

One settlement from one company is more than we would have gotten for the entirety of the state settlement.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Okay, let's talk about the National Guard. And Trump talking about sending troops. Does he have grounds to do that? Does he have legal grounds?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

No, we don't believe so. Especially with our governor is the commander in chief of our National Guard and he says he's not going to send them here. But it's not even. We know that this administration doesn't follow the constitutional rulings or the rule of law. But I think that what we have to understand is that if he decides to send the National Guard or some other folks here, we, along with the state of Maryland, will take whatever appropriate action we can take, legal or otherwise. But the most important thing, Al, is that it's not needed. Again, why, at a time when we have our lowest amount of violence ever, would you do that? But there are ways that we've lifted up that the president and his administration and others can actually support, not just Baltimore, because all of these cities, who just happen to have all be led by black mayors and have significant black and brown populations, are seeing historic reductions. They could restore the cuts that they made to community violence intervention and all these grants that go to police departments and others. Right. They could do that today. They could come out and say the president is going to outright ban ghost guns and these Glock switches that take a regular pistol and turn it into an automatic that is causing police officers, women, children, grandparents, daughters, sons to lose their lives in the city. They could do that. They could come out and say that he's going to repeal the T Harden amendment and allow local leaders like myself to actually know exactly where the guns that are they're using, the commitments of crime in our city come from. Because right now they prohibit us from knowing that, even though we know for us that 60% of the guns recovered by BPD come from out of state. They could do all of those things. They could support the work that is happening in these cities right now, but they're choosing not to.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And now the governor has invited the president to come to Baltimore. Right. Or to the state anyway. Yeah, but you don't want him, what.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I just relayed to you, I'm not interested in him coming from some dog and pony show or some gotcha show or something for having my city to be used as a political pawn in his game of making making certain places look bad. Unless they're coming and saying that they're doing the things that I laid out in my last response, it's a no for me.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

But the governor has invited him.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

He did, but the governor also said, along the same lines that I said, that it's not just coming to come. You have to come and be committed to doing these things to help us right now.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

But you would welcome federal resources, of course, as you said.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Well, yeah, we've laid those out. Right. We want them to restore the grants and things that they have cut. We want them to ban ghost guns. We want them to ban Glock switches. We want them to repeal the T hard amendment. Those are the things that they can do right now.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Repeal. I'm sorry, the what?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Amendment T hard. Basically, when a local police, police department who works in most cases at the direction and under the command of the mayor, gets a gun off of someone in the commitments of a crime. Right. Or legally possessing a handgun, they then give it to ATF to trace that gun to his origin. ATF shares that origin with that local police department, but that local police department is prohibited, thanks to Congress, from telling their commander in chief where it came from. From. Because they are afraid that we're going to go after folks who are trafficking guns or selling them to people. And they're absolutely right. And we should, because we cannot. We cannot allow folks to continue to traffic guns and get guns in the hands of people that they shouldn't. They shouldn't be in.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

You're a young standout in the Democratic Party. What do you think of the state of the party now?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

I think that the party, the party needs to understand that the days of having what the party wants to focus on, what the party needs to focus on, how the party needs to move and communicate solely coming out of the leaders of the party in D.C. over. They need to pull in leaders at the local level. Right. Even more so at the state level, but especially the local level mayors, the folks that are out here who have been winning these races despite what was happening nationally with the, with the party, who have been proving these results. They need to pull us in more because we are the ones that are closest to the ground. We are the ones that know how to communicate with the residents. We are the one that know how to bring the issues to bear in a way that people understand it. We're the ones that they're going to see in the grocery store or at the school. Right. They have to allow those who of us at the most, closest to the people to be a part of the leadership.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Well, Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for joining me.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Anytime, sir.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

And continue. Good luck to you and to the city.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

What is it? What is the nickname of the city?

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

The Charm City.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Charm City.

[Mayor Brandon Scott]

Charm City. I love Baltimore so much. My, my, the 19 month old's name is Charm. That's his name.

[Podcast Host (Al)]

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kottke, the great Leo Kottke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.