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PDB Situation Report | August 23rd, 2025: Ryan McBeth on Israel’s New Gaza Operation & DC Crime Data Scandal
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Welcome to the PDP Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get brief, shall we? First up, Israel has kicked off the opening stages of its invasion of Gaza city, codenamed Gideon's Chariots 2. We'll be joined by intelligence analyst Ryan McBe, who just returned from Israel for more on that later in the show. The doj, the Department of Justice, is investigating claims that Washington's Metropolitan Police Department, the mpd, because everything needs an acronym manipulated crime numbers to make the city look safer than it is. John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research center, will stop by to give his insight. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. This week, Israel officially launched what it's calling the first stages of the attack on Gaza City. Defense Minister Israel Katz has approved the Israeli Defense Force's plan, codenamed Gideon's Chariots 2, to invade and occupy the city. Now, as part of that push, Israel says it may call up 50 to 60,000 reservists to help secure control on the ground. At the same time, Israeli forces are continuing to carry out air and artillery strikes across the Strip, hitting targets in Ghan Yunis in the south and Deir El Bala in central Gaza. All of this comes as Israel faces mounting international criticism with opponents accusing it of waging a campaign of starvation or even genocide. So you ask yourself, what's the truth on the ground? Well, Brian Macbeth, a 20 year army veteran and friend of the show, is fresh off a fact finding trip to Israel. You can check out his YouTube channel at Ryan Macbeth programming. He joins us now on the Situation Report. Ryan, thanks very much and welcome back to the PDB Man.
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C
Well, thank you so much for inviting me. It's great to be back on.
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A
All right, let's, let's, let's start about with the trip to Israel. I got a lot of questions here. Well, the most interesting thing you picked up while you were there at Israel, what was it?
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C
I think the most interesting thing I picked up was that this is not Northern Ireland. And you know, my, my family is from Lisbon, Northern Ireland, Protestant. And I always looked at the conflict as, oh, the Palestinians are just Catholics, right? We need to give them land, we need to give them a, their own government and they'll be fine. And after going to Israel, I went to Israel with Newsmax specifically to do stories on the 69th Hammer Squadron which flew over Iran, and to do a story about a rocket attack on some Drew's children who were playing soccer. After talking with a whole bunch of people, what I realized is that I was totally wrong about that.
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D
This is not the Troubles.
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C
This, this is a fundamental attitude by many Palestinians that Israel and Israel, they should not exist. And I used to say to myself, well, why the heck can't Israel create a Sons of Palestine, right?
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D
Just an organization no different than the.
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C
Sons of Iraq, where we are moderate Palestinians. We give them a two week course and say, go fight Hamas, take back your country. And the reason is that once they're done fighting Hamas, they'll get, they're going to turn to the right and go march straight into Israel. And that's why that idea has never seriously been entertained, no matter how much I said it, or General Petraeus, who also championed that idea. This is not Iraq, this is not Northern Ireland. This is a totally separate case. And of course I viewed that through the lens of an Ulsterman or a guy who served in Iraq. And I'm glad that I took that trip because it really showed me how wrong I was.
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A
Was there a moment during the course of that trip? Was there a briefing? Was there a visit to a particular location? Or was it just a series of factors that got you to that point?
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C
Well, I think it clicked for me when I went to this one kibbutz which was right on the border with Gaza. I think it was Negev Oz, I might be pronouncing that incorrectly, but at this kibbutz they had. I spoke with a couple of kibbutz workers and I asked these guys, first of all, I'm more concerned with, tell me about the bodies, the bodies of the Palestinians that were killed by security forces. Did they have water? What was the condition of their weapons? I mean, I would have given anything to like pull a lot number off ammunition, right? Like, let's see where this is coming from. Right. Couldn't get that granular detail. But one of the things that they said was that a lot of these guys had maps on them. And these maps were drawn by Palestinian guest workers. Every day Palestinians would come in from Gaza, they would come in to Israel, and they would work on the kibbutz. They'd work the fields and stuff. I talked with one guy who ran a construction company, and his construction company was run with Palestinians, Palestinian laborers, carpenters, drywall guys for tile. He used those workers in his company, and his company went out of business. But a lot of the workers that entered into work on the kibbutz, they were drawing maps of the locations on the kibbutz to hit. And that's kind of what had struck me, that nothing, nothing we do is.
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A
Going to fix this.
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C
I don't have an answer on how to fix it, but now at least I can identify the problem.
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A
Yeah, I honestly, I don't think anybody's got an answer on how to fix it, frankly. But it's interesting. I had a conversation earlier today with some folks who were saying, well, look, maybe just calling up the reservists, right, in Israel, maybe just getting yourself in position, you know, taking some high ground, getting to the outskirts of Gaza City, maybe that's enough. And that will convince, you know, Hamas to, you know, say, okay, that's it. You know, we're going to demilitarize, we're going to give up our arms. You know, leadership's going to leave. And, you know, my point, whether, you know, it was brilliant or not, was that that's not how this works. The core group of Hamas, they've been indoctrinated. Now they're at that age where they grew up and in the schools, right? And it was an indoctrination program for those children. Basically, every. Every Israeli, every Jew should be killed. And so now you've got this core group of fighters, and they're not. They don't. They're not thinking rationally. It's not. You can't put a Western mindset and a logic train and overlay it on a. On a radical Islamist, you know, who's spent years being told that, you know, they're going to. They're going to be celebrated by killing Israelis. So it is. Again, you know, I don't know that anyone's got an answer to it, but I just. I just raised that as a point.
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C
I think you're absolutely correct. While I was there, I saw the map, a map of what we would call Israel. And this map was in Arabic, of course, because it was a map for school children in a kindergarten. And the map had the Arabic names of Israeli cities. And I'm not talking about the Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew name, talking about the original Arab names. And that's Kind of when it strikes you that, that this is not something that's going to be solved by force of arms, this is going to require 30 years of education to kind of.
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A
Snap people out of that old way of thinking. I'm curious if during your stay over there, to what, to what degree did you get any insight? I have an opportunity to discuss the tunnel systems in Gaza.
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C
So I did have an opportunity to discuss this. While we were at one location, we periodically heard explosions. And at first I thought it was outgoing Artillery155, but then I didn't hear a. The actual explosion of the round. I didn't hear any fire.
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D
Perfect.
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C
So I thought, all right. I asked about this. And they said, well, those are controlled detonations of tunnels. So right now There is between 350 to 450 miles of underground tunnels that was built at the cost of about a billion dollars over the last 15 years. And this is larger than the New York City, almost twice as large as the New York City subway system. When I think about that, twice as large as the New York City subway system. So whenever they find a tunnel, they do a controlled detonation to collapse that tunnel. So when you look out at videos and you see the devastation, at least in the South, Khan, Eunice and so on, you might think, oh, my God, the Israelis are just bombing everything. And they're not. Some of those. Some of the destroyed houses are from bombs. A lot of them are through bulldozers because the Israelis at this point. But someone's firing from a building. Just get the D9 bulldozer in here. Knock the building down. We're not dealing with it. Or these houses collapse when the tunnel system underneath it is detonated. And you know that, that doesn't matter to the guy whose house it was. Right. They don't care how it was destroyed. And a lot of these people that don't really have much agency, they can't really say to Hamas, no, please don't build a tunnel under my house.
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A
It'll be. They'll be killed.
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C
Right. Or they agree with them. Right. So the tunnel system is extensive. And I heard multiple control detonations when.
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A
I was close to the border.
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C
And again, that's one of those things. Israelis are sending drones down into the tunnels to clear them. Sometimes dogs, rarely. They bring people down because there are IDs planted inside of these tunnels. And it's just easier to do a controlled debt and bring the whole tunnel down.
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A
Yeah, you think about, I mean, for some reason that it popped in my Head while you were just saying that, that, you know, the tunnel rats from, from the old Vietnam War era. And you know, that was, you know, they, they did an amazing job, meaning the Viet Cong and you know, the North Vietnamese army in terms of building tunnels. But it wasn't like this. You know, they didn't have, you know, they weren't tiled and they didn't have, you know, indoor plumbing and it was, it wasn't like quite like that. But yeah, and it's hard also to imagine that the hospitals, right, or the schools, you know, it's, it's hard to miss when you're, you're excavating and building a large scale tunnel system right under infrastructure. Right. But to your point, you know, a lot of those folks don't have the ability to turn to Hamas and haven't had that ability over the years to say, you know, sorry, I don't, I don't want that. You don't want to do that now? You know, maybe when we talk about solutions, maybe the solution is you get to a point where the people have suffered so much that they rightly turn their wrath on Hamas which has stolen so much of their, their money, the citizens money over the years for their own purposes. But I, you know, I'll leave it right there for a second. Ryan, if you could stay where you are. Don't leave, don't go anywhere. You know, smoke them if you got them. We have to take a quick break, then we'll be right back with Ryan McBeth. You can catch him, don't forget, on YouTube and I suggest strongly that you do on YouTube at Ryan, Macbeth programming. But we'll be right back with more of the situation report. Stay with us. Hey, Mike Baker here. And now if there's something that we can believe in, it's hard work and showing up for the people who count on us. Am I right? And to do that though, what do you need? I'll tell you what you need. You need a good night's sleep. You know how important that is? So let me tell you about a great company. It's called Beam. B E A M. Now Beam is proudly founded in America and it's run by people who share our values. I'm talking about hard work, integrity and delivering results. It's a healthy nighttime blend packed with science backed ingredients shown to improve sleep so you can wake up refreshed and, and ready to take on the day. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Look, dream is made with a powerful blend of all natural ingredients. I'm talking about things like reishi, magnesium, L theanine, apigenin and melatonin. And I know that you're impressed that I can pronounce all those words. Look, it's no junk. It's just science backed ingredients that help you fall asleep and stay asleep. And here's the deal. BEAM is giving my listeners the ultimate patriot discount of up to 40% off. I said 40. That's 4,0. Try their best selling dream powder and get up to 40% off. For a limited time. Go to shopbeam.com mike that's Mike and use code mike at checkout again that's shop. Beam.com/mike and use code Mike for up to 40% off. Sleep better, wake up stronger and show up ready for your family, your work and your country. Because when you're well rested, well, frankly, you're unstoppable.
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What you eating?
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The new banana split cookie from ampm. All freshly baked with real butter with banana, chocolate and strawberry flavors. Wow, that sounds amazing.
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Can I have a bite?
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A
Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Ryan McBeth. You can check him out on YouTube at Ryan MacBeth Programming or on substack@ryan mcbeth.substack.com Ryan, you know, let me ask you this and this, I know this gives you a lot of running room here, but if you were to prioritize and talk about, based on, on your visit to Israel, the, the top, say, let's say the top three threats facing the IDF right now in their efforts inside Gaza, what would they be?
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C
Oh, it would be IDs, improvised explosive devices. They are absolutely everywhere. Second threat is snipers. Snipers in, in Gaza, they tend to operate in teams of three or four. So you have a shooter, a guy who's actually pulling the trigger.
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D
You have a spotter, the person who's.
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C
Actually calling the shots, looking for the targets. You have a cameraman because if the shot isn't on video, that's a wasted opportunity for propaganda. And the fourth is a team leader or radio operator. So you have sniper cells operating in teams of four, which is a fairly unique development. And then the third thing is Being captured.
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D
Speaking.
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C
I spoke with this unit called Para, which is sort of like Special Forces reserve unit that was formed of guys who live in the north, in the Golan. And these guys essentially are very afraid of being captured because if you are captured, you are not going to be treated very well. So capture is a major, major concern that they think about and they plan for before they step out of the wire. So those are the three major things.
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A
You know, to what degree, let's go with the IEDs. To what degree are they, are they having success clearing spaces? I mean, because again, you can imagine, look, we've seen this before, right? This is not unusual in conflict, whether it's urban or more traditional battlefields. You know, you get a ceasefire, you get a peace plan, and then you're left with, with years of misery. But, you know, give us a sense of just how mined or compromised you know, Gaza is at this stage.
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C
Essentially every house. The one of the reasons that they bring in the D9 bulldozer is that it's just easier just take down that house and the IED will explode inside the rubble. There are IEDs buried inside of rubble, there's hidey holes inside of rubble the guys can pop out and shoot from. And so you walk past that area, you throw grenades in. It's, it is a three dimensional battle space. And we're not talking about the kind of battle space that we saw in Iraq where. All right, let's, let's find Daddy El Batty the bomb maker, right? Because if we take out Daddy El Batty, then there'll be no more IEDs in this area. All these IEDs were pre constructed or constructed relatively recently. So it's not like we can find that particular bomb maker and take them out. And then the IED, the number of IEDs drop. These things were already manufactured, just waiting to be deployed. And there's hundreds, thousands of them in inside of rooms, inside of armories, under tunnels. So these things get brought out, they get placed in buildings and they know the Israelis are going to come and that's when they'll try to detonate them if the D9 bulldozer doesn't get to them first.
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A
Okay, what I know this is, you know, asking for speculation, I suppose, but what do you make of the, of the, you know, planned offensive, right, to take Gaza City, to relocate hundreds and hundreds of thousands of citizens south. Is that from your discussions over there in Israel on this trip you just got back from, does it appear that that is an operational plan that is set and going to move forward? Or does it seem as if they're, you know, they're setting the table, but the real goal is to try to just force a cease fire ahead of an operation like that.
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C
Now they're, they're, they're going ahead with the operation. They've already decided to call up, I want to say, 60,000 reservists. That's off the top of my head. I believe that was the number that was being thrown around. They've already started to try to evacuate people south. One of the big problems that they have is Gaza City was relatively untouched. And, you know, if you're a citizen and your apartment building hasn't been a part of a combat zone, you might be a little reluctant to leave now because it's one of the few spaces that hasn't been destroyed. So you don't necessarily want to leave and have all your stuff looted by, by other people who might come in afterwards. So it's kind of a tough sell to get people to come out of there. And we're also dealing with people who, who I, I'm not going to talk about starvation, but there is definitely malnutrition and there's definitely hunger. Not everybody is getting the amount of calories they need to eat. And it's not like the Israelis can bust these people. So that means they have to walk. So now you have elderly people, you have children may not be getting enough calories. And so to have them walk, have them move from Gaza City below through the flot, the forward line of troops, that's a, that's a pretty tough sell to any kind of citizen. So Israel might want to evacuate these people, but whether they're willing to leave and whether they physically have the calories to leave and are willing to leave their source of calories. Right. Because if you're living in a, in an area, you probably can go get aid or you can go to the market. There is some food that you have stockpiled in your home. To leave all that, that's a very frightening prospect for a lot of people. So it might be difficult for the Israelis to get these Palestinians in Gaza City to leave in the first place.
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A
Yeah, you think about the complexity of this. It's not just the strategies and, you know, the logistics of urban combat in a incredibly difficult environment. It's also there's this massive logistical issue of, of relocating, you know, the citizens temporarily to someplace. Now, last question on, on this subject is to what degree did you see anything regarding the internal dissent inside Israel over, you know, plans by the government to do this operation with Gaza City. There's been a lot of talk, you know, there's been protests in the streets, you know, saying we just need a hostage deal now, come up with a ceasefire, even if it means leaving Hamas in place and still operational. What was your sense from being there?
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C
So I was not directed to talk to anybody. I wasn't funneled towards certain people, and I got free rein to ask any questions I wanted of anybody I wanted. And I can tell you, just being out on the street in the, in the little time I had in between various visits that we were doing was, I would say in another scientific survey, about 80% of the people I talked to want this war to just end. There are a lot of people who have lost their jobs. There's a lot of people whose businesses have been destroyed because they keep going back onto reserve duty. And it is a, it is a major, major issue. So I would say, roughly from my own unscientific polling, just talking to people, about 80% of people just want some guild to be struck and for the war to end.
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A
That is, that is fascinating. Okay, well, here's, here's a thought. You know, a lot of people know Ryan as a super smart guy with a ridiculous collection of flags and challenge coins, but hopefully you also know him as an author. And, and so tell me about, tell me about your, your last book, the. The Last Republic. And I understand, I hear from my intel sources that you're coming up with a sequel.
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D
That's great.
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C
I do have a fictional. It's called the Last Republic. It's kind of an ultra history.
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A
Oh, look at this. It's almost, it's almost like we planned this. That was, you know, that was spontaneous. People won't believe it because it was so smooth, but you had no idea I was going to say that.
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C
Yeah. So this, this novel is essentially about how instead of creating the Utah Territory, Brigham Young creates his own country. Which, when I was In Utah about 10 years ago, I went to the Pioneer Museum and I saw all the artifacts of the Mormon exodus to Utah and talked to this one woman there who was a curator, and she said, yeah, Brigham Young was about this close, creating his own country. So this book kind of imagines what the world would be like if there was a Mormon country, Latter Day Saints country, inside the US and what happens 170 years later when the US doesn't like their foreign policy anymore and decides to make a change. So that's the basic plot of the Last Republic.
- [23:53]
A
That's. That is fascinating. I. I would suggest everyone getting out there, and if you don't have a copy of it, get a copy of it. And that Mormon exodus and, and the sort of the persecution of the Mormons east before that happened is, Is a really fascinating time here in. In U. S. History. And you've got a sequel on the way.
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C
I do. I call it lies to rule men. And this particular sequel is about a Catholic rebellion in the. In the south. You know, desert is a multicultural country. This, this is a predominantly Mormon nation, but there are Catholics or protestants, there are Jews, a couple of Muslims and Hindus as well. But in the south, near the border of Mexico, you have a lot of Mexican deseretans. And when these Catholics realize that a war might be brewing between the United States and Desiree, they decide, you know what? We don't necessarily want to die for.
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D
A bunch of people in Salt Lake City.
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C
So they rebel. And that is the. The sequel, which should be coming out in November. Fingers crossed.
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A
Nice. Well, when the last republic gets made into a movie, think of me for a small part in there. Maybe it's Brigham Young. I'd look great with. I'd like a chin beard and a bearded hat. Yeah, yeah. So. All right. Hey, listen, Ryan, it's always delight. I don't say that lightly, to have you here on the situation report. I'm glad you're back safely from. From Israel. Look forward to the next time you come on the. On the show. Thank you again, man.
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C
It's always a pleasure.
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A
Thank you so much for inviting me again. Ryan Macbeth, you can find him on YouTube at Ryan Macbeth programming. I suggest you do that. Don't do it just yet, you know, because you're watching the situation report. All right, coming up, the justice department is investigating whether Washington, DC's Metropolitan Police Department manipulated crime data. Have you heard about this? John Lott, president of the crime prevention research center, will stop by to give his insight. Stay with us. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me ask you a question about your personal finances. What if you could delay your next two mortgage payments? Intriguing, right? Imagine putting those two payments in your pocket and finally getting a little breathing room. Now, it's possible, when you call American financing. Look, if you're feeling stretched by everyday expenses, you know what I'm talking about. Grocery bills, gas bills, auto bills. Right. Utility bills. They're all piling up where you're not alone. And many Americans are putting those expenses on credit cards. And for many, well, they don't seem to see a way out. American financing, though, can show you how to use your home's equity to pay off that debt. So give American Financing a call today to look into your options. Their salary based mortgage consultants are helping homeowners just like you restructure their loans and consolidate debt, all without upfront fees. And that's important. And their customers are saving an average of $800 a month. Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I think that's something like a $10,000 raise. It's fast, it's simple and it could save your budget. So call now, the number 866-885-1881 again, that's 866-885-1881 or just visit American financing.net PDB welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether Washington, DC's Metropolitan Police Department manipulated crime statistics to make the city appear safer than it really is. Allegations of fake data predate President Trump's recent interventions in the Capitol aimed at cracking down on crime. At the center of the controversy is Commander Michael Pulliam, who was placed on paid leave in May of this year. Now he's accused of altering violent crime numbers to improve the city's image, an allegation that he denies. Pulliam's union has pushed back, claiming that the mpd, the Metropolitan Police Department leadership, pressured officers to falsify reports. So it's really not good either way. So what's really happening inside DC's police force? And why would they be cooking the books on crime? And John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research center, joins us with his insight. John, thanks very much for taking the time to be here with us on the SITUATION report.
- [28:01]
D
Oh, sure. Thanks for having me on.
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A
Let me, let me start with a very 30,000 foot question with Washington, D.C. and crime and statistics. What should we believe? Because we're hearing obviously from one side they're saying it's never been better and from the other side we're hearing this is a disaster. So what, what should the people believe?
- [28:24]
D
Right. Well, we're going to start at this high of an altitude, looking at the thing, I think it's just important for people to understand there are different, there are different measures that we have of crime. What people normally talk about are crimes reported to police. One of the big problems with that is that we've known for many decades that most crimes aren't reported to police. Only about 40% of violent crimes are reported to police. And only about 30% of property crimes are reported to police. And we also know that that varies in part based on whether people think that the criminals are going to be caught and punished. When you have places with really high crime rates and low arrest rates, people aren't going to feel, you know, the benefit very much for taking the time to go and report crimes to the police. And D.C. i think probably is very emblematic of having that type of problem that's there. The other thing is, as I'm sure you and others know, that you face a problem where many police officers and the police union have complained for a number of years now that manipulations are occurring with the crime data. You have situations where somebody may even be shot in the case of some type of crime, but the police are ordered to go and report it as person taken to hospital for treatment, you know, which isn't even a crime type of thing. You have other ones, officers who say, you know, they will investigate an assault, a weapons present and they're told not to include the weapon in it to so reduce it from a felony assault to a misdemeanor. And the problem is is that many of these reclassifications result in instances which aren't recorded by DC and don't get included in the FBI data. Now the Department of Justice is going to be doing an investigation into this. DC claims oh well, this is just isolated for one police district. The police union has said that that's preposterous. This has been occurring across the entire district and also it's been getting worse over time. So those are just a couple things to keep in the back of your mind when we talk about these crime data because we're talking about crimes recorded by the police department there. And so, you know, there are good reasons to take it with a big grain of salt there whether or not these are accurate numbers. But the bottom line is that whether you compare D.C. to other states, I mean, there are a lot of Democrats who want to make D.C. the 51st state or whether you compare it to cities. D.C. has an incredibly high crime rate. If you look at violent crime, for example, DC's violent crime rate is like 54% higher than the worst state that's there. Their murder rate is about 169% higher than the worst state. It's like 523% higher than the average murder rate across different states. For something like robbery, I mean, it's just phenomenal. The robbery, the robbery rate in D.C. is 955% higher than than for the average state. So you know, you look through these numbers, property crime is off the, off the Charts both in terms of being higher than the highest state and higher than the average. If you look at it for cities, DC, if you look at the 20 largest cities, for example, DC's murder rate is higher than any of those cities. In fact, it's 50% higher than the worst city in the 20 most populous cities that's there, which is Philadelphia. You know, you could, you could robberies. Not only is D.C. kind of by far the highest of any of the 20 largest, or 25 or 30 largest, even if you look at all cities in the United States, over 10,000 in population, there's like 709, 796 such cities in the United States. You're talking about the United. The D.C. ranks third in terms of, of the rakes there. So it's just for robbery rates. So it's just phenomenally high.
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A
That is, it's really fascinating. I want to pick up on, on something you said towards the beginning, which was, you know, it's based on reported crime. And what I find interesting there is, I hadn't really thought about that as an issue in the US now, you know, my company, I've got a business that does a variety of things, including investigations and, and intelligence collection and other things. And we've got offices in Mexico, Mexico City and Monterrey and down in Mexico. Right. The, the reported crime rate is incredibly low because there's really no trust in, in the police structure there. There's no, no confidence among the people that, you know, if anything, they're worried about getting, you know, a shakedown from whoever they report the crime to. And so that is, is to be expected. So when you see the number of violent crimes, you know, okay, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I never thought about that as an issue here in the States.
- [34:15]
D
Academics have done a lot of work on this over the years. You find it changing over time. And it's gotten worse over the last four or five years. It's gotten worse for multiple reasons. One is the arrest rates have gone down recently. In 2022, for example, if you look at the arrest rates for cities, over a million for violent crime, for reported violent crime, it was 20%. For total violent crime, only 8% resulted in arrests. You know, whether people report crimes, as I say, depends on part whether people think. I mean, you give me examples in Mexico and I've recently been to places like Argentina and Brazil to give talks and, you know, it's just. I'll give you an example. So the robbery rate in the United states is about 60 per hundred thousand people. In Argentina, it's like 10, 50 per thousand people. You know, you're talking about something in the low single digits that result in arrest there. You know, people have to really wonder is it really worth my time going and taking reporting it? The other. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is, and then is, for example, it's become more difficult in many places in the country in the United States to go and report crimes. So let's say six years ago you had a crime occur and you'd call up 911 and they'd send out a police car to go and take the report in some parts of the country. Now, because of the reduction in the number of police officers that are there, you call up and they'll ask you if the criminal is still there committing the crime. And people will almost always say, no, they're not there anymore. And then the 911 operator will say, well, okay, well, you can come down to the police station and wait in line and fill out a police report. And the problem is if, if you make it more time consuming, more difficult for somebody to report a crime to the police, you're going to have some people are going to say, you know, I would have reported it before, but I'm not going to go down. And the thing is, calling up 911 doesn't get it in the FBI data. You actually have to have a police officer go and fill out a police report for it to count like that. And so there are lots of things that have been changing over time. You know, hopefully in some parts of the country that's starting to fix itself again. But, you know, it's, you have to, you can't make it difficult for people to report crimes and you have to give them some confidence, as you say, that something's going to happen to the criminal.
- [37:09]
A
Yeah. You know, I want to pick up on, on something you've just pointed out here. But right now, Jonathan, stay where you are. Don't go anywhere. We've got to take a quick break. We'll be back with John Mott and more from the situation report.
- [37:24]
D
Stay with us.
- [37:26]
A
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- [38:42]
B
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- [39:12]
A
Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. John, we've been talking about all things crime statistics, particularly as it relates to Washington, D.C. and you brought up an interesting point in the previous segment. To what degree do the stats from say, the city databases, state databases, how do they vary from the, the federal database or the FBI, you know, database and you know, how, you know, how much room is there between one and the other?
- [39:52]
D
Well, there shouldn't be a lot. The FBI puts down certain standards that they expect local governments to meet in terms of how they record those things. So the FBI data hopefully is provides a consistent measure across the different places. Now, some localities may have two sets of books. They may have one set that they report to the FBI and another set that they keep for their own records. You know, what they report these things, but you know, that's just extra work for them to do. And so the vast majority of places just go and use the FBI definitions for how to go and categorize crime. And so that's usually what happens with.
- [40:41]
A
Washington, D.C. in particular. Part of the story that's emerged has been the amount of Crime being perpetrated by minors, by. By youth. What can you tell us about that?
- [40:53]
D
Well, it's not a mystery. I mean, look, the bottom line for dealing with crime in general is you have to make it risky for criminals to commit crime. That means higher arrest rates, higher conviction rates, longer prison sentences, and letting people be able to go and defend themselves also matters. You have two different criminal justice systems in D.C. probably more than even most places. You have the U.S. attorney who deals with adult cases of crime, and then the district itself deals with juvenile cases. You know, under Biden, they appointed a U.S. attorney who just really wasn't interested in going after adult cases that he had. In 2022, 67% of arrests did not result in prosecution. Even in 2023, over 56% of the cases did not result in prosecution for adults. The juvenile cases have been handled almost exclusively in family courts. And even when the person has been convicted, they haven't really faced punishment in a large percentage of these cases. And so it's, you know, if. If you don't have it so that people face a consequence for their action, it's not too surprising that you're going to have more crime that occurs. Now, there's one other point to make here, and that is, you know, the prosecutions, that's part of it, but going and arresting people to begin with is the other part of it. And D.C. has had recently, they've increased a little bit recently, but they still have only had about 1300 patrol officers for the district. Now, you have to understand that that means they have no more than 400 that are on duty at any point in time. And so you have 400 patrol officers basically out there for a district of 721,000 or so people. And that's just, you know, it's understandable how the police union have said that they're just stretched awfully thin and they're not able to go because these people are doing all sorts of different tasks out there for the. For 400 that are there. And so it's not too surprising, you know, you're gonna have a hard time arresting these people. And beyond that, the D.C. council has put a lot of restrictions on what the police are able to go and do in terms of who they're able to arrest, who they're able to stop. And. And it's really tied their hands. So they're. So effectively, the 400 people that you have there might be doing less of a job in terms of catching people than you might have 400 people in some other city that doesn't have all the restrictions that the council has put on the officers.
- [43:54]
A
Do you have or have you seen, have you compiled, what can you tell us about the correlation between police on the streets, a visible police presence, and crime stats?
- [44:09]
D
Look, I was chief economist at the Sentencing Commission. I must have read over a thousand trial transcripts. And you know, criminals are like anybody else, if, if something's more risky, they're going to do less of it. And, you know, if you have police officers that are around there, they're not going to go and do things that are going to get them in trouble. And so you can also go back to something like James Q. Wilson's broken window hypothesis that kind of was made famous under Giuliani in New York. And that is, if people feel safer because you don't have broken windows, you don't have problems occurring all over the place. More people are going to be out and about, and if more people are out and about, you have more witnesses. And that also makes it riskier for criminals to go and commit crimes that are there. And so I think all those things matter. You know, it's. And the Trump administration is changing lots of those things. You know, you put 800 or so FBI, DEA, ATF agents out on the streets. You know, that's a pretty huge percentage increase in the number of patrol officers that you essentially have there. Plus you have National Guard people out there. Judge Jeanine Pirro has made a major change in terms of prosecutions. As I mentioned before, under the Biden administration. The U.S. attorney there was kind of a Soros type person who didn't really believe in prosecuting people to deter crime. She is much more proactive in terms of going after these individuals that are there. And also they're trying to push to change the role so that the U.S. attorney will be able to go and prosecute juveniles who commit serious violent crimes as adults. And there are other changes that the Trump administration has made, and that is things like with concealed carry permits, it's been very difficult to get a concealed carry permit in D.C. you know, you're lucky if you could go through the process in six months. Up until recently, the Trump administration essentially put pressure on DC to go and agree to issue permits within two weeks now, rather than six plus months. You know, there's still lots of other changes that need to be made there in terms of the cost. I mean, if my research convinces me of anything, it's basically, or minorities, the people are most likely victims of violent crime who benefit the most from Being able to have a gun for protection, it's very costly to go through the process even now to get a permit there. Who do they think they're stopping from being able to go and protect themselves with those types of things? So there are a lot of changes that are going on and I think if they can make other changes, they'll reduce the crime by juveniles more than is being done right now.
- [47:22]
A
Yeah, I think, look, I think it's fair to say that if the Obama administration or, or the Biden administration had done taken these same steps to create a safer environment and to deal with crime issues in Washington, D.C. you wouldn't have been getting pushback from Gavin Newsom.
- [47:39]
C
Right.
- [47:39]
A
Or, you know, any other Democratic leader, Hillary Clinton or whomever.
- [47:44]
D
Right.
- [47:44]
A
You know, so there's an element, there's an element here of no matter what Trump does, right, the other side is going to scream and fall onto the fainting couch.
- [47:55]
D
Democrats claim that they care about the poor, that they care about the minority. Who do they think the victims of.
- [48:03]
A
These crimes are that are there?
- [48:06]
D
I mean, isn't it pretty obvious? I mean, D.C. first of all is overwhelmingly minority city that's there. But even within that, the people who are the victims of the crime are the people that the Democrats claim that they care about. And yet, you know, one can go and say you care about the criminals, but you know, like 90% of blacks are murdered by blacks that are there. You know, the crime that's there, the stores that are destroyed and run out of the area because of the crime in those areas. Who do you think works in those stores? Who do you think shops in those stores? Who do you think owns property near where the crimes are occurring there, whose value is depressed because of the higher crime that's occurring. So they claim that they care about it, but I don't know, they just don't. Either they don't understand or they don't care that the way you make people safer is by making it risky for the criminals to go and commit these crimes.
- [49:05]
A
Yeah, I think part of this is, again, I keep going back to sort of the performative art and self righteousness of, of some of the progressives who, you know, it doesn't matter what the issue is. Right. They'll always find themselves on the wrong issue side of the issue as long as they're arguing against the Trump administration. And you're getting a lot of pushback from some, you know, some, you know, high profile liberal residents in places like Georgetown or, you know, Cleveland park, you know, Chevy Chase, Tony, parts of the, of the area who, you know, again, I've had conversations with a handful of very liberal Democrats, and I've, he said the same thing. I said, I tell you what, you go out for a walk at night to the four quadrants of the city on your own by yourself at nighttime. And if you're willing to do that for 60 minutes, then I'll donate $1,000 to the DNC.
- [49:53]
C
Right.
- [49:54]
A
I haven't had anybody take me up on it yet. As someone who used to own a home in Washington, D.C. as someone who's one of my kids, lived in, in D.C. eventually moved out because she was tired of, of being, you know, fearful of walking from her place to wherever she had to park her car, you know, in the evening. Look, it's a wonderful city. It's a, it's a, it's the people city. And the residents, you know, deserve a safe environment. And frankly, right now, if you have to worry and your head's on a swivel at nighttime because you're walking in Lafayette Square near the White House, then, yeah, there's an issue that they should be dealing with and it frankly, should be bipartisan. But it's not because, again, meh, you know, if Trump's for it, we're all against it. John Lott, I didn't mean to. I'm going to climb off my soapbox now, John, but I want to tell you that this has been a delightful conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I hope that when we call you the next time that you will come back, because I don't think we're going to solve the issue of crime anytime in the near future. I really appreciate you taking the time here on THE Situation report. Thank you. And I look forward to our next conversation. All right, well, that's all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. Listen, if you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, please reach out to me at PDB@the FIRSTTV.com you know, you know this. Every, every week at the PDB headquarters, located under a dormant volcano in an underground complex in an undisclosed location, Carl the mailman drops off another sack of mail. We don't know how he finds us, but he always does. And it's filled to the brim with your postcards, your faxes, your emails, your telegrams, your Western Union wires. And every month, our incredible staff, they put together what we call our Ask Me anything episode. So I hope you keep the cards and letters coming. That's the point of my exercise there. Finally, to listen to the podcast of the show ad free. You can do that. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com I'm Mike Baker and until next time. Well, you know the drill. Stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.