Jon Stewart Debunks GOP’s City Crime Narrative | Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

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Gon, nice to say it. Tonight, my name is John Short. We have an unbelievable show for you tonight.

Uh.

Next week, obviously we're gonna have the big debate show. Uh. But tonight we're gonna start.

We're gonna get a quick state of play on this incredibly consequential presidential election. I guess the election is basically boiled down to each candidate accusing the other of having soup where there should be brain. There is plenty of

Now, don't look.

Directly at the sun, sir, that would.

Now.

And as for Trump, basically it's Trump tripping over his own dick anytime he tries to capitalize on Biden's age, like this weekend, Trump appeared to the herbal life of political conventions, Turning Point, USA, where Trump articulated his case for having best brain full neurons smart.

Joe bideny has no plan. He's got absolutely no plan. He doesn't even know what the word inflation means. Oh, oh, you did it. No, Oh, Joe Biden's so dumb.

He thinks inflation has arived in the overall price level for goods and services in the economy, as measured by the.

Consumer Price Index over time. Oh shit, Oh.

All right, it turns out that is what it is. I'm sorry being told that is what inflation is.

But still you tell him, Donna t.

The case he's making to the American public is that he's the sharpest tool in the shed. See if you can find the flaw in his logic just one sentence later.

I don't think if you gave him a quiz.

I think he should take a cognitive test like I did.

I took a cognitive test and I aced it.

Doc Ronnie, doctor Ronnie Johnson. Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, Congressman from Texas Ronnie Johnson.

Anything? That cognitive test is a great point.

If only his doctor was actually named Ronnie Johnson and not actually named Ronnie Jackson. He got the guy's name wrong on his cognitive test.

I don't even know what to say. Well, here's the problem. The sad thing is under mag of law, his name is now Ronnie Johnson.

This is the way. Those aren't the only comments. Trump seems to have spit the bid on. Just weeks before he heads to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he called Milwaukee quote a horrible city, forcing liberals around the country to defend Milwaukee, a city they then had to pretend to have been to. Oh, Milwaukee's the finest city in I want to say Indiana. But don't worry because Donald Trump cleared the whole thing up.

Well, I think it was very clear what I meant. I said, We're very concerned with crime. I love Milwaukee. I have great friends in Milwaukee. But it's as you know, the crime numbers are terrible and we have to be very careful.

Yeah, lots of criminals in milwau Haukee.

Are you talking about now, sir?

Or when you and your felonious friends come to town. The script that just says John turns and makes dumb face.

That's what I did. I made a dumb.

Anyway, it's a good save by former President Trump.

The city's great. He loves Milwaukee.

It's the dang Democrat encouraged crime. It's one of the right's favorite talking points, not just from Milwaukee, but for all Democratic run cities, that those cities are crime infested shitholes where life is miserable and everyone hates everybody. But people who live in the these cities know that this rhetoric is only kind of true now, and when people who don't live in these cities say it, it's very annoying.

By the way, it does turn out the crime is actually down.

The FBI reporting the nation's violent crime rate has dropped dramatically this year. Overall violent crime down fifteen percent from last year, murders down twenty six percent.

By every national metric, crime is down, solid trend. Crime is down. It's all a misunderstanding.

But now that the FBI numbers are out, I'm sure that the right wing media will adjust accordingly. Quality of life is not captured in any.

Of the FBI numbers.

And if you live in a blue city, walk outside and use your ez you should use your freaking eyes. Do you even see over your shoulder. They were doing double donuts in a.

Parking lot, the so lay of automobiles, but not crime. That's art.

Oh, but I'm sorry you were downplaying the crime statistics.

Now they say there's no crime wave, but do you feel safe? Doesn't feel that way.

It certainly doesn't feel that way for the average American today.

Democrats will say, well, but crime is down, it's not how people feel. Yeah, as the.

Right always famously says, feelings, don't care about your facts, your facts.

Isn't that the slogan on the right now, you know? Very interesting? It doesn't bring up a good point though.

If crime is down so much, why do people, especially on the right, feel like it's up.

Oh, the crime graphic is.

I hadn't really calculated slope in a while, but it seems like the X axis is moving into the nodes bleeds while the WHY axis is being tied down and sodomized.

I'm sure.

Sure that's just a one off and not your network's entire programming.

Another day, another stream of brazen violent crimes.

The havoc being wreaked upon America, undoubtedly coming to a town or city near you. Blatant and outrageous crimes occurring on a daily basis coast to coast. You're seeing that in Chicago and New York, you know, all these Democrat run cities.

There's so much crime in the city. I can't I can't comprehend how people live there.

New York is now this dystopian hellhole of crime and violence. Is now a dystopian hell you're just figuring that out, now, you big puss.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is Time Square Elmo too scarey for you?

Because Times Square Elmo he comes at you.

Are you?

Are you scared of Times Square Elmo because he punches back, unlike all the other Elmos who let you tickle them with no consequences. Yeah, New York's a dystopian hell hole. That and the bagels and pizza is why we move here.

But of course.

Worse, there is one particular type of crime the conservatives scene especially scared about.

Mark.

Why do I keep seeing people pushing other people onto the train tracks? Not that that's not a cry, That's okay, I get that. So the pushing out of the train tracks, that's just a misunderstanding.

Here.

Here's what's happening.

So we do you have people in the subways who are there to try to help other passengers onto the train. But sometimes the train isn't there yet. It's it's not malevolent, it's just early. But I was actually talking about another type of crime.

People are getting shot in the face every single day. You can literally get shot anywhere in the city. We have people getting shot in the subway. People are getting shot out on the street. Going for a loaf of bread. You end up getting shot. Yeah, you get shot. New Yorkers haven't had a sandwich in twelve He is just an egg palm loosen the hands.

First of all, I'm surprised Trump is scared of guns at all, considering he thinks they sound like this.

We had our beautiful marine standing there being the old days bing.

Bong big Bom bo.

I would I would pay good money to hear Trump describe the opening scene of saving Private Ryan big bing bing and then the Nazis of bang Bong Bang Bong.

Nobody can get bread bang bang Bong Ming Ming.

But the point is, if you leave your house in New York, you will be shot dead. To all of our audience members, I'm glad you chose to have your last moments with us.

Have them.

Sadly, I must bid you a melancholy a big bong bing bingbing.

Now, all of this, by the way, is not to say that gun crime does not exist. Of course it does, and some cities are worse than others.

But here's the thing, and I say this.

With all due respect, the balls of these right wing mothers talking about how there's too much gun crime and chaos in our democratic cities when Republicans are the ones who've enabled the flood of illegal weaponry into our cities in the first place. That right, So don't get your little painties in a bunch.

Here's something you want to know.

Ninety three percent of the illegal guns used in crimes in New York City aren't from here. They, like theater majors, have come here to make a name for themselves. Uns come from states like Florida and Georgia and South Carolina where the gun laws relax. And trust me, Florida's not

Look at all the laws and things that they've done.

In two thousand and five, they pass the law that effectively protects gun dealers and the gun manufacturers for being held liable for where their guns end up. They also try and make sure that terrorists and felons can still get guns, and just recently they made sure that they can turn those guns into machine guns with bump stocks. They make it impossible to study the effects of guns, They make it impossible to track the illegal guns. They

He loves to go on.

TV and talk about crime and democratic cities.

Republicans have always been the party of law and order.

And what you have seen is the massive increases in crime have been primarily at Democrat run cities.

Yeah, it turns out while he was complaining about the uptick in gun crimes in New York City, he himself was fighting added scrutiny on gun stores like the two that he owns that have been implicated in over twenty five gun crimes since twenty twenty.

Why would they do this?

There must be a reason, right, because the right always tells us there's no coincidences. Right, Isn't that what we're told all the time. It's almost as though Republicans must have a secret plan for this, funded by their billionaires, to flood our cities with illegal, undocumented guns, pouring them over our state borders in the hopes of killing all off reliable Democratic voters.

The great displacement theory.

That is obviously what's happening, and no honest person would think otherwise. So there's only one real solution, unfortunately, for the borders of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

We have to what's the word by When we come back, Reverend William J. Barber will be joining me on the show Don't Go Right? What about Nadella show I got tonight.

He is a Protestant minister, social activist, Yale Divinity School professor whose latest book is called White Poverty. How exposing myths about race and class can reconstruct American Democracy. Please welcome to the show, Reverend doctor William Barber, Sir.

A job, A job, the booty is called white party holding. Enough, I don't mean he's that white poverty.

You, sir, are famously not white, So why write white poverty?

Well, actually, I come from Caucasian, Black and Tuscaro and descended.

Oh wow.

So and my people are free people in eastern North Carolina. That a lot of those communities. And so in some ways, this book is me, and so to deny any part of my reality would be to deny myself. But here's the problem. I'm concerned about the way we measure poverty in this country is not only a lie, but I can say on this show it's a damn lie.

Sir. You can do more than that if you want.

Okay, okay, okay, we.

Got plenty more roots for that.

I only use the ones that are approved by the Bible.

So, but we say we use official poverty measure says that poverty if you make above thirteen thousand dollars a year, you're not poor. If you make above about thirteen thousand dollars a year, you're not poor. You're kind of in the lower lower middle class.

When was the last time they adjusted.

Well, it's been since the sixties really in some ways, And so what happens with that is, we marginalize poverty and then we racialize it. Whenever we have a brief discussion about poverty, because we're very seldom have it in the news. In political arenas, we put up a black woman with on welfare, which racializes and demeans black people, but then it dismisses tens of millions of white poor people.

You right, this, sixty six sixty six.

Million of the one hundred and thirty five million poor and low wage people in this country, sixty percent of black people are poor low Well, that's twenty six million, thirty percent of white, but that's sixty six million, forty

Makes no sense.

In the richest nation in the world, we have over one hundred and thirty five million poor, low wage people, over forty one percent of our population, and over fifty percent of our children, and it's unnecessary. So white poverty says, we're not playing the game any Let's not.

Look at this through the prism of race. Let's look at it through class. And do you think that that division was a purposeful one?

I think so.

And to expand race, you have to deal with race in America. But what you cannot allow someone to do for something this serious, Where two hundred and ninety five thousand people are dying a year from poverty in low wage how many two hundred ninety five thousand, eight hundred people a.

Day are dying are dying recently from what they would considered probably.

Poverty is a fourth leading cause of death in the country, higher than in piratory disease.

Higher it even impacts respiratory disease because if you're low wage and you're living in an area, chances are the pollution and the toxices is probably higher where you.

Lift all of those things.

And so here we have something that's the fourth leading cause of death eight hundred people a day. When seven people died from vaping, it was a congressional hearing. It was presidential level, right. Imagine if eight hundred politicians were dying a day.

Oh I have well, I can't do that but.

But my point is how everybody would be just up and o or eight hundred middle class.

One hundred thousand people. That's clearly epidemic.

Right.

You just talked about crime.

That's a crime, that's a form of especially when it's unnecessary, it does not happen.

And entrenched, it seems in a lot of communities. It's just it's a cloud that never lifts.

Well, the thing about it is John is in every community. See, that's the point we're making in the book. Whether it's Appalachia, where I met women in West Virginia who have to sell tacos on Tuesdays, so they have a community fund to help women deal with their monthly issues.

Or whether it's out in eastern Kentucky where.

I met black and white coal miners who watched the mines be taken over by multinational companies that move the union rights out of it, or whether it's in the Delta. It's everywhere. There's not a counting in this country now where a person making seven twenty five that's what the minimum wage is, Federal minium wages seven twenty five. It's been like that for fourteen years. John has been raised for fourteen when.

They're trying to raise it to even fifteen. I mean, the fight is everywhere you go. There's a huge fight about trying to bring it to fifteen, and it's going to kill all the jobs.

Which is a lie. Three Nobel Peace Prize economists said it wouldn't kill jobs. In fact, we put more money in the economy and it would actually expand jobs.

But here's the thing.

We had fifteen in a union proposed in twenty twenty eight. Democrats and every Republican stood against fifty five million people, fifty five million people who make fifty two million people who make less than a living wage of fifteen dollars out.

Now, here's the thing.

In sixty three, the March on Washington called for a raise of the minimum waste to two dollars, which, index with inflation, would be over fifteen to day.

Really, yeah, people forget The March on Washington in sixty three was titled for.

Jobs and injustice and justice. It wasn't just about black civil rights.

It was about a broad, inclusive, just feel democracy. And so here we are in this reality and people are hurting everywhere. There's not a county where you can work a minimuma'e job and before a basic two bedroom apartment and waiters and waitresses.

On minimum minimum wage.

Not a county in the country, not a count in the country couldn't if you had a minimum way's job. There's not a county in this country where you could afford it.

You not a federal note, you couldn't.

And this is the working pour. This isn't you know.

I think in the country there's a sense of it's an entitlement mentality. That's why there's a certain character flaw that keeps you there.

These are people that are working.

The entitlement is and in the politicians that keep raising their wages and giving corporations tax breaks, but they won't help the working people. That's the entitlement ranks of the polity, you know, so so and we're talking about during COVID.

Access to good care.

Well, three hundred and fifty thousand people died during COVID so far, one storey said study said from the lack of health care. And if you don't face this job, this is the point of the book. We have to face this, we have to look at it. We had fifteen presidential debates and the last election, forty percent of adult population in poverty, eight hundred people dying a day. Not one debate was focused on it. We've not had an oval or office discussion.

I don't think why don't politicians value what is an incredibly large population in many different I'm sure in swing states, So why don't they do? Poor people need better lobbyists. What is it that can be done to get a politician to listen?

Well, I think that what we're saying now is we just had a study. I asked her to be done as a part of our movement Waking the Sleeping Giant, and this is what we found out. That all of these numbers also tell us that poor and low waste people now represent thirty percent of the elector in the country and over forty percent in states where the margin of victory was less than three percent, and it's Texas

Them in at the top level.

President Biden bring a group of poor, low wage folks and religious leaders to the White House.

If people even listen to them, do they even happen? What is the response been when you reach out to our political class, what's the response been.

Well, because we've been lied to so much, you know, these at first they said, well, it's not that big, and then we prove that it's actually one hundred thirty five hundred fot many, and then they don't expect that people are going to organize. You know, in a democracy you have to engage in agitation, legislation, litigation, and voter participation.

So what we're saying to poor and.

Low waite folks, let's use this power, right And so we're having this gathering before the conventions.

We're going to touch fifteen.

Million poor and low wage voters with the facts on where people stay in a non part, where they stand on the issues, and say, let's mobilized and we.

Because that's the true swing vote.

So Linda Lake, who's a major poster, says, the truest, most powerful, biggest swing vote right now is poor and low waste people. And you know John Folk often asked, men, you and I've talked about this is does our current society required things be like this?

This was the real Crux sedition.

And what this book says is, well, it's kind of like putting your hand in an electric socket that's connected. It requires that you get shot because you put your finger down. You don't have to do it. But if you keep doing things the way you are doing it, you're gonna get shot. So if you keep paying less than a living wage, if you keep denying people health care, if you keep giving greedy, wealthy folk two trillion dollars tax cuts, but you won't even spend the money to

It is actually, I.

Believe criminal a form of a policy violence to continue down the road.

And doesn't it weaken the system as a whole? You know, you could almost make the case that if the system is requiring a permanent, entrenched underclass, and it makes itself ripe for instability. And I'm wondering, is there a way to change the mindset, because the mindset in America is there is a mouture class these poor people are mutures and they're taking resources from me.

I work hard.

They get poor people get healthcare, they get food, they get whatever they need.

I don't get it.

Is there a way to change the mentality to view things not as entitlements but investments, and maybe to get labor not to be viewed as shareholders. That corporations have to view labor not as a means to an ends, but as share holders in that and cannot change the dynamic.

It can.

But one of the first things we believe we have to do, and we talk about maral fusion organizing, is first of all, we should be examining every policy, not by the color of a president's hair, or how many porn stars he touched.

Or how.

Or what's the gate of his walk. Does the policies you propose do they line up with establishing justice? Do they line up with providing for the common defense and promoting the general welfare? Do they line up with our deepest marraligious right. Secondly, we must expose the level of death that's happening, because this is not benign. Thirdly, we must make sure that folks see at all that it's not one group of people. We've been lied to so much about this is an anomaly, This is just a

And then yes, isn't isn't that America first? Isn't that making America great again? Like if you hollow out.

The country, how can you expect it to be strong?

Wouldn't that be the absolute acme of strengthening a country from the bottom up as opposed to the top down.

You would think it would be.

But if you've got people that are still living when they first wrote the constitution and said even poor white men that didn't own jobs or they didn't own land couldn't vote. If you have people with that kind of mentality that this should be an exclusive democracy, that an inclusive But listen, the numbers tell us though they're more of us. The thing is, you can't be lazy in a democracy. You got to fight like heaven.

I mean.

The countries, yeah, I mean, And what we're trying to show people the numbers are now listen. Wisconsin marginal victory twenty thousand vote number poor low Wais voters didn't vote over a million didn't vote, didn't vote. Michigan ten thousand votes. The number poor low WA's vote a million. Pennsylvania forty thousand votes determined the president. Number poor low Ways voted did about two million. North Carolina one hundred and sixty thousand over a million.

So it's not a big lift.

And the number one reason though, we did a study called Waking the Sleeping Giant, that poor low Wis people didn't vote. Nobody talks to them. Politicians don't go in those communities. I've gone in community and people literally cry and say, Red Barber, nobody comes back here. And so what I say to them is, we're back here now, but less mobilized, to make sure they never forget you again, that they never forget you ever again.

White poverty available now.

Reverend Barber will be leading the poor people's campaigns March on.

Washington June twenty ninth. We're gonna tell you quick break, we'll be right back after this.

Hell.

Everybody got dogsalt for tonight.

Oh before we go, quick reminder, This Friday, June twenty First, we are partnering with Headcount and Animal Haven in New York to register voters and get dogs adopted.

So join us at eight.

I write that, join us at in Dog Decision twenty twenty four. I'm sorry, Rescuing Democracy. It's gonna be from two to six pm at two hundred Center Street in New York City.

Uh.

And now, of course we're gonna check in with yourros for the rest of the week. Rodney Chang and Light Ronnie John. Uh, what's up with the diamonds?

Oh?

These old things? Oh, these are just gifts from our dear friend Harlan Crowe, the guy who bribed Clarence Thomas.

What you hold?

Never do that to the earth, because I thought you'd actually be covering the Clarence.

I gotta stop you there, John, Okay, for us to cover that story now after accepting these wonderful gifts would be unethical. Yeah.

Sometimes I think we're almost too ethical. Definitely, Desie and Ronnie Tang, everybody here. I love Milwaukee.

I know you do well.

Speaking to House Republicans, Trump called Milwaukee quote double city.

Hey, can I just say something in Milwaukee?

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