MSNBC host Joe Scarborough rebuked Democrats for minimizing concerns about crime in Washington, D.C., despite black residents’ fears.
Scarborough, on “Morning Joe,” referenced polling by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University conducted between April 22 and May 4 to make his point. He particularly used the polling to argue Democrats do not understand black people’s crime fears in the city. (RELATED: Skyrocketing Crime Prompts Trump To Eye Federal Takeover Of DC)
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“The answer to this problem for Democrats is not, ‘Oh, everything’s okay. There’s nothing to see here. Move along, move along. Oh, Washington has dropped 24% or whatever in crime.’ Well, let me give you some other numbers,” Scarborough said. “The Washington Post took a poll in late April, early May. 91% of Washington residents say crime is a problem. 91% percent. 51% it is an extremely serious problem … we’ve had people before put this in racial terms … I must say this is one thing that I think Democrats have gotten so wrong about crime, so wrong about crime.”
Scarborough then read from the Post’s article on its polling.
“There are stark divides along lines of race and income in the poll, with Black residents and lower-income residents significantly more worried about crime than White residents and those with higher incomes,” the article reads. “As they were last year, Black women are among the most concerned, with 65 percent saying crime is a very or extremely serious issue, compared with 82 percent who said the same last year.”
The MSNBC host asserted Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser “understands” the severity of the crime issue for her residents.
“I mean, those are huge numbers. And it is black residents of Washington, D.C., and those who are struggling economically who see it as the most serious problem,” he said.
“So when somebody comes on TV acting like they’re the champions of black voters, and ‘No, we can’t have this happen,’ I think they, as Reverend Al [Sharpton] would say, they need to wake up from being woke, and they need to look and see who are the people most concerned, even today, by crime in D.C.,” he added.
President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was declaring a “public safety emergency” and deploying the National Guard to clamp down on violent crime in the nation’s capital.
While Democratic lawmakers have responded to Trump’s objections to violent crime in the district by asserting that it decreased by 35% in 2024, they were citing local police statistics that excluded crimes such as felony and aggravated assault.
Moreover, the Metropolitan Police Department solely included homicide, sex abuse crimes, assault with a dangerous weapon and robbery in its overall “violent crime” data that demonstrated a decline in 2024. Aggravated assault and felony assault without the use of weapons were also left out.
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