On Tuesday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough suggested that some members of the news industry are not being fully candid with the public when citing statistics to counter President Donald Trump’s claim that crime in Washington, D.C., has worsened in recent years.
The Morning Joe anchor said he often hears from Capitol Hill reporters who privately express fear of being confronted by a vagrant or street dweller. Scarborough noted it was “interesting” to watch some of those same reporters publicly use data to dispute Trump’s narrative while privately worrying about their own safety.
“This is interesting,” Scarborough said. “I actually heard from a reporter when this happened, going, ‘Well, you know, if he doesn’t overreach, this could actually be a good thing for quality of life,’ etc, because in DC right now, I had this happen to my family and I had that, and they go down the list. And then I saw him tweet something completely different.”
Scarborough, who has lived in Washington, D.C. for three decades, noted that crime has fallen from modern highs in the past several years; however, “it’s certainly not as safe as the nation’s capital should be,” he admitted.
On Monday, President Trump ordered hundreds of National Guard troops into the city in an effort to “reestablish law, order, and public safety.” Their deployment has freed up local police, which has led to nearly two dozen arrests, including suspects found in possession of drugs and illegal firearms.
Scarborough went on to read a message from a liberal resident who said they refuse to go outside after 8 p.m. and know numerous friends and neighbors who have been carjacked or shot at — a stark contrast, they noted, to a decade ago.
“I guarantee you that’s a person that has never voted for a Republican in their life,” Scarborough said. “This isn’t imagined. People you know, that I know, that they love, they and their friends don’t feel safe in Washington, D.C.”
For his part, Trump urged the media to be honest when reporting on the situation in the city and his efforts to address it. “I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but you don’t want to get — you don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed,” Trump said.
“And you all know people and friends of yours that that happened. And so you can be anything you want, but you want to have safety in the streets. You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something. And you don’t have that now.”
