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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, good morning everyone. Guns and crime are leading the political agenda this week locally and nationally. Some leading Democrats are trying to take an all-of-the-above-approach. Eric Adams came in first in the in-person voting by 10 points in the New York City mayoral race with his crackdown on guns but also social justice campaign. President Biden announced an anti-violence initiative at the federal level yesterday that included the opposite of Defund the Police.

President Biden: It means more police officers, more nurses, more counselors, more social workers, more community violence interrupters to help resolve issues before they escalate into crimes.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Biden was also an architect of the 1990s crime bill, the last time violent crime was so high on the public's agenda, and it helped lead to the mass incarceration that sparked the current reform movement, including Defund the Police. Can Democrats get it more right this time? With me now is Washington Post White House correspondent Tyler Pager. Among his articles this week one called Biden launches an effort to head off violent crime and political peril for his party. Tyler, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Tyler Pager: Thanks so much for having me. Great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start on the second half of your headline, why political peril for his party?

Tyler Pager: Crime has been an issue that for decades, Republicans have used to try to portray Democrats as weak, and particularly as you look at big cities, Republicans have sought to portray the Democratic Party as one that doesn't fight crime or stop crime, but their policies result in crime increases. Democrats have long struggled against this Republican-led playbook to portray Democrats as weak. This has been an ongoing effort by Democrats to try to push back against that criticism. Biden as you mentioned, in the introduction, has long been at the forefront of this with the 1990s crime bill that adopted a lot of tough-on-crime practices. Now that job has been somewhat complicated by Progressives in the Democratic Party, launching into the rallying cry of Defund the Police, which is playing right into the Republican playbook of trying to portray the Democrats as weak on the issue.

Brian Lehrer: The clip we played of the President yesterday included him saying more police officers, what does that refer to specifically?

Tyler Pager: Biden has been very clear that he opposes defunding the police but rather he wants to invest in the police and hire more police officers. Yesterday, he talked about and explicitly encouraged cities and states to draw from the $350 billion in federal stimulus money to shore up police departments whether that means hiring more police officers to pre-pandemic levels, or even in some cases exceeding those pre-pandemic levels, or using that money for other services that police departments could put on whether that's paying for community policing work, for supporting community-based anti-violence groups. The Biden administration is explicitly telling states that they're giving them money to support police departments, the opposite of defunding police departments.

Brian Lehrer: Talk more about the rest of that, because he also said in the clip that we played more counselors, more social workers, more non-police violence interrupters, and you were just referring to that too. Does something tie the whole approach together, or is it just scattershot, more of this more of that more of the other thing, let's hope it all works?

Tyler Pager: I think they're giving some latitude to cities and states to figure out what works best for them. I think they're not prescribing specific actions, but rather outlining options that these cities and states have. Whether that they feel they need to hire more police and bulk up traditional policing methods or do more community-based anti-violence programs. They're not saying you have to do one approach to the other but giving them a grab bag of suggestions to use the money for.

Specifically, on the community-based policing efforts, the funds can be used for things such as summer jobs for young people or bolstering organizations that aim to intervene with at-risk youths, or trying to stem the violence before it happens. Investing in young people, particularly in the summer. We know that crime typically rises in the summer as people spend more time outside, kids are outside of school. This is one way to try to do things like summer job fairs and hire young people to help keep them busy during the summer, particularly as they come out of the pandemic, where they spent most of their time at home.

I think what this is doing is, I think some critics might say Biden is trying to have both sides of the issue. He's both saying you can expand the police, you can hire more police officers, or you can invest in some of the social programs, which is a nod to the calls to just the societal factors that drive crime.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play about a minute of Eric Adams again, not nominated at this point for mayor of New York but holding the big lead in the first reported results the in-person voting before the absentee ballots come in, and the rank choice voting calculations kick in but leading. He was on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning and was asked about the federal approach to guns.

Eric Adams: Much of what we are doing on a federal level is dealing with assault rifles because of the mass shootings. That is a suburban crisis, the crisis in the inner city, that crisis consists of handguns. We have not focused on the handgun. That is where you see the large number of shootings and the victims of Black and brown and we have ignored it. Albeit, as I stated, we must change the ecosystem of public safety. You know what's a great crime-fighting tool fix dyslexia screening at the school.

30% of our prison population, the men and women are dyslexic, 55% of a learning disability and so we need to start thinking what feeds crime and after-school programs, are universal tutorial services. If you don't educate you will incarcerate. 80% of the inmates at Rikers Island don't have a high school diploma or equivalency diploma. The real crime is what takes place in our educational system every day to Black and brown children in this city and country. 65% of Black and brown children in New York don't meet proficiency every year. We know they're going on a pathway of crime, and I'm going to stop that from happening.

Brian Lehrer: Eric Adams on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning. Tyler Pager Washington Post White House correspondent is our guest. There was a lot in that clip, but how much does anything in the thinking like that from Eric Adams inform what President Biden is focusing on nationally right now?

Tyler Pager: I think it undoubtedly is related. I think the New York City mayoral primary is evidence of what can be tricky politics around crime. Eric Adams, a former police officer, who is is taking a multi-faceted approach to talking about crime saying he's against defunding the police, but also expressing the need to invest in education to stop the school to prison pipeline.

I think that is very much in line with the announcement that the President made yesterday is that they want a multi-pronged approach to this.

In some areas, they want the states to use the money to just bolster the police department, to have more officers on the street but in other areas or in both and, they can spend the money to invest in programs to cut crime before it happens, to invest in education programs in anti-violence programs.

As Eric Adams was saying, there's a lot of studies in academic evidence that show the connection between the lack of investment in education and crime rates. There's more of a focus now and trying to stop the crime before it happens, rather than just focusing on the punitive aspects after the crime is committed. Particularly, I think Eric Adams talking a lot about gun violence. That's a big area of focus for the Biden administration, both because the rate of homicides has dramatically increased, while overall crime has stayed the same or gone down, homicides are the big issue right now. One of the reasons that people are pointing to is the amount of gun sales that happened during the pandemic was astronomical. There's more guns on the street and now there's an effort from the administration to try to curb the flooding of the country with guns and that is part of this effort as well.

Brian Lehrer: Is Adams's critique that the national gun control policy debate has focused mostly on assault weapons and mass shootings that are more of a suburban problem and less on urban violence that is less spectacular case to case but more grinding day to day? Is that landing with Democrats in DC?

Tyler Pager: Yes, it seems to be that that is the case. One of the things that is part of the Biden administration's announcement is they're directing ATF, the Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, to revoke the licenses of gun dealers the first time they violate federal law, and oftentimes that is by failing to run background checks. In the past, sellers may have received warnings or the ATF overruled recommendations to take away the licenses. This is a concerted effort to try to stop the selling of illegal guns. One of those primary one is handguns. Again, I think one of the things that the Biden administration also is doing is really taking the lead from cities and states. Biden hosted mayors of big cities that have had had spikes in gun violence at the White House yesterday for listening session. I think it's very clear that they're trying to understand what's happening in different cities. Obviously, a city like New York is a big one and one that they're going to take into consideration as they're thinking about putting together this plan. Undoubtedly, handguns is a big focus of this effort, just given the spike that we've seen in homicides over the past year.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners are the President and Eric Adams getting this about right, 646-435- 7280. If you watched the president's speech yesterday or read about his new anti-gun anti-violence initiatives, give us a call. If you live in a neighborhood with significant gun violence, have you seen it increase during the pandemic? Give us a call 646-435-7280. Let your voice be heard. What's the balance of policies that you want from Washington or city hall to get gun violence back under control, especially if you live in a neighborhood with more gun violence than some of the other neighborhoods. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer with Washington post White House correspondent, Tyler Pager. Tyler, your article reminds us that Biden has expressed regret for certain aspects of his 1990s crime policies as a Senator. Does he get specific about what he regrets?

Tyler Pager: Yes. I think one of the things that he regrets is some of the disparities in sentencing that more disproportionately impacted people of color around crack and cocaine. He has acknowledged at various points that the crime laws hurt Black people and communities of color more than they did white people and resulted in more prison time and disparities there. That issue as someone who covered him for two years during his presidential campaign was a constant issue that he had to tangle with for a little bit. Oftentimes he got a lot of criticism from Progressive's on his history, on the crime bill, but he was very quick to point out and his allies and his administration continued to point out what they liked about that bill, particularly the assault weapons ban, the violence against women act. There's a mixed record on that. I think one of the things that he's acknowledge is trying to reverse the harmful impacts of the crime bill while still pushing for the aspects of that legislation that he thinks and his allies and his administration think are good and need to be renewed, particularly on this issue of gun violence, the assault weapons ban.

Brian Lehrer: For example, how is this new package different from his 1990s one, if the assault weapons ban is consistent with it?

Tyler Pager: The issue that continues to be devil this administration and President Biden is that they just don't have a majority in the Senate to pass some of this legislation. They have the stillness of majority's 51 votes with Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker, but they need 60 votes to beat the filibuster on any of this. This is an approach what he's doing on gun violence, he can only do through executive action. He signed some executive orders a few months ago, trying to ban and curb the use of ghost guns. Now he's focused on giving the ETF more power and redirecting federal funds, but he can't just unilaterally institute an assault weapons ban. He needs Congress to do that, and the same thing with sentencing disparities.

Some of those things have been reversed. Obviously, President Trump signed the First Step Act and had some criminal justice reform that advocates cheered but for Biden, he's hamstrung by Republicans blocking of any gun control legislation. Biden after the Sandy Hook massacre, when he was vice president, Obama topped Biden to oversee the task force to create executive orders, Obama signed more than a dozen of those executive orders, but some of them were just undone by President Trump. That is the political perils of executive orders that the next president can just unwind all of them just as Biden has done with a lot of Trump's executive orders. That is the conundrum facing gun control advocates is they just don't have the votes in Congress because Republicans are united for the most part against any substantive gun control reforms.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a tweet from a listener that says, we are not examining why people, especially young people are more inclined toward confrontation and violence with fewer steps from conflict to violence-- Whoops, that tweet just just disappeared. It goes on to say that it has a lot to do with trauma. Does Biden talk about that?

Tyler Pager: I think that is one of the things that they are trying to address in this wide ranging message about how to use the money that was made available from the stimulus package. Some of that is broad in the effort of you can give money to community based anti-violence groups. I think that is a pretty broad description of a lot of types of groups that work on anti-violence, whether that's focused on trauma or focused on investing in education or job opportunities for people that maybe can't afford to go to a summer camp or don't have other things that they are doing during the summer when school's out of session. I think they are giving a lot of latitude to community-based groups to focus on the various aspects of what leads people to commit crimes and address them before they do.

Brian Lehrer: There was another Washington Post article this week by some of your colleagues about mayors around the country seeing it hard to fight the rise of gun violence during the pandemic. Did you happen to see that?

Tyler Pager: Yes, I did. Two of my colleagues on the national desk took a sweeping look at some of the what it looks like in cities around the country.

Brian Lehrer: It said, for example, that officials and criminal justice experts offer abundant reasons, a nation awash in guns now more than ever, deep mistrust between police departments and the communities they serve, particularly in high poverty areas, the still painful stresses caused or exacerbated by the pandemic, that some of the trauma that the tweeter was referring to. A cycle of violence that once set in motion is hard to break. It quotes the mayor of Cleveland mayor Jackson saying, "There's nothing that's going to bring this down in the near future." It also referred to the number of guns that have been purchased during the pandemic but boy, that makes it sound tough.

Tyler Pager: I think that article did a really good job of capturing just how difficult the situation is for mayors around the country. I think this is part of why Biden gave that speech yesterday, part of why he brought these mayors to the White House to show that they are taking a proactive approach to this issue and the fact that it's only going to get worse. As these mayors outlined, the summer is always a time of rising crime. The combination of people coming out of the pandemic, the economy still not fully recovered, and more guns on the streets as a result of surging gun sales during the pandemic. There's just all these doctors wrapped up in what is going to make a pretty difficult summer for a lot of cities around the nation. The Biden administration wants to show that they are aware of this and trying to take actions to address it.

The hard truth is as these mayors outlined, this is going to be a problem throughout the summer, and there's not an on or off switch that is at the disposal of these leaders to fix this problem immediately. Just all the factors at play here that this article does a really good job of outlining and Brian that you just read from is really a dangerous combination for this summer. I think that is the reality that is setting in around the country. As we see these numbers continue to rise and the realization setting in that it's only going to get worse.

Brian Lehrer: I want to take a break and come back and talk about the Republican role in this. They're supposed to be the tough on crime policy party. Are they giving president Biden good reviews at first for this set of proposals? We'll talk about the Republicans when we continue in a minute with Tyler Pager, from the Washington Post.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we talk about presidential Biden's gun control package, but it's not really a gun control package that makes it sound like-- I shouldn't have used that phrase because that makes it sound like the same things that the country has been talking about let's say since Sandy hook and before, and it's really broader than that to address the current spike in gun violence around the country. It certainly includes some of those gun control measures like a ban on assault weapons, and more background checks and limits on the size of magazines. The president certainly talked about that in his speech yesterday. How many bullets you should be able to load into a gun at one time. We're talking with Tyler Pager, White House correspondent for the Washington post, and let's take a phone call Linda in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hi Linda, thanks for calling in.

Linda: Hi. Good morning, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a long time listener and a loyal listener. My name is Dr. Linda Guilbeau from St. Alban's Queens, New York. I am a candidate in the Queens city council district 27 race. My daily departed beloved son, Darious Kenyatta Guilbeau was shut down by two mass villains on Thursday. I'msorry. Monday, June 7th, around 8:30 pm. I am devastated, but I have decided to stay in my race because my son asked me, he said, "Ma don't give up your race no matter what." He turned around and said, "No matter what." I would like to continue to fight for gun control and stop this Black on Black crime in our community. His name is Darrius named after King Darrius in the Bible. Kenyatta named after Jomo Kenyatta, the first president and the prime minister of Kenya, Africa, and Guilbeau. He was a great man, a prince in this community. Well loved, and I want to continue on in his legacy legacy and pass gun control in his name.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for saying his name. I'm glad you said his name for the wider public on the radio. Do you think the president is getting it right? Do you think Eric Adams or any of the other candidates for mayor are getting it right when it comes to this issue?

Linda: I think they not doing enough for guns when it comes to gun control. This is not just in New York. This is all over the country. Every 24 hours, we have gun violence and nothing is being done about it. We have a whole stream of guns that are coming up from the south. They need to do more. They need to stop this gun trafficking thing. There's nothing done about it. There's not enough done. There should be severe penalties. You can get a gun easier than you can vote. It's outrageous. Something has to be done. Children need to be taught that do not shoot guns, not even toy guns. It is not a way to resolve. We have to stop the violence. Communication, talking, guns are not a way to resolve any issues. They need to have courses on mediation, communication, negotiation. Violence is never the answer. It is always wrong and it needs to be taught in the kindergarten.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it and I'm so sorry for your loss and good luck with your campaign. We're going to go next to Jim in the Bronx. Jim, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Jimmy: Hi, thanks for taking my call. Brian, about a month ago, I actually witnessed some gun violence. It was late in the afternoon or early evening, shortly before dark. I was parking my car near my apartment building and there was some sort of altercation outside of a laundromat down the block that used to go to actually, and someone pulled the gun and shot someone else. Lightly wounding him, I think since the guy actually ran away clenching his arm. My larger point is that here in the south Bronx this gun violence is off the hook. It's unbelievable. I've heard stories from friends in the neighborhood about gun violence, seeing the homicides and a number of instances over the last three months or so. It's really, really extreme. It's really extreme over here.

Brian Lehrer: In your experience Jim, is it worse than it was during the pandemic? I mean before the pandemic?

Jimmy: Much worse. I don't know why. I didn't grow up in south. I've been here now for a bit over 20 years and I've never seen it like this. Yes. There is gun violence here but nothing like I've seen this last several months, nothing at all. I absolutely agree that there are structural issues underlying violence generally and gun violence but again, over 20 years, I've never seen anything like this. Never. Structural issues exist, they need to be addressed, but there's going to be more immediate causes for this unprecedented spike in the years I've been living in the south Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, thank you very much for your call. We appreciate it. Tyler Pager from the Washington Post, where are the Republicans in Congress on the new Biden proposals? Would it be accurate to say that in the '90s they took the compromise that was on the table that included some gun control, the assault weapons ban that was in effect for 10 years dates to back then. That plus more police funding from that era and declared victory and said they forced Clinton and the Democrats into it.

Tyler Pager: Yes. I think that's a good description of then, but I think now the polarization in the parties makes it quite difficult for there to be much that they're going to agree on on this issue. I think the immediate reaction we saw from the Republicans, at least from the Republican campaign arms, is that this is the Democrats fault and Biden is failing to hold his own party accountable for defunding the police, really continuing to try to tie him to these calls for defunding the police, despite that's not what he's calling for, he's doing actually the exact opposite. I think one of the messages that we're going to see from Democrats as they try to counter Republicans on this issue is to point to the vote at the stimulus package, so the money that Biden is telling states to use to fund the police came from a stimulus package in which no Republicans in the house or Senate voted for.

I think that's going to be the message here, but Republicans Rick Scott, the chairman of the Republican Senate campaign arm, they're obviously looking to take back the Senate has really been hammering Biden and the Democrats on this issue. I don't think at any point they are going to give him credit for any of the measures that he is taking. I think it's early, but they're going to already start to criticize him on trying to restrict gun access given Republicans long standing issue on gun control and fears about Democrats trying to limit guns. Then also as we see crime rise in the summer, as it usually does blame Biden for that saying, he's not doing enough saying it's tying him to progressive calls to Defund the Police.

I think one of the interesting things, and this relates back to the New York city mural race is Sean Patrick Maloney, the Congressman from New York, outside New York city. He's the head of the Democratic Congressional campaign arm for the house. As they try to hold onto the house in their slim majority, he endorsed Eric Adams right before election day here in New York city. I think that is evident of him trying to position the party on the side of a candidate that is not for defunding the police rather someone who is adopting some tougher language on crime. I think that is a sign of how the party sees this issue unfolding over the next years

Brian Lehrer: How much dissension is there on day one after the president's announced package of anti-violence measures yesterday from the progressive wing of the Democrats in Washington?

Tyler Pager: I think from Progressives, this is not the approach that they want to see the president taking. In one way, they are advocates of funding anti-violence programs. They are proponents of investing in the community, job training programs, community policing. I think they will be excited about that. They will not be excited about Biden telling police departments to hire more police officers with the funding from the stimulus package that they had to rally the Progressive's to vote on in part, because Progressives thought it wasn't picking up. Obviously there's a lot of political dynamics and fault lines as it comes to these packages in these policies. I think they are going to cheer parts of the package, but also be against some of these efforts to expand police departments at a time when many of them are calling for reducing the size of police departments.

Brian Lehrer: Craig in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Craig,

Craig: Hey Brian. Good morning. Yes. Hello. Good morning to you and your guys, Brian, sorry about that. I was taking it off speaker phone. I think Eric Adams is a little short sighted in what the federal government can do. I'll tell you what this quick thing. Recently, it was published that the cops had bought up to 10 guns, maybe more for some kids that were bringing it in from somewhere in the south with that amount of purchase, they should be able to trace back to the person who initially purchased the guns in the south, whether it be from a pawn shop or a legal gun store but that person needs to be brought to New York by the Eastern District and prosecuted and then a billboard with his conviction and everything that happened needed to be placed on that strip, where that gun was bought. Sometimes people and people of Color, I say this are the Black man in New York city, somebody's cousins get a call down south and say, "Hey, if you go to the pawn shop, you buy a gun for $100. You send to New York, I could sell it for a thousand." They don't think of the consequences of their actions trying to make this money. I don't want to see people incarcerated in the federal system, it's a hard system. They hand out a lot of time, but we had a problem in the Rockaways. They brung the federal government in it to target some gangs that would shoot in random, just violence.

The federal government came and scooped in, made low level drug buyers, three grams of crack and this and that and that, but enough times, and then caught people with guns. Now those guys were looking at 15 years as a cop out as opposed to the state system three years or whatever. We have to use the tools that's there. People keep saying, stop guns. Use the tools that's there. Just now they made this big thing, the mouth paper on plates and illegal tax. This has been going on. There was a shooting in Brooklyn that year ago with some guy reversing the neighborhood, neighbor's camera caught that BMW SUV during the shoot. Then you could clearly see a paper tag. We got state troopers, we got so many resources to pull over criminals before they do criminal acts.

We don't have to engage in, harassing taxes. If we just target criminals, they will confess and give up other criminals, but we can't let prostitution and whatever, just go to the side and say, whether that crime is not this crime, every crime has to be treated like a crime. Those crimes lead to other crimes. We have more detectives. When we suspended the gang task force, they made all of them detectives. What's the clearance rate? Who's asking about the clearance rate and what are we doing?

Brian Lehrer: Meaning how many people are actually arrested for crimes that are committed and prosecuted successfully for them. Craig, how is what you just described inconsistent with Eric Adams approach? Because many people may have heard, especially that last part of your call and thought, well, that is where Eric Adams wants to go. You started by saying you don't agree with this approach.

Craig: No, his approach was not that the federal government can help. He said that they can only tackle the big crime. Everybody always talk about the iron pipeline, but how do you stand in the flow? You can go after legal guns sellers, but they're guy at the store. These people that make the store purchases. They're taking the license. They're assuming this person had the right to buy a gun. They don't know if they're not complicit, they don't know this guy's going to give the guns and ship it up to New York. That's why we have to use the federal government. When we get a gun off the street, we have to get the serial number, retrace it back to the whoever made the purchase. Then we have to work with the federal government and say, nah, you said that gun got lost out your car. We don't believe you. The federal government they like their people for less, and like I said, I know the people down on the other end, that's going to get arrested, probably look like me. If they're sending a gun to the city to kill me, I don't have sympathy for them, but we have to make an example. You start making a sample down that end. There are people down there that are going to have second thoughts about sending guns to New York or Chicago--

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much, Craig. I got to run because we're running out of time in the segment, but thank you very, very much. Keep calling us. Tyler Pager, Washington Post White House correspondent, what do you think president Biden would say after hearing that call?

Tyler Pager: Yes, I think he would acknowledge that this is a really difficult situation. There's no easy fix to it and he is trying to give city and state's resources, the tools they need to fight the problem. I think one of the things that I talked to-- I was talking to a criminal justice professor from wake forest for my story earlier in the week. One of the points that he made is that the federal government can't actually do a whole lot in terms of responding directly to this crime. He said that, what the posture is, is to say, "Look, we're listening and we're trying to provide you with the resources we can to help you." Absent of congressional action which we see this not going to happen, the federal government doesn't have as much of a role to play in the direct efforts that city and states take to fight crime or to reduce crime, whether that is police funding or social programs, whatever it is, there's no easy solution from the federal government level. That's exactly what Biden is doing. He met with mayors and city leaders yesterday at the White House. He talked about the funding streams that they're giving to city and states. Beyond that, he's a messenger for the party rather than, on the ground, trying to deal with issues on a day-to-day basis.

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there for now with Tyler Pager, Washington Post White House correspondent. Thanks so much for coming on with us today. Tyler, we appreciate it.

Tyler Pager: Thanks so much for having me. Look forward to be back soon.

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