FBI Director James B. Comey had an odd plea to Washington reporters when he met them earlier this month. Please, he said, write about the surge of murders rocking the nation’s cities.
“I raise it with you all because I hope it’s being reported on at local levels, but in my view, it’s not in the attention of the national level it deserves,” he said. “I am in many ways more worried, because the numbers are not only going up, they’re continuing to go up in most of those cities faster than they were going up last year. I worry very much. It’s a problem that most of America can drive around.”
The media dished out a few stories and moved on. But soon the issue will receive attention on the national political stage as the two likely presidential nominees prepare to address it.
“Crime is a factor that I think is going to play bigger in this election than people realize because crime is going up, drug addiction is surging — 120 deaths a day from drug overdoses. It’s just a stunning number,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican and adviser to Donald Trump told the Washington Examiner.
Sessions, a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee chairman, said the public is tuned into the spike in murders and heroin deaths and is already pressing candidates for answers.
Hillary Clinton has talked about gun control and reducing the numbers of prisoners in the country. “End the era of mass incarceration,” she has urged.
But Sessions believes that the winning position is to get tough, as Trump has urged.
Americans, he said, “want something done about crime, people are not safe in their homes. Drug deaths, abuse dropped dramatically since the ’80s, has started back up again.”
Sessions said the current crime wave is similar to that seen in 1980 when former President Ronald Reagan ran partly on a law-and-order platform. “Crime was a dominant issue then,” said Sessions, named a federal prosecutor by Reagan in 1981.
New crime statistics show that in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Baltimore and Washington, murders are up over 43 percent in just one year. On one day last week, four people were shot in Washington.
Comey said he doesn’t know why the rate has increased.
“I don’t know what is driving this. It could be, it’s simply a collection of individual factors in different cities. It’s hard for me to believe that there isn’t something broad that’s affecting it,” Comey said. “There’s always a danger of oversimplification. These are really hard questions. Academics wrestle with it. I’m just urging, I think everybody’s got to wrestle with it, ’cause something’s going on. That’s my message.”
Growing support for Trump-Gingrich ticket
As the eventual GOP presidential nominee sifts through his handful of potential vice presidential picks, one is rising to the top in Washington and conservative circles: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“He does all the things that Trump needs,” said a Trump adviser.
While in the past it was key for candidates to consider a geographical teaming, with Trump the issue is energizing Republican voting blocks with a running mate who also could provide savvy counsel once elected. Insiders said that Gingrich’s assets are his close ties to conservatives and the pro-life movement, and his years as a lawmaker who as speaker was able to cut deals with President Bill Clinton.
“Newt solves a lot of problems for Trump. He’s an outsider who nonetheless talks to the insiders. He will help unify the party and the convention, he’s a great debater, he’s a complete rebuke of the Romney remnants and the busted Bush brigades and is the GOP No. 1 idea man,” said Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, whose new book, Citizen Newt, is to be released soon.
“He’s been vetted and will keep the Clintons up pacing the floor all night. Gingrich beat the Clintons time and again. He’s also an original Reaganite, and that means everything to a party created by Ronald Reagan,” added Shirley, who interviewed Gingrich some 30 times for his 800-page bio.
Outdoorsmen poised to decide election
The 67 million Americans who hunt, shoot and fish are preparing to vote in record numbers in November, potentially giving them the key to the election.
A new survey from Southwick Associates provided to the Examiner shows that 94 percent of anglers and 92 percent of shooters are planning to vote, and picking someone who is friendly to their hobbies is a top priority.
The survey found that a candidate’s support for sportfishing was key to 72 percent, while nearly 96 percent said that a candidate’s position on hunting will impact their vote.
That would suggest strong support for Republican Donald Trump, who has twice appeared before the National Rifle Association to brag about his family’s tradition of hunting. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, opposes semi-automatic “assault weapons,” such as the AR platforms that are now the top selling sport and hunting rifle in America.
But don’t count her out. Clinton learned fly fishing during a presidential vacation to Wyoming in the 1990s and has stuck with it, even hooking a rainbow trout.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
