A gop Talking Point and a frequent topic of conversation on conservative media. The rightwing scare tactic flies in face of President Bidens actual record, though. In fact his supportive 90s era tough on violence, his ability to even win the nomination for president. That, in fact, that joe biden may be the democrats best hope against the incoming attacks preying on voters fears, especially those of suburban men and women who remain a vote. Democrats in private and public are warning that rising crime represent the single biggest threat to their electoral chances in 2022. The ap adds this reporting, quote, white house aides believe that biden with his long legislative record on crime as a former senator is not easy to paint as soft on the issue and the president has been clear that he is opposed to the defund the Police Movement which has been effectively used against other democrats to paint them as antiLaw Enforcement. Biden is also trying to boost progressive efforts to reform policing. And while combatting crime and reforming police dont have to be at odds with each other, the two efforts are increasingly billed that way. And this is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Washington post White House Bureau chief ashley, robert gibbs joins us, both msnbc contributors. I will apologize to both of you and our viewers. Were waiting for the president. If he starts i will rudely and awkwardly interrupt but weve all been warned. Ashley, talk about this tightrope that the president has to walk with these two key priorities is it. Thats exactly right and if you talk to white house aides they would argue these two things are sort of not mutually exclusive. There can be serious efforts to reform policing and deal with problems in that and serious efforts to reduce Violent Crime and get that under control. The tightrope comes in with, first of all, the way President Bidens republican opponents are trying to create this as a one or the other type of situation and democrats painted generally as not tough on crime as people who are for the defund the Police Movement, which its worth saying some have come out and said that. In many ways it is a fair characterization. It is not of President Biden himself during the campaign. He was one of the candidates who specifically did not say this but he does need to get crime in the country under control. It is a real control and in addition to just being a legitimate problem for the nation it is potentially a political problem for democrats especially in Swing Districts especially with suburban populations, men and women as you mentioned before. And its something he needs to deal with. You know, robert gibbs, it is sort of the height of cynicism to even put these things at a policy level, i understand the politics and i think all of the reporting on this is spot on. But that is because of the republican efforts to position these things as impossible to coexist. The truth is the best policing is the most sort of in touch with the community and those are the best examples that can model the reforms theyre working on in the senate. Just talk about the reality of being able to do both of these things at the same time. Yeah, and you mentioned that Community Based policing which is what joe biden has 30 years of experience on and having written legislation to put more of those officers in the communities and on the streets as a plus for him. We dont live in a world, as ashley said, these two things are mutually exclusive. It cant be either we have police who do what happened in minneapolis or were safe from crime. We dont live in that kind of Black And White world. Look, i get that your political opponents try to make you pick either or. Youre seeing it today with the president being out there is understanding this is a cause and concern and moving resources to do something about it. The presidency gives you that important bully pulpit that allows you to take issues that are difficult to have conversations on and gives you the platform to be able to do that. Smart of this president today to begin to use that platform on an issue that is likely to only get worse before it gets better. Its happening in a lot of our bigger cities. Its happening in places like atlanta, in chicago, in baltimore. Voters are going to hear about it more and more. Theyre also now going to hear and see their president acting and doing something on it and trying to explain to them why we can have better policing and less crime. Ashley parker and robert gibbs are staying with us as we await President Bidens live event, live remarks to the nation on crime. Hell be joined by the Attorney General. I want to bring in Cedric Alexander, former member of president obamas task force on policing and a former Public Safety director foe dekalb county, georgia. Weve been having a conversation that may be so quintessentially wash be washian, how does a president do both, when in the real world citizens should expect everyone to be able to both be safe and not discriminatory and patrol the streets and keep their communities safe. Just speak to that frame thats been put around this President S Challenge in rising crime in america. Quite frankly, both can be done and it certainly can start with the george floyd bill. Let me seg this as well, too. We can reduce crime and reform policing at the same time. But what we have to do is make sure that we do this. We need to define very clearly what we want our Police Officers to do. We need to narrow the scope of their responsibility so they can go after the most violent criminals and Repeat Offenders who are out there and we cannot piecemeal but must wholly look at how do we address the social issues in this country, right . The Rail Causation of the crime and the uptick in violence that were seeing as were coming out of this pandemic which was exacerbated much of the crime that we see, high unemployment, people losing their homes, increase in Mental Health experiences that people are having. All of these are Driving Factors in fact we have a lot of young people who have been out of school for a year, many unsupervised. Weve reached this point where something needs to desperately be done. Whether its chicago, miami, atlanta, you name it, theyre struggling with this issue that is totally out of control and the primary issue is how to reduce crime, but we also have to do it simultaneously as we reassess what we want our police to do. We need our money put into policing to provide them the support they need. Longrange planning later will not happen overnight. People are dying on american streets as we speak. So there are things that need to be done right now to help police. Yes, they both must work collaboratively together but actually right now we know we have strains in our community between police and the community. Leadership is the order of the day. Cedric, can i go through with you some of the policies we expect the president to announce and get you to expand on if you think theyre in the right direction, not enough, what you would advise . We expect the president to unveil a plan to revoke licenses to gun dealers the first time they violate federal law. The flood of guns is contributing both to the dangerous face of police and all of us. Talk about that measure. I think thats fine, but here is the reality of it. The greatest majority of people who own guns are exercising their Second Amendment right and are doing so legally. The problem we look at the data, its the stolen that are getting into the hands of bad people out here in the communities. You have a lot of communities if you look at the data you see a large increase in guns being stolen out of cars, out of homes, et cetera. That is the driving force. We may have a Mass Shooting in some Large Department store or some function, someone loses it mentally, but the greatest majority and the frequency of the shootings were seeing are happening in many of our neighborhoods that are struggling. Neighborhoods, particularly black and brown, very specific neighborhoods, where daily people are dying of street violence, Gang Violence, enabled violence, and thats where the real issue is. So we need to be very realistic. We need to fight that front, too, but the reality of it is in the here and now, in the moment were in that right now this is Gang Violence in the streets of america. Ask any city mayor, ask any of them, and they will tell you thats their struggle. Thats their challenge. Thats where they need the help are in those neighborhoods. Cedric, as youre talking, im just thinking of a word i use, sort of the highest cynicism a lot of this debate is framed around the politics of it that swing voters are getting scared of crime. There is no political season or swing voter that is more affected by communities of color and People Living in poverty and live with this day in and day out regardless of who the president is. What is the real conversation. Even before this uptick that weve seen. For a period weve seen a reduction in Violent Crime but just before covid we saw this uptick. The real conversations we need to be having at this very moment is twofold. One, what are things we can do to narrow the scope of policing, two, the criminal Justice System because this reform for violent criminals are repeating a lot of these crimes. That needs to be revisited immediately. We dont want to lock up folks but, let me say this, there are people out there doing great harm to many people who are just innocent. We have to address the here and the now. The political rhetoric on either side of the aisle is fine. But for the American People who live in these communities, and if we look at their stories every day that comes across our news, people are being affected in community, as people in buckhead, georgia, they will tell you the challenges they have in that upscale community. We have to address these issues far greater at a local level and provide the resources from our federal and state government, bodies will continue to drop, people will continue to get hurt, but we need to do things in the here and now and right now weve got to be able to help our Police Department get them what they need and look at strategies that have worked and we have to create new strategies that are occurring because our country is in a very different place. All of us will have to use a different imagination, invite our Research Institutions to give us clear data of new and emerging type of trends that are coming about because we need help. The American People in our cities, large and small, are getting hurt every day and the politics have to come out of this because thats not going to do anything. Lets get the george floyd bill passed. It needs to happen for this entire country so that we can move forward. Thats one aspect of it. The real change is at the local level. You know, cedrics point is something this president is trying to address. Some of the prescriptions he will unveil is set aside 350 billion of the covid relief packages, state and local funding, to help with communitying policing, including investing in new technologies and bolstering prosecutions of gun traffickers, going a little further than arresting the dealers, one of the other elements that he will announce today. Where did they turn to for the specifics and policy proposals today, ashley . Well, jen psaki was asked that at a briefing today actually and she gave a somewhat nonanswer and said it really came from the president himself. He oversees all policies. It does get to what we were talking about which is the politics and policy of it is some of these things that are really targeting guns which are the drive in Violent Crime and homicides. These are things joe biden can do now through executive order, Executive Action including ghost guns, making sure they have a serial number atouched, that gun stores that people are not allowed to buy one without running the necessary Background Checks, are penal ized with one strike. That is joe biden and his team that is good policy. That will stem some of this crime and has the benefit for them of being good politics within the democratic party. While there is this debate about exactly how do you reform policing, and, as you mentioned, more Community Involvement or some of those calls to defund the police, sort of all manner of democrats just about can get behind some of the stronger prescriptions on guns themselves. So the biden team believes it is, again, good policy, first and fror most, but also generally good politics for a pretty diverse conference that can be hard to hold together. Robert gibbs, let me ask you something that i hear coming up in my conversations on and off television and that is the ticking of the clock. And let me actually put out some data, some statistics. In the First Quarter of 2021, homicides are up over the same period last year in atlanta, chicago, thats, houston, indianapolis, orlando, pittsburgh and tampa. Thats from the mayors. Homicides and shootings are both ahead of last year. There are 181 killings as of june 6th up from 162 last year. Los angeles, the same kind of picture. How long does this president have to, one, show some results, show some declines in crime, and, two, show some action, deliver some legislation or policies for the Democratic Base that is justiiably looking to see Real Progress . Its a great question, nicolle. President s generally have less time than they think they do to get something moving on this. You mentioned with these statistics going up year over year and the challenges likely to get even more challenging as the months go on through summer, i think that clock is ticking and thats why youre seeing the action today. The biggest thing is the moving of resources. There are some things you can do in washington, but as has been said by all the guests in this segment, this is going to get done at a local level. Its going to get done by the mayors in many of those cities. And i think moving money out, getting them resources is going to be crucial to making an impact on something that will take a long time and this has no doubt been exacerbated by what the country has been through, made worse, definitely by whats happening economically. And that will not get fixed overnight. This president is looking to take action, having answers, being able to add something into this debate, moving those resources so the mayors and the cities that they govern are feeling the impact of increased resources. Ashley parker, Cedric Alexander and robert gibbs, thank you for starting us off. I have to say this, the president is running late. Maybe he heard cedric and added some things to his announcement. We will bring it to you in its entirety live. Thank you for starting us off. Up next for us, Donald TrumpsSpecial Relationship with the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia and its crown prince remained rock solid, even when the u. S. Intelligence community concluded that he was most likely behind the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist khashoggi. Reporting reveals for the very first time that some of khashoggis killers were trained right here state side in the United States. The reporter who broke that story and congressman jim hines, his committee, wants more answers, will be our guests. And the big lie in arizona and michigan, more proof, as if we needed it, it is all a lie. Why are these states still making it harder to vote then . Deadline white house continues after a quick break. Ontinues after qua ick break. When technology is easier to use. Barriers dont stand a chance. Thats why well stop at nothing to deliver our technology asaservice. The light. To deliver our technology asaservice. It comes from within. It drives you. And it guides you. To shine your brightest. As you charge ahead. Illuminating the way forward. A light maker. Recognizing that the impact you make, comes from the energy you create. Introducing the allelectric lyriq. Lighting the way. I brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. Those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks Sighs Wearily here, ill take that excited yell woohoo ensure max protein. 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