BUCK: The numbers are staggering. To put this in proper context, let’s understand that 2020 was a terrible year for violence in American cities, and it really only happened from June — interestingly enough — until the end of that year, until the November election and December. So it only had half a year. You had lockdowns, and then you had in June, all of a sudden, this explosion of violence that occurred in cities.

All of a sudden, there were more shootings, almost like it coincided somewhat with the anti-police narrative, the rise of BLM and Democrat prosecutors — progressive prosecutors — having a much freer hand to do whatever they want, which means go soft on criminals. But we have actually seen now, Clay, an increase over that year in a lot of cities such that not only was 2020 a bad year, 2021 already — we’re only on the 8th of December now — is in fact a year of a dozen or so major cities. About 12 so far major cities — have set their all-time homicide records.

All-time, folks, all right? Just to give you a sense of some of these numbers — and, Clay, we gotta dive into why this is happening. Philadelphia — which has 1.5 million people, so that’s less than a quarter of New York City. Philadelphia has 521 murders as of this week. All right? New York, which is much larger, only has 443. You go to other cities, though. Now, Chicago has 739 homicides as of the end of November, which is up 3% from 2020.

Which was a very high year from the year before that, although actually the highest ever in Chicago was 1970 where there were 974 homicides, back when libs thought that crime was a social problem and let’s not punish people too much. But other cities: St. Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Rochester, New York; Albuquerque, New Mexico. Clay, this is pandemonium on the homicide front!

CLAY: We’re on in a lot of these cities. Looking at this list — Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Philly, as you mentioned earlier; Austin, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky (one of the cities where we’re number one), Albuquerque, New Mexico — what you’re seeing is, Buck, all over the nation is record highs in 2021. Remember, this is still with a month left effectively in the entire year.

We’re seeing record-high murder rates, and what we were told — the lie that we were told — was that 2020 was going to be an outlier year of what because of what? Covid, right? That’s what they tried to sell, even as you point out, the numbers were actually down quite a bit until the Black Lives Matter protests started in the wake of George Floyd case, and then the murder rate skyrocketed all over the country.

And what’s interesting about all these cities, Buck, is it’s the width and breadth and length and the entire the United States. You can’t point to one particular region or one particular city and say, “Oh, the reason why this is going on here is there’s a unique calculus associated with the murder rate here.” No, it’s skyrocketing all over the country. Remember last year there was nearly a 30% increase, the largest single-year increase on record in recorded FBI history.

And now many of these cities are going to be up again for next year. And the answer is defund the police is dumbest single argument, I believe, in the twenty-first century. And I think we have to keep hammering this home: The overwhelming number of victims here are minority, inner city residents. Black Lives Matter has led to — the protests and the attack on policing in our cities and has led to — the largest number of black lives being lost in a year to year — and a couple of year-to-years — relative to past history of all time.

The irony here is staggering, it is uncomfortable — and it’s so uncomfortable, in fact, Buck, that almost no one will discuss it. People don’t want to even have a conversation about the reason why the murder rate is up, and it’s directly connected to Black Lives Matter.

BUCK: It’s also connected to the progressive prosecutors who have been installed in many cities across the country. Black Lives Matter, Clay, as we know, has many effects — negative effects, let’s be honest about it — including changing the political climate nationally. We gotta be honest, Republicans. There was a moment there, June-July, when some people on the right were even saying, “Oh, maybe we need a little more criminal justice reform or something.”

There was this moment of, “We’re gonna appease,” as the mobs ran in the street, as they’re tearing down statues, as they’re breaking things and looting, right? And I’m gonna say it: As much as I love President Trump’s policies and he did so much great stuff, there was about a four- to six-week period where “the movement,” so to speak, was able to go really largely unopposed on media. Everybody was running scared.

And President Trump, I think, was trying to right the ship but they gained a lot of ground. So with the progressive prosecutors, for example, they were able to continue to push for some of the things — some of the bail reform law stuff — and really just understand it’s the day-to-day prosecutorial decisions that drives so much of this. “Oh, we got a guy finally with an illegal firearm who’s already gotten three domestic violent convictions, two robbery convictions and a burglary conviction.”

But, Clay, do we really want to throw him in jail for a few years for a firearms charge? Let’s save that for somebody who crosses state lines accidentally with their concealed-carry permit who’s never had a criminal infraction in their life, right? This is the mentality of the left. That actually happened to somebody who’s a Pennsylvania resident crossed over to New Jersey, by the way, years ago.

It was a pretty well-known case. Those decisions have enormous ramifications, the decisions to let people out and to not punish people strongly for the violations. They’re going below. They want to get rid of, of course, mandatory minimums a lot of time. That’s another thing they always attack, Clay. They want to have the judge have the discretion.

Well, prosecutors have even more discretion ’cause they can decide, “Well, we’re only gonna go for a certain count,” right? “We’re not gonna go for everything we can. We’re not gonna try to run them consecutively.” So these are all ways to shape the criminal justice system that result in what we are seeing. This is staggering, these numbers!

CLAY: What should happen — and I know we have a lot of people out there who listen who are working in think tanks who do all sorts of diving into the numbers. The analysis that I would love to see here, Buck, is how many — what percentage — of the murders, for instance, that are being committed in these cities where the overall murder rate is skyrocketing are being committed by people with previous violent felony convictions on their record?

Because what I believe has happened is we are letting — as you’re elucidating here — people who we know are dangerous out. Look at what happened in Waukesha. The guy who killed all those innocent people at the Christmas parade should have never been on the streets. I would bet 75%. I bet it’s 75% of the murders that are being committed right now in our major cities are by people with previous violent felonies on their record.

Who you can argue should never been out on the streets in the first place because it’s one thing to say, “Hey, we’re gonna defund the police,” and that is a failure and it seems like everybody’s trying to walk back that idea. But the police are arresting these guys, putting them into prison, sometimes getting them convicted, and then they’re right back out on the street.

So what percentage — I would love to know — of the murders, let’s say, in New York City — in Philadelphia where they just set a record — are being committed by people who have previously had convicted for violent felonies and should have otherwise not been out on the streets because those are lives that are being directly taken by our going too soft on crime.