April 22, 2026 • 37 mins
Ken Dilanian is a seasoned journalist covering the Justice Department and FBI, and in this episode he shares his insights on the evolving landscape of covering those agencies. We talk about crime data, the challenges of media coverage in 2026, the impact of political shifts on justice institutions, and a whole lot more in this jam-packed conversation.
There are few journalists in the country with a better front row seat to the Justice Department in 2026 and Ken paints a fascinating picture of what it takes to cover it.
Ken Dilanian is a veteran journalist covering the Justice Department, FBI, and national security for MSNBC (MSNOW), formerly NBC News.
With over 30 years in journalism—including decades as a newspaper reporter—he specializes in intelligence, legal affairs, and federal law enforcement. He has reported extensively on crime data, public perception of crime, and the intersection of politics and justice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:03):
Crime Data is supposed to tellus what is happening in the
country, but it can't alwaysspeak for itself.
Data moves through institutions,through the media, and through
politics before it reaches thepublic.
And when trust in all three ofthose things starts to break
down, even the clearest numberscan become part of the fight
over what is actually going on.
That's what makes thisconversation with Ken Delanian
so important.
Ken is the justice andintelligence correspondent for
(00:25):
MSNow, and has covered theDepartment of Justice and the
intelligence community fornearly two decades at outlets
like USA Today, DLA Times,Associated Press, and NBC News.
Through these roles, Ken has hada front-row seat to a rapidly
changing federal government.
In this episode, we talk aboutwhat it means to cover crime and
justice right now, when officialchannels matter less, insiders
(00:46):
are more willing to talk but aremore exposed when they do, and
the same data can be treated astruth or fiction depending on
the speaker.
We also get into the tensioninside the FBI, where important
work like crime data collectionis improving even as the
institution itself is understrain.
This episode is not just aboutcrime numbers, it's about who
gets to shape the story thosenumbers tell.
(01:06):
My guest today is the great KenDelanian.
Ken, thanks so much for joiningthe program.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
Jeff, I couldn't say no to you.
Great to be with you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
Thank you.
All right.
Every guest has to start off theshow with a compliment to me,
and then we can, you know, sortof get another pose.
So I appreciate that.
Um, Ken, just uh regularquestion for every guest.
What what is your background?
What brings you here today totalk about crime and criminal
justice and all that good stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Well, so I cover the Justice Department and the FBI
and legal issues and justiceissues for MSNow, which is the
formerly MSNBC.
And uh, as people may know, uhit just split off from NBC News,
where I was for the last 10years uh covering these issues
for both NBC and MSNBC and thewebsite, where we had many
(01:52):
conversations and I quoted youin many stories about uh the
phenomenon of people notbelieving the crime numbers and
what was happening with thecrime numbers.
I cover uh FBI uh disclosures ofcrime data, although, you know,
these days there's so much crazystuff going on in the justice
space that crime data is notgetting maybe as much attention
as it should, except when DonaldTrump talks about it.
(02:13):
Uh so we can talk more aboutthat.
But uh, I've been in televisionabout 10 years, and before that
I was a newspaper reporter foraround 20 plus.
I've always been a journalist,graduating from college, uh,
graduated from Williams Collegein Massachusetts, grew up in
Massachusetts, now for the last20 years have been living in
Washington, D.C.
What is it like being a nationalreporter in 2026?
(02:35):
It's not necessarily verypleasant.
It's stressful covering thisadministration, particularly in
this space, the justice and FBIspace.
You know, every day is a newthing that we've never seen
before, and usually it's bad, orat least in the view of our
sources and our viewers, uh itit's it's bad.
Um, because this this presidentis doing things that no
(02:57):
president has ever done in termsof compromising the independence
of the FBI and the JusticeDepartment.
Um, people are being fired allthe time.
We've good civil servants thathave been working at the FBI for
decades have been walked out thedoor.
As, you know, as a nationalreporter, you're cognizant of
dangers that you never beforefeared.
We've, you know, we've saw theFBI actually uh, you know,
(03:19):
conduct a raid and and snatchthe phones and electronic
devices of a Washington Postreporter.
That was a very, uh, verysobering moment for all of us
who do this work because we'reall talking to confidential
sources.
That's the way we get most ofour information.
And we're very concerned aboutwhat the government is trying to
do to ferret that out, figureout who we're talking to.
You know, the old rules are outthe window.
(03:41):
The Justice Department used tohave rules about the way they
obtain information fromjournalists in a criminal
investigation, that we don'thave those protections anymore.
So it's pretty stressful time,actually.
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
How these changes that you talk about, has that
made it easier?
Like firing civil servants andand potentially people that have
been in career jobs for decadesthat are now unhappy.
Uh, I think it thinking thatabout this as like a uh former
spook, that like that would begood for work that like makes it
easier to find people to talkabout.
Is that sort of environment, isthat the case with you, or is
(04:14):
that something that people areafraid to talk and it's made it
harder for you?
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Uh as a yeah, as a former spook, that's a very
perceptive observation.
You're right.
What do we when when people areunhappy, you know, it's a
source-rich environment in thatsense.
So yes.
I mean, this is complicated.
There's a couple answers, butthe the answer to your
fundamental question is yes.
Uh, people, particularly insidethese agencies, are talking to
(04:38):
us as they never would beforebecause they feel under siege.
In a normal administration, inthe last administration or in
the George Bush administration,there was no incentive for an
FBI agent to violate the rulesand talk to a reporter.
Why would they do that?
I mean, everything was goingfine as far as they were
concerned.
They were allowed to do theirjobs.
Now we're in a situation wherethey're every day they're
bombarded with absurd orders andand and things that really uh
(05:02):
you know cause them stress anddiscomfort.
And and some small percentage ofthem are willing to take a risk
and talk about it.
And if not talk directly to us,at least talk to their friends
who are out, who then talk tous.
Uh, so that's happening to agreater degree than ever before.
But there's also this phenomenonof former officials afraid to be
(05:23):
quoted by name, almost anyonereally, afraid to be quoted by
name, criticizing thisadministration because they're
afraid of the potentialretaliation.
If they if they have anyaffiliation with a company that
has government contracts or canget any way be hurt by Donald
Trump.
Uh, and so that's become it'sit's more difficult to get
people to to say anything on therecord.
(05:44):
And you know, we we we don'twant to be fueled entirely by
anonymous sources, and anonymoussources are important, but we
want people to talk on therecord so that our viewers and
readers and you know can havecan have confidence that what
we're getting is you know isaccurate and on the level.
Uh people are very suspicious ofanonymous sources often.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
So, so that's kind of the situation.
Can you sort of catalog how yourjob has changed in say the last
two or three years?
I know obviously you're at adifferent network and there's a
lot of differences there, butare there other sort of more
fundamental ways that just beinga reporter, a national reporter
in 2026 is different from beinga reporter in 2024 or 2023?
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
Yeah, and also different from from being from
being one in 20, you know, 18and 19 in the first Trump
administration.
This administration works asnever before.
None in pre even, you know, thefirst Trump administration
fundamentally different fromthis administration.
So in the first Trumpadministration or the Biden
administration, uh you coveringthe Justice Department and the
FBI, you dealt with careerofficials, career public affairs
(06:47):
people and others who you knowyou had a fundamental
relationship with, and you couldbe sure that you were getting
for the most part, you you therewas a relationship of trust, and
you could get um you could go tothem and expect to get uh
straight information, and youand you spent time cultivating
these people because it wasimportant.
This Trump administration has nointerest in engaging with the
(07:10):
media in a normal way, except ifthey're playing defense on a
story that you know potentiallymight embarrass one of their
principals.
And so and the only people thatseem to know anything at these
agencies are the politicalappointees, the career public
affairs folks, to the extentthat they still have their jobs,
are completely in the dark.
(07:30):
So they really can't help withanything.
The reporting on these agenciesis become fundamentally much
more of a uh going out andfinding people willing to talk
to you either inside or outside,anonymously, who know things,
and getting things throughofficial channels or or even
trying to reach out and say,hey, this is a story that's in
both of our interests.
Can you give us access to thiscase or this investigation
(07:51):
because it'll help you and it'llhelp us?
That's completely out thewindow.
So that that doesn't existanymore.
Um, and and so it's really it'smore of guerrilla journalism
where you're really trying tofind people to tell you things
that uh the Trump administrationdoesn't want you to know.
Um that's that's generally whatI do for most of my days.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
So I want to take a trip down memory lane.
Um in 2023, late 2023, you wrotean article.
Most people think the US crimerate is rising.
They're wrong.
Almost 80% of Americans and 92%of Republicans think crime has
gone up.
It actually fell in 2023.
An expert blames a familiarculprit for the mistaken
impression.
Does do you remember thatarticle?
Of course.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (08:31):
So uh obviously I I was the expert.
Um, we talked about that.
I remember I got a lot ofblowback about that.
And I don't blowback may not bethe right word, but maybe it was
on social media.
What was the response for you?
Do you does that stand out?
SPEAKER_01 (08:44):
Sadly, you know, the response broke down partisan
lines because at the time it waslarge, you know, vast majorities
of Republicans were unwilling tobelieve that crime was going
down.
Now, now, of course, as you knowwell, you probably taught me
this that if you look at Galluppolls going back to the 90s, in
most of those polls, majoritiesof Americans believe that crime
was there was more crime thisyear than there was last year.
(09:05):
There's that that perception hasalways been with us and it's
fueled by local news and otherthings that we can talk about.
But particularly in the Trumpera, you know, there was among
Republicans when the when theBiden administration was in
power, they just did not want tobelieve that crime was going
down.
And they actively uh disputed itand through the election.
And it's remarkable to see nowDonald Trump and his and his
(09:26):
allies and Cash Patel embracingthe lowest murder rate in modern
history and trying to takecredit for it when they used the
same data or they argued thatthe same data was corrupt and
flawed, you know, when they werenot in power.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
Speaking of that, I have a quote um from Ann Coulter
from June of 2024, who says, butnow some genius, Jeff Asher, has
come along and treated thesesame FBI reports as if they're
Talmud and announced that crimeunder Biden is at a 50-year low.
You'll see that claimeverywhere.
Pointer, Newsweek, ABC News,White House, press releases, and
so on.
But his entire analysis is basedon faulty data.
(10:04):
Are you surprised?
I now reading that it's like ayear and a half ago, but it
feels like it was written in adifferent century.
Um, are you surprised to see howquickly that narrative has
shifted?
And the most recent Gallup pollhad was the first time since I
think 2003 that a majority ofAmericans said that crime was
falling, largely because that90% of Republicans turned into
(10:26):
55% of Republicans.
Are you surprised to see this?
Or is that sort of now it'sfalling under their watch?
That's to be expected.
SPEAKER_01 (10:32):
I'm I'm not surprised at all.
I'm sure you're not surprisedeither.
I think we both predicted thatthis would happen.
Um, and it's because the realityof crime and the statistics of
crime have become like everyother thing in our politics,
right?
There's no truth anymore thatthat people agree on.
There's the there's the sort ofFox News, right wing media, uh
MAGA world truth, and thenthere's this left-wing truth,
(10:55):
and there's a group of people inthe middle trying to actually, I
mean, the end, you know, youalways sort of try to explain to
people that yes, there wereflaws in the FBI data.
You no one's suggesting it'sperfect, there's problems.
You were always really goodabout that, and that nuance got
gets completely lost in thisdebate, right?
And you know, so no, I'm notsurprised at all.
And you know, it'd beinteresting to know what the vic
(11:16):
remember they would cite thevictim survey all the time as a
way to refute the FBI data.
I haven't looked at that lately.
I'm sure you have.
Like be interesting to seewhether those numbers are moving
as well.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
So the 2024 survey that they did showed, again,
sort of similar trends, but theychanged up their sample
methodology for like the firsttime in 20 years.
And so it's not inherentlycomparable to previous years.
So it's like it shows similartrends, but it's hard to
necessarily know what tobelieve.
And of course, people took itand applied it to their own
(11:47):
thought process.
Do you think that this change isentirely because of
partisanship?
Or is this something wherehaving better data to the
current administration's credit,they're they're talking about it
a lot more, it feels like, thanthe Biden administration talked
about it, even though in theorythey could have talked about it
more.
Um, do you think they're justbetter communicators and it's
(12:09):
just partisanship, or couldthere be something else at play
that just people arelegitimately believing good
news?
SPEAKER_01 (12:15):
I think, yeah, it's it's it's complicated, it's
nuanced.
I think you're, you know,there's a lag, right?
And so the the the post-COVIDhangover, people, you know,
people were really seared by theby the post-COVID uh explosion
of certain categories of crime.
And it took a while uh for forthem to catch up with the
reality that that violent crimewas going down.
And I and I'm sure I'm not astatistician statistician, but
(12:37):
I'm sure there's that's aphenomenon.
Like it takes a while for thereality to sink in, and it's now
clearly sinking in because it'sso profoundly uh you know
obvious in big in big cities,for example, or metro areas
where we are, that crime,violent crime is going down.
And yes, but yes, you'reabsolutely right.
The other thing is the Trumppeople make a point of
(12:57):
emphasizing this.
In fact, Cash Patel has one ofhis top priorities was steering
the FBI to become a violentcrime fighting organization
instead of the things itnormally does, like
counterterrorism and publiccorruption and white-collar
fraud, those andcounterintelligence.
And and so, yes, and all youknow, he's constantly putting
(13:18):
out news releases and having youknow at news conferences, and so
is the attorney general, and uhtalking about you know violent
crime takedowns and putting outthese statistics that you have
no idea where they came fromabout you know, arrests in this
category of surge 30% and thingslike that.
So, yeah, I think itparticularly and that that goes
to their base, and so thatreinforces among their base, it
(13:39):
gets them to believe even moreso that crime is down.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
I mean, I'll credit him even when in the summer,
when uh the president wastalking about how crime was
surging and we needed to sendthe National Guard everywhere
because crime was out ofcontrol.
Cash Patel went on Joe Rogan'sprogram and was talking about
the we were showing a 20% drop,and he starts talking about how
the FBI data is showing a 20%drop and not quite the
attribution that wasappropriate, but like he he has
(14:05):
long talked about like thereality is the reality, even
that even before when that wasnot necessarily the popular
approach.
I know that's good.
I mean, it was it was veryinteresting, and Dan Bongino, I
think I pronounced his last nameright, yeah.
Um, he he also like was outthere talking about this as a
talking point early last year.
So, and again, you know,claiming credit, like you said,
(14:26):
but uh that that I thought was aan interesting dichotomy there.
Eventually we're gonna see crimego up and uh this sort of
downward trend is gonna stop atsome point.
And is there a responsible waythat you think for the media to
talk about this?
If if after several years ofhistoric declines to historic
lows, we stop seeing thosehistoric declines and we maybe
(14:49):
start to see increases, even ifit's not like 2020 where you
have this enormous surge.
SPEAKER_01 (14:54):
Yeah, well, I think it's always incumbent on those
of us reporting on crime statsand crime numbers to put it in
historical context.
Right?
The slight increase of themoment is not as important as
where we are compared to 10years ago, compared to the
historic highs of the 90s orwhatever.
So, yeah, I mean, if it goes upslightly, but it's still at
relative historic lows, youknow, that's important to point
(15:18):
out, to do it responsibly.
While still exploring, you know,there may be certain categories,
like you know, for a while,retail theft arguably was this
huge thing and or carjacking,you know, so there might be
micro stories there, but thelarger story is that America is
much less violent than it usedto be, which is which is we kind
of still have to keepemphasizing that um until the
(15:40):
day that it's not true anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
I'm sure you've had stories where you're covering
them and the sort of publicconversation outruns the facts
about the story.
And you know, you're gettingquote tweeted and people are
talking about this story, andit's either outdated points or
incorrect points.
Are there things that in certainstories that point to you that
like I need to cover this for myjob, but there's a strong risk
(16:03):
that people are going to takethis the wrong direction?
And do you have strategies forsort of addressing these issues
if if you see them in advance?
It's hard to that's hard toanswer.
Uh do you not care that thestory is the story and you Yeah,
I don't really yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
I mean, honestly, that I try to just take what's
in front of me and and and dothe best journalism that we can
do and be as fair as and asbalanced as we can.
I mean, we're in a climate, youknow, it's particularly working
at MS Now, which has a uh, atleast in the primetime hours,
has a sort of a leftward slantum and has a certain identity.
You know, there like in theBiden administration, there were
(16:40):
certain stories that you as ajournalist you need to cover,
like the Hunter Biden scandalsthat, you know, maybe the hosts
of our primetime programsweren't as interested in
covering.
But uh, and and so and yourealize that what you're you
know, you have to treat thosestories with care and and do the
same kind of take the same kindof approach as you would any
other story.
Uh so you think about you thinkabout it that way.
SPEAKER_00 (17:01):
Do you have any suggestions for uh I love the
quote that the media doesn'tcover the planes that land?
It's really hard to cover crimethat doesn't happen.
You know, you can't write areport about how there were no
robberies last week or you wenttwo weeks without a shoplifting.
Right.
Do you have any suggestions forhow to sort of overcome this
there's not going to be a storyif there's no thing that
(17:22):
happens?
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
Well, the the way to do that is to is to go out with
the cops.
You know, that's that's how Iwould try to tell that story.
We're either, you know,ride-alongs and and and we did
that in Detroit during theelection as a way of trying to
illustrate the fact that youknow crime in Detroit had
plummeted.
In fact, if you I think yourecommended Detroit as one of
the places we should go to tellthat story, and it was great.
(17:46):
And we talked to the chief, wewent into the op center.
Um, and but that was that wasmore of a way to say, hey, you
know, the this stuff that Trumpand Republicans are saying just
isn't true, and here we are at abig city.
Uh, but you could still use thatsame strategy to go out and
figure out what's working tooand why, because the question of
why I know is hotly debatedamong criminologists.
(18:07):
And so the the to the extentthat you can go out and try to
explore the whys of why we're aless violent society right now,
even though wealth inequalityhas exploded and grinding
poverty, arguably, is is is insome pockets of America is as
painful as ever.
And you know, single parenthoodand all the all these factors
that people think contribute tocrime, it hasn't gotten any
(18:28):
better.
So what's going on?
That's an interesting questionto pursue uh as a way of also
you know reporting the sort ofthe good news.
SPEAKER_00 (18:36):
Kind of thinking about the the future of this
conversation and communicatingall of this stuff and everything
that's happening.
Um, I'm just curious, what areyour thoughts on the changing
media landscape?
I mean, the last few weeks we'vehad the you know, Paramount
purchasing um Warner Brothers,you have the Washington Post
just firing everybody.
I think massive changes that areobviously bad for journalism.
(18:58):
Do you have just sort ofoverarching thoughts on where
this is going?
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
I wish I knew where it was going.
I I'm generally very sad aboutthe whole so the way this
landscape is evolving.
I mean, I grew up sort of in theshadow of Watergate, and you
know, I'm old enough to still toremember sitting down to watch
the evening news, and there was,you know, there was a majority
of Americans got their news fromspecific places, and we all sort
(19:24):
of agreed on the facts.
We may not have we may havedisagreed about policies and
approaches, but we agreed we allhad the same truth, and that has
gradually eroded, and now we'rein a situation where we don't
have that.
So Nixon would survive Watergatetoday, clearly.
Watergate was a reason that awhole generation of people got
into journalism, right?
To do investigative reporting,to hold the powerful to account.
(19:46):
There's less of that happeningnow because of the media
landscape and the uh thefinancial situation and the
decline of local newspapers.
That's a sad thing.
You know, at the same time,there's there's a new way to
reach a lot of people throughwhat we call vertical video or
you know, TikToks and Instagramand all that stuff, which I'm
doing, we're all doing.
You know, networks like minehaven't figured out how to
(20:06):
monetize it yet, but that seemsto be the future.
You know, everybody's ajournalist now.
I don't know what theimplication of that is, though.
And like I have teenage sons,and I just wonder how they
figure out what's true.
And they they you know, andthey've grown up with a lot of
advantages and they're prettymedia literate.
But every once in a whilethey'll come to me with the most
bizarre question because ofsomething they saw in some video
(20:30):
somewhere.
I'm like, how can you even thinkthat's possibly true?
And that's what worries me aboutthe situation that we're in
right now.
The fundamental economics ofjournalism obviously have
completely shifted.
So the New York Times, which weall look to as sort of our
greatest national um journalismengine, is basically a float on
Wordle and lifestyle brand stuffthat's subsidizing the
(20:52):
journalism.
The post couldn't figure thatout, so they're going down the
tubes.
And uh, and then and fewer andfewer people are watching
network and cable news.
So it's all it's all in fluxright now.
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
Are there advantages to this that like it sort of
democratizes?
I mean, there's obviouslydisadvantages to it, it
democratizes misinformation, butdoes it democratize information,
make it easier?
You don't necessarily you seeyou know the people that you
love that okay, this the myfavorite nationals reporter,
Mark Zimmerman, is that laid offand now he's got a Substack.
(21:26):
And do you see other advantages,or is it just like this is
terrifying?
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
And no, you're right.
There's two advantages that inwhat you just described.
One, it's a lot easier to dogood journalism and accurate
journalism in the world of theinternet and AI.
I mean, I'm all of I started mycareer before the internet, you
know, when I had to drive aroundwith maps and look at, you know,
go to the library and look atand use reverse phone
directories and things likethat.
Information is at our fingertipsnow, and AI has just put that on
(21:52):
steroids.
I mean, I use AI all the time toto you know to sum up if I were
the last six Supreme Court caseson X, Y, or Z.
I mean, it's just, it's allthere.
So we can do a better jobproviding people richer
information more quickly.
And then the other thing thattechnology does is you're right,
it empowers people to break awayfrom these legacy platforms.
(22:14):
And you know, not only does MarkZimmerman on Substack, but the
Baltimore Banner is hiring abunch of you know Washington
Post reporters, and New YorkTimes is going to do some
Washington sports coverage.
So so there's there's ways thatand there's all these new
entities that have sprung up.
So so that's good.
I just worry, you know,journalism need in some cases
needs to be done at scale.
(22:35):
You need big organizations,right?
You're willing to investresources and go places where
onesies and twosies can't go.
And and we're kind of we'relosing that a little bit in some
areas, and that, and that'sthat's that's irreplaceable.
SPEAKER_00 (22:49):
I saw someone talking about just the
importance of lawyers, that youneed a news organization with
lawyers that don't mind gettingsued and could kind of sue.
SPEAKER_01 (22:56):
And I mean, well, yeah, in in this environment,
you know, the these folks thatwe're covering are very
litigious.
And, you know, if you're justout there on your own with a
substack, I don't know how youdeal with that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
You mentioned like the TikTok and and short form
video.
I have not had any success atany of this.
Do you have ideas for liketransitioning from that Twitter,
uh, blue sky, LinkedIn, evenvery comfortable on the tech
space platforms?
I'm not comfortable recordingvideo of myself.
It's just not uh second nature,it's not natural to me.
Is do you do that?
Is there any yes I do?
SPEAKER_01 (23:28):
And you're you should be cockstar.
What you're doing right now isfine.
Just just just do this withoutme and just talk to the it's
easy.
No, I mean, I you know, it'seasy for me because I have a
whole I have a whole support,there's a whole part of our
network that just focuses onthis.
And they say, Hey, would youmake a social video on this
thing that you just reportedabout the FBI director?
And they tell me how to do itand what to do and what points
(23:51):
to hit.
And so that's you know, but andyes, and we do that, and and
sometimes the traffic is huge onthese things.
I mean, way more than people arewatching linear TV sometimes if
it goes viral.
But I don't think uh big mediacompanies have figured out a way
to monetize this in a way thatyou know makes sense.
So we're doing it right now toget audience, but uh the you
(24:15):
know, I don't think the revenueis there.
And so people have to figure outthat model.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Does it drive web traffic at all?
I had noticed we have an uhInstagram channel, and we
occasionally have gotten somethat for us is like pretty good,
a couple thousand views on avideo, and it tends to drive
traffic.
Do you guys see that as a atleast an incentive to do it?
Or it's I think so.
SPEAKER_01 (24:36):
I'm not the best person to ask, but I I think
that's I think I've heard thefolks say that that that that is
yeah, it certainly expands theaudience and particularly it
reaches different people, peoplewho aren't watching cable news.
Because apparently uh, you know,uh kids today uh sort of relate
to a specific journalist andthey build trust with specific
(24:56):
figures.
And so if you're out there withyour face and enough videos, you
can build a brand and thenattract that audience.
SPEAKER_00 (25:04):
All right.
So I need to figure that out.
I have my kids are all under 10right now, but I like when I
think about this, I think, youknow, how would I reach them if
I did a subject matter that Iwould actually want to reach my
kids with information about it?
But um it's yeah, it it's suchit's such a unique and foreign
challenge, it feels like.
(25:24):
Yeah, sure.
You mentioned AI, I want to askabout that because it's got so
much incredible potential andobviously the pitfalls.
Do you think a lot about howthat's going to impact your job,
both how it is already?
You talked about that, but howit will into the future?
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Yes.
I mean, I'm at sort of in thetwilight of my career here.
So it, you know, I'm sort ofthinking I can get out of this
before we're all replaced by AIbots, but it's pretty clear.
Six minutes.
Yeah.
I mean, there you I don't knowif you saw this, but there was a
story recently about, I forgetwhich newspaper this was, but
there was a controversy becausesome newspaper editor uh wrote a
(26:04):
public post about how a jobcandidate withdrew because their
policy is that at our newspaper,you you know, we're gonna do the
reporting, but AI is gonna writethe stories.
And that and that's and he wasarguing this is a good thing
because it, you know, AI can'tgo out and meet with somebody at
a coffee shop and talk tosources, and but AI can can
coherently write a news storyvery easily.
(26:27):
And that that was sobering to alot of because you know, a lot
of us old newspaper reporters,but the writing is part of the
joy of doing the job, right?
And communicating to anaudience, but our already you're
seeing AI plant that because AIcan write a competent uh news
story if you give it the correctfacts.
How long before AI is isprobably AI right now could do a
(26:48):
coherent nightly news broadcastand you wouldn't know the
difference necessarily.
Yeah, it's a brave new world.
And and the ability of theseengines to sort of gather and
and process information at thespeed of light is just
incredible.
I'm just finding it, it's justit's so empowering.
Obviously, you have to checkeverything and make sure you're
not the victim of ahallucination, but I find that
(27:09):
less and less to be a problem.
They're acting you know, when itcomes to stuff that's in the in
the news and in the in a matterof public debate, they're on the
ball and they're like findingstuff that would take hours
before to find, even with Googlesearches and stuff.
And that's just that's superhelpful.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
How do you feel about sort of the culture around
acceptance of these types ofthings?
I know it feels like it's sortof becoming more culturally
acceptable in certain cases touse AI that maybe a year ago or
two years ago it would have beenhorrific to use.
And and a lot of that is just areflection of the technology
improving that fast.
Um, do you sense that people areaccepting more of its use in
(27:48):
journalism specifically, butalso just sort of
professionalism at large?
SPEAKER_01 (27:52):
Yeah, I think so.
And when I talk to like lawyersand people in other professions,
they they say that, you know,clearly for entry-level tasks,
it's it's becoming a I mean,make a huge factor in how they
do the jobs much faster than Ithink we all anticipated.
And that's yeah, I think whatyou're saying is right, is like
the things that would have beenunimaginable five years ago,
(28:16):
we're just accepting now.
And you know, like at my kids'spool, they're they're very
rigorous about policing becausethey don't obviously don't want
kids writing papers with AI.
My kids high school, but then Ihave another kid in college, and
they're you know, everybody sortof understands that AI is a is a
part of the college experiencenow, and they're not isn't
they're not as worried about it,it seems like.
SPEAKER_00 (28:38):
Interesting.
Have they like shifted todifferent models of teaching to
figure out how they're learning,like how are they actually
learning the material?
I think so, but I'm not uh Idon't I don't have the details
on that.
Sure.
So I want to turn to the futureof the Trump administration.
Do you have a sense for howthings may play out over the
(28:58):
last three years of thisadministration?
Is this something where you'vesort of we've had the high water
mark and a lot of these sort ofpowers are gonna start to to
shift as things turn to thefuture?
SPEAKER_01 (29:11):
Things are definitely gonna shift,
obviously, if the Democrats, aswe all expect, at least take the
House in the midterms.
But I don't think they're gonnashift as much as some people
think, because most of whatTrump has been doing is through
executive power, or at least hisvision of a vastly expanded
executive power wielded in a waythat no president previously has
(29:32):
wielded it.
And what we've learned is thatif you're willing to do things
that we used to think were wasillegal, like firing civil
servants willy-nilly, you know,all these FBI people have been
fired.
Every all my sources say, oh,they're all gonna get their jobs
back.
They're gonna get a check, too.
You know, all these firings areillegal, is what people, legal
experts, say.
But the the Trump people don'tcare.
It it's it's fulfilling theirmandate at the time, which is
(29:55):
they're changing theorganization.
And it may be years before theyget the job back.
And you know, you can multiplythis times 100 across the
government.
I mean, USAID is not comingback, right?
No matter what uh uh and and tome, that's just the think about
that one story is incredible.
We had this foreign aid agencystarted by John Kennedy.
Donald Trump and his allieswrecked it in about a month, and
(30:18):
it's gone, and nobody even talksabout it anymore.
I mean, very it's like becausewe're moving on to the next
massive thing that they've done.
You know, an earthquake of athing.
So, no, I I have honestly, Imean, I we're only a year into
this, and they've changed thegovernment uh and society in
profound ways.
Now they've they're losing, theylost their attempt to use that
(30:41):
executive order to intimidatelaw firms.
That was a big deal, you know.
Bunch of law firms, remember,sort of capitulated and settled.
Some stood up and fought, andthose that stood up and fought,
they won in court.
So I think we're gonna seethings like that.
The Supreme Court is gonnapresumably rule against them on
birthright citizenship and maybein some other areas, and so
we'll gradually sort ofconstrain.
(31:03):
So some of the things they setout to do, maybe on immigration,
they're not gonna be able to do.
But fundamentally, what we'relearning is a president who
wants to push the envelope onexecutive power can can really
make a lot of changes that areand and as long as congressional
Republicans continue to go alongand the Senate is structured as
it is, with a filibuster, um,it's gonna be really hard for
(31:26):
Congress to stop them, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (31:28):
And so you know what do you think of the what do you
think of the implications forthis, specifically for the
Justice Department, if in threeyears there's a Democrat
president?
SPEAKER_01 (31:37):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Where whoever that democraticpresident is and will be faced
with the task of trying torebuild something that's
fundamentally been, in the viewof some of my sources, wrecked.
I mean, the DOJ and the FBI havebeen hollowed out.
The the expertise has walked outof those places that is
irreplaceable.
(31:57):
And you know, you can't hire thethose people aren't coming back
in three years.
Some of them might, but like sothey have to rebuild it.
And then they also have todecide how much are they going
to look backward and conductinvestigations into and and try
to hold accountable people forthe perceived corruption that
we're seeing?
Uh, the self-enrichment, thewe're part are pardons being,
(32:21):
you know, is the influencepeddling taking place with
pardons and other kinds ofthings, or are are people uh
tied to Trump enrichingthemselves through foreign
governments?
Is the is the Democratic-ledJustice Department gonna spend a
lot of time going backwards andinvestigating that?
Will there be some kind of truthand reconciliation commission?
That that's gonna be that's areally interesting question, but
it it's gonna take people, mysources tell me it's gonna take
(32:43):
years to rebuild what's beenlost at the FBI and the Justice
Department.
And, you know, will people everlook at them the same way?
Because norms have beenshattered, you know, 50-year
norms, post-watergate norms havebeen have been shattered.
It's hard to put that genie backin the bottom.
So, Ken, last question.
What what is next for you?
Gosh, I'm just trying to figureout, you know, well what what
(33:07):
what what next story to do aboutthe FBI and the DOJ and what
they're doing, and you know,whether Cash Patel can survive
uh apparently Donald Trump'sdistaste for his Olympic X
escapades.
What what do you think?
Do you what are you hearing?
We reported a while back that hewas on thin ice.
We might have saved his job byreporting that because the the
(33:27):
next the next day Trump had apicture with him in the old
office.
It's sort of like the old storyabout you know J.
Edgar Hoover.
It was reported that he wasabout to be fired and LBJ
appointed him for life.
So so, but but I think I thinkyou know, because of the some of
the ways he's doing business andjetting around the country on
taxpayer dime andself-aggrandizing, he risks
(33:49):
alienating Trump.
And so he may not be around forthe full term.
And and you know, I'm actuallydigging into the pardons because
I feel like the Trump's use ofthe pardon power and clemency
power has been absolutelyextraordinary.
And each one is is more bizarreand notable than the last.
And it'd be it's like a one-daystory, and then people forget
(34:10):
about it.
So I'm trying to go back andrevisit some of these
extraordinary pardons, whetherit's the president of Honduras,
uh Honduras, who was convictedof drug trafficking and
sentenced to four years inprison, or you know, it's the
various fraudsters and corruptpoliticians that he's let out,
uh, none of whom would have beeneligible for clemency in any
previous administration.
(34:30):
None of it went through thenormal process.
A lot of times people hadlawyers or lobbyists with close
ties to the administration.
So I think there's there's a lotto look at there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:40):
And I I should ask, uh, you're talking about uh the
FBI director kind of brought tomind this idea.
Obviously, the FBI directorusually has a 10-year term to
sort of separate it from thepresidential politics.
Is that right?
And Trump has come in twice, butdidn't fire the previous FBI
director, but he resignedimmediately or before Trump took
office.
So is there a way to get back tothat norm?
(35:02):
Or have we attached the FBIdirector now to a presidency,
which is not what's supposed tobe the case?
SPEAKER_01 (35:08):
Right.
I mean, well, we have for now.
I wonder if Congress can sort ofstrengthen that 10-year term,
make it mandatory, or I mean,you can't really make it
mandatory because you it's partof the executive branch, but if
there's a way to sort ofreinforce that, no doubt if
there's a Democrat, you know, asthe next president, he or she
will try to pick somebody that'spalatable to most Americans with
(35:31):
the idea of leaving them in for10 years to try to restore that
norm.
But, you know, I think it'sright now it's on thin ice.
Yeah.
Interesting times to be coveringthe Justice Department.
Indeed.
Indeed.
Well, let's uh let's talk thenext for the next crime numbers
and figure out uh what'shappening with those.
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
Yes.
And uh I had um FBI assistantdirector that runs these on the
program, and like they it'sweird to talk about the FBI like
this and certainly see it andthen see what they're doing with
their crime data collection,which is like worlds better than
it was even two years ago.
It's it's like a tremendousachievement for the FBI in my
world, and then talk toyourself, and you're the
(36:13):
complete opposite with the sameagency.
Well, you know what?
That's a good point to raise,okay?
SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
Because when I cover the big, the big stuff, like the
the the hot button issues,probably 80 or 90 percent of
what the FBI does in the fieldoffices around the country is
the same as it was four yearsago.
You know, you prosecuting alow-level drug dealer or that or
or putting out crime numbers,you know, there's still career
civil servants doing good workand trying to do the best they
(36:39):
can.
Uh it's just that, well, a lotof them have been sort of
assigned to do immigrationduties.
And so that that that pulls themoff other other duties.
But but there's still, you know,there's still a lot good that's
happening.
It doesn't get attention becausethis other stuff gets a lot of
attention.
So if they're doing better oncrime numbers, that's that's
great news.
SPEAKER_00 (36:56):
Yeah, it is, it's absolutely great news.
It's interesting just to hearthat dichotomy of what's going
right and what's not.
And I guess hopefully the crimestats stays out of the sort of
politicization of other aspectsof the Justice Department.
SPEAKER_01 (37:10):
Well, Jeff, as long as they're going well and doing
and and and making a goodshowing for the Trump
administration, you know, themandate will be collect as much
accurate information as you can.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
So now now we got to make sure that it doesn't go up.
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
Ked, thank you so much forcoming on.
This has been great.
I really appreciate it.
Great to be with you, Jeff.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
(37:43):
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
(00:03):
Crime Data is supposed to tellus what is happening in the
country, but it can't alwaysspeak for itself.
Data moves through institutions,through the media, and through
politics before it reaches thepublic.
And when trust in all three ofthose things starts to break
down, even the clearest numberscan become part of the fight
over what is actually going on.
That's what makes thisconversation with Ken Delanian
so important.
Ken is the justice andintelligence correspondent for
(00:25):
MSNow, and has covered theDepartment of Justice and the
intelligence community fornearly two decades at outlets
like USA Today, DLA Times,Associated Press, and NBC News.
Through these roles, Ken has hada front-row seat to a rapidly
changing federal government.
In this episode, we talk aboutwhat it means to cover crime and
justice right now, when officialchannels matter less, insiders
(00:46):
are more willing to talk but aremore exposed when they do, and
the same data can be treated astruth or fiction depending on
the speaker.
We also get into the tensioninside the FBI, where important
work like crime data collectionis improving even as the
institution itself is understrain.
This episode is not just aboutcrime numbers, it's about who
gets to shape the story thosenumbers tell.
(01:06):
My guest today is the great KenDelanian.
Ken, thanks so much for joiningthe program.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
Jeff, I couldn't say no to you.
Great to be with you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
Thank you.
All right.
Every guest has to start off theshow with a compliment to me,
and then we can, you know, sortof get another pose.
So I appreciate that.
Um, Ken, just uh regularquestion for every guest.
What what is your background?
What brings you here today totalk about crime and criminal
justice and all that good stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Well, so I cover the Justice Department and the FBI
and legal issues and justiceissues for MSNow, which is the
formerly MSNBC.
And uh, as people may know, uhit just split off from NBC News,
where I was for the last 10years uh covering these issues
for both NBC and MSNBC and thewebsite, where we had many
(01:52):
conversations and I quoted youin many stories about uh the
phenomenon of people notbelieving the crime numbers and
what was happening with thecrime numbers.
I cover uh FBI uh disclosures ofcrime data, although, you know,
these days there's so much crazystuff going on in the justice
space that crime data is notgetting maybe as much attention
as it should, except when DonaldTrump talks about it.
(02:13):
Uh so we can talk more aboutthat.
But uh, I've been in televisionabout 10 years, and before that
I was a newspaper reporter foraround 20 plus.
I've always been a journalist,graduating from college, uh,
graduated from Williams Collegein Massachusetts, grew up in
Massachusetts, now for the last20 years have been living in
Washington, D.C.
What is it like being a nationalreporter in 2026?
(02:35):
It's not necessarily verypleasant.
It's stressful covering thisadministration, particularly in
this space, the justice and FBIspace.
You know, every day is a newthing that we've never seen
before, and usually it's bad, orat least in the view of our
sources and our viewers, uh itit's it's bad.
Um, because this this presidentis doing things that no
(02:57):
president has ever done in termsof compromising the independence
of the FBI and the JusticeDepartment.
Um, people are being fired allthe time.
We've good civil servants thathave been working at the FBI for
decades have been walked out thedoor.
As, you know, as a nationalreporter, you're cognizant of
dangers that you never beforefeared.
We've, you know, we've saw theFBI actually uh, you know,
(03:19):
conduct a raid and and snatchthe phones and electronic
devices of a Washington Postreporter.
That was a very, uh, verysobering moment for all of us
who do this work because we'reall talking to confidential
sources.
That's the way we get most ofour information.
And we're very concerned aboutwhat the government is trying to
do to ferret that out, figureout who we're talking to.
You know, the old rules are outthe window.
(03:41):
The Justice Department used tohave rules about the way they
obtain information fromjournalists in a criminal
investigation, that we don'thave those protections anymore.
So it's pretty stressful time,actually.
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
How these changes that you talk about, has that
made it easier?
Like firing civil servants andand potentially people that have
been in career jobs for decadesthat are now unhappy.
Uh, I think it thinking thatabout this as like a uh former
spook, that like that would begood for work that like makes it
easier to find people to talkabout.
Is that sort of environment, isthat the case with you, or is
(04:14):
that something that people areafraid to talk and it's made it
harder for you?
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Uh as a yeah, as a former spook, that's a very
perceptive observation.
You're right.
What do we when when people areunhappy, you know, it's a
source-rich environment in thatsense.
So yes.
I mean, this is complicated.
There's a couple answers, butthe the answer to your
fundamental question is yes.
Uh, people, particularly insidethese agencies, are talking to
(04:38):
us as they never would beforebecause they feel under siege.
In a normal administration, inthe last administration or in
the George Bush administration,there was no incentive for an
FBI agent to violate the rulesand talk to a reporter.
Why would they do that?
I mean, everything was goingfine as far as they were
concerned.
They were allowed to do theirjobs.
Now we're in a situation wherethey're every day they're
bombarded with absurd orders andand and things that really uh
(05:02):
you know cause them stress anddiscomfort.
And and some small percentage ofthem are willing to take a risk
and talk about it.
And if not talk directly to us,at least talk to their friends
who are out, who then talk tous.
Uh, so that's happening to agreater degree than ever before.
But there's also this phenomenonof former officials afraid to be
(05:23):
quoted by name, almost anyonereally, afraid to be quoted by
name, criticizing thisadministration because they're
afraid of the potentialretaliation.
If they if they have anyaffiliation with a company that
has government contracts or canget any way be hurt by Donald
Trump.
Uh, and so that's become it'sit's more difficult to get
people to to say anything on therecord.
(05:44):
And you know, we we we don'twant to be fueled entirely by
anonymous sources, and anonymoussources are important, but we
want people to talk on therecord so that our viewers and
readers and you know can havecan have confidence that what
we're getting is you know isaccurate and on the level.
Uh people are very suspicious ofanonymous sources often.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
So, so that's kind of the situation.
Can you sort of catalog how yourjob has changed in say the last
two or three years?
I know obviously you're at adifferent network and there's a
lot of differences there, butare there other sort of more
fundamental ways that just beinga reporter, a national reporter
in 2026 is different from beinga reporter in 2024 or 2023?
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
Yeah, and also different from from being from
being one in 20, you know, 18and 19 in the first Trump
administration.
This administration works asnever before.
None in pre even, you know, thefirst Trump administration
fundamentally different fromthis administration.
So in the first Trumpadministration or the Biden
administration, uh you coveringthe Justice Department and the
FBI, you dealt with careerofficials, career public affairs
(06:47):
people and others who you knowyou had a fundamental
relationship with, and you couldbe sure that you were getting
for the most part, you you therewas a relationship of trust, and
you could get um you could go tothem and expect to get uh
straight information, and youand you spent time cultivating
these people because it wasimportant.
This Trump administration has nointerest in engaging with the
(07:10):
media in a normal way, except ifthey're playing defense on a
story that you know potentiallymight embarrass one of their
principals.
And so and the only people thatseem to know anything at these
agencies are the politicalappointees, the career public
affairs folks, to the extentthat they still have their jobs,
are completely in the dark.
(07:30):
So they really can't help withanything.
The reporting on these agenciesis become fundamentally much
more of a uh going out andfinding people willing to talk
to you either inside or outside,anonymously, who know things,
and getting things throughofficial channels or or even
trying to reach out and say,hey, this is a story that's in
both of our interests.
Can you give us access to thiscase or this investigation
(07:51):
because it'll help you and it'llhelp us?
That's completely out thewindow.
So that that doesn't existanymore.
Um, and and so it's really it'smore of guerrilla journalism
where you're really trying tofind people to tell you things
that uh the Trump administrationdoesn't want you to know.
Um that's that's generally whatI do for most of my days.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
So I want to take a trip down memory lane.
Um in 2023, late 2023, you wrotean article.
Most people think the US crimerate is rising.
They're wrong.
Almost 80% of Americans and 92%of Republicans think crime has
gone up.
It actually fell in 2023.
An expert blames a familiarculprit for the mistaken
impression.
Does do you remember thatarticle?
Of course.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (08:31):
So uh obviously I I was the expert.
Um, we talked about that.
I remember I got a lot ofblowback about that.
And I don't blowback may not bethe right word, but maybe it was
on social media.
What was the response for you?
Do you does that stand out?
SPEAKER_01 (08:44):
Sadly, you know, the response broke down partisan
lines because at the time it waslarge, you know, vast majorities
of Republicans were unwilling tobelieve that crime was going
down.
Now, now, of course, as you knowwell, you probably taught me
this that if you look at Galluppolls going back to the 90s, in
most of those polls, majoritiesof Americans believe that crime
was there was more crime thisyear than there was last year.
(09:05):
There's that that perception hasalways been with us and it's
fueled by local news and otherthings that we can talk about.
But particularly in the Trumpera, you know, there was among
Republicans when the when theBiden administration was in
power, they just did not want tobelieve that crime was going
down.
And they actively uh disputed itand through the election.
And it's remarkable to see nowDonald Trump and his and his
(09:26):
allies and Cash Patel embracingthe lowest murder rate in modern
history and trying to takecredit for it when they used the
same data or they argued thatthe same data was corrupt and
flawed, you know, when they werenot in power.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
Speaking of that, I have a quote um from Ann Coulter
from June of 2024, who says, butnow some genius, Jeff Asher, has
come along and treated thesesame FBI reports as if they're
Talmud and announced that crimeunder Biden is at a 50-year low.
You'll see that claimeverywhere.
Pointer, Newsweek, ABC News,White House, press releases, and
so on.
But his entire analysis is basedon faulty data.
(10:04):
Are you surprised?
I now reading that it's like ayear and a half ago, but it
feels like it was written in adifferent century.
Um, are you surprised to see howquickly that narrative has
shifted?
And the most recent Gallup pollhad was the first time since I
think 2003 that a majority ofAmericans said that crime was
falling, largely because that90% of Republicans turned into
(10:26):
55% of Republicans.
Are you surprised to see this?
Or is that sort of now it'sfalling under their watch?
That's to be expected.
SPEAKER_01 (10:32):
I'm I'm not surprised at all.
I'm sure you're not surprisedeither.
I think we both predicted thatthis would happen.
Um, and it's because the realityof crime and the statistics of
crime have become like everyother thing in our politics,
right?
There's no truth anymore thatthat people agree on.
There's the there's the sort ofFox News, right wing media, uh
MAGA world truth, and thenthere's this left-wing truth,
(10:55):
and there's a group of people inthe middle trying to actually, I
mean, the end, you know, youalways sort of try to explain to
people that yes, there wereflaws in the FBI data.
You no one's suggesting it'sperfect, there's problems.
You were always really goodabout that, and that nuance got
gets completely lost in thisdebate, right?
And you know, so no, I'm notsurprised at all.
And you know, it'd beinteresting to know what the vic
(11:16):
remember they would cite thevictim survey all the time as a
way to refute the FBI data.
I haven't looked at that lately.
I'm sure you have.
Like be interesting to seewhether those numbers are moving
as well.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
So the 2024 survey that they did showed, again,
sort of similar trends, but theychanged up their sample
methodology for like the firsttime in 20 years.
And so it's not inherentlycomparable to previous years.
So it's like it shows similartrends, but it's hard to
necessarily know what tobelieve.
And of course, people took itand applied it to their own
(11:47):
thought process.
Do you think that this change isentirely because of
partisanship?
Or is this something wherehaving better data to the
current administration's credit,they're they're talking about it
a lot more, it feels like, thanthe Biden administration talked
about it, even though in theorythey could have talked about it
more.
Um, do you think they're justbetter communicators and it's
(12:09):
just partisanship, or couldthere be something else at play
that just people arelegitimately believing good
news?
SPEAKER_01 (12:15):
I think, yeah, it's it's it's complicated, it's
nuanced.
I think you're, you know,there's a lag, right?
And so the the the post-COVIDhangover, people, you know,
people were really seared by theby the post-COVID uh explosion
of certain categories of crime.
And it took a while uh for forthem to catch up with the
reality that that violent crimewas going down.
And I and I'm sure I'm not astatistician statistician, but
(12:37):
I'm sure there's that's aphenomenon.
Like it takes a while for thereality to sink in, and it's now
clearly sinking in because it'sso profoundly uh you know
obvious in big in big cities,for example, or metro areas
where we are, that crime,violent crime is going down.
And yes, but yes, you'reabsolutely right.
The other thing is the Trumppeople make a point of
(12:57):
emphasizing this.
In fact, Cash Patel has one ofhis top priorities was steering
the FBI to become a violentcrime fighting organization
instead of the things itnormally does, like
counterterrorism and publiccorruption and white-collar
fraud, those andcounterintelligence.
And and so, yes, and all youknow, he's constantly putting
(13:18):
out news releases and having youknow at news conferences, and so
is the attorney general, and uhtalking about you know violent
crime takedowns and putting outthese statistics that you have
no idea where they came fromabout you know, arrests in this
category of surge 30% and thingslike that.
So, yeah, I think itparticularly and that that goes
to their base, and so thatreinforces among their base, it
(13:39):
gets them to believe even moreso that crime is down.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
I mean, I'll credit him even when in the summer,
when uh the president wastalking about how crime was
surging and we needed to sendthe National Guard everywhere
because crime was out ofcontrol.
Cash Patel went on Joe Rogan'sprogram and was talking about
the we were showing a 20% drop,and he starts talking about how
the FBI data is showing a 20%drop and not quite the
attribution that wasappropriate, but like he he has
(14:05):
long talked about like thereality is the reality, even
that even before when that wasnot necessarily the popular
approach.
I know that's good.
I mean, it was it was veryinteresting, and Dan Bongino, I
think I pronounced his last nameright, yeah.
Um, he he also like was outthere talking about this as a
talking point early last year.
So, and again, you know,claiming credit, like you said,
(14:26):
but uh that that I thought was aan interesting dichotomy there.
Eventually we're gonna see crimego up and uh this sort of
downward trend is gonna stop atsome point.
And is there a responsible waythat you think for the media to
talk about this?
If if after several years ofhistoric declines to historic
lows, we stop seeing thosehistoric declines and we maybe
(14:49):
start to see increases, even ifit's not like 2020 where you
have this enormous surge.
SPEAKER_01 (14:54):
Yeah, well, I think it's always incumbent on those
of us reporting on crime statsand crime numbers to put it in
historical context.
Right?
The slight increase of themoment is not as important as
where we are compared to 10years ago, compared to the
historic highs of the 90s orwhatever.
So, yeah, I mean, if it goes upslightly, but it's still at
relative historic lows, youknow, that's important to point
(15:18):
out, to do it responsibly.
While still exploring, you know,there may be certain categories,
like you know, for a while,retail theft arguably was this
huge thing and or carjacking,you know, so there might be
micro stories there, but thelarger story is that America is
much less violent than it usedto be, which is which is we kind
of still have to keepemphasizing that um until the
(15:40):
day that it's not true anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
I'm sure you've had stories where you're covering
them and the sort of publicconversation outruns the facts
about the story.
And you know, you're gettingquote tweeted and people are
talking about this story, andit's either outdated points or
incorrect points.
Are there things that in certainstories that point to you that
like I need to cover this for myjob, but there's a strong risk
(16:03):
that people are going to takethis the wrong direction?
And do you have strategies forsort of addressing these issues
if if you see them in advance?
It's hard to that's hard toanswer.
Uh do you not care that thestory is the story and you Yeah,
I don't really yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
I mean, honestly, that I try to just take what's
in front of me and and and dothe best journalism that we can
do and be as fair as and asbalanced as we can.
I mean, we're in a climate, youknow, it's particularly working
at MS Now, which has a uh, atleast in the primetime hours,
has a sort of a leftward slantum and has a certain identity.
You know, there like in theBiden administration, there were
(16:40):
certain stories that you as ajournalist you need to cover,
like the Hunter Biden scandalsthat, you know, maybe the hosts
of our primetime programsweren't as interested in
covering.
But uh, and and so and yourealize that what you're you
know, you have to treat thosestories with care and and do the
same kind of take the same kindof approach as you would any
other story.
Uh so you think about you thinkabout it that way.
SPEAKER_00 (17:01):
Do you have any suggestions for uh I love the
quote that the media doesn'tcover the planes that land?
It's really hard to cover crimethat doesn't happen.
You know, you can't write areport about how there were no
robberies last week or you wenttwo weeks without a shoplifting.
Right.
Do you have any suggestions forhow to sort of overcome this
there's not going to be a storyif there's no thing that
(17:22):
happens?
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
Well, the the way to do that is to is to go out with
the cops.
You know, that's that's how Iwould try to tell that story.
We're either, you know,ride-alongs and and and we did
that in Detroit during theelection as a way of trying to
illustrate the fact that youknow crime in Detroit had
plummeted.
In fact, if you I think yourecommended Detroit as one of
the places we should go to tellthat story, and it was great.
(17:46):
And we talked to the chief, wewent into the op center.
Um, and but that was that wasmore of a way to say, hey, you
know, the this stuff that Trumpand Republicans are saying just
isn't true, and here we are at abig city.
Uh, but you could still use thatsame strategy to go out and
figure out what's working tooand why, because the question of
why I know is hotly debatedamong criminologists.
(18:07):
And so the the to the extentthat you can go out and try to
explore the whys of why we're aless violent society right now,
even though wealth inequalityhas exploded and grinding
poverty, arguably, is is is insome pockets of America is as
painful as ever.
And you know, single parenthoodand all the all these factors
that people think contribute tocrime, it hasn't gotten any
(18:28):
better.
So what's going on?
That's an interesting questionto pursue uh as a way of also
you know reporting the sort ofthe good news.
SPEAKER_00 (18:36):
Kind of thinking about the the future of this
conversation and communicatingall of this stuff and everything
that's happening.
Um, I'm just curious, what areyour thoughts on the changing
media landscape?
I mean, the last few weeks we'vehad the you know, Paramount
purchasing um Warner Brothers,you have the Washington Post
just firing everybody.
I think massive changes that areobviously bad for journalism.
(18:58):
Do you have just sort ofoverarching thoughts on where
this is going?
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
I wish I knew where it was going.
I I'm generally very sad aboutthe whole so the way this
landscape is evolving.
I mean, I grew up sort of in theshadow of Watergate, and you
know, I'm old enough to still toremember sitting down to watch
the evening news, and there was,you know, there was a majority
of Americans got their news fromspecific places, and we all sort
(19:24):
of agreed on the facts.
We may not have we may havedisagreed about policies and
approaches, but we agreed we allhad the same truth, and that has
gradually eroded, and now we'rein a situation where we don't
have that.
So Nixon would survive Watergatetoday, clearly.
Watergate was a reason that awhole generation of people got
into journalism, right?
To do investigative reporting,to hold the powerful to account.
(19:46):
There's less of that happeningnow because of the media
landscape and the uh thefinancial situation and the
decline of local newspapers.
That's a sad thing.
You know, at the same time,there's there's a new way to
reach a lot of people throughwhat we call vertical video or
you know, TikToks and Instagramand all that stuff, which I'm
doing, we're all doing.
You know, networks like minehaven't figured out how to
(20:06):
monetize it yet, but that seemsto be the future.
You know, everybody's ajournalist now.
I don't know what theimplication of that is, though.
And like I have teenage sons,and I just wonder how they
figure out what's true.
And they they you know, andthey've grown up with a lot of
advantages and they're prettymedia literate.
But every once in a whilethey'll come to me with the most
bizarre question because ofsomething they saw in some video
(20:30):
somewhere.
I'm like, how can you even thinkthat's possibly true?
And that's what worries me aboutthe situation that we're in
right now.
The fundamental economics ofjournalism obviously have
completely shifted.
So the New York Times, which weall look to as sort of our
greatest national um journalismengine, is basically a float on
Wordle and lifestyle brand stuffthat's subsidizing the
(20:52):
journalism.
The post couldn't figure thatout, so they're going down the
tubes.
And uh, and then and fewer andfewer people are watching
network and cable news.
So it's all it's all in fluxright now.
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
Are there advantages to this that like it sort of
democratizes?
I mean, there's obviouslydisadvantages to it, it
democratizes misinformation, butdoes it democratize information,
make it easier?
You don't necessarily you seeyou know the people that you
love that okay, this the myfavorite nationals reporter,
Mark Zimmerman, is that laid offand now he's got a Substack.
(21:26):
And do you see other advantages,or is it just like this is
terrifying?
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
And no, you're right.
There's two advantages that inwhat you just described.
One, it's a lot easier to dogood journalism and accurate
journalism in the world of theinternet and AI.
I mean, I'm all of I started mycareer before the internet, you
know, when I had to drive aroundwith maps and look at, you know,
go to the library and look atand use reverse phone
directories and things likethat.
Information is at our fingertipsnow, and AI has just put that on
(21:52):
steroids.
I mean, I use AI all the time toto you know to sum up if I were
the last six Supreme Court caseson X, Y, or Z.
I mean, it's just, it's allthere.
So we can do a better jobproviding people richer
information more quickly.
And then the other thing thattechnology does is you're right,
it empowers people to break awayfrom these legacy platforms.
(22:14):
And you know, not only does MarkZimmerman on Substack, but the
Baltimore Banner is hiring abunch of you know Washington
Post reporters, and New YorkTimes is going to do some
Washington sports coverage.
So so there's there's ways thatand there's all these new
entities that have sprung up.
So so that's good.
I just worry, you know,journalism need in some cases
needs to be done at scale.
(22:35):
You need big organizations,right?
You're willing to investresources and go places where
onesies and twosies can't go.
And and we're kind of we'relosing that a little bit in some
areas, and that, and that'sthat's that's irreplaceable.
SPEAKER_00 (22:49):
I saw someone talking about just the
importance of lawyers, that youneed a news organization with
lawyers that don't mind gettingsued and could kind of sue.
SPEAKER_01 (22:56):
And I mean, well, yeah, in in this environment,
you know, the these folks thatwe're covering are very
litigious.
And, you know, if you're justout there on your own with a
substack, I don't know how youdeal with that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
You mentioned like the TikTok and and short form
video.
I have not had any success atany of this.
Do you have ideas for liketransitioning from that Twitter,
uh, blue sky, LinkedIn, evenvery comfortable on the tech
space platforms?
I'm not comfortable recordingvideo of myself.
It's just not uh second nature,it's not natural to me.
Is do you do that?
Is there any yes I do?
SPEAKER_01 (23:28):
And you're you should be cockstar.
What you're doing right now isfine.
Just just just do this withoutme and just talk to the it's
easy.
No, I mean, I you know, it'seasy for me because I have a
whole I have a whole support,there's a whole part of our
network that just focuses onthis.
And they say, Hey, would youmake a social video on this
thing that you just reportedabout the FBI director?
And they tell me how to do itand what to do and what points
(23:51):
to hit.
And so that's you know, but andyes, and we do that, and and
sometimes the traffic is huge onthese things.
I mean, way more than people arewatching linear TV sometimes if
it goes viral.
But I don't think uh big mediacompanies have figured out a way
to monetize this in a way thatyou know makes sense.
So we're doing it right now toget audience, but uh the you
(24:15):
know, I don't think the revenueis there.
And so people have to figure outthat model.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Does it drive web traffic at all?
I had noticed we have an uhInstagram channel, and we
occasionally have gotten somethat for us is like pretty good,
a couple thousand views on avideo, and it tends to drive
traffic.
Do you guys see that as a atleast an incentive to do it?
Or it's I think so.
SPEAKER_01 (24:36):
I'm not the best person to ask, but I I think
that's I think I've heard thefolks say that that that that is
yeah, it certainly expands theaudience and particularly it
reaches different people, peoplewho aren't watching cable news.
Because apparently uh, you know,uh kids today uh sort of relate
to a specific journalist andthey build trust with specific
(24:56):
figures.
And so if you're out there withyour face and enough videos, you
can build a brand and thenattract that audience.
SPEAKER_00 (25:04):
All right.
So I need to figure that out.
I have my kids are all under 10right now, but I like when I
think about this, I think, youknow, how would I reach them if
I did a subject matter that Iwould actually want to reach my
kids with information about it?
But um it's yeah, it it's suchit's such a unique and foreign
challenge, it feels like.
(25:24):
Yeah, sure.
You mentioned AI, I want to askabout that because it's got so
much incredible potential andobviously the pitfalls.
Do you think a lot about howthat's going to impact your job,
both how it is already?
You talked about that, but howit will into the future?
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Yes.
I mean, I'm at sort of in thetwilight of my career here.
So it, you know, I'm sort ofthinking I can get out of this
before we're all replaced by AIbots, but it's pretty clear.
Six minutes.
Yeah.
I mean, there you I don't knowif you saw this, but there was a
story recently about, I forgetwhich newspaper this was, but
there was a controversy becausesome newspaper editor uh wrote a
(26:04):
public post about how a jobcandidate withdrew because their
policy is that at our newspaper,you you know, we're gonna do the
reporting, but AI is gonna writethe stories.
And that and that's and he wasarguing this is a good thing
because it, you know, AI can'tgo out and meet with somebody at
a coffee shop and talk tosources, and but AI can can
coherently write a news storyvery easily.
(26:27):
And that that was sobering to alot of because you know, a lot
of us old newspaper reporters,but the writing is part of the
joy of doing the job, right?
And communicating to anaudience, but our already you're
seeing AI plant that because AIcan write a competent uh news
story if you give it the correctfacts.
How long before AI is isprobably AI right now could do a
(26:48):
coherent nightly news broadcastand you wouldn't know the
difference necessarily.
Yeah, it's a brave new world.
And and the ability of theseengines to sort of gather and
and process information at thespeed of light is just
incredible.
I'm just finding it, it's justit's so empowering.
Obviously, you have to checkeverything and make sure you're
not the victim of ahallucination, but I find that
(27:09):
less and less to be a problem.
They're acting you know, when itcomes to stuff that's in the in
the news and in the in a matterof public debate, they're on the
ball and they're like findingstuff that would take hours
before to find, even with Googlesearches and stuff.
And that's just that's superhelpful.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
How do you feel about sort of the culture around
acceptance of these types ofthings?
I know it feels like it's sortof becoming more culturally
acceptable in certain cases touse AI that maybe a year ago or
two years ago it would have beenhorrific to use.
And and a lot of that is just areflection of the technology
improving that fast.
Um, do you sense that people areaccepting more of its use in
(27:48):
journalism specifically, butalso just sort of
professionalism at large?
SPEAKER_01 (27:52):
Yeah, I think so.
And when I talk to like lawyersand people in other professions,
they they say that, you know,clearly for entry-level tasks,
it's it's becoming a I mean,make a huge factor in how they
do the jobs much faster than Ithink we all anticipated.
And that's yeah, I think whatyou're saying is right, is like
the things that would have beenunimaginable five years ago,
(28:16):
we're just accepting now.
And you know, like at my kids'spool, they're they're very
rigorous about policing becausethey don't obviously don't want
kids writing papers with AI.
My kids high school, but then Ihave another kid in college, and
they're you know, everybody sortof understands that AI is a is a
part of the college experiencenow, and they're not isn't
they're not as worried about it,it seems like.
SPEAKER_00 (28:38):
Interesting.
Have they like shifted todifferent models of teaching to
figure out how they're learning,like how are they actually
learning the material?
I think so, but I'm not uh Idon't I don't have the details
on that.
Sure.
So I want to turn to the futureof the Trump administration.
Do you have a sense for howthings may play out over the
(28:58):
last three years of thisadministration?
Is this something where you'vesort of we've had the high water
mark and a lot of these sort ofpowers are gonna start to to
shift as things turn to thefuture?
SPEAKER_01 (29:11):
Things are definitely gonna shift,
obviously, if the Democrats, aswe all expect, at least take the
House in the midterms.
But I don't think they're gonnashift as much as some people
think, because most of whatTrump has been doing is through
executive power, or at least hisvision of a vastly expanded
executive power wielded in a waythat no president previously has
(29:32):
wielded it.
And what we've learned is thatif you're willing to do things
that we used to think were wasillegal, like firing civil
servants willy-nilly, you know,all these FBI people have been
fired.
Every all my sources say, oh,they're all gonna get their jobs
back.
They're gonna get a check, too.
You know, all these firings areillegal, is what people, legal
experts, say.
But the the Trump people don'tcare.
It it's it's fulfilling theirmandate at the time, which is
(29:55):
they're changing theorganization.
And it may be years before theyget the job back.
And you know, you can multiplythis times 100 across the
government.
I mean, USAID is not comingback, right?
No matter what uh uh and and tome, that's just the think about
that one story is incredible.
We had this foreign aid agencystarted by John Kennedy.
Donald Trump and his allieswrecked it in about a month, and
(30:18):
it's gone, and nobody even talksabout it anymore.
I mean, very it's like becausewe're moving on to the next
massive thing that they've done.
You know, an earthquake of athing.
So, no, I I have honestly, Imean, I we're only a year into
this, and they've changed thegovernment uh and society in
profound ways.
Now they've they're losing, theylost their attempt to use that
(30:41):
executive order to intimidatelaw firms.
That was a big deal, you know.
Bunch of law firms, remember,sort of capitulated and settled.
Some stood up and fought, andthose that stood up and fought,
they won in court.
So I think we're gonna seethings like that.
The Supreme Court is gonnapresumably rule against them on
birthright citizenship and maybein some other areas, and so
we'll gradually sort ofconstrain.
(31:03):
So some of the things they setout to do, maybe on immigration,
they're not gonna be able to do.
But fundamentally, what we'relearning is a president who
wants to push the envelope onexecutive power can can really
make a lot of changes that areand and as long as congressional
Republicans continue to go alongand the Senate is structured as
it is, with a filibuster, um,it's gonna be really hard for
(31:26):
Congress to stop them, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (31:28):
And so you know what do you think of the what do you
think of the implications forthis, specifically for the
Justice Department, if in threeyears there's a Democrat
president?
SPEAKER_01 (31:37):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Where whoever that democraticpresident is and will be faced
with the task of trying torebuild something that's
fundamentally been, in the viewof some of my sources, wrecked.
I mean, the DOJ and the FBI havebeen hollowed out.
The the expertise has walked outof those places that is
irreplaceable.
(31:57):
And you know, you can't hire thethose people aren't coming back
in three years.
Some of them might, but like sothey have to rebuild it.
And then they also have todecide how much are they going
to look backward and conductinvestigations into and and try
to hold accountable people forthe perceived corruption that
we're seeing?
Uh, the self-enrichment, thewe're part are pardons being,
(32:21):
you know, is the influencepeddling taking place with
pardons and other kinds ofthings, or are are people uh
tied to Trump enrichingthemselves through foreign
governments?
Is the is the Democratic-ledJustice Department gonna spend a
lot of time going backwards andinvestigating that?
Will there be some kind of truthand reconciliation commission?
That that's gonna be that's areally interesting question, but
it it's gonna take people, mysources tell me it's gonna take
(32:43):
years to rebuild what's beenlost at the FBI and the Justice
Department.
And, you know, will people everlook at them the same way?
Because norms have beenshattered, you know, 50-year
norms, post-watergate norms havebeen have been shattered.
It's hard to put that genie backin the bottom.
So, Ken, last question.
What what is next for you?
Gosh, I'm just trying to figureout, you know, well what what
(33:07):
what what next story to do aboutthe FBI and the DOJ and what
they're doing, and you know,whether Cash Patel can survive
uh apparently Donald Trump'sdistaste for his Olympic X
escapades.
What what do you think?
Do you what are you hearing?
We reported a while back that hewas on thin ice.
We might have saved his job byreporting that because the the
(33:27):
next the next day Trump had apicture with him in the old
office.
It's sort of like the old storyabout you know J.
Edgar Hoover.
It was reported that he wasabout to be fired and LBJ
appointed him for life.
So so, but but I think I thinkyou know, because of the some of
the ways he's doing business andjetting around the country on
taxpayer dime andself-aggrandizing, he risks
(33:49):
alienating Trump.
And so he may not be around forthe full term.
And and you know, I'm actuallydigging into the pardons because
I feel like the Trump's use ofthe pardon power and clemency
power has been absolutelyextraordinary.
And each one is is more bizarreand notable than the last.
And it'd be it's like a one-daystory, and then people forget
(34:10):
about it.
So I'm trying to go back andrevisit some of these
extraordinary pardons, whetherit's the president of Honduras,
uh Honduras, who was convictedof drug trafficking and
sentenced to four years inprison, or you know, it's the
various fraudsters and corruptpoliticians that he's let out,
uh, none of whom would have beeneligible for clemency in any
previous administration.
(34:30):
None of it went through thenormal process.
A lot of times people hadlawyers or lobbyists with close
ties to the administration.
So I think there's there's a lotto look at there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:40):
And I I should ask, uh, you're talking about uh the
FBI director kind of brought tomind this idea.
Obviously, the FBI directorusually has a 10-year term to
sort of separate it from thepresidential politics.
Is that right?
And Trump has come in twice, butdidn't fire the previous FBI
director, but he resignedimmediately or before Trump took
office.
So is there a way to get back tothat norm?
(35:02):
Or have we attached the FBIdirector now to a presidency,
which is not what's supposed tobe the case?
SPEAKER_01 (35:08):
Right.
I mean, well, we have for now.
I wonder if Congress can sort ofstrengthen that 10-year term,
make it mandatory, or I mean,you can't really make it
mandatory because you it's partof the executive branch, but if
there's a way to sort ofreinforce that, no doubt if
there's a Democrat, you know, asthe next president, he or she
will try to pick somebody that'spalatable to most Americans with
(35:31):
the idea of leaving them in for10 years to try to restore that
norm.
But, you know, I think it'sright now it's on thin ice.
Yeah.
Interesting times to be coveringthe Justice Department.
Indeed.
Indeed.
Well, let's uh let's talk thenext for the next crime numbers
and figure out uh what'shappening with those.
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
Yes.
And uh I had um FBI assistantdirector that runs these on the
program, and like they it'sweird to talk about the FBI like
this and certainly see it andthen see what they're doing with
their crime data collection,which is like worlds better than
it was even two years ago.
It's it's like a tremendousachievement for the FBI in my
world, and then talk toyourself, and you're the
(36:13):
complete opposite with the sameagency.
Well, you know what?
That's a good point to raise,okay?
SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
Because when I cover the big, the big stuff, like the
the the hot button issues,probably 80 or 90 percent of
what the FBI does in the fieldoffices around the country is
the same as it was four yearsago.
You know, you prosecuting alow-level drug dealer or that or
or putting out crime numbers,you know, there's still career
civil servants doing good workand trying to do the best they
(36:39):
can.
Uh it's just that, well, a lotof them have been sort of
assigned to do immigrationduties.
And so that that that pulls themoff other other duties.
But but there's still, you know,there's still a lot good that's
happening.
It doesn't get attention becausethis other stuff gets a lot of
attention.
So if they're doing better oncrime numbers, that's that's
great news.
SPEAKER_00 (36:56):
Yeah, it is, it's absolutely great news.
It's interesting just to hearthat dichotomy of what's going
right and what's not.
And I guess hopefully the crimestats stays out of the sort of
politicization of other aspectsof the Justice Department.
SPEAKER_01 (37:10):
Well, Jeff, as long as they're going well and doing
and and and making a goodshowing for the Trump
administration, you know, themandate will be collect as much
accurate information as you can.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
So now now we got to make sure that it doesn't go up.
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
Ked, thank you so much forcoming on.
This has been great.
I really appreciate it.
Great to be with you, Jeff.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
(37:43):
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
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