The Daily Signal - Seattle Talk Show Host Explains How Radical Leftists Ruined Pacific Northwest

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

The streets of Seattle are filled with drug needles, homeless tents, and violent political agitators. What used to be a city known for its Space Needle and Nirvana has now become one of a series of case studies for the consequences of leftist rule over America's cities. Jason Rantz, a Seattle-area radio host, has seen firsthand the horrific impact the radical left has had on his city. "It looks like a hellscape at this point," Rantz says. "You have tent cities everywhere. You have used needles on the ground. You have human waste on the ground ... . The Pacific Northwest in general is known as being just beautiful. Really, supposedly, we respect nature. Not anymore, not with how bad it's gotten. You've got graffiti all over the place, which just doesn't feel good to live in that kind of area anymore." Rantz joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to share his experiences of living in Seattle. We also talk with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, about his concerns about Congress' select committee on the Jan. 6 riot and what it is doing. You can read a write-up of that conversation here. We also cover these stories: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy formally requests European Union membership for Ukraine. Former President Donald Trump answers the question of whether he would have behaved similarly to Zelenskyy were he in charge of Ukraine. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address is set for Tuesday night. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, March 1st. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. Today we are sharing two interviews that we recorded at the conservative political action conference in Orlando, Florida. First, I spoke with Congressman Jim Jordan, who is deeply concerned about the January 6th committee and what exactly it's doing. And secondly, I spoke with Jason Rance, a Seattle area radio host who analyzes what's happening to West Coast cities. But before we get to those conversations, let's go ahead and hit our top news stories of this. day. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian president Volonimir Zelensky is asking that his

country be given the chance to join the European Union. Volinsky said, per the New York Times, our goal is to be together with all Europeans, and most importantly, to be on an equal footing. And, I'm sure it's fair. I'm sure it's possible. Meanwhile, as Russia's currency is affected by the unfolding situation. The Moscow stock exchange will be closed today as it was yesterday. A key question to ask right now is, would President Trump do what Zelensky is doing if he were president of Ukraine? The Daily Signal asked the former president that question right before his speech at the conservative political action conference over the weekend. Here's what Trump had to say. Well, you know, you never know about bravery. Some people think they're brave and they're not brave

and other people don't think of themselves as very brave, and they step up. You never know until you get tested. And he's being tested at the highest level. And so far, he's really shown great leadership and great bravery. They say he was an actor or a comedian and all of that's fine. But he is showing a lot of bravery so far. And hopefully we won't have to need that too much longer because maybe things can end. This should not happen.

This should never have happened. Tonight is President Biden's State of the Union address, but don't expect to see a lot of masks in the crowd. This weekend, the Office of the attending physician at the Capitol announced no mass would be required during the State of the Union. Now today, the White House is following suit. Fox News reports an unnamed White House official said mass would be optional at the White House starting today. But speaking of the State of the Union, I spoke with Congressman Beth Van Dyne of Texas about what to expect at the State of the Union. Take a listen. I am joined by Congresswoman Beth Van Dyne.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here. Well, Tuesday night, we are going to be hearing from President Joe Biden for its State of the Union address. What do you think is the most important issue or topic for the president to address? I think it would be great if he would actually address the solutions to the crises that we see happening right now. I represent Texas 24, which is the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and talking to people there, they're most affected right now by what's going out at our border and national security. They're looking at 24-7 coverage right now of what's going on in Ukraine, that kind of weak leadership

and what vacuum that has left for Putin and God knows what's going to happen with China and Taiwan. I would love for the president to actually be giving us solutions to those and letting us know that those are on his mind, because for the last year we've seen at our southern borders no solutions and actually denial that it's a problem. We're looking at Fet and all being the number one killer right now of people under 45, Americans under 45. And that's coming from China and it's coming over our southern borders, and those are not being addressed. We're looking at issues obviously with inflation.

We're looking at why is the gas prices? What is the solution that? What's the strategy that we're following? Do you have a plan? You know, this should not be an opportunity for him to run the basis. Because if you've looked at the last year, where we were a year ago, compared to where we are now, this is not a time to run the basis. This is a time to actually give some security to the American people, let them know that they do have a plan

and how we're all going to work together to fix the crisis that we soon invited an administration create over the last year. And do you think that he's going to mention, that he's going to mention the border, that he's going to mention at the Nistan, that he's going to mention some of these really challenging issues that, as you point out, things don't look, great in some of these fields right now. Is he going to go there? Is he going to bring it up? I am not his, I am not his writer, his speechwriter, so I don't know what he's going to bring up. But I'll tell you, he's got a lot of explaining today and a lot of, I think, soul-searching. And it would be great if he actually stepped up and became the leader. I think that he wants to be,

that he claimed that he was going to be when he ran for this position. Because we're in a difficult position right now. We're in a difficult spot. And we need a leader. And you see a leader like Zelensky in Ukraine stepping up in being somebody that people want to follow in doing the right thing. We don't see that right now. I'm hopeful. I know that we have a lot of folks in leadership right now that want to do the right thing, that are willing to work together. I am very interested to see the message that Biden's going to be sending. And how do you think the response will differ, both among the American people, but also in the crowd, when we think back to

to President Donald Trump and the State of the Union addresses that he gave versus maybe how members of Congress will receive President Joe Biden's speech. What do you expect the atmosphere to be like? You know, I imagine that it's going to be somewhat unparisoned as you'd expect it to be. I would hope that he actually is bringing solutions. He surprises us and that we are all looking at this as one America. When we are looking what's going on in Ukraine, the strength, the resiliency, the fortitude that they're showing, by them all coming together and fighting a common enemy.

And we have a lot of those that our country is facing right now. And instead of beating each other up, it would be great if Democrats actually invited Republicans to come to the table and work with them. And I would love to hear that message from Biden tonight. Excellent. Thank you so much, Congressman. We really appreciate your time. The State of the Union will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time tonight. Now stay tuned for my conversations with Congressman Jim Jordan and Seattle radio host, Jason Rance. My guest today is Congressman Jim Jordan, ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee

and Representative for Ohio's Fourth Congressional District. Congressman, welcome to the show. Good to be with you, Doug. It's great to have you on, and I want to talk to you about an issue that it's really, really important to the continuation of our democracy. So this is the January 6th Commission. It's continuing its investigation into the events that happened on that day. You've expressed recently that you feel that this is simply an exercise to get former President Donald John. What do you mean by that? Well, it's totally out to get President Trump. I mean, just a simple fact that for the first time in American history,

the minority leader was not allowed to put on a select committee the individuals he or she selected. It's never happened in our history. So that tells you right there. No, no, no. They're not going to let this happen. They're going to focus on people who have an agenda, have a political agenda, and it's designed to try to keep President Trump off the ballot. It's interesting to me, you know, the Democrats have kicked Republicans off committee,

allowed proxy voting, close the Capitol, won't let Republicans sit on a select committee, as I said for the first time in American history, trying to end the electoral college, trying to end the filibuster, trying to pack the court. January 6th committee has been caught lying about information,

altering evidence and lying to the American people about it, and yet somehow they say it's Republicans and President Trump who are a threat to democracy. I don't know how they make that argument with the straight face. And then they say to all of us Republicans who objected on January, 2006, 2021, that, oh, we're somehow, we were wrong to object, even though Pennsylvania, Arizona, a number of states unconstitutionally changed their election law, went around their state legislature,

and unconstitutionally made changes to their election law and the run up to the 2020 election. Somehow we're wrong, but they've objected to every single Republican president elected this century. Jamie Ruskin objected on January 6, 2017 to the electors from the state of Florida. Millions of people. I mean, he was trying to disenfranchise. And yet he criticizes us for objecting to Pennsylvania. where they unconstitutionally change their law. So I think the American people see it for what it is.

It's an effort to get President Trump and deny him an opportunity to run in 2024. I don't think it's going to work. I think he's going to run. I think he's going to win. Recently you expressed on Laura Ingram's show that 14 prosecutors were now a member of this committee and that that concerned you. What were your concerns with that? Well, this is sort of like the Mueller investigation in some ways, 19 prosecutors, 19 lawyers, 40, 40, FBI agents, a bunch of subpoenas, all this stuff, and what did they come up with?

Nothing. There was no collusion. We knew that from the get-go. So here we have this same type of focus out to get their political opponent, out to get President Trump. As I said, we caught him altering evidence. They took a text message that I had forwarded to the White House Chief of Staff. They presented it, Adam Schiff, presented it to the American people as if it came from me, left a bunch of the text message off, altered the punctuation, and, like that. to the American people about it, and they had to apologize. They said the January 6th committee is responsible for and regrets the air.

And you know what that is? That is a government speak. That is government language for we got caught lying. That's what that is. I mean, when you ever seen a committee, like, apologize for something? But we caught them in a lie, which should tell the American people, if they're willing to lie about evidence, alter evidence, what else are they willing to do to get their political opponents? And that kind of behavior is not supposed to happen in the United States of America,

where it's rule of law, it's due process, its constitution is supposed to be followed. But that's what they've been doing. Sure. So if the January 6th committee is problematic as we've been discussing, what should we do in the future to prevent another incident like January 6th happening again? Well, first of all, this is something that the committee is not willing to look at. And we've raised this issue time and time again. you should have probably had a proper security posture there that day.

Whenever you have big events in D.C., you should probably have the right kind of security presence. The White House offered the National Guard to Speaker Pelosi and the sergeant-in-arms, and for some reason they chose not to use them. So that's a question that only the Speaker of the House can answer, and she refuses to do so, and the committee refused to even raise the question, which is maybe why they wouldn't let me. Mr. Banks and I own the committee in the first place. Right.

Now, you've declined to testify in front of the January 6th committee. What is your rationale for that? You can look at the letter we put out where we walk through all the things we talked about, the fact that they, for the first time in history, wouldn't let Republicans chosen by the minority leader participate in the committee. We talked about the fact that we've caught them red-handed, altering evidence, lying to the American people about it. So we laid all that out in a long letter that we sent to the committee where we raised the concerns that we had with what they're doing and how they're going about it. How has this committee been politicized?

And if it has been politicized, what are the implications of that? Well, I mean, you start using government to go after your political opponents. You start weaponizing government. We see it time and time again. Maybe the best and most recent example is what we saw four months ago, where. the Department of Justice put this, we had a whistleblower come forward, an FBI agent who gave us the email that was sent out to FBI agents around the country that talked about putting a threat tag, this label, this designation on moms and dads, so we're simply showing up at school board meetings, objecting to this crazy racist hate America curriculum called CRT and objecting some other things that were going in schools like good parents should do. And yet they're treated as terrorist. So, I mean, you, and what we found, in that so far what we've been able to uncover is that this didn't start with the school boards association writing the letter on September 29, 2021 to the Biden administration. It actually went the other direction.

It was the Biden administration soliciting from the school boards the letter. So they would have the pretext to do what they wanted to do, namely go spy on parents. And we now have the chronology of this. The 29th is the letter October 4th. you have the memo from Merrick Garland. October 20th, we know that there was this email sent out saying to use this threat tag label on parents and this designation. And then October 21st, Merrick Garland came and testified in front of our committee. And when asked if parents were being treated as terrorists, says, no, no, that's not happened.

Well, just the day before you sent out a letter saying put a threat tag designation on parents. So I want Merit Garland to come back in front of our committee because we got some important questions to ask. The first one would be, what's the number? How many parents have this designation associated with their name as we speak? Nobody knows. So this is the scary thing when government gets weaponized against your political opponents. I think that's exactly what the January 6th committee is doing specifically to President Trump. Final question for you, Congressman.

What do you think of the treatment of those who have been arrested or charged in connection with the January 6th events? Well, all you got to do is look at the judge. who held the warden in contempt for the treatment of folks in the D.C. jail. So it's not what Jim Jordan says. It's not what the Daily Signal says. It's what the judge said. The judge said that they were treating people inappropriately at the D.C. jail who were being held there as a result of their actions on January 6th.

So take the judge's word for it. That's not some conservative, right-wing heritage foundation, Republican member of Congress. This is the judge. So I think that tells you everything. Interesting. That was Congressman Jim Jordan. He is the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee

and representative for Ohio's fourth congressional district. Congressman, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you, Doug. Take care. My guest today is Jason Rant's host of the Jason Rant show on KTTTH in Seattle, Washington. He is also a contributor to the Daily Signal. Jason, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It is always a pleasure to have a fellow Pacific Northwesterns.

on the program. Great to talk about it. I wish we could talk about more positive things, but unfortunately, the West Coast has gotten a lot of negative press recently. And I'm curious, is that deserved, or is this just sort of like an optics problem? It's more than deserved. I would argue it doesn't get enough of the negative press that it actually deserves. Because if you want to enact some kind of change, you actually have to pay attention to the problem. And it kind of feels like, especially in the Pacific Northwest, you're not really getting honest coverage about what's happening on the ground. We'll get it nationally on Fox. I'm on Fox talking about Pacific Northwest issues all the time.

But beyond that, we kind of pretend that, oh, no, it's the Emerald City of Seattle. It's like, no, it's not. You should actually go into downtown Portland, downtown Seattle, go into parts of Spokane. Things are bad. Right, right. Now, what does the city actually physically look like these days? For our listeners who maybe have never been to Seattle or Portland, what does it look like? Well, it looks like a hellscape at this point.

I mean, let's just be clear. You have tent cities everywhere. You have used needles on the ground. You have human waste on the ground. You know, these are two areas. And the Pacific Northwest in general is known as being just beautiful. Really supposedly we respect nature. Not anymore.

Not with how bad it's gotten. You've got graffiti all over the place, which just doesn't feel good to live in that kind of area anymore. And, you know, unfortunately, things seem to be getting worse before they're getting better. There's some hope, but we'll see. Yeah. Now, you mentioned that Seattle and Portland and the Pacific Northwest in general,

it's like beautiful. areas, like the mountains and the trees. How did we get to this point? Where did we see this decline start? Well, it started decades ago. A lot of the problems are here because of the institutions that have been forever changed. You know, when we talk about nationally, part of the movement of some of the left is to dismantle systems of oppression and rebuild in their own image. Well, that's been happening in Seattle and Portland for a long time now, and now we're seeing the results of those policy shifts, policies that say we're not actually going to punish criminals. Instead, we're going to put them in restorative justice programs forever and ever and ever,

no matter if they continue to commit the same crimes, if not worse. We've seen a defunding of police to the point where it now doesn't really matter what you set the budget for. You don't have enough cops in Seattle or in Portland to properly police. You've got socialist council members who are, you know, they're not even, we're not saying they're a socialist when they're really Democrats, but they don't want to admit. They're openly socialist. They're not hiding any of these things. And as a result, we've seen just the downward shift of both of these cities.

Now, we've seen that in certain circumstances, it almost looks like the people in these cities are starting to get tired of this. In Seattle, there is a Republican, an openly Republican member of the... Openly Republican. Get something you're going to hide. But she was elected. She was. What does that implicate? So Ann Davison, she is actually a former Democrat who switched over to the Republican Party because she was.

was sick of how her own party was treating her for being more of a moderate Democrat. So when we say Republican, she's not a hardcore Republican, but she did run on the notion of, hey, I'm actually going to punish criminals who are not accepting our offers of help. Because I don't know many people, even on the Republican side, who are law and order folks, which I consider myself, but I don't want to throw every single person in jail. I don't want to do that. I would prefer them to get treatment if that's what they need because that's what's fueling their criminal behavior. But if they're going to say no, and they're going to continue to break the law, okay, yes, you need to go to jail. Ann Davidson actually supports that.

The problem is she still runs an office that is basically staffed by the previous city attorney. It's going to take a very long time for her to actually get her feet under her. I mean, she came into it with hundreds of very serious crimes that haven't even been looked at. And so she just implemented a new policy that basically says, within five days, we're going to decide whether, or not we're going to charge, which hopefully we'll get that backlog taken care of, and let's just figure this out. But at the same time, you've got this cultural shift on the streets. And so if you don't have a police force that's staff to actually go after the crime, that means you've got this culture of criminality where they feel like they're not going to get caught, which is most likely

true. It's not going to change things very quickly. At the same time, now you have the Seattle City Council actively trying to make her job more difficult. So I'm more hopeful. I'm more hopeful than not. Though again, keep something in mind. Do you know who she was running against? She was running against Nicole Thomas Kennedy, who literally ran on the platform of, I am going to abolish my own department. It was a three-way race. The incumbent had run again. And so it split the vote that allowed Ann Davison to get through. So there were a lot of Democrats very far to the left saying, okay, I'm, I can't go into Nicole Thomas Gunner, she's just way too crazy for us. So they end up going with Ann Davison. That doesn't indicate a show.

shift politically in the city. I'll take it and hopefully she'll have some really good results and maybe change some minds. Now, it does seem like the city government is actively engaged in making this problem worse. You appeared on Tucker Carlson recently to discuss a new bike helmet equity initiative. And that seems like it's just not focusing on the problems. It's focusing on wokeism. Well, it's, what's so maddening about that, and it's funny, because Tucker and I have the same position on this, we both don't really like the law, and I would have repealed it as well. I don't like the reason behind it. But to be clear, there weren't really any tickets being given out. I think it was like 10 for all of 2020 bike helmet law. So they weren't really even giving out any tickets, but they

wanted to look at it through this CRT lens that they claimed disproportionality because there were too many black bicyclists as a proportion of the percentage of that bicycle getting these tickets. And so to the left, they view that as proof that this is a racist law. No, that's not what actually it says maybe it's being put in place in a racist way, maybe racist cops are giving out tickets to only black people. Maybe you haven't proven any of that. There's no evidence that that's happening. It just so happens that there were more black bicyclists during this time period that weren't wearing helmets. Right. Okay. That's all it says. Now, if you want to get rid of the law, get rid of the law. But by that logic, and I said this on top of the show, I'm like, okay, well,

gang membership in Washington State is overwhelmingly black and Latino. So if you are to a the law against these folks, you're going to have a disproportionate number of black and Latino individuals who are getting arrested. Are we supposed to get rid of that law? Oh, it just so happens. They try to get rid of any sort of criminal additions to gang members. It's absolutely ludicrous. So for people who live in these cities who are maybe more, let's say, reasonably minded, that feel as if that the government is focusing too much on these issues that are completely outnumbered by progressives who view these as important topics to talk about, what is their recourse. What do they do?

Well, look, the truth, well, what they have been doing is moving, right? They've been moving to Bellevue. They've been moving outside of the city, but they quickly realize that policies of Seattle have a tendency to spread. This is in Vegas. What happens in Seattle goes way outside of Seattle. So generally speaking, when we're talking about homelessness and crime, the reason why you've seen a little bit of course correction is because so many folks who live in Seattle have experienced it. They try to take their kids to the local park and they realize it's completely overrun by homeless folks. There's a dude there shooting up. in the playground, that starts to change their behaviors in how they vote.

And so there's room for not a Republican on the council. There is room for more moderate Democrats to move forward. And, you know, our new mayor ran on that campaign of, look, he's very much a Democrat, he's very much a progressive. But in the context of who he's running against, he was seen as more moderate. So you're going to start to see, hopefully, over the long term, a little bit of inching towards back that sort of moderate Democrat role. I'm not going to pretend that we're going to get a bunch of Republicans on the council.

You're not in Seattle. That's just not going to happen anytime soon at least. Sure. One final question for you. In terms of the progress that we are seeing, is there being progress made? Are the drug problems going away a little bit? Is the homeless problem getting any better? Are we seeing progress? So we're not seeing progress yet, but we're seeing the implementation of just small moves that will hopefully see a bigger shift. Nationally, I think we are going to see some progress because let's be clear, part of the reason why we're seeing this, you know, prediction of a red wave is because of all of these issues. And so if Republicans who hopefully take control, if they stick to what they say they're going to do, then we will start to see some shifts rather quickly nationally. It's the regional stuff that you're probably not going to see

that big of a shift. But look, you can't be that much of an outlier as a major city. Sure. So you're going to have to catch up a little bit because you don't want to be known as that city. Right. Not anymore. Right. Right. That was Jason. Rance, host of the Jason Rantz show on KTTH in Seattle, Washington, and a contributor to the Daily Signal. Jason, appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. At the Heritage Foundation, we believe voting is a sacred duty. It's how people express what course they want our nation to take. Given the importance of the ballot box, it's necessary to have a transparent and fraud-free system that can be trusted. This is why Heritage created the Election Integrity Scorecard. The scorecard

compares the laws and regulations for elections state-to-state and ranks them on their security. and transparency. Check out the election integrity scorecard at heritage.org slash election scorecard. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeart Radio.

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