The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Dems Respond to Biden’s Vote on DC Crime Law, Alex Murdaugh Gets 2 Life Sentences, Project 2025 | March 3

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Biden and the Washington, D.C. crime bill and why it matters. Alex Murdaugh is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.  How The Heritage Foundation is preparing for America’s future after the 2024 election. Former President Donald Trump will speak at the Conservative Action Political Conference.  Relevant Links Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Snap up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale. With 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past. And with their latest update, they'll discover their family origins like never before. With even more precise regions and new and exclusive features, their best gift, our lowest price. 50% off Ancestry DNA, only until December 2nd. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. I'm Virginia Allen.

I'm Samantha Ashuris. And this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, March 3rd. Here are today's headlines. As we mentioned on yesterday's show, we are coming to you live from the conservative political action conference in Washington, D.C., where we are talking with lawmakers and leading conservative voices. Earlier this week, we talked about the D.C. crime bill. The crime law, as the Hill reports, would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences,

allow jury trials for misdemeanor offenses, and reduce. maximum sentences for crimes ranging from robberies to carjackings. There's been some recent Democratic outreach over President Joe Biden's decision regarding this bill. And joining us to discuss is Cully Stimson. Cooley is the deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center here at the Heritage Foundation. Cully, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So this is a little bit complicated to keep track of all the moving pieces regarding this D.C.

crime bill. Can you break down for us? I can, and in part I can because I was a prosecutor in D.C. at the U.S. Attorney's Office, which is the DA for the city. The City Council passed a bill. They called it the most comprehensive, necessary bill, and they claimed that the code hadn't been updated in 100 years, which it hasn't really been comprehensively updated. But at a time when carjacking and other crimes are on a huge rise in the city, these knuckleheads watered down. and eliminate mandatory minimums for carjacking, violent crimes, and all the rest of it. It's the exact opposite of what you should be doing.

And so, you know, basically what happened was the House, which is controlled by the Republicans, as you know, said no, because D.C., any laws they passed have to pass through both houses of Congress. And everyone thought, since it was going to go to the Senate, because the Senate has to act on it too, that because the Democrats are in control of the Senate, that it would either die in the Senate or if the Republicans could peel off a senator or two

that the president would veto it. Well, as you just mentioned, the president just tweeted out yesterday, you know what? I'm not going to override this if the Republicans get some people on board. What does that do politically? It gives the Senate Democrats permission

to kill this thing and join Republicans, and it's going to send this whole thing back to the DC City Council where they have to start over. This thing wasn't even going to go into effect until 2025. So you can bet your bottom dollar, Sam, that the DC City Council will pass some watered-down version of this terrible bill and try to send it back up to the hill piecemeal. So this is going to be a long back and forth before they can try to get it right. Were you at all surprised by the President's actions?

I was pleasantly surprised. It's one of the only things I can think of that I've agreed with this administration. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, I guess. Yeah, I think Democrats know that they're vulnerable on crime. We saw that in the midterms. We see that in polls. We put out a paper, Zach Smith and I, called the Blue City murder problem, which shows that 30 cities with the highest murder rates,

27 of those cities are run by Democrats, and 15 of those 30 cities have Soros bought and paid for rogue prosecutors, which account for 75% of the murders in those 30 cities. They have a crime problem. And I think probably Biden didn't do this because he has a philosophical problem with the bill. He's doing it for political expediency. What impact do you think overturning the D.C. crime bill will have on the nation's capital just from regard to the crime that we've been seeing that we've been hearing about on the news,

quite frankly, probably in some regard, maybe experiencing, you know, working in D.C. Nothing. It will have no impact right now because, like I said, even if it were to pass, it wasn't going to go into effect until 2024. The best way to get on top of crime is to prosecute criminals and put violent criminals in prison for long periods of time.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which is a bipartisan commission, just came out with their seventh in a series of reports looking at the interaction between length of sentence and recidivism, and surprise, surprise, ready? You're sitting down? Yep.

The longer the sentence, the lower the recidivism rate. Wow. 30% lower for people with long sentences, 18% for people with shorter sentences. And so long sentences do help communities, especially communities under pressure. And so this political football would go back and forth. The D.C. City Council will no doubt pass some thing

that looks like it's pro-law and order. It won't be. most likely, and Congress needs to pay attention to what they're doing. And Heritage is going to hold a panel event soon on crime in the district, so stay tuned for that. Excellent. Well, we will be sure to report on that, and it seems like this is a long road ahead, so we'd love to have you back on the podcast to discuss. Collease Simpson, thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Alex Murda has been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Murda's sentence was handed down this morning after a jury. found him guilty on Thursday of murdering both his wife and son. Murda's lawyer tried to motion for a mistrial, but the motion was denied. Fox News reports that Murda used a shotgun to kill his 22-year-old son, Paul, inside a feed room attached to the dog kennel at the family's hunting estate and a rifle to execute his wife Maggie, who was 52 at the time. Ahead of the sentencing, Murda had this to say, per CBS News.

I'm innocent. I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my wife Maggie, and I would never, under any circumstances, hurt my son, Pawpaw. The trial lasted six weeks, included 76 witnesses, and a jury deliberated for three hours. So as we mentioned at the top of the show, we are coming to you live from the conservative political action conference. And if you recall a few weeks ago for the 50th anniversary of the Heritage Foundation, I sat down with Dr. Kevin Roberts. He's the president of the Heritage Foundation, and we had talked about Project 2025. Now, joining us today is Spencer Creightian.

Spencer is the associate director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025 here at the Heritage Foundation. Spencer, thanks so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. Of course. Now, first and foremost, can you just tell us a little bit about Project 2025? Sure. Project 2025, or the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a priority of the Heritage Foundation and the whole conservative movement. And what we're doing is bringing together more than 50 partner organizations, coalition partners, who comprise our advisory board.

And the project is four pillars, and all of them are geared towards getting ready for the next conservative president. So the first pillar is a policy book. That's going to be coming out in April. that's going to outline a conservative vision for success at each federal agency. The second pillar is a personnel database that we're going to fill with people from all across the country who want to come work in Washington for the next conservative president, serve as political appointees. The third pillar is the Presidential Administration Academy, which offers training for these prospective appointees so that they're ready on day one to serve the next president. And then the fourth pillar is the actual transition plan writing.

That's called the playbook. And we're going to kind of take the ideas that are fleshed out in pillar one and actually talk about what needs to happen during the official transition, first day of the new administration, all the way out to the first six months. So that's the project. Project 2025.org is the place to go to get involved, get trained up, and put yourself in contention for the next administration. Absolutely.

Absolutely, and as we mentioned, you know, on yesterday's show and today's show, we are at CPAC. So don't mind the background noise too much, but I wanted to talk a little bit about your role with Project 2025 here at CPAC. Yeah, so we are, we have an extensive presence of CPAC. We've got a booth in the exhibit hall downstairs, CPAC Central. We've had, you know, several hundred conversations with people who are eager to get involved in supporting the next conservative administration working in Washington as a political appointee. And we've also done some media up here on Radio Row at CPAC. CPAC is a great place for us to go because it's filled with conservatives who love the country,

who want to do what they can to advance our values. And also, I think the conservative movement generally understands that we need to seize the gears of government so that we're actually able to deliver for the next conservative president and we don't face the obstacles that conservative presidents have faced in the past. Absolutely. Spencer, any final thoughts, anything you want to leave our audience with about Project 2025? Sure. Well, this project is going to be the most successful if we make it so big that no one can stop us. And so we need you to get involved. Go to project 2025.org. Sign up for our Presidential Administration Academy. send us your resume, and together we are going to save America in the next conservative administration.

So project 2025.org. Spencer, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Former President Donald Trump is set to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference tomorrow evening. We also heard from Nikki Haley earlier today, and Vivek Ramoswamy spoke this afternoon. Notably, Florida Governor Ronda Santos is not attending CPAC this year. Instead, he is at a three-day donor retreat in the Sunshine State.

Fox News reports that DeSantis addressed 120 of the top donors in the GOP and showcased that his conservative victories in the past four years in Florida have turned the one-time general election battleground into the nation's leading red state. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us on the Daily Signals Top News. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us on Monday morning. Sam and I are going to be sitting down with two prominent conservative leaders, Representative Mark Green of Tennessee and Senator Rick Scott of Florida to discuss what exactly is happening at our southern border and what's happening abroad, both with China and Russia. Catch that on Monday morning.

Yes, and in the meantime, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star review and reading. We read and appreciate all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. We hope that you all have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see you right back here on Monday morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

Executive producers are Rob, Louie, and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.