Hey everybody. This is a repeat for a change. It's my conversation with Norm Ornstein and Judge Steve

Lifeman of Miami-Dade County. I'm putting it up as sort of a companion piece to my YouTube video this week on crisis intervention training.

Crisis intervention training or CIT is a training for police to recognize when they are confronting a situation that is energized by a mental health disorder, sometimes drug addiction,

which is, of course, a mental health disorder.

And I was a champion of this in the Senate.

I got federal funding for it.

What really brought this to mind again was the George

Floyd trial, the Chauvin trial, really. That situation was so, just so badly handles. It was so

wrong. They, instead of de-escalating that situation,

which if they had training, maybe they got some training, but clearly, you also need some empathy,

too. And in Miami-day, they give some crisis intervention training or at least that information

to every cop.

But what they do is the ones, the cops that are empathetic, naturally, they become part of

crisis intervention teams.

And police who confront a situation, who may not know how to handle it, that's what they do is they call crisis intervention teams.

And the crisis intervention teams know how to de-escalate, who bring down the temperature. And this saves lives. This saves lives.

I met Judge Lifman through Norm, Norm Ornstein. I think those of you who listen to this podcast

a lot know Norm. He's the renowned political scientists, and that's what we normally

talk about. He's an expert on Congress. He also, he and his wife, Judy, have become very, very involved

in mental health, spend a lot of their time and energy and resources,

addressing mental health issues.

And part of the reason for that is their son Matthew, who I love and knew for,

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