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What A Day

Does Washington, D.C. Need Federal Intervention?

What A Day

What A Day

News, Daily News

4.612.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced it's launching a much-needed and super important investigation into Washington D.C.'s crime statistics. The DOJ said it's looking into whether the stats have been QUOTE: "manipulated" to make the crime rate seem lower. Why, might you ask, is the DOJ using time, money, and resources to look into this? Probably because it's searching for a way to justify President Donald Trump's takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops to the district. However, it has been roughly two weeks since Trump's takeover, and we have some questions. Is DC's crime problem really that bad? And is it better now after federal intervention? We spoke with journalist Josh Barro. He's also co-host of the podcast "Serious Trouble".

And in headlines, the Trump administration decides it doesn't want feedback from its federal employees, the White House says arrangements for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Putin are underway, and Oklahoma is making sure teachers from California and New York aren't "woke".

Show Notes:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's Wednesday, August 20th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that has enough to worry about without the threat of radioactive shrimp at Walmart.

0:11.9

Yes, you heard me. The FDA announced Tuesday that some shrimp available for purchase at Walmart may have been contaminated by a radioactive isotope.

0:22.8

Again, we've got enough going on. We don't need radioactive shrimp. On today's show, Oklahoma rolls out a special

0:33.3

assessment for teachers moving from New York and California to determine if they're too woke to teach. And the federal government tells workers, nah, we're good on your feedback and

0:43.1

cancels an annual employee survey. But let's start with Washington, D.C. The Department of Justice

0:49.5

announced on Tuesday it's launching a criminal investigation into D.C.'s crime statistics

0:53.9

and whether or not

0:54.9

they've been, quote, manipulated to make the crime rate seem lower. Now, this isn't a new

1:00.7

accusation. Back in May, the Metropolitan Police Department put one of its police commanders on leave

1:05.8

amidst allegations that he made changes to crime data. But of course, this isn't really about

1:10.3

facts.

1:11.5

I mean, it never really is.

1:13.6

Remember that President Donald Trump

1:15.0

fired his Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner

1:17.1

for a bad jobs report like three weeks ago.

1:20.4

Case in point.

1:21.6

According to Trump speaking in the Oval Office on Monday,

1:24.4

D.C. was the worst city in the world.

1:26.9

Up until he took over the D.C. Police

1:28.9

Department, and now it's great. Amazing. We have a thing going on right now in D.C. We went from the

1:36.2

most unsafe place anywhere to a place that now people, friends are calling me up, Democrats are

1:42.5

calling me up, and they're saying, sir, I want to thank you. My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four

...

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