[0:00]The partial government shutdown is as good as over. Now the hard part. Changing immigration enforcement in the next 10 days. Bill and Hillary Clinton
[0:11]after months of fencing with the House Oversight Committee agreed to testify about the Epstein files. Speaking of Hillary Clinton, she called Ali Beth
[0:20]Stucky a quote commasar of MAGA morality. It was not a compliment. Stucky joins us with her rejoinder. Hello everyone. I'm Major Garrett in
[0:39]Washington. Welcome to the Takeout. No essay tonight. No big preamble. There's just too much going on. As an example, here's the president moments ago in the Oval Office signing the bill that ends
[0:50]the partial government shutdown. shutdown that very briefly idled about threearters of the federal government and its operations. But that is not the end of legislative haggling. Kaitlin
[1:00]Huey Burns will join us momentarily on a fierce fight ahead over ICE and Border Patrol tactics. A former president and former Secretary of State, their names, by the way, Bill and Hillary Clinton,
[1:11]will testify publicly later this month about Jeffrey Epstein. The House Oversight Committee was preparing to hold them in contempt for refusing to appear, and some House Democrats were
[1:22]ready to get on board. Suffering that contempt process was a deeper indignity for the Clintons than testifying. But will they? Can they shed any new light
[1:32]on Epstein's crime? Scott McFarland will join us on that and related matters. Flip through your handy pocket Constitution, Article One, Section 4.
[1:42]Let me quote. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.
[1:53]Straight up constitutional prohibition on nationalizing elections. President Trump should said Republicans should do just that, nationalize elections. The White House today tried to clarify. Our
[2:04]election law expert, David Becker, will take stock of what the president said and some other suspicious administration engineered election actions.
[2:13]Also, empathy and well, again, Hillary Clinton. She used a recent piece in the Atlantic magazine to criticize conservative podcaster and influencer
[2:23]Alli Beth Stucky. We asked both to comment about that piece. Stucky agreed and she joins us. Troy Nells is a member of Congress from Texas. MAGA to the
[2:34]hilt. So is his identical twin brother, Trevor. Troy's retiring from Congress. Trevor is running for his seat. They could become the first identical twins
[2:45]ever to serve in Congress. You'll see them both right here, but you might not be able to tell them apart. Lastly, crime is down in America on this.
[2:54]Everyone agrees. But why? There is the rub. We're going to look for some an answers. First, as promised, we turn to Caitlin Huey Burns on Capitol Hill with most of the government funding
[3:06]now done, but some remains and a legislative tussle ahead. Caitlyn, catch us up. Hey, Major. Well, that was the easy part, getting everyone on board to pass
[3:17]this government funding bill. The president signed it into law. The government is now reopen. But here comes the hard part, Major. Because remember, as part of this deal that the president
[3:28]struck, by the way, with Democrats, was to remove funding from DHS, long-term funding, just pass a 2-week extension of funding to buy time to negotiate over
[3:39]potential policy changes to immigration enforcement. That's going to be a really long road ahead, Major. And they have only got about 10 working days to do it.
[3:50]And basically what Democrats have proposed is to uh they kind of have three areas of concern. One is put body cameras on ICE agents and take masks off. Body cameras is something that
[4:01]Christy Gnome supports. Something that has a lot of support up here on Capitol Hill. Another is to end roving patrols. And another is to tighten the rules around warrants. That is something that
[4:11]Speaker Johnson said today they cannot support. So there are a lot of sticking points ahead and Republicans are likely to ask for some things in exchange if they go down this road. Now here's the
[4:22]other item that DHS is already largely funded by the one big beautiful bill that the president signed into law last year and that also increased money to ICE. So all of immigration enforcement
[4:34]continues. Democrats just want parameters. But House Speaker Mike Johnson was warning that DHS does a lot more than just immigration enforcement and border patrol. They also take care
[4:45]of things like natural disasters. Take a listen to what he's saying. >> And you might say, well, now that 96% of the government is funded, it's just 4% what's out there. But it's a very
[4:56]important 4%. Because remember what the Homeland Security Bill covers. It's it's not just Immigration Customs Enforcement. It's not just Customs and Border Patrol.
[5:07]So, they are going to have uh a lot to work through over these next couple of weeks here and the Senate and the House will have to agree on something. Democrats uh Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said that they're
[5:19]going to put forward a something on paper to present to Republicans. So, we'll see what comes on board. But the big outstanding question is what the president would agree to in some of these conversations. And it's been
[5:31]striking Major that what happened in Minnesota has had an impact on lawmakers, even Republicans up here, especially heading into those midterms midterm elections. Not to sound crass, but there is a lot of politics at play
[5:42]here. And some Republicans have acknowledged that President Trump won on immigration. It was a winning issue for them, but they feel like they are losing it in terms of public opinion. So, we'll
[5:52]see what they agree to and what the president find uh finds his way supporting >> what the president will agree to and what can get 60 votes in the Senate. Key questions ahead. Caitlyn Huey Burns, always a pleasure. Thank you. Scott
[6:04]McFarland joins me now with the latest on the Clintons bill and Hillary now asking the House Oversight Committee for a public hearing saying it will quote suit their concerns about fairness.
[6:14]Scott, catch us up. They're going to appear in a closed-d dooror deposition with the House Oversight Committee February 26th and 27th. Doing the math, it's about three weeks from now. The Clintons, according to their
[6:25]spokesperson, were trying to do this in the public space in front of cameras in a televised way from soup to nuts. That's the same thing Jack Smith was arguing for for months when he was
[6:37]questioned by a House committee. There's this kind of new concern about the clipping and socializing of excerpts of things that I think the Clintons are sensitive to and they don't want to be taken out of context when they talk
[6:47]whatever they have to say about Epstein. >> Speaking of Epstein, [snorts] Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch was on Fox said this about names that appear and whatever reputational damage may or may
[6:58]not come from that. Listen, >> it is not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. And and so as horrible as it, it's not a crime to email with Mr. Epstein. and and some of these men may have done horrible things and and if we
[7:10]have evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. Scott, the public could be forgiven for getting a little confused about the tenacity of potential future
[7:20]prosecutions because I keep getting different things from senior justice department officials. It's over. There's no other leads to follow. There's nobody else to prosecute. And then conditionally, well, if we find
[7:31]something, we may do something. It also runs counter to what the Department of Justice said in a memo in July 2025. They issued a memo trying to put an end to this, saying there are no more investigative leads or value in releasing the files.
[7:43]>> Two-page memo. >> Yeah. I think a declarative statement that there's nothing more there. Now, you see a bit of equivocating with the release of the files. And I think there's this outcry from survivors, including their representatives.
[7:54]Jennifer Freeman, an attorney for survivors, spoke to us earlier today saying, "It doesn't look from these files so far like there were vigorous investigations of the people whose names are there." Like there's no work product
[8:05]of well, did you chase this down? Did you chase that down? These questions are going to linger. And I think this story as a process story for the Trump administration is going nowhere. I'm not sure how they button this up because
[8:16]whether they release more files or not, they're going to be accused of covering things up or not being diligent or being sloppy in their work, it's hard to get that toothpaste back in the tube. >> Moments ago, the president got a couple of questions on this in the Oval Office.
[8:28]He said he thought it was time for the nation to move on to other things. To your point from a moment ago, that doesn't appear procedurally possible. We had a long conversation on this program last night, Scott, on a procedural
[8:39]matter that is before the court about taking all this information down. Do we know anything more about where that stands? >> There's a conference tomorrow at the federal courthouse in Manhattan [snorts] where some of the survivors and their representatives have asked a judge to
[8:50]intervene, perhaps help grease the wheels for an order to the Department of Justice to do this. I'm not sure that judge feels he's empowered to make that kind of order of the Department of Justice, especially in the matter in front of him. There's always the
[9:01]possibility that some public pressure on the Department of Justice may get them to take this thing down or maybe some self-interest by the Department of Justice to take this thing down because they're getting a lot of incoming overprocess over the last 48 hours.
[9:13]>> They could take it down. They could scrub it again, redact the things that need to be redacted, take the redactions off, things that clearly don't need to be redacted, and perhaps reintroduce it to the public. That might be something that attorneys and survivors would
[9:25]welcome. Scott McFarland, always a pleasure, sir. Thank you. Turning to President Trump's comments recently about potentially nationalizing elections. Well, no other authority than
[9:35]the United States Supreme Court has said some things about this. Historically interpreted article one of the Constitution, which I read at the top of the show, means states exercise control
[9:46]over elections. But now, President Trump suggesting he might want to change that, urging Republicans that they should take over the voting from states. President
[9:56]first floated the idea on Dan Bonino's podcast. You might remember that name, Don Bonino, former deputy director of the FBI. He spoke about it also from the Oval Office a minute ago.
[10:07]>> If a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal government
[10:17]doesn't do them anyway, but when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is. I think the federal government when you see crooked
[10:28]elections, and we had plenty of them, and by the way, we had them last time, but go to 2020, look at the facts that are coming out, rigged, crooked elections. If we have areas, take a look
[10:39]at Detroit, take a look at Pennsylvania, take a look at Philadelphia, you go take a look at Atlanta, look at some of the places that tre horrible corruption on elections and the federal government
[10:51]should not allow that. >> Quick note on that. All those name check cities, states, all litigated after 2020 to the fullest. Results didn't change.
[11:00]Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. CBS News senior White House correspondent Ouija Gang joins me now for this and other activities at the White House today of which there were many. Ouij, go ahead.
[11:12]>> Well, Major, the reporter uh in that room who asked the original question that the president was responding to followed up by making your point which is that the constitution says that the
[11:22]states should administer elections. And the president said, "Well, they can administer them, but they need to do it uh honestly." And so he offered a little
[11:33]bit about what should happen if they don't do it. Honestly, his press secretary earlier today uh went a little further and gave this detail. Take a listen.
[11:44]I don't think any rational person who's being honest with themselves would disagree with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot in a federal
[11:56]election uh or frankly in any election. And that's something the president wants to see happen. So that's what he was referring to. >> But to be clear, he does believe the state should oversee elections. >> The president believes in the United States Constitution. However, he
[12:08]believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And again, voter ID is a highly popular and common sense policy that the president
[12:18]wants to pursue and he wants to pass legislation um to make that happen for all states across the country. And major, my initial question was what does it look like in practice if the
[12:30]federal government were to take over these elections? And Caroline Levit, the press secretary, said that all the president was talking about was to um
[12:39]support the uh safe guard American voter eligibility act, which means that voters would have to show proof of US citizenship when they voted. um and not
[12:50]just something like a driver's license, which Democrats are fiercely pushing back on because they say that would severely limit the uh amount of people who would go vote, that it would be
[13:01]cumbersome. Um and so that is what she explains the president meant. >> Congress can set broad par broad parameters for elections. States administer them and if Congress passes
[13:12]the safe act, then it will be law. But until it doesn't, it isn't. And that's where we stand. and Ouija Jang in the north of the White House. Great to have you with us. I'm going to take a walk. We haven't done this in a while. I've got my iPhone. I got my coffee cup.
[13:24]David Becker, our election law expert, is going to join us as I walk over to the conversation corner to dig more deeply into this. David, I'm always glad to see you. Thanks for making that very nimble maneuver. Let me get my coffee down on the table, my iPhone down.
[13:36][sighs and gasps] >> We've covered some of the basics. Take it from there. >> Well, as you pointed out, the elections clause of the Constitution couldn't be any more clear. It's actually one of the areas the founders carved out
[13:46]specifically to exclude the executive from any power over elections. It's the state legislatores first and then Congress can also, as you pointed out, legislate if they choose to do so. And
[13:56]they've done that rarely. But I'm I I was really taken by some of his comments again spreading um the lies about the 2020 election. This is an election that
[14:07]has been scrutinized and litigated and explored and interrogated more than any election in world history. The public servants who run elections, people you and I have talked to quite many times
[14:18]and I work with every day, >> Republicans and Democrats, somehow managed the highest turnout in American history during a global pandemic in the 2020 election. in the 2020 election and
[14:28]their work has withtood all of that scrutiny. Every single time when the president's allies lied about the election and they were sued for defamation, they lost every case to a tune of about a billion dollars in
[14:39]damages. We know what happened in the 2020 election. And you know, I'll take us back about a week ago. I was uh I was at a meeting of the secretaries of state here in DC and a Republican state
[14:50]election official asked a question of a representative of the White House. Why is the president continuing and the Department of Justice continuing to disparage the work of election officials? This is a Republican and when
[15:01]you hear him talk about crooked elections and states where they can't run elections. These are public servants who have done remarkable work to do that and their work has again withtood that scrutiny.
[15:11]>> Some states have voter ID, do they not? >> Yeah, they do. And you heard uh the president spokesperson >> kind of conflate voter ID and proof of citizenship, which are two different things. Many states have voter ID. uh
[15:23]the majority of states actually have voter ID, but that's a state issue on whether to implement it >> and it is popular when you pull it. >> It is and uh but even between the states whether they have ID or not, we know fraud is extremely rare. Now, with
[15:34]regard to proof of citizenship, we also already have that because of a 2002 law, the Help America Vote Act, which requires every single voter who registers to present an ID number, a driver's license number, or a social
[15:46]security number that gets checked against the database. Our elections are remarkably secure. If you look at our voter list, they're more accurate than they've ever been. If you look at our voting systems because of paper ballots and audits, they're more secure and and
[15:58]accurate than they've ever been. As well, >> David, it's always a pleasure. >> Thanks a lot, Major. >> Thanks for making that walk. It's a short one, but it's fun. >> Hillary Clinton calling out Christian conservative writer Ali Beth Stucky. What the former first lady is saying
[16:09]about the MAGA movement. Stucky joins our show. It's called The Takeout and responds. [music] The search for Savannah Guthri's mom. This is a very tough story. We will have
[16:19]the latest on her disappearance [music] and this new development, potential ransom note. A nasty fight with some racial overtones has broken out in the Texas battle [music] for the United
[16:29]States Senate. The Democratic primary getting a little feisty. Our reporter [music] panel will talk about that later in the show. The takeout returns in 90 seconds. Welcome back to Takeout. Back at the
[16:46]table. Get my steps in today. Hillary Clinton says MAGA is waging war on empathy. In an Atlantic article, Clinton criticized Christian conservative
[16:55]influencer Ali Best Stucky for her concept of quote toxic empathy, unquote. Here is my conversation with Stucky about that and a lot more. Toxic
[17:05]empathy. What an oxymoron. Hillary Rodm Clinton writes, "I don't know if the phrase reflects moral blindness or moral bankruptcy, but either way, it's appalling." Ellie Beth Stucky, she's talking about
[17:17]you specifically. How do you want to respond? >> She is, you know, she didn't really take the effort to try to understand my argument. And actually, the subtitle of
[17:27]my book explains it pretty well. How progressives exploit Christian compassion. This is not a demonization of compassion or even all empathy. It is
[17:37]to say that our empathy can be wielded in the wrong direction by people who want us to not critically think, not ask questions, and simply to feel our way
[17:47]through politics. And I think that there's a better and more loving and more thoughtful way for us to choose our leaders and to decide on policy. >> Definitions matter. How do you define
[17:59]sympathy as opposed to empathy? >> Yeah, sympathy means feeling for someone. Compassion means to suffer with someone. Kindness is usually an action.
[18:10]And I would define love as seeking the best interest of someone. But empathy literally means to be in someone's feelings, which could be helpful and lead you toward kindness. But it can
[18:21]also be very blinding. If you feel so deeply what someone else feels, you can forget that there are other people involved in this moral equation. You can even be blinded to objective reality and
[18:33]morality. So that's the problem I think uh with the nature of empathy is that it actually has uh it actually has the ability to eclipse our critical thinking. >> In that piece in the Atlantic, Hillary
[18:45]Rodm Clinton again talks about you in this way. This commasar of MAGA morality targets other evangelicals whose empathy she warns has left them open to
[18:55]manipulation. Maybe, she writes, they recognize the humanity of an undocumented immigrant family and decide that mass deportation has gone too far. Or she writes, they
[19:06]make space in their heart for a young rape survivor forced to carry a pregnancy to term and start questioning the wisdom and morality of total
[19:14]abortion bans. It's all toxic to Stucky. >> This is actually a perfect example of what toxic empathy is. We should see the humanity of someone who is an illegal
[19:26]immigrant. That should not lead us to being against deportations or to open up the border. We should have compassion for the woman who was raped and who is
[19:38]carrying a child. That should not lead us to justifying killing that child. Basically, the position there is that the child should get the death penalty for a crime that he or she did not
[19:48]commit. And so yes, that is my point that we should see the humanity and have compassion for these individuals without allowing us to support policies that I believe are very destructive.
[19:59]>> Diagram if you will for me the moral equations for an undocumented immigrant arriving at our border, poor, famished, needing assistance.
[20:09]>> Yeah, there are legal ways to claim asylum and I am open to that. I want people to be able to claim asylum in a way that is legal. I want people to be able to claim refugee status in a way
[20:20]that is legal and we have pathways to do that. Many countries have pathways to do that. Um, but I also care about the legal immigration process. I have seen legal immigrants walk through that very
[20:31]difficult yearslong process. And I want justice for them. I want fairness for them. I do not think it's right, nor do I think it should be legal to cut the line to come here illegally. And I think
[20:43]every country has a right to sovereignty. And sovereignty means protecting your borders and enforcing common sense immigration law. >> And the moral diagramming of the rape victim who traumatized, feels
[20:54]objectified, criminalized by an offender, does not want to bring a child to term because that would extend all of the things she most felt criminally
[21:05]invasive upon her in the original act of rape. Well, I think all of us would agree that we wouldn't kill a child outside of the womb because he or she was the product of rape. And if we are not killing
[21:16]people outside of the womb because of the circumstances surrounding their conception, then I don't see the moral justification for killing a baby inside the womb because of the circumstances surrounding her conception. The only
[21:27]difference there is time. And are we really killing people based on their location and their age? Look, a baby inside the womb is a human being and he or she should have the right not to be murdered no matter how they were conceived.
[21:38]>> The article that Hillary Rodm Clinton wrote had the headline MAGA's war on empathy. Do you figure yourself do you see yourself as someone who is
[21:49]objectively at war with empathy? >> No, I don't. I want people to see the vulnerability in what I believe sometimes to be emotional propaganda
[22:01]that gets people to not think about both sides of an issue. And I really want people to approach this as a Christian uh with this dichotomy of the truth and love. The thing about love that we read
[22:13]as Christians in the Bible is that it is inextricably intertwined with the truth. That's 1 Corinthians 13:6. And so I want us to seek the truth in love, loving
[22:22]other people while still realizing uh that order is important, that morality exists, that babies in the womb have value, and that we don't want more Lake and Riley's. And so all of this has to
[22:34]play into how we decide on policy. >> You can catch my full conversation with Alli Beth Stucky on YouTube, or you can listen on your favorite podcast platform. Here's an update I suggest we
[22:46]would get to when we get to break. The Puma County Sheriff's Office tells CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti that they have received a ransom note for Nancy Guthrie, the
[22:56]mother of today's show co-host Savannah Guthrie. The note reportedly contained details about the home and what Nancy was wearing the night she was kidnapped. Authorities would not confirm the
[23:07]accuracy of this note, but say the FBI has reviewed it and shared it with Savannah. Andreas Gutierrez joins us now with the latest from Tucson. What do we know? What we know at this point is that that
[23:21]note was sent to a local television station late last night. That television station agreed not to go public with it. Instead, they did the right thing and shared it with authorities first. The
[23:33]sheriff notes that the note did include specific details about the home and what Nancy Guthrie was wearing the night that she disappeared. He would not confirm whether that information is accurate,
[23:43]but says the FBI reviewed the note and made the decision to share it with Savannah Guthrie nearly 20 hours after receiving it and analyzing it. The sheriff says they are taking this particular note very seriously.
[23:54]Authorities had hoped to keep it from becoming public, but that same note was sent to TMZ, which reported on it before contacting the sheriff's office. Again, this is the sheriff telling this to our
[24:06]Jonathan Vigliotti. We here at CBS News need to emphasize that these notes have not been authenticated. As for the surveillance video, the sheriff says it has not produced anything helpful so
[24:17]far. Investigators believe that the system here may be set to automatically delete after a short period of time and so they are attempting to recover that video using that forensic tools. are
[24:29]also asking neighbors here to slow down and take a second look at the video because again this will be very key and pivotal to this investigation as it continues to unfold.
[24:40]>> Terminology matters here. Taking something seriously doesn't necessarily mean you've authenticated it. That's the step the sheriff and other authorities are trying to carry out. Andre Gutierrez, thank you very much for those latest developments from Tucson. I
[24:51]really appreciate it. We are going to take a quick break. Please stay with [music] us. This is the takeout. Welcome back. The next representative
[25:02]from Texas's 22nd congressional district could have a very familiar face. I mean really familiar. Trevor Nails. He's the identical twin brother of the current congressman, Troy Nails. He's running
[25:14]for the seat. And if he succeeds, it would mark the first time in our history that a member of Congress is succeeded in their office by their identical twin. Earlier today, I spoke with both Nell
[25:25]Brother Nell's brothers about policy issues and the upcoming midterms. Take a listen. Troy Nells, you're the member of Congress. Trevor Nells, you want to be a member of Congress. You would set
[25:35]history becoming the first identical twins, if you're successful, ever to serve in Congress. Why do you want to do that? >> I'm an America first patriot. >> Okay, >> Major. And I think the gentleman to my
[25:47]right is an America First Patriot. So, we want to continue to support the president and his America first policies, and I'm uniquely qualified to do that. >> Why?
[25:58]>> Well, I spent 30 years in law enforcement in Fort Pen County, Texas, which is within the district, and I
[26:07]served 33 years in the Army Reserve National Guard, retired in 2020. And I think I'm going to take that experience
[26:15]that I have being a civil servant both at the municipal and county levels and I'm going to take that experience to the federal level. >> Congressman, you were involved this
[26:27]afternoon >> or this morning rather. The house rule vote held open for an hour. You one of the last ones to decide what was going on. >> Just having a c a casual conversation with leadership and stuff, but I voted
[26:38]yes. I I support the president and and his his agenda. Well, there's always there's issues up here all the time, but uh I I will say that we have a strong speaker. We have a strong leadership
[26:49]team. In the end, you're always going to have a few holdouts that may have a concern with one of the, you know, issues in an appropriations bill. This was a package. So, you just kind of address those concerns and this and that
[27:01]and you you work it out. So, uh something we were able to we would a we were able to get it done. Uh and and I believe that uh having uh Donald Trump in the White House certainly is a
[27:12]blessing for Mike Johnson because when you have some people and you've seen it in the past uh where where you get some hold outs a phone call from Donald Trump is >> and he made >> it's the only phone call you need >> and he made him on this bill. He was
[27:24]involved. >> Well, I I don't know. I didn't I didn't have to talk to him. He doesn't need >> I support He doesn't have to call me because the president knows I'm not going to uh I'm not going to get into the I'm not going to get in the way. I
[27:34]really don't. But I just had some great conversations with leadership and and it was done. So >> tell your brother, if you haven't already, the best part of serving in the House and the worst part of serving in the House.
[27:45]>> Well, to be able to say you're a member of Congress is is is quite an accomplishment. I I mean, it's an honor and privilege to serve at the federal level. I mean, I get to meet people and talk to people. I mean, the idea that I
[27:56]can call the president of the United States on a cell phone and he answers, I mean, where else do you get that? You really [clears throat] can't. But there can be some frustration up here. uh uh
[28:05]you know I I care a lot about this country and the direction it has been going. We got concerns with $36 trillion in debt. So you can get frustrated. There are times I get home and I'm kind
[28:17]of like why aren't we putting America and its people first. That can be frustrating and I'm sure Trevor uh will see that once he gets up here. But again, it's just an honor and a privilege to serve. I knew it was going
[28:28]to be a I don't want to say a difficult assignment. I knew what I was getting myself into. Uh, you know, this has been referred to as a swamp, and that's what it is. Make no mistake, this is a swamp.
[28:38]Uh, but but I'm all about America and America first. >> Since you mentioned that, I thought President Trump was going to drain it. >> He has. He is doing He's doing it every day. He's doing it every day. And he did
[28:48]it through Doge and Elon Musk and and cutting and gutting this big fat bloated peg of Washington DC. And he has demonstrated that over and over again. I
[28:59]believe we should do another reconciliation package. If we don't do that, I don't know why we wouldn't. >> You mentioned the frustration. So, so far this year, 49 members of the House not seeking re-election. 22 are
[29:10]retiring. Others are going on to other runs. Six members of the Republican Texas delegation not seeking re-election. What's that all about? Those are pretty high. >> Well, when you've been up here for for
[29:22]20 years, I mean, Mike McCall, but Mike McCall's been up here for a couple decades, you know, and he's had two chairmanships, right? Where's he going to go? At least on the Republican side, we give you six years. Now, you get a
[29:32]waiver, but when you're a chairman for six years, it you move on and you pass the gavl on to someone else. Democrats don't do that. They'll occupy the chair for 30. So, they don't really give their ability to build and grow uh their
[29:44]members uh on the Senate or the uh Democrat side. But, so there are all sorts of different reasons uh as to why people would leave. I wasn't forced out. I didn't leave because I didn't like
[29:56]this anymore. I just felt it was my time. And I I'm a term limit guy, too, by the way. >> Right. Democrats have called this an act of nepotism or trying to create a political dynasty within your family, Trevor.
[30:07]>> Nepo nepo brother. >> I don't believe that's the case. We come from a family of civil servants, elected officials. Our father was a Korean War veteran and the sheriff of a county in
[30:18]Dod in Wisconsin. And then we have an older brother that was the sheriff of the same county our father was the sheriff of. So we come from a lineage of
[30:28]elected officials, public servants, those that love our country, service to not only their community but also to their nation as members of the military. And that's what uniquely qualifies me
[30:39]because we have that history in the Nails family. >> Not a dynasty, not a Nepo brother. >> Not at all. >> When you think about coming to the House, there are projections that this
[30:50]might be a difficult year for Republicans. you might arrive at a minority status in the House of Representatives. Does that bother you? >> Well, I would hope it's better.
[31:01]>> I would hope the American people are smart enough to elect conservatives and that we keep the house because anyone knows and I think you know the
[31:12]same as I do. You pull your car into a gas station, you want to fill up. I did it last week in Richmond, Texas. And 18 months ago, it was $100 to put
[31:24]premium in my car. Last week it was 60. And I think the American people see it and they realize it. You can watch my full interview with the
[31:34]Brothers Nells on YouTube. Talk about a lot of things, pop culture included. If you look at the numbers, crime is down nationwide and it has been dropping since [music] co. So what is the cause?
[31:46]Who gets the credit? We're going to dive into the statistics and try to come up with some answers next. Welcome back. A new study finds crime
[31:57]rates are dropping across the United States with some areas reaching their lowest levels of recorded crime in decades last year. The research from the Council on Criminal Justice analyzed
[32:08]data from 40 large cities across the US for 13 different types of crimes committed in 2025. The report found homicides dropped 21% from 2024, gun
[32:20]assaults down 22%, aggravated assaults down 9%. Drug crimes were the only category that increased. They were up 7% as compared to 2024. However, drug
[32:32]crimes still remain well below prepandemic levels. Here with me with more on this, Alex Picero. He's a professor of criminology at the University of Miami and the former director, this is important, of the
[32:44]Bureau of Justice Statistics. Alex, it's great to have you with us. As you well know, the Trump administration has said it's because of immigration enforcement crackdowns and the deployment of
[32:54]National Guard in select American cities. Any evidence to back up that that's what has driven crime rates down? >> Hi, Major. It's a pleasure to be with you here this evening. Uh let's be very
[33:06]clear, the crime declines that we saw in 24 and 25 predated predated uh the implementation of various policies of this administration. And to add one more
[33:17]piece to the the evidence to this is that in cities where there were no national guards, crime also went down. So the story is that crime rates were
[33:26]already going down before these policies were put into place. And do we have another explanation for this very positive I think everyone would agree
[33:37]sigutoy trend line. >> It's it's a great story major. Um you know and we're seeing this for the majority of crime types in the majority of cities. And I think what's happening
[33:47]here is you never want to isolate one thing. Um and but but the reason why is that all of the things that we know work from an evidence-based or evidenceinformed point of view are happening concurrently in major cities.
[33:58]That includes policing efforts that are focused on hotspots of policing, focused on getting the violent people and the violent places under control, but also that works in combination with
[34:09]prevention and intervention programs that deal with investing in people and in places. And that's happening now. They're resourced up. They're scaled up and a lot of big cities in the US. But,
[34:19]you know, we want to celebrate these crime drops, but we also have to make sure we don't take our foot off the pedal. We have to continue doing the hard work day in and day out. Alex, I'm going to do something dangerous on live broadcasting. I'm going to use a lot of
[34:31]P words in a row. Pandemic, permissiveness, and a perception of both. Agree and agree. I mean, we all we all
[34:42]were around in March of 2020 when uh everything got shut down and then we had to live through education being stopped. We had to live through increases in alcohol and drug use. We had to live through the fact that we couldn't do the
[34:54]things we were used to doing on a regular basis. Going to the gym, going to the mall, being with friends. All of those after-school programs stopped. People lost their jobs. You know, that there was no there's no book on the
[35:05]shelf major that says here's what we're going to do during pandemic, whether for teachers like us or firefighters on the street and, you know, and and those kinds of things. So, that took a couple
[35:14]years to get get our hands around it. but also all of those, you know, prevention intervention programs, they were on hold. So, the water wasn't even dripping coming out of the faucet. But
[35:26]here we are now, four or five years later, and the water's coming out completely out of the faucet. >> It is often said that to uh beat crime, you need lots of cops. Has there been a
[35:36]nationwide surge in police employment? You know, it's it's it's a great point, Major, and a lot of people believe that that's the case. And it's true that every department needs a certain number
[35:46]or level of staffing, but it's less the number of police, major, it's more about what they do on the street and how they do the work they do. It's true during
[35:57]the pandemic, you know, we saw a lot of officers get sick. I mean, we they couldn't work from home when a lot of us were working from home. So, officers were were on this office street. They were some of them were dying. And now we
[36:08]started to staff those levels back up. Um, in some cities, police chiefs will tell you, "I need more people." You know, they're always going to want more people and and less computers. U, but I think what we're seeing now is is smart
[36:20]use of police in the kinds of places for the kinds of reasons we want. >> Alex, very quickly, explain to me the quality of the data and how it is collected.
[36:31]>> You know, that's a really good question. In the United States, we have 18,000 some odd law enforcement agencies uh major and crime data to this day is still not required to be submitted to
[36:42]the Federal Bureau of Investigation who produces those data in in the fall of calendar year for the previous year. That said, we have a lot of really good
[36:51]live crime trackers now that scrape the internet because a lot of police departments are now putting the data up on their websites. So the story you're seeing, the council criminal justice report that I was a part of that team,
[37:02]what you're seeing now in in various different avenues, no matter where the data are being produced, they're all showing a very consistent story. So if I was a member of the public, when I talk to my parents or my teachers, I tell
[37:14]them that the data are reliable, they're timely, and they're credible, and the story is real. >> Alex Picero, University of Miami, former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. What a pleasure, sir. Thank you.
[37:26]>> Thank you. Colin Alred may have dropped out of the Texas Senate primary. In fact, he already has. But he's still in the political frey why he is now backing Jasmine Crockett over James Telerico [music]
[37:37]due to, let us just say, a spat over a social media allegation. We'll explain when we come back [music] with a reporter panel next. You're right here on the Takeout. Welcome back. Reporter panel time. Evan
[37:52]McMorris Santoro covers politics for notice. Remember that's news of the United States. Matt Brown, reporter for the Associated Press. All right, I want to go back to something we talked with David Becker about because this question
[38:03]of non-citizen voting, I just want to lay some stats down for you. 2016, the election of Donald Trump won non-citizen voting in that election. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, studied
[38:13]42 jurisdictions. You can look at the numbers. 30 cases out of 23.5 million votes cast. Let's go to Georgia 2016. Also, Trump carried George in
[38:24]2016. Secretary of State's office, 20 cases of non-citizen voting out of 8.2 million votes. Now, you can say to yourself, that's a lot, but you'd be
[38:35]wrong. It's not a lot. It is infinitely small and smaller than a lot. Just to lay that out. >> We've talked to you before many times, Evan, about Zoran Mamani, New York.
[38:46]>> We're about a month in. What is there any appraisals thus far? Well, I can say, you know, the major test of a mayor is, can you get to work? Can your
[38:56]garbage get picked up? What happens when it snows? It snowed. The city kept working. So far, so good for him. Really, there's a lot of other stories going on with that in terms of how the city actually is dealing with some of
[39:07]these crises that came in uh before him, right? Like homelessness, for example. That that was a very hard >> not going to be solved in a month. >> It was a very hard part of the of the snowstorm. But in terms of like a first
[39:18]sort of can a democratic socialist put on the, you know, the DSNY jacket and get the stuff, you know, cleared out of the way, he can. And that seems to have been pretty successful for him. Matt,
[39:28]here are the Democrats who are in Texas all excited about this special election victory Saturday in state senate district 9. And within hours, something else springs up which is controversial,
[39:38]has some racial undertones. Uh James Telerico, currently leading in the polls, apparently said to someone that Colin Alred, a former member of the House that was in the race and got out, was a mediocrity of some kind. He posts
[39:50]a sulurus sulfurous >> video takedown, endorses Jasmine Crockett. That's kind of a thing that's going on. >> You know, it's so striking because I think that this really gets to so many
[40:01]of the things that the Democratic Party is currently grappling with, namely technology, new media, as well as still the identity politics of the last decade. really, you know, this case is some is one in which um a black man who
[40:12]was running for Senate, dropped out, is now running for the House, has come out and said that a social media influencers comments have influenced his decision to endorse in a race. I mean, that's really remarkable when we really step back about this and this entire
[40:24]>> step bystep process you just laid out. >> It's it's incredible. I mean, we we really are in like, you know, wouldn't have been on a bingo card, you know? I mean, like new media is really defining this race. I mean, earlier in this race,
[40:35]Jasmine Crockett was criticized by some comedians on a podcast, and that became another massive um controversy in this. So, really, what you're seeing here is another flash point in which national Democrats are understanding and debating
[40:46]the party's brand and identity through these new mediums and formats and through these old conversations on issues like this. >> And Evan, speaking of new mediums and formats, that's Mandy's whole thing. I'm not trying to put you in that pigeon
[40:57]hole, but you are an expert, at least with the context of the Yeah, I mean, I live there. >> Yeah. [laughter] you covered. You pay attention to >> Yeah, >> that's right. >> Well, he's been very successful at that. This is the thing is that, you know, you
[41:09]talk a lot of Democratic strategists as I do and I know that you do and you do. Um, this is a problem. They don't have this authenticity of online really, which is ironic because they have a lot of younger voters. Mom Donnie came in
[41:20]and was kind of a guy who was just good at being on the internet. As you're on the internet, you it wasn't super surprising. It's just like this. He's just good at it. But it's very surprising for Democrats. They still don't understand how do I unlock this?
[41:32]Do I do a meme and I do a dance? Do I do this? What do I do? And this is kind of what's going on with this trico thing. And I also think it sort of gets back to the general thing that you and I have covered. We've all covered the election so many times.
[41:43]>> This Texas is like a cursed place for Democrats. Every time there's somebody, this is the guy, this is going to happen and they step on the rank. And in the case of this, you know, we had a lot of reporting at notice that, you know, the
[41:55]crocket getting into the race in the first place was kind of maybe sort of astroturfed by a lot of Republicans who wanted to get in. This is a situation where Democrats have put a lot of eggs once again in this basket and they appear to be getting sort of broken all
[42:06]over the place right in front of their face. And speaking of politics and identifying an issue and driving it, that's going to be very much in front of Democrats for the next two weeks here in Washington about DHS funding and what to
[42:17]get, if anything, out of this administration in terms of reforms to ICE and Border Patrol activity. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we just saw today that obviously Republicans and Democrats got some concessions in the House in some of the reforms that they
[42:29]wanted to see for the non-DHS parts of this um package for to fund the federal government. So 1.2 trillion out the door. Okay, that's good. Everyone settled on that. The hard part now is going to be whether Republicans and
[42:40]Democrats can come to any sort of consensus on issues like masking, on issues like warrants for ICE, on issues like the conduct of these federal agents in cities across the country. That has really shocked the nation. >> And can you legislatively guarantee, for
[42:51]example, an independent investigation of deadly force is used in the context of one of these enforcement actions? That seems like a pretty big deal. >> These are the very big and existential deals and they go to the core of the of
[43:02]Trump's President Trump's um agenda on immigration. They don't want to have any sort of constraint from Congress in some of these things, but they understand the political environment might be requiring that. >> Matt, you're going to get the last word. Evan, I know you were taking a breath
[43:14]in. I apologize. I got to short circuit you. >> That's great. I mean, >> two neck tie. Two neck ties. Two neck ties. All right. Why? Why are these two neck ties? Troy Nails and Trevor Nails were on the show. [music] After they both signed these ties and donated them
[43:25]to the world famous Golden Takeout Tie Rack. That's how the show works. You know what we are? We're the Takeout. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Relentlessly curious, reliably civil, occasionally
[43:35]clever. That's what we are.