Chris Hayes has a long history of making absurd and hateful claims on his nightly MSNBC show, but it appears there is no comment or bizarre conspiracy theory that’s too low for him. On Wednesday night’s edition of All In, Hayes spent an entire segment dismissing America’s rising crime rates, and questioned the motives of any network that dared to cover them.
During the second-to-last segment of the show when Hayes came back from a commercial break, he went into a diatribe in which he dismissed the fact that shoplifting in the United States had spiked in recent months. Hayes started off by whining about one of his favorite targets, Fox News and “right-wing media,” made the story a priority:
Right-wing media, and many media outlets — including local news this year — have been focusing on the idea that America is full of crime. However, it’s not completely detached from disturbing real statistics. Murders jumped by nearly 30 percent, the largest single-year increase in 2020, that’s last year. Our evidence suggests that murders are likely to continue rising in 2021. This is real. This is really awful. (…) The right-wing media propagates what is, in my opinion, a highly propagandistic story. It is specifically focused on out-of control retail theft.
To Hayes’ credit, at least he admits homicides have risen. He’s still not in control of shoplifting. He then presented a series of Fox News hosts that covered the shoplifting crisis. After this, he introduced three of his guests (Amanda Mull) who are writers. AtlanticHe praised the magazine for publishing an article which also attempted to minimize shoplifting.
Mull broke down the thesis of her piece which claimed to compare shoplifting rates to last year when most of the United States was locked down isn’t a fair baseline. Mull claims shoplifting actually is down compared to 2 years ago.
Hayes, in his response, drove the conversation to tinfoil hat conspiracy theories land. Hayes accused Fox News of love to show its viewers footage showing black men stealing merchandise from stores.
Fox loves surveillance footage that shows blacks stealing items. They will even run it 24/7, if possible.
Tim Miller (writer at large), was the other guest. BulwarkAs well as Donna Edwards, a former Democratic Congresswoman.
Miller, paradoxically, was not the only voice of reason in the panel. “there are boarded-up buildings. And there has been an increase of crime.” Although he claimed Fox was “obliging” Californians with crime spikes,Proportions to the ut“Fox uses that excuse to extrapolate the problem into a larger national issue…”
Later in the segment, Donna Edwards seemed to suggest Republicans were making the entire thing up by whining “Republicans are actually really good at constructing a narrative that really draws people in.”
MSNBC can keep denying reality all they want but that won’t make the problem of skyrocketing crime go away. All indications are that the policies and politicians they support are the main drivers of the crime that we are seeing in so many of our nation’s major cities.
The latest instance of a MSNBC host using the race card in order to distract from skyrocketing crime has been brought to you today by Mercedes-Benz Tums. You can link their information to let them know of biased news that they are funding.
To read the transcript of the segment click “expand”:
All In With Chris Hayes
12/29/2021
8.43.09 pm
CHRIS HAYES – One of the major themes in right-wing media, and indeed many media outlets — including local news this year — is the idea that America is full of crime. This isn’t a complete disconnect from the disturbing real stats. Murders jumped by nearly 30%, the largest single-year increase in 2020, that’s last year. Our evidence suggests that murders are likely to continue rising in 2021. This is real. This is really awful. In addition to the fact that there is a real increase in violence between Americans during this pandemic, and all of its dislocations and disruptions, right-wing media continues to propagandize what I believe is a totally propagandistic story about retail theft.
[Cuts to video clip]
BILL HEMMER FOX NEWS (Bill Hemmer): This year is seeing a spike in crime, particularly shoplifting.
Unidentified FOX NEWS REPORTER: America’s criminal crisis spirals out of control. Brazen thieves have been caught on camera taking more than $1500 in goods from a grocery.
DAGEN McCODOWELL (FOX NEWS), California is becoming the epicenter for other types of lawlessness. They have legalized theft.
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS: It is so bizarre and unbelievable to witness such brazen crimes. It’s an internal rebellion against civil and moral order.
[Cuts back to live]
HAYES. Amanda Mull, a journalist I admire greatly and have known for some time, saw the stories. She set out to find actual statistics to support them for The Atlantic. Amanda Mull, former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards, and Tim Miller (writer at large for The Bulwark) join me. Amanda, I want to start by congratulating you on the piece. It was excellent. This is partly due to viral videos. Part of the reason this is happening, especially for Fox and TV news, I believe, is that people are now able to capture shoplifters in a way they could not before. And then that goes on, you know that gets played on TV, and it’s like oh, it’s out of control. And then you’ve got a lot of these retailers citing these gargantuan numbers of what their retail loss is. You decided to investigate it. Was it worth the effort?
AMANDA MULLL: Yes. The same number of experts were cited repeatedly, and I noticed that it was happening over and over. You know, as a journalist that seeing this happening indicates to me that there may be a media campaign at work. I need to look into it. This is what I did: I looked into these figures. As far as crime statistics go, we all know that percentages of change in things depend on the baseline. The crime statistics for 2020 were very unique. Many lower-level criminal acts were not dealt with in the same manner. Many of these crimes didn’t occur at the same pace, especially shoplifting. This was a significant portion of the year that stores weren’t opened in large liberal cities. Many people changed their lifestyles and made major changes to their daily lives. Even those who may steal items. Not all of them were open. When you examine 2020 and see how police statistics change year to year, it’s clear that you are seeing changes that seem like historic lows. These levels of decline are unheard of in the history policing. You’re looking at –
HAYES: Right.
MULL: — In numbers not comparable to anyone. You get really large percentages that can be considered alarming. These numbers are not based upon good data. They are like an unrealized year in life. What happens when we compare this year’s theft numbers to 2019, 2018, 2017? We find that theft has fallen. Larceny has fallen. Robbery is on the decline. The overall rate of property crime is down. This is a significant improvement on what was before the pandemic. You have this strange year of statistics which helps to make it seem terrifying.
HAYES: This is actually my favourite headline from this. It’s a headline that goes out to “L.A. Times,” “LAPD warned about crime theft but data shows theft and robberies down.” It’s actually NBC, although “L.A. Times” had a somewhat similar headline. Tim, you know I think there’s something interesting happening here because I think that conservative media understands the power of those images, A. It’s true that homicides are on the rise. This is a disturbing issue policymakers are having to confront in a variety of ways, in places like New York City to Atlanta to Buffalo and Philadelphia. Fox is fond of surveillance footage showing black men stealing things. They will even run it 24/7, if possible.
TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK: I believe that Fox has also been benefited from what’s kind of a significant change in San Francisco. This is the city that they love, right across from mine. There are many boarded up buildings. The crime rate has increased. There was some unintentional overblown, and others that were very alarming. You can see that there is blowback coming from Liberal City Council members, but also from San Francisco Mayor. So, I think Fox has used that as an excuse to kind of extrapolate this into a nationwide problem and sort of tie it back into what you’re just talking about– just a real, a very real increase in homicides which is something that’s concerning.
So I believe that Democratic politicians need to be able to counter that. I don’t think it is right to give the Republican party more material that they can sell to the voters. The following is my opinion New York PostThis is what effect means. Right? Eric Adams was successful because of this. Right? So, what about those who don’t identify as MAGA folks but who are conservatively-oriented and who still read this? New York PostIn New York City, how do they perceive what’s happening? Their perception of what is happening depends on the story they are told. PostOne part of people’s perception is how they perceive their local community. Eric, I believe spoke directly to this perception and it paid dividends in his Mayorship. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to support criminal justice reform, or all the other stuff. But it does suggest that you need to accept that reality as a part of political reality.
HAYES: Well to the sort of epistemic question here — we’re gonna push this a little longer and then I’ll go to break, control room — but Donna, I just want to get as a Democratic representative yourself, someone that did Democratic politics, this point about perception and reality, like before you get to the policy stuff, before you get to any of it, I just find that like I can’t actually get through like what’s actually happening because the propaganda is so thick. What is really happening here? That’s what makes this question so difficult.
DONNA EDDWARDS (Republicans): It’s no secret that they are very good at creating compelling stories to draw people in. This is one example. So the risk is that when your policy is based on flawed data, this can lead to you deploying resources in ways that aren’t effective in fighting crime. Sometimes I worry that Democrats might get caught up in this debate on policy. But there are no videos or pictures like the ones that truly drive people. We need to be cautious about that type of public policy.
HAYES: Yes. HAYES: Yes. The New York Post Effect is real across the country. Amanda Mull, whose reporting was excellent and which is why I love her writing, thank you very much. Thank you so much. I am grateful that you have joined us.
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