Former Ohio governor and current MSNBC contributor John Kasich got some surprising pushback on the network on Monday afternoon after he backed Donald Trump’s claim that major urban centers in the U.S. are wracked with uncontrollable crime.

Following Donald Trump’s rambling press conference where he suggested a dictator might be required to get the cities under control, Kasich spoke with host Chris Jansing to give his take, but did not find agreement with MSNBC’s Basil Smilke.

According to Kasich, known for analyzing topics from both sides of the aisle, he believes that the cities Trump has been focused on, all of which are governed by Democratic Black mayors, need to work more closely with the Republican president.

Balking at the accusations that Trump and his inner circle are fomenting a “manufactured crisis” at a time when his administration is under the dark cloud due to his relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Kasich stated, “I mean, I have to tell you, I have such a different take than what we've just heard that talk about a man manufactured crisis.”

“Have you been in Chicago? Have you been in Baltimore?” he excitedly exclaimed. “My daughter went to school in Chicago. I remember the day she graduated there were shootings and killings right outside of her building. And in Baltimore, I have friends that go down to Johns Hopkins, get treated for medical conditions. I mean, they're – they are nervous about ever going there. There are parts of Baltimore that he tells me he wouldn't go into. And this is not some right-wing person; this is somebody who wants to be able to go into some of our great cities and be able to be safe.”

After making the case for co-operation with the Trump administration, MSNBC’s Smilke offered, “I absolutely disagree because if this were a crisis, rents wouldn't be $4,000 a month for a studio, right? We have an affordability crisis in some of these cities because people want to move there, people want to live there.”

“So you can't have this manufactured crisis and think that it's a real crisis if you have, you know, if there is a demand for $4,000-a-month studio apartments,” he added. “So having said that, the one point, and I agree with everything you said, and one of the things that you said at the end is where I want to pick up on because, Chris, I’m sorry, you said that, you said at the end that iIwant to pick up on, because what does get left out in this conversation is that the people that live in those communities, these communities where the all this alleged crime is taking place, those residents are not passive and wanting to try to make their communities better.”

“So what they do is they do partner with law enforcement,” Smilke elaborated. “They go to the the local police precincts, they are in those community organization meetings with federal and local law enforcement to try to find solutions to these problems. If you want the federal government to be involved, there are tons of nonprofits that get support to be violence interrupters to go into violent situations, to try to bring some peace to their neighborhoods.”

“None of that is really getting discussed here,” Smilke complained. “What the president is saying is he wants to have law enforcement with long guns in these neighborhoods, to put fear in the minds of those residents in communities that are largely led by Black mayors. Where is the partnership that's not being discussed?”


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