Joe Scarborough Criticizes Progressive DAs: ‘Quality of Life Issues Have Been Ignored’

MSNBC’s Morning Joe criticized progressive district attorneys nationwide on Tuesday with co-host Joe Scarborough saying that “quality of life issues have been ignored.”

The segment comes as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is expected to be recalled on Tuesday following criticism, especially from the Right, that he has been lenient on crime.

“This is a fascinating debate that we’re seeing play out in San Francisco, of course and in New York City. New York Democrats elected a former NYPD cop [Eric Adams] and they elected him because of quality of life issues, they elected him because of crime,” said Scarborough. “Right now his poll numbers are low and they’re low according to a recent poll because New Yorkers still don’t feel safe.

A Spectrum News NY1/Sienna College poll publicized on Tuesday shows Adams with a 64 percent fair/poor job performance rating, compared to 29 percent who say he’s doing an excellent or good job. The poll also found 76 percent of respondents concerned that they could be a victim of a violent crime, compared to 24 percent who say they’re not concerned. Additionally, 56 percent of respondents said New York City is headed in the wrong direction, while 32 percent said it’s on the right track.

“You look at what’s happening in Philadelphia. You look at what’s happening all across this country. There was over the past four years or so there’s been a wave of really progressive DAs,” said Scarborough.

“And what’s so fascinating is the debate inside the Democratic Party because, you know, some people will say that support progressive DAs, ‘well the crime rates aren’t that different,’ but on the ground that is just, again talking about feeling, that’s not what New Yorkers, that’s not what people in Philadelphia, that’s not what a lot of people in San Francisco are feeling,” he continued. “They feel like quality of life issues have been ignored by the city for the past couple of years. And we’re going to see how that plays out in San Francisco. One of the more Progressive places in America.”

Co-host Willie Geist said that crime rates in San Francisco “objectively have been” bad.

“You ask anybody who lives there despite some the protests that the DA hear about crime rates and everything else. When you walk out in the street of San Francisco, people who live there, feel it,” he said. “They see open drug use, they see homelessness, they see mental illness right where they live and they want something done about it. And there’s been a lenience toward those kind of issues.”

Geist went on to cite Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has come under fire for being soft on crime.

“In New York, you have the D.A. who pushed up against the mayor, Mayor Adams, and had to walk back some of the things he said on the campaign trail, for example, about treating gun crimes as misdemeanors in some cases. Had to say, ‘Now that I think about it, now that I hear your protests, those will be treated as felonies,’” he said. “There is a push from social justice sort-of warrior DAs and mayors, like Mayor Adams, a former New York City police officer, trying to get back quality of life to the city which is why by and large he was elected.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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