On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) responded to a Baltimore Sun article on Baltimore residents whose neighborhoods are plagued by drug trafficking by saying that “we’re only having that discussion because the president’s having that discussion. And I want to be very clear. I didn’t read The Baltimore Sun article. I don’t read it because they’re a part of the president’s propaganda machine. So I don’t read that.”
Host Jake Tapper asked, “I’m sure you read the article in The Baltimore Sun yesterday talking about how so many Baltimore residents don’t recognize their neighborhoods anymore, and they’re also stuck, they can’t leave. The report says, ‘A 77-year-old woman from Curtis Bay, who asked to remain anonymous due to threats she’s received from drug dealers on her block, compared the morning drug traffic to a fast-food drive-thru. When a real estate agent assessed her property about a month and a half ago, she said the agent told her, ‘I can’t sell this house with that,’ referring to the ’10 or 12 people’ involved in the drug market loitering across the street.’ I’m going to get hurt one day, I know I am, she said. What do you say to those residents of Baltimore who may think that citing falling crime statistics glosses over some of the harsher day-to-day realities and needs that they have to their lives in Baltimore, a need for things to change even further in terms of just regular drug trafficking?”
Scott answered, “Yeah, so we don’t — we’re only having that discussion because the president’s having that discussion. And I want to be very clear. I didn’t read The Baltimore Sun article. I don’t read it because they’re a part of the president’s propaganda machine. So I don’t read that. But what I will say to the residents is very clear, Jake. They know me very well. And you know me. … You met me as a young city councilman who was leading the largest anti-violence movement in this city, and, before Freddie Gray in 2015. I am someone who, it’s different for me. I’ve had the gun in my face. I’ve lost friends. This isn’t just talking about or talking points. This is actually a life that I have lived. And what we’re going to continue to do is work in every community around the city to deal with this issue. But when I talk to our residents, they understand that they weren’t expecting me to come and eradicate a problem that has existed, Jake, longer than I’ve been alive in four years or five years, at this point. We will not stop until we remove all of those people. But that’s not going to happen overnight, Jake, and why we have to continue this partnership and why it’s important that we acknowledge where we were, right? When you think about Baltimore in 2015 or 1993, when I was nine years old, and where we are today, we have made significant progress. And when you can see that you can have the best, better ain’t as good. And it definitely isn’t good enough for me.”
Tapper responded, “I am going to take issue with your description of The Baltimore Sun and my brethren and sister reporters at The Baltimore Sun. I understand that the editorial board might have a more conservative bent than you, but the news stories, I think, are reliable.”
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