WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): A year ago this week, President Donald Trump's crime-fighting task force came to Memphis with the promise of turning one of the country's most violent cities into one of its safest. With us to talk about that and other issues is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Great to be back with you, Chris.
BLANK: Well, before we get into the politics of this, what do the numbers say? On paper, did the surge work?
SANFORD: Well, if you're looking at the numbers, by any objective measure, you have to say that the task force did help bring down crime. The numbers support that clearly. Of course, everybody should acknowledge -- and we do -- that crime was already starting to go down, but there's no question that the task force helped to take it down even further. I believe people who were prone to commit crimes, because of the level of publicity that the task force got, they thought twice about committing crimes.
BLANK: I know I thought twice about committing crimes ever since they got here. So...
SANFORD: Yeah, it stopped me. Matter of fact, I was getting ready to ask you to go along with me on a ride, but...
BLANK: We got wise, Otis. We got wise...
SANFORD: We got wise. Thank you, task force, for that.
BLANK: Well, moving forward, there's a new county mayor, Mickell Lowery. And Memphis Mayor Paul Young will soon be running for re-election. Does the task force for these guys ultimately end up in the asset or the liability column?
SANFORD: I think for Lowery, it's to be determined, since he's just took over. Far as Young is concerned, it's going to be an issue in his re-election. I do think that people are going to blame him for some of the things that did go wrong, even though he's not to blame. But when you're the city mayor, people are going to blame you for complicitness with how immigrants were treated, for example, and others. So, I think it's going to be a mixed bag for both mayors.
BLANK: Well, let's talk for a minute about the November elections. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn is running for governor. She promises to be a Trump for Tennessee, even as the country is souring to some of the president's policies right now. But what would that look like on a state level?
SANFORD: I think what it looks like is that she's going to do everything in her power to support the Trump agenda, which is not a good thing for a lot of people, Chris. You're talking about healthcare, you're talking about education, law enforcement. She's going to do it the Trump way. I mean, let's let's be honest here. Blackburn is running to represent the far right faction of Tennessee. At least Gov Bill Lee tried to show, in spots, that he was representing all of Tennessee. Marsha Blackburn has not even tried to do that. I'm expecting if she wins, this will be a disastrous gubernatorial administration for a lot of Tennesseans, especially here in Memphis.
BLANK: So, her Democratic opponent, Jerri Green, does seem to be gaining some ground in polling. Not really close, but what does this tell you for a Democrat in a very red state?
SANFORD: Well, it says what you said at the outset of that initial question. There are a lot of people who are souring on Trump. His approval rating is at 48% in Tennessee, and that's underwater in Tennessee. And so, Jerri Green is taking advantage of that. She has repeatedly challenged Marsha Blackburn to a debate. Blackburn is running away from that, and actually running away from any real tough questions. I even had one Republican operative that I know said it is quite likely -- although it would be a mammoth upset -- he said it's quite likely that Marsha Blackburn could lose. Now, I don't know if I believe that just yet, but it just shows you that she's not a popular candidate first of all. And the unpopularity of Donald Trump, which she's all in on, is not helping her.
BLANK: Of course, this week we also have to talk about the botched execution of Christa Gail Pike by lethal injection. What do you think about this idea of mulligans in capital punishment? Reviving someone that you failed to kill and then trying to kill them again at some later time. It seems to me that this was big news for Tennessee.
SANFORD: It was in the most embarrassing way. You know, Chris, when I look at this, I call this a lethal injection of incompetence on the part of the state of Tennessee. This is the second time this has happened. Tony Carruthers was the first death row inmate that they tried to kill and couldn't do it. This is a major embarrassment. And you know, I read a Geoff Calkins column this morning in the Daily Memphian in which he said "and this is the same state that wants to try to run Memphis in every way and you can't even successfully kill somebody?" This is an absolute travesty. It is time for Tennessee to get out of the lethal injection business.
