Sheriff Scott Jones of Sacramento, California said on the Todd Starnes Show he doesn’t want the Sacramento Bee’s endorsement because of their lack of journalistic integrity.
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The following is a rush transcript from The Todd Starnes Radio Show. Listen to the program live Monday – Friday from 12 p.m. until 3 p.m. Click here to listen to the full interview.
TODD STARNES: [00:44:06] I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. We’re honored to have Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones joining us today. Sheriff, hope you’re doing good. [00:44:14][7.7]
SCOTT JONES: [00:44:15] I am doing very well. Thank you. It’s great to be with you. [00:44:18][2.4]
TODD: [00:44:18] And just good, good people in law enforcement there and had the honor of covering the police beat back in the day and just some of the finest law enforcement officers in the country are right there in Sacramento and Sacramento County. [00:44:32][14.2]
SCOTT: [00:44:34] Yes, and that has not changed, that is still very true, although the challenges are new and unique every single year, it seems, are a great bunch of folks. [00:44:43][8.5]
TODD: [00:44:43] So Sheriff, I understand the Sacramento Bee invited you to participate in an endorsement interview. You’re running for the 3rd Congressional District there in California. And I’m curious to know what happened. [00:44:57][14.5]
SCOTT: [00:45:00] Well, first of all, I didn’t really actually come as a formal invite- it came as a calendar item just in an email with a weather calendar event, which is followed up later with an email about a week later asking me to sit down with their editorial board for an interview for a possible endorsement. Now, obviously, I’ve been sheriff for three terms. I’ve run for Congress in 2016, so I’m familiar with these processes. And although I did get the endorsement of the Sacramento Bee back in 2010 when I ran for sheriff the first time, it’s a very different paper now as many papers across the country are. It is just tremendous- the editorial section has taken over the entire page. The entire paper is basically one large editorial section. And you know, we have- we have a media center. So we have media, video media and printed media, and I sit down with them and obviously have a good relationship with them over the last 12 years, a sheriff over a lot of different things, but the Bee has not- they have basically abandoned their journalistic integrity in favor of, you know, creating a narrative like so many newspapers have, and I just didn’t want to be any part of it. And so I said, Hey, thanks for the invite, the invite, but no thanks. Not only am I not going to participate in the process, I don’t even want the endorsement of the Sacramento Bee. [00:46:16][76.9]
TODD: [00:46:17] Well, good for you. Good for you, Sheriff. And I know that had to have triggered somebody over there at the Sacramento Bee headquarters. [00:46:23][5.6]
SCOTT: [00:46:25] Well, it seems like I trigger them quite a bit when I stand up to the madness that happens in the capital here again, you know, asinine public safety legislation and sanctuary state laws and things that I’ve stood up against for the last 12 years. Yeah, they get triggered quite a bit for me, and they just, you know, they resort to like everybody else that doesn’t have facts on their side. They resort to name calling and emotional appeals and how terrible I am and xenophobia, you know, same old story. It’s nothing unique to me, but I’ve been attacked and still sleep like a baby every night. But you know, the rest of the media here in Sacramento, I feel we get criticized and we deserve criticism, but they are fair. There’s nothing, nothing fair about the Sacramento Bee, and I suspect they probably have more Facebook followers than they have subscribers anymore. [00:47:11][45.8]
TODD: [00:47:11] Well, I think and I think that’s the case and in other parts of the country as well, I believe the Sacramento Bee is owned by McClatchy. If I’m not mistaken [00:47:22][11.3]
SCOTT: [00:47:23] That’s correct. [00:47:23][0.2]
TODD: [00:47:23] And it seems to me, much like the radio industry where you had these mega conglomerates and they’re controlling a lot of the local radio stations, TV stations and newspapers. This is why you need local ownership because you know there are people there to hold people accountable. And that’s simply not the case now with these mega conglomerates. [00:47:44][20.8]
SCOTT: [00:47:45] Yeah, that’s 100 percent true. We used to be a two paper town, which, you know, created some sort of balance with the Sacramento Union, but it’s not in the case . They have long since been gone. You know, the Bee again is circling the drain. They don’t even print their newspapers here anymore. They’ve gotten rid of their real estate. And so it’s only a matter of time. But in the meantime, they’ve taken their cartoonists and made them reporters and folks that were a weekly columnist now make them making them in charge of the editorial board. So, you know, they keep re figuring and reconfiguring. But you know, the reality is they’re their days are numbered, and I think they know that. Why they cling on to this, you know, sort of liberal narrative. Creating agenda is beyond me. I think people are hungry for honest, fair, balanced news. I mean, look, I get criticized a lot. I mean, I run one of the largest sheriff’s offices in the country. We have 3000 employees and a half a billion dollar budget. Things are going to happen. And, you know, we stand up and take accountability for it and we get challenged and held to account by the media. the Bee is they’re just they’re terrible. They just they just resort to name calling and it’s just terrible. But again, this is Sacramento a story in my world, but it’s not unlike stories that are occurring across this country, the media [00:49:03][78.0]
TODD: [00:49:04] And by the way, folks. Scott Jones, the sheriff of Sacramento County in California, running for Congress. He’s a Republican sheriff, one of the, you know, I lived in Sacramento and I love that town. I lived in the midtown area. And it’s just a beautiful area, great people. And it’s understandable why people don’t want to move out of California. They want to stay and they want to try and fight for their state. And I’m curious, you mentioned some of the legislation. What are some of the things hampering you and your deputies from doing your job out there? [00:49:38][33.1]
SCOTT: [00:49:39] Well, it started with Proposition 47, which was erroneously dubbed by now Vice President Kamala Harris as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act. Not only did it have nothing to do with safe neighborhoods or schools, but it certainly did nothing to make them safer. And it just basically decriminalized a lot of felonies down to misdemeanors and let a lot of people out of prison that were in prison. And we’ve had the progeny of that going on. From there, we’ve got Prop 57. We’ve had sanctuary state laws. We had a multiple shooting downtown here in Sacramento for a guy that had been released with just under- after just under four years of his 10 year sentence and killed a bunch of people. We had a guy kill his three daughters and himself and a chaperon of their of their supervised visit two or three weeks ago by a guy- he was. He was in jail five days prior, and had been served with a detainer. I said, I know this guy. We want him. But because of our sanctuary state laws, they could not only not transfer him to ICE in Madera County. They couldn’t even call ice and let them know he was getting out. Five days later, he killed his three daughters and himself, so the failures are remarkable and astounding and recurring. Some of them make the news, some of them make national news. But minor failures are happening all over the place. And you know, nobody wants to talk about the crime as a victim, and no one talks about the victims. The mounting crime also means mounting victims, and no one’s talking about that. [00:51:13][94.3]
TODD: [00:51:14] Well, I’m glad you are and we need more. We need more law enforcement to stand up and say what needs to be said. We need to call these people out. And I have to imagine the good taxpayers there in Sacramento County are very thankful for that. Why did you decide to run for Congress? [00:51:30][15.7]
SCOTT: [00:51:32] Well, I’ll tell you the things that I’ve done here. I was very much looking forward to retirement after 33 years in the sheriff’s office and again 12 years this year. But I realize that the things that I’ve been standing up for and fighting against here are occurring, especially over the last couple of years. People aren’t safe. More importantly, they don’t feel safe. And this border situation? Look, the reason I ran for Congress in 2016 is that an officer was killed by someone who’d been in this country four times and I did a video plea to President Obama that went viral back then and ended up running for Congress and narrowly missing unseating an incumbent Democrat. But that is worse now, and so that is still very, very personal to me, the border, the border crisis and allowing folks to come in unchecked. So, you know, between the public safety, peace and the border peace, but I still need to fix it. I just have to run, I really had no choice. I’ve got service left to give not try to make a career out of Congress, but I’m definitely trying to bring my career to Congress. I think we need more law enforcement in Congress rather than legislation involved in law enforcement. [00:52:35][62.9]
TODD: [00:52:35] Well, that’s that’s exciting to hear and. And sheriff, we wish you the very best. And if you’re running on my pals John McGinnis and Tom Sullivan, be sure to tell those fellows. I said hello [00:52:47][11.4]
SCOTT: [00:52:48] well I run into John all the time, so I certainly will. I appreciate and have forced myself to learn more about me or join the fight. They can go to my website. It’s ScottJonesforCongress.com. I really appreciate this opportunity to really highlight some of the problems that are occurring here, but definitely recurring all around this country. [00:53:03][15.1]
TODD: [00:53:03] Well, Sheriff, you’ve got an open invitation here and we have links to all of your pages over on our website, and so we wish you the very best in your congressional race. [00:53:13][9.5]
SCOTT: [00:53:14] Thank you, sir. I appreciate this and I appreciate being with you today. It’s nice. Nice to chat with you. [00:53:18][3.8]
TODD: [00:53:18] All right, Sheriff Scott Jones, everybody from Sacramento, California.