Point of View October 19, 2026 – Hour 1 : New York City Front Lines

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now, Merrill Matthews. And welcome to Point of View. I'm Merrill Matthews, sitting in for Kirby Anderson today, and we've got a good show for you.

[00:00:27] After this segment, we're going to go to the former, well, John Schell. He's a retired New York police chief of patrol. And he has been talking about some of the things that they need to do in the police department there in New York. And he's retired now, so he has a little more freedom to speak about things. But he's also going to be running for the mayor of New York City. Interesting change there. And we'll be talking to him. He's doing an interview with Newsmax right now.

[00:00:55] He'll be off in a minute and we'll be able to talk to him at the beginning of the next segment. In the second hour, we're going to go to Stephanie Slade. She is with the Reason Foundation, and she has published a new book, published by University of Notre Dame Press. Fusionism, Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right. This is about the history, the post-war history of the American conservative movement. Some of the beginnings that's happened. Some of the changes that have developed under President Trump.

[00:01:23] And we'll have her on at the beginning of the next hour because it's a very interesting and scholarly effort to look at the post-war conservative movement and the changes that have developed there. For this segment, we want to talk a little bit about some of the, I think, concerning developments that are happening in Israel right now. We've heard things about what's happening on the West Bank.

[00:01:48] Now, this month, we are the three-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, the October 7, 2023 attack. When that attack occurred, it was devastating. Israel responded strongly to that and has continued that. President, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading that charge and has worked to try to just essentially eliminate Hamas.

[00:02:18] And Israel has made a lot of progress in doing that. And we applaud that progress. Even as we speak, there are issues arising right now as aid trucks are trying to get into Hamas, into Gaza Strip. Apparently, Hamas has been charging what you might call a tax or a fee for each of those trucks that come in to provide aid to the Palestinians.

[00:02:46] That prompted Israel to stop the trucks. I think I understand from the latest agreement that they're going to be, they've reached an agreement and that Hamas is going to quit demanding this fee or penalty or tax or whatever you charge on the aid trucks. And so the aid trucks will start moving in again, relieving that.

[00:03:04] But, you know, for over the past three years, we hear stories from we hear stories from journalists inside Gaza who would talk about innocents being killed, hospitals being bombed and other things. And that just basically implying that Israel was being way too aggressive, even to the point of genocide.

[00:03:26] Point of view has been supportive of Israel and its position here and being able to try to take out Hamas and the problem that it as a terrorist group that it causes. Once we hear some of those stories, we often then hear other stories coming from Israel and others saying that's not the whole story. Let me tell you what's happening, actually happening. And those new stories sort of offset what we hear from from those that are Hamas aligned journalists or reporters in Gaza.

[00:03:55] But now we're hearing a different story arising out of the West Bank, which is on the opposite side of Israel. And some of these are troubling because of some of the things that we hear happening. The apparently some Israeli settlers have masks and come in and attack some West Bank Palestinians there and have created some problems for that. And that has that is spurred Ambassador Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel to respond with this.

[00:04:25] And so what's interesting about this is it's hard to tell on some of the things happening in Gaza. Where is the truth in this? With Mike Huckabee stepping up and responding, it seems to me that we have a good account of what's happening and his concerns about this. And so I'm going to read there was an attack here recently over the weekend and Ambassador Huckabee has respond responded to this.

[00:04:48] And he has said he said, Heidi, this is his Twitter response. Heidi Levine, photojournalist for Washington Post, suffered serious injuries from vicious and the cowardly attack. Heidi is a U.S. citizen. Clear ID as journalist. So she's a journalist. She's reporting there. She has clear ID. She's in flat jackets and so forth. Details of who under of who are under investigation.

[00:05:15] But those who attacked an unarmed reporter should spend years in prison, according to Ambassador Huckabee. We have called for a full investigation, arrest and prosecution to the full extent of the law to whoever participated in this. Attacking a female photographer is despicable as a despicable act of terror carried out by mass crowds. Dishonorable act of senseless violence.

[00:05:43] And so that's Ambassador Huckabee responding to this. And he's made this is in strong terms. We don't normally see him speaking quite so strongly about this. But these are apparently Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are attacking Palestinians and this case even journalists. So in that regard, I'll tell I'll mention something from Reuters, which just came out.

[00:06:05] According to Reuters, it says Israeli police said on Monday they had arrested 10 suspects as part of an investigation into violent incidents in the occupied West Bank over the weekend, including separate attacks on a Washington Post photojournalist and European diplomats.

[00:06:23] The United States, Israel's closest ally, had urged a crackdown on settler violence and the arrest of the perpetrators of the attack on the Washington Post photojournalist. France, Belgium and Poland, whose diplomats were attacked, also called for on Israel to take action.

[00:06:42] It goes on to say that police said the suspects who were arrested in a predawn operation on suspicion of invite of involvement in acts of violence, violating a closed military zone order and illegal construction. It goes on to mention that U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has responded to this police and military officers and Shembet domestically domestic security also took part in the operation. So we're seeing some response to this.

[00:07:11] And this is important because Prime Minister Netanyahu is up for reelection. He is, I understand, has been trailing in the polls. He's been prime minister for some time. And there are there's concerns just both. Sometimes people get tired and we want new leadership. There's also concerns as to whether or not he knew something about what was going to happen on October 7th, 2023.

[00:07:33] But the the world has generally been against Israel and its response to Hamas in Gaza Strip. And Point of View has been generally supportive of what's happening there. Israel has a right to exist and has a right to wipe out terrorists who are attacking it. What's interesting about this is this sort of changes the dynamic a little bit.

[00:07:55] And for people, organizations that have been critical of Israel can look at what's happening at in the West Bank and say, see there, this is what we've been saying all along. So Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to get a handle on this quickly. Ambassador Huckabee has jumped in here and has gotten put his response out.

[00:08:15] So we hope that Israel can take care of this, set this aside so that it doesn't end up weighing on so many others and provide fodder for those groups outside of Israel who are constantly attacking Israel and claiming that Israel is actually out there killing innocent people. So we hope this response is addressed quickly and we hope Prime Minister Netanyahu can bring it into it. Stay with us. We're going to be back in just a minute as we turn to what's happening in New York City.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. The 2026 election was about many issues, but a significant one was the lack of affordability. Unfortunately, few politicians want to admit that the real reason is the declining value of the dollar. Porter Stansberry in his new book tells the story of three generations. John, the grandfather, was born in 1938 in a small Pennsylvania town. He worked most of his life at Armstrong Court Company and raised a family on a single salary.

[00:09:29] He paid for all four of his children's college education. When he died, his estate was approximately $780,000 along with a paid-off house, a modest IRA, and Armstrong stock. David, his son, was born in 1968 and graduated from Penn State with a degree in mechanical engineering. He and his wife, who worked part-time as a nurse, had three children. He still works at 60 but may retire in a few more years, but two of his children are moving home because they cannot afford a home. Jake is David's oldest son.

[00:09:57] He graduated from Penn State with a master's degree in computer science. He works remotely as a software developer for a firm in Seattle. He makes $142,000 a year but cannot buy a house because the median home in his zip code is $385,000 and he has $47,000 in student loans. And please don't tell him he can't make ends meet simply because he eats too much avocado toast. All three generations of these men had a good work ethic and made wise choices.

[00:10:25] What hurt each successive generation was inflation because the dollar was worth less. The price of houses and college tuition went up, but wages and salaries did not keep up. The real cause for the affordability crisis is the government that spends too much and fuels inflation. I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:56] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Hey, and welcome back to Point of View. We're going to have John Schell join us in just a minute. I understand he's still wrapping up his Newsmax interview, so we'll have him start with just a minute. But he'll be able to talk about some of the things that are happening in New York. You know, over the past, over the Biden years, we saw lots of things happen in New York City.

[00:11:25] I've got a daughter who lives there, so I get a little bit of experience of this. Just in a number of areas. You had immigration. You had New York wanting to be a sanctuary city. You had, it got so bad with the broken borders that we had under President Biden that Texas started out, Governor Abbott in Texas, started busing people to other parts of the country, including New York City. And apparently U.S. taxpayers pay, or Texas taxpayers paid for that.

[00:11:54] But we sent buses to New York City with immigrants that were there in large numbers. And they ended up doing things like putting them in hotels, taking over certain hotels, and just covering them with rooms with people who were here illegally, and paying for that with taxpayer money in New York City. They provided them with food. We found several people who were pushing back with that, if I remember right.

[00:12:21] Even Lady Gaga's father was in a hotel where that was taken over by some of the immigrants who were having their rooms paid for. And he was speaking out against that. So not only that, you had an increase in crime in New York City. Many people who were arrested were let off because of New York City's policies on bail were let out almost immediately, even if they did engage in a violent attack.

[00:12:50] So that was a problem there for New York City. You also had the problem of expanding tax law or laws that allowed for various stores to open marijuana stores legally. So New York thought, like some other cities and states, thought, we're going to legalize the sale of marijuana. We're going to allow stores to open up to sell this legally. We'll get huge new tax revenue from that.

[00:13:18] And we'll take that tax revenue and we'll use it to pay for some other services and so forth. Well, it turns out when they did that, that many of the people in New York, many people who had been selling underground marijuana and other drugs underground kept it up because, number one, they were able to have they had lower prices because they didn't have to pay the taxes and regulations and store fees at stores that those legitimate stores had. So they were able to keep up their underground market.

[00:13:46] And if you were looking to buy marijuana or other drugs, if you could go to somebody underground, just somebody who's fencing this product, you could get it for much less than if you went to the store and paid the price for the legitimate sale. So some of those people were having to were either shutting down or complaining because they couldn't get the customers because it was still going illegally. So that was a problem for them. And the crime was a real issue.

[00:14:12] We saw people being let out of prison or jail because they did. They they didn't. They had a bail system that just essentially said we will let you out without bail. And so they were able to go back out on the streets and then oftentimes committed other types of crimes. We also saw because when the immigrants went to New York, they didn't have work permits.

[00:14:37] So they had to either work underground or they had to engage in various types of illegal activity. One of those was sex trafficking. And so we had a problem of that in various parts of the city. So it was a mess in New York. I think that has been backed off some. But I'm interesting to see what what John Schell will say about that as is his role of the police officer.

[00:15:03] The other thing we had is we had to defund the police movement that was affecting New York as various blue cities and blue states wanted to cut back on their policing and the funding for police. That usually meant that in some places the police department went down. They didn't have enough people to be able to do the work and to be able to address the crime. One other aspect is they wanted to change how police officers operated.

[00:15:31] So they had what was called a broken windows windows policy. Police officers, if they saw somebody they thought looked like they might have been engaging in crime, might have been able to stop them and say, check them out, check their identity, check, make sure they were here legally, make sure they weren't engaged in illegal activity. But the liberal policies there in New York City wanted to stop that from happening.

[00:15:56] And as a result, some of the crime increased because you had people that were just really didn't feel like they were going to be arrested or charged with any kind of crime. So they went on doing that. That created a real problem for New York. And as a result, New Yorkers wanted to change when they were looking at their options as for a change in mayor. They decided to go with somebody who is even more liberal, Mayor Zohan Mamdami.

[00:16:24] And so now we've got some problems with that. As he's moved in, he's wanted to try to do a lot of new things, but he doesn't have the funding to do a lot of new things. So he was looking for new taxes. He passed a what's called a Pied-a-Tier tax, which means that higher income people or people with with homes that are not their primary homes in New York City and a lot of wealthy people, especially hedge fund managers and so forth. They may live in Florida.

[00:16:52] They may spend most of their time in California, but they have a second home in New York in New York City, and they pay taxes on that second home. But if these were expensive homes, Mayor Mamdami wanted to come in and impose a bigger tax on those in order to be able to bring in more money. They did that. But the problem they had was how do we determine which is going to be a second home? So they came out with an estimate of that.

[00:17:18] It was a huge estimate of policies out there of homes and second homes. A lot of these are apartments and condominiums and so forth. And so they were not able to they weren't able to actually determine who was here with a major second home. And so they started sending out letters saying you might be responsible for this new tax. Well, that got a lot of response from people who really were living in their home there.

[00:17:46] That wasn't a second home for them or who thought that the there the tax was too high or who said, understandably so I already paid taxes on this. I shouldn't be forced to pay another tax that forced Mamdami to back off a little bit. And now they're going to look through this to see if they can sort of narrow it down to get to people that's actually targeted by the law. But that's still up in that's still up for grabs. We don't know where that's going to go.

[00:18:15] And the other thing that's happened with these kinds of taxes and crime and immigrant illegal immigration was that a lot of wealthy people have been moving out of New York City to other states. So Florida and Texas, Arizona have been some of the top recipient states for that. So they are where they're seeing some of the wealthier people move out into other areas, either into the suburbs outside of New York City. So they're outside of New York City's taxing ability.

[00:18:44] They've also Mamdami has also been pushing the governor, Kathy Hochul, to impose more taxes in the state so that people can't just escape it by moving outside of the city. And then, of course, people are moving to other states, which means other states and these are usually going to be red leaning states. They see their their tax rolls increase because you've got these wealthier people moving into the states.

[00:19:08] So not only is that hurting New York City financially, it is helping some of the red states that some of these blues blue states don't want to help. And the other thing that that happens is when you do that, you see the the people, the number of the population decline when they do redistricting. They look at that and say, all right, New York has lost people. California has lost a lot of people and other states have gained populations by doing that.

[00:19:36] And as a result, Florida, Texas and several other states, Tennessee, I think North Carolina, Arizona, they have gained populations. And when they do a redistricting or the census comes out and they see the additional population, that means Texas, Florida and some other states get more congressional representatives rather than fewer congressional representatives.

[00:19:59] So it actually adds to the ability of the red states to affect what's happening in Congress as opposed to what's happening from the blue states because they are losing populations. So all of these things affect what's happening in the blue states and the blue cities. And I wrote about this a while back and I said I called the title of the article the red state in your future.

[00:20:23] And I argued in that that what's going to happen is that you're either going to get so tired of the taxes and the crime and the other things happening in blue states. You will move out of a blue state to a red state. Or if you're going to stay in that blue state, you're going to get so upset with some of the things that are happening. You're going to push back, elect different people. And we'll see some changes happening in those states as the as the voters actually repel against that.

[00:20:52] That has been going on for a little while. It may not in this election because we've got in this coming election, we've got what looks like a momentum moving with Democrats against Republicans. That seems to be happening in states across the country. We'll have to see if the polls are right. The polls have been showing heavy dominance of blue states, heavy dominance of blue voters wanting to put Democrats in charge and taking it away from Republicans in Congress.

[00:21:22] Don't know how that's going to go until after Election Day. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Have you ever met a child you knew would do great things? They displayed remarkable imagination, understanding and a zest for learning. Now imagine someone takes that child and instead of fostering their potential with a real education, they feed them nothing but lies. You know, that scenario isn't so far from reality.

[00:21:52] From a young age, Americans are fed a consistent stream of distorted facts from the secular indoctrination they receive in many public schools to the biases presented as fact in many colleges and universities to the barrage of misinformation from the mainstream media and the lack of moral grounding in our society. It's not that Americans aren't capable of understanding the truth. It's that they aren't exposed to it enough.

[00:22:19] You can expose more Americans to the truth when you give to Point of View, where listeners receive facts, perspective and biblical truth they don't get from society. As long as we have truth, we have hope. Give today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:49] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, Dr. Merrill Matthews. And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:23:17] I think we're still waiting for John Schell to get off his Newsmax interview. So let me talk a little bit about the topic we're going to be talking about in the next hour. And that is Stephanie Slade's new book, Fusionism. The subtitle, Liberty, Virtue and the Future of the American Right. And what do you mean by fusionism? I was actually, I've studied conservative history for a while. This was actually a new term for me, but it's actually been around for a while.

[00:23:47] Fusionism is the effort to try to combine the desire for both liberty and a moral order. And this is a real tension within the conservative element. Because on the one hand, we as conservatives want freedom. We want liberty. We want to be able to live our lives largely without the government controlling us, without government interference. It's a major aspect of us.

[00:24:15] In fact, Grover Norquist, one of the president of Americans for Tax Reform, who's led most of the charge for lowering your taxes. He's been around in that organization for, I think, probably nearly 40 years. He wrote a book some time ago called Leave Us Alone. And he called it the Leave Us Alone Coalition. And basically what he's saying there is to government, leave us alone.

[00:24:38] Let us go ahead and live our lives, worship, pray, work, do the things we want to do, and stay out of our lives. So that's the liberty aspect of that. And the libertarian movement has tended to be very strong on the liberty aspect of it. They have wanted to stress the freedom to be able to do what you want, when you want to, as long as you aren't harming somebody else. So that's their key aspect of it. People are going to be free.

[00:25:05] And that extends to a lot of things from the libertarian side. Oftentimes it means don't get involved, don't pass laws opposing certain types of illegal drugs and so forth. Let people live the life they want to live as long as they aren't harming somebody else. The conservatives have had something of a different approach. They believe there is a moral order out there, largely for most conservatives, a moral order established by God.

[00:25:32] And that moral order needs to have certain restrictions and limitations on it. So that we as conservatives feel like there are certain things that people should not be doing. And in some cases, we feel like the law is inappropriate to stop them from doing certain things.

[00:25:49] So as a conservative, we think there is a God-given order to the world and that our government, our lives should in some ways reflect that God-given order that's been given to the world. And so you don't step up and start of – you have these kinds of rules and regulations that should apply to people.

[00:26:13] And so how do you balance this freedom but also a moral order that says there are certain things you shouldn't and can't do in a society? How do you balance those things? There's been a long-running effort to try to balance those two things, and it has sort of shifted it from times and times. And there's been sort of a kind of, oh, let's just say an uneasy peace among people who have said, okay, we're willing to live with the libertarians.

[00:26:43] If I'm a conservative, and I am, I'm willing to go along with the libertarians on many things, but not necessarily everything. Libertarians have been able to say, you know, we are – we want a certain amount of freedom, but we're willing to live with conservatives who want to see – who see a moral order out there and want to have certain laws and restrictions that prohibit us from doing certain things. And there's been kind of a working relationship that went on.

[00:27:08] One of the benefits of Ronald Reagan was he was able to bring those elements together in a kind of a working harmony that libertarians supported him, conservatives supported him. And there are aspects of it that you could say, yes, I see my aspect in there, my freedom. And another could say, I see that there is a moral order in there and conservative values are being impressed. And so the two were able to work together for some time.

[00:27:38] Those sometimes sort of pull apart now, every now and then, and then you sometimes get various groups that come in and say, we need a different moral order. And I think that's one of the things I'm interested in talking to Stephanie about as more people are stepping up from the conservative movement and saying we need to have more laws to do certain things. And that's pushing back even among some basic conservatives as to whether or not we should be doing that. So the conservative movement really got its start after World War Two.

[00:28:07] You had human events begin, I think, around 1948. And that was one of the major papers that has been out there for years, sort of pressing the conservative view of of the world and of opinion. But the real catalyst came, I think, with National Review in the mid 1950s when William F. Buckley stepped in and he started National Review.

[00:28:32] Buckley was wealthy and he had some money to be able to start this thing and created a group of people who were writing in both the conservative and the libertarian frameworks at the time and brought them together under National Review. And National Review was then able to provide sort of a forum for people of different opinions from the conservative slash libertarian position. And they were able to debate some of these things in National Review.

[00:28:59] And they would oftentimes have opinion from one side and opinion from the other side as they looked at what was happening and what was a growing sort of realm of government as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Eisenhower, not so much. But by the time you move into the 60s, then you see John F. Kennedy beginning to expand the role of government.

[00:29:20] You begin to see Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, greatly expanding the role of government with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the welfare program and his war on poverty. So then you had a tension going on among the two groups. How do we resolve this aspect of freedom, keeping the government out of our lives and at the same time have a moral order that says certain things are right, certain things are wrong.

[00:29:48] And the government has a responsibility to step in and address those issues. National Review continued for many years, and they had some challenges at times over the years as various groups that were part of National Review or part of that general movement decided to pull out because they didn't feel like it was going in the right direction. And it made a it made some for some real tensions at the time.

[00:30:15] But at the time, we they tried to get together and resolve this. And that's where we're going to take the discussion with Stephanie. I think having a joining us now is John Schell. John, are you with us? How are you, sir? I'm doing well. Thank you for joining us. Now, tell us, you you worked in the police department there in New York City. You spent a number of years there and you got some high ranking position as a uniform.

[00:30:42] Tell us a little bit about your background in the police department at New York City. Well, I joined the police department in February of 1994. I spent almost 32 years in that department serving the city. I started out as a cop and I just kind of made my way to the ranks and found myself retiring as the chief of the department in charge of the operational daily movement of 35,000 cops a day.

[00:31:10] How did the police department change over your years in the department? Well, I think the whole public safety arena changed in terms of law changes, liberal ideology. I mean, I can go on and on. Training type of cop that has now evolved today versus years ago. The fund of the police movement. I mean, I can go on and on, but I'll tell you this.

[00:31:39] It hasn't changed for the better. And that's really the moral. That's the moral of the story. Policing is so hard now. There are elected officials that openly don't want policing. Those would be the socialists, the progressives. Those are their protesters and people out there that want to harm the police. It's just really a sad state of affairs.

[00:31:59] But at the end of the day, the men and women across this country that took that oath to protect and serve still do it well against all the odds. We've got about a minute and a half before we go to the break. But talk a little bit about how things changed over the last under the Biden administration. Well, it's just a dichotomy of what's now versus what's then.

[00:32:23] Soft on crime politics, blue cities, liberal ideologies, laws that were changed to really the cop became the bad guy and the bad guy became the good guy. And what did it result in? Record highs in crimes. Now, under the Trump administration, crime has started coming down. And that's really the difference. If you want public safety, you push the red button.

[00:32:50] If you want to get the bad guys cookies and look for those root causes, quote, unquote, push the blue button. And I guess for this, we'll have one more segment with John Schell. He was with the New York Police Department for many years and left in a leadership position there. And he's talking a bit about what happened in New York. He is also going to be running for mayor of New York City.

[00:33:13] So we'll talk to him about that when we come back, because New York City, what happens in New York City affects the rest of the country, either good or bad. So we want to find out what was happening there and why he feels like he needs to step up and run for mayor against Mamdami, who may very well decide to run for a second time when the next election comes up. So stay with us. We'll be right back on Point of View.

[00:33:36] You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth. And we're back on Point of View.

[00:34:06] My guest for this last segment is John Schell. He's a retired law enforcement officer from New York City. In 2024, Schell was appointed by Commissioner Jessica Tish as the interim chief of department for the NYPD and following the resignation of someone else. He's also the highest ranking uniform position in the department before he retired. John, there was a lot of discussion about Jessica Tish when Mamdami came in. He's kept her own, I believe. What was your thinking about her?

[00:34:36] Because she was, I think, the general thinking was she was very good at her job. Well, first and foremost, I didn't think they were going to last this long together because they're opposed to each other's ideology, if you will, as it comes to public safety. But, you know, she's done a good job at the department this year with everything they've had to deal with. Numbers-wise, they've done a good job.

[00:35:01] So he's not going to get rid of her when public safety in New York City is doing pretty good. And if he were to do that, he would really do some damage to his office. So it remains to be seen how long it lasts. So far, so good up until lately, until the ice shooting caused some problems with a DSA-based one and her fired. But he said no.

[00:35:29] But other than that, you know, they're going to finish the year strong and off in 2027. So tell me, why did you decide you were going to run for mayor? Well, I tell you, I'm born and bred in Brooklyn, New York. We're a kid on the streets playing two-hand touch, delivery boy, liquor store, police department, Wall Street. I am New York City in my heart, and I just don't believe the socialist way of living is the way to go. I think we're in fiscal crisis here.

[00:35:58] Nobody wants to admit it. We're in a world where the administration is anti-public safety, higher taxes. And I don't think they have an overall plan how to make this city better. It's getting worse. So people told me throughout the years that I should get involved. I have name recognition, and I took them up on the offer. You know, many cities, the election for mayor is nonpartisan.

[00:36:24] That is, nobody – you may know somebody's a Democrat or Republican, but they don't necessarily run on a Democrat or Republican agenda. Is that true in New York City? No, it's pretty tribal. No Democrats outnumber Republicans. I think it's five or seven to one heavy Democratic town. Now with the socialist injection, it's more left and divisive than it's ever been.

[00:36:49] It's a tough place for a Republican to even get elected to any office at this point. I'm a registered independent. I come from a world of, you know, nonparties. What's right is right. What's wrong is wrong. And quite frankly, I think the establishment left or right, at least as it relates to this city, has got us in this mess. So I'm just going to be an honest voice that I can talk to people honestly. I'm not running for a career. I'm running to fix this thing, and thus I can be honest with people.

[00:37:16] You know, with Namdami in, I could conceive a time in which the public, the voters there in New York City say, we are tired of this. We need to go in a different direction, perhaps creating an opening for you. Do you see some pushback from people from Namdami's policies, even though he hasn't been in that long? Well, the pushback is coming from the obvious places.

[00:37:40] But one obvious place that it's not supposed to be coming back, what, 10 months into his term is from his own base. They are not happy with him keeping the police commissioner. They are not happy with him not disbanding certain portions of the NYPD. They are not happy with him not being radical enough. That's even believable.

[00:38:03] But to your point, as a collective, I think by the time we get to the election cycle in 2029, this city is going to be in bad shape, and the people will be thirsting for someone to come in and fix it. And that's where I'm going to step in. What is your platform? Do you have a list of things you say, if you elect me, I want to do this, this, this, and this? Well, it's public safety, public safety, public safety, because if you can't be safe, what else do you have?

[00:38:30] Public housing in this city, for a less fortunate, is a disgrace. Our education system, the pond of education, I would want to dismantle it. It's a shame that less than half the kids can do basic reading and math, and it's costing the city $41,000 per student. And then we talk about quality of life issues, the homeless, and our e-bike situation that's killing people.

[00:38:55] And I can go on and on, but I'm quality of life, public housing, and public safety number one. It's that simple. And last but not least, I'll wrap that all around fiscal responsibility. We're going to be $22 billion in the hole in the next three years. $22 billion. We've got to keep being benevolent for the people that need it, and we've got to cut out the waste, fraud, and abuse. What would change at the police department if you were mayor?

[00:39:23] Well, I would really look to get an influx of young talent, no offense to the people that are there. I would revamp training to the point where self-defense would be mandatory criteria throughout your career. And I would make them the highest paid or one of the highest paid departments in the country to really get that talent from New York City and make it a very attractive job again. If you love your job, you'll do good at your job.

[00:39:50] And we need people to do great in policing because it affects public safety. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my sense was that policing under and the city under Mayor Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg actually improved and has gone downhill since then. Is that your impression also? It did improve. I have Giuliani and Bloomberg. I'm an advisor and cop, so sometimes you're not paying attention the way you would when I was the seat patrol chief of the department under Mayor Adams.

[00:40:20] And let me just put it this way. When you have a mayor that's all about public safety and wants to play offense, not prevent defense at all times, it makes a world of difference. It filters down from the top to the bottom. You support your cops. You don't chastise them for mistakes in their heart. You let them do their job. You treat them with respect, and you'll get a great product.

[00:40:46] Did the defund the police effort play a role in New York City also? Oh, absolutely. There was cops leaving. The worst thing a police officer can do is be reactive versus proactive. When you become reactive, you don't do as good a job as you would if you're proactive, and you get yourself hurt because you can't second-guess yourself. And that's what the fund the police movement did.

[00:41:15] It emboldened the public. It turned the public against the police. You had elected officials that, you know, most of them are full of you-know-what, and they'll do anything to get elected by embracing a silly ideology, which some of them now say they didn't partake in when they did. So, yes, it greatly affected policing, not only in New York City, but throughout the country. And tell us, how can people, if they want to find out about your campaign, how can they find out more about it?

[00:41:44] Well, they can follow me on social media at John M. Schell. My official paperwork has not been done yet. I still have a couple years to get that done. But you can watch me on Newsmax. You can follow me on social media. You can watch me on Fox. I think you'll get the point to where I stand from, where I stand for. And that's John M. Schell, spelled C-H-E-L-L, not S-H-E-L-L. Correct. C. C. As in Charlie.

[00:42:09] And they can find you on Newsmax and some other places, and you expect to be having paperwork done soon? Yep. I'll probably have my paperwork officially put in at the start of 2027 and let the games begin. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Schell. We enjoyed having your own. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Well, that was John M. Schell talking about policing in New York City. We talk about a lot here on Point of View.

[00:42:39] When we come back, we're going to go to Stephanie Slade and her book on fusionism. She's with the Reason Foundation, and she's written a very interesting book on the history of conservatism and how it has changed over the past few years. So stay with us. We're going to be back with Stephanie here in just a minute. Here on Point of View.

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