Dan Abrams
Appearances
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
But that background is, I think, why the producers came to me to host what is now On Patrol Live, which is a live police show where we follow police departments in real time. I think that they wanted someone who had a bit of a legal background to host the show.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And this is a show that is different than any other police show out there because, you know, unlike let's say a cops where it's sort of a highlight reel of crazy moments, we're actually live in eight or nine departments at once. And so we'll go to a department and we'll see someone approaching a vehicle or responding to a call.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And like the officers, the audience doesn't know what's gonna happen next. The officer doesn't know what's gonna happen next. The officer doesn't know who's in that car. The officer doesn't know exactly what's happening at a domestic call. And so the audience joins the officers in that experience. And I think that's part of what makes the show so compelling.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
I think it's that people are interested in policing. I think there is an element of uncertainty throughout the show. And I also think that watching police engage with the community is something people have long been interested in. And I think that there's no other place where they can see it in real time. And as a result, I think that the concept
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
The kinds of departments that we follow, we try to follow a mix of departments around the country and make this a really compelling show year after year.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Correct. So it'll be both geographical diversity and also diversity of types of departments, the size of the department. We're in everything from Las Vegas, one of the top 10 biggest police departments in America, to Hazen, Arkansas, where we ride with the chief of the department and the two folks who work in his office. So it's a pretty diverse group of departments.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And what's interesting is, of course, that the laws are different, sometimes state to state, too. particularly on kind of drug crimes. So, you know, that's part of what makes this interesting is we can compare what's happening around the country with different police departments.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Well, look, I think there was a backlash against police. You know, it wasn't just police shows. It was against police. And I said at the time when Live PD was canceled, which I hosted as well, I thought it was a vast overreaction to what I said when the show was canceled. And I maintain it to this day. I think that people overreacted.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And the reason it's important to talk about this is there's going to be some other incident. where a cop does something that the cop shouldn't have done. And it might be really bad. And any good cop will tell you that the worst thing for good cops is a bad cop. And so there will be something else that will happen.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And the reason we need to talk about it now is so that we don't again have the overreaction, which is all cops are bad. See, see, all cops are bad. Hmm. That's not the reaction or shouldn't be the reaction, in my view, to an incident where something happens with police. where a police officer engages in some form of wrongdoing.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Because no matter what career you're talking about, considering there are hundreds of thousands of police officers around the country, you are going to have some bad cops. That doesn't mean that the rest of the cops, the vast majority, overwhelming majority of cops who are doing really hard work every day,
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Look, I was upset. I made it very clear I was upset. There was no secret in the fact that I was upset that the show was canceled because I liked the show, I liked working on the show, and I thought that it was unfortunate that there was this national overreaction that ultimately led to this ridiculous defund the police movement.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And so I was not happy about it and always wanted to do something like it again. and believe that it wasn't just something that I liked. I also thought it was important. I think it's important for people to see what it's like to be a police officer.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And by the way, there are people who watch On Patrol Live who see a scene with an officer, and police officers will be watching, and they'll say, oh, that officer shouldn't have done that. Okay, fair enough. That's part of what the transparency involves. But the point is, it's, I think, a good thing for people to be able to see what an ordinary cop has to do every day.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
The problem is, in the media in general, most of the time, the vast majority of time, when people are talking about police, it's a police-involved shooting, right? It's a cop either who's been shot or, more regularly, the media covers it when a police officer shoots a civilian. Mm-hmm.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And that's the public's understanding of policing, unfortunately, in a lot of cases and in particular communities. And, of course, the majority of officers never fire their weapon in the line of duty ever. Ever. And so now we're focusing on what 98% of policing is, which is getting a call, someone saying there's a problem, there's an issue, an officer arriving at a scene not known.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
exactly who's who not knowing who the reporting party is not knowing was this person the victim and wait we heard that there was someone breaking in from the back door what there's no oh there was no back door break in okay the uncertainty that police officers have arriving at a scene if you don't understand that you really can't understand what it's like to be a police officer
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Well, look... I will tell you that when you watch these officers in action, there's still a lot of people who treat police officers terribly. I wouldn't say most people, but there's still way too many who, the minute there is some interaction... Remember, in most cases, the police have been called to that scene and then get attitude from people who arrive there or aren't treated well.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Happens all the time. But more broadly... I think that there has been a recognition, even among, let's call them police critics, that the defund the police movement was absurd and that it didn't work. And that's why liberal cities around the country that did engage in it are refunding the police and rehiring police officers because they realized that it made no sense.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Yeah. I mean, I am a lawyer by training and I use that pretty quickly to pivot into media where I ended up covering some of the highest profile criminal cases from the last, sad to say, because it exposes my age, the last three decades. I started really when I covered the OJ Simpson case, I was in court every day for that criminal trial and civil case. So that was certainly the
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
So from that perspective, yes. I think that there's been a something of a reevaluation. But again, there's going to be another incident. So you just the more people know more broadly and more specifically about what police officers do. I think the better to not let single incidents define policing as opposed to the broad spectrum of the work that they do.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Maybe, but I'll tell you that as soon as Live PD was canceled, I was getting outreach from people asking me about the project. So from a show perspective, I think it was really just a question of when. There's no doubt that in the immediate months after the show went off the air... To many, the show would have been too hot. Couldn't do it. Can't risk it. Don't want to risk the protests.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Don't want to risk the backlash, etc. I do think that that faded to some degree. But again, my perspective publicly never changed, right? I mean, from the moment the show went off the air, I was complaining about it and saying that this show ought to still be on the air.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
So I think that there's two things at play, right? I do think you're going to have people who are simply looking to make the police the bad guys, right? So people who come into it hoping, looking for rooting against the police, right? That's slightly separate than the people who will root specifically for someone who has accused of doing something horrible like Luigi Mangione.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And my company just did a produced a big documentary on him that I'm in where I make it clear that I think it's ridiculous that. People are supporting Luigi Mangione because the thing that makes it ridiculous is the people who are supporting him are not claiming almost all are not claiming he didn't do it. They're actually celebrating him because they think he did do it.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And that's what makes it so, so absurd. Meaning, you know, people who want to gather behind a particular defendant who they think was innocent and and treated badly by the legal system, okay, you know, we can debate the facts and the evidence. In the Mangione case, it seems that the vast majority of people who are defending him are celebrating what he's accused of doing.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
And that's the part that is just astonishing to me.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
Well, I work on a lot of things. I hosted daily radio show on Sirius XM on the POTUS channel. I'm still ABC News' chief legal analyst. I own a company called Mediaite. I started law and crime, as I mentioned. I've got a spirits company called Bottle Raiders, where we have an app that aggregates ratings of fine spirits and non-alcoholic drinks. So I am a...
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
the biggest case I'd covered up to that point. And then since then I've covered all the biggest trials around the country. And then recently I started a company called Law and Crime. We now have a 7 million YouTube subscribers and it's a massive legal and crime channel.
Morning Wire
How Cop Shows Survived the Cancel Mob—and Won 2024 | 3.8.25
I've got my hand in a lot of projects, but this one is a passion project for me as well.