What On Earth Happened To Seattle?

What this episode is about

Seattle is experiencing escalating chaos under the leadership of its new mayor, Katie Wilson, as a controversial order diverts drug-related offenses from prosecution to a social services program, amidst a significant rise in homelessness and crime. Critics argue that this approach exemplifies extreme selfishness and entitlement, while the city's homeless population has surged by 46% in recent years, further complicating the crisis.

Key takeaways

• Seattle's drug policy shift reveals a high-stakes social experiment: will compassion fuel chaos or cultivate recovery?
• With 2% of its population homeless, Seattle's approach raises the question: is this progressive or perilous?
• Drug use isn't a victimless crime; its ripple effects affect everyday citizens—from safety to property values.
• Seattle's LEAD program sparks a debate: Are we treating addiction or merely enabling chose-your-own-adventure consequences?
• As the homeless population swells, cities resembling Seattle may soon become cautionary tales rather than progressive models.

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: King County, Discovery Institute, Katie Wilson, Shawn Barnes
2. 15:00 – 18:00: LeafFilter

Notable quotes from "What On Earth Happened To Seattle?"

• Will be referred to law enforcement assisted diversion, a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from criminal justice system into supportive social…

  about King County · at 1:07

• With Leaf Filter, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection at leaffilter.com/walsh.

  about LeafFilter · at 15:08

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Katie Wilson — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:31
  Democratic socialist Katie Wilson was sworn in as the city's 58th mayor on Friday. The progressive politician who co-founded the Transit Writers Union has stepped into the role as concerned.
• Shawn Barnes — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:48
  Police Department will destroy Washington's largest city. According to internal email from SPD Chief Shawn Barnes, most drug cases will now be handled by the law enforcement…

Companies & orgs

• Discovery Institute — Company · 1 mention · first at 1:45
  To 16,385 people according to Seattlebased public policy think tank Discovery Institute.

Concepts & topics

• Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• King County — Place · 2 mentions · first at 1:10

Sponsors

• LeafFilter — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 15:12

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 How do you want me to describe that guy? Like really, is he a victim? You think that guy's a victim? This is like insane levels of selfishness and entitlement. So, speaking of cities that are uh falling apart, uh seat Daily Mail has this headline. Seattle and freef fall under hyperwoke mayor as new order allows drug users to avoid prosecution with homeless encampments growing in the city. Um Seattle uh article says Seattle has erupted into chaos under its new ultra woke mayors. A police order allows drug users to avoid prosecution in the city plagued by crime and homelessness.

0:31 Democratic socialist Katie Wilson was sworn in as the city's 58th mayor on Friday. The progressive politician who co-founded the Transit Writers Union has stepped into the role as concerned locals say a demand from the Seattle Police Department will destroy Washington's largest city. According to internal email from uh SPD Chief Shawn Barnes, most drug cases will now be handled by the law enforcement assisted diversion program. Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program.

1:05 All instances of drug use or possession will be referred to law enforcement assisted diversion, a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from uh criminal justice system into supportive social services. Barnes wrote that if drug offenders refuse to comply with LEAD, prosecutors can then intervene. The program excludes those selling drugs and people with histories of violent felonies and sex offenses as well as people already being supervised by the Department of Corrections. But um generally this uh this means that they're not going to prosecute drug users. From 2019 to 2024, the homeless population in King County spiked by 46% to 16,385 people according to Seattlebased public policy think tank Discovery Institute.

1:47 And um it's only getting worse. By the way, Seattle's total population is about 800,000. So if they have, you know, 16 or 17,000 homeless people, that's that's like 2% of the population. And assuming that number of 16,000 17,000 is not a massive undercount, which it almost certainly is a massive undercount, that means 2% of the population is living on the street strung out on heroin and fentanyl, which is an insanely high number, by the way. 2% for a for your homeless population is insanely high. Because you know what the actual percent should be?

2:31 Zero. Okay? 0% of your population should be living in homeless encampments. The the number of homeless should be 0%. And that's that is possible. You can do that. There are many cities in the world that have zero homeless people. There are many towns even in America that have basically zero homeless people. So, it is possible to achieve, but instead Seattle is totally infested. And now it's only going to get worse under this new mayor as they go even softer on drug use. Not that they were really enforcing those laws very severely before this.

3:12 And we're all familiar with the arguments, right? The argument is that well, drug use is a personal issue. It doesn't harm anybody else. It's nobody else's business, right? If somebody wants to go use drugs, like why should we put them in jail for that? They're they're just poisoning their own bodies. And that's how you end up with these kinds of policies where they're not going to prosecute drug use. The idea, the claim is that it doesn't harm anyone else if somebody decides to shoot up heroin or use fentanyl or smoke crack or whatever. And this is the reasoning, the libertarian delusion that has prompted cities all across the country to treat drug use like a medical problem or like a mental health problem.

3:51 You know, uh we got to treat it. They need treatment. Uh we don't want to punish it. Now, I reject the premise. Well, well, there are multiple premises here that I I reject. I reject all the all all of them. But, uh, you know, I reject the premise that a thing is only a crime and should only be punished if it harms somebody else. I I don't see why that is necessarily the case. Um, I also reject the idea that drug use only harms the drug user. I mean, that's even if we were to agree, let's just accept the first premise that if a thing only harms the person doing it, then it should be legal.

4:35 Now, again, I I don't really accept that. I I think you have to explain like people take that as a as self-evident and I don't see it as self-evident. What only harms that person? Okay. So, why should it necessarily be legal to do something if it only harms you? Um there is still someone being harmed. But let's let's not even debate that because that kind of misses the point. Well, so let's just accept that. We'll go ahead and accept that kind of libertarian um I think sort of silly superficial idea. Well, is it true that when people use hard drugs, they're only harming themselves?

5:16 Is it true that if you live in a city like Seattle and you've got thousands of people who are doing hard drugs every day that it doesn't hurt you? No. That is obviously not true. That is obviously not that is obviously insane. Like yes, drug use, not just drug trafficking or or drug selling, but drug use should be banned under law and should be punished. And it does harm lots of other people. Okay? Millions of people in this country are harmed every day by the drugs that other people have decided to use. That is clearly the case.

6:06 Drug use causes grave harm to the entire community well beyond the drug users themselves. And uh why? Well, you know, for for for one thing, obviously almost all of the random violent outbursts in Seattle or anywhere else are committed by drug addicts. When somebody is high on fentanyl or heroin or any or or or crack uh or any drug, they are a danger to the people around them. You know, when you hear a story about somebody getting pushed onto the train tracks or or, you know, stabbed randomly while they're walking down the street or whatever, it's almost always a junkie.

6:48 It's almost always a drug addict. Drug use makes people delusional, violent dangerous. clearly. So that's one thing. And also when your city turns into an open air drug den, okay, it it then becomes unlivable for everybody else. So, we pulled here are some images from around Seattle and uh and this Daily Mail article has a few of them and I don't think we need but just just a few examples of what Seattle looks like if you were to make the mistake of walking around the town and um Oh, that's a good one. Right. Yeah. So, this is what it's like to Yeah. Okay. You want to So, I don't know where that is in Seattle. you want to walk down that particular street in Seattle and that's what you're walking by.

7:42 So, you're telling me this shouldn't be a crime? You're telling me that no one else is harmed by this? Really? When you got thousands of people who are setting up uh camps in the middle of the city and and getting high, no one else is harmed by that. Like, that's a victimless crime really. It's like you can't walk down the street in your own city. You try to walk down the street in your own city and you got to walk over trash and use needles and around tents and it smells and it's disgusting and you can't even bring your kid around it because you're afraid of what might happen. You know, you don't want your wife walking down the street alone. Uh that doesn't really it doesn't harm anybody else.

8:29 Oh, we can't put the drug users in jail. They're not harming it. Drug users harm people every day. You freaking morons. What are you talking about? So yeah, here's the actual reality. Here's the truth. Those junkies out on the sidewalk throwing their trash all around, treating the entire city as their personal dumpster. Here's the real truth that those are for the most part bad people. Okay? These are bad people. They are selfish. They are dangerous. They don't care about anyone. I'm tired of talking about these people like they're victims. They're not. Okay?

9:13 They're not. The only thing No, you are the victim. Guess what? You live in one of these cities that's that's that's been turned into a hellscape because of them. You're the victim, not them. The only thing they care about in the entire world is their own pleasure. The pleasure they get from the drugs is the only thing they care about. That's it. That's why offering them treatment doesn't work most of the time. They don't want it. They don't care. The only solution is to round them up by force and put them in jail. That's the only solution.

9:49 There is no other solution. Treat drug use as a crime. treat homelessness as a crime. Make it illegal to set up camp in the middle of the sidewalk because because it is illegal and should be illegal. In fact, just to underline the point here, there's a video attached to this Daily Mail article and I think this is from a couple years ago. A journalist goes to an old Jo-Ann Fabrics that has shut down and become a homeless encampment. and the homeless just took it over and uh you know and turn it into like a a drug then which is what they do and but we're not allowed to call that like selfish degenerate awful behavior.

10:29 We're not allowed to say that even though it clearly is. We're we're supposed to just see it as nothing but all these poor victims. They're like cancer. It's like no difference between that and a cancer victim. It's like give me a break. Come on. Um, but they took over this place and you know, the city allowed this rather than showing up and arresting everybody, which is what they should have done. You know, if if there's an abandoned store uh somewhere in town, and I show up to it, just me as myself, and I and I go to this store and I just like walk around inside the abandoned building for some reason, right? If somebody sees that and calls the police, police will show up and I'll be arrested for trespassing or at least I'll get a citation and I'll get kicked out, right? But if a homeless guy goes and lives there and smokes crack there every day and takes a dump on the sidewalk outside, he won't

11:30 be arrested. And that's supposed to make sense somehow. So anyway, this journalist interviews one of the homeless guys and uh listen listen to what he says. Listen,

11:48 what's up my guy? How you doing? You live here? No, I just clean all this stuff up, man.

11:53 What's happened here, man? Everyone just took over Joan Fabrics. Wow. What's the city offering? Any services? Any outreach? They gave me apartment, but they said that I had to fix him to be able to stay in the apartment. I said, "No way." You know?

12:12 All right. So, Jerome, you for the record, outreach workers offered you a place to go, apartment, but you said no, cuz they wanted you to neuter your dog and you ain't doing it.

12:21 I'm glad. Why not? Cuz I want puppies, you know? I want police want puppies. Yeah. What you're seeing is housing first in action. and homeless people being given units, but some are now rejecting the apartments because they don't like the accommodations or the restrictions. So, the city offered him a free apartment. We've seen that we've seen this kind of thing so many times. I mean, these videos there's there's hundreds of them. It's always the same story. We've we've played many of them on the show before. Um, you can go to any city in the country and find this kind of thing where they the city has embarked on some kind of uh program to get the homeless off the street by offering them free housing. And then, you know, you go interview the the homeless people and you say, "Well, hey, hey, why aren't you living in the free housing that was given to you?" And and you you get this you get this kind of

13:13 answer like, "Well, I don't I didn't want it didn't live up to my it didn't live up to my standards." This guy says he turned down free housing because he didn't want to neuter his dog because he wants a puppy. He's living on the street in an abandoned Jo-Ann Fabrics and the city comes to him and says, "We will give you a free house, right? It's got heat. It's got air conditioning. It's got electricity. You can you have a a sofa. You can have a a bed. I mean, you can lock your door at night." And he says, "Well, can I bring my dog?"

13:48 And they say, "Yeah, you can even bring your dog. You just got to get it neutered, though." "Oh, well," I said, "Well, never mind then." Well, why? Why? What do you mean? Well, I want a puppy. I want a puppy. I mean, and so when I when I say things like like, "Well, these are bad people." People get very upset about that and I get a lot of uh crap for it. And I I will again because I just said it again. How do you want me to describe that guy? Like, really? Is he a victim? You think that guy's a victim? that this is like insane selfish, like insane levels of selfishness and entitlement. That's what that is. I'm sorry, but that's what that is. This episode is sponsored by Leaf Filter. Leaf Filter isn't just another gutter guard. It's a trusted name built to last with years of relentless engineering behind it. Those DIY and hoodstyle knockoff gutter guards can't keep up in heavy rain. Water pours right

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15:14 That's up to 35% off at leaffilter.com/walsh. See representative for warranty details. The homeless rates will continue will will return to exactly what they were before. Right by like next Thursday, almost all of them will be back on the street. The mansion will be trashed and destroyed. The personal chef will be assaulted or killed or raped. and um and and they'll be out on the street and um and the mayor of Seattle will still tell us that they're the victims who just need treatment and compassion. No, these are for the most part, there are exceptions. I will allow, but for the most part, these are selfish, dangerous degenerates who don't care about anyone or anything and will gladly turn your community into an unlivable dump as long as they get their drugs and their pleasure out of it. They would cut your throat for the sake of their drugs without missing a beat without like they would not lose a second of sleep.

16:13 And that's the fact. So the only thing you can do about it for the sake of the community most importantly, for the sake of like law-abiding people most importantly, but also for their own sake. Um because when I say they're selfish, dangerous, degenerate people, it doesn't mean that they always have to be that way. I I believe anyone can be redeemed as a Christian. And there are plenty of stories of people who were that way and were formed and were were redeemed. And I think I think the chances are unlikely. Like your chances aren't great. The vast majority of these people will be this way forever until they die.

16:48 But uh there's always a chance. But the only way of uh that happening is to stop treating these people with kid gloves. Stop babying them. Stop talking about them like they're like they're, you know, cancer victims, like they're cancer patients. Uh, and hold them accountable. Say like this is okay, if you want to, we're a civilized society. Okay, this is not we are a civilized society and you will live like a civilized person or we will put you in jail because that's what jail is for. It's for people who are not capable or are unwilling to live like civilized people.

17:28 Um, we're going to hold you like here's a ba like the the basic level of accountability is the only way. And uh and if you do that, you could solve this problem in a week. You could solve this problem in a week. You really could. Just round them all up, put them in jail. Problem solved. It really It's solved. Hey, what happens when there's more home more people living on the street doing drugs tomorrow? Put them in jail, too. We run out of room in the jails. build another jail. Just just keep doing it until until uh until law-abiding people are able to walk down their street in their own community without smelling human waste and having to worry about getting their throat cut while they try to walk uh you know down the street to the to the drugstore. Like that's what you do. If you like to see what else I have to say, you can access my full show by going to dailywire.com or by going to the Mattwal Show Twitter page. Hope to

18:19 see you there. God speed.

Questions about this episode

What is "What On Earth Happened To Seattle?" about?

Seattle is experiencing escalating chaos under the leadership of its new mayor, Katie Wilson, as a controversial order diverts drug-related offenses from prosecution to a social services program, amidst a significant rise in homelessness and crime. Critics argue that this approach exemplifies extreme selfishness and entitlement, while the city's homeless population has surged by 46% in recent…

What is mentioned in this Matt Walsh episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including King County, Katie Wilson, Shawn Barnes, Discovery Institute, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD). Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "What On Earth Happened To Seattle?"?

The episode runs 18 min; the transcript is about 3,103 words in 29 timestamped sections.

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