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--:-- Michael Ciro Creighton: Welcome to Only Murders in the Building, the official podcast. Join me, Michael Ciro Creighton, as we go behind the scenes with some of the amazing actors, writers, and crew from season five. The audience should never stop suspecting anything. How can you not be funny crawling around on a coffin? No, that's true. Catch Only Murders in the Building official podcast now streaming wherever you get your podcasts. And watch Only Murders in the Building, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. For bundle subscribers, terms apply.
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--:-- Michael Ciro Creighton: Dan Abrams is one of the most prolific producers of law enforcement and legal content in the entertainment industry. His latest show, On Patrol Live, was the number one entertainment show of 2024 on Friday and Saturday nights, and it was just picked up for 90 more episodes.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Saturday, March 8th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now is Dan Abrams, the host and producer of On Patrol Live.
--:-- Dan Abrams: Thank you so much for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: You've done so much in the legal and law enforcement space. For those in our audience who may not be as familiar with your background as we are, can you give us a brief overview of your professional career?
--:-- Dan Abrams: Yeah. I mean, I am a lawyer by training. And I used that pretty quickly to pivot into media, where I ended up covering some of the highest profile criminal cases from the last three decades. I started really when I covered the O.J. Simpson case, I was in court every day for that criminal trial and civil case. So that was certainly the biggest case I'd covered 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 & Crime. We now have 7 million YouTube subscribers, and it's a massive legal and crime channel.
--:-- Georgia Howe: 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.
--:-- Dan Abrams: I think that they wanted someone who had a bit of a legal background to host the show. And this is a show that is different than any other police show out there because 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. And like the officers, the audience doesn't know what's going to happen next.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, and look, the numbers are really proving that it is a successful concept. Number one entertainment program on Friday and Saturday nights. Just got a 90-episode pickup. That's pretty much unheard of in the current TV landscape. What do you think makes this show so successful?
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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, the kinds of departments that we follow, we try and follow a mix of departments around the country, make this a really compelling show year after year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: When you say mix of departments, what do you mean? Like different sizes of departments, different areas of the country?
--:-- Dan Abrams: Correct. So it'll be both geographical diversity and also diversity of types of departments, the size of the departments. You know, we're in everything from Las Vegas, one of the top 10 biggest police departments in America, to Hayes in Arkansas, where we ride with the chief of the department and, you know, the two folks who work in his office.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, obviously, this show, as many other shows like it, have proven there's a very large, dedicated audience for cop shows. Things changed, though, in 2020. I wanted you to unpack that for us. What happened back in 2020 after the death of George Floyd and the backlash against police shows like Live PD and Cops?
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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. It's what I said when the show was canceled. And I maintain it to this day. I think that people overreacted. 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.
--:-- Georgia Howe: See, see, all cops are bad. 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.
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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, aren't doing really good work.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm curious about the experience of Live PD being canceled from your perspective. I don't know how much of this you can reveal, but can you give us a glimpse behind the scenes about what that was like, the atmosphere then, and what it's been like to try to come back from that and have another cop-focused show?
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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.
--:-- Georgia Howe: You've said that the media often portrays police in a negative light, focusing on police-involved shootings. But you think that's not the full picture of policing.
--:-- Dan Abrams: Exactly. It's critical. Have you seen attitudes toward law enforcement changing in recent years?
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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 arrived there or aren't treated well happens all the time.
--:-- John Bickley: 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 realize that it made no sense.
--:-- Georgia Howe: When did On Patrol officially launch? I mean, when did you start working on this project?
--:-- Dan Abrams: 2022. Got it. So pretty quickly, and we did see the fallout from the defund the police movement happened pretty fast. I think it took a lot of people by surprise how quickly we saw the negative results of that.
--:-- John Bickley: Do you feel that the beginning of this project actually was aided by this maybe shift that began even back in 2022 about attitudes about police?
--:-- Dan Abrams: Maybe but I tell you that as soon as Live PD was canceled I was getting outreach from people asking me about the project. So from a sort of, you know, a show perspective, I think it was really just a question of when.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What about the trends of rooting for the bad guy? Like we've seen with Luigi Mangione and his popularity among some groups.
--:-- Dan Abrams: 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. That's slightly separate than the people who will root specifically for someone who has accused of doing something horrible like Luigi Mangione.
--:-- John Bickley: 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.
--:-- Dan Abrams: And that's what makes it so absurd. Meaning, you know, people who want to gather behind a particular defendant who they think was innocent and treated badly by the legal system. Okay, you know, we can debate the facts and the other.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, no matter what, I mean, no matter who you might be rooting for, the sort of equation of these shows that has proven to be a big success is people seek out drama, tension, the uncertainty, the suspense. It's always there, no matter what your political angle is.
--:-- Dan Abrams: That's the appeal. That's the, you know, the secret sauce here. And clearly you guys are doing this right with the show.
--:-- John Bickley: Final question for you, what's next on the horizon for you? Obviously, you have 90 episodes to produce of this show. Are there any other projects that you can speak about that you're working on?
--:-- Dan Abrams: Well, I work on a lot of things. I host a 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 & 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-alph drinks.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So I've got my hand in a lot of projects. But this one, you know, is a passion project for me as well.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, it certainly comes through and it's clearly helping this show be the success it is. Congratulations on that success and thank you so much for talking with us.
--:-- Dan Abrams: My pleasure.
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