Trump's Bringing the Receipts.

Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature Bank. Signature Bank takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise, custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether you're a business looking for a deposit relationship or needs a ready source of financing, Signature Bank is the right bank for you. Call today at 773-467. 5600 to hear how signature bank can help your business grow and thrive. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Good morning. Good Friday morning. It is Jeannie Ives in for Dan Proff. And with me is Jim Uriot. Thanks so much, Jim, for joining me. Thank you for having me. Second day in a row for you, starting the early shift here. Yep, I like it. Well, you know, it never ceases to amaze me that there's just always new news every single day. And so Dan Sullivan going to have to catch up after being gone for a week and give you his... really good insight about everything that happened as he's had substitute hosts in. But the speech last night is, in my opinion, Trump doing the big things that needed to be done. And so the bulk of the speech had to do with election integrity. And here's how he said it. Tonight I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking exploitation and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you. The American people are beautiful, our great American people. But that all changes right now. The documents we will release starting tonight have been gathered by the White House government. Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, supported by our top intelligence agency chiefs, who have all personally reviewed the findings. We are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity. You can see these documents for yourself at whitehouse.gov. That's White House. Go check it out. Well, apparently during his speech, whitehouse.gov basically got shut down. Oh, really? It was overloaded. The system was overloaded. I have not taken a chance to go there and check out the documents, but he's not playing around. This is one of the big things that I think he was concerned about going forward for the country. I think at the age of 80, you start to assess what your impact can be when you're given the most powerful position in the entire world. And I think Trump is trying to get.

all of the big things done. Yeah, I've never seen anyone tried to take on so many different things to realign just everything. I think it's pretty breathtaking. But to the election, one of the most weird, the weirdest things about the 2020 election is that it obviously was a weird election, just definitionally. The amount of mail-in ballots, mail-in ballots are less secure. That is not my opinion. That is the opinion of legal institution forever. It's called chain of custody. When the ballot comes out of your hand, it is less secure. You wouldn't send cash in the mail and just hope for the best. But any time you question it, my friends on the left would always be like, what are you talking about? It's a pristine election. Well, how do you know? All we want to know is everything. That's what we want to know about it. Everything. We want to know. And again, we're from Chicago. We know that elections aren't perfect. You know, my sweet Aunt Loretta used to talk about being a precinct captain and the shenanigans they used to play. She'd have us in stitches about it. And they think, oh, yeah, but that's actually election fraud. Well, anybody who is familiar with the Frank DeFranco case that is still weaving its way through the federal court system, that was a race in 2020 where Frank proved, I mean, in my opinion, proved beyond a reasonable doubt that there was election fraud in his case. He won on Election Day. He won 14 days when the voting is supposed to stop. And then three days after that, they find more ballots. And when they start to investigate it, They thought that they had blacked out all the information on the election envelopes, which they could only find a portion of them. Oh, surprising for these mail and cheat-by-mail ballots. And yet you could see through electronically that there was blank information, things that were not filled out, names, addresses. postmarks. None of that was filled out. It was all a scam. And he's still weaving his way through that. There's no way that the 2020 election was secure. And I think that's why Jay Clayton, the DNI, Director of National Intelligence nominee, in front of Jon Ossoff. Remember the 2020 election with the two senators getting elected in Georgia and the fraud that we found out in Georgia? We're going to talk more about that, by the way, with Cleena Mitchell. But just two days ago, Jay Jon Ossoff was in front of I'm sorry, Jay Clayton was in front of Jon Ossoff, and this was an exchange that they had. We've established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right? No, that's not right. Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election? I have answered the question. Answer it. What is your answer? I've given you my answer. What is your answer?

You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community. Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it? I think I gave you the answer. So what do you think? Obviously, I think Jay Clayton knew it was coming in Trump's speech. I think he knew some of the information that they had. But this, the craziest part is that they. act like they know conclusively. And they do this weird logical chain. They say, well, it's not been proven. So no crime happened. That's not the way it works. There's plenty of crimes happen that can't be proven yet. And do I have confidence that ever will be proven? No. But to question this is the most natural thing. To say that it's pristine and there is no corruption, that's weird and radical conspiracy thing. When have we ever had an election that wasn't corrupted in some level? The question becomes, is it corrupted enough on a level that it changed the outcome? Who knows? Maybe they thought that the Hunter Biden laptop might change the outcome. So that's why they suppressed it for six months. Again, everyone was like, well, it's good. That's where they got 51 Intel agents to sign some sort of fake letter that they got the complicit media to go along and publish. Exactly. But my friends on the left will say, that wouldn't have moved the needle. I'm not saying it would. I'm saying they thought it would have. That's the only reason that they would suppress it like that, right? So they clearly thought it might move the needle. Well, let's not forget. Here's a montage of the Democrats denying election. You can run the best campaign. You can even become the nominee. How dare they? And you can have the election stolen from you. How can you win with Russian interference, though? That's what I'm scared about in 2020. But rightly. Because I think he's an illegitimate president that didn't really win. So how do you fight against that in 2020? You are absolutely right. He's an illegitimate president in my mind. Would you be my vice president? Folks, look, I absolutely agree. Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put in the office because the Russians interfered. Russia interfered with our election, attacked our democracy for the sole purpose of artificially placing someone at 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They were successful. Trump knows he's an illegitimate president. The president-elect, although legally elected, is not legitimate. I mean... I got no words. Goes on and on. Yes. I mean, and so then you have John Asaph up there forcing, trying to force Jay Clayton to say that, yes, Biden won the election. Hey, Biden was president. Was it a free and fair election? No. And Trump's bringing the receipts now. Again, this is Trump doing the big things for this country at this point. And I honestly think, you know, with age comes wisdom, typically.

Not always, not with Joe Biden. Also, the lack of caring about re-election and in acts to grind, how they treated him in the interim between terms. And you can tell that he's angry and doesn't really care what he's thought about now. So I agree that you take care of the big thing. Everything he's doing, I don't agree the exec from a policy standpoint. But I do think he's trying to rework things in a very positive way. Yeah, there's note about that, doubt about that. And then he, you know, he had a lot more to say about this. Here's, here was the big news. China complicit in the election. The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China signed a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project, compounding the travesty. So this isn't new news. I mean, the Russians famously hacked into Illinois's voter rolls. That was widely acknowledged in 2016. Everybody knows that that happened. Even the major media didn't deny that, but they certainly didn't want to apparently run Trump's speech last night. And so what, CBS and NBC? It's funny, isn't it? Yeah, it is funny that they just decided, oh, you know, this is too hot to handle. We're not going to cover his election tonight. Because he's controversial, right? Yeah. Meanwhile, I mean, look, he's not going to put out this information if he doesn't have the receipts. I sincerely hope you're right. I believe you're right. Yeah, all I was thinking about during the speech is that he's adopted this rhythm that's kind of sing-songy where he kind of emphasizes certain words. And it's almost like a lullaby. It goes up and goes down. It becomes a hypnotic to me. Were you feeling that as well? It's kind of like watching a soccer game. It was classic Trump. I mean, I thought he was pretty controlled. No, I liked it. He didn't really go off script too much. I think he stuck to the teleprompter. He was reading passages that were directly from the report. Look, I was. I was running for office in the 2020 election. And I still, DuPage County, 1,600 more ballots cast than voters who voted. That's their own data.

Okay. They put that up. And anyone tell me that was a fair election that everything was buttoned up and tight? Of course not. No, of course not. And so, you know, I think Trump's spot on on this. And in fact, you have the IEP, the Illinois Election Integrity Program put out a statement saying, and says, we've observed in Illinois, the already voted mail ballot identity theft scheme, voter role in registration irregularities, voting equipment and transparency failures, and resistance to accountability. We've seen it all. People have been tracking this for a long time. We'll be right back. You're listening to Jim Uriyo and Jeannie Ives. We're trying to fill in for Dan Proft. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer. Hey, business owners, is your business and money in good hands? Does your bank invest in your success? Hi, Mike Gallagher here, letting you know that when you need a relationship bank, signature bank makes commercial banking personal. I love these guys. Not only do they have expansive industry experience, a strong financial track record, but they're also highly capitalized for strategic growth. That's so important. That's why signature bank is my bank. They know what it means to grow a business by designing solutions that are right for you and only. you. These are real people. They're ready to help. So reach out to my friends at Signature Bank. Make the call today. 773-467-5630. Or visit them online at SignatureBank.Bank. Bank. That's SignatureBank. Bank. Your business could be Signature Bank's next success story. Go online. SignatureBank. Bank. Equal Housing Lender, Signature Bank. Only the biggest stories. Only the biggest guests. And only the biggest opinions. This is AM560. The answer. Good morning. It's Jeannie Ives and Jim Murillo, filling in for Dan today. Text message. Jeannie, he should have told the guy that he will answer the election question when Democrats answer the what is a woman question. Good point, Jon Ossoff. Good point. Let's talk to Bob and Buffalo Grove quick. Bob, welcome the program. Bob? Always great to hear you guys on the radio together. And let me offer this. I watched it all, but what I did was did channel surfing. And it was interesting. ABC and NBC didn't cover it. Neither did CNN.

I started watching Fox as usual, but I didn't care for their screen and the fact that they didn't put any comments in. So I spent the whole evening watching it on Newsmax because Newsmax would put what the comments were were from Trump. One of the things he didn't mention, and neither did the comment with the awesome. Somebody wanted to ask the question point blank. How did Biden get 81 million votes? I have still not heard the documentation. I've seen comments online that, oh, it's because of the balloting. But I would like to see the forensics on the balloting and the mail-in balloting, how Biden physically got 81 million votes way more than Obama, Hillary, Kamala Harris, and even when Trump won. So that's my comment. Looking forward to seeing your critiques and your other callers commenting on what took place. Have a great show. All right. Thanks a lot, Bob. Well, here's part of the reason that Biden got 81 million votes, according to Trump. But it gets even worse. Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden documents show that during this period dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get. Almost every day, everything was kept out that was of importance. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election. Okay, so China manufactured some of the illegal ballots and then the old... leftovers from the Obama and Biden time frame in our deep state hit all of that information from Trump. So he's setting the record straight now. Yeah. So the one thing, like when you're negotiating with these people and having discussions, and I had a discussion with some liberal friends last night, is that we can agree on two things. There are two things that are not, that cannot be disputed. One is that. the amount of mail-in ballots made it the least secure election we've ever had. Now, that's not an opinion. That's part of the chain of Castillo's talking about. And the second thing is that Joe Biden got 81 million votes. That's not disputed. If you look at those two things together, that seems really weird, right? So that's a great starting point to start looking into this a little bit more. And the fact that people keep telling us not to makes me want to dial into it even more. Absolutely. Well, this was Trump's opening, and I think it's worth everybody hearing again because his speech was a little, at the very beginning, was a lot more than just about election integrity. Good evening. Before we begin, I'm proud to report that our country is safer, stronger, and far wealthier than it has ever been before. We are doing great. Less than two years ago, we inherited an economic and social disaster.

After the worst inflation in 48 years, the wide open borders with millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, including criminals of all types and 11,88 murders, many of whom killed more than one person. We had transgender for everybody, men in women's sports. Crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. Jim? Yeah. And one thing he didn't mention, by the way, when he talks about economically, is that foreign direct investment, this is a measurable metric, has shut up. Now, you can say there's two reasons for that. One is that our economy is doing much better compared to other people. Like the meme we always say is that Europe is a museum, China is a prison, and Japan is an old folks' home. That just leaves us to be the investable one. And then you look at the fact that the tariffs were put on, and perhaps they did. provide the incentive to rework supply chains through America and bring investment here. That's a big deal. No one thing he didn't mention is that over the last five years, and this is not his fault, it's more the fault of the administration before. It is a K-shaped recovery. And there are 50% of the people, at least in this country, who don't think they are participating. And that's one of the reasons we're getting guys like Zohran Mamdani and that... clown in Seattle mayor, Katie, something, whatever her name is. That's one of the reasons we're getting that. These are people who want to burn it all down. And that's a serious worry that we have to figure out. And probably only a good economy plus time will start to fix that. Well, I mean, Nippon Steel is to invest in the U.S. $2.5 billion in U.S. steel. I mean, steel manufacturing is crucial to anything that we do in terms of the defense sector. We have got to have our, you know, steel. And so that was a-2020-exposing. Oh, my gosh, that was a totally declining industry until Trump started to turn around. And I don't know if you like tariffs or not, I'll tell you what I like. I like national security. Me too. But guys, and people who are kind of trained in the economic chain of guys like me, we hate tariffs. We like free trade. But that doesn't account for the fact that other countries were having tariffs on us. So since we do not have the power to make them drop them all, the only way to do it is use tariffs as a cudgel to bring them to negotiating table. So I do not like tariffs, but I think if they were used effectively and it seems like they were, then more power to you. Yep. Let's go to George in Naperville. George, welcome the program. Oh, good morning. The reason Biden got 80 million votes was because he was a charismatic candidate who campaigned from his basement. Yeah. He is the best. Yeah. George, thank you. Short and sweet comments, love him. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay, so again, I looked at this presentation that he did last night.

as one of a number of issues that Trump is taking on because he's taking on the big stuff and not the little stuff, whether it's Iran, whether it's our border, whether it's Social Security in the future. That is what he is trying to do. Here's one thing that I think is is completely underrated and that people will learn to appreciate on both sides of the aisle. are these Trump accounts. And with Trump accounts, every child in America now has access to a tax-free investment account to save for their future. Billions and billions of dollars are being invested, put in by companies and individuals, to take care of our children so that at age 18, they will have potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in their account. and they'll get off to a great start in life. So he's starting the process of phasing out Social Security. He's not saying that. He's not saying that. He's showing how that can happen if you just use the power of the market and, you know, the gain in the stocks over time. He's showing people how that can happen for people. And then people will say, well, what the hell? Why did I put? 12 over 12% of my income into Social Security. Jim, you and I are at the same age. By the time we are ready to go ahead and get our Social Security, it's going down 20%. Whatever we'd had. They're going to cut it 20% because they can't, the money's not there. Yeah, because it's a Ponzi scheme. They failed to put in the stop gaps to make the system durable. Yeah, you know, and I don't think that my, you know, my. My cash earnings from the Sioux City Journal paper route I had at age 10. They could have compounded a lot of times. Or my beanwalking money from my uncle on the farm. I don't, you know, honestly. But we've been paying into Social Security except for those minor jobs for decades. I think even when I had a summer job, I was paying into Social Security when I was at the church at St. Teresa when I was a maintenance man, I think they were taking out Social Security. So instead of attacking something because, you know, you cannot say, well, we're going to reform Social Security. People get all up in arms because they don't understand the numbers. You're getting... less than 1% if you're wealthier in a return. You're losing money on Social Security from a return standpoint. If you're just... Sort of a moderate Social Security earner. You're getting maybe a 1% return on your investment. This is such a joke. It's so bad for people. I think instead of actually talking about reforming it, he's just going to show people with these Trump accounts. Yes. And you know what the best characteristic of the accounts is that wealthy people like Michael Dell, like the woman from SpaceX, I can't remember her name, you can choose like different area codes that you want to contribute to. And I love...

the philanthropy instead, you know, keeping the government out of it to a certain extent. I know the government is part of this for sure. And the government's obviously part of Social Security. So I don't like the government in our life, but I love the fact that this opens up an avenue for wealthy people to donate directly to the people that they want to. All right. Another thing that he was, you know, another big thing that he's handling, and that's border control. Here you go. Our previously wide open borders have been transformed into the most secure borders in the history of our country with zero illegal aliens being admitted to the United States in the past 14 months. That is zero. Nobody thought it was possible. We had the worst border in the history of our country, and now we have the best. What's the debate there? That's just a fact. And again, he's not leaving this to chance. He's building a freaking wall. That's what he's doing. It's a physical barrier. He's not going to just leave it to some squishy Republican or some radical Democrat who might take over after him. He's actually doing the big things that need to be done. We're going to have to take a really short break. We'll be right back with your phone calls. And we want to talk about that CNBC, the 10 worst states to live in. We're going to love this. Seriously, Tennessee's at the top. Give me a break. We'll be right back. This is Chicago's morning answer. Your show keeps me alive during the week. There's nobody I'd rather listen to between 5 and 9 in the morning than you guys. On AM 560, The Answer. Hey, business owners, is your business and money in good hands? Does your bank invest in your success? Hi, Mike Gallagher here, letting you know that when you need a relationship bank, signature bank makes commercial banking personal. I love these guys. Not only do they have expansive industry experience, a strong financial track record, but they're also highly capitalized for strategic growth. That's so important. That's why signature bank is my bank. They know what it means to grow a business by designing solutions that are right for you and only. you. These are real people. They're ready to help. So reach out to my friends at Signature Bank. Make the call today. 773-467-5630. Or visit them online at SignatureBank.Bank. Bank. That's SignatureBank. Bank. Your business could be Signature Bank's next success story. Go online. SignatureBank. Bank. Equal Housing Lender, Signature Bank. All right, we're back. It's Jim and Jeannie in for Dan, and we're reviewing last night's speech by Trump. Let's go to Jim in Elk Grove Village. Jim, welcome the program. Hi. Yeah, when I get into this argument with my buddies, there's 3,200 counties in the country. At the top of his game... Obama only won 875 counties. You want me to believe that Biden got 13 million more votes. And the numbers for Biden are between 5 and 600. And half the amount of counties, that never happened. That never happened. No, I totally agree. And text line 815 says Biden didn't get 80 million votes. He got 80 million ballots.

All right. Thanks a lot for the call. Appreciate it, Jim. Let's go to Marvin and Burlington. Yeah, good morning. I just like this. My thought is Social Security Administration Trust Fund has gone bad because they've taken money from it and used it for things that it was never meant for. I know it's going to sound harsh, but maybe all these people on disability shouldn't be on there. They didn't. You're supposed to get the money that was put in by you for when you retire. Not for all the other pet projects and bleeding heart things that they want to spend the money on. And that's why all the money's gone and they still, to this day, are draining the fund for things that fund was never set up for in 1935. That's why it is in the shape of sin. Marvin, we could do an entire show just on disability. An entire show just on disability. And I'm including the veteran disability scams that go on, folks. And I'm saying that as a veteran because I know. I know what I know. So maybe we will do that. Thanks a lot for the call. Appreciate it. I'll tell you this about Social Security, though, is that we are not boomers. I want that completely. You and I are, what are we generation something? Well, we're just at the tail end of boom right into X because I'm October 64. Yeah, but the reality of it is this is that old people vote. If these politicians try to significantly pull back Social Security, they are going to unleash holy hell on themselves. And this serves as a warning from them because I'll gladly spend lots of money to get rid of a politician who cuts my Social Security by less than that. We've put in our entire life, there was an implicit promise that this was coming. You cannot, you take back a dime. And again, when I say a dime, maybe because the new proposal, by the way, for you and I, born. I won't even say it. We have to delay for four months. But for every year past 1964, you have to delay for two months. That's a proposal that's shooting around right now. Okay. Maybe I won't go crazy for four months, but it's getting close. Yeah, no, we absolutely paid on. But again, this is Trump knowing this. You can't touch it. So we're just going to show people a better way for our future. And I like that. I also think that. If you're really wealthy, you should be able to buy out your Social Security account at maybe 50% of cost because then you know how to invest it better. You'll make that back in a matter of years compared to waiting for the government to give you your money back. So there's other options like make it voluntary, kind of like we have with our pension systems. Okay, so Jim, tell us about this, CNBC. Tennessee and Texas. Are two of the worst states to live in? Oh, without a doubt. That's why. They're getting mocked everywhere. What a report. That's why people for over the last 10 years, these are two of the states that have the most dramatic inbound, the most dramatic inflow of people because they hate living there because of discriminatory bathroom laws, because of abortion rights, because their traditional right to work states. They've graded poorly on labor laws and workplace rights. They don't one time even mention the CNBC article about.

cost of living and the actual voting with their feet. And they rated the best places to live were Vermont, New Jersey, who's had an outflow of 500,000 people. Minnesota, which, by the way, this is the interesting part of the article is reading. Minnesota has no inflow or outflow. They've basically broken even over the last 10 years. Guess why that is? But wasn't every of the 10 worst states that they listed, weren't they all red states on top of it? Oh, of course. Oh, yeah, there's no question about it. The only reason they didn't put Florida on their list is because they knew that it. You can only fool the people to a certain level. So they're like, okay, we can't put Florida unless. Again, by the way, the people listening to is know that I was with CNBC for 18 years. So it's not, and when I left with them, we did not leave on the greatest terms, but I had no interest in bashing them until they started doing stupid things worth bashing. And this is the most woke and ridiculous article I've ever seen saying the worst place to deliver Texas, Texas and Tennessee. And by the way, my friends in Texas and Tennessee, I'll contact me. We were like, yeah, make sure people. Too many people coming here already. Just push this out as much as you can. Tell people how bad it is. Yeah. And oh, one last thing. Yeah. Because in Tennessee, they talked about the crime rate of the state. Guess what that is about? Memphis. The state in the city in Tennessee that has the crime and drives all the crime statistics is Memphis. The only part of the state that is very, very run by the left. So please, this is the most idiotic thing I've ever seen. Well, you know, then the other thing that they did is they happened to. put out the 10 best states for businesses. And they put Illinois number 12. Nobody believes that either. I mean, when you look at the chief executive magazine rankings, this is 2026, best and worst states for business. Top five, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia. Yeah. Best places. Illinois, and I've been looking at the CEO executives rankings for 13 years now. 13 years. Bottom three, California, New York, Illinois. Those three have not changed in 13 years. And yet CNBC wants to say that Illinois is number 12 for business. No, and again, I've run businesses in Illinois for a long time. I can tell you conclusively that that is absolutely a crock. And the notion, all you have to do is see the amount of businesses that are leaving Chicago with the most notable. Again, the Bears leaving the state. which is probably going to happen, is not a huge thing compared to some of the companies that have left or threatened to leave, but it is the most visible and most easily seen demonstration of how bad it is. Money goes to where it's treated best, and Illinois is not where money is treated best. Sorry. Okay, so you're on the side of the bears are actually going to leave because there's a lot of people think it's a big fake. What do you think? I really... Honestly, I don't know what to think. I don't know what to think either. We had Jim Everett on our show. You know, he's kind of a football insider. He's playing the NFL. Yeah. And he still thinks what you are implying that perhaps this is just a negotiating tool. Like I don't know, you know, we talked yesterday in the show about the fire getting 500 million and TIF money from the.

For the 2020 Trump legal team in Georgia, she knows more about what's going on than anything. Kleda, what is your response to the Trump speech last night? Well, you know, it's so funny to listen to that. And first of all, thank you all so much for having me. What's interesting is when I first heard the discussion about how the Chinese Communist Party had... stolen and utilizing deploying over 220 million voter records with the capability because of all the information that is included in what they obtained unlawfully is their ability to manipulate the roles, the names and the addresses and all that change addresses change. They could easily have put in, gone into, say, Clita Mitchell's record and said, send a ballot to this address. And in so many states, the states just do it with no other verification. And I, it brought back memories. You know, I was on that phone call, of course, and every time the president said a number, I knew what category he was talking about. But the very first thing he mentioned. is something that we learned and heard of in the days from Election Day and thereafter at the state party headquarters, the Republican Party headquarters in Georgia, we had hundreds and hundreds of people who called them to say when they went to vote. and we got sworn affidavits from them that they were told you've already voted. And these are people who say, I never vote by mail, ever in my life. Well, Mr. Smith, we show that you've already voted. So you can vote a provisional ballot, but then you have to, in order for us to count your provisional ballot, you have to prove you didn't already vote. Well, how do you prove that negative? When you know you didn't vote, but how do you prove that? And I thought it just happened in Georgia. And in 2021, in August of 2021, I was giving a speech at our first statewide election integrity summit that we ended up having nine of those, starting in 2021 through 2022. And I was telling this story, and hands shot up all over the audience, people saying, that happened here, that happened here, in Virginia. And then, as I've learned, it happened all across the country. And I tell you, I have thought about it. I've talked with people over these years. How did that happen? I think now we know how that happened. I think now we know how it happened. So no question. Something you tweeted about 40 minutes ago that I want to dig into a little bit. This is Jim Muriel, by the way. Very, very nice to meet you. You talk about the gas line because my most burned memory. from 2020 was the night of the election when Donald Trump was winning in all these states. And everyone in the media said, yeah, we're shutting down the polls for tonight. And of course, Donald Trump's winning right now. But we expect him to not be winning in a week because, of course, all the mail-in ballots are going to be Democrat ballots. I remember at the time going, why? Why do we think that? That's the most absurd thing I've heard. What is up with the gaslighting? What's their motivation? Why do they keep doing it?

Well, I think, you know, one of the things I think is very interesting is that they started talking about this. The moment the president said he was going to give a speech on Thursday night, Mark Elias. who is the leader of the corrupt elections crowd, started saying the media shouldn't cover it, the media should ignore him. They should pay no attention. It's all lies, lies, lies. He hadn't seen his first document, nothing. But it's lies already. But he lies. We know he's going to lie and he's not going to tell the truth. He's not going to tell the truth about the election. And then, you know, I think as we get more into these millions of documents that have been declassified that we're going to see. There were some references to it overnight, but that there's evidence that part of what the Chinese Communist Party was doing was paying journalists and paying media outlets. That's what I was hoping you'd say because I believe it. Yeah. Well, you know, what is, do you tell me what solid, patriotic American who loves this country would not be absolutely horrified? that the Chinese Communist Party had set its site on manipulating and interfering with the U.S. election. You tell me, who among us would not think that was a newsworthy, so that's CNN, ABC, and NBC? They didn't think that was newsworthy, that particular revelation. And they also didn't think it was newsworthy that the intelligence community. of the United States of America knew as early as January 2020 about the misappropriation of 200 over 200 million voter records and plans to deploy that data. And they didn't tell the president. They actively engaged in a cover-up and didn't tell President Trump. They didn't tell Congress. They didn't tell the American people. They issued all of these statements saying there was nothing wrong. There was no foreign interference. I mean, they've been lying. They started lying about that because they had just finished lying about Hunter Biden's laptop in the fall of 2020. So they were already pretty adept at it. And they've been lying to us ever since. And the media, the media has this First Amendment protection. And yet they aren't the least curious or concerned. about the intelligence community. Come on. So I can actually add something that real quick. I know Gene has a question, too, is I was with CNBC for 18 years. And the wind shift in 2020, which is when perhaps it's coincidental, I don't want to get sued, they purged all the conservative voices and myself and a bunch of others. For some coincidental reason, we had to be. to be let go at the time, which was hysterical to me. But something changed. And I don't understand what it is. And all of a sudden you couldn't, you'd get an email if you said anything bad about the things that they wanted to protect, which was, you know, the election. They wanted to protect, you know, the vaccine. And all of us, again, got kind of bounced out. So again, perhaps coincidence, perhaps not. Janie? Well, Clint, I'd like to tell. I mean, I think that this is.

part of Trump doing the big things that need to get done at the age of 80. He's seen what's happened over decades from illegal immigration, you know, starting not being handled correctly by Reagan or anybody that went on to now Iran taking care of that after 47 years, to resetting the economy, to election integrity. And I think that this is one of those big items he feels like he has got to take care of. because it is a matter of whether or not America will continue to be America. So he's getting the big things done. Are you shocked at the level of the, you know, corruption in the deep state? Oh, my gosh, I'm not the least bit shocked. One of the things that, one of the things that has been absolutely infuriating to me is that there are people in his administration who are fighting him. I mean, Politico ran articles this week. I mean, I've been following all of this this week since he made the announcement he was going to give a speech. And Politico ran an article yesterday about how they were talking to. GOP consultants who are trying to win campaigns this fall who are so upset that he's talking about this. Those idiots who don't realize if you're a GOP consultant, you're trying to win a campaign, you think you might care about how well the election is run and whether it's honest. I mean, honestly, I just, I wonder at the stupidity of these people, but people from the White House who spoke anonymously on background saying, well, we're trying to get him not to talk about some of the things he wants to talk about. I mean, I have to think that he talked about the things he wanted to talk about and they doesn't listen to those people. But he needs to fire those people. He needs to trot out the your fired line and get rid of people because they're still trying to hamper him. Fortunately, He's not easily hampered, and I agree with you that he is determined in the time that he has to do everything in Canada to save this country. And he understands like nobody else in Washington. And maybe nobody other than us who've been fighting this battle in the trenches, but he understands if you do not save our election system, we lose the country. You cannot have a country if your elections are being controlled by foreign influences or political actors. I mean, do you think that you have fair elections in Illinois? No, that's what I was going to get to, right? We know a little bit about unfair elections, yeah. Well, I mean, in terms of saving the country, here's what he had to say at the very end of his speech. But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security. demands that Congress must pass the Safe America Act. How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way.

Okay, my favorite part of that little part was your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic. I love that he said that. He's got away, doesn't it? It's true, but it does come down to the Save Act. It does. Well, it does, and it comes out with more. And I would urge you all to listen in at 11 o'clock Eastern time today. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, is having a press conference. And what people don't realize. And you talk about something that's going to make the head, the left, collective heads of the left, go crazy. And it is this. The Department of Homeland Security was defined by the outgoing Obama Secretary of Homeland Security in January 2017 as a basis for what they did to perpetuate the Russia collusion hoax. They designated Obama administration, DHS Secretary Jay Johnson, a directive that elections. are defined as critical infrastructure, not the election machines, not the election tabulators, elections writ large. Those are defined as critical infrastructure. Whenever there is a threat to critical infrastructure, there are federal laws that kick in. that require DHS to take mitigation planning and action and to protect whatever the vulnerabilities are that have been detected or verified as existing. That gives the power. Remember, the power was established in order to perpetrate the Russia collusion host. I find it very ironic that that is now the legal authority for the Department of Homeland Security takes steps to protect the elections this fall. They have authority, they have funding, and they can do that. And in fact, it's not just they can, they must. There are implications now for the Department of Commerce, which is obligated to step in when there is identified threat or vulnerability from foreign adversaries. It is a specific set of regulations finalized during the Biden administration where they can stop. the Department of Commerce can stop the use of technology from foreign adversaries from being used in our country. Well, guess what? Every voting machine that's used in America is made in whole or in part in China. So there are things that the government must do. It is a whole of government approach. The left will go berserk. We will have... They'll be judge shopping. They're already judge shopping this morning, finding the judges, the communist, Marxist judges, who will rule in favor of whatever left-wing group files a lawsuit. But this is serious stuff.

The left and the media, their media lackeys, the Marxist media, I've taken to call them. Don't ever, ever call them mainstream. They're all, anything but mainstream. Their heads are going, they're going crazy because they want us to ignore this. They want us to ignore this threat. But I don't think the people are going to ignore it. I think that, you know, we've known about it. And that's why most, the vast majority of American people favor all of the common sense election reforms that need to be made because. The Democrats and their left when crazy allies have basically destroyed every shred of election safeguards that were put in place literally 100 years ago by progressives to fight the city hall, big city machines and places like Chicago and New York and all of those places. So they've torn it all down. We've got to build it back and we've got to do it before November. All right, she's Clita Mitchell, senior legal fellow at CPI and the founder of Election Integrity Network. Clita, thanks so much. I know you're visiting grandchildren, so I appreciate you taking this segment. No problem. Thank you. Your information is very valuable, and we'll listen in at 11 a.m. to hear from DHS Mullen. Thank you so much. Thank you. And she called us on the Alpha Wealth Group answer line. We'll be right back. Before you see it on TV, share it on Facebook. Or read about it in the paper. Hear it here first. This is Chicago's morning answer. On AM 560. The answer. If you're looking for the latest news, insight into what it means, and the sharpest opinion, there's only one station in Chicago where you can turn, and it's this one. We're AM 560. The answer. All right, rock the Casbah. I got to tell you, that'll wake you up in the morning. Who picks the music? I want to have that job of picking the music for the show. Who gets to pick it? Well, what's the deal? We're going to listen to Paul Simon? We might. I know you're headed to his concert with your daughter, right? I am. This is like the fourth time I've seen Paul Simon where it was the last time I'm going to see him because he was retiring. Which, by the way, he's – That's a tease. Yes, exactly. But he's fantastic. And my daughter and I are going to see him on Saturday. Oh, okay. Good for you. That's great. Awesome. Well. Okay, this is, this probably missed, a lot of people missed on this one. They didn't, of course, the legacy media here in Chicago land never would pick up on this, but legal insurrection did. Illinois Math and Science Academy. helped organize and fund a black graduation with nearly 2,000 of school money. It's progress. That's progressives. We're progressing back to segregation. The hell. Illinois Math and Science Academy Diversity Office helped organize a graduation ceremony for black students. This is this year, guys, this year. Yeah. Not last year. Or 1958. No. Yeah. Which included $640 in custom sashes.

And up to $1,200 for a graduation lunch, according to emails obtained by defending education through a Freedom of Information Act. The event was separate from IMSA's general commencement ceremony and was for black seniors only. I mean, maybe they had like, what do they have? Maybe a dozen. I don't even know. Although the promotional flyer indicated that guests could attend. A record show planning for the black graduation was underway by January 29, 2026. One organizer asked Imsa's director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and Title IX coordinator to provide an approximate number of black students so the graduation stoles could be ordered. Yeah. So I think we need to help them define what diversity is, exactly, because they seem to think that diversity and keep pushing the pendulum to a place where we're back segregated and they want nobody who's actually diverse, particularly diversity of thought. Equity. The notion of equity is that everybody has the same stuff. Not that everyone has the same opportunities. That would be equitable opportunities. The notion of equity is ridiculous inclusion. You just break it apart. They don't want to include me and you ever. They want to keep us away. So it falls on every part of it. The notion that they're having all black graduation, they did this in Michigan a couple years ago to University of, this is absurd. And it really underscores how silly some of these policies are. Yeah, no, you know, I was right. I was estimating, but I was that right. It says in this article, an invoice dated March 27 shows an order for 12 black, serapi sash with yellow gold custom embroidery at $50 each. Sounds fancy. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. I mean, this is absolute nonsense. Okay, then we have this article as well. And this is from WTTW. They actually reported on this. A teen CPD employee goose stepped across a high school stage wearing a Nazi uniform. A teen employee of the Chicago Police Department resigned after fire, under fire after they wore a Nazi uniform at their high school and goose stepped across the stage while performing a seek hail, seek hail salute, according to a report released Wednesday by the city's watchdog. This just came out this week. Uniform March and Salute created the impression that the individual was evoking Nazi Germany, bringing discredit to the police department according to the first quarterly report released by the Inspector General. So what do you think the point of this was? Like this person who's like calling the police Nazis? I don't know either. I don't understand that. But, I mean, you go from one extreme to actually, why is it the police department calling this out? Why is the school not saying, like taking them off the stage? Right. Forget it. Of course. Yeah. It's so, it's baffling. Like, that's your big moment to shine, and that's what you decide on. I don't, like, I don't even understand the protest. I wish the kid could explain it. Yeah, well, there's a lot of bizarre stuff going on in education. Here's another one, because, of course, the big problem now is with artificial intelligence. Who's cheating and who's not? This one caught my eye.

Brown professor switched to take home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating. And he says, humanity has chosen to become idiots. When Brown Professor Robert Serrano changed the format of his midterm exam last spring, he was thinking about his student's mental health, not academic fraud. Two of them had been shot, including Ella Cook, a young woman who had sat in his office just days before. The December 13 masks occur at Brown University and asked him to be her academic advisor. We had a nice conversation, Sorrenta recalled in the interview with Fortune. She was a wonderful young woman full of energy, full of ideas. Imagine my shock went a few days after that conversation took place. They released the names of the two mortal victims, and I saw one of them was her. In that grief, Serrano made a decision he had never made in his 34-year career at Browning gave his Econ 1170 class an advanced undergraduate course in mathematical economics. You probably took that class. I did, I believe. Yeah, I probably barely passed it at West Point because anyway. A take-home closed book midterm. He wanted to remove the stress of sitting in the classroom on campus where he says quite a few students were still too traumatized to set foot. Okay. Of the 86 students who took the March 5th exam, 40 scored a perfect 100. The class average was 96, whereas in previous years the average had ranged between 65 and 80. This exam, by design, was harder than usual. The beauty of take-home exams used to be that we professors were able to challenge the students a little more just to push them to a higher level. Serrano said the fact that this was a harder exam and this distribution made it absolutely clear that something very unusual had happened. Well, why didn't he ask us what would happen? Yeah, why? Because it seems like we know college students and their activities more than the professor does. How idiotic is that? And again, I feel for the man's pain to be involved with something with the shooting, that's terrible. But to make that decision was the most easily predictable outcome you could imagine. I would have, I'm a pretty upright guy, and I would have certainly used AI for that exam if they allowed me to when I was a 20-year-old. Well, I mean, Sereno went on. He's like, you know, why are you showing up? Why are you at university if you refuse to put in the necessary effort? If all you're doing is just pressing a button to do what to do to have this machine do the work for you, then you think you need a brown degree for that? No, I get his point. In the perfect world, theoretically, he's right. But that's just not the way college students operate. And I would have felt guilty about using AI. And then I would have promised myself, I'm really going to learn the material. I just want to get an A on it. Then I wouldn't have gone and learned the material, mind you. But I would have promised myself that I would. But that's just the way kids are, I think. I thought they were all idiots. And I thought we all knew that. Sorry if kids are listening. Yeah. Well, look, I mean.

I don't get it. I mean, honestly, I went to West Point, you know, duty on the country. Cadet will not lie, steal or cheat, no tolerate those that do. They took academic cheating very seriously, very seriously. Everything was proctored, eyes on your own paper. everything was watched. You caught, if you were caught cheating, that's a massive scandal. Well, in, you know, in 1977, they had a huge cheating scandal. And then, of course, in 2020, they had a cheating scandal, too, but they let a lot of those kids stay in, which is wrong. I mean, I think as a graduate, like, sorry. No, you have an honor code. Like me going to a public university and you go into West Point, there's a difference, obviously. Like, you guys are held to a much, much higher standard. And that's what you signed up on. I think that that's impressive as heck. But at the public university. Yeah, every one of my friends would have cheated on that exam. Yeah, well, my son went to U of I, electrical engineering. He said, oh, yeah, the foreign students cheated all the time. Yeah, again, I'm literally, we cheated. And I, you know, I'm sorry. I feel bad about it. I think it was terrible. But I think that 1920, 21-year-olds are immature, and we make immature decisions. Well, they're just getting dumbed down by AI. So apparently this is from Wall Street Apes. They put out this post on X. University of Chicago is attempting to stop students from a line on artificial intelligence, quote, as part of a broader strategy to curb AI usage, the University of Chicago Law School is banning. first year students from using phones and laptops in the classroom. The school says it's to, quote, ensure students actually learn to think critically, strategically, and independently without relying on AI, end quote. No, but see, they're missing a point, though, because AI is a really powerful tool, right? So instead they're like vilifying it and acting like it's a sophisticated means for cheating instead of using it as a tool. So I agree that there should be plenty. What they really should do is have a incorporate AI and then have discussions breaking it down, trying to figure out what AI is helping with and what they're not. Well, we've been trying to effort getting Erica Donald's on. She's the wife of. Byron Donalds's. I don't know that we have her yet still. So we'll take this phone call from Harry in Hawthorne Woods. Harry, welcome the program. Hi, I moved to the villages quite a while back in Florida. Oh, okay. But from Hawthorne Woods. But anyway, I wanted to say there's a, you know, college is very competitive in terms of wanting to get into postgraduate programs like med school and law school. If they didn't cheat. They'd end up looking like they were at the bottom. Everybody else was getting A's and they were getting a C or something like that on a difficult exam. If they didn't cheat, they would have had to be crazy because that would diminish their chances of their goals.

That's a great point. It's crazy not to treat at that point. Yeah, because if you believe everybody else is, you're at a competitive disadvantage if you do not. And, yeah, I get what you're saying completely, 100%. Yeah, well, I mean, not that it's the right thing to do. It's the essential thing to do at that point in your career. Game theory. Yeah. All right. Thanks a lot. Yeah, game theory. Thanks a lot, Harry. Appreciate the phone call. Phone call is, a phone number here is 312644-2-5600. That is the Alpha Wealth Group answer line. We'll take your... texts and your calls on that. Do you use AI to help prep you for interviews and things? Actually, I don't. You don't? I don't use AI. I know I think you're missing. I should. I know I should use AI. But by the way, you can sign up for my newsletters. They come out once a week on the Sunday. Breakthrough dash ideas.com. I write that all myself. Hold on you don't even use AI to edit it? I don't. And I probably should. It probably would be better. And sometimes my assistant, when she's putting it into the actual email program, she will use AI to improve me. I appreciate that. But the thoughts are my thoughts. The, you know, the style is my style. No, no, I'm not talking about altering your style at all. Yeah. I'm just talking about, I use AI to just clean off the rough edges. And if I call my attention. And sometimes they'll say that sentence. doesn't work really well, what do you get at? And then I'll rewrite the sentence. I don't, if AI writes a paper for me, it sounds like the world's smartest sixth grader. There's no soul in it at all. There's no anything. But if you use it to help, I find it very valuable. I think it cuts my writing time and half. I mean, I agree. I agree. It's just like, though, I actually, I want to make sure all my thoughts are out there and all the stuff that I have is, is combined. And so. All right. All right. Well, we're going to take a break right now. We'll be right back. You're listening to Jeannie and Jim sitting in for Dan Proft. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them right here on Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer. Well, folks, go ahead. Super significance here. Now we're playing Paul Simon. Way to go, producers. See, this makes you happy, doesn't it? I'll sing along if you want. I kind of like to rock the cast, Bob, but, you know, whatever. I like them both. Can we like them bold? We can like them both. Okay, this is very mellow down. Fantastic. No, it's not a lot. I'm going to sleep now. Because I've been up since, like, 3.45. This is going to be a sticking time. Oh, jeepers. Absolutely. Well, okay, Erica. Erica Donald's got held up at the airport, so we don't be able to talk to her, but we've got other stuff to cover. And this is a big story. And people, honestly, more media attention on this, not less folks, more media attention. That's state rep Carol Amunds and her husband indicted for fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to the FBI. And this is a big deal, a huge deal. And guess what? Of course, they've decided to plead not guilty. That's the latest. The two were charged in an indictment handed down July 7th by the Central District of Illinois. They made initial appearances in separate hearings before a federal magistrate judge who summarized the charges and explained their rights. The trial is tentatively set for September 22nd. This is all according to Capitol News, Illinois.

And you know what? She should be resigning right now. Hold, but what were they, what were they lying about? What's the fraud? What are the charges exactly? Okay, eight counts of wire fraud, one count of false statements. This is Carol Amunds, one count of conspiracy, obstruct justice, one count of obstruction of justice. And so she assisted local organizations and obtained state grants. And then she got kickbacks and clouded her daughter into... work with it, work for those same recipients of these state grants. So shocking, really. This is the Minnesota story, the California story. This is just on the state level. And the moral of this story is that when there is money, when a system can be corrupted, it will be corrupted. And these people feel that above the law. You know, everybody treats them like they're some sort of supreme beings and all of a sudden they think they're immune to it all. So they start taking grip. It's just, it's the most predictable thing. Yeah, so, I mean, look, these nonprofits that are getting money from you, they're ripe with fraud, they're ripe with political activity, and in fact, they masquerade as do-gooders and build goodwill with the politicians. And the politicians build goodwill back just to get the vote out. But really, many of them are political entities. And we're giving money away. to all sorts of them. It doesn't matter if you're Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, they're all getting, a lot of them are getting state grants. It doesn't matter if you're Hispanic or Irish or Italian. Those organizations are getting state grants. The Puerto Ricans are making out like mad. I mean, it's just incredible. They're getting over $5 million a state grant. You've got the LGBT Alliance getting a million dollars in state grants. Why? Why? What do these things people do? They do nothing. They do soft programming on youth employment, on immigrant services, on helping people find federal or government benefits, on violence prevention. I mean, all this stuff that is absolutely meaningless and you cannot track at all the outcomes of. No. And we're spending in, by the way, breakthrough ideas put out our latest nonprofit. grants that were in the FY27 budget, you can go to breakthrough dash ideas.com, go to our Doge, Illinois tab at our website, and go to the nonprofits that are in the budget for FY27. Over $768 million on 1,100 different grant lines in the budget. That's your money going out the door to nonprofits, to chambers of commerce. For heaven's sake, their membership means to fund them. We don't need to fund them. Yeah, there's another element of it too. Those same people who are directing all that money then turn to us and say Illinois has some sort of fiscal crisis and doesn't have enough money. Of course they have enough money. If they're giving them these nonsense things, of course they have enough money. They should be cutting taxes in Illinois because their problem stem for the fact that they have too much revenue, not too little. Who are the people telling you you need more money? Oh, the ones who are grifting it? Of course. Yeah, I mean, my number one hit list, Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights, I mean, $42 million in the last year's budget, tens of millions of dollars in this year's budget. And they are the leaders of every single activist protest that you find in on the streets of Chicago. What are they called again?

the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. So that is the sanctuary city people. That's what we're spending the $42 million year to bring them here. $42 million. Oh, that's great. Of your money sent to them last year's budget. So look, Carol Amos, she's the poster child. She's just the start. She should just be the start of all of this stuff. And by the way, she's the most racist. Well, I don't know. I can't quite say that. There's a couple other race baiters in the Illinois legislator, but she actually came up with the idea that you can have race-based higher education funding. And blacks are worth $6,000 in additional funding. Hispanics worth $4,000 in additional funding. If you're a rural kid, you're worth $2,000 in additional funding. And stack it all. If you're a black rule kid, that's $8,000 more in additional funding that higher education organizations should receive because of that. I mean, she's such a racist. The stories you need to know to start your day. This is Chicago's morning answer on AM 560, The Answer. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. All right, good morning. It is Jeannie Ives and Jim Murillo sitting in for Dan Proff this morning. And I've been telling you that I do write this newsletter at Breakthrough-Dashideas.com. You can sign it from a newsletter there. It comes out every Sunday. And on June 21st. Right after J.B. Pritzker signed his FY27 budget, I took a look at it and I noticed something jumped out at me right away. And that was that the overall pension cost is over 19% of the budget. But this amount, of course, is set in statute. It's not actuarially sound if the budget had a pension amount that was based on what actuaries say prudence requires. The state pension cost would be $5 billion more and amount to 26% of the FY27 budget. I also noted this on June 21st. Keep that date in mind. Total state spending on higher education is nearly equal to total state spending on higher education pensions. 2.636 billion compared to 2.091 billion. If total higher ed spending is 4.727 billion, the pension cost is 44% of the entire amount that we send to higher education. And the K through 12 pension cost is 61% of the spending on K through 12 education expense. Or if you add in the Chicago teacher pension cost, it is 40% of the overall cost of all K through 12 spending. Illinois spends an enormous amount of money on pensions, teacher pensions.

And so I wrote that in June 21st, and so I was really thrilled that Wall Street Journal and, of course, Gregory Kearney and Joshua Rao wrote about the pension cost, as relates to education spending. And Gregory Kearney joins us right now. He is a research associate at the Hoover Institution. I appreciate the fact that he wrote this in the Chicago Tribune, actually put their commentary. into print for everybody else to read and to validate what I said. I was on the pension committee, though, in the state legislator, so I was always in tune to this, and I'm so glad that other people are writing about it. Mr. Kearney, thanks so much for joining us on Chicago's Morning Answer. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. So why did you guys decide to write this op-ed? Well, the entire project, so my co-author, and I'm sure you're familiar with him if you've worked in Illinois politics, of course, Josh Rao, he's been studying the extent to which pension systems have become underfunded. And so, you know, on the education side, we both kind of can't put our heads together. And we knew a lot of states and school districts were increasing their pension contributions. And so we wanted to see how that changed over time, right? We collected a ton of data over the last two years and mapped it to the school districts, and Illinois just really stuck out. I'm not surprised. My home state isn't much better. I'm from New Jersey. So, yeah, so New Jersey, California, but Illinois definitely stuck out. So, yeah, so it just felt necessary to write about. I mean, so just to put in, for your audience, just to put in perspective, Across the country, contributions are now comprising about two percentage points more as, you know, as, you know, for covered employee spending. But that two percentage points is about, you know, since 2015 to 2023. But that two percentage points translates to billions of dollars. And in Illinois, that has increased by about six percentage points during that period. And to put it in perspective, if... Illinois managed to keep their same pension share from 2015, which is about 15%, today, that would have freed up about $1.7 billion for other forms of spending. That's, you know, that now is just going toward the pension system. It could have, you know, but. Classroom resources, new teachers, school aides, all sorts of things. And instead, it's just going right now to the retirement system. So I don't know how familiar you are with the history of it in our great state of Illinois. But Michael Madigan, when he took over years and years ago, his grand plan was that we'd have this rich public pension state and that our middle class would be comprised of these pensions. And what he's really happened is the middle class of... of Scottsdale, Arizona, has become the, you know, because that's where all our pensions go. But the question then is you look at it, and this, how does it end? How can we break the cycle, or is it only, are we going towards a state bankruptcy la Arkansas, 1933? You know, it's funny. For the last three days, I've been thinking really hard about this. Like, what could actually be done, right? I mean, the Illinois Policy Institute has done great work on this stuff.

You know, they make some really good points about, you know, changing, putting new employees into 401K plans, trying to change the state constitution, although I do think that would come up to Supreme Court challenges. And so I don't, and buyouts, unfortunately, just they've saved the state. It sounds like $1 to $2 billion, but not, you know, not really cracking that $80-something billion as it relates to the unfunded pension liability in education. So unfortunately, I'm a little worried that, and it's not just Illinois on this point. I just think some states are heading toward a situation where, you know, I mean, they're underfunding their pension payments by $5 billion this year. So it's only going to get worse. Like what happens in a period if we have like another 08 type moment. Sure. You're saying we're going over the cliff. We're sailing too close to the waterfall. Right. And we're going over the cliff. Can I, is that accurate? Yeah. I'm not, you know, I'm not one to make predictions. I, you know, who knows? You know, in the next 10 years the market could go on an absurd run and completely solved the problem. And I look like a fool. But, you know, I do worry that because, you know, and I'm sure you guys know these numbers. Like Illinois. the outmigration trends have not been great. And I think, you know, the Illinois Policy Institute just came out with a study where like six million dollars, six billion, excuse me, dollars of income left the state in 2023. and most of those people are going to low tax date. And so I don't know if raising taxes is going to solve it. It sounds like it's just going to erode the tax base further. So I don't know. I'm worried. Yeah, I'm worried. Yeah, I'll even add with the immigration statistics is that the money. is leaving the state of Illinois, but the actual foot traffic has been muted because we get so many immigrants and refugees. So, yeah, this is absolutely unsolvable problem unless we just declare bankruptcy and move along. And by the way, so I know that it's been done once before, and it was a state can't declare bankruptcy, but that's not true, correct? See, I've gotten, I'm still digging into that. I'm not entirely sure. My understanding is that Congress would need to establish a framework for a state bankruptcy. So I'm, I have to do a little more work. We're writing something up on that to try to, like, you know, project what that might look like. But my understanding is at present that the conventional knowledge is that you would need to have, like, some sort of framework put in place by Congress before doing that. That's my understanding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I was there in 2013 where they came up with this grand idea that they were going to finally challenge the pension system and see if they could reform pension systems. I actually questioned Mike Madigan as a freshman legislator on the House floor about this. He had no analysis to back it up. This was all just a charade because he knew that he would buy time.

for the judicial system to determine that whatever pension scheme they came up with with SB1, at that time it was SB1 in 2013, passed in December, of course, in a special session. He knew it would take 18 months for the courts to come back and say, oh, that's unconstitutional because we have this pension protection law that is really, it's a suicide pack for the taxpayers. And so he knew that. And so then nothing was done. And then Tier 2 continues on. And I mean, you write about this Safe Harbor standard that keeps Illinois teachers out of Social Security. Well, first of all, they changed at the federal level saying that now you can have your Social Security and your pensions. So there should not be any more discussion about not meeting the Safe Harbor requirements on top of it. They should not universally change Tier 2 for Safe Harbors with Social Security. That should be on an individualized basis because if anything, it's the wealth. more the administrators that aren't meeting the safe harbor standards who cares about them they're making seven eight million dollar pensions does people not know that seven eight million dollar pensions the average teacher is sitting on a two million dollar pensions they don't even understand that and people are getting ripped off The teachers who leave before 10 years when they're vested, they get nothing but their contributions back. This whole system is a freaking scam. And like I and other legislators, but I specifically, we have the solution. They all need a 401K. And it's completely constitutional. New hires need to be put in a 401K. I don't understand why we keep on not doing what needs to be done. Yeah, I think the funny thing is, too, is the more, I mean, again, I try to talk to people about this issue, and I don't think, maybe I'm wrong, but a lot of people I talk to don't understand just how rich the benefits are. just how much they're costing. Gynormous. Yeah. And it's like, you know, you look at a state like, and a lot of people, understandably, they tie the aggregate spending figures that they see in education to student outcomes. And they think that, you know, I mean, you just saw Gavin Newsom the other day. And I'm speaking from California. So this is, you know, but he's on Twitter bragging about how high for people expenditure amount is. I mean, and so. A lot of people do, unfortunately, tie how much they spend. Now, if all the money is going to pension contributions, I mean, is that really benefiting? your kid in a classroom. Meanwhile, you have a state like Mississippi spending $32 per people per year, and they've become one of the best public school systems in the country. Like, you don't need to spend that much money. Anyway, I just, my point being, I think people just have a misunderstanding about, you know, like, oh, we need these high, you know, these aggregate, you know, these education spending figures.

They don't recognize that most of it in a lot of the states that are distressed, like Illinois, California, New Jersey, like a lot of it's just going to pay down, you know, pay down unfunded liabilities or, you know, or just even, you know, tread water, if that. and it's not serving the state or the students particularly well. Well, and it's not just K through 12. Again, it's higher education. I think we need to focus on that a little bit, too, because the higher education people here, they keep crying how poor they are. They don't have any money. This is from the state higher education executive officers report. They put out these financial reports every couple of years. They do deep dives into the finances. And every year, every time for the past, I don't know, six reports, Illinois, number one, in the amount of money that the state provides to higher education per full-time equivalent, they always have to put an asterisk on it and say, however, you know, 40 to 50 percent of this money goes only to pensions. But that's the problem here. We're spending too much on pensions and not on real education, which is why we still have in-state tuition at some of the highest in all of our conferences when you look across, you know, every level tier, you know, Division 1 through 3 schools. Yeah. Well, I'm curious, you know, you're on the ground. You've been in these debates. Do you, I mean, do you see a path where, you know, Illinoisans get? sick and tired of this and want to do something. No, no, because there's, no, I don't see a path. I absolutely don't see a path. And then the Wall Street Journal coming out here, you know, touting Ms. Mendoza, a Democrat, as somebody who's financially responsible. If the stock market gets a cold Ms. Mendoza Democrat set in a recent interview with the Financial Times, I don't even know that we'll survive with pneumonia. You might say the Chicago pension funds currently have the equivalent of walking pneumonia, sick but not yet on ventilator. Nobody should listen to Mendoza. She sat there for 10 years during the Blagojevich years and voted for pension bonds that are still not paid off. Yeah. I mean, she's a joke. There's nobody who's serious about solving this problem in this state. And the voters are, it's too complicated, apparently for them to understand. The only time they're going to understand is when the state says, Sorry, you wealthy, wealthy districts. We've been picking up an enormous amount of your pension costs, and we're pushing it down to the local level. Your property taxes will skyrocket because that teacher and that administrator and Nutrier is making bank on pensions that all the state taxpayers are paying for compared to that teacher down in Cairo, Illinois, or Cairo. This is what's going on. Yeah, it just seems... I mean, because that is inevitably what happened in California was that they just pushed a lot of this down onto the districts.

It created a whole series of new taxes for California taxpayers, and they're actually trying to make them. It was supposed to be temporary, and now they're trying to make them permanent. Temporary. There's nothing more permanent than a temporary tax. Amen. That's what's going to happen here. Yes. No, but Gregory, I have another question, too, because for 10 years since the financial crisis, essentially, I've had the theory that the state government of Illinois and the city government of Chicago, they don't care. They almost want to run it to the ground because they believe that there's a federal bailout. waiting in the wings. And I believe the Illinois bond market has reflected that for quite some time. Do you believe that? It really, I mean, there are a series of factors that it would require, right? So I think that, like, let's suppose that there's a financial crisis, and this, you know, necessarily increases the amount that the state government owed to the pension system. it could reach a point where it's just completely infeasible for the state government to make any sort of minimum payment. In which case, you could see using the financial crisis of the moment. that a state government would go to the federal government and say, you know, look, it's not our fault, even though this is a problem generated. Even though we built our house of straw. All comes back to the pigs. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, you can have a situation like that. Now, it depends. It really depends who's president. How, what's the makeup of Congress? But let's suppose you have a president Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or president Bernie Sanders. Yeah, I mean, I could see there being a bailout. And the problem with that, too, is that I don't think it would just be Illinois. I think, I mean, why should, why should even a state with a lower, you know, debt, you know, debt, you know, just allow a bailout to happen for Illinois and they don't get bailed out. You know, your taxpayers are paying for that bailout. Why shouldn't? your taxpayers also get bailed out to whatever extent their pension systems are underfunded. And so you can have this huge rush of states looking to get bailed out in that moment, in which case, you know, it could be a nightmare. Speaking of a nightmare, as you said, President Bernie Sanders or President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I won't be able to sleep for a week because of that. I hope you're happy. Well, Gregory, we have precedents for this, actually, because at the very beginning of COVID, don't forget, our Senate President Don't Harman went to the federal government and literally, literally hat and hand said, oh, please give us $42 billion. We need 40. That was all to bail out the pension systems. They did this. They thought they had an opportunity here to get money from the federal government. They took it. And so there's no doubt that they would do this. Hey, we got to take a break. I'm so happy to have you on. Thank you so much for writing about our pension system. Greg Kearney, Research Associate at the Hoover Institution. We appreciate you. Yep. Thank you, guys. You bet. We'll be right back.

It's news, opinion, insight. This is Chicago's morning answer. An AM-560, the answer. Only the biggest stories. Only the biggest guests. And only the biggest opinions. This is AM-560, the answer. All right. It's Jeannie Ives and Jim Murillo trying to fill in for Dan this morning. Don't listen to us at one and a half speed because both Jim and I are kind of fast. I'm trying to slow it down a little bit. When you get worked up, you just go. We have so much information we want to convey. It was a big night last night. Trump given his speech about doing big things and setting the country correctly. And, of course, the biggest news coming out of that is that China's meddling in our elections. Here's more on that speech about China. As the documents, we are releasing show, CIA. reporting explicitly stated, and I quote, in mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party's policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. President in an effort to reduce the U.S. President's votes and make him resign or prevent his... Re-election. Isn't that nice? Also, in mid-2018, China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, in mid-2019, the Chinese government's strategy against the United States. was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. President. They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot when actually your president has done a great job, and they did everything possible to do exactly that. Going on, this document says, and this is by the CIA, the strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders to turn against the president of the United States of America. The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him as many as they could, and they didn't care what they said. Well, there's nobody better to discuss this topic than Gordon Chang. You can follow him at Gordon G. Chang. He's the author of Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. And based on what Trump said last night, it certainly sounds like they had a plan to try to destroy America. Gordon, thank you so much for joining us today. What is your first remarks about Trump speech last night? Trump speech.

Jeannie was extremely important because we haven't heard an American president talk like this since Eisenhower about China. And it really marks, I think, a departure in American policy. Remember, President Trump went to Beijing in May. Xi Jinping sought to humiliate our president in a number of different ways. Trump just let it rolled off his back. But now I can see the president hitting back. And this is important because... China right now is in all of our infrastructure, not just our election infrastructure, and we need to get it out immediately. So it feels like... this might be a turning point in our relationship with China. I mean, he has sort of treated them a little bit with kid gloves other than the sort of tariff's dispute that he had at the very beginning of his second term. But, I mean, based on what we just heard last night, and I've not looked at the documents, I mean, we should almost be at war with China. Well, China is at war with us. They have a different concept of conflict. They call it unrestricted warfare, and it means that they can do anything. That comes from a 1999 book by two Chinese Air Force colonels who argue that China can do anything to take down the U.S. And they specifically talk about bin Laden, who China supported at the time. This is two years before 9-11. So we've got to understand the maliciousness of the Chinese regime, and we need to start different ones. because at the society, not themselves with the bigger and determination necessary. You're cutting out a little bit there, Gordon. Yeah, we're not defending ourselves the way we should because we don't have the same conception of, we try to have this accommodation with China. China's not trying to accommodate us. So Gordon, it's Jim Muriel. Thanks so much for being on. By the way, you're a great Twitter follower at Gordon Chang. But my question is this, is that you just said we're not fighting the same more as them. Do you think that taking over Venezuela, trying to shut down the streets of home use, both of those places where China gets the majority of their world, well, 40% of the world, do you think these are steps in the right direction to try to weaken China for us to gain the, well, I know we have the upper hand already. Yeah. Absolutely. For example, just forgetting about China for the moment, Venezuela was assaulting all of those caravans of migrants coming into the United States during the previous administration. That wasn't organic. That was organized by the Venezuelan government. So clearly, you know, even apart from the Chinese infiltration of Venezuela, it's important to have changed that government.

We've seen President Trump in Panama go after the Chinese infrastructure in the canal zone, which is important to secure that vital waterway. And point out on, Iran has effectively a Chinese property disrupting the Middle East with China's resources. And probably at China's direction well, because China's been wanting to do that to the United States. and to our friends in the region. So President Trump has been doing that, and that's good. But we've got a lot of Chinese infiltration in our society. Yeah, definitely. Oh, for sure. I mean, for me, example number one is the Goshen plant in Mantino, Illinois, and I appreciate your advocacy for helping us get rid of that plant, shutting it down. The latest news from there, and I'd love your comment on this, is that... Richardson Electronics out of LaFox, Illinois, has joined with Goshen, partnering with Goshen, to now build these grid scale batteries and also batteries that will go into data centers. Now, everybody should be concerned about it because of Goshen, a Chinese entity, a Chinese entity, which, by the way, they want to deny, they want to deny that, but energy storage news put this out when this announcement with Richardson Electronics went forward, they put out. They flat out said that, sorry here, looking for this, they flat out called Goshen a China headquartered energy storage firm. This is, so Goshen is a Chinese company. And they should not be involved in building any of our infrastructure, critical infrastructure that is related to data centers, that is related to our energy grid whatsoever. And yet you have American companies partnering with them. I think this should be entirely shut down. And we shouldn't be doing anything with the Chinese government that's internal here for manufacturing. Oh, clearly, because we know that China is already in our infrastructure and has the ability to turn off our grids. So, for instance, those devices in solar farms can be manipulated from China to shut down in the United States these solar farms. And I'm sure that when we talk about data centers, China is already in there with their equipment that they can manipulate from offshore. So this is a national emergency. Another quick question, too. We had a guest on Fort Clita Mitchell, who is an election. She works on elections. But anyway, with this information that China perhaps was involved in our elections, and of course they probably are, like you said, it's unrestricted warfare. Something came up. The fact that our media often gaslights us about... election results and about what should happen to. And she suggested that it perhaps should be looked into that China is influencing media in this country. Do you think that's an avenue worth going down as far as investigative?

Oh, absolutely, because we do know that China has been in all of our internet infrastructure. And it was not just the hack of election data. We've seen the hack of, for instance, government information at the Office of Public Management, also at all of these insurance companies. China's been trying to get data about Americans that it can use against us. So, for instance, to find blackmail information. Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about, Gordon. I'm talking about more like the legacy media, like NBC, CBS, ABC. I'm not accusing anyone yet. I'm talking about that type of media. Do you think that's something worth worrying about? I know the social media part. Yes, of course, because last night we saw a number of the major media platforms not cover the president's speech because they said that he was gone. going to lie about the 2020 election results. Well, he didn't do that. And I think these large media platforms, which include CNN, need to apologize not only to the American president, but to the American people. Okay, Gordon, one last question. Where is China in terms of trying to take on Taiwan? at this point in Trump's administration? China has made it clear that they have recently, sorry, the first week of last month, they claimed a portion of the Pacific Ocean as sovereign Chinese water, which is ludicrous, but this water is east of Taiwan. And it indicates an attempt to impose a blockade on Taiwan because we see their ships and their planes circling the island in substantial numbers on a regular basis. And this claim to part of the position. All right. Well, there we go. We had a hard time hearing him at the end there. Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang is his ex-handle, author of Plan Red China's Project to Destroy America. He dropped. We are having some communication problems there, but we are happy to hear what we could. He is a wealth of knowledge. I wanted to hear. I wanted to just absorb everything he was saying. All right. Well, we'll be right back with more from Jim and Jeannie filling in for Dan. And. Gordon Chang joined us on the Alpha Wealth Group answer line. The stories you need to know to start your day. This is Chicago's morning answer on AM 560, The Answer.

Right, Jim, you know, it's really great when your opponents, people that you don't like their policies of, where they actually just show you how stupid they sound with folks. And that's certainly what the Democrat Socialists of America are doing, and specifically, man, Danny. And he had this housing event, and he had one of the activists up there in a mask, of course. Of course. You've got to have a mask because of COVID-19. And apparently eviction equals violence. Our city is turning the corner on tenant power. When we organize, we win results. The Zohran Mamdani administration is emboldening us so that we no longer tolerate the violence of evictions as a matter of business as usual. Then they clap. Idiotic. My landlord owns dozens of buildings, but he is not a steward of the public trust. In fact, it is the opposite. Oh, give me a break. So because you've scraped together enough money to actually... invest in and rental units, maintain rental units, go through all the legal problems when you have renters. And you get people in there who are very, very difficult to evict. And you're the problem. It's not these people who think eviction is violence when they can't pay their rent. And it's a grander plan, it seems like, too, because he's already laid out a situation where if landlords don't, don't. make certain upkeeps of the buildings, then they can lose the building to the city and the city will run them. So you can't evict people who aren't paying their bills. You don't have money to make those improvements, and then the city's going to take it from you. It is the same. It's the progression. So there's, you know, I've done a ton of economic research over and I figured out finally what the difference is between socialism, communism, communism, fascism. Socialism, the perpetrators have a smile on their face is evidenced by Zohran Mamdani in that clip, which people can't see that smug little smile. Communism, the smile disappears. And, well, fascism, which is the next step, then you get killed. Yeah, well, I mean, look, this isn't just happening in New York. It's happening on a very small scale, and it's growing in the state of Illinois. They are protecting renters over landlords every single time. You know, you can't ask about your criminal activity. You can't ask about your immigration status. You can't. ask about credit reports. You can't do any of this stuff anymore if you're going to be a landlord and you have a renter that you're like wondering if they're going to pay the rent or if you're going to get in there and have to go through a lengthy eviction because the people just aren't good. And, you know, the other thing about this, too, though, is when it comes to housing, J.B. Pritzker's Build Act would essentially make government housing the norm on every street. So. What happens is a house goes up for sale, a developer buys it. They go to the state. They say, look, I'm going to put a six flat here. The building codes are now at the state level, not the local level. And J.B. Pritzker says, yeah, go ahead, put a six flat here in the middle of this suburban street on a single family zoned, previously zoned residential lot. And then the developer goes ahead and gets some.

grants to help pay for the development. And then what they do is they rent it at below market rates to whoever they possibly can. And there goes your neighborhood. That's exactly what they're trying to do in the state of Illinois. And they've already approved a similar program for both DuPage and Will County. And Deb Conroy, the DuPage County chairman, is thrilled. She's thrilled about it. She's thrilled that she can now purchase property. or get property or take property and then give money grants to a developer and put a six flat on it on your street and then rent or sell it at below market rates that's already law that just passed as law so watch out dupage and will county residents the only thing they don't have control over is what can be zoned there because that's still at the local level if the build pass act passes forget it lights out for suburban Illinois. I had nothing. No notes to that. It's absolutely absurd. We got to go to. Yeah, you go. No, no, I'm sorry. We got a minute left. Go ahead. No, because I was going to say that this is just, this is state sanctioned stealing. If you are can't be evicted, even though you haven't paid your rent, you are stealing services. You are stealing from the landlord. And why would we, why would we ever want to condone that? It makes no sense to me. It doesn't make sense to me at all. But, I mean, you know what, folks in this state better wake up because it is not just happening in Mandanis, New York City. Not happening just there. It's already right here. And the progressive Democrats in this state will destroy your property rights if you let them. There's only one radio show in Chicago talking about today's biggest stories and telling you what they really mean. That show is this one. Chicago's morning answer on AM 560, The Answer.

This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. All right, it is Jeannie and Jim sitting in for Dan today. Here you go. This is a press release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dated July 9, 2026. ICE lodged a detainer requesting Governor J.B. Pritzker in Illinois sanctuary politicians to not release from jail, a Venezuelan criminal illegal alien who was arrested on felony charges of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child in Kane County, Illinois. Uh. Can't pronounce a guy's name. Valaquez Morrow. A criminal illegal alien from Venezuela pursued a nine-year-old who was riding her bike in Pingree Grove, forcing her into a nearby vehicle where he sexually assaulted her. The suspect initially fled the scene but was arrested afterward through forensic evidence on June 30, 2026. Velaquaz Morrow now faces charges of aggravated kidnapping of a child, predatory criminal sexual assault. aggravated criminal sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation of a child. And Jim, we continue to be a sanctuary state? I don't even, you know, the notion that they continually, continually side with the perpetrators and against the victims. You know, mercy for the criminal is, you know, is injustice to the victim. I don't understand it. Again, I think if you aggravate it, I don't even know what that means. Sexual assault of a nine-year-old should come with a death penalty. I think that that's actually too good. It should be torture and death, and we let them out of prison. Well, the fact that they have to lodge a detainer asking the governor to not release him from jail? It's crazy. It's absolutely insane. Again, they want this to be just loony world. Everything they do seems so crazy. Again, a buddy mind and I were talking yesterday about the difference between conservatism and liberalism. It doesn't even matter anymore. It's just like us versus the insanity. I don't even know how to define it. That's not liberalism. I don't know what it is. Well, it's like Trump said in his, you know, the state of the union speech, the other side is crazy. That's what I believe. I think it's true, too. Well, here to discuss everything about related to immigration is Andrew Arthur. He is the resident fellow in law and policy.

at the Center for Law and Policy. And he actually helped draft major immigration bills, including the Homeland Security Act, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the Real ID Act, and the Secure Fence Act. So happy to have him join us today. Andrew, what is the state of immigration in this country? And are we going to be able to keep it under control if Trump leaves office? Well, you know, it's interesting, Jeannie, because we're actually... you know, talking about two nations. When you talk about the state of Florida, where my old boss, current governor, Ron DeSantis, has authorized every law enforcement officer in the state to be deputized as an immigration officer under the 287G program. Immigration is very much under control. But when you talk about states like Illinois, New York, California, we see instances like the one that you're described. And if you really ask politicians, if you were to ask J.B. Pritzker or the mayor, you know, why exactly do you have these policies? The real part of the real reason is they just don't like Donald Trump and this is his signature issue. But if you were asked to ask them the philosophical part, and kudos to Jim for quoting Adam Smith on this, the 250th anniversary of wealth of nations. What they would say is it's unfair. It's unfair if, you know, a kid from Kenosha, you know, gets convicted of a crime, goes to jail. He's going to be released. You can go back into the community. But if that same person was from Columbia or Kenya or Qatar, then that person's going to be deported. That's going to be a special punishment that they receive. And in their minds, that's unfair. Believe it or not, that's the logic that they employ. This is crazy. So when I look back at the 2020 to 2024, then opening the borders, kicking it wide open, Joe Biden said, and he's encouraging them to surge the border. His words not mine. What was the deal? What was the end game of having open borders? Was it just for numbers, for redistricting in some of these states? Was it for the illegals to vote themselves? What's your thesis on that? Actually, Jim, you know, I don't have a thesis on it. I actually know the reason because the Biden administration put it in a document that came out during discovery in a lawsuit against the state of Texas, a lawsuit against the federal government by the state of Texas, you know, during the Biden administration. And what they explained is that the president had a dedication to diversity and fairness and equity. And for that reason, you know, it relied upon legal scholars, the sort of legal scholars you would expect, defined that the immigration laws themselves were inequitable for many of the same reasons. Now, and this sounds crazy. This may sound crazy to you, which is why so many people cast about, you know, is this about voters, whatever? No. The idea was that the immigration laws were unfair the way the Congress had written them. And for that reason,

and the president and secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had to put the large prosecutorial discretion thumb on the scale to make it less unfair. That's really what it comes down to. Nothing more, nothing less. Well, you know, Trump talked about the secure border last night. Here's what he had to say. Our previously wide open borders have been transformed into the most secure borders in the history of our country with zero illegal aliens being admitted to the United States in the past 14 months. That is zero. Nobody thought it was possible. We had the worst border in the history of our country, and now we have the best. Okay, so you helped with the Secure Fence Act. Is that helping keep illegals out of the country? You know, it's interesting, Judy, because the key tenet of the Secure Fence Act wasn't so much the Fence itself. It was a directive to the Secretary of Homeland Security that the Secretary have what's called operational. control of the border. And that means nobody gets in illegally and, you know, all illicit contraband is kept out of the country, which is a fairly, you know, reasonable request by Congress. And, you know, the unsung hero, the one name you're never going to hear when you talk about Trump's immigration policies is a guy named Rodney Scott. He's the current... Oh, he's great. He's great. Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. And, you know, as importantly, he was Joe Biden's first Border Patrol chief. He's the first chief to be the confirmed commissioner of CBP. And as soon as he was fired by the Biden administration, he wrote a letter to the Senate. September 11th, 2021, in which he laid out everything that was going on. And he explained that experienced line agents were making recommendations and they were being ignored by inexperienced political operatives in the White House and in the department. And when Commissioner Scott, Chief Scott, I like to call him, because, you know, I still think that's a higher title. When he took office, he listened to the Border Patrol agents. He listened to the officers, the CBP officers at the ports. He found out what worked and what didn't and what worked he employed and what didn't he discarded. And so if you want to know why illegal entries are down 90%, probably 70% goes to Chief Scott. And the other 30% strangely enough goes to Mexico because the president used tariff threats against Mexico to get them to secure their side of the southwest border. Imagine that. Well, at the same time, you've got this birth tourism, you know, rear in its ugly head. And you've got SCOTUS agreeing that, you know, if you give birth in the state, in the country anywhere.

And even if you're illegal, that new baby is a U.S. citizen. And Greg Abbott apparently is calling for an immediate investigation into reports at a hospital in South Texas is marketing birth packages to foreign nationals. How do we get control of this? Is this something like the Real ID Act, like the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, all that happened in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attack? Is this something that we can get some bipartisan support on? Yeah, absolutely. And the good news, Jeannie, is that the president can do most of this administratively. Oh, good. What most Americans don't understand is that, you know, the most common visa that people use to travel, the tourist visa, can be used to go to a different country for medical treatment. And that makes sense. But, you know, medical treatment includes obstetric treatment, gynecological treatment, you know, prepartum, postpartum. an actual births. And right now, the State Department regulations say that consular officers abroad and CBP officers at the ports can't ask. a woman if she is pregnant, if she is coming to the United States to give birth, unless they have a really good reason for doing it. Now, the State Department, Marco Rubio, DHS, under Secretary Mullen, can easily just add that to the suite of questions that inspectors ask at the port of entry. Is it intrusive yes? But, you know, we don't really know how big the birth tourism issue is because nobody's looked into it. But anecdotally, We know that there are companies out there that are making millions of dollars to provide travel packages to people to come to this country. And in fact, the Wall Street Journal about seven months ago ran an article that talked about how, you know, Chinese tycoons are in essence hiring surrogates in the United States to give birth to their children in the United States, even though those Chinese oligarchs never enter this country. They simply send the genetic material that they need to the United States. States and a new U.S. citizen is born here. So, Andrew, I'm from an immigrant household proudly on our block in Palatine. There was like four or five different off-the-boat Italian immigrant households back in the 60s and 70s. But anyway, my point out that it was going to bring up is that I'm fully believe that we need healthy, good vetted immigration in this country, as I'm sure you do too. And how every time the other side. points to us. They act like we're anti-immigration. What is happening with the administration regarding legal, vetted, high-quality immigration? Are they against that as well, or are they for that? Well, this is one of those things, Jim, where I'd like to see the president go back to his own 2018 state of the union address. About 65% of all the green cardholders, the legal immigrants that we have come to this country, come here because of family. They are the spouse or minor children of green cardholders or citizens. We all agree that that's a good idea. But that extends all the way to...

a U.S. citizen's brother and the U.S. citizen's brother's kid, you know, in essence, you can immigrate your nephew to the United States. And under a system like that, there's no guarantee that those people are going to bring the skills and ability to even support themselves, let alone grow the U.S. economy. only about 7% when you really drill down on it, of all of those green cards go to people based on skills. And I'm going to bring up a name from the past. And that's Barbara Jim Jordan, civil rights icon, nemesis of Richard Nixon, first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South. And she headed President Clinton's Commission on Immigration Reform. And she said something very basic. absent compelling circumstances, all immigration to the United States should be based on skills. And yet that's not the system that we have. In 2018, President Trump agreed to an amnesty for 1.8 million dreamers, an issue that I know is very important to your senator, Dick Durbin. And in exchange for that, he wanted to move the United States more to a skills-based system. Now, again, that doesn't mean you can't bring your family. Family is one of those things that we consider. Your ability to speak English is another thing that we consider. But, you know, we put a high emphasis on skills. So right now, we have a mismatch between the workers that we need in the United States who are coming here and the workers that we actually get. And I agree with you, Jim. And, you know, there are people, you know, it is so, in fact, Barbara Jim Jordan said, you know we object to anybody who decries controls on immigration as being anti-immigrant um if immigration and she you know knew this and said it a lot more eloquently than i'm about to if an immigration system is incredible the american people are going to turn their back on it uh and we saw that happen in the twenty twenty four election we saw that happen during uh President Biden's term. We need a credible, realistic, workable immigration system that works not just for the immigrants, which is what the current system does now, but for the American people as well. And there's nothing wrong with that because that's the way that you keep a strong, vibrant immigration system that brings new ideas, fresh perspectives, skills, and money to the United States. And so we really need to move to that. All right, Andrew, maybe you can help me with this. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are stuck in Australia. She had a green card. They lived in Australia for 30 years after COVID. They said, forget it. We have got to come back to the United States. He's a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. They've been paying federal taxes for 30 years. They own property in Florida. And because she refuses to take that COVID-vax, she is denied getting a new green card. I mean, this is obscene. I know Riley Gaines was able to get her husband in. He had a similar situation. I want my sister-in-law back here right now. And I'm sick and tired of these people, you know, allowing these illegals, the criminal illegals, to sit here and exist in sanctuary states. And then my sister-in-law is stuck in Australia. Maybe you can help me on that one. I think maybe I'll contact you.

outside of this conversation. Well, Jeannie, keep in mind that I've been an immigration lawyer for 34 years, but I don't actually have malpractice insurance. But I get a lot of questions from people like you about people exactly like your sister-in-law. And this really is the irritating part of the U.S. immigration system. If you come here illegally, you get tons of due process. I mean, a significant amount. Yes. When we talk about these arrests in Chicago or this. individual who was arrested for a heinous crime, you know, there is a huge layer of due process. And, you know, people protest the arrest. Well, the arrests are the point at which the due process begins. And, you know, I am dedicated to due process. It is a hill that I will die on. But, you know, We also, at the same time, have this system that is unfair to spouses of United States citizens. They want to get green cards. They want to come here. And I'm going to tell you what I tell everybody who raises this question. I say this is a former congressional staffer and as a former Associate General Counsel at the INS, been on both sides of this. Best thing to do is to reach out to your local representative. They have staffers. Yeah, Andrew. You do exactly that. I'm sorry, I've got to cut you short. We got a hard break here. I appreciate you coming on, and those staffers have been absolutely unuseful in this situation. Andrew, thanks so much. Resident Fellow of Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, we appreciate your commentary today. Thank you so much. It's been great beautiful. All right. We'll be right back with Open Mic Friday. The more you listen, the more you'll know. This is Chicago's Morning Answer. Morning Answer. On AM 560, The Answer. Open mic!

Colin! That's right. It's open mic Friday. We'll take your calls. And you criticize the Paul Simon music, and yet that open mic song is what we go with on Friday. Oh, I think it's got a little, you know, I like the beat. All right. 312-642-2-5600. That is the Alpha Wealth Group call in text line. We'll take your calls in your texts. And, you know, speaking about my sister-in-law real quick before we take some callers here, I got to tell you, it's very frustrating. In 20, in... Basically, February of 2022, they made the decision they had to get out of Australia after living there for 30 years. They were there because my brother-in-law was a former Air Force officer, flew satellites, and then he got picked up after he got out of the service by a defense contract, a U.S. defense contractor, to keep doing what he was doing and fly satellites in Australia. Hold, but are you really saying? So that's what he's doing that. And he, and she had a green card. But green card holders are, though green card holders have to renew those green cards periodically. And they're only for people that are here in the United States. And not for people that are married to veterans and live in another country. Yeah, but you mentioned something about the COVID. The COVID vaccine. Is that really part of it? Yes. No, that's part of it. So they tried to apply. They sent their daughters back to Florida in April of 2022 because they have owned property in Florida, a couple different houses, by the way, been paying federal income taxes for 30 years. And so she has to go through this process to renew her green card. She's just a renewal. Well, one thing leads to another. It's year after year after year. We're talking four years, over four years now. They've been stuck in Australia. They actually spent about a year in, what do you call it, Cancun, to be closer to Florida because she could fly in on a tourist visa at that time. Well, once the process got to the point where she's like, I'm not going to do your vaccine BS. Then they said, well, you're denied entry now. And so now she can't even come in on a tourist visa to visit. to visit at all, even her girls. This is ridiculous. It's at the point where one of the daughters is actually in the process of moving back to Australia just because she wants to be near her parents at this point. This is insane. He's a veteran. There's nothing. It's completely wrong. And oh, by the way, they made her get, you know, they had gone to, they lived in UK for a while. They lived in Mexico for a while. They lived elsewhere. She had to get.

Police reports from every one of those countries they had visited saying that she was not criminally charged with something. And we've let these people walk in. 15 million of them. What the hell? Yeah. 15 million walking across the border. We can't get our own people back. Okay, 312, 6442, 5600. Let's start taking some calls. We'll start with Ron on the south side. Ron, welcome the program. Yes, good morning, Gene, Jim. The guests, you out here don't want to talk about China. Excellent. That information was so informative. But regarding... To speak yesterday, and I know the president talked a lot about the election as important. I didn't hear enough about Iran. So, and the reason I'm thinking about that because China really seems to be a threat to us. So how are we going to reconcile this? I mean, we got there. I don't know where we are in Iran, but I think we need to really be paying close attention to China. So maybe you all can. Give me you all's opinion on that. Yeah, Ron, thanks for the call. I'll tell you where we're with Iran. We're bombing the hell out of them. We're bombing critical infrastructure. Love that. And that's what we should be doing. Oh, by the way, I got a text message from my son the other day. There was somebody who put out on P. X, obviously, an Arabic. And he had. highlighted the fact that the Iranians were targeting the Crown Plaza Hotel in Dukham. That's the very hotel that my son stayed at when he was a C2 pilot given support to the Nimitz just a year ago as Trump was bombing their nuclear facility. And so the Iranians are after our troops. They know where they stay. They know where those C2 pilots are there, resupplying the aircraft carriers. And, yeah, they want to do that. So, yeah, Iran's a big deal, and we are at war with them. But we can, I mean, I don't believe what anyone says about when reporting from Iran. The only thing I do believe is the price of crude oil, because to me, that's like the public voting on how long this is going to last and how serious it is. And crude at $81 this morning is reflecting, you know, things aren't going great, but not going bad either. Bad is $100 a barrel. Things are going pretty good as $81 a barrel, in my opinion. All right, let's take Bill and Waukegan, Bill, welcome the program. Hey, thank you for taking my call, you guys. You guys are doing a great job replacing Dan today. Hey, first of all, Jeannie, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry about your sister-in-law's plight. That has to be completely disgusting. But the reason I called was just let you guys know, I went to see the Lieutenant Dan Band last weekend, and it was phenomenal. So I hope a lot of the veterans that listen to the show here, and you're showing the late morning.

We're able to go out there and enjoy. It had to be over 10,000 people on that heat, that blistering heat last week. But I tell you, what great entertainment that man provides. And he's a great human being and a great American. And Jeannie, by the way, I just want to let you know that I'm a 41-year-old, 41-year veteran. I did active duty and then reserve. reserve time. I got out as a no-6, and I completely agree with you about Iran. We should just be bombing their whole infrastructure and just bring them to their knees. Yeah, Bill, when did total war become, you know, a bad word, or bad phrase, total war? When would that become a problem? You know, it's... It's the Democrats, I mean, because they just want to miss, they just, they hate Trump so much. I wonder what they're going to do when Trump leaves office and who they're going to be able to pin any, you know, any bad decisions on. I mean, they're just, I just feel like it should be total war. I mean, those people have hated us for so long. And the fact, just like you stated, that they, you know, they're, they know through their own, I guess their own spies and everything that. they know what the Americans are, and they're going to just try to make our lives miserable. So, and I know that there's cells here in the United States. I tell you, there's Chinese cells. There's everything that's here in the United States. And that's what I worry about from my family. I am 69 years old, and I worry about that for all of our future Americans. And I tell you, that's, that gives me sleepless nights sometimes. Well, the only thing that I. don't worry about so much is the fact that we've got, what, 330, 360 million guns in this state in this country owned by legal gun owners that will not let the country go asunder if the Chinese or the Iranians come in? I completely agree with you, Jeannie, because I am one of those owners. I have my safe and I've been stocking up, as they say. Yeah, good. All right, Bill, thanks a lot for the phone call. I appreciate you. All right, we're taking them in an order. Let's go to Lou. Lou, welcome the program. Hi, Jim. Hi, Jeannie. Jim, I was on with you months back when you filled in, and it was on an open mic Friday. Nice. Yeah, I definitely enjoyed that. And Jeannie, I've been following you and Amy on your other show, and I have a little story about Pittsburgh mayors for you and Chicago mayors. And Gene, I have something to ask you. Oh, boy. Our last Republican mayor was William McNair in 1938. 88 years. Yours was Hale Thompson, 1931, which would make it about 105 years. But it's all Trump's fault. It's still all Trump's fault. Go ahead. Yeah. And we have nothing on the horizon. In fact, a decent Democrat here named Anthony Marino is going to, I think, change from Democrat to the Republic and just the run.

Wow. Well, hey, look, I mean, my West Point classmate, Dave McCormick, is doing a great job as your U.S. Senator there in Pennsylvania. So, you know, maybe he can help turn the tide here. Okay. And then, Gene, to ask you this, when you ran for a governor, that had to be an intense... 18 to 20 hour a day job. Your emotions must have been on your fingertips a lot. Best campaign ever. Best campaign ever. And Dan Prop was right beside me running the whole thing. And we had fun with it because we were just going to tell the truth about who Bruce Ronner was and let the chips fall where they were. Of course, he lied. He lied about me and got away with it. stupid voters believed his lies. They now regret that. A number of them have told me so. Lou, thanks a lot for your comment. I appreciate you. Thanks, Lou. Okay, great. Okay, let's go to Rick and Downers Grove. Rick, welcome the program. Hey, good morning, good show. Hey, a couple things real quick. Like my dad always said, our ace in the whole is we had the Second Amendment over other countries. And you were talking about like AI and students using that. I remember when I was in school in the mid-70s, our instructor told us. We will be able to use a calculator in our classes. Once we prove to him, we understand how to do the work with pencil and paper. And once you can prove it, he understood that you understand, then he would allow you to use a calculator. But the main reason I called is that intestinal flu or the parasite that gives people a diarrhea for two weeks, everybody's missing the silver lining on that. That is an excellent... weight loss program, and I think everybody will agree. You can shed those extra pounds that's good for your health overall. And I think every doctor out there will agree with me. Silver lining, baby. Yep. Good grief. All right, Rick. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your comments. Okay. How about Tom in Blue Island? Tom, welcome the program. Hey, Jenny. Hey, Jim. So usually hope for a little bit of levity on Friday, but, you know, your guy's conversation about this illegal that assaulted a nine-year-old girl in the last segment. They reported on one of the national shows the other day that ostensibly about 2,000 illegals are being deported a day. And in texting a couple of friends yesterday. asking their opinion of how many came in under Biden. The consensus was generally 20 million. So if you're deporting 2,000 a day, even 3,000, that would mean in the four years of the Trump presidency, Jim, you're a numbers guy. You'd be talking about 3.5 million people if it's 3,000. So 3 to 4 million, let's even say 4 million.

And if 20 million came in, those people that were coming in were not old people. And now with what Amy Coney Barrett did at the Supreme Court, I would think that rate of replacement after four years is going to be more. than what's going to be deported in the four years. And just want to throw one more thing at you guys. And in relation to the nine-year-old that the governor, you know, that they don't even want to deport it, as horrible as that is, what's just say if a Democrat becomes president, they won't reopen the border? There's going to be a 5% loss at least, just people that voted for Trump that probably aren't going to vote. So here's my big worry, Tom, and I want you to hear it and decide if I think about it. Because I was not as for mass deportations, not for the reasons you might think. I think it is the right thing to do to deporting illegals. I thought the optic would be terrible and be used against the Republicans by the media effectively to portray them as these evil villains, and then we lose the midterms. So what's the point if you lose the midterms and then lose the presidency? Do you think my opinion has validity at all? Tom got dropped, but I would think that your opinion has some validity, but I mean, we just have to abide by the rule of law, and I don't care what the optics are. I agree. I'll answer to Tom of my question. Yes, Jim, you're so smart. That's what he was going to say is what I think. Okay, if you say so. Yeah, no, no, trust me. Well, listen, you know, I just want to touch this before we get to some more callers here. This is coming out of Texas. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that federal law prevents Texas from granting in-state college tuition to illegal aliens living in the state. So 24 years, okay, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas over the law. The state agreed that they act conflicted with federal immigration law and a federal judge permanently blocked the statute from being enforced. And so this is similar to what we've got here. They just passed a law doubling down, which I think we already had it in our law, but they doubled down in the state of Illinois saying we're going to give illegals. in-state tuition. Guess what you can't do that? Yeah. But I hate the fact that the federal government has to step in and stop that. It should be 50 states competing against each other, and when you have stupid policy, you're just supposed to lose. But the fact that the federal government is this governor now, and we're becoming federalism, that we're not allowed to be viewed in a vacuum. It's the voter's fault of this state for putting up with that crap. I agree. Okay, let's go to Glenn and Orlando. Glenn, welcome the program. Yeah, hi, hi, all. Happy Friday. You know, when you come to the United States,

You agree that there's one language, English, one flag, the U.S. flag, one constitution, and you assimilate. If you don't want to do that, don't come, okay? And as far as our people in states making bad decisions, those are people that are making choices that violate the Constitution. And there are just some incredibly bad decisions going on like by Tim Walz. by J.B. Pritzker, by Ruben Gallego, by Maxing Waters. These people do not qualify to be in office because they don't follow the Constitution. Amen. 100% from me. Absolutely. You can agree more. Thanks, Lachlan. Appreciate that. From an immigrant household, do you know what the expression Medigones is? Have you ever heard the Italian say that? Sorry. No, Medigones was like the slang term that the Italian community had for the Americans. It was like a bastardization of the word. But my point is that we were encouraged to hang out with the Medigones and to have the Medigones over because we were American. We were not just going to be Italians and only hang out with Italians and things like that was an important thing. And my grandpa set that down. Is it, you know, like, no, we are Americans first. All right. Okay, Ruth and Elgin. Welcome to the program, Ruth. Hi. Hi. This might sound off the wall, but I was listening to you about your sister-in-law. And I thought, you know, maybe you could contact Sean Hannity because he knows the... president so well over 30 years, the ISIS. And if you could get a hold of Trump, you know, that way or however way you could, maybe they could do something about that and get that situation resolved. Thanks a lot, Ruth. I appreciate it. Look, I've contacted a lot of different U.S. senators and congressmen that I know, and nobody was able to break through the bureaucracy. There's just a bureaucratic. stop on this stuff unless you actually do know someone I've been trying to to get the message out she should be in here she should be in the United States and they're just not listening so all right Deborah and Arlington Heights Deborah welcome the program Morning, Jeannie and Jim. I researched how much it is to get a state ID in each state, and it varies between like $20 and $80. And you have to have an ID to do practically everything in society now. So it's not cost prohibitive. And why should you not have to provide an ID for a thing that citizens only in this country? should be having the right to be doing is voting. This is like a non-argument as far as I'm concerned. The Democrats agree with you as well when polled. The Democratic voters like overwhelmingly believe, like 70% believe in that. So the fact that they're not passing it is absurd. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Deborah, thanks a lot for the phone call. Let me to jump in this.

Yeah, no, that's great. A little bit more from Trump's speech, though. He talked about our systems being vulnerable. Here's what he had to say. The document goes on to further state that, quote, we assess that centralized election-related data repositors such as voter registration databases, poll books, and other official election websites are most vulnerable to exploitation and adversaries. could use this access to these systems to disrupt election processes within the United States of America. Tonight, we're releasing all of those findings and spanning from January 2020 to June 2026. This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy. Yes, and he went on to talk about a DHS investigation. Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records. They identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. Yeah, and one of those Democrat states that refuses to share their voter file is Illinois, and I'm in a Judicial Watch lawsuit for them to require them to share that voter file so that we can assess it as well. And so I think that's headed to the settlement phase right now. We're going to talk to Rich in North Riverside. Rich, welcome the program. Hey, thanks for having me on. The thing that I was... talking about or thinking about last night as I was watching this is we're looking at the SAVE Act, and that's really held up a lot of the parts of the Republican agenda. But if what we're talking about is cyber interference from external actors, you know, the SAVE Act doesn't seem like how they're getting the voter fraud done. And with respect to China, right, it's really kind of concerning that, you know, Trump would get briefed on this in early 2021 about China, but then he would sell them these AI chips. It just doesn't sound like what you should be doing is making your opposition more technologically advanced. The other thing about the voter rolls is maybe the, you know, the Trump administration doesn't know this. Anybody can get the voter rolls. That's public information. So, I mean, they could have had this stuff from Illinois for a long time. And I think that if they don't know this stuff, I think it just means, like, we're not looking in the right places if you're hoping to stop election interference. Like, it just doesn't seem that, like, the Trump administration still gets how this stuff works.

China is screwing around with our elections. Why give them better chips? If you don't know that you can get the voter rolls, you know, what are we even doing here? So I just think that we're focused on the SAVE Act, which if we're talking about external adversaries, it just doesn't really do much if there's zaping our elections from space, like Trump said, with the Italian military satellites. voter ID isn't going to do a thing if they're switching votes from Trump to Biden. That's just not how this, you know, that's just who cares about voter ID if they're using satellites to manipulate the votes. Rich, I do not disagree with you, Jim. No, I don't disagree at all, but I think why can't we just do, why can't we take care of both? That's right. But I mean, Rich, you're making an excellent point. And I never even considered the China thing until until the speech. I just assumed it was domestic, you know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know why we're doing, you know, why we have, we allow companies to do anything on the tech side with China, quite frankly. I really don't. Given all this information that he just put out on China last night, why are we still allowing them into our infrastructure? Why is Goshen getting $536 million from J.B. Pritzker? Why is the United just shut down completely? Rich, thank you for your phone call. Trump taking, why is Trump taking the Nvidia CEO over to China to sell them chips that are better than the ones China has? It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I don't like, I don't like arming our adversaries with critical information or critical technology. I don't like that at all, especially when my kids are serving in uniform. No, thank you. No, thank you. Yeah. That's exactly it. Let's stop emboldening our adversaries and making them better. That's not America first as far as I'm doing. I agree with you, Rich. 100%. Great. Thank you so much. Let's go to Greg and Lagrange. Greg, welcome the program. Hey, good morning, guys. Jeannie, I get you twice today, right? Yeah, you do. I'll be back on at 11 a.m. Awesome. Awesome. I find it very interesting that. We can't understand why voter rolls are being subverted and why there's no ID there. I mean, it's clear. We have undermined America Party. Kimberly Strassel is the one I came up with that name, but these people are hardcore associates. They want to destroy Western civilization values. They want to destroy... the Democratic Republic concept that was put into the Constitution and use the Constitution forever, whatever they could ring it out for by changing definitions. When John Cash wrote a great column not too long ago about, you know, when the opposition party says something, they mean it. And he went down a laundry list of what they mean to do. They will do it when they come back into power. Now, here's one thing, Jeannie, I'm glad I have you on now. I keep hearing about 33 counties in Illinois saying, you know what, we want out of Illinois. That's it. We've had it. We want out. We want a divorce. Yes, seven more joined that. Yes, seven more join that cry. That's not going to happen, though, by the way. That's not realistic. We've got to all work on our own networks to change the state.

Or just, I mean, or it's just going to get worse here. And then maybe finally some of these goofy, stupid union controlled voters wake up because it's all union control. They control the vote here. Period. Can I just get one last thing? Sure. Chicago Flip's Red is a very strong, very opinionated, and very bold group of women that know what's going on. Now, how they got to the point, I don't care. Why can't we incorporate a lot of their energy and a lot of their gusto and a lot of their energy and create a better Republican Party in this state? Yeah, no, I don't disagree, Greg. We could use everybody's help in this effort because it affects everybody. So I'm glad to have new faces and new people speak up, and we do all have to come together and do something here. Thanks a lot for the call. I appreciate it. Okay, let's go to Becky in Park Ridge quick. Hi, Jeannie. I'm an election judge, and we have to accept everybody's vote. even if they're not registered, they get a provisional ballot. I'd like to know where these provisional ballots go. I understand the person that submits a provisional ballot has to go to that office and show two proofs of residency, not citizenship, residency. So if they do not go to that office, what happens to those provisional ballots? Well, I was very much. No, thanks a lot. I appreciate that. That's the mystery. What happens to provisional ballots? My son walked in. They said, oh, you've already voted. He's like, no, I didn't. So they gave him a provisional. Well, what are they doing, counting both ballots? They can't pull one back to say, oh, this is the real ballot because it's already been adjudicated. It's already been put through the system. It's already been through a tabulator. It's all monkey business. It's no doubt it's a chaotic system that they have no desire to make it not a chaotic system because they can take advantage of. Yep. Okay, Bill on the northwest side, welcome. Yeah, isn't it interesting that you need an ID to get into the Obama presidential library? But Obama thinks you shouldn't need an ID to vote in a presidential election. Huh. Imagine that. How about that? Yeah, how about that? Yeah. Obama's such a fraud. All right. Thanks a lot, Bill. Appreciate it. We're going to take a little something off topic here that we've been talking about, but let's talk to about it. Paul, air quality, Campton Hills. Hey, well, actually, this is Tom Skilling it. I wanted to talk a little bit about what's happening in the atmosphere. You know, now that I'm retired, I have a lot more time to look at the weather maps. And, you know.

This smoke is most of it's covered from the balcony in my condo, you know, because now that I'm retired, I can do it. That's great. You know, Mary Jane there. But, you know, later this afternoon, this is all going to clear out. And we're going to be able to breathe a little easier. And you'll be having that Cubs game tonight. So everything's going to look great. I've been looking at the weather vats all morning. I sleep with weather vats, by the way. By the way, someday interject your Paul, as if we needed more reason to be irritated with Canada. Canada. Get things in order up there, people. Okay? It's costing me money at the restaurant. People didn't come out last night because of the smoke. So Canada, I blame you. If I was president, you might have to put some troops on the border. All right. Thanks a lot for the call. A great call, Paul. Appreciate it. Let's go to the Prime Minister. Welcome. Jeannie, the headline is, date me, dump me, double your money. Now, as fellow problem solvers, I assume you two will help me address perhaps the greatest dilemma of our age, namely why the brilliant Dan Proff remained single. We all know informed leadership is needed to steer this country into the second half of the 21st century, so I have enlisted AI to get into the oven a new generation of baby proffs. I will now reveal what AI figured out to get him a wife. And then to get her in the family way, ideally like the Octomomom. First, AI crafted an ad that will turn the head of every intelligent woman. It's on the mark because AI knows what single women want. Hence, date me, dump me, double your money. People will call in, beautiful women will call in when Dan Proff's ad runs everywhere. Now, step two. The single women will call Jeannie Ives. Jeannie Ives will screen every girl who's responded to the ad. And again, she will explain that in the past Dan has dated women and he shaped them up. He's shown them how to think. He's shown them critical thinking. And then they go up and they dump him and they make a lot of money. And so. It's a come on, it's a fishing expedition to get the beautiful women to date Dan Proff. After Jeannie screens the women and improves those few that will be suitable, then we have Uriyo who will go and meet the women and play them in pickleball at a Wisconsin nudist colony. And that's the best way to judge. I agree with you, yes. That needs to be done. Well, I mean, let's face it. That's just normal. The woman's going to have to be attractive to. Well, naked pickleball is the way to ascertain. This is Friday. We can say whatever we want, right? We're not going to get kicked off the year. She has to be attractive, and it'll give a new meaning to the term pickleball when a Uriel place is women at the nudist colony. All right.

All right. Well, we'll bring these suggestions up to Dan, but I just don't think that he's going to go for it. But I'm in. It's hard to teach a dog new tricks and an old dog new tricks. And, you know, Dan Sullivan set in his ways. I'm not sure that that'd be fair to a woman at this point. Naked pickleball player already. All right. Okay. To close it out, we've got Chuck in Delavan, Wisconsin. Chuck, thanks for sharing this. Thanks for mentioning my garage band, Chinese tycoons. That was really nice to mention that. Hey, don't come up here this weekend. I don't care what that time skilling just said. It's smoky. You can't breathe. You can't see a quarter mile down the road. Chuck, you just want the lake to yourself, don't you? No, I don't, I'm not, I'm in my house, man. I ain't going nowhere. All right. It's bad. It's terrible. This is the worst. And again, I'm really irritated with Canada, as we said. Yeah, well, look, my dog doesn't even want to go for a walk these days. Mine is whining. You've made the switch, and it feels so good. You switch to Chicago's morning answer on AM 560, the answer. Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature Bank. Signature Bank takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise, custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether you're a business looking for a deposit relationship or needs a ready source of financing, Signature Bank is the right bank for you. Call today at 773-467-500 to hear how Signature Bank can help your business grow and thrive. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.