She Gone! Pam Bondi Out As Attorney General

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. Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. Ice operations do continue in Chicago. It doesn't have the fanfare of Midway Blitz anymore. But they are continuing quietly. And this is the subject of a community meeting that was held in Brighton Park. Because, you know, these professional agitators, the shiftless set. have nothing better to do than, well, show up to a Brighton Park community meeting, first of all, to a bitch at Larry Snelling, the Chicago police superintendent. Because they know they've seen it. They're out with their whistles and their binoculars and their colored hair and their prefabricated signs from the NGOs that pay them eight bucks an hour to be a professional agitator. They've seen CPD working hand in glove with ice and they're not going to have it. When it comes to the Chicago Police Department in these Chicago police officers, our officers showed up. To keep down violence. Ooh, we're for violence. During public comment, a limited number of speakers were given a chance to voice their own concerns. The community knows that CPD and ICE aren't up to live and collaborating with each other. We have seen it with our own eyes. We have seen it in our communities. It's really clear that under superintendent selling, if you wear a badge, you can commit whatever crime you want to which part. Where's the investigation? Where's the accountability? Mm-hmm. A.B.C.7 reporting a dozens turning out. Dozens of yapping little terriers turning out for this Brighton Park meeting. It's so newsworthy. 312-642-2-5600 to give us a call or text, but there is a purpose to it. I mean, it's a purpose that probably... flies over the heads of those people you heard from screeching at Larry Snelling at that community meeting. But there is a purpose to it from the, at least at the NGO level and above. What do you think that is? We've seen it under Larry Snelling. If you wear a mask and have a badge, you can commit whatever crime you want. Where's the accountability?

Snelling responded after the meeting in basically in a polite way saying, well, why do I even bother? If we're going to have a conversation around things like this, you know, it has to be with people walking in with an open mind. If you don't have an open mind, then we know your mind is made up and we're never going to have a respectful discourse. Well, I don't know how to break this to you, Chief Snelling, but you're going to have to find another city if you're looking for people with open minds. Forget, you know, another neighborhood. You are in the wrong place if open minds is what you're interested in indulging. Why do they do it? Tony, Tony, Tony Prequenka, you may know her as Queen's Sugar. Remember that? Fresh off her resounding primary victory. So she gets another term as Cook County Board President. Yay! She held a presser because she got wind. That ice also, in addition to perhaps appearing in Brighton Park from time to time, is also appearing at the courthouse. And she's not having that either. She's just a professional agitator in a smart suit. We've seen that the domestic violence courthouse is particularly egregious and disgraceful. ISIS presence in and around that courthouse threatens and endangers some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Survivor seeking justice and safety should not be intimidated or forced to worry about the safety of their families when they take the courageous step of seeking help. I'm sorry. So ICE is, let's just stipulate to the idea that ICE is at the domestic violence court. Do you think they're looking for the domestic violence victim or do you think they're looking for the perpetrator of domestic violence?

312-642-2-5600 there's a point to this there's a point to the hysterics at the brighton park community meeting there's a point to tony preckwinkle purposely characterizing ice as essentially you know re-victimizing or intimidating somebody who has been a victim of domestic violence from coming forward or from obtaining justice when in point of fact That makes no sense. That's not what's happening. Can somebody point to me or point to Queen Sugar an example of a domestic violence victim being taken into custody at court when, ostensibly she was seeking justice and safety? I have heard of no such case. I have heard of cases where ICE agents are in courthouses to bring people in this country legally who commit additional crimes like domestic violence into custody for the purpose of deporting them. I've heard those cases. So the point of this sort of adjut prop or that at the street level in a Brighton Park community meeting. or with a duly elected official like Tony, Tony, Tony Preckwinkle, she feels good. Well, let me give you another example. Maybe this will crystallize it for you. Charlemagne, the God, he is a, you know, I guess popular radio talk show host. He's got a big show out of New York City that's syndicated that all the leftist politicians. traversed through and so forth. He was talking about his experience at LaGuardia recently during the Dem DHS shutdown, TSA not getting paid. And I had a very pleasant experience dealing with ICE officers and was mainly ice officers who he apparently dealt with while making his way to his gate and so forth. But listen to the end. When I flew out of LaGuardia Friday, I didn't see no TSA agents. Ice was doing everything. And how was it? How was your experience? I mean, they were great, to be honest with you. Like, to be honest with you, like, they were. And for that particular terminal, I was flying out of LaGuardia. I forgot what... Terminal it was, but yeah, they were being extra nice, like Chick-fil-A workers. I was saying to myself, I'm like, there is no way in hell. This is the same ICE agents that was on the streets of places like Minnesota with the mask on. Like, they're not wearing masks, like they're being super nice. I think it's a sigh-up, okay, for the midterms, right? Because if you put them in the airports and they're super nice and they're helpful and they got things running efficiently, when he says we're going to have them at the polls in November, nobody's going to think twice about it.

Deep thoughts, Charlemagne the God. You see, we've been conditioned to believe that ice agents are not human beings. And then we see them at an airport. where they're not having to deal with people that are, you know, throwing frozen water bottles at them or otherwise trying to obstruct them from conducting their business, putting them in jeopardy with a car or intervening when they're trying to detain someone, for example. We... We see like they're human beings that act just the same way any other decent human being would act. And that can't be because we've already, we know they're not human. We know they're jack booted thugs. We know their business is terrorizing people. We know they kidnap and disappear people. And yet then I see them in LaGuardia handing out water bottles or holding my place in line or just helping to facilitate the process of getting through security so people don't miss their flights. And I say, well, wait a second. That doesn't comport with everything I've seen, in quotes, and been led to believe. So what do I go to? It must be a SIOP. For they're real. play, which is to steal the midterm election. All of this is conditioning people to turn on law enforcement. And that's the point. And so you see survey results coming out recently where a super majority of Americans still support deporting. illegal aliens who've committed an additional crime other than entering the country illegally. And a slim majority support deporting all people in this country illegally. But those numbers have come down a little bit. A majority also support whatever they believe or have been led to believe, to my point, are necessary ICE reforms. Like the ones that were promulgated by neo-Marxists in the Senate per the basis of their DHS shutdown. But actually it turned that they really weren't interested in them because they didn't even negotiate when there was some give from the White House. They didn't even bother. It was just posturing. Because the real purpose is to methodically water down public opinion such that this... He is no longer an albatross around their necks. And they can get to what they really want to do, their big play, real play, as opposed to Charlemagne the gods invented sciops. But get people oriented to think that way. If you see something that runs afoul of the propaganda we've spread, be skeptical.

Water it down, water it down so there's not a political price to pay for our big play, which is permanent residency, if not citizenship, for people in this country illegally, which is to defang ice, just as it was to abolish police. And just because you have proponents of abolishing police that have been elected to mayor's offices, like, oh, I don't know, BLM Brandon or. Zohran Mamdani, the Mark Carney, and they're not saying the same things in the same bold ways. Doesn't mean they don't still have the same agenda. They do. But they have power now. So they can do things with more dexterity than just... showing up to a Brighton Park meeting and yelling at the police chief. They have more tools at their disposal. They can do things more creatively and perhaps effectively and permanently. Joe in Hoffman Estates. Good morning, Dan. I think the next thing Trump should do is change the name from ICE. to national immigration custom enforcement. Yes. Exactly. There we go. Just like the UK government-run health care system, nice, right? How could such an acronym belie anything other than pleasantness? Yes. George Naperville. Yes, Dan, they want to keep the hate for ice at a high level to motivate their martyrs. George, thanks. Mike and Union. Hey, Dan, in regards to Tony Prequakely at domestic or family court, are the victims required to show up at court if they're fearful of ice? I mean, well, I don't think fear, I don't think, thanks for the call, Mike. I don't think a fear of ice is the basis to not appear in court if. if your presence is required, although in Cook County, you know, I mean, who knows, right? This is not a county that is dogmatic about the rule of law, even in a court of law. But, of course, the larger point is that why are ICE agents there for the domestic abusers? And why do they have to go to court to get a domestic abuser? Because Tony Breckweko won't cooperate and honor ICE detainers. Don't you love the ironies? And yet, what does she do? Well, right over the top. They are targeting domestic abuse victims because that's what she wants you to believe. Just like Charlemagne, the God wants to believe there's no way ICE officers are ever decent. If they're appearing to be decent, it's part of a sciop to steal something else or to commit some other crime against humanity. They are incorrigible, these leftists. And the useful idiots that show up to Brighton Park community meetings are unreachable. 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.

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 AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proff here. So, Pam Bondi, she gone.

secured first ever terrorism convictions against members of Antifa, shattered domestic and transnational gangs across the country, and so on and so forth. I remain grateful for the trust the president placed in me to make America safe again. Massa! Massa! Albert Northside, you're on Chicago this morning incident. Dan and listeners, I can't help thinking that Trump has guaranteed that the next president will be a Democrat. Why is that? because the entire feminine gender will be coming after him to scratch his eyes out for firing a woman and replacing her with a man. I don't know about that. I don't think. I think, well... More than half the country has moved on from that. You know, we've, the glass ceiling business and the, and, you know, keeping score of a man replacing a woman or woman replacing a man in cabinet positions. I mean, right, it's the old, I don't get credit for installing Pam Bondi as attorney general, but I take the blame for replacing her. Okay. I don't know how compelling that is. The identity in politics, I think, is the least of the concerns here. The immediate concern is who replaces her. I mean, Todd Blanche is like a serious guy. He was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. He would partner at a, you know, a big law firm. And there was also some reports. There were maybe some friction there and some sort of blame shifting. Todd Blanche was slow rolling prosecutions and there was friction between Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche. You know, who knows? So who replaces her as the first order of business? There's talk of Lee Zeldin. Okay. There's talk of, well, Todd Blanche taking the acting off of Todd Blanche's title at present. Okay. Janine Piro, U.S. Attorney for the District? No. I would put forward John Sauer, who is the Solicitor General. You heard some of what he offered. in the birthright citizenship case, as we discussed yesterday, oral arguments before the Supreme Court. He's a pretty talented guy, pretty a sharp legal mind. So we'll see. But, you know, I think if we're being honest with ourselves, from the beginning,

there was some head scratching about the choices for the Department of Homeland Security Secretary and for Attorney General. Well, there was a lot of head scratching for Attorney General because he started with Matt Bill Gates and then he went to Pam Bondi. And, you know, I know Pam Bondi was Attorney General in the state of Florida and, you know, has credentials in her own right. But... As I said many times, I'll just repeat it. I mean, she didn't strike me as the sharpest legal mind. She didn't seem to me that was like the most talented person you could have selected for that job, both from a legal mind perspective as well as from a communications perspective. And it was interesting because Trump put so much emphasis on the ability to effectively communicate. Part of it, though, to be fair, these cabinet secretaries are in a difficult position because Trump demands so much apple polishing that they can, you know, it's a difficult tight rope to walk to be substantive and to put the most substantive position forward in the most compelling way, but also. with concerns about whether or not you're being sufficiently obsequious to the president in doing so. So it's a difficult dynamic. But look, I think there's a couple of things that spelled her end. One is the...

prosecutions that Trump wanted to see happen. I think that's certainly in the mix of people involved with the Russian collusion hoax and the jacksmiths of the world. People involved in the lawfare that was committed against the president. And then it was their handling of the Epstein matter. The Epstein matter was a complete disaster. She and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino handled that about as badly as you can handle it, particularly because, and I know we can really get it if you want, we don't need to, particularly because of their overheated statements about the Epstein files before they were Attorney General, FBI director, assistant FBI director, respectively. horribly handled and it really muddied the waters for the better part of the last year and sidelined important discussions that relate to the Trump policy agenda provided so much ammunition to a bunch of neo-Marxist projectionists because of the awful strategic thinking and communicating that Pam Bondi and others displayed. And that's been my view from the beginning. So, you know, and also some perspective on this, both with Noam and Pam Bondi. And I haven't even gotten to this week about Noam's husband. Good grief. But, you know, some perspective on this. Cabinet Secretary has come and go. This is not unusual. It's not unprecedented. It doesn't indicate chaos. It happens. Bob and Wilmette. Hey, good morning, Dan. You just brought up Kristi Noem's husband. Did you know that that breaking news came out on the National Day of Transvisibility? Perfect timing. Absolutely. I mean, that's not insensitive. I think that's very forward. No, I agree. I mean, it was an opportunity to celebrate this undisclosed news about Mr. Kristi Noem or whatever his name is. And they love when you celebrate stuff like that. But thinking about the replacement for Pam Bondi, and I like your... choice of John Sauer. He's quite the intellect. I really like how he handles himself. But he sounds very much like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. And can we really have two higher-up people in the administration that sound like Catherine Epburn had just smoked a carton of Lucky? I don't think so. All right. I mean, you can get away with that with sour, but, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has like a neurological condition. But yeah, okay. I hear you. I know. I know. I mean, why don't we just pick Kathleen Turner if we want to voice that husky, right? Yeah, I get it. Okay. Yeah, or bread of the car. All right.

All right. That's it. That's your pick? Okay. All right. Thanks for the call, Bob. All right. Salient comments. We're off to a good start there on the next AG. Bill on the northwest side. It's a disturbing pattern, isn't it, Dan? Over the last two administrations, he consistently seems to get that appointment wrong. I mean, you go down the list, and where's the good one? Yeah, I mean, thanks for the call. Look, I think Bill Barr made some mistakes, but I think Trump made some mistakes too. I mean, I think Bill Barr is, I would give him a C for being Attorney General for the second time around. I mean, I think he's a very smart guy. and an uber talented lawyer. But I think there were definitely some blind spots he had. I think, and I've said this before too, as we've discussed this, that I think, you know, a little bit too much of an institutional man. And I think there was some institutional blindness as a result.

You know, the chippiness over the 2020 election results that fractured the relationship between Barr and Trump. Look, Trump's legal team was a clown show in 2020. So it also points to maybe the legal talents around him. Michael Cohen, you know, his fixer. I mean, there are lots of examples of this. Yeah. So, you know, for, I know Trump is. the model of perfection in the minds of some in maga but um you know this is the problem you run into when you default sometimes to people that are um basically yes men and women as opposed to people that you are retaining because you think they're talented and you're going to you want them to apply their talents in the direction of serving your agenda but they don't need to spend a lot of time reminding everybody how great you are or you think you are and you know and over the top superlatives about the greatest this and the greatest that and I mean, it just is, it's unnecessary. But that's what Trump. I mean, even said it the other day. Was that the Easter brunch where he talked about people being nice to him? He was referring to some newsreader. It's like, you know, I like people who are nice to me, you know, even if they're, even if they're. bad people, as long as they're nice to me. And I, it was a little bit tongue and cheek, but I thought there was a little bit of a reveal too. And this is, you know, and this, I mean, really it is what you see and what you hear. Again, if we're being honest here. I mean, the bootlicking that you hear during press conferences or cabinet meetings from Scott Bessent and Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi and it's just enough. It's not necessary. Can we just focus on the matters at hand? Everybody's already made their mind up about Trump. And by the way, all of that apple polishing, I mean, doesn't help. So I don't know who they think they're persuading. And I mean, I'm talking about Trump included, who they think they're persuading about Trump by all this goo in his direction. Tim in Plainfield. Hey, Dan. Well, I'd like to ask you, do you think Pam Bondi was sort of fighting with one hand tied behind her back with the Senate blocking all his? judicial nominations and and also that subject doesn't seem to get talked about very often what why are they doing that what what is the purpose of them blocking all his i mean just just out of hatred for trump yes blocks his whole agenda it hurts the country yes thanks for the call to him yeah i mean that's a good point i mean that's i don't know that that um necessary that uh imperiled or um

made Pam Bondi's immediate job in the first year more difficult. I mean, that's not where her failures occurred or that's not the source of her failures. But, oh, yeah, why are they blocking? Because that's what they do. Whatever he says, they reflexively oppose. Whatever he does, they reflexively oppose. Whoever he wants in, they reflexively oppose. Greg, Lagrange. Hey, good morning, Dan. Morning. When you talk about misinformation and dysfunction in the White House, I think that's built into the cake with a Trump administrator. I'll just be honest with you. Who would I like to have as a replacement for Pam Bondi? It'll never happen. It's as possible as a snowball's chance in hell. Richard Epstein. I know, you know, he amazes me when I listened to your podcast yesterday. He blows my mind, like his mind was blown. But the names I keep seeing, and I'd like to get your opinion on them, are this guy named Jay Clayton, who I think is a district attorney or a U.S. attorney in Manhattan, or somewhere in New York. And then there was another guy that was in the administration called Jeffrey Clark. Yeah, he was an assistant AG last year. The political guy, yeah, the political guy I keep hearing is Mike Lee. And I know he has some legal cops, but, see, damn, my whole problem is there is so much lawfare going on. I think you can only break apart this big mess if you handle, just allocate three topics that you want to go after and go after them hard. But in your opinion, in my opinion, the AG is the most important position that you could ever appoint. And I don't think he's done, the president has done a real good job at appointing at that position. And I agree with you about the whole leadership at the FBI and all that kind of stuff. If you come from talk radio and you make a lot of bold statements coming out, that's the wrong approach because you're going to be held to those standards. And there's no way you can be held to those standards in the real world. I just think it's impossible. I just want law. I want law and order and force. I don't care who goes to jail, whether it's the Undermine America Party or whether it's a party that we vote for. I just want legal precedence to be a side. I want my country back. I want my values back. I want my republic back. Thank you. And have a great Easter. Thanks, Greg. You too. Tom, DuPage. Yeah, that was actually your last caller, put it in the head. Well, I think he needs a bulldog to replace Pam Bondi. You know, I look at this as in the real world. You know, if you're not doing the job, you're gone. You're fired. And opposed to the government world, schools, especially schools, hey, they get rewarded for failure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, thanks for the call time. I mean, look, the handling of the Epstein files alone was a terminable offense as far as I'm concerned. So there you go. Take it for what it's worth. The stories you need to know to start your day. 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. This is Chicago's Morning Answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer.

Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. The president and his team, including the vice president, who he appointed to head up a task force, have made some big statements about benefits fraud in this country. And I think those big statements are warranted. And I'd like to find out if they're true. Like, for example, we could, you know, balance the budget. just by rooting out benefits fraud. And that's just with the federal government side of welfare programs like Medicaid that are joint, right, joint federal state programs. Think about how much the states could save as well. And this is like removing violent. Well, removing public safety threats who are in this country illegally. There's virtually no opposition to this. Supporting voter ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register. There is virtually no opposition to this. Seems like pretty good issues to press your advantage on. But you have to produce. If you're suggesting there is systemic fraud and you're suggesting that Blue State and city politicians have no interest in ferreting it out, which I think are reality-based suggestions, then you have to step in and prove up, do the work, produce the results. And you'll accrue the benefits if you do. So we're getting started. That's the good news. Yesterday in California, as Fox News reports. You need to understand this story is this. 80% of the people who enter hospice die there, most within three weeks. But in the case of these two hospices, going to the records, 97% are discharged alive. So this morning, the feds accused these hospice owners of stealing millions from taxpayers intended for the compassionate end-of-life care for the terminally ill. Do you have any to say about those charges? I don't know anything. Have you got anything to say about these accusations? We've been best to getting for four years. And? And he had nothing else to say. So the feds took down this couple. He's a doctor, she's a nurse. They enrolled hundreds of patients not, or basically who were not qualified for hospice, but they billed the federal government as if they did, pocketing about 30 grand per patient. The suspects you see here, along with about a half dozen others, they were booked today for fraud, collectively costing, again, taxpayers, about $50 million. You know, the journey to a trillion dollars starts with the first 50 million, if you will. CBS News is Adam Yamaguchi was on scene as well for the FBI raid of these hospice owners' homes. Eight were taken into custody. Yamaguchi is the one who did that excellent investigative piece on hospice fraud in L.A.

You don't get to say that very often about CBS News. And part of in very Nick Shirley fashion, enlisting a local with local knowledge to provide, you know, to essentially serve as a Sherpa for him to go to these various hospice businesses to see that there was nobody there. Mail had piled up. And yet you look at the state records in terms of disbursements to these businesses. And they're in the. millions or tens of millions of dollars. Yamaguchi on scene provided this commentary. You have to say this? You're anything to see? All right, so I'm on the scene of a FBI-led raid of a home owned by a husband and wife, psychologist, and a nurse who the FBI says ran a fraudulent hospice for years, racking up over $7 million in fraudulent payments. I don't know if you can get a sense, but we are... in a very, very nice part of town. We're in the city of Sandinus in a very early area. Homes are all behind Bill Gates and essentially hidden behind all of the screenery here. This is a very private, exclusive area. You wonder where the money from hospice fraud goes. Some of it goes to funding a certain lifestyle. Yeah, no question. We saw that from Nick Shirley's piece last week, this sort of what looked like a hotel complex where all these hospice businesses were supposedly located. And there wasn't a car in the parking lot that wasn't worth at least 100 grand. Now, hospice fraud is good business. So is quality leering centers. So our phony... medical transport companies, so are phony, baloney autistic service providers and so on and so on and so on. Dr. Oz was on site for this, too. Now, this is a big splash because, of course, the public relations of this, the communication to the public about this is important, but this better not just be about big splashes because that will fall flat. This needs to be about big results. So find that everybody was there and everybody gets their time to, you know, beat the lectern with their shoe. But this needs to be the beginning of something that is big. And I'm not just talking about hospital providers in L.A. Although that's not a bad place to start, clearly. I'm talking nationally. And if you want to prioritize those states that seem to be most tolerant of fraud that happen to be the Californias and the Illinois and the New Yorks and the Marylands and the Minnesotas, that's fine. But, you know, chop, chop.

Dr. Oz. We believe half of them are fraudulent. Half of the 1800 prospects should not be in business if we are able to identify the red flags. That's what we're basing these numbers on. These are not random assumptions. World experts at CMS say if you've got 100% or near survival. Certainly if you've got to survive over 50% for a population that's supposed to pass in six months, you've got a problem. If you're clustered in the same buildings as other crooks, if you're sharing employee numbers and license numbers, if you've got a small number of people less than 50 members, you do that because you can hide what's really going on when they're small because you don't have reporting obligations. J-1 visa holders. There are lots of things going on in California that just are not rational, and we're going to take them out. These defendants that you heard about, there were seven hospices. I want to pat him on the back. The entire first four years of really looking at this issue since 2021, when the report came out from the Auditor General here in California, the entire first four years, there were four hospices that were revoked. Four hospices. Seven of them were criminal charges today. So you see a dramatic and appropriate shift. CMS is going to suspend payments to stop money from leaving the U.S. That's our goal. We're going to review every single hospice in California to make sure that they're all appropriate. And we hope to do that expeditions and we'll do it this year. And I'm going to make an announcement today because I'm going to throw the gauntlet down for Gavin Newsom. When asked about the hospice fraud in California, that again, his own administration was involved in barking how bad our issue it was in 2021, he responds by saying that he's been... responsible for taking out, you know, 280 of these hospices. In the 10 weeks since we first were together in front of you, in the 10 weeks we have taken out 221 hospices already. 221, we will surpass the governor's achievements in the first four years within the month, we believe. Uh-huh. Yeah. That's a good comparison contrast. The other thing that's useful about this is, as Oz said, an important point, this was identified at the state level in 2021. And this is the lethargic approach that the Gavin Newsom administration has taken. Just the same way we have whistleblowers in the human services departments in Minnesota that sent that open letter to Tim Walz detailing all the efforts they've made to interdict fraud that fell on deaf ears within the Walls administration. And that's the point. Part of the, I mean, the point being that not only do we have state officials and state government effectively, at least at the leadership level, that is indifferent to this theft, we potentially have state officials at the leadership level who are complicit in the theft, who are legally liable.

who potentially have criminal exposure. And that needs to be fleshed out with all due speed. It's not good enough that Tim Walz just couldn't run for re-election because of what was unearthed in Minnesota. Maybe he should be on the other side of the bars if the evidence provides. And these are questions. And the Department of Justice, it's incumbent upon them to provide the answers with explanation. So we've fully investigated. Here's what we found. And here's what we're doing based on what we found. That sort of unified theory of the work product of an investigation. And interestingly, acting AG, Todd Blanche was on with Waters last night. And he made a commitment. It's the proper commitment, and now it needs to be abided. This includes leadership and state governments. Our investigations do because guess what? They are in many ways the actual conduit. They're letting it happen by not doing anything to stop these individuals stealing from the American people. And so you're going to see this Department of Justice pour all of our heart and soul into fraud cases all over this country for the foreseeable future. Heart and soul. All of the cases across the country foreseeable future. I like all of the component parts of that statement. Now you need to live up to it. And again, I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not guaranteeing that there should be any prosecutions of governors or senior officials in these state administrations. Sovereign immunity policy choices got a lot of protections for politicians. And willful blindness probably isn't enough to get you indicted. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you could encourage some anonymous whistleblowers in places like Minnesota to come forward and cooperate with federal authorities and perhaps point. in a direction that provides evidence of active participation, like at the conspiracy level of the frauds that were perpetrated on taxpayers, both at the state as well as national level. This all needs to be fleshed out very much at the beginning. And I know this is not all going to be fleshed out between now and the midterms, but this needs to be something that animates the Department of Justice. And anybody who wants to cooperate at the AG level, at the state level, thus the legislation from Ashley Moody, I think it was, the senator from Florida, to empower state AGs in this direction and to encourage cooperation between Fed and state AGs. I know you're not going to get that with Kwame Raul in Illinois. But, you know, some other AGs, including...

The guy in California, Banta, I think his name is, who actually was interviewed for that Yamaguchi piece, CBS News a couple weeks ago. You know, they have their own political aspirations or even survival to consider. So we'll see how this plays out. But this needs, again, this needs to be central to what the Department of Justice does and on down the line, not just at the federal level, but through U.S. attorney's offices in cooperation with whistleblowers and state elected officials and government officials that want to facilitate the interdiction of this massive fraud that is going on across the country, to be sure. Mike on 294, you're on Chicago's morning answer. Hey, good morning. I just got a comment about the hospice fraud. About the what? The hospice fraud, yeah. Yeah, the hospice fraud. Yeah, the state doesn't have to worry too much because they'll get at least some of that money back in property taxes. Well, thanks for the call, Mike. I mean, you know, there's an opportunity here, too. You know, there was this talk about... like a tariff dividend check, you know, at the federal level, rather than passing the savings onto you in terms of the government cutting checks, mobster style, you know, at the state level, once you get your handle, let's think about Illinois. We've talked about this before, many times now. Thanks to the work at wirepoints.org, we know that human services spending has risen eight times the rate of the budget increases in Illinois during J.B. Pritzker's tenure. Eight acts faster than budget increases, which are up about a third in real dollars during his term, if I'm remembering correctly. That's a massive increase in human services spending for a state that is losing population. Hmm. So it could be a combination of the population we have welcomed from other countries to reside in this country legally in the sanctuary state of Illinois. That could be part of it. But I'm betting you dollars to donuts. that it has a lot to do with fraud. And a leading indicator of that is not just what's happening in other states, is that $5 billion worth of unemployment insurance fraud, that little imbroglio we had a couple years ago in Illinois. So, yeah.

Point is, if you had an opposition party. And actually in California, you do. Not only have an opposition party, the way, because of their jungle primary, you may have a Republican governor. I still think it's a long shot. But I mean, could you imagine if Steve Hilton, for example, if Dems got hoist by their own Patar in California and Steve Hilton became the governor of California, boy, then you'd really have an opposition party. But even still. You start to get a handle on just exactly the monetary value of the theft that has occurred. And you say, here's what we're going to do. I mean, as a proposal, say, we stop this fraud. We do a redetermination of Medicaid rolls, for example, and we move people off who shouldn't be on. The savings will be at minimum in a state like Illinois in the hundreds of millions. Could be in the billions. Medicaid. I bet it is in the billions, actually. Medicaid is the single largest expenditure in the state budget, more than schools because we have nearly one in three Illinoisans on Medicaid. By design, of course, dependency breeds loyalty. But you could, if you had an opposition party or an opposition party leader, you could say, look, we're going to realize this much in savings and we're going to reduce the expense of government accordingly. Or we're going to target the savings, if you will, to reduce the state income tax back to the 3%. flat that it was prior to Ronner or eliminate it altogether. We could do it. How about that? Eliminate the state income tax and, you know, live like Tennessee and Texas and Florida, big states that have school districts and police departments and all the wonderful government services that Illinois has by better. And yet they don't have income tax, state income taxes. Gee, how do they do it? Well. It obviously can be done. Between the interdiction of fraud, getting fraudsters off the government teats, and pass the savings on to people who play by the rules. Structurally, permanently, not a one-time check, permanently reduce the burdens that you have to shoulder in California or Illinois, New York. Now you're cooking with fire.

Mark and Valpo. Yeah, I just want to say that, you know, people like Nick Shirley, you know, if they find fraud, they should get a percentage of the fraud that's prosecuted. In other words, a percentage of the amount that the government saved by exposing that fraud, whether 10%, 5%. That's happening. Scott Bessent announced, I think it was earlier this week, up to 30%. of what is recovered, yes. Scott Bessent, through Treasury, thanks for the call mark. Yeah. Scott Bessent just announced that this week to incentivize whistleblowers. I'm glad you brought that up. I forgot to mention that. Totally. Exactly. Get everybody's interests aligned. Present the incentives that align everybody's interests who's not a fraudster. That seems like a good idea. Here's Scott Bessent. They come to the Treasury website. We've gotten over 700 leads. Many of them are now active. And so just go treasury.gov. And it's right there prominently on the website. And we can pay up to a 30% reward for the recovered funds. All right. Illinois, you just heard 30% of recovered funds from Medicaid fraud in Illinois. Anybody who knows anything? You can retire. I bet 30% of the fraud that's committed through the Medicaid program in Illinois. Greg Jefferson Park. Hey, good morning, Dan. Both of my parents are in assisted living and both have been in and out of hospice, legitimately so. And you would not believe the amount of crap that goes on and different people that you've got to see. You know, for instance, my dad's got this condition, and he sees somebody else. A nurse comes in three times a week, in addition to the nursing care provided by the assisted living. But when that nurse, when he has some problems. They need a nurse practitioner from another company to go see him, and then they've got to get a blood sample to, you know, check him out. Somebody else from another company has to come and take the blood from him. It is they've got, both of them have these little machines, you know, that are oxygen generators. Neither of them has used them in a year and a half, and I keep telling them, you guys got to get these things out of here. Oh, well, you've got to call this person. The whole system is designed to soak money out of the individuals, their families, Medicare, Medicaid, and any other government organization that you can see this. I did a little investigating on one of the companies that provides health care, home health care. The guy who owns it is some Indian dude, and all I can see when you start Googling him. is all these gala he goes to donate, you know, $20,000 at something downtown, some fancy, you know, fundraiser for a nonprofit. It's just it never ends, man. The fraud and the abuse and everything else in there is just out of control. Have a good one, man. Thanks for the call, Greg. Appreciate it. Well, here's the thing. In addition to the fraud, I mean, you get this sort of scrutiny on the system for the first time in a long time.

Maybe we open up a broader conversation about how Medicare and Medicaid are designed legally, how perverse the incentives are within the system when you're operating within it legally. And that sparks some discussion about structural changes to how those programs are set up. What a concept, particularly since they're unfinanceable. I mean, the idea that we, I mean, this is all on borrowed money. I mean, the projections for how much Medicaid and Medicare, particularly Medicare, would cost back in the 60s, I mean, they were blown by 10x by 1990. So, gosh, interdicting fraud and then looking at how the system is actually setting up and having a real conversation about entitlement reform. Talk about a two-fer. Dan Proff, Chicago's Morning Answer. The stories you need to know to start your day. This is Chicago's morning answer. On AM 560, the answer. Only the biggest stories. Only the biggest guests. And only the biggest opinions. This is AM 560, the answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. So the Bears Stadium projected to cost about $5 billion in terms of what they're envisioning. As you know, the Hoosiers have put down a billion through a sports authority they stood up. State Rep. Cam Buckner is leading the charge for the Bears in Springfield, Chicago Democrat. His legislation would allow the bears or any developer investing over $500 million to negotiate property tax certainty with local governments for up to 40 years, replacing property taxes with negotiated payment in lieu of taxes. The key provisions of the legislation, and this is accompanied. by a separate infrastructure package to cover roads, sewer, and utility work needed for the stadium, which, of course, the bears want the state to pick up. And maybe there is some argument for some residual benefit to taxpayers in the region for infrastructure upgrades that would ease traffic in northwest suburban cook or reduce flooding and so on and so forth. I haven't heard those laid out. And we also don't have a number on the infrastructure package that I've seen. So key provisions, freeze property tax assessments for decades, reducing the bear's tax burden, negotiated reduced tax payments to local school districts and other taxing authorities. The government unions won't like that. The, again, mega projects bill, as it's being termed, any developer interested in investing over 500 million. Unless you're a Chinese communist battery maker and then we'll just give you 400 million anyway, as J.B. Pritzker has done with Goshen. You know, in Illinois, communists help communists. So it's a race to see who can fleece their taxpayers in the grandest terms, although...

Of course, Indiana, because it has real balanced budgets, actually real budget surpluses, and a proper credit rating has a lot more flexibility to engage in such indulgences than does Illinois. I know J.B. Pritzker says that the budgets have been balanced, but he's a liar, as is every governor before him over the last 50 years who've said the same because they don't. account for things like unfunded pension liabilities, which if you were in the real world, you would have to. For more on all this, please be joined by Jeffrey Hewings, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Regional Science, Economics, and Urban and Regional Planning at U of I. Professor Hewings, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. You're most welcome. So the general terms of the legislation proposed in Springfield for the Bear Stadium by Cam Buckner. Does that sound like a good deal for Illinois taxpayers? I think you've sort of generally cast it in a way that I think it is appropriate. The answer is no. And I think the main concerns that a lot of people have is where else might we get a better return on providing that sort of funding? Secondly... Is the Bears organization in such financial difficulties that they need some assistance? And thirdly, when we try to look at the economic benefits of this, I think there's a great deal of fuzziness and very little concrete information that is provided. A lot of it is, you know, how could we survive in a region to lose one of our great iconic sports franchises? But... When you look at this from a fiscal perspective, can we really measure what that does? I mean, would we see massive outflows of people, massive outflows of businesses? I suspect not. And I reflect on this when Los Angeles went through a period of almost a decade without a football team. the economy seemed to grow pretty well. And trying to connect the presence of a football team that plays, what, eight, ten games a year in the community with the economic outcomes. I think it's so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, so not only are these – and I'm a sports fan too, and I'm a Bears fan, but not only are these professional – franchises, not economic engines. I mean, the meta analysis of studies on the ROI for these publicly financed stadiums almost universally comes back with their loser for taxpayers. The ROI is not there, right? Well, you know, you take a case where you provide some incentives for a firm to come in. Most of the employees are likely to be local.

Most of them will live in the community. They will take their paychecks and they will spend it, buying houses, spending money on goods and services, educating their kids. They will buy cars, etc., etc. In other words, there's a great deal of local churn. What I sense is that with a lot of these very large franchises is a huge percentage of the players and the staff do not actually reside in the region. They're there during the season. But most of them maintain their residences outside. So a lot of the wage and salary money that they receive is being spent elsewhere. So Illinois does not receive. the benefit of this. And the second part that I think it comes back to is why is it that we have a soccer stadium being built that's going to be privately financed. There will be some public funds for necessary infrastructure. Why is that not regarded as the model that we should be promoting? And I think this sort of blackmail. Well, if you don't do that, we'll jump across the Hammond, Indiana. I think at some point, somebody has got to stand up and say, no, no, we're not going to play this game. Now, 60, 70,000 fans are going to be very annoyed with that sort of commentary. But we've got 8.5 million people in the community. And I think we need to consider what are the... the benefits for those 8.5 million people, first and foremost. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting, too, because it's not like Chicago hasn't gone through this when Jerry Reinsdorf stuck up the state and say, we're going to move to St. Petersburg if you don't fund the news, if you don't help public and finance the stadium, which, of course, Jim Thompson then did in a terrible deal for taxpayers, really unconscionable. And so that, you know, so we learn nothing from that, I guess because we just don't care. That seems to be that. disposition of the electorate but but the other thing you mentioned to the employees we haven't talked about that that's really an interesting that the local churn and it's of course it's always one-sided so we're very concerned about making sure i think the bears the the the ranges they have between 500 and a thousand employees Okay. So that's a sizable business, but certainly not the biggest business in town by any stretch. And so we're, we got to protect. We have, they have 500 to 1,000 employees. Meanwhile, we don't care at all when Ken Griffin pulls the plug on Citadel and moves to Miami. He's got 3,100 employees. And, you know, the first thousand are, you know, multimillionaires. You want to talk about churn. So it's also just sort of this.

you know, very stilted concern about employees and churn and return on investment, you know, in one business over here versus another business over there. But, of course, 70,000 people aren't turning up at to watch hedge fund workers work. And so that's the difference. Yeah, but I think, Dan, I've not read anything more than perhaps once or twice mentioned the degree to which this might be seen as a joint venture where the state has some equity share in such an activity. So this is not a gift that keeps on giving. And you'll comment in the warm up the notion that the property taxes is going to be assured. 20, 30 years out, my God, wouldn't you like that to have some certainty that your taxes are not going to go up? Every property taxpayer listening said, boy, yeah, where can I get in line to negotiate that deal with all the local taxing bodies that, that, you know, liquidate my property slowly over time in Illinois, for sure. And the second question maybe you can answer. I have not seen about what's happening to the unpaid debt for the renovation of Soldier Field. I mean, is that going to then just be dumped back on the city to retire, or are the bears going to mortise that investment? Another great point. Given that sort of policy, I just don't trust. The notion that, you know, we went through this in 20 years ago, what it was for the renovation of Soldier Field. If it's going out to Arlington Heights, is something going to pop up 15 or 20 years from now where we go through another dance? And... What I'm concerned about is that this seems to be sort of never-ending expectation that we've just got to compete. We've got to make our stadium flashier, more expensive, we've got to have more skyboxes, we've got to generate more revenue. But nobody ever talks about, well, we got significant investment from the public. first, maybe our first priority is to retire that debt as a sort of a, not as more as a gesture, as a sort of a moral obligation. Yes. I guess I don't have a thing. Retiring debt is a moral obligation. That is a foreign concept. What are you talking about, Professor? The, yeah. But the other thing, the point you mentioned at the outset, too, I mean, You're talking about billionaires. You know, if you can't do a cap raise among all your billionaire friends and equity stakeholders in the Bears to build a $5 billion stadium, well, that's on you.

I mean, the Pete Ricketts did it. So, you know, figure it out. But first of all, first of all, they're not in economic peril. But even if they were, then that would be their problem too. And secondly, I mean, the bandwidth that the bears and, you know, the universe around that ownership has, figure it out. You take on the debt privately. How about that? And if you need to and finance it over time with all the money you can expect to make when you build Bearsville in Arlington Heights. Right? I mean, is that fair? Absolutely. I think that the other issue that you've sort of alluded to that in the warm up to this is that the sort of... commensurate infrastructure improvements. And I think in Arlington Heights, the expectation is it would become the anchor for much larger economic development involving retail activities involving hotels and housing and so forth. That to me is more attractive. But the question then becomes how should that sort of public part be financed and how should the rates of returns on that be administered so that we don't end up essentially taking on more debt with a limited expectation of getting returns. And at the moment I'm spending time in Spain and one of the local soccer teams has converted the the underneath of its stadium underneath the stands that go up into a whole retail. complex and they've done that themselves and then they sub-lease the space to there's one supermarket there probably eight or ten restaurants a lot of shops and so on and so forth And it truly becomes a public center because when they're not playing soccer, people come there and they use the parking facilities to park for free and they shop. They're generating revenue for the retailers. The retailers are then paying rents on the facility. Sales taxes. They're able to renovate and update the stadium at no cost of the taxpayer. And again, why is it the state has got to up front all these public investments without some sort of guarantee about how that debt is going to be amortized? And I think they're just, oh, it's a public good and it's going to benefit all the community. We've heard that story so often, and we know it doesn't happen. And so I think it's about time to stop relying on fairy tales and start getting some really tough financial negotiators to sit at the table and say, yes, this is how we're going to fund this part and this is the expectation in terms of obligations. And I think too often the people who come from the public side are just not sophisticated enough to ask, I think, really tough questions.

Amen to all of that. Jeffrey J.D. Hewings is a professor emeritus of geography, regional science, economics, and urban and regional planning at the U of I. Professor Hewings, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you very much. Take care. And he joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. The more you'll know, this is Chicago's Morning Answer. Morning Answer. On AM 560, The Answer. This is Chicago's Morning Answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. Yesterday, or I guess it was Wednesday, oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the birthright citizenship case, the executive order that Trump penned. There was this exchange between Solicitor General John Sauer and Chief Justice John Roberts, but the practical impacts of birthright citizenship, like birth tourism. An example of what John Sauer was referring to, reported recently by a network affiliate in L.A., these maternity hotels.

Federal agents swooping in this morning to raid what they are calling maternity tourism rings. The ring helps pregnant women, most of them in this area from China, illegally travel to the U.S. to give birth to American babies. NBC 4's Hetty Chang has more from Orange County. Just after sunrise, they are ready to roll. Our cameras are there as dozens of federal investigators storm into the Carlisle apartments in Irvine. If you come here in the evening, you see all the pregnant woman walking around. Investigators say this building and at least 20 other locations they raided in L.A. Orange and San Bernardino counties double as maternity hotels. People who come from China to the United States for the sole purpose. The sole purpose of having a kid. This was the exchange on that topic between John Sauer and Robert. Based on Chinese media reports, there are 500 birth tourism companies in the People's Republic of China whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation. Having said all that, you do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us? I think it's, I'd quote what Justice Scalia said in his Hamdan descent where their interpretation has these implications that could not possibly have been approved by the 19th century framers of this amendment. I think that shows that their interpretation has made a mess of the provision. Well, it certainly wasn't a problem in the 19th century. No, but of course, we're in a new world now, as Samuel Alito pointed out to, where 8 billion people are one plane right away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen. Well, it's a new world. It's the same Constitution. It is. And as Justice Scalia said, I think in the case that Samuel Alito was referring to, you've got a constitutional provision that addresses certain evils, and it should be extended to reasonably comparable evils. He said that about statutory interpretation. I think the same principle applies here, and I think we quote that in our brief. Yeah, and that exchange, John Sauer, did a nice job, which is why I like him for Attorney General, frankly. Sharp legal mind. Yeah, we got a new world, but it's the same old Constitution. Right. So apply the fundamental principles and legislative intent, the black letter of the 14th Amendment to this new world. That's what. John Sauer is arguing, and you have to look at the implications of bastardizing the meaning of the Constitution and, frankly, federal statutory law, including, as we discussed yesterday with Professor Epstein, the statutes regarding naturalization. For more on this and other matters, please be joined by Joseph Moreno, former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in the National Security Division. former staff member with the FBI's 9-11 Review Commission and a U.S. Army combat veteran. Joseph Moreno, thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it.

Dan, good morning. Good to be with you. Good to have you. And so, you know, give us your perspective on, you know, the arguments that were bandied about on Wednesday. And specifically, you know, if you want to comment on this, I thought about you and this because the maternity tourism also has national security implications. And that was, you know, that's, that's, you know, your bailiwick in part. So your thoughts on this larger discussion about birthright citizenship? Sure. Well, Dan, I think the exchange that you just played will go to the heart of what the six conservatives on the court will grapple with. Let's face it, the three progressives, we know where they're going to come out, right? They're policy driven. They will get to whatever policy they favor. So it's really good together. Yeah, I mean, sorry to interrupt, but KBJ thinks if her wallet is stolen in Japan, she's a citizen in Japan when they return it. I mean, so, yeah, I get it. I mean, so conservatives, we're not supposed to. figure out the policy we favor, and then find a way to back into it. We're supposed to read the law, the amendment, the executive order, and go to the language and our best interpretation of the intent that was made at the time. And so that's what... The conservatives will grapple with because they're going to say this could be a terrible policy of letting anyone who is born there, whether they've jumped the wall, whether they've flown in for the sole purpose of having a child. But they could say that's terrible. But it's not the court's job to fix. That's Congress's job. So they're going to have to kind of really fight with their urge to fix this mess. with their best interpretation of the amendment. Now, that's not to say we know how they're going to come out on this. They might look at this and say, there's no way. Back in 1868, this was intended to allow for absolutely unlimited birthright citizenship. There's a very strong argument that this amendment was specifically designed to overrule the Dred Scott case. and provide citizenship and the right to vote to freed slaves. If they come out with that interpretation, and I think there's a lot of support for that, they could say that was the meaning of the 14th Amendment, and we're not going to go further. On the flip side, as you just pointed out, the other side could say, well, there was no illegal immigration problem in 1868, and so there's no way that the amendment could have been designed to stop it. So I think it's really going to come down to a handful of words, right, the reference to jurisdiction in the language of the 14th Amendment. And at this moment, I really couldn't tell you with any kind of confidence that I can estimate how the court is ultimately going to rule. Yeah, although the betting markets have it at like a 20-to-one shot that they overturned or that they hold.

uphold President Trump's executive order. But yeah, I mean, you're right. I don't know either. And I don't. read too much into the questioning from perhaps swing votes like Amy Coney Barrett because, you know, I mean, they could be playing devil's advocate. You never exactly know. So it will be interesting, but it has huge implications. And, you know, to some extent, as jurists, you have to look at the practical consequences and say, well, it's clear that that sort of exigency was either not contemplated or certainly based on the intent was not something that would have been abided by the framers of, well, in this case, say the 14th Amendment or the 1866 Civil Rights Act. And so it'll be interesting to see how some of those who consider themselves originalists come down. Right. I could also see a few ways you can get sort of a split decision in terms of the ultimate ruling. I could see one way the court could go is to say, we're not going to come down on what the word jurisdiction means. So we're going to leave the status quo and we're going to look to Congress. to tell us what jurisdiction means and whether it means physical jurisdiction, like exactly where the person is born, versus the jurisdiction of the parents. If they are citizens of another country. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's interesting. But, I mean, that's almost, it's not quite, but it's almost like Congress needs to tell us what a woman is. I mean, Congress are actually, I mean, the Supreme Court makes decisions all the time on what the word jurisdiction means in the context of, say, whether someone has standing, personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, but now they don't know what it means. Well, we've seen them punt. And that could be sometimes a way they like to save faith and say, we're not going to make the tough call and leave that to the legislature. Another way you can get a split decision is I could see them making a distinction and really playing on that concept of domicile and say, well, okay, we see someone that has shown intent to reside here for a while, even if they're illegally here, as someone who has subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of the U.S. As opposed to someone who flies in the transient, the tourist sort of birth industry, I could see them saying, well, that we're going to say the person has not subjected themselves to the jurisdiction. So that's another way we can kind of get a blit vote here that doesn't give us a clear answer one way or the other.

No, that's interesting. I mean, I wouldn't put it past him either, but I mean, that is a very, that would be a very solomonic decision because, okay, so, so what are the standards by which someone clears the intent threshold? If they're wiring money back to their family and say Mexico, does that mean they don't have intent to stay? Does it mean it does? You know, now that now you have the Supreme Court getting into legislative. the legislative realm by having to define what the threshold is to sustain to establish intent. It would be very practically difficult, which is why I hope they don't come up with something that creative. And I hope that they give us a clear answer one way or the other. Either birthright citizenship stands, which is the way it's been interpreted since 1868, or it does not. Hopefully that they'll give us a clear answer one way or the other. Yeah. What's your reaction to the sacking of Pam Bondi, justified? Well, not totally surprising. I think that she's overall done a really good job in terms of the crime rates, in terms of not being bullied by the Democrats in Washington here. She's tough. She's feisty. She's smart. I think that the Epstein file issue didn't look good. I think her kind of coming out a year ago saying that she was going to look at the file and release it ASAP was never really a practical statement and didn't make a lot of sense. I think the way that the prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James have gone probably did not make President Trump happy. So I think, and remember, she never came as a real Washington insider. She wasn't the longtime federal prosecutor or federal judge model like a Mike McCasey or a Bill Barr. And she wasn't the longtime Washington politician type, right, like a Jeff Sessions or a John Ashcroft. She was aging of Florida, big state, important job, but she did not know the mechanics of the department. So I could also see that that worked against her because it is a beast. It is a giant mechanism of lawyers and support staff. And you could easily be consumed by longtime DOJ insiders who are more than happy to wait out a temporary attorney general. Yeah, I mean, here's the other observation I made earlier, get your reaction to it. Look, the idea that the left promulgates when they're not in power that the attorney general is independent of the president. That's not true. The attorney general reports to an elected president. So by definition, they're not independent. The distinction that the left doesn't make, particularly, as I said, when they're not in power, is, but a good attorney general.

owes the president their independent legal advice. And where I'm going is to say part of the problem I see with Trump's elections and with subsequent performances, not just Pam Bondi, but also Kristi Noem, perhaps others, is the... complicating factor of having to be subservient, borderline obsequious to the president. And it complicates the job. It makes the job much more difficult than if there was a shared understanding of what the parameters were. Well, I mean, this is a thankless job. Whether it's Todd Blanche or Lee Zeldin or whoever gets it next, I feel for that person because there's never been an attorney general that's really survived well under President Trump. It's tough because I agree with you. I never liked this concept of this arm's length independent Justice Department because not only does the Attorney General report to the president, all the enforcement powers that the Justice Department bears emanate from the Article 2 powers of the president. So it all stems from the occupant of the White House as far as the enforcement of the law. So the idea that the Attorney General is off doing whatever he or she wants. and the White House has nothing to do with it, never made sense. That was sort of a fiction that was perpetrated by, like you say, whomever was out of power at the time. But you're right. You don't want a Justice Department that's subservient. You want them to be able to give objective advice in terms of prosecutions and interpretations and arguments before the Supreme Court by the Solicitor General. And so I think whoever comes in next is really going to have to thread that needle by saying we understand the priorities that are set by the White House and we respect them and we will carry them out. But at some point we've got to draw a line and say we have to make our judgment about what cases actually have evidence that support them and not go out there and make fools of ourselves like having grand juries that reject charges. Right. I mean, for example, those, you mentioned James Comey and Letitia James. Now Letitia James is, there's another criminal referral with respect to Letitia James. It'll be interesting to see how Todd Blanche or the next AG handles that. But do you think also with the installation of U.S. attorneys that got sidelined by the courts like Alina Habba, New Jersey, do you think that those were? poor risks that Pam Bondi took, and she should have told the president something he didn't want to hear, perhaps, but it would have avoided these embarrassments. Well, they were, yes, they were, they were.

for an otherwise pretty successful Justice Department in terms of just pure law enforcement. And we had the same issue here in Virginia, where you had a temporary U.S. attorney removed by the judges here. And it turned into months and months of fighting that ultimately the Justice Department lost and they gave up on. So it is a little puzzling when the president insists on his person be appointed, even if that person's not really qualified and is not going to get past any confirmation. Joseph Moreno, former federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice in the National Security Division, a former staff member with the FBI's 9-11 Review Commission and a U.S. Army combat veteran. Joseph Moreno, thanks as always, appreciate your insights. Yeah, and always a pleasure. Have a great weekend. You too. And Joseph Moreno joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. It's like a hot, steaming cup of information to start your day. It's Chicago's Morning Answer on AM 560, The Answer. Just on the topic of birthright citizenship, here's a classic clip that is making its way around the interweb last 24 hours. Harry Reid, remember good old Harry Reid? Went on to become the Senate Majority Leader for a time. You remember. Here's Harry Reid in 1993 arguing against birthright citizenship. Let me put this right there with the clips of Bill and Hillary and Obama, all talking about border security and deportations, birthright citizenship too, the neo-Marxist Party once upon a time. If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No same country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee of full access to all public and social services this society provides. And that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense at country-county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers? More than 200,000 last year. Can you imagine? No sane country would do that. And now that is the stated position of Harry Reid's party and at least three Supreme Court justices. The stories you need to know to start your day. 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. Top of the morning, Dan Prop here. So President Trump and his national address on Wednesday evening as to the state of the war in Iran had this to say specifically about... The Strait of Hormuz and the full reopening of it and the resumption of maritime traffic and the transport of oil and gas and the prospect of seeing prices at the pump in America decline when all of that occurs inevitably.

We're in great shape for the future. The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormone Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it. We haven't needed it and we don't need it. We've beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated, both militarily and economically and every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the hormone strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on. So to those countries that can't get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves. I have a suggestion. Number one, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And number two, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us, as we asked. Go to the straight and just take it, protect it. Use it for yourselves. Iran has been... essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. They're going to want to be able to sell oil because that's all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up. Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose if they charge two million bucks a boat, then they're willing to allow for the resumption of maritime traffic, even maritime traffic that isn't flagged, that isn't one of their tankers or an allies tanker, China, Russia. But I've got a very practical question from a friend of mine, which I answered, but I want to defer my answer to our next guest. If we're energy independent and we don't depend on the straight and we got oil to sell, we're flush with oil, then why have we seen gas prices spike to four bucks a gallon? Brenda Schaefer is a faculty member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate Schools Energy Academic Group and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center. Brenda Schaefer, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Sure. Thank you for inviting me. So, yeah, how about that? We're energy independent. We got oil to sell if you need oil. But nonetheless, Americans are feeling pressure at the pump. Why? Right. Well, first thing, oil is sold as a global, on a global market, meaning that the price more or less is the same for both producers, consumers, because if we sold it cheaper at home, and essentially that would be a subsidy, right? If you could get it on, let's say, $100 a barrel in the global market, but you were selling it at home for $60, that would be a subsidy to the domestic market, and it's really not good to have subsidies in the market. But actually this, well, of course, people feel.

it at the pump, this energy crisis is affecting the United States in a different way, or let's say less impactful than many previous energy crises, simply because we're both the world's largest producer of oil. So at the pump, yes, it's up, but for American producers in places like Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, obviously they're raking in a lot of profit from this crisis. Right. So that's actually what I said about what I said to my friend. It's global market, global pricing. We're an exporter to it. And so it's not just domestic production. These are, you know, our oil producers are exporters as well. But something else that you pointed out in this. Wall Street Journal op-ed that you penned is sort of the underlying energy policies in the West have exacerbated this energy crisis at present. Right. So, I mean, we always have to consider that there's going to be disruptions, whether it's because of weather, earthquakes, tsunamis, you know, geopolitics, and it's really... incorrect to say, well, let's say the 2022 energy crisis that was, you know, mainly affected Europe, but had some global implications that that was about Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine or that this spike is about, you know, the U.S.-Israeli operations in Iran because you have to build your energy security in the way that it can weather all sorts of disruptions. So it's not the disruptions themselves that create the spikes, but it's actually the... you know, lack of preparation of the market. I actually believe, I have to say I agree with what the president said there, that the minute that the security is restored to the straits, it's not going to take a long time for gasoline, for oil prices to decline because the market wasn't a pretty, you know, pretty fair balance. And what about his challenge to Gulf states and Western Europe to get the straight open yourselves? We'll provide some help, but we want you to take the lead effectively. And the United Arab Emirates is taking the lead, maybe less so, Western Europe. What about that approach for that particularly sensitive passage? Right. Well, first thing we need to think about how the United States over the past seven to eight years has really been derelict in its duty in upholding freedom of navigation of the world's seas. It's something that... the United States has done consistently since World War II, we've benefited from it and the world's benefited from it. But starting 2017, 2018, there were the Houthi attacks, Iran's proxy and also direct Iranian attacks in the Red Sea and on Saudi Arabia, on UAE.

You know, we didn't do anything. And even when President Biden came into the White House, in his first week, he removed the Houthis from the terrorist list. He basically... coerced Saudi Arabia to stopping their war with the Houthis. So we left the Red Sea, you know, with disruptions, you know, without freedom of navigation. Then the Black Sea, the war between Ukraine and Russia spilled over into the Black Sea and also disrupted, disruption shipping there as well. Again, we didn't uphold freedom of navigations. Then we're surprised when suddenly the Iranians feel comfortable, you know, to take the strait. So I think one, we have to more, you know, to be more consistent about upholding premium navigation. And two, yes, I 100% agree that, you know, that this is a global issue and that, you know, the Europeans, it's amazing that. among their reasons or why they're not sending ships to open the strait is that their navies are in such poor condition. So most of them aren't even able. I know the Prime Minister of Italy said that we're afraid if we send some of our ships to the straits, we won't be able to defend the borders of Italy. So I think it should be a wake-up call for many of these countries, but I really doubt they'll do much to improve their situation. Well, you know, I mean, despite with the president, well, maybe not despite, but in addition to what the president said on Wednesday evening, you had Marco Rubio earlier in the week basically saying, look, the straight is going to get opened, reopened one way or the other. So I think, you know, it seemed, and both of statements could be true. We want you to take the lead. We'll back the play. We're trying to incentivize some leadership from our erstwhile allies. But by the same token, if you fail. then we will intercede because that straight has to get open. Right. And I think I agree with your interpretation that I think it was, the United States obviously is not going to, you know, just to leave the straits in this situation. But I think it is sort of the way President Trump presented it. It was more to, you know, encourage the European allies to get into gear and to take responsibility. I think we'll see some action, as you said, from the UAE, potentially Japan, South Korea. and they should participate in this defense. We also have to remember the issue of geographic.

concentration. Why do I say that, you know, it's not the war that raise the prices and for both and for many U.S. allies. It's also for natural gas prices for liquefied natural gas imports as well as oil. But it's the fact that they were derelicking their duty and worrying about energy security. So we had, for instance, on the eve of the American presidential elections, President Biden stopped new contracts for LNG exports. And this was in order to sort of to court the vote of the young Democrats, progressives that, you know, don't want any fossil fuels at all. And what did Europeans and Asians do when the U.S. became an unreliable supplier of natural gas? They went to Kotter. They increased their contracts, right? But this wasn't the right move, and especially after a more fossil fuel-friendly White House, you know, the president came into the White House. but concentrating even more of their imports in Qatar, you know, set themselves up for this disruption. So we need to think about, you know, we've had. The G7 countries, including the United States, the World Bank, they stopped all public finance for fossil fuels, the World Bank beginning 2019, the G7 beginning 2021. That doesn't really affect someone in America or Europe because they don't need public finance for their energy development, but this really affected Africa. We have on both the human level, we've had like a backtracking and electricity access in Africa. And this has really increased poverty in Africa, but also if we had more oil and gas being produced in Africa, not only would it be good for Africans, but we wouldn't have as much dependence on the Middle East. So we know we need this geographic spread. And those policies are still in place. Even, you know, I would call to a secretary of the treasury, that he needs to tell the World Bank, they've got to renew those loans for fossil fuels. And to the extent that we've had oil producing states in the United States, like California, and previous administrations like the Biden administration, pursuing these renewable energy fairy tales, it's not just bad energy policy. And, you know, this. what's happening now, punctuates its bad policy from a national security perspective. Right. I mean, you pointed out, you know, California, it decides instead of producing oil, it should import it from around the world, which of course is, you know, more emissions, more pollution and more cost, but it's also, you know, a geopolitical, potential geopolitical disruption. So would you add a guess what is the, of California's oil, what is its top foreign supplier? Where does it bring its oil from? Any idea?

I know you asked the question. No, no, no, I mean, but Russia. Iraq. Iraq. Oh, even better. Yeah, they're even better. So it's actually, you know, so the current crisis in the straits actually even affects California's, you know, security of supply. Because there's so many U.S. Navy bases in California, actually the, you know, the Pentagon stepped in and is actually, you know, importing oil on its own now into California in order to not have. disruption. So it's, yeah, so even California by, you know, deciding not to produce oil just to use it and import it from Iraq is being affected by this, by this crisis. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's fascinating. Obviously, I didn't know that Iraq, but, but the Trump administration intervened to, you know, I think it was under the War Production Act to say, you shall start producing oil again on those rigs. Right. In the ones that I believe that are in federal waters. Right. But, you know, California used to be the chief producer of oil in the United States. And, you know, and now they have to bring in oil from Iraq. I would say also, you know, even the Europeans, you know, they're obviously not happy with this war. They're not happy with anything in the Trump administration. And yet they sit. next to the biggest reserves of natural gas in the world. And instead, they import gas from the Middle East, mainly from Qatar, because they don't want to link their future to natural gas because they believe at some point they're going to be able to deal without fossil fuels and just deal with windmills and solar. So it's also, again, it's a crisis of their own making. Yeah, their own ideological fanaticism. Brenda Schaefer is the faculty member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate. Graduate Schools Energy Academic Group and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center. Render Schaefer, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. And she joins us on Chicago's Morning Answer. 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.

Just on that topic, we were discussing in part of the relationship between the United States and our NATO allies, Western European allies. There's definitely going to be a re-examination of this by the Trump administration after the dust settles in Iran. Marco Rubio this week on NATO. Sean, I've been one of the strongest defenders of NATO during my time as a United States Senator because I found great value in it. It wasn't just about defending Europe. I said it also allowed us to have military bases in Europe that allowed us to project power into different parts of the world when our national security was threatened. If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can't use those bases, that in fact that we can no longer use those bases to defend America's interests, than NATO is a one-way street. The NATO is simply about us having troops in Europe to defend Europe, but when we need their help, not their help, we're not asking them to conduct airstrikes. When we need them to allow us to use their military bases, their answer is no. Then why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question. Why do we have billions and billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars over the years, trillions of dollars, and all these American forces stationed in the region, if we can only use, in our time of need, we're not going to be allowed to use those bases. So I think there's no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to re-examine that relationship. We're going to have to re-examine the value of NATO in that alliance for our country. Ultimately, that's a decision for the president to make, and he'll have to be. make it. We're going to finish the job here. As I said, we're very, very close to achieving our objectives on all of these things that I've outlined. But I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to re-examine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose, or is it now become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe. But when we need the help of our allies, they're going to deny us basing rights and they're going to deny us overflight. I think these are very legitimate questions that we need to be asking, and this are going to have to be very carefully examined after this conflict is over. And statements, that was obviously in Sean Hannity, and statements like UK PM Keir Starmer, two-tier Keir Starmer made this week are not helping. President Trump said yesterday that he wouldn't come the aid of the UK anymore in his true social post. How seriously do you take that threats from our main ally? Well, it's very important that... We're clear there's been a good deal of pressure on me to change my position in relation to joining the war. And I'm not going to change my position on the war. So whatever the pressure, whatever the noise, I'm the British Prime Minister and I have to act in our national interests. I should say that on defence and security and intelligence, we're obviously working closely with the US, as we always do. And in relation to the planning on the straight of Hormuz, of course, that involves talking to the Americans as well. So, as I say, whatever the pressure, whatever the noise, my job is as British Prime Minister to concentrate on what's in the British national interest. That's what's guided me through this conflict so far. It will continue to guide me as we go forward. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you for that clarity. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing.

This is Chicago's morning answer on AM-560, The Answer. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft, an AM-560, The Answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proft, on regime change in Tehran. Has that occurred? Obviously, I understand that Ali Khamenei and the senior leadership of the regime have been taken out, but the names are different. The approach is the same. We're familiar with this in Chicago and Illinois. We switch out names, but the policies don't change. So does that really constitute regime change? I don't think so. This was what Trump said Wednesday night about said regime change. And he's been saying it and others have been saying it too. Trump with more specificity suggesting that not only do we have regime change in a technical sense, but in a substantive sense that the people that we're talking with now are more professional. Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was... Not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders' death. They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their... electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. Yeah, well, if they're less radical and more reasonable, then why do they deserve to be bombed back to the Stone Age? Fried Zakaria, you know, I mean, I'm not a particular fan. He's been wrong about a lot more things than he's been right over his time at CNN, that's for sure. But nonetheless, a perspective, an alternative perspective that has to be addressed because it's going to be reflexively shared by most on the left in this country. Suggests that it's difficult to spin withdrawal after two or three weeks. as a victory if the straight is still closed and the mullahs are still in charge? Well, as I say, it's completely bizarre because not only are the strategic objectives of the war, they're not achieved, you have the same Iranian regime in place with even more hardliners, with the revolutionary guards in place. They are earning...

twice as much from their oil as they were before, because the price of oil has almost doubled. And they are making... potentially hundreds of millions of dollars charging fees, $2 million per boat that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. In that way, they are holding hostage the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia. And so you've created a situation which is much, much worse for America and its allies, much, much better for Iran. Yes, they are militarily in very bad shape. But they have enough power to do what I just described, which seems to me to be a very, very difficult situation to spin as a win for the United States or its allies. Yeah, they're doing what you described for now. For more on this, Jason Brodsky joins us. Policy Director of United Against Nuclear Iran. He is a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute's Iran program as well. Jason Brodsky, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Great to be with you. Thank you. So you wrote about the new guys in charge in a piece of The Spectator, particularly interested in... Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the former mayor of Tehran and IRGC commander who has been reportedly to be the point guy, I guess, whatever title you want to describe to him. So who is closer to the truth? They're even more radical than they were under Ali Khamenei, as Fried Zakaria says, or are they more professional and reasonable, as President Trump said? really a continuation of Ayatollah Khomeini's legacy with the current group of men in charge. These are men who are committed to his legacy. They're committed to the grand strategy of the Islamic Republic, which is pushing the United States out of the Middle East, encircling Israel and destroying Israel, and exporting the Islamic Revolution. And this is not going to really change under this cohort of individuals. I think it's more of the same, and it might be a group of new faces, but new faces really doubling down on the same kind of grand strategy that the Islamic Republic has employed. Well, so then the prospect of a deal, particularly with the telegraph timeline of two to three weeks, seems implausible? I do not believe that there will ever be a durable diplomatic outcome as long as the current Iranian regime is in power. I think we need to learn from the last 47 years that that's just not on the menu for a variety of reasons, most especially because of the Islamic Republic's ideological nature. It needs enmity with the United States to survive as a system. And so that really prevents any kind of...

breakthrough diplomatically between the Iranian regime and the United States. So even if he, well, yesterday they took out a bridge that eliminated a plan military supply route for sustaining Iran's ballistic missile attack and attack drone force, according to the U.S. military. It connects Tehran to a nearby city. So even if you continue to vaporize their infrastructure, even if you turn the lights out as President Trump threatened. in his Wednesday address with respect to, you know, domestic power supply, hits on their domestic power supply. It's not going to move them. I mean, they are, they're going to try to hold out for a couple, three weeks, and no matter what punishment is imposed, they will hold the line because they're committed to this, you know, sort of eschatological ideology. As long as the current regime is in power, it's hard to see them agreeing to the terms that the United States is demanding, because, as you said, that they are committed to this grand strategy of the Islamic Republic. But, you know, if the United States wants to improve the chances of getting a better... deal or arrangement to end the war, I do think it's going to have to change the calculus of the Iranian leadership that they're winning, because right now they believe they're winning. And in order to change that perception, the Trump administration is likely going to have to escalate, and that's what we've seen with the beginnings of the targeting of bridges, as you mentioned, and the threats to target other infrastructure. So, I mean, what would convince them that they're not winning other than their elimination? Anything? Well, I think that they viewed the straight of Hormuz is their Trump card, essentially, and their ability to hold the global economy hostage. So changing that... equation and that perception and Tehran is going to likely be important. So that might precipitate a ground operation regarding Karg Island or one of the other islands in the Persian Gulf area that, you know, might try to change the Iranian calculus. What about the enriched uranium if that was no longer in their possession? Would that change the calculus?

It's hard probably to view that as changing the Iranian regime's calculus. I think it would be removing a lot of leverage that they have on the nuclear file. But right now, I think the Iranian regime is less focused on that stockpile and more focused on the Strait of Formul. That, they view, is the real Trump card right now in terms of their leverage. And do we have any just on the nuclear program? Because that's actually one of the stated objectives. And so there's going to have to be an assessment of how debilitating the campaign has been with respect to their nuclear program on some explanation from the White House at some point. So we've heard when we've seen the attacks on Ishfahan. uh we've you know there's been a lot of discussion about uh the enriched uranium and the purpose of that there's been discussion about uh what is has been done or could be done with respect to their facility at pickax mountain i mean do you have any sense of uh the state of their nuclear program you know a pre four weeks ago as compared to today well i think that uh it is uh The nuclear program has been really badly damaged. Iran's nuclear enrichment program as it existed before Operation Midnight Hammer last year doesn't exist anymore. But they do have the stockpile of enriched uranium that does need to be addressed because it could form the basis of a nuclear weapon should a decision. made by the Iranian leadership. But nevertheless, that technical capacity to enrich uranium has been badly damaged. So it will take them some time to be able to rebuild that infrastructure. And right now, they're going to be very much delayed because of all the blows that they've taken over the last few months. So the... I mean, it's essentially your position that anything short of regime change is, well, I don't want to say it's a defeat, but it will not reconstitute the, will not reconstitute the Middle East, in other words, in a direction of lasting peaceful pluralism until and unless. the men in charge now are replaced by men who want to shift the paradigm. Yeah, well, two responses. First is that I think that the U.S. has achieved a great deal during Operation Epic period. It has eroded the capacity of the Iranian regime to project power beyond its borders, and that will pay dividends for U.S. national security in the years ahead. That's number one. Number two, I think on the long term, there will never be peace in the Middle East until the Iranian regime is gone.

And that is the hard truth. The regime is sponsoring all kinds of terror groups around the region, and that it is core to their identity to continue that export of the Islamic Revolution. So as long as you have this system in place, broader peace in the Middle East is sensible. How did President Trump's remarks on Wednesday and his, again, horizon of two to three weeks, how does that impact what Israel will do two to three weeks from now? Well, I think that Israel is going to follow President Trump's lead on this. President Trump is the one who's making the decisions, and I think it's going to defer to him on the timeline for operations. I think the U.S. clock is different from Israel's clock in a sense because the U.S. has a wide array of other variables to manage economic variables. diplomatic, political, that Israel does not necessarily have to weigh in its decision to use force. But nevertheless, Israel is dependent on the United States for its defense and I think it's political support. And I do think that if the president makes a decision even to unilaterally declare a ceasefire and to stop U.S. operations, Israel will likely have to follow suit. Going back to the straight of our move, since you mentioned that, that's the holding that is what convinces the mullahs that they're winning. What's your assessment of the prospects that UAE can lead a coalition with or without Western European nations to reopen that straight? Well, I think that the UAE does have... important military capacity, but it needs to be multinational, and the U.S. really needs to participate here if we're going to be able to open up the strait in a decisive manner. So I think the U.S. will have to be involved. I sense that the president's threats to walk away, even without the strait, being resolved is really more to try. try to get our European allies in the game and to do more as a threat. So, but I think it would be, you know, hard to conceive of the U.S. just walking away with the strait of Hormuz being closed. Something that was reported surprisingly by NBC News. A master sergeant Tyler Simmons from Ohio is one of the 13 servicemen who'd been killed. He was on the refueling plane that crashed in Iraq. He told his father before he volunteered for the mission in Iran. This is a quote from his dad. He said, Dad, I can't give you any details. But if civilians knew what we knew, a lot of the criticism of the war would cease.

I mean, I know it's impossible to divine exactly what he knew or what he was referencing. But do you have any sense of like the things that are not like fully appreciated by the public if they had a little bit more information that it would really inform them as to the threat the Iranians as currently as this regime is currently constituted pose? Yeah, that's a profound story. I really think it is something that's important. The U.S., it's really important to be able to, I think, creatively to classify some of this information for, to educate the American people. We've done it with... The war in Ukraine with Russia's invasion, the Biden administration did it. And I think that we should consider doing it in this context with Operation Epic Theory, using creatives of classifications to inform the American public to build support. And so I encourage the Trump administration to do that because the stakes are really high. I think that Americans maybe not realizing that some people may think that President Trump is just starting another war. And I don't think that's what's going on here. What the president is trying. to do is trying to end a war that the Islamic Republic started in 1979, that many Americans may not really be aware that the Islamic Republic has viewed itself as being at war with us, but the enemy and sadly gets a vote here, and we have to do all that we can to counter them. Jason Brodsky is policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran. He's also a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute's Iran program. Jason Brodsky, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it. Great to be with you. Thank you. And he joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's Morning Answer. An AM 560, The Answer. Open mic! Open mic Friday!

Top of the morning, Dan Brock here. Yes, it is that time of the week. Open mic Friday. Or we take your calls at 312-642-2-5600. And text, you can text us too. With your comments, your concerns, your criticisms, your compliments, your general crack pottery, we will take it all. And just to follow up on our conversation with Mr. Brodsky, we just concluded. about the Iranians and, you know, these radical Shia clerics. It was said often by Ali Khamenei and his predecessors. The chance death to America is not just a slogan, it's a policy. And I think, you know, that's part of what needs to be made clear to the larger public, as we were discussing. Maybe that's what. Master Sergeant Simmons was referring to as well and additional details that he had that we don't. That targeted declassification of information to generate understanding. I like that idea a lot. By the way, just as an aside, since I brought up Tyler Simmons again, his dad discussed meeting President Trump at Dover Air Force Base. when Tyler Simmons' body arrived back home. This was his impressions of meeting and talking with Trump. So when the president and the defense secretary came up to you, what did you talk about? I mean, were they... I was the first person right out the bat, looked president, Trump in the eye, and told him why he said, yes, Mr. Simmons, I know who you are. I said, Tyler Simmons was my only son. He paid the ultimate price. Much to my pleasant surprise, I saw emotion in the president's face. It's usually when you see him on television, he's just being the stern leader. I get that. But his humanity showed in that moment.

He said, I can respect the man that can look the president in the face and tell him exactly what he thinks. I think it's one of the few times that he had to look up. Because actually, President Trump is taller than I thought. And just expressed his condolences and thankful for Tyler's service. because that's all I wanted the focus to be, is Tyler. And the premise of all of them coming was for them to give their condolences to the family. Yeah, I mean, just another illustration that the President Trump in front of a camera is different than the President Trump, not in front of a camera. Lots of stories along those lines that Mr. Simmons told. 312-642-5600. to give us a call on this open mic Friday. I'm hesitant to include this, but just in case anybody wants to broaden the discussion on the combined U.S.-Israeli campaign against the Iranians. Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson invade after Trump's speech on Friday night, declaring an end to the American Empire, well, declaring it again. What's happening in Iran is the end of American Empire as we understand it. And that's sad. Boohoo. Empire's dying. But it's not the end of the United States. It's not the end of our influence on other nations, hopefully positive influence. It's not the end of our economy. It's the beginning of a very rough time in our economy. Of course. But it's hardly the end of it. What we've been doing for likely your lifetime, if you're under 80, Well, it's not working anymore. It hasn't actually helped the United States long term. Your grandkids at this point don't have the promise of a better life than you had. So it's not actually a successful experiment. And now it's ending because we've reached the limits of our demonstrated power. We can't open the Straits of Hormuz. The President of the United States said that last night. Someone else do it. So we're done. That's okay. It was always going to end. Hopefully we can get out without a nuclear exchange, but now it is ending. Hopefully we can get out with a nuclear exchange. It's a bit hyperbolic bordering on hysterical. Can't get the straight of her moves open. We'll see. Yeah. But I just wanted to, you know, throw, I know Tucker Carlson, his views on this represent the views of some small percentage of, uh, Maga or the neo-isolationist element within the Republican Party. So, you know, broad and the discussion as broadly as you would like to. And we can hash it out. Nick on the northwest side. Yeah, thank you. I'd like to remind people, not that they need it, not your listenership does need it, but most of our news media is basically an extension of the Democratic Party.

And that's why we haven't heard that much on the regular news, as often it comes out of Iran, that Israel is a little Satan and death to Israel. America is a big Satan, death to America. It wouldn't take me much to figure out if somebody said that to me about myself and my family, that I got to take some kind of action. So that's what we're doing. You know, we're not there to. protect Israel. You know, Israel is our friend. We're helping them, and they're helping us as their friends to try to reduce this Islamic terrorism that's going on in the world. And that's it. Thank you. Thanks, Nick. Well, and over the last 47 years, they've done more than just a jawbone us, haven't they? Glenn in Orlando. Yeah, hey, yeah. And in the 30s, The United States was a non-interventualist country while a madman was taking over country after country in Europe. And they even had a film, I think it was called The Triumph of the Will, it was a Nazi propaganda film. And in response, it was Frank Capra that had a film that's called Why We Fight. I recommend everybody. Review that why we fight film by FAPRA when World War II was happening and civilized society was really being threatened. Thanks for the call, Glenn. Rick in Downers Grove. Hey, good morning. Hey, I was thinking, you know, about John Foon and his attitude towards the SAVE Act. And I'm thinking, what would it have been like if he was the project manager of the Artemis II mission? I'll get here from him. I can't be done. Went up to technology. You can't be done. And then you'd have somebody in the team's saying, whoa, whoa, let's come in it from a different perspective. We get, you know, we'll get this thing done. No, it can't be done. And actually, you know. He's taken two weeks off to go to Florida, the Disney World, so we can ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I mean, these politicians, especially the Senate and the dedication to the job they're elected to do and their constituents is like little to none. And I mean, and their can't-do attitude is really getting tiresome. Thanks for the call, Rick. Well, you know, on that front, at least with respect to the DHS, the partial shutdown of DHS that, you know, was going on a month. John Thune and Johnson have finally, you know, come to the collective decision. I mean, I think Johnson was already there. But. We're just going to do this through reconciliation. We're not going to get them votes. We're going to do it through reconciliation where we just have to vote our shares, as it were, with the Republican majority.

This was doing yesterday on Fox. You know, we have to do this now without Democrat votes. And the way to do that, obviously, is to do it through the budget reconciliation. But because everything is funded until the end of the fiscal year, all that does is make sure that in future years those agencies also have funding. So it's a, you know, it's a complicated, as you point out, process and certainly in the Senate where we have procedures that require supermajorities. You have to have some Democrats. And in this case, the Democrats, after we negotiated with them for... 40 days on reforms, made it very clear. They didn't really want reforms. And as Bill pointed out in the lead-up to this, they got zero of that. So they wanted all these restrictions on law enforcement agencies on ICE and CBP. They got none of that. They walked away from the table. And it was clear at the beginning that they didn't want to do anything to fund either one of these agencies. Well, that was a big waste of time then, wasn't it? And just since we're on the Artemis. Victor Glover, since we're on it, not on it, but since Rick from Downers Grove brought it up. This was a good moment. Of course, the D.C. Press Corps had to play Identitarian Politics with the astronauts. Victor Glover, the first black astronaut to travel to the moon. So he's asked about that. Right. What does this mean for, you know, the black community? And I really liked how he handled it. It is a big question. And I want to highlight, I guess maybe one facet of this is the tension, I call it. I live in this, you know, this dichotomy between. happiness that a young woman can look at Christina and just physicalize her her passion or her interests or even if it's not something she wants to do she can just be like girl power and that's awesome and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go hey he looks like me and he's doing what and that's great i love that but i also hope we are pushing the other direction that one day we don't have to talk about these first that one day this is just and i listen to this that this is the human history. It's about human history. It's the story of humanity, not black history, not women's history, but that it becomes human history. Exactly. And we don't have to talk about it. Most of us don't want to talk about it at the D.C. Press Corps and the party they work for is obsessed about it, unfortunately. But that's exactly right. And that's a perfect balance there. Victor Glover exhibited. Proud of who he is. from a heritage perspective, not reliant on it. You see how you can be both? Proud of who you are, proud of your identity, not reliant on it because his work product is what defines who he is as a professional. In this case, a wildly successful professional because it's pretty difficult to become an astronaut at that level, isn't it? Proud of who you are, not reliant on it.

Oh, and we got to get back, by the way, to this Matt Bill Gates with, you know, anecdote I shared at the end of the story yesterday. He was on Benny Johnson's podcast where he's talking about a whistleblower that when he was a member of Congress contacted him to. inform him that the military has breeding centers where aliens and humans, refugees from distant lands are breeding because Tennessee Congress human, or is he, Tim Burchett was asked about this on Newsmax last night. I mean, this is getting pretty. X-Files-ish. Anyway, we'll get to that in a second. Owen and Willowbrook. Hello, Dan. Dan, I think Trump has made a lot of errors when it comes to his AG picks. And I actually would like to see a guy like Mike Davis. who would actually hold these deep state actors. Oh, man. What do you think about Davis? I like Mike Davis. There's going to be a lot of F-bombs that's coming out of the Department of Justice. If Mike Davis is the Attorney General, that's for sure. You know, he's the head of the Article III project. He was a former clerk for Gorsuch when Gorsuch was an appellate court judge. You know, I like him. I don't know that... That's probably a reach even in terms of credential. But if you thought Pam Bondi was feisty, boy, unleash Mike Davis on the D.C. Press Corps and the opposition party, for that matter. Interesting. Mike and Deerfield. Hey, Dan, great show. I don't know if you caught earlier this week the hearing on Social Security. And the take, Eddie, once you know, it's going and solved. And so they were in the Senate and they're sorry, I'm just between sets here at the help. And Patty Murray was talking about the wage cash and how billionaires and millionaires don't pay anything more than 184,000. And she talked about how when an individual is paying in, they pay 6.2% of their income. The employer pays that as well. And over 184, it stops. And she said, 6.2% for someone paying 184,000. A millionaire only pays that 0.002. But what she failed to talk about is the actual benefit cap as well. And so I really think that in 28, I think one of the biggest things that Dems are going to do is they are going to uncap the Social Security wage cap. But they're going to cap the benefits that you get. So if you're making a half a million dollars, you're going to pay 6.2% on whole half a million, but your benefit is going to be capped at whatever the previous cap was, let's just say, 184,000. And so I think that's going to be one of their big economic ideas or policies along with the billionaires tax. I think everyone will be on board, and I'll tell you, those are just job-crushing, market-crushing policies.

So I really fear for that. You'd almost be forced. If you think about it, you'd almost be forced to move to a no-state income tax state. If you had an extra 6.2 tacked on to everything we've met, plus state, don't forget 1.45 on Medicaid. You're in the top racket. You're at 37. I mean, you're giving away 55, 56% of your income if you're sitting at a high state tax. environment. It's insane. It's really doing insane. Thanks for the call, Mike. That's a great catch and a great point. I mean, certainly the class envy politics will never end with the left. They may have replaced an intersectional score and may have switched that in for household income, but they'll play both games. And yes, you're right. I mean, they're talking about... unrealized capital gains tax and probably focus on seven figures and above too because you can't soak them enough and they're frankly too small and too unsympathetic a cohort to worry much about for the majority of the country that is otherwise economically illiterate as you were sort of intimating Mike the wealth tax which Elizabeth Warren has already proposed So, yeah, I mean, the idea of capping the benefit, maintaining the benefit cap, but uncapping the income, I could see that. I could see that as part of it, as part of their punitive Krugman-esque economic plan for the country. Yeah, very good catch. Thanks for that.

Tom and Blue Island. Good morning, Dan. Happy Friday. Happy Good Friday. I don't want it. Happy Good Friday, right? You know, let's get the job done over there, but let's not have AM 560 supporters comparing Iran to Germany of the early 30s. I mean, it's comical. They're a sixth century backwards country, and I believe looking back, it's going to be looked upon as one of Reagan's biggest failures, and I'm knocking them out of the box as soon as he became president. He had the reason to. But I just, I don't know if the opposite of a neo-isolationist MAGA person is a chicken hawk, Israel First supporter, like Ben Shapiro or Mark Levin or... Lindsey Graham, and, you know, the marker for being overaggressive in war used to be John Bolton, but now he's just mainstream, I guess, when it comes to invade in these countries. So let's just knock them out of the box and let's not compare Iran to Germany because that's a little goofy. All right. Thanks for the call, Mike. I mean, Tom, excuse me. Kevin in Austin, Texas. Thanks for taking my call. I want to wish you if you have a good weekend, Easter and the rest of it. And, you know, my plug for people to go out and just see if they can get involved in the April 15th County Conventions are going to be going on, a Republican Party. You may not be a precinct chair or be able to vote, but you should be able to attend and just kind of see how the process works. You know, you've got to go to the, you've got to go to war with the Army you have. Bailey is the guy, but. this is still an opportunity to build a Republican Party locally where you live. And Tom from Blue Island, I hope you do that. Wait, you're not going to plug your race again? I mean, it's going to get to like an in-kind contribution, but, you know. Well, you know what? I would definitely ask for that. Yeah, O'BrienCampaign.com, O-B-R-Y-A-N campaign.com running for Cedar Park City Council, Place 4. in Cedar Park, Texas. So I'm doing what I can. I'm trying to run smart. You know, I'm not going to be able to walk around with the MAGA hat and red shirt because I want to get elected. So that's something that, but once I'm in place, I want to be at the table when they're talking about land use planning and budget issues. All right. Well, we can't do in Indiana, or in Illinois, I should say, in Indiana. What we can't do in Illinois, we can maybe do in Cedar Lake, Texas. But don't, don't go changing who you are. Just, you know, you don't have to. Oh, I won't be changing who I am. You don't have to lead with your chin, but don't give them any quarter. Yeah, yeah. Well, I won't give them quarter, and I won't give them any ammunition. I'll let them have to dig for it. But any amount is helpful.

10, 15 bucks. It's going to help me get the literature out and run the campaign. We want a campaign. And just so you know what, I know what I'm talking about. I know the precincts. I know where the strong Republicans are. The weak Republicans, we have to tag our weak Republicans to get them out. So when the nuts and bolts of campaigning come up, I think we're pretty prepared. Thanks for the call, Kevin. You know who else is contemplating a run for office? Well, Kevin's already in, but you know, else is contemplating for big office with an eye towards 28. You're not talking about him yet. But they will be if he decides to do it. But it's not about money for me. So do I ever think about it? Yes. Could it happen? Yeah, it could happen. If the opportunity presented itself, the right opportunity presented itself. Look, if I wanted to, I know people are going to think I'm crazy. This is going to be the headline and people are going to laugh about it. I think I could be President of the United States. I could definitely run this country better than Donald Trump. Paper towel would rule could, but yes. You would be market improvement. As an independent, though. There would be a hard time for me to run for anything because, you know, the way the system is set up, I'd have to choose a side. And so, you know, I probably would have to become a Democrat. And, yeah, so, you know, am I at the point now? Yeah. No. And I know people are going to say, Don Lemon is crazy. Have to become a Democrat. Yeah. Why can't I think about running for office? Why can't I think about being president of the United States? Please. Look at what we have when anybody, did anybody think Barack Obama? As he says, this guy with a funny name is from a mixed background. Did anybody ever think that he would become president? That he had that aspiration? I don't have an aspiration to become president. But I do think that I could run this country a lot better than Donald Trump. Do you know what else I think that I could run better than most? What else? Please tell us. And I actually talked to my husband about that last night. Oh, boy. A news organization. Because I was there. I'd been in the game for so long. And I'm not interested in being, you know, the anchor out front. I could come in and fix the bulk of their problems and lickety split in no time flat. Boom. Wow. I feel like we're making news. He sounds like Trump. Fix all the news organizations. Run for president. Don Lamone for president. Now, he may have to run from jail like Lyndon LaRouche. You know, he still has a criminal matter up in Minnesota. I love it. That's fun stuff. Oh, you got to get to this before I forget here. Hold on. Hold on. All right. So yesterday, I played this, Bill Gates, on, Benny Johnson's podcast. on what a senior military official told him about...

aliens and the U.S. government. Yeah, I had a guy who was uniform. He was a senior enlisted with the United States Army, came into my office in Cresby, in Cresby, Florida in a non-classified setting. I had members of my staff there. And what they explained is that the military ran a very secret program where aliens that were living. were in forced breeding programs with humans that had been abducted from war zones and from even the caravans of migrants. Now, again, I didn't verify this, but what the whistleblower was telling me is that there were like between six and 12 locations around the country where this happened and what he wanted. was members of Congress to all show up at the same time at all of these different locations so that any of those activities could not be moved. And of course, it's a physical impossibility to get members of Congress to simultaneously show up at like eight locations at one time. And so that never occurred. Wait, but who are they abducted by? Were they abducted by the aliens? Are they abducted by the U.S. government or some other third party? So the aliens are only interested in abducting migrants, refugees from war zones or migrants in a caravan, you know, heading up to the U.S. border, ostensibly, for the purposes of mating? I mean. And then Tim Burchett. You know, who's a commonsensical downhome kind of guy, Congressman from Tennessee, I should say, was asked about what Matt Bill Gates said because he's been part of those classified briefings related to this. He was on Newsmax yesterday with Finnerty and said this. I've been 100% serious. I've been briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is. I'll just tell you this. If they would release the things that I've seen, you would stay up. You'd be up at night worrying about or thinking about this stuff. We just need to disclose it and all. I'm sick of it. Well, I was brief, I'll just tell you this. I was brief last week on an issue, or excuse me, two weeks ago. And. It would have set the earth on. This country would have come unglued, I think, if they would have heard all that I heard. They would demand answers, and we need to. But, you know, it's never going to get. Unfortunately, it just keeps getting covered up and covered up. And the people that know are dying or disappearing, as the case may be. And for the record, I'm not suicidal, and I don't take risks. I'm glad you said that. I'm speechless, Congressman. We will have you back. You should be. I am. I told the president, release it all. And the problem is the people that are around the president don't know the, and the president doesn't know the questions to ask. A few of us are going to have to get with the president and tell him what he needs to ask and where he needs to look. I mean, you know, we're in meetings and they have addresses and tell locations of items, I'll just say.

And the public has a right to know, Dadgummit. It's your tax dollars. Absolutely. The public has a right to know, Dadgummit. What, come on. What could he possibly be talking about? If the public knew that, I mean, there'd be rioting in the streets is essentially what he's suggesting. And the president has people don't know what asked the right questions to get the right information about locations. People are being disappeared who have. knowledge, the same knowledge he has. He says, I'm not suicidal. Wow. That's sort of wild, isn't it? Boy. All right. I mean, I just, you know, this is getting weird. Weirder. Frank and at Board of Trade. I've been over a variety of sites this morning trying to find delayed price quotes on petroleum products. I can't seem to find anything. All the quotes are 16 hours old. The crude's up to $11.40. That's the only numbers I can find. Even during that ETF crisis back in 2020, the quotes were you could get those quotes. But for some reason, I can't see anything. I don't know what this means. You got me there. I don't know. Maybe Tim Burchett knows. Eduardo, Tampa Bay. Yeah, good morning, Dan. The hospice fraud care, 50 million, 2,000 licenses. It got top billing on the Spanish station. So keep them coming. And Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom should have been led away in handcuffs. Well, we'll see. Thanks for the call, Alberto. We talked about that a bit earlier. We'll see the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, committed that the heart and soul of the Department of Justice we focused on making out these fraud cases and prosecuting the fraudsters, also included by intimation guilty parties in state government that may have turned a blind eye or worse. So we shall see. Bill and Waukegan. Hey, Dan, calling from beautiful Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Very nice. Yeah, I just wanted to get your opinion on what do you think of Tiger? I think that, you know, he's done this more than once and that, as I recall, One of the PGA was daily. Wasn't he suspended by the PGA after a DUI? And here's Tiger, like what, his third time or whatever? And I just wanted to get your opinion on it since you're my master golfer that I look up to and have a few trouble over my bed. Wow, it's quite an honor. Thank you, Bill. You know, look, Stepp Tiger stepping away. First of all, Pony up for a driver. Just pony up for a driver, for goodness sakes. And then, you know, in terms of what his, the pain he has, and, you know, I don't know, but, you know, if you're on heavy painkillers, then you shouldn't be driving. Also, you know, the body cam video that's been released, this was sort of a bad look when, you know, the police are getting control of the scene and they're going to.

I guess they're deciding whether or not to submit him to a sobriety test, which ultimately they did and didn't fail the breathalyzer, but failed the agility test. And Tiger walked away, walked away from police because he was on the phone with somebody. Mr. Woods. Did you to hang out down here with us, please? Thank you so much. All right. You got it. All right. Thank you. Take it. Just keep you down here with us, please. Yeah, I was just talking to the president. Come on. Don't Bigfoot the cops. I was just talking to the president. Yeah, no big deal. I don't make a big thing about it. I'm just talking to the President of the United States. Hey, it's a great country that you could have one of the greatest athletes in the world most recognizable talking to the President of the United States, the leader of the free world. And that doesn't get you out of a traffic incident. So, you know, I mean, he's got to pay the piper on that stuff. And by the way, I don't think D.U.I. Actually, I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't have, you know, issues with. Well, just issues, but I don't think he's got a DIY. That was one of the memes going around like Tiger 2 DUIs to John Daly Zero. How about that? They like them apples. Chuck from Delavan, closing out. Hey, it's a big Easter weekend. We've got head over to St. Ishka Bibles. They're going to have a real Easter egg hunt. I already went over there and got a couple of eggs. I'm making an egg salad sandwich right now. Perfect, Chuck. Thank you so much. I don't know where we're supposed that over, but happy Easter, everyone. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's morning answer. An 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. five, six hundred to hear how signature bank can help your business grow and thrive. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.