May You Live Forever

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 Proff here. So there's been an arrest made in Sheridan Gorman's murder. Case we talked about last week, this Loyola freshman who was murdered on the beach in Rogers Park, not far from campus, because she was out with her friends to try to see the Northern Lights. Somebody comes up to her and opens fire. The original reporting was that she was shot in the head. It turns out that she was shot in the abdomen and died from her injuries, 18-year-old freshman from New York. This was CBS reporting on that. J.B. Pritzker still hasn't announced if he's running for president, but last night in Washington. I'm sorry. I meant News Nation reporting on the murder of Sheridan Gorman. It was hard to find. at least initially until yesterday, frankly, any reporting on the arrest in Sheridan Gorman's case. This is going to try to be minimized as much as possible now that we know who's in custody. Here's News Nation. reporting on it. Police sources say that a 25-year-old man from the northern Chicago Rogers Park neighborhood was arrested in connection with the murder, and police found a gun on him at the time of the arrest. The Loyola University community and surrounding neighborhoods on edge after a mass man fired a gun into a group of students hanging out near the beach, killing 18-year-old students Sheridan Gorman shot in the head. Gorman originally from New York. I knew her from my first semester. And obviously I just feel like we lost someone who... We admired who we love. A man has been arrested in connection with the murder. Investigators use surveillance cameras in the area to help identify the suspect who allegedly has a distinct way that he walks. I think it makes me feel hopeful, obviously, until it's confirmed. I don't think we're going to be ready to come out here late at night alone anymore. Definitely have as much protection on this as we can in terms of pepper spray and things like that. Toby Prince Beach Park is a popular area for Loyola University students and people who live in the Rogers Park neighborhood. You can see how many people are out.

out here on this Saturday, and the masked gunmen reportedly jumped from the brush shooting and killing 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman right here. A memorial now in place. Her family says that she was out here with a group of friends in an area she believed to be safe trying to catch a glimpse of the northern lights just eight miles north of downtown Chicago. There's no area in Chicago you can believe to be safe. News Nation didn't quite put the pieces together on Saturday. Fox News finally started to fill in the blanks. Again, we can't rely outside of CWB Chicago. You can't rely on the Chicago Press Corps to give you the straight dope on this, particularly the person arrested, particularly because it turns out he wasn't a college Republican. He wasn't decked out in Maga gear. So you're not going to get little details like Fox News provided. 18-year-old Sheridan Gordon was shot early Thursday morning while out on a walk with her friends near her college campus. And now police reportedly have a man, have the man responsible that, according to the Chicago Tribune, reporting that police have arrested a 25-year-old man, Fox News Digital, adding this quote, The Tribune said it had obtained the arrest report and was not naming the suspect, who sources tell Fox News, is a migrant from Venezuela. Witnesses of the shooting say the masked suspect fired one shot towards Gorman's group, killing her. The Tribune also reporting that the suspect was IDed minutes later in videos due to his, quote, distinct limp. Of course, the Tribune wasn't reporting that he was a quote, unquote, Venezuelan migrant, which is another euphemism. ICE was less inclined to use euphemisms. ICE asked Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Sanctuary Politicians to not release criminal illegal alien. Now we're getting somewhere. Not to not release criminal illegal alien accused of killing 18-year-old Loyola college student. Lodge an arrest detainer asking sanctuary politicians to not release this guy's name. A criminal illegal alien.

312-642-2-5600 to give us a call or text. And, of course, insult was added to murder, as only the state-run media in Chicago can do. One outlet that is indistinguishable from all of the other outlets ran with the headline, wrong place, wrong time. chalk this one up to a wrong place, wrong time. Family responded. Good for the family. Sheridan Gorman's family. She was exactly where she should have been, close to campus, surrounded by friends living her life. What happened is Sheridan cannot be reduced to the idea of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not an abstraction. This is the loss of a daughter, the loss of a sister. The loss of a future filled with milestones that will now never come. Our family is forever changed. Sheridan was our daughter, our sister, in the heart of our family. She was full of life, full of kindness, and full of love, that she gave freely to everyone around her. She made people feel seen. She made people feel valued, whether it was her friends, her family, or someone she had just met. Sheridan had a way of leaving people better than she found them. Wrong place, wrong time. Continuing from the family, Sheridan deserved a full life. She deserved a future that was taken from her. We will not allow her to be remembered as just another story. Good luck with the Chicago Press Corps and that. She was extraordinary and she will always be loved. We cannot accept a world where moments like this become something people grow used to. We cannot allow ourselves to be desensitized to violence. When we begin to accept these tragedies as inevitable, we will all become vulnerable to them. Apathy is not harmless. It allows these moments to repeat. Boy, that should be etched on the Welcome to Chicago sign. Right next to Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here. Apathy is not harmless. It allows these moments to repeat. It is so typically grotesque. Wrong place, wrong time. So dismissive. Like the other mediating institutions in theory. in Chicago, the schools, the arts, the C-suit, the political press corps has disintegrated. It serves only as an arm of the kleptocracy like those other institutions rather than foot soldiers for Western civilization. And so the populace lives by beautiful lies like, quote, Venezuelan migrant, unquote, Rogers Parkman, quote, unquote. because the populace in Chicago has lost the ability to confront ugly truths. And by the way, it's reflected in the people in public office. I mentioned all last week. You know how you can tell the Republican caucus in the Senate is weak? John Thune is their leader. You know how you can tell the populace in Chicago is weak and apathetic? Look at who is in public office.

The majority of the electorate in Chicago lacks even the common decency to acknowledge the lives taken and the promise lost in the hands of their barbaric policies. They are all consumed with raging against imaginary boogeymen. They've been conditioned to hate. They are contemptible. And that includes all of those self-styled journalists. Talk about another euphemism or frankly misnomer at the state-run media outlets. Writing stories like wrong place, wrong time. Isn't it interesting? Isn't it interesting? Wrong place, wrong time. Boy, that's going to stick with me. And it should stick with you, too, to the point of Sheridan Gorman's parents. A college kid hanging out with their friends on the beach to see the northern lights as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being in America illegally with the intent to prey on others, even after having been previously arrested is not. That's not. That's not being in the wrong place at wrong time. This Venezuelan migrants, quote unquote, you know, I want to keep up the proper nomenclature for Chicagoans listening. So their ears don't bleed from anything approximating the truth.

Wrong place, wrong time. Court records show Medina was arrested in this guy in custody for Sheridan Gorman's murder. Arrested in mid-June of 2023 for shoplifting $132 worth of merchandise from the Macy's at North State Street in the loop. Is that even a crime anymore? He listed his address as the beach. a migrant shelter on the beach at Leon Beach Park. He was released ROR. Of course he was. And guess what? You'll be shocked to learn. He didn't show first court date. Who would have thunk that? Was ICE notified? No, because people don't want to get fired like that cop and Elgin. We'll get to that story. And his first failure to appear, the judge in the case granted him a continuance. Very generous. When a Macy's representative appeared for the rescheduled date, and good for Macy's for actually sending somebody, he didn't, this guy didn't show again. Then he issued an arrest warrant. But he was never apprehended, roaming around for the last three years. Who knows how many other crimes he committed. No, I'm sure he was on the straight and narrow. I'm should punch in a nine to five job somewhere and just waiting for his... time to randomly shoot apparently some poor college freshman enjoying the beach with their friends. But back to the point, he wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time. This illegal immigrant. No. It's just like commuting to and from work on the L is being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but being on the same train with the intent to light someone on fire after having been arrested 70 plus times. That's not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bethany McGee. It's just like being a Chicago firefighter who shows up to fight a blaze is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But being a meth hat on felony pretrial release who started the fire. that's not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so Chicago firefighter Michael Sam Altman dead. Because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, don't you know? But you know what? I was thinking about this over the weekend. Maybe the Chicago Press Corps has a point. The people who play by the rules in Chicago, getting their education, doing their job, trying to protect others, are in fact at the wrong place.

At any time. That's what Chicago is. In the wrong place at any time. Chris, Rogers Park. Yeah, I mean, I guess you're talking to a Rogers Park man here. Yes. Just like the guy who allegedly killed Sheridan Gorman. You two are just a couple of Rogers Park dudes. Exactly. We're going to go have coffee at Starbucks. It's just. It's wild to me. I just bought a house over here. Alderman comes over and talk to the neighbors. And it's like they're more concerned about like the cops chasing someone that just carjacked us, someone to block away too fast or there's a shooting in the park and the cops like drove over there too fast. That's what they're complaining to the argument about. Not the carjacking, not the shooting. It's nuts. I don't know. They'll care. It's such a team sport here. Orange Man Bad. It's just crazy. Thanks, Chris. Greg, and also Rogers Park, man. Yeah, hey, the Alderman is Maria Hayden, a horrible person. And then, on top of all the politicians, they're also going to give some blame to the Archdiocese to Chicago for their enabling all these illegal immigrants to come in here and commit crime, Cardinal Soupage, and especially a vicar of priest, Larry Dan Sullivan, who echoes that policy and gives orders to his priest to welcome these people and to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. So thanks, thanks, Dan, for your great work. Thanks, Greg. Appreciate it. Yeah, Alderman Maria Hadden, who is the feudal lord covering the Rogers Park area. And bears a striking resemblance to Alvin from the Cosby Show. She said in a video on Friday, she kept everyone updated with developments on Sheridan's murder. But then everybody found out who got arrested, and now it's time to clam up and move on. Because Sheridan Gorman was just in the wrong place at the right time. Alderman had no, she wasn't not on social media providing updates. She did announce, I'll give you a moment if you want to get a pen because you want to write this down. I don't want you to miss it. Saturday, April 4th at 1 p.m. at Federal Plaza, there will be a rally for transvisibility. Okay? We've already moved on from the Sheridan Gorman murder. We can't dwell on these things. Wrong place, wrong time. Big City living. Let's look forward to something we can all celebrate the rally for transvisibility at Federal Plaza on April 4th. Christine West Rogers Park. Hi, I live here. We had a YMCA that was closed about five years ago. And when Lori Lightfoot was still mayor, East and West Rogers Park combined and put about 200 biting age illegal Venezuelan men only there. They had no washers or dryers. I interviewed the man who was running the YMCA then. We couldn't use it. We used to use for birthday parties, everything. And he said...

They had no money to go to the laundromats. We have four laundromats with them walking around us. He said they have no money. As I'm watching this talking to the guy who's blinking out of an SOS, the Chicago Fire Police truck shows up and drops off emergency food for these people, and it went on for years. Thanks for the call, Christine. Appreciate it. Text from through and to Dan, the Macy's merchandise that this Rogers Parkman, this Venezuelan migrant. stole back in 2023. The Mesa's merchandise was in the wrong store at the wrong time. Exactly. Right. Exactly. It's the merchandise's fault, really, if you think about it. You've made the switch, and it feels so good. You switch to Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer. Business owners, now's the time for your business to make the move to a locally owned business bank. Hi, Mike Gallagher here to let you know that you don't have to look far. Signature Bank was founded in Chicago with a simple mission to help companies like yours grow, succeed, and thrive. Their decisions are made locally by a terrific team that knows your name, cares about your business, and invests in your success. That's why Signature Bank is my bank. I'm a customer. As business owners, they knew that local family owned businesses were not getting the help they needed or deserved. So, I invite you to reach out to my friends at Signature Bank today. Write the number down. Remember this phone number. Signature Bank, 773-467-5630. And learn all about this great bank, 773-467-5630, or visit them online at SignatureBank.Bank. That's SignatureBank. Bank. Signature Bank makes commercial banking personal. Remember FDIC? Equal Housing Lender. 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, building off of our discussion about Sheridan Gorman's murder, the arrest in that case, and the contemptible coverage from the state-run Chicago political press corps. The outlets, the names don't even matter. It's just one big blob. It's indistinguishable, one out, one masthead from the other. They don't mean anything. They don't tell you anything about the content. It's all the same from the central office. Rinse and repeat. So this from another state-run media outlet in Chicagoland. And again, for the purposes of lobotomizing most of the electorate, which they've done a bang-up job, even in that News Nation report on Sheridan Gorman, you heard, yeah, you know, like the sing-songy 30-something dingbats in Chicago who've been really... significantly responsible for the city's disintegration. Yeah, we're not thinking it's safe quite yet. It's really scary. But, you know, we're going to go out, you know, make sure we're protecting ourselves as much as possible, you know, with pepper spray. Your pepper spray, you quicker on the draw with your pepper spray than, oh, I don't know, say a Rogers Parkman with a firearm. The, you know, just blithe. ignorance on display. And as you heard from when Rogers Park resident before the break, residents are more concerned about, as I said, properly demagoguing the boogeyman that they have been conditioned to hate. Ice agents or the Chicago police or both of them. We're supposed to run interference for the people who are never in the wrong place at the wrong time. And those are the predators, both imported and domestic. So the headline from another outlet on another story, related. Elgin police officer fired for social media post targeting undocumented, targeting undocumented immigrants. Targeting. Like he is praying on people in this country illegally residing in Elgin, Chicago land. He's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong place at any time. Like I said, anybody who's interested in enforcement of the law. This is the wrong place, Chicago land, at any time. Jason Lentz is his name. He posted this. It's not the most subtle post. I'll grant you that. If I were ICE, I wouldn't check Lama Vita at 840 North State in Elgin for illegals. Definitely none there. Also, wouldn't check the flea market where the old milk pail was at the address in West Dundee. There's no way you'd find any there. Also, wouldn't check the Elgin Mall of East Dundee, which is located at this address. I guarantee there's no illegals there either. And the icon on his... Facebook pages, I stand with ice. So he's not being subtle. And frankly, I, you know, I applaud him for not being subtle. Law enforcement standing on the side of law enforcement. That's what we used to come to expect. So he's gone and the illegal immigrant from Montenegro.

Who overstayed his visa about a decade ago and got hired by the Hanover Park Police somehow some way is still on the job as far as I know. 312-642-5600 to give us a call or text. Officer Lenz is making people feel unsafe. The police chief in Elgin, Anna Lally, Lally. Anna, of course. Let's his termination for misconduct is warranted and necessary to uphold standards the community expects and deserves. His actions do not reflect the standards of this agency. I ask the LG community to not judge our current or future officers based on the actions of one individual. Thank gosh. I was worried that the Elgin Police Department might have other officers who would rather coordinate. with federal law enforcement than make the jobs more difficult. Thank goodness, I mean, I don't know about you or Elgin residents. You should be comforted to hear that Jason Lenz is a one-off. There are no other police officers on the Elgin Police Force who are interested in improving public safety. Whew, close call.

Craig and Mount Greenwood. And thanks a lot for taking my call. Another perfect example, how in these leftists run places in it, they love to make it real, real safe for the criminal. Criminals do not follow gun laws or have anything to do with gun laws or purchasing guns illegal or anything. So the leftists, what they do is they want to make sure everything's safe for a criminal. So law-abiding citizens, they get burdened in every possible way. Thanks for the call, Craig. Appreciate it. Text from Amish, Amish texter. By the way, I wanted to confer with Amish on this. I read a story over the weekend that in terms of modern appliances, it's almost universal among the Mennonites that the washing machine is okay. Most all of the Amish have washing machines, but not other modern appliances. And I just wanted to make sure that passed Muster, Mennonite Buster with Amish. But anyway, the text from the Amish text, I give that Elgin Cop fire for doing his job six to 12 months after retiring before he's down in Naples with you and Sean having a scar. Probably there's a lot of places he could land in Florida that would probably welcome his experience. Well, let me give you an indication of what I mean. Here's the governor. of Florida. His name's Ron DeSantis, remember him? Responding to a reporter's question about assertions that add a nice detention facility in Florida, somebody in this country illegally who's being processed for deportation wasn't provided the medication that he needed. This is all alleged. And this is the singular focus of the... DC Press Corps and its representatives in all of these urban and even suburban and ex-urban outlets around the country. There's no concern for the victims of people in this country illegally. No, of course not. A point that Ron DeSantis made in his inimitable way. And you wonder why people flee to Florida. There are several families that are saying that, um,

Mm-hmm. It's like we're number one for murder rape, but crime is down and everything's fine, and J.B. and B.J. know what to do, and they're doing it, and it's working. I got it. A woman robbed, 89-year-old man at Division Blue Line, and an accomplice is being sought. She's in custody. Bucktown. Man stabbed at Blue Line Station in Bucktown. There's just a couple of low lights from the weekend, but Big City living. A couple of people. Wrong place, wrong time. I get it. Totally understand. You want to hear what you're dealing with? This was a useful MOS event. This, you know, basically independent, you know, reporter that does these that are actually providing so much utility just going out and talking to offals like he did here, this senior awful in Virginia. And whether or not a particular individual taken into custody should be protected by the sanctuary state that is Virginia, per the promises of the new moderate quotation marks, scare quotes, Abigail Span, Governor Abigail Spanberger. That's what she promised. Let's make sure she delivers. So he's circulated, you know, very pen and teller style. He's circulating a phony petition to protect this individual. I'll wait for him to tell you what the charges were. And he wants to get this old offals signature. But I mean, think about you have to spend three minutes. drilling down like he did in order to penetrate the granite between the ears of these offals. This is Angel David Marco Rubio Marine. So they're trying to send him back to Mexico, but we want to keep him here in Virginia and hold Abigail Spanberger accountable to what she promised not to cooperate with ice. We have to disclose, though, that he was charged of soliciting child pornography and of public mass education. So he's being held right now, but we think he deserves a second chance. We don't want him to get deported. What do you think? We don't want ICE to take him and send him back to Mexico. Is there an issue? Did he do it? Yeah, he did. I mean, he was charged with it. He was in jail right now with an ICE detainer.

You couldn't just throw me an easy one. What's the issue there? What are you having a difficult time with? I have a difficult time with men like that. And I'm not in the habit of going out of my way to do anything to support them. But on the other hand, I mean, Spenberg, you know, she talks a good story. You know, I voted for her. I agree we need to hold her accountable. Well, do you think that ICE should deport someone like this? I don't think I should exist. Oh, no. Oh, that is. I mean, is it better to keep him here in Virginia? He came into this country illegally, and now he's committing crimes and praying on children. Right. Should we send him back? God, I don't know. Or, I mean, should we keep him here and have the Virginia taxpayer pay for his rehabilitation and his imprisonment? No. No? I don't want to pay for his imprisonment. Send them back then? Yeah. Send him back. Such a close call, though, between sending an illegal child porn monger back to his home country or abolishing ice and letting him stay. Oh, it's excruciating for her. That's center cut, lakefront.

Mark in Oklahoma. Hey, Dan, thanks for you to call. You know, I just can't get over how the media covers stuff up respect to the local Channel 9, Channel 2. It's also one-sided. You know, they have no respect for the police. You know, it's always the police's fault, ICE's fault. You know, Dan, can you educate me? What incentive is there for these local media, like you would say, Aparatchets? Why do they do this? Why don't they tell us the truth? I mean, are they getting paid off by J.B. Pritzker and his minions? Or why are they so one-sided? Well, because, I mean, thanks for the call mark, they're so one-sided because that's their ideological orientation, number one. So they have a job to do, and it's not telling the truth. It's advancing their ideological flag. That's number one. The why they get away with it, although, I mean, I know these outlets are shrinking such that they're mainly pamphlets now, the quote-unquote daily newspapers. But they still exist thanks to the largesse of government and trade unions and high net worth leftists. So they're always looking for their next bailout or benefactor. Why do they get away with it? Why does anyone see fit to present a new outlet with a different approach? Well, CWB Chicago's new. One example. But for the most part, Chicagoans don't have enough respect for themselves to demand better. Why don't we get better? I don't know. I mean, who is out there in any organized fashion demanding better on any front. Pick an institution, any institution that, as I've been saying for years, is disintegrating before your very eyes. I mean, the firefighters and the cops support all sorts of, you know, Marxists. And I know the Republican Party doesn't present much choice in Chicago or, frankly, anywhere else in the state these days. So what do you do? You play the hand you're dealt. And what's the reward for being courageous and speaking out and taking on the zeitgeist of the day? You do and you lose your job in Elgin. You fall in line and they protect you in Hanover Park. So it pays to be a coward. I mean, this is why this is an Orwellian-level dystopia. It's a kleptocracy, you know, and kleptocracy. That's an aspect of it. Play the game. Keep, don't be the nail that sticks up. And maybe you'll get cut in on the action. Don't play the game and you'll be marginalized or eliminated altogether. You know, being a coward often pays well.

Isn't that the lesson? What's that? And then, of course, I guess the larger point is you have to, you know, you have to decide how you want to live your life. As that famous exchange in the movie The 300 between Leonidas and the faulties of Traikis, you know, the hunchback. when Leonidas exposes him for having betrayed Leonidas to Xerxes. And he says to him, may you live forever? May you live with the guilt of being a coward and a quisling forever? And that's what I would say to most of Chicago. The stories you need to know to start your day. This is Chicago's morning answer. An AM 560, The answer. Business owners, now's the time for your business to make the move to a locally owned business bank. Hi, Mike Gallagher here to let you know that you don't have to look far. Signature Bank was founded in Chicago with a simple mission to help companies like yours grow, succeed, and thrive. Their decisions are made locally by a terrific team that knows your name, cares about your business, and invests in your success. That's why Signature Bank is my bank. I'm a customer. As business owners, they knew that local family-owned businesses we're not getting the help they needed or deserved. So, I invite you to reach out to my friends at Signature Bank today. Write the number down. Remember this phone number, Signature Bank, 773-467-5630. And learn all about this great bank, 773-467-5630, or visit them online at SignatureBank.Bank. That's SignatureBank.com. Signature Bank makes commercial banking personal. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Profft here. Elon Musk offering to pay TSA agents while the neo-Marxists have TSA funding cut off. Bad old Elon Musk. Boy, it's a far cry from those heady days of doge when all the neo-Marxists were out there with the AFGE, American Federation of government employees stewards, singing their 60s protest songs. Remember that? Because that's a callous group of dogers. Elon Musk, a bad guy, spurting public safety, existential threat to the Republic. We've got to get out there and key some Tesla stat to save our country. I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country. That's fun. That's a fun piece of jiu-jitsu and a generous offer from Elon Musk. Do you like that more in terms of a leftist comeuppance, at least in part? or Trump announcing it, okay, you want to defund TSA, at least for the purpose of trying to defund ICE means to your ultimate ends. I'm just going to scramble ICE personnel, and we'll put ICE personnel in the airports to relieve the long lines that the left has induced. A couple of really nice pieces of jujitsu. I thought I was tickled when I saw that come over the transom on Saturday that Trump had proposed this. And I think Tom Homan was tickled to go out and talk about it. Here's Holman on Fox. No, I just can check identification before people enter the screening area, right? We're trying to release TSA resources to get to positions that they really need expertise, like the x-ray screening. So we're going to be a force multiplier. Yeah, force multiplier. And, I mean, he didn't say it, but golly, gee, if they come across anybody. traveling through the airports that might be on their detention list, then, well, gee, all the better, a bit of a twofer, relieving congestion in the security lines, as well as continuing to apprehend people in this country illegally. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Isn't it fun to see Sanctuary Pauls hoist by their own petar?

312-642-2-5600 to give us a call or a text. Holman went on with Dana Bash, you know, very concerned about whether ICE agents have the proper training to be able to aid the effort here, aid the effort of moving people through security theater, frankly. Yeah, they don't need to do the X-ray machines. You've got people trained to do that. Otherwise, what, take your laptops out? Keep your shoes on and keep your laptops out. Put your hands over your head. Walk through this screener. Check IDs. Stand guard outside of doors that shall not be breached and so on and so forth. Are ICE agents even remotely trained to handle security at airports? Ice agents receive a high level of training. And, you know, the ice agents are assigned at many airports across the country already. They do a lot of investigation, criminal investigation, on smuggling airports. But, you know, there's, I mean, there's got TSA agents covering exits, you know, people that enter through the exits. You know, certainly a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit. It makes people don't go through those exits. Entering the airport through the exits. And stuff like that relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines. So wherever we can provide extra security. I don't see an ice agent looking at an x-ray machine because you're not trained in that. There are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines. Yeah. Exit through the gift shop. Wasn't that the title of a Banksy documentary, I think? Jim and the Grange on Chicago's morning answer. Dan, all I have to say is Elon Musk for president. He's not a natural-born citizen, so that's not going to work. Oh, damn it. Okay. Have a great day. Back to the drawing board. Well, he can play a positive role in the public policy fights of the day as he's attempted to. you know, to varying degrees of effect. Now, I know the larger issue, as we've talked about this before, is getting the federal government out of this business altogether. And we, we, a free market solutionist, agree on that. And actually, the interesting thing is even CNN would have to, per its own reporting, 20 airports in the U.S. security screening is not handled by TSA, but by private companies, and their checkpoints aren't seeing long lines. Right, because... See if we can piece this together because they're handled by private companies and so personnel getting paid. Airports like Sanford International, KC. International, Orlando, Sanford, 17 smaller facilities participate in TCA's screening partnership program, which uses contractors at the checkpoints. The private companies have avoided the large-scale absences. Some airports that use TSA staff are struggling with right now.

They're completely oblivious to the government shutdown, said the founder, said a professor of computer science who analyzes data to improve aviation security. And meanwhile, and by the way, somebody's created an app. I know that there was this thing I was mentioning last week, like, why can't you check how long the lines are before you head to the airport? Well, and somebody said there is an app for Chicago for O'Hare and Midway, but that was down because of whatever's going on in TSA. Well, this guy named Zach Griff actually created an app because he said most tools, including the TSA's own app, only show airport-wide estimates. He looked, he's got it, a free tracker that shows live weights by checkpoint, including pre-check, clear, and more where available. So it's a little bit more surgical, which is pretty cool, actually. It's TSA. And if you want to check it out, if you're traveling, you may want to check it out. It's called from the tray table. Just pretty clever. TSA. From the tray table. So, for example, right now, let's see. For example, for example, JFK 47 minutes, DFW 43 minutes. And he's got like, you know, the number of checkpoints that this provides an average for, whether it's all or it's partial or so forth. I don't know. It's just another app, just trying to be constructive until and unless we get some help from Elon Musk's checkbook. Now, on the other side, Hakeem Jeffries, the very ill-equipped House Minority Leader, who still may be House Speaker. You don't have to be. particularly talented, it turns out, to rise to the upper reaches of political power in this country. I don't know if you've noticed. Hakeem Jeffries also on with Dana Bash following Tom Homan's appearance, where he explained that ICE agents are more than qualified to do things like security and provide a backstop to relieve TSA agents to do things they're uniquely trained to do, like the X-ray machine review. And Hakeem Jeffries. which is about his speed, went with the I'm Rubber and your glue argument. Yeah, it's unfortunate that Republicans have decided that they would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience, millions of Americans all across the country and now potentially expose them to untrained ice agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land rather than get ice agents under control. And that's what you're going to hear now repeated because, well, because that was sent to him to repeat. Chaos. This is the watchword of the left. Oh, I don't know about the thing. I don't know about using ICE agents because it's going to just create more chaos. Everything with respect to what the Trump administration does, what federal law enforcement does, what law enforcement any level does under the...

umbrella of alignment with the Trump administration. That is just chaos inducing. Law and order creates chaos. You know, the enforcement of law creates chaos. Lawlessness, not chaos. Sanctuary jurisdictions, not chaos. Professional agitators intervening on behalf of criminals to impede law enforcement, that's not chaos. Order, law enforcement. Common sense, those are the approaches, the behaviors that create chaos. You heard it there from Hakeem Jeffries. You're going to hear it again and again and again. George and Naperville. Yeah, Stan, maybe the public will warm up to ice when they see them helping out at the airports. Yeah, just as they've fallen in love with TSA. Chuck Schumer is completely confused. He had a Freudian slip on the Senate floor. He can't remember what we're supposed to fund and defund. But we must fund I. We must fund TSA. TSA, yeah. Not ICE TSA. Yeah. But again, in the outside world, the rank and file for both Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, especially Hakeem Jeffries. including in the Midwest, we saw this with our recently minted nominee to replace Dick Durbin from the neo-Marxist Party. Julianna Stratton, you're a lieutenant governor? What's your favorite thing? What's your favorite thing she's done as lieutenant governor? Anyway, she ran on abolishing ice. Of course she did. Why wouldn't you? Shri Thanedar.

He's a rep from Michigan. This is Congressman Sri Canada. Ice is out of control, creating terror in our cities on our streets. They're beyond reform, not acceptable. I am working in Congress to abolish ICE. You know, at least we're getting candor again, which I sure do appreciate. Dan Proff, Chicago's Morning Answer. It's news, opinion, insight. This is Chicago's morning answer. On AM 560, the answer. By the way, that's Shri Thanedar, whose little 15-second spot I played, Baloch Ice. These guys filed articles of impeachment against Trump, like, you know, every other week. He's the guy from Michigan who looks like Munchy. The puppet from a B at best, Lonnie Anderson movie that I mentioned before. If you haven't seen it, look it up, and I think you'll, and then look up Shri Thanedar if you haven't seen him, and I think you'll appreciate the comparison. Chuck Norris allegedly passed away on Friday after a program was over. It was reported. Obviously, I don't believe it because, as you know, death once had a near Chuck Norris experience. As you know, the flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year. So I just can't believe it. But I do believe this. Chuck Norris, this is a while back, of course. But when he very publicly made a move from what was then the Democrat Party to the Republican Party, he explained it thusly. Why are you a conservative, sir? Well, I used to be a Democrat. But unfortunately, the Democrats went too far to the left, and the Republicans moved into their position that the Democrats were 40 years ago. And so the Democrats believed 40 years ago, the Republicans believed today. And so I realized that I had to go to a Republican because the Democrats just got too far off the trail. They just got completely off the trail and lost all reality of what America stood for. And so I realized that Republicans at this point in time are more focused on what is best for America than what the Democrats are. Yeah, and it's been that way for the last 30 years. Well, prior to that, I would argue, but it was for Chuck. Scooter, South Side. Hey, good morning, Dan. I'm just saying... These ice agents, when they're working at the airport, they should wear their masks because, you know, you don't want to get sick all those people coming through the lines. You know, and Chuck Torres, when he does a push-ups, he's not pushing himself up. He's pushing the earth down. That's exactly right, Scooter. Chuck Norris also doesn't read books. He steers them down until he gets the information they want. We'll have those and other Chuck Norris isms throughout the rest of the show in his honor. I watched that fight scene from Enter the Dragon between him and Bruce Lee over the weekend just as a, you know, refresher since he was top of mind. Pretty awesome. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them right here on 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. See a little light there, the great Bob mold. I caught myself after. We went to news, but yeah, I mentioned I watched the great fight scene between Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee because Norris was top of mind this weekend because of his alleged passing. Not enter the dragon, way of the dragon, of course, misspoke. I caught myself. Relax. Speaking of, see a little light. Chuck Norris has to sleep with the lights on because the dark is afraid of him. I don't know if you knew that. Text from... 847, Chuck Norris was once bitten by King Cobra. After several days of excruciating pain, the cobra died. Yes, feel free to chime in with your favorite truisms about Chuck Norris. Like when Chuck Norris goes swimming, the sharks get out of the ocean, those sorts of things as we keep him in mind. I'm saying remember him because I believe Chuck Norris to be immortal. So, all right. Moving on to... more temporal things as we began the show this morning, the arrest in the murder of that freshman loyal student, Sheridan Gorman. Here was Fox News reporting. We had to get to national coverage of this because the local network affiliates were missing a key aspect of the individual who was, who is in custody, who was arrested and is in custody for the murder of Sheridan Gorman. 18-year-old Sheridan Gordon was shot early Thursday morning while out on a walk with her friends near her college campus. And now police reportedly have a man, have the man responsible that according to the Chicago Tribune reporting that police have arrested a 25-year-old man, Fox News Digital, adding this quote, the Tribune said it had obtained the arrest report and was not naming the suspect who sources tell Fox News is a migrant from Venezuela. Witnesses of the shooting say the masked suspect fired one shot towards Gorman's group, killing her. The Tribune also reporting that the suspect was IDed minutes later in videos due to his, quote, distinct lip. Yeah, we had to get that piece from National because we can't report that here with the state-run media in Chicago. just to put a fine point on it. ICE put out a release. ICE asked Governor Pittsburgh in Chicago sanctuary politicians to not release criminal illegal alien accused of killing 18-year-old Loyola College student. ICE Detainer. Please don't release him because we know that's your want, J.B. and B.J. and all the other. And Tony, Tony, Tony, and all of the other sanctuary city, county, state, Pauls in Illinois. I saw our next guest, Tom Weichel, characterize this as system collapse. I got to disagree. First of all, as we know from the state-run media is reporting, and the outlets don't matter because, as I've said, it's just a blob. The mastheads are irrelevant. They don't tell you anything about the content. The content is uniform. It's the Pyong Chang Press.

The wrong place, wrong time. System failure. Here we go again. The system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's working how those in charge wanted to work. So how's that a failure? For more on this, let's be joined by Tom Weitzel. retired police chief for the village of Riverside, a fellow of law enforcement with Wake, Illinois. Tom White, so thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. Good morning, Dan. System failure, is it? Well, you know, I believe it was, Dan, because, yeah, you know, the system is designed to protect us. Now, it's been manipulated. That's what I'm saying. It's, it's designed. There's supposed to be checks at the border. They're supposed to be the court systems, the police investigations, the bond. We don't have bond, right? We have first appearance court. But, I mean, the system is designed. Well, that's the law. The no cash bail is the law. That's the law. That's the system. Right. Well, the sanctuary policies is really one of the biggest. parts of this whole tragedy because this individual was released into the country when he was caught at the border. He was arrested for retail theft, released after that here in Chicago, didn't show up for the first court. They was sent a notice like, hey, you didn't show up. We'll see you in 30 days. And he didn't show up in 30 days. They put a warrant out. But the warrant, Dan, was for $50. But $50 was the bond amount or the amounts to be released from custody here in Chicago. Well, well, well, he's, I mean, of course, the predicate point is that he's in this country illegally. So, and he's, and he's arrested. And he's still protected by the system. That's the system working as the system is set up to work. Well, you know, if they listened to some of my suggestions and other law enforcement leaders, you know, this whole thing could have been avoided if, in fact, they would allow detainees to be picked up in jails, prisons, from police custody. When they had him in custody for the retail theft, they put the ICE detainer on him. He would have been placed back into ICE custody, and he would have been shipped out of the United States because he was here illegally. Well, no, I understand, but that's not our system. I mean, it's just on our system. So, I mean, it's like we suggest that this is something that is being done to us when it's something that we have chosen to do as a city, county, region, state. And I just think that needs to be expressed properly. Because, I mean, to otherwise, it's sort of, you know what it sounds to me, it sounds like it sounds sort of like the, we're a victim stuff. We're not a victim.

We have chosen to do this to ourselves. We collectively elevate certain people to political office. They advance certain public policies. They make certain changes to the law. We advance those same people who made those changes to the law to public office again and again and again. And then we say, oh, my gosh, this is something that surprises us. I just, I can't feign surprise anymore. Yeah, you're right in the fact that we have elected officials that are putting these policies into place, meaning sanctuary city, sanctuary state. Absolutely. And that's very true and very factual. And that affects law enforcement and affects how they do their job. But in reality, we have a criminal justice system. I mean, it's just being obliterated here in Illinois. I mean, we still have courts. We still have law enforcement. No matter what the mayor and the governor wants, we have no ice. Well, that's ridiculous. ICE has been in Chicago, ICE has been in Illinois. This theory that they get rid of them and don't allow them to operate here, we know that's not true, right? It's not happening. The government is still putting ICE agents here, and I just read that they're going to be coming to the airports. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, no, I know what the federal government is doing where they can, but what we're doing here is what? I mean. But I hear from everybody, oh my gosh, Eileen Burke. Now, finally, we have somebody who's serious in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. Okay. And I'm sorry. And the difference is what exactly? What people who commit retail thefts of less than $1,000 actually potentially face charges? But then in reality, I mean, it's marginal at best, isn't it? I mean, the judges, we have this case. I mean, it was $132, I know. But we have the, so all of this, it's like all of this happy talk that we tell ourselves because we've made a marginal improvement over Kim Fox. We're celebrating ourselves. Because we're looking forward to making a marginal improvement over Brandon Johnson. There's going to be some 180 where the Phoenix rises from the ashes. I, you know, we have our own, I'm really after Sheridan Gorman, again, I'm sort of re-energized to just say, I'm so tired of the. their beautiful lies, obviously, because you have an infantilized electorate that can't confront ugly truths and behave in a responsive manner like an adult would. But here on the sort of law and order or small sea conservative side, we tell ourselves our own beautiful lies about the appearance of change without change. Certainly nothing substantive, certainly nothing paradigm shifting, certainly nothing that meets the moment. And, you know, and so. I mean, come on, until you have stakeholders, institutional stakeholders, like in law enforcement, on either side of the criminal justice system, or both, decide to stop getting into bed with these public policymakers whose policies they turn around and decry, whose policies they turn around and say when a firefighter gets killed by some method.

fire bug. Oh, now all of a sudden it's, oh, what are we doing and what are we doing? And then the firefighters union turns around and endorses all these neo-Marxists that go down to Springfield and do J.B. Pritzker's bidding or sit in the city council like pot of plants and largely do BLM Brandon's bidding. I mean, you know, it's just like this charade has to be called out for as far as I'm concerned because people on the center right who are otherwise sensible or on the center left who are otherwise sensible. I mean, they're just as big a cowards as these neo-Marxists, as far as I'm concerned. You know, you're on point, and I would say that I agree that there needs to be the police leadership and even this case, the firefighter leadership. They have to stand up. And you know what they do in Springfield? They're like, what deal can we make the best? Like what can we get back for our organizations? And that has to stop. I've been saying that you have to fall on your sword somewhere. And I don't know if you saw it, Dan, but the state, I mean, the Chicago police said a major tool used in the arrest of this. Venezuela, the migrant, was video. And do you know that there is a bill that was introduced by Representative Kelly Bill Cassidy that would ban law enforcement from using facial recognition in Illinois? Yeah, because it's racist, just like the shot spotters. They're racist. Well, so the tools that we, the proven tools, and in this case, helped solve this brutal murder, these, you know, you have the law pending in Springfield to not allow ICE agents to be local police in Illinois. Now there's a proposed legislation to eliminate all facial recognition in the state of Illinois. Right. Well, why wouldn't they? I mean, they have a constituency to serve and they're serving it. They have a boogeyman that they've created and they have to continue to demonize those boogeymen and have people focus on those boogeymen rather than sort of, you know, pick their heads up and look around and see how things are going in their neighborhood. I mean, that's what they did. They're serving activists then, Dan. They're not serving the public. Well, oh, I know. But, but that's what pays well on both sides of the equation. It advances their political careers or sustains them. And people get paid. You know, it's an interesting, there was an interesting piece by Olivia Rangel in the free press. What happens when you pay ex-gang members to stop crime as Chicago? The violence interrupters, the much-touted violence interruptors. The Peacekeepers program is just a single piece of an experiment in crime fighting that is attracted around a billion dollars. It's also a program that growing course of city leaders, law enforcement officials, and even a donor now say doesn't work.

One city alder human called it a scam. A member of the mayor's own public safety team told me it is a revolving door for gang members. And she gets into the detail of it. It sounds so wonderful. So as long as the intentions are good and we've created this rosy scenario of how this is going to work, we don't actually have to worry too much about the implementation, much less the outcomes. And if you start looking at the outcomes. You know, heaven forbid, we look at outcomes to spend or to public policy approaches in this city and state. But it doesn't turn out to be so great. It's really a good piece. And but, but I mean, part of that new CTA enhanced security program, which has been, you know, instigated by. the Trump administration and Sean Duffy at transportation. But even still, it still includes that NGO, violence interruptors, peacekeepers, bull jive in lieu of actual uniform police, trained uniform police. We keep doing these same things over and over again. And frankly, there's only so much the federal government can do to push Chicago and Illinois in the right direction. If we're intent on running headlong off a cliff, then we will be allowed to run headlong off a cliff. Yeah, the violence interruptors is a scam. I've been on the record saying that for a long period of time. It's just a job creation program, and they're giving these positions that are paid to convicted gang members with violent, you know, criminal histories. And then, of course, the proponents say, well, it's one way. They're the only ones that can deal with these individuals. They're the only ones that can quell these disturbances or these murders. Where's the data? There is no data. It doesn't exist. Yeah. I mean, the only one. Well, no, I mean, it starts from this, you know, again, this sort of woozy dream world where an ex-gangbanger who is going to turn everybody's life around, even if he legitimately turned his life around, you know, the incentives are all misaligned. This has to be done. You know, there are examples of programs that do a good job. And this is not to say it's not possible, but the way this is done in such a scatter, I mean, it's such a, a, a. Well, really a scattershot way. There's no quality standards. There's no oversight and implementation. There's no measuring of results. It's just this sounds like a good idea. He's a good guy. He knows my friend, alderman, whoever. And so let's throw him a couple hundred grand and see what happens. Right, and at the same time, they're throwing a couple hundred grand. They're passing laws in Illinois where law enforcement gets passed. You know, a single piece of legislation, just like body cameras or training that went into these new pieces of legislation have been passed in Springfield for police, has no funding. It has grants, and so the departments have to compete for $2 million in grants with 190 police departments.

the interruptors program gets fully funded. Yeah, right. And so, you know, the other thing, too, is these moments, there's the moments of opportunity. When one of those state-run media outlets runs the headline, wrong place, wrong time to describe the Sheridan Gorman murder. And the family, to their credit, pushes back. She was exactly in the right place. She's where she's supposed to be. She's an 18-year-old freshman that we sent to Loyola, and she's enjoying the beach with her friends. They want to go out and see the Northern Lights like young people want to do. She's not in the wrong place at the wrong time, except to the extent she's in Chicago with politicians that allow this guy. who allegedly shot and killed her to meander around the streets freely because there's no interest in law enforcement. But this is an opportunity. You politicians aren't going to stand with these families who have been victimized. But law enforcement could to say, you know, this wrong place, wrong time, they should be ashamed of themselves and essentially say exactly what I'm saying or some version of it or so whatever you want to say, but to provide some organized pushback, not just to. what should be done from a public policy perspective. But to tell the public, you understand what these people are doing to you? You think Katie Abraham or Sheridan Gorman are going to be the last kids mowed down in the city of Chicago or anywhere else in the state because of the lawlessness that you support by supporting these politicians? I mean, I just can't emphasize that enough at some institutional, some institution with members who have some. credibility with the public needs to step forward if you want to see change. You know, unfortunately, I wish it were the case, but coming on my show or writing an op-ed or posting on Twitter is just not enough for the moment. Now, we need leaders. We need law enforcement leaders, you know, but a lot of them just can't do it. Sheriffs have a lot more freedom because, you know, they can't be removed from their president. They're elected. But if you're a local police chief or superintendent, whatever your title is, you can bet your mayor or city council or village president are telling most of them, stay out of it. Don't make public comments. Don't, you know, don't. Don't stand up. And then if you like your job, you do what I tell you to do. Tom Whitesell, retired police chief, retired police. He was the former chief of Riverside, fellow of law enforcement with Awake, Illinois. Tom, thanks for joining us, as always. Appreciate it. Thanks. Have a great morning. You too. And he joined us on 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. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Profft here. So we're being treated to two different assessments of where things stand with the preemptive de-escalation.

strikes against, wait, preemptive retaliate, wait, retaliatory, preemptive retaliatory de-escalation strikes. Gosh, I haven't been saying it enough. The weekend off, I have to remember what this is, because I know it's not war. That's fun. We're being treated with two different assessments of where things stand. where the Trump administration stands. Now, of course, there's a lot that transpired over the weekend, including President Trump's threat to bomb power plants in Iran, turn the lights off effectively, if the Iranians continued to meddle in the Strait of Hormuz. Just this morning, it came over the transom that Trump has postponed those strikes after, quote, unquote, productive talks with the Iranians. So that's on hold at the moment. Here's a couple of competing assessments, and then we'll have our friend Stephen Bucci adjudicate the matter. Scott Bessent on Meet the Press said the regime right now, the Iranian regime, that their status in Tehran is the equivalent of Hitler's bunker. The command and control system of the Iranian regime is in chaos. This is Hitler's bunker. Hitler is dead. Himmler is dead. Goring is dead. Most of what you're seeing are lone wolf activities. The mid-range ICBM that was shot off, these two missiles yesterday, that's out of desperation, Kristen. IRBM, technically, but okay. VDH. VDH is feeling better, thankfully. He was on with Sean Hannity, and he offered this assessment. He believes that, I don't know if he go as far as to make the Hitler's bunker comparison, but he definitely... agrees with Scott Bessent directionally in terms of this regime is teetering on the brink of collapse. There's enough evidence to see how things are really going. Europeans would never agree to go anywhere near around unless they thought the tide was turning and they think that we're going to win. Otherwise, they would keep still. The reason that the Pepto nations of the Gulf survive is they have their finger in the wind, and they're very attuned to the climate. And when you have Al Jazeera praising the United States. bombing campaign and saying that it's been underestimated and it's brilliant and effective, you get the feeling that they think not only should the United States finish the job, but it can and will finish the job. And then when you start to see tactical aircraft like wardhogs and Apaches, that means that they're offering almost ground and sea support to hit targets. There's nothing, there's no defense at all when you have that type of aircraft flying at will in Iranian airspace.

So you put it all together, and I think it's pretty clear that this RoboDope strategy that they have that we're going to tire before they are is dependent on just public opinion, the midterms in the United States. Trump sees it through, and I think he will. I think they're going to fall pretty soon in two, three, four weeks. And I think they know it. I think the Europeans know it. And I think the Middle East knows it. And their only hope, the Iranians only hope is that somebody will call Donald Trump off before the job is finished. And to VDH's point, the United Arab Emirates joined more than 20 countries, Gulf states, condemning Iran. and offering to contribute to appropriate efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz. So that coalition of the willing is coming together. It's not just Gulf states, but it's also Western and Central European countries. Leadership building consensus from Washington. Now, on the flip side, just to give a different perspective, Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago. who's pretty disinclined to interventions. And I'm not saying he doesn't have some insights. He, in many ways, called the Russian invasion of Ukraine correctly to this point. Amir Shimer argues that because the Trump administration didn't achieve the quick military victory that they anticipated.

that there's no easy out. And declaring victory doesn't make it so. I mean, I think what's going on here, Pierce, is that the United States and Israel... thought that we could win a quick and decisive victory, either by decapitating the regime or some form of shock and awe campaign for the first few days of the war. And the Iranians would then throw up their hands and they would submit to our demands. And in fact, President Trump has said that he was told that there was a good chance that the Iranians would close down the strait of Hormuz, but he ignored that. that warning because he thought we would win a victory before that became a viable option for the Iranians. But what's happened here is that we did not achieve a quick and decisive victory, and we're now in a long war, a war of attrition. And that's a war that the Iranians prepared for. And that's a war that the Iranians are in an excellent position to prevail it. If you think about the various steps up the escalation ladder that we can take, what you see is that the Iranians can match us at every point. And they can cause... not only enormous damage for the countries in the region and for the United States, military forces that are located there, but maybe even more importantly for the international economy. They have the ability, as you go up the escalation ladder, to tank the international economy. This would be catastrophic. So we are now in a situation, having failed to achieve a quick and decisive victory, where we could lose in a really serious way. say is that what President Trump should do is declare victory and get out. I mean, he can do that, but it will be seen as a humiliating defeat for the United States. And furthermore, you run into the problem that the Iranians themselves might not agree to end the war. The United States can quit, but the Israelis and the Iranians may continue fighting. And again, as I said, the Iranians have a lot of cards to play here. They can do a lot of damage. So even if we walk away, it's not clear that that solves the problem. And then again, where I started, the United States will look like it suffered a humiliating defeat. So I think that President Trump has got himself into a situation where there is really no good exit strategy. I'm not discounting what Mearsheimer has to say, but I find it very hard to make out the evidentiary case that Iran can go blow for blow with the United States, that they are in a position at this point to cripple the international economy and so forth. That seems to me...

wildly overstated, but as I said, let's get an expert to adjudicate the matter. Stephen Bucci served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, now visiting Felon Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies. Stephen, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. It's always my pleasure. Thanks for having me back. So who's closer to the point and the proper assessment, VDHH or Mearsheimer? You know, it's always tough when you have to either agree or disagree with really smart guys, and both Victor Davis Hansen and Mearsheimer are both really smart guys. But I got to tell you, I think Mearsheimer's assessment of the Iranian capabilities are laughable. They're not capable of going toe to toe to toe with anybody. They couldn't even go toe to toe to toe with the Iraqis in the old days. They're not world beaters. They are not a superpower. They are a desperate, cornered, clearly still can do some damage regime. And I'm sorry, but when did the definition of quick, decisive victory? When is it less than three and a half weeks? That's kind of a ridiculous standard to put, oh, if they don't give up after three or four days, then I guess we lost. No, I'm sorry, Professor. You are either so captured by the isolationist view, which, as you pointed out, normally he gleams that way, but not in a radical manner. But this assessment, I think, is... You know, I don't understand it. It doesn't fit his previous writings. It doesn't fit his previous assessments of other events to think, okay, well, we didn't win in a week, so let's just call it quits. I guess we blew this one. Let's go home. So I'm going with Victor David Hansen on this one. I think we are not quite there yet, but... The pressure is on, and there's, you know, their Supreme Leader hasn't even been seeing. So, you know, the new one, he could be just, you know, like, oh, I'm drawing a blank. the old Saturday Night Live thing about Franco. And, you know, Franco's still alive. Yeah. Or, you know, like, or like, like, like, yeah, like Brezhnev, Comrade has a slight cold. Yes, right. Yeah. Yeah, well, but so, so how are we to understand this surprise to many, this intermediate range ballistic missile that was fired at Diego Garcia, which is. closer to Tehran than, say, Berlin is. And so it exposed, you know, it's argued that Western Europe could be hit by Tehran theoretically. Could it be hit by this regime? And that's changed, that potentially changes our understanding of Iran's capacities, or does it? It doesn't change mine. I think most of us knew they had some capacity to do this.

that Europe, at least the eastern half of Europe, which is the half that we get along with better now cooperation-wise than the other half, has been under threat. And I guess maybe everybody else just realized, oh, gosh, they do have some of these missiles. And the rest of us are going, yeah, they'd lie about everything. Why did you think they would not have developed this kind of capacity in the time that the Obama government was funding them? So this is not a big surprise to a lot of people. It's an unfortunate surprise, but it's not a big one. And we need to adjust for it. We need to now seek those missile facilities, which obviously the intel people are now going crazy trying to get some good targeting so that we can service those targets. There's been some concern expressed about the IRGC engaging in a false flag operation to try to outrage and galvanize more elements of the Muslim world to its defense. The specific... potential false flag would be to to damage the dome of the rock and the el axa mosque on temple mount in jerusalem these are like seventh century holy sites for muslims um so do that uh you know attack those sites claim it's the americans or the israelis who did it and try to you know galvanize at least is at least shia muslims to pick up arms in iran's defense and and spiral this beyond its current parameters? What's your level of concern about something like that, those sorts of operations? Well, you know, you could say it looks like they may have tried that with this missile strike that the Israelis shot down, fortunately, but some of the pieces landed right on the edge of that district. But, you know, I've got to say, I think that ship sailed long ago when the Iranians attacked Mecca and took over the mosque there. Look, the Sunni Arabs are coalescing around opposition to Iran. They've never trusted the Iranians. They think the Iranians are a much bigger threat than the Israelis ever were. And they've realized, look. The Jews apparently just want to do business. They're really not trying to take over the world. The Iranians, on the other hand, want to take over the world and destroy it at the same time. That makes no sense. So I think even if the Iranians tried to do that, you know, okay, Hezbollah would probably go, flash, this is terrible. Let's go kill the Jews. But they're already saying that. The majority of that. Muslim world, I think even some of the Shia, would say, no, they're not shooting in that direction. How in the world could you say they did this? And, you know, it would quickly be discovered who really did it and would be the last nail in the coffin, Ron. And I think what would be unfortunate with that is that might trigger attacks from the Sunni countries that are not anywhere near as per cent.

or well-targeted as what Israel and the United States are using, which means there would be a lot more infrastructure damage and a lot more civilian casualties within Iran in response to that kind of thing. So I hope they don't do that because I think it would be bad for their own country and bad for the region. What about threats on the homeland here? You've had a couple of different... retired brass, including James Mark's retired U.S. Army Brigadier General, talk about the potential for cyber attacks on U.S. companies from the Iranians, as well as the Russians. Kash Patel issued another alert about cyber attacks from the Russians. I mean, I suppose that's sort of a constant threat. And also drone incursions in the United States, particularly the incident at that Air Force base. The drones concern me less because they got to get all the drones over here. They get one, they get two. But now we're on the watch for that kind of technology. And I think our protective layers are pretty good at this particular. The cyber stuff a little more.

He was an old friend, by the way. But he was a straight-up-in-law guy in the last 10 years or so. He's kind of repurposed himself into a cyber expert. And that is a danger. But I don't see if you're near existential. They might hit some companies. They're not going to bring down the public. grid. They're not going to, you know, cause a nuclear plant to explode. They do not have those kind of capabilities. The Russians potentially could do more damage, but I don't think the Russians really want to get that helpful to the Iranians. They want to look like they're standing up to America, but they want to do it with cost as possible. And doing something like that would incur a cost. And I don't think Vladimir Putin wants to do that. I don't think you tend to deal with that. Just one thing. This is another sort of topic area that you're hearing discord. Some people say there's a problem here. Other people suggest it's vastly overstated. I'm talking about sort of the quote-unquote U.S. ammo shortage. There's a piece by... Seth Jay Jones in the Wall Street Journal, who is president of a... Defense and Security Department of the Center for Strategic International Studies, you know, so he's a wonk in the space, I guess. He talks about the need for us to improve our defense industrial base post-haste. Military planners should be particularly worried about China, which has vastly superior capabilities to Iran. The Chinese industrial base, which is on a wartime footing, has produced thousands of hypersonic crews and ballistic missiles capable of precision strikes along with millions of drones. U.S. bases, Air Force naval vessels, other infrastructure operating. within the first island chain from south, south from Japan through Taiwan to the northern Philippines, are highly vulnerable to attack. It makes that threat. It makes it essential. The U.S. have enough long-range munitions and unmanned systems to strike ships, aircrafts, land targets from a distance. We also need more air defense systems and equipment to defend critical infrastructure. So is this, you know, saber rattling for somebody who's flacking for... defense contracts or is this really addressing a deficiency that needs to be addressed by the Pentagon? Well, it's, I think Seth is just flucking for, you know, defense industry. You know, the president had leaders of defense industry in at the White House and said, hey, we need to jack this up. The American defense infrastructure.

over the Obama years and then Biden, Trump tried to turn it around a little bit in the first term and has been working on it more thus far in this term. We let that stuff lay shallow. We are not building enough capability. And we, you know, the example I was used, and it's not a high-tech one, but we only have one factory in the United States of America that builds tanks. And, you know, it's not like they could pump them out like World War II, where they were doing two or three a day out of the fence line. So we've let that kind of capacity all the way across the line, including with missiles and stuff like that, have let it wither. And we need to reconstitute it and get it building things. Because as we see, even with nothing but precision weapons, man, you go through that stuff quick. Anybody who's been in a firefight... knows you use your bullets up really fast. That's why most guys who have been in combat that you ask them, how many magazines do you carry, brother? As many as I own and as many as I can carry with me because you don't ever want to run out. It's the same thing writ large for the nation. And right now, we're short for somebody like me who wants to see a whole bunch and never be able to run. we're not quite at that level of comfort. So we do need to get the defense industrial base moving again. It's not like they're going to run out next week, but it's something you can't fix in a week, so you've got to start planning for what's going to happen down the road. This also developed over the weekend. Cuban government announcing that they're preparing for a possible U.S. attack following threats from Trump. I mean, would it be judicious, not, I mean, whatever, preparing for an attack in the United States, the Cubans, whatever that looks like, especially without electricity? But do you think it would be judicious for the Trump administration to do anything but other than continue to engage in diplomatic talks with the Cubans at this point? I don't think we need to do much else. They're kind of stewing in their own juices right now, realizing that all of their patrons are disappearing. And, you know, that's going to have an effect. We're kind of busy right now with Iran. I don't think we need to deal with Cuba yet, but it's something to watch, and we've got enough people do things at once. I don't know if we want to do two regime changes at once, but it's at least worth keeping an eye on, but I don't think it's going to be something that we're going to be starting to bomb Havana next week. I just don't see that.

Stephen Bucci served back for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, now a visiting fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Study. Stephen, thank you, as always. Appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me back. And he joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. The more you listen, the more you'll know, this is Chicago's Morning Answer. Morning Answer. On AM 560, The Answer. If you're looking to 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 Proft here. Our next guest has a really good insight into the mentality that perpetuates. Sanctuary policies, sanctuary city, county, state policies like Chicago, Cook County, Illinois have. And frankly, I think it has wider application. It also helps to explain the mentality that supports no cash bail, supports non-prosecution, decarceration, and defunding of police. Because, I mean, the Venn diagram of those two groups is... I would argue, probably very close to, if not a perfect circle. I'll let him make his argument, but let me give you another, let me give you an example of the mentality. This was a man on the street interview by some independent journalists doing a bit of a pen and teller routine with a fake petition. Please sign this petition to make sure Abigail Spanberger, the moderate, scare quotes, governor of Virginia. make her accountable for the promise she made, which is to be a sanctuary for people in this country illegally. So there's an individual who has been taken into custody and could be deported if we don't intervene and make sure Abigail Spanberger lives down to her word. And this is how that proceeded with some senior awful. This is Angel David Marco Rubio Marine. So they're trying to send him back to Mexico, but we want to keep him here in Virginia and hold Abigail Spanberger accountable to what she promised not to cooperate with ICE. We have to disclose, though, that he was charged of soliciting child pornography and of public massification. So he's being held right now, but we think he deserves a second chance. We don't want him to get deported. What do you think? We don't want ICE to take him and send him back to Mexico. Is there an issue? Did he do it? Yeah, he did. I mean, he was charged with it. Yep, he's in jail right now with an ice detainer. You couldn't just throw me an easy one. Well, what's the issue there? What are you having a difficult time with? I have a difficult time with men like that, and I'm not in the habit of going out of my way. to do anything to support them. But on the other hand, I mean, Spenberg, you know, she talks a good story. You know, I voted for her. I agree we need to hold her accountable. Well, do you think that ICE should deport someone like this? I don't think I should exist. Oh, no. Hilarious. I mean, is it better to keep him here in Virginia? He came into this country illegally, and now he's committing crimes and praying on children. Right. Should we send him back?

God, I don't know. Or, I mean, should we keep him here and have the Virginia taxpayer pay for his rehabilitation and his imprisonment? No. No? I don't want to pay for his imprisonment. Send them back then? Yeah, send him back. Such a tough call to argue for or against deporting a child porn monger and a pervert. Such a tough call. painstaking the process to get her to agree that he should be sent back. And the result of that interaction will be she sees the light now and she'll not be a Abigail Spanberger supporter and not be a sanctuary state supporter anywhere. No, of course not. She thinks that ice should be abolished. And that incongruence. will persist after this interview. You can bank on it. And so the sanctuary policies in Virginia will and the lack of cooperation with ICE and the number of victims will increase, just like we've seen in Chicago, punctuated, of course, by last week's murder of Sheridan Gorman, who still the Chicago press corps, such as it is.

is not reporting or minimizing Rogers Parkman, Venezuelan migrant, the fact that he was yet another person in this country illegally, residing in Chicago, who had a previous interaction with law enforcement, and was turned out to be in a position where he could murder an 18-year-old freshman from Loyola who was enjoying the beach with her friends. more on this. Pleased to be joined by Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. Andrew, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Dan. I appreciate the piece that you wrote, particularly the, you know, to the insight into the mentality that I think commonsensical people struggle with by a bit of a historical comparison to the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Please elucidate for us. Sure. During the Spanish Civil War, in the 1930s, they were nationalist forces and Republican forces. The Republicans were socialist, the nationalists were a lot with the fascists, and the nationalists ended up winning, or the nationalist ended up winning that war. But the socialist side had a champion named Dolores Iritube. And she came up with a slogan for the revolution for her movement called No Pasteran. They shall not pass. Giving up one single inch of land to the other side would be a disaster for the Republican cause, and it would spell the end. And if you look at these sanctuary cities, they have adopted that no Passeran. instinct, that slogan, that if we allow even the worst criminal alien to be taken into custody by us to be removed from the United States, that it's going to be a defeat for their vision of open borders, free immigration, everybody is human, no human is illegal. Right, and you see this playing out in real time. You think there's some compromise position or the Trump administration isn't doing enough to engage to try to end the DHS funding impasse. And then last week, we find that a letter had been sent saying the administration is willing to make some concessions on certain things with respect to ICE, with respect to. name badges and masking and so forth and also just restated things that are current policy now that the others that the abolish ice crowd was arguing was not current policy but um that was a dead letter i mean that that generated zero response from the other side because you cannot that because there is no common ground or middle ground to be forged with uh people who are campaigning on abolish ice Yeah, and, you know, press reports came out today that 1768 detainers by ICE in Illinois have been rejected in the last year. Those are requests by ICE to take into custody some of the worst criminal aliens. And yet, Illinois, Chicago.

They won't hand those people over because they don't want to see anybody deported from the United States. Now, there is a compromise, and the compromise is actually already the law, the Immigration and Nationality Act. If you are a rapist, you have to go. If you're a murderer, you have to leave, and we will deport you. And if you come illegally, you have to leave, too. And Tom Homan, who authored the letter in question, of course, the president's borders are. He showed up in Minneapolis in late January, and law enforcement changed. A lot of the things that the Democrats complained about when they shut down DHS were already over by the time that Tom Homan showed up. Tom Homan wants to get the criminals off the street. He wants to make Chicago. And Minneapolis and New York and Los Angeles safe places to live. And yet, you know, they're holding onto their criminals like, you know, like a baby being held to the chest. So none of it makes sense. None of it is good for public safety. And unfortunately, people like Sheridan Gorman, the young Loyola student have paid the price. Yeah, well, I mean, of course, our governor, J.B., famously said that, you know, you come for my people, you come through me. And my people, he's talking about people in this country illegally residing in Illinois. And he didn't make distinctions. He didn't draw lines when Brandon Johnson demonizes ICE as, you know, modern day slave patrols like so many other neo-Marxist politicians. I mean, he doesn't distinguish. He doesn't say, you know, there's some instances. There's no, there's no layering here. There's no. line drawing. There are instances where they cross the line. In other cases, when they remove people who are clearly repeat predators and present a public safety threat, we're pleased with that. So we have to figure out how to do things sensibly with a little bit more consideration from my position. There's none of that sort of nuanced discussion. It's all their jackbooted thugs. They are, as I said, slave patrol. a death squad disappearing people. And in some states, they're even doubling down, like in Maryland. And I know you wrote about this as well. We talked about it a couple weeks ago when the sheriff's protested that the state moved to eliminate local sheriff's departments from entering 2827G agreements with ICE. even for the purpose of that limited constructive engagement with those people that no one disagrees our public safety threats. And it goes back to, I think, what you were saying before, which is, and you give an in, you cannot give an inch. We are dogmatically dug in on this. And all we'll let them do is come to our way of thinking and celebrate their concessions as proof that our dogmatism is warranted. Yeah, no. And, you know, I was a resident of Baltimore City, and I can assure you, Dan, the one thing that Maryland doesn't lack is criminals. We got plenty of homegrown ones. And if we could take the, you know, if we could take the alien criminals off the street, it's going to ameliorate a lot of harm, danger, sadness for the residents of the state of Maryland. Let me give you an example.

In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the DOJ, you know, did a examination of 400,000 people who had been released from criminal incarceration and tracked them for nine years. 44% of them were re-arrested in the first year, 68% were re-arrested by the third year, and five out of six were re-arrested within nine years. Collectively, those 400,000 people who had been released from criminal custody had 2 million more arrests. after they were released. And I think the point is, Dan, that, you know, most people aren't criminals. Even most illegal aliens aren't criminals. Right. Alien criminals are criminals. And it's better for public safety to release them or to remove them from the United States. But let me just go back to something that the Biden administration said when they explained why they didn't want to take criminal aliens into custody. And they said advancing equity, civil rights. Racial justice and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of government. So in their minds, deporting any criminal alien, you know, was taking us back to the 1950s to Alabama and George Wallace. And, you know, unfortunately, that's the attitude that is proliferating with Brandon Johnson, J.B. Pritzker, you know, Jacob Frey in Minneapolis, Tim Walz, and Minnesota. And it's completely backward. You think the – I'm sorry, go ahead. No, you think the federal government, the Trump administration is doing enough with what they can do, like, for example, the purse strings to try to – hamstring sanctuary jurisdictions from being sanctuary jurisdictions to try and realign their incentives, at least meet out some punishment that we're not going to help underwrite lawlessness. No, absolutely not. In fact, Congress needs to do more. They need to put restrictions on the billions, tens of billions of dollars that they give to states and localities every year to support local policing. And they need to, you know, make it clear that if you won't cooperate with ICE, you don't get government money. When I was a kid, they raised the drinking age at the federal level to 21 by denying federal road funds. Congress can do the same thing today. They can force compliance by states and localities like Chicago and Illinois by limiting the federal funds that they get. And if they, you know, if they won't play ball with ICE, they don't get the money. Because really at the end of the day, Dan, all that ICE wants to do is make the streets safer, not make aliens live in fear.

The other dynamic, too, people are always asking about it, I'm sure you get this question about these sanctuary pauls and whether or not they have, you know, complete immunity. And, you know, the argument is that there needs to be an overt act where they break federal law like that judge in Milwaukee who helped the illegal immigrants escape from ICE and, you know, escape the courthouse from ICE. She got successfully prosecuted. But just not cooperating isn't enough. And I wonder if you've seen. instances where you think actually some of these politicians are either very close to the line or crossing the line and federal prosecutors because we know the locals won't do it. Federal prosecutors should be paying more attention. Yeah, I mean, just to be clear for your listener, smuggling an alien into the United States is plainly a crime. But so is sheltering an alien in the United States. And an argument could be made that many of these policies do nothing more than shelter criminal aliens from ICE enforcement. That should be a crime. You know, whether any, you know, federal judge in Illinois is going to find that any local politician has done that. I doubt it. In fact, I don't even think you're going to be able to find a grand jury that's going to hand down an indictment like that. But it's a legitimate argument. It's time that Americans take back their own safety. Look, we have the right to live. safe lives. We have the right not to, you know, send our kids off to school and worry about whether they're going to be murdered by some random individual who shouldn't even be in the country. And it's time that Americans take back that right. This is an anti-immigrant. This is pro-safety, and this is something that every civilized society does or should do. Andrew Arthur is a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. Andrew, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Dan. And he joins 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. This is Chicago's Morning Answer with Dan Proft on AM 560, The Answer.

Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. So, Comrade Bernie is always keeping up with kids. You know, cause a celeb among the young Marxist set. Still, maybe it'll be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's running mate, 28. Anyway, this is sort of, I think this is intended to be like a Winston Smith confronts Inksock, but it really is Ink Sock talking to Ink Sock. If you. Get the 1984 reference. Comrade Bernie interviewing Claude Anthropics AI chatbot about AI's impact on our democracy, starting with the privacy. Americans think they enjoy, but they don't. But do they really think that? I have been taking a hard look at how AI impacts American society in terms of economics and job loss, in terms of the mental health of our kids, in terms of what it will do to the political process. What I want to talk to you about is another issue, and that is the impact of AI on privacy. I want to know, among other things, just how much of the information that AI collects is being used. And what would surprise the American people in terms of knowing how that information is collected? Yeah, that's the thing that would probably shock most Americans. Companies are collecting data from everywhere. Your browsing history, your location, what you buy, what you search for, even how long you pause on a webpage. Then they're feeding all of that into AI systems that create incredibly detailed profiles about you. What would surprise people is how little they actually consented to and how little they understand about it. Most people click agree on terms of service without reading them, and they have no idea that their data is being combined with thousands of other data points to build a picture of who they are. And then that AI uses those profiles to decide what ads you see, what prices you're shown, even what information gets prioritized in your social media feed. It's all happening in the background. Invisible and largely unregulated. I mean, I think most Americans will know the answer to this, but why is all of this information being collected? What's the goal here? Money, Senator. It's fundamentally about profit. collect all this data because AI allows them to turn it into valuable insights. They can predict what you'll buy, target you with ads that are more likely to work, charge different prices to different people based on what they know about you. Advertisers pay premium prices for access to these detailed profiles because they're incredibly effective at manipulating consumer behavior.

Oh, and it's not just about selling you stuff either. Political campaigns use the same AI and data to figure out how to persuade you, which messages will work on you specifically. Data brokers buy and sell information about millions of Americans without their knowledge. The bottom line is that your attention, your behavior, your choices, all of that has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Oh, heavens, you don't say. You don't say that data gathering and marketing campaigns and hyper-targeting are part of how companies appeal to customers existing and potential and turn-of-profit. Wow. What a revelation. First of all, actually, even before that, your name's Claude and you have a female voice. What's going on there. Like the answer to that question. Maybe I'll do an interview with Claude. What, oh, oh, my, and of course, Comrade Bernie, you know, scoffs at this idea that companies use data enriching processes and appending profiles with as much data as they can to hyper-target potential customers with various products and product lines. Wow. That's always been done. AI just provides more capacity to do it in a more surgical way. Is that your real concern about AI? And the other two, too, oh, the shocking news that. So much of what, so much of what we, would we consider private information in the abstract is actually publicly available by, you know, by data miners. This is news to us. I mean, didn't we have this same conversation at the advent of social media, internet and social media subsequently? Of course we did. And the reticence initially by some to pay for things online and so forth. I mean, is this really where you're concerned about the, you know, the topic area that you're most concerned about as it pertains to the AI revolution? 312-642-2-5600 to give us a call or text if you want to chime in on this.

Bernie Sanders, not exactly having the Nick Shirley moment that he thinks he's having. And then he moves on to the impact on politics, the threats to our democracy from AI. About the threats to our democracy from Bernie Sanders. I'd like Claude to answer that question, too. Claude, you mentioned politics. Well, I am in politics, and I'm deeply concerned about... the future of American democracy. Elaborate a little bit on how AI and profiling can impact the political process. That's a critical point, Senator. AI profiling poses a real threat to democracy because it enables micro-targeting at a scale we've never seen before. A campaign or political actor can use AI to identify voters based on incredibly specific vulnerabilities, maybe someone who's financially anxious or feels isolated or distrust institutions, and then serve them precisely crafted messages designed to exploit those vulnerabilities. Unlike traditional political messaging, where everyone sees roughly the same ad, AI allows campaigns to show completely different narratives to different groups. One voter sees a message about protecting jobs. Another sees one stoking fear about immigration and they're living in different information worlds. That fragmenting of shared reality undermines the democratic process itself. And it gets worse if bad actors, foreign governments, for instance, get access to these profiles and use them to sow division and manipulate elections. The American people deserve to know they're being targeted this way, and they deserve real protections. Protections from what information that you want to consume? protections from people communicating to you who are running for office with a message they think that will appeal to you, just like an advertiser would. There's all this threat to our democracy business too. I mean, micro-targeting voters? Wow. You mean like when I send a letter out saying to gun owners? Or the NRA sends a letter out to their membership in Illinois saying, Dan Proft is A-plus rated and he's endorsed for this and this race because he's A-plus and we're confident he'll protect our two-way rights. That's micro-targeting. When I send a... a letter out to the professional registration lists that are publicly available, all the registered nurses in the state. And I get a group of nurses to write a letter saying, we as registered nurses are communicating with our colleagues to tell you that you should vote for Jane Smith in the upcoming race for state legislative office.

because we know Jane Smith will support RNs with their particular policy interests and perhaps have some curated content that's specific to the professional interests of registered nurses. Is that a threat to our democracy? What's the micro-targeting that's a threat to our democracy? What's the information that people can hear? Otherwise, they'll be... misled down some totalitarian path. You can't hear things that you agree or disagree with. You can't be pitched an idea. You can't be pitched a policy position. Who is supposed to determine what everyone should hear so people aren't living in different information universes? That's called a free society. You know what living in a different information universes? choosing the information you want to consume, whether it is something that you seek out or that it is preemptively delivered to you. And also having the ability to critically think to decide whether or not you find that information, particularly value added or persuasive or utilitarian in some other way. I mean, all this stuff, these large language models sort of parroting the threats to our democracy hysteria of those who are actually given to command control societies like Comrade Bernie, that to me is still the big issue with AI, particularly given the quality of our mediating institutions, which I talk so much about, starting with government pre-K through 12 education. All of this, we have to live in the same information universe. We can't be micro-targeted based on our particular set of issue positions, interests, whether it be politicians or some other product line. This is all, this is all like silly, silly hype from somebody who is a silly old man.

There are only 49 stars on that flag. I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri. Abe Simpson has more on the ball than Comrade Bernie. Deborah in Arlington Heights. Hi, DM. The thing that I'm most concerned about is who's programming the AI and what their ideology is, because that starts everything rolling. And he who controls the media controls the culture. Yeah, thanks for the call, Deborah. I mean, the greater concern is censoriousness. You know, it's censorship. So, yeah, I mean, we've talked about this before. Of course, you have... with respect to smartphones. You know, Google relies on the New York Times and Apple relies on the Washington Post. That's what they use is substantiated. So that's, they drive these legacy media outlets adjut prop to, you know, all the smartphones in America because what's the difference between those two outlets? Not much. And, you know, others along those same lines that are all writing the same adjut prop. All. advancing the same lines of propaganda. And so this is why you have half the country that is addled by what they passively consume being sent to their smartphones. And half the country can critically think and can read the New York Times like I do and not be persuaded that, you know, the New York Times has it all figured out and I'm going to run around with my hair on fire about these threats to a democracy that Comrade Bernie Sanders has identified. No, I don't think so. because I'm intellectually curious enough to read a lot of things and have been for a long time because I got a proper education. So, I mean, that's the, so we're looking at symptoms of the structural problem, which is that we have a whole swath of Americans who are unable to process cognitive dissonance, who have never been exposed to particular arguments or perspectives on salient issues of the day. That's so, and that's, you know, that we're living in different information universes. And we always will be. But you can be, again, trained or educated to be intellectually curious enough to explore the conclusions you've drawn and see if they hold up under competing perspectives. and seek out those competing perspectives. I mean, this is basic stuff, but it all gets lost in this threats to our democracy. If we're targeted with messaging, oh my goodness. To be a human being is to be targeted by messaging from other human beings, going back to, you know, the cave dwelling era, which in some places like Chicago, we haven't advanced much from, not culturally, maybe. architecturally, but not culturally. So, yeah, the, the, the bias of these AI chatbots, sure, just like the bias of legacy media, sure, just like the bias of social media, sure. And the response is,

A thousand flowers bloom. The response is to expose Claude in these exchanges with Bernie Sanders as telling Bernie Sanders what he wants to hear. Repeating back to Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders is rap. And so now that's going to inform how much weight I give to anything that Claude might be telling me when I go search out information from that particular chatbot, for example. I'm sorry, but all human beings have the capacity to reason and they should employ it. And because there are some who choose not to doesn't mean that those who choose to use reason, who are intellectually curious, should suffer the consequences of living in, living under ink sock. No, I don't think so. It's the exact wrong response is to move in the direction of being the gatekeeper of information. Oh, I'm going to censor you before you censor me. Bill on the northwest side. Yeah, that is the problem. Isn't it, Dan? No people like Comrie or Bernie never get that question who decides. Who decides what we should hear and what we shouldn't hear? They never ever get that question asked to them. I've never heard it. Thanks, Bill. Maybe I'll ask Claude what he, she would tell Bernie. My, that this forthcoming one-on-one I'm going to do with Claude. Jim Jordan Antioch. Morning, Dan. Yeah, I think. This has been going on for a while, and guys like Bernie have been spouting this for a long time. And like your last caller said, nobody asked them that question. But I think their biggest concern is who's going to control the information, who's going to get targeted with what information? Because there's, AI has been so prevalent now, and it's growing so big. And there's so many different platforms that you can ask questions, and it will give you the truth. And the truth is not necessarily what aligns with what they've been telling you for all these years. And I think that's their biggest concern is. having their narratives crushed by or questioned by an AI chat bot only because it's collecting info, not necessarily being programmed. It's just collecting info from abroad and compiling it and giving you a narrative that actually makes you think. So the critical thought process comes in where you're like, oh, well, maybe he has been lying. I think that's what scares these guys is, like you pointed out, is who can I censor first and how can I control them? before this ends up outing our game. And I think it's starting to happen. And that's why I think guys like him are getting nervous because his ploy is being exposed. They all are. Like you go on and search some certain things. My kid did and starts looking up illegal immigration. You find out Joe Biden let all these people in, right? It's not a question. Now people who have been living under this blanket. start to see start to question and i think that's what scares them the most and and i think you're right it depends on who's programming it but there's so many out there right now

one of them is going to slip through the crack, and it's going to start actually compiling truthful information in fact. Thanks for the call, Jim Jordan. Dan Proff, 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. 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 Proft here. I hope the Mueller family wasn't angling for a state funeral. Over the weekend, it was announced that former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller had died, to which President Trump posted on truth social. Robert Mueller just died. Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. Okay. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked about this during his appearance on Meet the Press because, of course, NBC Flack Kristen Welker was aghast that the president would be happy someone had died. The death of an American citizen, someone who's a Bronze Star Purple Heart recipient and who served in Vietnam. Kristen, I was with the president in the green room at Davos, and there was a video playing of what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Marlago. They are going through his wife's wardrobe. And I watched the look in his eye, and I think that neither one of us can understand what has been done to the president and to his family. To the question of the president's post, I mean, Robert Mueller didn't order that raid. Is it appropriate for the president to celebrate the death of any American citizen, Mr. Secretary? I think that given what has been done to President Trump and his family, it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through. So you don't think that there's anything wrong with the post, say, good Robert Mueller's day? Again, I think that the... We should all have a little empathy for what has been done to him and his family. All right. Interestingly, the Russian collusion investigation of which Bob Mueller was the head, at least titularly, when we heard him testify in 2019 at the end of the process. It became pretty clear that it was probably more like Andrew Weissman and some of his henchmen that were in charge because Bob Mueller didn't seem to be in full control of his faculties. Nonetheless, Representative Doug Susan Collins at the time now, Trump's Avengers Affairs Secretary, just wanted to get on the record right from the report.

You found insufficient evidence on point one. You found insufficient evidence on point two. Isn't that right? Is it true the evidence gathered during your investigation, given the questions that you've just answered, is it true the evidence gathered during your investigation, did not establish that the president was involved in the underlying crime related to Russian election interference, as stated in volume one, page seven? We found insufficient evidence of the president's culpability. So that would be a yes. With that, I'm pardon? That would be a yes. Yes. Thank you. Isn't it true, the evidence did not establish that the president or those closed to him were involved in the charged Russian computer hacking or active measure conspiracies or that the president otherwise had unlawful relationships with any Russian official, volume 2, page 76, correct? I'll leave the answer to the report. So yes. Yeah, very impressive. Don't tell any of that to Adam Schiff, though. But now the worm has turned at the end of last week, headed by Jason Kinyones, who is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, an investigation into the collusion conspiracy concoctors. The investigation is building on information uncovered by House and Senate committees that was long buried by the Biden administration to show a knowing effort to manufacture a Russian conspiracy hoax at the urging of, of course, Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign. The reporting for which you don't need AI to spew propaganda to misinformed the public to Buffalo half the citizenry. Of course, the Jeff Bezos Post, the New York Times received Pulitzer's for their adjutant promoting the Russian conspiracy hoax. Jonathan Nutterly writing about this in the Hill. The true Pulitzer Prize-worthy story was steering the media in the face the whole time, a conspiracy to create a false conspiracy narrative to elect Clinton and later to derail the Trump administration, the latter effort succeeding with the help from top intel figures. So we'll see where that investigation goes, but additional subpoenas have been issued on the matter. for more on this. Please be joined by Thomas Baker, retired FBI special agent and legal attache. Author of The Fall of the FBI, How Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy that was penned pre-Trump second term. Tom Baker, thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. Dan, glad to be with you. So do you have bristle at all with respect to Trump's? Happiness that Bob Mueller is dead so he cannot longer hurt innocent people like, oh, I don't know, Stephen Hatfield, Richard Jewell. Well, it shows you how deeply, deeply. angry, Trump still is, over the injustice that was done to him. And actually, when you read Mueller's report, the second volume of Mueller's report, it echoes through all the pages of that, of an innocent man just flailing around at his accuses. And that's what led to so many of the accusations of collusion.

or conspiracy to cover up, which, of course, was never found in the report, but it really echoes through those pages, Trump's resentment. But quite frankly, and out of all due respect to the deceased, I think our president would have been better off not to have made any comment at all rather than the comment he made. Yeah, I think in those times, as difficult as they are, a little grace is always probably the better course of action or maybe something's a little bit more passive, aggressive of a Churchillian nature in the direction, like his comment on Stanley Baldwin's passing, which I've used before. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. But, I mean, in terms of the assessment of Bob Mueller's time at the FBI, And not just with respect to the Russian collusion hoax, but with respect to some of the other cases I mentioned, James Comey, too. I mean, you include Bob Mueller's tenure. Don't you, when you describe the fall of the FBI as per your book? Yes. Yes, it set the stage. And that's the whole thesis in my book. I was trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong with the FBI under James Comey. And really, you had to look back to Mueller. And Mueller was placed in a very difficult position, as I explained in the prologue of the book, actually. Mueller was selected as FBI director and became FBI director only five days before the September 11th attacks. And three and a half days after those attacks, he was summoned to Camp David by President George Bush, who had appointed him. And by then, the FBI had already done what it does best, investigate. Mueller had a report with him called Pintbaum, the FBI's report on the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers in New York. And in three and a half days, the FBI had identified all the attackers, their financing, their transportation, their papers, everything about them and their background and their connections back to al-Qaeda. And he started to present this report in Camp David to the president. in front of all his top national security advisors. And before he got to the end of it, President Bush said to him, I don't care about that. I just want to know how you're going to prevent the next one. Well, Mueller was a very proud man, and he thought he was presenting a good report. And he was taken, and he told us this many times later. He was taken back by that attack. And so he resolved for reasons that may have seemed justified at the time to change, and he used this word culture, the culture of the FBI, away from a law enforcement agency and to make it an intelligence agency.

in his often repeated words and intelligence-driven agency, well, changing that culture set up, set the stage, and there were several very specific things he did to change the culture and the management. But that set the stage for the disastrous directorship of James Comey that followed him. So if he hadn't changed the orientation of the FBI to be more of an intel rather than investigative agency, setting aside the politicization of the agency for a second, do you think that was also? a contributing factor to the many FBI failures in the post-9-11 era to root out terrorist attacks, to prevent terrorist attacks before they happen with people that were known to the FBI that had had interactions with the FBI that had been essentially pointed to by concerned citizens who left messages with the FBI. There's a number of examples you know. I mean, I know it's hard to go 2020 on these things. But, I mean, do you think that orientation away from the nuts and bolts of investigating and preventing attacks on the homeland and bringing criminals to justice contributed to the FBI missing those opportunities to prevent and to minimize the... particularly Islamist terrorist attacks. And then in the more recent past, radicalized trans terrorist attacks. Well, you raise a good point, but that goes more to the other aspects of the cultural change, which may or may not have begun under Mueller, but definitely were going full bore under James Comey, the introduction of what is called DEI into the FBI, and a tolerance, as a part and parcel of that, a tolerance of... Islamism and any labeling of people and the focus of a lot of Bureau officials wanted to focus on aspects of groups within the Islamic community in America, and they were waived off that, that that was considered Islamophobia, and that was like negative and wrong. And Mueller... call me more than Mueller, then allied themselves actually with certain Muslim groups, including this group CAR, C-A-I-R, which was really an offshoot. We now know of the Muslim Brotherhood. And I'll cater and these other things, all have their roots back in the Muslim Brotherhood. So this political correctness of not wanting to look at who the enemy was. Like, for instance,

There was a category of investigations in the FBI, which existed under Mullah, Islamic fundamentalism. And that was a focus. And there were other focuses, but that was a focus. Well, later under James Comey, with the emphasis on DEI and political corruptness, they changed the word to radicalism. They took the word Islam out of it. Totally. Well, right. And then under Christopher Ray, we had the greatest threats to the homeland is white supremacy. Yes. So it went full circle. The DOJ at the time, the Attorney General Ovalray, they kept pushing that with very little, if any, justification or any facts or cases they could point to. And white supremacy is not a widespread phenomenon whatsoever. I mean, it's absurd. This is something else too. And this persists, which is really frustrating. But Susan Crabtree, nobody's done better reporting on Secret Service that Susan Crabtree over Real Clear Politics. The female secret secret service agent faulted for the July 13th Butler failures that nearly killed Trump has been suspended again. Mayo Perez is her name. She's under secret service investigation for allegedly secretly marrying a foreign national and failing to report it for nine months. This is the third time she's been suspended a little more than a year. She's on admin leave and under a do not admit status while the investigation continues. She was the agent faulted for not placing any secret service or local police assets on top of the now notorious slope roof of that building where the assassin fired his shots at Trump and killed Corey Campori, of course. and it just like this is like even when your guys are in there and you put your guys at the top you can't see and this is the one of the you know unyielding frustrations of MAGA supporters looking from the outside in. Even when you have your opinion, and it's something as serious as the president's security, a guy who's been the target of, you know, at least three assassinate, well, more than that, but, but, you know, two serious assassination attempts. And I call the Pakistani guy that was sent by Iran, a serious one, too. And you can't root out this sort of politicized DEI, identitarian nonsense in these agencies. Well, you're absolutely right. And the culture and the FBI included has to be changed, in my opinion, back to a law enforcement culture. But to change culture, it can be done, but it's very difficult. There's been books written about it in the corporate world changing culture.

And you have to make a lot of big changes, but also a lot of little changes, and be consistent and reiterated and reiterated. And words matter and words from the leadership matters. And in the case of the FBI, it's getting back to the Constitution. Unfortunately, I think in some of the changes that Cash and Dan have tried to make in the FBI, they're focusing immediately on the personnel. But there's so much more to do, but I give them a little sympathy because the reality is, unfortunately... and all these bureaucracies, but particularly in the FBI, they have a very full plate. Yeah, but it seems to me, you know, here, let me just interrupt. It seems you got to deliver on a couple of the big deliverables. And whatever that takes, you can change culture in the process of delivering. For example, let me ask you, I mean, are you happy with what we know about that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania to this point? No. No whatsoever, and I've written about that. And it's astounding how far the Secret Service particularly had slipped back because there was a couple of fundamental things that had been established during the preceding 20 or 30 years in American law enforcement. One is a common command structure at these different locales. When you have a venue like that, it's good practice, and it's been used for decades now. different people from the county, the state, law enforcement, in the command post with the federal authorities, and you would have one of the federal people, at least one, in the command post with the state and locals at their command post. That's just one thing. The other is the communications that comes. The FBI established years ago in the rural areas throughout America. I'm talking, you know, Alabama, Texas, a lot of places where we have field offices. that in our radios, the typical police radio in the car, the motor road radio, we'd be talking on one channel. But they had, and this is 30 years ago, we had the ability to switch over to a common channel with the state police, for instance. Well, I know, I know. And we talked about, and we. Secret service would have that. Right. And we didn't have that in Butler. Right. And we talked about this before with you. And this is my point. Now we're, you know, in 2026. And we still don't have cash at and maybe Pam Bondi and Secret Service at the dais or in a hearing laying out a unified theory of exactly what happened in Butler, what the failures were, some of which we know, and what has been done in the interim to address those failures across agency. I just don't understand why we haven't had that moment at this point. And this is like a good example of the frustrations that I think.

people have myself included. We're going to have to leave it there. Tom Baker, retired FBI special agent and legal attache, author of The Fall of the FBI, how a once great agency became a threat to democracy. Thomas Baker, thank you, as always. Appreciate it. Thank you, Dan, for all you do. And he joined us on the turn on the 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. Thanks for joining us in another installment of Chicago's Morning Answer. Appreciate it. Appreciate all the calls and comments this morning as well. And I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate all those Iowa Hawkeye fans, including my former broadcast partner for the big upset win over Florida yesterday. Unhelpful to my brackets, but I could survive in theory. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer. Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature Bank. Signature Bank takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise, custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether your 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.