Every Tuesday, Jen sits down with Lynn Sweet, Special Correspondent for the Chicago-Sun Times, to update us on Trump’s obsession with Chicago. After the widely successful No Kings Day across the country, this edition of Looped In with Lynn is all about Chicago’s various protests and the worsening public reaction to ICE, the National Guard, and the ongoing shutdown.
“Aggressive ICE actions….fuels the bigger turn out,” Sweet explains in response to the massive No Kings Day attendance. As the government attempts to redefine its role in local politics and nonprofits, Chicagoans are becoming more distressed by ICE raids and National Guard presence.
Additionally, Jen and Lynn discuss how the continuing shutdown is going to impact vital social services, particularly SNAP, and if Illinois has a back-up plan for these services.
Lynn Sweet is the Chicago Sun-Times’ special correspondent for Chicago Public Media, and was previously their Washington Bureau Chief. She appears frequently on CNN & other outlets as an analyst and previously worked at the late PoliticsDaily.
The transcript below has been edited slightly for clarity.
Jen Rubin
Hi, it’s Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us Lynn Sweet from Chicago, veteran reporter and columnist. Welcome back, Lynn.
Lynn Sweet
Good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Jen Rubin
What was No King’s Day like in Chicago and in the surrounding areas of Chicago?
Lynn Sweet
Massive turnout. If anyone listening is familiar with Chicago and the Loop, lines stretch for blocks and blocks, more than a mile. The area, if any of you have ever been to the Art Institute, think of that as kind of the epicenter of a march that stretched for blocks and blocks down the streets, and there was a big rally in a big park called Grant Park, where the governor and the mayor spoke. What’s interesting, too, is that, as in many cities across the nation, there are a bunch of other rallies around the area and the surrounding suburbs and in other places around the state. The one I went to, was bigger than the one… I mean, here’s the main point. All the rallies… the rally in Chicago was even bigger than the first No Kings rally in June. And this is fueled by my reporting and all the other reporters at the Sun-Times and WBEZ, we’re partners in this, is that in June, we didn’t have all these aggressive actions by ICE and Border Patrol agents. Now we do. And that is so on-the-ground personal to so many people in so many Chicago neighborhoods that that fuels and fueled the even bigger turnout. Plus a bunch of other authoritarian things that Trump has done. Including putting on his social media that, that video of him in a king hat on an airplane dumping over a city.
Jen Rubin
Yes. It’s interesting because Chicago really has been the epicenter of ICE and these deployments. In looking at the crowd, at the signs, at what people were talking about, was that the overwhelming issue that drove people out, or was it a whole variety of things? It’s always fun to kind of look at the signs as a barometer about what’s immediately on people’s minds.
Lynn Sweet
Well, you know, in Pilsen, our heavily Mexican and Mexican-American neighborhood, you know, clearly that has been a big focus of ICE raids, some signs in Spanish, I’m told, have words in it that you wouldn’t want to, you know, repeat publicly because of the strong feelings, but there’s just so much happening in so many ways that cuts in federal spending to so many city and state programs that are of vital importance, and I’m not even talking about impacts that have yet to happen, such as the cutoff of the November payment of food stamps and the higher insurance rates for some people on the Obamacare exchanges. So… so that’s kind of another bucket, well, that’s… that is… that we’re rolling towards. But look, this is a historic time in our history in Chicago where the federal government is seeking to re… is seeking to redefine its role in local governance. And, local funding that goes to nonprofits, universities, and other related entities.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Now, you speak about the deployment. We’ve not only had the issue about the National Guard, which is the subject of conflicting court opinions now, but of course, the deployment of ICE itself. And the judge who ruled that ICE had to, essentially abide by certain rules, like having warrants, like not tear-gassing journalists, had a hearing yesterday where ICE was back. She seemed to be rather disturbed that they were perhaps not following her ruling. What’s been the perception of ICE? Has the brutality continued? Has the excesses continue… have the excesses continued? What’s kind of the vibe on the street about ISIS behavior?
Lynn Sweet
The vibe on the street is that it’s acting that it is A paramilitary organization, the… Officers? Who are deployed from Border Patrol and ICE are masked. There’s an issue about wearing body cameras. The federal judge asked them to wear body cameras, and that has not happened yet, or may be happening as we speak. You know, so they’re masks, there’s no IDs, the cars have no IDs, so… and they are taking people who sometimes include American citizens. Of course, there was, this… this raid. That has gotten a lot of publicity now, though we covered it extensively at the Sun-Times and WBEC. We’re building on the south side of Chicago, was subject to a massive raid that swept in everybody, American citizens as well as non-citizens, as well as immigrants who might have been here legally, but you wouldn’t know it from the way it was carried out. There is no the… as strongly as… as strong as Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson are about wanting to resist the tactics of ICE, there has never been any disagreement that if there is a properly executed warrant, there is no opposition to having it served on someone in Chicago or, you know, any other jurisdiction. that has what they’re called the sanctuary laws, so that sometimes gets a little lost in the discussion. And then there’s another point here of dealing with protesters, Jen. So, so we, we talked about, the reaction of ICE and Border Patrol to how they’re rounding up people, seemingly grabbing people off the street, asking questions later, not presenting people with the warrant, and then the provocative actions taken with protesters, mainly, and a central flashpoint is at the detention center that ICE has in a suburb called Broadview. The federal Forces have been using increasingly aggressive tactics, including a lot of tear gas, which raises the question of, were these tear gas shots, which have hit journalists and others and have, you know, saturated the air around areas, is this the proper crowd control technique to your use?
Jen Rubin
Right.
Lynn Sweet
The Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noem, has been here. You know, they’re framing it as, as a everything is necessary, we don’t do anything that’s not necessary, even… which often flies in the face of what our on-the-ground reporting shows.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Now, you mentioned something really critical, which is that the shutdown is going to mean that SNAP funds, for one, are going to run out. Other political funding is going to run out. Is there, a sense in Chicago, in the state in general, about, what can be done in the meantime? What can be done to supplement this? Obviously, it’s billions of dollars, of federal aid. You can’t really make that up, but is there some plan to try to ameliorate the suffering? I mean, there are going to be people going hungry if they don’t have their staff payments.
Lynn Sweet
I think the state put out something yesterday saying you’re not going to get the November payment, and I’m just not sure if there’s any, transition plan that this state has or could put in place this quickly, on it. There certainly is a will. I don’t know if there’s a way right now. So, it might be that some people just are caught up in having their benefits run out, not replenished. But I just don’t know if there’s a state plan to try to do something about it.
Jen Rubin
Alright, alright. Well, as always, Lynn, thank you for your eyewitness accounts. There’s nothing like having someone on the ground there to give us a feeling of what’s going on in Chicago.
Lynn Sweet
Can I make one more quick point?
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, absolutely.
Lynn Sweet
So, the appellate panel, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case from our lower court ruling that the National Guard even though the Texas and Illinois guards are physically present, they can’t be deployed on our streets. And there is a line, in their opinion, now it’s all going up to the Supreme Court, that I think is interesting, as a thing to kind of chew over as a send-off. They said that political opposition is not rebellion. And that’s an important distinction to make about what’s going on, and how this discussion going forward is framed. You bring in military, domestic use of military, if there is a rebellion. And it’s not just in the eye of the beholder. There are things people can observe and say, you know, the lower court judge, April Perry, said there’s no danger of rebellion going on. And, you know, I was downtown on Sunday night, I saw the last show of The Lion King in Chicago, and.
Jen Rubin
You’re fine.
Lynn Sweet
I’ve been meeting all these years to see it, and I did it. I took a train downtown. I walked the streets of the Loop because I got there early. I took a 930 train back up to a Chicago suburb. If anyone out there thinks that there is a constant mayhem and chaos going on in the city, it’s not the case.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely critical, and you’re exactly right. That line is both a legal line and also a broader political line, which is, we have free speech and we have protests, and no matter how Donald Trump tries to paint it, you really can’t, suddenly convert that into a rebellion for purposes of deploying, National Guard.
Jen Rubin
Thank you again, Lynn. It’s always great hearing from you, and I hope you enjoyed the show. It’s a great show, isn’t it?
Lynn Sweet
Finally, I… I just… I don’t know how I didn’t see it all these years, and I was just fascinated with what the staging would be, because I’ve read so many stories about it, and it was, yeah, it was just something, I’m just… it just was amazing as a theatrical production.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Take care, we’ll look forward to seeing you soon.
Lynn Sweet
Thank you so much.
