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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump Signs Executive Orders Expanding Law Enforcement Crackdown; Now: Pritzker Speaks After Trump Attacks Chicago Crime; Judge Orders Abrego Garcia Must Remain In U.S. For Now. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 25, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Gosh.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I sometimes think it would be lower maintenance.
SANCHEZ: It would, it'd be -- it'd be a look.
KEILAR: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: You would turn some heads.
KEILAR: I mean, this is a lie because it's a lot of straightening here. So, I don't know, I'm shaving, I imagine is kind of like, if you have to -- that's sort of high maintenance but --
SANCHEZ: But I've gotten used to it. Just like, bam, bam, bam, bam. Forget about it. Just like brushing your teeth. You just do it.
KEILAR: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: About it aerodynamic.
KEILAR: I'll just try it out. Maybe I'll just be in tomorrow with a little different look.
SANCHEZ: Don't miss it. Don't miss it.
"THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, President Trump prepares to expand his control of the nation's law enforcement as he looks to send National Guard troops to more cities.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Pamela Brown.
And right now, the troops on the streets of D.C. have begun carrying weapons, even as President Trump is basically saying mission accomplished and signaling that his takeover of law enforcement in D.C. will soon spread to other cities. An executive order signed today directs the Pentagon to create specialized guard units in every state to deal with, quote, "public order issues". (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to go from here to other places. I made the statement that next should be Chicago because, as you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now and they don't acknowledge it. This is one of the safest cities right now in the world. As crazy as that sounds. And it took seven days. It took really three days. But we're now in our 11th day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And right now, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is expected to hold a news conference pushing back on Trump's claim that Chicago is in the midst of a crime emergency, and the city's mayor is already vowing to fight a potential deployment of troops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: What he is proposing at this point would be the most flagrant violation of our Constitution in the 21st century. The city of Chicago does not need a military occupation. That's not what we need. In fact, we've been very clear about what we need. We need to invest in people to ensure that we can build safe and affordable communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: All right. My panel is here, along with CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House.
So, Jeff, take us through the presidents expanded federalization of Americas cities.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, this is just one more example of the really use of executive authority. The president has been exerting since he took office, but particularly over the last several weeks in terms of federal law enforcement. But it's the specialized units of the National Guard. The president signed an executive order today, one of many in the Oval Office clearly wanting to keep the focus on law and order issues to order his defense secretary to create this specialized unit to be ready to go in cities across the country.
But it's very vague in terms of what they would be used for. Of course, the National Guard is called up all the time to help out and assist, but it's done by the state's governors. It's not done by the president of the United States. So that is the big difference here.
But there's also been a blurring of the lines of the law enforcement activities and functions, as well as the National Guard functions. They have historically been very, very different states rights, of course, also a key point of Republican orthodoxy, usually not mentioned at all today by this president or the White House. But the president is fixated on Chicago, as he said earlier in the Oval Office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: As you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now. And they don't acknowledge it. And they say we don't need them. Freedom, freedom. He's a dictator. He's a dictator.
A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator. I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: So, Pamela, this is all just one more of the latest example of the president's interest in expanding the military role to do law enforcement activities. Clearly, he wants law and order to be the centerpiece of his agenda. It's really one of the few things he's talked about in the month of August, at least on the domestic front, never mind foreign policy.
But clearly, he was effectively saying how successful his federalized takeover of the streets in Washington has been. He said crime is down. Of course, this has largely been an immigration enforcement exercise as well, but it's an entirely different matter. If he would send troops into Chicago and that's where you're going to see a potential confrontation with Democratic governors like Illinois' J.B, Pritzker -- Pamela.
BROWN: All right. Let's discuss with the panel. Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.
Joining us now in THE ARENA, CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, senior political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal", Molly Ball, CNN political commentator, Xochitl Hinojosa, senior adviser to the Trump 2024 campaign, Bryan Lanza.
And we are also joined by former acting vice chair of the National Guard bureau, retired Major General Randy Manner.
Major General Randy Manner, standby. We're going to get to you in just a second.
I want to go to Elliot Williams first, though, because you heard jeff ending there. On the note of look, Chicago is different from D.C., right? When you look at a federal takeover, what is the legality here?
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ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The president can recommend anything to a jurisdiction that he wants. He can recommend anything to a governor that he wants. He can ask, you know, a state legislature to act, and Congress can suspend funds or hold funds to a jurisdiction to get them to do something.
But in terms of writing a law in Washington, D.C., getting Chicago to change its laws or getting the state of Illinois to change laws, that's simply defies the Constitution and the laws of federalism. So, again, it's a polite ask. It's a suggestion. It's an order of sorts. But they can't enforce it lawfully. Now, certainly the president can work with the governor if he wishes
to activate the National Guard there if there's an emergency in the state and, frankly, ought to do that if there is an emergency. But again, Washington can't dictate the laws of a jurisdiction.
BROWN: And we should be hearing from the Governor Pritzker very soon.
Major General Manner, I want to bring you in for context here. The president signed this executive order to establish the specialized National Guard units to address crime in cities. And reestablish public order, as he said. Can you explain how that might work, how these units differ from what we see in the D.C. streets right now?
MAJOR GEN. RANDY MANNER (RET.), FORMER ACTING VICE CHAIR, NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU: It's really important that all your viewers understand that this is a law enforcement operation in the president's eyes, it is not a military operation.
Our young men and women in uniform are not trained in law enforcement activities. They receive, at most, a couple of hours of training, of training, not the 4 to 6 months that police officers receive. These specialized units, this is extremely disconcerting. Again, for the average American, they might know about infantry units, armored units, transportation units, signal units, and now they're going to create what, occupation forces that are going to be trained to go in and to occupy a city.
This is so un-American. It just makes me sick. This is not something that is what America is about. This is about creating literally military units to monitor our people. And this is actually very disparaging. I'm actually in shock the president is directing the secretary of defense to do this.
BROWN: That's a really strong words from you. What is your reaction to the arming of the National Guard troops in D.C.?
MANNER: Every time that we deploy the military, when I was the acting vice chief, down to and including when I was just a battalion commander in the Virginia Army National Guard, then later as a member of the D.C. National Guard, we always looked at what was the mission and what were the risks that we were going to be involved with. Obviously, in combat operations, but equally as important, when we were doing disaster recovery, when we were doing -- helping to save people for flooding or forest fires, we look at what was the mission and then what was the risk to our guardsmen and to the people that we were helping.
The idea of arming our soldiers and airmen is absolutely absurd. There is no risk that justifies this. This just furthers the -- it amplifies the voice that this is for, not because there's a risk against the guardsmen, but because they, the president wants to see uniformed armed people on the streets.
The same thing with the use of heavily armored vehicles on the streets of Washington. They're not designed to operate in environments like that. They're operated, they are built and should be used in combat operations or in the United States, perhaps moving through flood waters to be able to save Americans. They should not be used as photo ops in front of the capital or in Union Station.
BROWN: All right. Stay right there because I want to bring in Bryan Lanza to get a reaction to what we just heard.
I mean, you heard the major generals say the specialized units in the National Guard are un-American. Theres no justification for having the National Guard troops there armed on the streets that they're really photo op opportunities, photo ops, I should say. What do you say to that?
BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Listen, I think the president has made it abundantly clear that extra manpower is to arrest criminals. Its the arrest illegal aliens to get them in the process of being deported. I mean, he has stated what the mission is of what he wants this National Guard to be. He wants the National Guard to arrest criminals, which everybody supports. And he certainly wants them to focus on the illegal aliens that that he's trying to round up and deport.
You know, it's easy to see how he can do that in Washington, D.C. I suspect the courts are going to have stronger opinions when he goes to Chicago.
WILLIAMS: So, wait, are they? But I guess the question is, are they there to conduct immigration enforcement or to conduct local criminal enforcement? Because those are two totally different things --
(CROSSTALK)
LANZA: I think you're seeing them do both, right.
BROWN: You're right. I mean, they're there and the support role. So then that raises the question, why would they need to be armed.
MANNER: You know, it's very important to understand that National Guardsmen capacity do not have the ability to arrest anyone whatsoever. I've got to emphasize that. So, this idea that the National Guard is going to arrest anybody is absolutely a falsehood and is illegal. Remember, I like most Americans, fully support community-based efforts to fight crime, and the president needs to reinstate the funds that he pulled back from the local communities for engagement and for hiring additional law enforcement officers.
The idea of using our American military against our own people is absurd, and it is not the way that I joined the military or anyone else does to make this happen.
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The secretary of defense said the men love this mission. I'm going to tell you right now, they do not like it. They do not like doing things that they are not trained for, and they do not like the idea of just standing around so much. They like defending our country, and they like saving American lives. And none of those apply in this situation. BROWN: Molly, how do you see it? Do you think this could backfire on
President Trump?
MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Absolutely. Look, the audience for this is not the people who live in these cities, right? Most Americans don't live in cities. Most Americans live in suburban or exurban areas. And so -- and so I think what Trump is doing here, he realizes that the politics of law and order are a winning hand for him in a general sense. People do feel that crime is out of control. People actually feel most people believe crime is getting worse, even though that's not actually the case, according to the statistics that we have.
And so, the idea that, you know, these mayors in in cities in red and blue states alike have failed to contain the crime problem and that therefore the president has to take action and step in. I think that in isolation could be a winning message. I think the concerns that have been stated here about the way the administration is going about this, without partnering with the jurisdictions in question, without necessarily following the law in a lot of cases and as Jeff said, seeming to use this more as a pretext to do immigration operations than to actually pacify the streets of these places.
BROWN: And the president was asked today about the possibility of sending the National Guard to high crime cities in red states. Some of these states have actually sent the National Guard to D.C. This is what Trump said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Would you also consider sending the National Guard into red states and red cities that are also seeing high crime?
TRUMP: Sure. But there aren't that many of them. If you look at the top 25 cities that -- for crime, just about every one of those cities is run by Democrats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And I believe we have a graphic here to show you the major cities with the highest homicide rates and these several of them are in red states. Can we put up the graphic, guys?
And I want to go to you on this, Xochitl, because you heard what the president said there. What your reaction to that? But also, is there a risk for Democrats to fight this too hard when, yes, it is true that crime is down statistically in Chicago and Washington. And here's the -- there it is right now, the graphic. But at the same time there is still crime and people are still worried about it.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. There is crime and it is not lost on me that he is sending the National Guard or threatening to send the National Guard in places where there are Black mayors, where there are Democratic governors that are potentially running for president, in the next presidential election, he's not sending the National Guard or threatening to send the National Guard in states where there are red state governors, Republican governors.
And so, this is very political to me in the sense that he would like to talk about crime in the United States and have headlines like this over the Epstein files, over cuts to health care for Americans, over increased cost of tariffs. So, it is a win for him message-wise. But I do think this is political.
In terms of Democrats and what they should be doing, it's clear that the National Guard is not going to solve this problem long term. What will solve this problem long term is if we have community policing and if we have training for officers.
BROWN: To interrupt, because the governor of Illinois is speaking, let's go live to that.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: Our country's founders warned against. And it's the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.
No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor. No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us.
Local law enforcement has not been contacted. We have made no requests for federal intervention. None. We found out what Donald Trump was planning, the same way that all of you did. We read a story in "The Washington Post".
If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?
Let me answer that question. This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals. This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy militarize our cities, and end elections.
[16:15:09]
There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no insurrection. There is no insurrection. Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities.
Here in Chicago, our civilian police force and elected leaders work every day to combat crime and to improve public safety. And it's working. Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in
Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area. But calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action. And it should require extraordinary justification.
Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this.
Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in the city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here.
Find a family who's enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they'd like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school.
Crime is a reality we all face in this country. Public safety has been among our highest priorities since taking office. We have hired more police and given them more funding.
We banned assault weapons, ghost guns, bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. We invested historic amounts into community violence intervention programs. We listened to our local communities, to the people who live and work in the places that are most affected by crime and ask them what they needed to help make their neighborhoods safer.
Those strategies have been working. Crime is dropping in Chicago. Murders are down 32 percent compared to last year and nearly cut in half since 2021. Shootings are down 37 percent since last year and 57 percent from four years ago.
Robberies are down 34 percent year over year. Burglaries down 21 percent, motor vehicle thefts down 26 percent. So, in case there was any doubt as to the motivation behind Trump's military occupations, take note 13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rate have Republican governors.
None of these cities is Chicago. Eight of the top ten states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois. Memphis, Tennessee. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, have higher crime rates than Chicago. And yet Donald Trump is sending troops here and not there? Ask yourself why.
If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to de-escalate conflict on our streets, cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local anti-terrorism training program, and the rural violent crime reduction initiative.
Cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect. Trump is defunding the police.
To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.
[16:20:00]
This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president's actions.
Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents, and score political points. If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is -- a dangerous power grab.
Look at the people assembled before you today behind me. This is a full cross-section of Chicago's leaders from the business world, the faith community, law enforcement, education, community organizations, and more. We sometimes disagree on how to effectively solve the many challenges that our state and our city face on a daily basis, but today, we are standing here united in public, in front of the cameras, unafraid to tell the president that his proposed actions will make our jobs harder and the lives of our residents worse.
Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city? Instead? I say, Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
(APPLAUSE)
PRITZKER: You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.
Most alarming, you seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander in chief for the members of the military, that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever more alarming grabs for power.
As a governor, I've had to make the decision in the past to call up members of the National Guard into active service, and I think it's worth taking a moment to reflect on how seriously I take that responsibility. And on the many things that I consider before asking these brave men and women to leave their homes and their communities to serve in any capacity for us.
As I've said many times in the past, members of the National Guard are not trained to serve as law enforcement. They are trained for the battlefield, and they're good at it. They're not trained to arrest people and read them their Miranda rights. They did not sign up for the National Guard to fight crime.
And when we call them into service, we are reaching into local communities and taking people who have jobs and families away from their neighborhoods, and the people who rely upon them. It is insulting to their integrity and to the extraordinary sacrifices that they make to serve in the guard, to use them as a political prop where they could be put in situations where they will be at odds with their local communities, the ones that they seek to serve.
I know Donald Trump doesn't care about the well-being of the members of our military, but I do, and so do all the people standing here. So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now. Hopefully, the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty. Hopefully, rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days.
If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead. But I know you, Chicago, and I know you are up to it when you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago's long tradition of nonviolent resistance.
Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard, who will be asked to walk these streets, are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court martialed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment.
Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize.
To my fellow governors across the nation who would consider pulling your National Guards from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country.
[16:25:03]
Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation, and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator, will be responded to.
The state of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have, we will see the Trump administration in court. We will use every lever at our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights.
Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous. We are watching, and we are taking names. This country has survived darker periods than the one that were going
through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back. Maybe even next year Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you, eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.
As Dr. King once said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Humbly I would add, it doesn't bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.
I look forward to taking your questions in a few minutes. But first, I'd like to hand over our podium to Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Mayor?
(APPLAUSE)
MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON (D), CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Thank you, Governor, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you to all of the state and local county leaders that are here with us today.
So, let's just get to the facts. Over the past two years, we have seen significant reductions in crime and violence. In the last year alone, we have seen more than a 30 percent decline in homicides. Let me say that again. We've reduced homicides in one year by almost a third.
(APPLAUSE)
JOHNSON: We've launched a robbery task force with the Chicago police department, effectively reducing robberies by almost 35 percent. We've worked closely with CPD to restructure the detectives bureau to bring the clearance rate up to 76 percent. It's the highest we've seen in more than a decade.
We've worked with Chicago Police Department and our community violence intervention partners to reduce shootings by almost 40 percent. Almost 40 percent. We've done that in one year.
This is significant progress. And it's historic progress. We've had the safest April in the city of Chicago since 1962, more than six decades.
And according to FBI data, Chicago is not in the top 25 of the most dangerous cities in the United States and these facts -- these facts are indisputable and widely acknowledged.
Yet there are those who want to twist our words to make it seem as though we think that our job is finished. So let me be perfectly clear. Our work to make our city safer still continues. And while we have made progress, that doesn't mean that we will rest.
In fact, we know that we have more work to do, and that work is what wakes me up every single day. It's what I think about before I go to bed. That is our focus every single day and will continue to be our top priority until Chicagoans feel safe in their neighborhoods, regardless of their zip codes.
We cannot call ourselves a safe city until every Chicagoan and our beloved city feels safe. Whether you live in Austin or North Lawndale or South Shore, every single Chicagoan deserves to feel safe.
[16:30:03]
There are those who might ask if we have seen consistent historic reductions in crime and violence across our city over the past two years, and if we are not even in the top 25 most dangerous cities, then why are we now being targeted by the Trump administration for a military occupation? We are being targeted because of what and who we represent. Chicago was known as a working-class city. We are the birthplace of the labor movement, and we will always be a union town.
But were also a diverse city, Black and Latino, Asian, indigenous and whites. We are city with vibrant neighborhoods that represent every single nationality and every immigrant community from around the world, with more than 40 different language groups that are spoken in homes across Chicago.
And we are a progressive city. We believe in investing in people. We believe in standing up for the most vulnerable among us. We believe that the solution to homelessness is not the National Guard, but it is housing, building affordable housing across American cities should be our top priority.
We believe that the solution to immigration is not to separate families and throw grandmothers into the back of vans with unmarked vans and masked individuals. The solution is comprehensive immigration reform that allows anyone who wishes to come to our city or our country if they want to work, they should have a pathway to citizenship we believe that the solution to poverty is not incarceration. It's investment.
Instead of declaring war on the poor, we should remember Lyndon B. Johnson's vision for a greater society that declares war on poverty. And we believe that you don't solve crime by sending in the military. You work every day towards constitutional policing and rebuilding trust between law enforcement and residents.
You solve crimes and bring closure to victims. When we ensure that our detectives division have all the tools that they need. You solve crimes and you bring closure to victims when we hold people accountable, of course.
But we have to do it constitutionally. Due process after all is still a right for every single person in this country. That's how we reduce crime.
(APPLAUSE)
JOHNSON: So we are being targeted because of who we are as a city more than anything else. We are a shining example of what happens when people stand together.
The last thing that Chicagoans want is someone from the outside of our city who doesn't know our city, tried to dictate and tell us what our city needs. As the mayor of this city, I can tell you that Chicagoans are not calling for a military occupation. They are calling for the same thing that we've been calling for, for some time. And that's investment.
What safe cities across America all have in common. They invest in people. And that's what we're doing in Chicago. We need the federal resources to make sure that we're building more affordable housing, expanding mental and behavioral health care, education, all of these things that could reduce crime and provide real community safety.
Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a publicity stunt to invoke chaos and terror, the federal government should spend that money on proven solutions to crime and violence reduction. We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence. Weve already tried that, and we've ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence, the addiction on jails and incarceration in this country.
We have moved past that. It is racist, it is immoral, it is unholy, and it is not the way to drive violence down.
We cannot return to the same failed strategies that got us here in the first place. Under the previous presidential administration, we requested more federal resources to address gun violence in our city. We continue to make that same call.
We have made significant progress on our own, but there is so much more that we can do. If we had real support from the federal government, our communities need more federal resources for public safety. There's no question about that.
But unsolicited, unwarranted military takeover is not needed. Our message is simple, listen to what our people are actually calling for. We're calling for investments, resources. This stunt that this president is attempting to execute is not real.
[16:35:04]
It doesn't help drive us towards a more safe, affordable, big city. And so, in closing, we have some very simple demands. We are calling on the Trump administration to release the $800 million for violence prevention funds that he stole back in April. We are calling for more resources to stop the endless flow of guns into our city, and we are calling for a transformational investments into affordable housing and community safety.
I'm proud to stand with all of the partners that are here today, as well as mayors and governors across this country. We will defend our democracy. We will protect our humanity. We will stand up for the interests of working people.
And so, that's the state local government, the federal delegation that are all here committed, standing firm in our values, standing up for the greatest freaking city in the world, the city of Chicago. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
JOHNSON: And with that, please welcome our attorney general, Mr. Kwame Raoul.
(APPLAUSE)
BROWN: Some very fiery speeches there in Chicago from top officials. We heard from the mayor, Brandon Johnson, saying that we are being targeted by the Trump administration because of what and who we represent. And before him, you heard from Governor Pritzker had some very strong words for President Trump, telling him, don't come to Chicago saying there's no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. And he said that this is reminiscent of authoritarian creep.
Just for the legal view of this, I wanted to bring you in, Elliot, because we were saying that it stuck out to you, that he made clear there was no request for federal intervention. Why is that so relevant?
WILLIAMS: Not even no request for federal intervention. It's just not clear that the president is working with the mayors and governors of these cities and states to come to a solution. If they were serious about fixing public safety in Chicago, Chicago, the first thing they should have done is call the mayor and call the governor, not go straight to sending federalizing the troops.
Now that can be an option. The president is able to activate the National Guard. And frankly, so is the governor. But there's a lot of steps that ought to have taken place, first, to collaboratively work collaboratively, work together to get closer.
You know, Xochitl used the term community policing earlier. And if you can activate people on the ground in the city, work with the mayor, work with the governor, everybody wins. Everybody would win. The president would win, the governor would win, the mayor would win. This is sort of a political stunt in many respects, and we're seeing that here.
HINOJOSA: That's right. I mean, it's -- it is -- it is a political stunt. And we've seen that federal the federal government working with local law enforcement to either whether it is that -- that's reforming, reforming the like the local police department, whether it is providing them training, whether it's providing them grants, whatever that may be, depending on each individual police department. That often works.
And you saw in the Biden administration and you also saw it in the Obama administration, a lot of not only investigating police departments, but then trying to reform police departments. This happened a lot after, Katrina, whenever you had the law enforcement, there are a number of issues that were happening there. The local police department where they needed significant training, and they were under a consent decree, and it ended up reforming that police department.
And so, I want to point out in all of these places, crime was going down. There was something that was working at some point, and we need to continue doing that, and we need to continue. And not only just training our law enforcement, it also has to be programs for young African American and Latino men and getting them off the streets and having some sort of educational program so that they are able to do something else and get off the streets and provide, you know, go to these activities.
LANZA: They tried, guys, remember, these cities are sanctuary cities. These are cities that made a determination that they're actually not going to follow law enforcement, and they're going to work independently with law enforcement. And if illegal aliens are caught in the commission of a crime, they're not going to face the severe consequence that a normal citizen would face.
So it's not like they've never had these interactions with these with these governors or with these cities. They've actually had these conversations. And the city said, go pound rocks. What's more important to us is that we prioritize the rights of illegal aliens, people who shouldn't be here, who are committing crimes over the rights of residents who commit crimes and actually get thrown the book at them.
WILLIAMS: I appreciate --
LANZA: So, I make the case they've had the engagement. These governors just don't want to listen.
WILLIAMS: I appreciate how relentlessly on message you are here, but you are again, confusing two very different things. Local law enforcement, sort of the prerogatives of local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement.
Now, of course, immigration enforcement makes the country safer. I will not fight with you on that. But this idea that everything is immigration enforcement blurs and confuses the two things. And I think, you know, that's been something the president has been very successful at convincing everybody that, no, no, no, no, no, it's all one big jumbled mess.
[16:40:03]
And we're all making America safer.
These are separate, vastly separate legal systems in America. And they just work differently.
LANZA: And they're not being enforced.
WILLIAMS: Sorry. Oh, of course they're -- they're being enforced. I mean -- LANZA: They're not getting cooperation from the cities to enforce the
laws. That's what a sanctuary city is. We're not going to cooperate with the federal system, is what they're saying.
BALL: For immigration enforcement. I do think that one of the things that Trump has done so successfully is conflate immigration and crime as issues by convincing millions of people that immigrants are the major drivers of crime in these cities. But I think it is telling, given that, that he's not calling these immigration enforcement missions, that he's sending the National Guard on, he's calling them crime missions. And that's why it's interesting that there's a bit of a bait and switch there.
BROWN: All right. Thank you all so much.
We'll be right back after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:45:13]
BROWN: And welcome back to THE ARENA.
We were just listening into the Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker as he responds to President Trump's plan to send the National Guard to Chicago to fight crime there. His stern message to the president, do not come to Chicago.
Joining us now is Democratic congressman of Maryland, Jamie Raskin. He is the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. His district borders Washington, D.C.
So just right off the bat, what is your reaction? From what we just heard from those top officials there in Chicago?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, I think Governor Pritzker was speaking for states and cities across the country. You know, nobody wants a military invasion. I think Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Trump's handlers thought that he would conduct some kind of Mussolini style military march across the country, subduing all the local populations.
But it's completely backfiring on them because it's really unifying all of the local communities against Trump and against, this outrageous authoritarianism. They try to do it in California. It mobilized, really, not just L.A., but the entire state against them. And now, California is gerrymandering back at the extreme gerrymander in Texas. They try to do it in D.C. It unified their mayor and council and their local attorney general, and people are now more emphatic about fighting for statehood. So, they won't be subject to this kind of colonial subjection in the future.
And it clearly unified all of those public officials in Chicago, throughout Illinois. You saw the members of the congressional delegation, the senators, the attorney general, as well as the governor and the mayor. And so, he's really unifying America around the principles of home rule. People can govern themselves. And by the way, give back the hundreds of millions of dollars that you
stole away from local law enforcement and victims rights groups and domestic violence groups when DOGE just canceled all of those grants back in March and April, just like the people in D.C. are saying, give back the billion dollars that they were going to spend on local revenue on law enforcement, criminal justice and public education.
So, I think that they've maybe bitten off more than they can chew here, and they're unifying the country against them. And Governor Pritzker was right to say that this is in the spirit of nonviolence, nonviolent resistance, and opposition to authoritarian takeover.
BROWN: The governor of your state, Wes Moore, has pushed back against the president's suggestion.
So, Pritzker isn't the only one that he will send -- Trump will send National Guard to the other cities, including Baltimore. Moore jabbed at the president in this exchange on social media posts over the weekend, calling Trump "President Bone Spurs" and asking if he needed a golf cart to tour Baltimore.
Now the president is threatening to withdraw federal assistance to rebuild the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. Is Governor Moore's spat with the president helpful, or do you think it's gone too far?
RASKIN: I think that everybody is standing up for their state, like Governor Moore is standing up for the free state of Maryland. I think the mayors are standing up for their cities. We're not going to be pushed around by this fraudulent would be king. And the fact that people are teasing him and making fun of him shows that all of the mockery and ridicule that Trump operates on can be turned around in a free society, because that's how the First Amendment operates.
Everybody's got a right to speak however they want about public officials and other citizens, and those of us who aspire and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people. We've got no kings here as Indivisible reminded everybody a few months ago with 5 or 6 million people in the streets.
BROWN: I want to turn to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He essentially turned himself in to ICE today. He received a letter over the weekend that the administration planned to send him -- deport him to Uganda pending his trial in January. A judge stepped in today and said he couldn't be deported while his case is pending.
Why do you think this case is so important for Americans to pay attention to here?
RASKIN: Because it's all about the rule of law. I mean, remember, the government admitted that he was erroneously sent to a torturers prison in El Salvador. There was a specific order by a federal immigration judge during the first Trump administration, saying he could not be sent to El Salvador, and he was sent there. They admitted it was wrong. And then the Supreme Court said that our government had to facilitate his return to the country.
[16:50:06]
So now, they're just acting out of spite and malice to try to, you know, find some other way to go after the guy. But that's not how the rule of law works. We've got due process in America. That means people are only charged for crimes that they commit, and they have a right to be heard before a neutral magistrate. And that's what the country is standing up for now.
BROWN: All right. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back.
[16:55:00]
I want to return to our breaking news. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's very forceful rebuke of President Trump and his use of the National Guard and his crime and immigration crackdown.
Let's watch a bit more, and the panel will break it all down on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRITZKER: Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me -- not time or political circumstance -- from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: What do you think? Did it sound like a stump speech to you?
HINOJOSA: It did sound somewhat like a stump speech. I find it interesting that both Pritzker and Newsom are in these situations where people -- the Democratic Party wants our leaders to fight fire with fire, and they are put in these situations by Trump where they get to stand up and lead a bit more.
What I would like to see a little bit more from Democrats is beat Trump to the punch instead of having him send the National Guard to your state, why don't you come up with a list of demands that you would like the federal government and like, assistance with when it comes to your police force and when it comes to programs in your state, and send that to Trump before he comes in.
And I think that there's a little bit of reaction here to what Donald Trump is doing. And I think they need to be a little bit proactive. But I mean, that's a man that's running in four years.
BROWN: How do you see it? BALL: Yeah, 2020 is well underway and Pritzker has been running for
some time. And I think to your point, yes, the Democratic base has made clear that Newsom is the way. That's what they want to see from Democratic leaders.
But will that be the case a year or two from now, when the primary is underway and these candidates are being asked to have a serious conversation about policy and ideas, like a girl can dream, right? Are voters actually going to demand? I mean, I'm old enough to remember around this time during Trump's first term, you know, who was running for president, Michael Avenatti.
So there's a lot --
BROWN: Wow.
BALL: -- that appetite for fight was there back then, too. It did not turn into a presidential campaign.
BROWN: And President Trump, I mean, he was really going after Governor Pritzker today in the Oval Office.
LANZA: There's plenty to go after me. You know, Illinois is a failed state. And so, it's very easy for go --
BROWN: I'm sure a lot of people in Illinois would say --
LANZA: I lived in Illinois. It breaks my heart to say that. It used to be a great city -- Chicago used to be a great city. It's a lot less of what it used to be.
But listen, whether it's Gavin Newsom, whether it's Pritzker, you know, they're sitting at the Democratic Party is sitting at 1 percent, so they have to find out who they are, what they represent, what their identity is. Before Gavin can ever fill that gap, before Pritzker or any of the other people can fill it, and they still have to find out they've had six months to improve their standing, and they've only gotten worse.
So, you know, maybe they've got to go back to the drawing, drawing board, figure out who they are. But until they figure out who they are as a party, it doesn't matter who you put up.
WILLIAMS: I think there's a lot of seeking the fight. And so, she talked about that a little bit.
But the stuff about wherever you are, we're going to come after you with the rule of law, you know. Did they not learn anything in 2024 that that messaging, even if there were credible allegations of criminal wrongdoing, the public, much of the public was not hungry for that and certainly was not hungry for that kind of rhetoric. You know, there's probably a lot of primary voters that still are, but I don't know if that's a winning national message that he's putting out there.
HINOJOSA: Yeah. And I think that all of this is making headlines in terms of violent crime across the country and what Trump is doing. But the reality is, is that people care about whether or not their lives are better every day, right? And I think that when you see corporations and raising costs all across the country because of tariffs, I do think that that is going to hit Trump at the end of the day.
And Democrats need to be disciplined enough to continue to hammer that home, regardless of what Trump is doing. And so that is sort of my advice for Democrats is that's what people care about at the end of the day. That's why Trump got elected.
We didn't do a good job of messaging on it. So now start talking about how you are going to lower those costs. If you are elected in elected office.
WILLIAMS: To Molly's point, a second ago about Michael Avenatti running for president and that pugnacity and fight, you know, we got we giggle about that. But think about the names of Rudy Giuliani and Scott Walker and Wesley Clark and so on who were at the top of the pops a year and a half before the race and who, you know, who have been committed to being trivia questions now.
It's very early to really have a strong sense as to what's happening. And I think maybe people just need to freak out a little bit less.
BROWN: You heard Congressman Raskin say, look, this is bringing Democrats together. You saw it there in Chicago. Is that your sense that this is sort of a galvanizing moment for Democrats?
HINOJOSA: Well, I do. I think that Democrats felt that, for example, when Gavin Newsom had Steve Bbannon on his podcast, like, why are they giving this guy a platform? What are we doing here? What? He's trying too hard. What's going -- what does this get us?
Whenever you see Gavin Newsom fighting at the end of the day and fighting Trump and fighting these unlawful redistricting efforts, I think that is something that Democrats can get behind and finally, someone is fighting for us. At the end of the day, the Democratic Party, I honestly will be at a low percentage in terms of approval until we start winning. Democrats need to see some wins on the board electorally in order for the Democrats to sort of come together and start embracing the next generation.
BROWN: All right. Thank you all so much. Really interesting conversations here.
Jake Tapper standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hey, Jake, have a great show.
