October 21, 2025 Transcript:
Newsmax: To further weigh in, let’s bring in spokesperson for the National Police Association and retired Chicago area police officer, Betsy Brantner Smith. Betsy, this case with Portland seems pretty cut and dry. The National Guard was going there to protect a federal facility. It wasn’t going there to do police work, but to rather to keep our ICE agents and our border patrol agents, safe. What did you make of it and is this win for the Trump administration?
Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret): Well, it’s a great win, not just for the Trump administration, but for law and order in America. You know, when you show that ICE facility in Portland, it’s all boarded up. That’s not an architecture choice. That is a safety choice that they have to do in order to keep agents and the detainees safe. Remember, ICE can only hold people there for about twelve hours and they have to move them to Tacoma or to the county jail, whoever they contract with. So we had two detainees murdered in Texas a month ago. So one of the things that the National Guard is going to do now that they’re able is to help protect those detainees, not just ICE and not just the federal facilities. So this is exactly what needed to happen so that everyone can be safe while ICE does the bidding of not president Trump, but of congress and the laws they have enacted.
Newsmax: Betsy, last week, the president unveiled operation summer heat. He had Cash Patel, in the Oval Office as well as Pam Bondi, stating how they’ve worked hand in glove with local law enforcement in cities across America to put away felons, to take illegal guns off the streets. The numbers were staggering. So why do you think, that the president is having a hard time convincing the state of Illinois, shook the city of Chicago, your sit your city, as well as Portland and San Francisco from embracing, you know, law and order.
Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret): Because in my native Illinois, as in other places like Oregon and Washington, politics supersedes any concern for public safety. And it’s really unfortunate. That’s one of the reasons that I left my native Illinois after living there my entire life is because our politicians in Illinois, especially in the Chicago Metro Area, care more about their own political careers than they do about public safety. I think what we’re going to see is as we see success in Washington DC, right? We saw that. Now we’re seeing it in Memphis with the partnering of state, local, and federal law enforcement. As people see those successes with law enforcement working together, then there’s going to be more of a public cry to say, hey, put the politics aside and let’s get drugs and criminals and illegal guns off the streets and go back to living in a country of safety. People who don’t feel safe aren’t free, and that’s what the leadership in Illinois really needs to realize and embrace.
Newsmax: No. That you’re absolutely right. Looks like these leftist politicians are bowing, to the woke mob instead of serving their own constituents. And safety is such a fundamental, factor for freedom, like you said. But Betsy Brantner Smith, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. We really appreciate it.
Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret): Thanks for having me.