Transcript:
Newsmax: It could be a sign that Chicago might be next. Let’s bring in Betsy Brander Smith, a retired Chicago area police officer, and Josh McConkey, a National Guard veteran. Great to have you both here. Josh, I’ll start with you with the National Guard. President Trump, he’s been hinting here that he wants to save the city of Chicago, but there are some legal challenges there.
If he sends in the National Guard, you’ve got the Democrats in Illinois that are pushing back. Will he ultimately send them in?
Josh McConkey: You know, I was there at the event on Sunday. I was on stage with the president about 20 feet to his right. And as I heard them discuss that, you know, I certainly have some concerns on him being able to do that without the governor. Certainly, the president always has that option of making them federal and putting them on title 10 status. I think a better option would be, you know, you would hope that the the the governor of Illinois would be able to step up and realize, hey.
Listen. We had 305 shootings so far this year, more than one every single day. How about I just take the free lunch that president Trump is offering me here and getting some of these troops to help quell some of that violence? They act like the 305 murders that they had last this year is is a good thing because it was less than last year, but that’s 305 people that are no longer with us anymore.
Newsmax: Exactly. Right? You still haven’t solved the problem even if the numbers are coming down. And president Trump mentioned the use of the National Guard actually on the international stage while addressing the UN. Here’s some of that moment.
Pres. Trump: Washington DC was the crime capital of America. Now it’s a totally after twelve days, it’s a totally safe city. Everyone’s going out to dinner. They’re going out to restaurants. Your wife can walk down the middle of the street with or without you.
Nothing’s gonna happen. My people have done a fantastic job. And yes, I called in the National Guard, and the National Guard took care of business. And they weren’t politically correct, but they took care of business.
Newsmax: Betsy, you know, you, your your your husband, your wife, you can all go out to eat, you can do so safely. And that’s really the point that he’s drilling home. It shouldn’t have to take this, but what’s going on at the local level is just not working. Do you see similarities in Chicago?
Betsy Smith: Well, we absolutely see similarities in Chicago. You know, we have an extremely shorthanded police department in Chicago. You have a mayor who is calling law enforcement sick and evil. And you have governor JB Pritzker joining Gavin Newsom from California in talking about the authoritarian nature of federal agents and that they are disappearing people off of the streets of their state and their city while JB Pritzker walks around in safe neighborhoods in Chicago with his Illinois state police detail. Look, what President Trump can do is flood the Chicago area with federal agents.
And I think he’s going to have to do that based on what happened in Dallas yesterday, based on the attacks on our ICE agents in the Chicago Suburbs and our ICE facility 12 miles west of the city of Chicago. He is going to need to send more federal agents to protect the agents who are just trying to enforce the laws that Congress enacted and he eventually may have to bring in the military to help protect those federal agents. But let’s start with additional federal agents and prosecutors first.
Newsmax: Yeah. It’s a good point. I mean, that situation in Dallas is is awful, and, it’s a very good point, Betsy. Illinois governor JB Pritzker, though, he he seems to double down here. President, he says that these threats, they’re in line with authoritarian rule.
Watch this.
Gov. Pritzker: The reality is we we honestly are fighting crime on the ground with civilian law enforcement. That’s how it needs to get done. And I’ve asked the president for help, FBI, ATF, DEA. We wanna fight drugs and gangs and guns on the streets of Chicago, and we’ve done a good job of it over the last four years. We’ve cut the homicide rate in half.
All of the violent crime rates for the city of Chicago have gone down by double digits, but we want more help. He’s not offering that. Instead, he’s offering troops who are not trained to do law enforcement. They don’t know how to do arrests. They’re really not, appropriate for an American city.
And, frankly, this is part of a broader effort on his part Mhmm. To impose his authoritarian rule.
Newsmax: So, Josh, we know Memphis is next. We had National Guard troops are going in there. The governor of that state, Tennessee, says we welcome it. We we need some help. Do you think JB Pritzker would potentially change his tune if it works well in Memphis?
Josh McConkey: I think you have seen great strides made in Washington DC. If you duplicate that in Memphis, I think it’s a very strong argument for that. And the National Guard, you know, even not doing, like, per se policing duties, there is so much more that they’re doing behind the scenes, all the social issues. There’s, you know, freeing up other agents in the city that are doing other jobs to then go out and do the job of that policing. So, you know, there’s there’s so much more they can do.
Like, me as an emergency physician, what I deal with on the social health side of things, but the homelessness, and that has a large part to do with some of the crime issues as well. The National Guard is very equipped to do that. I spent nine years in the Army National Guard myself.
Newsmax: Yeah. And we’ve seen, by the way, democratic lawmakers call up the National Guard even during COVID. I was reminded when you’re arriving in New York City airports. You know? They they were there.
Their presence was known, and this was at the decision of the state’s governor. So we’ll see what happens. I just have to go back to this Chicago based story because our crime reporter, Jason Meterra, brought it to our viewers recently, and it’s just so telling of what’s going on in the Windy City. Pritzker, as you heard in that sound bite, he’s talking about civilian officers, the so called peacekeepers program. Right?
They’re they’re tapped to help combat crime. One individual highlighted at a recent event was this guy, Kellen McMiller, 35 year old Chicago man facing felony counts of murder, burglary, theft, and three counts of fugitive from justice with an out of state warrant. Well, he had received the praise of governor Pritzker. Take a look at this photo here, Betsy. Now that I believe has been scrubbed no longer on the website.
But it just goes to tell you what’s happening in Chicago if they couldn’t sort of vet this so called peacekeeper and feature him here.
Betsy Smith: The peacekeeper program, which right now is costing about $35,000,000 a year to the taxpayers of Chicago. This particular peacekeeper had warrants for his arrest in four different states. He had a rap sheet longer than I am tall and JB Pritzker could not delete that picture fast enough from his social media. But these quote UNQUOTE peacekeepers really do very little other than get in the way of Chicago police officers and federal agents who are trying to make arrests. So this program is yet another failure of mayor Brandon Johnson.
That’s why the National Police Association foiled the city of Chicago a couple of days ago because we wanna know what is this costing the taxpayers and what is his sanctuary city policy doing when it comes to public safety. We think it’s very damaging and we want the statistics. Yeah.
Newsmax: And hopefully we get them.
Newsmax: Great to get those answers. That would be helpful.
Newsmax: That would be very helpful.
Newsmax: Alright. Betsy and Josh, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.
Betsy Smith: Great. Thank you.