Transcript:
Newsmax: National Police Association spokesperson and retired Chicago area police officer, Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith, joins us as well as retired FBI supervisory special agent, Chris Hinkle. Great to have you both here this evening. Thanks for having us. Betsy, first to you.
I wanna start with over the weekend. We saw at least 52 people were shot, seven of which these were fatal shootings. How can Governor Pritzker and Brandon Johnson say there is not a massive crime issue in Chicago with numbers like this?
Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (ret.): Well, they can’t, but they’re gonna tell you crime is down. I think the record one Labor Day weekend was about 90 shootings. Here’s the thing. This is one of the most gun controlled cities in our nation, but our leadership there, Brandon Johnson and the governor mayor Pritz or, you know, governor Pritzker, all they wanna talk about is Donald Trump. They’re not giving any sort of rest to the citizens there who have to experience this kind of violent crime.
We had a mass shooting in Chicago. We just had a beautiful 25 year old girl killed a couple of days ago. And the Chicago police department is doing everything they can with their federal partners, but we could be doing so much more if the leaders would stop with this political nonsense and actually do something about crime.
Newsmax: Chris, officials in Chicago are bracing for a major federal immigration enforcement operation that could begin as soon as this week. We saw Brandon Johnson basically calling for an uprising today against any federal assistance in that city. How do you see this going?
Chris Hinkle: I don’t see it going well for Chicago. It actually plays well into Trump’s hands because if you take a look, and I I hate to keep using this hate to use this term, but according to the Insurrection Act, the president can come in and deploy the National Guard to quell unrest. And if it is where the locals are abusing the civil rights of its citizens or impeding federal law enforcement agencies from conducting their mission. So the more that they push back against him, the more ammunition he has to go in and do the things that need to be done.
Newsmax: Betsy, on Sunday, Governor Pritzker said the potential major federal immigration enforcement operation would be, his word, an invasion. What do you make of this?
Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (ret.): This is inflammatory language that does nothing but endanger law enforcement, local, state, and federal in the city of Chicago and beyond. You know, as your package stated, ICE agents are being increasingly attacked. And yet here we are. You have the mayor of the city of Chicago and the governor calling for people to rise up and fight federal agents. I think what’s going to happen is ICE is gonna be there.
They’re gonna be on the ground. And if the Chicago police department and other federal agencies can’t protect ICE, that leaves the door open for President Trump to activate the National Guard, and I think most residents of Chicago will welcome it.
Newsmax: Chris, don’t you think that whether it’s local law enforcement or with the FBI, a lot of the law enforcement officers who are actually out on the ground trying to fight crime welcome this type of help. They’ve seen what it’s done in Washington DC. I would imagine, even though they probably can’t say it publicly, they would welcome federal law enforcement to come in and help.
Chris Hinkle: You always welcome more resources coming in to help you do your job. Even if you brought the National Guard in just to be a presence sort of like a neighborhood watch, we found that neighborhood watches bring the crime rate down. It also frees up resources within the law enforcement community to address the crime problems they have there in Chicago. I think it’s, I think you’re going to find the partnership between the federal state and local agencies attacking this problem, coupled with having the national guard on the ground as witnesses as a neighborhood watch. You’ve just seen how it worked in the District of Columbia.
Now the president doesn’t have as much authority in Chicago. He can’t come in and take over the police department, but he does control their resources. And this is vastly needed. And I think once he’s I think the biggest fear that most of these politicians have is that it will be effective and it will prove how they’ve been so wrong for so long.
Newsmax: Yeah. You have to imagine that Mariel Bowser actually got some feedback from her constituents, and that’s why she changed her to her tune. Yesterday, President Trump posted this on Truth Social: “This is a list I get every single day.” The list includes the arrests made in DC for August 30. It says, 76 arrests were made during the reporting period.
Five firearms were seized. The list also includes significant activity that was reported in the area. The president says on August 30, they quote El Salvador national and a member of MS 13, a designated terror organization, was administratively arrested. Subject arrested for assault on a federal officer and threats to the president. The subject apprehended for sexual assault, end quote.
I mean, again, Betsy, we see these reports. You see these reports. The president sees these reports every single day. How can anyone be against this?
Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (ret.): Because it’s pure politics. You’ve got on well, what people don’t, I think, really understand is that people like Brandon Johnson care more about their own careers and their own visibility and their own pocketbooks than they care about the people of the city of Chicago. We have had a street gang problem in Chicago for fifty plus years. Brandon Johnson is one in a long line of mayors that really hasn’t done anything about it. And if we could marshal up enough federal resources with federal prosecutors, we could get a real handle on that problem.
And Chris is spot on when he talks about bringing in the National Guard just for visibility in these high crime areas. I think it could work and work well, but then Brandon Johnson’s career is over.
Newsmax: You know, Chris, when you look at Brandon Johnson, he was basically installed in that office by the teachers unions. And you wonder if he is the one actually making these decisions or if he’s being forced to say these types of things, forced to try and push back against President Trump. Because again, no common sense person would deny the help from the federal government given what Chicago is going through with violent crime.
Chris Hinkle: And I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there with the teachers union. They like the politicians are gonna be exposed with this. And their concern is that with the elimination of the Department of Education with solving a crime problem in a record amount of time and showing that it can be done in a record amount of time, that this is going to expose these politicians and this teachers’ union out there that doesn’t have the best interest of the students at heart. They have their own best interest. The next thing that we need to focus on then is changing the culture in these areas so that the youth that we bring up that they wanna engage in these types of activities.
But a good way to handle that for the future is to get the really bad guys off the street and the partnerships with the federal state and local. They’re a great way to do it. We did it here in Mississippi when I led the safe streets violent gang violent crimes gang programs. It will work in Chicago. You just need to force it in.
Newsmax: Yeah. That’s the key point. And that’s what Washington DC proves that it can be done. It can be done in a relatively small amount of time as long as everyone gets on the same page and is committed to doing it. Betsy, Chris, great to have you both here with us this evening.
Thank you. We’ll see you soon.