>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Brandis Friedman.

>> State and city officials are suing the Trump administration in an effort to stop the deployment of military troops in Illinois.

The lawsuit calls the looming deployment of 400 Texas National Guard members.

And another 300 from Illinois.

A politically motivated and unconstitutional federal overreach.

Here's Governor JB Pritzker earlier today.

>> I have called upon Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw his support for this decision and refuse to allow Texas National Guard members to be used in this way.

Let me be clear.

Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation's cities.

>> Attorneys for the Trump administration say the troops from Texas could hit the streets of Chicago as soon as tomorrow.

The administration says the troops are being deployed to protect federal property amid ongoing protests against ramped up in immigration enforcement.

federal judge today declined to immediately block the deployment.

But instead scheduled a full hearing on Thursday.

Joining us now is Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Mayor, welcome back.

Thanks for joining us.

You're welcome.

Thanks for having me.

So the Texas troops that we mentioned, they would work alongside the 300 Illinois troops, Illinois National Guard members.

If this deployment comes to fruition.

Mayor, what do you say to the residents who are are scared about this?

What what advice do you give them?

Well, first of all, this is illegal and dangerous.

You know what the president of the United States of America is doing in cities across America is unconscionable.

>> And it's with one thing in mind.

It's to foment fear.

And to ensure that, you know, his presidency is is protected with the interest of those who essentially have secured his presidency, which is the ultra rich rate and what we've said from the very beginning that this is always been the goal of this administration right to use the federal agents as a pretext to essentially to sink the National Guard on the residents of our city, which their ultimate goal is to militarize our cities and to fully occupy them in no way a re going to accept this and we've made this point in fat, clear that the city of Chicago does not need militarized force occupying our city.

In the meantime, what do you say to residents who think this could be going down in the next couple of days will know that I'm standing up and I'm fighting to protect the residents of this city.

>> Have signed now 3 sweeping executive orders to do just that.

Look.

I'm going to use every single tool that's available to me ensure.

But the residents of our city are protected.

That's going to take people of this city and people across the country to continue to organize on the ground and actually hold this administration accountable.

What I'm grateful for is that we have very strong resolve here in Chicago in throughout the state of Illinois.

recognize that these unconstitutional acts that are being carried up by the President.

is America.

We're not going to tolerate.

Tolerated in Chicago are going to a power to push back against what he since he declared, which is a war on Chicago.

So one of those executive orders he signed today creating an ice free zone.

It would prohibit federal immigration agents from using any city-owned property in their ongoing operations in Chicago.

>> The order also says, quote, city departments and agencies are directed to implement this order within 5 days.

This could include but is not limited to ensuring that wherever possible physical barriers such as locked gates are used to limit access to city property for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement.

Can the city truly enforce this order or is this largely symbolic?

We most certainly will.

>> And if the federal government violates this local ordinance, going to use every single tool that's available to hold them accountable.

And that includes the courts.

Here's the bottom line.

School parking lots should not be used for federal agents, particularly ice to prepares weapons to to showed in the face of black and brown.

People are parks should not be used as a place where federal agents are using this as a staging location to disappear.

People.

What's happening in this country right now.

is a threat to our democracy if the Congress or the Supreme Court.

If they're not going to hold this administration accountable, Chicago will.

So you're saying you can use the courts.

So, for example, if an ICE agent should violate this executive order.

>> Is the most that you can do?

Take them to court can certainly CPD officers cannot either get in the way of air.

Certainly not arrest an ice agent.

We're going to use every single tool that's available to me.

That includes the courts.

Look, here's the bottom line.

We don't want.

A federalized occupation in our city and because this president is not being held accountable by Congress, the city of Chicago will and what this executive order lays out in very clear and direct terms that using public spaces to stage ICE raids.

We're not going accept it or not going to tolerate it and we're going to stand firm as a city.

So of course, we mentioned the state of Illinois and your administration.

You are suing the Trump administration to block the deployment of troops.

>> This afternoon, a federal judge declined to immediately block that deployment will all be watching on Thursday when that hearing is scheduled.

Why do you believe the federal government can't legally deployed troops to Chicago with the intent of protecting ice?

>> Well, I mean, look, I mean, this is, you know, clearly an overreach by the president it is America to federalize, you know, the National Guard, particularly using this idea of state of emergency.

He has not met the minimum qualifications to do such a thing.

And in fact, quite frankly, I don't believe, know, of any National Guard members that, you know, have signed up to serve and protect our democracy.

Did that with.

Being used as a political ploy to to essentially be forced you know, being in communities that quite frankly, are not as keen for this type of deployment.

Right?

So what is clear years, though, that we saw this in Portland and in Oregon where a federal judge has already declared that what this president.

Is attempting to do is unconstitutional.

And the expectation is that the courts hold up that position across the country.

>> So too Chicagoans were charged over the weekend after ramming a Border Patrol vehicle in Brighton Park.

That was on Saturday.

Here's police Superintendent Larry snowing talking about this talking about today.

The incident happened this weekend on the southwest side.

>> When you plow into a vehicle.

Contains law enforcement agents.

You're using deadly force.

And they can use deadly force in response to stop you.

You may not like what they're doing.

I can understand it.

There's a lot of emotions out there.

But that does not mean that you get to commit a crime.

>> Mayor, you said this morning that you don't believe the federal officials account of what happened.

What do you think actually happened?

What we saw this in Franklin Park, right where father was?

Shot and killed by a federal agent.

This federal agent describe the situation he believe justified his actions.

It later turned out that even this federal agents say this was not a major issue.

And so we can't believe anything that comes from the Trump administration.

And so that's why it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we are putting protective measures in place to ensure that the constitutional right to peacefully assemble that that's protected, but also to make sure that our local law enforcement.

He's able to do its job, which is to keep the peace to keep calm.

What's unfortunate in all of this is that the president of United States America, he's placing a local law enforcement in impossible situations have that you or superintendents knowing have you sought from DHS, any additional information or investigation?

>> To confirm the facts of that shooting that?

certainly calling for an investigation.

I've in the first person to call for independent investigation that the Department of Justice should ensure that if we're gonna make sure that there's trust between law enforcement and residents.

We can't have a situation where federal agents, our shooting and killing.

The people of this city or well, then you know, our our county, our state or our country.

This is an escalation by the president of the 96 America the way he is using his personal militarized force ice to essentially create fear and intimidation.

But we're not going to be intimidated in Chicago.

So broad view.

Mayor Catrina Thompson is implementing limited protest hours there from 09:00PM to 09:00AM to 06:00PM in efforts to sort of curb some of the clashes that keep happening between protesters.

>> And federal agents there in her community.

And this is just the latest restriction on protest in broadview that have been criticized as sort of helping federal agents to pour into teen Chicagoans have officials struck the right balance between protecting people but also allowing them to exercise their First Amendment Look, I think all of us are doing our very best to make sure >> that we are keeping calm and that we're protecting the fundamental rights of all of our residents.

But what we are experiencing right now.

It's an unprecedented overreach by the federal government.

We're talking about federal agents shooting pepper people who are peacefully protesting.

I mean, even a journalist was shot at just over the weekend.

Federal agents released tear gassed on our local police department.

This is a clear escalation on the part of the president of the nicest America with the ultimate goal, which is to militarize our streets.

I military troops in our city.

He said himself that he wants to use the cities across America as training ground for the military will.

And and to to, you know, sort of to to that point, you know, we keep hearing from from both both Governor Pritzker as well as words like Trump's invasion.

Governor Pritzker using the word feathery creating a war zone.

You mentioned I think just this morning that the president wants to recreate the Civil War.

>> Do you think all of that language lowers the temperature at Is that not using the same incendiary language that we hear from the president, you know, telling the truth on this president and his overreach of the Constitution.

That's what this moment calls for.

We're talking about making sure that the people of our country are not being used as justification or rationale for this presidency dog.

Here's the fact.

The matter is.

The president has described the people of this country as enemies from within.

This is not about this is not about the re Creation Award.

This is about him actually declaring war an American cities.

He's done it.

It's my responsibility to stand up to tyranny and to make sure that we are defending the people of this city.

And I will use every single tool available to me to ensure that we are protecting all of our Reza is responding with the same language.

Tofu, I would describe what our defenses as the same language.

I've never referred to the president as an enemy.

We've simply said that he is overreaching the Constitution.

Look, this is not about how we are responding.

This is about what we are responding to the president of the United States of America has declared war on the city of Chicago.

Those are his words.

I'm simply doing everything in my power to protect the people of this city.

The president intentionally.

He's using.

He is.

Militarized private security has a way for pre tax to send troops into cities across America.

He said that and we're not going to stand for that in Chicago.

He he's referenced some Chicagoans.

The president is referenced some Chicagoans who he says would welcome the troops.

Here's a bit of that.

>> So you have a black women with MAGA hats on in Chicago all over the place.

They want to guard to come in they don't care who comes They just want to be safe.

>> And they really don't care.

You know, there was one woman and she was great today.

She said, you know what?

I don't give National the Army, the Marines, Air I don't care who comes in as long as we're safe.

And that's the way most of the public feels we're gonna make Chicago really great again.

>> Make Chicago great again.

What do you say to the residents who might want the National Guard deployment?

This past summer?

>> We had the fuse amount of homicides in the city of Chicago since 1965.

The safest summer in 60 years.

There's more work to be done but we are driving violence down in the city of Chicago.

This is not about deportation and it's not about public safety because if it were, why did the president cut the ATF budget by 30%?

did you take 100 million dollars out of the budget that went towards about is prevention?

Why is he cutting off food access to health care, defunding of public education system.

And he's literally charging the Chicago public schools.

4 actually making sure that our black students are successful.

This president, it's not serious about driving violence town in cities across America.

If he were, he would work with me and local law enforcement to get the illegal weapons off the street that are being shipped to the 2 city of Chicago from red states that voted for him.

That's why I'm working hard every single day to invest in young people.

Invest in and mental health services invested more affordable homes, investing in our public education system to ultimately drive violence.

Some of the city of Chicago, one homicide, one shooting one act of violence is one too many.

But we are clearly moving in the right direction.

So you mention CPS.

I'm gonna come back to that.

But first, we have to talk about city budget.

We have talk about the money there.

>> Your office is financial forecast shows a 1.1 5 billion dollar budget gap, the largest in over a decade.

How can you fill that gap without a property tax increase?

You know, first of all, let's talk about how we got here.

Problem is that for multiple administrations, they didn't pay into our pensions.

All right.

And they've kicked the can down the road and now we're at the end of it.

I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure that we repair the structural damage that I hear you're going to do that.

And we're gonna do that by making sure that we find government productivity and find ways in which we can streamline screen line government so that we're not experience in leakage.

But we also have to challenge those with means to put more skin in the game.

I'm gonna give a budget address in a few more days next week.

want to make sure that we are challenging corporations and the ultra rich to pay their fair share.

Why is it important Donald Trump just provided a tax break for the wealthiest people in the entire country.

In fact, what he did was he provided the greatest concentration of wealth into the hands of the ultra rich.

Then any other president in the history of of our lifetime.

And so that's why I'm going to balance its budget going to make sure that we're investing in people.

But we have to respond to the negligence over the course of decades.

What we did not pay into our pension system and I'm going course correct that.

So with the budget task force that you announced earlier this year just came within the last month or so with.

>> Its preliminary report recommending an automatic annual property tax hike tied to inflation among some other recommendations that they made.

If this task force that you assembled is recommending it like he property taxes off the table?

Well, they in a lot of things.

I don't have the Knesset except all of them.

And I appreciate the hard work of these individuals.

We brought together business leaders, labor leaders, elected leaders, community-based organization, leaders and there are some recommendations that they have put forth and I believe we should explore, but I'm not going to pose a property tax increase in my budget proposal.

But I am going to challenge those with means and the ultra-rich to put more skin in the game.

So we both mentioned that they made several recommendations.

What other of those recommendations can you get behind what we're looking at?

All of them?

I mean, have to stay tuned.

I'll give that presentation next week.

But you back I mean, use that thing.

We have located a number of ways in which government could be far more productive, right?

There's some duplicative of of areas where we can streamline the process.

So that again, we're not leaking dollars, but I want to make sure we're very clear about this.

We have actually cut spending over the course of several years.

In fact, you know, government is smaller than what it was just 10 years ago.

Right?

So what the report also indicated is that we don't have a spending problem in Chicago.

have a revenue challenge and that's what we're going to.

We're going to course, correct.

going to find progressive revenue to make sure that we're balancing this budget and we're not doing it off the backs of working people.

But it also is going to challenge us to make sure the Springfield does its part as well.

Spring food is going to have to to to roll its sleeves up and I'm willing to do that and throw down anybody was interested to make sure that we're getting our fair share from Springfield.

But we know that budgets are challenged across America.

Springfield just had a 3.1 billion dollar budget deficit that they had to to course correct.

I'm working hard every single day to bring Brett back resources to invest and our public transportation system.

And I'm going to do that.

But we also have to challenge Springfield to to to to tax quite frankly, the ultra-rich the people of Chicago wanted the people Illinois won it.

And quite frankly, if we're going to protect ourselves from the Trump taxes, we're going to have to challenge those with means to put more skin in the game.

So you've emphasized progressive revenue ideas before, including, as you say, making the wealthy pay their fair share or exploring corporate contributions.

Would you be willing to reimpose the so-called head tax of $4 per employee on big companies?

>> starting look at it, right.

This was a part of the recommendation that we saw with with are working groups.

You know, but here's the most important That if we're going to continue to build the safest most affordable, big City in America, which we are, crime is down our investment of our You just saw last week that summer prowess was incredibly strong, almost 900 million dollars in revenue.

20 billion dollars.

Plus.

>> In terms of overall impact because of tourism hotel occupancy is up.

Our our airports, our vibrant here, literally breaking and city records every single day.

We have just about to break ground eventually with the project for the new Chicago Fire Stadium.

Southeast side side quantum.

We broke ground there.

This a 300 million Dollar Hospital.

That's coming to the South side.

We have the your project recent development that's happened in the city of Chicago.

>> While at the same time driving by this town, if we're going to build the most affordable, big city in America.

The ultra rich and our corporations are going put more skin in the game.

as you mentioned, you're unveiling your 2026 budget proposal next week.

Given that Chicago, though, is ending the current fiscal year with that 146 million dollar deficit.

>> Will the city be able to close this year's current deficit without reading the Rainy Day fund are dipping into the reserves.

>> Well, that's that's what my both budget proposal is going to to entail.

Look, we've had challenges over the course of decades in the city and again because of the fact that we didn't pay into our pensions and, you know, mayors prior use what should have gone towards retirement, you know, as their personal slush fund to 2, 2, you know, fatten the pockets of their political benefactors.

We're not doing that anymore.

going to balance his budget, not on the backs of working people are going to head to our obligations.

We're also gonna make sure that we're making the critical investments to build a safe and affordable big city.

Stay tuned for next week.

is what you're saying then the somebody's going to be So pivoting to CPS because you mentioned the Department of Education withholding nearly 6 million dollars from Chicago.

Public schools.

>> Over both its black student success plan as well as protections for transgender students.

Has your administration or the district considered suing the Trump administration to get that money back?

We have and my administration will work with the Chicago Public schools to do just that.

In fact, you know, it's just 6 million dollars.

But over the life of what this opportunity would intel for our black students.

We're talking about almost 18 million dollars.

And here's the thing we're talking about making sure that our black students are successful.

Why would anyone want to attack, you know, such an investment?

It's why this president is just an fit.

Well, in this administration argues that their reasoning for doing that is because we should be making all students successful, not just spending money and time dedicated to black students, investing in people who have historically been, unfortunately on the other end of disinvestment.

That's the right thing to do.

We're talking about a city where we have the largest school closings in the history of Chicago.

public housing has been shut out with jobs have been lost and privatized.

And so we're going to make the wrongs right.

We have to do the real work to ensure to do that.

And there's nothing wrong with investing in the very people, quite frankly, who have been at the brunt of poor policy of the course of decades when CPS passed its own budget, the city's pension reimbursement, of course, was sticking point.

Do you have work to do in Springfield?

>> To pass a lot about this during the fall session.

>> Well, look, moving towards a fully elected representative school board.

And so the school board is.

It's going to be treated like every other school board across the state.

And so, yes, we're going to have to have laws in place to disentangle the relationship between CPS in the city of Chicago so that this body of government can stand on its own.

>> The CPS budget, of course, does not include an option for new borrowing.

So accruing new deaths.

I think the board would have to make a decision on that at the time.

But do you think that any new borrowing that the district does also include enough to cover that pension payments?

That has been a point of contention.

>> Look, our schools are woefully underfunded across the state of Illinois.

There's a brand new funding formula where the 7 years due more than 7 that clear.

>> That made it very clear of what the city of Chicago zone.

Here's the thing.

The state of Illinois provided 12% of what it is what the city of is actually owed.

would have a 500 million dollar surplus right now.

So this is something that can actually be corrected.

That's why I'm prepared to roll up my sleeves and work with the General Assembly as well as the governor to make sure that whether it's district to 99 or the St.

Louis, a rock for anywhere else in this state that the people of this state receive a high-quality education.

Here's the thing.

The vast majority Illinois actually agree with me, least 70% and made very clear that we're under funding our schools across Illinois.

We have to do better.

Okay.

So real quick, the bears before we let you go because we're almost out of time.

They seem to be moving ahead in Arlington Heights.

>> If things could stall in Springfield in terms of getting public money for development in Arlington Heights, would you encourage the Bears to stay at Soldier Field and or re-engage in stadium talks?

>> look, there's only one place for the Chicago Bears and it's Chicago.

Bottom line is, is I had a conversation with Joe Mens just a few months ago and we got a deal done because of club.

Chicago fire.

Exactly.

So, you know, I would encourage, you know, all of our sports teams, 2, 2, remaining games with the economic problems of the city of Chicago.

After all, it is the greatest city in the world.

Okay.

Do you think public funds money from Chicago taxpayers should be used to keep the bears down?

Well, look, I've said this from the very beginning.

>> The teams have to put skin in the game.

the Bears credit.

They were willing to do that.

Now there is, you know, a revenue source through his foot that is designed to build stadiums.

Now, look, if we're not going to use those dollars to build stadiums because that's her only use, then we should have a larger conversation about making sure that the city, Chicago next can actually control those dollars and resources and then we can make those investments