>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

>> Look, this is about making investments in people.

That's what I promised.

I would do.

>> our spotlight politics team on where budget negotiations stand after older people, lack of the puzzle to raise property taxes.

The Onion is adding controversial info wars to its brand.

satire site is expanding business.

And the Cook County Forest Preserve District is reaching a major milestone.

>> Now to some of today's top stories, Mayor Brandon Johnson is back to the drawing board this after the entire city council voted down his proposed 300 million Dollar Property tax hike proposal last week.

Johnson says his new plan would only high property taxes path that amount.

>> This is not the final budget.

We've reduced the property tax.

By 150 million dollars.

There is an ongoing level of collaboration very encouraged by and I'm grateful that the city council has embraced this new process.

And I believe that's good for the people of Chicago to see this type of robust level of collaboration take place.

I believe it's going to help restore that much more confidence.

And and in government.

>> The city has until the end of the year to pass a budget for 2025. our Spotlight Politics team will have much more on this in just a few minutes.

The Chicago Police Department is making progress, but still behind schedule on a court order requiring it to change the way it trains supervises and disciplines.

Officers.

That's according to independent monitor Maggie Hickey who just released her 10th report on the subject.

The report says CPD is fully compliant with just 9% of the federal consent decree.

added her voice to the growing chorus of officials calling on the city to invest financially in the decree saying in a release, quote, failure to fund reform is also a clear violation of consent decree.

Paragraph 700 which requires the city to provide, quote, necessary and reasonable financial resources necessary through steps or process ease that can include the budget process to fulfill its obligations under this agreement.

While Santa Sleigh gets tuned up for the big day, the big guy and his elves will be taking public transit this holiday season.

The CTA holiday trains and buses are one of the city's most beloved seasonal traditions and its back next week.

Yes, the week of Thanksgiving riders can expect a six-car CTA train decorated with holiday scenes and whites with Santa greeting riders from a flat bed.

Kiddos can grab a photo of the jolly, a on Saturdays and adults to for more on the train and the buses, routes and schedules.

Please visit our website.

Up next, a new path forward in the battle over Chicago's budget.

Our spotlight politics team on that and much more right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexander and John Nichols family.

The gym and Tay, maybe family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> Mayor Brandon Johnson is back to the drawing board after City council unanimously voted against a 300 million dollar hike to property taxes.

Meanwhile, state officials are pushing back on President-elect Donald Trump's promise to execute mass deportations in the trial of Michael Madigan is in its 5th week with the end, not quite in sight yet here with all that and more is our spotlight.

Politics team, Heather Sharon and Nick Bloomberg.

Welcome back team as always.

So we mentioned this unanimous vote by the Chicago City you know, sending negotiations over the city spending plan for 2025.

Back to square one.

Let's listen to what the mayor had to say about what other people should do now.

>> just going to say this I know is going up, my folks at McCombs team.

But, you know, some of the steps and measures that are being taken.

These are some of visions of having tantrums right now.

It's time to grow up.

People.

Chicago have time for that.

>> Tough talk from the mayor, Heather.

So he said that negotiations over the weekend positive.

Where do things stand?

Well, he has offered to cut that property tax hike as we heard in half to 150 million dollars.

But that still leaves another 150 million dollars.

And it's not clear that 26 members of the city Council will vote to approve budget that includes any level of property tax.

But as I've said before, the city has only limited ways to raise money.

Now there's a proposal floating out there to increase the city's least tax on computing services.

That goes to go from 9% to 11% to raise about 128 million dollars.

However, you can only sort of increase those smaller taxes so much.

And the mayor again today ruled off any budget plan that lays off city employees, orders them to take furloughs or cut city services.

That means there are only a limited number of options and a limited number of days to get this done.

The deadline to pass a budget is 6 weeks from today.

December 31st.

And the holidays are coming stances on Islam.

The CTA right as we know, right?

It did slow things down when the holidays approach had to remind us how we got to this point.

Well, the city's finances have long been out of whack with expenses, particularly pensions outpacing revenues.

So the city had to close 928 million dollars worth of budget gap.

So right now that gap is somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million dollars because the city council rejected that property tax hike.

However, everything is basically up for grabs.

You have some older people saying the city should use what's left of the city's COVID-19 relief funds.

You have other older people saying there should be deep cuts.

Other older people don't want to make an additional pension payment that would help the city sort of bring up those funded ratios and relieved that crisis.

Everything's on the table there.

But there is only a limited number of ways to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in 6 weeks.

I think I think it's gonna be really interesting to see whether council members and up sort of taking that.

>> Easy way out.

And, you know, neglecting to make that additional pension payment because of that, something that the mayor, you know, goes against.

That is another of the issues that he has really made a centerpiece of his, you know, budgeting saying that the city's budget has long been out of whack, as you said, that there had been all these structural problems created by past administrations that looking at the Emanuel and the Daley administration before it and get and they failed to address these problems.

Well, if you go along with a plan that doesn't make that additional pension payment, arguably, that is more of the same kind of, you know, short-term focus on budgeting rather than trying to deal with some of the structural problems.

But it is certainly one way to ease the tension, use attention, sort of ban dating or like you patching up the Just one problem while not fully addressing another one.

Heather, as we mentioned earlier, there's been a growing chorus of people who are concerned that the proposed budget would >> would hurt progress on the Chicago Police Department's consent decree, including Attorney General Kwame Raoul who sent a letter to the mayor.

You asked the mayor about that today.

What did he I asked if he regretted making those cuts because they are unacceptable to basically everyone in charge implementing the consent decree and he just declined to say that he did.

He said, look, they're up for negotiations.

>> We're sort of negotiating this.

But I also asked whether that this is an indication that he's not fully committed to implementing the consent decree, which, of course, is designed to stop Chicago police officers from routinely violating the constitutional rights of black and Latino Chicagoans.

And again, he said, look, I am committed to constitutional policing.

I think the question is how much are you willing to pay to make that a reality?

And how much can the city afford to do that this year?

And it's going to be interesting to see if this, you know, becomes a larger political fight between, you know, one of Illinois's top statewide elected Democrats.

And, you know, the mayor of its most populous city.

>> You know, we should remember this consent decree is being enforced by the Illinois Attorney General's office because it first, you know, this investigation got kicked off during the Obama administration.

You know, after the, you know, the murder of Laquan McDonald.

>> But this was, you know, essentially dropped by the Trump DOJ and the state AG picked it up.

So it's going to be interesting to see now that this is something being locally enforced.

If there are these cuts and this blows up into a wider disagreement, further tensions between statewide dams and Mayor Johnson.

>> Nick, we also heard from Mayor Johnson.

We heard him reiterate that Chicago would remain a sanctuary city.

We know the Governor Pritzker has been out front on this, pushing back against President elect Trump's promise for mass deportations.

What is he said?

Well, President Trump has floated the idea of a national emergency allowing him to call out the military on U.S. soil, which would be.

>> And extraordinary measure to use, you know, the military members to, you know, round folks up for deportation.

Pritzker said that is potentially illegal unconstitutional.

That's something he says he's investigating.

Pushing back on.

There's also the notion that Trump might call out the National Guard.

Of course, governors are the ones who call out the National Guard.

Certainly there will be plenty of sympathetic Republican governors who are willing to go along with this plan.

But, you know, Pritzker's raising the alarm here saying Trump cannot do this on his own and it would also be an incredibly, you know, extraordinary, unprecedented.

We're tired of saying these words and really unusual measure, if, you know, say a neighboring state called out the National Guard and deployed them to another state.

Heather were in the 5th week of the trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Jurors heard about a number of his allies who received about 1.3 million dollars from Con Ed.

>> What are they trying to show here?

Well, they're trying to show that basically when he was speaker of the House, Michael Madigan was running a criminal operation that was designed to trade official actions rate hikes, other sort of legislative deals.

>> In return for making sure that his friends and allies got no work, furlough work jobs.

Now later this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow we will hear from disgraced former alderman didn't Danny Solis who went basically undercover as a government will not only in the investigation of Matt again, but also the former Alderman Burke who is currently incarcerated and we will hear sort of how he sort of work to to sort gather information on that.

Again, what is truly going to be a seminal moment of this trial, which is going to continue well into the new year.

It appears so.

Knicks ETA just past its 2025 operating budget, but not without some criticism from the board.

What were their concerns and how to the CTA president respond?

Yeah, the budget itself is, you know, fairly low drama.

But the board really expressed some consternation with Carter.

>> Over the issue of security services of making sure that riders who they are desperately trying to draw back boost those ridership levels to pre.

>> You know, pandemic heights, they want to make sure that folks feel secure.

We should note crime is way down on the CTA.

You know, there certainly was a spike in recent years, but that problem has significantly abated, you know, CTA officials have deployed private security firms.

And, you know, there's been some criticism of the board saying, yeah, these folks aren't really doing that much.

They're often citing complaints, both that they've witnessed and that other people saying that they're not, you know, dealing with passengers who are perhaps violating the rules, smoking playing loud music being disruptive, being dangerous.

So there's been some pushback on that.

They say we want to see metrics.

We do not have a clear sense of where these folks are deployed.

We want and they also want to see more about sort of preventative measures instead of just having the, you know, either more CPD deployed or private security deployed, they want and pushed in fact, in a sort of a last-minute change to get 3 million dollars of the security contract diverted to preventive measures.

So we will see how that plays out.

But they're really clear with Carter that they don't feel like they are in the loop on this and they want more.

>> heard from, you know, many legislators and, you know, we just discussed Governor JB Pritzker and some other governors are trying to sort of Trump proof their state policies, CTA officials at all thinking about, you know, what a Trump administration might mean for transportation is area will.

Certainly the big ticket item is that 5.6 mile redline extension that will finally carry the train passed 95th Street to cover the full far South side.

>> They are in the final steps of getting 1.9 billion dollars in federal grant funding for this.

And they are really racing to get this done before the Biden administration hands over the keys, if you will, of the Department of Transportation to make sure that much needed funding for the project comes through.

President Carter, CTA officials expressing confidence that they could get this done.

They also said with that red purple modernization project that's going on right now, they were in the same position in 2016, 2017.

They managed to get it done on a tight time frame.

There are certainly other issues, other areas that they are concerned about that they're bracing for.

But that really in the near term, they need that 1.9 billion dollars for this project to move forward.

All right.

hopefully seeing how quickly they can get all of that through down the track.

Everybody I did.

all right.

Nic Lindbergh and had a strong thanks so much.

Thank you.

Up next, a look at the onions plan to expand its satirical business.

>> satirical >> news site.

The Onion is buying in towards the website founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and No, it's not a joke.

The purchase happened in a bankruptcy auction held after Jones was ordered to pay 1.5 billion dollars in a defamation lawsuit brought by families of Sandy Hook victims.

But Jones and company are fighting back claiming fraud and collusion.

Joining us now with more is Jordan LaFleur executive editor of The Onion.

Welcome Tonight.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having So why did the Onion one of by and for wars?

Why not?

I mean, it was a >> just such a rare opportunity and >> you know, internally, when became a became aware that it was a possibility, we just immediately latched onto the idea that it would be the funniest possible thing that we could do.

We are resource appropriately.

We are eager and I think it's just gonna be the funniest thing ever.

What is the plan for the website Well, I mean, it's it's in need of a new coat of paint.

I'll tell you you know, supporting it as is not on the road map.

It is just a house of lies and fear-mongering and we think it would be better served by something other than that.

So we intend satirize imperative that the larger ecosystem of missing dis-information.

What kind of I mean, you and the onions known for its headlines.

What can we kind of expect from a >> info wars by the I think I mean, I mean, we're having meetings on this just today.

I think the best way that I would phrase it is that the onion is known to be more of an institutional voice.

That's steal, kind of a monolith, faceless organization one thing that's exciting for me creatively for the whole team is that informs will give us the opportunity to speak in the voice of particular characters.

>> And you know, there will be a whole host, a litany of characters that we can use parity have the existing site characters whose whose thinking and speaking might be something like Alex Jones and those who listen to and yes at early unhinged, fear-mongering and ultimately just an attempt to sell you ineffective, bring bills.

>> Alex Jones, he's still finding a way to peddle his, you know, his conspiracy theorists without owning info wars.

He has said that he's got a new thing all set up and ready to go was their hope that, you know, that buying his site might be able to block him from causing more warm I mean, any means of printing from causing more to be explored.

But now I think the important part here was to to take the brand and use it for good.

>> You know, I it's it's man of his constitution is that we knew would be impossible to silence and early.

But we look forward to using the brand for something other than he would have liked.

As we mentioned in the wars and other of Jones's assets are being liquidated.

He had to file for bankruptcy on to that.

He could pay.

>> The defamation case to the victims of Sandy Hook because he is known for being the person who pushed the falsehood that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut was a quote, unquote, hoax.

Talk about a little bit.

What the Onion is doing, though, actually to to push gun reform.

Absolutely.

I mean, >> we have a history with this one of our most effective pieces of satire and the 13 years that I've been at The Onion is a headline that people might be familiar with its no way to prevent this says only nation where this regularly happens.

And unfortunately, we've had to publish that 37 times in the aftermath of mass shootings and so we have a a history in this realm and an unfortunate one.

So the opportunity to work with every town to continue to further awareness gun violence and how to prevent it is just very rare opportunity for us when we're looking forward report you're referring to Everytown for Gun Safety.

That's right.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

>> So news follows again, the presidential election, Donald Trump being named President elect again.

Trump in Jones have ties and Vice President break.

President-elect JD Vance has even called Jones a truth teller.

How are you planning on covering a second Trump term?

>> Oh, boy, I don't want gloss over.

It will, in fact be difficult.

Donald Trump is a difficult figure to satirize one of the community tools that we frequently uses is heightening.

And it's difficult to heighten from such a place of bombast and untruth.

And so can to covering a hurricane, you know, like.

I think we focus on.

It's important to monitor where the hurricane is in the wind direction and whether to have 2 or 3.

But we are going to focus on the aftermath of casualties what he weighs lays waste to and how affecting real people.

You mentioned heightening is it is a tool that you using in comedy.

>> I know that is what is what does that Owen?

And when you take a basic premise that people understand and and essentially it's exaggeration as it's just how one path to a punchline and Bryce, he difficult rises.

President Trump difficult to satirize.

Well, because I mean the things that he says and doesn't just so utterly ridiculous that just on the face of it.

I mean, the simple way to put it is that it reads a satirical on the face of it.

>> And so to to to use something so heightened to use my own word again at when it starts from such a height in place.

It's a difficult jumping off point.

>> What do you think political satire, such a powerful tool when calling misinformation in political figures?

It can be a powerful tool.

I think it is most effective as a bomb ourselves to people who are watching the world and feeling and certain feeling angry.

I the most receptive audience is or the most important audiences for satire, you know, is the emperor that who's wearing clothes are trying to call it the emperor.

We're trying to let people know And there are people who who realize it.

I don't know that it is the most effective tool to change hearts and minds.

But I do think it's an effective tool to to to let people know that there are people watching and people understand what's happening.

>> As we mentioned, a company affiliated with Jones's website that sells supplements has asked the bankruptcy judge to disqualify your big claiming fraud and collusion.

Are you worried about this big being held up because of this?

This just thinks we're.

>> I mean, I am confident in our bed.

I think it shouldn't come as no surprise that this is what Alex Jones is doing.

I what I have found surprising is the credulous nus that a lot of traditional media has.

I reported these events with I think, you know, he gets a couple ways to generate a legal document and you get a bunch report responding to it as though it's equally impactful is genuine legal action.

It is utterly ridiculous.

>> What do you think satire can do that?

Traditional news can't I think we can call a spade a spade even though it's through the lens of a joke.

I think a lot of people, you know, are rightfully skeptical of traditional media.

I think traditional media can be a little mouth when they're evaluating controversial topics and political figures who have no concern for the truth.

We do it through the lens of of humor and jokes, but we can we can call people out more directly in a way that is more impactful people are more likely to retain.

>> New Info What can we expect?

We talked about that a little bit.

But you know, be live the URL, will that be the same?

I mentioned, yes, we absolutely intend or attend the arrow.

We want to win on the current Brandon just make it all the more painful for those finity for the the current version.

But hopefully January, we have something to show the world might be an incremental launch, but we we will be ready and some form or fashion in the new year, OK, any other big plans for branching out from there and see a lot of info You know, a video that's a lot that's enough.

New plans for one with But we the papers in ongoing concern and people ought to consider subscribing to its support.

The larger endeavor, the dollars that go towards those memberships in subscription allows to do and saying things like this.

>> And members we get, the more we can do OK during the flare.

Thank you for joining us.

Good to see Thank you so much.

>> Up next, details on a major milestone for Cook County Forest preserves.

Stay with us.

It's a major milestone for the Cook County Forest Preserves.

The district's board of commissioners unanimously approved today.

The purchase of this 68 acre plot of land in south suburban Cook County.

This brings the forest preserves holdings to more than 70,000 acres.

Our Patty Wet Lee joins us now with more.

Patty, how significant is this milestone for the district?

I bring you Good news us it's huge.

They have been aiming toward this number for a decade.

You know, just this year alone, they've acquired 249 acres, which is the most second most that they've acquired since 1984.

>> So think about 84.

Is that what 40 years ago?

through the like how?

How long it's taken to acquire land these days.

There's not that much available.

There's competition for it.

You know.

So this is they said is a very big, big, big for them.

So how much land has the district quiet so far this year?

You just mentioned 200 and something.

>> How is it possible?

You know, it's interesting because they had it, you know, the day for formed in 1914, in the first 2025 years.

They acquired like 33,000 Acres.

So think about how long it's taken them to get to this 0.

70 acres here, 70 acres there.

And they've really been focused on it and promised that the tax levy that Cook County voters approved in 2022, would go toward acquiring more land, more Habitat for Wildlife, more nature for humans to enjoy and to be able to maintain and restore it.

So, you know, today is kind of their, you know, proof is in the pudding that they delivered on the promises that they made to voters having made good makes county forest preserves.

I should that the snow is maybe coming so maybe should have done that to freedom snow.

thanks so much >> And you can read patties full story on our website.

It is all it W t Tw dot com slash news.

>> And we're back right after this.

>> And >> that's our show for this Tuesday night.

Check out our free email newsletter.

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Like a deep dive into what happens when a prison closes and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 celebrating 30 years of the landmark documentary Hoop Dreams for you.

Now for all of us here at Chicago tonight, I'm Brandis Friedman, thank you for watching to healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Closed caption he's made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death that is proud to recognize its 20 attorneys recognized in the