--:-- Noel King: Hundreds of Texas National Guard troops have arrived in Illinois and are getting ready to deploy in Chicago. Residents there have been pushing back against ICE. They blocked DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from using the bathroom. That's what Governor Fritzker says is cooperation in keeping people sane. Then actually even more bathroom stuff. They don't even let our ICE officers and our Border Patrol officers use restrooms and facilities.
--:-- Noel King: But it's not all bathroom related. You're going to use that gun on your people. Shame on you. I hope right now your ancestors are looking at you. And this tension, combined with President Trump's early morning call for the governor of Illinois to be jailed, has raised fears about what is coming next.
--:-- Noel King: And that is coming up on Today Explained from Fox. Support for the show today comes from The Guardian. If you listen to our show, my guess is that you value independent voices and perspectives on the news. You want real reporting on real stories, and you don't want to wonder if the news you're getting is being skewed by an unseen hand. The Guardian says they're fiercely independent, too. They aspire to report the whole picture, and their coverage goes beyond the news.
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--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King with Dan Petrella. Dan's a political writer for the Chicago Tribune. Dan, what's happening in Chicago today?
--:-- Dan Petrella: Well, everyone is sort of standing at attention, waiting to see what is going to happen with the National Guard troops who arrived yesterday from Texas. We are seeing that they have gathered at a federal facility near Joliet, which is a far southwest suburb of Chicago. They have yet to be deployed onto the streets of the city or any of the suburbs.
--:-- Noel King: So that's sort of the next step that everyone is waiting for is seeing how and when these troops might be used. Chicago is a big city, but there have been some high-profile instances of violence in the streets in the last couple of days. What is the mood there like today?
--:-- Dan Petrella: Things are very tense. You know, there's reports all over the city and the suburbs of confrontations with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. New clashes have broken out, mostly outside the suburban ICE facility, but also spilling into neighborhoods, hospitals, even outside schools.
--:-- Noel King: U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials spent another day sailing up and down the Chicago River, leaving onlookers and local officials confused as to what the mission was. You know, we see videos posted all over social media and hear from sources of folks having encounters with them on the streets.
--:-- Dan Petrella: Protests at that same ICE facility got heated. That led to multiple arrests and the use of tear gas and pepper balls by DHS agents on those blocking entrances to the facility. And there's a lot of worry about what might happen to escalate the situation if, you know, military troops are sent out under the, you know, ostensible purposes of protecting these federal agents who've been operating at a sort of ramped-up level here in the city and surrounding area for the last month or so.
--:-- Noel King: And have you seen what President Trump is saying this morning about the mayor and the governor?
--:-- Dan Petrella: I did. And yes, that he is saying that they should be sent to jail. Truth Social. Chicago mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers. Governor Pritzker also.
--:-- Noel King: Which is not entirely surprising. I mean, I guess we shouldn't excuse that kind of language coming from the president. But it is not unusual from what we've heard from this president directed to these two individuals in particular previously and from throughout his life in politics at all sorts of different political opponents.
--:-- Dan Petrella: All right. Let's go back to where this all starts. And it begins with President Trump and something called Operation Midway Blitz.
--:-- Noel King: What is this?
--:-- Dan Petrella: So this is a title that they have given to this sort of stepped-up immigration enforcement activity that they began toward the beginning of September. This came after, you know, a couple of weeks of the president talking about violent crime in Chicago and the possibility of calling up National Guard troops to to deal with violent crime.
--:-- Noel King: That sort of shifted to stepping up immigration enforcement, which is something we've seen from the president before. You know, they did a round of sweeps and things like that in the early days of his administration.
--:-- Dan Petrella: You know, even brought Dr. Phil and a camera crew to follow around ICE agents and his boarders are Tom Homan as they arrested people.
--:-- Noel King: Are you a citizen? My mother's a citizen. Your mother's a citizen? Yes. Who's that for Phil? Who's that for Dr. Phil? Yeah. How do you know me? No, I've seen Dr. Phil, you know, on TV. Yeah? Yeah.
--:-- Dan Petrella: They have done a, I would characterize it as a military-style operation at an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, where there have been reports of them, you know, detaining and zip-tying young children who were there.
--:-- Noel King: And, you know, then the administration sort of produces these highly produced, almost Hollywood-style videos that they post on social media to promote their cause and sort of gather support for this operation.
--:-- Dan Petrella: And they said that they detained about 1 people. It really hard to come by really hard to get them to release actual full information on who they arrested.
--:-- Noel King: There have been several instances where you know there have been people who weren't the supposed worst of the worst but just people who got sort of caught up as collateral detentions. You know, we saw a family in Millennium Park a couple weekends ago that was taken into custody.
--:-- Dan Petrella: So it's been very sort of scattershot and chaotic from the point of view of folks out on the street.
--:-- Noel King: The National Guard is not supposed to be deployed without the permission of a state's governor. Governor Pritzker is giving a lot of main character energy the past couple of weeks.
--:-- Dan Petrella: To the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man. To any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous. We are watching and we are taking names.
--:-- Noel King: How has he been making his case and how have you seen the tenor change in the last couple of days?
--:-- Dan Petrella: Yeah, you know, he really has. I think the way you characterize it is very fair. He has tried to state forcefully and frequently and, you know, on seemingly every national media outlet he can find a microphone at that there's not a crisis situation here in Chicago or in Illinois that warrants the use of National Guard.
--:-- Noel King: But there is no wide-scale unrest really going on anywhere in the Chicago area right now that would warrant that sort of thing. They are the ones that are making it a war zone. They need to get out of Chicago if they're not going to focus on the worst of the worst, which is what the president said they were going to do.
--:-- Dan Petrella: They need to get the heck out. So he's really been outspoken about that from the moment that the president started bringing this idea up again.
--:-- Noel King: He's somebody who has been an outspoken critic of the president all throughout his time in office and frankly ran for governor in the first place because he was upset when Hillary Clinton, who he supported in the 2016 election, lost.
--:-- Dan Petrella: Last summer, I was in Chicago for the DNC, and I spent a couple of days reporting from the South Side. And I talked to a lot of people who were very angry about illegal immigration.
--:-- Noel King: They said, you know, the South Side has been disinvested for years. People are coming in from Venezuela and they're getting money. What is this? They setting up job training for them? Is that a bad thing if they're setting up job training for people? Why are they not setting up job training for us?
--:-- Dan Petrella: Many of those people were voting for Donald Trump because of immigration. So I wonder, you said these raids, some of them have been taking place on the South Side. Are there people in Chicago who will say, this is what I voted for? This is what we wanted?
--:-- Noel King: I would say that there is a very loud minority of voices that will say that. And I think the administration has been very active in highlighting some of those voices on social media, calling attention to folks who, even groups of people who are sort of known quantities at City Hall, for example, where they show up and speak during public comment at city council meetings and things like that regularly.
--:-- Dan Petrella: That is not to say that those voices don't exist. I don't believe that they represent sort of a large swath of the public here in Chicago.
--:-- Noel King: I think that, you know, I would note that overall, I think President Trump only improved his vote total statewide in Illinois by about 2,000 votes from 2020 to 2024.
--:-- Dan Petrella: So, you know, regardless of how it affects voting, there are people who feel disaffected. And there's been long tensions in Chicago between the Black community and the Latino community.
--:-- Noel King: You know, and I think politicians over the years have sort of stoked those divisions. Often, you know, white politicians kind of stoking the divisions to hold on to power themselves.
--:-- Dan Petrella: There is still at the end of the day a question here about what the point of this is, of sending the Guard into Chicago against the governor's wishes. Some people say it's about optics. President Trump is enjoying, you know, the memes, the shypocalypse now, the posts on Truth Social.
--:-- Noel King: And some people say it looks like the administration is hoping for a confrontation, the likes of which we've seen now over the past couple of days, hoping to ramp things up in Chicago.
--:-- Dan Petrella: So now I am asking you to speculate here, but I wonder, you've done deep reporting on this. What do you think the administration is after right now?
--:-- Noel King: You know, that is a very good question, and I wish I had a better answer. I think that's part of the problem is that their real aim is sort of unclear.
--:-- Dan Petrella: I do think that there is a sort of shock and awe approach to this, trying to project this image of power. And I do think, you know, they've obviously been told in federal court in California that they shouldn't be doing what they've been trying to do with these guard troops.
--:-- Noel King: They've been told in federal court in Oregon. We're waiting for a federal judge here in Chicago later this week to rule on the state's request for a temporary restraining order.
--:-- Dan Petrella: You know, it's really, really hard to say what the end game is here. And that's honestly one of the questions that the judge, the federal judge here in Chicago, has tried to get the Trump administration to answer in court, you know, where these troops will be sent, what their activities are going to be once they're here.
--:-- Noel King: And those answers haven't been provided. We'll see they're supposed to be filing a response in the federal court here shortly.
--:-- Dan Petrella: So it'll be interesting to see what the arguments they make there are. You know, it's obvious that the target of all of these movements so far have been cities that are led by Democrats.
--:-- Noel King: And there's been a lot of partisan rhetoric from the administration about that. So it's really hard to view it through any other lens.
--:-- Dan Petrella: Dan Petrella of the Chicago Tribune.
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--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: My name is Isaac Stanley Becker. I'm a staff writer at The Atlantic. And what have you been up to for the past two weeks?
--:-- Noel King: Well, I have been in Portland of late, a city that the president says looks like a war zone. Authorized the use of full force by soldiers there.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: And I get a call from the liberal governor. Sir, please don't come in. We don't need you.
--:-- Noel King: His efforts to deploy members of the National Guard have been stymied by a federal judge. But I went to Portland to try to fact-check those assertions and try to understand what it actually looked like on the ground.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Tell me what you saw.
--:-- Noel King: Well, certainly no war zone. What I saw is a lively and at times raucous and rowdy protest at the ICE facility in Portland. It's Oregon's only ICE facility.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: One of the things that's important to remember, and the city police chief emphasized this in some of his recent public comments. City of Portland is about 145 square miles. This is one city block.
--:-- Noel King: For anyone who travels there, I think the geography of this is so important to try to get across. There's the area just outside the facility where any given moment there's maybe two dozen at most protesters standing outside holding signs, shouting at the federal agents coming in and out.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: And there's a much, much smaller permanent encampment where several people at a time have been camping overnight, spending all their time there.
--:-- Noel King: And then at certain moments when a specific action is called, the crowd gets bigger, but not that much bigger. I think the biggest crowd I saw was on the Sunday after, the day after the president's initial truth social message announcing this.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: It's maybe 200, 250 people, young people. I'm out here because my parent is an immigrant. I think it's being betrayed in a worse way than it actually is. Old people, members of the clergy, labor organizers, people in wheelchairs, a topless woman, dogs, people in costumes.
--:-- Noel King: There was music, there was dancing, there was food. And then as night fell, things got a bit more tense. I put my hands up and I said, I'm just standing here exactly where you asked me to. And then he makes me in the face for three seconds straight without warning.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: At some points, they even started to fire pepper balls from the roof. The share of people wearing the black block attire, it's all black, usually with helmets, some type of ski goggles or masking grew.
--:-- Noel King: But for even those people, it was somewhat hard to discern their exact intentions. Some of them were presenting themselves as medics. They had the medic insignia on their clothing.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: And so it's a diverse and really varied group of people, I think, with wide-ranging motivations, interests, and intentions.
--:-- Noel King: Portland for the past couple of years has been kind of famous for protests. But walk me through when the most recent protests date to and what's been going on since the summer.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: In June is the way that protesters described the timeline to me. The actions begin to morph into more focused on ICE. And that's when a permanent encampment begins just near the ICE facility.
--:-- Noel King: And when I say encampment, I'm talking about maybe a tent or two, a couple of cots, medical supplies, food, a grill.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: I'm not talking about some sprawling kind of no-go zone. And that drew the attention of some right-wing activists who called attention to it.
--:-- Noel King: For people who say that there's not violence going on in front of these facilities, what do you say? It's a complete lie. There's lots of violence.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Within the city block, journalists have been attacked over and over. Which made it more of a notable symbol outside the facility that drew larger crowds.
--:-- Noel King: And things were pretty rowdy in the summer. There were a number of arrests outside the facility.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: And I think one of the ironies, and this is one of the ironies that was not lost on the federal judge who enjoined the deployment of the troops, is that things had actually quieted down.
--:-- Noel King: Certainly nothing exceedingly violent or out of control in the area and what the president did by making these threats is sort of insert and inject new energy into the demonstrations which I think for many of the protesters raised the question of is this what he wants?
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Does he want to inflame the situation? Does he want to turn the city into a war zone in order to justify this mobilization?
--:-- Noel King: President Trump has been very clear about what he wants in Portland. He says he wants to get Antifa.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Look, the politicians are afraid for their lives. That's the only reason that they say, like, there's nothing happening. And you've seen it. The place is burning down.
--:-- Noel King: People in the know have responded, Antifa is like, it's not like a club, right? We don't know who Antifa is.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: What are these protesters telling you about Antifa? Do they identify as such?
--:-- Noel King: The word has been used so promiscuously in recent years. Antifa is a very small group of losers and miscreants and buffoons. Antifa is terrible.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Of course, it's a contraction of anti-fascist. And one of the interesting things about Portland is that it is home to one of the oldest known Antifa groups in the country, Rose City Antifa.
--:-- Noel King: What our group does is we engage in community self-defense against fascists and white supremacist groups. And that includes disrupting their activities whenever we can.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: One of our points of unity is that we don't depend on the cops or the courts to do the work of opposing white supremacy.
--:-- Noel King: But even that organization, if you want to call it that, is diffuse and it's kind of hard to understand exactly its leaders, its membership.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: And one of the things that some locals pointed out to me is that, you know, a number of years ago when there were, you know, quite violent protests and really sort of roving street brawls that popped up in parts of the city between left-wing protesters and right-wing activists.
--:-- Noel King: In all-out brawl in the streets of northeast Portland, by the looks of it, Antifa in the right-wing group Patriot Prayer clashing at what was advertised as a May Day after party.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: Make no mistake about it, these two groups do not like each other.
--:-- Noel King: This man came back bloody and angry after a confrontation with Antifa members. He wouldn't be the only one hurt by the end of the day.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: A number of these actors went to prison or felt the threat of going to prison, which has taken down the temperature significantly.
--:-- Noel King: I think the feelings about this really ranged. There were some of them who said, look, I'm engaged in anti-fascist protest. I believe that ISIS conduct, its tactics, and the president's directives to ICE resemble fascist regimes.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: They also, though, felt that the term has been emptied of all of its meaning and that it's being used by the president to try to criminalize anti-fascist protest.
--:-- Noel King: They both wanted to combat that by embracing it, but also wanted to distance themselves because they felt that this is a term that's just talked about by people who aren't in it, don't really know what it is, and just see political opportunism in it.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: All right. So a judge temporarily blocked the National Guard from coming to Portland. The governor and I imagine the local authorities mayor are probably on high alert.
--:-- Noel King: What they are doing and how they are approaching the situation is actually escalating it. I would ask them to stand back and focus on de-escalating the situation because it is not coming from the folks who are demonstrating.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: What do we understand about what is going to happen next?
--:-- Noel King: So the administration has appealed this and there's going to be a hearing, I believe, on Thursday before the Ninth Circuit.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: So we'll have to see whether the judge's decision is reversed. And also whether there are other ways in which the administration tries to work around it.
--:-- Noel King: But I think, you know, for the time being, it's really worth listening to the words of this judge, who again is a Trump appointee, a Republican, and who said that this is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law, and called the president's statements and actions untethered from the facts.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: These are striking words from the judge in justifying this order that she issued and, you know, really worth listening to as we consider what it means that the president is attempting to mobilize active-duty soldiers into an American city against the wishes of city and state leaders.
--:-- Noel King: And based on a rationale that a judge that he himself put on the federal bench is saying are untethered from the facts.
--:-- Isaac Stanley Becker: That was The Atlantic's Isaac Stanley Becker. He's been reporting from Portland.
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--:-- Noel King: Today's show was made by Danielle Hewitt, Denise Guerra, Amina El-Sadi, Laura Bullard, Patrick Boyd, and Adrian Lilly.
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--:-- Noel King: Congratulations are pouring in for Sean and his wife Lori, who had a baby last night. Beyonce, that was such a beautiful email. Thank you from all of us.
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--:-- Noel King: Sean is going to be back in five months. I will be here. We'll have some other great fill-in hosts. Until tomorrow, I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.
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