The Daily Signal - What Happened in Chicago and What May Be Next, Explained

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

Hundreds of vandals looted Chicago businesses Sunday night and into Monday morning. The images of shattered storefronts in and around the city's Loop look more like a war zone than an American city.  John Tillman, chairman and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, joins the podcast to offer insight into how the streets of Chicago so quickly fell into chaos, and what must be done to prevent further violence and looting.  Tillman also explains how Illinois' economy may be affected by the city’s surge in criminal activity and spike in murders this year.  We also cover these stories: The police chief of Seattle resigns after the City Council votes to cut the department's budget by almost $4 million. The Chicago man accused of firing shots at police officers Sunday afternoon is now charged with two counts of attempted murder and unlawful use of a weapon. Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that his nation has approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. “The Daily Signal Podcast” is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, and Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, August 12th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. Hundreds of vandals looted Chicago businesses on Sunday night and into Monday morning. John Tillman, chairman and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, joins the podcast to explain how the streets of Chicago so quickly fell into chaos and what must be done to prevent further incidents of violence and looting. Also, we invite you to take five minutes to complete.

the DailySignal podcast survey. We want to take your feedback into consideration, so at the end of the show, head todailysignal.com slash survey. Again, that's daily signal.com slash survey to give us your input. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review

or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now, onto our top news. The police chief of Seattle is resigning after the city council voted to cut her department by almost four mills. million. Carmen Best, who is the city's first black police chief, said she is leaving the force after 28 years of service. Here's what Best wrote in a letter to the police department, USA Today reported.

I am truly confident the department will make it through these difficult times. You truly are the best police department in the country, and please trust me when I say, the vast majority of people in Seattle support you and appreciate you. I look forward to seeing how this department moves forward through the process of re-envisioning public safety. I relish the work that will be done by all of you. Previously this summer, Seattle was an epicenter of violence and unrest following the death of George Floyd on May 25th. The Seattle area subsequently became home to the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, also known as the Capitol Hill organized protest, which was a self-declared autonomous and cop-free zone. The Chicago man who allegedly fired shots at police officers on Sunday afternoon

has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and the unlawful use of a weapon. 20-year-old Latrell Allen fired at police officers on Sunday afternoon when the police tried to approach him after receiving a call that a man in the area had a gun. Officers returned fire and struck Allen, who was taken to the local hospital and declared to be in stable condition. The officers involved in the shooting are part of Chicago's new community safety team and were not wearing body cameras, causing Black Lives Matter activists to question whether Alan took the first shot. The Black Lives Matter Chicago chapter wrote in a statement that Alan, quote, ran away rightfully fearing for his safety in this dangerous interaction with racist armed police.

The police department has asked for any eyewitnesses to come forward. Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Monday during a hearing that Portland officials are not promoting law and order in favor of playing politics instead. This is really about politics over public safety. Morgan said during a virtual event held by the Heritage Foundation. This really is about trying to score political points rather than giving the American people the truth. The Department of Homeland Security sent law enforcement to guard a federal courthouse that was attempting to be to be to be to be to be a publical point. destroyed by protesters, and Democrats, as well as those in media, called those guarding the courthouse, Gestapo or Stormtroopers. The Daily Signal reported. Morgan added, per the daily signal, can you imagine if this administration would use that type of terminology against anybody?

Can you imagine how nuts the mainstream media would go? But yet, we have members of Congress that use that language against the men and women of the CBP. It's disgusting. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that Russia has approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine called Sputnik V has received approval from Russia's health ministry, and Putin said that one of his own daughters has already been inoculated with the vaccine. Putin announced the vaccine saying, I know it has proven efficient and forms a stable immunity. We must be grateful to those who made that first step very important for our first. our country and the entire world. But health experts in America and around the world have raised concerns over the limited testing and research the vaccine has undergone. Even Russia's

association of clinical trials organizations urge Russia to delay the release of the vaccine until further studies could be completed, saying fast-tracked approval will not make Russia the leader in the race. It will just expose consumers of the vaccine to unnecessary danger. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlie joined CNBC Tuesday to explain why he would not take the vaccine. I think in terms of their development right now, they're a little bit behind what we are with the vaccines that we have in development. Our vaccines here in the U.S. are in phase three clinical trials. They're getting dose in thousands of patients as we speak. They've cleared phase one, phase two studies. They've been tested in 100, and in some cases, a couple of hundred patients. That's about where Russia is right now.

They've cleared the equivalent, really, of a phase one clinical trial in terms of putting it in 100 to maybe as many as 300 patients. So it needs to be evaluated in a large-scale clinical trial. Russia says they will be ready to offer the vaccine to mass numbers of the population by October. It's a critical time in our nation's history. Now more than ever, at the Daily Signal, we're committed to equipping you with the best information and insight we possibly can. And to do that, we need your help. By sharing your thoughts and suggestions through our five-minute online survey, you can help the Daily Signal improve our

reporting and reach more Americans with a message of freedom. Find the five-minute survey at dailysignal.com slash survey. Again, that's daily signal.com slash survey. Now stay tuned for my conversation with John Tillman, chairman and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, as we discussed the looting in Chicago and the city's increase in crime this year. I am joined by John Tillman, chairman and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. Mr. Tillman, thank you so much for being here. Great to be with you, Virginia. Now, I do wish we were chatting under happier circumstances, but unfortunately we're

talking about what happened in Chicago, the recent violence there, and it really is kind of a discouraging situation on Sunday. The Chicago police received a call about. young man with a gun. When the police began to approach the man, he took off running and he fired shots at the officers. The police returned fire and struck the man and he was taken to the hospital but is reported to be in stable condition. Now, this one incident of the police simply defending themselves spurred what many in Chicago are calling a coordinated attack on the city. Can you just describe what happened on Sunday night and into Monday morning in Chicago?

Well, bad actors who took that incident and used it as a catalyst to organize using social media, people to literally form caravans, come into the magnificent mile area of the North Loop, and all throughout the Loop and the North Side. They formed caravans. They brought U-Haul rental trucks, and they began to repeat the looting and the riding that went on after the death of George Floyd that we saw back at the end of June and into July. And that continued into the wee hours of the morning. The police were overwhelmed. The city did what it's now done many times, which has raised the bridges,

cut off the on-ramps and off-ramps to try to prevent traffic from coming into the central business district. But nevertheless, the damage was done. And we had another incident of massive rioting up and down Michigan Avenue, which is obviously very unfortunate for people who are struggling to try to restart their business, not just from the previous riots, but obviously from the coronavirus problems. And it's just an ongoing example of people who have hijacked what is a reasonable discussion about civil rights and the racial situation in the country and turning it into, exploiting it as an opportunity to create mayhem. Now, the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, she's a Democrat, but she was very, very clear that this violence, this looting was completely unacceptable. And during a press conference, she actually said this was straight up felony, criminal.

conduct. That's an exact quote. But the mayor has also received some criticism just for not doing more to kind of prevent this looting and this violence from taking place in the first place. So how do you think that Lightfoot has handled the situation and is, you know, kind of moving to prevent this from happening again? Well, I think the mayor's comments following what happened on Sunday evening at our press conference on Monday morning were quite strong and positive in terms of. of being the kind of response we would expect from a mayor who has been watching this carnage unfold. The problem is that she should have had this kind of response from the very beginning.

Unfortunately, when the violence first started, when peaceful protests were transformed by politically motivated agitators into violent protests three, four, five weeks ago, she was way too hands off, way too forgiving of it and did not put the hammer down in terms of her rhetoric then. And all of that has given those who are not really focused on justice, but rather focused on exploitation of an opportunity, has emboldened them. And they feel absolutely immune to any kind of accountability. That combined with the fact that the state's attorney in Cook County, Kim Fox, has been letting people who have previously been arrested out much too easily. People have been arrested and released very quickly.

And so there's a feeling of immunity, if you will, by the rioters who've taken advantage of what had been some pre-shaled protests in the past. So, yes, it's good. The mayor said what she said. She should have been saying this from the beginning. And now she's got a much bigger problem to overcome. So Chicago's ninth ward alderman Anthony Beale, he joined Fox News, Fox and Friends early Tuesday. And he said that the city of Chicago is, quote, up for grabs. I mean, in my mind, essentially what he was saying, when he said that is there are two options facing the city of Chicago right now. They can kind of continue to be pretty weak on crime and allow the city to sort of be turned over to these looters and violent criminals, or they can really crack down. Are you optimistic about Chicago's future? I remain very optimistic about not only Chicago's future, but Illinois' future and the country's future, but that does not mean we are not going to go through a very, very difficult period, which I think

we certainly are because the problem we face today is you have not just this recent period that we're all living through nationally, but in Chicago, we have this repudiation of policing in general, a repudiation of the idea that the police are there to protect the innocent. You know, we've had, you know, homicides in Chicago in the month of July. We're up about 139% over July of last year. Overall, for the year, we're up 50% in terms of homicides. and the people that are being most harmed by this, of course, are people primarily in the African-American community. This is where obviously some of the violence has come up into the business district, the central business district,

but the majority of the deaths are taking place in the communities most vulnerable, which are the African-American communities. We've had children dying from random gunshots or badly aimed gunshots. What is happening in the city is a crisis, and the crisis is fueled by the repudiation of the police. So now the police feel that they have no backing from the administration. They are generally speaking taking a hands-off attitude, which is perpetuated this problem. And it is not going to be an easy problem to fix. We had an employee from our staff who was accosted by on July 4th during the middle of the afternoon, a couple hundred people accosted their car, a pitch fork through the back of the window when they're just passing through the loop.

These are the kind of things that cause a city to go into rapid decline. And it is very terrifying. And the only way that's going to get a remedy is if this administration stops politicizing all of this and focuses on protecting the innocent and cracking down on those who are doing the violence. The Chicago Police Department, they've reported that there have already been 450 murders in around Chicago just this year. And by this time last year, that number was only 291. And the year before that, it was 329. And so Chicago has seen a 55% spike in murders so far this year. Do you attribute this rise specifically to kind of an anti-police rhetoric?

I think it's more than one thing. I think obviously the George Floyd killing was a spark that created some of the, again, what in the past were called peaceful protests. But that period seems to be over now. And what has happened is the people who have bad intent have hijacked all of that. and so I think those who are, the people in the city who are bad actors have taken this as a green light to go act badly and do the kind of things we saw on Sunday night. And they're just on a rampage because they feel no accountability. The police, meanwhile, are overwhelmed by the numbers and they feel overwhelmed by the fact that they're not supported largely.

And unfortunately, by many of the people in the community that at least are getting publicity who are very anti-police. Now, there's always a balancing act between the police providing order and protection for most of the citizens at the same time as we try to balance out the issues of the police abusing their power. That is the delicate balance we're all fighting for all over this country. We want civil liberties to be protected, and that means civil liberties for the people who are accused, but it also means civil liberties for the innocents who are just trying to live their life out in their communities. And what has happened today is that balance is completely out of whack now, where the police no longer fear. in power to try to preserve order and they don't feel protected by their administration and frankly they don't feel protected by many people in their own community who have turned on them.

This is a recipe for disaster and we're watching it unfold, not just in Chicago. This is going on all over the country. Chicago just, as is so often the case, seems to be leaving the country in bad things rather than the good things that we should be doing. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, Chicago, even before, you know, kind of the recent violence and spikes in murders has been reporting just very high crime rates that Chicago's violent crime rate is higher than the U.S. national average. Why do you think that is? There's been a breach of trust

between the police department and the mayor's office for a long time. It goes back Juan McDonald killing from a few years ago, which made national news and ended up in the conviction of the police officer who did it. But nevertheless, that has some. sparked a real breach of trust between the community, the police, and the mayor's office. And of course, we now have a new mayor, Mayor Lightfoot, as you referred to. But even prior to that, when Rahm Emanuel was mayor, there was this breach, if you will. And so the police feel somewhat on an island. They're between a rock and a hard place.

In the one hand, they don't have the confidence of the mayor's office. They don't have the confidence of the community. And so they feel adrift, is my interpretation of it from Thomas A. made them from the behavior we see. And so if you're a police officer and you're trying to serve the community by protecting the innocent, but you feel every time, for the example, you cited at the top of this discussion, these officers are chasing a guy who's, according to the police, multiple witnesses, pointing a gun at them and they fire back. You know, they're terrified of making those kind of decisions. And then an incident like that is taken, it is distorted.

The story that was going through social media is that this was an unarm. 15-year-old boy. It was not. It was an armed 15-year-old who's had multiple or multiple arrests in the past. And so those stories are put into the community. If they were, obviously, if it was true that the police had shot an unarmed 15-year-old, that would be obviously something worthy of reacting to, not with violence, but certainly being unhappy about it. Well, that's not at all what happened. So all these incidents now are being blown out of proportion, used for political advantage. And, you know, the Chicago version of Black Lives Matter has said that this is not going to stop until they find

justice. Well, I think they had a sign up that said, we've been eluded, so now it's time for us to loot back. Well, there's no, that is very difficult way to find peaceful harmony between all people in the city of Chicago, which is obviously what I think most people want. I think it's a very small number of people that are doing the agitation, but when they're not held to account, they have outsized influence and impact. Well, and I want to discuss just, the economic impact for a moment. You all at the Illinois Policy Institute have been following the effect specifically of COVID-19 on Illinois's economy and the state has been hit pretty hard. So are you concerned that the looting, which no doubt costs and will cost the city,

thousands, if not millions of dollars, is really going to have a long-term negative impact on the state's economy? Yes, I think it is going to have a long-term negative impact. and the work that's going to have to be done to rebuild confidence for people to invest in the Central Business District and the neighborhood that's the city-focused neighborhoods of the city of Chicago are going to be very challenging.

The irony of it is if you go outside of the city, the economy is largely recovering and doing much better, but obviously when people are living in fear as to whether or not you're going to be safe in what had been very safe neighborhoods and to say nothing of what is going on, the carnage in some of the neighborhoods that already were too violent,

people are going to be very hesitant and to reinvest and re-engage in those communities. And I think it is going to have a long-term effect. That is why the governor and the mayor, Cook County President, Tony Preclinkle, Kim Fox, the state's attorney, they are all responsible and accountable for how they respond to this. And the number one thing they have to do is restore order and peace.

And the only way to do that is to take on those people who are challenging a civil society, and that is these rioters who are coming in in an organized way and repeatedly looting and vandalizing the city and terrorizing its citizens. It has to stop. So tell me a little bit about the work that you all are doing. What are the particular areas of the Illinois Policy Institute plans to focus on in the coming months? I mean, are you all doing anything related to small businesses, families, civil society?

Just tell me a little bit about your work and how you're kind of going to come alongside Illinois to strengthen the economy and society as a whole. The number one problem facing Illinois, but long before everything that's happened in 2020, has been that our spending is out of control. We have not had a balanced budget since the year 2001, even though we theoretically have a balanced budget requirement in our Constitution. But it's loosely written so that borrowing can be used to close a budget gap, which of course is insanity. And unfortunately, we have a failure of leadership at the political level, both Democrats and Republicans, but primarily Democrats because they've been in charge of the state for most of this period of time,

with a couple of exceptions. And the problem is we have out of control spending that is driven by public employee compensation, primarily wages, benefits, but especially pensions. Spending on pensions since the year 2000 is up 501% and now consumes 27% of the total budget. Spending on services to the poor is actually down 32% in inflation-adjusted dollars. So the political class has made its choice very clear. We have the highest paid government workers in the country. We have one of the richest pension systems in the country.

And it's a Ponzi scheme. It's running out of money because there's no way to sustain what they've done. The average government worker who gets a pension after a 30-year career gets everything they put in back in the first two years and everything thereafter comes from the taxpayers or theoretical investment returns. So this is unsustainable. That is what has been driving the fiscal nightmare. And as a result of that, we have the highest overall tax burden. the country, the highest property taxes in the country, and what is before us now in terms of

what we're focusing on, we're continuing to focus our work on educating the people of Illinois of everything I just said, and that we cannot allow the governor to win on his progressive tax proposal. The one redeeming feature we have is a constitutional provision that requires a flat income tax. The governor wants to overturn that and allow for a graduated or progressive income tax. He, of course, has promised he will only tax the wealthy initially defined as people making $250,000 or more. But as we all know, every time this happens, they eventually work that down and they ensnare middle class taxpayers in that progressivity and will raise taxes on everyone. And they have to do that because they don't have enough money with the upper income people being

taxed at a higher rate. So our number one job is to educate people on the progressive tax and defeat the progressive tax because if they do get the progressive tax, that will just further perpetuate the exodus of Illinois citizens to other states. And that is actually our number one right now is people are leaving at record rates. We are literally depopulating right before your eyes, year by year. And was that going on kind of before this year? Is that been a trend over the past several years that you've seen of people kind of leaving the state of Illinois in mass? Yes, we have lost population on a net basis for five straight years. We leave the country and the rate of out migration. And it is very difficult to actually have a negative number in population growth because even if you have

domestic out migration on net. Inbound foreign immigration usually offsets that so you still grow. Five years ago, that flipped. We now, even the immigrants don't want to come to Illinois because they have better bets elsewhere. So we are actually declining in population in real terms. That's happened five years in row. It's very difficult to do it. I forget the aggregated number is it might be as I think it's about as much as 184,000 people on net. So when you start to, and then what you see there, I went to school in Detroit, grew up in Michigan, and I remind people that when you start to erode your tax base, that is when you get into the dust spiral. And that is exactly what is happening.

And, of course, everything that is now going on in Chicago and nationally is accelerating all of those problems. And it's not just, you know, people always say, well, it's just the wealthy leaving. No, middle class people are leaving. African Americans are leaving. In the census from 2000 to 2010, over 200,000 middle class African Americans left the city of Chicago. We don't have, obviously, the numbers.

for 2010 to 2020, but I think we're going to see another version of that. The city is hollowing itself out except for the primaries like Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and, of course, the Central Business District. Now, all that's going on now, we'll see how that affects that dynamic. The irony is we're kind of a barbell city. We have pretty good services for the poor overall, despite many challenges, and people who are affluent do pretty well, but the middle is hollowing out. Mr. Tillman, we are really thankful for the work that you all do at the Illinois Policy Institute.

And I'm glad that you are optimistic for the future of your city and hopeful that you all will be able to watch things at turnaround and hopefully sooner rather than later. We have a battle ahead. But in the end, I believe that people will recognize that they have to choose the ideas we believe in, which is free people, free enterprise, and really focusing on opportunity more than dependency. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. Please be sure to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.