The MeidasTouch Podcast - Illinois Lt. Gov. Stratton Responds to Trump’s Imminent Invasion

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how Chicago is prepared for Trump’s military invasion and Meiselas interviews Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton about how she has helped the state prepare for the invasion and she and Meiselas also discuss her race for governor. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's taxes extra. That was from the No King's protest. Chicago's been the site of the largest peaceful protests across the country. 100% peaceful protest taking place there. And now the Trump regime wants to invade it with the United States military. They have a two-prong plan for an invasion.

Part one, do an ice surge, put all. all the ICE agents, attack the community, provoke people, make people angry, try to get people to resist ice, and then swoop in with the military. We saw this in Los Angeles and say, now we need to save you from the violence we're provoking on the street. I just want to show you again, just an overhead view of the size and scale of that No King's protest in Chicago back in June. Let me just show you one more clip of it.

Now, one of the things we're seeing ICE agents doing to try to provoke the community as well is there, we know that they're in immigration courthouses, but they're now arresting women outside their domestic violence hearings, starting in Chicago. And so women are being forced to choose between staying in abusive. relationships and not we're not calling out their abusers and getting assaulted or killed or getting deported if they show up that's one of the air domestic violence courts is where ice is hunting where they're trying to find their prey just show you a short clip and it's a longer story that local CBS news in chicago did a great story here play this clip witnesses tell us that agents took at least one person into federal custody ahead of their scheduled court appearance. Our Sabrina Frances has been looking into that case.

Sabrina, victim advocates are saying that this has people turning away from their scheduled appearances. Marie, it would appear that's already happening. We were standing in the lobby of this courthouse today. And while we were there, folks were asking for people who would otherwise be in court, whether they be defendants or plaintiffs in cases that were heard today, those people were not there and the reason given they were too afraid to be there. The courthouse at 555 West Harrison opens at 8.30 each weekday. One woman whose name

we are withholding because of the nature of her case was set to appear at 9 a.m. We're told she didn't make it there. She was arrested by immigration and customs enforcement according to this court document. Witnesses say they saw this man who they believed to be a federal officer assist in her arrest outside the courthouse about 15 minutes before her scheduled time to appear. A victim advocate asked why she was being arrested and told us an agent said, quote, we're going to speak to her about her immigration status before putting the woman in handcuffs. CBS News Chicago has learned the woman in this case was the accused abuser, arrested by the Chicago Police Department and charged with two misdemeanor counts of domestic battery.

Court records say the charges were dropped today. Sounds like as soon as we got word, my advocates and a bunch of other advocates and legal aid attorneys came down and started passing out, know your rights information. Tessa Kuyper's works as a victim advocate at the courthouse. She says she worries this will deter victims of domestic violence from reporting their abusers. Just making people, survivors unsafe, right? Obviously, survivors are going to know ICE was here. They're going to have hesitancy about seeking,

protections about connecting with their advocate and horse protection and criminal charges that might be a tool for safety for them. The CEO of the network advocating against domestic violence encouraged virtual hearings moving forward. Adding in part, quote, these actions will undermine survivors' trust in our legal system to be a resource for them and will discourage survivors from coming forward if they fear immigration will be at their next court hearing and take their loved ones. Let's bring in lieutenant governor from Illinois. Julianna Stratton, Lieutenant Governor Stratton, want to talk to you about everything that's going on in the state, that two-prong plan, ICE looking to provoke the people so that there can be a military invasion. Like, the fact that I even have to say that in the United States of America is shocking. What's the latest?

Well, the latest that we know is that the ice surge is going to begin, perhaps as soon as today. And it's going to be exactly that. This is a manufactured crisis. Let's start with this surge. We're going into places like churches and schools, and as we just saw, courthouses, and stoking fear and knowing that people are going to react. And then when people do react,

when they raise their voices, when they resist and protest, then the Trump administration is going to claim, well, now we have to come in and restore order. There is no emergency in Chicago. There's no emergency in Illinois. We have made it very clear at every level of government. We do not want them here.

And there's no need to federalize the National Guard and have a military presence on American soil here in the city of Chicago. This is a classic page out of an authoritarian's playbook. What should the people know right now? because obviously the plan is to provoke them. I live in Los Angeles. So there was a very small area in downtown, a few city blocks where there were some arrests that were taking place. And there were some actions by people that objectively you can say should not have

taken place, overwhelmingly 98% peaceful. But the whole entire pro, the whole situation was in the smallest city. block area and the Trump regime used that as a pretext to say the entire city is burning down and we need to invade. And then they use that as the pre. So how do we avoid that situation in a city like Chicago? Well, the same thing. I mean, we have made it very clear. The governor and I have both made it very clear that we know that people will want to raise their voices. They should do so peacefully, they should express the power of their voices as the way to push back. And it should be done so peacefully. Because we know that the goal is that they want us to take the bait. They want

people to take the bait so that they can justify their authoritarian actions. And so we have told everyone, we know that this is going to want you. Seeing people snatched off the streets by masked agents who don't have any markings on their uniforms, being stuffed. into unmarked vans, it's going to provoke people wanting to raise their voices in protest. People are going to be upset. Any good, decent human being would be heartbroken by what we're seeing and what we expect to see. But we need people to express themselves peacefully because any form of violence or that type of, you

know, intensifying those efforts could really lead to the most vulnerable and the people that we are really trying to protect being harmed, and we can't let that happen. So we have to be focused. Don't take the bait. If you're going to lift your voices, and I believe that everyone should and use their First Amendment, exercise their First Amendment rights, but do so peacefully because we are not going to take the bait and let them think that they can justify what they're trying to do.

You've devoted your life to addressing criminal justice, the criminal justice system, and systemic root causes of crime, how to, how to stop it, proactive measures, community engagement, building trust in communities. There is a lot that is required there in order to bring down the root causes of crime in addition to just heavy-handed policing, which at some cases is needed, but there is a need for community involvement and building that trust. And it seems that one of the things this Trump regime has been doing is removing the types of funding and programs and economic opportunities. We saw the horrible jobs report coming out on Friday.

And when those things start to happen, we know just like during the first Trump administration, you start to see homicide rates creep up. and crime creeps up, and that to me is an untold story that he's bringing in the military, but he's also creating the circumstances to allow for crime to rise after years and years and a career of dealing with it and trying to find how do we systemically address. Bringing in the military is not a solution at all, yet alone a systemic solution to a systemic crisis. Absolutely. I mean, I, you know, I think about the fact that I have personally been impacted by gun violence. My family has been impacted. And I've talked to so many people. I live on

the south side of Chicago. And I've talked to so many people about what they need in a moment like this. What do people need to heal their communities? What do they need to feel safe? And I can tell you unequivocally to all of the experts that I've spoken to, and I'm including as experts, who have been directly impacted, survivors. No one, and I mean absolutely no one has said what we want is an armed military roaming the streets of our communities. That is not what makes people feel safer.

What makes people feel safer are the exact things that Donald Trump is stripping away. Access to health care, including mental health care, being able to put food on the table, knowing that you have a good paying job that you can take care of your family. What helps people when we talk about the root causes is making sure that people have access to opportunity,

including education and other types of opportunities, to close the wealth gap and to create generational wealth for their children. But that's not what we're seeing from this administration. We're seeing an administration that wants to bring the military and wants us to normalize it. And that's the thing. I mean, I'm constantly,

just amazed at the number of questions like, might this do some good? No, it will not do good. It will not do good for us to normalize a military presence on American soil. What could do some good is Donald Trump releasing the $800 million in violence prevention funding that he has slashed for states like Illinois.

We are doing the work here. Is there more work to do? Absolutely. Anytime we see any level of crime, it's unacceptable and we have to do the work. But a military presence and this chaos of a wannabe dictator, it is not something that's going to make our community safer. And quite frankly, Donald Trump doesn't care about safe communities. He doesn't care about reducing violence or crime.

And he doesn't care about making sure that people have what they need. We are going to do this work here in Illinois. and, by the way, it's one of the reasons why I'm running for the United States Senate so I can fight for all of those things that we need to see happening for our communities. Tell us about the Senate race because there are major issues taking place right now when it comes to our federal government, which seems to just be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. again horrible jobs report that came out on Friday you have all of these trump sycophants out there who are one by one just saying oh it's uh jerome powell's fault it's this person that's it's the person who's

tariffing the world's fault without legal authority who's crushing our economy who's attacking canada i mean you probably speak to a ton of people across the border who are like what the hell is going on crushing our tourism industry. It's obvious where this is where this is coming from. So tell us about that. Well, right. I mean, I'm traveling the state and I'm talking to people every single day across the state of Illinois about what they're looking for in this particular moment. And even though there are so many policy issues to choose from, too many to choose from, what I hear more than anything else is that people are looking for someone who will stand up and fight for them and who will push back against this chaos that we're seeing coming out of Washington,

D.C. in the Trump administration. People want to know that someone is going to fight against what's happening. I mean, you talk about the instability. You mentioned the tariffs. There is so much instability in our country right now. We do not have the kind of leadership that people deserve to bring stability either to our economy, to our business community, but to everyday work families. People who are just trying to make ends meet, make sure that they have affordable housing, make sure that they can put food on the table and can get to a doctor when they need to see a doctor. Those are the things that people are looking for someone to fight for, and they don't want people who are just going to go along to get along or the same old, same old. They want new

voices, fresh voices, fresh ideas, and that's the kind of leadership that I'll bring. It's not just about fighting against Donald Trump, although I'm ready to do that. It's also about making sure that we fight for the people. And that's what has to be centered. Donald Trump said that he was going to do these things. He hasn't. And this is an example of failed leadership at every single level. And because he's a failure, he wants to distract by doing things like threatening states like Illinois and cities of Chicago because we won't bow down to him. And you you're right. We will not. So this is an example of how we're seeing a failed administration, and we need leaders who are going to come in to the United States Senate who will fight for the

people, fight against Donald Trump, and get some things done to make their lives better, because government should be a partner and not a roadblock. Where can people find out more about the campaign? Go to Juliana Stratton.com. We have a lot of momentum, and I'd love to see you join the team. It's great to have you, Lieutenant Governor Julianna Stratton. We appreciate you. Please come back. We want to follow more what's happening there. What's following what's happening in the campaign. Great to see you. Anytime. Thanks so much, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. New Midas merch. Head to store.com.com today and get yourself the best pro-democracy gear and show your support. That's store.midest touch.com.