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

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Brandis Friedman has the evening off.

Here's what we're looking at.

Some of these get fired.

Texas should be stepping down.

The Trump administration is doing damage control after a shocking intelligence leak.

Senator Tammy Duckworth joins us to discuss.

Why the Chicago Police Department failed to track 1000 traffic stops last year.

And advocates for home schooling are pushing back on a measure that would bring more regulations.

>> First off tonight, the Trump administration is playing defense after shocking reports yesterday that senior officials accidentally shared details of imminent attack on Yemen to a journalist over an unclassified group chat President Donald Trump this afternoon downplayed the intelligence blunder.

>> I pretty much looked into it.

It's pretty simple.

To be honest, it's not.

It's just something that can happen.

It can happen.

>> But many observers say the episode shows the administration is lax about national security and that heads should roll.

Earlier this afternoon, we spoke with Senator Tammy Duckworth who's calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's firing.

We began by asking her whether she has any expectation the administration or Congress will take action >> well, I know the Senate Armed Services Committee is going to have a hearing, at least according to Senator Roger Wicker, going to be pushing him very far to have that hearing.

We have to have an investigation.

The port long when there's a security breach like this is very clear across government and especially clear in the Department of Defense, every single official on that signal chain needs to hand over their electronic devices so that it can be investigated.

We can look and see what data they have actually uploaded onto the signal chain, every one of because JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, Mr.

Wants all of them need to turn over their devices.

I am calling on them to have the hearings and an investigation.

Whether or not they'll follow through with it within the Trump administration is another question.

But frankly, this is an egregious breach national security that put service men and women's lives on the line endanger those pilots flying that mission that Texas shared the sequencing and the timing of when that mission is going to happen.

Those lives were put into danger when he did that.

>> How do you think allies with whom we share intelligence view this kind of a breach?

>> I think they're horrified.

And there I can tell you right now that they are reconsidering whether or not they will share a future intelligence with us, which then puts the lives of men and women in uniform for a great nation in danger in the future because we will not have the full intelligence picture when we are putting our men and women in the military out to do missions for us around the world because we will not be getting that data, that information that we desperately need from allies because we share information with They're not going share information with us because they know that under this incompetent secretary of state under this incompetent national intelligence director of national intelligence, the CIA director who are not capable securing Scott supply data.

>> One speaking of those service members, the Trump administration has been pursuing massive cutbacks to the federal workforce, including the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Many veterans who are themselves.

Federal workers have been facing layoffs.

What can Democrats do to try and mitigate the impact of those cuts?

>> Well, one of the things that we can do is I actually have put forward a bill called the Protect Veterans Jobs Act, which basically get the Republicans to vote on to the Trump administration must rehire all of the veterans that they fired we actually have a vote on just the week before last when we had the budget shutdown vote.

I introduce it as an amendment and all the Republicans voted against giving their veterans their jobs back.

So I want parents understand if you were fired by the Trump administration a week and a half ago, we had the opportunity to get you your job back and our Republican colleagues voted against you.

That is where the Trump administration is.

They are at high that right.

And they fired all those veterans who are serving our nation after having served in uniform and they would even give you your jobs back.

>> You know, all these cuts are part of a sort of a tsunami of moves.

The administration has made many, you know, headed up by Elon Musk in the so-called a Department of government efficiency.

There are some critics who have been upset at Democrats for what they see is perhaps a scattershot are tone deaf response.

How do you think elected leaders who disagree with these moves can push back as strenuously and effectively as possible?

>> What we're doing exactly what not doing a communicating to people and put it forward because the legislation like I did and forcing the Republicans to vote.

And it's very clear that they voted against veterans.

It is very clear that the Trump administration continues to lie and we have to hold them accountable.

I have secretary of Veterans Affairs said that he didn't fire and everybody who is working on the veterans crisis hotline.

And yet I personally was able to get at least 2 of them in Illinois were fired their jobs back and we were able call them on it because I was able to put those particular veterans on the phone with reporters confronted the Trump administration, confronted the second button to fair to wait a minute, you did fire We have the recedes.

I have 3 C's and we're going to make sure we hold them accountable.

>> You know, on Ukraine, you've, you know, slammed this administration for the suggestion that Russia didn't start the war.

We saw that extraordinary blowup in the Oval Office with President Zelensky.

Are you concerned the U.S. might be backing off its support for Ukraine?

>> With Trump administration is backing off its support as Ukraine because is very clear that owns Donald Trump.

Donald Trump filed down he's kissing Putin speed and he he loves rush as opposed to being somebody who is leading the greatest democracy in the face of United States of America that should be opposed to Russia.

Russia invaded Ukraine.

We need to stand up and stop new commandant rusher from continuing this offensive in Ukraine.

And remember that if Ukraine falls the next countries in the line fire.

far as Russia has been trying our NATO allies and there's article 5 of the NATO treaty that says a poll done, for example, is in comes under attack by Russia.

We as states obligated to come Poland's defense.

Its mutual defense frankly, by bowing down to Russia, Donald Trump is putting American service members further on the line because we will be called into action.

If Richard steps be on Ukraine.

The people of Ukraine have been valued in their fight.

They have said thank you to multiple times.

President Zelenskyy said thank you to a small portable times.

They are fighting for their nation.

But it's more than just about Ukraine.

It is the freedom of of the world.

It is about the security of Europe, which also is important to America's national security.

>> You mentioned that continuing resolution that prevented a government shutdown.

Some Democrats supported it, including Minority Leader Schumer, your counterpart, Senator Durbin, what's your reaction to those votes?

>> I was furious with Leader Schumer and I told him we needed to go and fight.

we cannot you know, I could not disagree with Leader Schumer more.

We should have stood up to the Republicans.

I was a minority of Democrats who voted for I am appalled that we basically gave Donald Trump permission to basically continue to raid government.

This is why he's shutting down the Department of Education.

This is why the spy ring employees at the Department Veterans Affairs.

He is rating through the night.

It's government to cut down on benefits for veterans for seniors, people with disabilities so that he can fund tax cuts for billionaires.

That's what they're doing.

You know, they're they're not trying to look for government efficiencies that they want look for government efficiency.

happy to work with the eye passed legislation to go out the waste, fraud and abuse and department of Defense when they're trying to do is find 2 trillion dollars to fund tax cuts for people who met more than fought for $1000 a year for his mid billionaire buddies.

And the way they're going to do they're going to cut Medicaid East Cobb, Social Security, a Ponzi scheme.

>> They're going after 80,000 jobs in the Department of Veterans Affairs, their funding tax cuts for the billionaire buddies on the backs of middle-class Americans and whatever kind of those those handful of Democrats, including led by Schumer did was to give them permission to do that.

could not disagree with him more.

>> All right.

Well, as always, much more to talk about, but we'll have to leave it there.

Senator Duckworth, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And we're back right after this.

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

The gym and K maybe family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> And now to some more of today's top stories.

President Trump's nominee to lead the Social Security Administration pledges.

He does not want a privatized.

The agency, longtime Wall Street executive Frank, is Nano offered senators at his confirmation hearing earlier today, a guarantee that privatization isn't among his priorities, but he has been supportive of efforts by Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency saying there may be waste and fraud in the agency.

The hearing comes on the heels of Governor JB Pritzker and other officials sounding the alarm about the Trump administration's moves warning that Social Security benefits that some 2 million Illinoisans rely on could be in jeopardy.

local environmental protection agency workers walk out to protest massive Trump administration cuts.

Employees say efforts to hobble the EPA violate the Constitution and put corporate profits over human health.

>> The work we do could not be more important to all Americans.

No matter their politics.

We all need clean air to breathe.

We all need clean water to drink, clean lands, to live on, to let our kids grow up on cutting.

Epa is budget will do nothing but put the health and safety of all Americans at risk.

>> Chicago, EPA workers and their colleagues around the country walked off the job today calling for the staff and funding they say are needed to carry out the agency's mission.

Epa administrator Elden has launched a major deregulation campaign and local employees of also raised the alarm.

The EPA may shutter its Chicago office.

The last man incarcerated at state bill prison have been transferred out.

That's according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Most of the prison's population was transferred in September.

But 21 men in the facility's medical unit were still there and said they were being, quote, left behind to die in a lawsuit filed by a disability rights group.

The remaining men compared their living conditions to being in solitary confinement, saying they'd sit in locked cells for up to 24 hours a day with no access to the law library, recreational activities or time in the chapel.

The transfer is marked the end of the facilities 100 year run after Governor JB Pritzker announced last March that the facility was to be closed and rebuilt.

Up next, a data failure revealed in CPD documents.

Reporter Heather Sharon joins us to explain right after this.

Chicago police officers failed to document more than 200,000 traffic stops in 2024. this even as officials worked to craft new rules that would limit the ability of officers to make certain kinds of stops.

Our Heather Sharon joins us now with more.

Heather, good to see Let's get started with just the basics here.

How many traffic stops to the Chicago Police Department tell state officials that officers made in 2024.

So in all Chicago police officers made more than 294,000 traffic stops in 2024.

>> And those stops came across the city and represented a significant drop from 2023.

Almost 45%.

Now Superintendent Larry Snelling has said that he is re or into the department into making stops that focus on violent crime and that they say is evidence of that.

Now, city officials acknowledge to you that data is actually in completed what's happening?

What what happens when an officer pulls over a driver is that they radio in and say I made a traffic stop.

And here's my location.

They're supposed to do something else.

Once the traffic stop is finished, they have to fill out what's called a blue card and that paper form identifies the location of the stop.

And most importantly, the reason for the stop in the race of the driver.

But if officers don't fill out that form, there's nothing to report to state officials leading to a discrepancy between the number of traffic stops called in to police dispatchers and then reported to state officials.

I should mention that Bolt magazine Injustice Watch where the first to report about this discrepancy that CPD now acknowledges exists and a pretty significant one at that.

You know, police reform advocates say this apparent failure to properly document stops.

It is really troubling.

What did you hear Well, they told me that you cannot reform something that you can't measure because you might sort of suggest changes and new restrictions if you're making 300,000 traffic stops or if you're making a half million traffic stop and it's also a matter of trust.

If city tells the state we made X number of traffic stops turns out that it's actually X.

Plus, 200,000 that makes it hard for the public trust that CPD is doing what they say they're doing.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of decks to re being fatally shot by officers.

Since then, CPD has been working to craft new rules for traffic stops.

Where does that effort stand?

Very much in limbo.

It was nearly 10 months ago that superintendent Snelling said he agreed to include traffic stops under the consent decree.

federal court-ordered reforms.

>> But that agreement has yet to be finalized amid a push by another group led by impact for equity tube and police officers from making stops for equipment violations and non moving violations.

There's no concessions on that hot button issue either that or thanks for your reporting, I'm sure there's much more of it to come.

Sure is banks next.

And you can read Heather's full story on our website.

It's all at W T Tw Dot com slash news.

>> New efforts to regulate homeschooling in Illinois have touched off a heated debate.

Backers say Illinois is one of 12 states without any home schooling regulations.

new bill aims to change that by requiring families to register with their local school district.

If they plan to homeschool their children.

Supporters say it's aimed at ensuring kids are getting the education they need and are better protected from potential neglect.

Here's a bit from a hearing last week in Springfield.

>> This bill is written in part by people who were homeschooled and get the need to balance champ children's rights.

parents freedom to choose how they educate their kids.

It provides a safe base line to protect kids from the small minority of parents who use homes going as a way to hide abuse or neglect their children.

This bill will intimidate and discourage parents from choosing this much better option for their children.

>> This bill in polls, additional burdens on already stretched local schools, police departments and courts.

This bill would require school districts to manage increase administrative tasks related schooling.

>> Joining us now with more are Shuffield say homeschooling parent and via zoom, Democratic State Representative Tara Costa.

Howard, thank you both for joining us.

Latasha Fields it like to begin with you.

Please.

Youth been homeschooling your children for 18 years after you took your eldest out of public school.

What motivated you to start homeschooling?

Yes, a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for having me on.

>> Well, for us, it was a call of God faith as Christians.

it was about the type of shipping a biblical worldview.

We have for them out of his She's a home-schooled.

The college credit.

We just graduated our second oldest in May of 2024 and he's entering training to welding program with 2 more Fifteen-year-old signing the 9 year-old daughter.

Yes.

And and so we also have a microscope.

So at 10 this I have a lot of babies Michael and yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Representative Koster Howard, you know, we mentioned some of those concerns.

Folks raised about overreach.

That includes.

>> You know, mandating certain elements of the curriculum.

What exactly does this bill called for students to be taught?

>> Actually, that is a ready.

The current law here in Illinois that they have to be tied language Arts sorry, Science, Math, social studies, health, physical education.

already current laws.

that's nothing new.

>> You know, the session fields Do you think any of these sorts of registration requirements, for example?

Well, that significantly affect you and and other parents who home school.

Yes, absolutely.

And so the our proponents of this bill claim that is just formality is just a farm.

What we're looking at the bill is not just a this this bill, the 60 page Bill will entail truancy penalty, criminality, parents that don't comply would have 30 days in jail.

They would have $500 fines and also with the whole idea of the Corcoran, Kentucky Education review, the current way that they will allow is we don't have to produce an educational per and it does cite then we would have to satisfy the public education.

And so because of will purchase at a 2021, company at the LGBTQ+ ideology and the LGBT history that in itself is religious persecution forest and violates our First Amendment.

So we don't desire.

We all need to produce RC car.

Have government look at educational per fully out.

Another process in bill.

This very disturbing is that the bill states that Illinois has a fundamental goal for every student in the state of Illinois that their educational development is foot is to serve the public purpose of the state.

And so we as homeschool parents, we do not educate our children to some of the purple public purpose of the state.

So that in itself tells us that our children, according to this bill, will be state property in that parallel slavery with families have no of timing where my ancestors had no autonomy.

And so we don't want our children to become property of the state.

So there's a lot disingenuous in this bill.

There's a lot of egregious check colony and things in this bill that we do not stand in terms of registration as Illinois stands, there is volunteer registry.

So we don't have to be forced to register our home school programs.

>> Representative Cross the Howard.

You know how about that?

You know, tackling at least first that the idea of sort of mandating these elements of the curriculum is that the intention of this bill?

>> The intention of the bill is for the subjects to be taught.

There's nothing in this bill that requires mandated curriculum that is taught in public school.

So that is misinformation.

That is incorrect.

That is part of why some of these pieces were written in a way to actually give homeschool families the opportunity to be as creative as many of them are in how they teach in the end, as long as they're teaching the subjects that all children in the state of Illinois are required to be taught is agenda high level.

There's nothing that requires the curriculum that is in public schools as far the criminality that simply not true.

Currently truancy lodge have that are already built into the state law.

So if there's a concern about the way the truancy laws are written, that's a different subject.

What the declaration form does is make sure that we know that kids are alive where they are.

We want to make sure that they're OK and that's what the declaration form does.

You know, Latasha Fields, how about that?

You supporters say this can help prevent potential abuse and neglect because >> students who are being homeschooled, although there isn't any evidence to back up that it's happening at higher rates.

It's still certainly can happen in there.

They don't have the eyes of of teachers or other school officials on them the way students in a public school might.

You know what's your take on that?

Well, I believe that as many of us over 48,000 of us in a state of Illinois submitted witness leave, said we disagree.

>> With this position that you know, that there's any idea that homeschool students are being abused.

The public school system has failed.

So this this bill is very disingenuous.

We have right now over 1000 allegations in Chicago, public schools and as of 2024 this pektor general say there's over 400 cases.

So my question to represent a casa, how or what are you doing about the allegation in the abuses in Chicago public school system?

Because it is all about a farm where these babies are not being protected in the system that they govern in the system, that they have jurisdiction over.

So that is that it's appalling.

And so we as home schoolers, we do not need a system that's already broken that out with it.

That has already proven.

>> That has failed to govern And we talk about proficiency.

We talk about educational proficiency in the state of Illinois.

There's 1.9 million students and only 39% of those babies can read grade level in only 29% or 28% are proficient in math.

And then you go to Chicago public school system for the black babies.

They're doing even worse is unconscionable.

Only 20% of black children, a Chicago public school system can read on 11 9% are proficient in math.

So we talk about warning kids have a quality education homeschoolers far exceed that.

They far exceed that expectation.

Black students that are home schooled have 15 to 42% points higher than public school peers.

So I'm all I'm in agreement with Representative Koster how we want quality education.

That's why we're home schooling.

That's why we have exit from government education system.

And so for us, this seems like a pursue like we're being punished for the failure of government education.

Representative, how about that?

I mean, with this at all, you know, go after, you know, quote, unquote, homeschooling parents.

>> Not only that, we don't believe that it does in any way, shape or form.

In fact, some of the issues that were arrayed, I think she's correct.

We want to make sure that all kids have a high quality education.

And if you actually take a look at the statistics, on the state Board of Education website.

Our 8th graders are doing great.

We're seeing those numbers come around for our public for our students here L in Illinois.

That's a good thing.

But I would like to address the comment that she made regarding abuse in Chicago public School.

We have laws on the book that require anyone comes in contact with our children in our school setting to be have a criminal background check.

If you are being homeschooled, there's nothing.

You are not subject to any laws.

I want to be clear.

>> 38 states.

>> Had this.

Requirement on the books.

She declared that you are homeschooling your children.

38 states.

>> We here in Illinois are an outlier.

We know that this is happening in Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, they are not making the same complaints.

We outlier heelan here in Illinois where we have 0 regulations and so we are not here to punish anyone.

In fact, we want to applaud those families that are being transparent and are doing it that so well.

But frankly, the statistics that are being re cited, there's no statistic out there that actually says that home school students are better.

That's actually accurate.

We don't know how many homeschool students there actually are here in the state of Illinois because they don't register.

They don't have to declare anything.

And so we don't really know how many children there are.

So we have no data that actually backs up.

What is being said.

What we do is that we have children who have passed away with died at the hands abusive parents.

That is what we want act.

>> And representative, I know we've got a much more that we could possibly say about this, unfortunately, will have to leave it here for this evening.

Representative Tara Costa, Howard Latasha Fields, thank you both for joining And that's our show for this Tuesday night.

Be sure to sign up for our free email newsletter.

The Daily Chicago in at W T Tw Dot Com Slash newsletter and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 new book explores the life and legacy of former Chicago teachers Union president Karen Lewis to go back now from all of us here in Chicago tonight.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Woes caption was made possible by Robert, and Clifford law offices Chicago, personal injury and wrongful That is proud to be a multi-level law firm that