>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on the week in review.

I'm Amanda Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson answers the call of Congress and take the hot seat.

Kelly, a Republican led committee.

The city is safer because it's a sanctuary for immigrants.

>> Chicago's welcoming city ordinance and are all the laws and policies do not lead to more crime.

They do not prevent cooperation federal law enforcement on pro criminal matters.

And we do not harbor criminals.

We arrested him as a former mayor teases a comeback.

>> I'm not done with public service hope public services not do that.

>> Meanwhile, President Donald Trump says to bear with me as higher tariffs on some goods take effect when the laying others, a new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer.

I love to farm.

>> Usa because nobody's going to be able to compete with >> A sudden guilty plea from the man who murdered 7 people at Highland Park's 4th of July parade.

Walgreens.

Longtime prescription for success and send a private equity buyout.

And Illinois seems to waive surrender in its hunt for a new state flag.

>> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us, Jon Platt from Crain's Chicago Business.

Kerry separate from Axios, Chicago, my local of WBEZ and medicines Aventura of Block Club Chicago and we'll get to it right.

I'm going to start with you because you as well as Mayor Johnson traveled to Washington, D.C., this week, both sat through 6 of testimony.

So give us the the main takeaway for people who, you know, working.

It didn't have to watch.

Yeah, I'm I'm not sure that we learned anything new.

I think Republicans stuck to their talking points that.

>> The sanctuary city status has impeded federal law enforcement of immigration law and sanctuary cities.

Mayors were unchanged in their commitments to being sanctuary cities, which in Chicago Prevent Chicago police from doing things, for instance, like asking for a person's immigration status when they, you know, and interact with police or honoring ICE detainers, which are requests that go to Chicago, police or local police departments from saying basically we think that the person that you have arrested may be undocumented based on our set of data bases and can you hold them for an extra 48 hours so we can send an ice agent to to the department and arrest them.

And that is a warrantless request.

You know, oftentimes it doesn't.

It's not attached to a criminal warrant.

It is.

It is plainly a request from federal immigration enforcement.

4 Chicago police to hold people past their release date.

And, you know, we've reported that that has been pretty costly to local governments are the dollars.

And yeah.

Well, and literally civil lawsuits, New York City just had to pay over 90 million dollars last year found liable for over 90 million dollars for honoring ICE detainers at during the time.

You know, taken like 2009 to 2012, basically for holding people beyond when they otherwise should be able to right without a warrant.

So I think the mayor is that testified repeatedly said when there's a criminal warrant, we do cooperate, cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

And in fact, Chicago police is often in contact with federal immigration authorities when they're carrying out deportation.

You know, actions in this in the city, you know, Superintendent Larry Snelling said as much that they make, you know, they actually make deployment decisions based on where ICE will be in neighborhoods.

So they know when ICE and where ICE is operating in Chicago.

But, you know, they they do not willingly enforce immigration laws in.

So I actually wanted to that.

And let's hear from some of that committee because Republicans really did try to snare Mayor Johnson as well as the 3 other mayors that were testifying.

Here's questioning from the committee's chair, Kentucky Congressman James Comer.

>> Will you turn that criminal over to ice and we do not harbor.

Criminals.

Our local police department works hard every single day to ensure that the city of Chicago just are know where you turn the criminal over to ice.

With a criminal warrant from the federal government.

Our local law enforcement repeatedly collaborate with federal agents.

>> So Kerry, is it naive to think that the Republican members of Congress were earnestly trying to understand what it means to be a sanctuary city or was this all political theater of political theater?

Absolutely.

I wouldn't say go so far as to say naive.

I think hopefully we always want somebody to go in there and learn something.

But this was absolutely political theater.

That clip you just played of the mayor.

>> He did.

You know, and let's be honest, everybody was kind of ranking how he did.

And he did fairly well.

He he was a little bit robotic.

And you saw that in that answer.

That was his head of its law department sitting right behind him.

You saw that as well.

So he was sticking to the message.

But yeah, I think that all 4 mayors, you know, he did have some friendly faces on the Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi made a point to say, you know, Chicago for the 8 years in a row has been voted.

The best city in America.

And, you know, everything that's still up everything come absolutely.

But I mean, they did take in.

And of course, Republicans on the panel took potshots at the mayor for his low approval ratings and that seemed a little less unnecessary and off topic.

So the Sun Times called it a draw.

Does anybody disagree with that assessment of the mayor's performance and >> speak So if not more, I'm going to go to you because it's to your point.

Nancy Mace's, the congresswoman that.

>> You are you.

Was her work answering questions at her words, not mine.

was this the sort of grilling that you read in the press corps regularly give the mayor.

How does this compare to how he answers questions?

Their purses press conferences?

I you know, I talked about this when he first started repeating his talking points which, you know, we all knew he was going to based on the stories we did about his preparation.

He said he's going to >> avoid taking the bait on personal attacks, which he largely did.

And that means just sticking to the talking points.

But he was pretty robotic.

And when he when he started on that line, I did kind of roll my eyes and like, all right.

Well, you know, we're going hear here's what it's going to be.

He's going talking points as he does and gets criticized for in Chicago.

But I do think that in this setting in the face of a lot of aggression in the face of a lot of mischaracterizations of crime in Chicago and how sanctuary City status works.

I do think it was more effective.

It was kind of like a almost like a, you know, screw you to the Congress people because I'm just going to keep saying the same thing over and over again.

And you can attack me based on polls on my approval rating or bring up, you know, controversial stories back home like the gift room that came up.

going to stick to my my point.

He was a little less loose.

Then I'd say like Michele Bachmann, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu or Mike Johnston from Denver.

But I do think that like sticking to that was was smart and effective and setting Johnson, perhaps that was safe strategy.

We know that he met Thanks to your reporting.

I believe.

>> Some pastors to literally prey before this undoubtedly stressful situation for him.

>> But things are going to get a whole lot more stressful if federal funding doesn't come to Chicago because it is a sanctuary city we're already seeing now.

The Small Business Association say it's not going to have an office in Chicago any longer because of that.

What could the financial repercussions be Were there any because of this testimony?

>> I think it's testimony creates any repercussions, but I think there are repercussions Illinois being a blue state of Chicago, you know, being a very Democratic city.

And we saw that to some extent, you know, the first time around when Trump was in office.

So I don't think that changes.

>> How do you believe that the mayor performed in?

He's talked about how does he feel?

Well, I think I would agree with everything that we've said that he maybe wasn't the star of the panel, but he he held his own.

He didn't rise to the bait.

>> He didn't lose control.

You know, he didn't give anybody the opportunity for kind of a viral gotcha moment, which I'm sure some Republicans are very eager to have gotten their hands on.

I think you stuck to the talking points of trying to highlight some of the good things about Chicago that homicide down stuff like that.

Does this do anything to, as Congresswoman makes mentioned those really low poll numbers and what do you make of those months?

a I think that the mayor doing relatively well, probably gives the city a little bit of pride, you know, regardless of like, you know, you're super strong feelings about the mayor.

It's got to feel good to know that he went to Congress and he, you know, didn't fall down on the job.

He did his best to represent the city.

You know, I think the next what 2 years of his term, I'll be curious to see where the the approval ratings go.

They conceded we only go up from there.

It's not changing anything with his relationship with the City Council or anything right.

You know, one of big critics Alderman Andrea Vasquez, funny enough, progressive who has become more and more a critical voice against Johnson tweeted, you know, got to give credit where Credit's due.

He did a good job in Chicago.

>> Lori Lightfoot, former mayor indirectly complimented Johnson.

Kudos to the to all the mayors who stood their ground in the face of far-right Republican questioning.

And so I you know, I don't know what there are plenty of local issues and local fights that are contributing to Johnson's, you know.

Whatever you want to call it, really contentious relationship with the council that I don't think that necessarily changes, but maybe it leads to a phone call between, you know, too crazy to, you know, opponents that helps build some sort of bridge.

But I don't think it's making a huge dent in his approval ratings.

I think the fact that he didn't screw up, maybe, you know, prevented things from getting worse for him.

I'd say there you go now, John, what about some more uncertainty that is facing really all of America and businesses in this, course, is with tariffs.

There's been some whiplash where they were instituted higher tariffs, Mexico, Canada and China and then summer goods rescinded from that.

>> What is going on here and what Illinois industries most impacted.

>> Nobody really knows what's going on because you know, it changes day to day and sometimes hour to hour.

And that's a big part of the problem.

It's going to effects pretty much everybody, you know, from AEG to steal to everything in between small businesses are, you know, large global corporations.

So they're all feeling it.

And they're all trying to figure it out.

They're you know, they're all trying to plan for it.

And because they don't know.

And they haven't really had a lot of warning.

It just creates a lot of uncertainty.

As we saw this week.

Markets hate uncertainty companies don't like the uncertainty.

You know, it feels like for this administration that tariffs are something of a Swiss army knife.

You know, whether it's Mexico and Canada, China and Russia.

So that seems to be, you know, that seems to be a problem.

I think there are a lot of people or at least a lot of industries who would like them to put that Swiss Army knife back in their pocket or at least use it a lot more carefully.

I mean, the Wall Street is a knife after all.

Exactly.

the Wall Street Journal of, you places.

>> Took the administration to the woodshed twice in one week on this topic and not not particularly common for that Wall Street Journal and carries.

Are there any Illinois industries or businesses?

>> That will be when we say impacted.

I think my impulse is to think negatively.

So are there anybody that that are advantaged by Sure, the steel industry, you that's going to help them.

Prices have been very, very low.

>> So that's going that's going to help them.

Anyone who doesn't have a distributed global supply chain is all the sudden at a huge advantage of those tariffs do come through.

You've got a big price advantage against your competitors, but it's not just the tariffs we've been seeing or hearing about this week.

You know, they've been delayed, put off again, which puts us off till early April.

That's when you have another potentially even bigger tariff issue that's going to come.

That's going to come to us, which is, you know, a review of you know, our trade balance with all of those countries.

And then you're going to see potential tariffs on all of those countries.

So if you talk you know, global companies, they're worried about that just as much as the tariffs we've heard about.

Already global company uses an impact here in Illinois.

Now carry the future of Medicaid.

>> Also uncertain.

You have been reporting on in in this plan to cut 880 billion dollars.

What impact?

>> Does that have on Illinois?

Huge.

I mean, there's the you know, as Governor Pritzker's been beating this drum for a while, he's been doing press conferences with fellow Democrats.

You know, that's a quarter of the only population.

Something like 3.4 million people.

>> Are covered by Medicaid.

That's their insurance.

That's how they're getting health care.

And and Republicans voted for this budget resolution that, you know, we need to cut 880 million dollars.

And there's only really one place.

You can go with that.

That's Medicaid or possibly Medicare.

Nobody's going to touch Medicare.

Now to be clear, the Senate has said we we're not going vote for this.

And also this is Medicaid is not one of those strictly blue and red issues.

There are plenty of Republicans and people from Trump supporting districts who are saying you cannot cut Medicaid.

You have World district set depend on it.

You cannot cut.

is going to really annihilate my constituents.

You know, I've been speaking with nonprofits, leaders, nonprofits threshold is, you places like this that serve 10,000 people in Chicago and half their budget is for Medicaid.

There is no contingency plan right like this is something that is counting on.

They depend you're talking about this before we started.

So there is it like if I lose Medicaid, I cut this program.

This program.

It means I can serve my the people I serve.

And John, is this something what we look at tariffs, we look at Medicaid that the impact is across the board or either with Medicaid or terraces Illinois, an outlier in any way.

>> No, I you know, we have to be a very large state and we're going to feel it.

I don't think we feel it a lot more than others.

The one thing is, you know, Governor Pritzker has said we don't have the excess capital to just write that check and cover it.

>> Now I want to turn over to you, Madison.

This is a story that was really heartbreaking.

Of course, impact 7 people lost their lives in Highland Park.

Surprise that.

>> The had been the alleged shooter did admit his guilt here.

Does this.

>> Provide closure to the peak community of Highland Park.

I don't know if I would go so far as to say closure.

I don't know what could ever give the community full closure.

But I do think that this will save the community.

The really possibly long drawn out trial trials can go on for for weeks and could be re traumatizing making people re left.

>> Some of the worst hours days of their lives.

So I imagine that it's nice to have this chapter over at the sentencing is really the only thing from my understanding that's left or if there's any kind controversy over the whole signing, you know, he explaining that instead of signing Robert Crimo, the 3rd, the signs, the signs Donald Trump.

>> And my understanding from reading reporting on this from legal experts is that it shouldn't change anything.

It shouldn't make his plea it invalid or anything.

But it is it was weird.

I mean, when I when I read that, it definitely gave me pause like it's not going to do anything.

But my understanding is that it was just a stunt.

We don't know why I know is that itself a lot of questions, 11 record that he pleaded guilty and those are official court record.

So should front of a judge, right?

and some of the witnesses, we going to be able to get witness statements at the sentencing in April.

So there's an opportunity there is an you know, John, I'm going to go back to you because you have been writing about dei, 3 letters that got a lot of play actually some years back.

And we saw.

>> Businesses trumpeting that they were enforcing in trying to really take initiative when it comes to diversity, equity inclusion.

Some Illinois companies drying back on that.

Now, how so?

>> Well, they're not talking about diversity or dei or even esg in many cases in their annual report said it's something you're seeing.

Not only Chicago companies are seeing other companies.

>> Part of it Chicago companies, though.

I mean, did you know it was a?

>> It was United Motor Row Cdw you know, they out a couple months ago seen a lot of companies in their annual reports.

>> Drop drive, trying to drop the word diversity or dei or even the U.S. she in some cases and mainly it's just it's become a flashpoint.

It's only become an issue for, you know, social media campaigns it's also become a life of potential liability for them because of what the Trump administration had said about dei programs.

And as our kids, we talked about from a government point of executive order.

But you're saying that this is not just 2.

>> Governments are universities.

It's also 2 public companies.

>> Well, it's 2 companies to do who do business with the with the federal government, but they also there was a part of that executive order said directed federal agencies to come up with a list of large companies private institutions to conduct investigations into to see if their dei programs violate current policy.

So that puts it in a whole different category.

It's it's one thing to be trying to read the political tea leaves and saying, you know, that we feel this is maybe out of favor with some of our customers, some of our investors.

It's another when you legal liability.

>> Legal liability, so much court action with this Trump administration.

Now we started out that conversation talking about current Mayor Brendan Johnson, but also we have this former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is not saying no to a return.

Mariah, what do you expect is on the horizon for former Mayor Rahm Emanuel?

You know, there are multiple offices he could pursue.

I mean, it's it's unclear which what one has his eyes set on.

There is.

>> The mayor's office.

There is the governor's office.

There is potentially state Senator Durbin's seat.

If he, you know, retires in the near future, there's the presidency and we just have no idea it was you know, manual.

It hasn't been shy recent weeks about criticizing what he sees as the Democrats issue.

He's making the case that Democrats have become to progressive and focused on cultural issues.

I mean, not to that.

And actually, I let's hear that he's sent that Democrats need to focus on the classroom and not on the bathroom.

>> I must say this right now.

We're having a debate about pronouns right?

Well, what would you have two-thirds your kids don't know where programs?

Ok?

And nobody is raising their voices.

You just had the worst reading scores in 30 years worth mask or some 30 years.

And we're talking about bathrooms.

>> How is that message getting?

This is this was just such a bizarre line for him.

I felt because one and when he fought for spoke about this on on Bill on Bill Maher Show last week.

>> He was asked why does Mayor Johnson have such a low approval rating and this is the this is what he veered towards.

I mean, Johnson does not take up.

Transgender issues are really LGBTQ issues are not a focal point of his administration saying that he's looking toward a more I mean, that's where you think about, you know, Durbin, see, you know, Senator Durbin, see or the governor, see, you know, because they let's be honest.

So Chicago's blue.

But the rest of Illinois is not blue.

And that would be him.

Maybe tipping us had a little bit to the more conservative voters in the state.

You know, we do have to say you she got a Tribune reporter, Greg Pratt surfaced and all you know, ordinance that was introduced by Emanuel himself in 2016 that would prohibit companies in Chicago from making people prove their gender when they want to use gender bathrooms.

to to see the point when we talk about, you know, you know, these new lines attack got it in Madison, let's turn to you because up the state flag.

>> Illinois and has had an opportunity to say if they wanted it to be changed or not.

And we had a lot of options.

Thousands, I think were submitted or at least hundreds.

Thousands thousands are right.

>> drum so they narrowed it down to 10 finalists Illinois voters could pick from those 10 and.

>> Yeah, lone behold.

The most votes were garnered by the current state flag which I saw a nickname for S O BC on a bed sheet.

>> things to So, yeah.

So it's not a it's not anything binding like this election, so to speak, but it supposed to inform a report that could determine, you know, something about the state Texas, just switches, flag expert dislike the current flag was I do not carry.

Does the show that maybe not everything should go to a popular vote?

I mean, perhaps I have to say, you know, you're talking a Medicaid.

We're talking about tariffs.

>> I covered this new flag and I got so much people really, really care about the flag and some people to only some readers of Axios said.

>> Well, look, I mean, this is such a waste of time and money.

To be clear, I did.

As Secretary of state, Alexi Giannoulias office.

How much money secretary state's office spent on this.

They sold me none.

>> So there you go.

Because the flag Commission is under the secretary's office.

>> But, you know, some people I responded, someone, maybe they want to do something or Democratic.

Maybe the state needs an update.

>> If you're a look at other states, flags, we're not doing great.

I have to say there are some really nice out there.

And so I mean, yes, to everything go to a popular vote.

We've got bigger issues bigger.

I wouldn't.

But I would say it was a fun.

It was a funny is.

It was something interesting.

on it.

Even if we landed at the back end with that time going to have to wave off any further conversation because we are out of time.

Our thanks to John Kerry Shepherd, right, willful and medicines dry.

We will be back to wrap things up.

>> With a tribute to one of our beloved co-workers right after this.

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And the moment, however, progressive philanthropic fund in honor of them and how supporting quality journalism.

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>> And that is our show for this Friday night.

Don't forget, you can get Chicago tonight and the week in review streamed on Facebook, YouTube and our website.

Now before we go, it is a bittersweet day here on we can review the man who's been the heart and soul of wt tw since the Mid 1980's is retiring.

Very Ezell Williams.

He does that.

>> Production manager field camera operator editor Video Shater Technical director robot can operate or >> so much more can good nobody would argue if you called Al the funniest kindest and most generous member of the W t Tw family.

He is getting out to enjoy life with his wife, Sue, beaten and his 3 daughters and countless friends.

Once you meet all you are a friend.

So my friend, as you ride off into the sunset on year, fabulous bike.

Know how much your colleagues here, appreciate you and are going to miss you now for the week in amid a Thanks for watching.

>> Stay healthy and safe and happy All right.

I want you to talk about I'm an avid Walgreen shopper.

It is now being purchased by private equity.

This is bad news for Chicago Time.

>> Yeah, it's one of Chicago's biggest companies, one of its oldest public companies.

And one of its largest employers.

So, you know, private equity doesn't come in when things are going well.

What do you think they're going to it?

I think they're going to sell off some pieces.

I think they're probably gonna cut some jobs and I think they're going to try and do what previous ownership couldn't do for the last 12 years, which is make them competitive.

They got tall, tall order.

good News for CPI was in a bad news for maybe a pharmacy deserts, but perhaps CBS come since we our pharmacy deserts and Walgreens was already going to close sketch.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert, a cliff and Clifford law offices, Chicago, personal injury and wrongful death from that is proud to be a multi-lingual law firm that provides