Tensions between President Donald Trump and Mayor Brandon Johnson are escalating.

Meanwhile, Chicago police progress meeting towards meeting consent decree goals and prosecutors rest their case.

And Senator Emil Jones, the 3rd federal corruption trial here with all that and more a spotlight.

Politics team header, Sharon Burg.

Welcome back.

Team.

So let's start with this and tough talk from Mayor Johnson for the president today.

>> Trying to force year will.

To break the spirit of working people in order to have a conversation.

That's terrorism.

We're not going negotiate with tears.

>> And of course, that was at a city hall news conference The mayor talking about the president's efforts to strip federal funding from cities like Chicago with laws on the books to protect undocumented immigrants, saying that it amounts to terrorism.

Heather, did the mayor called the president a terrorist?

He did not, but he made it clear that this that he finds it inappropriate that the president has linked almost 4 billion dollars in federal aid to the city with the city's protections to undocumented immigrants.

Essentially what Trump has been saying since he took office in his second term is that if we can, if the city continues to protect undocumented immigrants by.

>> Forbidding Chicago police officers from helping federal immigration agents that we will lose that money.

He says it's a clear, clear sense all of them all up of extortion.

>> Okay.

So let's keep it going because it's taken since 2022. to get to this point.

But the corruption trial of state Sen Emil Jones a 3rd of its move quickly since it started a week ago.

What is the latest?

It has.

This was not the epic length Madigan that I think, you know, certainly journalists and jurors might have been worried that it would be prosecutors rested their case today.

And the defense has started to take up.

>> Their arguments in court, we found out today that Senator Jones will be testifying in his own defense.

In fact, he began that testimony for an hour or 2 this afternoon before the judge broke for the day.

Defense attorneys, you know, doing some table setting into trying to go through his life story a little bit helps.

You know, folks on the jury know a little bit more about him, how he got to be where he is today.

Obviously he comes from political family with his father, the former Senate president.

But prosecutors were really trying to hammer home their points in their final moments.

You know, saying that the way that Jones represented himself in an interview with FBI agents did not comport to the information that was recorded on a wire by the former executive of a red light speed camera company you know, Jones is accused of asking for a bride asking for a job with an intern for an intern rather.

You know, he spoke with the FBI, you know, initially the same day as raid on the offices of the, you know, at the state capitol or Senator Martin Sandoval.

Yeah, he kind of walked it back.

He said he said a slow walk to learn, you know, kind of check to soft pedal.

I should say what the actual conversations that he was You know, it being involved in worship anyhow.

This is his chance to present a defense.

Obviously always a huge risk to take the stand in your own defense.

And he's taking that chance.

Yeah, well, and it's the kind of thing that you think.

One of the big issues in many of these corruption cases is the allegations themselves but be lying to the feds which he is accused of doing.

So I think could be a key opportunity from his defense attorneys you know, standpoint here to try explain some of that.

>> Heather, a city council expected to approve a 32 million dollar settlement tomorrow that will exhaust the city's entire police misconduct budget for the year.

You asked the mayor for his thoughts on that today.

>> We have inherited.

Quite the mess.

Many of these cases that were referring to happened, you know, decades ago.

>> So head or any sign that the city is going to take a approach in resolving these lawsuits?

Well, I asked the mayor that and he deferred to corporation counsel Mary Richardson, Lowery, who said, you know, look, when we look at all of these cases and that we've created a new division to look specifically at the cases that involved 3 Chicago police officers, former Chicago police officer to of uncontested records of misconduct.

And that's former commander Jon Purge.

Former detector Ronaldo Guevara and former Sergeant Ronald Watts.

And she said it's really not possible to do a settlement of all of those lawsuits which total more than 200 because all of those plaintiffs are represented by different defense attorneys.

Now, I've spoken with some of those defense attorneys who say, well, we can play well together.

Our goal is to sort of resolve this for our clients.

It's clear that the city doesn't see that an option, which means that the city is going to actually have to sort of deal with these cases case by case by case and ultimate toll to taxpayers is is really sort you know, astronomical.

Now.

Tomorrow City Council meeting Albert Gilbert Villegas is going to sort of try to use a parliamentary maneuver to put the Johnson administration on on the spot and forced them to come back before the city council to serve.

Answer questions about this is really the best strategy with often involves paying millions of dollars to private lawyers to defend these officers to fight those records of misconduct, whether he gets anywhere, that's going to be an open question when you have to imagine from the perspective of the attorneys representing all those, you know, alleged torture victims.

>> You know, they have to look at this and say if the city's going case by case by case, is that going to delay any resolution, any sort of restitution made to my clients?

So you know that the idea that this needs to be handled one by one, certainly, you know, those folks, it's in their interest to play well together, its and their clients interests.

One has to imagine in terms of trying to get a speedy resolution to these cases that have already dragged on for decades.

So many of So Nick, also public transit facing a bit of a fiscal crisis itself.

though, the into the legislative session in Springfield, fast approaching today, the regional Transportation Authority.

>> Held the solutions summit downtown.

Did anything.

What came of that?

Well, we don't necessarily have a final solution final resolution.

But know there was obviously a lot of conversation about this looming 771 million dollar fiscal cliff for the region's 3 transit systems.

That's >> set to hit next year.

When COVID relief money runs out.

It was interesting that actually had a couple of leaders from some of their peer agencies, one of the agencies it oversees Bay Area Transit and the head of Wilmot in Washington, D.C., who have faced a lot of the similar sort of structural problems that CTA, Metra, pace, RTA are dealing with.

And there was a lot of conversation about the fact that, you know, the end of the legislative session is very fast approaching.

And if they don't have a resolution for that fiscal crisis, they're going to have to start some legally mandated procedures to kind of game play out what these cuts, what these fare hikes, all these different things, what they might be like, what the effect on passengers would So there really does seem to be a growing sense of urgency both with, you know, folks in the room, folks in Springfield.

Now, there was, you know, we did hear some some confidence from transit leaders that their message is getting through and it was interesting to, you know, a lot of this.

They've talked about the the impact of all these different cuts, the things they could do with extra funding, acting CTA, president nor leaders and went out of her way to say today one of the things we need to talk about his equity, you know, Chicago is you know, de facto very segregated city because of redlining and racial covenants, better transit access is a way to address those sorts of inequity.

So she was and it was very interesting to hear her make a pitch, not just on the service side, not you know, the economic impact of transit on the region, but saying, you know, to political leaders and transit advocates in the room, this is a way to address some wrongs of the past.

All right, Heather, updating the police consent decree Friday, an independent monitor filing its latest report.

I think the 11th >> CPD has made some progress.

That's right.

So the last report showed that the CPD was just a 9% compliance, full compliance with the port there.

Now at 16% compliance.

>> And that is the largest jump between 6 month period since the consent decree went into effect 6 years ago.

Now, what change really was concentrated in the area of the consensus, consent decree that governs use-of-force.

A lot of the sort of requirements mean that the police department has several way to sort of track every time that officers used force and they are now doing a full job of doing that.

According to the monitors.

>> Now, Larry Snelling says the superintendent that this is a reflection of how hard he has worked since taking office nearly a year and a half ago to really prioritize doing the consent decree, right?

Not rushing through it.

>> However, it's been 6 years and there are a lot of questions about whether the police department will sort of get this just sort of closer to full compliance because as I've reported before this reach agreement really requires the police department to be restructured and that is a huge lift and it will require the completion of an ongoing study about where and by officers are deployed.

There has to be a system that will flag officers who are the subject of multiple and lawsuits.

Not to mention that and they have to sort of do a better job of making sure that officers who engage in this conduct or even make mistakes are either retrained or disciplined, OK, and hopefully