WCPT/Heartland Signal News Minutes, 2022-present

Beginning in September 2022 I began producing audio features for WCPT AM 820 and Heartland Signal (two entities combined under one media umbrella). The emphasis in these 60-second features is on the sound bite, but they all have a narration track which I write and then voice in my home studio. WCPT bills itself as Chicago’s Progressive Talk, so the features have a partisan bent, highlighting issues and speakers relevant to Democratic Party politics (and the station’s liberal listeners). I’ve produced more than 800 of these features and have compiled a sampling of scripts below. Also available: just the audio of 60 recent News Minutes.

All News Minutes were written, voiced, recorded, edited and transcribed (using AP Style) by Andy Miles.
Andy Miles voiceover narration is indicated in bold.

[President Joe Biden] “Foxconn turned out to be just that, a con.”

That's President Biden, speaking May 8th at the Racine, Wisconsin, campus of Gateway Technical College, where he was joined by Microsoft President Brad Smith in announcing that the company will invest more than $3 billion to open a new AI data center complex on the same site that Foxconn had planned to build what Donald Trump in 2018 touted as the “eighth wonder of the world.” The promised $10 billion investment by the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer never fully materialized and last year Microsoft bought some of the property; its investment there is expected to create 2,000 permanent jobs.  

[President Biden] “We’re also providing a pipeline to train for these new jobs. Microsoft is partnering with Gateway Technical community College, right here, to train and certify 200 students a year to fill high-demand, good-paying jobs.”

On May 8th, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene forced a vote on the motion to vacate House Speaker Mike Johnson that she authored in late March.  The outcome was not in doubt after House Democratic leadership issued an April 30th statement announcing their intention to vote to table Taylor Greene's motion. When the votes were cast, 163 Democrats joined all but 11 Republicans in tabling the motion, thereby saving Johnson's job.  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke to reporters in the Capitol Rotunda shortly after the vote.

[Rep. Hakeem Jeffries] “Our decision to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene from plunging the House of Representatives and the country into further chaos s rooted in our commitment to solve problems for everyday Americans in a bipartisan manner.”

[Pat Quinn] “I think this is Brandon’s boondoggle.”

That's former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, speaking April 25th about plans for a new stadium the Chicago Bears unveiled the day before, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's support for the $4.7 billion proposal. Quinn said he was "very disappointed" in the mayor.

[Quinn] “He was up there cheerleading for the Bears; all he needed was pom-poms about taxpayer money. I think he doesn’t realize we have needs that are — like the CTA and school buildings that need to be rebuilt, the whole issue of decent health care, including mental health care. That’s where the public money, taxpayer money should be devoted and not to stadiums for billionaires.”

Quinn was speaking to Joan Esposito here on WCPT.

[Gov. J.B. Pritzker] “Here in Illinois black residents are nearly eight times more likely to be homeless than white residents.”

That's Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, speaking at an April 25th event where he was joined by researchers from the University of Illinois who have partnered with the state of Illinois to study the “systemic factors driving the racial disparities in homelessness.” Their just-released report formulates an action plan for racial equity, prompting the governor to ask for $250 million in next year's budget for the Home Illinois initiative, a $50 million dollar increase from the year before.

[Gov. Pritzker] “Our approach understands that homelessness is not an issue of personal failing but of historical discrimination and structural barriers that have driven inequality for black families across the nation and, of course, right here in Illinois.”

[President Biden] “We’re following my blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America. And guess what. It’s working. You’re building that America; you in this room are building that America.”

That's President Biden speaking April 24th at the North America's Building Trades Unions' legislative conference in Washington, D.C.  Earlier that day the union endorsed Biden, with its president, Sean McGarvey, telling CNN that Biden is the perfect leader “sent at the perfect time for working people.” In justifying his union's endorsement, McGarvey cites Biden administration accomplishments that have positively affected tradespeople and unions; Biden highlighted some of those accomplishments in his speech.

[President Biden] “We’ve attracted nearly $700 billion in private sector investment in advanced manufacturing, in semiconductors, clean energy, and so much more, here in America, creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, building trades jobs.”

After Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson announced his plan to bring separate Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan funding bills to the House floor for separate votes, Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC that the embattled speaker could have taken a “much easier path,” referring to the bill the Senate passed in February that provides security assistance for all three countries, plus humanitarian relief for Ukraine and Gaza.

[Sen. Chris Murphy] “It is sitting in front of the House, and Democrats have basically told him, if you bring that up for a vote and if your handful of insane lunatics tries to push a motion to vacate, we will support you and keep you in the speaker’s chair. That’s unprecedented. Democrats have never voted against a motion to vacate on a Republican speakership. But they’ve told him, do the right thing, bring up the Senate bill, and we will help maintain your speakership.”

In an April 16th interview on MSNBC, Congressman Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army Ranger who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that he had Facetimed earlier that day with . . . 

[Rep. Jason Crow] Ukrainian Special Forces in a bunker in combat on the front lines.

Crow spoke to the Ukrainians from the Capitol as House Republican leadership scrambled to release legislative text that would finally allow the lower chamber to vote to fund Ukraine's war effort, more than two months after the Senate approved $60 billion for that purpose.

[Rep. Crow] “So I’ll tell you what I said to them. I said, listen, I know sometimes you feel like you have no support, but let me tell you that overwhelmingly the American people are behind you, overwhelmingly members of Congress are behind you. This has been a tough political situation, but we are pushing hard to fix it, to stand by you.”

[Rep. Madeleine Dean] “I am stunned that he would stand next to the former failed president on the eve of this trial.”

That's Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, Democrat of Pennsylvania, speaking about Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, hours after he and Donald Trump held a joint press conference on what the GOP refers to as election integrity.  The Mar-a-Lago meeting came three days before the start of Donald Trump's New York criminal trial, where the former president faces 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to cover up a series of reimbursements to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who in 2016 made a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about the affair she'd had with Trump a decade before.

[Rep. Dean] “For Speaker Johnson to be so complicit is so against his persona. Remember, he’s a man of Christian faith. He’s a smart lawyer. And yet, look what he’s done He’s become a puppet for the former president.”

[Amanda Zurawski] “I will stop at nothing to make sure that we re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris.”

That’s abortion rights advocate Amanda Zurawski, who has been campaigning for President Biden’s re-election, and whose personal story is the focus of a Biden-Harris campaign ad released earlier this month.  In 2023, Zurawski sued the state of Texas after she was denied the abortion care she needed.  The Biden ad reports that three days after Zurawski had a miscarriage she was in the ICU with sepsis, almost died twice, and may never be able to get pregnant again.  

[Amanda Zurawski] “I’m not just telling my story. I am telling the story of hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who’ve been through something similar. And so the connections and the community are just extraordinarily beautiful, and they’re honestly what keep me going.”

Earlier this month, Republican Michael McCaul made news when he said that Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk” of his party's base. Days later, Republican Mike Turner admitted that Russian propaganda is being “uttered on the House floor” by some of his Republican colleagues. Turner chairs the House Intelligence Committee and McCaul heads the House Foreign Relations Committee.  

[Rep. Dan Goldman] “And for them to validate what I and so many others have been saying for so long is a major, major thing that we need to pay close attention to.”

That's Congressman Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, speaking April 11th on MSNBC.

[Rep. Goldman] “The fact that a wannabe dictator like Donald Trump has captured the Republican Party to such a degree that they go along with his support for Vladimir Putin, that is what is at stake this November.”

[Sen. Eva Burch] “To be honest with you, I am shook. I mean I’m just dumbfounded.”

That's Arizona State Senator Eva Burch, a Democrat, speaking on MSNBC a few hours after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a Civil War-era abortion ban is enforceable in the state of Arizona.  That same day groups backing a ballot measure to constitutionally protect abortion access in the state announced they had collected enough voter signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

[Sen. Burch] “We are going to need people who traditionally have not been engaged in the political process and who stay home to care. We need them to be politically engaged. We need them to come to the ballot. And really, these individuals and these extremists who are passing these laws and who are pushing these agendas do not represent the majority of the people in Arizona. And so we really just need the engagement. We need people to show up.”  

[Sec. Antony Blinken] “The president emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable.”

That's Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking at an April 3rd news conference in Brussels, shortly after President Biden had a stern phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The call came three days after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza. Blinken said that during the call Biden made clear

[Sec. Blinken] “. . . the need for Israel to announce a series of specific, concrete and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He underscored, as well, that an immediate ceasefire is essential, and he urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal, without delay, to bring the hostages home.”  

[Gregory Edgreen] “There’s a lot of arrows pointing to Moscow right now.”

That’s retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Edgreen, who ran an investigation at the Defense Intelligence Agency about the source of so-called Havana Syndrome, which has afflicted multiple American intelligence, Foreign Service and military officials with what the U.S. government calls “anomalous health incidents,” including traumatic brain injuries, that have resulted from debilitating waves of sound and pressure. Edgreen believes Russia has deployed directed energy weapons in attacking American personnel.

[Edgreen] “One might just go to Google and search for directed energy weapons in Russian and see what comes up. There’s plenty of examples of President Putin pinning on of medals and various awards to Russian scientists in the field of directed energy weapons.”

Edgreen was speaking on the PBS Newshour.

[Sen. Bob Casey] “People get it, no matter where they are, red or blue countries.”

That’s Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, speaking about what he calls “greedflation,” which he has made a focus of his Senate reelection campaign. Casey says that voters in Pennsylvania know that corporate America’s profits are up five times the rate of inflation.

[Sen. Casey] “And they know they’ve been getting ripped off, where corporate profits were going through the roof right after these big corporations got a gross, obscene corporate tax break in 2017 because Donald Trump and the Republicans rammed it through without a single Democratic vote, and they took that tax cut and gave shareholder buybacks and then jacked up the prices of food and household items all across the country. We’ve got to crack down on it, expose it, pass a price-gouging bill, and roll back those corporate tax cuts.”

Senator Casey was speaking March 28th on MSNBC.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s recent Truth Social attack on the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Trump’s criminal trial that is set to begin in April, sitting federal Judge Reggie Walton commented on the incident in a March 28th interview on CNN.

[Reggie Walton] “Well, it’s very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge, and it’s particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they’re directed at Juan’s family.”

Judge Walton, who has presided over numerous January 6th-related cases and been the target of multiple threats himself, said that he thinks Judge Merchan did the right thing in not including himself or his family in the gag order Merchan imposed on Trump on March 26th.

[Reggie Walton] “I think we cannot make ourselves a part of the case.”

[State Rep. Marilyn Lands] “It was a pretty amazing victory.”

That’s Alabama Democrat Marilyn Lands, who won a March 26th special election, sending her to the Alabama House of Representatives. Lands delivered a surprise landslide win for Alabama Democrats by making in vitro fertilization and abortion rights the focus of her campaign. She unsuccessfully ran for the same House seat in 2022 and told MSNBC that the 2024 campaign had

[State Rep. Lands] “. . . a totally different energy. I mean, women hugged me at the doors, and it was such a personal thing that everyone was sharing stories and stories they hadn’t told. Some people said I hadn’t told this story in 30 years or no one knows this but my family — and just the heartbreak all of these situations bring to families.”

On March 26th, a Moscow court extended until the end of June the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, one year after the 32-year-old American was arrested on spying charges. U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens told PBS that while we may never know the reason for the extension, he hopes that

[Roger Carstens] “. . . they’re extending it so that we have another 90-day period in which to seek ways to come up with a deal that will bring both Evan and Paul Whelan. We have seen in the past that when once a trial starts in Russia, the Russians will usually follow through, and so if the trial process starts with Evan, that might take us into about a seven-, eight-, nine-, 10-month period where we may have a harder time trying to come up with a deal and make a deal to bring him home. So I think, to my mind, I’m hopeful that the Russians are thinking that in the next 90 days they can work with us to come up with that deal that brings them home before the trial actually starts.”

[Cassidy Hutchinson] “Especially in this period in American history, character takes precedent over policy positions.”

That’s former White House aide during the Trump administration Cassidy Hutchinson, speaking recently on MSNBC about the presidential election in November. Hutchinson, who continues to identify as a Republican, supports President Biden in the race and wants more people from the Trump administration to join her in denouncing the former president.

[Cassidy Hutchinson] “Trumpworld has an effective mechanism where they do hold a megaphone to the American people, where they use that megaphone to spread conspiracy theories and lies, and that’s how they manipulate and seduce people to believing what Donald Trump says. We need people who were on the inside to do the exact same thing but to speak truth to the power of the lies that Donald Trump has done; otherwise we might be tumbling towards a dictatorship.”

[Rep. Mike Lawler] “I’ve made it very clear to the speaker that the time for debate, the time for discussion is over.”

That’s Congressman Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, speaking on MSNBC about Ukraine funding. The House has yet to take up the national security supplemental bill that the Senate passed last month. It provides $60 billion in security assistance to Ukraine.

[Rep. Lawler] “We do not want to see Kyiv fall. That will be a catastrophic disaster for the world. And if America loses its standing as leader of the free world because we fail to recognize the threat, because we fail to act, that would be a disaster for our country; that would be a disaster for the Republican Party.”

Lawler said that he now expects House leadership to “move swiftly” in advancing the legislation.

[Rep. Jeffries] “The overwhelming majority of right-wing policy riders have been rejected and are not part of the spending agreement.”

That’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, speaking March 21st at his weekly press conference in the Capitol. The $1.2 trillion spending package that was introduced in the House later that day funds the government almost six months into the budget year, a delay caused in large part by Republican efforts to insert unpopular policy priorities into the process.

[Rep. Jeffries] “Like extreme MAGA Republican efforts to undermine reproductive freedom, destroy diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or detonate progress that we made in the last Congress connected to combating the climate crisis.”

[Sen. Chris Murphy] “This is a really important action that the Department of Justice is taking against Apple.”

That’s Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, speaking on MSNBC hours after the Department of Justice announced that it’s suing Apple for violating antitrust law in the smartphone market. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of high-profile antitrust enforcement actions the Department of Justice has taken since Joe Biden has been president.

[Sen. Murphy] “It stands next to actions that have been taken against Google and Amazon, and I’m so glad that the Biden administration is making it a priority to break up these big monopoly powers, especially in big tech. Donald Trump talks a big game about coming after big tech, so do many Republicans, but they don’t do it. They don’t do it. They end up just passing policies that further enriches the bottom lines of these companies. Joe Biden is actually coming after these big companies to break up their power.”

[Rep. Jamie Raskin] “The impeachment bus is running completely on empty.”

That’s Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, speaking March 20th on CNN, hours after the conclusion of the latest House impeachment inquiry hearing. For months, House Republicans have been trying to implicate President Biden in a bribery and influence-peddling scheme but have not produced concrete or credible evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment.

[Rep. Raskin] “Their own members have completely defected. You’ve got Republican congressmen like Ken Buck basically just saying give up the ghost. He’s resigning from Congress saying he won’t participate in this, you know, unconstitutional exercise. So there’s nothing there. There’s no votes on the Republican side to get it over the top and there’s no evidence upon which you could base an impeachment investigation.”

[Sen. Ben Cardin] “I want to see the supplemental passed as is.”

That’s Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking Sunday on NBC about the national security supplemental legislation the Senate passed more than a month ago. The package, which has not been given a vote in the House, contains $60 billion in funding for Ukraine, and humanitarian support for Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine. Taking Donald Trump’s cue, many Republicans are now talking about transforming a portion of the aid into a loan.

[Sen. Cardin] “If we try a different path it’s going to take a long time. Ukraine needs the help today. They don’t have the ammunition they need; they’re fighting Russia that recognizes there’s a weakness here because of the lack of equipment. No, we shouldn’t be looking at alternatives. We should be passing the supplemental.”

[Sen. Chris Van Hollen] “UNRWA is the essential delivery system within Gaza.”

That’s Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, speaking about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known as UNRWA, in a March 15th interview on MSNBC. In January, Israel made the accusation that at least a dozen UNRWA staffers had participated in the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.

[Sen. Van Hollen] “Yes, of course, we should hold accountable and investigate the actions of the up to 14 people who may have been involved in October 7th, but they are 14 people out of an organization of 13,000, that’s UNRWA in Gaza, and those 13,000 are the people who are essential to make sure over 2 million innocent Palestinian civilians get the food and other assistance they need.”

[Sen. Dick Durbin] “We can restore confidence in our democracy by ensuring that every eligible American can vote without fear of disenfranchisement.”

That’s Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, speaking about the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act at a March 12th hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Durbin is one of 50 Senate co-sponsors of the bill, which seeks to restore critical safeguards of the Voting Rights Act, including the Section 5 “pre-clearance” provision which requires states with a history of voting rights violations to get the approval of the federal government before enacting new voting laws. The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision invalidated the requirement.

[Sen. Durbin] “Some have suggested we don’t need this law, pointing to record-breaking voter turnout in the 2020 election. But take a close look and if you do, you’ll see the racial turnout gap is actually growing in this country.”

[Rep. Hakeem Jeffries] “Breaking news: He’s not stopping in Ukraine if he’s allowed to be successful.”

That’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, speaking at a March 13th press conference about Russian President Vladimir Putin, one day after Polish President Andrzej Duda came to Capitol Hill to warn lawmakers that if the U.S. does not deliver military aid to Ukraine and halt Russian aggression, Poland will likely be on the front lines of a conflict that involves European and American troops.

[Rep. Jeffries] “It’s time for my House Republican colleagues who believe that supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do to break with the pro-Putin MAGA extremists who are ascendant in their conference and partner with us to do the right thing and support an up or down vote on the national security package that was passed by the Senate.”

[Rep. Rosa DeLauro] “The urgency of this moment continues to go unanswered by the House Republican majority.”

That’s Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, speaking at a March 13th Capitol press conference where a bicameral group of Democratic lawmakers urged Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to bring Ukraine security assistance to the House floor for a vote, which he has refused to do for months.

[Rep. DeLauro] “The legacy of Speaker Johnson and the 118th Congress will be the appeasement of a dictator, the destruction of a free nation, and a newly fractured Europe. Gone will be the postwar order that has kept Europe free and prosperous, gone will be our credibility in the eyes of our allies and of our competitors, and gone will be the America that once promised to stand up for freedom, for democracy wherever they are threatened or under attack.”

[Sen. Patty Murray] “I’m deeply disappointed but not surprised.”

That’s Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington state, speaking March 12th on the Senate floor after she sought unanimous consent to pass her legislation, the Veteran Families Health Services Act, which would expand in vitro fertilization care to veterans and service members. Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, blocked its passage.

[Sen. Murray] “Let the record show, I’ve been trying to pass this legislation into law for well over a decade. It wasn’t yesterday, it wasn’t last year — for well over a decade. And for the entire time, Republicans have been the ones who have blocked efforts to include this bill in any legislative package. So I’m disappointed once again, but Mr. President, I will not stop working on this; it’s the right thing to do.”

[Sec. Janet Yellen] “A year or so ago, who would have expected that we could be averaging over 250,000 new jobs a month?”

That’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaking March 8th on MSNBC, shortly after the February jobs report was issued. It showed a non-farm payrolls increase of 275,000 jobs for the month and the unemployment rate remained under 4 percent for the 24th straight month.

[Sec. Yellen] “. . . signaling a strong labor market, the longest stretch of unemployment under 4 percent that we’ve seen in 50 years, and really no evidence in this month’s wage data of an acceleration in wage increases that could create inflationary pressures.”

[Gov. Kathy Hochul] “I’ll give them help as long as help is needed.”

That’s New York Governor Kathy Hochul, speaking on MSNBC the morning after her March 6th announcement that she is deploying 750 members of New York state’s National Guard to help New York City police conduct bag checks at about one-third of the stations of the city’s subway system, part of a five-part safety plan Hochul released in response to a spate of violent subway incidents.

[Gov. Hochul] “My job is to protect the people of this state, and I’ll do it, and I’m also going to demonstrate that Democrats fight crime as well. So this narrative that Republicans have said, and hijacked the story, that we’re soft on crime, that we defund the police — no. We care about civil liberties; we don’t want over-policing; we want to make sure that police operate within certain restraints, protect our citizens’ rights, but by god, I’m going to protect their lives and protect their sense of safety and security here in the city of New York.’

[Rep. Ritchie Torres] “I share the concern that TikTok has become a prohibitive national security risk that we can no longer afford to ignore.”

That’s Congressman Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, speaking at a March 6th conference in the Capitol about the bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to divest from the app or face a ban. The bill was introduced on March 5th by Representatives Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois. Torres supports the legislation.

[Rep. Torres] “As many of you know, TikTok is not merely a social media platform; it is the leading news source for the next generation, and the fact that we’re putting the leading news source for the most impressionable minds in our society in the leads of our leading foreign adversary is an act of self-sabotage. It’s an act of suicide.”

[Sen. Dick Durbin] “Every year that goes by without updating this law the voting rights of Americans are vulnerable to attack.”

That’s Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, speaking February 29th at a press conference in the Capitol, on the day that he and a group of Democratic senators reintroduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The legislation would update and restore critical safeguards of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[Sen. Durbin] “This bill was written after the Supreme Court decimated the Voting Rights Act in 2013. As members of Congress we have an obligation to defend our democracy against these attacks on our fundamental right to vote. That’s why on Tuesday, March 12th, we will hold a hearing spelling out these ongoing attacks and the urgent need for Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill has 50 Senate co-sponsors, none of them Republicans.

[Sen. Chris Murphy] “Republicans are allergic to solving the problem at the border.”

That’s Senator Chris Murphy, speaking February 29th on MSNBC. Murphy was the lead Democrat in the bipartisan negotiations that produced a border security deal that included many of the border and immigration policies Republicans have long supported, but they walked away from it under pressure from Donald Trump.

[Sen. Murphy] “We had a bipartisan bill that would have given the president extraordinary new powers to process asylum claims in a matter of months, not years, to put real personnel and technology on the border to interrupt the flow of fentanyl. And ultimately, Donald Trump told Republicans, “I don’t really care that it’s good for the country; all I care is that if the border was more under control it would hurt me politically,” and that’s the situation that we’re in today. So listen, I get paid to put up with this B.S.; the American people, they’re the ones that should be pretty pissed off.”

At his February 29th press conference in the Capitol, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries continued to press House Republican leadership to bring the national security supplemental legislation that passed with 70 votes in the Senate to the House floor for a vote. It includes $60 billion in aid for Ukraine and is estimated to have more than 300 supporters in the House.

[Rep. Hakeem Jeffries] “It’s time for my Republican colleagues to stop playing games and engaging in political stunts with respect to the national security priorities of the American people, which include making sure that we stand with Ukraine and not Vladimir Putin. The choice here is clear: We can either stand on the side of democracy or stand on the side of autocracy, stand on the the side of freedom or stand on the side of tyranny, stand on the side of truth or stand on the side of propaganda.”

[Beto O’Rourke] “The contrast could not be any more clear.”

That’s Beto O’Rourke, former Democratic congressman who represented El Paso, Texas, speaking on MSNBC hours after Donald Trump delivered a campaign speech in Eagle Pass, Texas, while President Biden visited Brownsville, Texas, for a meeting with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders, and invited Trump to join him in telling Congress to pass the border security deal that Republicans killed in February after months of bipartisan negotiation. In a speech that day, Biden called the bill “a win for the American people.”

[O’Rourke] “President Biden is representing the party that is pro-immigration, pro-border security and pro-solutions. Donald Trump, on the other hand, represents chaos. He’s not interested in the solution because he’s totally invested in the problem, and he’s admitted as much.”

On February 28th, 82-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as the Senate Republican leader after the November election, ending a record-breaking 17-year run that included six years as majority leader. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, reacted shortly after the news broke. He was speaking on MSNBC.

[Sen. Richard Blumenthal] “No person in recent history has had a more devasting, malign effect on American civil rights and liberties, whether it’s gun violence or voting rights or women’s reproductive rights, than Mitch McConnell. He has enabled far-right capture of the Supreme Court, and not just of the nation’s highest court; one-third of all the current judges sit on the judiciary by virtue of Mitch McConnell pushing them through.”

[Rep. Hillary Scholten] “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that that bill gets a vote.”

That’s first-term Congresswoman Hillary Scholten, Democrat of Michigan, speaking February 27th on MSNBC. Scholten calls herself a “proud co-sponsor” of the Access to Family Building Act, the House counterpart to the Senate in vitro fertilization protection legislation introduced by Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth. None of the bill’s co-sponsors in either chamber is Republican, even though some Republicans have lined up in recent days to voice support for IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are human beings.

[Rep. Scholten] “You can hear their tire screeches around the world as, you know, they get their talking points memo. But as the first woman and mother in history to represent my district, I don’t need anybody to give me a memo on how to talk about women’s reproductive freedom.”

Speaking on MSNBC shortly before the House Oversight Committee’s February 28th closed-door deposition of President Biden’s son Hunter as part of the House Republican impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, Congressman Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida, said that the inquiry is on life support because the credibility of the sources the Republicans have relied on has been seriously impaired.

[Rep. Jared Moskowitz] “Two of them have been indicted, one of them for trying to sell — being a Chinese foreign agent and selling Iranian oil, the other actually being a stooge for Russian intelligence. My hope is that this is the conclusion of the Joe Biden impeachment inquiry because there is no evidence whatsoever. Hunter Biden has done some things incorrect, with the tax issue and the gun issue; he’s going to have to deal with that, but that has nothing to do with Joe Biden as the president of the United States.”

At her February 23rd White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Americans should be concerned that the Alabama Supreme Court's recent ruling on in vitro fertilization could spread to other states.

[Karine Jean-Pierre] "Yeah, they should be concerned."

The court decision recognizes frozen embryos as legal persons, prompting several Alabama fertility clinics to halt services in order to avoid the wrongful death lawsuits the ruling sanctions.

[Jean-Pierre] "What needs to happen — I mean, the way that we fix this or the way that we get to a place where women feel protected, where women can make decisions on their own body, where families can make a decision on how to move forward in growing their family or starting a family is to get — Roe v. Wade needs to be the law of the land. That's the fix. That's what needs to happen."

[Sen. Chuck Schumer] “We need Speaker Johnson to step up to the plate.”

That’s Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking February 23rd on CNN, shortly after leading a congressional delegation visit to Ukraine, where senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Schumer said that Zelenskyy told senators that if Ukraine gets the $60 billion in security aid the Senate has already authorized, Ukraine will win the war Russia started two years ago. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that he will not bring the bill to the House floor for a vote.

[Sen. Schumer] “Johnson should do what we did. Speaker Johnson could come to Ukraine. If he meets with the leading generals, if he meets with Zelenskyy, there’ll be no way he won’t be convinced that we need this aid and he shouldn’t have some sort of blind obeisance to Donald Trump; he has to do the right thing.”

Speaking February 22nd at a reproductive freedoms roundtable conversation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the recent decision handed down by the Alabama Supreme Court that says frozen embryos created by in vitro fertilization can be considered children, thereby allowing wrongful death lawsuits to go forward when embryos are destroyed. The decision comes 20 months after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion. Harris linked the two court rulings.

[Vice President Kamala Harris] “On the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn’t have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy and, on the other hand, the individual does not have a right to start a family. So this is an issue that is about fundamental freedoms and liberty and it is an issue about harm, real harm that is happening to people every day in our country.”

Speaking February 23rd on MSNBC, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, Democrat of New Jersey, said that when the House returns from a two-week recess, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson needs to

[Rep. Mikie Sherrill] “. . . lead, follow or get out of the way.”

Johnson has refused to bring to the House floor the national security supplemental legislation the Senate passed on February 13th. It includes $60 billion in funding for Ukraine.

[Rep. Sherrill] “He has to show leadership in passing the supplemental. If he can’t do that, he has to follow some other plan, the plan set out by the Senate, and get that on the floor, or he just has to get out of the way. But no matter what, the Senate bipartisan bill, passed by over 70 members of the Senate, is the path forward. We have to get that on the floor of the House and we have to get that passed.”

With the February 15th arrest of ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov on charges of giving false statements to the FBI and a February 20th Department of Justice filing which reveals Smirnov’s high-level connections to Russian intelligence, Congressman Jamie Raskin told CNN that he thinks this is the end of the road of the ongoing inquiry the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, led by James Comer, has been conducting to implicate President Biden in a bribery scheme involving the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

[Rep. Jamie Raskin] “I hope that our colleagues on the Oversight Committee and Mr. Comer will finally just give up the ghost and shut down the circus and say, all right, this is over; we tried our best but there’s nothing there, other than disinformation and propaganda by Vladimir Putin.”

Raskin was speaking February 20th.

[Ben Wikler] “This is a sea change moment. It’s a profound, tectonic shift in the basic structure of political power and whether Wisconsin is a democracy.”

That’s Chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin Ben Wikler, speaking February 19th on MSNBC, hours after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed new legislative maps into law, effectively ending more than a decade of extreme Republican gerrymandering that gave the party disproportionate control of the state legislature.

[Wikler] “Scholars have called Wisconsin a democracy desert for the last 13 years because there was no possible way that even a huge majority of the public could ever end the Republican majority in the state legislature, and that just ended today with the stroke of Governor Evers’s pen. From now on, if the public wants to throw out the people in power they can and they can put someone else in charge.”

[Mayor Brandon Johnson"] “The state of Illinois as well as Cook County made a commitment, and I’m grateful to have their partnership.”

That’s Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, speaking at a February 15th press conference where he repeatedly avoided making a commitment of the $70 million that would be the city’s contribution to a $321 million migrant crisis expenditure, for which Governor J.B. Pritzker and County Board President Toni Preckwinkle pledged $250 million the same day. A spokesperson for the governor said, “You will have to ask the city what their plans are for the remaining $70 million that all parties have agreed is needed to fund this humanitarian response.” Johnson told reporters there is no disconnect, and said that no one in Chicago, the state of Illinois or this country

[Mayor Johnson] “. . . is questioning Mayor Brandon Johnson’s commitment to this mission.”

[Rep. Pete Aguilar] "This is important not just for the United States, this is important for the world."

That's Congressman Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, speaking at a February 13th press conference about the national security supplemental bill the Senate passed earlier in the week that would provide robust security funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza. The legislation faces uncertain prospects in the Republican-controlled House.

[Rep. Aguilar] "Let's be very clear about the Ukraine funding specifically. Donald Trump is the leader of their party and Donald Trump has said not to fund this, and so it's a concern that every American should have when it comes to national security and what exactly the former president's motivations are. But we stand ready and willing to put up votes to get this done."

[Sec. Janet Yellen] “Overall, my assessment is that the state of the U.S. economy is very strong.”

That’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaking at a February 14th Detroit Economic Club event in Michigan, one day after the Labor Department reported that U.S. consumer prices had their largest increase in four months, rising more than expected in January.

[Sec. Yellen] “I think it is a tremendous mistake to focus on minor fluctuations and to fail to see the longer term and bigger trend, and the trend here is that inflation is moving decisively down. And most importantly, wages have gone up and they’ve gone up especially for lower-income workers.”

[Rep. Robert Garcia] "I'm very hopeful that this gets a vote in the House."

That's Congressman Robert Garcia, Democrat of California, speaking February 9th on MSNBC, after the Senate voted to debate a bill that would deliver more than $60 billion of military aid to Ukraine, as well as $14 billion for Israel, but not address the U.S. immigration reforms that Republicans had for months insisted be part of the package. House Speaker Mike Johnson had called the prospect of a bill with immigration reform "dead on arrival," and it's not clear whether he plans to bring a bill with Ukraine and Israel aid to the House floor for a vote.

[Rep. Garcia] "To be honest, we're unsure. I mean, at this point, Speaker Mike Johnson might as well bend the knee to Putin. And it is completely embarassing that so many members of our Congress have decided to turn their backs on democracy in Eastern Europe."

[Rep. Dan Goldman] "President Biden cooperated fully because he had no intent of concealing or possessing classified material."

That' Congressman Dan Goldman, speaking February 9th on MSNBC about the report Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur wrote about President Biden's retention of classified documents while he was out of office. In the report Hur made "several material distinctions" between the Biden case and Donald Trump's alleged handling of classified documents for which he now faces multiple criminal charges.

[Rep. Goldman] "And the disparity is really vital, and I think it goes not only to the actual fact pattern in the two cases but to who these two men are. President Biden believes in the rule of law, he believes in our criminal justice system; Donald Trump believes he's above the law and he does not believe in our democracy and our system of government."

[Sen. Alex Padilla] “It’s only a matter of time before this package gets done.”

That’s Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, speaking February 10th on MSNBC about the Senate bill that would deliver $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan but not address the U.S. immigration reforms that Republicans had for months insisted be part of the package, only to kill that compromise legislation last week. The Senate remained in session into the weekend because Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who opposes the new bill, pledged to drag out the floor debate as long as possible.

[Sen. Padilla] “I’m not surprised that it’s him because, you know, in one package it’s about — you know, our border versus other allies, next time it’s going to be about, you know, gutting the federal government budget, so we’ll see when his own colleagues on the Republican side finally get fed enough to say ‘Come on.’”

[Rep. Mike Quigley] "Hey, if you want to waste our time, let's do it after we get the basics done, like funding the government."

That's Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley, speaking to Patti Vasquez here on WCPT minutes after casting his no vote in the failed House Republican effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Republican-controlled House is now more than four months late in passing a fiscal year 2024 budget.

[Rep. Quigley] "It shows the rest of the world we can't govern. Indeed, President Biden, in his first time he spoke to the Democratic Caucus, he said that the leaders of several countries, including China and Russia, said to him, we're going to win this competitive international stakes because democracy doesn't work. And unfortunately, there's times when we appear to be proving them right."

[Sec. Lloyd Austin] "I want to be crystal clear: We did not handle this right and I did not handle this right."

That's Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, speaking at a February 1st Pentagon press conference about the delayed disclosure of his hospitalization in early January for complications resulting from surgery to treat his prostate cancer, a diagnosis which he had also not immediately disclosed. Austin released a statement last month apologizing for his "decisions about disclosure," but this was the first time he spoke about it to the press since he was hospitalized."

[Sec. Austin] "I take full responsibility. I apologize to my teammates and to the American people. The American people have a right to know if their leaders are facing health challenges that might affect their ability to perform their duties, even temporarily. So a wider circle should have been notified, especially the president."

[Sen. Amy Klobuchar] “I just want to get this stuff done. I’m so tired of this. It’s been 28 years, what, since the internet; we haven’t passed any of these bills.”

That’s Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, speaking at a January 31st Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Discord, and Snap faced tough bipartisan questioning and harsh criticism from the senators on the panel. Klobuchar has introduced and co-sponsored several bills that would make social media platforms more accountable for the harmful content they disseminate.

[Sen. Klobuchar] “It’s time to actually pass them. And the reason they haven’t passed is because of the power of your companies, so let’s be really, really clear about that.”

Speaking later that evening on MSNBC, Klobuchar called the hearing a “groundbreaking moment.”

[Sen. Klobuchar] “And there’s finally going to be some accountability and some rules of the road when it comes to the protection of children.”

[President Joe Biden] "For decades people talked about replacing this bridge, but it never got done, until today. (Applause)"

That's President Biden, speaking January 25th about the Blatnik Memorial Bridge, which connects Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota. The president visited Superior to announce a $5 billion investment in national infrastructure projects that includes a billion dollars to replace the aging 1.5-mile-long bridge.

[President Biden] "Ten thousand new construction jobs, union jobs — (applause) — are going to be created. We're investing in America, in jobs for American workers, built with American products, and that's going to, with the help of your congressional delegation, especially Senator Tammy Baldwin, we're making sure that that iron, that steel, that construction material to build this bridge is made in America. (Applause.)"

[Rep. Katie Porter] "When we are able to get to an agreement about solutions, for Trump to tear it up I think is both disappointing and frankly disgusting."

That's Congresswoman Katie Porter, Democrat of California, speaking about the bipartisan deal still being brokered by Senate negotiators that would reform U.S. Southern border and immigration policy while providing security aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Increasing numbers of Republican lawmakers are now siding with Donald Trump in opposing the compromise in order to avoid giving a win to President Biden and the Democrats.

[Rep. Porter] "It is a shame that the American people cannot look to their Congress, to one entire party of our political system to actually do the work that they were elected to do. And on top of that, let me just say that the subtext here, and it's not very subtle, I should say, is that immigrants are just political pawns."

[David Orr] "I think it would be a mistake to give too light a sentence for something this serious."

That's former Cook County Clerk David Orr, speaking about former Alderman Ed Burke, who was convicted on 13 corruption counts late last year and will be sentenced in June. Orr, who served with Burke in City Council decades ago, told Joan Esposito here on WCPT that while he expects Burke's advanced age to be a consideration in sentencing . . .

[Orr] "You need to be able to pay a price if you're going to try and discourage some of these people. We throw people in the slammer for god knows how long for smoking dope. And you know, I don't want to allow a few crooked politicians to be looked at differently because they've been able to get away with it for so long."

[Devin Ombres] "This term the Supreme Court is going to determine whether modern, functional governance that has been in effect since the 1930s is constitutional, and they seem to be leaning no."

That's Devin Ombres, senior director of courts and legal policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, speaking January 17th about a trio of cases before the Supreme Court this term, one of which the court heard oral arguments for that same day. Many legal observers, including Ombres, anticipate the conservative high court's ruling will significantly erode the federal government's rulemaking powes.

[Ombres] "To break it down a little bit more, clean air: out the window. Clean water: out the window. Whether unions get to organize: judges get to decide that."

Ombres was speaking on "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" here on WCPT.

[Rep. Pete Aguilar] "We want this place to work. We want to govern. That's what House Democrats want."

That's Congressman Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, speaking January 17th at his weekly press conference in the Capitol, as votes loom on security funding for Ukraine and Israel, U.S. immigration reform and Southern border security, and a tax deal that would boost the child tax credit. Aguilar said that while House Democrats want to see Speaker Mike Johnson work to govern . . .

[Rep. Aguilar] "We have seen he chooses to listen to the most extreme voices in his conference, and if you're going to listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene on policy, then we're probably going to have some disagreements. So if he's willing to isolate some of the most extreme voices in his conference to work, then I think we can have a somewhat productive year."

[Governor J.B. Pritzker] "Cities out here that are the target of this political game that Governor Abbott is playing are suffering."

That's Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, speaking Sunday on ABC about Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose office recently issued a statement rejecting Pritzker's open letter plea that the state of Texas stop sending asylum seekers to Illinois during the stretch of extreme winter weather that has descended upon the region. In the letter, Pritzker said the trips would be "life-threatening to everyone of the arrivals, if they continue."

[Governor Pritzker] "When we've asked them to stop sending people because of the weather, he's refused to stop sending them, so he does not care about people, he doesn't care about the migrants, he doesn't care about the fact that they're going to suffer if they're sent to certainly the Upper Midwest, as he is doing now."

Speaking Sunday on CNN, Senator Bernie Sanders acknowledged that Israel has a right to respond to what he called the "horrific terrorist attack from Hamas."

[Sen. Bernie Sanders] "But you do not have a right to go to war against an entire people, women and children."

In December, Sanders introduced a resolution that would require the State Department to report whether Israel has committed to human rights violations with U.S. equipment or assistance.

[Sen. Sanders] "The United States Congress has got to act because a lot of this destruction is being done with military weapons supplied by the United States of America, and what the resolution that I'm introducing is about — it's consistent with the Foreign Assistance Act. It says that if American military assistance is given to any country — Saudi Arabia, Israel, any other country — that it's got to be used consistent with human rights, international human rights standards and American law."

[Rep. Pete Aguilar] "This is where we need Republicans to get on the same page."

That's House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, speaking January 10th at his weekly press conference about negotiations on a budget deal, as dual government shutdowns loom, the first on January 19th, the second February 2nd. Aguilar noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson declared after a November shutdown was averted that he would not bring to the floor another continuing resolution, or CR, allowing government funding to continue at Fiscal Year 2023 levels until a 2024 deal can be reached.

[Rep. Aguilar] "You have Senator Thune and Senator McConnell saying that they do want a CR. So, you know, we just don't know what is going on here between Republicans on Capitol Hill. There's just a variety of opinion on their side of the aisle as to where we go forward."

In a Sunday appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," GOP Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said that she has "concerns about the treatment of the January 6th hostages," referring to the hundreds of individuals who have been convicted and jailed for their illegal conduct during the January 6th, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Speaking later that morning on CBS, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney said that Stefanik is using the term hostage because Donald Trump uses it.

[Liz Cheney] "And it is really — it's disgraceful for Donald Trump to be saying what he's saying and then for those who are attempting to enable or attempting to further their own political careers to repeat it. It's a disgrace. And you cannot say that you are a member of a party that believes in the rule of law, you can't say that you're pro-law enforcement if you then go out and you say these people are 'hostages.' It's disgraceful."

[Bakari Sellers] "I cannot sit here on national TV and allow individuals to attack the credentials and the academic record and the professionalism of Claudine Gay to get the position."

That's CNN Political Analyst Bakari Sellers, speaking January 4th on CNN, two days after Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard. While Gay was under fire for comments she made about campus antisemitism before a congressional committee in early December, and more recently for accusations of plagiarism in her academic work, Sellers noted that a lot of the criticism of Gay has focused on her qualifications to be president of Harvard."

[Sellers] "And when you have people questioning diversity, equity and inclusion and then question the record of this black woman, we have to draw the line and say, see, that is the game that we're talking about being played and we have to root that part out of the conversation."