September 9, 2025 • 27 mins
Israel Strikes Qatar. I.C.E into Chicago. Science, math and reading scores.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kfi
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Gary and Shannon kfi AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app on this Tuesday.
It is September ninth. Shannon's out again, which means we
have a special guest coming up a little bit later
(00:20):
in the show. We're going to be talking with Stephanie Leidecker.
We talked to her a couple of weeks ago actually
as part of our True Crime Tuesday story. She is
one of the hosts of a True Crime Tonight, the
podcast and the show that you can hear on a
bunch of different iheartstations around the country. She's going to
join us next hour, and yes, we are going to
dip into one.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of the true crimped true true true crime. Let me
try it again, Elma Marcus so you can edit it later.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We're going to talk to her about one of the
true true crime stories that is making the rounds over
the last couple of years. There was a story out
of Mischie was somewhere in the Upper Midwest there Michigan,
thank you, and it's now a Netflix documentary called Unknown
Number and Wife and I watched it last night, can't
(01:08):
I watched it last night. Elmer watched it over the
weekend and collectively easy to say, our minds were blown.
It was un believable. And I will warn you now
if you haven't seen it, we really can't talk about
it late in the show without spoiling it. I mean,
(01:29):
we have to spoil it in order to fully talk
about it. So if you have not yet seen it,
you're going to want to go back and check out
the podcast if you do see it, so that you
can be as mind blown as we are.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Again.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Unknown Number on Netflix and Stephanie Leidecker is going to
join us and talk about it, and a bunch of
other things coming up next hour.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Some stories that are going on.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We will talk in a few minutes about the Department
of Homeland Security and Operation Midway Blitz. They say this
is the homeland security operation that's going to take place
in and around Chicago and Illinois. Also, a Russian bomb
exploded today in a crowd of pensioners in eastern Ukraine.
At least twenty three people killed eighteen injured. This explosion
(02:15):
occurred in the center of this little town. Hit near
a church in a cemetery and a school. And this
bomb apparently targeted a state postal vehicle that was delivering
cash payments to retirees.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So that will be coming up, But I want to.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Start with the headline generator of the day, which is
this attack by Israel. They've already claimed responsibility on a
Katari building. Now Qatar, the country of has condemned this attack.
Israel says it was targeting senior members of the Hamas leadership.
(02:57):
If Israel had any question about pissing off every single
country in the world, they have just accomplished this for
a couple of different reasons. Number One, yes, they were
targeting Hamas leadership. But it's important to point out that
that Hamas leadership was in a building that we, the
United States, requested they have. We went to the Katari
(03:18):
government and said, hey, listen, this is a sticky situation.
Can you host some Hamas leaders in caught her so
that there can be off site negotiations, and caught her
said yes, Israel just bombed that building.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Give me this computer over here, omer there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Can them this fragrant violation of the sovereignty and territory,
integrity of katars, all parties towards achieving the permanencies fire,
not destroying it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
That's Antonio Guteraz. He is the Secretary General of the UN.
And a couple of things to remember here. Adam Parks,
for example, Well, you know what I'll do this. I
have a bunch of sound from experts in the Middle
East who say that this is a giant step backwards.
Although Israel targeted and likely killed six or seven or
(04:14):
eight of the highest ranking members of Hamas, those were
the negotiating team. Those guys were the ones who were granted,
it's taken a while and it's slow and it's methodical.
They were the ones who were negotiating some sort of
a ceasefire slash peace deal. And now they're in their
(04:35):
confetti shaped So when we come back, what this means
going forward, if anything, for the potential four piece. Israel,
by the way, is also telling everybody get out of
Gaza City. They're going to do this the hard way.
And we'll talk about all of this when we come back.
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I mentioned earlier Shannon's gonna be out this week. She's
helping take care of mom. Mom is having some medical
stuff done, so we're thinking of her and mom up
in the Bay Area. So again later on this show,
Stephanie Elideker, one of the hosts of True Crime Tonight,
is going to join us. And a big thank you,
by the way to Chef Andrew Gruhl who last yesterday
(05:24):
came in and spent the entire show with us, which
was really cool.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So it was great to have him.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You can follow him at Chef Gruel on Twitter and
follow all of his not just his his cooking tips
and all that stuff, the fun stuff he does with
his wife. He's got a show, he's got a bunch
of different restaurants. He was an absolute blast. News and
Bruises coming up Monday, September twenty second, less than two
weeks away. We're going to be a Bjay's Restaurant and
(05:50):
brew House on Eastland Center Drive there in West Covina.
And if you've never been out to a News and Bruce,
this is an absolute blast. And why not then your
weekend you can always take Monday off, well, if you
have to, you can take Monday morning off and then
go to the office after lunch, just say you got
a meeting or you have a tax i. Don't know
(06:11):
what you have to do, but again, News and Brus Monday,
September twenty second, bjays in West Covina.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now we're telling you about this attack.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Israel targeted senior members of hamasa's leadership today in the
Gulf nation of Kadhr Kater had been hosting negotiations to
try to end the war in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
An unidentified senior official from Hama said the attack happened
while the team was discussing the American proposal for a
ceasefire in Gaza, and Israeli official confirmed as much. Coter
was thought to be sort of neutral ground in this
in part because it's one of the Arab countries that
(06:53):
does maintain contact official main official diplomatic contact with the
Israeli government, and senior Israeli government officials have been to
caught her many times to try to talk to Katari
leaders about trying to secure the release of hostages, so
Israelis have been there before as well. Israeli officials, however,
(07:16):
have promised they will hunt down and kill Hamas leaders
wherever they may be because they want all of the
leaders involved in the planning of the attack of the
October seventh, twenty twenty three attacks. It's almost two years
ago now, and specifically, the Defense Minister targeted the chief
Amasa negotiator, guy named Khalil al Haya. He is believed
(07:40):
to have been in the building when it was attacked today,
But obviously it's going to be some time before we
can suss all of that out. Paul Adams was reporting
for the BBC this morning.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
We have got a list of around six or seven
people who it is, and we believe that all may
have been killed in this strike, and they include Kazi Hamad,
who is a very familiar figure who's appeared sometimes as
a kind of spokesman, has also been intimately involved in
the negotiations. If it is true that all of these
(08:15):
individuals were killed in this strike, then what Israel has
done effectively is to eliminate all of the senior Hamas
figures with whom it was negotiating indirectly through the offices
of the Qatari government, which obviously begs a question where
do negotiations go now? Given that Hamas continue to hold
(08:37):
Israeli hostages in Ghaza.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Brett McGirk is a former National Security Council coordinator and
picks up where that guy leaves off. Where do these
negotiations now go? Now, considering there are still hostages being
held by Hamas, I feel.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Like I understand Hamas.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
I know them because I've dealt with them in so
many ways and it needs to be dealing with doing
this so intimately. I know how they think and what
concerns me. What concerns me is I you're Hamas. How
do we react to this? As I just said, we
have very few options. One of the option is they
control the lives and fate of the hostages. I'm very
concerned about that, and you know, I am trying to
(09:14):
think of how this ends in a way. We see
the hostages coming home, and I hope negotiate two seas
fire deals with hostages coming out. It's a main priority.
There are twenty living hostages in these tunnels and gaza
in horrific conditions, and I really fear this makes it
much harder, much harder, if not impossible, to get them home.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And then finally to add a couple of spicy Jimmys
to the top of this mess of a donut. Next week,
is the UN General Assembly here in the United States.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
Next week we have the UN General Assembly meeting in
New York. At the moment, Mahmud Debaser Metze Kistama yesterday
is banned from going to the UN gen Assembly, along
with the Palestinian delegation. And yet at that meeting, various
countries are intending to recognize the state of Palestine, an
(10:12):
act that many politicians here in Israel and the United
States believe is incredibly inflammatory and misguided.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
All right, So to kind of buttress that for what's
going on specifically in Israel and Gaza, the military of
Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that are still
in Gaza City to evacuate. They say, basically, we're going
to expand the ground offensive against Tamas in the area.
They posted this notice online today said the order applies
(10:47):
to anyone currently in Gaza City, which is home to
about half of the people in all of the Gaza Strip,
and so those people remaining in the area would be
under extremely dangerous conditions if they stay. It's not getting
any better over there anytime soon. When we come back though,
(11:08):
in Chicago, the President is launching what they're calling Operation
Midway Blitz. And this is a continuation of the ongoing
immigration enforcement operations that this administration has taken on. Obviously,
the highest profile ones have been in California, partly because
(11:29):
of you know, geographic bias, we see it every day here,
but also this is going to be the second major
city that sees a full operation where there are troops
and law enforcement officials, et cetera stationed nearby then doing
(11:49):
these operations in different neighborhoods in and around Chicago and
throughout the state of Illinois. So we'll talk about that
and talk about what sort of an impact that's going
to have going forward on all of not just the administration,
but those people who want to fight the administration, the
politicians in Chicago JB. Pritzker, the governor, the mayor, Brandon Johnson,
et cetera. So all that's to come up. Quick update
(12:11):
on sports, by the way, Vikings led by JJ McCarthy,
an incredible young kid, beat the Bears on Monday Night
football twenty seven to twenty four. Last night baseball still
going on for those of you smart people. Angels lost
to the Twins twelve to three. Dodgers beat the Rockies,
thirty one three to one Dodgers who were within a
couple of outs of a no hitter and just blew
(12:32):
it in that ninth inning, but still came out with
the win three to one.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
They'll they'll play again tonight.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
iPhone seventeen is expected to be introduced today as one
of the big reveals, expected to be a thinner iPhone,
maybe called the iPhone Air. They're expected to announce iPhone
seventeen models, as well as some upgrades for the watch,
the iPad, the air pods, et cetera. Former Hurricane Kiko
now tropical Storm Kiko is just close to the Hawaiian island,
(13:09):
still churning up some riptides and some pretty heavy surf conditions.
The storm is expected to continue to weaken as it
passes north of the island chain today and tomorrow. Next hour,
we're going to talk a little bit more about the
fire that's burning through Sierra National Forest. It's Garnet fire.
It's about forty nine thousand acres, but they said it's
now burned through a part of a large grove of
(13:32):
our giant sequoias, setting at least a few of these
very rare trees on fire. Next hour. Stephanie Leidecker from
True Crime Tonight is going to be joining us and
sitting with us for the rest of the show. Shannon's
out this week, but she will be back next week.
The Department of Homeland Security is launching an immigration enforcement
(13:56):
operation in Chicago, part of the Trump administration's effort to
target the sanctuary cities.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They said.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Tom Holman is of course the borders are and he
talked about this and other cities that could potentially be targeted.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Do you want to see a ramp up operations New York.
You're wanna see a ramp uplub operations continue in LA
and you know Portland, Seattle. I mean all these sanctuary
cities that refuse the work with life, where we know
public safety threats are being released every day to this country,
especially those cities.
Speaker 9 (14:26):
We're going to address that now.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Obviously, this is especially since it's been there's been such
a long lead up to this, there's been so much
talk about it. There has been a pretty robust protest
against Tanya Woods from something called the West Side Justice Center.
She said she wants to fight against any sort of
federal introduction federal troops into Chicago with she's gonna fight,
(14:50):
but you're gonna fight with information.
Speaker 10 (14:51):
And so together we have collaborated to pull together a
training program, a community workshop, if you will, so that
we can inform and educate people about their resources, their rights,
and their risks.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Illinois State Representative Lashawn k Ford also is upset with
this possibility.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
Invasion of federal troops is the same invasion that we
would seeing to our enemies in other nations. This is
an attack on the American people.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Okay, So there's a conflation here.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It seems between what we saw in Los Angeles with
the National Guard coming in to protect immigration and customs
enforcement and other federal troops and what's going on in Chicago.
President Trump has threatened to put National Guard troops in Chicago,
but that's not what this is. This Operation Midway Blitz
(15:48):
is what they're calling. It is a more robust immigration
enforcement operation, at least without the National Guard. Yet, Illinois
Governor JB. Pritzker says, you can't just arrest people all
the time. Sometimes you need huggy kissy time.
Speaker 11 (16:03):
You can't police your way out of all the problems
and what you can do, however, is work with people
and try to understand them and then lift them up
out of the situation that they're in.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Okay, there is some crossover here, like I said, the
immigration enforcement operations and just to crack down on crime
like we've seen in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
That's what Trump has been talking about doing. In Chicago.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Got to point out DHS actually came up with this name,
this Operation Midway Blitz. They say it was in honor
of an Illinois woman. Twenty year old Catherine Abraham, died
in January after a hit and run accident involving a
guy who was here illegally from Guatemala. A spokesperson said,
if you come to our country illegally and you break
(16:48):
our laws, we will hunt you down, we will arrest you,
we will deport you, and you will never return. Of course, again,
the there's the two issues here, and there is some crossover,
but there are two distinct issues the Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
(17:08):
Department of Homeland Security immigration operation and the ramping up
of those operations, and then the National Guard whether or
not there are American boots on the ground in the
major city like there are currently in DC, and I
(17:29):
mean in terms of keeping them separate in our minds,
it probably doesn't mean much in terms of trying to
determine whether this is a good idea bad idea. Plenty
of people are going to have their opinions on whether
it's a good idea or bad idea. Illinois police specifically
in terms of Catherine Abraham again, the twenty year old
woman that this operation has been I guess dedicated to
(17:51):
by Deportment Department of Homeland Security. The man charged in
the death of Catherine and her friend did try to
leave the country on a boss headed for Mexico before
the Marshall Service was able to pick him up, and
Catherine's dad, Joe, said the DHS reached out to him
over the weekend to inform him of the ICE operations
(18:12):
that would be taking place in Chicago, and he said, well,
I'm glad to hear someone recognizes and acknowledges Katie because
she is someone that should be recognized, should be honored.
And he said, if it's an operation where they're looking
after undocumented criminals, I'm not sure there's any controversy around that.
If another parent doesn't have to go through what I'm
going through. I am all for it.
Speaker 12 (18:33):
Hey, good morning, Gary. You said you're going to touch
on it later. Can you understand why the governor of
Illinois and the mayor of Chicago would be so anti
having people not getting killed every weekend by the almost
a dozens all the time. I don't understand the mentality
where they're not wanting help to keep their citizens safe
(18:56):
and alive. I don't understand it. Can you kind of
help a little bit?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, it's because they don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
They're not going to see it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
They're not going to see it as a way to
bolster local law enforcement. They're going to see it as
a federal takeover of their cities and their communities. And
that's the way they that's the way they talk about it.
Governor Pritzker again, I mean to just play this thing
again he's talking about he's again in a place like Chicago,
(19:28):
in any big city in America, there has to be
an attitude of, yes, you want to have a carrot
to draw people out of a life of crime, but
there has to be a stick to punish people when
they choose a life of crime. And he's talking about
less sticks and more carrots there he go.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Let me play that for it right there, right there.
Speaker 11 (19:50):
You can't police your way out of all the problems.
And what you can do, however, is work with people
and try to understand them and then lift them up
out of the the situation that they're in.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
That doesn't sound like it's been working.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's the other part about this, Governor Pritzker, Mayor Muriel
Brt Bowser. Out of DC, the status quo hasn't been working.
Is this federal overreach? I don't know. That's for the
courts to determine. Has it been working. According to the
statistics out of DC, it has been working. Now again,
(20:24):
this what we're talking about, This Operation Midway Blitz, is
not National Guard and federal troops on the ground doing
crime suppression, at least not yet. This is just an
upping of the immigration customs enforcement operations that we have
been seeing. All Right, I got great news and I
got awful news. The great news is sorry, there is
(20:46):
no great news. It's awful news. The test scores for
our kids continue to suck.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Suck. That's probably the safest way to put it.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I mentioned Shannon's out.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
She's gonna be out all week taking care of mom,
but she will be back next week. So at the
top of the hour, we're going to be joined by
Stephanie Leidecker, one of the hosts of True Crime Tonight,
Great podcast. We talked to her a couple of weeks
ago for our True Crime Tuesday, and one of the
highlights of the show today, I can already tell is
going to be the discussion of this new Netflix documentary
(21:27):
that came out so short, it's bite sized, an hour
and a half, but it will blow your mind. And
if you're a parent of teenagers, if you're a parent
of younger kids and you have had issues with the phones,
this is something I think everybody, I think everybody should
be watching.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So we'll talk about that a little bit later.
Speaker 13 (21:47):
Hey, Gary and Shannon, if you are going to address
Karen Bass's endorsement of Tony via Rugosa, I would just
have to say, I don't think i'd want that endorsement.
I don't think that's going to do him any good,
and it may do his opponents a lot of good. Yeah, Anyways,
like to listen to your show, have a great day, guy.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, the word came down that La Mayor Karen Bass
is going to endorse former mayor, former Assembly speaker, former
gubernatorial candidate Antonio Viragosa in the race for governor coming
up next year, and we've said, well, I've expressed my
opinion about this, which is that Mayor Bass lost an
(22:32):
absolute boatload of credibility after the fires in January and
did not look good. Was on her heels or flats
whatever she wears, I don't know quite a bit or
in the weeks and the months after that. Then when
President Trump ordered National Guard troops into Los Angeles, she
became She kind of got some of her stance back
(22:55):
by acting as opposition, and I think in terms of
her political point scoring, she did pretty well with that.
But Antonio Viragosa, that to me is a strange endorsement.
Antonio Viragosa hasn't done anything for ten years. And I
don't mean that in business terms. I just mean that
he's been out of the limelight for a very long time. Yeah,
(23:17):
we interviewed him last week, but it wasn't a great interview.
He didn't do a great job and didn't seem to
have a good grasp on any sort of idea of
who he was talking to when it comes to, you know,
making himself a viable candidate for people to otherwise otherwise
wouldn't vote for him.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
He didn't do anything to reach across the aisle.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So anyway, that's that is supposedly going to happen today,
Mayor Bass endorsing Antonio Viragosa. New test scores came out
basically from what we refer to as our nation's report
card when it comes to school scores student scores National
Assessment of Educational Progress. It shows that eighth grader science
(23:58):
scores have fallen full points since twenty nineteen. Twelfth grader's
math and reading scores have fallen three points in that
same period. Now, falling test scores are nothing new. That's
not a giant surprise. What is a surprise is that
they're not more than that. In my opinion, this is
(24:24):
the first real test that we've seen of those kids
who were in elementary and junior high school during COVID,
and we know that the younger the kids were, the
more they were going to suffer when we kept them
out of school for so long. My daughter was a
senior in high school in twenty twenty, So she lost
(24:44):
you know, the second half of her senior year, which
meant she lost all of the fun, She lost all
of the classes, she lost all of prom, she lost
all of graduation. I mean all of those things were
taken away from her and hundreds of thousands of kids
across the country. But it was the younger kids that
were going to suffer the most. Reading scores dipped for
(25:05):
twelve graders, like I said, accept among the highest achieving
students since twenty nineteen. That was the last time they
administered the test, the first twelfth grade reading assessment back
in nineteen ninety two. When you compare those, today's average
score ten points lower. So, like I said, it's not
that declining test scores are not the new part.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
It's that they didn't go down as much as I
had expected them to.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Scores for the lowest performing stuarts students are at historic lows,
continued declines that began more than a decade ago, probably
accelerated by what we did in COVID in terms of
shutting down so many schools. The acting director of the
IEES that puts out this, puts out the tests, the
(25:52):
sorry puts out the test scores, says, my predecessor warned
of the trend.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Her predecessor warned of the trend.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And now I am one warning you of this trend.
And listen, I will say, in conjunction with what we're
talking about with unknown number, with this influence, that that
that phones are having phones and you know, this media
at a moment's notice, it is hurting our kids.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
There are.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Proven studies that show it is hurting our kids. And
one of the things that we can do as responsible parents,
hopefully is start to put some limits on this sort
of thing. Drive kids back into doing things like, you know,
playing outside, which may not seem like it translates to
much of a you know, an ability to get back
(26:41):
into reading and things like that. But an exhausted it's
like a listen, I'm gonna compare. I'm gonna compare our
children to dogs. An exhausted dog is a happy dog, right,
a very well behaved dog in many cases. And the
more tired your kids get because they're outside playing, or
they're participating in sports, or they're hanging out with friends
(27:03):
and not on their phones, they're a lot better off
physiologically and mentally. So anyway, my two cents, all right,
coming back, We're going to welcome into the show Stephanie
Leidecker from True Crime Tonight, and we're gonna get started
with a bunch of different stories that are going on
around the world, and late in the show, we're going
to talk more about Unknown Number, that new Netflix documentary.
(27:24):
Kary and Shannon will continue right after this. You've been
listening to The Gary and Shannon Show, you can always
hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am
to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kfi
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Gary and Shannon kfi AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app on this Tuesday.
It is September ninth. Shannon's out again, which means we
have a special guest coming up a little bit later
(00:20):
in the show. We're going to be talking with Stephanie Leidecker.
We talked to her a couple of weeks ago actually
as part of our True Crime Tuesday story. She is
one of the hosts of a True Crime Tonight, the
podcast and the show that you can hear on a
bunch of different iheartstations around the country. She's going to
join us next hour, and yes, we are going to
dip into one.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of the true crimped true true true crime. Let me
try it again, Elma Marcus so you can edit it later.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We're going to talk to her about one of the
true true crime stories that is making the rounds over
the last couple of years. There was a story out
of Mischie was somewhere in the Upper Midwest there Michigan,
thank you, and it's now a Netflix documentary called Unknown
Number and Wife and I watched it last night, can't
(01:08):
I watched it last night. Elmer watched it over the
weekend and collectively easy to say, our minds were blown.
It was un believable. And I will warn you now
if you haven't seen it, we really can't talk about
it late in the show without spoiling it. I mean,
(01:29):
we have to spoil it in order to fully talk
about it. So if you have not yet seen it,
you're going to want to go back and check out
the podcast if you do see it, so that you
can be as mind blown as we are.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Again.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Unknown Number on Netflix and Stephanie Leidecker is going to
join us and talk about it, and a bunch of
other things coming up next hour.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Some stories that are going on.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We will talk in a few minutes about the Department
of Homeland Security and Operation Midway Blitz. They say this
is the homeland security operation that's going to take place
in and around Chicago and Illinois. Also, a Russian bomb
exploded today in a crowd of pensioners in eastern Ukraine.
At least twenty three people killed eighteen injured. This explosion
(02:15):
occurred in the center of this little town. Hit near
a church in a cemetery and a school. And this
bomb apparently targeted a state postal vehicle that was delivering
cash payments to retirees.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So that will be coming up, But I want to.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Start with the headline generator of the day, which is
this attack by Israel. They've already claimed responsibility on a
Katari building. Now Qatar, the country of has condemned this attack.
Israel says it was targeting senior members of the Hamas leadership.
(02:57):
If Israel had any question about pissing off every single
country in the world, they have just accomplished this for
a couple of different reasons. Number One, yes, they were
targeting Hamas leadership. But it's important to point out that
that Hamas leadership was in a building that we, the
United States, requested they have. We went to the Katari
(03:18):
government and said, hey, listen, this is a sticky situation.
Can you host some Hamas leaders in caught her so
that there can be off site negotiations, and caught her
said yes, Israel just bombed that building.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Give me this computer over here, omer there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Can them this fragrant violation of the sovereignty and territory,
integrity of katars, all parties towards achieving the permanencies fire,
not destroying it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
That's Antonio Guteraz. He is the Secretary General of the UN.
And a couple of things to remember here. Adam Parks,
for example, Well, you know what I'll do this. I
have a bunch of sound from experts in the Middle
East who say that this is a giant step backwards.
Although Israel targeted and likely killed six or seven or
(04:14):
eight of the highest ranking members of Hamas, those were
the negotiating team. Those guys were the ones who were granted,
it's taken a while and it's slow and it's methodical.
They were the ones who were negotiating some sort of
a ceasefire slash peace deal. And now they're in their
(04:35):
confetti shaped So when we come back, what this means
going forward, if anything, for the potential four piece. Israel,
by the way, is also telling everybody get out of
Gaza City. They're going to do this the hard way.
And we'll talk about all of this when we come back.
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I mentioned earlier Shannon's gonna be out this week. She's
helping take care of mom. Mom is having some medical
stuff done, so we're thinking of her and mom up
in the Bay Area. So again later on this show,
Stephanie Elideker, one of the hosts of True Crime Tonight,
is going to join us. And a big thank you,
by the way to Chef Andrew Gruhl who last yesterday
(05:24):
came in and spent the entire show with us, which
was really cool.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So it was great to have him.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You can follow him at Chef Gruel on Twitter and
follow all of his not just his his cooking tips
and all that stuff, the fun stuff he does with
his wife. He's got a show, he's got a bunch
of different restaurants. He was an absolute blast. News and
Bruises coming up Monday, September twenty second, less than two
weeks away. We're going to be a Bjay's Restaurant and
(05:50):
brew House on Eastland Center Drive there in West Covina.
And if you've never been out to a News and Bruce,
this is an absolute blast. And why not then your
weekend you can always take Monday off, well, if you
have to, you can take Monday morning off and then
go to the office after lunch, just say you got
a meeting or you have a tax i. Don't know
(06:11):
what you have to do, but again, News and Brus Monday,
September twenty second, bjays in West Covina.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now we're telling you about this attack.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Israel targeted senior members of hamasa's leadership today in the
Gulf nation of Kadhr Kater had been hosting negotiations to
try to end the war in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
An unidentified senior official from Hama said the attack happened
while the team was discussing the American proposal for a
ceasefire in Gaza, and Israeli official confirmed as much. Coter
was thought to be sort of neutral ground in this
in part because it's one of the Arab countries that
(06:53):
does maintain contact official main official diplomatic contact with the
Israeli government, and senior Israeli government officials have been to
caught her many times to try to talk to Katari
leaders about trying to secure the release of hostages, so
Israelis have been there before as well. Israeli officials, however,
(07:16):
have promised they will hunt down and kill Hamas leaders
wherever they may be because they want all of the
leaders involved in the planning of the attack of the
October seventh, twenty twenty three attacks. It's almost two years
ago now, and specifically, the Defense Minister targeted the chief
Amasa negotiator, guy named Khalil al Haya. He is believed
(07:40):
to have been in the building when it was attacked today,
But obviously it's going to be some time before we
can suss all of that out. Paul Adams was reporting
for the BBC this morning.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
We have got a list of around six or seven
people who it is, and we believe that all may
have been killed in this strike, and they include Kazi Hamad,
who is a very familiar figure who's appeared sometimes as
a kind of spokesman, has also been intimately involved in
the negotiations. If it is true that all of these
(08:15):
individuals were killed in this strike, then what Israel has
done effectively is to eliminate all of the senior Hamas
figures with whom it was negotiating indirectly through the offices
of the Qatari government, which obviously begs a question where
do negotiations go now? Given that Hamas continue to hold
(08:37):
Israeli hostages in Ghaza.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Brett McGirk is a former National Security Council coordinator and
picks up where that guy leaves off. Where do these
negotiations now go? Now, considering there are still hostages being
held by Hamas, I feel.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Like I understand Hamas.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
I know them because I've dealt with them in so
many ways and it needs to be dealing with doing
this so intimately. I know how they think and what
concerns me. What concerns me is I you're Hamas. How
do we react to this? As I just said, we
have very few options. One of the option is they
control the lives and fate of the hostages. I'm very
concerned about that, and you know, I am trying to
(09:14):
think of how this ends in a way. We see
the hostages coming home, and I hope negotiate two seas
fire deals with hostages coming out. It's a main priority.
There are twenty living hostages in these tunnels and gaza
in horrific conditions, and I really fear this makes it
much harder, much harder, if not impossible, to get them home.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And then finally to add a couple of spicy Jimmys
to the top of this mess of a donut. Next week,
is the UN General Assembly here in the United States.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
Next week we have the UN General Assembly meeting in
New York. At the moment, Mahmud Debaser Metze Kistama yesterday
is banned from going to the UN gen Assembly, along
with the Palestinian delegation. And yet at that meeting, various
countries are intending to recognize the state of Palestine, an
(10:12):
act that many politicians here in Israel and the United
States believe is incredibly inflammatory and misguided.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
All right, So to kind of buttress that for what's
going on specifically in Israel and Gaza, the military of
Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that are still
in Gaza City to evacuate. They say, basically, we're going
to expand the ground offensive against Tamas in the area.
They posted this notice online today said the order applies
(10:47):
to anyone currently in Gaza City, which is home to
about half of the people in all of the Gaza Strip,
and so those people remaining in the area would be
under extremely dangerous conditions if they stay. It's not getting
any better over there anytime soon. When we come back though,
(11:08):
in Chicago, the President is launching what they're calling Operation
Midway Blitz. And this is a continuation of the ongoing
immigration enforcement operations that this administration has taken on. Obviously,
the highest profile ones have been in California, partly because
(11:29):
of you know, geographic bias, we see it every day here,
but also this is going to be the second major
city that sees a full operation where there are troops
and law enforcement officials, et cetera stationed nearby then doing
(11:49):
these operations in different neighborhoods in and around Chicago and
throughout the state of Illinois. So we'll talk about that
and talk about what sort of an impact that's going
to have going forward on all of not just the administration,
but those people who want to fight the administration, the
politicians in Chicago JB. Pritzker, the governor, the mayor, Brandon Johnson,
et cetera. So all that's to come up. Quick update
(12:11):
on sports, by the way, Vikings led by JJ McCarthy,
an incredible young kid, beat the Bears on Monday Night
football twenty seven to twenty four. Last night baseball still
going on for those of you smart people. Angels lost
to the Twins twelve to three. Dodgers beat the Rockies,
thirty one three to one Dodgers who were within a
couple of outs of a no hitter and just blew
(12:32):
it in that ninth inning, but still came out with
the win three to one.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
They'll they'll play again tonight.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
iPhone seventeen is expected to be introduced today as one
of the big reveals, expected to be a thinner iPhone,
maybe called the iPhone Air. They're expected to announce iPhone
seventeen models, as well as some upgrades for the watch,
the iPad, the air pods, et cetera. Former Hurricane Kiko
now tropical Storm Kiko is just close to the Hawaiian island,
(13:09):
still churning up some riptides and some pretty heavy surf conditions.
The storm is expected to continue to weaken as it
passes north of the island chain today and tomorrow. Next hour,
we're going to talk a little bit more about the
fire that's burning through Sierra National Forest. It's Garnet fire.
It's about forty nine thousand acres, but they said it's
now burned through a part of a large grove of
(13:32):
our giant sequoias, setting at least a few of these
very rare trees on fire. Next hour. Stephanie Leidecker from
True Crime Tonight is going to be joining us and
sitting with us for the rest of the show. Shannon's
out this week, but she will be back next week.
The Department of Homeland Security is launching an immigration enforcement
(13:56):
operation in Chicago, part of the Trump administration's effort to
target the sanctuary cities.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They said.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Tom Holman is of course the borders are and he
talked about this and other cities that could potentially be targeted.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Do you want to see a ramp up operations New York.
You're wanna see a ramp uplub operations continue in LA
and you know Portland, Seattle. I mean all these sanctuary
cities that refuse the work with life, where we know
public safety threats are being released every day to this country,
especially those cities.
Speaker 9 (14:26):
We're going to address that now.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Obviously, this is especially since it's been there's been such
a long lead up to this, there's been so much
talk about it. There has been a pretty robust protest
against Tanya Woods from something called the West Side Justice Center.
She said she wants to fight against any sort of
federal introduction federal troops into Chicago with she's gonna fight,
(14:50):
but you're gonna fight with information.
Speaker 10 (14:51):
And so together we have collaborated to pull together a
training program, a community workshop, if you will, so that
we can inform and educate people about their resources, their rights,
and their risks.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Illinois State Representative Lashawn k Ford also is upset with
this possibility.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
Invasion of federal troops is the same invasion that we
would seeing to our enemies in other nations. This is
an attack on the American people.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Okay, So there's a conflation here.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It seems between what we saw in Los Angeles with
the National Guard coming in to protect immigration and customs
enforcement and other federal troops and what's going on in Chicago.
President Trump has threatened to put National Guard troops in Chicago,
but that's not what this is. This Operation Midway Blitz
(15:48):
is what they're calling. It is a more robust immigration
enforcement operation, at least without the National Guard. Yet, Illinois
Governor JB. Pritzker says, you can't just arrest people all
the time. Sometimes you need huggy kissy time.
Speaker 11 (16:03):
You can't police your way out of all the problems
and what you can do, however, is work with people
and try to understand them and then lift them up
out of the situation that they're in.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Okay, there is some crossover here, like I said, the
immigration enforcement operations and just to crack down on crime
like we've seen in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
That's what Trump has been talking about doing. In Chicago.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Got to point out DHS actually came up with this name,
this Operation Midway Blitz. They say it was in honor
of an Illinois woman. Twenty year old Catherine Abraham, died
in January after a hit and run accident involving a
guy who was here illegally from Guatemala. A spokesperson said,
if you come to our country illegally and you break
(16:48):
our laws, we will hunt you down, we will arrest you,
we will deport you, and you will never return. Of course, again,
the there's the two issues here, and there is some crossover,
but there are two distinct issues the Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
(17:08):
Department of Homeland Security immigration operation and the ramping up
of those operations, and then the National Guard whether or
not there are American boots on the ground in the
major city like there are currently in DC, and I
(17:29):
mean in terms of keeping them separate in our minds,
it probably doesn't mean much in terms of trying to
determine whether this is a good idea bad idea. Plenty
of people are going to have their opinions on whether
it's a good idea or bad idea. Illinois police specifically
in terms of Catherine Abraham again, the twenty year old
woman that this operation has been I guess dedicated to
(17:51):
by Deportment Department of Homeland Security. The man charged in
the death of Catherine and her friend did try to
leave the country on a boss headed for Mexico before
the Marshall Service was able to pick him up, and
Catherine's dad, Joe, said the DHS reached out to him
over the weekend to inform him of the ICE operations
(18:12):
that would be taking place in Chicago, and he said, well,
I'm glad to hear someone recognizes and acknowledges Katie because
she is someone that should be recognized, should be honored.
And he said, if it's an operation where they're looking
after undocumented criminals, I'm not sure there's any controversy around that.
If another parent doesn't have to go through what I'm
going through. I am all for it.
Speaker 12 (18:33):
Hey, good morning, Gary. You said you're going to touch
on it later. Can you understand why the governor of
Illinois and the mayor of Chicago would be so anti
having people not getting killed every weekend by the almost
a dozens all the time. I don't understand the mentality
where they're not wanting help to keep their citizens safe
(18:56):
and alive. I don't understand it. Can you kind of
help a little bit?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, it's because they don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
They're not going to see it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
They're not going to see it as a way to
bolster local law enforcement. They're going to see it as
a federal takeover of their cities and their communities. And
that's the way they that's the way they talk about it.
Governor Pritzker again, I mean to just play this thing
again he's talking about he's again in a place like Chicago,
(19:28):
in any big city in America, there has to be
an attitude of, yes, you want to have a carrot
to draw people out of a life of crime, but
there has to be a stick to punish people when
they choose a life of crime. And he's talking about
less sticks and more carrots there he go.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Let me play that for it right there, right there.
Speaker 11 (19:50):
You can't police your way out of all the problems.
And what you can do, however, is work with people
and try to understand them and then lift them up
out of the the situation that they're in.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
That doesn't sound like it's been working.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's the other part about this, Governor Pritzker, Mayor Muriel
Brt Bowser. Out of DC, the status quo hasn't been working.
Is this federal overreach? I don't know. That's for the
courts to determine. Has it been working. According to the
statistics out of DC, it has been working. Now again,
(20:24):
this what we're talking about, This Operation Midway Blitz, is
not National Guard and federal troops on the ground doing
crime suppression, at least not yet. This is just an
upping of the immigration customs enforcement operations that we have
been seeing. All Right, I got great news and I
got awful news. The great news is sorry, there is
(20:46):
no great news. It's awful news. The test scores for
our kids continue to suck.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Suck. That's probably the safest way to put it.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I mentioned Shannon's out.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
She's gonna be out all week taking care of mom,
but she will be back next week. So at the
top of the hour, we're going to be joined by
Stephanie Leidecker, one of the hosts of True Crime Tonight,
Great podcast. We talked to her a couple of weeks
ago for our True Crime Tuesday, and one of the
highlights of the show today, I can already tell is
going to be the discussion of this new Netflix documentary
(21:27):
that came out so short, it's bite sized, an hour
and a half, but it will blow your mind. And
if you're a parent of teenagers, if you're a parent
of younger kids and you have had issues with the phones,
this is something I think everybody, I think everybody should
be watching.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So we'll talk about that a little bit later.
Speaker 13 (21:47):
Hey, Gary and Shannon, if you are going to address
Karen Bass's endorsement of Tony via Rugosa, I would just
have to say, I don't think i'd want that endorsement.
I don't think that's going to do him any good,
and it may do his opponents a lot of good. Yeah, Anyways,
like to listen to your show, have a great day, guy.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, the word came down that La Mayor Karen Bass
is going to endorse former mayor, former Assembly speaker, former
gubernatorial candidate Antonio Viragosa in the race for governor coming
up next year, and we've said, well, I've expressed my
opinion about this, which is that Mayor Bass lost an
(22:32):
absolute boatload of credibility after the fires in January and
did not look good. Was on her heels or flats
whatever she wears, I don't know quite a bit or
in the weeks and the months after that. Then when
President Trump ordered National Guard troops into Los Angeles, she
became She kind of got some of her stance back
(22:55):
by acting as opposition, and I think in terms of
her political point scoring, she did pretty well with that.
But Antonio Viragosa, that to me is a strange endorsement.
Antonio Viragosa hasn't done anything for ten years. And I
don't mean that in business terms. I just mean that
he's been out of the limelight for a very long time. Yeah,
(23:17):
we interviewed him last week, but it wasn't a great interview.
He didn't do a great job and didn't seem to
have a good grasp on any sort of idea of
who he was talking to when it comes to, you know,
making himself a viable candidate for people to otherwise otherwise
wouldn't vote for him.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
He didn't do anything to reach across the aisle.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So anyway, that's that is supposedly going to happen today,
Mayor Bass endorsing Antonio Viragosa. New test scores came out
basically from what we refer to as our nation's report
card when it comes to school scores student scores National
Assessment of Educational Progress. It shows that eighth grader science
(23:58):
scores have fallen full points since twenty nineteen. Twelfth grader's
math and reading scores have fallen three points in that
same period. Now, falling test scores are nothing new. That's
not a giant surprise. What is a surprise is that
they're not more than that. In my opinion, this is
(24:24):
the first real test that we've seen of those kids
who were in elementary and junior high school during COVID,
and we know that the younger the kids were, the
more they were going to suffer when we kept them
out of school for so long. My daughter was a
senior in high school in twenty twenty, So she lost
(24:44):
you know, the second half of her senior year, which
meant she lost all of the fun, She lost all
of the classes, she lost all of prom, she lost
all of graduation. I mean all of those things were
taken away from her and hundreds of thousands of kids
across the country. But it was the younger kids that
were going to suffer the most. Reading scores dipped for
(25:05):
twelve graders, like I said, accept among the highest achieving
students since twenty nineteen. That was the last time they
administered the test, the first twelfth grade reading assessment back
in nineteen ninety two. When you compare those, today's average
score ten points lower. So, like I said, it's not
that declining test scores are not the new part.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
It's that they didn't go down as much as I
had expected them to.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Scores for the lowest performing stuarts students are at historic lows,
continued declines that began more than a decade ago, probably
accelerated by what we did in COVID in terms of
shutting down so many schools. The acting director of the
IEES that puts out this, puts out the tests, the
(25:52):
sorry puts out the test scores, says, my predecessor warned
of the trend.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Her predecessor warned of the trend.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And now I am one warning you of this trend.
And listen, I will say, in conjunction with what we're
talking about with unknown number, with this influence, that that
that phones are having phones and you know, this media
at a moment's notice, it is hurting our kids.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
There are.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Proven studies that show it is hurting our kids. And
one of the things that we can do as responsible parents,
hopefully is start to put some limits on this sort
of thing. Drive kids back into doing things like, you know,
playing outside, which may not seem like it translates to
much of a you know, an ability to get back
(26:41):
into reading and things like that. But an exhausted it's
like a listen, I'm gonna compare. I'm gonna compare our
children to dogs. An exhausted dog is a happy dog, right,
a very well behaved dog in many cases. And the
more tired your kids get because they're outside playing, or
they're participating in sports, or they're hanging out with friends
(27:03):
and not on their phones, they're a lot better off
physiologically and mentally. So anyway, my two cents, all right,
coming back, We're going to welcome into the show Stephanie
Leidecker from True Crime Tonight, and we're gonna get started
with a bunch of different stories that are going on
around the world, and late in the show, we're going
to talk more about Unknown Number, that new Netflix documentary.
(27:24):
Kary and Shannon will continue right after this. You've been
listening to The Gary and Shannon Show, you can always
hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am
to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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