Ray Long

Retired Chicago Tribune reporter, 45 years govt/pols/scoops: 2x Pulitzer Finalist, 7 govs, City Hall, Obama, Burke, book on Madigan

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Feds recorded calls of ex-lobbyist Mike McClain, close confidant of House Speaker Michael Madigan: sources - Chicago Tribune

https://t.co/VIODaiVeVe w ⁦@jmetr22b⁩ Send tips: 312-222-3448 or [email protected]

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announces another run for Chicago mayor https://t.co/xfbgv4J7Dw

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Illinois OKs immigration detention limits and e-bike rules while prescriptions board and police bill stall @jeremygorner https://t.co/KW20g2SXBL

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Mr. Pelley, in a statement on Wednesday, disputed Ms. Weiss’s account of their interaction. “There was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’” he said.

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Today’s ‘If it ain’t broke, break it’ saga….

Bari Weiss Speaks on Scott Pelley’s Firing: ‘That’s the Path That He Chose’ https://t.co/c9t0IUP8hV via @NYTimes

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Here’s a fact check of some of President Trump’s claims, including a bunch of long-debunked lies, from a single softball New York Post interview released this morning.

Claim: “We're the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots.” Truth: Dozens of countries have mail-in ballots, including Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Switzerland.

Claim: The 2020 election was “rigged” and has “been proven to be rigged.” Truth: Not rigged, there’s no proof for Trump’s assertion more than five years later, and he lost fair and square.

Claim: Trump won “three” presidential elections. Truth: He won in 2016 and 2024, lost in 2020.

Claim: In the 2024 election, “There were areas that were just rigged…rigged against me.” Truth: Nonsense again; he won that election fair and square but lost some areas of the country fair and square.

Claim: Democrats “could not win” “if they didn’t cheat.” Truth: Democrats, like Republicans, clearly win various elections legitimately.

Claim: California mails out “38 million ballots," and while "some people get three, four, five ballots," "Republicans get, oftentimes, none.” Truth: California mails a ballot to all active registered voters, of which there are 23 million, not the “38 million” figure Trump has used repeatedly; while there are occasional errors by county elections offices and the postal service, there's no general anti-Republican bias in ballot-mailing in the state.

Claim: “I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country…Biden had like 9, 10% inflation. And I inherited that, and we have it way down.” Truth: The inflation rate the month Trump returned to office was 3.0%, lower than the most recent rate of 3.8%; Biden-era inflation did peak at 9.1%, but that was in mid-2022, and it wasn’t close to the all-time record of 23.7%. Regardless, it had fallen substantially before Trump’s inauguration.

Claim: “We have $18 trillion being invested in the country in just 11 months.” Truth: This is a completely fictional figure. The White House’s own website says there have been $10.6 trillion in “major investment announcements” this term, and even that’s a massive exaggeration that counts vague pledges, not-even-pledges, and pledges that are about mutual trade rather than investments in the US.

Claim: Trump had gas prices at “$1.85 in Iowa” on the day he visited there in January. Truth: The Iowa average gas price that day was $2.57 per gallon, per AAA; GasBuddy found four stations in the state out of 2,036 selling for $1.97 that day, none at $1.85; the station outside the venue where he spoke was at $2.69. (Ethanol-gas blend E85 was around $1.85, but that can only be used in a small percentage of cars, and he didn’t say that was what he was talking about.)

Claim: Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was still wearing a mask “a couple of months ago.” Truth: I've found no evidence for this; the Talarico video many Republicans have mocked shows Talarico wearing a mask in 2022, not 2026.

Claim: Mitch McConnell was “losing by a lot” in the 2020 Senate election in Kentucky but then Trump endorsed him and got him elected. Truth: McConnell, running in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, led in all but one public poll in that race, and that one exception was a poll conducted for a pro-term-limits group in which he trailed by just one point; he was always the overwhelming favorite.

Claim: The Jan. 6 attack was “nonsense” in which “the FBI said, ‘Go in. Go in.’” Truth: That was a riot perpetrated by Trump supporters, and there's no evidence the FBI ever told rioters to illegally enter the Capitol. DOJ’s inspector general found the FBI had zero undercover agents at the riot…and Trump was president at the time and had personally appointed the FBI director.

Claim: Former VP Harris “was the border czar” but “never went.” Truth: She went to the border twice as VP, and the Biden administration repeatedly emphasized she was never “border czar” but had a narrower assignment focused on the “root causes” of migration from Central America.

Claim: Under Biden, “25 million people” poured over the border. Truth: This is a further exaggeration from the wildly exaggerated “21 million” figure Trump used to use; even counting “gotaways,” it’s not even close to correct.

Claim: Democrats are so dumb that “we had 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder, allowed into our country.” Truth: The federal data it appears Trump is referring to is about people who entered the US over the course of multiple decades, *including during Trump’s own first administration.*

Claim: Under Biden, countries emptied their jail populations into the US – “the whole jail was emptied into our country.” Trump and his team have never substantiated this claim even though he’s made it for years, and experts on global prison policy and on the countries he has previously identified as the supposed culprits have told me they’ve seen no evidence for it.

More details: https://t.co/NtFk7PUfwN

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Senate drops ballroom billion https://t.co/U7xBnS2xr5

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Will CBS adopt motto: If it ain’t broke, break it? Scott Pelley fired from ’60 Minutes,’ deepening turmoil at CBS News https://t.co/gROsywouKq

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Trump’s Education Department is backing away from addressing civil rights for Black students https://t.co/P6xWcS1hGg

[Jeff Zeleny @jeffzeleny]

Trump's winning endorsement streak ends in Iowa, with Randy Feenstra conceding in race for governor to Zach Lahn. “The outcome wasn’t what I wanted,” Feenstra told supporters in his hometown, “but for me and I think everyone in this room, God has some awesome plans.”

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Eric Holder on SCOTUS’ Alabama redistricting decision https://t.co/kbGUGgcMBS

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

NEW: Backstory on the drama at CBS News tonight...

Bari Weiss, Nick Bilton, Tom Cibrowski, and CBS HR invited Scott Pelley to a meeting at 5pm ET tonight to discuss a path forward after his vocal protest earlier this week in the 60 Minutes all-hands.

The two sides did not find common ground. Bari & Co. were left with sense that Scott was not open minded about reaching detente; meanwhile, Scott maintained strong frustrations with leadership.

Scott left meeting and was told they'd have an update on his employment in a matter of minutes... instead, Bari and her team deliberated for several hours.

At around 9:30 p.m., Nick Bilton, the new 60 Minutes E.P., sent this letter to Scott (see tweet below) in which he tells him he has been terminated "for cause." He also sent a memo to staff (see tweet below that).

The language in Nick's memo suggests a legal fight coming. No response yet from Pelley.

[Justin Laurence @jus10chi]

Illinois taxpayers (city/state) pay $10M annually to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority that the mayor proposed would provide $900M for a Bears stadium.

Chicago taxpayers also on the hook when ISFA’s 2% hotel tax doesn’t cover its debt payments, which happens frequently.

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Former Biden official Deb Haaland wins New Mexico primary for governor
Haaland could make history as the first female Native American governor if she’s elected. https://t.co/izyM0ATar2

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Josh Turek wins Democratic Senate nomination. See live Iowa primary results.
The primaries for governor, Senate and House will determine which Democrats and Republicans face off in the November election. https://t.co/8XqgZhyjgt

[Ray Long @RayLong]

This is the latest chapter of “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Scott Pelley fired from ‘60 Minutes’ after confrontation with new boss https://t.co/b0ivHrWx7i

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Scott Pelley fired from ‘60 Minutes’ after confrontation with new boss https://t.co/b0ivHrWx7i

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Supreme Court Clears the Way for Republican-Friendly Map in Alabama https://t.co/rrswbu7rqv via @NYTimes

[Ray Long @RayLong]

Jim Nowlan: Congressional gerrymander is a circular firing squad https://t.co/cRyqNhp3ik

[Ray Long @RayLong]

POPE LEO’S NEW ENCYCLICAL OFFERS HOPE, CALL TO SHARED MORAL DISCERNMENT, SAY EXPERTS https://t.co/5UVhckQPro