Coming up, security even for our local politicians in the spotlight after an assassination attempt makes global news.

The CPD dispatches 30 officers to the Republican National Convention.

And a missouri senator gets a primetime speaking spot.

Now, could he be leaving his day job to join a possible Trump cabinet?

The New York Times seems to think so.

Plus, more worries over our ability to host the World Cup after chaos at the Copa America final.

Kansas City responds by picking a new leader.

And that crept up on us quickly.

The first votes in the Kansas and Missouri election primaries will be cast this weekend as advance voting gets underway.

We look at what's at stake and the most interesting races on your ballot.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of AARP, Kansas City, RSM Dave and Jamie Cummings, Bob and Marley's Gourley that Courtney has.

Turner Charitable Trust.

Johnny Mize and Bank of America.

N.A.

Co Trustees.

The restaurant at 1900.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nick Haines, and it is glad to have you with us on our weekly journey through the most impactful, curious and downright head scratching local news stories on the weekend review bus This week.

From the anchor desk at NBC Nightly News, Chris Katz tracking the region's top political stories for Casey while news.

Brian Allison from our own newsroom here at Kansas City, PBS's Mary Sanchez.

And political analyst and former Stone newsman Dave Helling.

While we jealously guard the time we have on this program to tackle local news stories, an attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump pretty much consumed the attention of the entire news media this week, not just of the national press, but our local stations.

To tonight's incident at former President Trump's rally might have taken place over 800 miles away, but it's still affecting people right here in the heartland.

Violence is only going to be getting more violence.

It's going to disgusting, really.

To be honest, I'm nervous about it.

And I just want to hide my head under a rock.

The deadly Trump rally shooting prompted beefed up security all week long at the Republican National Convention.

Did you know 30 Kansas City, Missouri police officers were dispatched to Milwaukee to help with security, as well as a large contingent of Missouri Highway Patrol troopers?

That's an awfully big commitment, Brian, when we're told the CP is short of officers.

It is, although it's not been uncommon for local law enforcement from various locations around the country to go support these special national security events.

I do think, though, that the the events that unfolded last weekend are are obviously a national issue.

Every municipality, every local political race is affected when something of such a major scale happens.

And it's not surprising that that local folks are having strong reactions to what they has to go before the shooting.

Mary All because of that, they were probably already did have some that were going to go.

They might have ramped up the numbers a little bit because of what the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

But it's not unusual at all.

I mean, a lot of our law enforcement here, particularly CP and Missouri State Highway Patrol, they're used to working with the federal partners, and that will happen there in that situation as well.

And these are these are law enforcement members who are essentially handling perimeter duties outside the convention venue.

And for anybody who thinks that isn't significant or isn't important, we saw in Milwaukee this past week some Columbus, Ohio, police officers were put into a position where they had to shoot and kill someone who was threatening them in a park not far from the convention site.

So this is important work that they're doing.

Well, the shooting that almost cost Donald Trump his life is a reminder of how vulnerable our political leaders are, including locally, even when there is extensive security operations in place.

The shooting at the chief's rally, some say, could have taken out the Missouri governor was just a short distance away.

And do you remember what happened to Kansas City?

Mayors like James delivering his State of the City address in 2013, over $8.5 billion in investment.

This man had just got to talking about exactly what he is doing.

Well, that was unfortunate.

Even with an impressive security detail, it still took armed officers more than a few seconds to intervene.

Dave, somebody with malicious intent, it could have been fatal, no question.

Particularly, I must say, the sly James incident aside, you know, open air events tend to be more accessible to people and therefore at least arguably more dangerous.

The incident with former President Trump involved an open air rally at a place with buildings and places for would be assassins to hide.

That's not always the case inside like like the.

But clearly it happened.

But clearly it happens even inside.

And after every event like this or that security tightens, it gets harder for people to get in and get out, harder for the press to do its job.

And then over time, it relaxes again and again and again.

And I think that might be the pattern.

Any evidence that local candidates, local elected leaders are shifting their security policies this week?

I haven't seen that evidence yet.

I have to think there are probably a lot of conversations happening behind the scenes and there'd be no way or reason for us to know about those.

But but I think this does reflect something about the American political system.

Nick, There is this tension between wanting to appear accessible, wanting to appear to be a person of the people and and all the way back to to President Kennedy's assassination, where he is was obviously very visible and very vulnerable.

It's a there's always this tension.

Think of the presidents who get out of the limousine on their inauguration day and walk down the street in the parade past hundreds, thousands of people and buildings very vulnerable.

But we keep doing that because we have placed this emphasis on on believing that you have to be connected to the people if you're in leadership.

And, you know, obviously, we should take all the security steps we can, But I think that's not really going to change fundamentally.

The Republican National Convention was one of the big news stories of the week, of course, as well.

While the focus was primarily on Donald Trump and his new vice presidential pick, J.D.

Vance, there was a surprising amount of attention on one of our own local leaders.

I'm Eric Schmidt from the great state of Missouri.

The show me say Missouri.

US Senator Eric Schmidt not only got a major speaking spot, The New York Times now talking about him joining a possible Trump administration as attorney general.

Are these the words of reporters desperate to find something to write about come November?

Or could Missouri voters be looking for a new US senator?

Dave.

A couple of things have to happen first.

Donald Trump has to win for Eric Schmidt to have this opportunity.

And then importantly, Nick, whoever the Republican nominee for governor is in Missouri would have to win because otherwise, if Crystal Quade or Mike Hamre prevails, as the Democrat, he or she would appoint the replacement for Schmidt, it would be a Democrat.

That would change the balance of power in the Senate.

So a couple of things have to happen.

But but Eric Schmidt has experience as the Missouri attorney general and Missouri has said it's favorite sons to do that job before John Ashcroft after losing in 2000 to Mel Slash Jean Carnahan.

So it's not out of the realm of possibilities, a possibility.

But my guess is we'll talk about it on the show maybe in October or November.

But again, if the stars align just right, then there is the question of who replaces Eric Schmidt in Missouri.

And that could be a very long list involving perhaps people who didn't win in the gubernatorial primary.

On the Republican side in Missouri, you're going to look at existing members of Congress in Missouri.

They're going to be an awful lot of names to consider there if, in fact, all of that Eric Greitens perhaps, and could, if a Democrat, were to win the governor's office, what about Quinton Lucas?

Could that be a spot for him, Mary?

Everyone has always said that Quentin is looking towards D.C. and you never know.

I mean, I could see that occurring.

I don't know that he would leave, though, before the World Cup, before all of these things that are going to bring a lot of prominence to him.

You also we talked off the show about the Eric Schmidt being potentially a pick to be the U.S. attorney general under a Trump cabinet.

You mentioned why Chris Colbert wouldn't be a choice in Kansas.

Well, that was my first response when we spoke yesterday about this was, what about Kris Kobach?

I don't think he has said anything about this.

I don't know.

Perhaps he feels a little slighted or passed over because he has been very close to the former Trump administration.

And but in this first term, Trump didn't pick him for anything.

No, he did not.

Even though he was there and had a lot of influence on some immigration issues, did pick Kobach for the Voter Integrity Project early on, which of course, sort of collapsed over time.

And again, if Kris Kobach were to leave Kansas, Laura Kelly, a Democrat, would appoint the replacement as attorney general in the state of Kansas, and that would be a Democrat.

And so there might be some resistance to I think the conversation might be a touch premature.

I think one of the things that happens if you if you'll allow me, I mean, I do think one of the things that happens at this stage of the campaign is that they are purposely floating names out to the public to just get a general sense of what the response will be.

And we'll hear a lot more names.

I don't think Eric Schmidt is out of the question, but I also think it's way too soon to start speculating.

While the tragedy at the Trump rally dominated news coverage around the world, mayhem at the Copa America soccer final in Miami put the spotlight on whether America and by extension, Kansas City, was ready to host the World Cup in.

What you're seeing is thousands of fans without tickets, breaking down barriers and rushing into Hancock's Stadium in Miami, totally ignoring security.

Remember, this tournament was supposed to be a trial run for how well we could pull off the World Cup.

Even my Quinton Lucas this week saying Kansas City will be reviewing its security plans similar to what unfolded, but reviewing them with who you may remember the hand of Kansas City's World Cup effort resigned last month.

But hold the front page, you might say, just in the nick of time.

I knew Kansas City World Cup director has been hired.

Her name is Pam Kramer, a former executive at Sprint who had a leadership role with the KC current women's soccer team.

Firstly, are we any the wiser today?

Why the former director abruptly quit.

You have to think that this choice of Pam Kramer is whatever mistakes or whatever went in to the last executive director, you have to think that that probably her role is probably better defined this time than before, that whatever mistakes were made the last time involving Katherine Holness to me and call them mistakes, what happened before is probably not going to happen again.

I would think I would.

Seeing one little line in a Kansas City Star story about this basically said we needed to pick up the pace and that's what really was behind this move, Mary, that perhaps maybe because we do need to pick up the pace, There's you know, it's like anyone who has ever planned a big event in a wedding or reception, whatever, something always goes wrong and you never have enough time.

So pre-planning, pre planning, pre-planning has got to start.

Pam Cramer was already there, though.

She had been with the organization since March.

She'd been the CEO.

So she's got a wide range of experience with Sprint, with the Chiefs, with Casey Kerr, with the Sports Commission.

So I think she brings that to the table and they know her.

So I have a feeling that there was a lot of shuffling happening, some pushing out of Katherine to make room for this move.

I have to say the British newspaper The Guardian, looked a lot of horror at what happened in Miami this week.

But actually, Kansas City got one of the most scathing review was from of any city.

This is from, again, the London based Guardian newspaper.

FIFA must take into account hot temperatures.

Perhaps nowhere was that more pronounced than in Kansas City, where an assistant referee collapsed on the pitch due to the heat.

Kansas City also displayed far more basic infrastructure issues, says The Guardian.

And they a complete lack of public transportation led to gridlock getting into the Truman sports complex.

I don't think any city got a worse review from the British press than we do.

Well, first of all, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

Okay.

Assistant referee at the World Cup.

I would hope you would know that.

But but I mean, more physical bicycle.

Bicycle.

If would if we hadn't driven there, wouldn't that be.

Look, that's a fair point.

And I mean but of course if you've been to a Chiefs game, let alone a major event at Arrowhead, you gridlock is part of part of the story.

And frankly, it's going to be part of the story at any stadium in any country.

I have to say that there's obviously a lot of work to do, and I think that's really the challenge before Pam Cramer or whoever is in that job is to figure out how to manage these hundreds of logistical considerations, become a transportation czar, became a security czar.

But but there's going to be those problems in any city in two things, too.

I think you're going to see the Kansas City World Cup effort do a little bit better job of telling their story, which they really haven't done a very good job of up to now.

And so when a Sam McDowell piece shows up on The Star about Kathryn Holland, it fills that information void.

So I think that that is going to change, number one.

And number two, in terms of security, what happened in Miami last Sunday, it probably should be noted that the governing bodies involved here, a Copa America and a FIFA World Cup, if it's a FIFA World Cup match, you're probably looking at two, maybe three additional layers of security outside that venue, which you didn't see in Miami last Sunday night.

Now, what happened in Sunday night got everybody's attention.

All of the FIFA host city representatives were meeting in Tampa this past week.

Kathy Nelson was there.

It was a major topic of discussion.

I think it's pretty clear that 30 Milwaukee police officers will come to Kansas City in 2026 to help with the security around here.

I had at least that ask.

We'll go forward a second.

I think people are expecting Pam Cramer somehow to invent light rail to the Truman Sports Complex in the next 18 months.

That isn't going to happen.

The public transit to the games will have to be based on busses, busses borrowed from the surrounding states, and that effort should be underway now and will continue going forward.

There is going to be a problem getting people into and out of the stadium.

That's just a reality.

The goal now should be to minimize that as much as possible, to make the experience as pleasant as possible.

Well, this crept up on us quickly.

The first votes in the Kansas and Missouri election primaries will be cast this week.

Early In-person voting begins in Kansas on Saturday.

That's more than two weeks before the August 6th election.

In-person advance voting begins in Missouri on Tuesday.

While everyone seems to be fixated on the race for president, there are some pretty important races underway where we live.

From finding a new governor to replace Mike Parson in Missouri, two a new Jackson County prosecutor to fill the shoes of Jean Peters Baker in Kansas, the Johnson County sheriff and the Johnson County D.A.

are being challenged, and many Wyandotte County residents will be voting for a new member of Congress after Jake Layton announced he's not running for reelection.

Now, some people, of course, are bored of local politics.

What's the race that's going to have the most impact on our lives?

Brian?

I think if you live in Jackson County, I think you could strongly make the case that Jackson County prosecutor is is the most important race.

It's going whoever is in that role is going to set the tone for what crimes are prosecuted, how aggressively they're prosecuted.

And in one area that seems to provide a difference between the candidates, whether police will be held accountable for their actions as they relate to two innocent members of the court.

And I'm really pleased you say that because we're bringing all three candidates on this program next week, we'll be dissecting all of this issues of Crime and punishment on this program next week.

Chris, what did you put down?

I think the Johnson County sheriff's race is the one that that probably interests me the most out of all of these races.

And and Calvin Hayden's past when it comes to trying to investigate questions about election security, not just that story by now and which is apparently he's hit the pause on all of that and nothing has come out of that.

The work that has been done, whatever work has been done on that particular case, I think that for me, that's going to be a really fascinating Mary to watch.

I agree with Brian.

I mean, I would go with the Jackson County prosecutor's race.

We did just post a very large piece that I wrote on that going with bios of all the candidates.

You know, where Kansas City is right now is we are just beginning our second iteration of the focus, deterrence of the project to try and really come together around our crime issues.

Whoever is the next prosecutor is going to play a huge role in that and their ability to mend a lot of the fences with Casey.

PD There are so much on the table right now.

Again, with they will be on the show next week watching Missouri seven, the state Senate district race between Pat Contreras and Patty Lewis.

That's an open seat.

The Democratic primary will probably determine the eventual victor because it's a pretty Democratic district.

It's state line into the sixth Council district with a little bit of downtown and the in essence, the seventh district representative is considered or state senator is considered.

The senator for the Kansas City area.

Jefferson City will be essential to Kansas City next year.

The stadium subsidy question will arguably come up.

What does or doesn't happen with Eric Duval?

Kinnear will become an issue and how Kansas City responds to whatever happens one way or another, control of the police department is always an issue.

I think people and and by the way, turnout is very good in the seventh District and that races has two high quality candidates.

I'm watching to see who the Democrats nominate in the Senate.

I'm none of you mentioned the Missouri governor's race, which, by the way, we are partnering with our friends on the PBS station in Saint Louis on the Missouri governor's debate.

You can watch that live next Wednesday night at seven here on Kansas City PBS.

We have the Republican primary and the Democratic primary.

But I have noticed Mikio hasn't been joining any of these.

He's been a no show at the debates so far.

He has.

And that's a strategic decision he seems to be making.

He we did to get the latest fundraising numbers in the Missouri governor's race this week and found that Mike Kehoe is far and away in the lead in the money race.

We'll see if that turns into votes.

I mean, to the point that Dave was making about the Senate seventh District in Missouri, what he said is true of almost every race we are following right now.

The winner in the primary is likely to be the eventual winner in the general election because districts in Missouri.

So we can't just say, oh, well, I won't worry about it right now because I can just vote in November and you could argue, on the contrary, that the August primary is more consequential in most of Missouri and Kansas, certainly in races for statewide office in Missouri and in most districts as well.

If you don't vote in August, you may not want to bother voting in November.

Well, what about issue elections in Missouri?

Kansas City police funding is back on the August ballot.

I see child care is also on the statewide ballot.

What is that sole to give free childcare to anyone who needs it or something else?

It is something else.

Okay.

It is an effort to provide tax breaks, property tax breaks to child care providers, an effort that will, let's be clear, cost local government some money.

The state auditor tried to examine just how much didn't get very far.

But local jurisdictions will lose revenue if these schools, cities, libraries.

That's correct.

On the other hand, the beneficiaries will be the day care providers and therefore indirectly, one assumes, parents of kids and the fact is that daycare is enormously expensive, it's labor intensive, and anything that can give parents a break on providing care for their kids is probably a good thing.

I again, I'm working with the Star on our endorsements.

I think we're going to suggest a yes vote on that amendment.

There's there's also a shortage of child care in Missouri, which is a workforce development issue that has been important to Republicans and Democrats.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's the workforce.

I mean, it's harder to calculate perhaps, but the cost to communities of keeping people out of the workforce, even, you know, at so many different levels, when someone feels like they cannot be as productive as they want to be outside of the home because they cannot afford or access, good childcare is tremendous.

And that is a statewide ballot measure in Missouri.

Coming up August six, by the way, we have partnered with Casey Walton and other nonprofit media to bring you an in-depth voter guide on all of these races on your ballot.

If you're confused, check out Casey Voter Guide DOT on G. In other, perhaps more frothy news this week, Andy Reid made his movie debut this week as filming shifted to Arrowhead Stadium on that new Hallmark's themed holiday channel movie, a Hallmark Channel movie.

Even though it was almost 100 degrees, the acting extras were wearing winter coats, hats and scarves.

How are your acting chops?

I'm not real good at that, but only had about seven words.

I can handle that.

I can handle seven words or two lines.

No, I can't.

I'm under contract.

All of you read and the team is now headed north to Saint Joseph as the Chiefs training camp starts this weekend.

But the Chiefs contract ends at the end of the season and there are worries that all this new stadium toll could mean the Chiefs will be training elsewhere.

We're fixated, of course, on where a stadium may be located, but is the team's headquarters, the team's practice facilities and the team training camp location all up for grabs at the right price.

A lot, a lot of NFL teams do their training camp activities where their stadiums are or their practice facilities are.

So if the chiefs were to move that to the sports complex, that wouldn't be unusual.

My guess is if Andy Reid really wanted out of Saint Joseph, that probably would have happened by now.

Okay.

But they played in Wisconsin before this, didn't they?

Did, Yes.

Yes.

I had liberty.

They used to go up to William back in the day.

Back in the day.

Just in another development this week, though, Dave, I did see that now Jackson County, it seems to have now the whole effort to put something on the November ballot for the stadium tax.

Just even the Chiefs one seems to have collapsed.

Nothing is happening and pretty confident.

You don't want to spend 10 minutes on the stadiums here.

But yeah, but the reality is yes, that that effort to put something on the November ballot seems very iffy at this point.

The big work will begin in 2025.

And Nick, you're exactly right.

Saint Joe is on the table.

The administrative offices are on the table, the local practice facility.

All of that is up for bid, including the stadium itself, it appears, and next year will be the critical year in that decision making.

When you put a program like this together every week, you can't get to every story grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story we missed Nearly 18 months after the opening of the new Look KC Airport, the city finally getting around this week to demolishing the old terminals.

If you thought the cost of housing is getting out of reach, that might be because we're not building enough homes.

A new Mid-America Regional Council study finds we're lagging behind other cities and a 24,000 housing unit short.

A scarcity of labor is part of the issue.

But home builders claim new environmental rules passed in Kansas City are making it prohibitively costly to build for oil suitable for the all star game in Texas.

And Bobby with Junior almost wins the home run Derby.

Redbox shuts down its video kiosks across the Metro as the company files for bankruptcy.

And is this really news?

Another Mahomes baby on the way.

Merry Sanchez.

Did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

There's been a group called the Beloved Community, and it's religious leaders, Interfaith religious leaders.

And they're gathering in L.A. right now.

And what they're doing is they're calling for just kind of to tone down the tenor of our politics.

Being Christian requires us to love each other and to work for the common good.

They're just they're trying to get out a good message, I think.

And they have not received a lot of attention.

Brian, I talked about baseball last week, so I can't talk about it two weeks in a row.

But I will I will actually go to the airport, which you mentioned.

The the demolition of the airport obviously is not big news in the moment, but it does mark sort of this this moment of transition and as a reminder of the progress that the city is making, the movement towards the World Cup and the other big events happening, I think for a lot of folks, there's a lot of nostalgia associated with that airport and it will be a it will be a landmark for a lot of people.

You won't be trying to scramble for that to get a little bit concrete chunk to put on your mantelpiece.

Most of my memories are not that positive.

This well, first of all, none of the big stories were missed on this program.

Let's put about that.

But first things first.

I think the I think for royals in the in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is significant.

I think even more significant is the fact that the Royals are in a pennant race kind of I mean, there are only a couple of games out of wild card status when was the last time we heard about a Kansas City baseball team being this successful this late in the season?

It's been a while in Kansas City and in other metropolitan areas across the country, there is a growing push to require air conditioning and multifamily buildings.

The argument is, hey, you have to provide heat.

Why don't you have to provide cooling?

That didn't make any sense maybe 20, 25 years ago.

But in a time of climate change and global warming, particularly in urban areas, requiring some sort of air conditioning may become standard here and in other cities in the air and all that, we will say.

Our week has been reviewed courtesy of Mary Sanchez from the Kansas City PBS newsroom Flatland and from the anchor desk at Channel nine, Chris Katz from Camp Casey.

You want to use Brian Ellison and former star news man Dave Helling and I'm Nick Haynes from all of us here at Kansas City, PBS.

Be well, keep calm and carry on.