‘Are there sharks?’ Schakowsky aide tries to win votes in tropical ‘Survivor’ premiere

As U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s communications director, Alex Moore can take the heat, but finding allies and fending off foes in the torrid Fiji weather demanded a whole new skill set.

The Evanston native appears on the 49th season of CBS’ “Survivor” Wednesday, one of 18 castaways battling to win $1 million.

Asked how bona fide the competition was, Moore said “it is 100% real.”

“The blood, sweat and tears you see on the screen are real,” he added.

As for the surroundings, “being out there in Fiji is way different from the beach in Evanston. You have stuff falling all over you, you hear noises and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what could be out there.’”

In a swimming segment, “you’re looking around and you’re — ‘are there sharks over here?’ On top of that, there’s these weird animals and insects flying around. You wake up with bites on you … and don’t even know where that came from.”

A medical crew is available for emergencies but that didn’t help with sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures, Moore said. Longtime host Jeff Probst called it one of the hottest seasons in 25 years, he noted.

The 27-year-old former high school baseball player considers himself pretty fit. Even so, he said the thing that surprised him most was how physically demanding the show’s challenges are.

There are also mental challenges that require outmaneuvering equally conniving contestants without giving offense that could lead to being voted off.

“People are hiding what their profession is; you really don’t someone’s true occupation,” said Moore, who didn’t disclose his job title because of the fraught political climate. “I think it would have been a huge misstep because people would want me out if they found out I worked for a Democrat.

“So I went in there saying that I was a public affairs consultant … I work in D.C. and do D.C. things.”

Moore calls his parents, an interracial couple who dealt gracefully with prejudice, his greatest inspiration.

“My whole life I’ve tried to fit in. I’m half Black, half white. People said, ‘You’re too Black for your white friends, too white for your Black friends,’” he recalled.

That experience paid off in the illusory world of “Survivor.”

“I’m used to … having to be a chameleon,” Moore said. “This is a game of being up and being down. No one goes on ‘Survivor’ and is up the whole time. That is impossible.

Moore can’t reveal his fate but the saga “really showed me what’s important and what’s not, as I come back to this super-connected world we live in.”

Splits on Kirk’s legacy

Illinois Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Bost, Darin LaHood and Mary Miller joined in sponsoring a resolution condemning conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination and honoring his legacy.

“Charlie Kirk’s murder was a despicable act of political violence,” Peoria’s LaHood said of the Wheeling High School graduate. “He was a husband and father who did not deserve to die simply because of his political beliefs.”

Democrats had differing reactions. U.S. Rep. Bill Foster of Naperville voted in favor while Chicagoan U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley opposed the measure.

“Charlie Kirk was murdered for his political beliefs and speech,” Foster said Friday in a statement. “While I deeply disagree with those beliefs and his harmful rhetoric, it is our duty to denounce political violence in the strongest possible terms.”

“Political violence has no place in our nation,” Quigley said, but added he could not support a legacy that “calls the Civil Rights Act a mistake, rejects feminism,” and other stances.