What Trump Is Really Up to in Chicago, According to JB Pritzker

[Thiệu Ngô]

In a new interview, the Illinois governor lets loose on the president’s decision to send troops to Chicago.

By Dasha Burns

JB Pritzker has been clashing with Donald Trump for years, but the acrimony reached new heights with the president’s recent declaration that the Illinois governor should “be in jail.” In a new interview with The Conversation, Pritzker brushed it off.

“I’m not afraid for me,” he said. “I’m afraid for the people of Illinois and the people of the United States with the attitude of this president.”

A billionaire who’s positioned himself as a blue-state governor willing to take Trump head on, Pritzker is seeking his third term next year and is widely seen as a potential 2028 Democratic contender.

Pritzker may not have wanted a battle with the White House, but Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops over the governor’s objections to buttress an increasingly controversial ICE enforcement operation is certainly raising Pritzker’s profile. That’s particularly true as Democrats are desperate to find a path back to relevance after being shut out of power in Washington.

In the interview, Pritzker said Democrats should be able to fight for lower health care premiums in a shutdown battle while also protecting American democracy from a Trumpian power grab.

He added that he was particularly worried Trump would try to use the troop deployments as a pretext for interfering in the midterm elections.

“I think it’s not very far away from him offering and providing the military to protect the polling places across America, but particularly in blue states and blue cities, with the idea that they could confiscate the ballot boxes if they think there is fraud in the election,” he said.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I asked President Trump about you and what’s happening in Illinois and in Chicago, and he told me, “I think he should beg for help because he’s running a bad operation and he’s letting people be killed in his city. I would have Chicago cleaned out, the criminals removed.” What’s your response to that?

Well, I know that the president doesn’t read much and isn’t up to speed on much of anything going on around the country, but we’ve cut our violent crime rate significantly in Chicago, and indeed our homicide rate has been cut in half. Almost every violent crime statistic is down by double digits.

Maybe — most importantly — what the president doesn’t understand is that civilian law enforcement is how you fight crime. And we’ve got terrific people on the ground. We’ve been building up our police forces, including the state police under my command, and we’ve also invested in violence prevention.

Frankly, the money that the federal government used to send to us has now been cut off under him. He’s cut the number of FBI, ATF and DEA agents that are available to help us with crime on the ground. We’re nevertheless doing well despite that but would love help. I’ve said that many times. Please give us civilian law enforcement help from the FBI, ATF and DEA so that we can interdict guns and drugs and go after gang members.

Murders are down in Chicago by more than 30 percent this year compared to 2024. Shootings have fallen almost 40 percent, according to city data. But that does still translate to 1,200 people being shot and at least 274 murders. I’m curious if you feel satisfied with where the crime statistics are in Chicago and in Illinois overall.
I won’t be satisfied until we get those numbers to zero — which may be never — which means I shouldn’t be satisfied on any day, and I’m not. What I think we should pay attention to though is that so much crime has been reduced in the city of Chicago. And the murder rate is down by half in the last four years.

In part, the reason that so much of the violent crime in the city is down is because we have the most robust community violence intervention programs in the country. And despite the fact that Donald Trump cut the funding for those programs, we’ve funded it at the state level as best we can, although again we have less money because of that. We have worked with ATF and FBI and DEA to go after the drugs and gangs and guns. I’ve asked for more of that. But the idea that sending troops in or that ICE is somehow helping with that is ridiculous.

What do you think he’s trying to do?

Well, it’s clear he’s trying to militarize our cities. He’s doing that with ICE now. I think that at the moment though, he’s also trying to just show off that he is in fact an authoritarian and can do whatever it is that he wants. And we’re pushing back and we’re winning.

The president last week posted on Truth Social saying that you and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be in jail. JD Vance said on Sunday that you should “suffer some consequences” for your handling of Chicago crime. Talk to me about this moment that you’re in. You’re drawing some pretty threatening rhetoric from the White House.

Well, all I can say is that with the president’s mental health decline, the fact that JD Vance really doesn’t know anything about addressing crime, fighting crime — he was a U.S. senator and before that an author — all due respect, we’ve been actually doing the job on the ground. And threatening to jail your political opponents. I mean, does that sound like the United States? Should we have a president who is threatening to jail his political opponents with no evidence of any wrongdoing, just that we oppose what he’s trying to do to our country, which is to militarize our cities and turn us into an authoritarian regime? I don’t think that any American thinks that we ought to be jailing people just for their views.

How does that feel for you personally? Especially when you are seeing the Justice Department go after James Comey and Letitia James. Does that resonate with you in a different way at this moment given what the administration is doing?

I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for the people of Illinois and the people of the United States with the attitude of this president. When people can just randomly be stopped, detained, arrested, and when he’s going after his political opponents — note that anybody that he doesn’t like and thinks is opposed to him is on his list of his targets, enemies list, as we’ve seen. So, look, it’s not about me. It is about protecting the people of my state, and that’s what I’ve been doing every day.

You’ve been pretty outspoken about state sovereignty. But given that there are some federal interests here — immigration enforcement — where is the line between legitimate federal authority when it comes to trying to curtail gang activity and other things that really do matter in these communities, and political interference from Washington?

The president has said that he wanted to go after the worst of the worst. Please come get real violent criminals. We would love help doing that, whether they’re undocumented or otherwise. And he’s not doing that. When they tackle a 15-year-old girl because she’s brown, and haul her in, when they take on a U.S. citizen, a young woman who’s coming out of Waukegan City Hall because she’s brown — this is not the country that I think we all want. And so I’m deeply concerned.

All I can say is this is not what anybody signed up for. The immigration laws should be enforced by the federal government. They have that authority and that assignment. But the way they’re doing it is ignoring all of the norms of law enforcement and treating people as if they’re enemies of the United States, when the reality is they’re grabbing Republicans, Democrats. They’re grabbing U.S. citizens and people who’ve never demonstrated that they’re anything other than law-abiding people.

The president frequently calls Chicago a hellhole or a war zone. Law and order was a really big part of his campaign message, and it did resonate with some voters. Can you talk about those competing narratives, what’s actually going on in Chicago — but also why Trump has been successful in some pockets of the country in painting and branding Chicago in this way as he has with Portland and some other cities?
Look, the president lies consistently, and he’s got a lot of people around him, the sycophants, including JD Vance, who lie on his behalf. He’s got the biggest platform in the country, the presidency, and he just says things. It’s propaganda — again, not true — but he’ll say it over and over and over again, hoping that people will believe him

Some of that branding exercise has been successful though.

Sure, because if you say things over and over and there isn’t any pushback, then you’re somewhat successful.

I can tell you that Chicago, this summer we had our best tourist season ever in the city of Chicago. We just got named — for the ninth year, by the way — number one best big city in the country by Condé Nast Traveler magazine.

It’s a great city. It’s a beautiful city. I know lots of people that — probably you know too — who have visited this city, and they don’t see what Donald Trump is talking about because it’s not true. He just says things. Portland isn’t on fire. And yet, yeah, you’re right. He lies, he says it over and over again. And if it gets amplified by mainstream media or by podcasts or whatever, then there are people who might listen and believe it. But it’s not true.

One of the things that this administration has tried to do is put Democrats on the back foot when it comes to crime. How do you make sure people understand that you’re taking crime really seriously while also resisting what the administration is doing?

We’re delivering on the ground. That’s how we prove that he’s wrong, right? I’ve increased the number of state police since I took office in 2019. We’re trying very hard to do that. By the way, they’re running ads now to hire people out of Chicago police departments and other departments here and bring them into ICE. So he’s going to take civilian law enforcement off the streets in order to help him with his folly about going after the worst of the worst immigrants to this country.

I want to remind you of something really important. My family is a family of immigrants who were refugees to this country from Ukraine when the Russians were killing Jews. We have a very important history in this country of immigrants being the lifeblood of building the economy and building the future of the country. Half of the Fortune 500 companies in this country are founded by immigrants or the first-generation children of immigrants. So Donald Trump just has this all backward in his head. It’s some kind of something that’s left over from, I don’t know, his childhood or some other time, and his diminished mental capacity has him unable to learn anything new.

You have warned that Trump could use these troop deployments as a pretext for military interference in U.S. elections. Is that something you see as a real threat?
I do. We have to think back to 2020, when he lost the general election and he contemplated using the military to confiscate ballot boxes. And it was something being encouraged by Michael Flynn, his adviser. And then fast forward just another month to Jan. 6, when he was fomenting the violence around the Capitol around the election, and then later pardoned the 1,500 people who were convicted of a crime.

Now he’s militarizing the cities, sending people in, and I think it’s not very far away from him offering and providing the military to protect the polling places across America, but particularly in blue states and blue cities, with the idea that they could confiscate the ballot boxes if they think there is fraud in the election.

The Department of Justice under Donald Trump demanded that every state produce their voter rolls. That’s never happened in the history of the United States. They won’t tell us what they’re doing with them, but it appears that they want to use them in the elections next year, claiming fraud. So when you put all these things together, it’s not a leap to say that he’s doing this because he wants to affect the 2026 elections in favor of MAGA Republicans.

Trump has suggested he might invoke the Insurrection Act. If federal troops were deployed over your objections, do you have a plan for that scenario?

So just a reminder that the president previously, and this is just a few years ago, said that he opposes a president of the United States federalizing the National Guard. So did Kristi Noem last year. So did Greg Abbott in Texas last year. So did every governor, I might add, last year opposed federalizing the National Guard.

He has obviously federalized the National Guard over my objection. But the question the court is addressing is how can he use them? Because federalizing the National Guard to send them abroad to fight for this country, which is what historically National Guard has been federalized for, is a legitimate use. We’ve seen that. I’m so proud of the Illinois National Guard. They’ve gone and fought for this country and protected us abroad. Also I have the ability to call them out for floods or other emergencies like Covid-19, making sure we had vaccinations available for everybody.

But it’s like everything is upside down. Now the president has decided federalizing troops is okay and sending them into states is okay. Now all of his sycophants like Kristi Noem, Greg Abbott and others are just doing what his bidding is.

It’s unconstitutional, it’s unlawful. It’s called the Insurrection Act for a reason. It’s about insurrection, it’s about rebellion, it’s about foreign invasions, and that’s why you use the Insurrection Act. It shouldn’t be about his invasion of our states.

You’ve said when there’s a Democrat in office or when a Democratic Congress takes over that “people are going to be held accountable,” and you said a few years from now this is going to hurt. Do you think Democrats would or should push for jail time for some of these officials? How far should Democrats go if and when they do get power back?

Democrats should just do what Republicans should do but are unwilling to, which is follow the law. That means if someone broke the law, whether you’re an ICE agent or a CBP agent or Stephen Miller, if they broke the law, they should be held accountable.

One more thing: The Congress is supposed to have hearings about things like this. Rational people on both sides should come together and ask questions about this. That’s not what’s happening. They’re simply following Donald Trump’s lead on the Republican side and not allowing Democrats to have hearings to ask questions. I believe that’s why the 2026 elections are so vitally important.

Democrats in Congress right now are trying to take a stand with the shutdown fight, to make a case for health care. Given how you’ve called on Democrats to step up, what do you think of these efforts?

I think that doubling people’s premiums for health care, which is what will happen under the big ugly bill, is truly shameful. Democrats standing up to maintain those subsidies so that people don’t have their health care premiums doubled or have to reduce their coverage because they can’t afford health care, I think that’s a righteous cause, and so I’m glad that Democrats are standing up and doing the right thing on that.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a note in her book that you declined to immediately offer her an endorsement when Biden stepped aside from the 2024 campaign, that you said you couldn’t commit because you were the convention host. You did endorse the next day, but I’m curious about that initial hesitation. And also why do you think Harris put that in her book?

I don’t know. We’re friends. I know Kamala Harris. I’ve talked to her a number of times in the last couple of months, not to mention during the elections. And what I can say is that yeah, that’s accurate.

I didn’t know what the process was going to be. I don’t think any of us did right away when President Biden decided not to run. And so I wanted to make sure that we weren’t biasing a process that might occur at the convention itself in my home state, home city. It was clear to me overnight and the next morning that actually the process had already worked itself out. And it made sense to me to have the vice president become the candidate for our party. I like her and was happy to get on board and support her and worked very hard for her.

But I think it was important for me to be neutral. I fought to get the convention in my city and state, and I didn’t want to bias a process that might take place.

Another Chicago guy, Rahm Emanuel, has called the party’s brand “toxic.” He says Democrats are woke and weak. What do you think of his diagnosis? Is your diagnosis different? And what do you see as the path forward for the party?

I think we have too many challenges facing the country for Democrats to be criticizing other Democrats. We know what the problem with this country is right now, and it’s what Donald Trump is doing to it. So if there’s a unifying force, that certainly is one. And in a midterm election — and I think back to when I got elected in 2018 — that was a unifying force back then. I think it will be this coming year, but we’re going to have to work for it. We aren’t going to get handed anything. And Donald Trump is trying to thwart the election process in 2026. I mentioned, of course, the militarization, but also going to the governor of Texas and getting him to redistrict and trying to do it in Missouri and other states.

This is truly taking votes away from people. We’re talking mid-decade political redistricting — that just doesn’t happen very often — is now being led by the president of the United States. And it’s for one purpose. It’s because he knows he’s going to lose in 2026 if he doesn’t rig the election.

So do you think the best message and the best approach for Democrats is fighting Trump? Is that what voters want to see from their Democratic officials and candidates?

They want to see Democrats standing up for working families, for their ability to afford the things that are just frankly part of their everyday lives. If you can’t send your kid to college or you can’t afford to pay the bills at the kitchen table, you can’t afford groceries or insurance, all the rest of it doesn’t matter to most people. So we Democrats need to be talking about that. That is the party that we are.

Are you doing that enough? Do you think Democrats are talking about those real tangible, day-to-day issues for folks?

I think that we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We certainly need to be talking about affordability, and a lot of us are doing it. At the same time, we need to fight to make sure we have an election in 2026 and that we’re preserving democracy. I think we can do two things at once.