Illinois Governor JB Pritzker blasted President Donald Trump after he threatened on Friday to target Chicago as the next city to send federal troops to, purportedly to fight crime, as he has done in other Democratic strongholds. Trump has deployed nearly 2,000 National Guard members in his current campaign in Washington, D.C., after deploying 2,000 in Los Angeles in June in the wake of protests over aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
“Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent. And we’ll straighten that one out probably next, that’ll be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough,” Trump said on Friday, confirming previous reporting from Rolling Stone that his administration was eyeing Chicago for a militarized crackdown.
“And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come in,” Trump claimed. “They’re wearing red hats, just like this one, but they’re wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, ‘Please, President Trump, come to Chicago. Please.’ I did great with the Black vote, as you know, and they want something to happen, so I think Chicago will be our next.” His remarks followed his administration ordering troops to carry firearms, despite there not appearing to be indication that troops are facing threats that would require weapons. Trump later added: “And then we’ll help with New York.”
Following the president’s remarks, Pritzker called Trump’s threat “an authoritarian power grab of major cities” in a social media thread. “Things People are Begging for: 1. Cheaper groceries 2. No Medicaid and SNAP cuts 3. Release of the Epstein Files,” Pritzker wrote. “Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities.”
“As Donald Trump attempts to create chaos that distracts from his problems, we’ll call it out for what it is. Trump and Republicans are trying to distract from the pain they’re causing — from tariffs raising the prices of goods to stripping away healthcare and food from millions,” Pritzker wrote in a social media thread, noting that Trump used D.C. and L.A. as a “testing ground for authoritarian overreach.”
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“Trump’s goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts — all to create a justification to further abuse his power,” he continued. “He’s playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with. We don’t play those games. Our commitment to law and order is delivering results.”
Pritzker said that crime rates are improving and that homicides are down by 30 percent in the city over the past year, a significant drop in violent crime; and shootings are also down by nearly 40 percent, as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson noted via CBS News in response to Trump’s claims about the city.
“Our state and local law enforcement partners know our neighborhoods and our streets because they live here too,” Pritzker continued. He added: “The safety of the people of Illinois is my highest priority, so we will follow the law and stand up for the sovereignty of our state.”
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Trump has been on a tear against the Democratic sanctuary city of Chicago for years, threatening to send in the feds back in January 2017 and saying the city is “worse than some of the places … in the Middle East where you have wars going on,” as Block Club Chicago reported.
In June, a senior Trump official told Rolling Stone the city was in his sights for ICE arrests and deportations following the progressive mayor telling citizens to “rise up” against the president’s immigration crackdowns and the city’s robust anti-Trump and anti-ICE movement.
