Pritzker's Big Pushback on Trump
Gov. JB Pritzker, Democratic officials, and community leaders hold a press conference Monday in opposition to President Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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Following reports over the weekend that President Donald Trump and the Department of Defense were planning to send National Guard troops into Chicago, Governor JB Pritzker and other top Democrats wasted no time Monday jumping on the issue.
Pritzker was joined by a mass of Democratic elected officials, clergy, business, and labor for a news conference overlooking the Chicago River downtown far from the city’s highest crime neighborhoods to tell Trump they don’t want armed forces sent to the cit.
“Earlier today, in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, ‘Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?’” Pritzker said. “Instead, I say: ‘Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.'”
Experts say Trump would have a more difficult time legally deploying federalized National Guard units to Chicago due to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from conducting law enforcement inside the U.S. He could also invoke the Insurrection Act, but the justification would likely be challenged in court.
“What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is un-American,” said Pritzker. “This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against, and it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances.”
Pritzker, who is said to be considering running for President in 2028 and has attempted to align himself as a top Trump critic said Illinois officials would work to block any deployment of Guard troops to Illinois.
“The state of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have,” Pritzker said. “We will see the Trump administration in court.”
He also warned “Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: We are watching and we are taking names.”
While city crime rate statistics have shown a decline in recent years, Chicago still averages over 500 murders per year. But Pritzker, who downplayed the city’s crime problems, said Trump wasn’t aiming to solve the problem.
“This is not about fighting crime," Pritzker said. "This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.”
Pritzker took a risk with his loud and strong statements against Pritzker, which received live coverage on multiple cable networks, including MSNBC and CNN.
“My only fear is that Trump, who is the most vindictive man in the world, cuts all federal funding to Chicago and Illinois because of this,” one Democrat told The Illinoize. “But they must believe Trump is all bark and no bite.”
