Free Smoke: Illinois Governor Stands Up To Trump’s Chicago Threat
On Monday (Aug. 25), Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker spoke at a press conference, flanked by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, business leaders, and other community activists, to push back against President Donald Trump’s repeated comments that he intends to send the National Guard into the city of Chicago as he did in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C.
“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 said. “What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.” He gestured at pedestrians passing by alongside the Chicago River where the press conference was. “Look around you right now,” Pritzker said to reporters. “Does this look like an emergency?”
Pritzker also called out the media, imploring not to “pretend here that there are two sides to this story.” The governor also noted how Trump is sending the military to blue cities (Pritzker is a Democrat) as a means of political intimidation. He would finish by directly warning Trump: “If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.” The legality of such moves has been in question; the deployment of troops into Los Angeles was through the invoking of a provision in Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which was upheld in court.
There is no sign yet that Trump is ready to mobilize National Guard troops to Chicago. He made the remarks about the possibility last Friday (Aug. 22), and has constantly singled out Chicago in attacks, suggesting that he could also deploy active-duty soldiers onto their streets. “We’ll straighten that one out,” Trump said, adding, “I think Chicago will be our next, and then we’ll help with New York.” Mayor Johnson pushed back against the false allegations about crime in Chicag. Stats provided by the New York Times noted that crime in every category has dropped in the city since last year.
