Illinois Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker criticized President Donald Trump for saying that his administration would be looking into cracking down on crime in Chicago.
In a thread on X, Pritzker accused Trump and Republicans of “trying to distract from the pain they’re causing” through the implementation of policies such as tariffs. Pritzker continued to reference how Trump had federalized the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, and accused the president of having used those cities “as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach.”
“As Donald Trump attempts to create chaos that distracts from his problems, we’ll call it out for what it is,” Pritzker wrote in his post. “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 continued, “After using Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities.”
As Breitbart News reported, Trump explained during an announcement in the Oval Office about the FIFA World Cup drawing that after his administration finishes cracking down on crime in the nation’s capital, they would “go to another location.”
Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson reported:
While making an announcement about the FIFA World Cup drawing in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump shared that he is planning on taking public safety efforts, like those underway in D.C., to Chicago and other cities like New York.
“And after we do this, we’ll go to another location, and we’ll make it safe also. We’re going to make our country very safe. We’re going to make our cities very, very safe,” Trump said. “Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent.”
“We’ll straighten that one out, probably next. That’ll be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come. They’re wearing red hats just like this one,” he added.
Pritzker claimed that “Trump’s goal is to incite fear” in communities and to “destabilize existing public safety efforts” in an effort to justify abusing “his power,” and accused the president of “playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with.”
“We don’t play those games,” Pritzker continued. “Our commitment to law and order is delivering results. Crime rates are improving. Homicides are down by more than 30% in Chicago in the last year alone. Our progress in lowering crime has been made possible with CIV programs that they’re defunding.”
“Our state and local law enforcement partners know our neighborhoods and our streets because they live here too. They’re not asking for this and we will continue to listen and coordinate with them, as we always do,” Pritzker added.
Since Trump announced that he was “invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act,” placing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control and mobilizing the National Guard to address crime in the District of Columbia, violent crime in the city is reported to have dropped 22 percent.
Axios reported that the “Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the armed forces to execute laws except in cases expressly authorized by the Constitution or a congressional act.”
