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Long, but well worth reading. Full text of Illinois Gov. JB Pritkzer's speech at news conference on reported Trump military plan for Chicago By CBS Chicago Team Updated on: August 25, 2025 / 4:25 PM CDT / CBS Chicago Illinois Governor JB Pritzker spoke at a news conference Monday afternoon, addressing reports President Trump is planning to send the military to Chicago. Here is the full text of his remarks. I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one, that we are facing in this city, and as a state, and as a country. If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country. Over the weekend, we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning, for quite a while now, to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. 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. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor. No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us. Local law enforcement has not been contacted. We have made no requests for federal intervention. None. We found out what Donald Trump was planning the same way that all of you did: We read a story in The Washington Post. If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police? Let me answer that question: This is not about fighting crime. 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. This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections. There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no inter- insurrection. There is no insurrection. Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities. Here in Chicago, our civilian police force and elected leaders work every day to combat crime and to improve public safety, and it's working. Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area. But calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification. Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here. Find a family who's enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they'd like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school. Crime is a reality we all face in this country. Public safety has been among our highest priorities since taking office. We have hired more police and given them more funding. We banned assault weapons, ghost guns, bump stocks, and high-capacity magazines. We invested historic amounts into community violence intervention programs. We listened to our local communities, to the people who live and work in the places that are most affected by crime and asked them what they needed to help make their neighborhoods safer. Those strategies have been working. Crime is dropping in Chicago. Murders are down 32% compared to last year and nearly cut in half since 2021. Shootings are down 37% since last year, and 57% from four years ago. Robberies are down 34% year over year. Burglaries down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%. So in case there was any doubt as to the motivation behind Trump's military occupations, take note: 13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rate have Republican governors. None of these cities is Chicago. Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois. Memphis, Tennessee; Hattiesburg, Mississippi have higher crime rates than Chicago, and yet Donald Trump is sending troops here and not there? Ask yourself why. If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets. Cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect. Trump is defunding the police. To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president's actions. Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidence, and score political points. If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab. Look at the people assembled before you today, behind me. This is a full cross-section of Chicago's leaders from the business world, the faith community, law enforcement, education, community organizations, and more. We sometimes disagree on how to effectively solve the many challenges that our state and our city face on a daily basis. But today, we are standing here united, in public, in front of the cameras, unafraid to tell the president that his proposed actions will make our jobs harder and the lives of our residents worse. 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?" Instead, I say, "Mr. President, do not come to Chicago." You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy. Most alarming, you seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander-in-chief for the members of the military that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever-more-alarming grabs for power. As a governor, I've had to make the decision in the past to call up members of the National Guard into active service, and I think it's worth taking a moment to reflect on how seriously I take that responsibility, and on the many things that I consider before asking these brave men and women to leave their homes and their communities to serve in any capacity for us. As I've said many times in the past, members of the National Guard are not trained to serve as law enforcement. They are trained for the battlefield, and they're good at it. They're not trained to arrest people and read them their Miranda rights. They did not sign up for the National Guard to fight crime. And when we call them into service, we are reaching into local communities and taking people who have jobs and families away from their neighborhoods and the people who rely upon them. It is insulting to their integrity and to the extraordinary sacrifices that they make to serve in the Guard to use them as a political prop, where they could be put in situations where they will be at odds with their local communities, the ones that they seek to serve. I know Donald Trump doesn't care about the well-being of the members of our military, but I do and so do all the people standing here. So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now. Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days. If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead. But I know you Chicago, and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago's long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who will be asked to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court martialed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize. To my fellow governors across the nation who would consider pulling your National Guards from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country. Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to. The State of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have. We will see the Trump administration in court. We will use every lever at our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights. Finally, to the 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. This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. 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. As Dr. King once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Humbly I would add, it doesn't bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.

As a by the by, things are better in the fam. Not great, but definitely better — seems like a progress better, not just a crisis averted better. We’ll see And thanks, folks Wendy P.

The juxtaposition of your concern over the debt and your support of Trump is so absurd that it is clear your real agenda are elsewhere. During his first term Trump added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt. That was more than 43 presidents had combined to accumulate during the first 216 years of the Republic. Obama added less than that over his TWO terms. His BBB, despite his claims, will simply continue the enormous deficits he created during his first term. Do you really think the leopard changed his spots despite all the evidence to the contary - that's very naive. In my lifetime the debt has increased more under GOP administrations than under Dems.

Yep -- I have two words for you: Abu Ghraib. How many of the personnel who took part in the blatantly illegal acts there looked back and were appalled and disgusted with themselves? We can look from the outside and say unequivocally that those actions were so far outside the realm of OK that how could they not have known? But 1) you will likely find that one or two whose own "Overton window" is far afield of what is acceptable, and 2) those others who are easily convinced that they are right. These days, with the influence of Fox, OANN, etc., the second group is larger and easier to convince.

The myth of American exceptionalism is now dead thanks to the American people allowing it to be killed. The once great shining example of the American Constitution with its separation of powers has been turned into a hollow empty promise. Trump did not do this alone and the midterm elections are not going to undo any of his outrageous actions. The die is cast.

Seems likely they're coming. The US is becoming a damn embarrassment. Too many think just saluting the flag shows you're a patriot who supports his country; a shallow belief at best as evidenced daily by the morons driving around shredding the huge ones mounted on their trucks. Teaching kids to pledge allegiance to a piece of fabric instead of the founding documents and guiding principles that distinguish our nation from lesser ones has been a huge error, I think. Just look at our Secretary of Defense who sports an American Flag snot rag in his jacket pocket as his proof of fidelity.

What’s interesting is a few months ago I went back through the dz.com Time Machine about 20 years ago. Trump is not the beginning of decline in US politics, but rather the acceleration of it. There are posts about Bush administration lies and undermining your democracy. I think that time will show how politicians on both sides of the aisle have let you all down. The bill on insider trading highlights a bipartisan problem with politicians. I think the dems let the American public down by covering up Biden’s mental state. I think the dems also lost sight of the majority and got swept up in championing various minority rights at the expense of the broader public’s concerns. For what it’s worth I think some aspects of Trumps policies while being implemented in a horrific way do reflect problems that need to be addressed. Just that HOW it is being done is wrong. The west broadly has become fat and lazy and that isn’t sustainable. The fact that manual labour is seen as being beneath us and that we would rather sit and drink beer while being on welfare because picking fruit is a job that is for others is an issue for example. I’m concerned for the future as the US loses its position in the world. I worry that you’re going to begin to overtly use military force to cling to your empire. I have a son in the military and am proud of him, but I’d hate him to give his life so that Bubba in the US can drink beer on his porch and not have to work.

"Donald Trump never had the courage himself to raise his right hand and serve his country in uniform, but let me just say from personal experience - and that consists of 23 years in the military, 17 of which, proudly as a member of the Illinois National Guard - that the men and women who are brave enough to wear this country's flag on their shoulder are doing so to defend our nation's rights and freedoms, not to protect a tin-pot dictator's thin skin or to police their own neighbors. It's not what they signed up for, and it's certainly not what their training is focused on." Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D, Illinois), disabled veteran.

Bullshit. On this one item; I agree with him. The flag is a symbol; representative of the men and women that have died fighting for this country. Did you know over three hundred men died trying to get the flag to the top of Iwo Jima - because it meant victory to the enemy. Men and women of service are buried cloaked in the flag. We salute the flag. Maybe "Flags of our Fathers" should be required reading in High School. Nope. There's 1,995 reasons to hate trump, but this ain't one of them. You want to engage in free speech or expression - use signs; use your words, honk your horns, go flip off a cop, but leave the flag alone. IT IS the one thing that illuminates all of your rights.

If his plan was to refuel in Mexico when he gave instructions to 305 in the PNW why ask for the dirty configuration? That configuration has only two rationales, to make it jumpable and to stretch out the search zone. If his plan was to be on the plane when it lands in Mexico neither of these apply. It makes no sense to ask for it.

Not at all. The modern accepted definition of dementia for conservatives is "Biden, not Trump."

And unfortunately folks, this level of stupidity and lack of awareness is the reason the US is now a laughing stock.

If you suspend belief and rationalise enough it makes sense I guess? Trump is the biggest snowflake out there and whitewashing history, yet his true believers think he’s a hero.

That’s an unbelievably hard, near impossible one to deal with. When nothing makes sense how can you know what to say? I’m hoping for you, and believing you have the heart and tools to make it through.

I'm not sure that the CinC knows. Or if he knows, he doesn't care.

Absolutely. When I was in school - health education also included sex education. .

Plenty of thugs in DC on January 6, 2021. Your hero pardoned them.

Interestingly the Azerbaijani school system is currently secular with religious interests working for change, like here. Now that our IRS has allowed pastors to preach politics from the pulpit we're one foot further out the door and down the rungs. That's what I oppose. I am all for secular support services as described, and with my tax money, as long as religion is no where in sight.

Pretty funny stuff, there. Well, the context for facts matters; after all, ice cream sales and murders go up in the summer, but that doesn’t really mean that ice cream causes murder. And context doesn’t mean the narrative that’s built around it. Think “2000 Mules” (so debunked that they withdrew it) Wendy P.

Soup kitchens, cots in a dorm, bathroom facilities, a public health clinic, psych services and a way to earn money to get out seems about right. Anything more, let the churches pay for it with what they don't pay in property taxes.

Two blond guys ring the bell of a brothel. The Madam opens the door. -- What do you want? -- What can we get for five dollars? -- For five dollars you can jerk each other off in those bushes over there. She shuts the door. A 15 minutes later the bell rang again. The Madam opens the door. It's the same two blond guys: -- Who do we pay?

It’s entertaining seeing Gavin Newsom taking trump on in his own turf. "DONALD TRUMP HAS 24 HOURS LEFT TO RESPOND TO GOVERNOR NEWSOM’S LETTER. IF HE DOES NOT STAND DOWN, THERE WILL BE A VERY IMPORTANT PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER."

White nationalists feel threatened. Hard working and more intelligent immigrants are a threat. They fight a losing battle.

This is why the Jan.6 rioters are heros to their people. Some are willing to commit. When RonD was around he tried to make us understand.

Thanks for fact checking. It’s always easy to get sucked into the hype.

It's no wonder we're a laughing stock when Taylor Swift's engagement and Cracker Barrel's logo change seem to be more of a concern to much of the population than the country's rapid descent into authoritarian dictatorship.

I’ll be honest I don’t understand the resistance to nuclear. I know nuclear waste is expensive and complicated to store and get rid of. That said it’s amazing how much energy people waste. I’ve got an 8kw solar system at home and my monthly bill is under $20 Aus ($10 USD). I run an aircon system in my bedroom and office 24/7 but its average consumption is 0.25 kWh and the rest of the home I just tolerate the heat and cold. You have to change habits though, dishwasher, pool pump and washing machine during daylight hours.

Okay, so reasonable people disagree.

I'm not sure when that changed, but I recall when I was younger (HA!) the neighborhoods in big cities were somewhat ethically varied. Immigrants moved here, built their neighborhoods, the rest of us went to those neighborhoods for food, drink, parties, and visiting friends. Last time I was in Chicago or San Fran "China Towns" I struggled to find anything in English or that would indicate in any way that I was in the US. I love that diversity and have thought that's the America we all loved. Seems to me the racism and hatred started surfacing about the time Reagan came along to fuck us up.

Here is another "suspect" (eliminated) who turned out to be an astronaut. Pages 416 and 417 of vault part 109:

Son-of-a-bitch, on top of every other accomplishment you also speak fluent richravizza.

You have zero evidence that this is correct. Again, given your preoccupation with the debt, all the evidence is to the contrary. And on any scale of decency, all are preferable to Trump.

Pretty screwed up set of values to place a racist criminal over someone else because of her gender and colour.

V27 and 165 were the same thing. This is a sectional from June 1971.

Sooooooo . . . Trump threatened to ban TicTok for national security reasons in 2020. Congress passed a bill to ban it. Biden signed it. Now, the WH is opening a tiktok account. I can't even fucking keep up anymore.

From the flight path panel discussion at CooperCon 2021 with Cliff Ammerman. I went back and listened to my recording which is up on the Facebook group. Here are the relevant excerpts. Darren: “What do you think about that Cliff, do you think it’s possible that he actually did dictate the flight path based on the conditions he demanded the plane fly.” Cliff: “Yes certainly, If you’re going to fly south at ten thousand feet, Victor 23 would be the, the option that I think almost anybody would take. Just because you could fly at much lower altitude.” Darren: “Do you think he knew the plane would fly Victor 23?” Marty Andrade: “Based on that answer, I would have to say yes.” Marty Andrade: “I’m going to direct this to Cliff. Below 10,000 feet how many airways could they have picked, Victory 23 but there should be another one right?” Cliff: “There is another airway to the west called Victor 165 that still would be fairly low. Ugh, this was before the time that they had designed an airway for Portland basically direct to kalamath falls. Now there were high altitude airways but you had to be above 18k feet and obviously DB Cooper didn’t want to do that. So if they would of come back a few years later then this, he probably would of turned at Portland and gone directly to kalamath falls because it’s a more direct route to Reno. But then the min on the route out there is much higher. So my guess would of been then, that if DB Cooper wanted it low, he would of told them to stay on Victor 23 until they can hit further south and that’s just speculation.” Darren: “Well now that you have that information Marty what’s your answer?” Marty: “No I would say that given that, we know from the radio transcript that they were put on Victor 23, um if there really isn’t another option for them at the time then that’s the route they would of been on.” No mention of V27 from Cliff.

A married couple was in a terrible accident, and the wife’s face was severely burned. The doctor told her they couldn’t graft any skin from her own body because she was too skinny. Her husband lovingly offered to donate some of his skin. However, the only suitable area to do the whole job was from his large buttocks. But it was a rather embarrassing situation, so they both agreed to keep that detail a secret, and the doctor promised not to say a word. After the surgery, everyone was amazed by the woman's transformation. She looked more radiant than ever! Friends and family couldn’t stop complimenting her fresh, youthful face. One day, deeply moved, she said to her husband, "Dear, I just want to thank you for everything you did for me. How can I ever repay you?" He smiled and replied, "My love, I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek."

Ukraine Diplomacy Reveals How Un-American Trump Is by Thomas L. Friedman NYT editorial. An excellent piece that covers most of the bases. I laughed when he mentioned all the "thank-you"s directed at Trump. All of the appeasement and flattery to shield the ego of the man-child. Today the Kremlin signalled that NO direct meeting between Putin and Zelensky is either planned or anticipated. "During an interview with state-controlled TV channel Rossiya-24 on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow does not refuse talks with Ukraine — but, crucially, insisted any summit would have to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.” Russia’s calibrated language follows a familiar pattern: agree in principle, stall in practice. A similar dynamic played out in May, when Putin suggested a Russian meeting with Zelenskyy for peace talks, only to send a second-tier delegation instead." Meanwhile Trump's deadlines, sanctions, etc. have all gone TACO. His Alaska coming out party for the indicted war criminal and kidnapper of 20,000 Ukrainian children, a flop. Another example of the moral bankruptcy of the republican party.

I'd vote for this guy before I'd vote for Trump:

I was thinking Texas. They want to secede anyway.

That’s the only reason I have FB too. I nearly always regret doom scrolling, it only ever makes me think worse of people. Eventually fewer and fewer people will post there, too, as it’s taken over by commercial and generated content, and it’ll get to be a medium for 6 old farts to discuss stuff Wendy P.

I’m really sorry Wendy. Feel free to vent or reach out anytime and please remember to take time for yourself.

It was a factual answer. You were focused on the oath and not the mission of each. Big difference. The Code of Conduct for each is different. Their code of conduct stemmed from Kent State. How is your dissecting the constitution any different than Trump's version. You get to pick and choose what you like. The constitution needs to remain sacred albeit flawed. The courts are more well versed at interpretations. Your example of the Marines is a good one. The courts stopped them from doing anything more than protecting three federal buildings. Personally, I sing the praises of the ACLU, They help keep things in check. You may not know, but since Calley, the miltiary started giving classes in 1971 to everyone from West Point to Basic training on issuing/following legal vs. illegal orders. In 1974, I went to basic. An attorney from JAG came to give us the class. At the end, he gave us a business card to call if someone issued an orde that you "thought" might be illegal for us to get legal counsel. Some soldiers today don't understand why legal is involved at the unit level. It's for this reason.

Our Second Amendment is a misinterpreted joke that any 3rd grader without a dog in the fight would likely read more correctly. No sane person has ever explained to me why, in this case of Constitutional originalism ONLY, tossing out the first two parts and keeping the second two parts was obviously what the framers intended. So to satisfy your curiosity, I take exception to certain interpretations. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

Fine. Then why did you give this glib answer: "I was regular Army, not National Guard. My job was outside the US borders". So all of that explanation aside, tell us: did the marines deployed to Los Angeles follow lawful orders? Yes, because it was under a defensible, but patently false, pretext? Yes, even if you knew it was to police not protect and you knew that many of your fellows might well go way beyond that if ordered and that any right or wrong would be decided well after the fact in, if there ever was one, a court of law? Thanks for the homework and I'm happy you stood up but it is a lot more complicated than the deep details of an oath that most cannot recall or think matters when orders are given. My position stands: the police and the military will be the instruments of the undoing of our democracy, if it happens, and nothing in your explanation would prevent that truth.

I feel like this has been asked and answered. The answer being that Cooper wasn't a skydiver nor was he some Braden-esque military parachutist. He was likely someone who had frequently worn parachutes in the military, either as a paratrooper or as a pilot/air crewman.

Evangelicals, the Inquisition updated to the 21st Century.

I swear Trump watched the Dictator movie and thought it was a documentary. The Oval Office looks like Saddam Hussein decorated it. I’m just waiting for a golden crown to replace the red hat - it’s slowly happening as he’s switched to white. Next will be white with gold writing

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