Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat who is contemplating a 2028 presidential run, called President Donald Trump a “wannabe dictator” and an “arrogant little man” on Monday for suggesting that National Guard troops be deployed to quell crime in Chicago.
Trump earlier this month deployed National Guard troops to Washington to assist in law enforcement in the nation’s capital, suggesting that he would like to do similar efforts in Chicago, Baltimore, and New York.
In June, Trump federalized the California National Guard without the approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to assist and protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts in Los Angeles.
“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,” Pritzker said Monday in a speech in downtown Chicago.
“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? … 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,” he said.
Pritzker asserted that 13 of the 20 cities with the highest homicide rates in the nation are in states led by Republican governors and that Chicago is not among them. All but two of the mayors of those 20 cities, however, are Democrats; Dallas’ Eric Johnson is a Republican, and Detroit’s Mike Duggan, who was elected as a Democrat, is an independent.
Also, Chicago is seventh among the top 20 cities in homicide rate with 28.7 per 100,000 people in 2025, according to The Global Statistics, and Wirepoints reported in March that Chicago has led the nation in the number of homicides per year for 13 straight years, with 573 in 2024.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Newsmax in a statement: “If these Democrats spent half as much time addressing crime in their cities as they did going on cable news to complain about President Trump, their residents would be a lot safer.”
Pritzker said: “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.”
Trump earlier Monday signed an executive order that called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “designate an appropriate number of each State’s trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization” and establish a standing quick reaction force that shall be “available for rapid nationwide deployment.”
Vice President JD Vance said at the signing ceremony at the Oval Office, which aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform, that Democrat governors like Pritzker, Newsom, and Maryland’s Wes Moore are angrier that Trump has offered to help them control crime than they are about “murderers are running roughshod over their cities and have been for decades.”
“It shows a real sickness in the head. … I hope these governors take [Trump] up on the offer, because we should clean up all of America’s streets. It’s the right of every American to live in safety and comfort in their community, and we’ve got the people to do it,” he said.
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