In response to military deployment, Pritzker tells Trump: ‘Do not come
to Chicago’
[August 26, 2025]
By Ben Szalinski
CHICAGO — In front of gleaming skyscrapers along the Chicago River,
Illinois’ Democratic leaders showed a united front Monday against
President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy the military into Chicago’s
streets to fight crime with one message: “Mr. President, do not come to
Chicago.”
“You are neither wanted here nor needed here,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at
a news conference. “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.”
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon has been
considering for weeks deploying the military to Chicago. The report came
a day after Trump suggested Chicago will be the next city he sends the
military to after he activated the National Guard and other federal law
enforcement personnel in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
Thousands of troops could be deployed in Chicago as soon as September,
though two officials who spoke to the Post anonymously said the
deployment is considered less likely for now.
“When I have some slob like Pritzker criticizing us before we even go
there — I made the statement that next should be Chicago because Chicago
is a killing field right now and they don’t acknowledge it and they say
‘we don’t need them, freedom, freedom, freedom, he’s a dictator. He’s a
dictator.’ A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator,” Trump
said Monday. “I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man
with great common sense and a smart person.”
The state’s leaders said they have not been contacted by the Trump
administration asking whether the state wants policing help, and state
leaders said they have not asked for help.
“If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble
calling it what it is — a dangerous power grab,” Pritzker said.
The state’s top democrats said Trump is targeting Illinois for political
reasons.
“This is an act of political theater by Donald Trump, and sadly, we have
to take it extremely seriously,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “My
friends, don’t walk away and say this is just another political issue.
This is how democracies die.”
Anticipating Chicagoans will take to the streets to protest if the
military arrives, Pritzker encouraged protestors to be peaceful.
“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,” Pritzker said.
Legal questions
Trump’s move faces significant legal questions, and Illinois leaders
promised to file lawsuits to block the mobilization of the military.
The president and Congress have more powers over Washington, D.C.,
because of its status as a federal district and not a state, but it’s
unclear what legal authority the president is considering applying to
send troops to Chicago.
The National Guard is under the control of the governor, though the
president has the power to federalize it to quell a rebellion or “unable
with the regular forces” to enforce laws. The president can also invoke
the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to serve as law enforcement.
Those criteria haven’t been met, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said.
Trump’s decision earlier this year to deploy the California National
Guard to Los Angeles was challenged and has so far been upheld by a
federal appeals court. California argued in that case that the Posse
Comitatus Act prohibits the military from acting as a domestic police
force. The National Guard was sent to L.A. following protests over
Trump’s immigration policies.
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Gov. JB Pritzker criticizes the Trump administration’s threat to
deploy military forces in Chicago alongside dozens of activists,
Democratic politicians and religious leaders in downtown Chicago on
Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
“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 unamerican.”
Raoul noted his office has long had effective crime-fighting
partnerships with federal agencies.
“I’m not and have never been opposed to collaborative help from
well-trained federal law enforcement agents. Were the president serious
about addressing crime or criminal threats in Chicago, he would dedicate
more resources to collaborative work that we already engage in with
these federal agencies,” Raoul said.
Crime data
Overall crime in Chicago has declined by 13% this year, according to
data from the Chicago Police Department. Nearly every category of crime
has decreased this year, including murders — down 31%. Chicago has seen
256 murders through Aug. 17 this year, compared to 370 over the same
timeframe in 2024. Shooting incidents broadly are down 36%.
Crime in Chicago has trended downward since 2023 and is down 15% overall
since then. Incidents of crime are still 40% higher at this point of
2025 than in 2021, though murder is down 50% since 2021 and shooting
incidents are down 57%. Felony theft, misdemeanor theft and motor
vehicle theft are all up significantly since 2021.
The city’s data portal shows crime has generally been trending down
throughout the 21st century from nearly half a million crimes in 2001 to
about that level in 2024. The number of annual crimes in the city has
been relatively flat for about 10 years, however.
Nationally, Chicago ranked 92nd in violent crime per 100,000 people in
2024 among the nation’s 200 largest cities, according to FBI data.
Memphis ranked first and Milwaukee and St. Louis were eighth and ninth,
respectively, while Rockford ranked 19th. Chicago had the 22nd highest
murder rate and was eighth in robbery.
“I know (Trump) doesn’t read, I know he doesn’t listen to very many
people, but I know he watches television, and so perhaps if somebody
from FOX News or from Newsmax is here, they’ll cover the fact that
Chicago is in much better shape as a result of the work that we are
doing to prevent crime,” Pritzker said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged the city must do more to
reduce violence and said the Trump administration should release $800
million in violence prevention funding it has withheld this year and
provide more funding for housing.
Also on Monday, Trump signed an executive order seeking to block federal
funding to states and cities with cashless bail policies. Illinois
eliminated cash bail in 2023 and Trump claimed jurisdictions with it
have higher levels of crime. Early research of the first year without
cash bail in Illinois did not show an increase in crime.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
