Illinois Governor JB Pritzker blasted President Donald Trump’s latest remarks as “unhinged,” warning that the president’s threat to deploy federal troops to Chicago under the guise of fighting crime would only backfire. Pritzker also condemned what he called the “groveling yes-men” surrounding Trump and charged that he is “tearing this country apart.”
“We’re going in,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday from the Oval Office, confirming what he had only previously threatened. He did not say when Chicago could expect federal troops, but his remarks sent the Governor reeling.
“As a governor who cares about the well-being of my people, I can’t live in a fantasyland where I pretend Trump is not tearing this country apart for personal greed and power,” Governor Pritzker told reporters. “He has surrounded himself with groveling yes men, who are too weak to restrain his most violent and unhinged impulses, or who share those impulses.”
“He has no idea what he’s talking about,” Pritzker declared. “There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops.”
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Delivering facts to counter Trump’s threat, Pritzker declared, “Crime is down in Chicago. Murders are down by almost 50% in the last four years. Shootings are down 57%. Robberies down 34%. Burglaries, down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%.”
Pritzker added that “we have made important progress on safety that Trump is now jeopardizing.”
The Illinois governor also denounced Trump’s claim that he should be urging Trump to send in federal troops.
“If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it. Now, we’re going to do it anyway,” Trump said. “We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country.”
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Pritzker responded.
“When did we become a country where it’s okay for the U.S. president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything, especially something we don’t want? Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation, that we treat this as normal?” the governor asked.
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