Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Trump administration officials “want to create the warzone” in Chicago to send in more National Guard troops. In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pritzker condemned the nighttime raid in Chicago, saying it’s “emblematic” of what the Trump administration is trying to do. He framed the sweep as part of a broader pattern and warned that the federal show of force is fueling the very disorder the White House claims it wants to stop.
“This raid at this building is emblematic of what ICE and CBP and the president the United States, [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and [Border Patrol Commander-at-Large] Greg Bovino, are trying to do,” he said. With that, he tied the operation to top officials and argued that the tactics were designed for spectacle rather than public safety.
“They want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops,” he continued. Pritzker said the goal is not better policing or smarter investigations but a justification to scale up a federal presence that local leaders did not ask for. He pressed the idea that Chicago was being turned into a stage for a federal campaign about crime rather than a partner in reducing violence.
Pritzker said the National Guard troops weren’t necessary until federal troops first arrived in Chicago. “Now they’re claiming they need 300 of the Illinois National Guard. Well, we didn’t need them before they showed up, and what they ought to do is allow us to work with FBI, ATF, DEA, who are civilian law enforcement and understand how to target and take out the bad guys,” he continued. His point was that traditional partnerships with federal law enforcement already exist and that those channels can focus on the people driving crime without pulling in a military response.
Trump earlier this week told a gathering of military leaders they should use American cities as “training grounds” and described a federal crackdown on crime in major cities as necessary due to “a war from within.” The framing casts urban crime as an internal conflict that calls for a heavier hand. It also signals more federal action is coming, not less, and that Chicago is near the top of the list.
“They’re very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” Trump said. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.” The message is that the military and the National Guard have a role to play in domestic policing and that success will be measured by visible force as much as arrests or convictions.
“I told [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military — National Guard, but our military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon,” Trump added. “That’s a big city with an incompetent governor.”
For Illinois readers, that last line lands as a direct shot at Pritzker. For everyone else, it sets up a clash between a governor who says he wants targeted investigations and a president who says he wants troops in the streets. The question for Chicago now is whether the approach that wins out will calm things down or make the situation even harder to control.