As President Donald Trump once again says he plans to send the National Guard to Chicago, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is blasting the plan anew.
Trump called Chicago a “death trap” as he once again threatened to send Guard members into the city, representing another shift in the president’s rhetoric on the matter.
Trump had previously said Pritzker would have to come to him with a request for the National Guard to be deployed, but he once again reversed course on Tuesday, insisting he has the legal authority to do so.
“So I’m going to go to Chicago early, against Pritzker. Pritzker is nothing,” Trump said. “If Pritzker was smart, he’d say please come in,” he said during a press availability.
Speaking in the Oval Office Monday, Trump said that his administration is committed to “doing Chicago probably next” to help combat crime.
“Chicago is a great city, and we’re going to make it great again very soon,” he said. “And I think we can do that, despite the tremendous size. I think we can do a real job.”
The governor cited Trump’s inconsistent talk on the subject when blasting the administration, and said he “doesn’t trust” his remarks on the matter.
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“Sometimes he attacks sending his agents in, sometimes he forgets. I think he might be suffering from some dementia, you know?” Pritzker said. “And the next day he’ll wake up on the other side of the bed and stop talking about Chicago. So I’ve never really counted on anything that he said as real. When he said that he wasn’t coming to Chicago, I didn’t trust that. When he says he is coming to Chicago, it’s hard to believe anything he says.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also blasted the decision, ramping up his criticism of the administration during a press conference Tuesday.
“(Dr. Martin Luther) King referred to militarism as a sickness. Unfortunately, this president is full of that sickness,” Johnson said. “There are no circumstances under which the deployment of American soldiers should be sent in cities across America. It is actually quite upsetting that this president has seduced a number of American people into his meretricious form of governance that has placed our democracy at incredible risk.”
Trump has insisted he has the authority to send the National Guard to Chicago despite a California court ruling he overstepped his authority in sending members to Los Angeles during protests and unrest there earlier this year.
He had indicated a desire to send the National Guard to Chicago, but later backtracked on the idea, saying that Pritzker and other officials would have to ask for such assistance.
“We could straighten out Chicago — all they have to do is ask us,” he told reporters. “I want to go into Chicago, and I have this incompetent governor who doesn’t want us.”
Pritzker has said he has no plans of asking for such a deployment.
“He wants to set into the fact pattern that the governor called him to ask for help. Why? Because he’s going to end up in court,” Pritzker said. “He’s going to end up in court, and that will be a fact that they will use in court. That the governor called to ask for help, and I’m sorry I’m not going to provide him with evidence to support his desire to have the court rule in his favor. I’m just not going to do that.”