“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum,” Pritzker said.
President Donald Trump will soon federalize 300 National Guard troops in Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday, a move that comes despite the governor’s opposition.
“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.“
Pritzker’s announcement did not say where the troops will be sent. But Trump has long floated sending troops to Chicago as part of his nationwide crime crackdown. “We’re going in,” he told reporters at the White House in early September.
Trump has repeatedly deployed National Guardsmen to cities across America, from Los Angeles to Washington, despite federal law generally prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
And Chicago has been a frequent target of the president’s ire. In early September, Trump posted a meme on his social media platform, Truth Social, with himself cast as a central character in the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now.”
“Chipocalypse now,” the meme read. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”
“Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has authorized 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
In his statement, Pritzker said the administration’s motivation had little to do with protecting Americans from violent crime.
“They will pull hardworking Americans out of their regular jobs and away from their families all to participate in a manufactured performance — not a serious effort to protect public safety,” Pritzker said. “For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”
The office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement that he is “firmly committed to upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law. Our office will not hesitate to take legal action in the event of any unlawful deployment anywhere in Illinois.”
Chicago officials have spent weeks preparing for a federal troop deployment, relying on plans originally used for the Democratic National Convention last year.
Pritzker on Monday warned that the Department of Homeland Security had notified his state that a memo had been sent to the Defense Department requesting the deployment of troops to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
In a Tuesday speech at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds” for the U.S. military.
“We’re going into Chicago very soon,” he said. “That’s a big city with an incompetent governor, stupid governor.”
The move comes a week after Trump directed Hegseth to send federal troops to Portland to tackle street crime and protect ICE facilities he said were “under siege from attack by Antifa,” authorizing the use of “full force” in doing so.
Portland and Oregon sued to stop Trump from federalizing the state’s National Guard. On Saturday night, a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s call-up of the National Guard in Portland, writing that “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
Trump federalized the National Guard and sent Marines to Los Angeles in June, amid sporadic protests in the city over the White House’s immigration and deportation policy. A federal judge ruled the measure illegal in September, writing that Trump and Hegseth were aspiring towards “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.” That ruling has since been paused by an appellate court.
The president has seen fewer barriers in the nation’s capital. He took control of the city’s police force and deployed the National Guard in the middle of August. The vast majority of the district’s residents oppose Trump’s effort, even as the White House and many Republicans proudly claim that crime is down in Washington.
Brian Schwalb, D.C.’s attorney general, also sued the White House last month.
Most of Trump’s deployments have come in blue states, over the objections of Democratic governors and mayors. But Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said he welcomed the National Guard to come to Memphis.
Earlier this week, senior Trump administration officials descended on the city to celebrate the looming operation there, including senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Hegseth.
“You are unleashed,” Miller told law enforcement officers there earlier this week.