JB Pritzker Demands Americans Call Trump Exactly What He Is

Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker once again used his bully pulpit to rebuke President Trump after federal agents marched through downtown Chicago, kidnapped people, shot a pepper ball (essentially a paintball full of pepper spray) at a journalist’s vehicle, and fired tear gas at peaceful protesters.

“In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters, when unprovoked, what would we call it? If federal agents marched down busy streets, harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say? I don’t think we’d have any trouble calling it what it is: authoritarianism,” Pritzker said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “So let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.”

This weekend, there was a surge in federal immigration enforcement in Chicago as armed agents patrolled the city. Pritzker on Monday said that Trump is also planning to deploy 100 military troops to Illinois.

Chicago has been on Trump’s hit list since Trump announced his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., in August, along with multiple other mostly Black cities like Baltimore and Memphis. Earlier this month, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore—Robert Duvall’s character from Apocalypse Now—with Chicago burning in the background.

Pritzker—along with California’s Gavin Newsom—has been among the loudest voices as governors across America prepare to have their power and state sovereignty stripped. Only time will tell how much they’ll be able to stop Trump, as any resistance to the president’s draconian federal invasions will require cohesion from state leaders, local leaders, businesses, and neighbors. A fight is certainly coming, and Pritzker and Chicago seem up for it.

One of MAGA’s most outspoken proponents is turning on the White House over its handling of the Epstein files.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—a longtime ally of the president and a standout feature of his sweeping national ideology—was reportedly infuriated by the Trump administration’s hostility toward legislation supporting the unfettered release of the files. But it was a direct threat from the White House over her own support for their release that prompted her to phone a West Wing official.

“I told them, ‘You didn’t get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,’” Greene recalled to The New York Times. “We aren’t supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they’re telling us what to do … or saying, ‘We’ll primary you,’ or that we won’t get invited to the White House events.”

“Me personally? I don’t care,” Greene continued. She explained to the Times that, these days, when the Trump team attempts to corral or control her, she’s “like, ‘[expletive] you.’”

Greene has publicly broken with Donald Trump several times since his inauguration, differing from her “favorite president” on issues ranging from artificial intelligence to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Viewed as something of a joke when she first arrived on Capitol Hill in 2021, the renowned conspiracist has since become a powerful independent agent, apparently beholden to no party and no man.

“I didn’t get elected with a President Trump endorsement,” Greene told the Times. “It felt really bad at the time, but honestly it’s been the best thing for me. I get to be very independent.”

Meanwhile, the botched rollout of the Epstein files has continued to plague Trump. Instead of simply disclosing the contents of the files, the Trump administration has expended vast resources to reportedly strip the president’s name from the documents. The White House also tapped Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to produce a new list of the deceased financier’s associates, which presumably already exists in the Epstein files. The plot granted Maxwell improved living conditions, moving her to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, and gave her time on the national stage to ask Trump for a pardon.

The Epstein story has remained an anomaly in Trump’s political career. For the better part of a decade, the MAGA leader became adjusted to an undyingly loyal base that rarely skews from or challenges his political vision. But Trump’s proximity to Epstein and his heinous crimes has been an outlier, prompting doubts that have undercut Trump’s influence with large swaths of his followers.

President Trump’s sweeping new national security memorandum will likely double the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist from 5,000 people to 10,000, according to journalist Ken Klippenstein. 

Trump issued the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NPSM-7, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” last week. The memo directs the federal government to investigate and prosecute any person, nonprofit, or entity displaying what Trump calls “indicia” of political violence: anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, and “extremism” on race, gender, and migration. 

The memo continues:

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically.... It is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.  A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies—including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them—is required. 

These broad categorizations would incriminate millions of people, hence the doubling of the domestic terrorism watchlist. The watchlist was created directly after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and also includes the no-fly list. 

“Individuals, including U.S. persons (i.e., U.S. citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents), may be nominated for inclusion in the terrorist watchlist if they are known or reasonably suspected to be engaged in terrorism or terrorist activities, or are associated with known or suspected terrorists, among other criteria,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a study just last month. Now President Trump has greatly expanded the parameters, allowing the government to label everyone from George Soros to a few leftists with a Signal chat as domestic terrorists. 

In that same study, the GAO acknowledged that “some U.S. persons (i.e., U.S. citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents) have been misidentified as being on the watchlist or remained on the watchlist when no longer warranted.” It’s unfortunately likely that this unfortunate, authoritarian trend will only increase tenfold now. 

There’s no other way around it—McCarthyism is so back. 

President Donald Trump on Monday once again showed his inability to think about geopolitics in terms of anything other than real estate, as he unveiled a shocking Gaza peace plan.

“Let us not forget how we got here,” he said at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he touted the new proposed peace plan. “Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people. Israel withdrew from Gaza, thinking they would live in peace. Remember that? A long time ago, they withdrew.”

Trump was referring to Israel’s 2005 removal of its ground troops and settlements from the Gaza Strip (which, contrary to Trump’s telling, occurred before Hamas won legislative elections in 2006).

Israel’s withdrawal, Trump opined, had been a mistake, relinquishing prime real estate along the Mediterranean Sea: “They pulled away. They let them have it. And I never forgot that because I said, ‘That doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.’ As a real estate person, I mean, they gave up the ocean, right?” he said. “They gave up the ocean. I said, ‘Who would do this deal?’”

Notably, Israel did not “[give] up the ocean” in 2005, but retained control over Gaza’s shore, borders, and airspace. And after Hamas seized power in 2007, Israel imposed an indefinite land, sea, and air blockade that remains in place, restricting Gazans’ freedom of movement and access to natural resources.

But, per Trump’s telling Monday, Israel was “very generous” in giving up “the most magnificent piece of land, in many ways, in the Middle East.”

It’s not the first time the president has approached Gaza with this sociopathic lens. In July, Trump (after bizarrely implying he coined the term “the Gaza Strip”) called Israel’s 2005 withdrawal “one of the worst real estate deals ever made,” because Israel “gave up the oceanfront property.”

Israel and the U.S. are “beyond very close” to achieving a peace deal regarding Gaza, according to Donald Trump.

Delivering a slurred speech beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Monday, the U.S. president claimed it was a “historic day for peace” in the Middle East, underscoring that the two countries were on the cusp of brokering a deal to end Israel’s assault on the West Bank.

“At least we’re at a minimum very, very close, and I think we’re beyond very close,” Trump said.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu was very clear about his opposition to a Palestinian state,” he continued, “and I understand and respect his position on many things, but what he’s doing today is so good for Israel.”

The Trump administration’s plan proposed to end the conflict after Hamas returns the remaining Israeli hostages, living and dead. The militant Palestinian faction will have 72 hours to comply after Israel accepts the agreement, according to Trump.

The plan would additionally have Israeli forces slightly withdraw and exchange their own Palestinian hostages, including 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans who have been in Israeli detention since the war began nearly two years ago.

Trump’s breathless and rambling interpretation of the deal was contradicted by Netanyahu moments later, when the Israeli leader made it clear that he was already on board with the White House’s plan.

“I support your plan for ending the war in Gaza which achieved our war aims,” Netanyahu said.

It was not clear if Hamas agreed to the peace terms, but their consent is apparently not necessary. Trump said Monday that Israel has the “full backing” of the U.S. to defeat Hamas if it refuses the proposed arrangement.