Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said he will “stand up for our state” and that President Trump’s goal is to “incite fear” after the president said on Friday that Chicago will be the next city for a crime crackdown.
Trump signed an executive order on August 11 declaring a crime emergency in the District of Columbia.
The White House said that the president determined that special conditions of an emergency nature exist, requiring the use of the Metropolitan Police Department’s services to maintain law and order, protect federal buildings, national monuments and other federal property.
The order invoked the president’s authority under the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act to require the mayor to make the services of the Metropolitan Police Department available to the president, the White House said.
The order delegated the authority to the U.S. Attorney General, who will also monitor the emergency conditions and provide updates to Trump.
Approximately 2,000 National Guard troops have been deployed to patrol the streets with law enforcement.
Trump has already claimed success less than two weeks after the D.C. takeover.
“And it’s very safe right now. There’s been no murders since I started,” he said on Friday while visiting the People’s House Exhibit.
“A lot of people say, well, where is he going from there? Well, I have calls from politicians begging me to go to Chicago, begging me to go to New York, begging me to go to Los Angeles,” Trump said.
Shortly after the visit to the People’s House, Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office and a reporter asked him where he had concrete plans to go next for a crime takedown.
“When we’re ready, we’ll go in and straighten out Chicago just like we did D.C.,” Trump said.
The president said Chicago is a “great city” but it’s “very dangerous” and he “hates to see what’s happened in Chicago.”
“Chicago is a mess. We’ll straighten that one out probably next, that’ll be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough,” Trump said.
Trump said he has had calls from Democrats asking him to come to their cities because they have “lost control of their city.”
He also called Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “grossly incompetent.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said mid-day Friday that he is not afraid but is also not daring the Trump administration to come to the state.
“I’m just saying, they don’t have a right. Federal and state law — separate endeavors. They don’t have a right to do the things they’re threatening to do,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker later issued a statement late Friday afternoon saying Trump was attempting to create “chaos” to distract from his problems.
“Trump and Republicans are trying to distract from the pain they are causing working families–from tariffs raising the prices of everyday goods to stripping away healthcare and food from millions of Americans,” the governor said.
Pritzker said Trump used Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as his testing ground for “authoritarian overreach” and is now “openly flirting” with the idea of taking over other states and cities.
“Trump’s goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts — all to create a justification to further abuse his power. He is playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with,” Pritzker said.
“We don’t play those games in Illinois. Our commitment to law and order is delivering real results. Crime rates are improving. Homicides are down by more than 30% in Chicago in the last year alone,” Pritzker said.
The governor said the state’s​ progress in lowering crime has been made possible with community violence intervention programs that the Trump Administration is defunding.
“Our state and local law enforcement partners know our neighborhoods and our streets because they live here too. They are not asking for this and we will continue to listen and coordinate with them, as we always do. The safety of the people of Illinois is my highest priority, so we will follow the law and stand up for the sovereignty of our state,” Pritzker said.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said that Trump is focused on “turning our military on American citizens in his ongoing attempts to move our nation toward authoritarianism.”
“His actions are not just un-American. They are unwise strategically. Our cities are not made safer by deploying the nation’s service members for civilian law enforcement duties when they do not have the appropriate training,” Raoul said.
“To be clear: We have made no such request for the type of federal intervention we have seen in Los Angeles or Washington D.C. There is no emergency in the state of Illinois,” Raoul said.
“In fact, even as the president publicly laments the rampant crime he claims is taking over our cities, his Justice Department is threatening to withhold critical Victims of Crimes Act funding. If the president was serious about supporting victims of crime, my office would not have had to file suit this week to stop him from placing unlawful immigration conditions on completely unrelated funding that supports critical services for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, child abuse and other violent crimes,” the attorney general said.
The White House said earlier this month tthat he surge in violent crime in Washington D.C. was a “national disgrace” that threatens public safety and federal operations.
Earlier this month while discussing the “no cash bail” law in D.C., Trump said that every place in America with cashless bail is a “disaster.”
“That’s what started the problem in New York and they don’t change it, they don’t want to change it. That’s what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that’s central, no cash bail. Somebody murders somebody and they’re out on no cash bail before the day is out,” Trump said.
The president said he is going to end cashless bail in Chicago by changing the statute.
“I spoke with Pam and Todd and everybody. We’re going to change the statute and I’m going to have to get the Republicans to vote because the Democrats are weak on crime, totally weak on crime. They don’t know why. They want it to stop because they get mugged, too. But we’re going to change no cash bail. We’re going to change the statute and get rid of some of the other things and we’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and Senate to vote,” Trump said on August 11.
The Pretrial Fairness Act of the SAFE-T Act, which ended cash bail in Illinois, went into effect in the state in September 2023.
The law creates a strong presumption in favor of release that cannot be overcome unless the court finds a defendant “poses a real and present threat to any person or the community” and no “combination of conditions” can mitigate the threat posed.
The law also lists specific offenses that are detainable.
Offenses that are non-detainable mean that a judge cannot hold a defendant no matter the circumstances or the defendant’s criminal history.
Certain non-detainable offenses include battering a police officer, pointing a gun at a person and battering an elderly or disabled person.