As Gov. JB Pritzker awaited word from the Trump administration about the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois, he cleared his calendar Saturday for an anticipated call from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The call never came. Instead, Hegseth was helping to beat a simultaneous pushup record during a Navy and Air Force football game. A day later, Pritzker announced that President Donald Trump had ordered 400 members of the Texas National Guard to deploy into Illinois, Oregon and elsewhere. He also said that 300 Illinois National Guard troops were being federalized against his “vigorous objections.”
“I got no call. And I got no call all afternoon, all evening, and I have not received a call at all,” Pritzker said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times Tuesday. “And it turns out that Pete Hegseth was at a football game, and he was doing pushups as part of a show of Guinness Book of World Records. So he was out having fun after saying that he was going to call me and didn’t. And they’re sending troops while he’s going to a football game and ignoring what he should have been doing.”
The governor emphasized that anecdote as proof that the Trump administration is keeping him in the dark about immigration enforcement — and the Guard deployments. The Trump administration has instead been using social media to criticize Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson and accuse them of “protecting criminals.”
“The Trump administration has not communicated with me at all. In fact, I have not received a single call from this administration on any of these matters for weeks — the deployment of ICE and CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection], the deployment of the National Guard.”
As the Texas National Guard began appearing Tuesday at an Elwood military training site about 50 miles southwest of Chicago, Pritzker said there are no reports of troops on the streets of the state — and he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for them to deploy before Thursday morning’s oral arguments in a lawsuit filed by Illinois against the Trump administration. A federal judge on Monday refused a plea from Illinois’ attorneys to immediately block a deployment they labeled “illegal, dangerous and unconstitutional.” Arguments over the state’s request for a temporary restraining order are now set for Thursday.
The Trump administration claims the troops are needed to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and facilities. But Christopher Wells, an attorney for the state of Illinois, told the judge that it’s part of a “concerted effort to target disfavored jurisdictions that the president doesn’t like.” U.S. District Judge April Perry acknowledged she was “very troubled by the lack of answers” from a Trump administration lawyer about the deployment.
“They have been admonished by a federal judge that that would not be a good idea,” Pritzker said. “And I will just point out to you that, imagine them deploying those folks. They may do it, but imagine them deploying them for a day and a half or two days and then having to turn tail and run because a federal judge ordered them to leave? How does that look?
They’re so concerned about social media and the video and making these videos that [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem posted. I don’t think the video of the Texas National Guard having to turn around and go home will be all that positive for them.”
Christian Mitchell, Pritzker’s running mate in the March primary, is a judge advocate general officer in the Illinois National Guard, meaning he provides legal services for the guard, and is not being called up for duty, the governor said.
“It’s only the federalized troops, military troops, that I’m concerned with, because Donald Trump has them under his direction,” Pritzker said.
But the governor said he has “a lot of sympathy” for Illinois National Guard members, who would be court-martialed if they were to disobey any deployment orders.
“I believe that the courts will stop it, but I also want people to recognize that our Illinois National Guard are not the problem,” Pritzker said. “It’s Donald Trump. It’s ICE, It’s CBP. It’s [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott sending Texas National Guard.”
As for protesters who are waving signs at the Broadview ICE facility urging Pritzker to come protest himself, the governor said he’s “protesting in every way I possibly can.”
“The idea that my going there is any different than my going public and showing up in the neighborhoods to make sure that people know that I’m supportive of Little Village and Pilsen and every area of the state … I’ve been protesting my whole life. I don’t think anybody should think that I’m somehow cloistered from the action,” Pritzker said. “Honestly they’re doing a great job of protesting. We’ve seen some other elected officials out there. So I support the peaceful protests that are going on, and I’ll continue to do so and fight for their right to do so.”