President Donald Trump on Tuesday escalated his threats against Democratic cities, telling about 800 of the country’s top military officials that he’s using “dangerous cities as training grounds” for the military and will be going into Chicago “very soon.”
Gov. JB Pritzker immediately decried Trump’s latest promise to deploy troops in the city as an authoritarian ploy that suggests a cognitive decline in the president, while joining Mayor Brandon Johnson in demanding that the White House back off from any intervention.
Trump’s wide-ranging and unprecedented address to military leaders in Quantico, Virginia, comes a day after Pritzker said he had received word that the Department of Homeland Security wants to send in 100 “military troops” to Illinois to protect ICE facilities and personnel.
“I told [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon,” Trump said. “That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid.”
Trump again criticized crime in Chicago, despite violent crime and murder rates having dropped in the city, saying, “They need the military desperately.”
Mobilization of the National Guard has begun in Oregon, which Trump called “a war zone.”
Trump then addressed whether the military could retaliate against protesters, saying, “I say they spit, we hit.”
He also told military leaders that he signed an executive order to establish a National Guard quick reaction force last month “because it’s the enemy from within.”
“We have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said.
The ICE holding facility in suburban Broadview has been ground zero for clashes between protesters and agents since the Trump administration announced the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago on Sept. 8.
For weeks, Pritzker and other local officials and business leaders have been urging Trump not to intercede in the city, rejecting White House claims that a National Guard deployment would lower crime or that protests against immigration authorities have gotten out of control.
The governor went so far as to say the 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove Trump from office.
“Not only has dementia set in, but he’s copying tactics of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, sending troops into cities, thinking that that’s some sort of proving ground for war, or that, indeed, there’s some sort of internal war going on in the United States,” Pritzker said at a South Side news conference. “It’s just, frankly, inane, and I’m concerned for his health.”
“What we can do when it comes to troops being sent into Chicago and to the state of Illinois is immediately go to court. We’re prepared to do that,” Pritzker said. “Believe me when I tell you that the law is on our side when it comes to keeping troops out of the city and out of the state.”
Johnson rejected the idea of allowing Trump to use Chicago as “a playground for his militarized obsession.”
“We’re talking about unprecedented behavior from an individual that, quite frankly, has demonstrated that he’s double-minded and unhinged, and so the best thing that we can do right now is come together,” the mayor said. “We’re all clear that not only is this president behaving outside of the bounds of the Constitution, that it’s going to require all of us to ensure that we’re protecting people.”
Pritzker on Monday said the Illinois National Guard obtained a memo that DHS sent to the Defense Department that sought to request 100 military personnel for Illinois. It’s unclear what type of troops would be deployed or when. But Pritzker likened the memo to one sent Sunday by the Defense Department to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, which called 200 members of the Oregon National Guard into federal service for a 60-day deployment, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
State officials on Tuesday had no updates on a pending deployment of troops.
“The president of the United States is not sending troops into Republican cities or into Republican states,” said Pritzker, a likely 2028 presidential contender. “He’s made a list of people that are his political opponents, and he’s calling us domestic enemies. I mean, what kind of a country are we in here?”
Pritzker has accused Trump of attempting to normalize military presence in cities to stifle voter turnout in the 2026 midterm elections.
Illinois Republicans — who rolled out a line of fundraising merchandise related to ICE deployments in Chicago — say it’s Pritzker who’s making things worse.
“We stand firmly with law enforcement and public servants who face heightened risk every single day,” said state House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna. “We will continue to defend the rule of law and the principle that no one should ever be targeted for carrying out their duty.”