Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Americans are being deceived by their government on a daily basis, in a video posted to X showing him addressing a cheering audience.
Pritzker: “America Deserves Better”
“As governor, I’ve learned that no matter how difficult the truth is to hear, it’s so much better than being lied to,” Pritzker wrote. “Right now, we are being lied to every single day. America deserves better.” In the video, he told the crowd: “I’ve found that no matter how difficult the truth is to hear, it’s so much better than being lied to. And right now in this country, we are being lied to every single day.”
Pritzker Has Disputed Administration’s Justification for Guard Deployment
Pritzker’s “lied to” framing has extended to the administration’s use of the National Guard. In October 2025, the White House said it was deploying federalized troops to Illinois because of “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders had “refused to step in to quell.” Pritzker disputed that characterization directly, citing Chicago Police Department statistics showing the city’s murder rate had fallen 29% and overall crime 13% over the same period, and told CNN that federal authorities “are the ones that are making it a war zone” in Chicago rather than responding to one. He called the deployment “Trump’s Invasion” and sued the administration; a federal appeals court later restored Trump’s legal control over the state’s Guard but blocked actual deployment.
Retired General Tied War Funding to Domestic Guard Deployments
Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, addressing Pritzker’s decision not to send Illinois Guard troops to Washington for the country’s 250th anniversary celebration, argued Hegseth’s department was spending “irresponsibly” on both the Iran war and stateside deployments alike. “Congress has not allocated money for this, just like they have not allocated money for this war,” Manner said, adding that roughly $100 billion had been diverted from military readiness to fund the efforts.
Pritzker Has Cited Specific Federal Policy Changes as Examples
Beyond the Guard dispute, Pritzker has built his broader “truth versus lies” argument around other claims about changes at federal agencies. At a late-August campaign stop in East Peoria, Illinois, he told a crowd he now has “to worry about whether people can eat lettuce or blueberries off a grocery shelf because Trump is doing away with food inspections” and said he has “to track measles outbreaks because the president put” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “in charge of vaccine recommendations.”
Federal Data Shows Substantial Cuts to Food Safety Staffing
Pritzker’s food-inspection claim is grounded in verifiable federal data. According to the Office of Personnel Management, the FDA lost 3,859 employees in 2025 and 473 more in the first part of 2026; Kennedy, as HHS secretary, separately announced the removal of 3,500 people from the FDA, a roughly 20% reduction that included more than 170 staff from the agency’s Office of Inspections and Investigations. A 2025 Government Accountability Office report found the FDA had never met its Food Safety Modernization Act-mandated inspection targets even before the cuts, and ProPublica’s analysis found foreign facility inspections fell by nearly half in some months afterward. House Oversight Committee Democrats raised similar concerns in an April 2025 letter to Kennedy, warning that “as essential workers are fired, remaining employees will struggle to fill the gaps.”
Same Week Included a Contentious Fox News Exchange Over ICE Comments
Pritzker’s remarks came the same week he appeared on Fox News’ “Special Report” with anchor Bret Baier, where he was pressed on his past comparisons of ICE conduct to authoritarian regimes and on Illinois’ policy toward federal immigration enforcement. Asked whether any immigrant convicted of a felony should be deported, Pritzker said, “I think they ought to take the violent criminals and get them out of my state and get them out of the country,” adding that Illinois would help federal agents “if you bring us a judicial warrant.”
Critics Said Pritzker’s Framing Omitted a Legal Distinction
Some critics argued Pritzker’s answer was misleading. Joe Abraham, whose daughter was killed in a crash caused by a driver in the country illegally, said in response that “a judicial warrant is not required for civil immigration enforcement” and that “Illinois law itself distinguishes civil immigration warrants from judicial warrants,” arguing the omission was not “harmless wordplay.”
Pritzker Has Defended Comparing Immigration Enforcement to Authoritarianism
Pressed by Baier on whether he was broadly characterizing ICE agents unfairly, Pritzker stood by his past comparisons, saying, “early on in an authoritarian regime, wherever it is in the world throughout history, this is what happens,” and argued that no federal officials had faced consequences for specific incidents he said involved wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens.
Pritzker Has Made Similar Warnings About Democratic Institutions Before
Pritzker used similar language in his February 2026 State of the State address, warning lawmakers that “the authoritarian playbook is laid bare here” and that a “seed of distrust, hate and blame” was being sown to divide Americans, according to a transcript of the address distributed by his office.
Pritzker Has Increasingly Drawn National Attention Amid 2028 Speculation
Pritzker’s sharpened rhetoric against the administration has coincided with growing speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run. In a November 2025 speech to New Hampshire Democrats, he called for “mass protests” against the administration and said Republicans “cannot know a moment of peace,” remarks The Guardian reported drew significant attention as an early signal of national ambitions.
Pritzker Has Said Political Rhetoric Contributed to Threats Against Him
Pritzker has said in prior interviews that he has received an increased number of threats and has argued that political leaders, including Trump, bear responsibility for the broader climate around political violence in the country.
Governor Is Running for a Third Term in 2026
Pritzker, first elected in 2018, launched his campaign for a third term as governor in June 2025, telling supporters at a Chicago rally that Illinois had faced “political leadership that seemed to delight in putting Illinois down” backed by “a series of lies” before he took office.
Illinois Has Been a Recurring Flashpoint in Federal Immigration Enforcement Disputes
Illinois State Police have made multiple arrests connected to demonstrations at the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, amid continuing tension between state and federal authorities over immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Justice Department Has Scrutinized Some of Pritzker’s Public Comments
The Justice Department has separately examined comments Pritzker has made about federal immigration enforcement, part of broader legal and political friction between his administration and federal officials over Illinois’ sanctuary-state policies.