Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker sat down with Vox for a puff piece. It seems he is taking cues from his fellow potential, Democrat 2028 contenders. Along with getting his physical girth under control, Pritzker is doing interviews with friendly progressive press to rebrand his image, and that will burnish his credentials as a national leader.
Pritzker is also following the Democrat Party opposition of being vociferously anti-Trump and anti-ICE, and using his state as the poster child of the resistance. This is nothing distinctive, and further proves that the Democrats have no policies or ideas that appeal to the American people. They cannot win in the arena of ideas, so they make Trump the bogeyman, spout lies, and foment unrest.
To paraphrase “Forrest Gump,” leadership is as leadership does. Like his fellow governor California Gavin Newsom and his destruction of California, Pritzker’s leadership in Illinois is evidenced by the erosion that has occurred since he took over in Springfield in 2019. So in essence, Pritzker considers high crime, high taxes, corruption, and people fleeing the state as accomplishments.
But why let facts get in the way of a good narrative. After all, “Trump is Hitler” and “ICE is the Gestapo” are working for everyone else, so why not him?
Illinois Policy Institute stays on top of the bad governance of the state, and they have also noticed that Pritzker has higher goals beyond governor, even in light of his plans to run for a third term.
Is Illinois better or worse since he took office? Here’s a Pritzker report card.
Illinois is taking $1,434 more in taxes from each resident than before Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office, yet the tax hikes keep coming.
The fiscal year 2025 budget took $717 million more than originally planned, that’s more than an extra $55 for every resident.
Compared to Pritzker’s first year in 2019, the state is taking $18 billion more from taxpayers, or 51% – nearly double inflation.
But according to Vox, Pritzker has distinguished himself as a leader of action because of his organized “state-level opposition” to the Trump administration.
Delusion is a helluva drug.
Few Democratic politicians have leaned into the fight against the Trump administration as aggressively as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. While some blue-state leaders have tried to find a lane of compromise or quiet resistance, Pritzker has gone the other direction — signing laws to limit ICE operations in the state, creating the Illinois Accountability Commission staffed by retired federal judges, suing the federal government, and successfully blocking the deployment of federalized National Guard troops on Chicago’s streets.
Pritzker has turned Illinois into a test case for what organized state-level opposition to President Donald Trump’s administration looks like — and has modeled a playbook he hopes other blue-state governors can follow.
Pritzker did manage to talk about his plans to lead actual Illinoisans: Like Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Pritzker wants to institute a wealth tax which he claims will only affect billionaires like him. Right.
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The bulk of the interview is Pritzker issuing his typical disingenuous BS from his piehole. Trump is evil. We should peacefully protest ICE. ICE has gone rogue. Pritzker claims his beating Trump in court proves he has the moral high ground. He said:
The tangible difference is ICE and CBP today under Donald Trump are stopping US citizens who are Black and brown and demanding to see citizenship papers. Now, I don’t know about you, I don’t get asked for citizenship papers. I don’t have any on me. But they’re doing it, and they’re doing it to people who are not undocumented, they’re doing [it] to people who are here legally, people who have lived here maybe generations, US citizens… The difference is that they’re racially profiling.
Wonder if he had such concerns when Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama was doing the same thing. When Vox asked if Pritzker wanted to abolish ICE, he insisted that what Trump is doing is unprecedented, so yes, ICE should be abolished.
It is fundamentally different, what Donald Trump is doing with it. What he’s doing with it should absolutely be abolished. And it’s got to be replaced. It’s just got to be wiped away and replaced. Donald Trump has turned them into a secret police. And I do not believe that we want secret police on the streets of our cities and of our country.
Vox then asked Pritzker, point blank, about his newfound health journey and whether he was using GLP-1s for his weight loss. In typical Pritzker fashion, he two-stepped around the topic.
WATCH:
Does Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s recent weight loss point to a potential 2028 presidential run? 👀 He sets the record straight in a conversation with Vox’s @AsteadWH. pic.twitter.com/48awONXBCY
— Vox (@voxdotcom) February 13, 2026
Finally, Vox asked about Pritzker’s potential presidential ambitions, for which he also did the two-step twist.
VOX: I recently read James Carville publicly backed you for president in 2028. I know you’re immediately running for a third term for Illinois governor, but I would not be a journalist if I didn’t just directly ask you — are you someone who we should be thinking about as a 2028 presidential candidate?
PRITZKER: I’m running for reelection like you just said. Now that is what I’m focused on. I’m obviously flattered that people have talked about me for national office. I, you know, look, I’m the governor of the fifth-largest state in the country. And I’m very proud of that fact. But I’m focused on the accomplishments that we need to make and that we’ve made, in the state of Illinois and for the people of Illinois.
Pritzker took another page from his pal Newsom’s book, spouting about “largest state economy” in the country without letting you know that with its bloated pensions and taxpayer exodus, thanks to him, Illinois is in freefall and will soon crash. Also like his California counterpart, Pritzker is a political chameleon who will do all he can to get the attention he needs. But it’s a crowded field, and probably will do little to get him the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination. So, as Pritzker tries to distinguish himself from his possible Democrat contenders for ’28, we need to continually reinforce that he’s not just a horrible governor, but a consummate liar. These types of candidates, Democrat or Republican, need to be pushed off the stage, and quickly.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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