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Today, Explained

The billionaire governor taking on Trump

Today, Explained

Vox

News, Daily News, Politics

4.310.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2026

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

JB Pritzker of Illinois has a playbook for fighting back against the Trump administration — and he says it's working. This episode was produced by Jesse Ash, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado, mixed by Shannon Mahoney, and hosted by Astead Herndon. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker joins demonstrators during a "No Kings" protest in Chicago. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images. You can also watch this episode on video at youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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1:05.2

This week, on today explained Saturday, I sit down with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire,

1:10.6

one of the most vocal

1:11.4

Democratic governors in the country right now, and some of the Trump administration clearly has on its mind.

1:16.9

We talked about his fight against ICE operations in his state, what will do if Trump actually

1:21.2

invokes the Insurrection Act and deploys troops ahead of the midterm elections. And where are

1:25.6

Democrats go from here? Because let's be real,

1:28.2

the party is still searching for answers. And yes, I asked him the obvious question too. Are you

1:34.0

going to run for president? You'll want to hear what he has to say. So let's dig into it.

1:48.4

Governor Prisker, thank you for joining us.

1:49.4

Great to be with you, Estead.

1:57.3

I want to dig into everything from kind of the way Illinois has led on pushing back against the Trump administration, kind of future of Democrats.

2:20.1

But I also wanted to say I was thinking about you recently because I'm learning how to play Blackjack and poker and some stuff. And I was reading about just quite how good you are. I saw that you reported more than 1.4 in Vegas, 1.4 million in winnings from Blackjack in Vegas. I wanted to know if this is like a normal week for you. Like, how do you make that happen? No, very lucky is the answer. And you know, they're not in business to, you know, to give you money.

2:20.1

So if you know, they're not in business to, you know, to give you money.

2:24.5

So if you can win anything and walk away, you've done well.

...

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