This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

This week, Governor J.B. Pritzker delivered an extraordinary takedown of President Trump in response to Trump's threat to send troops into Chicago.

Soon after, Trump exploded in fury about Pritzker's impudence,

calling the governor a bunch of names and instructing Pritzker to bow down before him and beg for

his help in fighting crime. What's striking here is that Pritzker did something unusual. He communicated

directly with his constituents from the

heart, vowing to use all his power to protect them from Trump's authoritarian takeover. Rather than let

Trump get away with pretending his moves are in any sense about fighting crime, Pritzker cast Trump as the

primary threat to the people of his state.

All this comes as a new poll shows that majorities of Americans simply are not accepting

Trump's word for it that this is all about crime.

So why are pundits pretending he's winning the politics of this battle when he's not?

We're talking today to Brian Boitler, who has a great new piece on his

substack off message, taking stock of what Pritzker did. Good to see you again, Brian. It's great to be

back. So let's just jump in and start with J.B. Pritzker's response to Trump. Here's one excerpt.

It's a bit long, but it's worth it. Listen. To the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man.

To any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence

as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous, we are watching and we are taking names.

This country has survived darker periods than the one that we're going through right now,

and eventually the pendulum will

swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard

...