What Resistance Means to Governor J. B. Pritzker

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Few Democratic officials have been more outspoken in opposition to the Trump Administration than J. B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. He seems almost to relish antagonizing Trump, who has suggested Pritzker should be in jail. Meanwhile, ICE and Border Patrol have targeted Chicago, and elsewhere in Illinois, with immigration sweeps more aggressive than what Los Angeles experienced earlier this year; they refused to pause the raids even on Halloween. The President has called Chicago a “hell hole,” but, in Pritzker’s view, immigration sweeps do nothing to reduce crime. “He’s literally taking F.B.I., D.E.A., and A.T.F.—which we work with all the time—he’s taking them out of their departments and moving them over to ICE, and they’re not . . . helping us catch bad guys,” Pritzker says in an interview with the reporter Peter Slevin. “He’s creating mayhem on the ground because you know what he wants? He wants troops on the ground in American cities, and the only way he can get that done is by proving that there’s some sort of insurrection or revolution or rebellion.” And yet, as Slevin tells David Remnick, a governor’s power to resist the federal government depends largely on the courts. Thus far, “the district courts have acted quite favorably toward the plaintiffs in various lawsuits against these actions by the federal government.”

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1:00.2	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
1:07.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
1:12.5	One thing we've heard a lot since last November is how unpopular the Democratic Party has become, unpopular even with many of its traditional supporters.
1:23.1	So the Democratic sweep last week surely tells us a little bit about the mood of the country,
1:28.5	about the mood of the voters 10 months into Donald Trump's campaign to remake America.
1:33.7	But the election of Zoran Mamdani, somebody who was virtually unknown a year ago, also shows
1:39.3	that voters will respond to a clear message from the Democrats, whether it's a moderate in Virginia or New Jersey
1:46.1	or a Democratic Socialist in the city of New York. I spoke with Mamdani at length a few weeks ago,
1:52.1	and if you're curious about what it means for a Democratic Socialist to be mayor of America's
1:56.9	largest city, I'd suggest you listen to that interview. It's in the podcast of the New Yorker
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