President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker should be jailed “for failing to protect” Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, the latest escalation between the leaders as the White House pushes ahead on its military deployment in the city.
Trump has repeatedly criticized both leaders as weak, decrying the Midwest city as a hotspot of crime despite falling crime rates in Chicago.
Texas National Guard troops arrived in the Chicagoland area Tuesday, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called up 300 Illinois National Guard troops Saturday to be deployed for at least 60 days despite objections from Pritzker and Johnson.
Johnson and Pritzker did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Pritzker has vowed to use “every lever” at the state’s disposal to resist the deployment, accusing the Trump administration of carrying out an “authoritarian march” in Chicago and other Democratic-led cities.
The state of Illinois filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the deployment after a federal judge in Oregon twice ruled against Trump’s efforts to deploy troops to Portland over the objections of local leaders. The Trump administration is appealing the decision.
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act if federal courts, governors and mayors prevent him from deploying troops to American cities.
The White House has surged the presence of ICE officials in the city in recent months, with protesters repeatedly clashing with federal agents outside of an ICE facility in a suburb of the city. Several of those demonstrators, along with local journalists, nonprofits and unions, sued the Trump administration Tuesday, alleging law enforcement violated their First Amendment rights by using “extreme brutality” at demonstrations.
Johnson and Pritzker also publicly sparred with Trump after he threatened to go to “WAR” with the city last month in a provocative meme referencing the 1979 war movie “Apocalypse Now.”
Pritzker — along with his Democratic colleague, California Gov. Gavin Newsom — also threatened earlier this week to pull out of the National Governor’s Association if it doesn’t do more to push back on Trump’s cross-state National Guard deployments.
Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
