Transcription
To take any questions from members of the media. Rose wanted to ask you, I'm sorry for the outside question about the New York Times report from yesterday related to uh the operation that's headed to Naval Station Great Lakes. They're saying a request for 250 department personnel for public security um incident command posts, parking for 140 vehicles, storage space for medical supplies, and rubber bullets and tear gas. What do you make of that? Have you heard anything from the White House? I don't know why they need rubber bullets and tear gas. And of course, this is part of a long-standing effort by the Trump administration since he took office. In fact, since just before he took office of attacking the city of Chicago, the people, the residents of the city of Chicago. Um, and you know, we we understand that they have a legal right to come. These are civilian law enforcement to be clear. Um, they have a legal right to come. Uh but we don't appreciate uh when they mistreat our residents uh when they go after people who many of whom are have been here for decades many of whom are taxpayers and workers. There are people who live in our communities. There are neighbors. There are friends uh and we now have a president and a federal government that's um going after them, hunting people down and disappearing them off the streets. Men with masks are grabbing people off the streets and taking them away and that's just shameful.
Governor, with all the chatter obviously from Washington about the possible influx of federal federal agents coming to Chicago as well as the National Guard, what conversations have you had with the Illinois State Police and the National Guard to prepare for this? Well, of course, I'm governor. I I talk to my state police director all the time as well as the National Guard agitant general. Uh both of them were appointed by me. Uh and uh you know we've had many conversations about you know what our the challenges of the federal government imposing troops on the city of Chicago illegally, I might add. Um, and the, you know, the fact that what we want most of all is for, um, Donald Trump to help us to fight crime with civilian law enforcement. We'd love to have uh, more ATF agents help us take guns off the streets. We'd love to have more FBI agents to help us to track down perpetrators of crime. Uh, but we don't welcome troops to the city of Chicago. We do not welcome troops to the state of Illinois. I I want to just say one more thing about those troops, by the way, just to remember I if there are National Guard and those are troops National Guard and they're trained for war to be clear and they're very good at their jobs. Thank God we have them protecting our country. Um, our Illinois National Guard gets sent to foreign countries on behalf of the United States by the president, past presidents um to to stand guard for us in the Middle East, in in Europe, in Asia. Uh, and I respect them greatly. Um, most of them, almost all of them are not trained for law enforcement. That's not what they do. Um, but let's respect the fact that if they get called up or any National Guard come here, if they get called up, I know members of the National Guard, they don't want to do law enforcement on the streets. This is not the job they signed up for when they went into the National Guard. Um, so if it happens that they end up here, we should all be respectful of them. They are following orders. That's what they're supposed to do. They can be court marshaled if they don't follow orders. And so I think uh they don't want to be here. we should respect the that they have a job that they're being asked to do. Uh but to be honest with you, I think the same percentage about 80 85% of the National Guardsmen, maybe more, uh like the people of Chicago don't want troops on the streets of Chicago. So, it's unamerican if you ask me. Invading a city with troops. A US president invading an American city with troops. I I'm 60 years old. I've never heard of such a thing. It shouldn't happen. You call up the National Guard when you have an emergency. There is no emergency here. We We always need help fighting crime, of course. And there are great civilian law enforcement across the country in the federal government who can help do that and do and we work with them all the time. would love more help doing that, but not troops.
And this is just a followup to what Rose asked about New York Times article. Just to be clear, have you heard anything from Washington about what they want to do in Chicago with the federal immigration agencies in the National Guard? That's that's one part of the question. The second part of the question is, you know, would you wish that they would at least talk to you, you know, as a way of helping you try inform the public about what's going on, what their plans are, and you know, as a way of deescalation in case of protests, etc. I'm so glad you asked. First, I have not received any calls from anybody in the federal government telling me about troop movements or plans for them to move people into the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois. Uh, and I think that's offensive. I think that's, as far as I know, never been done before. We've always been consulted. We have local law enforcement. We have state law enforcement that should be coordinated with. If you want to go after criminals, great. We do, too. U, but let me be clear. no communication from them. If they would communicate with me, here's what I would tell them. The business community in the city of Chicago got together a couple of years ago, and as you know, we had a much higher crime rate. We were hoping to bring it down, the state investing uh significant dollars, the city investing significant dollars in doing that. And uh I have hired more police to the state police than anybody in memory. Uh or I shouldn't say in memory since the '90s. Um I believe that police are helpful in fighting crime. But I also want to be clear that that if they would talk to me, they would hear that the business people in the city of Chicago, for example, and maybe President Trump will just listen to that. Um what they want is for us to interrupt violence. They want us to use violence interruption tactics, right, and organizations that are very effective like CRED, for example. Um the the work that they do in the communities has brought down crime by 73% in the toughest neighborhoods across the city of Chicago. That's what works. And you know what President Trump did in the face of that? He cut funding for those programs from the federal government. That doesn't help us fight crime. He's defunding police. He's defunding our efforts to fight crime uh and so that he can send troops into the city of Chicago for one reason. I want everybody to pay attention what the reason is. It's about the elections in 2026 and about interrupting our ability to have a fair and free election in 2026. We're not the only targeted city. He's talked about lots of other cities. We're just the first one outside of Washington DC where he has federal control. We're the first one that he wants to invade and it's for that purpose and not about fighting crime.
Governor Governor, yesterday Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago Police Department laid out its plans should the National Guard be deployed. Can you share a little a little bit more on what tools you have available? Uh should the National Guard be deployed? What plans the state has? Sure. I what the city is doing and by the way the you know state of Illinois and its Illinois state police are engaged also is uh organizing around the same principles that we had uh for the Democratic National Convention. Right? We had a lot of people coming, a lot of people visiting uh the city of Chicago. We knew there were going to be protests and so the preparations for that are really sort of like they were around the Democratic National Convention making sure that the civilian law enforcement at the federal level, civilian law enforcement at the state level coordinate as best they can. But there's no stopping a president who is hellbent on breaking the law and sending troops into a city. The only thing that will stop it is if all of us and the public across the nation who by huge numbers thinks this is a terrible idea, stand up and say something. Because one thing I know about Donald Trump, he's got a big ego and he doesn't want to offend the majority of Americans uh and their sense of, you know, how you should fight crime. He wants to be popular with everyone. Uh, and so people need to stand up and speak out and and and talk about the fact that it's unconstitutional what he's suggesting.
DNC, unlike the DNC, were in communication with the federal government. How dangerous potentially dangerous is that? That there is no coordination. There is no communication leading up to this. Yeah. The president of the United States doesn't understand that it's law enforcement, civilian law enforcement that helps to keep order, that helps to fight crime. It's not troops. You don't send troops in. We have troops that go abroad to fight wars for us. They don't fight wars in the United States. We have civilian law enforcement to do that job. And it's a terrible waste of resources. It literally is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars for the federal government to do what they're trying to do. And it has no purpose related to crime. It is only related to interrupting the elections in 2026.
Last question and we got to go. Yeah. press Tom's comments yesterday suggest this is more about ICE agents and the New York Times was about you know homeland security officials do you feel like that's the way that you know the Trump administration is doing this legally to avoid having to fall on the guard they've tried this before you know they've come to the city of Chicago with ICE agents before as you know Tom Holman came with Dr. Phil, I mean, is that a serious endeavor? Um, and but they it is a serious endeavor because they were literally scaring the heck out of people in Little Village and Pilson and other places in the city of Chicago, in the state of Illinois. Um, so it is a very serious matter, but they apparently think this is some kind of uh reality TV show. And uh and so the intentions here are clear. Again, nothing to do with actually enforcing the law, nothing to do with actually keeping the peace. Uh they want to inflame something. That is what they want. They look at what they did in Los Angeles. Again, people with masks walking around or showing up, driving up in vans and grabbing people off the streets and throwing them in the back of a van. That's not the United States. That again, it's unamerican to do something like that. I studied the Holocaust. I helped to build a Holocaust museum. This is what happened in the early days of the Nazi regime in Germany. I I'm not suggesting we're going the same direction necessarily, but boy, it's frightening. And what is happening here has happened in many other countries. Uh, and th those are the countries that are autocratic authoritarian dictatorships. Thank you very much everyone. [Applause]