Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker believes Donald Trump’s calls to have him arrested is down to the president’s declining mental fitness.
In a Wednesday Truth Social post, Trump called for Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to be jailed, while accusing the pair of Democrats of failing to protect ICE agents.
The president was angered by legal challenges from local officials to block the deployment of National Guard units to Chicago amid ongoing protests over ICE raids.
“I do not expect to be arrested, and the president of the United States says a lot of crazy things,” Pritzker told The Daily Blast podcast from The New Republic.
Playing into reports of the 79-year-old president’s alleged cognitive decline, the governor urged Trump’s family to stop letting his aides take advantage of him.
“I genuinely think there is something wrong with him. I wish that his family would intervene, because I do think he needs mental health help, and I don’t think anybody around him that works for him is going to do that, because they’re benefiting from his failure of mental health, his dementia,” Pritzker said. “I wish somebody would help out the president of the United States.”
Trump has displayed troubling signs of cognitive decline, fueling concerns about his fitness for the presidency. For example, on Sept. 29, during a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump incorrectly remembered when his first presidential term began.
Pritzker continued by ripping into Trump’s calls to have him arrested.
“Meanwhile, you know, he says a lot of crazy things,” the governor went on. “He doesn’t have authority to arrest elected officials or really anybody where you don’t have any, you know, example of a crime being committed, and I find it ironic that this guy who’s a 34-time convicted felon is saying that I should be jailed. I’ve never been accused of or convicted of, or, you know, gone on trial for anything. He’s the guy who’s done that so many times and cheated, by the way, in civil court.”
“Pritzker’s family should intervene to get him to a dietician,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast when contacted for comment.
Pritzker separately said on X on Wednesday that he “will not back down,” in response to Trump’s post. “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
Jackson told the Daily Beast that Pritzker and Johnson “have blood on their hands.”
“These failed leaders have stood idly by while innocent Americans fall victim to violent crime time and time again. Last weekend alone, 30 people were shot and five of them died. But instead of taking action to stop the crime, these Trump-Deranged buffoons would rather allow the violence to continue and attack the President for wanting to help make their city safe again,” Jackson added.
Trump’s move to federalize National Guard troops in Illinois followed weeks of protests in Chicago over raids carried out by ICE agents as part of the administration’s crackdown on immigration.
Illinois and Chicago on Monday filed a lawsuit alleging that the president’s actions were “unlawful and dangerous.” The White House has defended the president’s actions, saying they are part of a wider effort to crack down on crime and lawlessness.
