Consider This from NPR - The National Guard arrives in Chicago. What now?

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

The clock is ticking for Chicago and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.President Trump has deployed the National Guard to the country’s third largest city, and he says they’ll begin operations no later than Wednesday.Pritzker, a democrat, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson are fighting the administration’s efforts in the courts.Trump says Chicago and other cities need the National Guard on the streets. Illinois governor JB Pritzker says it’s an "invasion." What now?For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Megan Lim.It was edited by Courtney Dorning.Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Trump administration has said it wants national guard troops patrolling the streets in Memphis, Portland, and Chicago. The reason, says President Trump and members of his cabinet, a need to address rampant crime and give support to federal agents involved in immigration enforcement. It's probably worse than almost any city in the world. You can go to Afghanistan. You can go to a lot of different places. And they probably marvel at how much crime we have. But the governors of Oregon in Illinois and the mayors of Chicago and Portland have filed lawsuits to try and stop the deployment of National Guard troops in their cities and states. To put military troops in American cities is a threat to our democracy.

There is not an insurrection or a rebellion, not only in Portland or Chicago or other places. Oregon's governor, Democrat Tina Kotech speaking to all things considered on Monday. Look, there are challenges. There's lawful demonstrations. local law enforcement is handling the situation. And I think this is an overreaction to the situation. And it's just not true. Facts should matter.

Now as the war of wills between the states and the executive branch is intensifying, President Trump is saying he could try and bypass the courts altogether by using the Insurrection Act. It's an 1807 law that would give him broad latitude to use the National Guard or active duty troops for law enforcement. on domestic soil. We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I'd do that. If people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I do that.

Consider this. Trump says Chicago and other cities need the National Guard on the streets. Illinois governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, says it's an invasion. After the break, we'll hear more from Governor Pritzker. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's consider this from NPR. The clock is ticking for Chicago and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. President Trump has deployed the National Guard to the country's third largest city,

and he says they will begin operations no later than Wednesday. Pritzker, a Democrat, has. called President Trump's efforts, a quote invasion. And along with Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson, he is fighting the administration's efforts in the courts. Governor J.B. Pritzker joins me now. Welcome back to the program. Thank you very much, Juana. Thanks for being here. Governor, we're speaking on Tuesday morning. And the Trump administration has said that troops will be on the ground no later than tomorrow. You have filed suit against this move. But the judge declined to block the deployment. There will not be a hearing until Thursday morning. So I just want to

start by asking you, how are you preparing for the fact that the National Guard could well be on the streets of Chicago as this lawsuit is playing out? Well, let me be clear that the judge is actually deciding this on Thursday and hasn't declined anything. She's literally reading the filings and demanded that the federal government submit something by Wednesday so that she could make a ruling potentially on Thursday. We don't know how she will rule. We don't know how she will rule, but certainly based on the precedent of what occurred down in Oregon, we believe that we'll get the rule that we want. I remember that we are seeing National Guard troops coming from Texas now. We have our own National Guard that have been federalized, and the Texas National Guard were

already federalized, so that's why they were able to move quickly. And they've already started arriving, not in Chicago, but in Joliet, at a federal facility there. The federal judge, though, warned the federal lawyers that it wouldn't be a good idea for them to deploy them until there is a ruling. Your state's attorney general has argued that the deployment of the military to Illinois is unlawful and constitutional, no matter where these forces come from. But the Trump administration, for its part, says that it is deploying troops to assist federal agents with immigration enforcement. So have officers been able to carry out ICE enforcement duties without support of local law enforcement? They have, and they are carrying out those duties. I will say that they are doing

them, they're carrying it out in an extremely aggressive fashion that borders on breaking the law, federal law and state law. But ICE agents and Customs and Border Patrol are on the ground, and they have been effectuating their plan. The thing is, they're using literally people's skin color as a way to determine whether they're going to stop people and ask them for their papers. Now, think about that. I don't walk around with papers to prove that I'm a U.S. citizen.

I bet you don't either. Most people don't, but they're demanding that, well, if you happen to have, you know, something other than white skin, you better have something to prove it or you're going to get detained or arrested. Governor, President Trump said on Monday that at the moment he doesn't plan to, but that if governors like yourself in the courts do not cooperate with his administration's efforts, that he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act, which would give him broad latitude to use the guard or active duty troops for law enforcement in Chicago, not limited to protecting federal agents. How serious of a threat is that? Well, remember, the Insurrection Act has the name insurrection in it for a reason. It's only something that you can, if you can, if you can, effectuate if there is an insurrection, a foreign invasion, a true national emergency. That doesn't

exist here. And it doesn't exist in Portland. It didn't exist in Washington, D.C. or in Los Angeles. So I realize that President Trump, who does no reading and doesn't understand anything, you know, uses the words insurrection act like he understands it. But he does. The president might disagree with your characterization there. He has argued that it is emergency. He has described that it looks like war in some of these cities. Yeah, but he's the one that's causing that situation. That is to say it's ice and CBP that have been launching grenades with tear gas that have been pelting people with, you know, with plastic or rubber bullets. They're the ones that are creating mayhem on the ground, specifically because they want to claim that there's some sort

of emergency. There isn't. This is occurring in a two-block area of a suburb of Chicago, Broadview. So, you know, yes, they can take their own video of an incident that occurs, you know, in that two-block area and make it seem like that's all of Chicago. That's not even in the city of Chicago. In fact, our crime rate has been dropping and dropping and, you know, half the homicide rate that it was a few years ago. Double-digit declines each year now. Donald Trump just, he honestly doesn't read. He doesn't understand what's going on in the cities. He just has some notion in his head. There's some sort of dementia going on, and he just keeps repeating things from years gone by. Governor, as I listen to you talk about the Insurrection Act or the restraining

order that your state has filed, it sounds to me like you're in many ways relying on how things have been in the past. And if there's one thing we've seen, it's that the courts have appeared quite willing to increase the power of the president. Are you concerned about where all of this could be going? Sure. And I think we have to rely on the courts and get rulings that are, you know, uphold the Constitution and the law. Unfortunately, we have a system in which the supremacy clause says that the federal government's laws essentially override state laws if they're in direct contravention. And also there's immunity for federal agents from the federal government for much of their

activity. So we don't do that on the ground. We don't hold everybody immune. Sometimes we do in certain things. but what we can't do is just sit idly by while these things are occurring, and that's why we've called on people to take action, like creating evidence for our court cases by pulling out their iPhones and their Android phones and filming everything.

We wouldn't even know about the alderman who was detained by ICE for simply standing and asking them questions. She was truly docile in the entire manner. It's on film. We wouldn't know about that if someone hadn't pulled out their phone to take video of it. We need to find ways to hold them responsible. Private organizations, private legal organizations like the ACLU are doing that now. And to the extent that states and local governments can do so, we are.

Governor J.B. Pritzker, Democrat of Illinois, thank you so much for speaking with us. Thanks, Juana. This episode was produced by Megan Lim. It was edited by Courtney Dorney. Our executive producer is Sammy Annie. again. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.

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