JB Pritzker Has NEVER Seen an Election Like This in His Life

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So, you've been doing the rounds today. You're on TV. You're calling reporters. You are pushing a sort of aggressive plan for Democrats, 200 agenda items. The sort of overall feature is don't waste this majority that you have in Congress. Be aggressive. Be assertive. Can you speak sort of in generalities about why you feel like they need to be aggressive, why they need to be reminded to be aggressive, and then, of course, get into the particulars of your agenda items? Well, look, I'm the governor of the fifth largest state in the country, and I've got 13 million people that I represent and lead, and it's important to me on their behalf to make sure that the federal government is first restoring some of the damage, the, you know, the programs that they've taken away and the damage that they've done, making sure that we're restoring that for the working families of Illinois, but also, you know, talking about, and it's big things and small things, by the way. There's some things that are, you know, that should be easy to do, like passing a hike in the minimum wage, because it's about time. $7.25 is ridiculously low. People can't survive on that, and that's a relatively easy thing to pass. Whether Trump will sign it or not is, frankly, up to him, but it could be negotiated with him. Meanwhile, there are some smaller things, like there are law enforcement grants and first responder grants that were taken away by Doge or taken away in the big, ugly bill, the H.R. 1 that was passed last year. And these are all things that I think the Congress needs to take up. Don't misunderstand, though, that, you know, we're focused on the state of Illinois and the things that matter, and I've gone to all my agencies and said, OK, guys, let's look at all the things that the Trump administration has done to us as a state, and let's figure out what we need to get restored. But all of those things for the state of Illinois, frankly, every state's had those things taken away. Well, not every state. Blue states. No, every state. It's just, it is true that every state, I mean, it's not like SNAP benefits are, you know, going to Oklahomans any more than they are to Illinoisans. It's true that there are certain aspects of things that where the FEMA dollars, for example, we had more than 200 tornadoes last year, and we have sought FEMA dollars from the federal government. We got 25 percent of what we asked for. Most other states got 75 or 100 percent. I'm talking about red states, of course. So you're right about that. And we talked about that as well. But the important thing is that we've got to have an agenda on day one. We can't wait a year, two years to get these things done. The Democratic Congress needs to work on this right now. I mean, states have a particular pinch point coming up in the Medicaid cuts, because states are on the hook for that, and they are coming into effect. My colleague, Jonathan Cohen, has written a lot about this, but I don't think people appreciate the crunch that you're about to be under with these. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe get into some of your optimism or lack thereof that these cuts could be reversed? Well, look, we have unfortunately elections have consequences, meaning that Donald Trump is the president of the United States and he's got some power here. We don't have a super majority in the House or the Senate. And so some of this is going to have to be negotiated or perhaps he's simply going to veto it. But billions of dollars have been taken away from our state and from states across the country. But I'm just billions from Illinois and from Illinoisans in their Medicaid coverage, in people who've had their Obamacare coverage taken away. You know, SNAP benefits, you mentioned 150,000 people have lost SNAP benefits in my state. The true damage being done to people who just cannot afford to survive without these things. And a lot of them are working people, by the way. A lot of them also are like they're working in some part-time job, can't find full-time work or can't find another part-time job. And so they're not going to get covered as a result of the damaging rules that were put in place. So these are things that need to be dealt with in the 200 items that we put forward. But I guess the point I'm making is big things and small things. We need the Congress to go whole hog and do it right away. Well, I mean, I will cop to I haven't apologized all 200 things, so I apologize for that. It's been a long day. But can you tell me like what you think your most controversial item is? Maybe the one that, you know, might piss off members of your party the most? Members of my party most? Yeah. I'm kind of, I'm looking for the unorthodox. Let's put it that way. Unorthodox. I'm not sure. I, cause all I can say is that all the people who won last night, I mean, this is what I would tell you. I won last night. I was on the ballot. Very much. I didn't, I didn't think it was much. It was gonna, I wasn't like waiting up with anticipation. I thought you had that one. I didn't, you know, listen, I always run like I'm five months behind. So, but I did win with the largest percentage any Democrat running for governor has ever won by an Illinois. So I'm happy about that. But I can tell you that the, every item in there is really about lifting up working people in the middle class and the most vulnerable. So these are all things that are fundamental democratic ideas things that really matter to us. What will piss off? I'm not sure what to tell you. I can say this though, that some of it, maybe there are people who don't agree with me about, you know, we had law enforcement grants taken away. First responders, right? I mean, the equipment that they need, frankly, to do their jobs that has always come from the federal government and they've been taken away. Maybe there are people who don't want that stuff to come, but I think it's vitally important. So I think, I think the party's moved towards that position, to be honest. I guess it's hard to get into Trump's head. I'm not going to ask you to do it. But, you know, I think it's fair to say that if in any other administration, you would see something like a course correction after what happened last night, right? We certainly saw with Obama, right? I don't anticipate that from Trump. I do think he continues to target states like yours. They've already said they're going to continue the deportations and your state has been incredibly impacted by ICE agents. But are you anticipating a status quo in terms of his approach? Or do you imagine that he could maybe, I don't know, try a different tact? I don't think he'll try a different tact. I mean, don't forget it's ICE and CBP, which was here, you know, in heavy numbers with Operation Midway Blitz, still is here. Now, we, I think we did a good job of pushing back and we, you know, we did an accountability commission. We had people with their phones, you know, and cameras taking pictures and video of all of it. And I think that helped to create a problem for the. continuing those operations. But they're still here. They're still here and they're still coming in and arresting, taking people away. Sometimes they're taking people who are U.S. citizens away and then, you know, claiming that they're going to restore their, you know, them back to their homes, but they're not. So we are running into that problem. Now, again, Democrats need to stand strong on this. You know, the question is on, for example, funding. You know, there's a budget CR that's coming up in December. And I believe that Democrats need to hold fast to our ideals. We just won the Congress. We should stand up for what we believe. Unfortunately, in the past, you've seen that some senators have just given in because they have an item here or there they could get bought off on. And honestly, I just. There was a shutdown for a couple of weeks over DHS funding. They did give in eventually. They did. And that's my point. I under. Listen, I don't like shutdowns. Nobody likes shutdowns. But there are things that you should stand strong about, particularly when the rights of American citizens are being taken away and when people are being brutalized and, frankly, murdered in the streets of our cities. So seems like we ought to hold fast. But my only point. So you would, just to put a final point on it, you'd be OK if they shut down the government in December whenever the CR comes to a close over the same exact DHS provisions, which is getting body cameras on every ICE agent, making sure that they can't mask, those types of reforms? I'm on team fight. I mean, if you saw what was happening on the streets of Chicago and all across the state, it wasn't just Chicago. If you saw this stuff firsthand and maybe, you know, I know you saw videos, but. No, we had a reporter in Chicago who was covering it. And it was pretty jarring, honestly. It is. And it was. And especially if you were right there, you know. And I can just tell you, like, we're not. We can't put up with that anymore. You know, they tried to bring National Guard. We had to take them. They federalized our National Guard, as well as California and Texas. You know, which was Greg Abbott was happy to send his National Guard here. But they tried to do that. We had to take him to court. We won at the Supreme Court. But, you know, he still has the Insurrection Act that he could invoke. So it's a real problem. And, yes, I think we have to stand fast for our rights. All right, so there's a guy you know right now, and there's a guy you know you could be. Weight Loss by HIMSS is built to close that gap. Weight Loss by HIMSS gives you access to a range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications including Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. With Wegovy, you could lose up to 20% of your body weight. In a 64-week clinical trial, people taking Wegovy alongside diet and exercise lost an average of 14% of their body weight. And with HIMSS, you get more than just a prescription. You get an online consultation with a licensed provider, nutrition and lifestyle guidance, and 24-7 access to your care team to help support you along the way, 24-7. And with HIMSS, you get more than a prescription. 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Because two years ago when Trump takes over, no one really seemed to be able to anticipate the kind of blitz of actions and just the extent to which he would do what he did. And it felt like there was an adjustment period for people, including governors, but also obviously members of Congress, to the speed of it, the erratic nature of it, the stuff he was doing that really wasn't on people's radars. How did you, how have you changed as a politician? How have you, how has your approach changed due to this era? Well, I think I was the first, or at least among the first, I'm, you know, that to say something. And, you know, I said, if you come from my people, you come through me. And that, that was simply me saying, you know, cause Tom Holman, this is back in December of 2024, was here in Illinois saying we're coming to Chicago first, right? And then he brought, you know, he brought ice, he brought CBP and he brought Dr. Phil and a whole lot of these creators, you know, and, and, and, you know, I knew they were coming, you know, they, listen, I know who Donald Trump is and I am not putting up with any of it. And from the very beginning, I mean, I said it took 53 days for the Nazis to end the democracy that was in Germany. We were 30 days into the Trump administration at that point. And my, my point was simply everybody be on alert. There's a five alarm fire. Everybody grab a bucket. And I think it took a while for people to come around to the idea, wow, this could really be bad. There were also a lot of people. And I talked to some of the governors, not going to name names, but I will tell you, I talked to, cause I tried to get, you know, really galvanize people. Like let's go to Minneapolis, for example, let's all the governors. Cause remember Democrats in Congress weren't doing anything about it. And so I said, how about if all the governors show up at with Tim walls and on the streets of Minneapolis. And we say like, we're not putting up with this. We, we stand fast with the protesters and you know what, there was a, there were two democratic governors that I talked to and each of them said something different about why we couldn't do it. One of them simply said, well, I just don't think people will want to do that. Let's do is come on. I'm not kidding. The other, the zoom call, I'm not exaggerating the, and the other one basically said, look, I'm afraid that I'm going to lose university funding if I do something like that. And so I'm just not going to do it. And I, I said, folks, we're going to lose funding anyway. He's going to do it. You're not going to do it anyway. It doesn't, you're not going to, you can't duck and hide and think he's just going to overlook your blue state. So, or your blue governorship. So I, I must say, I don't know if I've changed it. The change perhaps is that, I mean, I've always been out here in the fight, but, but here we are the day after a massive blue tsunami. I don't know what you want to call that thing. Cause it's probably, we got to get it. We got to get a different term. I feel like someone said it was a wildfire. Cause it's more than, than just a wave and a tsunami. I mean, but because we're about to take maybe the Senator's position in Mississippi, Scott, call them, you know, maybe called. So I'm just saying we, we, you know, the, the change for me really has been, how do I get more people on board on team fight? And I think people have come around because, you know, they needed to be pushed a little bit, but people have come around. Democrats understood, you know, elected Democrats understood the American public. It really, really doesn't like this anymore. They don't want this anymore. And like farmers who voted for Donald Trump, they don't want to hear about your complaints about Donald Trump, but they understand that their business has been taken away from them and they are about to declare bankruptcy and they can't put up with the administration anymore. So they're going to be on team fight too. So I got to ask you this last question. Then I do want to actually talk a little bit about the midterms. But like you, you're a successful businessman before politics, you know, these people in the perception of these guys, these corporate leaders, is that they are extremely powerful, extremely self-assured. And yet they all sort of bent the knee to a degree, not all, but a lot of them bent the knee to a degree. It looks a little foolish now, to be honest, but I don't, I'm kind of curious why they got so scared considering that, you know, they're independently wealthy and they've, you know, obviously have a good sense of ego. And yet we saw time and again that they capitulated. They did. And it was very disappointing. I know, I know some of these folks and I can tell you that, you know, they thought what they were saying to themselves, I think was I've got to do what's in the best interests of my shareholders. That that's my responsibility. Okay. I mean, exactly. And I, I would just say that, that they missed the boat. I know people who were running law firms who capitulated. I know people who were running educational institutions that capitulated. Um, and I have to say, uh, I think all of them had this strange notion that, well, I've got a constituency that I owe my responsibility to. And it was some smaller constituency than like American democracy, you know, which is what they really should have been thinking about. But I understand some of them would have had to have resigned if they took the position that like as a law firm, for example, that, well, no, we're not going to capitulate. They would have had to resign because their partners wouldn't want them to lead their firm anymore. So, but my attitude, and I said this to one of them in particular, I said, then you should do, take the position and see if they ask you to resign and then resign. You have plenty of money. Yeah. I was going to say you build, you build the wealth for that, right? Like exactly. And so, I mean, but, or at least, you know, whether you built the wealth for that or not, look, I, my first job in politics where I really got paid, not just as a volunteer was working for a guy named Terry Sanford, who was the guy, the first Southern governor to integrate, the schools in the South. This is in the early sixties. I worked for him much later when he ran for United States Senate and one, but in the early sixties, he took that position. Couldn't have been elected dog catcher when he was done, but he was the governor of North Carolina and he integrated the schools. And why did he do it? He did it because he knew it was the right thing to do and knew he would probably lose his job doing it. Maybe couldn't run for office again. 25 years later, he ran for Senate at age 69 and one. And I think there's karma in that. And, you know, and maybe a lesson, but all I can say is that should be the reason that people are running for public office for that moment, when you can actually stand up and do something that's right and risk all of the political capital, perhaps that you've garnered. Yeah, fair enough. All right. So obviously whatever you want to call it, wildfire, tsunami this is, this is vastly different than 2018, which seemed at the time, like a big election. Those 40 seats were looking at like something in the order of some magnitude more than that. And of course the Senate, but I wonder when you look back at that first Trump term and when Democrats took the house, do you look back into and think of things that they should avoid doing now? They, they should do differently now that they're going to have power. You know, there's obviously some similarities, some differences, but are there lessons you learned looking back at 2019, I guess? Well, I can say that the danger, to working families and to the American Republic is much higher. Now it just is. And people need to recognize that there's no, you know, I mean, we can negotiate with Donald Trump on, you know, is he willing to accept a hike in the minimum wage, for example, and at what rate and so on. And, and then, you know, when we get a democratic president, we can hike it again. But, but all I can tell you is, you know, the, so those are things you could talk to Trump about and see if he could be reasonable. But this idea that we're going to give up our rights, you know, that, It's OK if he's got troops in our streets or, you know, the damage that he's doing to our. How about the war in Iran? I mean, there are some things you just can't compromise about. And so I think that the lesson anyway, for whatever it's worth, is is no capitulating, no capitulating. There's some things, again, you can work on together, but some things there's no capitulating. You've got to stand strong. And now that we have these what I think are massive majorities, I mean, who thought we'd be at 55, maybe United States senators could be 56. It could be. It could be. And maybe 250 to 255 House members. I mean, I think we're in a position now where nobody should be afraid anymore. And by the way, I think there are Republicans now who are still in there held on somehow to their seats at the edges of this wave or whatever you want to call it and who are thinking to themselves, I'm not going to be a sycophant anymore for Donald Trump because I'm going to lose next time. Yeah, we've thought that we have thought that before. And yet, yeah, but this is come back. Listen, I don't hold on to because he's he's a lame duck. Right. I'm 61. I don't know how old you are. I can tell you I've been involved in politics for most of all of my adult life, maybe as a kid, too, I would say. And I've never seen an election like last night. I mean, that was quite something. Maybe you could. I mean, it was Obama in 08 was different. It's not the same. Have we taken the House and Senate before? Sure. But not like last night. I mean, think of Texas. We have I mean, Texas, South Carolina. Yeah. Maybe Mississippi. Yeah. I mean, let me ask, because I want to be cognizant of your time. You mentioned Iran. That was I thought was kind of a remarkable post that J.D. Vance, the vice president, issued today. I assume you saw it where he basically said, yeah, the we lost because of the war in Iran. Yeah. More or less sort of like taking a position. That is kind of fundamentally at odds with both the president and him. Right. I mean, he's part of the administration. He tried to negotiate the MOU. But the politics of Iran, is he not? Is he wrong on that? Like, I don't know. Listen, he's the forget about whether he's right or wrong. That's great commentary. Where was he when we needed him to stand up against the war in Iran? Like before it started, what was he? He was a bootlicker the entire time advocating for all the policies. And now because it doesn't look good, you know, he wants to take a different position because it might, you know, might hurt him if he doesn't running for president in 2028. I don't think we should let him get away with it. He also said that. So he had four things that he diagnosed for the next Republican. One was just America first. Right. Others were in the war in Iran. But he also said more or less and the current relationship with Israel. This comes in the heels of Trump saying he's going to cut off all aid to Israel, not weapons. Supplies, but aid, you know, there is obviously I'm not like breaking news. There is real appetite for this type of approach on both sides of the ledger. I am wondering if you agree that there is a need to reset the U.S.-Israel relationship. Well, let me ask you about the J.D. Vance position. Do you think that that the people who came out and voted last night are people who are now going to start voting for J.D. Vance because he has a new position on Israel? Or that Donald Trump has a new position on Israel? I think what he's doing is he's trying to capture a portion of the Republican Party, like the Tucker Carlson wing. That that's great. But just FYI, the Republican Party got rebuked last night broadly. Sure. And so my question still stands. Do you feel like there is a need for the kind of reset of the American relationship with the with Israel? Well, I think we've got to see what the Israeli government turns out to be, because Netanyahu, is the person that I hold responsible for what's happened to Israel and to Jews all across the world. The rise in anti-Semitism, the war in Iran. I mean, I do think we've got to watch and see what happens to the government. It's not the people of Israel, the territory of Israel. There's not like guilt there. It's just there's somebody running that country that made decisions that have frankly, those were atrocities that were committed. And I believe that we. Do have to hold a government responsible if that government is still in power. But let's see what happens as a result of the change in leadership. I believe there'll be a change in leadership in Israel, and then I think we can make decisions based upon that. But here's one thing we have to do. We all have to commit ourselves to creating a Palestinian state, period. End of sentence. I realize that there are many Israelis who don't want a Palestinian state. I don't care. They deserve the right to self-determination and they deserve to live in peace. And there's no way. You're going to get peace unless you have a Palestinian state somewhere next to nearby Israel. And so that that I think is something that this president, the next president, anybody who's president has got to work toward. I could spend a lot more time, but I actually only have one more question for you. So you spent a fair amount of money on these elections. Thirty million dollars, according to Politico. You were invested in a lot of the battleground races. You your work paid off. Gina Hinojosa's campaign. In Texas, I think you gave a million dollars to that incredible flip for Democrats there. But as you look at this and I know this is kind of a after praising all the Democrats have done this, that I I think it's I think it's fair to say that there's actually still a lot of meat left on the bone. Right. Like Louisiana was a two point race. Florida, there was so many close races with so little investments. There were a lot of winnable races, even in this great night that Democrats. Democrats just didn't get for lack of investment. And I wonder, as you sort of assess what could have been done, who do you hold accountable for that? Did the DNC mess up? Look, let's start with there is a lot more money on the Republican side than there is on the Democrats. That's just a fact. We got outspent even with all the spending that I did and lots of other people chipped in and helped in their ways as well. And we got outspent basically everywhere. And in Texas, in the governor's race anyway, I think. She got outspent maybe five to one, six to one. It was well more than that. Well, more than that. Yeah, I'm sure there was probably dark money that nobody ever even saw. So that is a problem that has existed for time immemorial. And what I can say is, could we have won in Florida? Maybe, maybe. I think there were lots of reasons for people to think that it wasn't possible. And then, oh, wait, it was possible. I think I think the fact that we won in Texas is and that we won. In Georgia, this is another race. I also invested a million dollars in Keisha Lance Bottoms. And can I tell you the fact that we won? Think about that. Think about before Warnock and before Ossoff. Did you know where people investing in Georgia really? Because they thought Georgia was going to become a Democratic state. Holy smokes. We have two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor in Georgia. And I think that's because years of sustained investment. And lots of organizing on the ground. Texas, same way you heard it all the time. Oh, it's a mirage. You know, we can't possibly win. Here we are. And I would say the same thing is true. Of course, in Florida, we can do it. And I think we all should take encouragement. So it's like a it's like a multiple cycle thing. You don't get James Tellerick if you don't have Beto O'Rourke. I don't mean to bring up maybe people don't like to think back to Howard Dean. But I Howard Dean, when he was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, talked about a 50 state strategy. Now, are there places where it doesn't make sense to put my maybe. But I can tell you, you can't ever win if you don't start by building infrastructure in a state and you've got to make some investments. And, you know, like or not, like Ken Martin or not, he did say and actually carry out a policy of putting money into states. And I got to say, seems like it all paid off. All of us investing in places. That were nontraditional because all of those races that we're all excited about today were the ones that were like Trump plus 15 districts that nobody wanted to invest in. Our super PAC did. I was really excited about that, but we couldn't do there. Do you know what's cooler than 56 Senate seats? Fifty eight Senate seats. I'm with you. By the way, there's another cycle coming up. Yeah, that's true. Well, we'll see if Ken Martin's still there for that one. All right, Governor J.B. Pritzker, thank you so much for this. I appreciate it. You know, you've been all over the place, so your time is generous for us. So thank you so much. Appreciate you, Sam. Take care. Enter code CROWN and get a free Lucky Wheel bonus. You may win up to 10,000 Sweeps coins. CrownCoins.com. That's C-R-O-W-N, coins.com. No purchase needed. Code valid for new users only. Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Crown Coins Casino. This is Martha Stewart. Have you ever started a new tradition? Here's a hint. Do it with Lenox. Lenox has always meant timeless holiday beauty. And the Lenox Space Village is the perfect holiday gift. Imagine ginger from a Georgian townhouse or pepper from your favorite Swiss chalet. Lenox has brought timeless beauty and quality to tables and homes for generations. Baking together. sharing recipes, decorating. Suddenly, simple pleasures become part of your holiday story forever. 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