Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker sat down with Wall Street Journal White House reporter Sabrina Siddiqui at an Institute of Politics (IOP) event on October 10.
Pritzker has seen his national profile rise recently as his multibillion-dollar personal fortune and progressive political efforts have fueled questions about a possible presidential run. Meanwhile, the city of Chicago’s high-profile struggles with crime and immigration have attracted national attention.
Pritzker fielded questions about the persistence of gun violence in Chicago by emphasizing gun control initiatives that he has implemented, such as the assault weapons ban he signed earlier this year. “60 percent of the violent crimes committed with guns in the city of Chicago were committed with guns that came from Indiana because they don’t have any gun safety laws,” Pritzker said. “We need a ban on assault weapons nationally.”
The governor also voiced his support towards LGBTQ+ rights and criticized the Republican party’s positions on gender affirming care. “The Facebook fakery that goes around among Republicans is crazy to me. The things I see that are completely false, particularly on this issue, claiming that someone is promoting people becoming transgender,” he said. “It used to be the Republican party was, even if I disagreed with them, a bunch of rational people. I now no longer believe that.”
Pritzker elaborated on his concerns about increasing extremism within the Republican party, citing instances of women being forced to travel to Illinois to get healthcare. “In order for us to get past this, we’ve got to break the fever that has overtaken the Republican party, and the only way to do that is to beat them,” Pritzker said.
Before taking audience questions, Siddiqui pressed Pritzker about his political ambitions. He discussed his efforts to improve the state’s fiscal health and did not directly address the possibility of running for president himself. “I’m focused on being governor of Illinois and reelecting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Pritzker said.
One student confronted Pritzker on his pivot from touting his efforts to protect undocumented immigrants to sending a letter to Biden referring to their numbers as “humanitarian crises.” Pritzker defended his language, saying “It has been a failure of Republicans and Democrats, and we all need to come together to solve this problem. Now is the moment.”
Pritzker concluded by defending Illinois’ heavily gerrymandered Congressional districts. “If you’re going to solve for redistricting, you have to do it at the national level—it cannot be done state by state because we would be unilaterally disarming,” he said.
