Donald Trump has had a meltdown at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker as the Democrat refuses to accept the president’s offer to tackle crime in Chicago.
In a Tuesday morning Truth Social rant, the 80-year-old called out Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson while claiming the city is “suffering an unprecedented and particularly violent crime wave that is getting worse by the day.”
“The Federal Government can extinguish it quickly and completely, but the Mayor of Chicago, or the Governor of Illinois, must ask for our help,” Trump wrote. “What is wrong with them? Why aren’t they asking? TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump’s post came following a weekend of violence in Chicago that left two people dead and at least 20 others injured in shootings across the city.
Trump has repeatedly demanded that his longtime nemesis, Pritzker, call him to tackle crime in Chicago. The president has cited his federal crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., including his deployment of National Guard troops, as proof that he could tackle violent crime.
However, studies have shown that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. had no effect on reducing violent crime, including murder, assault, and rape, in the capital. Instead, troops roaming tourist areas and transportation hubs around D.C. reduced “opportunistic property crime,” such as theft and vandalism.
“The city will die if the Federal Government, a fine-tuned crime-fighting machine, is not invited in, by the Mayor or Governor, to HELP. I am awaiting the call. Nobody should be forced to live under these conditions,” Trump wrote in a similar Truth Social plea posted at 3:45 a.m. ET on September 1.
While crime is an issue in Chicago, the number of homicides in the city of more than 2.7 million people is down from previous years.
An analysis by the Chicago Tribune found that there had been 328 homicides in the city in the year through Oct. 3. The figures indicate that 2026 could be the fifth consecutive year that homicides have fallen in the city.
Pritzker has repeatedly rejected Trump’s offer to help tackle Chicago’s crime rate. According to The Guardian, Pritzker has not spoken to Trump since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is the president that thought that he could hire an unqualified company to paint the Reflecting Pool, and then thought that it would just be free of algae,” Pritzker said in June. “This is the same president that did not know that the Strait of Hormuz could be closed, shuttered essentially, by Iran if he went to war with Iran.
“I don’t think that we should be listening to this president about promises that he makes or that he has any idea how to protect us in the state of Illinois,” he added.
