How Illinois Democrats are pre-emptively combating a Chicago crackdown by Trump

As Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson brace for the arrival of the National Guard, they are seeking to counter Trump's portrayal of Chicago.

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker set in motion a campaign against federal intervention in his state more than a week ago.

Before immigration agents descended on Chicago and the threat of a National Guard deployment loomed, there was Pritzker, showing off the city on social media and in TV interviews. One interview featured him walking on a sunlit path along Lake Michigan, and another had him sitting in a restaurant in the city’s Little Village neighborhood. This week, he staged a news conference in front of a Chicago River teeming with summer tourists and Trump’s hotel prominent in the background.

Pritzker and his team were laying out an intentional visual record. Their strategy was to stock national media with footage of a typical day in Chicago to show it was far from the “worst and most dangerous city in the World,” as President Donald Trump has proclaimed on his Truth Social platform.

“The president’s absurd characterizations do not match what is happening on the ground here. He has no idea what he’s talking about,” Pritzker told reporters this week. “There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops. He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole — and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans, too.”

Pritzker’s tack is the latest employed by Democratic leaders from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to Baltimore who have become the target of a White House that has threatened to send — or has already sent — National Guard troops into their states.