Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

’54 Shot, 7 Dead’: Sweatpants-Clad JB Pritzker Confronted By Reporter About Deadly Labor Day Weekend In Chicago

[Screenshot/X: Mary Ann Ahern]

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker downplayed the recurring violent crime running rampant in Chicago on Monday after dozens were shot over the weekend.

At least 54 people were shot and seven were killed over Labor Day weekend in Chicago, according to NBC 5 Chicago. The governor told NBC 5 Chicago reporter Mary Ann Ahern that “big cities have crime” and that the focus should be on President Donald Trump’s “targeting” Chicago.

“You’re going to hear people, especially after this past weekend, 54 shot, seven dead, they’re going to say the city’s not safe. Would you ask your friends to the L after midnight, or after nine o’clock at night even to come down to the city from around here?” Ahern asked.

“Look, big cities have crime,” Pritzker said. “There’s no doubt about it. But let’s just pay attention to what President Trump is doing [by] targeting Chicago. He’s overlooking red states that have much higher crime rates, much higher.”

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Trump said during an Aug. 22 press conference that he will likely deploy the National Guard to Chicago to combat violent crime throughout the area. The number of homicides in the city reached a 25-year high in 2021 and have remained significantly higher than the numbers recorded in the last decade, The Chicago Tribune reported.

“Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we’ll straighten that one out probably next, that will be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come,” Trump said.

Aside from June 2014, no other single month of June has had fewer than 40 murders in Chicago since at least 1970, according to WTTW, a PBS affiliate.

Pritzker and Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have repeatedly claimed that crime has gone significantly down in the city. Residents of Chicago have rejected the claim that crime has gone down and stated they do not feel safe.

The Illinois governor and Johnson begged Trump not to send the National Guard in order to fight crime in Chicago during an Aug. 25 press conference. Pritzker claimed that combating crime in the city will “make [Chicagoans] jobs harder and the lives of our residents worse.”

Johnson accused Trump of spreading misinformation about the crime rate in Chicago and claimed the possible deployment of the National Guard would be unconstitutional. He dismissed the idea of increasing police presence on the streets of the city during an Aug. 26 appearance on “Morning Joe,” instead saying that Chicago needs more “affordable housing” and mental health services to reduce crime.

Pritzker attempted to prove Trump wrong on Chicago’s crime rate by going to a notably nice part of the city and posting a video of the area on X.