Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) encouraged more Republicans to speak out against federal troop deployments across state lines, pointing to recent criticism from Oklahoma’s GOP governor as “good news.”
“We’ve got to all stand together because there [are] truly unconstitutional actions that are coming out of this administration, coming at the states and the people of the United States and all of us, Democrats and Republicans, need to speak out about it,” Pritzker said in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”
Pritzker praised Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) for pushing back on the Texas National Guard’s presence in the greater Chicago area as an apparent violation of his belief in states’ rights.
“One thing I’d point out, you mentioned Governor Stitt, who said specifically like we shouldn’t be federalizing troops in one state and sending them into another, that he would be offended if I had troops going into his state,” Pritzker told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.
“I am offended that Greg Abbott has troops coming into my state. And even Governor Scott in Vermont has called this unconstitutional,” he continued. “So, good news. Republicans are now calling out the Trump administration. More should do so.”
In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Stitt said he was surprised that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sent troops to Illinois over the objections of the state’s governor, saying he thinks that’s the wrong approach.
“We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights,” Stitt told the Times. “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”
“I was surprised that Governor Abbott sent troops from Texas to Illinois,” Stitt added in the interview. “Abbott and I sued the Biden administration when the shoe was on the other foot and the Biden administration was trying to force us to vaccinate all of our soldiers and force masks across the country.”
“As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this,” Stitt added.
Approximately 200 soldiers from the Texas National Guard and 300 soldiers from the Illinois National Guard were activated in the greater Chicago area by Wednesday night, according to an update from U.S. Northern Command.
A subsequent update on Friday indicated that the National Guard soldiers in Chicago “are not conducting any operational activities at this time.”
