Illinois governor fuels 2028 talk with fiery speech blasting Trump and Musk: ‘It's time to fight, everywhere, all at once'
Democrats are looking for a fighter. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is determined to be one.
Will others in his party take notice?
The governor of the state last represented in the White House by Barack Obama, Pritzker's term is set to expire January of 2027, just a few months before candidates are likely to begin announcing their plans to run in the respective party primaries. He is not term limited, having won re-election in 2022 and with no restrictions on a third term in the state constitution.
And so it appears that the governor is laying his groundwork for a potential presidential bid already. He headlined a Democratic Party event in the early primary state of New Hampshire on Sunday and delivered remarks that were simultaneously a rebuke of the White House and a war cry for his base.
'It's time to fight, everywhere, all at once,' Pritzker told the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club dinner in Manchester.
'Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,' he sternly added, according to NBC News.
In his remarks, Pritzker blamed his party's defeat in November on voter mistrust in party leadership. Democrats, he argued, do not believe that their own leaders' actions match the urgency of the moment, or their own rhetoric.
'Voters didn't turn out for Democrats last November not because they don't want us to fight for our values, but because they think we don't want to fight for our values,' said Pritzker.
He also spoke with NBC News demanding that the next Democratic administration vow accountability for members of the Trump administration accused of breaking the law or violating the Constitution.
'We're going to hold people responsible. They can't just get away with what they're doing right now. Anybody that's breaking the law, anybody that's breaching the Constitution as a regular matter of the way they run their offices, those people all should be investigated,' Pritzker said.
Last year's speaker at the dinner was Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz, who at the time was raising his own national profile but was not yet under consideration for the spotlight — that elevation to prominence would take place months later, with the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the race. Now, Kamala Harris 's old running mate is just one of several Democrats, including Harris herself, under consideration as possible 2028 contenders. The former vice president is also weighing a run for governor of California.
The current governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is another one of those Democrats seen as potential 2028 fodder. But unlike his fellow Californian, Newsom seemed to be in Pritzker's crosshairs over Newsom's assertion that the political battle over the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a distraction for the Democratic Party. The federal government continued into this week to refuse to order his return to the United States after handing him over to the government of El Salvador. Democrats including Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who represents Garcia's home state and met with him under Salvadoran supervision during a visit this month, have demanded his return to the US.
He also aimed a clearer shot across Newsom's bow: "What I find ironic about the current conversation surrounding our party is that the voices flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families are the same ones who, when it comes to relieving the struggles of real people, have been timid, not bold."
Newsom launched his own podcast in late February.
Pritzker singled out the Trump administration's deportation program — and especially the government's use of El Salvador 's notorious CECOT prison to house Venezuelans and others accused of being gang members — in his speech.
'Let's start with something that should be easy to say: It's wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law,' said the governor.
His remarks are just the latest example of comparatively younger leaders in the Democratic Party attempting to capture the energy and desire for action which voters have voiced at town hall-style events around the country since January, when Donald Trump took office and his DOGE cuts, led by Elon Musk, began at a rapid pace.
Pritzker, who alleged that DOGE may have broken privacy laws by accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration and other agencies, spoke to NBC News the same day that Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to NBC's Meet the Press about his 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour, which has turned out tens of thousands of Americans over the past month.
Sanders will be in Pennsylvania next week continuing that tour; other Democrats in the northeastern battleground state that flipped for Trump last year have taken to hosting 'empty chair' town halls in Republican districts as they respond to the same groundswell of voter anger against DOGE cuts.
Harris is set to give her own speech touching on the actions of Trump's second administration on Wednesday — her first such address since her defeat in November.
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