Politics
Pritzker Compares Trump Administration’s Approach to Nazi Germany During State Budget Address
Gov. J.B. Pritzker gives his state budget address on Feb. 19, 2025. (WTTW News)
As Democrats smarting from the 2024 election construct how they’ll combat President Donald Trump’s agenda, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is clear on his approach, straddling attack dog and whistleblower.
In perhaps his most strident remarks against Trump, Pritzker used the stage of his joint budget and state of the state address on Wednesday not only to warn about problems the state could face should federal cuts to spending and programs decimate the budget, but also to issue an unsparing warning that what’s happening in America now shares similarities with Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany.
It provoked an instant backlash from Republicans, who said his speech was divisive and inflammatory for comparing Republicans aligned with Trump to Nazis.
Pritzker said in his address that he didn’t “invoke the specter of Nazis lightly,” but as a Jewish man who became intimately familiar with stories of concentration camp survivors as he helped to build the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, he is “watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.”
“Here’s what I’ve learned — the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed — a seed of distrust and hate and blame,” Pritzker said. “The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.”
Pritzker said with Trump blaming the late January plane crash in Washington, D.C., on diversity hiring, the “authoritarian playbook is laid bare.”
“We don’t have kings in America, and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one,” Pritzker said to applause from Democrats. “If we don’t want to repeat history, then for God’s sake, in this moment, we better be strong enough to learn from it.”
Pritzker, who has not said whether he will run for a third term as governor but who has done nothing to shoot down presidential aspirations, said he was speaking not out of “ambition” but obligation.
“If you think I’m overreacting and sound the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,” Pritzker said. “All I’m saying is that when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from getting out of control. Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the tragic spirit of despair overcome us when our country needs us the most.”
After Pritzker exited the chamber, an audibly upset state Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) said he was “personally offended that I had to sit here and repeatedly hear the governor of this state accuse members of my party as being Nazis in a lazy trope to launch a national campaign.”
Keicher said the governor should instead focus on fixing the “debt-ridden” state’s finances.
“I think the Republican caucus of both the House and the Senate deserve an apology from the governor,” Keicher said.
Other Republicans sent statements voicing outrage.
“The most alarming part of today’s address wasn’t just the bad math, it was the outright dangerous rhetoric,” state Rep. Jed Davis (R-Yorkville) said. “The Governor comparing everyday Americans concerned about border security to Nazis is appalling.”
Cook County Republican Party Chairman Sean Morrison weighed in, too, writing “by engaging in such incendiary comparisons, Pritzker not only disrespects the over 2.75 million hardworking Illinoisans who have voted for Trump, but he also trivializes one of history’s darkest chapters.”
When a reporter Wednesday asked Pritzker “how is not an insult to half the American public who voted for Trump when you’re talking about Trump being a Nazi?” Pritzker immediately shot back that “those words never came out of my mouth. That is not true.”
Pritzker said he feels “passionately that we always need to be on guard about the future of our democracy” and that “it was important to talk about the destruction of a constitutional republic.”
“Recognize that, you know, what happened in Europe in the last century is something that could happen really anywhere,” Pritzker said, in the final remarks of the afternoon press availability.
Asked about Pritzker’s remarks, state Rep. Norma Hernandez (D-Melrose Park), co-chair of the Latino Caucus, said given the global rise in authoritarianism, it served as a reminder of what’s at stake.
“We are one of those countries that decided to choose a president that is giving us a taste of what that can look like for our future democracy.”
Hernandez said she’s grateful that Pritzker is among the few governors speaking out.
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Illinois as well as Chicago and Cook County for what Trump alleges is interference with his immigrant deportation agenda, while Illinois is part of multiple lawsuits arguing Trump is violating the Constitution with unilateral funding cuts and an executive order seeking to end citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to undocumented parents.
Contact Amanda Vinicky: @AmandaVinicky | [email protected]
