MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who is powerfully fighting back against the Trump regime. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How is Governor Pritzker responding to Trump's actions?
If you could speak directly to Donald Trump, what would you tell him?
What does Vladimir Putin have on you? I'm joined by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Honor to have you on, Governor. Governor, right after the election, you were one of the first, if not the first, Democratic governor to kind of come out and say, you know, we're going to protect the state of Illinois.
We're going to protect this country from Trump's encroachment if he starts violating the Constitution. Why did you come out with that statement right away?
Well, Ben, we know who this guy is, right? I was governor back in 2019 and 2020 when he was in his first term. And I can tell you that my experiences back then and, of course, the man's history would tell you that he doesn't live up to his promises, that he doesn't give a darn about really any of the people that he represents.
And I knew that we had to start on day one as Democrats to rebuild and remind people who we are as a Democratic Party and what we stand for. Because he sort of during the election obscured so much of what he really is about. Somehow the campaign last year just wasn't able to get across what our fundamental values are as Democrats. So that's why I was immediate about it.
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Chapter 2: Why did Governor Pritzker take an immediate stand against Trump?
The fact is that the lies have cost so much for the American people even already. What are we, 62 days into his administration? And I think people are finally, finally waking up. But it was important to me to sound the alarm.
Has his corruption and the wrecking ball that he and Elon Musk have taken to this country kind of met the expectations of corruption, exceeded them in kind of the pace? What would you make of what you're seeing?
Well, I will say, at least for me, I expected it. I think we're living in a kleptocracy now. It's clear that Elon Musk is trying to benefit himself while he's also exercising powers that he was never supposed to be granted. The Constitution certainly doesn't give someone unelected like that the amount of power that he's got. And you're watching as he benefits himself, harms his enemies.
And I'm talking about just Elon Musk. Then you've got Donald Trump, who is enriching himself. We've seen him already selling meme coins that are worthless, taking people for all that they're worth sometimes. And then at the same time, You know, he said that on day one, he was going to bring down prices for people across America. Right.
That you could go to the grocery store and you'd know that inflation was gone. Well, he's done the exact opposite. That was supposed to be day one. You know, day 62. We've seen prices at the grocery store are going up and 25 percent tariffs. on tomatoes and lettuce and barley from Canada and aluminum cans. You go to the grocery store, your beer is costing you more.
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Chapter 3: What are Governor Pritzker's views on Trump's economic policies?
Your tomatoes, your lettuce, et cetera, costing you more. Automobiles costing you more. Housing, lumber costing you more. This is what Donald Trump's all about. And and what's what does he get out of all of it? The ability to cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the United States, the people who don't need it.
He's taking money from people who are suffering, people who are just trying to get by and giving that money to, again, the wealthiest and the biggest corporations.
Do you think people are indeed getting it now? You know, you mentioned how, you know, for whatever reason during the campaign, and we'll get to that, the election that people, you know, were, I guess, fooled into voting that this guy was going to solve all these issues on day one. You think people are getting it now when you were stating elsewhere?
Yeah, and I think we could talk about, you know, why that was obscured during the campaign, but I am beginning to see it and look at, you know, I wish it was sooner, earlier that everybody was waking up, but here's what I'm seeing.
Veterans across large swaths of my state, we have about a half a million veterans in Illinois, in the southernmost district, congressional district of Illinois, represented by Mike Bost as the congressman. who is the chair of the Veterans Committee.
That district has a lot of veterans in it, and those veterans are already seeing that their services are being taken away, that it's taking longer to get an appointment at the VA. There are homeless veterans that aren't getting the kind of services and help that they need to get shelter over their heads, to find the the food, the basic necessities that they need. And so they're showing up.
They're speaking out. These are not Democrats, many of them. Many of them are Republicans. But they are outraged. They can't believe many of them that, you know, they voted for Mike Bost and they voted for Donald Trump. And now this is being done to them. And so I think that's just one example of a group of people who are waking up and speaking out.
But so many of us who revere veterans are also outraged by what's happening to them and speaking up and speaking out about it. I'll tell you one quick other story. We have many Head Start programs and I've been for decades. decades now involved in early childhood education and development.
And those Head Start programs are hugely important to especially middle class and working class families across our state. Well, the uncertainty that was created and has still persisted across Illinois about whether those programs are going to get funded
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Chapter 4: How are veterans in Illinois affected by Trump's administration?
I mean, you can imagine there are people thinking about, you know, they may have to quit their job or they're going to be laid off because they're going to have to take care of their child at home and not be able to go to work. So these are the kinds of things that are happening for people. And those people are showing up, speaking up and speaking out.
It's a it's a gathering storm against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But it's getting more and more intense every day.
So other than Herbert Hoover, Donald Trump was the only president during a term to lose jobs. We all saw how disastrously he handled COVID during the first term or didn't even handle it at all. Like a miracle, it's all going to go away. Or he said, don't test because if you don't test, you can't get the results. So we saw that disaster. So what do you think was the issue?
Why the message got obscured that he could show up with a cold pizza to a fire department And, you know, basically have policies that would gut the unions of those same people, but give people cold pizzas at the union halls and get people to vote against their interest or show up at a McDonald's dressed like whatever. And and that somehow resonated with the people. What happened?
Well, let's start with an underlying problem that, you know, you can't point fingers exactly about this. And that is there was high inflation and people were feeling it. And so they're living in an environment where they were feeling like things have been bad and it's you know, it's hard to recover from that.
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Chapter 5: How have Trump's policies impacted education programs in Illinois?
You know, in a political environment, there are folks who say that by June of an election year, if people are not feeling like the economy is going to improve or like inflation is under control, by November, they're going to vote for the non-incumbent, for the opposition party in that election. in this case was Donald Trump and the Republicans.
So that is a problem that was, you know, just a baseline issue for Democrats in 2024. Add to that, of course, the uncertainty of of the president decide President Biden decided not to run for reelection. Never in my lifetime have we had anything like that, where the incumbent who's running for reelection decides not to after the primaries.
And then replaced by the vice president who, as much as people may like her, she wasn't very well known. And just people don't know the vice president. They still don't know J.D. Vance, too. And so, you know, she took his place, but all of a sudden she had to introduce herself. So in 108 days to run the.
OK, so that's the part that I think where, you know, it's hard to point fingers exactly about some of those things. But but let's just be clear that. It also was a messaging problem that in those 108 days, there were challenges, you know, the attacks that were coming on Kamala Harris. I think the Harris campaign had difficulty responding to.
They didn't directly go after or even respond to some of those attacks. And I think that was a mistake. You really can't let any time go by in this 24-7 media world. where you're getting attacked and people don't know what your response is. So that stuff can stick.
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Chapter 6: Why does Governor Pritzker believe people are now waking up to Trump's impact?
And especially, like I said, in an environment where people are very uneasy and they feel like going to the grocery store is a disaster every time because prices are going up. So, you know, those are a lot of things that I've said.
But just to be clear, what we should have been focused on every single day is and every minute of every day is on the things that matter to your life at the kitchen table. Like, can you pay your bills? Can you buy the the tomatoes, the eggs, the groceries that you need for your family? Can you afford those things? You know, which under Donald Trump has gone up in price significantly.
Just things that matter to you in your everyday life. One more thing about this. You know, Biden gave a speech in in January of 2024, I think, at Valley Forge about democracy. Everything he said was accurate and democracy was on the line in that election. But.
The problem is if you go door to door, and I've done a lot of door to door, door knocking for votes, and you talk to people at the doors, people don't understand what it means when you say democracy is at risk. And you could explain it all you want, but people are used to a system that just works for them. They've never seen democracy that goes away, right, in your entire life.
And so it's hard to make that case to people. But you can make the case that we Democrats, we're the ones who are providing childcare for families that need to go to work and leave their child in a quality environment. We're the ones who are funding education and believe in funding education, not just K through 12, but also being able to go to community college.
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Chapter 7: What factors led to the obscured messaging during Trump's campaign?
We're the ones who are standing up for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. And Those cases really weren't made very well during that last election. So we need to, you know, laser-like focus on those issues.
And if I had to pick one thing that I wish that Kamala Harris had talked about, because I think it's such an easy thing for us to point out to the American public, the Republicans are opposed to raising the minimum wage at $7.25. $7.25 an hour, $14,000 a year. You can't live as a single person, let alone raise a family. So we should have been talking about the minimum wage.
Here in Illinois, we raised the minimum wage to $15. We should be talking about that, doing that nationally. We should be talking about the idea that we want higher wages for people. Republicans want lower wages. There are many Republicans, if you just survey the Congress, they're opposed to raising the minimum wage, and many of them would like to get rid of the minimum wage.
So I think just messaging was a little off, maybe a lot off in 2024, and I think lesson learned by a lot of folks. But for me, it's what we've been doing in Illinois for the last six years.
Donald Trump keeps attacking our allies and keeps doing basically whatever Putin's telling him to do. He keeps on spreading Putin talking points, voted with Putin and North Korea and Hungary against a resolution condemning Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine. I mean, not a day goes by where I think There's always an interview with Donald Trump where he's saying something like this.
Here he is giving the Russian propaganda points about Ukrainian troops being encircled in the Kursk region and that he and Putin are going to have to save the Ukrainian troops. But the Ukrainian troops in Ukraine is going to have to give in to what Trump and Putin want. I mean, here's what he said. Let's play it.
Russia has the advantage, as you know. They have encircled about 2,500 soldiers. They are nicely encircled, and that's not good. And we want to get it over with. Look, we're doing this. There are no Americans involved. There could be if we end up in World War III over this, which is so ridiculous. But, you know, strange things happen.
What do you make of Trump's obsession with Putin?
Yeah. You know, I was asked the other day if I could say something to Donald Trump, you know, one question, what would it be? And I said, what does Putin have on you? Because Donald Trump has literally changed our alliances entirely, switching sides. You know, we used to be the country that stands up for the good guys, that stands with our allies. Ukraine is our ally.
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