Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday he is asking fellow Democratic governors to convene and discuss ways to hold President Donald Trump and his administration accountable in the courts for their aggressive immigration enforcement actions — even if that accountability comes after the president is scheduled to leave office in 2029.

While Pritzker said the actions of immigration agents that led to two deaths in Minneapolis last month have spurred a public backlash against the Trump administration, he cautioned, “I can’t tell you that I am 100% confident that we will overcome.”

“I’m an optimist, and I do feel like, in the end, Americans, the majority of Americans, will make sure that we preserve the future of this constitutional republic,” he said in a livestreamed conversation with Stephen Schmidt, once a GOP strategist and the co-founder of the Save America Movement.

Pritzker’s appearance coincided with the debut of his new Substack column, another step by the two-term governor to try to reach a national audience as he ponders a potential bid for the White House in 2028. The billionaire businessman and heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune did not dismiss any presidential speculation when Schmidt said that “the role that you’re going to play in these next couple years is going to be an immense one.”

Pritzker said Democrats are increasingly confronting Trump after initially believing they could find ways to work with him.

“I think it took a while for people to understand that this is not a president you can trust. There’s nothing about him that you can trust. It’s not just his policies are, you know, out of the mainstream. He won’t live up to any of his obligations — not the oath he took, not the obligation to deal honestly and certainly not the obligation to avoid corruption. And so, I think the party is catching up. I don’t want to say everybody’s there,” Pritzker said.

Asked whether he is concerned about Trump’s threats to jail political opponents, including himself, Pritzker framed the risk as part of the responsibility of public service.

“This is why, in the end, you run for public office, not because you want to get threatened or any of this, it’s not so you can wear a crown or have the power by yourself, it’s because there come moments … in your career as an elected official when it’s time to put it all on the line – because when something important that really matters needs you, and you may be risking everything to do it,” he said.

Pritzker, who is Jewish and who helped build the Illinois Holocaust Museum, has likened the rise of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement to the rapid rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany. He said he learned from Holocaust survivors how to counter authoritarianism.

“The only way to stop them is to do it early and loudly because every day that goes by, when we’re not standing up and pushing back, they’re gaining power because they already have the reins of power, and so that everything that you’re not doing to stop them is just an advancement for them,” he said. “I believe that we’ve got to worry about this all year long and make sure that the November elections are safe and secure. Because that’s the only thing that will protect us from the next step that he likely will take, which is ultimately taking away or even invalidating future elections.”

A key strategy, Pritzker said, is pursuing accountability for potential criminal violations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents carrying out Trump’s push for mass deportations. He said he has urged the nation’s 23 Democratic governors to gather in Minneapolis to consider restrictions on ICE operations and the creation of accountability commissions similar to one he established in Illinois.

“I believe strongly that accountability and, in the end, holding people to be accountable to our own sense of justice is hugely important. If we don’t do that, not only will this group get away with it but our democracy really will be siphoned away from us,” Pritzker said. “Much of the criminal charges that will take place probably will happen after Donald Trump is president and we’re gathering the evidence now because it is important to make sure that they’re held accountable.”

Pritzker also said that a visit he made to Argentina when he was 23, during which he watched an unfolding military coup, gave him a message for Democrats after their 2024 loss. In Buenos Aires, as protests roiled, he said he saw an ice cream vendor who, rather than being concerned about political ideology, was more concerned about how to “put food on the table and take care of his kids and family.”

“I think about Joe Biden talking about democracy in January of 2024 and I think it’s hugely important for us to all go out and fight for democracy. I’m certainly doing it and there are a whole lot of people that joined the fight … but in the end, you win elections when you talk the things that people are worried about every single day,” Pritzker said.

“I’m going to help you pay your bills. I’m going to help you earn more money. I’m going to help you get lower electricity prices, or, you know, I’m going to make sure your homeowner’s insurance doesn’t go up the way that seems to be going up all over the country. I mean, if you can do something about those things, that’s how you win elections,” he said. “And I think that that has been our failure. We get distracted, we Democrats, from what matters every single day.”

Trump, Pritzker said, “doesn’t seem to give a damn about working families. And indeed, I believe that if we focus and don’t get distracted when Republicans are like, ‘Here’s a shiny object to talk about,’ instead, let’s just focus, focus, focus on working families. I think we win.”

_____

©2026 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.