Illinois Governor JB Pritzker blasted President Donald Trump’s latest remarks as “unhinged,” warning that the president’s threat to deploy federal troops to Chicago under the guise of fighting crime would only backfire. Pritzker also condemned what he called the “groveling yes-men” surrounding Trump and charged that he is “tearing this country apart.”

“We’re going in,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday from the Oval Office, confirming what he had only previously threatened. He did not say when Chicago could expect federal troops, but his remarks sent the Governor reeling.

“As a governor who cares about the well-being of my people, I can’t live in a fantasyland where I pretend Trump is not tearing this country apart for personal greed and power,” Governor Pritzker told reporters. “He has surrounded himself with groveling yes men, who are too weak to restrain his most violent and unhinged impulses, or who share those impulses.”

“He has no idea what he’s talking about,” Pritzker declared. “There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops.”

READ MORE: ‘A Joke’: Trump’s Possible National Housing Emergency Sparks Fierce Backlash

Delivering facts to counter Trump’s threat, Pritzker declared, “Crime is down in Chicago. Murders are down by almost 50% in the last four years. Shootings are down 57%. Robberies down 34%. Burglaries, down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%.”

Pritzker added that “we have made important progress on safety that Trump is now jeopardizing.”

Pritzker: I know how Trump thinks because I’ve been governor during both of his terms. He has surrounded himself with groveling yes men who are too weak to restrain his most violent and unhinged impulses, or who share those impulses.

I can’t live in a fantasyland where I pretend… pic.twitter.com/pP2COHw5Mu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 2, 2025

The Illinois governor also denounced Trump’s claim that he should be urging Trump to send in federal troops.

“If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it. Now, we’re going to do it anyway,” Trump said. “We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country.”

READ MORE: ‘Monsters’: The Five Trump Cabinet Secretaries a Top Political Scientist Wants Impeached

Pritzker responded.

“When did we become a country where it’s okay for the U.S. president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything, especially something we don’t want? Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation, that we treat this as normal?” the governor asked.

Pritzker: “When did we become a country where it’s ok for the US president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything? Especially something we don’t want. Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal?” pic.twitter.com/AKrNCw64n3

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Judge Rules LA Troop Use Illegal as Trump Rants Chicago Is ‘Murder Capital of the World’

Image via Reuters

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent says President Donald Trump may declare a National Housing Emergency this fall, amid a challenging environment for homebuyers.

“Bessent said housing affordability would be a critical leg of Republicans’ 2026 midterm election platform,” Bloomberg News reports. “Bessent declined to list any specific actions the president may take, but he suggested that administration officials are directly studying ways to standardize local building and zoning codes and decrease closing costs.”

Bloomberg also notes, “Housing affordability was a top issue in former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign against Trump in 2024. She promised tax credits for builders that construct starter homes and $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain buyers.”

Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that “Trump wants to axe an affordable housing grant that’s a lifeline for many rural communities.”

READ MORE: ‘Monsters’: The Five Trump Cabinet Secretaries a Top Political Scientist Wants Impeached

“The program has helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes in the last three decades, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.”

Some critics question Trump’s focus.

Asked if the housing crisis is so severe Trump should be turning to an emergency declaration, House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday (video below), “It’s not clear to me what emergency powers Donald Trump seeks to utilize or what his solution would be in terms of dealing with the housing and affordability issue that is plaguing far too many Americans across the country.”

“Donald Trump promised that he would lower housing costs on day one. Here’s a suggestion for the Trump administration. Try to legislate. And maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done on behalf of the American people. The notion that Donald Trump and the administration would use emergency powers to address a housing crisis that has existed in this country since day one of his administration, and he’s done nothing about is a joke.”

READ MORE: Judge Rules LA Troop Use Illegal as Trump Rants Chicago Is ‘Murder Capital of the World’

Leader Jeffries went on to warn that, “like many of the other efforts at utilizing emergency power, including most recently, the effort to use a so called emergency to justify the Trump tariffs, which are hurting everyday Americans, it will ultimately be struck down in court.”

Wall Street investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze responded, saying that “Trump’s ‘day one’ promise on housing turned into a day-one disaster. He hasn’t introduced a single serious housing bill. No rent relief. No expansion of affordable housing. No mortgage protection. Just empty tweets, tariff tantrums, and more crony giveaways. Leader Jeffries is right that he should try legislating instead of litigating, retaliating, and dominating. That’s how we fix housing, not by blaming cities while inflating real estate bubbles with failed policies.”

Indeed, some say Trump has no power to unilaterally declare housing standards.

Georgetown University Professor of Law Victoria Nourse, one of the nation’s leading scholars of Congress, the separation of powers, and statutory interpretation, according to her bio, remarked: “POTUS has no constitutional authority to impose uniform building codes on the states.”

Some critics say the current housing crisis is actually being made worse by Trump’s own actions.

The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds,” remarked, “Trump jacked up tariffs on lumber and steel, raising the cost of home construction. Now he’s thinking about declaring a national emergency to remedy a problem he’s exacerbated.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz framed it this way:

“1. Increase cost of materials through tariffs on steel and lumber. 2. Increase cost of labor through immigration enforcement. 3. ‘Declare a national housing emergency.'”

Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, asked, “Is ‘national emergency’ some sort of magical incantation that negates all laws and the Constitution?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Hakeem Jeffries: “Donald Trump promised that he would lower housing costs on day one. Here’s a suggestion for the Trump administration: try to legislate, and maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done for the American people.” pic.twitter.com/fl0B1msMUF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Crazy’: RFK Jr. Is a Top Global Public Health ‘Expert’ Claims Miller, Sparking Mockery

Image via Reuters 

One of the top political scientists in America is calling for five of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries to be impeached, and urging Democrats to adopt a “shadow Cabinet.”

Dr. Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, writes at “The Contrarian” on Substack that it’s time for Democrats to start impeachment proceedings against the five “monsters” in Trump’s Cabinet who are “causing death and destruction, threatening human lives and safety, destroying the rule of law and undermining American national security.”

Dr. Ornstein names those whom he says are “the worst Cabinet members in history”: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

READ MORE: Judge Rules LA Troop Use Illegal as Trump Rants Chicago Is ‘Murder Capital of the World’

Because of the special power of impeachment, House Speaker Mike Johnson would have no choice but to prioritize those proceedings, offering the American public greater insight into “the brutal reality that the misconduct and outrages of these monsters” have created.

They would also require Republicans to “take a stand,” one way or another on a litany of actions, including: “RFK’s deadly move to block the Covid vaccine from children and other vulnerable populations,” “spreading vile and dangerous conspiracy theories,” “firing competent health professionals,” and “stopping vital research on cancer and other deadly diseases. Also, Republicans would have to take a stand on “endorsing Gabbard outing an undercover CIA agent, eviscerating our intelligence capability, and more.”

Dr. Ornstein also calls for Democrats to create a shadow Cabinet, and suggests a shadow HHS Secretary could give a press conference, “flanked by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Sen. Patty Murray, and other key members, outlining the case against Kennedy.”

READ MORE: ‘Crazy’: RFK Jr. Is a Top Global Public Health ‘Expert’ Claims Miller, Sparking Mockery

He also calls for “shadow impeachment hearings, bringing in witnesses that include victims of the assault on our health, from measles patients to those kicked out of key clinical trials to those fired by RFK. And field hearings outside clinics and hospitals—in Republican districts and red states—with physicians, nurses, researchers, and patients testifying.”

The same template could be used by a Shadow Intelligence Director, Shadow CIA Director, a Shadow Secretary of Defense, a Shadow Attorney General, and a Shadow Homeland Security Secretary.

Other experts have called for the U.S. to adopt a U.K.-style system of “shadow government,” including historian Timothy Snyder. In January, Snyder explained that the “shadow ministers ‘shadowed’ the actual ministers,” akin to U.S. Cabinet secretaries, “in the sense of following their every move, criticizing policy and offering alternatives.”

“Importantly, the shadow minister was always available to offer commentary to the press on his or her area of expertise. This greatly enriched public life. At any point a journalist, and thus the public, had access to an alternative point of view, one which was both pertinently expert and politically relevant.”

In February, Dylan Williams, Vice President of Government Affairs at the Center for International Policy, wrote: “If the Trump admin is going to neglect or eliminate entire US Government functions, Democrats should select a shadow cabinet to fill the void. Send an alt SecState to the G20, have an alt CDC Director tell us what’s really going on with Bird Flu and TB, etc.”

READ MORE: ‘Glass Jaws’: Democrats Cast Ernst Exit as Harbinger of Weakening GOP

Image via Reuters