President Donald Trump warns Chicago will ‘die’ without his help: ‘Nobody should be forced to live under these conditions,’ he says
Donald Trump warned that Chicago “will die” unless the city’s Democratic leadership invites federal intervention to address violent crime, escalating his months-long feud with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker ahead of the president’s planned appearance at the Presidents Cup in the Chicago suburbs later this month.
In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed Chicago’s crime problem has reached unprecedented levels, writing, “Chicago violence is unchecked and at record levels. It has never been worse! This weekend 41 people were shot, 3 DEAD. These numbers are becoming normalized. It is out of control!”
Trump then issued his central warning: “The city will die if the Federal Government, a fine tuned crime fighting machine, is not invited in, by the Mayor or Governor, to HELP. I am awaiting the call,” he claimed.
He continued by arguing that residents should not have to tolerate the conditions and pointed to Washington, D.C., as a model for federal intervention. “Nobody should be forced to live under these conditions. Like D.C. and others, they will have almost no crime, FAST! The State and City can’t do what I do. Governor Pritzker, CALL!!!” the president concluded.
JB Pritzker’s rebuke
Pritzker rejected Trump’s characterization of Chicago and criticized the president’s planned appearance in the Chicago suburbs.
“He is neither wanted here nor needed here,” Pritzker said in a statement about Trump’s planned visit.
Pritzker also challenged Trump over the economic impact of his trade policies, saying, “But if he is going to spend time in DuPage County, he can leave the country club and explain to Illinoisans why his tariffs have made groceries, electricity and everything else too expensive.”
The Presidents Cup
The backdrop to Pritzker’s statement is Trump’s planned appearance at the Presidents Cup, a PGA Tour event rather than a policing initiative.
Trump revealed over the weekend that the PGA Tour asked him to serve as honorary chair of the tournament, which begins at Medinah Country Club’s Course No. 3 in DuPage County. Trump called it a “particularly exciting event” featuring teams “loaded with talent.”
His planned appearance sets up a potentially tense visit following months of clashes between the White House and Illinois’ Democratic leadership over federal intervention in Chicago.
A long-running feud over crime and federal authority
Pritzker has become one of Trump’s most consistent Democratic critics, while the president has repeatedly singled out Chicago while advocating for federal law enforcement or military intervention as a response to crime in Democratic-led cities.
The dispute dates back to at least August 2025, when Trump first suggested deploying National Guard troops to Chicago. Pritzker called the idea “exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against” and, at a Chicago press conference alongside Mayor Brandon Johnson, described it as an attempt to “militarize our cities and end elections.”
Trump continued to cite Chicago’s weekend shooting and homicide totals in Truth Social posts targeting Pritzker, at various points calling him “weak and pathetic,” “incompetent” and “CRAZY,” while describing Johnson as “no better.”
Pritzker has dismissed Trump’s characterizations, telling journalist Katie Couric that the president “doesn’t really understand anything” about the city and adding, “I also think I live rent-free in the guy’s head.”
Vice President J.D. Vance later escalated the rhetoric during an appearance on ABC’s This Week with host George Stephanopoulos, saying Pritzker “should suffer some consequences” for his handling of crime in Chicago and calling the governor’s record “disgraceful.”
The legal fight over troop deployment
On October 4, 2025, Trump invoked authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406 to federalize Illinois National Guard members over Pritzker’s objection, prompting Illinois and Chicago to sue.
A district court blocked the deployment and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit largely upheld the block while allowing the troops to remain in federalized status without being deployed.
The dispute reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which on December 23, 2025, declined in a 6-3 order to let the Trump administration proceed, finding that the government had “failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred on narrower grounds, while Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Following the ruling, Trump announced he would pull federalized Guard forces out of Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland “for the time being.” He claimed crime had dropped in those cities because of the Guard’s presence and warned federal forces could return “in a much different and stronger form” if crime increased again.
A court dismissed the underlying Illinois lawsuit after ruling that the original deployment orders were no longer operational. The Chicago Department of Law said there had “never been a lawful basis to deploy the National Guard into Chicago for federal immigration enforcement.”
Disputed crime statistics
The two sides have repeatedly clashed over the underlying crime data. Pritzker has pointed to Chicago Police Department figures showing a 32% drop in homicides from 2024 to 2025 and a 49% decline since 2021. He has also cited a broader analysis of FBI data showing that a majority of cities with the nation’s highest murder rates are located in Republican-led states — and none are in Illinois.
Trump has continued to cite individual weekend shooting totals, including a Labor Day weekend period in which he said 54 people were shot and eight were killed. He subsequently described Chicago on Truth Social as the “murder capital” and claimed its crime levels exceeded those in Afghanistan.