Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker takes aim at Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel during a speech in Michigan, using the phrase “clown car” while criticizing the Trump administration and its leadership.
Pritzker also addressed the economy, affordability, artificial intelligence, healthcare and the Democratic Party during his remarks. Watch the full highlights and key moments from his Michigan speech.
#JBPritzker #Pritzker #DonaldTrump #Trump #JDVance #PeteHegseth #KashPatel #Michigan #TrumpAdministration #USPolitics #AmericanPolitics #PoliticalNews #News
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Pritzker also addressed the economy, affordability, artificial intelligence, healthcare and the Democratic Party during his remarks. Watch the full highlights and key moments from his Michigan speech.
#JBPritzker #Pritzker #DonaldTrump #Trump #JDVance #PeteHegseth #KashPatel #Michigan #TrumpAdministration #USPolitics #AmericanPolitics #PoliticalNews #News
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NewsTranscript
00:00The problem is, does anyone believe that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel have the knowledge,
00:07critical thinking skills, or ethics to responsibly confront a threat as serious as recursive, self-improving AI?
00:15Hello!
00:32Well, hello, West Michiganders!
00:37It's great to see all of you.
00:39Really wonderful to be with you.
00:41Thank you to Curtis.
00:43Thank you for your leadership.
00:44One of the toughest jobs in politics is to be chairman of really any Democratic Party, but being the chairman
00:51of the Michigan Democratic Party, with all the pressures that come from being a, well, historically purple,
00:59battleground state, and I really just do very much appreciate who you are and the leadership that you provide.
01:05So let's give him a big round of applause.
01:13And, folks, when Garland Gilchrist says he stands tall for Michigan, it makes me kind of embarrassed because I think,
01:23you know, I'd like to be standing tall for Illinois,
01:25but I'm more like standing short and stout for Illinois, but it's the best I can do.
01:32But you have a great opportunity to elect someone who is going to protect our elections and is vital to
01:38the entire nation, Garland Gilchrist.
01:48I want to say about Winnie that I want you to know that I met Winnie for the first time
01:53a couple of years ago, and what do you know,
01:57she sat me down and told me how important it was that I help her elect more Democrats to the
02:02state Senate.
02:04So tonight I got a chance to sit down with Winnie again, and, of course, she's running for lieutenant governor,
02:09and what did she do?
02:10She pitched me on how important it was to support Democrats for the state Senate.
02:15Yeah.
02:16So I want you to know how dedicated she is to winning in the general, to your general assembly,
02:23and I just want you to know, I really, you know, as somebody who comes from another state
02:28and has lots of people that I admire in my own state, you all are about to elect a powerhouse
02:34as lieutenant governor.
02:42And then, of course, I got a chance earlier tonight to spend time with Hillary Scolton,
02:47and I can tell you one thing.
02:49I've known her for some time.
02:50I can tell you that when she goes to Washington on your behalf, you are sending a fighter.
02:55You are sending somebody who stands up to Donald Trump, somebody who will never back down.
03:01Thank you, because she's fighting for you and for the entire country.
03:05Thank you, Hillary.
03:07Now, I know what you're thinking.
03:09A Chicago guy in Michigan in summer?
03:14Yeah.
03:14How predictable.
03:16But I promise I'm not about to turn up in Muskegon with a truckload of beach chairs.
03:23I really am just here to talk about the midterms with all of you.
03:27But first, I want to tell you a little secret that all of us governors know,
03:32and that's that you have one of the best governors in the entire country right now.
03:42Fix the damn roads, she said.
03:44And sure as heck, she wasn't messing around.
03:47And I looked it up, 20,000 lane miles of roads, 1,400 bridges later.
03:53She has put money into your pocket.
03:57She's delivered auto jobs.
03:58She made sure that when Roe fell, reproductive freedom remained the law of the land in Michigan.
04:09She's been my friend.
04:11We went through an awful lot together.
04:12We got elected at the very same time.
04:14In fact, we went to the White House as governor's elect and sat with Donald Trump.
04:20But we had not yet been sworn into office, and she sat across the table from me.
04:25And I just wanted you to know, because I shared this earlier this evening with some others,
04:29that as we sat there together, and I had supported her in her race for governor,
04:34and I was so pleased to see her there.
04:36By the way, sitting kind of in between us was Ron DeSantis.
04:41So, you know, we kept eyeing each other like, you know, what are we doing with this guy in between?
04:45I mean, but I can tell you this, that when Donald Trump went around the room to the governor's elect
04:52and said, you know, what can I do for you and your state, he got to me, and I said,
04:57we needed help with infrastructure.
04:59You remember Infrastructure Week that kept going on and on?
05:03We never got any infrastructure from Donald Trump, as you recall.
05:06But that's what I said.
05:07We need help with infrastructure.
05:08And then we got around to Gretchen Whitmer, and she said, we need help with Asian carp.
05:15Yeah, I want you to know.
05:17And by the way, the funny part about that is that Donald Trump looked at her and said,
05:22Asian carp, what's that?
05:23And she explained to him that we have this problem,
05:26that we need to make sure that Asian carp don't get into our Great Lakes and so on.
05:30And he started imagining his solution to this problem.
05:35You know, this is a problem that's decades old.
05:36He said, why don't you just put nets up?
05:39I'm like, oh, yeah, we haven't thought about that.
05:44Anyway, but Gretchen just kept going at him and going at him about how important it was.
05:48And finally, finally, as you guys may have seen about a week ago, we finally got him to
05:52agree, we're going to build that barrier and keep Asian carp out.
06:01She's not on the ballot this time, as all of you know, but you have a lot of really, really
06:05great
06:05candidates to build on Gretchen's legacy, of course, of standing up for the middle class
06:11and those who strive to get there.
06:13And I have to say, along with Winnie Michiganders, you get to elect, well, your next governor,
06:18Jocelyn Benson, she's going to be amazing.
06:23And if you've had enough of corruption and incompetence among MAGA Republicans, again,
06:29you get to do something special.
06:32You get to elect someone who will work every single day in Washington in the U.S. Senate
06:37to get corporate money out of politics, put money in your pockets, and he'll be the 51st
06:43vote that ends Republican Senate majority, and that is your next senator, Abdul El-Sayed.
06:5947 days.
07:01One job.
07:03Michigan, you know what to do.
07:06Tonight, I want to talk to you a little bit about optimism and faith.
07:11Now, I know that that's not the usual opening to a political speech, but we live in unusual
07:18times.
07:19I've been governor of Illinois now for almost eight years, and it's the most satisfying job
07:25that I've ever had.
07:26Maybe it's the best job that I ever will have.
07:29Back in 2018, when I was first elected, I used to think that one of the secrets of my
07:35own success, at least in politics and maybe in other things, too, was my penchant for optimism.
07:42The press called me, in fact, in my first month in office, they called me Governor Sunshine
07:47of Illinois.
07:48Because unlike many of the leaders who had preceded me, I was a relentless champion for
07:54all the untapped potential of the people of Illinois.
07:58And I believed that better days were ahead, and I communicated that belief to anyone who
08:02would listen to me.
08:04That optimism fueled the early days of my administration, when I nearly doubled the minimum wage in Illinois, when I
08:11lifted hundreds of thousands
08:13of people out of poverty by doing so.
08:15I'm very proud of that.
08:19We guaranteed abortion rights for every woman in Illinois, and anybody coming to Illinois.
08:28We invested a nation leading $45 billion in roads and bridges and in airports and schools.
08:35And, oh, by the way, we legalized weed.
08:41We expunged 800,000 people's cannabis convictions.
08:47And we hired more teachers, and we reduced class sizes.
08:53And I'm so proud to be here with your Michigan Education Association members, your teachers.
09:02Proud to have received the endorsement the other day of the Illinois Education Association.
09:08Thank you for all the work that you do, really.
09:12My optimism drove my entire first year of legislative and political success.
09:18That was 2019.
09:21Then came 2020.
09:23And the euphoria of our 2018 Democratic electoral victories gave way to a global pandemic.
09:31And the realities of the utter incompetence of the first Trump presidency set in.
09:37Like your governor, I navigated the unprecedented challenges of the turbulent waves of COVID that
09:45was hitting us all.
09:46Our overwhelmed hospital systems, the broken national supply chain, and the daily whims of
09:53an ignorant president who was clearly bewildered by the severity of the crisis around him.
09:59We all dealt with that.
10:01Everyone.
10:03And we all remember it too well.
10:05And it was hard to be optimistic during those days.
10:08It was hard to find Governor Sunshine amid tens of thousands of deaths that occurred in my
10:15state.
10:16Hundreds of thousands of people who fell ill, ventilator shortages, business closures.
10:21The White House press conference is urging people to inject bleach.
10:26But then came a vaccine and a new president.
10:30And as the world began returning rather to normal, I, well, I let optimism seep back in.
10:38Thank goodness.
10:38And I expanded early childhood education and childcare.
10:45And I cut taxes for working families.
10:48And I attracted new businesses to my state.
10:51And I got reelected.
10:52Things were looking up and my renewed optimism seemed warranted.
10:56But before the year was out, Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas decided to play politics
11:05with people's lives.
11:06And he sent more than 50,000 asylum seekers to Chicago.
11:10Many he sent in the middle of winter with no coats or food or shelter for their families.
11:18And Abbott's intention was to cause a lot of needless suffering.
11:22And during all of this, using the immigration issue as his cudgel, Donald Trump found a foothold
11:31in the consciousness of this nation once again.
11:34Something dark and ugly was flooding our politics as if a gate around the people's worst instincts
11:44had crumbled.
11:46And before we knew it, we found ourselves in the midst of a second Trump administration.
11:52One where all the tenuous restraint of his first term is gone.
11:58And I watched the President of the United States delight in wreaking havoc on working families
12:03in Illinois and across America, on our people and on our economy.
12:08It's ironic that this year, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great nation, a man
12:17sits in the White House who is everything that the founders warned us about, everything.
12:22An uncontrollable, narcissistic, authoritarian president who thinks he is a king.
12:29Trump sent masked federal agents in unmarked cars into Chicago and into Minneapolis and other
12:35places, rounding up black and brown people just because of the way they look.
12:40He spoke neighbors and school children, moms and dads, citizens and non-citizens alike.
12:47He showed contempt for the pillars of our justice system, for habeas corpus, for birthright citizenship,
12:53for due process.
12:55Trump made enemies of our friends, and then he made friends with our enemies.
13:02He took an economy that was on the rise, remember?
13:05Inflation had come way down to almost two percent.
13:09And then he did everything to break it.
13:13At the White House, he tore down the hallowed walls of its east wing.
13:20And then he demolished the moral values of the west wing.
13:24And he looked at every symbol of this nation's democracy all across the city of Washington,
13:31D.C.
13:32And he thought, how can I make this into a gilded tribute to myself?
13:36And he's still doing it.
13:38Trump has accomplished in his presidency something that he never achieved in his business career.
13:44He finally is making a profit off of all of us, off of all of you.
13:52The president and his family and his bootlickers are selling influence and power at the expense
13:59of our national security, at the expense of your financial security.
14:04That's what Donald Trump is doing every single day right now.
14:07And I know that there's a whole lot of internal debate among Democrats right now about how much
14:13we should talk about Trump.
14:15People have said, maybe we should stop talking about Trump.
14:17Maybe we should just move on, some people have said.
14:21But trust me, I would love to never utter his name again.
14:26It's just that, well, folks, we need to confront how this country that we love came to embrace
14:34a guy like Donald Trump.
14:35And what role our party played in letting that happen.
14:45Because like it or not, Donald Trump is a reflecting pool of our politics.
14:50You can paint the bottom blue all you want, but it won't conceal the polluted water above.
14:55Which brings me back to optimism versus faith.
15:00I've come to realize that optimism is great because it will sometimes get you through the near term.
15:07Like one of those squeezable energy packets that you get during a marathon.
15:11A little boost of sugar to get you, well, through the next mile.
15:17And maybe you run a great mile next, but then you turn the corner and there are 10 more miles
15:22to go.
15:24Those next 10 miles sometimes can be uphill and in the heat of the day.
15:29Or, you know, your legs are getting fatigued and your endurance is giving out.
15:33And suddenly that little energy packet can't sustain you anymore.
15:38In fact, maybe if you run a little faster, well, you'll get tired out.
15:45And might even have messed up your pace in the marathon.
15:50And that's when optimism becomes the yoke on your back as opposed to the spring in your step.
15:56Now, faith, on the other hand, is built on all the preparation
16:00that goes into getting ready for a marathon.
16:04Like the long runs on the weekends and the training sprints in the early morning.
16:08It's founded upon all the years of running shorter races on less arduous terrain
16:14and building your confidence and building your endurance to run further and longer.
16:21It's all the trying again and again to run a little bit faster when there's no one around to cheer
16:27you on.
16:28So, optimism will get you through the next mile.
16:31Faith will get you through a marathon.
16:34We Democrats, we've been running for too long on a sugar pack at optimism.
16:41Letting little bursts of political success mask the lack of a long-term strategy.
16:49We grew complacent after our wins and we failed to learn from our losses.
16:55We built a carriage with barely enough horsepower for one electoral cycle at a time,
17:01rather than a diesel engine that can carry an electoral movement, well, for a generation.
17:08Well, when we win one election, we then immediately start worrying about losing the next one.
17:15And that tends to make us hedge our bets on big promises that we Democrats have made to the people
17:21who elected us.
17:23Now, here we are.
17:25And we've arrived at a moment when incremental change won't cut it anymore.
17:30The public won't accept incremental change.
17:33Only delivering something big and bold will do.
17:37The American Promise, the one that our kids grow up believing in,
17:41the one that people around the world know us for,
17:44the one that brought generations of the most motivated people to our shores.
17:50The American Promise is broken.
17:54We've built a system where we basically rent everything in our lives from companies that have
18:00abandoned any interest in the common good in favor of a bump in quarterly earnings.
18:06We tell kids that the path to success is to work hard in school and go to college.
18:11But college tuition for most families is way too expensive.
18:16So college students take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans.
18:20Loans with high interest rates that result in people in their 50s
18:25still paying off school debt that they took out in their 20s.
18:29We tell young people to buy a house and build equity,
18:33except home prices and mortgage rates are out of control.
18:37And home insurance premiums climb even as they cover, well, less and less and less.
18:45That's only if you can scrape together the down payment for the house.
18:49And then if you do, that home will be smaller than the one your parents lived in,
18:54and you will spend a lot more years paying it off.
18:58And if the roof leaks or if the water heater bursts,
19:02the insurance policy that you're overpaying for won't cover the repairs.
19:08Then there's retirement.
19:09Decades ago, in a bid to cut their costs, American companies sold American workers on the idea that
19:17a 401k with a small match was better than a pension.
19:22So now if you somehow figured out how to pay for your student loan and then pay for a home
19:28and have a career, when you finally get to retirement age, you can't afford to stop working
19:34because your 401k is inadequate to cover even the most basic costs.
19:39And this all presumes that you go through life never experiencing a health emergency.
19:46Because, well, let's say you get sick or you get pregnant or you break a bone or you burst an
19:53appendix.
19:54After years of paying health insurance premiums, if you're lucky enough to have access to insurance,
20:02now you have to battle a big insurance company that hires and promotes people solely based on how good
20:08they are at denying coverage claims for you.
20:12Because job performance at Blue Cross at United Healthcare isn't measured by how many people they
20:19help get well. It's based on how much more money they can help the company make each quarter by denying
20:25you.
20:28I believe in a strong, robust, free market democracy. I believe in responsible capitalism.
20:35But I also believe that it's everyday people, it's middle class families and those who are striving to become middle
20:42class,
20:42who make entrepreneurial success possible. And consumers deserve more than having to rent their educations,
20:51having to rent their homes, having to rent their retirement and even their health,
20:55having to rent everything from companies that show no interest in the customer's well-being.
21:01You deserve to own your life.
21:12The essentials of life have become more and more unaffordable. And frankly, so too have the joys of life.
21:21Families now can't take a summer vacation because everything from a road trip to a beach rental
21:27or a few days at Disney World are now priced only for the top 1% of our earners.
21:34After buying up all the homes, private equity is now buying up little league teams and ice skating rinks.
21:41And they're charging parents to video their kids' home runs and their hat tricks.
21:47An NFL football game now costs more than $1,000 for a family of four to attend.
21:54Ticket brokers and dynamic pricing have made the rite of passage of seeing your favorite live band
22:00completely out of reach. Life can't just be about getting up and going to a job and grinding it out
22:07until you die. Life is found in all the hours and the moments of joy that spring up in between
22:16trying to survive.
22:18It's no wonder everyone is miserable. Everything that makes us happy is out of reach.
22:25And when everyone is miserable, guess what? Anger and cruelty become a potent weapon in politics.
22:34And if all that isn't enough, we are now facing the possibility that a technology that we are building,
22:42supposedly to better our lives, might end all human life.
22:48Now, to be clear, I'm not a specialist in frontier AI models, and I don't know the exact percentage
22:54likelihood of just how deadly artificial intelligence could turn out to be. But I am enough of a critical
23:01thinker to listen to all the experts who are walking away from lucrative jobs to warn us
23:08that something very dangerous and terrible could be on the horizon. And I've seen enough of
23:14these Silicon Valley CEOs to know not to trust them to regulate themselves.
23:26Especially not when they stand to make trillions of dollars on it. So the future is coming,
23:32whether we like it or not. AI is already here, and it's not going away. Someone's developing it,
23:39even if we try to put a moratorium on it. There are real national security concerns around being
23:45a leader in this technology as our country is. But as a country, we have grappled with apocalyptic
23:53threats before. And we've survived them by building and deploying a robust system of oversight and
24:00regulation. We don't have that right now. And that system has to be put in place by the federal
24:06government and through international cooperation. That's what's appropriate here. The problem is,
24:13does anyone believe that Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel have the knowledge,
24:20critical thinking skills, or ethics to responsibly confront a threat as serious as recursive,
24:25self-improving AI? I'm not kidding when I say I'd trust a high school ethics class to do a better
24:34job than the clown car of chuckleheads who make policy at the White House right now.
24:42And this is why the election in November is so important. In less than two months, in 47 days,
24:51we have the opportunity to elect an entirely new Congress.
25:02To put Democrats in control of the House and the Senate.
25:09And we must do that. We must. We must squash our differences between us and get over our individual
25:17politics or petty differences and change the trajectory of our own futures.
25:27And when we do that, when we do that, then our Democratic Congress is going to need to act
25:33swiftly and decisively and without fear of lobbyists or super PACs or CEOs to do what's right for humanity.
25:42And they will.
25:46So optimism alone is not going to get us through this. The hard grinding work of building faith
25:54and acting on it is the only way forward. The headwinds have been blowing against us Democrats
26:02for far too long. But recently I've begun to feel the breeze shift. How about you?
26:13Right now, prior to November, that change seems slight. You might miss it if you blink too fast.
26:21But it's there. Not just in the electoral winds of the past year or the shifting polls or the growing
26:29defiance of once-compliant GOP politicians. Not just in previously timid politicians suddenly finding their voice.
26:38No. You can see that wind shift in the newcomers to Democratic politics. The mayors. The state legislators.
26:47The first-time candidates who have breezed onto the stage like a breath of fresh air.
26:53Thank you. You're here in this audience.
26:58You're brimming with ideas and you're cowed by no man's petty insults. Remember, he calls me a fat slob just
27:06about every other week. And the public is on board with the new winds blowing. Have you noticed?
27:12I have to say I enjoy watching Abdul El Sayed poke the bullies in D.C. in the eye.
27:26And he'll give ground to no one in the GOP. And your Senate candidate has the kind of energy that
27:33we
27:33need right now. And it's the kind of energy that we're going to need throughout the U.S. Senate and
27:38throughout the U.S. House of Representatives. In the midst of our fight, in the fog of our battles,
27:46I think it's also time that we remind Americans that there is value in being
27:51good and decent and kind like Winnie.
28:05It's time to demand from our leadership that they show empathy to the struggling and compassion to
28:12the destitute. I don't think cruelty is some virtue that shows us how much of a man you are.
28:21Blatant racism doesn't make you tough. It just makes you a racist.
28:30And I don't think that the constant barrage of insults coming from the president's social media
28:35account is some fresh new brand of politics. I think it's just mean. And I think we should
28:42say that to the American people plainly and clearly because most Michiganders choose kindness over
28:49cruelty. Most Americans do. So look, the midterm elections are 47 days away. So let's stop talking about
28:58doing the thing and just go do the damn thing. So West Michigan Democrats, are you ready to elect
29:11Jocelyn Benson? Are you ready to elect Winnie? How about Garland? Are you ready for the fight?
29:27Are you ready for the fight? Let's go get them, everybody. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Keep up
29:35the fight.
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