As Things Get Spicy Between JB Pritzker and Donald Trump, People Want to About His Religion
The governor has accused President Trump of disparaging his religion.
Published Aug. 28 2025, 9:26 a.m. ET
Things are getting spicy between Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. According to MSNBC, the two politicians are not in alignment when it comes to sending the National Guard to Chicago.
Trump has threatened to complete a federal takeover in the city, which he called a "killing field" over Chicago's gun violence. Pritzker clapped back and said the president was "defunding the police" by threatening to use the National Guard. The Illinois governor also accused the president of "disparaging" his religion, and all the political drama has folks wondering what Pritzker's religion is.
JB Pritzker accused Trump of disparaging his religion.
JB Pritzker is Jewish, and he called out the president for his anti-Semitic remarks in April of 2025, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Illinois governor made the remarks at the annual New Hampshire Democratic Party’s McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner. Trump stated that Jewish people voting for Democrats must hate their religion back in 2024 amid the Israel-Gaza War, per The Guardian.
"I think they hate Israel," said Trump. "And the Democrat party hates Israel. ... Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed."
Pritzker responded at the New Hampshire event, and he did not mince words.
"Stop tearing down the Constitution in the name of my ancestors," said the governor. "Do not claim that your authoritarian power grabs are about antisemitism. When you destroy social justice, you are disparaging the very foundation of Judaism."
During an interview with WGN, the Illinois governor talked about helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center with Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill. His great-grandfather escaped attacks on Jews in Ukraine during the 1880s.
"It’s very easy for someone else to ignite the hate that might exist in somebody," he said. "If you’re certainly a survivor, you know they have been conveying these things to the next generations, so that we make sure to fight bigotry and hatred and antisemitism whenever we see it cropping up."
After Trump threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago, Pritzker said, "Trump is defunding the police.”
“If it sounds to you like I am an alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to de-escalate conflict on our streets," he added.
"If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally."
"Do not come, Donald Trump," continued the governor. "You are neither wanted nor needed here in Illinois. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy."