In a stunning—and completely unhinged—Truth Social post early Wednesday, President Donald Trump demanded the imprisonment of both Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, accusing them of failing to protect federal immigration officers.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” Trump wrote. “Governor Pritzker also!”
The online outburst comes as Trump’s administration ramps up its controversial deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to Chicago, citing the need to “protect” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities—despite clear opposition from city officials and a federal judge’s ruling barring the move.
Chicago now joins Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as major urban centers seeing an aggressive and chaotic surge of federal law enforcement, under what critics have called a blatantly political maneuver to portray American cities as “lawless war zones.”
While Trump framed the deployment as necessary to curb crime and protect federal agents, Mayor Johnson isn’t buying it. He’s fired back, blasting the White House for manufacturing a crisis that doesn’t align with reality.
“The Trump administration, they are completely delusional right now, and what they are promulgating in this particular moment are not just unconstitutional measures, but they’re dangerous and reckless,” Johnson said during an interview on MSNBC over the weekend. “It’s antithetical to who we are as a nation… This president has worked hard to relitigate the Civil War, and we’re not going to stand for it!”
Johnson has cited recent crime data showing notable drops in violent crime across the city—a narrative that directly contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for the military-style presence.
But in typical Trump fashion, facts don’t seem to matter much. Instead, his message has been amplified by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who doubled down on the administration’s claims, saying some Chicago residents were “advocating for violence against the American people” and that protesters were “victimizing people every day by the way that they’re talking.”
Noem didn’t cite any specific threats, but her comments underscore the administration’s increasingly desperate attempt to paint dissent as domestic terrorism. It’s a move critics say dangerously blurs the line between protest and crime—if not outright criminalizes free speech.
This kind of political theater, dressed up in military gear, isn’t just divisive. It’s potentially catastrophic for the relationship between federal and local authorities.
Trump’s call to jail sitting elected officials over policy disagreements isn’t just undemocratic—it’s authoritarianism, loud and clear.
