Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker once again used his bully pulpit to rebuke President Trump after federal agents marched through downtown Chicago, kidnapped people, shot a pepper ball (essentially a paintball full of pepper spray) at a journalist’s vehicle, and fired tear gas at peaceful protesters.

“In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters, when unprovoked, what would we call it? If federal agents marched down busy streets, harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say? I don’t think we’d have any trouble calling it what it is: authoritarianism,” Pritzker said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “So let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.”

Priztker: if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters, when unprovoked, what would we call it?

If federal agents marched down busy streets harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say?

I don't think we'd have any trouble calling it what it is.… pic.twitter.com/sPI5mylLWO

This weekend, there was a surge in federal immigration enforcement in Chicago as armed agents patrolled the city. Pritzker on Monday said that Trump is also planning to deploy 100 military troops to Illinois.

Chicago has been on Trump’s hit list since Trump announced his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., in August, along with multiple other mostly Black cities like Baltimore and Memphis. Earlier this month, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore—Robert Duvall’s character from Apocalypse Now—with Chicago burning in the background.

Pritzker—along with California’s Gavin Newsom—has been among the loudest voices as governors across America prepare to have their power and state sovereignty stripped. Only time will tell how much they’ll be able to stop Trump, as any resistance to the president’s draconian federal invasions will require cohesion from state leaders, local leaders, businesses, and neighbors. A fight is certainly coming, and Pritzker and Chicago seem up for it.

One of MAGA’s most outspoken proponents is turning on the White House over its handling of the Epstein files.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—a longtime ally of the president and a standout feature of his sweeping national ideology—was reportedly infuriated by the Trump administration’s hostility toward legislation supporting the unfettered release of the files. But it was a direct threat from the White House over her own support for their release that prompted her to phone a West Wing official.

“I told them, ‘You didn’t get me elected. I do not work for you; I work for my district,’” Greene recalled to The New York Times. “We aren’t supposed to just be whipped on our votes because they’re telling us what to do … or saying, ‘We’ll primary you,’ or that we won’t get invited to the White House events.”

“Me personally? I don’t care,” Greene continued. She explained to the Times that, these days, when the Trump team attempts to corral or control her, she’s “like, ‘[expletive] you.’”

Greene has publicly broken with Donald Trump several times since his inauguration, differing from her “favorite president” on issues ranging from artificial intelligence to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Viewed as something of a joke when she first arrived on Capitol Hill in 2021, the renowned conspiracist has since become a powerful independent agent, apparently beholden to no party and no man.

“I didn’t get elected with a President Trump endorsement,” Greene told the Times. “It felt really bad at the time, but honestly it’s been the best thing for me. I get to be very independent.”

Meanwhile, the botched rollout of the Epstein files has continued to plague Trump. Instead of simply disclosing the contents of the files, the Trump administration has expended vast resources to reportedly strip the president’s name from the documents. The White House also tapped Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to produce a new list of the deceased financier’s associates, which presumably already exists in the Epstein files. The plot granted Maxwell improved living conditions, moving her to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, and gave her time on the national stage to ask Trump for a pardon.

The Epstein story has remained an anomaly in Trump’s political career. For the better part of a decade, the MAGA leader became adjusted to an undyingly loyal base that rarely skews from or challenges his political vision. But Trump’s proximity to Epstein and his heinous crimes has been an outlier, prompting doubts that have undercut Trump’s influence with large swaths of his followers.

President Trump’s sweeping new national security memorandum will likely double the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist from 5,000 people to 10,000, according to journalist Ken Klippenstein. 

Trump issued the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NPSM-7, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” last week. The memo directs the federal government to investigate and prosecute any person, nonprofit, or entity displaying what Trump calls “indicia” of political violence: anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, and “extremism” on race, gender, and migration. 

The memo continues:

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically.... It is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.  A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies—including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding........

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