Gov. JB Pritzker on Standing Up to Trump & Empowering People

Governor JB Pritzker: I am suggesting that the end of the constitutional republic as we know it would be happening now as Democrats that were the party of civil rights. I mean, if you cannot stand up for the rights of the smallest minority of people who are with you know, when you think about Democratic messaging, it's really all about, you know, people want to say, oh, my God, Democrats have to change everything that we stand for because we lost by one and a half percentage points in 2024. How ludicrous is that purely from a billionaire to get a standing ovation at the DNC all in the history of the DNC? Democrats ought to recognize that it's not about how much money or how little money you have, it's what your values are. If we stick to our really strong focus on middle class and working class families and the most vulnerable, that's how we win elections. And I know we're going to win in 2026 if we do that.

Dan Koh: In a time where Washington feels broken and the stakes couldn't be higher, people are looking for leadership outside the beltway. Governor JB Pritzker is among those leading the charge from taking on Donald Trump to showing how Democrats can empower working families through things like raising the minimum wage. He is showing what bold, pragmatic leadership looks like. Governor Pritzker joins us to talk about how to effectively counter Trump, why Democrats shouldn't abandon their values and how we should never give up hope for a more perfect union. Let’s swear into The People’s Cabinet, Governor JB Pritzker. Governor JB Pritzker. Welcome to the People's Cabinet.

Governor JB Pritzker: Thanks, Dan. Great to be with you.

Dan Koh: Governor, we're coming at a very scary time, I think, in politics. Tensions are high. We saw the tragic assassination of a state rep in Minnesota. Governor Shapiro. Your friend's house was literally lit on fire by an arsonist. And President Trump, when he was running for president, had an assassination attempt. So my first question to you is, how do you lead in a time like this? You have 13 million constituents in Illinois. How do you think about reassuring people that things are going to be okay in an environment that's so uncertain and particularly for you? Do you fear your safety at all?

Governor JB Pritzker: Well, thanks for asking. And let me start by saying that, you know, we do live in perilous times. This is, I mean, unprecedented in my lifetime. The physical violence, the threat that has seemed to have pervaded politics now is something I've never seen before. I have had threats. There's you know, I've had a couple of people who've been prosecuted for the threats against me. They've increased over the last year or so, in fact, less than a year. And so I'm not just concerned about my own family and myself, but really about what's happening broadly. You know, I was in Minnesota on Friday night actually speaking at the DFL in Minnesota with the former speaker who was assassinated. She was there. And just a few hours later, unfortunately, she was attacked and killed. Governor was called me on Saturday morning, early. We'd been together that night at the event and to let me know what had happened. It's just it's unfathomable. And, of course, we now find out, you know, he had a list of 70 people in Minnesota that that was brought up. And they've described that as a hit list and then apparently did a lot of research about others across the Midwest, including in Illinois. And that was, as the FBI has told me, not a hit list, so much as a lot of research on his part, but nevertheless frightening. Right. And so if you ask me, we are in perilous times. And the only way to deal with this at the moment is first to let every public official know that they need to stay safe and keep their families safe every way that they can. Second, we've got to speak up and speak out about this. I know that it feels dangerous to do that, but this is the moment, if ever, you know, I built a Holocaust museum. And I can tell you that in 1933, 34, 35 in Berlin, this is what was happening. People were being threatened. The laws were changing to target certain groups of people, starting with immigrants and then label and vilifying immigrants and then labeling Jews and others as immigrants as if they're not they're not pure German, and therefore they're just immigrants. Even if they had lived for generations in Germany and had been German citizens and, you know, were even elected to public office. So I think this is the world I'm afraid that we may be living in now. And I'm not suggesting that it leads to what happened in Germany, but I am suggesting that the end of the constitutional republic, as we know it could be happening now. And I think we all need to speak up and speak out and do more than that, show up to protest. And thankfully, we saw that this weekend with the No Kings protest. I know you were very outspoken about and you saw the crowds in Chicago and every other place in Illinois and places like Arkansas and Idaho. Right. People standing up and speaking out. You have not shied away from doing so. And what's interesting for you, Governor, that I've noticed is that you've been very vocal about not just what he is doing, but the kind of personality that Donald Trump is trying to espouse as strength. Right. You famously said in a commencement speech, you know, if you want to spot an idiot, look at someone who's cruel. Right. That was paraphrasing. But you've led your life as somebody who has been very successful in business and politics. And, you know, you have a president now who is threatening mass deportations in Chicago. You know, he's sending in the National Guard, usurping gubernatorial and mayoral authority to do so. As someone who obviously disagrees with this personality type, can you just talk about how you view President Trump's leadership and how people should be thinking about how they best fight back against this when they are so scared?

Governor JB Pritzker: You know, it's I get why people have been reticent to get out there. I do. I understand that. I have to say, though, that it's worse if you don't speak out. And I mean this again. I've spent a lot of time looking at authoritarianism, not just because I built the Holocaust Museum, but, of course, since Trump, you know, became president of the United States the first time around, I've read up, you know, and if you haven't read On Tyranny, everybody should be reading On Tyranny right now. By Tim Snyder. This is a moment when, you know, people are making choices about whether to, you know, try to duck and hope that nobody notices them or to be loud. And I am afraid people don't seem to understand that if you duck. And you're hoping that they won't see you or pay attention to that. Actually, it's much worse for you. The more of us who get out there and you're talking about the No Kings protests. And, you know, I've been hoping and praying and working hard to encourage people to do just that, to show up. And in Chicago, as you mentioned just the other day, and, of course, across the country, millions and millions of people. But I'm very proud that, you know, there were maybe almost 100,000 people that showed up in the streets of Chicago, completely peaceful. But people were vehement. And the signs, the chants, the things that people said they're having, in effect, the major Republicans who think it's okay to be part of the cult. They can see that the country is. All of a sudden it like in 2017, just after Donald Trump was inaugurated. You know that that the activism is I mean, it's jolting to people who don't have never seen anything like this. Right. Are showing up. It means that Republicans are wondering like, wait a minute, maybe I need to step back and wonder what's happening and whether I need to maybe distance myself a little bit from Donald Trump. Look at the polls, Dan. You know, you've seen it even on immigration. Now he's underwater and I don't think any of us thought that would happen. Right. There's always been this idea that, well, that was the big issue that he won on. And we still know lots of people, I think all of us who are concerned about immigration. And they wonder, you know, if Donald Trump is telling the truth sometimes about, you know, about whether undocumented immigrants are threatening our way of life. But as you know, immigrants broadly have a much lower crime rate than the rest of us in the country, and that should actually comfort people a lot. I think, you know, my own family immigrated here in 130, 150 years ago now and with nothing. And they were refugees from the pogroms in Ukraine. And I can speak to the idea that, you know, immigrants who show up in the United States mostly are just they're seeking security. They're seeking a better life for their families. They're they want to work they'll work twice as hard as anybody else, you know, because they know that they have, you know, this new opportunity that the United States offers them. And I think that's why, just in case your listeners don't know, 46% of Fortune 500 companies in this country were founded by immigrants or first-generation Americans who were the children of immigrants? 46% of our biggest companies. Think about that and the economy and what that means. People are hardworking when they show up here and they want to do the right thing in their patriotic Americans. And so I think about that in the context of, you know, what, the moment we're living in and people showing up and speaking out and I'm pleased that the direction of things is at least this summer, seems to be revving up in the right direction. And I think Republicans are starting to get worried. And you brought up immigration. And I think it's actually a good example of the kind of culture that Donald Trump has allowed for MAGA Republicans. And candidly, a lot of the population that was exemplified when you came to testify in front of Congress about, you know, so-called sanctuary city policies. You know, there were questions that could be answered that would be productive questions to any governor who's facing this. I mean, you weren't the only governor who dealt with migration and the challenges therein. But instead of a productive conversation, it appeared that it was used as political theater, using, candidly, migrants as political pawns to see if they could get you on a gotcha question. And then it twisted into questions about transgender use of bathrooms. Do you think a biological male should use a woman's bathroom? Things that were just completely outside of the bounds, that were just meant to get you to lose your temper or say something that they would use on social media. So my larger question, you first of all, how did you not jump across the banister and lose your temper? I think a lot of people wondered that. And so people could use some lessons in anger management from you, Governor. And then secondly, how do you think about this? Because it's not just migrants. You have the transgender community. You know, there is, I think, some very fair questions for parents who are trying to figure out how to both welcome the transgender community while also wanting to make sure, you know, that there's fairness in sports and things like that. But then there's a large population that just uses that to alienate and other a community that is a vulnerable population. Right. So how do you think about all of that in this environment and how do you get to like the productive people on both sides of the aisle who want to figure out a productive way forward on these issues?

Governor JB Pritzker: Well, you're right that, you know, when you're in a hearing like the one I was in and someone described that committee of Republicans as a malignant clown car. And it really is. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar. The list goes on. And so they are trying to goad you into getting angry and losing your temper and also making mistakes that's what they're trying to do. So the greatest act of defiance, of course, is to maintain your cool. So I tried to do that and I was sitting, you know, in between two governors that I admire, Tim Walz from Minnesota, who's a very, very good friend, and Kathy Hochul from New York, who did a terrific job in the hearing also. And she was getting attacked by people who want to run against her in New York State, Stefanik and Lawler and others anyway. And that the environment was one where I think for all of us, just maintaining our demeanor and not losing it was a win and then responding in a way that I think was rational. But it's human nature to feel it under your skin. I'm just asking for a tip for normal people, not governors, who have to, you know, have staff to help train them. Give us a little tip on how to stay calm in a situation where someone's coming at you to try to get you to not be calm.

Dan Koh: But, you know, the best advice I got going into that hearing was every time you get asked a question, no matter whether it's a rational question or an irrational question, and frankly, all the questions from the Republicans were irrational. I mean, almost all of them. But the best advice I got was take a deep breath and like count three beats. In fact, the person who said it to me literally took their hand and beat it up against the table and said just, you know, like as if you were hearing your hand go three times, you know, then you can turn the microphone on, take a breath answer. And I thought that was such great advice because it turned out to be exactly the way that I could keep my cool with the dumbest of questions and the greatest attacks that they could think of to make. And so that I think. That's one piece of advice anyway. I think, you know, the other is, I think in politics sometimes, particularly in these moments that we're living in now, I think that the you know, maintaining your cool which I'll be honest I you know, I went through 185 days straight of press conferences during COVID, and there were reporters who were, you know, right wing. They were anti-vax and they were anti-mask. And they would ask me, I mean, questions that you couldn't believe they were asking. You know, we're just trying to keep people alive here and they're asking questions that are insane. And so I did learn, you know, certainly 185 days straight. You know, you have to learn to keep your cool. So and then on the question of, you know, you mentioned, you know, transgender athletes in school. And I'll just say, you know, look, in Illinois, there are 300,000, a little over 300,000 student athletes. Three of them are transgender. So. The Republicans are. First of all, attacking in the most vile ways the smallest minority of people. And for the most part, if you know anything about transgender kids, you know that they're suffering often from it because of outside attitudes toward them and sometimes their own concerns about themselves and even their own families. Sometimes they're suffering. They're suffering, sometimes depression, they're suffering. There's been a lot of thoughts of suicide by those kids. And I think we need to take a step back, all of us, and recognize that the decisions that get made there should be made at the school district level and, you know, with teachers and leaders at the school, but also with the parents and their doctor, the child's doctor. Because, you know, a lot of times there's a lot of discussion that needs to be had. And remember, in a lot of places in rural areas across the country where there's a child who thinks they might be transgender or doesn't know what's going on. And parents. Honestly, if you think your child is suicidal and you're trying to figure out what's going on and you may have a physician in a rural area that really doesn't know anything about this. I mean, can't we muster up a little bit of sympathy for this? And then recognize as Democrats, that we're the party of civil rights? I mean, if you cannot stand up for the rights of the smallest minority of people, who are we? And so that, I think, is, you know, the way I think about the moment that we're in the attacks that these children are undergoing. And I'm not suggesting this is, you know, the main line focus of our Democratic message. I'm suggesting, though, that throwing them aside and not recognizing that these are just another example of people that need to be protected and whose civil rights we should recognize and then, you know, have some sympathy for their parents and the challenges that those families are going through. So, you know, I don't mean to get too deep into that, but I do want to recognize that, you know, when you think about Democratic messaging, it's really all about, you know, people want to say, oh, my God, Democrats have to change everything that we stand for because we lost by one and a half percentage points in 2024. How ludicrous is that? We're the party of Medicaid and Medicare, of Social Security, we're the party that stands up for civil rights and voting rights. I mean, I know who we are. I became a Democrat because of those things. I'm also somebody who believes that we should be standing up for small businesses and building an economy that works for everybody and raising the minimum wage because you can't live on $7.25 as a single person, you know that there are some people trying to live on that as a family. So that's $14,000 a year. Who can live on that even as a single person anymore? So we raised the minimum wage in Illinois to $15. We you know, we've stood up for workers rights, I believe, very strongly in growing the economy by helping business people get started in business and also helping businesses grow. I mean, these are all things Democrats we need to deliver for people and we need to deliver around the center focus, which is working families. How do we grow the economy for them? How do they get a be...ter and that we stand for. Let's not abandon those things because we lost an election in 2024, even as bad as Donald Trump is and he's the worst president in my lifetime. You know, we need to focus on the fundamentals, not get distracted by the craziness of them. Again, going after a small minority of people or turning our cities into these kind of militarized armed encampments that they're trying to do with Los Angeles and now Chicago and New York. So I, I think, you know, if we stick to our really strong focus on middle class and working class families and the most vulnerable. That's how we win elections, and I know we're going to win in 2026 if we do that.

Dan Koh: And you alluded to this. It's very clear from just the words that you were saying, having strength and convictions, not abandoning the most vulnerable. Affordability being central to the message is, I know something, you're very passionate and it's clear that it's authentic to who you are. As someone who has led and just from your background that was on display at is probably the lion of the DNC when you got up there and you said Donald Trump claims to be rich, but take it from an actual billionaire. The only thing that Donald Trump is rich is on stupidity, right? So first and foremost, there's nothing more authentic than self-identifying as a billionaire in front of, you know, 20,000 people and millions of people at home, and that you're only the only billionaire to get a standing ovation at the DNC, probably in the history of the DNC. But first, it speaks to authenticity and who you are. Right. I think I'm curious. I don't want to speak for you. So I'm curious in your own words how you thought, too, to do that. And then, you know what it speaks to in terms of how other Democrats should be talking based on who they're on their back. Because I feel like there's just so much there's so much on what should I say? How should I identify myself? What should I be speaking about? What should I not be the Democratic Party? That sometimes it just makes sense to just say what's on your mind and say what you know people are thinking about, right?

Governor JB Pritzker: Yeah. You know, I it's funny, I think that, you know, we as Democrats ought to recognize that it's not about how much money or how little money you have. It's what your values are. Right. Are you standing up for working people? Are you standing up for civil rights? I mean, all the things that we believe fundamentally. And that's what makes me a Democrat. I had somebody I was on the L that's our subway here in Chicago the other day. And somebody came up to me, young man, and he said, you know, I voted for you. But I got to ask, you know, do we really need, you know, billionaires representing us when, you know, Elon Musk and all these other people are out there doing things that that are not good for us? And I said, well, you know, but there's a fundamental difference, right? What Elon Musk is trying to do is cut your health care so that he can get a tax break. I tried to raise my taxes to make sure that we provide health care, universal health care in the state of Illinois. So that's a fundamental difference of values. And does it matter how much money either one of us has? No. And so I look, I'm a believer that if you have zero money, if you have no money. Right. That it's what's in your heart, you know, what your values are, that really matters. And so I'm that's how I've lived my life. I'm somebody who grew up in a home where both my parents were involved in Democratic politics. We believe in social justice. It's part of our religion. I'm Jewish. I, you know, fundamentally believe that we need to live in a world where everybody has health care, has the ability to get a job or that. And at a minimum, right. That you've got food, clothing, shelter. And we all ought to be focused on making sure that people have that and an opportunity to get ahead. There's a lot more. But I just I think that's not what Republicans stand for and it is what Democrats stand for. So there's a fundamental difference between the parties. And then importantly, again, not about how much money or how little money you have, but what you believe. Did you know that line would bring the house down?

Dan Koh: So I'll tell you one funny story, if you don't mind. I don't know if you remember that on that was on Tuesday of the four day convention that started on Monday. On Monday, everything went long. Everybody spoke too long. And Joe Biden didn't even get to speak till about 11:00 Eastern Time that night. And so the next day, they decided to change the run of show and get rid of a lot of the, you know, videos and other lesser known speakers in the middle, because they realized that they needed to pack it in and do it faster. So there was supposed to be the original schedule on Tuesday, and it was supposed to be like Chuck Schumer and then like a video and, you know, a pro-choice speaker and a union member and so on. And then, you know, Bernie Sanders and then another video and you know, again, you know, a few other things in the middle. And then JB Pritzker. Well, they got rid of everything in the middle. So it went Chuck Schumer and then Bernie Sanders and JB Pritzker and Bernie Sanders got up there and spent his entire 5 minutes railing on billionaires and as he often does. And then I was standing backstage because I was about to go on right after him. And I'm listening to the speech and I'm thinking, well, this is going to be interesting because he's going to rail against the billionaires and then he's going to walk off and they're going to be like, and here's a billionaire, you know? And so that's what happened. That's not why I said what I said, but it was just a funny coincidence. Wasn't supposed to happen that way. I did know that it would I thought it was risky, honestly, to say it, especially as you pointed out, there were millions of people watching at home. And but I also think, you know, I look, I'm not going to run away from who I am. I you know, I people everybody in Illinois knows, you know, I ran for governor. They know who I am. There were people who were skeptical of me in the Democratic primary because they thought this person must be some sort of Republican in Democratic clothing. And I won because I believe in fundamental progressive Democratic values. And then importantly, even the people who were skeptical of me when I when when I won the general election the first time around, you know, they watched what I did. And I, I, you know, I delivered on all the things I said I was going to do. And people were kind of skeptical. Was he is he really who he says he is? And now I find, you know, people people I think people trust that I am who I say I am. And so I've enjoyed that transformation for some people. And I think, you know, as a result, I you know, we've done pretty well and got a lot done in Illinois. It's one of the reasons I say to you that we Democrats, we really need to deliver. And that's why it's another reason why I look around, I look at my fellow governors, and I think there's someone in that crew who, you know, should be in leadership of the party and leadership of the country. Because, you know, whether we're talking about Andy Beshear or Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or. Or you know you can. The list goes on. We really have some great governors who truly have delivered. And I think people need to know that the next president of the United States is somebody who can deliver.

Dan Koh: Well, speaking of delivering, I think people don't fully appreciate and I'm sure this will be music to your ears, how much work it is to be a governor and an executive and how much is at stake. There's one thing you alluded to and something else that I wanted you to cover on this broadcast. We want. We think it's important to have people who have done work on specific issues or policies, explain clearly in layman's terms for listeners so that they can go out to the communities and talk about how important good policy is. You just submitted your seventh. You just got to prove your seventh about balanced budget. You took the financial situation of Illinois from a very precarious state to a very stable one in a time where there's a lot of conversation in D.C. about deficits and $37 trillion. And you mentioned raising the minimum wage. So could you just quickly explain I think people hear balanced budgets, minimum wage, but they don't really understand what's up with balanced budgets. People don't understand what that means. Right. So if you give people the 30 seconds about why it's important to have a balanced budget and what that meant for people in Illinois to have to be on a more positive financial situation.

Governor JB Pritzker: Well, I'll give you the real world impact of not balancing the budgets of the state of Illinois, which is before I became governor, the amount of money the state government was providing for public education was going down every year. And that's crazy because you know, what the effect of that is, is that at the local level, they have to raise property taxes in order to pay for schools or the schools get diminished and the education diminishes. So when I came in office, when I started, only 24% of education funding was coming from the state. In the average state, it's 46%. It's about half from it's about half from the state, half from a local funding. And then there's about 10% or so that comes from the federal government. Well used to when there was a Department of Education. So we were at 24% worst in the country. And so the real world impact high property taxes and diminished funding for our schools. Right. So when I came in, it was it was really one of the most important things I could do was increase education funding from the state level. And you can only do that if you balance the budget. You got to balance the budget and prioritize education while you're doing it. So the impact is that we went from 24% to almost 40% funding, and that's had a big impact on education last year in the country. Illinois's eighth graders ranked second in reading and fifth in math scores in the entire country. And that's because we're investing in our education system and that's because we balanced the budget. So that's a real world impact. If you don't balance the budget, you can't prioritize the things that really matter. Are you able to allocate that money? How what was the delta? How are you able to achieve that?

Dan Koh: Well, the most important thing is you've got to you know, a budget is a moral document. It's an expression of what you believe. Right. And if you're prioritizing education, you've got to make sure that you're you know, you're actually moving the dollars over to the education side. You know, for 25 years before I became governor, I've been focused on early childhood education. Hugely important. If you want to change the trajectory of your state of the country, invest in our very youngest kids, in our poorest kids, and make sure that they have early childhood education, because it's proven that if you do that, they do better in school, they graduate, they're more likely to get a job, they're less likely to end up in prison. All of that is good for budgets overall. So the answer is we focused on paying off our bills. My predecessor left $17 billion of unpaid bills for me to pay that. We only had a $40 billion budget when I came into office. So long story short, is that you are prioritizing what you really believe in, prioritizing the things that don't work, and then, you know, driving hard for success for the state. That's what I've been doing for the last six and a half years. And I've been very proud of the direction the Democratic Party has done in every time I've been on the ballot. Well, the two times I've been on the ballot, we've won more seats in the legislature. And it's because we really have a fiscally responsible focus on the things that matter to working families. And we've delivered. And in minimum wage, you were able to raise the minimum wage from I think it's 825 now to $15 an hour, is that correct?

Governor JB Pritzker: That's correct. If you talk about the initiative to do that and also as a as a businessperson, I think. You heard plenty of people probably say, oh, we're concerned about the impact on businesses and I know you had a phase in period, but can you just talk about how you get business and people to the table to do this in a way that is sustainable and leads to prosperity?

Dan Koh: Well, I think you have to start out with the point I made to you earlier, which is nobody can live on $8.25 or $7.25 is the federal minimum wage. You can't live on it. And you can't expect as a business person to be a moral human being and not pay people at least something they can live on. And we can all argue about what that amount is. I know there are people who would say that it's $10 or 12 or 15 or some people would say 25 or $30. But the point is $7 and $28, $0.28, not enough. And so that's number one. I mean, you've got to start with that principle and talk to the business community that way. Second, recognize that small businesses and large businesses. Right. They can't just snap their fingers and start paying people twice what they're paying in yesterday. And so you do have to phase it in. And they can manage through that. They can manage by cutting costs and other ways. They can manage by adjusting pricing if they need to. But in the end, you got your workers have to be able to afford to buy things in our economy or else, you know, why would you work? And so that's really what we had to do. And we had to do it in a rational way that was good for small business. So, for example, we created a tax credit for small businesses so that as they were dealing with raising the minimum wage for their workers, they could get a little bit of a break from the state government and that helped them adjust. And we did it over five and a half years. But there was a steady drumbeat of basically every year we raised the minimum wage by a dollar. And what that did was it took people I mean, almost a million people out of poverty in my state. And I have to say, I said to my wife after I signed the bill was my first bill that I signed in office. And I said to her as we were leaving and going separate directions, I called her on the phone. I said, You know what? We could quit right now and we will have done more than most governors get to do, most people get to do in public life. We lifted a million people out of poverty.

Dan Koh: Governor, my last question to you is, you know, as we talked about when we first started this conversation, we did see people come out this weekend and candidly fight and speak up for their democracy. I think there are still a lot of people out there, though, who feel very disengaged by politics. A lot of people stayed home in 2024, as you know. So I think one of the things that we really try to prioritize in this podcast is to have listeners go out to their communities, try to reengage their neighbors and try to get them involved in civic life again. So again, my last question to you is, what is your message to our listeners to go out to those communities to get people engaged again?

Governor JB Pritzker: Well, I think if people are willing and they need to be willing, because this is a moment when if you sit quietly, bad things are going to happen to you. But if you're willing to stand up and go talk to other people about what's happening in the economy, you can really start to change things. We're five seats away in the Congress from taking it back. It's not like we're you know, there's no chance the Democrats could have any power in Washington. We're five seats away and we're in a year and a quarter. We could control at least the House of Representatives, maybe the Senate. So the damage that Donald Trump is doing with tariffs, the damage that Donald Trump is doing to democracy, the damage that Donald Trump is doing to health care that can all be stopped. And so for people who are willing to, you know, to get engaged, recognize that the difference you can make is bigger right now than it's ever been before, because the danger to us is greater than it's ever been before. So I really encourage people to use their voices. I'll take a quick, quick story and then I promise we won't take long. There's a young woman in Edwardsville, Illinois, who decided in February, right after Donald Trump had been elected to she didn't know what to do. She just felt like things are going terribly in the country and she needed to do something. They're only 28,000 people live in Edwardsville. She decided to make a sign and go stand at the corner of two intersecting highways. And she just held the sign up. And it was, you know, something that was protest oriented against Donald Trump and nobody else there, just her. Somebody walked by with their dog and said, What are you doing? And she explained. And the person stayed with her and decided they wanted to be part of that. That was day one. Day two, four of her friends showed up to be with her during the protest and they brought signs to. It's now four months later and 300 people show up every Friday to protest. And the impact that they're having in Edwardsville and Southern well, between central and southern Illinois, the impact they're having is people are seeing that their neighbors are upset and that that there are people that are speaking out and doing something. And so there's a comfort in the idea that, oh, maybe I could do that too, because I can be with this group of people and really express who I am and what I believe. So I think we're in a moment when you know that this is a maybe it'll end up being really good for democracy in the end, that people see the dangers ahead and react to it by standing up.

Dan Koh: Governor JB Pritzker, thank you for coming on the People's Cabinet.

Governor JB Pritzker: Thanks, Dan.

Dan Koh: I'm Dan Koh and that's it for the People's Cabinet today. Follow us on social media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and see you on Tuesdays for new episodes. Let's Go.