Pritzker Clarifies Travel Plans, Staying in Chicago
Governor JB Pritzker and his family celebrate Inauguration Day in 2019.
Governor JB Pritzker sparked controversy Monday when he declined to say if he would follow his own advice and stay in Illinois during the Thanksgiving holiday.
At his Tuesday news conference, Pritzker clarified his lack of clarity from the day before and said he was planning to stay in Chicago for Thanksgiving, but that his family would not be together. He, emotionally at times, discussed the decision that was brought on by attacks aimed at his 17-year-old daughter.
I think you all know that I try to keep my high school age children out of the spotlight. They were not elected to anything. They did not choose this public life. And I have a reasonable expectation that their privacy will be protected.
I was taken aback by yesterday’s question about my family’s holiday plans. In part, because, my wife and I were in the process of making the very hard decision that we may need to celebrate Thanksgiving apart from one another for the first time ever. And it was weighing heavily on my mind.
I will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Chicago with our son. Our state is at a crisis point when it comes to the COVID pandemic. And, as leader, I believe that the situation is simply too grave for me to be elsewhere.
My wife and daughter are in Florida and they will remain there indefinitely. Let me tell you why.
Last week, my daughter came under attack in an attempt to have some political effect on me. A parody Twitter account posted a picture of a group of individuals eating outside a Chicago restaurant, supposedly breaking the COVID rules the city put in place. And the person posting the photo claimed one of the people in it was my daughter. That was a lie. It wasn’t her. But the picture falsely identifying her started making the rounds on social media, helped along by the trolls who permeate these social media platforms these days. My office put out a statement making clear this wasn’t my daughter but that didn’t stop Republican elected officials, a network of propaganda publications in the state, and some radio shock jocks from telling people that the picture was of my daughter, despite knowing that this was a lie. [Their actions] lent permission to a slew of strangers who sent hateful, threatening messages to my daughter over the subsequent few days.
If that wasn’t bad enough, then a well-known lawyer, who cares more about headlines than winning his cases posted a bounty on his Facebook page, offering a bounty to harass my family at Thanksgiving. An actual cash bounty. Including my kids. Harassing them. My high school aged kids.
Put yourself in the shoes of a high school girl, who is being weaponized against her father by his political opponents. Weaponized with lies. Put yourself in my shoes, we have threats that stream into my office daily while we have watched the kidnapping plot against the Michigan governor unfold just a state away.
I’m the Governor. I was elected to this job, and while I don’t think that it should come with a fear for my health and safety, I accept that, sometimes it does. I’m an adult. And I can handle people throwing my face up on anti-Semitic picket signs likening me to Hitler. This kind of vitriol is apparently what I have to deal with to keep the state and its people safe. But, my kids? My kids are off limits.
Illinois State Police would not respond to requests involving threats against the Governor nor would they confirm any of the Governor’s out of state travels in recent weeks, including to his horse farm or mansion in Wisconsin. The Governor’s office did not respond to any of our request on the Governor’s travel.
