Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivered a stern message, naming both President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in his State of the State address, as he said he is "watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now."
Read more: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-politics/what-comes-next-illinois-governor-delivers-stern-message-on-state-of-country/3678083/
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00:00This is my seventh State of the State Address, and I've come before you to present a budget
00:05in good years and in bad, in years of crisis and years of relative stability.
00:12There's a whole industry of backseat bellyachers in this state and around the country who make
00:17a profession out of rhetorically tearing down Illinois and suggesting that if we would just
00:22enact one of their magic bean fixes, that we would never face another difficult budget
00:27year.
00:28But there's one thing that I've learned as governor.
00:31There are no magic bean fixes.
00:34And each year, there's some difficulty that requires us to work hard to overcome it.
00:39This year, the surfacing difficulty is Donald Trump's and Elon Musk's plan to steal Illinois's
00:45tax dollars and deny our citizens the protection and the services that they need.
00:50I want to offer you a few examples.
00:53Twenty million Americans, 700,000 of them here in Illinois, will lose health care coverage
00:59if congressional Republicans are successful in their effort to cut the Affordable Care
01:03Act and rural hospitals across Illinois will be shuttered.
01:09The Trump administration cut off funding for food safety inspectors for nearly a month,
01:14impacting more than 70 meat and poultry facilities in Illinois.
01:19Without these inspectors, the supply chain collapses, prices go through the roof.
01:23From farmers to truckers to meat packers to retailers, jobs will be lost.
01:29Meals on Wheels programs, which home deliver 12 million meals per year to 100,000 seniors
01:36and people with disabilities in Illinois, are on the federal chopping block.
01:42This is real.
01:44The new administration and the Republican Congress and Elon Musk intend to take these
01:48programs away.
01:49For all the Illinoisans watching at home, let me be clear.
01:54This is going to affect your daily lives.
01:58Our state budget can't make up for the damage that is done to people across our state if
02:02they succeed.
02:05There are people, some in my own party, who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything
02:10that he wants, he'll make an exception and he'll spare you some of the harm.
02:15I'll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say almost none
02:21of these people have had the experience with the president that I do.
02:26I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most, public praise on the Sunday
02:33news shows, in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic.
02:39We made a deal and it turns out his promises were as broken as the BiPAP machines he sent
02:45us instead of ventilators.
02:48Going along to get along does not work.
02:51Just ask the Trump-fearing red state governors.
02:59You can boo all you want until your constituents lose these services.
03:16Those Trump-state red state governors are dealing with the same cuts that we are and
03:21I won't be fooled twice.
03:23Last week our federal courts returned a verdict rightfully condemning the once unchecked power
03:30of a former speaker of this house.
03:35Now if you applauded that decision like I did, then I expect you to defend and applaud
03:40those same federal courts as they check this president in his quest for unrestrained power.
04:00I've been reflecting these last four weeks on two important parts of my life.
04:06My work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times that I've had the
04:10privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois governor.
04:15As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust
04:20survivors anywhere in the world.
04:23In 1978, Nazis decided that they wanted to march there.
04:28The leaders of that march knew that the images of swastika-clad young men goose-stepping
04:34down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population, so many of whom
04:40had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.
04:45The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme
04:50Court.
04:52It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis, contending that even
04:57the most hateful of speech was protected under the First Amendment.
05:03As an American and as a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme
05:09Court case, but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred
05:14the survivors and other Skokie residents to act.
05:18They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and build the first Illinois
05:23Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981, a small but important forerunner to the one
05:29I helped to build 30 years later here.
05:33I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly, but I know the history intimately and have
05:39spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust.
05:46Here's what I've learned.
05:48The root that tears apart your house's foundation begins as a seed, a seed of distrust and hate
05:56and blame.
05:58The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn't arrive overnight.
06:04It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.
06:13I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.
06:17A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac and suggests without facts or
06:22findings that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash.
06:27Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks arguing that consumers pay
06:31higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too female and nonwhite.
06:39The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here.
06:42They point to a group of people who don't look like you and tell you to blame them for
06:47your problems.
06:49I just have one question.
06:52What comes next?
06:55After we've discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay
06:59and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities, once
07:06we've ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends, after that, when the problems
07:11we started with are still there staring us in the face, what comes next?
07:19All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question.
07:23And if we don't want to repeat history, then for God's sake, in this moment, we better
07:26be strong enough to learn from it.
07:52I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln's Bible.
07:56I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the
08:01Constitution of the state of Illinois and that I will faithfully discharge the duties
08:06of the office of governor according to the best of my ability.
08:11My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country.
08:16We don't have kings in America, and I don't intend to bend the knee to one.
08:34I'm not speaking up in service to my ambitions, but in deference to my obligations.
08:40If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this.
08:45It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle
08:54a constitutional republic.
08:56And all I'm saying is that when the five alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better
09:01be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of
09:05control.
09:07Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978, just not in Skokie.
09:15After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead.
09:21Only 20 of them showed up, but 2,000 people came to counter protest.
09:27The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the rally sputtered to an unspectacular end
09:32after 10 minutes.
09:34It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.
09:40Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.
09:45Democracy requires your courage.
09:48So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the tragic spirit of despair
09:54overcome us when our country needs us the most.