Pritzker Slams Trump’s AI War Meme: ‘Illinois Won’t Be Intimidated’”

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS:

Illi­nois Gov­er­nor JB Pritzk­er deliv­ered a fierce rebuke of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump after the com­man­der-in-chief shared an AI-gen­er­at­ed “Apoc­a­lypse Now”-inspired meme por­tray­ing Chica­go in flames, under mil­i­tary assault. Post­ed on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 6, the image instant­ly ignit­ed back­lash from Illi­nois lead­ers and cit­i­zens online, who accused Trump of author­i­tar­i­an the­atrics.

The graph­ic showed Trump’s like­ness as Lieu­tenant Colonel Bill Kil­go­re, a char­ac­ter from the 1979 war clas­sic, sur­round­ed by heli­copters and burn­ing cityscapes. The meme car­ried two cap­tions: “I love the smell of depor­ta­tions in the morn­ing,” echo­ing the movie’s icon­ic napalm line, and “Chica­go about to find out why it’s called the Depart­ment of WAR,” ref­er­enc­ing Trump’s exec­u­tive order to rename the Depart­ment of Defense.

Pritzk­er: “Illi­nois won’t be intim­i­dat­ed”

Gov­er­nor Pritzk­er con­demned the president’s post in no uncer­tain terms, writ­ing on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter):

“The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States is threat­en­ing to go to war with an Amer­i­can city. This is not a joke. This is not nor­mal.”

He dou­bled down on his crit­i­cism, adding:

“Don­ald Trump isn’t a strong­man, he’s a scared man. Illi­nois won’t be intim­i­dat­ed by a wannabe dic­ta­tor.”

Pritzker’s response under­scored grow­ing alarm among state offi­cials over Trump’s increas­ing­ly aggres­sive rhetoric on immi­gra­tion and crime enforce­ment.

Bran­don John­son: “He wants to occu­py our city”

Chica­go May­or Bran­don John­son echoed Pritzker’s out­rage, call­ing the post “beneath the hon­or of our nation.”

In his own state­ment, John­son warned:

“The real­i­ty is that he wants to occu­py our city and break our Con­sti­tu­tion. We must defend our democ­ra­cy from this author­i­tar­i­an­ism by pro­tect­ing each oth­er and pro­tect­ing Chica­go from Don­ald Trump.”

Trump’s esca­la­tion on immi­gra­tion and crime

Trump’s meme fol­lows a series of hard­line mea­sures aimed at Chica­go. His admin­is­tra­tion has float­ed using a Navy base near the city to detain migrants, and he has repeat­ed­ly threat­ened to deploy the Nation­al Guard to “restore order.” Sup­port­ers claim these moves are about law and order, while crit­ics warn they are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er grabs.

In recent weeks, Trump has tout­ed what he called a “suc­cess­ful takeover of Wash­ing­ton, D.C.” as prece­dent for pos­si­ble inter­ven­tions in U.S. cities — a state­ment that has fueled wide­spread debate about the lim­its of pres­i­den­tial pow­er over states.

Social media erupts

Online reac­tion was swift and polar­ized. Some users accused Trump of fear-mon­ger­ing and abus­ing AI to glo­ri­fy vio­lence, while oth­ers defend­ed him as a pres­i­dent “tak­ing action.” One com­menter insist­ed:

“Gov­er­nors answer to the pres­i­dent. You may not like it, but as a fed­er­al offi­cial, he is your boss.”

The President’s threats are beneath the hon­or of our nation, but the real­i­ty is that he wants to occu­py our city and break our Con­sti­tu­tion.

We must defend our democ­ra­cy from this author­i­tar­i­an­ism by pro­tect­ing each oth­er and pro­tect­ing Chica­go from Don­ald Trump. pic.twitter.com/B7AH1ufByH

— May­or Bran­don John­son (@ChicagosMayor) Sep­tem­ber 6, 2025

Oth­ers, how­ev­er, sided with Pritzk­er and John­son, prais­ing them for stand­ing up to what they saw as author­i­tar­i­an bul­ly­ing.

⚡ This extend­ed ver­sion gives your post more depth by high­light­ing polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions, Trump’s recent actions, and the clash between state and fed­er­al author­i­ty.