Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) took digs at billionaire Elon Musk for his Department of Government Efficiency efforts and said President Donald Trump “handed over” the government to the tech entrepreneur.
In a Friday interview with ABC News’s The View, co-host Sunny Hostin asked the Illinois governor about Musk being an “unelected person” who has “so much power.”
“Are Trump supporters, you think, having voters’ remorse?” Hostin asked. “Because you said the prices at the grocery store are going up because you said ‘democracy is being taken away.’ Egg prices are set to rise actually by 40%.”
“Well, because, look, you think Elon Musk goes and buys eggs at the grocery store?” Pritzker said on the ABC show. “He has no idea what’s happening. Your tomato prices are going up because we’ll pay 25% tariffs on tomatoes coming from Mexico, right? So it’s just an example, but it’s people who have been put in charge, right? The most powerful, the wealthiest people have been put in charge, and they’re unelected. They don’t understand, they didn’t get elected by everyday Americans to do anything.”
“They just got appointed by Donald Trump because they gave huge contributions,” he continued. “In the case of Elon Musk, $250 million that we know of that he gave to him and bought his way in.
“Donald Trump basically handed the government over to this guy and so, yeah, that’s what’s happening,” the governor added.
Co-host Sara Haines asked the Illinois governor about the Trump administration’s DOGE efforts to defund agencies and programs and the laying off of government workers.
“Incompetence, let’s start with that,” he responded to Haines. “That is what we’re seeing.
“The reason I think that Americans are beginning to react, and you’ll see more of it, is that the very things that people rely upon every day. It’s your veteran services, people who need therapy, they go to Veterans Administration for that; making sure that you’re flying safely; making sure in my state we have poultry and meat inspectors seems pretty important to all of us here.”
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Pritzker also likened the administration to Nazi Germany, a comparison he shared last week on CNN and during a public address.
“It’s been 38 days since the president took over, and he has slowly, steadily, actually, relatively quickly, I guess I should say, but every day, eroded your rights, and everything that he has done has been tearing down constitutional democracy, and that’s what happened in Nazi Germany,” he said. “And I’m not suggesting that we’re heading all the way down that path, but I am suggesting … it should be a red alert.”