Stephen A. Smith Drops a Reality Bomb on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker
Violence has plagued Chicago for far too long, and you could hear the frustration in Smith’s every word.
The political battle between President Donald Trump, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has intensified as federal troops and National Guard units arrive in and around Chicago.
On Wednesday, Trump publicly declared that Pritzker and Johnson “should be in jail” for “failing to protect ICE officers” from violent protesters. As such, he ordered the deployment of approximately 500 National Guard troops to and around the greater Chicago area despite objections from state and city leaders.
As Governor Pritzker firmly resists Trump’s help, the reality on the ground is grim. Chicago remains one of America’s most violent cities, recording over 600 homicides in 2024 according to Chicago Police Department data, and thousands more shootings each year. Despite billions in state and federal funding to address the issue, the numbers have barely budged.
That reality is not sitting well with Stephen A. Smith, who has long had deep ties to Chicago through his sports coverage over the years.
Wednesday night on NewsNation’s Cuomo, Smith fired off a blunt message directed at Governor Pritzker as his state fails to get a handle on the violence.
“If you are a Black person, you cannot deny how disturbing it repeatedly is that... when you hear about violence... Chicago is ALWAYS mentioned, and little to nothing has been done about it from a national perspective.
“So what you find yourself saying is, on one hand, Governor Pritzker, I don’t agree with Donald Trump trying to send National Guardsmen to Chicago against your will. But I would also ask Governor Pritzker, why isn’t it in your will to ask the feds for assistance? Because it appears like you’ve NEEDED it.”
Chicago, the home of Cabrini Green, a notorious hotbed of gang violence, has long been an experiment by the Democrats on how to keep citizens living in fear and how to dangle the carrot of justice and safety in front of them to keep them voting for the same thing expecting a different outcome. The Democrat politicians have never cared about the citizens in their districts, cities, counties, or states and they are afraid that when President Trump cleans up the violence in less time than it takes to take a good vacation they will be exposed for the vile poisonous politicians that they are. They are also afraid that Trump will remove all of their illegal voters that now keep them in office since the Black community has woken up to these facts.
I'm 63 and as far back as to my teens Chicago always had a violence issue. Mine you I'm from Jersey City, NJ. So its not like I was immune to violence but not on the scale there.