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  N’DIGO STUDIO PODCAST Governor JB Pritzker — Edited Interview Transcript Lightly edited for readability. Dialogue is based on the supplied transcription; commercials and prerecorded segments are identified. Not independently fact-checked. N’DIGO Studio Theme: N’DIGO Studio, N’DIGO Studio, we are in the living room, join me in the living room. Hermene Hartman: Hi, I'm Hermene Hartman with N’DIGO Studio and welcome. We've got a very special guest today, Governor JB Pritzker. He's the 43rd governor of Illinois and he has served since 2019. He's the second wealthiest United States elected official behind President Donald Trump, but with his own money. Illinois is changing. Technology is changing how we live. Politics is changing. We're watching our vote and billion-dollar decisions are changing the future of our state. We want to talk to the governor today. Data centers are coming. They promise investment. The Bears might be leaving. The Sox might be moving to a new neighborhood. We want to talk about all these things with the governor and see where he is and what he thinks. Welcome, Governor Pritzker. How are you? Governor JB Pritzker: Hermene, great to be with you. Hermene Hartman: Good. Let's start by talking about the data centers and what they mean and what the impact will be. We're seeing AI grow and social media grow. What's a data center and what are you doing with the data centers? Governor JB Pritzker: Data centers have grown so much because, frankly, everybody's got a device and everybody's connected to the Internet, walking around with it, and they've got to connect somehow, and it's through a data center. typically that people are accessing all the information that they need. So that's why they're growing. Very importantly, we've got to make sure that if we're going to have any more data centers coming into our state anyway, we need to make sure and protect people from higher energy prices, from higher water bills, and make sure we're making the data center folks who can afford it pay for bringing more electricity to the table and also, you know, having… closed-loop water systems in their data centers. So those are two of the things. And then, of course, there's been not a lot of transparency by the data centers. Locally, they sign these nondisclosure agreements with local governments, and they get into these deals, and then the public doesn't know anything about it until the data center is being built. Got to stop all that. We've got to make sure that the data center people are building it the right way, and they're doing it with public consent. And most importantly, not affecting people's bills in a negative way. Hermene Hartman: So what about the jobs? What jobs do the data centers bring? Governor JB Pritzker: So, you know, the positive thing about data centers is in the building of them. We've got all the tradespeople that are putting those buildings up or putting all the plumbing in and all the things that are necessary. And frankly, it does put hundreds, sometimes thousands of people to work building a data center. Once they're built, they really don't require a lot of people to work in a data center. Some of them have 50 or 100 jobs. And that's okay, nothing wrong with 50 or 100 jobs, but it's not creating thousands of jobs, each one of them. Having said that, they're investing a lot of money. They're buying things in our state. We're putting some people to work. So it's not a terrible thing. What's terrible, of course, is that they're eating up a lot of electricity. Good news for Illinois, we've got an excess. In fact, we create more electricity in our state than we use. So we actually export electricity to other states. Hermene Hartman: I didn't know that. Governor JB Pritzker: Bad news is that we sit in what's called a regional transmission organization. I don't want to get into too much detail about it, but we're basically in the same grid with Ohio and New Jersey and Virginia. You know, we basically have this huge grid that runs across a portion of the United States in Northern Illinois. And when Ohio builds an AI data center, they’re drawing on our electricity and it ends up costing people in Illinois money. So we've all got to be, we've got to have national rules about this. Of course, Donald Trump's doing nothing about it. And we've got to make sure that we're protecting what we've got in Illinois, which is we've got nuclear power plants that are providing us with so much of the electricity that we use. We've got a lot of renewables because I've encouraged the creation of it. We've tripled the amount of renewables that we create. So, solar and wind. And those are all things that… Illinois is best at and that we could be protecting ourselves better if we had help from the federal government. Hermene Hartman: What about AI? Because the data centers and AI, they're kind of hand-in-hand. Have you seen the reports, the noise I guess that's being made, Bill Gates leading the charge, that AI in 10 years might overtake humanity? Governor JB Pritzker: AI is potentially dangerous. Hermene Hartman: It's moving that fast. Governor JB Pritzker: It is moving very fast. And in fact, just yesterday, there was an employee at Anthropic who quit and posted online that he is truly concerned that mankind may be in danger as a result of AI. And to the example, and he went on TV and talked about this, the example he gave, and he's not wrong and he's not just, you know, throwing up red flags for no reason. AI, you know, if you… give AI the ability to do this, it can help someone develop, for example, a bioweapon that could obliterate humankind. And you've got to put some guardrails around. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Get Covered Illinois Advertisement: We're here to help Illinoisans find health insurance. So whether you live here, here, or here. Whether you're betting on your own business, pursuing your passion, or forging a new future for your family, we're here for you to find a plan that fits your needs and your life. Get Covered Illinois. We're here to help. ComEd Advertisement: The incredible things you do need energy, and ComEd is proud to help make that energy happen for our community. So you can power up your grand opening. Power up inspiration. Power up a new routine. We work hard to keep your energy reliable, your bills as low as possible, and create programs that help you manage it. Because the power is in you. We just help you turn it up. Campaign Advertisement: Let's go back. Back before Central Austin had a grocery store of its own. Back when getting fresh food required a car or bus ride. With JB Pritzker's help, now families can buy groceries right here. Too often, people don't believe in business owners like me. But JB was critical to getting us off the ground. And he's helping open grocery stores in so many neighborhoods. This is not easy work, especially these days. But JB gets it. He's standing behind our business and our community. [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Hermene Hartman: So, Governor, we've got to talk about the Bears. Governor JB Pritzker: Yes. Hermene Hartman: What do we do about the Bears? Do you, I know you don't want the Bears to leave Chicago. Governor JB Pritzker: Oh, I'm a Bears fan. I want them to be in the state of Illinois. Hermene Hartman: What's the ultimate, what do we have to do to keep the Bears in town? Governor JB Pritzker: What we did last spring was we passed a bill in the House and passed a bill in the Senate that would keep the Bears here. The problem is you've got to have a bill that's compatible with each other and then get it to the governor's desk. They weren't able to do that in the legislature. They did pass a bill in each place, which is good. That means you've got enough people who want the Bears to stay. But now we've got to put those bills together, and we need the Bears to tell us exactly what they want in those bills. And this is the most important principle that I bring to the table. We've got to protect taxpayers. We can't just hand the Bears billions of dollars and say, you don't have to do anything for that. Hermene Hartman: Well, what do they want? Governor JB Pritzker: Look, what they want is the lowest possible price on their property taxes. Well, Hermene Hartman: don't we all? Governor JB Pritzker: Of course, of course. But that's the question is, you know, should the rest of us be paying for the Bears? So that's one issue. And then the other issue is that they would like us to pay for a portion of what they're investing in. So they originally the discussion was and the mayor of Chicago met with the Bears and thought he was going to do this was build a two billion dollar stadium for them. Hermene Hartman: A new stadium. Governor JB Pritzker: A new stadium that the taxpayers would pay for. But what the mayor didn't do is say that, you know, the Chicago taxpayers are going to pay for it. In fact, he just said someone else will pay. We'll find some other taxpayers to pay for it. Well, that's no good if you're not talking to people at the state. And he never did talk to me, didn't talk to the members of the legislature. So that announcement was kind of moot because… you need the legislature to do something about this. And we're not going to hand the Bears a $2 billion or $3 billion stadium. And what we will do, however, is, and these are the things we do for businesses in Illinois normally, right? We pave the roads. We put in the underground pipes, right? We make sure they got water and sewer and all those things. And it costs a lot of money when you're building a stadium to do a lot of those things. And we're willing to do a lot of it, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, which again, we do for factories and for headquarters that come to Illinois or growing in Illinois. Finally, just want to say the Bears, ultimately, they're a private business. It's a wealthy family owning a $9 billion asset. And so they're a private business. They get to decide where they want to be. We're going to try to attract them and make sure that they're in the city of Chicago or in Arlington Heights and not going to another state. Again, I'm a Bears fan. And I think we're the ones who built the equity in the Chicago Bears. They're only worth that because of the fans, the Chicago fans, the Illinois fans. And so we want the Bears to recognize that and make sure that we get benefits for our fans here in Illinois. Hermene Hartman: But what about our schools? What about education? What are you going to do about education, the financing of education in Chicago? Governor JB Pritzker: Well, let me start by saying passing a budget that says, well, I think someone else might pay for some of this, so we'll just pass it and hope that we get the money. Hope we get it. That's not all that responsible. Hermene Hartman: The budget of hope. Governor JB Pritzker: Yeah. Exactly. Meanwhile, it's absolutely true that we need to, all of us need to be putting more money into education in the state of Illinois. We need better education in the state of Illinois. And I've been making those investments. In fact, since I came into office, we put $3 billion a year more into education and we're continuing to grow that number. And I'm proud of that. Hermene Hartman: The Supreme Court just made a decision about the mail-in vote. What's your thoughts about that? Can the Supreme Court really make that decision? Isn't that a state decision rather than a federal decision? Governor JB Pritzker: Well, the Supreme Court hasn't really finally ruled about what President Trump has proposed. And he put an executive order in that I don't think is legal, and we will see if the Supreme Court will come through and do the right thing. But what he's essentially done is interfere with state elections and say, in a state like Illinois, where we made it easier for U.S. citizens to vote. We want everybody to be able to vote and make it easier, not harder, right? You've seen Donald Trump, you know, and his Supreme Court eviscerate the Voting Rights Act to make it harder for us to vote for people that we want to. And now he's trying to take away some people's ability to vote. And if you take away their ability to send in their ballot, they may not vote at all. And military. What about the military? They're all over the world. So I think mail-in voting, which we have in Illinois, and we're encouraging in Illinois, and I passed a bill to expand it in Illinois, is very important for us to preserve. But look, it's for sure the case that the U.S. Postal Service should not be able to decide who gets to vote. The U.S. Postal Service doesn't know anything about that. That's not right. That should be left up to the states. The Constitution says the states run elections. Hermene Hartman: State rights. Governor JB Pritzker: That's right. And here in Illinois, we run our elections well. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Get Covered Illinois Advertisement: We're here to help Illinoisans find health insurance, reduced premiums for many who are feeding their dreams, free expert help for those growing something of their own. Get Covered Illinois. We're here to help. Power up away mode. Power up high usage alerts. ComEd Advertisement: Power up energy savings. You've got the power to save on energy. And ComEd has the tools, alerts, and programs to help you turn it up. Visit ComEd.com slash power up for ways to help you save. Video / Street Interview Participant: Listen, for years politicians have promised to never deliver. They would say they're going to rebuild. They're going to put something new here. But there came a man by the name of JB Pritzker, and he is changing things. Video Narrator: Long vacant land on the far south side is about to be transformed. [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Governor JB Pritzker: Big boost for those who live and work in the area. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Video / Street Interview Participant: He came here, he visited, he rolled up his sleeves, and it's real. J.B. is bringing thousands of jobs right here. That's a reality. [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Governor JB Pritzker: And this is just the beginning. Hermene Hartman: Just the beginning. You just passed a historic bill, and I think we're the only state in the union that has passed a bill on menopause. Tell me how that came about and what that bill actually says. Governor JB Pritzker: Let me start by saying that the person who really brought this to public consciousness, this issue of there isn't enough expertise among our medical doctors on the subject of menopause, and that's the case on a lot of women's health. So we have more work to do. But on menopause in particular, it's a difficult topic for people to talk about, I think. But, you know, the very famous actress Halle Berry, who is now in her 50s. came to meet with a few of us Democratic governors and talk to us about the importance of having doctors available who really understand menopause. Most don't, and they don't get any education about it in medical schools, unless that happens to be your expertise. And yet we need, you know, your regular, you know, doctor to know something about this so they can advise people. Hermene Hartman: The general practitioner. Governor JB Pritzker: Exactly. And so she came and said, look, we should require that when doctors go in, you know, they'd have to take courses every so often to keep their medical license current, that we should acknowledge that they should take menopause courses and that those should count toward them keeping their medical license and require that they be counted. And as a result of us doing that, so many more doctors are in fact taking those courses and now much more available that kind of education. And for women who just need to know, you know, what is happening to me? What should I do to deal with this? What is the treatment, for example, if things are going wrong during menopause? And so many doctors don't know the answer, but now so many more do. Hermene Hartman: We did something that I think you're going to love. We went on the street randomly and asked people what they would ask you. It's called Ask the Governor. So we've got five of… videos we want to show you of people. We went to people and we just said, if you could ask Governor Pritzker a question, what would it be? So let me show you the first one. Governor JB Pritzker: Perfect. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Video / Street Interview Participant: What plans you have for crime and public safety? [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Governor JB Pritzker: You know, when I took office in 2019, just prior to my taking office, my predecessor, Governor Rauner. had defunded most of the crime prevention and crime intervention programs. Violent crime needs intervention because you've got a lot of kids on the streets. Sometimes they don't have enough to do. Sometimes they're encouraged to go into areas that they shouldn't be in. Negative behavior. Negative behavior. And we need to intervene. We need to give them jobs. We need to give them opportunity. We also need mentors. All of that got defunded. Violent crime intervention. is hugely important. Starting in 2019, I campaigned on this. Starting in 2019, we put a lot of money into violent crime intervention programs across the state. Hermene Hartman: And this is community. Governor JB Pritzker: This is the community violence intervention is what it's called. And we've got it here in Chicago, but it also is in Springfield and in Champaign and in Carbondale and all across the state of Illinois. But very important. That's one area we needed to invest in. A second area is state police, which I control as governor. State police have been defunded. And over years, fewer and fewer and fewer state police. Now, I'm not saying having more police is always the answer. But when you get to a certain point, it's too few. We need more. And so immediately upon taking office, I started funding state police so they could hire more. And we had more new state police cadet classes, and we hired more police. So those are just two of many things that we've done. But starting in 2019. we started investing in these things. And what do you know, by 2022 and 2023, with the investments that we made, we started to see crime go down and by a lot. And I want you to know that today, Illinois is now the second, it literally has the second largest decrease in violent crime among the 50 states. The number one is Rhode Island. It's a small state. So a couple of fewer crimes and they get higher on that list. But we're a very large state. And among the large states, we're absolutely number one in drop in violent crime. That's good. That's great. And as you may know, Chicago now has 61 years since we had a higher homicide rate. In other words, this is 61 years ago, we had a violent crime rate that was like it is now. Otherwise, it's been higher, right? So this is a low in 61 years. We're really proud of that. for the city of Chicago. But it's also true across the state of Illinois. I think people think Illinois is more dangerous, a lot more dangerous than the rest of the country. Actually, we're the 19th safest among the 50 states to be in. Hermene Hartman: Let's look at another question. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Street Interview Participant: Why is it that those tax continues to get charged on items multiple times? [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Hermene Hartman: So this is a guy who sells, resales furniture, old furniture, antiques, that kind of furniture. And he says that we pay tax on it the first time. But if he resells it six times, we pay tax on it six times. He wants you to pay. He thinks we should pay tax one time and that should be sufficient on one piece of furniture. Governor JB Pritzker: Just when it's new. Hermene Hartman: Just when it's new. When it's brand new. Governor JB Pritzker: Well, I mean, I can tell you we've tried to address the problem of sales tax across the board. Can't speak to the resale of furniture like this, but I'll give you an example. When you go to the grocery store, you know, for many, many years, when you would go to the grocery store in the state of Illinois, you'd pay tax on groceries, sales tax on groceries. Most other states have done away with that. In fact, Hermene Hartman: no sales tax on groceries in other states? Governor JB Pritzker: In most other states, about 40 other states, no sales tax on groceries. Illinois, sales tax on groceries. I thought that was ridiculous. Hermene Hartman: You want to eliminate that? Governor JB Pritzker: I did already. Hermene Hartman: Let's do another Ask the Governor question. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Street Interview Participant: If I had an opportunity to speak with the governor, I would ask him, does he have a plan for the youth? [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Governor JB Pritzker: Maybe I'll just take as one area because I really care a lot about our youngest children in this state. For more than 30 years now, I've been engaged in early childhood development, early childhood education, and I was doing it as an advocate before I became governor. But when I became governor, I thought, oh my gosh, I've jumped over the fence. You know, now I'm in charge of government. It was before I was just asking government to do the right thing. Well, Hermene Hartman: you're also doing a lot of philanthropic work. Governor JB Pritzker: Well, that's right. So between the philanthropy and also the advocacy, I was trying to get universal preschool, for example, and make sure we got more child care and quality child care. Again, that was before I became governor. Now I became governor and, you know, you got to look in the cupboards and find all the money you can. to put into that to make sure that we've got it available for people who need it. And we've substantially advanced it. So we've got a plan that we're now working on. I mean, we've put it in place called Smart Start Illinois, and that's making sure that we have universal preschool in the state of Illinois and that we are expanding in these what I call child care deserts. Hermene Hartman: How old would the preschooler be? Governor JB Pritzker: Preschool can be three, four, and five. Hermene Hartman: And this is before? regular school. Governor JB Pritzker: That's right. And a lot of it is in regular school, meaning in the same buildings where you've got kindergarten. Now you've got preschool. But it's also the case that there are preschools that exist independent of public schools. Hermene Hartman: Another ask the governor question. [COMMERCIAL OR PRERECORDED SEGMENT] Street Interview Participant: Yeah, I think Governor Pritzker, I guess he covered every issue that I could think of. [RETURN TO INTERVIEW] Hermene Hartman: He was riding, he was riding his bike and we were outside filming and he saw us. And so he stopped and he says, I want to participate, too. So his comment was, I don't think I have anything to ask the governor. He's doing a good job. Governor JB Pritzker: I love that. All right. I love that. Can I just say, though, he's riding a bike. We've invested a lot in the bike lane, in bike lanes. And we've invested a lot. Also, you know, as we rebuild bridges and rebuild roads across the state, we've put in the ability for people, pedestrians and bicyclists to use those roads safely. Hermene Hartman: Now, here's the final one. And this is a good question. And I was thinking about maybe we shouldn't put it on, but I think we should put it on. I think we should ask you a question. I guess. Governor JB Pritzker: Are you running for president? You had to do that. I had to do that. Hermene Hartman: I couldn't resist. Governor JB Pritzker: Well, I appreciate that question. And look, I'm flattered when people have asked me that question. And I think it's it's wonderful and appropriate that, you know, we're the fifth largest economy. in the United States here in Illinois. We've got the fifth largest population in the United States. We're an important state. We're the land of Lincoln, right? The home state of Barack Obama. So totally appropriate to think that someone from Illinois could run for president. Hermene Hartman: Somebody could from Illinois run for president and win. Governor JB Pritzker: Yes, that's happened, as you know, several times. In fact, do you know, I bet you can't name all the presidents. I bet you I can't. Yeah. Lincoln. Yeah. Hermene Hartman: Reagan. Obama. Governor JB Pritzker: He missed one. Hermene Hartman: Which one? Governor JB Pritzker: Ulysses S. Grant. Hermene Hartman: Ah, I missed that one. Governor JB Pritzker: Yeah, he was in Illinois when he became president. I didn't know that. Galena, Illinois. Okay. So look, what I can tell you is I love being governor of this great state. I love the state, love being governor of it, and flattered that people have thought of me running for president. But you know, what I'm trying to do right now is just make sure that we're pushing back against the Donald Trump and the administration that is hurting the state of Illinois, making sure that we're protecting the people of Illinois in the process, and making known that the things that we're doing in Illinois, like giving people universal paid leave for any reason, not just if you're sick, paid leave from work, raising the minimum wage, which nationally is $7.25, but here in Illinois, minimum wage is $15 an hour, and I did that. and making sure that we've got the right to organize unions here so people can bargain for a better wage. Those are all things that I think are important in people's lives, and I want the national government to do those things. So making sure that we're telling everybody about what we're doing in the state of Illinois and encouraging the national federal government to do it. We're not going to be able to do it with this president. Maybe we'll be able to do it with the next. Hermene Hartman: I want to thank you. For probably the people of Illinois for standing up to the Trump terror that we're looking at. And not everybody is standing up to that, and you are. That is very appreciated and applauded, and I think a feather in your cap that you're not afraid. The things that he has said about the antisemitic things he has said, the racial things that he has said, the book-banning kind of things that he has done. And it's almost like, are we looking at the same news? But you're the only one who has actually stood up to it. And for that alone, if you do run for president of the United States, it's a hell of a platform for you. And I hope you run. I think you'd make a mighty fine president because you've made a mighty fine governor. Governor JB Pritzker: Appreciate you. Hermene Hartman: Why did you get in politics? Governor JB Pritzker: When my father passed away, my mother, who had been an activist, an activist for, you know, civil rights and for reproductive rights, that's right, and for LGBTQ rights, too. And this is hard, you know, think about how much harder it was to stand on those issues in the 1960s and the 1970s. And she was out there, and she was a leader. And she used to take me around with her to the meetings and the marches and the protests. My brother and sister and I would stuff the envelopes, because back then you couldn't communicate by the Internet. We didn't have it, right? Hermene Hartman: There's no social media. Governor JB Pritzker: No social media, that's right. And so if you wanted to get a message out to people, there were only a couple of ways to do it. Knock on the door. Knock on doors or stuff envelopes and send people a flyer. So my mother had us doing that at the dining room table very often for candidates or issues that she cared about. And because she stood up and spoke out, I think I really became… engaged. I was the youngest. I, again, spent a lot more time with her maybe because my brother and sister were teenagers and my father passed away. My sister, as you know, worked for President Obama. She was the Secretary of Commerce. And so I guess we both got a little bit of the bug. But most of all, I really have felt like it's my job to carry out my mother's mission. She passed away when I was 17 and when she was 49. And I, even now as governor, When I have the opportunity to raise the minimum wage like I did as the first bill I signed, I really felt like my mother was in the room with me while I was signing that bill. When I do the things that I do to stand up for people's rights, workers' rights, and women's rights, I really feel like she's there. I'm not as spiritual a person as I think some others are, but that I feel. I feel like I'm making her proud when I do it. Hermene Hartman: That's terrific. Governor JB Pritzker: So that's how I got involved in politics, really, with my mother. Hermene Hartman: The stakes are high, questions are real, and today we've had a very candid conversation with Governor Pritzker. I'm Hermene Hartman, and this is N’DIGO Studio. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time. N’DIGO Studio Theme: N’DIGO Studio, we are in the living room, join me in the living room. N’DIGO Studio, N’DIGO Studio.