The Dictatorship
Trump is trying to make an example out of Chicago. We won’t stand for it.
While many families prepared their children for school Monday morning, Sept. 29, I woke up to calls from parents in Chicago too afraid to leave their homes. Rumors of immigration enforcement were spreading, and the simple act of walking a child to school felt like too much of a risk. I am a mother and an Illinois state representative, and these calls hit me in two places at once: as a parent who wants my child to grow up free from fear and as an elected official entrusted to protect the rights and dignity of my community.
Friday, the scene in my Chicago neighborhood included helicopters flying above and armed convoys patrolling our streets.
Some of our worst fears were realized the next day when, as NBC Chicago reportedICE agents rappelled from helicopters onto a housing complex during a 1 a.m. raid and zip-tied people, including U.S. citizens and children, in the South Shore neighborhood. That’s near where my family has lived for decades. By all accounts the federal administration has used this exaggerated staging as a media opportunity without producing a shred of evidence that its use of excessive force was justified.
By Friday, the scene in my Chicago neighborhood included helicopters flying above and armed convoys patrolling our streets. In broad daylight, federal agents released multiple tear gas canisters into a crowd across the street from an elementary school. In a second instance, as a local TV station reported, agents released tear gas outside an emergency room in my communityand Alderwoman Jessie Fuentesour City Council representative, posted a video of being handcuffed by ICE briefly after she questioned agents at that medical facility.
That is what makes President Donald Trump’s latest threat, that Chicago is one of the cities he wants to use as a “training ground” for the military, even more chilling. Trump is not only scapegoating our city and other cities for political gain; he is openly plotting to experiment on working families, immigrants and communities of color by turning our neighborhoods into staging grounds for authoritarian force. We must not turn away at this moment.
I know what militarization looks like, and it is not safety, it is fear. It looks like children crying when their parents don’t come home. It looks like families going underground, skipping school or work, because they are terrified of who might be waiting outside their doors. Militarization leads to trauma that lingers long after the raids end.
I know how this feels because I grew up with a mother who was undocumented. I grew up not knowing whether my mother would be there when I came home from school. I also know what real safety looks like. It looks like parents walking their kids to school. It’s stable housing, a living wage, health care and classrooms where children can learn without fear.
Chicago resists because it must. When Trump threatens to tear us apart, we come together through rapid response networks, neighborhood associations, congregations and coalitions of workers and students. The Chicago I represent is not a testing ground for militarization; it is a proving ground for democracy.
I grew up with a mother who was undocumented. I grew up not knowing whether my mother would be there when I came home from school.
And we are not powerless. For months now, I have worked alongside rapid response teams that mobilize the moment there is word of an ICE raid or sweep. We have turned resistance into law. In Springfield, I led the Safe Schools for All Actwhich ensures schools remain safe from immigration enforcement. I worked to secure major state investments for Illinois’ Welcoming Centers and the Access to Justice program, in which immigrant families receive housing, health care and legal support that is denied to them in other settings. Additionally, I worked alongside the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to ensure resources reached grassroots organizations on the ground.
As I reflect on the moment, I am reminded of the important work to follow. This veto session, Illinois lawmakers have a clear opportunity to take the next step: passing legislation to ban ICE from courthouses, health care settings and day care centers, places where people should feel safe. For too long, immigration agents have lurked in the hallways of our courts, deterring victims of crime and survivors of abuse from seeking justice. A courthouse should be a place where truth and fairness are protected, not where fear is manufactured. If we are serious about building communities where families can thrive, we must ensure that every resident, regardless of status, can access the justice system without intimidation.
I return to where I started. I’m a mother. When I walk my son to school in West Humboldt Park, I want him to see a city that welcomes families, not one that frightens them into silence. I want him to grow up knowing that leaders stood up against fear politics and that resistance is not only possible, but powerful.
Trump may see Chicago as a training ground. I see it as a home, one worth defending with everything I have as a mother, an attorney and a state representative. We will not be his training ground. No city should ever be used as a training ground; authoritarian reach is not acceptable anywhere in the country. I am part of a network of mothers, attorneys and elected officials at every level of government who will resist.
Illinois state Rep. Lilian Jiménez
Rep. Lilian Jiménez, a Chicago native and daughter of immigrants, has dedicated her career to protecting workers, immigrants and underinvested communities. Before her election in 2022 to represent Illinois’ 4th District, she led the Fair Labor Standards Division, served as chief of staff to Commissioner Jesús “Chuy” García and directed the Illinois Office of Welcoming Centers, overseeing $200 million in community grants and refugee resettlement. In the Legislature, she focuses on housing, worker protections and community wealth building.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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