Inside JB Pritzker’s public and private efforts to counter Trump and challenge fellow Democrats

In public and behind the scenes, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is leading efforts to push back on Donald Trump and challenging Democrats to do more to oppose the president’s actions.

JB Pritzker greeted Rep. Maggie Goodlander with a joke. Answering his own question about how the New Hampshire congresswoman’s first few months in office have been, the Illinois governor laughed: “Awful, right?” But the conversation immediately became a mini-huddle about the debates they’ve each been having with friends at law firms over conceding to President Donald Trump’s demands and the conversation Pritzker had with his sister, Penny, as she leads the Harvard Corporation in its own fight. “This is the way the world ends,” Goodlander said, after they turned and smiled for their photo. Pritzker raised his eyebrows, clenched his lips together in a grimace that looked like he was maybe about to blow a trumpet and gave a slight nod. He has been making that face a lot these days. “There is certain momentum where people are now feeling like — well, the politicians are feeling like, ‘Oh there’s a political reason why I should now speak out and be a fighter.’ I don’t care why you’re joining the fight at this point, we just need everybody out there, right?” Pritzker told CNN in an interview a few minutes later. “And then there are others who are joining the fight because they’re coming to a real realization that, ‘This is much worse than I thought it would be and it’s getting worse.’ And then I look at some of the people who have capitulated and I wonder in the end, is this how you want people to think of you?” There was nothing subtle about Pritzker’s trip to New Hampshire, the state where politicians go to spark chatter about potential presidential runs. Nor was there much subtlety with his intense speech chiding his own party for “simpering timidity” and demanding a stronger, prouder response to what he sees as the “tyrants and traitors” among the Republicans, woven with lines designed to be easily clipped on social media.