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jb pritzker
'More Chaos': Trump Hammered for Plan to Double Down on Tariffs After Supreme Court Ruling
"Donald Trump illegally stole your money," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "He should give it back to you."
Feb 20, 2026
President Donald Trump defiantly vowed to continue slapping tariffs on imported goods on Friday after the US Supreme Court overturned the so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs he implemented last year.
In a press conference held hours after the Supreme Court ruled against the president's tariff regime, Trump said that he had other tools at his disposal that allowed him to hit foreign products with taxes.
Among other things, Trump said he was going to issue a 10% global tariff using his authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 that allows the president to levy tariffs to address "large and serious" balance-of-payments deficits with foreign nations.
However, as a Friday analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute explains, any tariffs enacted through Section 122 expire after 150 days without authorization from Congress, which in theory could put vulnerable congressional Republicans on the spot to vote for or against the president's signature policy this summer right before the 2026 midterm elections.
The president's decision to plow ahead with his politically unpopular tariffs drew immediate criticism from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who said during an interview with MS NOW that Trump was creating even more economic uncertainty.
"What he's done is just doubled down and tried to make it worse," Klobuchar explained, "which, of course, is going to create more cost and chaos for the American people."
Klobuchar: "The scariest part from his press conference, in addition to the continued assault on the rule of law and the Constitution, is that he plans to continue doing this ... [but] I think you're starting to see bipartisan opposition to the president's tariffs, which would… pic.twitter.com/pqniYagtyW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 20, 2026
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman also predicted more chaos in the months to come from Trump's trade policies, particularly when it comes to businesses that will now lobby to get back the money illegally seized from them by the president's unconstitutional tariff regime.
Writing on his Substack, Krugman argued that Trump finding alternative means to levy tariffs would not "obviate the need to refund the tariffs already collected," because "if you seized money without constitutional authority, finding other revenue sources going forward doesn’t make the original seizure legal."
David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic, predicted that the coming lawsuits aimed at getting refunds for the illegal tariffs would be a massive mess.
"The post-tariff litigation is going to be nightmarish," he wrote on social media. "Wrongfully taxed plaintiffs will now sue for return of their illegally taken money. Can their customers then sue for a portion of the higher prices caused by the wrongful taxes? More Trump chaos."
However, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the possibility of American businesses and consumers getting refunded for the tariffs.
While speaking at the Economic Club of Dallas on Friday, Bessent was asked if he expected a "food fight" for the $175 billion in tariff revenues that government has illegally collected since April.
"I've got a feeling the American people won't see it," Bessent said of the tariff money.
Bessent: I got a feeling the American people won't see the $175 billion in tariff revenue we collected pic.twitter.com/rj0Bmm0Exg
— FactPost (@factpostnews) February 20, 2026
However, some Democrats indicated that they were not simply going to let the administration getting away with money they unlawfully confiscated from US businesses and consumers.
"Donald Trump illegally stole your money," wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "He should give it back to you. Instead Trump is scheming up new ways to force Americans to pay even more."
Democrats on the US House Ways and Means Committee wrote that "Trump does not want to refund the money he illegally stole from you," vowing the party "won't stop fighting to get your money back."
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote Trump a letter after the Supreme Court ruling demanding that the president provide every family in his state a $1,700 refund for the tariffs, which he said "wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof."
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What the Pearl Clutchers of Congress Can Learn From Pritzker’s List
Why are members of Congress, with so few exceptions, so short on ideas for fighting back against Trump's manifold abuses of power?
Nov 18, 2025
On October 23, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker filed an executive order establishing a state commission charged with recording abuses inflicted by federal agents sent to tyrannize the streets of Chicago during President Donald Trump’s tellingly named “Operation Midway Blitz.” The point of the new commission was to give the abused somewhere to go with their bruises, smashed windows, and shattered lives, and to compile evidence that could be brought to bear in checking the abuse, and perhaps even (at some point) punishing it.
It is this last point, not made explicit in the executive order, that I find so encouraging about Pritzker’s executive order. It puts the Trump administration on notice that their days of reckless self-indulgence are numbered and that a case against them is being compiled.
Not only does Pritzker’s List send a message. It gives people something, if only a very little thing, to do. It reminds the abused citizens of Chicago that they, not the camouflaged out-of-state goons patrolling their streets, are in charge, and that they have a personal role to play in taking those streets back.
All of which causes me to wonder: Where are the JB Pritzkers of Washington DC? Why are members of Congress, with so few exceptions, so short on ideas—good at “pearl clutching” in response to the president’s manifold abuses of power (here, for once, Donald Trump isn’t lying), but so clueless about fighting back? Where, for example, is the commission that Senate democrats have set up to compile evidence of criminal abuses of power in Pete Hegseth’s extrajudicial killings off the coasts of Columbia and Venezuela? How have they not gotten around to founding it?
Had someone with a backbone and big ideas taken the lead in DC, they might have come up with a plan that would both hit back at the Republicans for their cruelty and bring some real benefit to those affected by it.
In fact, dozens of such commissions are needed to collect evidence of criminal malfeasance, and to create a public record of the dates, times, and details of the crimes, from those working in the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and so on. All have been dragooned into abusing rights, flouting the Constitution, and telling Trump’s lies. If nothing else, the very existence of such de facto grand juries, organized by elected officials and helped by the efforts and evidence of affected citizens, will put the Trump administration on notice that a case against it is being compiled.
But Democrats don’t operate this way. They tell us that the midterms are looming, that something good is bound to happen in a year’s time, so “Donate Now”—as if we had that kind of time to waste, and as if there were nothing that they should be doing for us, and with us, right now.
Evidence of the DC Democrats’ well-meaning incompetence was on full display in their recent handling of the government shutdown. To their credit, they did manage to make Donald Trump look mean-spirited (as if that needed emphasizing), but the final cave-in made them look weak and, yet again, satisfied with just getting by, without a plan. The whole initiative ended up imploding because it depended on saner heads prevailing among the Republicans, and that was never going to happen.
With no Pritzker in sight, the dearth of ideas really showed. Had someone with a backbone and big ideas taken the lead in DC, they might have come up with a plan that would both hit back at the Republicans for their cruelty and bring some real benefit to those affected by it. The federal healthcare subsidies were scheduled to expire. Given the Republicans’ determination to see them dead, they were beyond rescue. So why not let Republicans bake that poisoned cake, then force them to eat it!
Here's how it might have worked. Subsidies expire and healthcare costs soar. That’s entirely on them. As a counter move, and to actually help those in need, Democrats could have undertaken to set up funds (via a consortium of state-sponsored and charitable efforts) to help those affected deal with, and cover at least some of, their soaring costs. But, in doing so, they could also make clear up front that this aid is temporary, merely a stop-gap measure, and that the charitable subsidies will expire, say, six weeks before the midterm elections next fall. They would then assure those depending on these subsidies that further help is both wanted and can be expected after the elections, but only if those in the House and Senate who supported Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” are voted out of office—“Oh, and here, by the way,” they would add, “are the names of those who voted for it.”
Now that would be hardball! But DC Democrats have nothing like this up their sleeve. They are quicker to tell you why any such plan could never work than to come up with one that can. But there are some out there, such as Pritzker with his list, who are writing a new playbook, one to “get going on” right now, based on fighting back, getting things done, and giving Trump and his conspiracy of fools far more to worry about than they can handle.
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JB Pritzker Warns Trump Would ‘Take Us to War With Venezuela’ to Distract From Epstein
"He’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” said the Illinois governor.
Nov 13, 2025
As President Donald Trump escalated tensions in the Caribbean with its deployment of an aircraft carrier and warships, one of his top critics in the Democratic Party warned that Trump could follow through on earlier threats to strike Venezuela as newly released documents shed light on a topic the White House has sought to keep secret: the details of the president's friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“My great fear, of course, is that with the release of that information, which I think will be devastating for Trump, he’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “What does that mean? I mean, he might take us to war with Venezuela just to get a distraction in the news and take it out of the headlines.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a series of emails in which Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, told a friend he spent Thanksgiving 2017 with Trump, informed a former New York Times journalist he had a "photo of donald and girls in bikinis," and suggested he had briefed Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, on Trump in 2018.
Trump has long claimed he cut ties with Epstein in the mid-2000s after Epstein recruited girls at the president's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
After the Democrats released the emails, the Republican-controlled committee disclosed 20,000 pages of messages from the financier, who was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Those messages, which were obtained from the Epstein estate in response to a subpoena, included a comment from Epstein that he was “the one able to take [Trump] down" and suggestions that he had knowledge of the president's real estate and business dealings.
Epstein also told journalist Michael Wolff of Trump, "Of course he knew about the girls." He told his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was also convicted of helping Epstein with his sex trafficking operation, that the president was "the dog that hasn't barked" in a 2011 email and said Trump had spent "hours at my house" with one of Epstein's well-known victims, Virginia Giuffre.
Pritzker on Wednesday demanded the full release of the Epstein files, saying Trump was "silent because he knows what's inside."
The release of the documents came after months of demands from Democrats that the US Department of Justice fully disclose files related to the Epstein case, which they believe would implicate Trump.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he plans to hold a vote next week on releasing the files. Johnson finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) on Wednesday after a weekslong delay he tried to blame on the government shutdown and Grijalva promptly became the 218th lawmaker to sign a discharge petition forcing the vote.
The president said late Wednesday that "the Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures."
But as Pritzker pointed out, the new developments in the Epstein saga follow the Trump administration's threats against Venezuela and his bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean—strikes that have killed at least 76 people and have been denounced by legal experts and Democratic lawmakers as extrajudicial killings.
The bombings have been part of what the administration claims is a campaign to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela—a country that, according to the United States' own intelligence and law enforcement agencies, plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the leading cause of overdoses in the US.
Venezuela is a transit hub for—but not a significant producer of—cocaine, which is sometimes transported via the Caribbean to the US.
But while Trump has claimed to Congress that the US is in "armed conflict" with drug cartels, drug trafficking has long been treated as a law enforcement issue—not one to be confronted through military strikes—with those suspected of transporting illicit substances arrested and their products confiscated by the Coast Guard and other agencies.
Trump has also signaled that the US could attack Venezuela directly and has authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations there, prompting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to ready the country's entire military arsenal for a potential response on Tuesday. Maduro has accused Trump of seeking "regime change"—which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long advocated for—and Trump explicitly said in 2023 that he would seek to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves if he won the presidency again.
On Wednesday, top military officials reportedly presented Trump options for potential military operations within Venezuela.
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