Federal and State level collaboration can be tricky in normal times, but since the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus Illinois’ Governor JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump have both taken to Twitter to air their grievances about medical response.
This feud started almost two weeks ago with a tweet from Pritzker citing long lines at O’Hare at Customs after Trump’s order for Americans in Europe to return stateside. According to Pritzker, the delays fall in Federal jurisdiction and they have been noncommunicative.
Since this tweet, Pritzker has been doing daily press briefings for Illinoisans live-streamed on various platforms. The state and city have various plans on their own to provide aid to citizens, including a plan laid out by Mayor Lightfoot and the Department of Housing to provide hotel rooms to individuals experiencing homelessness.
These daily press briefings have also allowed Pritzker to further outline the shortcomings of the Federal Government when it comes to aiding for states. It is because of this continued pressure that Trump named Pritzker first in a tweet from on Sunday criticizing governors’ responses to Federal plans in recent weeks.
Here Pritzker is referring to PPE, which stands for Personal Protective Equipment. This includes gloves, masks and cleaning materials promised to states weeks ago. Since then, the state of Illinois has had to take donated equipment anywhere they can, including medical shows like Chicago Med and Chicago Fire.
It was then at his daily press briefing on Sunday that Pritzker said that he’s “finding it hard to contain his anger” at the president.
“I’m a pretty even-keeled guy, but even I’m finding it hard to contain my anger with Donald Trump’s response to this crisis,” he said. “Apparently the only way to get the president of the United States to pay attention is to go on national television and make noise about it, which I won’t stop doing until we get what we need.”
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