* Gov. Pritzker at his briefing today…

Yesterday into today, 375 members of the Illinois National Guard joined local law enforcement in Chicago to assist with street closures. We implemented stringent parameters on their mission and use of force, including no interference with peaceful protesters expressing their first amendment rights. Since that deployment we have received additional reports of escalating situations and requests for assistance from communities around the state. We have now called up an additional 250 members of the Illinois National Guard, to be ready to assist other cities across the state that have faced a surge of destructive action, notably looting over the last 24 hours.

Again, our role is to support the response led by local law enforcement and municipalities, we are working with local leaders and law enforcement to meet their requests for assistance to the greatest extent possible. An additional 300 Illinois State Police troopers are also coming online today into tonight to help keep our communities outside, Chicago safe, with a focus on preventative measures and supporting local law enforcement, where departments are running thin.

* More from the governor…

The State Emergency Operations Center in Springfield is monitoring requests from local governments around the state. Individuals from Illinois Emergency Management Agency, and various mutual aid networks are on standby to assist. Illinois State Police director Brendan Kelly will provide a live update from the Blue Room at the Capitol in Springfield at 5:30pm today, with more details on our statewide response

I guess I’ll be covering that, too. Please remember to pardon all transcription errors.

* More news from the governor…

To bolster this response and give us greater flexibility, I have today issued a disaster proclamation for Cook, Champaign, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Madison, Macon, Sangamon and Will counties to coordinate state agencies and resources as we work to assist local governments with their disaster response and recovery operations.

…Adding… The proclamation is here.

* Back to Pritzker…

In time property can be rebuilt. But the pain will fall disproportionately on the backs of our small business owners, our working families and our communities of color. And it has to stop. We have to take care of our people. And for that reason we will continue to flexibly deploy Illinois State Police and the National Guard strategically as we work with the dual purpose of protecting Illinoisans, as well as the first amendment rights of peaceful protesters.

I know there are people in this country, including some elected officials, who will point to the looting we’ve seen in Chicago and across Illinois and use it to dismiss the pain and anguish and sorrow of the moment.

Let me be clear. We cannot allow those who have taken advantage of this moment to loot and smash to also steal the voices of those expressing a need for real meaningful change. That will not be our story here in Illinois. Because this anger doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s born of decades and centuries of systemic racism and injustice. The White House might fan the flames, but the fear that of what happened to George Floyd could happen to you or to your son or daughter is woven deeply into the fabric of what it means to be black in America. And that’s what all of us have to recognize. That’s where our work begins.

* On to questions for the governor. This morning, President Trump got on a conference call with governors, he had choice words. Calling governors weak, said that they need to be much tougher, that states are being overridden, and you’re making yourself look like fools. Much has been made this morning that he said to Governors that you have to dominate. First of all, what was your takeaway from that conversation. And what was your interpretation of when the President said you have to dominate?…

Well you heard my reaction. The truth is that the President has fanned the flames instead of bringing peace and calm. It is usually the job of the president to stand up in these circumstances, and try to bring down the temperature, that’s not what this president does. And so I felt, you know, after many minutes on that call I mean I think we were on that call for 40 minutes hearing him express what I found to be inflammatory rhetoric. And then I heard other governors get on and not call it out. And so I spoke out, and felt that was my obligation. I wish that the President would hold his words, I wish he would, if he can’t say something that is going to help us across the nation to bring the temperature down then he shouldn’t say anything at all.

* Yesterday you approved the National Guard in Chicago in a limited role as you have discussed. What is it going to take, you know you’ve seen the images of looting, not only in the city but in neighborhoods around Chicago. What is it going to take for the National Guard’s role to be enhanced?…

Well, as you see, we are enhancing it, we respond though to local law enforcement to local municipalities, we were asked to play a limited role yesterday. I did so at the request of the city of Chicago. I think it’s an appropriate request by the way I think the city of Chicago has a significant police force, and much of it was out last night doing their job. Even though I know that there was a lot of looting.

The fact is that the National Guard doesn’t have the job and doesn’t regularly train to be a frontline police officer doing law enforcement in municipalities. We have military police that are trained to be military police, some of them are police officers in their home counties or home cities across Illinois, but many of them are not. And so I think they were providing a support function, they’ll continue to do that more. As you heard me talk about today we’ll have more of them out all across wherever the municipalities have requested and where we can. But the important thing to know is that between the state police, which are going to have 200 plus troopers out there, almost 300, add that on top of the 375 that we already had up from the National Guard plus 250 more than been called up. It’s a pretty significant force.

* If you had any hope President Trump would take your advice, what’s the suggest you do to address the unrest and violence across the country?…

Well I think he should speak to the pain that’s being experienced by people all over the country. African Americans people of color who have been subject to situations like we’ve seen you know the unfortunately the George Floyd situation was not a unique one. And so I’d like to hear the president stand up and talk to that situation and also bring clergy together ask clergy to step up, I would do that. I am doing that. I really think it is time to call for calm around, not just the city of Chicago, the entire state of Illinois and entire country. That is, in part, the job of a president, this one hasn’t done it.

* Will the National Guard’s work change so they’re not just managing the perimeter in downtown?…

Well it’s their job to support local law enforcement so we’ll continue to do that and do it wherever they are asked to do it. And again, we have resources that we’re bringing to bear you’ve heard when you add up everything that we’re bringing forward it’s approaching 1000 personnel from state police and from National Guard and we’ll do what’s necessary here to help. First of all, to allow the peaceful protesters to do the kind of protest that’s appropriate. And then to catch the bad guys.

* And has the state closed down any of its COVID-19 testing facilities in response to protests and separate looting and having to call the National Guard to focus their attention on the issues at hand?…

Yes, it’s one of the unfortunate consequences of what’s happened is we can’t have guardsmen out there unprotected providing the testing well you know we can’t have police out there protecting the guardsman. We’re out there trying to protect the public and we just it’s impossible at the moment. So temporarily, the guard which has done an unbelievably great job. Let me just be clear, we would not have the kind of testing numbers that you have across the state if the guard wasn’t manning these posts, but unfortunately this situation has forced us to shut down some of those temporarily.

[The governor did not have the numbers of shuttered facilities.]

…Adding… Press release: “On Sunday, IEMA Director Alicia Tate-Nadeau ordered the closure of all Community Based COVID-19 Testing Sites in Illinois in order to protect staff and those utilizing these services. A reopen date will be announced as soon as determined.”

* What advice would you have for small business owners who are seeing images of looting and rioting, how can you assure them that the state is doing everything that it can to protect private property?…

We’ll do everything that we can to protect private property, that’s, you see here, some of the bravest individuals representing the bravest individuals in the state and they are out there protecting private property public property and lives. So we’ll continue to deploy as needed. These things have popped up overnight unexpectedly in some other areas outside of the city of Chicago and then outside of even the center of the city of Chicago. And so we’re being responsive as municipalities have asked us to step in. But it’s not our job to go in and take over for law, local law enforcement. Our job is to go help them deliver their mission locally.

* Some have question though, you know after seeing images yesterday on the south on the west side that were at times there were stretches where there was no presence of local law enforcement to enter calling into question, you know, is all is everything being done possible?…

Well, again, local law enforcement have strategies, the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department as you know managed the NATO protests and other protests, historically has the capability to manage this. They’re the ones who set the mission here. But I must say that our Illinois State Police which really was responding on an emergency basis to situations around the state, brought down the temperature in places. They managed to dispel people disperse the people who are in Aurora that were surrounding a police department in in Aurora Police Headquarters and we’re doing as we are asked by local law enforcement and the Chicago PD has this capability.

* Not counting the Bulls championship, the Illinois National Guard hasn’t been utilized for civil unrest within the United States since the Kent State shooting and the protests of the Vietnam War. Given the gravity of that time, what does the significance of this moment mean to you as you prepare to deploy the guard under these current circumstances?…

Well we live in some extraordinary and difficult moments. Now, during my lifetime I have not seen this, I was very young in 1968. What I can say is that this has something to do about leadership in the nation. When you don’t have national leaders who are bringing down the temperature in situations like this, it tends to fan the flames. Please look at the words that the President has put out on Twitter, look at the words that he says, he talks about total domination.

I don’t want to dominate peaceful protesters who have legitimate grievances. I do want us to put down the situations of people destroying property or violent behavior. And so I just, to me this is an extraordinarily unusual [time]. Having said that, we will meet the challenge, and we have the capability, need to challenge the people of Illinois have the capability. And again, I would ask for people to step up and call for calm and peace in our streets. It is time really for people all across our state and particularly for our faith leaders to step up and remind us who we are. I am doing it every day but I think it’s very important coming from the various faiths that represent faiths that are represented across the state.

* Several Chicago aldermen are calling for 3000 members of the National Guard to be deployed to the south and west sides of Chicago because of all of the looting in those areas. They’ve been critical that the Guard has been used to help secure downtown but not the city’s neighborhoods. What is your reaction to the widespread looting on the south and west sides and this request for additional members of the guard to specifically target those, the looting on the south and west sides and really all over the city?…

What I would say is that it’s the mission that gets set by local law enforcement that is being followed. We’re providing support services which is the appropriate thing to do, and State Police have been stepping up on the front lines because they have the kind of training that’s necessary to be right there on the front lines, making arrests for example. And so you’ve seen we’re deploying state police, significant numbers of state police and deploying significant numbers of guardsmen and women.

* How does it help Illinois for you call out the president as you did today?…

I think there are two things. One is I think we have to express our values. What I said is an expression of the values of the people of the state of Illinois. That inflaming the kind of violence and looting by simply calling for utter dominance of everybody including the peaceful demonstrators is, that’s just one example. You saw when the looting starts the shooting starts you saw that the President said that, and repeated something that comes from a racist past in the United States. So I think it’s an important thing to call out the values of the people of Illinois at an appropriate moment. And, it helps the state of Illinois because I think people should know what we stand for. I mean we are, we’re great people the state of Illinois, as you know, has produced some amazing presidents of the United States because of the values that we all share. And so I’m just reminding everybody that that that’s who we are.

* Can you expand on what the 300 state police troopers will do in pursuing preventative measures and assisting local law enforcement what types of preventative measures?…

ISP Colonel: We have several missions that we have identified that we’re going to use those additional personnel for. So, of course we already have our crowd control aspect, and we’ve been using that for the last three days and they have been doing an amazing job. We have a need from local law enforcement local municipalities for assistance with traffic control. They are requesting us for those type of details. We also are going to be using our officers to do just some of the calls for service that we have right now within the city. We have been inundated with calls of service so those extra personnel will help us they’re there. They’re there investigative components that we’re going to be using our additional officers for as well. So, there are several different missions that we do have identified in place, and we will be using those additional officers for all of those.

Gov. Pritzker: Something important if I may, just there is an enormous amount of coordination that is going on between law enforcement at the federal, state and local level and I’m really proud of that fact. I was on a call earlier today with federal officials, with our state officials, with our National Guard. We are getting briefings from the city of Chicago, and briefing them on our capabilities and what we can do to be helpful. So I just wanted to point out that the state police, which has the ability to rapidly to respond where there’s a need, the coordination that’s going on between all of these levels of government and in particular law enforcement is really spectacular.

* What do you plan to do with your disaster orders for these counties, what executive orders will you issue. Will you release funds via EO to help build rebuild businesses. What else can you do to provide security through an EO? How long will the disaster orders last, should a large relief package be considered legislatively?…

That’s an awful lot to read leading down a road that we haven’t yet gone down. I think what we’re trying to do is to operate flexibly and that’s what a disaster proclamation allows us to do in these circumstances. But it is limited right now to simply law enforcement and being responsive to the needs of those counties without having to deal with a lot of red tape when you need to move quickly within minutes or hours to help local law enforcement.

Again, the proclamation is here.

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