* Monday…

Reporter: I’d like to get a little more information about the Mayor of Chicago. He has said repeatedly he has the only fleshed-out plan [for a Bears stadium]

Pritzker: He has no plan, there’s no plan [laughs]

Reporter: He’s also floated this idea now to have the city take over the ISFA. Have you seen that? Have you said anything to him about it?

Pritzker: No. And in fact, this is kind of typical. The mayor has shown up every spring at the end of session to pronounce what he would like to see happen.

* Matt McGill interviewed Mayor Johnson on WVON yesterday. I agree with McGill that the governor’s statements seemed pretty darned harsh. McGill prefaced a question to the mayor with this…

McGill: I want you to have an opportunity to explain your position on the Bears because I just couldn’t believe the governor actually got in front of a microphone and said what he said yesterday. I have no problem with him feeling the way that he feels. But that conversation should be in private. And you know when I point to this is what’s wrong with the Democratic Party, I don’t want to have to use an example of the person who is supposed to be the leader of the Democratic Party in the state. See, this is the example of what I’m talking about. And just statements by the governor yesterday to take a shot at you yesterday was uncalled for, unprofessional, absolutely unprofessional.

He went on, but let’s stop there. Johnson, by the way, didn’t say he agreed with what McGill said above.

* Gov. Pritzker at an unrelated press conference this morning…

Isabel: Do you think you may have gone a little overboard with your criticism of Mayor Johnson this week? WVON’s Matt McGill said that your statements about the mayor having no Bears plan were ‘absolutely unprofessional,’ and that should have been made in private, one party leader to another.

Pritzker: I was asked the question, I’m always honest with my answers. The truth is that there’s only one opportunity to keep the Chicago Bears in the state of Illinois, and that’s passing a bill that would help keep them in Arlington Heights, because the Bears have looked at Chicago, they decided that they don’t want to be and can’t be in Chicago, and so there’s really only one other option. And I want them to stay in the city. I think people who are opposed to the bill don’t want them to stay in the city, and so that was the nature of my, to the extent it was criticism, my criticism.

Isabel: Have you reached out to the mayor’s office, chat, maybe simmer down some of the back and forth that’s been going on?

Pritzker: No, this is 24 hours you’re talking about. We’re all busy, and you know the mayor and I are friends, even if we disagree on some things here and there. And so there’s no real need to reach out. The legislature is going to work on it this week, and I’m hopeful that the people who want to tank the bill are not successful.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

Discuss.