Gov. JB Pritzker asked media and community members to respect the privacy of his two teenage children during a press conference on Tuesday.
NBC 5′s Mary Ann Ahern asked the Governor Monday if he would adhere to Chicago’s travel advisory, which asks but does not mandate Chicagoans to forgo nonessential travel.
After talking about how he usually opens his home to friends who would otherwise be alone for Thanksgiving, Pritzker said that tradition would not happen this year.
Ahern asked if he would stay in Chicago for the holiday, and Pritzker replied, “That is my hope, but I will let you know.”
At the end of the exchange, Pritzker said that he would be willing to share his Thanksgiving plans when he knew what they would be.
After updating Illinoisians on a statewide move to Tier 3 mitigations on Friday, Pritzker shared that he and his wife, MK, will spend Thanksgiving apart.
“I was taken aback by yesterday’s question about my family’s holiday plans, in part because my wife and I were in the process of making the very hard decision that we may need to celebrate Thanksgiving apart from one another for the first time ever, and it was weighing heavily on my mind,” Pritzker said.
“I will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Chicago with our son.”
The decision was made after his daughter came under attack last week when a “parody Twitter account” posted a picture of a group of individuals eating outside at a Chicago restaurant, supposedly breaking the COVID rules the city put in place.
The person who posted the photo claimed one of the people at the table was the governor’s daughter.
“That was a lie,” Pritzker said. “It wasn’t her.
“But the picture falsely identifying her started making the rounds on social media, helped along by the trolls who permeate these social media platforms these days. My office put out a statement making clear this wasn’t my daughter. But that didn’t stop republican elected officials, a network of propaganda publications in the state and some radio shock jocks from telling people that the picture was of my daughter, despite knowing that this was a lie.”
Pritzker’s daughter began to get threatening messages.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, then a well-known lawyer who cares more about headlines than winning cases posted a bounty on his Facebook page, offering money to harass my family at Thanksgiving,” Pritzker said. “An actual cash bounty, including my kids, harassing them. My high school-aged kids.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a high school girl who is being weaponized against her father by his political opponents. Weaponized with lies.
“Put yourself in my shoes. We have threats that stream into my office daily while we have watched the kidnapping plot against the Michigan governor unfold just a state away.
“I’m the governor, I was elected to this job and while I don’t think it should come with a fear for my health and safety. I accept that sometimes it does. I’m an adult. And I can handle people throwing my face up on anti-semitic picket signs likening me to Hitler. This kind of vitriol is apparently what I have to deal with to keep the state and its people safe.
But my kids. My kids are off limits.
Among elected officials and people in positions of responsibility, that didn’t use to happen. There was a time in American politics when the rule was sacrosanct: Kids are off limits.”
Pritzker said that he understands heat comes with the decisions he makes as governor, but his children should have to come under attack.
“ Just like all of you, I want to be with my family for the holidays,” he said. “And just like all of you, because of COVID, my family is having to make sacrifices to stay safe.”
