To counter the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Democrats have sent a contingent of their own to the state, to hold rallies and events in North Texas. One of their leaders is Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. A perspective presidential candidate for 2028, Pritzker has a habit of accusing President Trump of suffering from dementia, something he has done several times on CNN, including during Wednesday's edition of The Arena, where he again went unchallenged by host Kasie Hunt.
Before the interview, Hunt laid out a soundbite from Pritzker: "I'm done pretending that these self- dealing, racist, misogynist grifters are an aberration of the Republican Party. They are the mainstream of the Republican Party now. Nothing Republicans say over the next two days is going to change how clinically deranged and out of touch the GOP has become."
Hunt began the softball interview like this:
HUNT: What do you hope to accomplish by being in Dallas right now?
PRITZKER: Well, it's important to call out the lies, the President is going to be spewing them all over the place. All of his bootlickers behind him, including his chief bootlicker, JD Vance. And so I think we Democrats are just going to have to make sure that people understand this is simply a show. What we know about Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress is they are raising prices on everyone. They've taken us to war. People are dying. Your gas prices have gone up. Your diesel prices have gone up. Your grocery prices have gone up, and they're taking away health care and food assistance from working people across this country.
It seems odd to call the Vice President a presidential bootlicker. Does he expect Vance to publicly disagree with Trump? Did Harris do it to Biden? Biden to Obama? Is Pritzker's running mate in Illinois (Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton) a "bootlicker"? You might think Hunt would have asked him about his obnoxious claim, but of course, she did not. The talking points are delivered, no fuss.
Instead, Hunt moved along, helpfully setting the Governor up to go after Trump some more:
HUNT: He [Trump] said that he thinks that he'll get gas prices below $2 a gallon, but not until after the midterm elections. What do you say to that?
PRITZKER: What I have to say to that is, this is the President who ran in 2024 and told you that on day one, he was going to lower prices. He was going to end forever wars. And what do you know? He's done neither. In fact, he's done the opposite. Prices have gone up since he took office. And of course, we're in this endless war in Iran. He can't stop it.
And then right after that came his patented outrageous claim:
Does not know what he's doing. And after complaining about Joe Biden's age, he himself, President Trump that is, is suffering from dementia. And I think we can all see that.
A real journalist might have followed up by asking the Governor what he meant by that, what proof he has, or remind him, that he defended President Joe Biden after the Hur Report said of him, "a jury would see him as an elderly man with a poor memory." Or, get into a screaming match, as would so often happen on CNN when the accusation was leveled against Biden. But again, silence.
In fact, Hunt joined fellow CNN hosts who failed to push back adequately. Co-hosts such as Erin Burnett, who in March entertained Pritzker's dementia claim, following up with only, "Obviously we don't have any reporting on that," and Kaitlan Collins who in June, asked him, "Do you really think the President has dementia."
Simply pathetic.
Even more pathetically, Hunt simply moved on, setting up Pritzker up to double down on conspiracy claims he made in 2025, about how Trump will militarily interfere with the midterms, and even seize the ballot boxes:
As to the elections, he still can call out ICE and CBP and send them to, well, wherever he wants for the elections. And I expect that he may try to do that. They'll be wearing camouflage uniforms. They'll be carrying automatic weapons like they did when they invaded our city before....Now, as to seizing the ballot boxes, we clearly got -- We've got an entire legal team that is designed to prevent precisely what I had predicted last year. So yes, I'm worried about all of it. And we, Democratic governors have talked about that.
Hunt's reaction to these dire predictions? Change topics and move on.
If past is prologue, Pritzker should probably get himself booked on every show on the network, and repeat his insane claims about Trump. After all, this is CNN!
