Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker has said that he lives “rent-free” in Donald Trump’s head. He also lives part-time in the official governor’s mansion in Springfield.
“It’s the largest governor’s mansion in the country,” Pritzker told me when I met him in Chicago late Friday afternoon. His wife, M. K. Pritzker, oversaw a major redecoration of the 16-room, Italian-style manor after her husband was first elected, in 2018. The governor raves about the job she did.
But does it have a ballroom? I asked.
Pritzker declared this to be a “funny question.” No, he told me, although there is a “large gathering place.”
“Do we call it the ballroom?” he wondered, in the general direction of an aide. She shrugged. (They do.)
Pritzker and I were tucked away in a hybrid conference/break room that was definitely not a ballroom. My opening question felt timely, given that Pritzker’s main political nemesis of late has embarked on building a ballroom at his own official residence, a process that began with the shocking demolition of the White House’s East Wing.
In the scheme of things, this landmark leveling was a small, if highly symbolic, step on the path of havoc that Trump has blazed across much of the federal government and blue America. Chicago and Pritzker have figured prominently as targets.
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