SPRINGFIELD — Last month, my colleague Ben Szalinski and I wrote about the Gov. JB Pritzker’s embrace of social media influencers and podcasters as a growing pillar of his earned media strategy.
After sitting for only a handful of interviews combined in the first six years of his governorship, Pritzker appeared on more than two-dozen podcasts and social media influencer pages in 2025, accounting for 24% of his scheduled interviews.
This trend continued in January, according to a review of Pritzker’s public calendar, obtained by Capitol News Illinois via a public records request. Six out of the 10 media interviews Pritzker sat for last month were with influencers or podcasters. The remaining four were national television interviews — two apiece — on CNN and MSNOW.
Read the schedule: GJBP January 2026 – Redacted (PDF)
Pritzker is one of President Donald Trump’s most pugnacious critics and is believed to harbor 2028 presidential ambitions. His all-of-the-above media strategy allows him to hit back on Trump on high-visibility platforms that get the president’s and his staff’s attention while putting himself in front of Democrats beyond Illinois.
For example, just hours after Alex Pretti was killed by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 26, Pritzker went on CNN and MSNOW to declare “it’s time for Trump’s ICE to go.”
During his combined State of the State and budget address last year, Pritzker said he was “not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations,” referencing the threat he believes Trump poses to American democracy.
Since Trump’s return to power last year, Pritzker has benefited from a convenient alignment: his actions and rhetoric reflect his core beliefs while also delivering political upside. That’s why Pritzker comes off as authentic in the media. Simply put, he’s not faking his outrage.
With all that said, expect to see more of Pritzker in your TikiTok feeds, podcast streaming platforms and on cable television, especially as we get closer to Election Day.
A couple more tidbits from Pritzker’s January calendar:
- 6 — Pritzker had a 30-minute call with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
- 9 and Jan. 12 — Pritzker had two separate 30-minute discussions with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the Bears stadium negotiations.
- 12 — Pritzker met for an hour with Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez. The energy company owns the state’s six nuclear power plants. The governor also met with U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt for an hour.
- 14 — The governor met with Ameren Illinois President Patrick Smith, Sr.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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