Rod Blagojevich reacts to JB Pritzker’s victory: ‘No surprise at all’

Thank you so much for your time this evening. What are your thoughts on it being called this quickly? Did you think it was going to be 701-48? I thought it would be 659, actually. None of this is a surprise at all. It was very predictable. I mean, JB had, what, spent like 90 million or more of his own money. I think Bailey had like a million dollars. He couldn't compete financially. Darren Bailey has an issue when it comes to conveying to the people here where most of the votes are. Two-thirds of the votes are up here in the Chicagoland area. And Darren Bailey is incompatible in many ways to the values of the people up in the Chicagoland area. So none of this was a surprise. How much of this do you think The Trump of it all played a factor in this race and potentially the margins we're going to see. Well, it's very clear that the people who don't like President Trump really don't like him. They love to hate him as a matter of fact. And I think that motivated a lot of left-leaning Democratic voters and other Democratic voters to come out and vote. So I think that is a factor. But the fact is that the Republican Party in Illinois really doesn't exist. This Republican Party doesn't know who it is. They're divided. They have not embraced their Republican president in some parts of the state. They have in the other part of the state, the southern part of the state. And as a result of that, they didn't really run a campaign. And you got a guy like Jim Durkin, who was a Republican leader in the House, who actually endorsed J.B. Pritzker. Governor Edgar did something similar when he opposed President Trump. So the Republican Party needs to rebuild itself and make itself a party, and they gotta tell the people of Illinois what they stand for, whose side they're on. And I hope it becomes a Republican Party if they do this, that's less corporate country club and more about working people, which I contend, I know this will probably upset some of your listeners. I can tell President Trump has been a lot more of that as a Republican president than any Republican president before him. It's very interesting that you talk though about the inner workings of the Republican Party because over the last few days, it's really been the inner workings of the Democratic Party that people have started to question the inter-fighting, the inner family fighting that's been going on, particularly in Michigan. What are your thoughts? Well, look, I've had a lot of blessings in my life. I've had some setbacks, as you all know. By the way, I didn't do it, but that's a whole different other issue. Thank you very much. But I was able to live the American dream. I came from a working class family, Cicero and Grand Avenue, five room apartment. I became the governor of Illinois, really got great pleasure out of the fact that I was able to give free public transportation to all our seniors. Healthcare for every child, first state in America, to ever do something like that, I believe healthcare is a fundamental right. So in that respect, I consider myself a traditional Democrat and probably left of center. If you look at the accomplishments that we did when I was governor, we raised the minimum wage twice when I was governor, all those traditional things that the Democratic Party is about. But I was for a Democratic Party that was also for opportunity, a chance for somebody like me to get ahead, a chance for somebody like Barack Obama. Become President of the United States, a chance for a kid wherever he or she may be to reach for their dreams and actually make them an opportunity. And I'm very fearful of the socialist movement in the Democratic Party and fearful for our country because socialism has never worked anywhere where it's been. It brings people down, it doesn't lift people up. And you've got that candidate in Michigan, Al Sayed, who's really gonna be either the bane of the Democratic Party's existence if he wins. Or perhaps the Democratic Party might go back to its traditional roots, more of a John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Bill Clinton, Rod Blagojevich Democratic Party, if you will. Well, along those lines, I mean, you have a lot of DSA-aligned candidates and far-left candidates who have polled very well and helped make states that usually aren't competitive for Democrats be competitive. If we see those candidates win and potentially win big in this race, Where does the Democratic Party go? Do they have to then lean farther than you'd like to go left? Or do they stake a claim and try to stay center? Well, no, they're gonna go wild left. They're not gonna go center. And that will be bad for JB's presidential aspirations. I know JB's going very far to the left too, pandering to that socialist wing of the Democratic Party. But that's not convincing at a national race because the guy's a nepo baby billionaire. He inherited all that money. He's the quintessential white privilege that these younger people, the socialist wing of the party, complain about. If El-Sayed wins in Michigan, that means AOC is probably a presidential candidate. And then she'll be a very viable candidate Because she'll have all those young. Socialist activists and others behind her and I think that would probably really harm JB's chances. The one from Illinois that I think has a better shot than JB is actually Rahm Emanuel who's positioned himself sort of like a new generation Bill Clinton a little bit more to the center. But I think the times are different today. The Democratic Party is different today. And I think Rahm will have a hard time running from that position. So if El-Sayed wins, The Democratic Party goes further left, further socialist. If he loses, then there's a chance for the Democratic Party to get back to its traditional roots where it prioritized the needs of working people and wasn't all about trying to cancel people or woke or some of these other dynamics that the new Democratic Party expresses and stands for. And so as we look at tonight and some of the races start to get called, what are the races that you're looking at, both here in the state, but then also nationally? Well, none in the state cuz it's gonna be a Democrat wipeout in Illinois. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the currents of history on the side of the Democrats in Illinois and all across America cuz the party out of power always wins except three times since 1932 did the party in power hold on and win the midterm. So history is on the side of the Democrats all across the country and certainly in Illinois. Then you couple the fact that JB has so much personal money, he's able to spread that around And Bailey and the Republican Party are Without resources and they're divided, it's gonna be a wipeout everywhere in Illinois. Nationally, Michigan, as we just talked about, is a very important race to take a look at. Texas, of course, is something that's, I think, significant, that'll tell us a lot. Ohio is interesting, because that's been Republican safely over the last many election cycles. And then I'm making a prediction, in a year that's historically gonna trend towards the Democrats, I predict that Michelle Tafoya in Minnesota, the Republican candidate, who's a very appealing candidate, is going to win up there because of all that welfare fraud that's happening in Minnesota. And she's running against the lieutenant governor, who certainly has some kind of culpability with regard to that. Yeah, lots of Democrats, they're questioning their choice for a Democratic top of the ticket. We'll have to see how that plays out. While we have you here, you mentioned to us earlier that you have a new book coming out. I don't want you to say the exact title of the book because we are on TV, but tell us a little bit about it. Well, I mean, it's a book that starts with, here it is, I'm just showing you, but We don't say the word. I was joking with the publisher and said I want to call it that. I didn't think he'd really take me seriously. But it's called Framed, F'd, and Freed. And it's about the story that was really an unhappy 12 year odyssey that started in the morning of December 9, 2008 when I was the sitting governor here in this home and I was arrested. It's a story that starts with Obama. He wanted to make a political deal and so did I. Ends with President Trump who pulled me out and in prison as a governor with Crips and Bloods, Gangster Disciples, Sinaloa Cartel drug dealers. Who look up to the drug lord El Chapo like my daughters look up to Taylor Swift. I went from having access to a 50,000 square foot governor's mansion to a six foot by eight foot prison cell. I was in there with men who committed murder. So I tell stories about the political side of it and then I tell stories about some of my fellow inmates with names like Socks and Slick and Smelly and Stinky and Honey Bun. But I hope people who read it, and I hope they read it, you can get it on Amazon by pre-sale. I hope they read the last chapter, chapter 23, because it's what I learned, I write about what I learned. And there it was really faith, hope, and love, and gave me purpose in that very dark place for as long as I was there, 2,896 days. And my love for my little girls, they were little when I left, they grew up when I finally came home. My love for my wife gave me the purpose I needed, even in the darkest place, to stay strong, never give up, to endure, persevere. eventually overcome and who'd have thought Donald Trump of all people who had me on Celebrity Apprentice's show, I write about that too, would be the one all those years later who actually pulled me out of prison. So people ask me, well, what's your party affiliation? I call myself a Trumpocrat, a Democrat for Trump. I know it angers a lot of my former voters who are Democrats. But what kind of a guy would I be if I didn't be for the guy who got me out of jail? What a life you have lived. And I'm sure people are going to want to read that story. And I think you have accurately said that the lessons in that final chapter really are for anyone. I mean, people can read about other things from your life, but those lessons are for anyone. Before we let you go. Just go back in time here, the night that you were elected governor or even the race to become Illinois governor. Walk us through maybe the toughest moments to get there and what was going through your mind when you finally found out you won. Well, that would have been 2002, I was the first Democratic governor elected in 26 years in Illinois. Illinois was very different politically back then and I was the first guy elected to statewide office with a name like Blagojevich and then two years later, Obama got elected statewide with a name like Obama. And then we've had J.B. Pritzker and others. So in some respects, I think I broke a glass ceiling in that respect with these crazy wild last names that people weren't used to. But we had the victory party at the Finkel Steel Company where my father worked all those years sacrificing. Both of my parents worked hard, gave me a chance to go to college. Whatever success I had in life was because of them. But I'll tell you a quick little story about three days after because you work so hard to get there and it's endless. You're working 14 hours a day, seven days a week for months and then you win. And then I always like to go out and thank the voters for the next couple of days. So I flew around the state and did that by Friday of that week because you get elected on Tuesday. I'm really tired, the fatigue hits me and I'm just sitting there on the couch in our home watching the news and I could feel my wife Patty looking at me. You know how that is, sometimes you don't see it, but you can feel someone looking at you. So I take a look to my right to see her and ask her, what are you looking at? She said, I can't believe you're the governor of Illinois. Very special moment right there. We appreciate your time and thank you for giving us some of your insights. Thanks for having me, appreciate it.