Blagojevich to Newsmax: Pritzker 'Pandered to Crazies'

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker "pandered to crazies" on the far left by signing the SAFE-T Act, a sweeping criminal justice law that helped usher in the end of cash bail, says former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The law — which Pritzker and Democrats promote as a public-safety overhaul — has produced the opposite effect and was likely to blame for last week's attack on Bethany MaGee, a 26-year-old who was set on fire aboard a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train by a man with a lengthy criminal record, Blagojevich told Newsmax.

"Pritzker calls it the SAFE-T Act. He boasted about signing that law," Blagojevich said on "Saturday Report."

"So that judge [who released Lawrence Reed, 50] is certainly responsible for what happened to that poor young woman. But even more so is Gov. Pritzker, because Gov. Pritzker should know better," he added.

Blagojevich framed the debate as one rooted in lived reality versus insulated politics. Pritzker, he said, is protected from the consequences of the policies he champions.

"Gov. Pritzker is a billionaire who inherited his money," Blagojevich said. "The Hyatt Hotel fortune, he has security guards protecting him. He has private security when he's not a public figure, when he's not in public office."

The former governor accused Pritzker of embracing progressive criminal justice priorities for political gain while ignoring risks to ordinary residents.

"What he did was he basically pandered to the lunatic left wing of the Democrat Party for politics at the expense of public safety," Blagojevich said. "And as a result of that, these are foreseeable things that could happen to innocent people."

Reed is a career criminal with 72 prior arrests. Video footage shows him dousing MaGee with gasoline and lighting her on fire on Nov. 17.

Federal prosecutors charged him with committing a terror attack against a mass transportation system, a rare charge that carries a potential life sentence.

MaGee remains hospitalized in critical condition.

"That poor young 26-year-old woman riding the subway train, the Chicago Transit Authority, where my mother used to work when I was growing up," Blagojevich said.

"She would take fares to pass transfers out. That never happened back then, but now it's happening because these violent criminals have no cash bail."

Pritzker has defended the SAFE-T Act as a modernization of Illinois' justice system, arguing that it increases fairness while focusing pretrial detention on dangerous defendants.

Blagojevich, however, insisted the results speak for themselves — and warned that more victims are inevitable unless the state reverses course.

On Friday, Pritzker said he was willing to consider changes to the act after the attack.

"Bail is sort of an automatic out for people who just happen to have enough money and an automatic incarceration for somebody who happens not to have enough money," Pritzker said.

"The SAFE-T Act is designed to give judges the ability to keep people in jail who they think are potentially dangerous for the community."

"Sometimes bills get passed and everybody that votes for it knows that there needs to be a trailer bill or a tweak that needs to be made afterward," he added. "I think everybody is open to listening to what changes might need to be made."

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