Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) is down 80 pounds, on a GLP-1 medication and still sidestepping whether his changed appearance has anything to do with White House talk.
The billionaire governor spoke about the change on “CBS Mornings” in an interview that aired Monday, framing the medication as a breakthrough after a lifetime of trying to lose weight.
“I have been driven my whole life to lose weight,” Pritzker said.
The drug, Pritzker explained, gave him access to something that had carried deep personal meaning.
“The fact that I am now able to do it because this GLP-1 became available is truly, like, I mean, it’s something that has meant a lot to me,” he said.
Pritzker said the prescription followed blood work two years ago that showed he was diabetic, with his doctor telling him the medication would be lifelong.
“My doctor said, ‘Oh, no, you’ll never come off of it. You’re going to have to do this the rest of your life, and I recommend that you take a GLP-1,’” Pritzker recalled.
Pritzker described a change in his relationship with food that arrived within days.
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“All of a sudden, on the third day, I was like, you know, actually, I don’t need to eat that thing,” he said.
The governor said the scale moved by two pounds in the first week, though he pushed back on the idea that the full change happened immediately.
“But it was the strangest feeling,” Pritzker added. “Now, I’m not suggesting everything changed in a week. It didn’t happen that way.”
Pritzker said his daily routine also now includes a four-mile walk along Lake Michigan.
The subject is personal for Pritzker, whose father died of a heart attack at 39 while playing tennis. Pritzker said his mother was there when his father died in her arms.
“He was actually quite an active person, even though he was overweight,” Pritzker remembered.
The weight-loss reveal arrives after years of Trump mocking Pritzker’s appearance while criticizing his leadership in Illinois.
Trump previously said Pritzker “ought to spend more time in the gym, actually” and accused him of being “too busy eating” to lead Illinois.
“Pritzker, I don’t know, he’s too busy eating,” Trump said during a 2024 presidential campaign rally. “He wants to eat all the time.”
Pritzker hit back in late August 2025 after Trump criticized his appearance, saying the insult showed “evidence of a guy who’s still living in fifth grade.”
“It takes one to know one, on the weight question,” Pritzker fired back then. “And the president, of course, himself, is not in good shape. So, he ought to respond to that from me.”
The slimmer profile comes as Pritzker continues to draw questions about 2028, but he kept his answer on his current job when CBS asked whether he was polishing his image for a presidential run.
Pritzker said he had not settled on what he might do later.
“I can tell you I want to be the governor of the state of Illinois for a while longer, and I’m running for reelection,” he answered.
On ABC’s “This Week” with Jonathan Karl, Pritzker shifted from his own future to the arguments he wants Democrats to carry into the upcoming midterms.
He listed affordability, artificial intelligence and corruption as issues for Democrats, then criticized the Trump administration and Republicans over the lack of action on artificial intelligence regulation.
Pritzker singled out technology capable of teaching itself without humans as a major worry.
“We’re talking about recursive AI: that is the biggest concern,” Pritzker warned. “That is that AI that essentially learns from itself and doesn’t need human beings anymore, and I think that’s what we all need to be concerned with.”
The governor cited Illinois’ AI rules while arguing that Washington and other countries need limits as the technology develops. He had called Friday for Congress to return to Washington to address AI.
During the ABC interview, Pritzker said Republicans were standing against new rules.
“Republicans don’t want to do anything about it,” he argued. “They think it should just run out of control.”
Karl also brought up Trump and his family, giving Pritzker a chance to cast corruption as a 2026 Democratic message.
“He’s essentially stealing from the American public and certainly making money, making decisions that shouldn’t be made, so that he can put money in his pockets,” Pritzker charged. “That is one of the things that I think Democrats can run on in ’26 — we ought to be pushing back and holding him accountable.”
Karl then pressed Pritzker on far-left streamer Hasan Piker, citing Piker’s view that a nuclear-armed Iran would make the Middle East more stable and asking whether Democrats should denounce him.
“I‘m not focused on the streamers and what they‘re saying,” Pritzker replied. “There‘s a whole lot of them and they got a whole lot of views.”
When Karl noted Piker had a “pretty big following” online, Pritzker again steered the answer toward Trump.
“I understand that. I’m just saying that what I think we should be talking about and focused on is how do we stop Donald Trump in his tracks?” Pritzker responded.
Karl also asked whether Pritzker would accept an endorsement from Piker, while noting that Piker likely would not endorse him.
“Again, I‘m not focused. I don‘t even want to talk about it. Hasan Piker doesn‘t mean anything to me or in my election,” Pritzker insisted.
In a Thursday Axios interview, correspondent Alex Thompson asked Piker whether Iran should be free to build a nuclear weapon.
“I think Iran, much like any other sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself, regardless of its domestic policies,” Piker answered.
Piker said he did not want Iran, America, Russia or China to have nuclear arms, but answered “I believe yes” when Thompson asked whether the Middle East would be more stable if Iran had a nuclear weapon.
