GOP Governor: If Pritzker Sent Troops Here, Oklahomans Would Lose Their Minds

October 10, 2025

“Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.” With that line, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt staked out a clear position: he opposes sending National Guard units across state lines into places where the governor hasn’t asked for them.

Stitt, a Republican who currently chairs the bipartisan National Governors Association, broke with many in his party this week as GOP-led states coordinate with the Trump administration on deployments to Democratic-run cities. He said interstate Guard missions should require the consent of the receiving governor, unless the troops are formally federalized—warning that doing otherwise invites a partisan tit-for-tat that conservatives wouldn’t tolerate if the roles were reversed. “We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights,” he added.

His comments came as Texas National Guard troops were sent to Illinois, a move denounced by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago leaders and challenged in court. Stitt called those deployments a dangerous precedent, marking the first high-profile objection from a sitting Republican governor. Multiple outlets noted Stitt’s stance contrasted with legal briefs filed by Republican attorneys general backing the White House plan to move Guard units into states like Illinois, Oregon and California over local objections.

The Associated Press reported that Stitt’s office framed the issue as basic consent between states, not a referendum on public safety goals. He argued that if out-of-state troops can be sent to Chicago against the wishes of Illinois’ governor, a future Democratic administration could just as easily dispatch forces into Oklahoma against his own. That, he suggested, is exactly why the tradition of gubernatorial consent exists.

Stitt’s position lands him between two pressures. On one side, Republican allies of former President Trump argue the deployments are necessary to aid federal agents and quell unrest. On the other, Democratic governors—including California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ Pritzker—have urged the NGA to oppose the practice and have threatened to walk if the group stays silent. As chair, Stitt signaled sympathy with states’ rights concerns even as he says he supports “law and order” priorities—an attempt to separate the policy goal from the mechanism being used to pursue it.

The dust-up has revived long-running questions about who controls the Guard. Governors command their Guard units for state missions; the president can “federalize” them under Title 10. What Trump’s team has attempted in recent weeks, critics say, is something different: arranging for one state’s Guard to operate in another without the second state’s blessing, a workaround that tests the limits of interstate compacts and the Guard’s dual state-federal status. Stitt’s message to fellow Republicans is that today’s workaround could become tomorrow’s weapon used against red states.

Practically, Stitt’s stance does not block other governors from cooperating with federal requests, but it gives cover to Republicans uneasy with sending their own soldiers into jurisdictions that don’t want them. It also underscores the political risk: if the standard becomes “might makes right,” the next administration—of either party—could rewrite the norms of civil-military relations in America’s cities.

For now, Stitt’s line about Pritzker sending troops into Oklahoma captures the core of the argument: what feels expedient when your side holds power can feel like an invasion when it’s turned back on you.