Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker Says He Lost 80 Pounds on GLP-1 Drug After Diabetes Diagnosis

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker confirmed in an interview broadcast Monday on CBS Mornings that he has lost 80 pounds over the past two years using a GLP-1 medication, a class of drugs that includes Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound.

Pritzker told CBS News' David Begnaud he started the drug after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, following an earlier pre-diabetes diagnosis at age 58, according to NPR Illinois, which drew on a separate hour-long interview Pritzker gave to the Chicago Sun-Times. He said he has since stopped taking insulin.

"I've been overweight most of my life, really, since I was probably 7 or 8 years old," Pritzker said, according to CBS News. He linked his weight struggles to his father Donald Pritzker's death of a heart attack at age 39, which happened around the same time.

Pritzker's wife, Illinois first lady MK Pritzker, told CBS News she encouraged him to take the medication given his family's history with heart disease. Pritzker said he now walks four miles along Lake Michigan most mornings and injects the medication weekly.

The Trump Attacks

Pritzker's weight has been a repeated target for President Donald Trump. CBS News played a clip from a 2024 campaign rally where Trump said, "Pritzker, I don't know, he's too busy eating. He wants to eat all the time." The Daily Wire noted Trump also called Pritzker a "big fat slob" in November 2025 while criticizing Illinois Democrats.

NPR Illinois reported Pritzker has also been the subject of AI-generated memes shared by Trump depicting him eating pizza and burgers. Pritzker told the outlet he finds it "funny" that Trump keeps using the insult now that he's lost the weight, adding, "I don't really talk about that publicly because I think it's more like the content of your character that matters more."

The 2028 Question

Pritzker is running for a third term as Illinois governor this November and is widely viewed as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, according to CNN and CBS News. Begnaud asked Pritzker directly whether the weight loss was part of an image strategy ahead of a possible run.

"I've been driven my whole life to lose weight," Pritzker replied. "The fact that I am now able to do it because this GLP-1 became available is truly something that has meant a lot to me. I have not made any decisions about what I might do in the future."

When Begnaud offered him "an easy out" to deny a 2028 run outright, Pritzker laughed and said only, "I honestly am focused on what's best for the people of Illinois," according to both CBS News and the Daily Wire's account of the exchange.

Illinois Now Covers the Drugs for State Workers

Pritzker also confirmed that Illinois' state employee insurance plan now covers GLP-1 medications for roughly 55,000 workers. He argued the policy will save money long-term because "fewer people will have diabetes" and related diseases, according to CBS News and CNN.

A Different Argument on the Left

Not every voice on the left has embraced the GLP-1 wave. Breitbart reported that at the Democratic Socialists of America-backed Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago, Atlanta activist Da'Shaun L. Harrison argued the drugs are part of what he called "body fascism," telling attendees the medications exist "to sustain a social order in which fat people are monitored, restricted, guilted, stolen from and punished." Fellow panelist Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author of the book "Health Communism," made a related argument that "fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism."

That framing represents a fringe position within the broader progressive movement, not one embraced by Pritzker or mainstream Democratic officials. It contrasts sharply with a sitting Democratic governor publicly endorsing the same drugs and putting them on his state's insurance plan.

Pritzker has not said whether he'll seek the presidency in 2028. His reelection campaign for governor is on the ballot this November, and CBS News reports he plans to continue losing weight on the medication going forward.