Politics

Dem AGs plot to thwart Trump election interference

Published

6 months ago

February 23, 2026

Democratic attorneys general are bracing for President Donald Trump to interfere in the midterm elections — and war-gaming how to stop him.

The party’s top prosecutors have been strategizing for months about how to counter a series of increasingly extreme scenarios they fear could play out this fall. They have huddled in hotel conference rooms and over Zoom meetings to run tabletop exercises anticipating the president’s moves and choreographing responses.

They’re preparing for the administration to potentially confiscate ballots and voting machines, strip resources from the postal service to disrupt the delivery of mail ballots, and send military members and immigration agents to polling locations to intimidate voters. They’re readying motions for temporary restraining orders to preserve election materials and remove armed forces from voting sites.

And, as the president attempts to assert federal control over elections, seize voter data and relitigate false claims of fraud from 2020, they’re monitoring Trump and his allies’ every word about elections for clues about what his administration could do next.

“[Trump] wants to continue to have his party prevail, seemingly by whatever means necessary,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “So we have to be ready for that, sad and tragic as it is.”

The Democratic attorneys general, some of whom battled Trump’s election-subversion tactics in the courts in 2020, have already challenged the president’s efforts to overhaul election administration and access sensitive voter data ahead of a midterm contest that could turn him into a lame duck.

Nineteen of them banded together to sue the administration last spring over Trump’s sweeping executive order targeting voting rules, most of which has since been blocked by courts. When the Department of Justice dispatched election monitors to polling locations in New Jersey and California last November, Bonta deployed his own observers in his state in response.

But the president’s more recent moves have prosecutors ratcheting up their preparations for November, five Democratic attorneys general said in interviews.

Earlier this month, Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize” voting and suggested the federal government should intervene in election operations in swing-states’ predominantly blue cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia — places that have been central to his election conspiracy theories for years. House Republicans passed one set of voting restrictions and are teeing up another, though the measures are unlikely to clear the Senate. And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem raised alarms among Democrats when she said her department is working to ensure “that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.”

Trump and his allies’ rhetoric is the type of “red-alarm fire that people need to take very seriously,” said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, who leads the Democratic Attorneys General Association’s election protection working group.

“He will try anything,” Brown said, so “we have to just sort of think creatively about: If you were the president and you were trying to invalidate an election or undermine an election, what are the oddball, ludicrous, unconstitutional theories that you might advance?”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson fired back in a statement accusing Democrats of “plotting to undermine commonsense election integrity efforts supported by a vast majority of Americans” and arguing existing law gives the Department of Justice “full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls.”

“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” Jackson said. “The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to ensure the safety and security of our elections.”

Democratic attorneys general have panned the SAVE Act as an attack on the right to vote and urged Congress not to pass it and other measures Trump is pushing.

They also fear the Trump administration could aim to intimidate legal voters by sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling locations.

ICE chief Todd Lyons said in a congressional hearing earlier this month that there’s “no reason” for ICE officials to be deployed to polling facilities. But MAGA influencer Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist, is encouraging the president to take that step to prevent noncitizens from voting, despite its rare occurrence. He’s also urging Trump to send in troops, further stoking Democrats’ concerns.

When asked about Bannon’s comments during a briefing earlier this month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said while she “can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November” she hadn’t “heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations,” calling the question “disingenuous.”

Democrats aren’t reassured.

“If the president said, ‘Look, I want my ICE people to protect American elections … go to all these polling places and stand out in front with guns,’ I think they would do it,” said Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota, where an immigration enforcement surge earlier this year resulted in two deaths. “And I think we all need to be prepared to deal with that problem.”

Several Democratic attorneys general said they’re particularly alarmed after the FBI seized voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, based on a referral from Kurt Olsen, an attorney who worked with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results. They’re now bracing for similar seizures in other places Trump has previously targeted over debunked claims of voter fraud.

Those concerns are heightened in battleground states with contests that could decide control of Congress.

“We recognize that what happened in Fulton County could happen in Detroit. Not because there’s any merit to claims that anything wrong happened in Detroit, but because we know that those claims will be made again,” said Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel of swing-state Michigan.

“The president and his administration know and understand that Democrats don’t win statewide in Michigan without counting the Detroit vote,” she added. “So of course Trump wants to undermine in people’s minds the integrity of Detroit elections, even though that’s not borne fruit whenever that has been investigated.”

Democrats in states that rely heavily on mail-in ballots are also girding for an assault on the voting system that Trump is trying to eliminate, but that GOP operatives and even some Republicans in Congress support as a way to keep voters engaged in non-presidential years.

They are worried about Trump weaponizing the postal service, either by again blocking funding for the agency or installing allies to slow operations. And they cautioned that his push to discount ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward could disenfranchise voters in states with grace periods. The Supreme Court is due to consider a case on ballot deadlines next month.

Democratic attorneys general, meanwhile, will argue in a lower court next week in a multistate lawsuit seeking to permanently block portions of Trump’s executive order — which includes cutting off mail ballots and requiring documentary proof of citizenship for the national voter registration form — from taking effect.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is co-leading the lawsuit alongside Bonta, urged his counterparts to “stay nimble.”

Trump “likes to sow chaos because he thinks it’s going to throw people off their game,” Ford said. “But he has met his match when it comes to the Nevada attorney general’s office; he’s met his match when it comes to the Democratic attorneys general.”

Elena Schneider contributed to this report.

Politics

Trump invites battleground Republicans to Rose Garden dinner

Published

1 hour ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump has invited a group of GOP lawmakers including Republicans in competitive races to dine with him Wednesday night at the White House as many in the party press the president to unleash his massive war chest ahead of the November elections, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The White House plans to hold the dinner in the Rose Garden, according to two of the people who know about the invitation. The people were granted anonymity to discuss private planning. Some House Republicans in tough races were sent invitations, including Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) and Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who are planning to attend, along with a wider group of GOP lawmakers and senators.

“Of course,” Van Orden said when asked if he would go to the dinner.

The White House invited at least several dozen lawmakers, according to two people familiar with the invitation list. The dinner also comes ahead of next week’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas, though attendance from Republican lawmakers is expected to be mixed. Barrett, for example, said in an interview Tuesday he is not planning to attend the convention and will instead campaign and spend time with his family. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s political operation, MAGA Inc., has spent little of its $400 million war chest to help GOP lawmakers. But he recently helped boost Sen. Darline Graham over the line in her heated primary.

Senate Republicans are eager for him to start spending for Ken Paxton in Texas as he has thus far been outspent on the airwaves by Democrat James Talarico and his allies.

Politics

Susan Collins on Trump, tariffs and her fight for Maine

Published

6 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Susan Collins on Trump, tariffs and her fight for Maine

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Politics

JD Vance courts Jewish Republicans. Tucker Carlson still looms.

Published

15 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LAS VEGAS — Vice President JD Vance tried to make inroads with Jewish Republicans. Not everyone is sold.

Vance’s closed-door speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit Monday night went a long way in alleviating top pro-Israel donors’ concerns about his support for the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and it cemented their view that Vance would be a preferable choice to whomever the Democratic Party nominee is in 2028.

But some attendees still have questions for Vance — particularly around his relationship with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who has long drawn ire from the Republican Jewish leaders for his criticism of Israel and outraged many when he hosted the antisemite Nick Fuentes for a lengthy podcast interview last year.

“He allayed a lot of concern, but he failed to address his relationship with Tucker Carlson, and that left a lot of people wondering why,” said Josh Katzen, a real estate developer and member of the RJC board, speaking in his personal capacity.

Vance, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2028, has long faced skepticism from Jewish Republicans who question his commitment to the U.S.-Israeli relationship and his response to antisemitism within the GOP. In his speech Monday, he took both issues head-on, and largely appeased the skeptical crowd with his answers, declaring that “Jew-hatred is corrosive to the soul” and saying Republicans need to articulate to young Americans why an alliance with Israel is in the best interest of the U.S.

But his meandering response to a question about Carlson and other podcasters left some in attendance yearning for more.

“A few names: Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Nick Fuentes. They have platformed antisemites,” former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), the RJC’s board chair, asked Vance. “How do you draw the line, in terms of … the platforms that you appear on?

“I recognize a lot of people in this room may disagree with things that Tucker Carlson or Megyn Kelly or Joe Rogan have said,” Vance said, before pivoting to discuss Rogan and Fuentes, saying those are “two very, very different categories of people” and suggesting people like Rogan should be reasoned with, even when there are disagreements.

The answer was not sufficient to some, who wonder about his longtime relationship with Carlson. Vance was a regular on Carlson’s Fox News show and creditedCarlson for helping carry him to victory in his 2022 U.S. Senate primary in Ohio. In 2024, Carlson pushed for Trump to pick Vance as his running mate.

“JD Vance allying himself with an individual who has called for Trump’s immediate removal from office will make it harder for many of us Jewish conservatives to consider his candidacy,” said Shabbos Kestenbaum, a pro-Israel campus activist who spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024 and spoke at last year’s RJC conference. “We hope this issue is resolved quickly so we can focus on policy, not personality.”

Eric Levine, a major GOP donor and member of the RJC board, said Vance could’ve had “an incredible Sister Souljah moment” if he took on Carlson.

“In my view, on the issue of Jews and Israel, there is no difference between Hasan Piker, Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and the DSA writ large on the one hand and Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Marjorie Taylor Green and neo-Nazis on the other hand,” said Levine, speaking in his personal capacity. “That is why I wish the vice president had unambiguously separated himself and condemned Tucker by name.”

Conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg also wasn’t satisfied. Just hours after urging RJC attendees in a speech onstage to “give Vance a chance,” he was critical of how Vance handled that opportunity.

“He had a chance to hammer @TuckerCarlson and @megynkelly but instead spent all his time defending @joerogan over Nick Fuentes,” Rosenberg wrote on X. “Look, he’s still better than any Democrat candidate but I don’t think he wowed the STRONG Jews in the room tonight.”

Carlson, in a text message, said, “An organization that promotes and defends genocide is continuing to insist that they’re the real victims? I can’t imagine who buys this nonsense anymore.”

Human rights groups have accused Israel of genocide over its conduct in the war in Gaza, which the country’s leaders vehemently deny. Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

An individual close to Vance, granted anonymity to describe sentiment within the vice president’s orbit, said there was no illusion Vance would win over every person in attendance, “or that every single person would love every single answer.”

“The goal was to lower the temperature, extend an olive branch, and make clear that the vice president is an ally, not an enemy,” the person said, arguing that goal was “achieved.”

Sam Markstein, spokesperson for the RJC, emphasized that the organization is a coalition.

“There will always be many opinions within the organization,” Markstein said. “In an hour when too many public figures are walking away from the Jewish community and the U.S.-Israel relationship, the Republican Jewish Coalition will always stand with the leaders who show up. Vice President JD Vance shows up — and received multiple standing ovations with thunderous applause.”

Vance, who was elected to the Senate in 2022, faces a fundamental disadvantage among potential Republican 2028ers: He’s still a relative newcomer to the Republican political scene.

Others, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have developed relationships with pro-Israel Republicans in both the Jewish and evangelical Christian communities for years, going well back before their respective 2016 presidential runs. Rubio has pushed to revoke visas from individuals accused of promoting antisemitism or supporting terrorism. Cruz has publicly sparred with Carlson, criticizing him of antisemitism. A Cruz-aligned nonprofit recently launched to take on right-wing antisemitism.

Vance’s speech was his first at an RJC leadership summit, though he attended in 2022. It was the first time since 2019 a sitting president or vice president attended the conference, which draws some of the country’s most influential Republican donors.

Not being a favorite among RJC leaders wasn’t an impediment to Donald Trump’s political outsider 2016 presidential bid. During that campaign, he was accused of invoking antisemitic stereotypes during a speech to the RJC and in a social media post. But upon taking office, he formed a strong relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, culminating in the Abraham Accords and moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Speakers at the RJC’s two-day summit this week frequently referred to Trump as the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history.

But Rubio and Cruz have been fixtures at past iterations of the RJC’s annual leadership summit, and they maintain strong ties with the group’s leadership. (None have announced whether they’ll seek the presidential nomination, though Rubio has stated he will not run if Vance does.)

Many attendees said Rubio is still the favorite amongst the crowd.

“Every time Marco Rubio’s name is mentioned in this conference, there’s a spontaneous round of applause,” said Katzen, the RJC board member. Indeed, when Rosenberg urged attendees to welcome Vance in a speech Monday, he mentioned the hypothetical, “If Marco Rubio was here tonight—” and was drowned out by applause.

Should Rubio not run for the nomination against Vance, other observers think Cruz will have the inside lane among the RJC crowd.

“Ted Cruz is loved here, and he deserves to be loved here,” said Levine, prior to Vance’s speech. “Look, if it’s Cruz and Vance, I expect that this crowd would be 90 percent Cruz.”

Ari Fleischer, an RJC board member and a former White House press secretary, said Vance made inroads — but building a relationship with the pro-Israel community takes time.

“It’s fair to say hearts and minds are changing, but I think it’s also fair to say that when you come before the Republican Jewish Coalition, it’s like when you come to New Hampshire to campaign,” Fleischer said. “After the third or fourth time, we let you know how you’re doing.”