'The last backstop': New resistance movement formed to hamper the Trump-Musk chaos
The nation's 23 Democratic states attorneys general have coalesced into a small but mighty resistance movement bent on keeping the Trump-Musk chaos in check, according to a new article in Politico.
Reporters Rachel Bluth and Melanie Mason wrote that the AGs chat daily via video call "to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration." That includes discussing "the seven cases they have moving through the federal courts" and how to categorize Elon Musk, often called Trump's unelected and unofficial second-in-command.
The AGs "see themselves as the last backstop between the people and the president," the article said. "Their multi-state lawsuits have temporarily stopped the president from revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal funding and cutting off money for medical research. This week, they filed their sixth amicus brief in an action against the Trump administration, with 23 attorneys general signing on to argue the importance of the Affordable Care Act."
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The article quoted Hawaii attorney general Anne Lopez, claiming that the AGs are the Democrats' best hope for pushback in the absence of a clear leader: “Right now in the United States, the Democratic AGs are the only group of people who are united and working to prevent some of these unconstitutional actions from continuing,” she said.
Delaware's attorney general Kathy Jennings added, “We talk each and every day these days, and you’d think we start to get tired of it, but we’ve just grown closer over time. And in the next four years, we’re going to grow very close.”
The AGs began preparing for Trump 2.0 well before the 2024 election, in anticipation of the onslaught of Trump schemes meant to keep the Democrats off-balance. Now, as the workload grows, the AGs are hiring more lawyers to handle their own state business as well as Trump's copious executive actions, the article said.
Bob Ferguson, formerly Washington's AG, now its governor, told Politico, "I think that preparation paid off. I think that that proved to be time well spent, because they’ve been able to, at this point, match the pace of the administration.”