Democratic state attorneys general have mobilized into a highly coordinated legal force in response to President Donald Trump’s second term, meeting daily via Microsoft Teams to strategize against the administration’s anticipated policy agenda. Comprising 23 officials, this coalition has refined its approach after years of legal battles, now operating with unprecedented speed and efficiency to file multistate lawsuits that challenge federal actions.
This shift marks a departure from the more fragmented legal opposition during Trump’s first term when Democratic-led challenges often lacked cohesion, writes Politico.
The country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general log on at 4pm ET for a thirty-minute confidential video chat to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration. They share updates on the seven cases they have moving through federal courts and argue about whether to treat Elon Musk as a lawful arm of the government or an uncredentialed interloper to it. They plot where to respond next, leveraging timezone differences to expand the workday.
The American left has floundered during Trump 2.0. The mass protests of 2017 have not emerged, and donors to progressive causes are not giving the way they did then, either. Democratic congressional minorities have been cowed by Trump’s assertions of executive power, while many of the governors who stand as their party’s leading figures are cautious about provoking fights with the president. In confronting Trump, elected officials have largely yielded to labor unions and advocacy organizations.
Then there are the attorneys general, who see themselves as the last backstop between the people and the president. 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. The US Department of Justice declined a request for comment on that suit, or others it is defending.
“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,” Hawaii attorney general Anne Lopez boasted in an interview.
So far, Trump has been winning against liberal lawfare that calls any action he takes similar to his predecessors as a “constitutional crisis, and even MSNBC hasn’t been buying the left’s conniptions.
MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos challenged claims that President Donald Trump’s executive orders constitute a “constitutional crisis,” arguing that while concerns over his governing style are valid, they do not yet meet the threshold of a true constitutional breakdown. Speaking on Morning Joe, Cevallos responded to a New York Times article in which legal scholars characterized Trump’s approach as “lawless.” While acknowledging the chaotic nature of the administration’s policymaking—marked by a flurry of executive orders—he cautioned against using the term “constitutional crisis” too loosely.
Cevallos pointed out that Trump employed a similar strategy in his first term, with courts frequently reviewing, revising, or overturning executive directives. He emphasized that a genuine crisis would occur only if the president defied a court order, drawing a historical parallel to Richard Nixon’s initial resistance to a Supreme Court subpoena before ultimately complying.
The latest legal battles over Trump’s executive actions—including efforts to freeze foreign aid, end birthright citizenship, and restructure federal agencies—have heightened tensions, with multiple federal judges issuing injunctions against key policies.
The Supreme Court earlier in the week ruled in Trump’s favor, stating that the president has authority to freeze funds.
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