WASHINGTON, DC – In a recently released episode of the Legal AF podcast from the MeidasTouch Network, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and President of the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) Sean Rankin, sat down with Michael Popok to discuss how Democratic AGs are protecting Americans from Trump’s abuses of power and how the strengthened partnership between DAGA and Democratic AGs has fueled for continued success.  

“We have 23 Democratic attorneys general across the nation who before Trump was elected during the election, were preparing for the possibility of him becoming president and all that that might bring and we believed we owed our constituents preparedness and readiness,” AG Bonta said. “And so, we had to be ready. And so we have been working together as a group of 23 for the months leading up to the election and in between the period from when he was elected to when he was inaugurated getting ready for what might come.” 

Key highlights: 

• “In the past 6 months in particular, what we’ve really seen is that AGs have tremendous reach,” Rankin said. “They have the ability to be both that, you know, first line of defense and that last line of defense.”

• “They [Democratic AGs] have those superpowers that actually stop things from happening and moving forward, slowing them down, making sure that they can undo illegal actions,” Rankin said. “We were actually built for this moment. We learned how to do it in Trump 1. We’re doing it again in Trump 2.”

• “We have 23 Democratic attorneys general across the nation who, before Trump was elected during the election, were preparing for the possibility of him becoming president,” Bonta said.  “And all that that might bring and we believed we owed our constituents preparedness and readiness…”

• “And so, we had to be ready,” AG Bonta said. “And so we have been working together as a group of 23 for the months leading up to the election and in between the period from when he was elected to when he was inaugurated getting ready for what might come.”

• “We go to court whenever the President breaks the law and hurts our state,” Bonta said. “If he stops breaking the law, we stop suing. He breaks the law or violates the Constitution, we sue. And so far, we have been incredibly successful.”

• ““And so far, we have been incredibly successful,” AG Bonta said. “Out of 20 restraining orders, either TRO’s or preliminary injunctions that have been issued, we have won 18 of them and gotten the order in our favor, 90%. 

• “We have been able to block the unlawful withholding of $168 billion of funding that Trump tried to withhold from California. It was $3 trillion across the nation,” AG Bonta said. 

• “But, you know, we’re the first line and last line of defense,” Bonta said “We’re fighting and winning. We are blocking and stopping the unlawful unconstitutional conduct of Trump consistently and we will continue to do it across all these issues.” 

• “One of the elements here that this creates in fact is that the Democratic AGs who are doing such good work, who have been getting nationwide injunctions, the limitation on that is now going to require Republican attorneys general, who have not participated,” Rankin said. “They’re no longer going to get relief based upon the work that our AGs are doing. So those constituents who are suffering harm are going to feel that harm.”

• “When the AGs were actually sitting across the table from each other physically, or you know digitally now,” Rankin said. “They’re seeing this and they’re sharing information, they’re learning from each other, the rate of action continue to increase.”
• “But there is a lot of sharing around this table and that goes to the character of the people who are doing this,” Rankin added. “They actually operate in a way that we would all hope they did. And I do believe that there’s something to be said for when you actually link together in the way that they do that they help each other in a way and they develop these deep relationships.”

• “We got a full tank of gas. We’re full of energy,” AG Bonta concluded. “We’ve brought the 37 cases, over 40 with all AGs when you consider all the combinations up to now, and we’re not slowing down. Any and every time the President breaks the law, violates the Constitution, we’ll sue him. And we’ll only bring cases where we think we’ll win. And we hope to maintain our high level of success that we’ve already enjoyed.” 

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