WASHINGTON, DC – In newly released episodes of the Legal AF podcast from the MeidasTouch Network, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Illinois AG Kwame Raoul sat down with host Micheal Popok to talk through how they each individually, and as a collective coalition with other Democratic AGs, have remained steadfast in challenging the Trump administration for its violations of law and the Constitution.

From the tariff lawsuit to birthright citizenship, the AGs have been intensely focused on holding Trump accountable and upholding the rule of law in the face of a reckless administration.

Key highlights from Arizona AG Mayes interview:

• “I think we got a great shot at winning that [tariffs] case based on the questions that the Justices themselves, including some very conservative justices like Neil Gorsuch and Justice Roberts, who, from the jump, was asking very tough questions of the government.”

• “But I think that that’s where that was what was running through some of their minds, which was, you know, if we allow this president to do this, what else are we going to allow? And what else will another president think that he or she can assume unto themselves?”

• “I think we can’t forget the impact of these tariffs […] Because it’s killing our consumers. It’s killing our small businesses. I mean, 62% of Americans say they believe prices have gone up on them in the last year. I’ve done multiple round tables across Arizona on this issue with small businesses.”

• “The impacts are huge, and so that’s why Dan Rayfield and I led this co-led this case, and it’s so important. I mean, I don’t think, from an economic standpoint, the Supreme Court has dealt with a more important case in at least 100 years.”

• “We are prepared to protect our elections, and we are prepared to enforce the law. And that is what we did when we took the fake collector’s case to the grand jury, which we decided that it was important to present this case, let a grand jury decide, they decided to charge 18 individuals with an attempt in 2020 to essentially overthrow an election.”

• “We will continue to uphold election law and to make sure that no one tries to overthrow an election.”

• “So yes, do I want to send a message to future bad actors who might try to undermine American democracy? You bet I do because that’s what the law is about. I am out there saying, I’m an attorney general who will enforce the law. That’s my job.”
• “This is a president who is trying to overthrow American democracy, and who, on a daily and weekly basis, Michael, is violating our Constitution. That is why I have sued him 30 times. Because when any president, any president, and I would be doing this if it was a Democrat in power as well, violates our Constitution, violates the law, it is the job of the state AGs to push back on that.”

• “And by the way, those 30 lawsuits that I have filed in conjunction with the other Democratic AGs, I wish some Republicans would join us, but they’re not, obviously. Not a single one, not on a single one of these lawsuits […] We have saved Arizona $1.5 billion with our 30 lawsuits. So, think about how much the Republican states are losing, because they’re not joining our lawsuits.”
• “We work together on these lawsuits. We meet with each other every other day by Zoom personally…All 23 of them […] We zoom in from our respective state capitals, and we talk about the litigation, and the strategy, and venue, and what we think might be coming next.”

• “And because I am here and not a Republican, I’m filing those lawsuits, saving our people that money because we saved Head Start here. Trump wanted to defund it. We saved meals on wheels. We’ve saved university funding. We saved America Corps. We saved education funding, and those Republican AGs, Michael, they are not filing the lawsuit, so they are losing that money.”

Key highlights from Minnesota AG Ellison interview:

• “We all separately and independently have come to the same conclusion, which is that America is worth saving. We know our history. We’ve had to overcome some things that weren’t awesome, but we love our country, and we believe they can be better. And it just breaks everybody’s heart to see this president trashing the Constitution.”
• “And I want your audience, your listeners to know, we want Republican AGs on. This is not some political game where we’re trying to keep the ball away from them.”
• “Well what it looks like is, we got to gather the whole team not just AG’s but also there’s a lot of other people who do it. We’ve got to make sure that we’re protecting data from every state that we’re prepared to go to court if there’s any voter intimidation that we’re prepared to move quickly. We got to have our templates ready.” (
• “We are much better organized, but we’re not cocky. We are always asking ‘What are we not thinking of?’ […] We’re listening. We’re listening. We don’t believe that anybody has a monopoly on a good idea. So we want to be engaged with community around what they think we should be doing.”

Key highlights from Illinois AG Raoul interview:

• “And so, you know, when we lay down the laws that are to govern, our law enforcement and government at large, we think that even though there may be differences in in ideology, there wouldn’t be the types of abuse of power that we’ve seen under this this administration.”
• “The National Guard case is a critical one because the federal government’s argument is notwithstanding the fact that their declarations, their facts that they have alleged were not true. They’re saying that doesn’t matter that ultimate difference should be given to the president and the president can basically determine his own facts and justify militarizing our cities.”
• “But more important than even my personal connection to birthright citizenship is the language of the 14th Amendment is so plain that if you’re born in this country and subject to the laws thereof, you are a citizen […] And it’s it remarkable to me how so many are flipping their philosophy as to how to read the Constitution uh just to serve the means of this president.”
• “And it’s interesting because I came in during Trump 1.0 and I didn’t imagine then that the president would go to these extremes. When we came in, when I came in in 2019, we had great collaboration and I’ve maintained it on the local level with the arms of the Department of Justice, you know, with FBI, DEA, ATF […] We’ve had great partnership with those agents at fighting crime. And I don’t oppose the president saying that he wants to help fight crime in Chicago but do it the right way. Do it with people who are trained at fighting crime.”
• “It really guts an important arm of law enforcement, of national security to where whoever might succeed this administration has to just rebuild and we don’t realize the extent to which this has a negative impact on crime fighting, on fighting political corruption, on fighting against ransomware.”

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