Democratic governors and AGs prepare for battle with Trump administration

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Democratic governors and attorneys general are beginning to build a Resistance 2.0, talking tough and promising new laws and legal battles as they seek to insulate their states from the conservative policies they expect President-elect Donald Trump to implement.

And already, Trump is firing back — an early preview of the consequential court, regulatory and political fights that now loom in 2025 and beyond.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called state lawmakers into a special session later this year in a bid to protect the state’s progressive policies on issues like abortion rights and climate change from the incoming administration and Republicans who won US Senate control and could also hold the majority in the US House. “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement.

In a Truth Social post Friday, Trump said Newsom — who he called “Newscum” — is “trying to kill our nation’s beautiful California.” He said homelessness and grocery prices are out of control in the state, and said he will demand changes to the state’s voting laws to require voter identification and proof of citizenship.

Newsom is far from the only Democratic governor preparing to take on Trump. In blue states like Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, officials are already vowing to mount legal and policy fights against the incoming Trump administration on issues like abortion rights, environmental regulations, gun control, immigration enforcement and more.

The early moves come as the Democratic Party enters a period of soul-searching over how Trump trounced Vice President Kamala Harris across the map, and what the party’s path forward looks like.

It’s all unfolding with one eye on 2028. With a lame-duck president and a lost Senate majority, Democrats have no clear national leader. Ambitious governors who declined to challenge Harris’ quick ascension after President Joe Biden’s July exit from the 2024 race won’t have to defer to anyone in four years.

That presidential primary won’t start now — or anytime soon. But the second Trump era will offer Democratic officials opportunities to showcase their own leadership as they position themselves for potential future runs.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who said he has been preparing for a raft of potential Trump policies, vowed to protect women who travel to Illinois for abortions and defend environmental regulations. He also said the state would take legal action if necessary to prohibit federal grants from being withheld from blue states that do not cooperate with Trump’s deportation efforts.

“You come for my people, you come through me,” Pritzker told reporters Thursday.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters Wednesday that her state will not “accept an agenda from Washington that strips away the rights that New Yorkers have long enjoyed.” The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, told reporters she isn’t afraid of Trump, and said in a statement she is “ready to fight back again.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who 15 months ago declared a state of emergency over an influx of migrants to her state seeking shelter with housing in short supply, said Thursday on MSNBC that the state police would “absolutely not” help Trump’s deportation efforts.

“Every tool in the toolbox is going to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle,” she said.

A less combative tone

Some Democratic governors, including those widely seen as potential 2028 presidential contenders, did not immediately take aim at Trump’s incoming administration.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore noted that his state, which neighbors the nation’s capital, and the federal government are “deeply intertwined” — and that the federal government is his state’s biggest employer.

“We are ready to push back on this new White House when necessary,” Moore said at a Cabinet meeting Friday. “But where we can find common ground, we will.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a co-chair of the Harris campaign, said in a statement Wednesday that she hopes Trump “leads by trying to unite people, including those who did not vote for him or do not support him.”

“As we move forward, let’s remember that we are a nation of good, kind people that have more in common with each other than not,” she said. “Finally, let’s root for the success of the new administration and keep working together to get things done.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement he will “never back down from standing up for the freedoms I was elected to protect.” But he also said that “now that this election is over, it is time to govern – to work together, to compromise, and to get stuff done.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the losing Democratic vice presidential nominee, gave his first speech after returning home Friday afternoon.

He said Trump and his running mate, Vice President-elect JD Vance, campaigned on a pledge to leave decisions to the states, and that he’s “willing to take them at their word for that.”

“But the moment they try to bring a hateful agenda in this state, I’m ready to stand up and fight for the way we do things here,” he said. “Minnesota always has and always will be there to bring shelter from the storm.”

Walz specifically pointed to abortion rights, climate change, gun restrictions in schools and labor rights as areas where he said he will “be ready to defend the progress we’ve made here in Minnesota.”

Parsing 2024 results

Other Democratic governors were trying to make sense of how Harris had lost — even as liberals won on policy measures, such as Arizona voters voiding a 15-week abortion ban, Missouri’s passage of ballot measures protecting abortion rights, raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing paid sick leave, and Kentucky’s rejection of a private school voucher program.

“I think the concept of common ground and common sense is what this country is looking for,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Friday on CNN.

Noting that he won reelection last year by 5 percentage points, and Trump just notched a 31-point win there, Beshear said Democrats would be wrong to think the party’s only problem in 2024 was its messaging — which, he said, is tantamount to “suggesting we’re doing all the right things, but we’re not talking about it the right way.”

“What I think is maybe more important is focus,” he said, adding that Democrats need to make sure the party is focused on issues that directly affect voters’ daily lives.

Harris closed her presidential campaign focused largely on defending democracy and freedom, and casting Trump — who fought to overturn the results of his 2020 loss — as a threat to the nation’s founding principles.

“What it suggests is that people are looking for a better life,” Beshear said, “and these elections have to be focused on convincing voters that that’s what we’re focused on, too — that we’re going to spend 90% of our time on the issues that matter most to you, that are probably the least political issues that are out there, but the ones that impact people every single day.”

Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general and governor-elect, said on MSNBC Thursday that he was proud to see Democrats win a series of statewide races, even as Trump won the state’s electoral college votes.

He said Democrats have to “reassure folks that you actually care for them, and that you’re going to work on issues that matter to them.”

“Good ideas don’t have a home in one party,” he said. “People have a lot of the same interests, no matter who they are.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.