Democratic attorneys general gear up for return of Trump court battles

When the frequent court foes of Donald Trump’s first administration look back at the early days of his presidency, they recall “building the airplane as we were flying it,” as outgoing Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has described it. That was especially true of the intense and quick-moving court fight over the so-called travel ban, a seminal 2017 lawsuit that set the tone for four more years of legal confrontations.

When the frequent court foes of Donald Trump’s first administration look back at the early days of his presidency, they recall “building the airplane as we were flying it,” as outgoing Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has described it. That was especially true of the intense and quick-moving court fight over the so-called travel ban, a seminal 2017 lawsuit that set the tone for four more years of legal confrontations. None of the Democratic state attorneys general who originally took Trump to court over that controversial policy will still be in office when he is inaugurated next month. But their successors won’t be starting from scratch this time around, even amid a different legal landscape and political climate from Trump’s first term in office. They have been preparing for months, if not years, for what kind of lawsuits they might want to bring against a Trump 2.0 agenda. They’ve done so as the president-elect and his deputies have promised a more sophisticated and less error-prone operation this time. Democratic officials and their staff have pored over Trump’s campaign promises as well as the proposals outlined in Project 2025, the policy handbook assembled by a conservative think tank that was written by several veterans of the Trump’s first administration, some of them now nominees for his second. They’re adjusting the legal strategies that were used against Trump during the first go-around to take into account shifts in court precedent since then, while also acknowledging a political reality that gave Trump a more decisive electoral win than in 2016. “There was a much clearer voice of the people. And one of the jobs I have is to understand what’s behind that,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told CNN. “Insofar as the administration pursues policies that are lawful, that’s their right to pursue lawful policies.”