Donald Trump's efforts to interfere with the election are failing. They're failing big time and he's not happy about it. It's why you saw a lawsuit today filed regarding Alaska in an effort to try to prevent the certification of an Alaska Senate race. But based on what I'm about to tell you, it's not going to work. Since the start of Donald Trump's second term, he has attempted to interfere with the election dozens of times. And every single time, including this week, including today, it has failed. It has failed and it's only getting worse for him in real time. Make sure to hit that subscribe button if you can. We're on the road to a million subscribers. Like, comment, share. I also speak with Jonathan Diaz, who is a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. They're literally putting the plan together to fight back against attempted election interference, and he essentially explains that what Trump tried to do today, it's not going to work.
So Trump's campaign to take over the elections is failing in the courts and with voters. Trump's attempts to seize control of how Americans vote are collapsing in court. 34 federal rulings have blocked his efforts. Judges across the political spectrum have ruled against him, including 22 appointed by Democrats, 12 appointed by Republicans, eight of them appointed by the president himself. His March 2025 executive order requiring documents like a passport to register to vote has effectively been blocked. One judge writing that when it comes to running elections, the president does not feature at all. His second order directing the postal service to refuse to deliver mail ballots to voters left off a new federal list was also struck down, with a judge warning it could have disenfranchised millions of citizens. The Supreme Court let that ruling stand, guaranteeing voters can cast ballots in the midterm without interference. Ruling after ruling has delivered the same message: the Constitution gives the president no power over who votes or how.
The Justice Department has lost every single one of its 26 decided lawsuits demanding states hand over Americans' private voter data. Since May 2025, the department has tried to force nearly every state to turn over complete voter rolls, including driver's licenses and partial Social Security numbers. And election officials from both parties have refused. Judges have called the demands baseless, and an Oregon court described as chilling the department's plans to build a nationwide voter database for uses including immigration enforcement. Even a Trump-appointed judge in Maine rejected the attempt to twist a Jim Crow-era civil rights law to justify the grab, saying it would take a sledgehammer to the balance Congress created. The administration's only notable win came in the Supreme Court for a very, very, very narrow issue that's not going to impact the midterm.
So taken together, his legal push to control elections has been rejected at nearly every turn. And his efforts to convince Americans that the midterms will be rigged are failing, too. An overwhelming majority, 56%, believe he's trying to control election rules to ensure Republicans win. Whether or not the elections are fair, only 37% think he wants fair elections regardless of the outcome. Nine in 10 voters, including 88% of Republicans, say officials have a duty to certify results even when the other party wins. Election denial is also backfiring politically, with 58% saying they'd be less likely to support an official who tries to block or delay certification. It's happening in real time. His efforts are failing, and his effort in Alaska is going to fail today. I spoke with Jonathan Diaz. You want to hear this conversation. He really outlines exactly why. So make sure to subscribe. Here's our conversation.
Excited today to be joined by Jonathan Diaz, who is the director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center. Now I want to jump right in because we are, what, 10 days away from election day. People are freaking out. How are you feeling right now?
Uh, tired mostly. Um, you know, for us, for my team, the voting rights program at CLC, um, you know, this election started months ago, um, and you know, has only accelerated as we've gotten closer and closer to November 3rd, um, as early voting has kicked up. Um, but really, I mean, we have been engaged in a wide-ranging legal defense effort to protect the elections and our democratic system, um, for the better part of, you know, the last two years, especially as the administration has ramped up their efforts to, uh, increase the federal government's role in our elections and potentially interfere with the results.
I want to talk about all that, but I do want to ask you your thoughts on — I don't know if you saw this morning — the Trump administration did something I have never seen, uh, before: preemptively suing, uh, in Alaska to block the certification of the Alaska Senate race before we even have results. Have you ever seen something like that before?
No, because I don't think that there has ever been a Department of Justice, um, so untethered from both law and facts as to file something that frivolous. Um, it is — I, I can't even put into words how absurd that complaint is. Um, you know, before votes have been cast in Alaska to already be arguing not to certify the results. Um, you know, there's, there's no law in that lawsuit. Um, it is so frivolous that, like, you know, it's potentially sanctionable for the attorneys who put their names on it.
Well, to me, I, I looked at it and I was like, as a lawyer, this isn't right. There's no way this is right. There was no actionable dispute. Am I going crazy when I see that?
Well, there — it's not only is it not ripe, there are no claims. Um, the only kind of statute that they've cited to is the preamble to the National Voter Registration Act, which does not create a cause of action. Um, they haven't asked for an injunction. There's no prayer for relief in there. Um, it's, it's not a lawsuit. It's a press release.
It's a press release in a court. I do got to ask you, what steps have you taken? Because I think a lot of folks watching this are genuinely concerned that this Alaska suit is just the beginning of a lot of shenanigans in the court system. So, what steps has the Campaign Legal Center taken to ensure that he can't interfere with the elections?
Well, we've been working pretty tirelessly over the last few years, um, to make sure that that's not possible. Um, you know, the president did not wait until voting began to try and begin interfering in our election system. Um, you know, he issued two executive orders trying to change the rules around voter registration and mail-in voting. Um, we sued to block both of those orders, um, successfully. Um, because the president is not in charge of our elections. Uh, the federal executive branch does not run elections in this country. States and local governments do. Um, Congress can make election rules, but the president can't. Um, so we sued to block both of those executive orders, including the big one about USPS and mail rules. Um, those were both successful.
Um, as the Department of Justice has tried to collect every state's unredacted private voter file, um, in violation of the law, we have stepped in to help defend those states and ensure that they, um, you know, that the Department of Justice does not unlawfully gain access to private voter data, um, and that DHS can't use it to build a national citizenship database that they don't have the legal authority to build. Um, so we've spent the last several months in court fighting back against the Trump administration's executive overreach in the elections context and also preparing for what could come next.
Um, so with our legal partners, with our clients, um, with organizations all across the country, um, we have been hard at work preparing for potential litigation around or on election day around things like federal deployments of, you know, agents, uh, from ICE or the FBI or the National Guard to the polls, um, attempts by DOJ to seize ballots or voting machines, uh, threats like the ones they've made to California and Alaska, um, to attempt to block the certification of results. Um, all of that is so illegal, it's hard to put into words. Um, but it takes a lot of work to go into court and refute all of these kind of false claims that the administration is making. Um, so that's what we've been doing, preparing, uh, to run in as soon as possible to respond to any effort by the administration or anyone else to disrupt the conduct of the election.
