How blue states are plotting to thwart Trump

And attorneys general across blue states are prepared to take Trump to court — just as their predecessors did hundreds of times during his first administration. “We’ve been talking for months with attorneys general throughout the nation, preparing, planning, strategizing for the possibility of this day,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference in San Francisco on Thursday. “He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again.’” And so Democratic governors and attorneys general who have spent months strategizing on how to protect their states’ progressive policies from a possible second Trump term are kicking those efforts into higher gear. He also delivered a warning: “You come for my people, you come through me.” In California, where Democratic leaders became some of the de facto heads of the Trump resistance after his 2016 election, officials spent months working to shore up the state’s climate policies and disaster preparedness in anticipation of an antagonistic federal government even before Newsom called the special legislative session. “And we won’t sit idle.” In New York, Hochul and James created the Empire State Freedom Initiative, a program that is meant to address “policy and regulatory threats” from the incoming Trump administration, including against reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as gun safety and environmental justice.