SCOTUS Foils Trump’s Midterm Steal…For Now

[upbeat music] Janai, welcome to Runaway Country.

It is truly a pleasure to have you on this podcast, with a little bit of good [laughs] news for a change from the Supreme Court.

Um, I know the NAACP filed to blo- uh, filed an injunction to block Trump's diabolical executive order on mail-in ballots.

Um, on Monday, there was a lower court judge, Carl J. Nichols, who also ruled to, to halt the plan.

That was the day before SCOTUS weighed in.

Talk to me about the rollercoaster that this has been, and, like, how you're feeling about the landscape.

Yes.

Well, one, it's such a pleasure to be on with you.

I'm very excited.

Uh, we have the privilege at the Legal Defense Fund of representing the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, uh, the Delta Sigma Theta.

Uh, we have a slew of clients that we represented in this challenge to mail-in ballots.

And as you said, many people thought that the Supreme Court would not do the right thing.

We had every confidence that this executive order was so radical and out of bounds that this court would be, uh, really just abdicating its duty entirely if it did not shut it down.

And we also had the confidence that so many other federal courts, lower courts, had agreed with us, right? They granted our motion for a preliminary injunction, which means that it stopped the executive order in its tracks and made clear that we were likely to win on this case, and, and that's the posture that went up to the Supreme Court.

So the Supreme Court, you know, had a really strong record before it to allow it to say, "Yeah, this is crazy, and this is not something that should be happening, frankly, ever, but certainly not before these midterm elections."

Are you worried that they only shut down part of Trump's executive order on, uh, trying to interfere with the 2026 [laughs] uh, voting process? I mean, there's other, another part of it that still stands, which basically allows, a- a- I guess at present, the potential criminal prosecution of elections officials who allow non-citizens to vote.

Just again, there is no evidence, there is no widespread evidence of non-citizens voting, right? But this is the pretense under which the Trump administration has tried to curb people from using their constitutionally ensured right to vote.

Um, do you worry that that could move forward?

You know, we are concerned.

Obviously, when this administration has the ability to wield any power that impacts elections, we know that they will wield it against the people, right? That they're not doing it to protect the integrity of the elections.

They're not doing it to make sure we have a more inclusive democracy.

They're doing it to cement their power and to hoard it and to, you know, create further division in this country.

So any time they have any power with respect to elections, we are deeply concerned.

But we're gonna continue to challenge that.

We're gonna keep our eyes open and make sure that the government isn't being weaponized against people who are working our elections and, and especially against the will of the voters.

[upbeat music] Janai, welcome to Runaway Country.

It is truly a pleasure to have you on this podcast, with a little bit of good [laughs] news for a change from the Supreme Court.

Um, I know the NAACP filed to blo- uh, filed an injunction to block Trump's diabolical executive order on mail-in ballots.

Um, on Monday, there was a lower court judge, Carl J. Nichols, who also ruled to, to halt the plan.

That was the day before SCOTUS weighed in.

Talk to me about the rollercoaster that this has been, and, like, how you're feeling about the landscape.

Yes.

Well, one, it's such a pleasure to be on with you.

I'm very excited.

Uh, we have the privilege at the Legal Defense Fund of representing the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, uh, the Delta Sigma Theta.

Uh, we have a slew of clients that we represented in this challenge to mail-in ballots.

And as you said, many people thought that the Supreme Court would not do the right thing.

We had every confidence that this executive order was so radical and out of bounds that this court would be, uh, really just abdicating its duty entirely if it did not shut it down.

And we also had the confidence that so many other federal courts, lower courts, had agreed with us, right? They granted our motion for a preliminary injunction, which means that it stopped the executive order in its tracks and made clear that we were likely to win on this case, and, and that's the posture that went up to the Supreme Court.

So the Supreme Court, you know, had a really strong record before it to allow it to say, "Yeah, this is crazy, and this is not something that should be happening, frankly, ever, but certainly not before these midterm elections."

Are you worried that they only shut down part of Trump's executive order on, uh, trying to interfere with the 2026 [laughs] uh, voting process? I mean, there's other, another part of it that still stands, which basically allows, a- a- I guess at present, the potential criminal prosecution of elections officials who allow non-citizens to vote.

Just again, there is no evidence, there is no widespread evidence of non-citizens voting, right? But this is the pretense under which the Trump administration has tried to curb people from using their constitutionally ensured right to vote.

Um, do you worry that that could move forward?

You know, we are concerned.

Obviously, when this administration has the ability to wield any power that impacts elections, we know that they will wield it against the people, right? That they're not doing it to protect the integrity of the elections.

They're not doing it to make sure we have a more inclusive democracy.

They're doing it to cement their power and to hoard it and to, you know, create further division in this country.

So any time they have any power with respect to elections, we are deeply concerned.

But we're gonna continue to challenge that.

We're gonna keep our eyes open and make sure that the government isn't being weaponized against people who are working our elections and, and especially against the will of the voters.