Transcript of Former Attorney General Holder Discusses Tuesday’s Election

We are less than a day away from Tuesday's major elections. And in California, Governor Newsom just gave a powerful speech about Prop 50, all the right wing, through all the resources originally to try to crush Prop 50 away that Governor Newsom asserted his moral and formal authority against Trump's efforts to rig the midterms. And now Prop 50 has the momentum. People still absolutely need to show up. But this is an important moment showing how to fight back. Let me show you earlier today. Here we have Governor Newsom talking about what's going on in the Trump MAGA world, how these people are not screwing around. They're surgical in how they want to take apart our democracy. Here, play this clip.

Very at full stop. That's why He made the call to Greg Abbott saying he's entitled to five seats. That's why he sent JD Vance to Indiana. That's why he moved them to make the decision they did in Missouri. That's why they moved in North Carolina. These guys are not screwing around. But I'll end on this. They did not expect California. They did not expect all of you. They thought we were going to write an op-ed, have a candlelight visual, maybe do a rally. They poked the bear, and the bear is poking back, and we're going to get out there and win and send a powerful message, not only to the people of the state of California, but the people all over the United States of America by going out in record numbers. Yes, on 50. Thank you, guys.

Powerful words there by Governor Newsom. Earlier in the speech, he talked about how Donald Trump is just weakness masquerading as strength. Let's play.

It's great to be back here. I'll just conclude on this. Jen said it. Other speakers said it. Donald Trump is nothing more than weakness masquerading as strength. Why else do you need to make a phone call to Greg Abbott in the middle of the midterm redistricting? Unless you're weak. You saw today, Donald Trump, one-upped himself. Historic President. Historically unpopular President. The most unpopular since his first term. He's underwater in every key category. He knows he's going to lose the midterm elections. Period. Full stop. That's why he made the call to Greg Abbott saying he's entitled to five seats. That's why he sent JD Vance to Indiana. That's why he moved them to make the decision they did in Missouri. That's why they moved in North Carolina. These guys are not screwing around.

I want to bring in former United States attorney general Eric Holder, who held that position from 2009 to 2015, the in the United States history. Great to see you, Mr. Holder. I want to ask you about what you just saw right there and Prop 50 in general. It's right here, Tuesday's election day. I know you've been a big supporter of Prop 50. How big are the stakes here?

The stakes are just enormous. I think I really applaud Governor Newsom and all the people in California who had the guts and the foresight to put this before the people of California in response to that which Republicans have tried to do, have done, I guess, in Texas and in other states as well. This is all about power. This is about the acquisition and the maintenance of power, even illegitimately gained power. I think the point that the governor made is really an important one. This is also a sign of weakness. If Republicans had a record that they could run on, if they were not afraid of losing the House of Representatives because of the bad things that they've done, the bad, beautiful bill that they put together, the way in which they're conducting these immigration raids, these attacks on universities, attacks on the media, if they were not afraid of their record, they wouldn't do the kinds of things that they're doing now, which is to try to rig the 2026 midterms.

This has been part of a broader plan, I think we have seen from MAGA. Then before that, the right wing in general to attack the Voting Rights Act, erode things like pre-clearance and things that used to uphold the family awareness of districts, the Citizens United decision, and all of that. So where do you think this all fits into what the plan is? Because one of the things that Governor Newsom has said is that if you take this to the logical conclusion of what Trump wants to do, he basically wants our system to look like what you have in Russia or you have in authoritarian states where it's election in name only, but he claims, I won 93%. I mean, look at it, everybody. What do you make of the broader context of what's taking place?

Yeah, this is all about power. That's the through line, whether it's doing gerrymandering mid-cycle, whether it's trying to have a compliant Congress, whether it's a Supine Supreme Court. It's all about power. That's the thing that explains everything that they are doing. It's what authoritarians do. They try to accumulate as much power as they can. They have elections in Russia. Putin, as you said, gets 95, 93% of the vote. We'll continue to have elections here in the United States. The question is whether or not the elections that we have here will be meaningful ones, whether the people will actually get the opportunity to express their views on the policy direction of the nation And so, again, it's all about power, whether it's gerrymandering, weakening, the Voting Rights Act to take power away from people who the people in power now think are not supportive of them. It's all about the acquisition and use of power. And that's one thing that we, on the progressive side, on the democratic side, have got to get used to. It's not a bad thing for us to say that we want to acquire and use power. It doesn't mean we're going to use it in the same way that Republicans and Conservatives had in the negative way that they have done it.

But Roosevelt wasn't afraid of acquiring and using power. Johnson wasn't afraid of acquiring and using power. That's what we have to be about. And so fighting back, the way in which Governor Newsom has, and the folks in California But putting together Prop 50 is exactly what we have to do. We've got to fight for this.

What do you make of Trump's statements that he would be sending monitors into California who were just Trump sycophants and that this is how they're using the Department of Justice Civil Rights division, which once had this real important task, and now it seems to be a perversion of what it was supposed to be used for to be there to intimidate people at the ballot box more than actually help people's civil rights.

No, that's exactly right. I mean, the Justice Department has the power to send out these monitors, and traditionally, under Republican as well as Democratic Attorneys General, you'd send out monitors to places where you were concerned about compliance with the Voting Rights Act, had some basis to believe there might have been some issues around voting procedures. They're not sending monitors to California, in this particular monitor, to California for any of those concerns. They're to send that person out there to somehow potentially intimidate people, to somehow call into question what I think is going to be a victory by the proponents of Proposition 50. They're just trying to lay a predicate for the ways in which they'll try to challenge the validity of the vote coming out of California.

I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, I'll hear about these ways. If you talk about from trying to acquire power at all costs. I mean, as the former attorney general, I have to imagine what goes through your mind when you see Donald Trump going on social media and sending messages, which may have been intended to be direct messages to his attorney general, Pam Bondi, and says, Pam, here's what I need you to do for me. Go after this person, that person, and this person. Immediately, you're making me look weak by not going after them. And then shortly thereafter, there are prosecutions after, by the way, Republican United States attorneys in Virginia, leave the office. Then you have somebody who's a former insurance lawyer, Lindsay Allegan, who's never been a prosecutor before, going into a grand jury room all alone. Who the heck knows what she even told that grand jury? I know a federal judge wants to know. But what's your perspective when you hear about and you see that going on compared to what's supposed to take place?

Well, there's a whole litany of things that we ought to be concerned about with regard to what this administration is doing. But I got to say, chief among them should be the way in which they politicize the Justice Department. The Justice Department has enormous amounts of power. Justice Department has the ability to put people in jail, to separate people from their property. And if you politicize the Justice Department, if you weaponize the Justice Department to go after the perceived enemies of the President, and these are people who just simply have policy differences with the President, that is a frightening thing. That goes to the core against the of law. It's the thing that I think has distinguished the United States from other nations around the world. It's a direct attack on the rule of law, and it's something that has to be opposed in every conceivable way. I don't think that Jim Comey stands any chance any chance, of being convicted. I'd be surprised if the case is not decided even before it gets to court. Certainly a jury, I don't think, will ever convict him. I think the same thing is true of LaTisha James.

But to have a former insurance lawyer who has never been a criminal prosecutor be the one who presents a case to a grand jury simply at the call at the whim of the President of the United States is extremely, extremely dangerous.

We obviously focus a lot on the high-profile prosecutions. But what I think goes underreported is how Trump's power grab and his behavior and corruption just affects prosecutions in general general throughout the country, prosecutions of drug dealers, human trafficking, the types of stuff that the DOJ and offices across the country do every day, where you have just a lot of great prosecutors being pushed out of the office and leaving and not knowing how to act and having their behavior and their normal prosecutorial efforts chilled. And then Trump's attack on the FBI and their investigations with top FBI agents getting fired and pushed out another 27 A 17-year veteran just got pushed out for no reason because Cash Patel got caught using a private jet to pick up his girlfriend. So he just fired a random 27-year veteran. Talk to us about that because I think that doesn't get enough attention. The impact this is having on the offices across this country?

Now, that's an extremely important point. As they have fired people in various components at the FBI and at the Justice Department, you weaken the ability of the Justice Department and the FBI to do the very important things that matter to the American people: counterintelligence, national security, the fight against public corruption, to make sure that bribery statutes are, in fact, validated and enforced. You take away from those components, from DOJ and from the FBI, these experienced people, and you leave in place those people who are potentially less experienced and potentially politically motivated. That puts the nation at risk. It puts our economy at risk. It puts our security at risk. It puts us at risk with regard to how we are perceived by and treated by other nations. All of these dismissals might have political motivation behind them, but they have unbelievably important national impacts.

Now, you mentioned earlier in the interview, the Supine Supreme Court, and what we've seen them do under the auspices of making procedural decisions is using this so-called shadow docket to stay district court decisions, where the district court is usually making injunctions to stop Trump's unlawful behavior. The Supreme Court will sweep in and they'll say, We're just going to stay with the district Court did, pending full adjudication, which for all purposes, moots the issue before it ever gets to the Supreme Court, because a lot of this stuff is life or death stuff that these federal district Courts. By the way, federal district Court judges appointed by Trump and George W. Bush and Reagan and George H. W. Bush and Obama and Biden. But across the board, it seems the federal district Court judges, and to a larger extent to or to some extent to the Court of Appeals, the circuit court judges are doing the right thing, usually. But then you're seeing the Supreme Court issue these shadow docket rulings, and people are like, What is this? We never even seen the shadow docket, and these seems to be substantive ruling masquerading as shadow docket rules.

What do you make of that?

No, the point that you make there is an extremely important one. The courts have generally held. If you look at what's happening at the district court level, at the Court of Appeals level, it doesn't matter who the President was who appointed the judge. The judges have ruled, I think, courageously and correctly. It's only when you get to the Supreme Court that you see these problems start to arise, and it's the use of this overuse of the shadow docket. By taking these cases and deciding them, essentially deciding them without hearing any oral argument, without any adequate briefing, deciding these really important matters in that way, challenges the legitimacy of the court and does an untold amount of damage to the fabric, the legal fabric of this nation. I think the reality is, it pains me to say this, I think the Supreme Court is a broken institution, and it's something that has to be, I think, a part of the national conversation in '26 and in '28. What are we going to do about the Supreme Court? I think that we have to think about, again, talking about the acquisition and the use of power. If there is a democratic trifecta in 2028, and I think the possibility of that is pretty good, Supreme Court reform is something that has to be considered.

Term limits, I think at a minimum, potentially expanding the court is something I think that also should be considered. We cannot leave in place. Without a discussion, at least, and I think without substantive reforms being put in place, this Supreme Court as it is presently constituted.

Because one of the things I think we've seen here is the Constitution, like a contract had embedded within it, like an implied good faith dealing clause, which is the contract is not an expansive document. When I teach collective bargaining agreements at USA law school, I go, Could you imagine this collective bargaining agreement just so much thousands of pages more than the United States Constitution? Because it was always built on just good faith principles that people would follow this document. Just across the board, I think we're seeing that the good faith way of dealing with this contract with the people has been broken, which I think is why Prop 50 and other efforts like this are needed across the country right now, because people who support our Constitution, we can't just sit back and take it while the Constitution itself is being ripped apart. So I just want to get your final message to all the people watching on Prop 50 and this moment that we're in right now.

Well, Prop 50, I think, is an example of where this nation needs to be in this really challenging moment. Here's the deal. There's no cavalry coming. There are no miracles that are going to happen. This is all about what the American people are going to do. Our institutions have failed us. The executive branch is in the process of failing us and has failed us. Congress has failed us. I think the Supreme Court has failed us. But the power that the American people have is substantially greater than I think we know. And Prop 50 is an example of that. People in California will have the opportunity to say, We're going to increase the potential for a five seats for Democrats in California in response to what's happened in Texas. That's an example of people power, the protests that we have seen around the country. Another example of people power. And those things are consequential. And so I would urge everybody to find a way to be involved in this fight. Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But here's the deal. It doesn't bend on its own.

It only bends when people like us put our hands on that art and pull it towards justice. And each and every one of us, as a good American citizen, has to ask ourselves, what is it that I'm going to do to pull that art towards justice and to save our democracy? We can do this.

Former attorney general Eric Holder, it's great to see you. There's so many more issues I want to discuss with you, but we'll leave it at that on a Prop 50 note. But we hope you'll come back. I want to discuss with you lots of other topics, the ICE raids, civil rights. But we'll save that for our next interview. I appreciate you.

All right. Thanks for having me.

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