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      Who is Democratic congressman Dean Phillips – and why is he taking on Biden?

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      For people who know the Democratic Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, his run for presidency is perplexing. For some of them, it’s also disappointing, maybe even enraging. But they also think he’s genuine in his quest to go up against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, despite how it might affect his own political career and how it could damage Biden in one of the most consequential elections in recent US history.Phillips announced his run for the presidency in New Hampshire last week, saying it was time for the next generation to lead in a pointed reference to concerns about Biden’s age. He says he is a fan of Biden’s and a supporter of his policies, but he is 54, while Biden is 80. Phillips, the heir to a distilling empire who also co-owned a gelato company, is injecting his own wealth into his presidential campaign – solving any problem of raising funds.In Minnesota, where Phillips represents a purple district filled with wealthier suburbs of Minneapolis, Phillips first ran for Congress in the state’s third congressional district and flipped a longtime Republican seat blue. In his next two elections, he won more and more voters to his side, preaching pragmatic politics and driving a “government repair truck”.Ann Gavin helped him. She knocked on doors, delivered campaign signs. The 70-year-old Democratic voter from Plymouth, Minnesota, admires the congressman and the work he’s done for the district. She thinks he would be a great president someday, too, with his business savvy and political skills.“I’ve got friends who are upset. I’m more confused than upset,” she said. “I just think the timing is wrong. And he probably knows that too. So I’m not sure if he’s going to accomplish much.”Steve Schmidt, the anti-Trump Republican strategist, serves as a campaign adviser to Phillips. Schmidt said all the polling he’s seen shows Biden losing to Trump in 2024. Biden’s vulnerability is a private concern for Democrats, yet none of them will publicly admit it, he claims. The idea that voters having a choice in the primary will ultimately threaten democracy by throwing the election to Trump “demonstrates how far off the rails we’ve gotten”, he said.Phillips was not made available for an interview himself.In his run for the White House, the little-known Phillips now has to introduce himself to key early voting states then possibly the whole country. Schmidt sees that as an asset: he doesn’t have decades of “political stink on him” to overcome, and he can build up a lot of name recognition quickly because “you can get famous very fast in American politics”, he says.Phillips plans to run in New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, then reassess from there. If he drops out, he will concede with dignity and throw all his weight behind defeating Donald Trump, Schmidt said.In Minnesota, at least, voters in his district and active Democrats know him. To some of them, his decision to run felt more personal – and also potentially disastrous.Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, recruited Phillips to run for Congress after trying for many years. Martin and others worked hard to get Phillips elected and flip the seat in the third district. He saw Phillips as a “rising star” in the party who was charting his path in Washington.Now he thinks that’s all gone.“He just pissed it all away on this vanity project that’s not really going to end up with him being the nominee of the party,” Martin said. “Here he is, 54 years old, and he basically blew his whole political career on something that was never going to be, just to make a point, and I’m not even sure what the point is.”Whenever Phillips would appear in the media over the past year talking about how someone else should run against Biden, Martin said he would reach out to express his disappointment and share how it wouldn’t be a good move politically or personally.He is not alone. Among some of Phillips’s previous donors and supporters, there is a sense of betrayal and abandonment. For Martin, it’s not clear who, if anyone, is encouraging Phillips to run, despite it also seeming like he’s earnestly made the decision.“One thing you can say about Dean Phillips: he is a very genuine and sincere guy. He’s thoughtful,” Martin said. “This is not just some sort of kneejerk deal. I don’t think he came to this conclusion lightly, and as much as I disagree with that conclusion, I think it would be hard-pressed for anyone who actually knows Dean to suggest that he’s not sincere or genuine in his belief on why he’s doing this.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe legislators who represent the areas Phillips’s district covers released a statement this week detailing their support for Biden, who visited Minnesota this week. Phillips won’t get organizational or financial support from the Democratic National Committee or state parties, making campaigning more difficult in an already-difficult run against a sitting president.Not having the support of the party infrastructure isn’t the same as not having support from Democratic voters, Schmidt said. “The most out-of-touch people in the country work at the DNC.”.There are two schools of thought among Democrats on how this could play out: Phillips could undermine Biden by hitting on his weak points during a primary, leaving the president all the more vulnerable in the general election. Or Phillips’s campaign could energize Biden and his supporters, buoying them up as they fend off a challenger.The Phillips v Biden matchup is likely to focus mostly on Biden’s age, given the two don’t differ much on policy. While primary candidates often launch long-shot campaigns as a way to move the leading candidate closer to their positions, in this instance, Phillips’s presence in the race can’t make Biden younger. And a focus during the primary on Biden’s age can play into Republicans’ hands, as it’s already something they use to attack the president.Schmidt said the question of whether Phillips’s run brings attention to Biden’s age is “premised on the absurdity that something Congressman Phillips is doing is bringing attention to something that is clearly evident”.“The congressman isn’t taking the paper off of the package, so to speak, on that question, and he’s not going to talk about the president’s age,” he said. “Why would anyone talk about the president’s age? The president’s age is what the president’s age is.”Back at home, Democrats aren’t just grappling with seeing a friend or someone they respected make a decision they don’t agree with. They’re also worried about what could happen in the third district.Phillips’s district isn’t deep blue – it’ll require more money and effort from Democrats to keep it in their hands without Phillips. Phillips hasn’t said whether he’ll continue to run for re-election in his district, though he will face a primary if he does. In Minnesota, the state party has an endorsement process that assesses all candidates instead of immediately throwing its weight behind incumbents.Phillips’s presidential campaign might not last until Minnesota’s primary, on 5 March. If he’s still in it, Gavin, who knocked doors for Phillips, probably wouldn’t vote for him. She’d consider it, if he got a lot of traction in prior states and was pulling ahead, but she doesn’t want Trump to return to office.“Would I vote for him?” Gavin said. “Boy, certainly not if I thought it was going to hurt Biden’s chances, so I guess maybe I wouldn’t. That says it all, right?” More

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      US courts hear efforts to remove Trump from 2024 ballot – will they work?

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      When Scott Gessler stepped up to the lectern in a Denver courtroom on Monday, he opened with a full-throated defense of American democracy.“When it comes to decide who should lead our nation, it’s the people of the United States of America who should make those decisions,” he said. “This court should not interfere with that fundamental value – that rule of democracy.”It wasn’t so much the argument that was significant as much as who Gessler was representing: Donald Trump. The same Donald Trump who fought doggedly to have courts, state legislators, his vice-president and members of Congress throw out valid electoral slates from several states and declare him the winner of the 2020 presidential election.Gessler is defending the former president in a novel case in Colorado seeking to block him from appearing on the state’s ballot – a case that centers around whether Trump is disqualified from running for president under section 3 of the 14th amendment. The Reconstruction-era provision disqualifies anyone from holding office if they have taken an oath to the United States and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” unless Congress votes to remove that disqualification by two-thirds vote.It is not the only one of its kind: the Minnesota supreme court heard a similar case this week and there is also a similar case already pending in Michigan, a key battleground state. States are tasked with ensuring that candidates for office meet the qualifications so the challenges to Trump’s candidacy are bubbling up through state court.The 14th amendment cases are part of a mosaic of legal efforts that seek to hold Trump and his allies accountable for overturning the 2020 election, but they are among the most important. While the cases are dry – steeped in legalese and historical understanding of constitutional text – they get at Trump in a way that none of the other suits can: blocking his return to political life.While the other cases could require Trump and his allies to face jail time, lose their law licenses, and pay damages for defamatory lies, none of them would block Trump from returning to the White House in 2024 (a criminal conviction does not disqualify someone from running or serving as president). If he wins the election, he could theoretically pardon himself in the federal cases against him or dismiss the prosecutions. And while no pardon would be available in the Georgia criminal case, it’s untested whether the constitution would allow a state to incarcerate a serving, elected president.Simply put, winning the election is widely seen as Trump’s best chance at escaping the criminal charges against him. Losing the 14th amendment cases would cut off that possibility.“Let me be clear. The purpose of our actions is to obtain rulings that Trump is disqualified from the ballot, not merely to have a political debate. Not at all to have a political debate. Not merely to air issues,” said Ron Fein, the legal director for Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group that filed the challenge in Minnesota.“The dangers of Trump ever being allowed back into public office are exactly those foreseen by the framers of section 3. Which is that they knew that if an oath-taking insurrectionist were allowed back into power they would do the same if not worse.”The 14th amendment measure was passed after the civil war and has never been used to block a presidential candidate from the ballot. It picked up steam this summer after a pair of conservative scholars authored a law review article saying that it applied to Trump.Trump’s lawyers have defended him by arguing that his conduct on January 6 did not amount to an insurrection, that Congress needs to pass a law to enforce the 14th amendment, and that its language does not apply to the president.But expert witnesses for the challengers in the Colorado case offered a wealth of historical and other evidence this week suggesting that what Trump did on January 6 was an insurrection as the framers of the 14th amendment would have understood it.Legal observers almost universally agree that the US supreme court, where Trump appointed three of the six members of the court’s conservative super-majority, will ultimately decide the issue and whether Trump is eligible to run for re-election. There is not a clear legal consensus and since the law is so untested, it’s not clear what the court will do.Outside of the courtroom, the biggest challenge may be getting a wide swath of Americans to accept the idea that someone they support may not be eligible to run for president. In a democracy, there is something viscerally distasteful about not being able to vote for the person we support, Ned Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University, noted earlier this year.It’s a question the supreme court justices in Minnesota seemed to be wrestling with as well, acknowledging the case was coming up on a line between politics and the law.“Let’s say we agree with you that section 3 is self-executing, and that we do have the authority under the relevant statute to keep Mr Trump’s name off the ballot. Should we – is the question that concerns me the most,” Natalie Hudson, the chief justice of Minnesota’s supreme court said on Thursday during oral argument.But the challengers in the cases, which are supported by left-leaning groups, argue that disqualifying Trump based on the 14th amendment is no different than disqualifying someone because they are under the age of 35, a naturalized citizen, or because they have served two terms as president.“In many ways, section 3 sets forth a qualification for president that is far more important than the other constitutional criteria,” Fein said. “Most Americans are not too worried about whatever dangers might have once been posed by somebody who was not a natural born US citizen.“But someone who broke an oath to the constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the constitution poses a real danger if they’re ever allowed back into power.”Rachel Leingang contributed reporting from Minneapolis More

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      Biden calls for ‘pause’ in Israel-Hamas war during Minnesota event

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      Joe Biden called for a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday, in response to a call from the crowd during remarks in Minneapolis.A rabbi, who later identified herself as Jessica Rosenberg, called out: “Mr President, if you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire.”Biden said: “I think we need a pause. A pause means giv[ing] time to get the prisoners out.”Israel says more than 1,400 people were killed, and more than 5,400 injured, after Hamas launched surprise attacks on 7 October. More than 240 hostages were taken.Israeli strikes in response, predominantly in Gaza but also in the West Bank, have killed more than 9,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas. The same source says nearly 24,000 Palestinians have been injured.Israel says 16 of its soldiers have been killed.Biden has been under pressure to call for a ceasefire or a meaningful humanitarian pause in Israel’s campaign.On Wednesday, Rosenberg was escorted out of the event in Minnesota, singing “ceasefire now”.White House sources told media outlets that Biden was referring to pauses in which aid could be sent into Gaza and hostages taken out.Biden said: “I’m the guy that convinced Bibi [the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu] to call for a ceasefire to let the prisoners out. I’m the guy that talked to Sisi [the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi] to convince him to open the door,” to let humanitarian aid enter Gaza and allow some people to leave, American citizens among them.White House sources told news outlets Biden was referring to the case of Judith and Natalie Raanan, from Illinois, a mother and daughter released by Hamas last month during a pause in hostilities that lasted “a few hours” to facilitate the transfer.“This is incredibly complicated for the Israelis,” Biden said. “It’s incredibly complicated for the Muslim world as well … I supported a two-state solution, I have from the very beginning.“The fact of the matter is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation. A flat-out terrorist organisation.”Biden’s main remarks in Minnesota concerned the US economy, as the president ratchets up his re-election campaign.The event drew protesters, carrying flags and signs saying “Stop Bombing Children” and “Ceasefire Now”. More

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      Minnesota supreme court to hear case challenging Trump’s 2024 eligibility

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      Attorneys at the Minnesota supreme court will argue on Thursday that former President Donald Trump should not be allowed to appear on the state’s ballots for president because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and role in the insurrection.A group of voters wants the courts to weigh a clause in the 14th amendment, which disqualifies an “officer of the United States” who has taken an oath to defend the constitution from holding office if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country. In dozens of pages in their initial court filing, they cite examples of Trump’s election interference, from the fake electors scheme to his comments to rioters on 6 January 2021.“Despite having sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, Trump ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,’” the voters argue.The lawsuit is one of several the former president faces in his bid to return to the White House, not to mention the various criminal and civil actions he is currently defending against. A similar petition is the subject of a trial in Colorado this week. Legal experts say the Reconstruction-era clause is ripe for the courts, though it has never been used to forestall a presidential candidate in this way.Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group, represents the voters in the case, who include the former Minnesota secretary of state Joan Growe and the former Minnesota supreme court justice Paul H Anderson.Trump’s attorneys and the Republican party have fought back against the suit, claiming the matter is a political question instead of a legal one. Trump’s campaign also claims there’s “no evidence that President Trump intended or supported any violent or unlawful activity seeking to overthrow the government of the United States, either on January 6 or at any other time.“This request is manifestly inappropriate,” Trump’s team wrote in a brief. “Both the federal Constitution and Minnesota law place the resolution of this political issue where it belongs: the democratic process, in the hands of either Congress or the people of the United States.”The Trump campaign fundraised off the 14th amendment cases this week, pointing to the Colorado trial and calling it the “next desperate attempt by Crooked Joe and the Radical Democrats to slow down our campaign”.The Minnesota secretary of state, Steve Simon, a Democrat, has supported the idea of the courts deciding the question, though has not weighed in on whether Trump should be on the ballot in the state’s March 2024 primary.Groups have sought to bar politicians from the ballot for their roles in the insurrection before, though the arguments haven’t been successful. It’s expected that one of the cases involving Trump could be taken to the conservative US supreme court.The cases challenging Trump’s eligibility popped off after an article from two law professors argued the former president would be excluded from seeking the high office again because of a clause in the 14th Amendment. One of the professors, Michael Stokes Paulsen, teaches at Minnesota’s University of St Thomas School of Law. More

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      Biden to Travel to Minnesota to Highlight Rural Investments

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      The president’s push to focus attention on the domestic economy comes as his administration has been dealing with events overseas after the terrorist attacks in Israel.The White House on Wednesday will announce more than $5 billion in funding for agriculture, broadband and clean energy needs in sparsely populated parts of the country as President Biden travels to Minnesota to kick off an administration-wide tour of rural communities.The president’s efforts to focus attention on the domestic economy ahead of next year’s campaign come after three weeks in which his administration has been seized by events overseas following the terrorist attacks in Israel and the state’s subsequent military action in Gaza.The trip will take place as Mr. Biden is urging Congress to quickly pass a $105 billion funding package that includes emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, two conflicts he has described as threats to democracy around the globe.But the president and his aides are well aware that his hopes for a second term are likely to be determined closer to home. Rural voters like the ones he will address at a corn, soybean and hog farm south of Minneapolis are increasingly voting Republican. A recent poll showed that most voters had heard little or nothing about a health care and clean energy law that is the cornerstone of Mr. Biden’s economic agenda. And the president even faces a challenge within his own party, from Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who announced his long-shot presidential bid last week.Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, declined on Tuesday to speak about campaign issues, citing the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal officials, but said that Mr. Biden “loves Minnesota.” Administration officials have said Mr. Biden’s trip was planned before Mr. Phillips announced his candidacy.The White House has called the next two weeks of events the “Investing in Rural America Event Series.” It includes more than a dozen trips by Mr. Biden as well as cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials. The White House said in a statement that the tour would highlight federal investments that “are bringing new revenue to farms, increased economic development in rural towns and communities, and more opportunity throughout the country.”Mr. Biden will be joined on Wednesday by Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary. Against the backdrop of a family farm that uses techniques to make crops more resilient to climate change, they will announce $1.7 billion for farmers nationwide to adopt so-called climate-smart agriculture practices.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will join President Biden in Minnesota and later travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOther funding announcements include $1.1 billion in loans and grants to upgrade infrastructure in rural communities; $2 billion in investments as part of a program that helps rural governments work more closely with federal agencies on economic development projects; $274 million to expand high-speed internet infrastructure; and $145 million to expand access to wind, solar and other renewable energy, according to a White House fact sheet.“Young people in rural communities shouldn’t have to leave home to find opportunity,” Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said Tuesday on a call with reporters.She said federal investments were creating “a pathway for the next generation to keep their roots in rural America.”Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, said he expected Mr. Biden to face serious headwinds in rural communities, in large part because of inflation levels.“It is a little challenging, there’s no denying, when prices go up,” Mr. Walz said. “The politics have gotten a little angrier. I think folks are feeling a little behind.”But Mr. Walz also praised Mr. Biden for spending time in rural communities. “Democrats need to show up,” he said.Kenan Fikri, the director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank, said the Biden administration had made sizable investments over the past two and a half years in agriculture, broadband and other rural priorities.“The administration has a lot to show for its economic development efforts in rural communities,” he said, but “whether voters will credit Biden for a strong economic performance is another question.”Later in the week Mr. Vilsack will travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado to speak with agricultural leaders and discuss land conservation. Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, will go to her home state of New Mexico to highlight water infrastructure investments.Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm will be in Arizona to talk about the electricity grid and renewable energy investment in the rural Southwest.The veterans affairs secretary, Denis McDonough, plans to visit Iowa to discuss improving access to medical care for veterans in rural areas. Isabel Guzman, who leads the Small Business Administration, will travel to Georgia to talk about loans for rural small businesses.Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, will go to New Hampshire to promote how community colleges help students from rural areas. Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, will be in North Carolina to talk about health care access in rural areas. More

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      Congressman Dean Phillips to launch Democratic primary bid against Biden

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      Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota who is relatively unknown on the national US stage, is set to launch a long-shot campaign to primary Joe Biden in New Hampshire on Friday.The New Hampshire secretary of state’s office confirmed Phillips is scheduled to file paperwork to get on the ballot there on Friday morning.The Phillips campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his impending announcement.Phillips, who has represented western suburbs of Minneapolis since 2019 in Congress, has pointed to the US president’s age in discussing his potential primary run, saying the next generation of leaders should step up. Biden is 80 years old; Phillips is 54.The congressman is the heir of the Phillips Distilling Company and co-owned Talenti gelato. His run in 2018 for Minnesota’s third congressional district flipped the seat from Republican control. With a slogan of “everyone’s invited”, Phillips calls himself an “eternal optimist” and “bipartisan believer”.There’s little difference between Phillips and Biden on policy: Phillips has voted with Biden’s legislative agenda nearly 100% of the time, the White House pointed out.While Phillips has not officially announced his run, he has teased it for months. In recent days, a campaign bus was spotted en route to New Hampshire, and a campaign van was seen in the state. The vehicles carried a campaign website, dean24.com, which has been parked but not publicly set up yet.Earlier this month, Phillips stepped down from leadership roles in the caucus, saying: “It’s clear my convictions about 2024 are incongruent with the position of my colleagues and that was causing discomfort.”Phillips’s plan to primary an incumbent president has largely been met with confusion and derision, both from his colleagues and his constituents. He has also drawn a primary challenger in his district.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA spokesperson for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party confirmed the state party will be supporting Biden in the primary and general elections in 2024.Separately, Biden is set to visit Minnesota next week. More

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      Minnesota’s cannabis head resigns after reports she sold illegal weed products

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      The recently appointed director of Minnesota’s new marijuana regulatory agency, Erin Dupree, has resigned amid reports that she sold illegal cannabis products in the state.Dupree ran a business that sold products exceeding state limits on THC potency, owed money to former associates and accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in tax liens, Minnesota Public Radio reported.Loonacy Cannabis Co – the business Dupree founded in Apple Valley, Minnesota, last year – posted on its now-deactivated TikTok account about its edible products containing 10 milligrams of THC per serving and 150 milligrams per package, although state law only allows hemp-derived edibles to contain up to 5 milligrams of THC per serving and 50 milligrams per package, the Star Tribune reported.“I have never knowingly sold any noncompliant product, and when I became aware of them I removed the products from inventory,” Dupree said in a statement on Friday.“However, it has become clear that I have become a distraction that would stand in the way of the important work that needs to be done,” she added.Her role as the state’s first director of the office of cannabis management would have begun on 2 October.“One of the responsibilities, and I take it and the buck stops with me, is the appointments of literally thousands of people,” Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said on Saturday. “In this case, the process did not work and we got this wrong.”Walz said in a Friday statement that the interim director of the cannabis office, Charlene Briner, would remain in an interim role, according to Minnesota Public Radio.Minnesota’s legalization of recreational marijuana went into effect in August, allowing people 21 and older to legally possess and grow their own marijuana for recreational purposes, subject to limits as the state establishes a legal cannabis industry in the coming months and years.The midwestern state is the 23rd in the country to legalize recreational marijuana. Surrounding states – including Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota – have not yet legalized it. More

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      Minnesota lawsuit seeks to bar Trump from ballot under 14th amendment

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      A group of Minnesota voters filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in their state, escalating the effort to disqualify the former president from running based on untested constitutional language that prohibits anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.The voters are being represented by Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group that has aggressively been pushing to remove Trump from the ballot in several states. A similar lawsuit was filed in Colorado last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, another watchdog group.The petition, filed with the Minnesota supreme court, argues that Trump’s activities to overturn the election, including those on 6 January, amounted to engaging in insurrection. Section 3 of the 14th amendment says that anyone who takes an oath to the United States and then subsequently engages in “insurrection or rebellion against the same” is disqualified from holding public office.“The events of January 6, 2021 amounted to an insurrection or a rebellion under Section 3: a violent, coordinated effort to storm the Capitol to obstruct and prevent the Vice President of the United States and the United States Congress from fulfilling their constitutional roles by certifying President Biden’s victory, and to illegally extend then-President Trump’s tenure in office,” the petition says.The push to disqualify Trump under the 14th amendment gained steam after two prominent conservative legal scholars concluded he was disqualified under the language. The push for disqualification also picked up momentum after Trump was criminally charged, both by the justice department and in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the election. A conviction, however, is not required to disqualify him from running.“Donald Trump violated his oath of office and incited a violent insurrection that attacked the US Capitol, threatened the assassination of the vice-president and congressional leaders, and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history,” Ron Fein, Free Speech for People’s Legal director, said in a statement. “Our predecessors understood that oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power, so they enacted the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause to protect the republic from people like Trump. Trump is legally barred from the ballot and election officials must follow this constitutional mandate.”Still, there is not widespread consensus on whether the challenges will be successful. Some scholars have questioned whether Trump’s conduct legally amount to insurrection (the justice department did not charge him specifically with that crime). It’s also unclear what the proper process and mechanism for disqualification is, or if one even exists at all.In Minnesota, Free Speech for People previously sent a letter to secretary of state Steve Simon, a Democrat, asking him to use his authority as the state’s top election official to disqualify Trump from the ballot. Simon responded by saying that his office didn’t have the power to investigate Trump’s eligibility, but that state law allowed for voters to bring legal challenges to a candidate’s qualifications in court.Trump is already taking action to try and head off the disqualification efforts. In Colorado, he is fighting to have the case removed from state to federal court. Trump’s campaign also publicized a letter on Tuesday from New Hampshire state legislatures urging the state’s top election official not to remove Trump from the ballot.“There is no legal basis for these claims to hold up in any legitimate court of law. The opinions of those perpetuating this fraud against the will of the people are nothing more than a blatant attempt to affront democracy and disenfranchise all voters and the former President,” the letter says.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe New Hampshire secretary of state has faced harassment as he weighs how to address issues around Trump’s eligibility. He has one of the most pressing deadlines because it will hold one of the first Republican primaries next year.
      Join us for a livestreamed event on 26 September, Democracy and Distrust: Overcoming threats to the 2024 election More