In Memory of Bode: The Best Dog Ever

I’ve written about many difficult topics over the years, but none compare to this.

My loyal companion Bode passed away on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, from canine lymphoma — just one month shy of his ninth birthday. I know everyone thinks their dog is the best but Bode truly was the best dog ever.

Bode bounded into my life in July 2016 and never left my side. During the final months of the 2016 campaign, he was my regular companion — from my office in Washington, D.C., to the Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, where I would sneak him in by putting him in a bag, he was eager to go everywhere with me. I took him to meet Senators and presidential candidates. 

He was with me through the heartbreak of 2016 election loss and celebrated with me the victories in 2018 and 2020. The morning after the 2024 election, he was ready to face the world as if nothing had gone wrong. He helped me do the same.

When my children left for college, Bode stayed. When I prepared to argue before the Supreme Court, Bode was at my feet. When I founded Democracy Docket, Bode was more than present — he was part of its DNA, making regular appearances in our newsletters.

He was everywhere in my life: the first to greet me each morning and the last to say goodnight. He was happy when I came home and was stoic when I left. For my birthday one year, my wife gave me the perfect gift — a life-size sculpture of Bode.

As my public profile grew, so did his. He became my social media avatar and the wallpaper on my phone and computer. His photos filled the background when I appeared on cable news. Once, a producer asked me to remove them — I refused and never returned to that show. By the time the 2024 election came around, he was a democracy icon in his own right.

Bode even had his own fans. They wanted to know how to say his name (BOH-dee), what breed he was (Portuguese Water Dog). But mostly, they just wanted to tell me how lucky I was that he was in my life. They were right.

I was hesitant to write this obituary. Struggle as I might, I don’t have a grand life lesson of his life; nor I any clear meaning to make of his death. I’m just heartbroken that he’s gone. 

The one thing I’m grateful for is that his death wasn’t sudden. Bode was diagnosed with canine leukemia last November. He began chemotherapy right away. Thanks to the extraordinary care of his veterinarians, we had six high quality months together.

We took advantage of every moment of that time to spoil him shamelessly. Every small act earned a treat: waking up, going out, coming back in, bedtime — treat, treat, treat. Whatever Bode wanted to do, is what I wanted as well. If he wanted a walk, so did I. If he wanted to rest, that was fine too.

As the months passed, it was clear that the cancer was taking a toll. He lost hair, weight, and eventually, energy. Then, in April, the cancer returned with force. We tried a new chemo protocol, but within weeks, it was obvious the end was near.

We continued to focus on making every moment count. Soon, however, those moments dwindled. He stopped eating. He was tired. It became clear: Bode had given us everything he could.

Last week, he let us know he was ready. On Wednesday night, he was back at the emergency vet. His body had given out. There were few options left and none that were good. After hearing from the vet, my wife and I made the hardest decision.

Bode died peacefully on May 20, 2025.

He was, quite simply, the best dog ever.

The Survival of Democracy Depends on Our Willingness to Fight

Trump wants to be a dictator, and not just for one day. Since he stepped back into the Oval Office, nearly every day brings new examples of Trump’s commitment to authoritarianism and obsession with election denialism and subversion. From his numerous unconstitutional executive orders, through which he attempts to rule by fiat, to his public threats against political rivals and opponents, Trump has no shame in exposing his true intentions.

Most importantly, Trump has eagerly aligned himself with despots, their regimes and their values. Just look at his desire to accept a $400 million plane from the Qatari government. He’s partially motivated to turn it into Air Force One because it comes from a despot, not despite that fact. He wants to be part of their club. For Trump, the reality that accepting it would violate the Constitution is a feature, not a flaw — it brings him emotionally closer to a world where, like the royal families of the Gulf States, he can act with impunity.

This situation would be less dire if the Republican Party had not transformed into a movement that views authoritarianism as a virtue and democracy as a weakness. Curtis Yarvin, once a fringe right-wing zealot who advocates replacing U.S. democracy with a monarchy, is now seen as an influential thinker within the GOP. Donald Trump’s official store even sells merchandise for a 2028 campaign — knowing full well that if he were to seek reelection, it would be a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution’s limit of two presidential terms.

Even as they create a mythology of Trump as a man of historical destiny, his MAGA adherents remain fixated on the 2020 election because it provides glaring evidence that Trump is not invincible. It also serves as a roadmap to potentially wipe out his congressional majorities in 2026, exposing him as a fundamentally unpopular politician.

With insufficient scrutiny, the formal structures of the Republican Party — the Republican National Committee and its state affiliates — have become full-time, year-round voter suppression and election subversion machines. Bolstered by a president who cares about nothing else and a network of right-wing organizations, Republicans have nearly limitless funds to target likely Democratic voters with new barriers to voter registration and ballot counting.

Novel voter suppression techniques are the most valuable currency in the MAGA-dominated GOP, and nationwide, at every level of government, Republican officials are playing their part. Republican legislatures pass new anti-voting laws designed to disproportionately affect voters likely to oppose them. Republican election officials devise creative methods to administer elections in ways that disadvantage Democrats. Election deniers file baseless challenges and flood local election offices with conspiracy theories and hate.

Behind all these efforts is an army of Republican lawyers with unlimited budgets, advancing legal theories meant to undermine free and fair elections. In recent years, Republicans have promoted theories that would strip state courts of the power to invalidate anti-voting laws passed by GOP legislatures, empower election-denying local officials to refuse to certify election results and gut the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

While these efforts have mostly been defeated so far, those of us in the pro-democracy legal community know we must win almost every case, while the other side only needs to win a few. Most recently, these were the stakes in North Carolina, where Republicans tried to steal a state supreme court seat. In lawsuit after lawsuit, the GOP sought to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters by applying new rules and legal standards after the election was over.

Although they ultimately failed, the risk remains. At her swearing-in, the victorious candidate, Allison Riggs, lamented, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Voters should not have to fight tooth and nail to have their lawful votes counted.”

Justice Riggs is right. We should not have to fight for democracy. But the reality is that we must.

The future of our democracy does not rest within the Republican Party. It will not reform itself as long as Trump is in charge. Meanwhile, the GOP’s assaults on democracy will continue to escalate. It will spare no expense, adhere to no norm and will not feel bound by any legal principle standing in its way.

But what about us? How committed are we to fighting for democracy today and securing free and fair elections in 2026? Rather than searching for signs of decency among Republicans, we must honestly assess our willingness to fight.

In the past, this was a matter of priorities, messaging and resources. Now, it requires all those things, plus courage and determination. At a time when Trump targets law firms, political opponents and nonprofit organizations, courage seems in short supply — but it is more crucial now than ever.

We must also possess the determination to fight as hard and as long as our Republican adversaries. They fought for six months for a single state supreme court seat, ignoring public criticism and setbacks along the way. Republicans are willing to advance a series of fringe, long-shot cases in the hopes of securing a single victory.

We will not win the battle for democracy if those in the pro-democracy movement prize caution over taking risks. We cannot permit ourselves to be deterred by the inevitable defeats and public criticism that are inevitable along the long path of restoring democracy. Now is the time for fearless leadership and bold action.

The fight for democracy is the fight of our generation. It may not be the battle we wanted, but it is the one we face. The state of our democracy and the future of our country depends on our willingness to take risks, ignore the naysayers, weather setbacks and fight fiercely for democracy and free and fair elections.

For ways to get involved in the opposition and fight back, check out Marc’s list of 10 things you can do right now to protect free and fair elections.

My Time on 60 Minutes and Why I Refuse To Stay Silent

I have been fighting Donald Trump nonstop for a decade. I officially became general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on April 12, 2015. A month later, on June 16, Trump announced his campaign.

People often forget that in 2016, Trump and his campaign were fixated on undermining free and fair elections. I was equally determined to protect them. That year, I led litigation efforts in several battleground states aimed at defending voting rights. Our efforts were in vain. While we won some of the lawsuits, we lost the election.

Even after he won the 2016 election, Trump’s disdain for democracy remained central to his identity. Donald Trump became the 45th President as an avowed election critic, vote suppressor and someone who bore a personal grudge against me.

The basic outlines of his grievances against me are well known. He hates me for working for Hillary Clinton. He despises me for humiliating him in court after the 2020 election. He is livid that I call out his lies, refuse to back down and continue to defeat him and the GOP in court.

I have endured his scurrilous attacks for years. He has sued me for racketeering — and lost. He has unleashed his right-wing army of online trolls. Since his reelection, he has threatened me, defamed me and singled me out by name in two executive orders.

The latest development in this saga took place late on Friday, when a federal judge permanently blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to punish my former law firm for my work while I was a partner there. As the court dryly explained:

Perkins Coie’s representation of President Trump’s political opponent in the 2016 presidential campaign and representation of other clients in connection with election litigation has drawn President Trump’s attention and ire, as reflected in his public statements and his filing of a lawsuit against the Firm.

The judge offered several examples of those statements. For instance, the court noted that in March 2024, Trump posted an article on his social media platform entitled “Marc Elias Is Scared…And He Should Be.”

More ominously, the court noted that Trump twice, in the fall of 2024, posted “his intent, if elected, to investigate and prosecute ‘Lawyers’ and others he perceived to be helping political opponents and ‘involved’ in what he perceived to be ‘unscrupulous behavior.’”

Which brings me to my appearance Sunday night on 60 Minutes.

Several weeks ago, a producer from the broadcast reached out to say they were working on a story about Trump’s targeting of law firms. I had already written about the topic, expressing my outrage at Trump’s actions and my deep disappointment with the legal industry’s failure to unite behind the targeted firms.

After I shared my views, the producer asked if I’d be willing to discuss the topic on camera. I was unsure. I had previously appeared in a 60 Minutes episode in 2020 about GOP plans to attack voting rights, so I knew the drill — lots of time talking, for a clip or two in the final cut.

Besides, I felt like a bit player in this instance. Yes, I had been targeted by Trump, but that was old news. I am no longer in Big Law, and my current firm is well known for representing Democrats, progressives and pro-voting organizations.

However, I quickly learned that few other lawyers — particularly partners at large law firms — were willing to speak on television. The same fear that had prevented Big Law firms from standing up to Trump was now making their partners unwilling to speak out publicly. Even the targeted firms remained quiet.

Shortly after the 2024 election, I took stock of my life. I was 55 years old and had been practicing law for more than 30 years. That may not seem old to some, but in political campaigns, it’s ancient. If I wanted to step back from the fight, now would be a good time.

In 2020, I created Democracy Docket to expose Trump’s lies about elections and democracy in court. Over the years, it had grown into a full-fledged media company. In 2024, I began writing more frequently and doing more on its YouTube channel. It, too, faced a crossroads.

If Kamala Harris had won, I might have scaled back. I could have continued practicing law and writing, without maintaining the same grueling schedule I’d kept for three decades. I had even planned to take time off to write a book.

But with Trump back in office, I decided all of that would have to wait. I promised myself that I would continue to fight Trump and his authoritarian vision for this country with everything I have.

So, I agreed to talk to 60 Minutes, and I promised myself I would not pull punches.

On a chilly April day, I sat down with CBS anchor Scott Pelley and answered his questions about Trump, Big Law and the threat that Trump poses to our legal system and democracy. Then I waited.

In the intervening weeks, a separate drama was playing out at 60 Minutes, involving a frivolous lawsuit by Trump and efforts by a Trump administration nominee to delay the sale of its parent company. I wasn’t sure what it meant for the episode — or my appearance in it.

Last night, I found out. When the program began at 7 p.m., I knew the episode would air. As the minutes ticked by, it became clear that 60 Minutes had pulled no punches. Through interviews with me and others, Pelley painted a damning picture of a president out for retribution and a legal industry too cowardly to stand up to him.

I am featured — along with others braver than I — including an associate who quit her job rather than be complicit in the deal her law firm had cut.

From the opening words of Judge Beryl Howell’s opinion — “No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit” — to the 60 Minutes closing credits, this has been an emotional weekend for me personally.

I have no doubt that Trump’s hateful words are not behind me. I am certain he will escalate his campaign of political retribution. But, for my part, I will not stop fighting. I will never back down. And I will always speak out.

The State of Democracy Requires Us to Expand the Map

Following Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020, we witnessed an explosion of voting and election-related litigation. Sparked by a wave of voter suppression laws and Republican efforts to justify the “Big Lie,” nearly 600 lawsuits were filed over the next four years — reaching almost every state in the country.

Leading up to the 2024 election, we anxiously followed the twists and turns as laws, rules, regulations and interpretations were litigated in court. Barely a day passed without a significant court decision about who could vote, how votes would be counted, and whether they would be accurately certified.

The impression was that both sides were leaving no stone unturned — pro-democracy organizations fighting tooth and nail to enfranchise every eligible voter, while the GOP and its allies worked equally hard to disqualify voters and discard ballots wherever they could.

Yet beneath the headlines and lawsuit tallies lies a more uneven picture of democracy in the courts. While voting rules in battleground states were aggressively litigated, far fewer lawsuits were filed in the vast majority of the country.

Pennsylvania alone was the subject of 88 voting-related lawsuits — more than the bottom 29 states combined. In fact, the top nine battleground states accounted for nearly two-thirds of all voting litigation nationwide. While each of those nine states saw more than 20 lawsuits, seven states saw only one case, and three saw none at all during the same period.

This is not to suggest there weren’t serious issues to address in Arizona, Pennsylvania and other swing states. But it would be wrong to conclude that their voting laws were more suppressive or subject to bad-faith interpretation than those in states that saw little or no litigation.

Take, for example, the issue of ballot drop boxes — one of the most hotly contested voting practices in recent years. In July 2023, progressive organizations sued to overturn Wisconsin’s ban on ballot drop boxes. Yet just four months earlier, South Dakota enacted a similar ban that went entirely unchallenged.

That wasn’t the only way South Dakota made voting more difficult. Like several other Republican-controlled states, it expanded the role of partisan poll watchers and prohibited the distribution of mail-in ballot applications with pre-filled information — exactly the kinds of provisions challenged in more politically competitive states.

Similarly, while dozens of lawsuits were filed challenging nearly every aspect of mail-in voting in Georgia and Pennsylvania, not a single lawsuit was brought against Indiana’s restrictive mail-in voting law enacted in 2023. In fact, Indiana saw only one voting lawsuit over the entire four-year period. South Dakota saw none.

The danger in ignoring the voting rights of citizens in more than half the country is that it creates a two-tiered democracy. Voters in swing states benefit from rigorous legal protections, while voters elsewhere are left to navigate increasingly burdensome rules without meaningful support or scrutiny.

This also reinforces a feedback loop: states with restrictive voting laws receive little attention because they aren’t electorally competitive. But part of the reason they aren’t competitive is because their laws prevent large segments of the population from voting.

Addressing this problem has never been more urgent or more important. Our democracy is facing an existential crisis. Donald Trump is actively dismantling democratic institutions and undermining the rule of law. Only through free and fair elections can we hope to restore our republic.

But that requires free and fair elections in every state, not just in a strategic few.

Given the GOP’s built-in advantage in the Senate, Democrats will need fair voting rules not only in traditional battlegrounds like Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia, but also in states like Alaska, Iowa and Kentucky. Control of the House, which remains nearly evenly divided, will depend on close elections in districts across as many as 30 states.

None of this will be easy, even in the best of times. And it is even harder now, as Trump’s attacks on voting rights continue and the Republican Party embraces voter suppression as a national strategy.

But those of us in the pro-democracy movement cannot back down. We must confront this challenge head-on.

That means conducting a nationwide review of voting barriers in all 50 states. It means dedicating resources to challenge laws that disenfranchise voters. And it means having the political will to fight for the right to vote everywhere, regardless of how competitive a state appears today.

Republicans are counting on us to ignore what’s happening in the states they control. They are banking on us not having the resources or the will to fight for voting rights in states where recent history suggests the election results will not be close. They want us to be resigned and demoralized while their voter suppression machine grinds on.

For the sake of our democracy, we must prove them wrong.

Republicans Are Trying to Steal an Election

Republicans are trying to steal an election in North Carolina. They have been laying the groundwork for five months, and unless the federal courts intervene, they just might succeed. If they do, it could usher in a new era of election subversion in future contests across the country.

Last November, North Carolina held elections for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Allison Riggs, the Democratic candidate, sought election to the seat she had been appointed to in 2023. Her opponent Jefferson Griffin was a conservative Republican serving on the state’s Court of Appeals.

Riggs won the election by a narrow margin. After a full machine recount and partial hand count, her victory was confirmed by 734 votes. Griffin chose not to concede; instead, backed by the national Republican Party, he continued to fight. Rather than target a few hundred ballots that might eke out a narrow victory, Griffin went scorched earth — seeking to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters chosen exclusively from four overwhelmingly blue counties.

Not only was it unorthodox to cherry pick only certain counties, but so too was his legal theory. Griffin did not accuse these voters of fraud or making an error. Instead, his claim was that — unbeknownst to the voters — the state’s registration and voting processes violated North Carolina law.

Perhaps most shocking, one of the primary targets of his challenge were military and overseas voters. While that might seem surprising, Republicans targeting military voters is part of a broader national trend in recent years, as the GOP has grown increasingly ruthless in its attacks on free and fair elections.

From the beginning, the Republican strategy was clear: focus challenges on ballots from Democratic areas, create multiple avenues for contesting the results — any of which could flip the outcome — and keep the case in state court, where the 5–1 Republican-majority Supreme Court would ultimately decide the outcome.

For Riggs and her supporters, the best hope lay in federal court, where judges were more likely to view Griffin’s partisan maneuvers with skepticism and to apply the federal Constitution to protect voters.

Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court handed Griffin the tools he needed to try to steal the election. While it rejected his most audacious claim — that 60,000 votes should be discarded because voters received incorrect registration information from the state — it accepted two other claims targeting military and overseas voters.

Most critically, the court ordered the state to create a new 30-day “cure” period for the affected voters to submit the paperwork necessary for their votes to count. Since these voters reside overseas and are drawn overwhelmingly from Democratic constituencies, the court’s move was a cynical way to tilt the scales in Griffin’s favor under the guise of being evenhanded.

This decision has now pushed the case squarely into the federal courts, where it should have been all along.

At its core, this case is about the right to vote and whether citizens can be disenfranchised after the fact as part of a partisan effort to steal an election. But like so many things involving elections in the Trump era, its implications are far broader.

I led the team of attorneys that defeated Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in court. Again and again, judges rejected arguments like those now being made in North Carolina — the idea that a losing candidate can throw out lawful votes en masse to flip the results of a free and fair election.

Judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans recoiled at the suggestion that voting rules could be changed after the fact simply to achieve a partisan outcome. Cases were dismissed. Lawyers were sanctioned. Courts protected the rule of law and the integrity of democracy.

Since then, however, Republicans have embraced election denialism as a central tenet of their political identity. Voter suppression and election subversion are no longer viewed as unfortunate necessities but are instead celebrated as guiding principles within the GOP.

Despite their best efforts, Republicans have so far failed to convince a court to adopt their radical approach to contesting and overturning elections. That could change with this race in North Carolina.

When Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021, many of us hoped that the tactics Trump had used in the proceeding months were behind us. Defeated and disgraced, we hoped Trump would leave the main stage of our political system.

Sadly, with his reelection, Republicans are more eager than ever to embrace the Big Lie and have become even bolder in their willingness to engage in mass disenfranchisement to secure and hold power. It’s not an overstatement to say that if federal courts endorse the GOP’s scheme here, it will open the floodgates to similar efforts in the future.

No voter will be safe from disenfranchisement. No ballot will be secure from being uncounted or thrown out. Elections won’t be settled until every possible lawsuit has been filed, heard and appealed. Litigants won’t rest until the last courthouse has closed its doors.

Republicans are trying to steal an election in North Carolina. For the sake of our democracy, let us hope the courts once again prevent that from happening.

Trump’s Most Dangerous Power Grab

Donald Trump has signed more than 100 executive orders since retaking office. Some are little more than hate-filled press releases, while many have caused unnecessary pain and hardship. Dozens have resulted in court cases that the administration has lost.

No executive order has the potential to do more permanent damage to our constitutional system than the one Trump signed last week targeting free and fair elections. Titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, it is both an unconstitutional power grab and a clear violation of federal law.

Trump asserts powers he does not have, tramples over federalism and contravenes the Constitution’s plain text. If there were an award for the most illegal and unconstitutional action by a president, this order would be a top contender.

It was only a matter of time before it was challenged in court. Already, three separate lawsuits were filed to do just that.

My law firm — Elias Law Group — filed a 70-page complaint in Washington, D.C., federal court on behalf of the leading committees comprising the Democratic Party — the Democratic National Committee, the Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees and the Democratic Governors Association. Illustrating the seriousness of the issue, both Senate and House Democratic leaders joined the suit as well.

Separately, two groups of nonprofit organizations have filed similar lawsuits, also in Washington, D.C. Given the gravity of the issue, I expect these will not be the last actions challenging Trump’s efforts to undermine free and fair elections.

Donald Trump has contempt for democracy. While he believes politicians can be intimidated and courts can be manipulated through aggressive and unethical lawyering, he knows elections are more unpredictable. Voters can be as easily repelled by his vulgar style of politics as they are swayed by his false bravado. He may be able to effectively vilify individual judges, but attacking tens of millions of voters falls flat.

His only tool to manage an unmanageable electorate is voter suppression and election subversion. That is why election denialism and false claims of fraud have always been the unbending core of his political movement.

Recall that Trump lost the Republican Iowa caucus and immediately claimed fraud. When he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, he claimed fraud. As president, he advocated false conspiracy theories to justify restricting voting rights.

After he lost in 2020, he not only embraced those theories more tightly but flooded the courts with meritless litigation. When that failed, he incited an insurrection at the Capitol to attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election.

In the years that followed, Trump made denying the results of the 2020 election a litmus test for his supporters. Marco Rubio might support aid to Ukraine, but he had to adhere to the “Big Lie.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be pro-choice, but the price of admission into Trump’s inner circle was election denialism.

Over a century ago, the Supreme Court recognized that the right to vote is “preservative of all rights.” Sixty years ago, the Court affirmed that “the right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society.”

Donald Trump is neither a lawyer nor a scholar. He is an aspiring dictator who is more likely to read grocery store tabloids than a Supreme Court opinion. But he understands why the words of judges and justices are so powerful for his opponents and dangerous to him.

That is why he has transformed the Republican National Committee into a voter suppression and election subversion war machine. It is why he associates with a billionaire who literally hands out millions to influence elections. Most importantly, it is why he signed this ridiculously unconstitutional executive order.

The case against Trump’s anti-voting executive order will now proceed. The Department of Justice will strain credulity in making its arguments. The court hearing this case, like those hearing others, will sift through a pile of filings and render a ruling.

Soon, much of the public and media will move on to Trump’s next outrageous order or action. Perhaps it will be tariffs that stall the economy or further measures that weaken our national security. It has already been reported that he is set to punish more law firms that have failed to pay him sufficient tribute.

But I can promise you this: Trump is not done attacking our elections. He and his supporters plot every day to undermine the right to vote. They are constantly looking for opportunities to exploit weaknesses in the election system. This is their top priority.

The question for us is whether it is ours as well. For the sake of democracy, I hope it is.

The Power of Standing Up

Sen. Cory Booker stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate for 25 hours and 5 minutes, speaking about the threat Donald Trump poses to our democracy. To avoid needing to use the restroom, Booker went without food and water for days in advance. To give his voice an occasional rest, other Democratic senators engaged in colloquies with him.

Through it all — from evening to the middle of the night, to the next day and evening again — Booker stood and delivered his message with force, grace and eloquence. When he was done, he limped off the floor having made history.

Over the course of his speech, many observers grew excited that a Democratic politician was taking action to disrupt the Senate. Others noted the symbolism of a Black senator breaking Strom Thurmond’s record for the longest speech in Senate history.

While these aspects may offer satisfaction, they miss the deeper significance of what Booker accomplished. His actions were not merely symbolic or performative; they were substantive.

Booker did not read the phone book, as other senators have done. He did not simply read state laws into the Congressional Record, as Thurmond did to pass the time. He did not read children’s books, like Ted Cruz.

Instead, Booker used his time to argue that what we are witnessing in our country is not only abnormal, but fundamentally wrong. He connected his argument to the U.S. Constitution, the Bible and our shared sense of right and wrong. He explained how the moment we live in fits into the broader context of history while also being unique. Seamlessly, he wove references to literature, religion, law and politics.

Booker was not killing time merely to inconvenience others; he was using the time to persuade an audience. That is why his speech became so captivating and why millions tuned in to watch. He was not wasting our time or his. He was using it efficiently and effectively to sound an alarm that too few have heard.

When people ask me what they can do to help protect democracy, my standard response is to stand up and speak out in your own town square. I have said this so many times that my staff sometimes rolls their eyes when I begin to make my point. As I wrote earlier this year:

Every one of us has a town square. It may include our social media accounts, our local book club, or our dinner table. Use your town square to speak out in favor of democracy and against what Republicans are doing. Do not shy away from difficult conversations; seek them out. Engage the curious. Educate those who seek information. We all have a role to play, so don’t assume your voice is too faint or your platform too small.

I offer this advice not because I believe it to be true, but because I know it is.

Collective action is important, and supporting others can help, but the power of individuals speaking out is what despots fear the most. It is why Putin jailed and killed Navalny. It is why China prohibits individuals from engaging in even solo acts of protest or posting certain content on social media.

I understand the discomfort that comes with taking a stand. It often feels isolating, vulnerable and risky. Often, in the moments after I appear on TV or a podcast, I wonder if I made a mistake, said something wrong or was inarticulate.

When I see one of my written pieces on the Democracy Docket website or in an email, I read it with dread. I second-guess every word and argument.

At the end of a long day, I often wonder if I offended rather than engaged, alienated rather than educated. Did my arguments make the curious more interested or to disengage? Did I cause the other side to dig in rather than reach out?

I am not a U.S. senator. I do not command the attention of the nation. But I have stood up and spoken out enough times to know that it does not get easier as your audience grows.

Standing in your public square to say what is right and what is wrong is not easy. It comes with risks and disappointments. It can lead to embarrassment and failure. Often, it is simply uncomfortable.

So too was Booker’s decision to stand on the Senate floor for 25 hours. He could not have known that he would last that long, that his body wouldn’t give out or that his speech wouldn’t be dismissed as a stunt. He had to know that without food and water or an opportunity to sit down and rest, he could lose focus and potentially misspeak as he grew tired.

That did not happen. Instead, as the hours passed Booker seemed to grow stronger, more passionate and persuasive. He drew energy from the moment and the silent support he was receiving from millions of people who were cheering him on around the world.

Cory Booker showed us what courage looks like by standing up and speaking out in one’s town square. He showed us how it can help shape reality. He demonstrated that it can inspire others and thus can make a real difference in the fight for democracy.

We all owe him a debt of gratitude and an obligation to follow his example.

Trump’s Latest Executive Order is a Sham—and a Warning

The greatest threat to Donald Trump’s authoritarian dream is not the courts — it is free and fair elections. While the courts can stand in the way of his twisted vision for America, they can never completely halt it. Trump knows this.

Trump operates on the assumption that there will be no political check on his power. His plan to subvert democracy depends on the subservience of a Republican-controlled Congress. His worst nightmare is a scenario in which Democrats flip one or both chambers in 2026.

It was only a matter of time before Trump turned his attention to attacking free and fair elections. Election denialism is the foundation of his movement. Election subversion is essential to maintaining his power. Voter suppression is a tool Republicans have wielded against those who do not support him.

For weeks — almost since the day he was sworn in — Trump has quietly mused about attacking elections. He referenced “election integrity” in a sweeping White House memo targeting lawyers who litigated against his administration.

At an event announcing a new Hyundai steel plant in Louisiana, Trump used the opportunity to air his grievances about lawyers and voting rules. He claimed that lawyers had behaved “very badly, very wrongly.” As a result, he declared, “our elections are very dishonest, very corrupt.”

That was merely a prelude to the executive order he and his team issued the next day. Titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, it is a rambling document that asserts powers the president simply does not have. 

It would disenfranchise millions. It seeks to restrict what ballots states can count. It purports to give DOGE unspecified powers to review state run voter rolls. No wonder vote suppressors and election deniers from coast to coast lavished it with praise.

If, as Mario Cuomo once said, “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” then Donald Trump issues executive orders as performance art. Like many of his others, this order is confused, rhetorical and — in places — nonsensical. It asserts facts that are not true and claims authority he does not possess. It is not meant to be taken seriously or literally. Rather, it is the empty threat of a weak man desperate to appear strong.

The Constitution is explicit about who has the power to determine how elections are conducted:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

States have the primary role in setting election rules. Congress can override those rules by enacting laws. The president is not mentioned — because he has no independent role.

In fact, Congress has already enacted laws governing many aspects of elections. Those laws are just that — laws. They cannot be altered or overridden by a piece of paper in a fancy folder, no matter how forcefully Trump signs it with a Sharpie.

Calling it an executive order may mean something to him, but legally, it is irrelevant. Neither the Constitution nor the law cares about his feelings.

Trump’s advisors undoubtedly know this and have likely explained it to him. But Trump doesn’t care. He believes that by signing an outrageous document filled with threats and bluster, he can intimidate state and local officials, lawyers, judges and voters. He is counting on us being too scared to fight back.

He is also counting on voters not caring enough to exercise their rights. By making the process seem complicated, contentious and dangerous, he hopes to bully the election system into submission.

We cannot let that happen.

I have already announced that my team will sue to block this executive order and any other attempts to undermine free and fair elections. Our track record proves that we litigate aggressively — and when we do, we typically win.

That is why Trump is attacking me. It is why he went to the Department of Justice to call me a “radical” trying to “turn America into a corrupt, communist, third-world country.” It is why he is attempting to destroy my former law firm, where I defeated his legal team more than 60 times in 2020. And it is why he singled me out in his recent White House memorandum.

I don’t care what Donald Trump says about me. I wear his scorn as a badge of honor.

But one lawyer — or even a thousand lawyers — won’t solve this problem alone. It will take the civic courage of thousands of leaders and millions of voters.

This executive order is bad — cartoonishly so. But it is also a wake-up call for those who believe the danger of election subversion has passed.

To the contrary, it has only just begun.

And so has our fight.

The Sharks Circling the Boat

One of the best pieces of advice I received when I started a law firm in 2021 was to focus on “the shark closest to the boat.” When you feel overwhelmed, step back and focus on the threats that pose the most immediate risk.

Donald Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy is designed to overwhelm us. He wants us to be paralyzed by fear and hopelessness. He wants us to feel abandoned — like we are alone in a small boat, surrounded by sharks.

In some sense, we are. Since Trump was elected, we have searched for institutions that would protect us from his authoritarian impulses. Legacy media was among the first to signal it was not up to the task. The wealthy and business elite followed, capitulating almost entirely. Republicans in Congress made clear they would not stand in Trump’s way on anything. Meanwhile, the executive branch has been packed with Trump loyalists, while nonpartisan civil servants are being purged.

Our only real defense against the circling sharks — however imperfect — has been the courts. And in recent weeks, Trump has begun targeting them with precision.

I could list the familiar reasons why the courts are not ideal protectors of democracy right now, but let me focus on two key weaknesses Trump is exploiting.

First, for courts to act, they need skilled lawyers willing to challenge government actions. These cases are often highly technical and require expertise in specialized areas of law. That expertise is concentrated among a relatively small number of lawyers, and historically, large, multi-office law firms have been a critical source of legal resources.

Since taking office, Trump has targeted individual lawyers with specialized skills — such as security clearances and experience representing whistleblowers — through intimidation and government action. He has not only demonized them but also imposed sanctions, revoking security clearances and barring them from entering government buildings, making it difficult for them to represent clients in these areas.

More recently, he has begun issuing executive orders targeting entire large law firms and their thousands of employees. The impact of these orders extends beyond those firms, creating a chilling effect across the legal profession. Trump hopes these tactics will discourage lawyers and firms from taking on cases that challenge him and his administration.

Sadly, it’s working. A palpable chill has settled over the legal community. Large law firms are staying silent, backing away from representing clients or causes Trump disfavors.

While smaller law firms and nonprofit legal groups remain active, sidelining much of Big Law will undoubtedly prevent some plaintiffs from securing legal representation. Those counsel willing to take on these cases will be more isolated and at even greater risk of retribution.

If enough lawyers and law firms are targeted or too afraid to act, this alone could be the shark that sinks the boat.

The other grave risk to democracy is that the Trump administration may simply begin ignoring court orders altogether. I’m not talking about the disgraceful cat-and-mouse game we’ve grown accustomed to, where Department of Justice lawyers feign confusion or make bad-faith arguments that a ruling was unclear or more limited than it was.

I’m talking about the moment when the Trump administration announces that it outright refuses to comply with court orders. Such an event would trigger a full-blown constitutional crisis — one we are simply unequipped to handle right now.

The framers of the Constitution assumed Congress would be the bulwark against executive overreach, using impeachment to remove a despot. But Republican cowardice has made that impossible.

There are ways the courts can enforce some of their rulings, but at best, these are imperfect solutions. Perhaps the business community would awaken, realizing that an administration unbound by court rulings threatens the rule of law that capitalism depends on.

The sharks are circling the boat, and I admit there are many of them. But if we don’t agree on which ones are closest and must be handled first, our situation will become even more perilous.

Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy. His attacks on lawyers and law firms are damaging our boat. If he can simply defy court orders, the boat will sink entirely.

The next time you feel outraged about something else — another shark in the water — remember: These are the sharks closest to the boat. They require all your energy and attention.

I Worry, but I Fight

“Are you worried?” That is always the first question.

“Of course I am worried,” I respond. “The president of the United States considers me an enemy and has promised retribution. I would be an idiot not to be worried. But I am not going to give in. I will continue to fight.”

I have had a version of this conversation on and off for years. Since Jan. 20, 2025, I have had it nearly every day.

During his first term Trump posted on Twitter that I was the Democratic Party’s “best Election stealing lawyer.” At the time I took it as an odd form of compliment. Since then, his focus on me has become both more intense and more sinister.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what triggered his current hatred. Recently, Trump and his supporters have pointed to my work as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 general counsel. But his obsession — and that of his loyal minions — did not truly take hold until 2020.

That year, I litigated dozens of cases to ensure citizens could vote in the middle of a pandemic. That meant expanding opportunities to vote by mail and reducing the number of ballots wrongfully rejected by overburdened election systems.

In the aftermath of that election, my team and I defeated Trump’s effort to overturn the results — winning more than 60 court cases on behalf of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

During the height of that effort, on Dec. 7, 2020, an angry Lou Dobbs chastised Stephen Miller on TV for losing so many cases to me. “Marc Elias, why don’t you put together a half-billion dollars and go hire him and get him out of your way?” Miller looked stricken.

In the years that followed, Republicans regularly blamed me for their election losses. Steve Bannon described me as “the gold standard” and frequently complained to his audience that Republicans needed to either recruit me or find someone to match me.

In a 2023 video, Kash Patel, now the FBI director, stated: “He is the enemy of the Republican Party because he always finds a way to win in state court and federal court on election matters, and he has been doing it like a machine for the last decade. So, if you want someone who is that talented and that good, there is only one guy, and I hate to say it—it’s Marc Elias.”

But during that time, something had changed in Trump. In the closing weeks of his administration, Trump’s attorney general appointed John Durham as a Special Counsel to investigate the origins of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Durham’s investigation ultimately led to the indictment of two individuals — one of whom was a law partner of mine. Both men were acquitted after short jury deliberations.

Despite this outcome, Trump’s anger only deepened. In 2022, he named me, along with many others associated with the 2016 campaign, as a defendant in a rambling RICO lawsuit. The complaint was so frivolous that when it was dismissed, several other defendants were able to recover attorneys’ fees, leaving Trump and his lawyers on the hook for $1 million. Appeals in the case are still ongoing.

When Trump said during the 2024 campaign that he would seek revenge and retribution, I knew to take him literally and seriously. When he came into office claiming he wanted to punish those who had “weaponized government” against him, I knew what he really meant — he would weaponize government against his political opponents.

Then, two weeks ago, out of the blue, Trump issued an executive order against my old law firm — a firm I left in 2021 — centered largely on my work there. It was a wildly unhinged and unconstitutional order that sought to punish the firm and its 1,200 lawyers in a myriad of ways, from stripping security clearances to barring their lawyers from entering federal buildings.

After signing that executive order, Trump was asked if he thinks additional steps will be taken “against other people involved in the Russia collusion hoax.” He responded: “I do, but that is ultimately up to the attorney general and various other people.”

In case Pam Bondi and her senior team needed a reminder of how Trump felt about me, they received one in person a week later. Speaking in the Great Hall at the Department of Justice, Trump described me and another lawyer as “bad people, really bad people” and “radicals” who were trying “to turn America into a corrupt, communist, third-world country.”

All of this brings me back to my answer to the question I receive every day.

I worry because Donald Trump has targeted me and those associated with me for retribution. I worry because the attorney general is an election denier eager to please her boss. I worry because the FBI director published an enemies list and has called me “an enemy of the Republican Party.” I worry because the Department of Justice is being hollowed out — its principled career prosecutors replaced by Trump loyalists. I worry because Trump’s hatred inspires the hatred of others, which could lead to violence. I worry because our courts are not equipped to handle widespread, politically motivated, spurious investigations and prosecutions.

Most of all, I worry because, to do my job — to fulfill my duty as a lawyer and as a citizen — I must regularly say and do things that will enrage Trump and his supporters.

But here is the key point: Despite that worry, I cannot stop standing up for what is right. I cannot turn a blind eye to injustice. I cannot ignore what Trump is doing to our democracy and our country. Or more precisely, I will not.

So, I won’t.

Before the election, when Biden was in office and many assumed Kamala Harris would win or that Trump wouldn’t be so bad, it was fashionable to speak about the threat Trump posed and the need to protect democracy.

Now that Trump has proven to be a ruthless autocrat, too many have grown timid and silent.

That is simply not who I am. It is not what I believe, and it is not what I will do.

Instead, I will worry. I will hope. And I will fight.