Trump admin officials promised to address state election leaders. They bailed

Attorney General Pam Bondi, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were scheduled to address and take questions from chief election leaders attending the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) winter conference in Washington, D.C. Friday — but all three officials canceled their appearance at the last minute without any explanation. 

Bondi, Noem, and Gabbard’s abrupt cancellation drew ire among Democratic secretaries of state, who were hoping to directly address the Trump administration’s recent attacks on voting and elections — including the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) unprecedented legal effort to obtain private voter data from every state, and Gabbard’s troubling presence at the FBI’s recent raid of a Fulton County, Georgia’s election hub earlier this week. 

“Noem, Bondi, and Gabbard are cowards for not showing up today and answering the questions from election officials from across the country about this administration’s abuses of power,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) said at a press conference after the three Trump administration officials’ canceled. “I would have called on Noem to resign, given that her department has murdered two American citizens in Minnesota and invaded the streets of Maine, putting people into tremendous fear. I would have asked what they are going to do to assure the American public that they’re not going to interfere in our elections in November, and can they promise the American public that masked armed men aren’t going to be patrolling the streets next November?”

Election leaders from nearly every state were seated in a hotel conference hall minutes before the panel with the three Trump cabinet members was set to kick off when NASS president and Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) took the stage and announced the panel was canceled. 

“Donald Trump and his bumbling circle of loyalists are running scared from the American public,” DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and Tulsi Gabbard no-showed an event because the White House is in the midst of massive political fallout as the Trump-Vance administration loses the support of the American people — even from Trump’s own supporters — and they’re all in the hot seat.”

The three cabinet members were added to the schedule at the last minute after two other Trump administration officials — Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity Heather Honey — were pulled from the conference’s agenda. Sources at the conference told Democracy Docket that both Dhillon and Honey were pulled from the schedule in order for Bondi, Noem, and Gabbard to appear.

“After disparaging the work of public servants for years, after suing them and ‘investigating’ them even through this week, and after the WH lobbied for time for them to appear, not one of them showed up to face this bipartisan group of election officials,” Center for Election Innovation and Research Executive Director David Becker told Democracy Docket.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, both Democratic and Republican state election leaders have raised alarm with the administration’s escalating assault on voting. DOJ has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C. for access to their unredacted voter rolls. Last week, after federal immigration officers killed a protester in Minneapolis, Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) offering to withdraw ICE agents if, among other conditions, the state handed over access to its voter rolls. 

“I was looking forward to an opportunity to ask some really important questions,” Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas said. “Vermont is one of many states, most of whom happen to be led by Democrats, who have been the target of lawsuits from this Department of Justice. And so while I can’t say anything specifically about the lawsuit in Vermont, I would have liked to have asked Attorney General Bondi how it is that she draws an equivalency between the presence of masked ICE agents roaming the streets of Minneapolis, abducting people, murdering people, and Minnesota releasing their voter files.” 

But not every state election leader felt slighted by the Trump administration bailing on the NASS conference. After a coalition of Democratic secretaries of state finished their press conference, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray (R) gave a response as the sole Republican state election leader

“I stand with the Trump administration and President Trump for his great work on election integrity,” Gray said. “And I think that’s what we as Republican secretaries of state need to continue to highlight is the administration’s great work on election integrity.”

Still, most secretaries that Democracy Docket spoke with at the NASS conference said they were hoping to speak with Trump administration officials about preparations for the upcoming midterm elections — because their requests for conversations have been ignored. 

“I’m disappointed that our speakers did not show up to answer our questions, but we have been asking these questions for a year, so I’m not surprised,” Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas (D) said. “I’m disappointed, but what I had hoped to make clear today is that it’s the American people who deserve answers, not secretaries of state. The American people need to know why the federal government is extorting state leaders for voter roll data in exchange for immigration activities. The American people need to know why the federal government needs their private information, basically without their consent, and asking us to break state laws.”