Arizona officials would tell Trump to "pound sand" on mail voting
Reality check: Trump does not have the constitutional authority to ban mail-in voting.
Why it matters: The overwhelming majority of Arizonans vote by early ballot, most of which are cast by people who receive them in the mail.
Nearly 75% of Arizona voters cast their ballots by mail in the 2024 general election, per a report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Arizonans can also deliver their early ballots to voting centers or drop boxes, or vote early in person.
Nearly 88% of Maricopa County voters cast an early ballot in the 2024 general election.
The big picture: Trump and many of his allies have for years falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, and they often point to mail-in ballots as a source of widespread fraud, despite a lack of evidence.
Driving the news: Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he'll "lead a movement to get rid of" mail-in ballots, along with "inaccurate" and "Seriously Controversial" voting machines.
He said he'll sign an executive order "to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections" but didn't elaborate on what that order might say.
Trump said he also wants to get rid of voting machines, but it wasn't clear what types of devices he was referring to. Arizona uses tabulation machines to count ballots.
The president falsely claimed that states are merely "agents" of the federal government in counting and tabulating votes, and must do what he tells them.
State of play: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes pushed back against Trump's claims on X, pointing out that states aren't simply agents of the federal government.
If Trump attempts to ban mail-in voting, Fontes told Axios, "After I tell him to pound sand, I will probably ask the attorney general to file suit."
In a statement to Axios, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said Trump "has zero authority to interfere in Arizona's elections" and she'll "vigorously fight any unlawful attempt by the federal government to tell Arizona how we can administer" them.
Fontes also noted that mail-in voting is "exceedingly popular," including in some states that have all-mail elections.
Yes, but: As Fontes noted, the U.S. Constitution says the times, places and manners of holding elections for Congress "shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof," subject to changes by Congress.
Provisions of Trump's March executive order that made sweeping changes to federal elections, including a proof of citizenship requirement, have thus far been blocked in court.
Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor, described Trump's comments as "bluster" in a social media post, saying the Constitution "gives precisely zero power over elections to the President."
Catch up quick: In a sit-down with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him "it's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections."
Trump further claimed that the Russian president told him he won the 2020 election "by so much," which Trump has continued to claim years after his loss and the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack that followed.
"And you lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election," Trump said Putin told him.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
29 minutes ago
- CNBC
CNBC Daily Open: Not even fire extinguishers can escape the Trump administration's tariffs
Even as tariff-related ruction appears to be settling down for the summer, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is still reshaping global trade and industry. After the Trump administration hinted it could be open to Nvidia exporting more powerful chips to China after their revenue-sharing agreement, the semiconductor darling was reported to be developing a new chip for Beijing. And Intel's bounty from the CHIPS Act, formalized by the previous administration under Joe Biden, might come with a price tag of giving the current U.S. government a stake in the company. Meanwhile, the effects of tariffs continue to creep into everyday life. The costs incurred by fires in the U.S. — think of the tragic Los Angeles wildfires in January or the one near the Grand Canyon just last month — are already growing, not just in terms of the physical damage but also the price of insurance premiums. And now that Trump has added fire extinguishers to a list of steel products that will face a 50% import tariff, even the price of relatively more benign and contained fires, such as those you start to burn photographs of your ex-partner, will be more expensive to put out. That's a truly protest-worthy tariff. Trump expands reach of steel and aluminum tariffs. The duties, which impose a 50% charge on imports, will include more than 400 additional product categories, such as fire extinguishers, machinery and construction materials. Nvidia says it is evaluating 'a variety of products.' The chipmaker is working on a new artificial intelligence chip for China that will be based on its Blackwell architecture, making it more powerful than the currently available H20, reported Reuters. Intel equity in return for U.S. government funding. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that the White House will provide the chipmaker with cash, which was promised under the CHIPS Act, in exchange for "an equity stake for our money." Technology stocks weigh down U.S. markets. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.46% on Tuesday as shares of Palantir sank more than 9%. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.69% even though European defense stocks tumbled. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 hit a record close. [PRO] UBS raises its forecast for gold — again. Despite the rally for gold stalling since the middle of the year, the Swiss banking giant hiked its 2025 and 2026 target for gold prices. Trump promised Ukraine 'security guarantees': Here's what they could look like The most significant development from Monday's talks between U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders was Trump's statement that security guarantees for Ukraine would be "provided" by European countries in "coordination with the U.S." French President Emmanuel Macron hinted Tuesday that the "first security guarantee we are working on — and it is the most important — is a strong Ukrainian army, composed of several hundred thousand men, well equipped, with defense systems and higher standards."
Politico
29 minutes ago
- Politico
In: EV incentives. Out: Sales mandates.
Presented by With help from Camille von Kaenel and Noah Baustin EV COMPLICATIONS: California drivers don't want to lose their electric vehicle tax incentives, but even voters in one of the bluest states are wary about reviving plans to phase out gas cars. Voters are split down the middle on whether California should stick to its guns on its Trump-blocked plans to phase out sales of gas cars by 2035, according to an exclusive POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll. Only 46 percent of the more than 1,400 registered voters surveyed said they support the policy, while 47 percent said no. Yes, there was an obvious partisan split: 60 percent of Democrats said they backed the phase-out, compared to 40 percent of independents and 31 percent of Republicans. But the results offer a note of caution for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who directed the California Air Resources Board to start writing new vehicle emissions rules after Republicans revoked the state's sales mandates for cars and heavy-duty trucks in June. 'None of us really like the idea of government intervening to take something away from us,' said Dan Sperling, a former CARB member and director of the University of California, Davis' Institute for Transportation Studies. 'That's even the most liberal of us.' Poll respondents are more bought into Newsom's plan to backfill the soon-to-be-defunct $7,500 federal EV tax credit. Nearly two-thirds — 64 percent — said they would support state-funded tax incentives once the federal subsidy ends Sept. 30, as part of the Trump administration's ongoing attacks on clean energy policy. That question again showed a partisan divide, with 80 percent of Democrats saying they back the approach, compared to 60 percent of independent voters and just 43 percent of Republicans. But the overall result bolsters Newsom's push to backfill incentives that the Biden administration used to coax drivers off fossil fuels, as he suggested using cap-and-trade revenues to fund last year and directed state agencies to consider in a June executive order. But Jack Citrin, a veteran political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll, said a closer look at the poll results shows that Democrats need to keep affordability in mind. He pointed to the fact that 28 percent of respondents said they'd only support new EV incentives if gas prices aren't impacted and another 20 percent said they should be reserved for low-income buyers, reflecting the fact that cost of living was the top concern of voters polled. And 64 percent of respondents said gasoline prices are putting a significant, extreme or moderate burden on their household budgets. 'That reflects a concern with the cost of all of this,' Citrin said. 'Yes, we're for environmental protection. Yes, we're for all of this, just as long as it doesn't cost a lot.' The poll comes the same day that state agencies released a joint report with recommendations for countering Trump's assault, calling on lawmakers to bolster tax incentives, improve charging infrastructure and regulate facilities that attract polluting trucks, but offering few specific timelines or dollar figures. California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph framed the report — which Newsom asked for in his June order — as a first step in the state's defense against a hostile federal government. 'Clean air efforts are under siege, putting the health of every American at risk,' she said during a press briefing. 'California is continuing to fight back and will not give up on cleaner air and better public health.' Sperling called the report a surprisingly 'modest document' and said it lacks the specificity he hoped to see. 'The word I would use is disconcerting,' Sperling said when asked about where California stands in its fight against Trump. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! INVEST OR TRADE: The cap-and-trade legislative games are off to the races. Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, who's leading the Assembly's cap-and-trade working group, began circulating on Tuesday her draft legislative language to extend the state's signature climate program through 2045. The proposal, obtained by POLITICO, would also make moderate changes to how the carbon market is run and make several multiyear appropriations of its revenues for wildfire, water, air and energy programs. It's the first detailed proposal to come out of the Legislature and follows Newsom's May proposal to reauthorize the program largely as-is. Lawmakers are now staring down a three-week sprint to resolve their differences and pass a bill on cap and trade, which is not only the regulatory backstop that ensures California meets its climate targets but also a multibillion-dollar revenue engine that's brought in lower-than-expected revenues amid uncertainty about its fate after its 2030 expiration. That uncertainty is set to continue. Ahead of the California Air Resources Board's next quarterly auction scheduled for Wednesday, prices on California's carbon market 'barely responded' to news of the Assembly's proposed amendments, according to Alicia Robinson, CEO of Elevate Climate, a carbon market analytics firm. 'While the Assembly's draft language indicates forward progress, market participants seem to need less talk and more walk before they double down on buying allowances,' she said. Broadly, the proposal — which Irwin is planning to insert into her AB 1207 in the coming weeks — seeks a middle ground between business groups advocating for more free emissions permits in the name of lowering costs and environmental groups advocating for fewer free permits in the name of furthering emissions reductions. It instructs CARB to conduct its own analysis of the risk of businesses — and emissions — leaving the state as a result of the program, and to distribute free allowances accordingly. It also proposes letting businesses offset some of their emissions through investments in carbon dioxide removal technology and natural and working lands and would keep surplus permits off the market to prop up weaker-than-expected auctions. Nick Miller, a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, said in an email that the proposal 'reflects the Assembly's core values: advancing climate ambition while prioritizing affordability for California working families and businesses.' The Senate working group led by Sen. Monique Limón, meanwhile, has been circulating a draft framework, also obtained by POLITICO, to reduce free allowances over time and add a new border adjustment tax to insulate in-state industries. Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. — CvK THE DELTA BETWEEN THEM: The war of words over a controversial proposed tunnel to route water south around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is heating up. Newsom on Tuesday touted the Delta Conveyance Project as the 'most promising action' to protect the state's water delivery system from more extreme storms and droughts, higher temperatures and sea level rise. The occasion: His administration's first-ever report on adapting the State Water Project to climate change released Tuesday. The other occasion: the trailer bill he's backing — with no legislative sponsor yet — to streamline the tunnel's construction. In a now-familiar dance, environmental groups and Delta region lawmakers who oppose the 45-mile-long tunnel's construction because of its impacts on the local ecosystem immediately panned the report, while water agencies that would get its water praised it. The report also lists other strategies to climate-proof the State Water Project, which delivers water to 27 million Californians. Among them: correcting subsidence that's eating away aqueduct capacity, developing 2 million acre-feet of storage south of the Delta, using advanced weather forecasts to manage releases from Oroville Dam and permitting a physical barrier in the Delta to prevent saltwater from creeping up during low water years. — CvK TALK IT OUT: Three Assembly policy committees are coming together tomorrow for an oversight hearing on transportation fuels that will put representatives from oil, labor and environmental justice groups at the table amid a push to overhaul drilling regulations and avert two refinery closures. The joint Natural Resources, Transportation and Utilities and Energy committee hearing should offer an inside look at negotiations on a draft bill from Newsom that would boost oil drilling in Kern County — a proposal that's won plaudits from oil companies and enraged groups that say California is backtracking on its climate goals. The speaker list includes Zach Leary, senior director at the Western States Petroleum Association; Cesar Aguirre, co-director of Central California Environmental Justice Network's air and climate justice team; Mike Smith, chair of the United Steelworkers' national oil bargaining program; and Jeremy Martin, Union of Concerned Scientists' director of fuel policy. The committees will also hear from Benicia Mayor Steve Young, whose city is facing the planned closure of a Valero refinery, and Notre Dame professor Emily Grubert, who's studied clean energy transitions around the country. CARB's Randolph, California Energy Commission Vice Chair Siva Gunda and California Department of Conservation Director Jennifer Lucchesi will also speak. — AN HOT STUFF: It's August, California is about to be hit with a prolonged heat wave, and energy leaders are braced to protect the state's grid. Sound familiar? In August 2020, similar conditions forced the California Independent System Operator to launch rolling electricity blackouts as the grid was overwhelmed with demand from air conditioners across the state. Two years later, Newsom was forced to send out a statewide emergency alert pleading with residents to turn off their appliances during a September temperature spike. As 2025's heat wave approaches, energy officials are confident (mostly) that the state is out of the woods (almost). 'We are cautiously optimistic about the summer,' the CEC's Gunda said at a Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee hearing Tuesday. 'Even under the conditions that we've experienced in 2020 and 2022, we don't expect any shortfalls in the grid,' Gunda said. 'This is because of the storage capacity that has come online.' After the 2020 blackouts, Californians, from the state's utilities to residents putting the tech in their garages, went on a battery-building bonanza, adding over 12,000 megawatts of energy storage to the grid, bringing the CAISO portfolio to about 13,500 MW. The additional storage helps grid managers supply enough energy to meet demand during the early evening, the trickiest time of the day as solar production plummets at the same time that residents arriving home turn on their appliances. 'Still, a long lasting West-wide heat wave coincident [with] a big potential fire could still put us on the edge, and that's something we want to watch carefully,' Gunda said. — NB PEAK OF THE FIRE: California's No. 1 — in homes at fire risk. The state has nearly 1.3 million homes at moderate or higher wildfire risk, representing $800 billion in reconstruction costs, according to a new report released Tuesday by property data and analytics company Cotality. Second-place Colorado has 318,000 homes at similar risk, representing $142 billion. California also claims eight of the 15 metropolitan areas with the most homes at risk: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oxnard, Redding and Chico. — CvK — Suisun City is considering annexing thousands of inland acres from the tech-billionaire backed company California Forever to stay afloat amid rising seas. — See where forecasters are scheduling extreme heat and red flag warnings in California starting Thursday. — The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the California High-Speed Rail Authority knowingly misrepresented the project's numbers in order to obtain federal funding.
New York Times
29 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on ‘How Bad Slavery Was'
President Trump accused the Smithsonian Institution on Tuesday of focusing too much on 'how bad slavery was' and not enough on the 'brightness' of America as his administration conducts a wide-ranging review of the content in its museum exhibits. 'The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,' Mr. Trump said in a social media post. 'This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.' Mr. Trump made the comments a week after the White House told the Smithsonian that its museums would be required to adjust any content that the administration finds problematic in 'tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals' within 120 days. Taken together, the administration's examination and Mr. Trump's post on Tuesday were the latest example of Mr. Trump trying to impose his will on a cultural institution and minimize the experiences and history of Black people in the United States. 'It's the epitome of dumbness to criticize the Smithsonian for dealing with the reality of slavery in America,' said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. 'It's what led to our Civil War and is a defining aspect of our national history. And the Smithsonian deals in a robust way with what slavery was, but it also deals with human rights and civil rights in equal abundance.' Since taking office, Mr. Trump has led an effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion policies from the federal government and threatened to investigate companies and schools that adopt such policies. He has tried to reframe the country's past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history, preferring to instead spotlight a sanitized, rosy depiction of America. The administration has worked to scrub or minimize government references to the contributions of Black heroes, from the Tuskegee Airmen, who fought in World War II, to Harriet Tubman, who guided enslaved people along the Underground Railroad. Mr. Trump commemorated Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that became a federal holiday in 2021, by complaining that there were too many non-working holidays in America. He has called for the return of Confederate insignia and statues honoring those who fought to preserve slavery. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
