Politics
Failed effort to boot Trump from ballot exposes 'radical' left's ‘pure lunacy’: state election chief
The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling to keep former President Donald Trump’s name on Colorado primary ballots is a win for democracy and further exposed the radical left’s “pure lunacy,” Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray told Fox News Digital.
“It’s a huge moment for the American people,” Gray told Fox News Digital in a phone interview shortly following SCOTUS’ decision. “And I think one of the lessons of this is … the way the radical left despises the American people and our process, and what happens then is lunacy. And that’s what their whole argumentation and what they were trying to do was. It was pure lunacy.”
Each of the nine Supreme Court justices ruled in Trump’s favor in a decision released Monday, ending legal threats in a handful of states that were working to remove the former president’s name over claims he incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the opinion states.
WYOMING ELECTION CHIEF MOUNTS FULL-COURT PRESS AGAINST ‘RADICAL LEFT’S’ PUSH TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM BALLOT
Republican Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray. (Wyoming Secretary of State )
Last year, a group of Colorado voters brought a lawsuit arguing Trump should be deemed ineligible from holding political office under a Civil War-era insurrection clause and that his name should thus be barred from appearing on the 2024 ballot. The group said Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, violated a clause in the 14th Amendment that prevents officers of the United States, members of Congress or state legislatures who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution from holding political office.
WYOMING JUDGE DISMISSES EFFORT TO BAR TRUMP FROM BALLOT
The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately ruled to bar Trump from the ballot, with justices writing in their opinion that Trump “incited and encouraged” the use of violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, following the 2020 presidential election.
Trump subsequently appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and ultimately notched a victory on Monday.
Supreme Court Justices posing for an official photo at the Supreme Court. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
For months, Gray has been battling Democrats’ argument that Trump is ineligible to appear on the primary ballots over Jan. 6 – an argument he’s also been calling “bunk” and likely doomed to fail.
“We kind of saw this coming. Last year, we wrote a letter to the New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlon, when he was toying with the whole thing. And explained to him why this is totally inconsistent with the values of our republic, why Trump should be kept on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, and why there was a national interest for other states to weigh in on this,” Gray told Fox News Digital.
New Hampshire’s secretary of state ultimately said he would not invoke the 14th Amendment to remove Trump back in September. Gray went on to observe how the Colorado case was teeing up against Trump, and filed an amicus curiae brief, otherwise known as a friend of the court brief, with the Colorado Supreme Court to rectify a lower court’s ruling that labeled Trump an “insurrectionist.”
In January, Gray continued the battle when he filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Trump remaining on the Colorado ballot. Gray’s amicus brief was the only one filed by a secretary of state explicitly in support of Trump remaining on the ballot, as opposed to other secretaries who filed a brief with the Supreme Court but argued on behalf of neither party.
TOP WYOMING OFFICIAL SLAMS BRAKES ON COURT LABELING TRUMP ‘INSURRECTIONIST’: ‘OUTRAGEOUS’
“I think that we saw this coming. We saw the national interest here. That all 50 states had an interest in this case, because when one state denies electors to a presidential candidate, that affects every single other state because that makes it more difficult for a candidate to achieve the 270 to reach victory,” he said.
“On top of that, states with later primaries or caucuses, like Wyoming, are affected if one state wants to remove a candidate from the primary or caucus ballot. So all 50 states had an interest in this,” he noted.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump waves to the crowd on the field during halftime in the Palmetto Bowl between Clemson and South Carolina at Williams Brice Stadium on November 25, 2023 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Gray’s efforts have earned him “some heat” from the Wyoming state legislature and local media, he said, pointing to an amendment in the Wyoming House’s version of a budget bill that would prevent him from filing amicus briefs in the future.
He called the effort “very troubling,” noting that the Colorado case was of national interest, not just a case affecting Coloradans, and of interest to Wyoming voters, who overwhelmingly supported Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
SUPREME COURT RULES UNANIMOUSLY FOR TRUMP IN COLORADO BALLOT DISQUALIFICATION DISPUTE
“Even in the state’s House, some of these arguments of the radical left are leading to lunacy and conclusions that don’t make any sense. But that’s what happens. The fact that the radical left despises the American people, our Republic, the traditions of our republic, that’s what this leads to. And it was really important that the national Supreme Court stepped in,” he said.
The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Legal experts speculated last month, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the Colorado case, that there was a strong chance they could unanimously rule in Trump’s favor. Justice Elena Kagan, for example, questioned whether one state should decide on behalf of the entire country who should be president. While Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson challenged the assertion that there was no ambiguity in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
“It was pretty clear that writing was on the wall,” Gray said when asked if he anticipated the unanimous ruling based on oral arguments. “It was pretty clear where they were headed.”
Overall, Gray argued the Colorado case, and other states that worked to remove Trump from the ballot, are examples of “the radical left’s” “Trump derangement syndrome,” which produces “nonsense.”
TRUMP SAYS SUPREME COURT RULING IN COLORADO CASE IS ‘UNIFYING AND INSPIRATIONAL’
“We’re going to continue to monitor the processes across our nation and be vigilant. Any time the people are able to choose for themselves, that’s a win for our republic and that’s what our elections are about. And I’m going to continue to unapologetically fight for the people of Wyoming, and the people across our country to choose who to elect for themselves,” Gray said.
Ranked choice voting (RCV) comes in multiple forms and is used in a wide variety of states and localities around the U.S. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump took a victory lap following the Supreme Court’s decision Monday, saying it is a “great win for America.”
“Equally important for our country will be the decision that they will soon make on immunity for a president — without which, the presidency would be relegated to nothing more than a ceremonial position, which is far from what the founders intended,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “No president would be able to properly and effectively function without complete and total immunity.”
He added, “Our country would be put at great risk.”
During China’s imperial age, those deemed guilty of the worst offenses were sometimes sentenced to death in a public square by a brutal form of execution known as lingchi. Soldiers — using sharp blades — would slice away pieces of flesh from the accused until they died. Translated, lingchi means “death by a thousand cuts.”
Maybe democracy does die in darkness, as journalist Bob Woodward often suggests. Or maybe democracy’s demise comes in the light of day, in a public forum, where everyone can bear witness. Sometimes those holding the knives are the oligarchs or elected officials drenched in corruption. And sometimes there’s blood on the hands of the people.
On Saturday, voters in San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country — are headed to the polls to decide the first open mayoral race since President Obama’s first term. Or at least some voters will be.
In November 2024, nearly 60% of the 1.3 million registered voters in the county cast a ballot in the general election. However, in the local election held last month, barely 10% showed up to the polls. Before anyone starts throwing shade at San Antonio, in Dallas the turnout was even lower.
Lackluster participation in an “off year” election is not new. However, the mayoral race in San Antonio has increased national interest because the outcome is being viewed as a litmus test for both the strength of the Democrats’ resistance and the public’s appetite for the White House’s policies.
Like other big blue cities nestled in legislatively red states, San Antonio’s progressive policies have been under constant assault from the governor’s mansion. And with neither the progressive candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, or her MAGA-leaning opponent, Rolando Pablos, eclipsing 50% of the vote in May, the runoff has drawn more than $1 million in campaign spending from outside conservative groups looking to flip the traditionally blue stronghold.
The outcome could provide a possible glimpse into the 2026 mayoral race in Los Angeles, should the formerly Republican Rick Caruso decide to run against Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. When the two faced off in 2022, around 44% of the city’s registered voters went to the polls. Caruso lost by less than 90,000 votes in a city with 2.1 million registered voters — most of whom didn’t submit a ballot.
It is rather astonishing how little we actually participate in democracy, given the amount of tax dollars we have spent trying to convince other nations that our government system is the best on the planet. Capitulating to President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, many local conservative elected officials have tried to ram through a litany of “voter integrity” policies under the guise of protecting democracy. However, democracy is not a delicate flower in need of protection. It’s a muscle in need of exercise.
“Some people find voting to be a chore,” Michele Carew, the elections administrator for Bexar County — which includes San Antonio — told me. “We need to make voting easier and quite frankly, fun. And we need to get those who don’t feel like their vote counts to see that it does. That means getting out and talking to people in our neighborhood, in our churches, in our grocery stores … about when elections are coming up and what’s at stake locally.”
Carew said that the added outside interest in the city’s election has driven up early voting a tick and that she expects to see roughly a 15% turnout, which is an increase over previous years. It could be worse. The city once elected a mayor with 7% turnout back in 2013. Carew also expressed concern about outside influence on local governing.
“One of the first times I saw these nonpartisan races become more political was in 2020, and so as time goes by it’s gotten even more so. I would like to think once the candidate is elected mayor they remain nonpartisan and do what’s best for the city and not their party.”
In 2024, a presidential election year when you’d expect the highest turnout, 1 in 3 registered voters across this country — roughly 20 million people — took a look around and said, “Nah, I’m good.” Or something like that.
The highest turnout was in Washington, D.C., where nearly 80% showed up. Too bad it’s not a state. Among the lowest turnout rates? Texas — which has the second-greatest number of voters, behind only California.
And therein lies the problem with trying to extrapolate national trends from local elections. Maybe Ortiz Jones will win in San Antonio this weekend. Maybe Caruso will win in L.A. next year. None of this tells us how the vast majority of Americans are really feeling.
Sure, it’s good fodder to debate around the table or on cable news shows, but ultimately the sample size of a mayoral election belies any claims about a result’s meaning. Turnout during an off year is just too low.
One thing we know for certain is most voters in America exercise their right to vote only once every four years. Oligarchs and corrupt officials are not great, but it’s hard for democracy to stay healthy and strong if that’s all the exercise it’s getting.
@LZGranderson
Elon Musk and President Trump began a relationship nearly a decade ago that developed into a close partnership over the last year. That alliance unraveled publicly in just a few days.
Here’s a look at what the two men have said about each other over the years — both the praises and the jabs.
Frenemies (2016-23)
The relationship between Mr. Musk and the president started off rocky. Before the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Musk said in an interview with CNBC that Mr. Trump was “not the right guy” to lead the country. Over the next few years, Mr. Trump would both praise and insult the tech billionaire.
What Musk said
Nov. 4, 2016
July 11, 2022
What Trump said
Jan. 22, 2020
July 9, 2022
Oct. 28, 2022
Mr. Musk in 2022 reinstated Mr. Trump’s account on Twitter, now X, after purchasing the social media platform, but would later support Ron DeSantis in the early days of the Florida governor’s presidential campaign.
A close allyship (2024-May 2025)
Mr. Musk gave a strong endorsement to Mr. Trump after the first assassination attempt against him at a rally in Butler, Pa., in July 2024. That year, Mr. Musk spent over a quarter of a billion dollars helping to elect Mr. Trump, and was later rewarded with a top adviser position and broad powers to slash the federal bureaucracy.
Mr. Musk made a stunning Oval Office appearance in February, alongside Mr. Trump. During his time as a “special government employee,” Mr. Musk had a public spat with a top Trump economic adviser, Peter Navarro.
What Musk said
July 13, 2024
Oct. 5, 2024
Nov. 11, 2024
April 8, 2025
May 27, 2025
May 30, 2025
What Trump said
Oct. 5, 2024
Feb 11, 2025
March 11, 2025
May 30, 2025
Feud (June 2025)
Cloying flattery abruptly turned into a hostile feud after Mr. Musk criticized the president’s signature domestic policy bill. The two men traded insults — mostly over their respective social media platforms — in what has become a very public breakup.
What Musk said
June 3, 2025
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
What Trump said
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
June 5, 2025
Politics
House Speaker Johnson: Dems who want ICE agents unmasked 'mandated mask wearing for years' during COVID
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House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News on Friday that Democrats pushing for ICE agents to unmask themselves are the same “people who mandated mask wearing for years in America” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson was asked by Fox News for his reaction as “some Democrats, including [House Minority] Leader [Hakeem] Jeffries, have suggested that the ICE agents who are arresting some of these migrants should not be wearing masks.”
“From the people who mandated mask wearing for years in America. It’s absurd. They need to back off of ICE and respect our agents and stop protesting against them,” Johnson said. “They’re trying to uphold the rule of law, and they don’t want to be targeted by Democrat activists. So I’m in favor of whatever protocol.”
Jeffries said Tuesday that ICE agents who attempt to conceal “their identities from the American people, will be unsuccessful in doing that” and they will all be identified “no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes.”
ICE OFFICIAL PUTS POLITICIANS ON BLAST, DEMANDING THEY ‘STOP PUTTING MY PEOPLE IN DANGER’
House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, reacted Friday to recent comments from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ about ICE agents wearing masks. (Getty Images)
Johnson was then asked Friday “so you’re okay with these agents sort of not identifying themselves when they’re arresting migrants?”
“Why? So that they can target them?” he responded. “So they can put their names and faces online and dox them? That’s what these activists do. So we have to protect those who protect our communities.
“And it’s absurd for anybody, members of Congress or any other elected leader, to be calling out ICE for trying to do their job. They’ve made it difficult for them to do it for years, and I just think it’s patently absurd,” Johnson also said.
At his weekly press conference Friday, Fox News asked Jeffries if he was concerned that possibly demasking some ICE agents puts them or their families’ safety at risk.
“It seems to me that the officials at the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, should be held to the same standards as every other part of law enforcement in terms of transparency,” the Democrat from New York said.
HOMELAND SECURITY SAYS BOSTON’S MAYOR COMPARING ICE AGENTS TO NEO-NAZIS IS ‘SICKENING’
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has also recently spoken out against ICE agents wearing masks. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images and Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On Jeffries’ official X account, in September 2020, he wrote “It’s not that complicated. Wear. A. Mask.”
Then around a year later, in August 2021, Jeffries said “Get vaccinated. Wear a mask. Crush the virus.”
Two Democrat senators from Virginia, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, also wrote a letter last month to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and other top officials about ICE’s recent immigration enforcement operations taking an “alarming and dangerous turn.”
“Across the country and in Virginia, masked ICE officers and agents without clearly visible identification as law enforcement have been arresting individuals on the streets and in sensitive locations, such as courthouses. Such actions put everyone at risk – the targeted individuals, the ICE officers and agents, and bystanders who may misunderstand what is happening and may attempt to intervene,” they said.
WHITE HOUSE BACKS MAJOR LEGISLATION TO SPEED UP DEPORTATIONS
ICE officers are seen making an arrest in Lynn, Mass., last month. (ICE )
“We urge you to direct ICE officers and agents to promptly and clearly identify themselves as law enforcement officers conducting law enforcement actions when arresting subjects, and limit the use of face coverings during arrests and other enforcement actions to avoid intimidation and reduce safety risks to the public,” the Senators added.
In August 2021, Kaine pushed mask wearing as well, writing in a Facebook post that he was “Deeply concerned about the rapid rise of COVID-19 delta variant infections we are seeing across the Commonwealth” and that “We should do all we can to help stop the spread of the virus and keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, including following CDC guidance such as getting vaccinated, masking up indoors, and social distancing.”
“Folks, let’s continue to protect ourselves by getting vaccinated, masking up, and social distancing so we can safely return to all of the activities we love,” Warner added at the time.
Representatives for Jeffries, Kaine and Warner did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Tyler Olson and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
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