Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters Tuesday that she intends to push back against potential abortion and immigration policy proposals by the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
As she spoke to reporters in the AG’s Office Tuesday, Mayes had a printed out copy of the 900-page Project 2025 next to her in two separate three ring binders.
Project 2025 is a right-wing blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power under a Trump presidency. The list of policy plans was created in large part by former Trump aides and allies.
The Heritage Foundation created the document in partnership with more than 100 other conservative groups, many with extreme views on abortion, taxes, immigration and federal agencies. Proposals in Project 2025 include completely banning abortion nationwide, bringing the U.S. Department of Justice under the direct control of the president, increased immigration enforcement and sweeping cuts to federal agencies.
While Trump has distanced himself from the proposal, the project has members of Trump’s inner circle, including former top Trump aide John McEntee, who is said to be one of the main leaders behind the proposal.
Other senior Trump administration officials have also been involved in the proposal.
Mayes called many of the proposed executive orders and proposed legislation outlined in Project 2025 unconstitutional, specifically citing the proposal’s desire to reinstate the Comstock Act of 1873 which would prohibit the mailing of certain reproductive health care medications and in effect would create a nationwide abortion ban.
“Those kinds of provisions are unacceptable to the people of this country,” Mayes said, adding that she believes it would violate both the United States Constitution and the Arizona Constitution’s provisions on privacy.
“Bottom line is this: It is my job to uphold both the Arizona and Federal constitution,” Mayes said.
Arizona voters recently enshrined abortion rights into the state’s constitution with the passage of Proposition 139. However, a federal ban enacted either by executive order or by Congress would likely overrule any state right to abortion. Trump has said he wants to leave the issue to the states, but many in his orbit have floated national abortion bans, including his vice president. Project 2025 details at great length policies that would end abortion access and curtail the availability of things like contraception.
The AG said she is anticipating defending Prop. 139 in court in the coming months as legal challenges by anti-abortion advocates to the constitutionality of the provision make their way through the courts.
Mayes also signaled her intention to push back against immigration policies that have been floated by the incoming Trump administration, saying that ending DACA — a program that grants protections to undocumented people who were brought to America by their parents when they were children — is a “line in the sand” for her office.
Trump has campaigned on a promise to do mass deportations of immigrants in the country, a plan that economists have said could cause issues for the national economy. Mayes said that seeing the migrant detention camps during Trump’s first administration led to her switching parties from Republican to Democrat.
She also called Trump’s proposed migrant camps during his promised mass deportation “concentration camps.”
“The problem with that is it leads to abuses,” Mayes said of mass deportation plans, adding that she would rather see the administration focus on violent cartel members who are inside the country.
The AG also voiced her concerns over how the process may roll out, adding that she fears the “due process” of individuals caught up in the mass deportations will be ignored in order to speed up the process saying that U.S. citizens may get caught up in the “dragnet.”
Mayes also reiterated that a Trump presidency does not stop her case against Trump 2020 fake electors.
“I have absolutely no intention of dropping the fake electors case,” she said.
Earlier this year a grand jury indicted 18 people in a fake elector scheme that aimed to install Donald Trump as president after he lost the 2020 election. Those indicted included two Arizona state senators and the former head of the Arizona Republican Party. One person in the case, GOP activist Lorraine Pellegrino, has already taken a plea deal.
“They are not affected one bit by Donald Trump’s election to the presidency,” Mayes said of the case. “It doesn’t make it easier, that’s for sure.”
Mayes added that the grand jury had initially intended to indict Trump as well as “30 members” of the Arizona legislature until they were told not to by the AG’s Office.
Republicans won nationally and locally, with efforts by Arizona and national Democrats to flip the legislature blue ultimately failed. Mayes, who has been a target of Republicans at the Arizona Legislature, said she is looking for opportunities where her office and Republicans can work together — including Trump.
One opportunity Mayes said she saw was addressing how opioid settlement money is being used in the state. The issue came into focus during this year’s budget, when money from settlements with opioid manufacturers over their role in the opioid crisis was diverted to Arizona’s prisons, something Mayes vehemently opposed.
She sued, but the court rejected her argument, allowing the money to be used for addressing issues within Arizona’s prisons. But Mayes said she is confident that the money is being used inappropriately and aims to address that in the coming legislative session.
She also voiced her desire for the incoming Trump administration to send more Drug Enforcement Agency officials to the state and said she would like to see Trump revive and enact a border bill that he urged Republicans to kill.
Overall, Mayes said her office is ready to push back against policies outlined in Project 2025, saying that her office has been analyzing the proposal for “months” and preparing departments in her office for impending legal battles related to it. She added that she has also been in communication with Democratic AGs in other states, but did not elaborate on which states.
As for the repudiation up and down the ballot of Democratic candidates, Mayes said a reckoning is in order.
“We have to be very honest with ourselves,” Mayes said. “Democrats didn’t turn out, and we need to assess why that is.”
Asked if she thought Vice President Kamala Harris was not going to win, given her preparation for a Trump presidency, Mayes said it was about being prepared.
“Hoping for the best but planning for the worst,” Mayes said.
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