Attorney Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, made clear that President Donald Trump will be dragged into court over his new executive order targeting voting rights in the United States.
“There’s no question that 2026 is under attack,” Elias said Wednesday. “I don't think Donald Trump is going to be able to cancel the elections, but I do think he wants to attack free and fair elections in every way he can.”
Elias made the comments in an MSNBC interview where he warned that although the president’s move is largely “bluster” and “performance art,” it is also “very serious.”
“This is a five-alarm fire,” Elias said. “This executive order is a ham-handed way that the fire is being lit.”
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“And I think it's going to be quite alarming and quite surprising to many people to see how far he's willing to go,” he added. “This executive order itself is sort of a fever dream, right? He doesn't have the authority to do the things he claims to do, but he is going to try to bully and intimidate his way.”
But Elias came armed with a message for Trump: “He is going to face lawsuits, I can promise him that, and he's going to lose those cases.” He concluded his interview by flagging an aspect of Trump’s new order that he said, “people can’t take serious enough.”
“This desire on their part to deputize their folks, to decide whether you get to vote and whether your vote counts is a real problem,” Elias said. “And I can promise everyone that it is one I take seriously, my team takes seriously, lots of others take seriously, and we will litigate aggressively.”
The attorney added that he expects Trump's attack on the 2026 elections to go down “in ways we have never seen done before.”
“And we all need to be steeled for that reality, because the thing he fears most is that he will be held accountable at the ballot box.”
