M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Appearing on CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, Griffin explained that the ruling is going to turn Trump upside down.
"Truly stunning news," she said. "I expect this is a five-alarm fire."
She went on to explain that while Colorado's 10 electoral votes favored Biden back in 2020, it's more about the precedent and stigma that comes with being banned in a state to run for the highest office in the land because you're deemed an insurrectionist.
"He's not playing for the kinds of electoral votes in Colorado," she said. "But it's the precedent it sets and the mindset it signals for voters: Which is for the first time in history he is unfit to appear on a ballot for the presidency."
The ruling partially reverses a lower court's decision who also found Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting violence from his supporters back on Jan. 6, 2021, but, as president, the judge stated that Trump was not an “officer of the United States” who could be disqualified under the 14th Amendment.
Section Three of the Civil War-era amendment remains enforceable against candidates who "engaged in insurrection" after having "taken an oath" to "support the Constitution."
A Trump attorney questioned the authority to nix Trump from the ballot, and argued the Capitol riot didn't amount to an insurrection and that the former president's words to his many supporters were protected speech.
Griffin stressed that however much this may seem like a pivotal victory for anti-Trumpers, the consensus, even among those in the GOP who want to turn the Trump page is still clear: let the voters decide.
"I do offer a word of caution: There is an argument to be made that this should ultimately be left up to the voters," she said. "I've hear this from quite a few Republicans who want to see us move on from Donald Trump but worry about playing into the hands that the system is rigged.
"Now it's not and the courts are working as they're supposed to – but he's going to quickly frame this that they're rigging the system against me in favor of Joe Biden."
