COLDWATER, MI — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel spoke Saturday, July 12 at a demonstration of about 100 people opposing the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration at Four Corners Park with a promise to keep up the fight to enforce the laws and the U.S. Constitution.
Nessel told the crowd of the her office’s legal battles against the Trump administration, including 21 lawsuits and over 20 amici briefs in other cases.
Nessel urged the crowd to speak out.
“What the Trump administration wants, they want us to be quiet. They want us to be so inundated with horrible news that we just stop paying attention,” she said.
Nessel said through the lawsuits, “We have successfully clawed back over $1.5 billion that the federal government has tried to illegally take from us here in Michigan. It’s our money, our money that we paid in taxes to the federal government that the Trump administration tried to unilaterally and illegally take from us.”
These suits stopped previously appropriated Congressional funding. With attorney generals from other Democratic states, they won injunctions against the Trump administration’s executive orders and actions.
“Donald Trump thinks that his magical Sharpie and the signing of executive orders somehow supersedes actual laws made by Congress and also the United States Constitution,” Nessel said.
Questioned about Medicaid cuts in the recently passed “Big, beautiful bill” on taxation and spending, Nessel said Republicans were smart to push a majority of the actual reductions until after next year’s mid-term elections and the 2028 presidential election.
Nessel stated that the impact will still be significant, affecting one in four rural hospitals, which are expected to shut down, and 25% of nursing homes will need to close due to Medicaid funding cuts.
“You’re not going to just wait until the last minute to do it. You’re not going to be hiring new staff. You’re not going to be making upgrades to your facilities, or getting new equipment in that you need for a facility,” Nessel said.
The attorney general said people need to keep pressure on the administration, which will change policies.
Nessel pointed to Trump’s plans to eliminate FEMA and cut the National Weather Service. She said it became evident after the flood disaster in Texas why those ideas were bad.
“Even Trump Republicans in Texas were irate and demanding that FEMA do its damn job and not literally eliminate a congressionally created agency,” she said.
Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Curtis Hertel attended the demonstration. He said Trump and the Republican Party’s actions are invigorating Democrats and some Republicans who are sorry they voted for Trump.
“They’re seeing the pain that it’s causing and the fact that they only care about those that are already rich and powerful,” he said.
Hertel emphasized that elections next year and 2028 hinge on voters’ belief that the Democratic party will fight for them.
He highlighted past Democratic achievements, including significant tax cuts, poverty reduction, and education investments, while criticizing the current administration’s broken promises on economic issues.
Hertel said Democrats were in control of the Michigan legislature that passed the largest tax cut for working families in the state’s history and brought about 30,000 kids out of poverty.
Hertel represented the Lansing area in Michigan’s Senate for two terms until 2023.
Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Nessel urges Coldwater demonstrators to continue to oppose Trump policies
Reporting by Don Reid, Coldwater Daily Reporter / Coldwater Daily Reporter
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