WA Democrats tell citizens ‘we will be ready’ for second Trump presidency
Nov 6, 2024, 3:43 PM | Updated: 6:37 pm
WA democrats Washington state Governor Jay Inslee (L) and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (R)) are pictured before speaking to media and people gathered at Kerry Park about patient's rights to abortion and reproductive healthcare during a pro-choice rally in Seattle, Washington on May 3, 2022. (Photo: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)
(Photo: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)
At the Democratic Watch Party Tuesday night in Seattle, Governor Jay Inslee told KIRO Newsradio he previously discussed with Governor-elect Bob Ferguson the possibility of a second presidential term for now-President-elect Donald Trump.
His comments came minutes after Ferguson, in his acceptance speech Tuesday, implied Trump’s second term would come with a threat to the state.
“There is nobody running for statewide office anywhere in the U.S. who is more prepared to defend your freedoms against that administration than I am,” he told the ballroom of cheering supporters.
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Newly elected Attorney General Nick Brown echoed the same message in his speech.
“My promise will to all Washingtonians is that no matter what happens in Washington, D.C., that we will be ready,” Brown said. “We will be ready to defend your rights, your civil rights, your right to an abortion, your environmental protections, your rights as a consumer. We will be ready.”
The Associated Press declared Trump the winner of the presidential election on Wednesday, but results by Tuesday night showed him with a strong lead.
Inslee said he’s talked with Ferguson about preparing for another Trump presidency, which Democratic voters worry could include executive overreach if the Trump administration follows through with campaign promises that could reach Washington, like mass deportations and using the military against a nebulous group of Americans who Trump deems the “enemies from within.”
“We worked very closely protecting ourselves from the first Trump administration that tried to intrude on our own decision-making,” Inslee said.
Inslee attempted to assuage those concerns, saying that “what he has tried to do in the past, he has failed.”
“He is a personal collection of very angry, very hate-filled rhetoric, and he’s filled with that in whatever soul he has,” he said, describing the president-elect as “spectacularly incompetent” and “ineffective.”
“In part, because he’s had people in the rest of government – our judicial system, our legislators, our people in Main Street – that have prevented him from those depredations,” he added.
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Trump’s critics warn that many of his own cabinet members who tempered his views and policies will not be included in a second-term cabinet. In his own party, only two of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him remain in the House of Representatives, including Washington’s Rep. Dan Newhouse of the 4th Congressional District.
As of Wednesday at 6 p.m., Newhouse leads a fellow Republican, Trump-backed Jerrod Sessler, by 4,631 votes.
Sam Campbell is a reporter, editor and anchor at KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of Sam’s stories here. Follow Sam on X, or email him here.
