Headlines abound in today’s political discourse about President Donald Trump’s blizzard of legal battles and the separation of powers between the executive, congressional and judicial branches of the U.S. government. The Associated Press reports that the administration is involved in 320 lawsuits regarding Trump’s executive orders and the administration’s actions.
Of those, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has either filed or been involved in 35 lawsuits – the majority of which he has won in court. He has been in the judicial system for a long time, working for the Obama and Clinton administrations and as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Byron White. Those are both reasons why he argues Coloradans should cast their votes for him, rather than his Democratic rival Sen. Michael Bennet, during the 2026 Colorado gubernatorial race.
“I have shown that commitment to fighting for principle and moral clarity,” he said during a Sept. 11 interview with The Durango Herald.
In a wide-ranging interview, Weiser covered topics having to do with his lawsuits, wolf reintroduction in Colorado, the state’s rural-urban split, political violence and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Following are excerpts from that conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.
According to The Colorado Sun, Weiser has sued the Trump administration 35 times over issues such as tariffs, funding cuts, the environment, immigration, birthright citizenship, federal firings, gun control, health care, data privacy and transgender rights. To date, 15 of those actions were blocked by the courts because of Weiser’s challenges, 14 are pending and six have been upheld by the courts. He was asked about his experience with suing the president’s administration, and what it’s like working as an AG when the Supreme Court is ideologically aligned with the president.
“The ideological leanings of the Supreme Court are problematic, and the Dobbs case is a painful reminder of how this court has – in a number of cases – pursued an agenda that I find concerning,” he said. “At the same time, the Supreme Court is tethered to this concept of the rule of law, and as we have constitutional protections that on the face of them, this administration is willing to violate birthright citizens, to take one example. Potentially violating due process of law to take a second.”
Weiser highlighted how he and a coalition of 23 state attorneys general sued the administration. He said his legal victories brought $8 million to $10 million of AmeriCorps funding to Coloradans, $230 million to Colorado for public health funds and preserved a dozen Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants. Still, the extent to which the Supreme Court rules with the president has yet to be seen, though lower courts have so far served as a check to the president’s power where Congress has not.
“We are seeing the courts as the critical check,” Weiser said. “Congress is not doing its job. Congress is even allowing the president and the executive branch to take away the legislative power of the purse.”
Additionally, he said he believed the court of public opinion could prove an important check on the president, particularly if Trump defies a court ruling. According to a Pew Research Center poll published in May, 78% of respondents felt the president had to follow a court ruling, a figure Weiser alluded to in his answer.
“Eighty percent of the American public believes clearly the president has to follow court orders, so the president’s willingness to consider that action will have repercussions,” he said “My commitment is to win in the court of law and also the court of public opinion. It’s very important the public uses its voice and that we make clear what we will not tolerate. Public opinion is turning against the president on a range of issues, including immigration, including the economy – because you have things like illegal tariffs, another one, these are cases that are going to the Supreme Court. We need people to be vigilant as citizens.”
Weiser said public opinion was crucial, particularly if Trump ends up defying a court order.
“We need to defend the Republic,” he said. “Judicial rulings on their own aren’t necessarily enough, because the president, in theory, might say, ‘I’m not going to,’ and then we’d have a full on constitutional crisis. But I think the public pressure is going to be the critical guardrail that reinforces court orders and helps us keep the Republic.”
In January, Weiser announced his candidacy for the 2026 Colorado governor’s race, in which he hopes to replace term-limited Jared Polis. He was asked why Coloradans should cast their votes for him rather than Bennet, and how he as governor would respond to issues like wolves and water rights.
“The reason that I believe I’m going to win this race, and should win this race, is that I have shown I’m a fighter,” he said. “I’m going to fight for these core principles that we in Colorado believe in – addressing climate, diversity, equity and inclusion, how we treat immigrants fairly, including due process of law.”
Weiser argued that his time as attorney general, spent directly challenging the Trump administration, showed that he was willing to fight for Coloradans. He brought up how Bennet voted for more of Trump’s government nominees than almost any Democratic senator in the name of building better relations with the president.
“I have shown that commitment to fighting for principle and moral clarity,” Weiser said. “My view is, when you’re dealing with a lawless bully, which is how I characterize this administration, there’s no making nice. There’s standing around and there’s fighting for you. I believe in Colorado. Want a governor who shows that moral clarity?”
Like many states, Colorado has a rural-urban divide, with rural counties leaning more Republican and Democratic counties leaning more Democratic. urban counties leaning more Democratic and rural, according to Politico data from the 2024 presidential election
The issue of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction sums that up, with BallotPedia data showing 50.91% of the “yes” votes coming from the state’s urban population centers and 40.09% of the “no” votes from the state’s more rural agricultural counties. When asked about his thoughts on wolves, Weiser said he would listen to ranchers concerned that the reintroduction has largely ignored their concerns, though he didn’t elaborate on whether he was for or against wolves in the state.
“I’ve talked to ranchers, and my message is, I’m here to listen,” he said. “I will always listen. I will always make sure you know that I’m here to serve you. I’ve accomplished that by truly showing up and being available.”
Weiser said he hired someone to do rural outreach for the AG’s office, and that he has written letters to Colorado Parks and Wildlife on behalf of ranchers.
“I wrote a letter to the Parks and Wildlife Commission, saying it’s really important when you’re making decisions that affected communities are at the table,” Weiser said. “This is the point I often say, ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.’ And in Colorado, I don’t want that to be the case. It’s also why I take so seriously regular consultations with our tribes here, because it is important to show up, to be available, to build relationships, so people know you’re there for them.”
Weiser also highlighted issues he has filed lawsuits over that benefit rural communities, such as winning $7.4 billion from pharmaceutical companies for their role in the opioid crisis. He also brought up defending the state’s water rights outlined in the Colorado River Compact, fighting trans-basin water projects to secure water for everyone in the state and securing broadband internet for communities.
“We can’t have public policies on a one-size-fits-all basis, because things are different in Baca County than they are in Arapahoe County,” he said. “And so I’m going to make sure that as I am leading the state, I’m leading with an understanding of the whole state, a commitment to help public policy work.”
On Sept. 10, a day before Weiser passed through Durango, there was a shooting at Evergreen High School that left the shooter dead and a student in critical condition – the 47th since the beginning of the year. On the same day, conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated at the University of Utah. Weiser was asked what he has done to prevent gun deaths and cool heated political rhetoric as attorney general, and what he plans to do if he becomes governor.
“I’m proud of what I and others have been able to do since when I ran in 2018,” he said. “When I ran in 2018, there was this narrative out there that the gun lobby is so strong that if you try to push gun legislation, it’ll backfire.”
Weiser noted how he has worked on mental health outreach programs as part of his work as attorney general. Gun violence, he said, is the leading cause of death for children in the United States, which the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health affirms. If elected governor, safe storage and red flag laws will be a top priority, he said, as well as addressing youth mental health and domestic violence concerns, both of which he identified as exacerbating the gun problem.
“How do we better know how young people are doing? Make sure they’re connected and have a greater sense of belonging so they’re less likely to want to die by suicide, and have more people around to help,” he said. “So I’ve made youth mental health a big centerpiece of work I’m doing as attorney general, and will be as governor as well.”
Weiser said the Second Amendment prevents the government from mandating that certain guns are banned, like what happened in Australia in 1996. However, there are ways he outlined that would allow the state to incentivize Coloradans to turn in their firearms and therefore decrease shootings.
“We have a Second Amendment, Australia doesn’t,” he said. “So we are going to continue the need to always have an awareness that whenever we do any forms of gun safety laws, there could be a Second Amendment challenge. Our office looks to weigh in on the front end to evaluate, ‘are there concerns we defend these laws in the back end?’ There’s no problem from the Second Amendment standpoint, if Denver or other communities want to have gun buyback programs that can be a public safety tool, and that’s tended to happen on the local level.”
Funding, he said, would be a major hurdle to implementing a buyback program for communities across the state. In addition to policy decisions, Weiser said it is important to cool the tensions that exist in the country over politics to start moving toward solutions.
“We’re sitting here the day after Charlie Kirk was killed on a college campus,” he said. “We don’t know what the killer’s mindset was, but I do believe that rising violence, rising hate and rising dehumanization and demonization is a trend that is unsustainable, both within the United States and the world. And so the challenge is how do we create more opportunity to see one another as fellow humans. It’s hard to hate at close range. So if you have relationships, it’s much easier to build trust. It’s much easier to build understanding.”
The theme of dehumanization came up again when asked about his thoughts on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza – a similarly polarizing issue. In August, the names of 270 journalists killed in Gaza during Israels offensive on the enclave were written on the front steps of the Herald. Polls suggest that half of U.S. voters believe genocide is being committed in Gaza by Israel, the International Association of Genocide Scholars concluded in August that Israel’s actions constitute genocide and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Court of Justice for war crimes.
As the son of a Holocaust survivor, Weiser was asked about his thoughts on the situation in Gaza.
“As a person, I’m deeply pained,” he said. “It’s tragic. I do feel terrible that this conflict is sustained in a way that innocent people are suffering every single day, and the tragedy we’re seeing needs to stop.”
Weiser said as attorney general or Colorado governor, there is not much he could do to weigh in on foreign policy.
I as a citizen pray for there to be peace, for hostages to be returned and for innocents in Gaza to be able to live their lives with dignity,” he said. “There are those who are in foreign policy who have to figure out answers that I’m not necessarily briefed on ... but I do feel, as a person, what is happening in front of our eyes is tragic. It’s awful. We need to do all we can to make sure that we address humanitarian crises, that people have food to eat, that we can bring this war to an end.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
