Attorney General Todd Blanche had a fiery exchange with CNN’s Dana Bash during a Sunday interview after she suggested that President Trump’s administration was laying the groundwork for another January 6. Bash was discussing a Justice Department lawsuit involving Alaska’s Senate race, but Blanche clearly thought the conversation had veered from election law into cable-news catastrophe theater.
The DOJ filed the lawsuit Friday to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race under certain circumstances. The dispute centers on Daniel J. Sullivan, who previously ran in the Senate primary as a Republican and is now running in the general election as a no-party-affiliated candidate after receiving 2.5% of the vote. The source describes him as a decoy candidate being propped up to confuse voters who might intend to support incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
The lawsuit argues that “some supporters of Senator Sullivan likely will inadvertently vote for Daniel J. Sullivan.” It adds, “To guard against this danger, it is vital that Defendants not certify any election result that may be impacted by voter confusion.” The DOJ seeks to prevent certification if Senator Sullivan loses and if transferring the votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan to the incumbent would have changed the outcome under Alaska’s rank-choice process.
During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Blanche argued that Alaska was “violating federal law and the Constitution by allowing confusion in the ballot.” Bash then raised what she described as a possible “doomsday scenario,” asking whether President Trump was laying the groundwork to overturn an election and whether the result could resemble what followed January 6.
Blanche was not interested in entertaining that premise. “Oh, stop it. Oh, you got to stop it with that. You are not being a real person. Come on, man!” he fired back. When Bash asked, “Why are you yelling at me?” Blanche explained that the DOJ was addressing alleged fraud and voter confusion, not preparing to overturn an election.
“We’re not laying any groundwork for the president to do that. So your premise, your question, is not true!” Blanche said. He continued, “You have to listen to what I say, or it’s not a fair conversation. What I said is the groundwork that we are laying is for Alaska, for the state of Alaska. If it becomes an issue after the election, we’ll have the ability to determine whether there was confusion that violates the law in determining who the senator should be.”
Blanche also said that if Alaska’s law had been broken, the state and its court system would have to address the matter. “If the law is broken, and that’s for Alaska and the Alaskan court system to determine if the law is broken, then any state should not certify. I think we can all agree with that,” he added.
Bash continued pressing her January 6, 2027 argument, saying she did not believe it was unfair to raise the possibility given what happened after the 2020 election. Blanche answered that voters could be confused at the ballot box, then criticized CNN for focusing on January 6 instead of the alleged election problem. “Instead of focusing on how we can address that and how we can remedy that, you’re talking about January 6, okay? And that’s so embarrassing to this network that that’s what you’re talking about.”
The clash boiled down to a basic disagreement. Bash treated the lawsuit as a warning sign about a future election challenge, while Blanche insisted it was a legal effort aimed at preventing ballot confusion from affecting Alaska’s Senate result. Apparently, in modern cable news, even a lawsuit about one state’s ballot can be dragged into the January 6 argument before anyone finishes explaining the paperwork.
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