Live updates: Trump heads to Michigan; Blanche defends DOJ's Alaska lawsuit

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Live updates: Trump heads to Michigan; Blanche defends DOJ’s Alaska lawsuit
With less than two weeks to go before the midterms, the Trump administration is ramping up its warnings about voter fraud and is not ruling out the prospect of weighing in on states’ election certification efforts.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is holding a rare weekend hearing as the Justice Department (DOJ) seeks to force California to segregate ballots submitted by 20,000 people who DOJ says are likely noncitizens.
The DOJ reportedly sent letters Friday to California election officials, directing them to identify potential noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls or “risk significant federal scrutiny.”
It comes as the DOJ separately filed a suit on Thursday to prevent the certification of the Senate election in Alaska if Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) loses. President Trump told reporters Friday that he had pushed for the election challenge himself.
Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday with Dana Bash, where he said that the Alaska Senate race was “not a fair fight.”
He told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” that the lawsuit was not the federal government taking over Alaska’s election system or certifying who will be its next senator, but that “it’s asking the court to step in where the Alaska Supreme Court didn’t, which is to look at federal law and, if necessary, to allow a process for Alaska to decide who should be certified as a winner.”
He also accused Brennan of giving a “misleading” description of the race. The host pushed back, saying Alaska’s top court upheld a lower court ruling and found that the notion that Daniel J. Sullivan is looking to confuse Alaska voters “is not supported by preponderance of evidence.”
Meanwhile, Trump is heading to Port Huron, Mich., for a 2 p.m. rally. He told reporters on the way that he thinks his rallies have helped Republicans “turn the whole thing around,” citing his recent trips to Ohio, Nebraska, Texas and other red states ahead of November’s midterms.
Follow live below.
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