Lombardo calls Ford’s lawsuits against Trump administration ‘unfortunate’

The many lawsuits Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has filed against the Trump administration were “unfortunate,” Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a Monday interview.

The Democratic attorney general has signed on to more than five lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration, from fighting to block cuts to medical research at universities to challenging the power of Elon Musk and the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. He’s also filed multiple “friend of the court” amicus briefs with other Democratic attorneys general.

In a Monday morning interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Republican governor criticized Ford for filing the lawsuits without communicating with him. Ford has said he plans to run for governor against Lombardo in 2026.

“Trump has done, if you ask me how he’s done so far, I think he’s done good,” Lombardo said. “He’s done exactly what he ran on and got voted on, got put into office.”

Lombardo said Ford is using his ability to sign on to other litigation to push back on the administration.

Ford is an independent and constitutional officer, so he has the ability to act independent from Lombardo’s office, Lombardo conceded, which he called “unfortunate.”

Lombardo said he thinks there should be communication between the two offices, and there hasn’t been, he said. Statutorily, Ford needs to inform Lombardo if he seeks third-party counsel; but outside of that, he can act independently.

Ford did not address Lombardo’s complaint about a lack of communication, saying instead that he lawsuits are about “protecting kids; ensuring basic needs are met; and constructing the building blocks of a stronger future for the Silver State.”

“Lombardo may want to score political points by defending Donald Trump, but it’s my job to defend Nevadans,” he said in a statement to the Review-Journal. “I’m doing exactly that, and — for all of us in Nevada — I’m winning in court.”

The governor accused Ford of taking “artistic license” in his descriptions of the litigation.

He pointed to Ford’s claims about the impact of dismantling the federal Department of Education. Lombardo said there hasn’t been an explanation of how it’s going to be detrimental.

States are better situated to understand the education needs of their own, and removing the Department of Education removes a bureaucracy, Lombardo said. He doesn’t think there will be any changes to how Nevada administers its education.

Ford retorted that if the governor can’t recognize “how dismantling a department that brings nearly $1 billion to our schools and students annually; restricting Medicaid recipients’ health care access; firing veterans; or cutting medical research funding from Nevada universities would harm our state — then I seriously question his ability to lead it.”

“There’s nothing “good” about those things, and we as Nevadans agree,” Ford said in the statement.

Ford has seen both success and failures in court; a judge granted Ford and other states’ attorneys general a temporary restraining order on federal grant freezes, as well as in the case against the National Institutes for Health for cutting funds for medical research at universities. A federal judge also granted his preliminary injunction request against Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. Another judge denied his request in a case against DOGE, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.