‘Suck on a salt lick’: Fontes fires back after Trump election speech, DHS pressure on states

Arizona’s top election official and top prosecutor both had strong words for President Donald Trump and his administration after a prime-time speech on Thursday that was filled with false claims of widespread voter fraud. 

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes bristled at the prospect of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penalizing states that don’t cooperate with the Trump administration’s efforts to impose national security measures on local elections, all in the name of stopping election fraud. 

Although Trump has focused extensively on the topic for much of the past decade, it is extraordinarily rare in Arizona and across Arizona, and there is no evidence to back up the outlandish claims from the president and his supporters that millions of ballots are illegally cast in every election.

“Markwayne Mullin can go suck on a salt lick,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the Arizona Mirror Friday morning, referring to comments made earlier in the day by the Department of Homeland Security secretary. 

Fontes has been pushing back against attempts by Trump’s Department of Justice and others who have sought the state’s voter roll data in attempts to prove conspiracy theories around the 2020, 2022 and 2024 elections.

DHS chief threatens to prosecute election officials as Trump escalates fight over state voter rolls

Arizona has long been at the center of election conspiracy theories after former President Joe Biden won the state in 2020. Multiple audits, court cases and partisan reviews of that election have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, tampering or any other malfeasance. 

Attorney General Kris Mayes pointed to just that in a statement released after the speech. 

“Our own courts, our own election officials, and even the Republican Attorney General before me all confirmed the truth: Arizona’s 2020 election was free, fair and accurate,” Mayes said. “If the conspiracies raised (on Thursday) were a precursor for any federal intervention in Arizona’s elections, please know that I will do everything as your Attorney General to fight that. Arizona’s elections are safe, secure and successful. The President should stop lying about our elections and Republicans running for office must denounce his dangerous rhetoric.” 

As part of his speech Thursday night, Trump announced the release of records that often contradicted the claims he made in the prime-time address. Intelligence assessments that were declassified and released Thursday night also note that attempts at widespread election manipulation were likely impossible. 

“What Donald Trump did last night was validate everything we’ve done for the past several years,” Fontes said, adding that Arizona’s elections have been proven to be secure despite the boisterous claims from Trump and leading Republicans in the Grand Canyon State. 

Arizona has been front and center of the actions by the Trump administration in regards to their election efforts with Trump’s DOJ requesting documentation from a flawed partisan “audit” led by the Republican controlled Arizona Senate, as well as sending former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to the state to push unfounded allegations. 

The federal government has generally helped states during elections, with DHS and other federal agencies often offering support. However, that relationship is now strained, according to Fontes. 

“Markwayne Mullin doesn’t know what he’s doing, and neither does the DOJ given they’re 0-for-15,” Fontes said, referencing the courts rejecting the Trump administration’s repeated court losses in its attempts to gather voter rolls from every state, ostensibly to build a national voter database. “I would rather have a partner than an adversary in the federal government.”  

Both Fontes and voting rights advocates said that Trump’s speech revealed nothing new, and they reiterated that none of the cases brought making similar allegations have passed judicial muster, in Arizona and elsewhere. 

“A strong leader wins and moves on. Donald Trump is still so fixated on 2020 that he’s disclosing classified documents (or portions of them) to try to manipulate the public into believing his tired claims,” Alex Gulotta, the state director for All Voting is Local Action, told the Mirror. “Now, nearly six years later, Trump is recycling the same lies, in the hopes that this time, he will somehow ‘expose’ what courts, election officials, and even his own supporters have already put to rest.”

Fontes reiterated that and also pointed to Trump’s victory in 2024, which came along with Republicans taking wider margins in the Arizona House and Senate. He also said that the administration’s actions show “disrespect to election officials.” 

In the years since the 2020 presidential election, during which Republicans sowed doubt in election systems by spreading evidence-free “fraud” claims, Arizona counties have had more turnover in local election administration than any other western state.

In fact, all 15 of Arizona’s counties have experienced turnover in at least one chief election position.