Last week, Attorney General Aaron Ford spoke to the Las Vegas Review Journal to discuss how the Lombardo-Trump Way has devastated Nevada’s economy.

Last month, Lombardo cheered on Trump’s tax bill that rips Medicaid away from more than 100,000 Nevadans and slashes SNAP benefits for half a million — while costing the state tens of millions. Earlier this year, the state's Economic Forum announced a $191 million drop in revenue for the general budget on top of an anticipated drop of $160 million for the State Education Fund, due in large part to Trump’s reckless tariff policies — which Joe Lombardo said Nevadans needed to feel “pain” from.

A recent report found that consumer spending in Las Vegas is down. Another report found that Las Vegas saw a 11.3% drop in visitors compared to June 2024. The report found that international travel declined nearly 10% while hotel occupancy fell 6.4%. Another report revealed that Nevada lost nearly 5,000 jobs from May to June.

Read more of the interview below:

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Ford says Lombardo ‘afraid to stand up to Trump’ in RJ interview

McKenna Ross

Key points:

On Wednesday, Ford and the Review-Journal held a phone interview to discuss his campaign, litigation against the Trump administration and various policy stances. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Since you kicked off this campaign a few weeks ago, what is the most significant issue you’ve heard from constituents and how do you want to address it as governor?

Attorney General Ford: I have had conversations with Nevadans from every corner of the state, from Clark County to Elko. The recurring things that I hear are pretty simple. Most folks want a good job in order to be able to buy a home in a safe neighborhood where the schools are good and preparing their children for careers or college and that their health care system responds to their needs and through it all, they are treated with humanity, dignity and respect.

As governor, those are going to be my areas of focus. But they won’t be new to me, because I’ve been working in the same areas as either a state senator or as attorney general. I’m looking forward to helping people accomplish these and achieve these goals as the next governor.

Q: As attorney general, you’ve been a part of multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration. Are you seeing the results you want to see?

FORD: Yes, absolutely. First, I’ll say that I acknowledged, right after Mr. Trump was elected, that he was our president, soon-to-be. I’m not an election denier. He won. What I’ve said is that he gets to implement his plans, his policies, his platform, his promises, but it must be so lawfully. And when he does not act lawfully, and if he negatively affects Nevadans, I’m going to see him in court.

Whether it’s from freeing up important funds that were flowing to victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, or whether it was freeing up funds that related to medical research, whether it was ensuring that he couldn’t engage in certain activities that were unlawful at the outset and negatively harm Nevadans, I’m quite pleased with the work we put in and the results we received.

Q: What would you like to do to address the housing crisis in Nevada, if elected?

FORD: The price to buy a home is at record highs, nearly half a million dollars in Clark County. The price to buy a home in Reno is more than $600,000. In 2023, (Lombardo) vetoed a bill to limit corporations from buying up homes and pricing hardworking families out of the neighborhoods.

I would sign a bill that limits the amount of homes that out-of-state corporations and hedge funds can buy and pricing us out of our neighborhoods.

I’ve demonstrated my ability to work with Democrats and Republicans alike to get affordable housing projects for veterans, for example, when I was senate majority leader. As attorney general, I prioritize the pocketbooks of hard work in Nevadans by going after corporate landlords who’ve been jacking up costs and pricing out working families.

Q: What are your thoughts on the national conversation about affordability in the Las Vegas tourism market? What can or should be done at the state level to address that side of the economy?

FORD: It goes back to Lombardo being afraid to stand up to Trump and not standing up to Trump and instead putting Trump’s interests ahead of Nevadans, whereas I’ve sued Trump for his tariffs, for example, that have led to a dramatic decrease in tourism and visitation in our state. We prevailed at the (U.S. Court of International Trade), and we are now going to the court of appeals to work through this.

We have the highest unemployment rate in the nation for the first half of 2025. Last year we lagged behind the rest of the country in job growth. We’ve lost nearly 5,000 jobs in June, and travel in Las Vegas is down 11 percent year-over-year, and (13 percent) on top of that from international travel.

What’s Lombardo’s response? He said that we need to feel pain from Trump’s price-raising agenda, again, showing that he’s aligned more with Trump and putting Trump’s interests over in Nevada’s interests.

That’s not the vision I have in this state. I want to create a government that sees people like I was back in the day, a single dad who was struggling on Medicaid and food stamps, and I want that government to say that you matter and to invest in people, as opposed to aligning yourself with corporations that are pricing us out of everyday goods and services that we need.

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