During that time, the Washington Post reported, he was “one of Bush’s closest friends and advisors.”

In his heyday, Racicot was Montana’s top Republican. He has since been rebuked by his own party after becoming an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump.

In 2020, Racicot threw his support behind Joe Biden, and he supported Monica Tranel and former Sen. Jon Tester in 2024. Last year, he also filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of barring Trump from the 2024 ballot in Colorado.

Now, he says he’s doing what he thinks is right and courageous, voicing his concerns while remaining cognizant that many of his fellow Montanans voted for the still-unfolding changes in Washington, D.C.

In a recent interview with the Chronicle, Racicot ultimately issued a stark warning.

He’s not just concerned about major changes disrupting the day-to-day lives of federal workers, nonprofits and universities. Rather, he’s worried about the outright collapse of the U.S. and its 237-year-old Constitution, as he watches what he describes as a “storm-trooper” style dismantling of the federal government.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Chronicle: You recently attended a town hall-style political rally in Bozeman and Billings where none of the Montana congressional delegation showed up. What’s encouraging you to get out and be part of something like that?

Racicot: The driving force for me is my concern and anxiety about the Constitution of the United States being subject to manipulation. We all swear to abide by its provisions, and the moment it starts falling apart is when we have to worry about whether a people can live with freedom and independence. These violations of the law, the refusal and rejection of the requirements that are in place for the courts, the encroachment upon the judicial branch, all of those issues that we’ve seen develop over the last 2 1/2 months lead me to conclude that we’re in danger of finding our democracy in grave need of protection.

I was there to speak about the Constitution, and frankly, you can’t have to notice the delegates weren’t there. It’s a horrible disappointment that they weren’t there. The motivating factor for me was not that I thought I could fill in for them, but that I could talk about the concurrent dangers to the Constitution that we confront all across the country.

BDC: There are plenty of people who view the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency positively, that they’re essentially taking a hatchet to the government by cutting funding, deporting those who entered the U.S. illegally, and so on. What is your perspective?

Racicot: Legitimate reform involves careful inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding different agency operations and personnel and objectives, and if you’re going to disable and defund them, it can be painful even when it is done lawfully and done with a degree of surgical precision that allows for the function that was funded by Congress, which is a law they passed. There are needs and necessities for improvement, but this is not how legitimate, meaningful and lasting government reorganization takes place. It ends up violating the laws of Congress and that lawlessness is simply not contemplated or approved by the Constitution. If the DOGE people and the president of the United States can violate the law, why does anyone else obey it? This starts calling into question whether a free people can live in freedom if they’re not careful and responsible with how they proceed to address these questions.

BDC: But you believe some reform is necessary?

Racicot: Yes, there are legitimate inquiries that should be made into government operations. But simply revoking people’s credentials and tearing down the signs of agencies that were funded 50 years ago without any kind of explanation, that’s not what we expect in America. It’s not going to last. It just simply causes extraordinary disruption.

In my view, they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t understand how government works. It works differently than private business and you have to be careful and proceed in a way that ultimately the people who fund it, the taxpayers, approve of.

BDC: You mentioned respect for the judicial system briefly. People are worried that the Trump administration will eventually defy a court order outright, a notion spurred by the recent planes heading to El Salvador carrying alleged gang members.

Racicot: We already have a constitutional crisis because that question has already been raised. It’s not lawlessness just toward the deportation of people without due process, it’s lawlessness that’s contemplated and accepted and sometimes generated and precipitated by the administration with what they’re doing with various different government agencies. They’re violating the laws of Congress and while Congress sits there on its thumbs. This continues to get bolder and bolder and bolder.

The lawlessness starts to permeate the entire landscape and if the president and his coterie don’t need to make sure that they abide by the law, who else has that same feeling? What happens when there’s a court order, as the judge in the deportation case who ordered those flights be turned around and come back, and they defied it, and they came up with this lame excuse about how it was that they didn’t mean to defy it?

We have not only crossed the boundary there, but we’re skating on thin ice thereafter. I have no question in my mind that there will be additional efforts, additional initiatives, that are generated at the president’s direction that cross the line and end up violating court orders.

If you can’t depend on people to be self-disciplined enough and restrained enough to observe the provision of the Constitution and the law, and they happen to be sitting in the Oval Office in the White House, you have real problems with whether your democracy could survive.

BDC: What do you think is the responsibility of Montana’s four congressional delegates? For example, regarding the recent Forest Service and National Park Service layoffs, the response we’ve received from Rep. Ryan Zinke’s team is that Congress doesn’t do layoffs. So, from your perspective, what should Zinke, Rep. Troy Downing, Sen. Steve Daines and Sen. Tim Sheehy be doing?

Racicot: Why did they run? Why would you run if you didn’t want to do something that was in the best interest of the people that you serve and why would you not accept responsibility? They claimed to bring leadership to the position but that’s semantics. It’s word games. At the end of the day, it means nothing. It’s just flim-flam that’s filling space. The obligation, the responsibility is so obvious it hardly needs to even be pointed out.

BDC: Well, point it out.

Racicot: Take the National Park Service. We know that the layoffs were initially imposed in the dark of night, that they are not going to be able to do everything from clean trails to police the park and make sure that there is a level of organization that allows for people to visit. That’s going to decrease the amount of tourism and visitation, which is a huge part of our economy. That’s just one instance where the discharge of people impacts all of the state of Montana financially.

There have been some retractions here and there but the intent was to disembowel the Park Service and diminish what it has in terms of assets so they can claim that they saved all this money. It hardly needs a description. You know how critical the timber industry is to our state or the tourism industry or the agricultural industry.

They have an obligation to act to protect their constituents and if they don’t, that’s a neglect of duty. They don’t want to report for duty because they don’t have answers. I don’t think they really know what’s going on in any of these agencies and if they do, why don’t they talk about them? Why don’t they address them? Perhaps they’re concerned about sanctions being imposed upon them by the president or his withdrawal of support in the next election. Whatever it is, it’s a failure of courage to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.

BDC: Regarding Yellowstone, there were seven out of some 400 that were laid off. It’s not a massive percentage of the workforce. Even if the delegates agreed with the layoffs, they didn’t come out and say it directly. They could have said, “Yes, we need to trim some of the fat. We are OK with laying off seven people”. It almost appears as if they’re walking a tightrope between supporting the Trump administration and supporting all of their constituents, especially those who don’t agree with what’s happening.

Racicot: Because they’re afraid. They’re fearful they won’t get reelected, or they won’t have the support of the president. The notion that somehow they can’t appear out here in Montana and talk to the people that they work for, namely the taxpayers and voters, to me suggests that it’s a tightrope they’re walking, but it leads to nowhere. They’re not taking care of either responsibility, either to stop what’s going on in Washington or to address their constituents in Montana.

BDC: If all the delegates outright say, ‘We agree with everything the Trump administration is doing,’ and that they believe it’s in the best interest of Montana, what other responsibility do they have?

Racicot: If they have enough strength of character and courage to tell the truth as they see it and tell us honestly if they support these efforts, then I don’t think we can complain about their honesty. But that’s not what they’ve done. The gatherings in Bozeman and Billings were simply to have a conversation and to ask questions. Even if they didn’t know the answers, if they showed up that’s enough. They either serve Montana and the people, or you serve the president and their delusions surrounding what’s going on with the budget and the expenditure of funds in this country.

BDC: What should the people of Montana be doing? Clearly many voted for what’s happening.

Racicot: Informing themselves. They’d like to be involved, which is their right as a citizen, in making these judgments about what should be kept and what should not. It’s their money. It’s their country. They have a right to participate but this is just running over the system with bulldozers and speed before anyone figures out what they’re doing.

BDC: Let’s focus a little more on the GOP in Montana. You were once the Republican governor for the Big Sky State. What’s changed?

Racicot: The system has changed. I haven’t changed one bit. When I was in office we would have never dreamed of invading the authority and the jurisdiction of the courts. We would have been embarrassed to say we didn’t like the court’s ruling and that we’re going to create a different set of courts. That is such a blatant violation of the Constitution. The point of a democracy is to discuss these issues and then as a legislator to make your judgment with the understanding there is another branch of government, there’s another review that going to try and help us keep the balance within this consensual agreement that we all share and that is the judiciary.

It’s the weakest branch because they have no ability to defend themselves. They are simply there to provide their judgment. The notion that because you don’t get what you want from a court that you go out and eviscerate the judicial system and create another is a reflection of how easily this entire democracy can fall apart.

BDC: What would you say to the people of Montana that say, you know, “We have the governor as a Republican, we have the House, the Senate, let’s get the judiciary. Let’s make every person of power in Montana a Republican and finally get some real stuff done. How do you respond to that?

Racicot: That would fulfill the warning of President George Washington and explain why he never ran for a third term. He thought these political parties were an abomination, and that they ultimately would lead to factions regional, geographic and now in these days, cultural issues that would separate and ultimately bring about the demise of this consensual agreement that we have with each other. How long do you think that could last? The notion that somehow you get your way every day, and it’s always going to be red and never blue. Take a look at the history of humankind and try to figure out whether that ends in disaster, or it ends precisely where you would want it to be.

BDC: Do you still consider yourself a Republican?

Racicot: It’s totally unimportant to me. I have some conservative thoughts and beliefs about expenditures, but the label was never important to me. My dad was a Democrat and my mom was a Republican. My life was spent in the Army as a prosecutor and when I got out as a prosecutor in Missoula County and a state special prosecutor and then the attorney general. None of these jobs were political.

BDC: We recently received an email that highlighted how the Montana GOP rebuked you and said you’re not a Republican. It makes the case that party adherence isn’t up to the voter, that the party can say, “You’re not a part of our party”.

Racicot: That’s what I felt at the time. That’s not their decision. They rebuked me because I didn’t toe the line. I made my decision in 2016 when I came out in opposition to Donald Trump because I thought he was totally lacking in the character to run that office. When I came out in opposition of Trump I thought I could get others to join me. I thought they would, but they wouldn’t. I then wrote a brief before the United States Supreme Court seeking the disqualification of Donald Trump and the affirmation of the decision made by the Colorado Supreme Court. I tried to get Republican members to sign on to that brief and two did, but none of the other ones would. I worked for three or four years in D.C. with the party and candidates. I worked hard for a lot of people who are presently serving in Congress and, frankly, I thought they were people of character, strength and conviction and that’s why I campaigned them. Their remaining silent in this moment of crisis is an incredible disappointment to me.

BDC: Do you see yourself in the same vein as Trump critics and former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger? How do you compare?

Racicot: I was probably there about a decade before them — well, not a decade, but close. They sat through the same kind of things. I would say Adam and I and Liz are very close in what we think. We have some conservative beliefs but, frankly, it’s not even important. What’s the point of it? I don’t want to belong to a tribe. These tribal part politics are just an absolute scourge on the American system of government. They reward people, a small cabal or coterie of people, to decide who gets the money, who gets support from the party, who’s going to show up and be their surrogate. I don’t know why the people of America continue to relegate their responsibilities and their prerogatives to a small group of people who dictate for them who it is that they can vote for in a general election. It seems to me to be just absolutely illogical and bizarre.

BDC: At the recent town hall political event in Bozeman, people were saying that in 2026 they’ll be able to vote out Zinke, Downing and Daines, and that Sheehy is up for reelection in 2030. Who do you view as the most likely candidate to be ousted?

Racicot: I don’t know if any of them can be. I don’t really pay attention to that or think about it. I would like to see them stand up with more courage and precision in their responses and a reflection that they do their homework and that they have concern about what’s going on here with us, their neighbors and friends, rather than what Donald Trump thinks.

The people of Montana voted in pretty strong numbers for Donald Trump, and I think that’s going to change over time because he’s going to ultimately be disappointing. It just can’t last. I don’t know which delegate would be vulnerable, but I have to accept the verdict of the people I live with. They voted in strong numbers but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with those elected people.

If we fall apart, it’s always been amazing to me how major catastrophes like the Civil War, World War I and II, and even the Korean and Vietnam wars, were quite popular in the beginning and then ultimately faded. These catastrophes that we’ve gone through have seemed to somehow crystallize the intent and the ability of people to survive together in our country and the party boundaries become almost invisible. I hope that we don’t get to the point where there’s violence in the streets and we end up in a situation where the country is just simply falling apart.

We know that in catastrophe we can bond together. We did it as a people during the Civil War and other battles thereafter. But if we have that kind of revolutionary destruction, then nobody knows what tomorrow holds, so I’m fearful. Some people, I suspect, think I’m exaggerating, but I don’t think that’s the way a massive number of people in this country feel. They feel as if things have fallen out of rhythm, that the traditional stability they grew up with is dissipating and undependable, and that with the unknown things that could happen so quickly, especially on the Internet, there’s a feeling of tenuousness and concern about what it is that will happen to us.

I don’t think I ever felt that before in my life, until the last 10 years or so.