The New York Times hosted former attorney general Eric Holder on Wednesday evening at Florence Gould Hall in a new series of political TimesTalks leading up to the midterm elections later this year. The talk was moderated by one of the lead reporters covering the Trump campaign in 2016, national desk correspondent Alexander Burns, and the conversation looked for insight into the role of the Justice Department in the Trump era and the implications of that administration’s actions thus far, in both the long and short terms. They also covered initiatives Holder is currently leading as chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee—trying “to make redistricting sexy again,” as he once put it—as well as his thoughts on how citizens can continue to impact policy-making at the grassroots level.

Though Holder stepped away from public service in 2015, he has since returned with a vengeance. Holder plans to get to the root of the rot in Republican gerrymandered states by reconfiguring congressional districts so that their voting results more accurately represent that of the people—that is to say, to level the playing field to avoid the culture of entrenched incumbents that many states have long experienced. When asked about whether or not he minds that these plans could lead to members of the Democratic party losing their seats, too—many of his friends and respected colleagues—he said he was prepared for that. “I’m just saying let’s make this a fair fight,” he explained.

Holder also shared his plans to target the 2020 Census, a topic the Trump administration addressed earlier this week. While the census has long reflected the total count of people living in the United States, Trump and company now want to include a question about citizenship in the survey, which could seriously derail the legitimacy of past, present, and future data, and lead to an undercount of responses from non-citizens and legal immigrants less than thrilled about the idea of identifying themselves to a deportation-happy government. Holder plans to sue to block the addition of the citizenship question on behalf of the NDRC, using, in part, Trump’s own tweets. “It is certainly the gift that keeps on giving,” he said about Trump’s Twitter habits. “This is one of those instances where I think the president’s tweets and his public statements will become relevant. . . . To show the true intent of what they are trying to do, that it is not as benign as they would make it out to be. Through the words of Donald Trump and through the tweets of Donald Trump, you’ll see what the true intention was of the administration.”

Burns posited that Holder doesn’t seem as averse to a presidential run as he once did. “If I were going to do it, I would think, I would have concluded that I could maybe unify the country . . . because it’s bigger than any one person,” Holder replied. “That I could repair and then advance the nation in a variety of contexts, that I had something to contribute. That would be—I think the thing that would push me to consider a run.” He continued, “On the negative side, I’ve been in public life a fair amount of years . . . and you know, to subject myself and my family to that again could be a negative.”

During the last minutes of the talk, audience question topics ranged from what to do about gun control (limit mass distribution of guns) to how people can continue to fight back (He stressed the importance of continuing to speak up and to keep the Women’s March and the March for Our Lives in mind. “I hope this is a movement and not a moment!” he said) to how long it will take to undo the damage of this administration (some things can be changed rather quickly, and others may take 10 years or more, but a lot rides on the midterm and 2020 elections, according to Holder). Regardless, the fight ahead will require people to do more “beyond voting.”

Before the crowd headed back out into the rain, one person spoke up and thanked Holder again for his contributions. “We miss you!” she exclaimed. “You know,” he joked, “Sometimes I miss myself.”