Texas GOP issues arrest warrants in redistricting showdown with Democrats
by TheHill.com
Texas Democrats who have taken refuge in blue states to protest GOP-led redistricting in the Lone Star State face civil arrest warrants after missing a legislative session on Monday.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) signed the warrants, which allow for the Democrats’ arrests, as Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday called their protest “crazy bluster” and said the state would push ahead with redrawing maps.
In a call with CNBC on Tuesday morning, President Trump said Republicans were “entitled” to five more seats in Texas.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin told CNN on Monday night that Republicans are getting what they asked for: “Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, they said they wanted a showdown. And guess what? That’s exactly what they’re getting. A showdown.”
The Texas House needs two-thirds of its members present to vote; Democrats’ absence has deprived the chamber of that quorum. It will convene its second legislative day without Democrats on Tuesday.
Up Next - BONDI Orders Grand Jury INVESTIGATION Into Obama Officials Re RUSSIAN Interference CLAIMS | SUNRISE
Aside from Texas redistricting, Trump also told the “Squawk Box” anchors that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would not be his next Fed chair. And he said banks have turned him away and revived allegations of discrimination against his supporters by large banks while previewing a new executive order to punish those companies.
The president is slated to sign an executive order on Tuesday afternoon.
Trump rules out Bessent as next Fed chair
Greene talks about her ‘genocide’ comment and being an ‘early indicator’ of GOP discontent
Early GOP rift emerges as Congress braces for shutdown fight
Follow along all day for updates.
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16 minutes ago
Duffy confirms fast-track plan to build nuclear reactor on the moon
Filip Timotija
Transportation Secretary and interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy outlined the space agency’s fast-track plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon on Tuesday.
“We’re in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon. And to have a base on the moon, we need energy. And some of the key locations on the moon, we’re going to get solar power, but this vision technology is critically important, and so we’ve spent hundreds of million [of] dollars studying,” Duffy said during a Department of Transportation (DOT) press conference.
“Can we do it? We are now going to move beyond studying, and we are going to be given direction to go,” Duffy added. “Let’s start to deploy our technology to move to actually make this a reality.”
Duffy said that the reactor will have to generate 100 kilowatts of output.
“That’s the same amount of energy a 2,000-square-foot home uses every three and a half days. So we’re not talking about massive technology,” he stated. “We’re not launching this live.”
23 minutes ago
Trump DHS restricts sports visa eligibility for transgender women
Brooke Migdon
The Department of Homeland Security says it is updating visa policies to prevent transgender women from entering the U.S. to compete in women’s athletic events, in line with an executive order from President Trump.
Guidance issued Monday afternoon by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services effectively bars trans women from obtaining temporary work visas to compete in women’s sports. The new policy applies to three visa categories for individuals possessing “exceptional” or “extraordinary” talent in science, art, education, business and athletics, as well as national interest waivers, which allow people outside the U.S. to self-petition for a green card if their work benefits the nation’s interests.
Read the full story here.
34 minutes ago
Texas Democrat on threat of arrest, fines: 'I’ll pay that price for America'
Caroline Vakil
One of the Texas Democrats who fled the state with more than 50 others to deny Republicans their quorum this week said of the threat that he and others would have to pay fines and face possible arrest: “I’ll pay that price for America.”
“Right now, there’s folks saying that we walked out. I think everyone behind me will say we’re standing up, and as Texans would say, we’re standing tall,” said Texas state Rep. Ramon Romero Jr. (D), chair of Texas’ Mexican American Legislative Caucus, during a press conference in Illinois on Tuesday.
Read the full story here.
36 minutes ago
Cornyn presses FBI to help Texas bring back Democrats who left state
Jared Gans
Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) is pressing the FBI to intervene to help the GOP bring back the state House Democrats after they left on Sunday to stop Republicans from advancing its new congressional map.
Cornyn sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday urging the agency to take “any appropriate steps” to help law enforcement find or arrest the lawmakers who left the state to deny the state House quorum and prevent it from being able to conduct business in the special legislative session that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called.
Since some Texas Democrats left for other states like Illinois and New York, Cornyn said the Texas Department of Public Safety may need help in tracking them down and arresting them. Abbott ordered their arrests on Monday after the state House was unable to conduct business, arguing they violated their oath of office.
2 hours ago
Russia no longer bound by self-imposed freeze on intermediate-range missiles: Kremlin
Filip Timotija
Russia announced on Monday that it will no longer be bound by a self-imposed restriction on the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles, pointing to efforts by the U.S. and its allies to develop and deploy similar weapons systems in Europe and Asia.
“Since our repeated warnings in this regard have been ignored and the situation is developing along the path of the actual emplacement of the US-made ground-launched INF-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, the Russian Foreign Ministry has to state that the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons have ceased to exist,” Russian Foreign Ministry said in a lengthy statement.
“The Ministry is authorized to declare that the Russian Federation no longer considers itself bound by the relevant previously adopted self-restrictions,” the ministry added.
Read more here.
2 hours ago
Trump views ballroom site from roof
Alex Gangitano
Trump on Tuesday morning was on the roof of the White House briefing room, where he could view the Rose Garden and South Lawn from above.
When reporters asked why he was up there, he said he was “taking a little walk” and that he wanted to find ways “spend my money for the country.”
“Anything I do is financed by me,” Trump said.
He was also asked if he was considering more renovations to the White House complex and replied, “something beautiful.”
Construction is set to start next month on a ballroom, which would be an addition to the East Wing and off of the South Lawn. Trump has said he will pay for the ballroom himself and left the door open to other donors participating as well.
2 hours ago
House GOP subpoenas DOJ, Clintons in Epstein probe
Emily Brooks
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice and a number of high profile former government officials, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as his members press for probes into matters surrounding the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The subpoenas come after members of a subcommittee last month voted on a bipartisan basis to subpoena the DOJ for the “full, complete, unredacted Epstein Files” — with three Republicans joining the Democratic-led motion — and to subpoena the 10 former U.S. officials, a Republican-led motion that was approved by voice vote.
Read the full story here.
3 hours ago
Trump says GOP ‘entitled’ to five more House seats in Texas
Jared Gans
Trump argued that Republicans are “entitled” to pick up five additional House seats in Texas as state GOP officials try to advance a new congressional district map ahead of the midterms next year.
Trump said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Tuesday that other Democratic states like California, Illinois and Massachusetts are already significantly gerrymandered, giving Republicans much less representation in Congress than the percentage of the vote that he won there during the 2024 election.
“We should have many more seats in California. It’s all gerrymandered,” he said. “And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”
Trump’s comments come as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), following a push from the president, and state Republicans are seeking to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-way through the decade. If passed, it could eliminate five currently Democratic-held seats and allow the GOP to pick them up next year.
3 hours ago
Shaheen compels answers on Trump deportations to Costa Rica, Panama
Laura Kelly
The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is forcing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to transmit to Congress agreements reached with the governments of Costa Rica and Panama for accepting deported migrants, including asylum seekers, vulnerable women and children.
In a letter sent last week, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) invoked a 2023 federal law that the State Department must provide international agreements or non-binding instruments that are the “subject of a written communication from the Chair or Ranking Member” of either the Senate Foreign Relations or House Foreign Affairs Committees.
Read more here.
3 hours ago
DOJ seeks release of 5 days of Epstein, Maxwell grand jury testimony
Ashleigh Fields
The Justice Department (DOJ) on Monday requested the release of grand jury testimony transcripts in the trials of convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The enclosed, annotated transcripts show that much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony—with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses—was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton wrote in their letter to two district judges.
Bondi and Clayton said their hope is to “compare the exhibits against the voluminous public and sealed exhibits offered at the Maxwell trial” with the release of grand jury testimony.
4 hours ago
Scarborough: Bondi ordering probe of Obama administration 'extraordinarily stupid'
Dominick Mastrangelo
MSNBC pundit Joe Scarborough tore into President Trump and his attorney general Pam Bondi over her opening of a grand jury investigation into how Obama administration officials handled intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“It’s extraordinarily stupid on so many counts,” Scarborough said. “If you look at the timeline, the timeline doesn’t add up. It’s like when Donald Trump is saying that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton created the Epstein files. No, no, no, no. That all happened during Donald Trump’s first term.”
Read the full story here.
4 hours ago
Trump says big banks have turned him away
Alex Gangitano
President Trump said banks have turned him away and revived allegations of discrimination against his supporters by large banks while previewing a new executive order to punish those companies.
The president was asked in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday about The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on a new executive order, which would direct bank regulators to investigate financial institutions for violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial protection laws.
Trump insisted that banks do discriminate, giving the example of him being turned away from working with JP Morgan Chase after banking with the company for about 40 years.
Read more here.
4 hours ago
Trump, Murdoch agree to delay deposition in WSJ libel lawsuit
Dominick Mastrangelo
Attorneys for President Trump and Rupert Murdoch have agreed to delay a deposition Trump’s team wants the media mogul to sit for as part of the president’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal.
Trump’s legal team last month asked for Murdoch, whose News Corp aquired the Journal in 2007, to sit for a speedy deposition in the case, citing his age and health concerns.
Read more here.
4 hours ago
Trump trails Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders in favorability polling: Gallup
Filip Timotija
President Trump trails progressive stalwarts Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in favorability polling, according to a new survey conducted by Gallup.
The poll, which was released Tuesday morning, found that among 14 prominent figures, Trump’s net favorable rating was minus 16 points, with 41 percent of respondents having a favorable view of the president, while 57 percent said the opposite. Some two percent had no opinion about the president.
Ocasio-Cortez’s net favorability was minus four points, with 34 percent having a favorable view of the progressive firebrand, while another 38 percent had an unfavorable outlook on the New York Democrat. About 28 percent had no opinion about the progressive lawmaker.
Read the full story here.
4 hours ago
Trump touts ruling upholding ID number check for Texas mail-in ballots
Zach Schonfeld
President Trump early Tuesday touted an appeals court ruling upholding Texas’s requirement that voters to provide a driver’s license or other identification number for their mail ballot to be counted.
“THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!! Should be Nationwide!!! President DJT” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit unanimously ruled on Monday the requirement does not violate a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents states from denying a person’s right to vote over paperwork errors that are not “material.”
“The number-matching requirements are obviously designed to confirm that every mail-in voter is indeed who he claims he is. And that is plainly material to determining whether an individual is qualified to vote,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho, rejecting the argument.
Get the full story here.
5 hours ago
CNBC's Kernen pushes back on Trump claims
Brett Samuels
CNBC host Joe Kernen pushed back on a number of claims Trump made during Tuesday’s roughly 40-minute interview.
Kernen opened the interview by telling Trump it was a “big leap” to claim the jobs numbers were rigged and warned that firing the head of Labor Statistics undermined confidence in the system.
The “Squawk Box” anchor also pushed back when Trump asserted the 2020 election was rigged, noting while there were some irregularities, nothing that happened “would have swayed it.”
When Trump said he had his strongest poll numbers ever, Kernen noted that the president had better polling in the past, though he remained strong with Republican voters.
And Kernen rebuffed Trump’s claim that a November 2024 jobs report revision aided the Biden administration in the closing stretch of the election, noting it wasn’t until March of 2025 that there was a significant downward revision in numbers.
5 hours ago
Trump 'probably not' running again
Brett Samuels
Trump, asked on CNBC if he is running for a constitutionally prohibited third term, said, “No, probably not.”
“Probably not,” Trump said with a chuckle.
“I’d like to run. I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had,” Trump added.
The president and some of his allies have repeatedly floated the idea of seeking a third term, though Trump has typically played off the comments as a joke.
5 hours ago
Trump had 'nothing to do with' DOJ opening grand jury probe
Brett Samuels
Trump told CNBC he had “nothing to do with” the Justice Department opening a grand jury investigation into Obama officials handling of Russian interference in the 2016 election, though he expressed his approval.
“Pam is doing a great job,” Trump said of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“I have nothing to do with it,” he added. “I will tell you this, they deserve it. I was happy to hear it.”
5 hours ago
Trump said Xi called for a meeting, will likely meet before end of the year if strike trade deal
Alex Gangitano
Trump insisted that he didn’t call for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that the Chinese leader was the one who called for it.
“I don’t want it, he asked for a meeting and I’ll end up having a meeting before the end of the year mostly likely if we make a deal,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC.
He added, “My relationship with him is very good, I think we’re going to make a good deal.”
The president doubled down on pushing back on claims that he wanted a meeting, while his top officials have held three rounds of talks with Chinese counterparts about tariffs. He blamed the media for reporting about him asking for a meeting in China.
“They had a thing that Donald Trump really wanted to go there. No, it’s a 18 hour flight. It’s a long flight,” the president said.
5 hours ago
Trump said a Fed chair pick can seem good 'then you put them in there'
Alex Gangitano
Trump said in an interview with CNBC that a future chair of the Federal Reserve could seem like a “good” candidate until they get into the role.
The president was asked about Kevin Warsh, who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011 and whether he would consider him to replace Jerome Powell.
“I think he’s a very good guy,” Trump said.
He added, “Sometimes they’re all very good and then you put them in there and then they don’t do so good.”
Trump also said that the reporters on CNBC “would be very qualified” to chair the Fed as opposed to Powell, and added that he watches the network.
The president nominated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in 2017 for his role and now has lashed out at the head of the central bank for not lowering interest rates.
5 hours ago
Trump rules out Bessent for Fed chair
Brett Samuels
Trump said he was taking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent off the list of prospective candidates for the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“Well I love Scott, but he wants to stay where he is,” Trump said on CNBC. “I asked him just last night, ‘Is this something you want?’ ‘Nope I want to stay where I am.'”
“He does not want it. He likes being Treasury secretary,” Trump added.
5 hours ago
Trump calls into CNBC
kwadington
President Trump started his Tuesday with a phone interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
6 hours ago
Republicans fear Trump tariffs are cutting into economy
Alexander Bolton
Republicans on Capitol Hill are feeling jittery about the economy after the latest jobs report showed the economy added far fewer jobs than previously estimated over the past three months.
President Trump and his economic team insist that the economy is going strong and poised for significant growth, but their bullish projections are meeting skepticism from some in the GOP who worry Trump’s trade regime is creating economic headwinds.
“It definitely is indicative of a weakened economy, an economy that’s not acting in a robust fashion. I’ve all along felt like there’s a lag between tariffs and actual economic downturn,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Trump announced a new round of tariffs, including steep tariff increases on Canada and Brazil, the same day the jobs report was released.
Paul argued the impact of tariffs are often delayed because companies usually sign contracts to set the prices of imports months in advance.
Read the full story here.
6 hours ago
Texas Dems vow to continue battle after Abbott orders their arrests
Jared Gans
Members of the Texas state House vowed to continue their fight against Republicans’ efforts to redraw the congressional district map after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered their arrests for leaving the state to deny the chamber quorum.
A group of state House members and Texas Democrats in the U.S. House gathered for a press conference on Monday after the state legislators left the Lone Star State to prevent the GOP from voting on a measure that would enact mid-decade redistricting and could help them pick up seats in next year’s midterm elections.
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