Newsom praises California redistricting package as chance to ‘fight back’ against Republican gerrymandering
Governor Gavin Newsom praised California lawmakers for introducing a legislative package that, if passed, would allow Californians to respond to actions taken by president Donald Trump in Texas and other Republican-led states.
California Democrats introduced the legislation on Monday as part of an effort to counter a Republican redistricting proposal by creating new congressional maps in California.
The plan, led by Newsom, would put redistricting before voters in a special election this fall. It would allow the legislature to bypass California’s independent redistricting commission and redraw congressional lines mid-decade. The package includes a proposed state constitutional amendment and calls for a special election on 4 November.
“California and Californians have been uniquely targeted by the Trump Administration, and we are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power — pursuing more extreme and unpopular policies,” Newsom said in a statement. “This proposal would give Californians a choice to fight back — and bring much needed accountability and oversight to the Trump Administration.”
Key events
Following today’s talks between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European leaders at the White House, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X Monday that they were there “as allies and friends, for peace in Ukraine and in Europe”.
“This is an important moment, as we continue to work on strong security guarantees for Ukraine and a lasting and durable peace”, she added.
Attached to the post was a picture of several European leaders, including von der Leyen, and the US president.
ICYMI: The Guardian’s Luke Harding reports on which European leaders accompanied Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s at the White House today:
European leaders gathered in Washington on Monday for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, in a show of support for the Ukrainian president. Their presence came amid expectations that Trump would try to bully Zelenskyy into accepting a pro-Russia “peace plan” that would include Kyiv handing territory to Moscow. The Europeans have been described as Zelenskyy’s “bodyguards”, with memories fresh of the mauling he received in February during his last Oval Office visit. So, who are they?
Mark Rutte – Secretary general of Nato
Rutte has a proven record of flattering Trump for strategic purposes, using language that some allies find cringe-making. In June he referred to the capricious US president as “Daddy” in an attempt to avoid disastrous outbursts at the Nato summit. Rutte has repeatedly praised Trump in public, including in a recent interview on Fox News, and credits him for pushing Nato members to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defence. The US had carried the burden of European security for too long, Rutte has said – music to Trump’s ears.
Ursula von der Leyen – President of the European Commission
Von der Leyen is a staunch supporter of Ukraine who backs Kyiv’s EU membership. For Trump, she is a reminder of Europe’s combined importance as an economic bloc. The US struck a trade deal with the EU three weeks ago, and Trump hailed the relationship as “the biggest trading partnership in the world”. On Sunday she hosted Zelenskyy in Brussels. She said a post-peace-deal Ukraine had to become “a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders”, with no limits on its armed forces.
Here’s the full story on Zelenskyy’s European “bodyguards”:
Newsom praises California redistricting package as chance to ‘fight back’ against Republican gerrymandering
Governor Gavin Newsom praised California lawmakers for introducing a legislative package that, if passed, would allow Californians to respond to actions taken by president Donald Trump in Texas and other Republican-led states.
California Democrats introduced the legislation on Monday as part of an effort to counter a Republican redistricting proposal by creating new congressional maps in California.
The plan, led by Newsom, would put redistricting before voters in a special election this fall. It would allow the legislature to bypass California’s independent redistricting commission and redraw congressional lines mid-decade. The package includes a proposed state constitutional amendment and calls for a special election on 4 November.
“California and Californians have been uniquely targeted by the Trump Administration, and we are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power — pursuing more extreme and unpopular policies,” Newsom said in a statement. “This proposal would give Californians a choice to fight back — and bring much needed accountability and oversight to the Trump Administration.”
Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the department will no longer support solar and wind projects on productive farmland.
In a post on X, Rollins added that the department of agriculture is also “ENDING the use of panels made by foreign adversaries like China”.
The decision marks the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to curb wind and solar development, which Trump says are unreliable, expensive, and dependent on Chinese supply chains. The USDA has provided over $2 billion for renewable energy projects, like solar and wind, through its Rural Energy for America Program.
“Millions of acres of prime farmland is left unusable so Green New Deal subsidized solar panels can be built. This destruction of our farms and prime soil is taking away the futures of the next generation of farmers and the future of our country”, Rollins said on X.
The justice department has agreed to provide Congress with documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a House lawmaker said Monday.
The records are slated to be delivered starting Friday to the House oversight committee, which earlier this month issued a broad subpoena to the justice department about the high-profile criminal case.
“There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,” Kentucky representative James Comer, the Republican committee chair, said in a statement. “I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.”
The committee’s subpoena sought all documents and communications from the case files of Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. It also demanded records about communications between former Democratic president Joe Biden’s administration and the justice department regarding Epstein, as well as documents related to an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement in 2007.
The investigation has long drawn public attention, recently unsettled senior levels of Donald Trump’s administration, and remains a frequent target of conspiracy theories.
As the president meets with European leaders and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, here’s a recap of the day so far
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Donald Trump doubled down on his baseless claims that mail-in voting is fraudulent and inaccurate. In his press conference with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president went on a lengthy detour, expanding on his earlier threats to end mail-in voting and the use of voting machines. “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” he said. The constitution gives the president no power in setting federal elections standards and courts have already blocked a March executive order seeking to unilaterally change election practices.
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Also today, the president met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and had a press spray that was considerably more cordial than the Ukrainian leader’s last White House visit in February. My colleagues are bringing you the latest here. It all comes after Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska that resulted in very few tangible steps to ending the war in Ukraine. For his part, Zelenskyy had back up with several European leaders in tow for a hastily organised summit.
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The Texas house achieved quorum today for the first time in two weeks, since state Democrats staged a walkout in protest of a gerrymandered congressional map drawn by Republicans. Today’s quorum now paves the way for the new map to pass the Texas legislature – and for the redistricting battle across the country to continue. State lawmakers in California are set to return from recess today to get to work in considering a special election in November, and approving a new congressional map to offset the Democratic losses in Texas.
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The conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion voting systems to settle a defamation suit over lies about voting in the 2020 election. The settlement came as the case was headed to trial. Earlier this year, Delaware superior court judge Eric Davis ruled that Newsmax had defamed the voting technology by broadcasting false claims about its equipment after the 2020 election. A jury would have considered whether Newsmax was liable for damages. Dominion had sued the outlet for $1.6bn.
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As the Trump administration’s takeover of the DC police enters its second week, Tate Reeves, Mississippi’s Republican governor, announced that he approved the deployment of about 200 Mississippi national guard troops to Washington DC. This is the fourth state to send troops to the nation’s capital: GOP governors from Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia all sent additional soldiers to support the president’s “crime crackdown”.
Twenty-one attorneys general sue Trump administration for withholding funds for crime victims
The Democratic attorneys general for 20 states and DC have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration today, arguing that it is withholding funding for crime victims if states don’t comply with “unrelated immigration enforcement efforts”.
The suit, filed in Rhode Island, alleges the justice department is not releasing more than $1bn in congressionally appropriated funds (provided through the Victims of Crime Act) in order to “strong-arm States into supporting the Administration’s immigration policies”.
“The department tasked with ensuring justice for all is targeting victims and survivors as they attempt to navigate some of the most difficult times of their lives,” the Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha said in a statement. “We can and must support crime victims, and support must not be illegally tethered to federal policies. We are on the right side of the law here, and we will prevail.”
Attorney general Pam Bondi said that over the weekend “137 arrests were made and 21 illegal firearms were seized” by federal law enforcement officers in DC.
“In total, there have been nearly 400 arrests—and we are not slowing down,” she wrote on X. “We are committed to making DC safe again!”
Trump addresses press with European leaders
The president has wrapped his meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and is now speaking in the East Room, joined by several European leaders and the Ukrainian president.
“We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact,” Trump said. “We’re going to try and get a a three party meeting, maybe as soon as we can, and have a feeling you and President Putin are going to work something out.”
A reminder that my colleague, Lucy Campbell, is covering the latest on our Europe blog below.
Anna Betts
Oklahoma’s top education official is reportedly introducing a new assessment for teachers coming from California and New York that will gauge their alignment with the so-called Sooner state’s conservative values.
Oklahoma’s public education superintendent, Ryan Walters, told USA Today and CNN that the 50-question certification exam – which is reportedly set to roll out in the coming days – will ask about topics such as the “biological differences between males and females”, freedom of religion and US history.
According to USA Today, the test also includes questions related to false claims that electoral fraudsters handed the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden at the expense of Donald Trump, who returned to the White House in January.
Walters said that the test – which he has dubbed the “America First” certification, invoking a favored slogan of the Republican president – is intended to ensure that teachers from the two largest Democrat-led states “are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids”.
He told CNN that while the test will apply to teachers coming from California and New York, it could expand in the future to applicants from up to eight states who want to work in public education in Republican-led Oklahoma.
Walters believes that California and New York have required teachers to “do things that are antithetical to our standards and values as a state” and that the assessment will help ensure “that these teachers agree to teach what is required in the state of Oklahoma”.
Also in my last post, I cited the former Maricopa County recorder – Stephen Richer. A little reminder Richer is a Republican whose refused to agree with the president’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. He was in charge of election operations in Arizona’s largest county until 205.
In his post on X, takes a number of the president’s other claims about mail-in voting and machines and debunks them one by one.
From watermark paper:
This is a way of authenticating that the ballot is legitimate. It is NOT a way of counting the ballot. The watermark ballot would still have to be counted either by tabulators or by hand. Watermark has no impact on speed. This makes no sense.
To how voting machines actually work:
Most “voting machines” are simply scanners that read the ovals that you hand marked on your ballot. These work the same way that scanners work when you took standardized tests in high school and college.
Richer also reiterated how, legally, the decision to end mail-in voting, and overhaul the way states conduct their elections is not up to the federal government:
Article 1 Section 4 Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives states authority over the “Times, Places, and Manner” of election administration.
Trump doubles down on baseless claims that mail-ballots are ‘corrupt’
In his press conference with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump has spent a chunk of time answering a question about his earlier threats to end mail-in voting and the use of voting machines. He said today that “we’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt.”
It was a winding detour where he repeated a conspiracy that Democrats prefer mail-in voting because it’s “the only way they can get elected”, and to promote what he described as “transgender for everybody”, “open borders” and crime – which he says is a “new thing they [Democrats] love”.
The president’s remarks included a number of false claims. Namely that the US is “just about the only country in the world” that uses mail-in ballots. Dozens of western democracies use mail-in voting, including Canada, the UK, and Germany. Most European countries offer some form of mail voting, and over 100 countries let their citizens vote by mail when living abroad, according to data from International IDEA. The president has, in the past, voted by mail.
Trump also said that voting machines are inefficient and costly, adding that paper ballots allow for results to be released “the same night”. Election officials and experts routinely say this is inaccurate. Stephen Richer, the former recorder of Maricopa county in Arizona, debunked a number of the president’s falsehoods about voting machines.
Richer characterised machines as “highly accurate. And fast. And cheap,” in a post on X today responding to the president’s earlier comments. Similarly, a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that “hand counts are not only less accurate, they take more time than machines, which delays election results.” The report adds that voting machines also save tax payers money.
Per my last post, my colleague Lucy Campbell is covering the president’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in detail.
She reports that Trump doesn’t rule out future security guarantees in the form of US troops. He added earlier that “it’s never the end of the road. People are being killed and we want to stop that.”
For Zelenskyy’s part, Lucy reports that when Ukraine’s leader is asked if he’s prepared to agree to “redraw the maps” (i.e. cede territory to Russia), Zelenskyy highlights Russia’s continued attacks ahead of today’s talks and emphasises the need to stop the war, stop Russia, by way of diplomacy.
