California assembly advances first part of Newsom’s redistricting plan, heads to state senate
The California state assembly advanced the first in a series of three bills to temporarily suspend the state’s congressional boundaries, drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, and replace them with a map that creates five new Democratic seats.
The lower house, which has a Democratic supermajority, approved the measure 57-20 along party lines.
It now awaits a vote in the Senate where it’s likely to pass, and then will be put before voters in a special election on 4 November.
California’s aim – spearheaded by governor Gavin Newsom – is to offset Texas’s gains, after Republican lawmakers passed a gerrymandered map that nets five new GOP-house seats in 2026. An effort that came at Donald Trump’s behest, and has now escalated into a nationwide redistricting battle.
Key events
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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The California state assembly just advanced a constitutional amendment to temporarily suspend the state’s congressional boundaries, drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, and replace them with a map that creates five new Democratic House seats. It’s now heading to the Senate where it’s sure to pass. It’s the first of three bills that make up redistricting plan – spearheaded by California governor Gavin Newsom.
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A reminder that this is a response to Texas Republicans lawmakers passing a gerrymandered map that nets five new GOP-house seats in 2026. We can expect that to receive Senate approval later today, before heading to governor Greg Abbott’s desk.
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A New York state appeals court has thrown out a half-billion-dollar penalty that Donald Trump had been ordered to pay after a judge found the president fraudulently overstated the value of his properties and other assets to bolster his family business.
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And despite the president falsely claiming the ruling to be a “total victory”, the five-judge panel was deeply divided. Ultimately they lower court’s fraud verdict stand, which will pave the way for New York attorney general Letitia James to appeal the decision to the state’s highest court.
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The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Federal Reserve to remove governor Lisa Cook, after the economist declared she had “no intention of being bullied” into stepping down. The justice department plans to investigate Cook, with a top official informing Fed chair Jerome Powell of the probe and encouraging him to remove her from the board, according to a report by Bloomberg.
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When it comes to DC, the president said that he will join federal law enforcement and National Guard troops today in the nation’s capital. In a radio interview he confirmed his plans to patrol, but didn’t provide any more details on the length or specific location.
Lauren Gambino
As a reminder, the California plan is designed to flip as many as five Republican-held seats in California – the exact number of additional GOP seats Trump has said he is “entitled to” in Texas.
“This is a new Democratic party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,” Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”
The redistricting tit-for-tat is an extraordinary deviation from the norm. Traditionally, states redraw congressional maps once a decade based on census data, with both the Texas and California maps originally intended to last through 2030.
Prior to Thursday’s vote, California Republicans pleaded with their Democratic colleagues to oppose what they derisively called a “Gavinmander”.
“The problem when you fight fire with fire is you burn it all down,” James Gallagher, the state assembly Republican leader, said at a news conference.
Lauren Gambino
The California assembly on Thursday approved the first in a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.
The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.
The California assembly passed the measure in a 57-to-20 vote, sending it next to the state senate. Democrats hope to pass all three related bills by early afternoon. The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, intends to sign the bill as soon as it arrives on his desk.
“We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no,” said the Democratic assembly speaker Robert Rivas, in floor remarks before the vote. “To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”
California assembly advances first part of Newsom’s redistricting plan, heads to state senate
The California state assembly advanced the first in a series of three bills to temporarily suspend the state’s congressional boundaries, drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, and replace them with a map that creates five new Democratic seats.
The lower house, which has a Democratic supermajority, approved the measure 57-20 along party lines.
It now awaits a vote in the Senate where it’s likely to pass, and then will be put before voters in a special election on 4 November.
California’s aim – spearheaded by governor Gavin Newsom – is to offset Texas’s gains, after Republican lawmakers passed a gerrymandered map that nets five new GOP-house seats in 2026. An effort that came at Donald Trump’s behest, and has now escalated into a nationwide redistricting battle.
George Chidi
JD Vance took the stage in Peachtree City, talking about tax cuts and tariffs.
“If you’re building it here, if you’re making it here … we’re going to give you a big fat tax cut and that’s a good thing,” the vice president said. “But if you do it overseas and do it with a foreign then you’re going to pay a big fat tariff before you bring that back to the United States of America.”
Workers will see a take home pay increase of $10,000 over a period of years because of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Vance argued, claiming that it created the “biggest tax cut for working families in history.”
President Donald Trump promised that the “only people who are going to lose access to health care are illegal aliens who shouldn’t be in this country to begin with,” Vance said. “I happen to believe that Medicaid belongs to working people.”
Callum Jones
The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Federal Reserve to remove governor Lisa Cook, after the economist declared she had “no intention of being bullied” into stepping down.
Cook, who was appointed to the US central bank’s powerful board of governors by Joe Biden, has been accused by Donald Trump’s officials of committing mortgage fraud. The allegations are unconfirmed.
The US president has waged an extraordinary war on the Fed’s independence, breaking with precedent to demand interest rate cuts and urge its chair, Jerome Powell, to resign. Trump promptly called on Cook to quit on Wednesday.
The Department of Justice is reported to have indicated it is investigating the allegations, with a top Trump official telling Powell the case “requires further examination” – and calling on him to remove Cook from the Fed’s board.
“At this time, I encourage you to remove Ms Cook from your Board,” Ed Martin, the official, wrote in a letter, according to Bloomberg News. “Do it today before it is too late! After all, no American thinks it is appropriate that she serve during this time with a cloud hanging over her.”
Despite Martin’s demand, the Fed chair has no authority under the Federal Reserve Act to remove another member of the board of governors. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had discussed how to fire Cook for cause, citing an unnamed administration official.
As the president prepares to join federal law enforcement and National Guard troops for an evening patrol today, Maryland governor Wes Moore has invited Donald Trump to join the Baltimore mayor and local law enforcement for “a public safety walk” next month.
“While we are not done delivering results for the people in our neighborhoods, I am deeply encouraged by our progress,” Moore wrote in a letter to the president. “We are currently on track to have the lowest number of homicides in Baltimore City since we began officially keeping crime statistics.”
Trump has routinely criticised the Democratic governor’s handling of crime in Baltimore, despite a decrease in violent crime. Homicides in the city, for example, dropped by 23% according to local police data.
My colleague, George Chidi, is in Peachtree City, Georgia and flags that vice president JD Vance has taken the stage.
Trump to patrol DC with federal law enforcement
Donald Trump said that he will join federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington DC on Thursday.
In an interview on the Todd Starnes Show, the president confirmed his plan to join patrol efforts:
I’m going out tonight, I’m going to keep it a secret. You’re the only one that knows. You and your lots of listeners…I’m going to be going out tonight I think with the police and with the military of course.
He didn’t provide any more details on the length of the patrol, or specific locations where he’d join the police and National Guard.
New York attorney general says she will appeal Trump fraud ruling
New York attorney general Letitia James announced that her office will appeal today’s decision to throw out the nearly half-billion-dollar penalty in the state’s civil fraud case against Donald Trump.
James wrote:
It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and our case has merit. We will seek appeal to the Court of Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interests of New Yorkers.”
The court’s deeply-divided opinion ultimately let the lower court’s fraud verdict stand – providing James the ability to appeal today’s ruling to New York’s highest court.
George Chidi
Crowds have gathered for remarks this afternoon by vice president JD Vance at a factory in Peachtree City, Georgia.
So have the state’s political hopefuls.
Derek Dooley, former Tennessee coach turned US senate candidate, is mingling with the Republican faithful, as are primary contestants Republican congressmen Mike Collins and Buddy Carter of Georgia. Agriculture commissioner Tyler Harper and GOP representative Rich McCormick are also working the crowd.
Vance is expected to highlight the budget and tax cuts at ALTA Refrigeration Inc., a family-owned industrial refrigeration firm.
Business is robust, said Zane Piper, operations manager for the firm. ATLA makes refrigerators for supermarkets and other businesses. Almost all of its clients are domestic, and tariffs have had a limited effect on its material sourcing so far. “We have not seen a dramatic increase in price yet, but we are seeing suppliers of our issue special assessments.”
Richard Luscombe
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis sent a work crew in the dead of night to paint over a rainbow crosswalk outside an Orlando nightclub where 49 mostly LGBTQ+ victims lost their lives in a 2016 mass shooting, outraged Democrats said Thursday.
The move, branded a “cruel political act” by Orlando’s mayor Buddy Collins, reported by WESH News, followed a directive from the Trump administration in July to remove what it saw as political banners on US roadways.
“Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” transportation secretary Sean Duffy said in a 1 July tweet giving states 60 days to comply.
DeSantis, who has pursued a vigorous anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in his six and a half years as governor, moved to eradicate the memorial outside the former Pulse nightclub “without any supporting safety data or discussion,” Dyer said in a statement Thursday.
Democratic state senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is openly gay, said in a post to TikTok that DeSantis had “vandalized” his city:
“This rainbow crosswalk was placed here by our community with approval from the state not only to remember those 49 mostly LGBTQ people of color who were murdered here at this site, but also it was intended to keep pedestrians safe, so many visitors who have come to pay their respects to those who were taken,” he said.
State department press officer fired after questioning talking points on Israel and Gaza
The state department has fired a press officer responsible for drafting Trump administration talking points about policy toward Israel and Gaza after complaints from the US embassy in Jerusalem, the Associated Press reports.
Officials said Shahed Ghoreishi, a contractor working for the Bureau of Near East Affairs, was terminated over the weekend following two incidents last week in which his loyalty to Trump administration policies was called into question.
Ghoreishi was also targeted yesterday following his dismissal by far-right activist and Trump loyalist Laura Loomer, who accused him of not being fully supportive of the administration’s policies in the Middle East.
According to Ghoreishi and two current US officials, Ghoreishi drew the ire of a senior official at the embassy in Jerusalem and then top aides to secretary of state Marco Rubio for drafting a response to a query from AP last week. The question related to discussions between Israel and South Sudan about the possible relocation of Palestinian people from Gaza to South Sudan.
The draft response included a line that said the US does not support the forced relocation of Gazans, something that Donald Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff have said repeatedly.
However, according to Ghoreishi and the officials, that line was rejected by the embassy in Jerusalem, leading to questions about policy back in Washington.
Ghoreishi also said he questioned a statement from the embassy that referred to the (occupied) West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”, the biblical term for the Palestinian territory that some far-right Israeli officials prefer. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, also has repeatedly backed referring to the West Bank by Judea and Samaria.
Trump falsely claims ‘total victory’ in New York case after fine thrown out, slams judge
Donald Trump has hailed an appeals court’s decision to throw out the nearly half-billion-dollar judgment against him in his New York civil fraud case as a “total victory” and called for the judge who imposed the fine to be “admonished for abuse”.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social, the president called the case a “political witch hunt” and claimed “everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT”.
Per my earlier post on this, it was far from a “total victory” for the president. The appeals court was splintered, with two judges finding that Trump was properly held liable, and the case “vindicated a public interest”, but found that the penalty was an excessive fine that violated the US constitution.
Two other judges also found there was authority to sue, but a new trial was necessary because the trial judge should not have held Trump liable for fraud at the outset. Only the fifth judge said the case against Trump should have been dismissed.
DOJ to probe Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, urging removal – report
The justice department plans to investigate Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, with a top official informing Fed chair Jerome Powell of the probe and encouraging him to remove her from the board, Bloomberg News is reporting.
A letter to Powell from Ed Martin, a DOJ official who has led similar investigations into senator Adam Schiff of California and New York attorney general Letitia James, said Cook’s case “requires further examination,” according to Bloomberg’s report.
“At this time, I encourage you to remove Ms. Cook from your Board,” Martin wrote. “Do it today before it is too late! After all, no American thinks it is appropriate that she serve during this time with a cloud hanging over her.”
Asked about the report, a Fed spokesperson referred Reuters to Cook’s statement yesterday, when she said she had no intention of resigning after Donald Trump called for her to step down on the basis of allegations made by a member of his administration about mortgages she holds in Michigan and Georgia, intensifying Trump’s effort to gain influence over the US central bank.
The Federal Reserve Act provides no authority for a Fed chair to remove another member of the board of governors.
The president has repeatedly broken with precedent in recent months to demand the Fed cut rates and urge Powell to quit after disregarding such calls.
Cook, whose current term on the Fed’s board extends until 2038, previously served on the council of economic advisers under Barack Obama. When she took office in May 2022, she became the first black woman to sit on the central bank’s board.
Trump’s huge civil fraud penalty thrown out by New York appeals court
A New York state appeals court has thrown out an approximately half-billion-dollar penalty that Donald Trump had been ordered to pay after a judge found the president fraudulently overstated the value of his properties and other assets to bolster his family business.
The decision by a five-judge panel of the appellate division in Manhattan represented a defeat for New York attorney general Letitia James, whose office brought the civil fraud lawsuit against Trump in 2022.
James’ case had been among Trump’s biggest legal losses in a slew of lawsuits against him in recent years.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. James’ office did not immediately respond to similar requests.
The appeals court was splintered. Two judges found Trump was properly held liable, and James “vindicated a public interest” by pursuing her fraud case, but the penalty was an excessive fine that violated the US constitution.
Two other judges also found James had authority to sue, but a new trial was necessary because the trial judge should not have held Trump liable for fraud at the outset. The fifth judge said the case against Trump should have been dismissed.
Trump was appealing a judgment entered by Justice Arthur Engoron in a state court in Manhattan, following a three-month nonjury trial.
Engoron found Trump had inflated his wealth over several years before first becoming president in 2017, to dupe lenders and insurers into providing better terms to the Trump Organization.
Trump has denied wrongdoing. His lawyers argued that the penalty was too high and that James had overreached.
In February 2024, the judge ordered Trump to pay $454.2m in penalties plus interest, which has continued to accrue.
Trump was personally liable for nearly 98% of the judgment, with his eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg responsible for the remainder.
Referring to Trump and other Trump Organization figures, Engoron said their “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological”.
Engoron also banned Trump and the Trump Organization from applying for loans from banks registered in the state for three years, and effectively barred Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump from running the business for two years.
The appeals court put these restrictions on hold during the appeals process, while letting a court-appointed monitor for the Trump Organization continue her work.
Members of the press travelling with vice president report that Vance, the second lady and EPA administrator Zeldin have landed in Georgia.
The vice president is heading to a Republican National Committee meeting first that will not be open to the press.
Trump again calls for release of ex-clerk in prison for role in breaching Colorado election information
Rachel Leingang
Donald Trump again called for the release of a former election clerk in Colorado who was convicted for her role in breaching election data in a quest to find fraud, threatening he would take “harsh measures” if she wasn’t let out of prison.
“FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians, including the big Mail-In Ballot supporting the governor of the State,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!”
Peters did not find evidence of Democrats cheating in the election.
She was charged for allowing access to county voting equipment by an outside election activist, who was given security credentials under a different name. Materials and passwords were then published online on Telegram and on the rightwing outlet the Gateway Pundit.
Peters was found guilty by a jury in Mesa county in 2024 of seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges. She was sentenced later that year to nine years in prison. Her attorneys had argued for probation instead of prison time.
Also, earlier today, the president took to Truth Social to say that Ukraine’s strategy has been purely focused on defence.
“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” Trump wrote. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND.”
This comes after the president’s meeting on Monday with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European leaders, where Trump said that the America would help to coordinate security guarantees for Ukraine. The White House later confirmed that no US troops would be on the ground in Ukraine, but hinted that some form of air support could be possible.
A reminder that my colleague, Jakub Krupa, is following the latest developments in Europe.
