‘They fired the first shot, Texas’, Newsom says before signing bill to put redistricting to California’s voters
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, signed legislation on Thursday that will ask the state’s voters to decide in November if they approve of redrawn congressional districts that tilt heavily in favor of Democrats, as a way of neutralizing a similarly partisan map in Texas.
“They fired the first shot, Texas,” Newsom said before signing the bill, noting that California’s new map would only be used if Texas uses new maps tilted in favor of Republicans. “We wouldn’t be here had Texas not done what they just did; Donald Trump didn’t do what he just did. He went so far as to follow up and say that he didn’t just want those five seats, he said he’s, quote-unquote, entitled to those five seats. Just pause and reflect on that. Everything should have just stopped there. The president of the United States claiming he’s ‘entitled’ to five seats. That should put chills up your spine, every Republican, not just Democrat and Independent, every American.”
Newsom also said that California would be “the first state in US history to, in the most democratic way, to submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps”.
The map that could give California Democrats five more seats was drawn by Paul Mitchell, founder of Redistricting Partners, a nonpartisan local redistricting firm, who previously created maps for independent redistricting commissions across California.
“All of us support independent redistricting, here in California and in every state in this union” another Democratic state leader, Senate Pro Tempore Mike McGuire, said. “One thing that we do not support is unilateral disarmament, when the fairness of the 2026 election is being threatened.”
Key events
Lauren Gambino
California lawmakers have authorized a November special election to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries and create five new potentially Democratic US House seats.
The state legislature voted to advance the redistricting plan on Thursday after hours of debate. The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, is expected to sign the bill shortly.
The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump, aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.
The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states were racing on parallel tracks toward consequential redistricting votes, potentially within hours of each other. As Democrats in Sacramento advanced a legislative package that would put their “election rigging response act” before voters in a special election this fall, Republicans in Austin were nearing a final vote on their own gerrymandering pursuit.
California legislature sets November special election to ask voters to approve new congressional map
The California legislature on Thursday approved a plan to hold a special election in November in which voters will be asked to approve new congressional districts, redrawn in favor of Democrats, as a means of nullifying a gerrymandered map on its way to final approval in Texas.
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 nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states raced on parallel tracks to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Trump gives rally-style speech to assembled law enforcement officers at a US park police center
So far, what was billed as a “ride-along” with law enforcement on the streets of Washington DC, has turned out to be mostly Donald Trump giving a short rally-style address to about 300 officers from the DC Metropolitan Police, the FBI, the National Guard, homeland security investigations, the DEA, ATF and US Marshals service.
The president repeated his familiar attacks on renewable energy, telling the officers: “It’s it’s a very expensive form of energy, and we’re not doing the wind”.
He also boasted about his legal victory on Thursday, when a New York appeals court threw out a multi-million dollar financial penalty against him after his conviction for fraud. Although the fraud conviction remains in place, Trump falsely implied that the judges had overturned his conviction.
“We’re having a lot of victories. I had a victory today”, he said. “You know, they stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned. They said this was a fake case. It’s a terrible thing, but it’s a nice victory, you know? I mean, it’s not bad, we all have, we all have our limits. But this was a terrible thing that it was a witch hunt”.
He then invited several cabinet members and aides, including the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, to make remarks, which were focused on praising the president.
Among Trump’s comments was a promise to clean up Washington DC, including its grass.
“One of the things we are going to be redoing is your parks. I’m very good at grass ‘cause I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being I think anywhere in the world”, the president told the officers.
“And we are going to be re-grassing all of your parks, all brand-new new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy. Just like Augusta. No dead- it’ll look like Augusta. It will look like, more importantly, Trump national golf club, that’s even better”, he added, comparing his own golf course to the one in Augusta, Georgia where The Masters is held each spring.
“We’re going to have all brand-new, beautiful grass. You know, like everything else, grass has a life. Do you know that? Grass has a life. You know, we have a life, and grass as a life. And the grass here died about 40 years ago”, the president said.
He added that he had brought the officers “great hamburgers cooked by the White House” with him, as well as pizzas from a local chain, Wiseguy Pizza. “I’ll eat with you and we’re going to have a little fun, we’re going to celebrate, then we’re going to get back to work and we’re going to take care of these criminals”.
Trump speaks at US park police headquarters
Donald Trump’s motorcade just arrived at the United States Park police headquarters in Anacostia, in south-east Washington DC.
He was handed a mic and boasted to assembled officers that his crackdown on crime in the capital has been a success and went on to repeat many of his familiar talking points, including the boast that his trip to Saudi Arabia was successful at bringing in investments and that he is building a ballroom at the White House.
Her also claimed that his federal takeover of Washington DC had encouraged people to go out to dinner again. In fact, restaurant owners have reported a sharp drop in reservations during the period.
Trump departs White House to join military and police on patrol of Washington DC
Donald Trump’s motorcade has just left the White House, with the president expected to join an evening patrol of Washington DC’s streets by national guard troops and police officers he placed under federal control to fight a crime wave that statistics suggest is imaginary.
The president was joined by his attorney general, Pam Bondi, his domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Trump referred to the made-for-TV photo op as a “secret” in a radio interview earlier on Thursday, but the White House has invited journalists along and set up a YouTube live stream to allow the public to follow his performance in real time.
The staged event follows a similar outing on Wednesday by three top administration officials to visit national guard troops keeping the Shake Shack at Union Station safe.
The administration’s commitment to producing content on a daily basis seems to echo the satirical praise Stephen Colbert lavished on George W Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2006 when he said:
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he has stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
Federal judge rules Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba has been unlawfully serving as US attorney in New Jersey
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
In his order disqualifying Habba from prosecuting three defendants who challenged her appointment, chief US district judge Matthew Brann wrote:
The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves. Along the way, it has disagreed with the Judges of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and criminal defendants in that District about who should or may lead the office. Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not.
The judge found that Habba’s term as the interim US attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the US Senate did not follow procedures required by federal law.
Brann said he’s putting his order on hold pending an appeal.
Habba, the daughter of Iraqi immigrants who unsuccessfully defended Trump in his New York fraud trial, also served as a frequent campaign surrogate for him in 2024.
After being appointed to the interim role in March, she said the state could “turn red”, a rare, overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.
She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, stemming from a confrontation with federal agents during his visit to an immigration detention center. Habba later charged a Democratic congresswoman, LaMonica McIver, with assault for resisting the detention of the mayor in the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. She denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.
In late July her four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close and it became clear that she would not get support from home state senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, meaning her chances of Senate approval were nil.
Trump then withdrew her nomination and federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, retaliated by firing that prosecutor and moved to re-install Habba as acting US attorney.
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.
