Texas Senate passes GOP-drawn map, while House Democrats continue to deny quorum
The Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.
Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.
“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.
Key events
Russia suspected to be behind hack of federal court filing system – report
The New York Times is reporting that investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is “at least in part” responsible for a recent hack of the computer system of the federal court system.
According to the Times’ sources this breach includes highly sensitive records that could contain information with names and details of people charged with national security crimes.
The Times also reports that it’s not immediately clear what specific Russian entity might be responsible for the hack.
Just a quick post here to sum up the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which breaks down the financial impact of Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill that became law last month.
The topline: the CBO estimates that the poorest 10% of Americans can expect to lose around $1200 per year due to the restrictions and cut backs in the legislation – namely when it comes to Medicaid and Snap benefits. By contrast, the richest 10% of Americans can expect to gain around $13,600 each year, due to the extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts.
In response to Congressional Democratic leadership’s request for analysis on the distribution of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a letter from the CBO’s director noted that while, on average, American households can expect to see an increase in resources, this will not be evenly distributed.
He writes:
Resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.
Edward Helmore
The Trump administration is evidently extending its control of cultural representation at the Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum and research complex.
In a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal, the White House told the Smithsonian that it plans a wide review of exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations in 2026.
The letter to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, from Trump administration officials said the White House wants the museums’ program to reflect “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” in keeping with an executive order issued in March that ordered the elimination of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums.
Donald Trump’s order from March, titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, said the president “aims to ensure that the Smithsonian is an institution that sparks children’s imagination, celebrates American history and ingenuity, serves as a symbol to the world of American greatness, and makes America proud”.
But Monday’s letter to the institution, according to the Journal, places the institution under curatorial scrutiny ranging from public-facing exhibition text and online content to internal curatorial processes, exhibition planning, the use of collections and artist grants.
Ukraine will not cede land that could be Russian springboard for new war, Zelenskyy says
Dan Sabbagh
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.
The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia’s demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline.
Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.
Read more on the lead-up to both meetings here
Texas Senate passes GOP-drawn map, while House Democrats continue to deny quorum
The Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.
Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.
“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.
The White House heralded today’s Consumer Price Index report as an clear picture of inflation remaining stable.
But another notable exchange in the press briefing was a reporter’s question about why the public should trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation data report, given the administration undermining the jobs data released earlier this month. This led to the firing of former commissioner Erika McEntarfer, and yesterday’s announcement that the president is nominating EJ Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to replace her. Antoni is a longtime critic of the BLS.
“The jobs data has had massive revisions,” Leavitt said, referring to the routine practice of issuing revisions to provide a more accurate picture of data. “We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS, is trustworthy and is accurate”.
When asked in today’s press briefing, the White House offered little clarity on administration’s view of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza City takeover.
This is, of course, an incredibly complex and complicated situation. The administration has made our goal clear. We want to see this conflict end. We want to see the hostages released…the President and his national security team has given extensive effort and time in doing that.
Homeless will face fines or jail time if they fail to leave encampments, White House says
Speaking about what will happen to the homeless population in Washington DC, Leavitt cites city codes which would give individuals the “option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter to be offered addiction or mental health services”. If they refuse, Leavitt says, they will be “susceptible to fines or to jail time”.
Leavitt also says that the administration is still considering moving the homeless population out of the city.
Trump-Putin meeting is a ‘listening exercise’ for the president
Karoline Leavitt offers a limited preface to the president’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. But she notes that Trump sees the meeting as a “listening exercise” because only one party is present.
Leavitt also answered a question about why Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not included in Friday’s meeting, despite calls from European leaders. She underscored that Putin called for this meeting, and “the goal of this meeting for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war”.
Leavitt also reaffirmed Trump’s hopes for a trilateral meeting in the future.
Leavitt is talking about the perception of crime in Washington DC. She is referring to polling that shows an increase in residents feeling that crime is a serious problem in the city.
However, violent crime is on the decline at the moment, and reached a 30-year low last year.
White House press secretary on DC police takeover: ‘This is only the beginning’
Leavitt is now addressing the president’s federal takeover of DC police, and the deployment of National Guard troops to the city.
This is only the beginning. Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law undermines public safety and endangers law abiding Americans.
Soon, we can expect the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to hold a briefing. We’ll bring you the latest as that gets going.
Bondi touts ‘productive’ meeting with Washington DC mayor
Attorney general Pam Bondi said that her meeting with DC mayor Muriel Bowser was “productive” in a statement on X.
“We agreed that there is nothing more important than keeping residents and tourists in Washington, D.C. safe from deadly crime,” she wrote.
However, violent crime in the capital hit a record 30-year low in 2024.
Texas attorney general seeks to jail Beto O’Rourke
Sam Levine
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a local judge on Tuesday to consider jailing Beto O’Rourke, saying the former congressman was openly defying a judicial order blocking the former congressman and his political group from fundraising and paying the costs of Democrats who left the state to stop Republicans from passing a new congressional map.
Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey granted a request from Paxton last week halting O’Rourke and a group aligned with him, Powered by People, from fundraising. In his Tuesday, filing, Paxton said O’Rourke had continued to fundraise after Fahey’s ruling, pointing to a tweet soliciting donations on ActBlue and requests to donate during a rally in Fort Worth last week.
Paxton requested O’Rourke be fined $500 for each instance in which he defied the court’s order and “be confined to jail unless and until he demonstrates a willingness to abide by the Court’s orders pending the outcome of this lawsuit.”
US court says Trump’s Doge team can access sensitive data
A US appeals court has rejected a bid by a group of unions to block the Trump administration’s government downsizing team, the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), from accessing sensitive data on Americans.
The Virginia-based fourth US circuit court of appeals in a 2-1 decision said the unions were unlikely to prevail on claims that Doge would violate federal privacy laws by accessing data at the US Department of Education, treasury department, and Office of Personnel Management.
The court refused to block Doge access to the agencies’ computer systems and data such as social security numbers and individuals’ citizenship status pending the outcome of the case.
The decision reverses a temporary injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland, which had been paused by the appeals court in April.
The agencies involved in the case and the unions that sued, which include the American Federation of Teachers and the National Federation of Federal Employees, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The 4th circuit today said the unions that sued along with a group of military veterans had not shown how they would be injured by Doge accessing agencies’ computer systems. They also probably lacked legal standing to sue because that access is not a “final agency action” that can form the basis of a lawsuit, the court said.
A dissenting judge said it was prudent to temporarily block access to the data while the case plays out, and that the standard his colleagues had imposed on the plaintiffs was too high.
Per my last post, in the letter sent to university George Washington University president Ellen Granberg today, assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon said the justice department found members of the university community engaged in “antisemitic, disruptive protests”, including by establishing an encampment at University Yard.
Dhillon said these efforts were meant to “frighten, intimidate, and deny” Jewish, Israeli, and American Israeli students access to the university environment.
“The Department finds that despite actual notice of the abuses occurring on its campus, GWU was deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered,” Dhillon’s letter said.
Dhillon said the justice department intends to proceed with enforcement, but is offering the university the opportunity to resolve the matter through a voluntary resolution agreement. The university has until 22 August to indicate whether it has “interest in such a dialogue”, according to the letter.
GWU is the latest university to be targeted by the Trump administration, which has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over pro-Palestinian protests as the US continues to defend its ally Israel’s military assault in Gaza.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly equates their criticism of Israel’s military assault in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Trump administration says George Washington University violated law over Jewish students and faculty
Elsewhere in DC, the Trump administration has said it has found George Washington University had violated federal civil rights law regarding Jewish, American-Israeli and Israeli students and faculty and will seek “immediate remediation” from the school.
In a statement, the US Department of Justice said GWU had acted “deliberately indifferent to the hostile educational environment for Jewish, American-Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty”. Representatives for the university could not be immediately reached for comment.
As my colleague Alice Speri reported last week, the White House is reportedly negotiating with several other universities over similar claims, with about 60 institutions, including Columbia, Harvard and Brown, under investigation over alleged antisemitism. Several have had federal funding cut or threatened.
