The Dictatorship
Trump, apparently terrified of the midterms, is pushing Texas to change the game
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that the state Legislature would return to Austin later this summer for a special session. On its own, the announcement was not surprising: With the Texas Constitution limiting regular sessions of the Legislature to only 140 days a year, these bonus legislative sessions have become the norm for governing a state with over 31 million people. What was surprising was one of the agenda items that Abbott listed for the session: drafting legislation that “provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
A redistricting push in 2025 is an oddity. States typically only redraw their congressional districts every 10 years in response to the U.S. census results. But the reason Abbott claims this shuffle is necessary is a gross smoke screen that mocks the Voting Rights Act and the protections it provides.
The reason Abbott claims this shuffle is necessary is a gross smoke screen
The Justice Department concerns that the governor cites are a reference to a lawsuit filed in 2021, alleging that Texas’ current congressional map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In particular, the DOJ accused Texas of “creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.” It was just the latest in a long history of complaints against Texas, which has had to repeatedly redraw its maps since 1964 in the face of federal judges’ rulings.
Four years after it was filed, the 2021 lawsuit recently went to trial in El Paso — but the Justice Department is no longer one of the plaintiffs. The Trump administration had the DOJ withdraw from the lawsuit in March, leaving civil rights groups like LULAC and the Texas NAACP to continue the court battle without the legal firepower the federal government provides. And while Abbott’s phrasing implies Texas legislators will work to address the alleged discrimination, his administration is continuing to fight back against the claims in that case.
In fact, the major driving force for this redistricting push is coming not from the Justice Department — or from Texas Republicans — but the White House. President Donald Trump has reportedly been leaning on Abbott to rejigger the state’s 38 congressional districts to help protect the slim Republican majority in the House ahead of the 2026 midterms. The president, terrified of a repeat of the 2018 midterms that opened the door to two impeachments against him, has zeroed in on even more extreme gerrymandering to limit Democrats’ midterm gains.
The New York Times reported last month that “President Trump’s political team is encouraging Republican leaders in Texas to … turn Democratic districts red by adding reliably Republican voters from neighboring Republican districts.” As NBC News noted Wednesdaythere are at least a few potential gains to be had:
Trump carried two of the 13 Texas seats that Democrats hold, the South Texas districts of Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. Cuellar’s district went to Trump by 7 points, while Gonzalez’s went to Trump by 4 points, according to analysis by NBC News’ Decision Desk. Cuellar won his seat by less than 6 points, while Gonzalez was victorious by less than 3 points, illustrating the slim margins at play in the region.
But the Times also reported that “congressional Republicans from Texas professed little interest in redrawing their districts” ahead of an election that historically would benefit the Democrats. Since 2003Texas has spent the last several redistricting cycles maximizing the GOP’s grasp on the House delegation. The state’s demographics have shifted in that time, leading to a worry that the move could wind up endangering Republicans more than hurting Democrats. When you add in California reportedly mulling a tit-for-tat redistricting effort and the long to-do list ahead of Texas lawmakersthe whole scheme seems very high-risk/mid-tier reward.
Importantly, none of this affects the issue that Abbott claimed as the reason for needing redistricting at all.
Importantly, none of this affects the issue that Abbott claimed as the reason for needing redistricting at all. The Texas Republican Party didn’t even bother repeating the governor’s false pretense in its statement on the special session, calling redistricting “an essential step to preserving GOP control in Congress and advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.”
Cracking open Democratic-controlled districts to gerrymander in new GOP-leaning voters would more likely result in an increase in minority voters’ disenfranchisement. There would inevitably be even more lawsuits to that effect, slowing the new map’s implementation. And while the U.S. Supreme Court has been unfriendly to the Voting Rights Act overallthe justices in 2023 ordered Alabama to redraw its districts to create a new majority, or near majority, Black district.
Despite the warning signs, Abbott still decided to move ahead with gerrymandering efforts just as Trump visits areas of the state affected by last week’s deadly floods. Abbott’s willingness to exploit legitimate concerns over whether Texan minorities are being fully represented in Congress shows that he knows how risky the real reasoning is both politically and legally. Over the next weeks and months, this play could wind up being decisive in determining control of the House next year — or it could blow up in his and Trump’s faces and leave members of their own party more vulnerable to losing their seats than before.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for BLN Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifawere sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer. Prosecutors have called the shooting an act of terrorism.
One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Songreceived the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”
“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.
The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.
Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a targetof the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.
The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.
“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”
Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.
“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.
“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”
Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.
Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.
Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.
Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.
Critics warn the case could have a wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 peoplewith impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdownin Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
The Dictatorship
Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’
About a month into Donald Trump’s second term, Senate Republicans weighed whether to confirm one of the president’s worst nominees. Indeed, the list of reasons to reject Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence was not short.
The former congresswoman lacked the requisite experience in intelligence matters. She had an indefensible habit of echoing Russian propaganda. She struggled to explain her record of defending Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. Senators heard from former national security officials who issued unsubtle warnings about elevating Gabbard to an important and influential position.
But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.
Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, whom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.
But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure, which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.
After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler.
The memos, starting in 2013, when the Hawaiian first arrived on Capitol Hill, reflect a dynamic in which Gabbard didn’t just take direction from the materials, but essentially took dictation from the alleged cult leader: Memos told Gabbard what she should do as a member of Congress, and she often did exactly that, sometimes word for word.
The Post’s Jon Swaine spent months trying to get Gabbard to respond to questions, but to no avail. Her spokeswoman reportedly encouraged Swaine to drop the story, saying, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”
On May 20, Swaine nevertheless alerted the DNI and top members of her staff to the fact that the Post was prepared to publish his reporting anyway on her association with Butler.
On May 22, Fox News reported that Gabbard was leaving the administration, ostensibly because of a health issue involving her husband.
This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:
There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.
The New York Democrat’s comments made sense, though it’s worth considering who, exactly, “we need answers” from.
It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.
In February 2025, confronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
In the lead-up to the Iran war, President Donald Trump dismissed the possibility that Tehran would close the Strait of Hormuz despite warnings from his top military adviser, authors of a new book told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday.
In their first televised interview about “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan said Trump also disregarded warnings from Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the potential effects on American weaponry and about casualties.
The initial closure of the strait, a narrow passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, led to a spike in gas and oil prices. According to Swan, Trump thought Iran would have limited time to take action because the war would be over quickly — a claim he has made repeatedly during the nearly four-month-long war.
“He felt that this regime was a paper tiger, that this was going to be a fast war,” Swan said on “The Last Word.” “He just said he felt that that was going to be the case, that they were going to collapse very quickly.”
“It’s a form of magical thinking, actually, is what it all boils down to,” he added.
The revelation is just one of several in the book — which is based on more than 1,000 interviews — that illustrate how Trump repeatedly bases geopolitical decisions on his own whims rather than experts’ assessments.
Another example of such thinking was when Trump floated a plan to expel 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so he could turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Haberman and Swan wrote in the book that one senior aide characterized the idea as “legitimately nutso … but very on-brand.”
Haberman also spoke about “how scared” people were inside the White House ahead of last year’s so-called Liberation Daywhen Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs. (The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February.)
“They were scared at how close the bond markets came to just completely melting down seven days later, which was finally what got him [Trump] off of it, but again, it was the willingness to just go straight to the brink” that was jarring, Haberman said.
Despite such fear among Trump’s staff, Haberman added, the White House makes up “a group of people who genuinely want to see him succeed.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
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