
GOP Senator Threatens Suspension of Federal Funds to City in His Own State
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, threatened that he would ask for the suspension of federal funds to Cincinnati—his state's third mot populous city—if local leaders don't "come up with a plan to protect the civil rights of their citizens."
The GOP senator's remarks were related to a downtown Cincinnati brawl on July 26, which went viral online. Three people have been arrested in connection to the violence and local leaders condemned the fight.
"I'm gonna call on all federal agencies to review the funding that we provide Cincinnati, and I'm giving the leaders of Cincinnati one month to come up with a plan to protect the civil rights of their citizens," Moreno told Fox News on Thursday.
"And if they don't, I'm gonna ask these agencies to suspend all federal funding."
This is a developing story and will be updated with additional information.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
6 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Mitch McConnell's legacy comes under fire in Kentucky race to replace him in the Senate
Advertisement 'We've seen 40 years of doing it the same way,' Morris said. 'And, yes, he's not on the ballot, but his legacy is on the ballot. Do you want 40 more years of that? I don't think you do.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up McConnell's blunt-force approach used against him The pushback from a county GOP chairman revealed the political risks of attacking the 83-year-old McConnell in the twilight of his career. Towering over Kentucky politics for decades, McConnell is regarded as the master strategist behind the GOP's rise to power in a state long dominated by Democrats. The state Republican headquarters bears McConnell's name. As the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, McConnell guided Republican policymaking and helped forge a conservative Supreme Court. Back home, his appropriating skills showered Kentucky with federal funding. Advertisement Now, his blunt-force style of campaigning — which undercut so many foes — is being used against him. Morris is running against two other prominent Republicans — U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron — for McConnell's seat. The outcome will be decided in the spring primary next year. Kentucky hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992. All three Republican hopefuls lavish praise on Trump — in hopes of landing his endorsement — but also have ties to McConnell, who mentored generations of aspirational Republicans. Cameron and Barr have chided McConnell at times, but it's been mild compared to Morris' attacks. Morris interned for McConnell but glosses over that connection. McConnell pushes back At events surrounding the Fancy Farm picnic, an event long known for caustic zingers that he has always relished, McConnell showed no sign of backing down. 'Surely this isn't true, but I've heard that one of the candidates running for my office wants to be different,' McConnell told a Republican crowd that included Morris at a pre-picnic breakfast in Mayfield. 'Now, I'm wondering how you'd want to be different from the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. I'm wondering how you'd want to be different in supporting President Trump.' McConnell received multiple standing ovations. Morris stayed seated. McConnell has consistently voted for Trump's policies more often than Kentucky's other Republican senator, Rand Paul, according to a Congressional Quarterly voting analysis. McConnell recently supported Trump's signature tax and spending measure. Paul opposed it, saying it would drive up debt. Yet Morris has taken on McConnell, who has famously had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. McConnell teamed with Trump to put conservatives on the federal bench and pass tax cuts during the president's first term. McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals. But the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for 'disgraceful' acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Trump's supporters. Advertisement McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024, but in a biography by Michael Tackett of The Associated Press, released shortly before the election, McConnell described him as 'a despicable human being.' Running against career politicians Morris, who started a waste management technology company, says the senator has been insufficiently loyal to Trump and allowed festering issues like immigration and the national debt to grow worse during his years in Senate leadership. Morris wants to tether his opponents to McConnell while running on anti-establishment themes that his campaign thinks will appeal to legions of Trump supporters in the Bluegrass State. 'Let's face it, folks, career politicians have run this country off a cliff,' Morris said. Morris' rivals sum up the anti-McConnell attacks as an angry, backward-looking message. Cameron called it a diversionary tactic to obscure what he said is Morris' lack of both a message and credibility as a supporter of Trump's MAGA movement. 'He can't talk about his actual record. So he has to choose to pick on an 83-year-old,' Cameron said. At Fancy Farm, where candidates hurl insults at one another against a backdrop of bingo games and barbecue feasts, Morris took a swipe at McConnell's health. 'I have a serious question: who here can honestly tell me that it's a good thing to have a senior citizen who freezes on national television during his press conferences as our U.S. senator?' Morris said. 'It seems, to me, maybe just maybe, Mitch's time to leave the Senate was a long time ago.' Advertisement McConnell had his customary front-row seat for much of the event but wasn't there for Morris' remarks. He typically leaves before all the speeches are delivered and exited before his would-be successors spoke. Living by the sword McConnell complimented Trump in his speech, singling out Trump's bombing of Iranian nuclear sites. 'He turned Iran's nuclear program into a pile of rocks,' McConnell, a steadfast advocate for a muscular U.S. foreign policy, said to cheers. At the GOP dinner the night before in Calvert City, where candidates typically are more politely received, party activist Frank Amaro confronted Morris for his anti-McConnell barrage. 'He keeps bashing Mitch McConnell like he's running against Mitch McConnell,' Amaro, a county Republican chairman, said afterward. 'Overall, he's helped Kentucky and the United States, especially our Supreme Court, more than any other U.S. senator in this country.' But Morris' blistering assessment of McConnell hit the mark with Trump supporter Patrick Marion, who applied the dreaded Republican-in-Name-Only label to McConnell. 'Personally, I think Mitch has been a RINO for way too long,' Marion said later. 'I don't think he was a true MAGA supporter of President Trump.' Afterward, Morris was in no mood to back off. 'He's the nastiest politician maybe in the history of this state if not in the history of this country,' Morris said of McConnell. 'Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.'


Axios
6 minutes ago
- Axios
What happens if fleeing Texas Democrats don't return
Texas Democrats may have fled the Lone Star State to avoid a critical redistricting vote, but potential problems await them once they return. The big picture: Political backlash, fines and legal challenges are all on the table if the departed Democrats don't make their way back to Texas soon. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has given Democrats a 3 p.m. CT deadline to return or face "legal consequences." Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) threatened to arrest the Democrats who left. "We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law," he wrote on X Sunday. Driving the news: More than 50 Democratic lawmakers left Texas to prevent the GOP from holding a vote in the state House on a new congressional district map. A good chunk of Dems traveled to three blue strongholds —Illinois, New York and Massachusetts. The vote — a response to a President Trump -led move to rewrite the districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — could net Republicans up to five seats. Texas House rules require two-thirds of lawmakers — or 100 out of the 150 elected positions — to be present for any vote. Republicans hold 88 of the seats, Democrats have 62 and none of the representatives are Independents. What happens to Texas Democrats who left? By the numbers: Democrats face a $500 daily fine for each day they are absent without leave. If they run out the clock on the special session — which ends on August 19 — that would mean thousands of dollars in fines for each member. The punishment was added in 2023 after the Democrats left the state for three weeks in 2021 over a voting rights bill. The fines can not be paid "from funds in the member's operating account or from funds accepted as political contributions," according to Texas law. Political risks exist, too. The redistricting vote was set to take place during a special session that would have featured discussions on flood management over the July 4 deadly flooding in Central Texas, as well as THC regulation. Redistricting was added after Abbot held a phone call with Trump, Axios' Alex Isenstadt and Megan Stringer report. Will Texas Democrats be removed from office? Context: Abbott said in a Sunday statement that he planned to "remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House" if they weren't back by Monday afternoon. Abbott cited a 2021 opinion from Paxton which said legislators who intentionally break quorum could be removed through a quo warranto legal proceeding. The Texas governor also said anyone who solicits or accepts funds to cover the fines could be subject to the state's bribery laws. "I will use my full extradition authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential out-of-state felons," Abbott said. Reality check: It's unclear if Abbott would (or could) really remove the lawmakers from office. Any potential removal from office would be met with legal challenges, and opinions issued by an attorney general are not considered legally binding. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, joined by fleeing Texas Democrats at a Sunday press conference, said that the state would work to help the lawmakers however possible. "We're going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them," Pritzker said. What happens to the Texas special session? If they don't return on or before August 19, the 30-day special session would conclude without any votes, and it would expire. Abbott would have to call for another one. What's we're watching: Paxton said on the "War Room" podcast with Steve Bannon, that he believes the Democrats will eventually return to Texas.


Axios
6 minutes ago
- Axios
How the Supreme Court kickstarted the redistricting arms race
Republicans' plan to redraw Texas's congressional district map years early launched a nationwide battle, with Democrats promising to retaliate with new partisan maps of their own. The big picture: The war to win the congressional maps is a result of a 2019 Supreme Court decision eliminating federal guardrails against partisan gerrymandering. President Trump has urged Texas Republicans to draw a new map more favorable to the GOP before the 2026 midterms. Democrats in New York and California have vowed to retaliate in kind. Context: The Supreme Court ignited the new wave of gerrymandering with a 2019 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts that held that partisan gerrymandering claims "present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts." "Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties," Roberts wrote. Roberts added that "the fact that such gerrymandering is 'incompatible with democratic principles,' ... does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary." What they're saying: Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck said that the Supreme Court's decision "left it as open-season for whatever the legislature can get away with" in states where lawmakers control the maps. The other side: Justice Elena Kagan in her 2019 dissent warned that "[o]f all times to abandon the Court's duty to declare the law, this was not the one." She added, "The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government." Zoom out: In 2024, the Supreme Court made it even more difficult to challenge congressional maps when it upheld a South Carolina district map that a lower court found was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito rejected the lower court's conclusion. He wrote that "inferring bad faith based on the racial effects of a political gerrymander in a jurisdiction in which race and partisan preference are very closely correlated" could allow future litigants to sidestep the 2019 decision that partisan gerrymandering claims are out of the federal courts' reach. Friction point: Kagan, who again authored the dissent, said the decision sent a message to state legislators and mapmakers, who may use race "as a proxy to achieve partisan ends" or "straight-up suppress" minority voters' electoral influence: "Go right ahead, this Court says to States today." State of play: Texas could be just the tip of the iceberg, as the redistricting push sparks a chain reaction beforethe 2026 midterms. As Axios' Alex Isenstadt and Megan Stringer report, redistricting for partisan advantage is nothing new — but the mid-decade scramble comes well ahead of the 2030 census, after which redistricting normally takes place. Kagan in her 2019 dissent, said gerrymandering "helps create the polarized political system so many Americans loathe." She continued, "Is it conceivable that someday voters will be able to break out of that prefabricated box? Sure. But everything possible has been done to make that hard. To create a world in which power does not flow from the people because they do not choose their governors."