What to Know About Texas's Redistricting Showdown
DALLAS—Texas Democrats defied Gov. Greg Abbott's call to return to the state for an Aug. 4 hearing on redrawing Congressional lines, setting up a showdown between the two sides.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced that a quorum had not been met after roll call. House members then approved a motion for the Speaker to sign warrants 'for the civil arrest of the members who have said they will not be here.'
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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Newsom threatens ‘fire with fire' if Republicans push ahead with redistricting plans in Texas
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to 'fight fire with fire' in response to moves in Texas to redraw the electoral map to favor Republicans. Newsom was speaking as Greg Abbott, his Lone Star State counterpart, ordered the arrest of the 51 state Democratic lawmakers who have left Texas to prevent its House of Representatives voting through the redistricting proposals advantageous to the GOP by denying it a quorum. Speaking of the possibility of the Sunshine State engaging in its own retaliatory redistricting push to weaken Republican-leaning districts, Newsom said: 'The proposal that we're advancing with the legislature has a trigger only if they move forward, to dismantling the protocols that are well-established. 'Would the state of California move forward in kind? Fighting? Yes, fire with fire.' He acknowledged, however, that going ahead with such a step would have to be done within the law, commenting: 'That process has to have the concurrence, the support of two-thirds of the legislature. 'The maps, we believe, should be transparent. They should be provided in a transparent way to the public, and as a consequence, those maps are being processed and will be brought to light.' He also said that California citizens should be given a chance to have their say: 'We will offer them the opportunity to make judgments for themselves, again, only if Texas moves forward. 'I'll reinforce that we believe it should be a national model, independent national redistricting, and it would revert back to its original form, but it's done in response to the existential realities that we're now facing. 'Things have changed, facts have changed, so we must change.' Newsom continued: 'They've triggered this response and we're not going to roll over and we're going to fight fire with fire, but we're going to do so not just punching with the weight of the fourth largest economy, the most populous state in our union, the size of 21 state populations combined. 'We also will punch above our weight in terms of the impact of what we're doing, and I think that should be absorbed by those in the Texas delegation. Whatever they are doing will be neutered here in the state of California, and they will pay that price.' Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have likewise indicated they could be prepared to act in kind if Texas proceeds with its gerrymandering manoeuvre. The desperate measures taken by the Texas Democrats to block the redistricting – which saw them jet out for New York, New Jersey and Illinois on Sunday to stop a vote going ahead – came after the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting advanced the GOP's proposals on Saturday. Republicans hold a majority in the Texas House of Representatives, as they do in its Senate, meaning the bid to revise the state's 38 congressional districts would likely pass both chambers and be signed off by Gov. Abbott. Doing so would create five extra right-leaning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., potentially expanding the congressional GOP's majority and easing the passage of President Donald Trump's future legislative agenda. Faced with that likelihood, the Democrats left town, preventing the 150-seat House being able to hold the vote, which requires at least two-thirds of representatives to be present before it can grind into action. Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu led the exodus and has the support of the Democratic National Committee but he and his colleagues look set to be fined $500 for every day they are absent from the legislature and now face arrest under Abbott's orders after failing to return to Austin in time for a 3pm deadline set by Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Newsweek
12 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Why China is Becoming Donald Trump's Biggest U-Turn
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. When President Donald Trump launched the trade war with China in his first term, he did so amid a growing consensus in Washington that Beijing posed a long-term challenge to U.S. security, political and economic interests globally. Now, China watchers on both sides of the aisle are concerned at signs that Trump is pivoting away from years of efforts to compete with America's top geopolitical rival, which is likely to seize the moment and solidify its foothold in strategic industries that Trump wants to win back. The White House did not immediately comment when reached after hours. Setting Expectations While Democrats have criticized Trump's yearslong economic war with Beijing and his government's perceived lack of coordination with key allies, they were largely supportive of a tougher approach to China, citing accusations such as unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and unequal access to the Chinese market. The shift in Trump's first presidency had such far-reaching effects on Sino-American sentiment in both capitals that former President Joe Biden found the chill of the new Cold War hard to reverse. Biden not only extended, but later expanded Trump-era tariffs and further tightened controls on U.S. tech exports over fears they were accelerating China's military modernization. Trump campaigned on a promise to be even tougher. Matthew Pottinger, his deputy national security adviser from 2019-2021, predicted Trump would "pick up the baton and run with it" in pursuing Section 301 investigations into Chinese trade practices considered harmful to international and U.S. economic interests. In April, when the White House launched sweeping tariffs against friend and foe alike to bring Beijing to the negotiating table for a new trade deal, it appeared to signal the start of a new phase of the tech war, designed not only to address the trade deficit and revive U.S. manufacturing, but to ensure America stayed one step ahead of China in technological and military supremacy in an increasingly unstable world. The Biggest U-Turn of Donald Trump's Presidency The Biggest U-Turn of Donald Trump's Presidency Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Getty Reaction and Compromise The reaction from President Xi Jinping's China was swift and targeted. It played the tit-for-tat tariff game for a while but reached quickly for the nuclear option of cutting American firms out of its rare earths supply chain, weaponizing its dominance in the same way the U.S. had sought to curb Chinese access to advanced computer chips. Observers of the ongoing trade talks have sensed a shift in tone and approach, marked by a number of notable concessions in July—both symbolic and substantive—that they argued were overly conciliatory toward Beijing for the sake of securing an agreement. At the top of the list are emerging technologies and the Trump administration's decision to permit the export of U.S. tech—specifically Nvidia's H20 artificial intelligence chip—to China, following an intense lobbying campaign by company CEO Jensen Huang, who had argued that further curbs would only accelerate Chinese domestic breakthroughs in the race to dominate the global AI market. The decision has alarmed some of Trump's current and former allies in the GOP. "The H20 is a potent accelerator of China's frontier AI capabilities, not an outdated AI chip," said a July 28 letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, signed by Pottinger and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, among others. Last week, it emerged that Trump had broken precedent by refusing a request by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te to transit the United States as part of his wider visit to Taipei's remaining allies in Latin American—a diplomatic coup for China, which claims Taiwan as its own. In this file photo taken on June 28, 2019, China's President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka. In this file photo taken on June 28, 2019, China's President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who signed the letter, told Newsweek: "Several factors are contributing to the shifting climate on China policy. The Trump administration wants to open up China's market for American businesses, which is elevating the cooperative agenda for the moment." "The [Chinese Communist Party's] willingness to leverage U.S. dependency on critical minerals is also curtailing the willingness of some officials to anger Beijing," he said. Sobolik said: "Jensen Huang is putting Nvidia's profit margin ahead of U.S. national security. It's the job of leaders in Washington to put national security ahead of one company's economic interests. Selling advanced AI chips to China does the opposite: it equips China's military with powerful tools to target Americans. We need to win the AI race, not unilaterally surrender to the Chinese Communist Party." China's embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a request for comment after hours. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said last week that Beijing was opposed to "politicizing, instrumentalizing and weaponizing tech and trade issues and malicious attempts to blockade and keep down China" The Debate If Trump stays the course, it would be among the biggest pivots in what was to be a generational U.S.-China rivalry. But not all are convinced Trump is showing his true hand. George Magnus, an associate at the University of Oxford China Center, told Newsweek that Trump wants to demonstrate to the world that only he can strike trade deals with Beijing while his predecessor could not. "I don't think Trump and the administration are necessarily not thinking about China as a strategic adversary, but I think he wants to boast 'a win' in his first year in office and show to the world that America and China can do business together regardless," Magnus said. "We should also remember the U.S. has an America First investment policy memo which is unashamedly anti-China, and it's not unlikely that the U.S. will withdraw [most favored nation] status from Chinese goods. So there is a lot of nuance and ambiguity in Trump's poses and postures, all of which can be real," he said.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Karl Rove Reveals Trump's 'Big Mistake' That's About To 'Bite' Republicans
Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove had some bad news for President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. Trump is not as popular as a president should be at this point in his term, which could cost his party big in next year's midterm elections, Rove said during a Fox News interview over the weekend. 'While he has strengthened the support among right-leaning Republicans, he has also sort of lost ground among independents, who at this point are disposed to say, 'I'm voting Democrat in the midterm election,'' he said. Rove noted that Trump was elected largely on three issues: the border, the economy, and inflation, but the latest polls show those last two issues in particular are a problem for the president right now. 'To me, what's ironic is, is that the Trump administration is making the same mistake that the Biden administration made,' he said. President Joe Biden and his aides insisted that 'Bidenomics' was working even as inflation continued to surge. 'Well, now we have 'the golden age of American prosperity has returned,' and Americans are not feeling that,' Rove said, calling out Trump and his administration for declaring a 'premature victory' on those issues. 'I think that's a big mistake for the White House and is likely to come back and bite 'em in the midterm election,' said Rove, who helped lead George W. Bush's two presidential campaigns. See the full video at Mediaite.
