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Los Angeles Times
5 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump yammers that he's the victim of rigged statistics. But he's the rigger in chief.
For President Trump, right behind retribution as a guiding principle comes projection: He falsely projects onto his enemies the sins of which he's guilty. Trump, whose vision only seems to extend backward, lately has renewed his tired lies that the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were rigged against him. As he yammers away, he's also openly attempting to fix the 2026 midterm elections for Congress by brazenly goading Republicans to redraw congressional districts. If he succeeds, it could prevent the widely favored Democrats from capturing majority control of the House — just as they did in the 2018 midterms of his first term — and with it the power to block his agenda and investigate his evident abuses of power. But the president's rigging goes beyond elections, to all aspects of governance, if his cruel, chaotic maladministration can be called that. Don't like the weak jobs numbers from the nonpartisan bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Fire the woman in charge, slander her for, yes, 'rigging' the numbers on employment and inflation 'to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,' and look to hire someone who by hook or crook actually will rig the number to try to make you look better. As if the experts everywhere who rely on quality U.S. economic data will be fooled. Or even average Americans, who don't need BLS reports to conclude that food, housing and healthcare costs are a source of stress, as 86% of them said in an Associated Press/ NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Monday. Mad that federal judges rejected your former defense lawyer Alina Habba and other incompetent loyalists as U.S. district attorneys, as provided by law? Devise complicated end runs to keep them in place anyway, and have your aides condemn the judges (including Republican appointees) and their 'left-wing agenda.' That charge is especially rich when Habba, Trump's pick for U.S. attorney for New Jersey, makes no secret of her own right-wing agenda: Her goal, she told a right-wing podcaster, is to 'turn New Jersey red.' Want to impose punishing tariffs on U.S. trading partners, though the Constitution empowers Congress to set import duties? Seize on a law giving presidents emergency economic powers and twist its definition of 'emergency' beyond recognition or precedent. Go ahead and impose 50% tariffs on Brazil, for example, because it's conducting a 'witch hunt' (sound familiar?) against former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. It's not as if the subservient Republican-run Congress is going to object and reclaim its constitutional power. But courts might step in. One federal court has ruled against Trump on the tariffs issue and an appeals court last week was hostile during arguments in the two cases before it. Ultimately, however, the question of the president's tariff power will be up to the ever-deferential Supreme Court, which Trump and Senate Republicans really did rig in his favor during his first term. Trump even cheats on relatively small stuff (besides his golf game). An exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on presidential impeachments naturally included Trump, the only president to be impeached twice. But somehow, any mention of him was removed, leaving just Presidents Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, the last of whom resigned before he could be impeached. Presto! 'Wiping away the impeachments like an ill-fated Kremlin apparatchik,' in the Atlantic's words. Trump's rigging is of course most obvious, and most hypocritical, in his unabashed demand to concoct congressional maps that could all but guarantee that Republicans don't suffer the usual midterm election losses for the party in power. He's already messed with Texas, with its trove of Republican votes and compliant Republican leaders. There, at Trump's command, a special session of the Republican-controlled state legislature, which was supposed to be about providing relief to victims of the July 4 Guadalupe River deluge and mitigating future flooding tragedies, has turned into a partisan power play to re-gerrymander Texas' congressional maps so that Republicans win five additional House seats next year. But just in case five seats aren't enough to stave off a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House, Trump and his team are pressing for sudden redistricting in other red states, including Missouri and Ohio, as well as Indiana, where Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to visit Thursday in his side role as Trump's deputy election-rigger. Such machinations have provoked Democrats, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, to threaten counter-gerrymanders in their blue states. Gerrymandering is a ploy nearly as old as the nation. Yet the skulduggery traditionally has been limited to once a decade, after the decennial census that the Constitution requires so states can redraw their political maps to reflect population changes. Trump and team haven't even bothered to sugarcoat their extraordinary mid-decade power grab: 'We are entitled to five more seats,' the president ridiculously decreed on Tuesday. Trump and his political aides cooked up their scheme to rig the 2026 House elections several months ago. In June, White House aides met with Texas Republicans in Congress to urge a 'ruthless' effort to get the state's districts redrawn. According to the New York Times, the aides warned — as if Republicans need warnings by now — that the vengeful Trump would pay close attention to who helped that effort and who didn't. On Tuesday, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, desperate for Trump's endorsement as he seeks reelection, tried to show some MAGA muscle by asking the FBI to help locate and arrest Democratic state legislators who fled the state so the Texas House couldn't vote on the Republican gerrymander plan. Trump didn't blink at the idea of his appointees sending federal agents after elected state officials who aren't breaking the law: 'They may have to,' he said. After all, he's the rigger in chief. Bluesky: @jackiecalmesThreads: @jkcalmesX: @Jackiekcalmes
Politico
6 minutes ago
- Politico
Ken Paxton launches investigation into Beto O'Rourke-led group over Texas quorum break
Powered by People did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Paxton — a Republican who is also primarying Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — has vowed to seek the expulsion of Democratic state lawmakers who fled the state this weekend to prevent the legislature from hitting quorum, preventing Republicans from passing a gerrymandered congressional map that could give the party as many as five more House seats in the midterm elections. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott attempted to accelerate the process by filing an emergency petition against Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu with the state's Supreme Court on Tuesday. But Paxton and Abbott face legal and procedural hurdles as they attempt to force Democrats back to the state for the special session called by Abbott last month. 'Texas cannot be bought. I look forward to thoroughly reviewing all of the documents and communications obtained throughout this investigation,' Paxton said in the press release. 'These jet-setting runaways have already lost public trust by abandoning our state, and Texans deserve to know if they received illegal bribes to do it.' Paxton also said he had issued a 'Request to Examine,' requiring the organization to supply his office with documents and communications related to its alleged involvement in the quorum break.
Newsweek
6 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Supreme Court 'Likely' to Deal Blow to Key Trump Policy: Ex-GOP Speaker
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. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that he believes the Supreme Court is "more than likely" to strike down the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the law President Donald Trump has leveraged to impose sweeping tariffs, if the case reaches the High Court. Newsweek filed a contact request form for comment with Solamere Capital, where Ryan is a partner. Why It Matters Trump has repeatedly announced, imposed, paused and reinstated a slew of tariffs at varying rates on U.S. trading partners to curb immigration, drug trafficking, and reduce trade deficits. Trump's tariffs have caused the market to both slump and spike. Economists have warned that the tariffs, which are effectively a tax imposed on imported goods, will inevitably lead to increased costs for Americans. Trump has defended his policies, saying the tariffs will cause "some little pain" upfront but in the long term will be "worth the price that must be paid." The tariffs are currently under review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which heard oral arguments at the end of July. At issue in the case is Trump's use of the 1977 IEEPA to impose tariffs without seeking congressional approval or conducting investigations first. The law gives presidents broad power to impose economic sanctions during national emergencies, but Trump is the first president to use it to impose tariffs. Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump at a meeting with Republican lawmakers at the White House on September 5, 2018. Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump at a meeting with Republican lawmakers at the White House on September 5, 2018. AP Photo/Evan Vucci What To Know Ryan, who served as House speaker from 2015 to early January 2019 and chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, told CNBC that he does not believe that tariffs are going to result in a settled, predictable market, noting that the "uncertainty" of tariffs is one of the biggest policy points right now. Since retiring from Congress, Ryan has been a vocal Trump critic. "It's more than likely that the Supreme Court knocks out IEEPA, the law that's being used for these tariffs, which doesn't have the word 'tariff' in it," he told CNBC. "Then, the president is going to have to go to other laws to justify tariffs—232, 201, 301. There's a bunch of laws, and those are harder laws to operate with." He called out the tariff policy as being based on Trump's "whims and opinions," and later noted that "tariffs are the wrong way to go. It makes you unproductive, it lowers living standards, it's bad for our short-term politics, bad long-term economics." In May, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade sided with the states and businesses that challenged Trump, ruling that Trump's April 2 "reciprocal" tariffs "exceed any authority granted to the President'' under IEEPA. In the case of the tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico, the trade court ruled that the tariffs did not meet IEEPA's requirement that they "deal with'' the problem they were supposed to address. The Trump administration appealed the court's ruling, and the Federal Circuit has allowed the tariffs to remain in place while it considers the appeal. The case comes as the latest jobs report showed that the U.S. labor market has slowed over the past few months, with unemployment inching upward and prior job gains revised to be weaker than expected. U.S. employers added 73,000 jobs in July, far fewer than expected, while unemployment moved to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics wrote on Friday that "Revisions for May and June were larger than normal," adding that "With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 258,000 lower than previously reported." Trump reacted to the disappointing news by firing Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he accused of manipulating the reports for "political purposes." What People Are Saying Judge Timothy Dyk said last week about the IEEPA case: "It's just hard for me to see that Congress intended to give the president in IEEPA the wholesale authority to throw out the tariff schedule that Congress has adopted after years of careful work and revise every one of these tariff rates." President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday: "Tariffs are making America GREAT & RICH Again. They were successfully used against the USA for decades and, coupled with really dumb, pathetic, and crooked politicians, we're having a devastating impact on the future, and even the survival, of our country. Now the tide has completely turned, and America has successfully countered this onslaught of Tariffs used against it." What Happens Next It's unclear when the appeals court will issue a ruling, but the losing side is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
