James Hohmann and Mark Lasswell Named Deputy Opinion Editors for Washington Post Opinion
Mark came to The Post seven years ago after a stellar editing career at The Wall Street Journal, including more than four years as editor of the op-ed pages. In his new role, which he will assume August 11, Mark will work with me to reorganize our editing operations as we seek to become more nimble while maintaining the high quality that Post Opinion is known for.
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I'm pleased to announce that James Hohmann has been promoted to serve as a deputy opinion editor, succeeding Stephen Stromberg.
James has built an exemplary record as a news and opinion journalist here at The Post, and he has been a critical member of the editorial board for years. We'll be working together to revamp the editorial board and develop a distinctive voice in line with the section's new direction. He takes on the new role effective immediately.
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Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Texas and California joust for political advantage, with Trump power and US House majority in play
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The nation's two most populous states — California and Texas — grappled for political advantage in advance of 2026 elections that could reorder the balance of power in Washington and threaten President Donald Trump's agenda at the midpoint of his second term. In Texas, Democrats on Monday prevented their state's House of Representatives from moving forward, at least for now, with a redrawn congressional map sought by Trump to shore up Republicans' 2026 midterm prospects as his political standing falters. In California, Democrats encouraged by Gov. Gavin Newsom are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. The move is intended to undercut any GOP gains in Texas, potentially swinging House control and giving Democrats a counterweight to Trump on Capitol Hill. A draft plan aims to boost the Democratic margin in California to 48 of 52 congressional seats, according to a source familiar with the plan who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. That's up from the 43 seats the party now holds. It would need approval from lawmakers and voters, who may be skeptical to give it after handing redistricting power to an independent commission years ago. The rivalry puts a spotlight on two states that for years have dueled over jobs, innovation, prestige — even sports — with the backdrop of clashing political visions — one progressive, one conservative. A standoff in Texas after Democrats leave the state After dozens of Democrats left Texas, the Republican-dominated House was unable to establish the quorum of lawmakers required to do business. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has made threats about removing members who are absent from their seats. Democrats counter that Abbott is using 'smoke and mirrors' to assert legal authority he does not have. The House quickly issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats and Abbott ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them, but lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities. 'If you continue to go down this road, there will be consequences," House Speaker Rep. Dustin Burrows said from the chamber floor, later telling reporters that includes fines. Democrats' revolt and Abbott's threats intensified a fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but now includes Democratic governors who have pitched redrawing their district maps in retaliation — even if their options are limited. The dispute also reflects Trump's aggressive view of presidential power and his grip on the Republican Party nationally, while testing the longstanding balance of powers between the federal government and individual states. The impasse centers on Trump's effort to get five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas, at Democrats' expense, before the midterms. That would bolster his party's chances of preserving its fragile U.S. House majority, something Republicans were unable to do in the 2018 midterms during Trump's first presidency. Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas' 38 seats. That's nearly a 2-to-1 advantage and already a wider partisan gap than the 2024 presidential results: Trump won 56.1% of Texas ballots, while Democrat Kamala Harris received 42.5%. The California pushback: A move to undercut GOP House members According to the tentative California proposal, districts now held by Republican Reps. Ken Calvert, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Doug LaMalfa would see right-leaning voters shaved and Democratic voters boosted in a shift that would make it likely a left-leaning candidate would prevail in each race. In battleground districts held by Democratic Reps. Dave Min, Mike Levin and Derek Tran, the party's edge would be boosted to strengthen their hold on the seats, the source said. Democratic members of California's congressional delegation were briefed on the new map on Monday, according to a person familiar with the meeting who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. The proposal is being circulated at the same time that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he wants to advance partisan redistricting. He says he won't move ahead if Texas pauses its efforts. Newsom said he'd call a special election for the first week of November. Voters would weigh a new congressional map drawn by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. 'California will not sit by idly and watch this democracy waste away,' Newsom said Monday. More than 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) from Austin, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared with Texas Democrats and argued their cause is national. 'We're not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen in a modern-day stagecoach heist by a bunch of law-breaking cowboys,' Hochul said Monday. 'If Republicans are willing to rewrite rules to give themselves an advantage, then they're leaving us with no choice: We must do the same. You have to fight fire with fire.' Status of the vote In Texas, legislators who left the state declined to say how long they'll hold out. 'We recognized when we got on the plane that we're in this for the long haul,' said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer while in Illinois. Texas House Democratic Caucus leader Gene Wu said members 'will do whatever it takes' but added, 'What that looks like, we don't know.' Legislative walkouts often only delay passage of a bill, like in 2021, when many Democrats left Texas for 38 days to protest proposed voting restrictions. Once they returned, Republicans passed that measure. Lawmakers cannot pass bills in the 150-member House without two-thirds of members present. Democrats hold 62 seats in the majority-Republican chamber, and at least 51 left the state, according to a Democratic aide. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders could 'physically compel the attendance' of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served. Republicans answered by adopting $500 daily fines for lawmakers who don't show. Abbott, meanwhile, continues to make unsubstantiated claims that some lawmakers have committed felonies by soliciting money to pay for potential fines for leaving Texas during the session. ___ Barrow reported from Atlanta. Blood reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Washington, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, also contributed to this report.
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
In rejecting the jobs report, Trump follows his own playbook of discrediting unfavorable data
WASHINGTON (AP) — When the coronavirus surged during President Donald Trump's first term, he called for a simple fix: Limit the amount of testing so the deadly outbreak looked less severe. When he lost the 2020 election, he had a ready-made reason: The vote count was fraudulent. And on Friday, when the July jobs report revisions showed a distressed economy, Trump had an answer: He fired the official in charge of the data and called the report of a sharp slowdown in hiring 'phony.' Trump has a go-to playbook if the numbers reveal uncomfortable realities, and that's to discredit or conceal the figures and to attack the messenger — all of which can hurt the president's efforts to convince the world that America is getting stronger. 'Our democratic system and the strength of our private economy depend on the honest flow of information about our economy, our government and our society,' said Douglas Elmendorf, a Harvard University professor who was formerly director of the Congressional Budget Office. 'The Trump administration is trying to suppress honest analysis.' The president's strategy carries significant risks for his own administration and a broader economy that depends on politics-free data. His denouncements threaten to lower trust in government and erode public accountability, and any manipulation of federal data could result in policy choices made on faulty numbers, causing larger problems for both the president and the country. The White House disputes any claims that Trump wants to hide numbers that undermine his preferred narratives. It emphasized that Goldman Sachs found that the two-month revisions on the jobs report were the largest since 1968, outside of a recession, and that should be a source of concern regarding the integrity of the data. Trump's aides say their fundamental focus is ensuring that any data gives an accurate view of reality. Not the first time Trump has sought to play with numbers Trump has a long history of dismissing data when it reflects poorly on him and extolling or even fabricating more favorable numbers, a pattern that includes his net worth, his family business, election results and government figures: — Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in a lawsuit brought by the state of New York that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans. — Trump has claimed that the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were each rigged. Trump won the 2016 presidential election by clinching the Electoral College, but he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, a sore spot that led him to falsely claim that millions of immigrants living in the country illegally had cast ballots. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden but falsely claimed he had won it, despite multiple lawsuits failing to prove his case. — In 2019, as Hurricane Dorian neared the East Coast, Trump warned Alabama that the storm was coming its way. Forecasters pushed back, saying Alabama was not at risk. Trump later displayed a map in the Oval Office that had been altered with a black Sharpie — his signature pen — to include Alabama in the potential path of the storm. — Trump's administration has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites. — As pandemic deaths mounted, Trump suggested that there should be less testing. 'When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people,' Trump said at a June 2020 rally in Oklahoma. 'You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'' While Trump's actions have drawn outcry from economists, scientists and public interest groups, Elmendorf noted that Trump's actions regarding economic data could be tempered by Congress, which could put limits on Trump by whom he chooses to lead federal agencies, for example. 'Outside observers can only do so much," Elmendorf said. 'The power to push back against the president rests with the Congress. They have not exercised that power, but they could.' White House says having its own people in place will make data 'more reliable' Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, took aim at the size of the downward revisions in the jobs report (a combined 258,000 reduction in May and June) to suggest that the report had credibility issues. He said Trump is focused on getting dependable numbers, despite the president linking the issue to politics by claiming the revisions were meant to make Republicans look bad. 'The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable,' Hassett said Sunday on NBC News. Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who oversaw the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis during the Biden administration, stressed that revisions to the jobs data are standard. That's because the numbers are published monthly, but not all surveys used are returned quickly enough to be in the initial publishing of the jobs report. 'Revisions solve the tension between timeliness and accuracy,' Kolko said. 'We want timely data because policymakers and businesses and investors need to make decisions with the best data that's available, but we also want accuracy.' Kolko stressed the importance in ensuring that federal statistics are trustworthy not just for government policymakers but for the companies trying to gauge the overall direction of the economy when making hiring and investment choices. 'Businesses are less likely to make investments if they can't trust data about how the economy is doing,' he said. Not every part of the jobs report was deemed suspect by the Trump administration. Before Trump ordered the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, the White House rapid response social media account reposted a statement by Vice President JD Vance noting that native-born citizens were getting jobs and immigrants were not, drawing from data in the household tables in the jobs report. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer also trumpeted the findings on native-born citizens, noting on Fox Business Network's 'Varney & Co.' that they are accounting "for all of the job growth, and that's key.' During his first run for the presidency, Trump criticized the economic data as being fake only to fully embrace the positive numbers shortly after he first entered the White House in 2017. White House says transparency is a value The challenge of reliable data goes beyond economic figures to basic information on climate change and scientific research. In July, taxpayer-funded reports on the problems climate change is creating for America and its population disappeared from government websites. The White House initially said NASA would post the reports in compliance with a 1990 law, but the agency later said it would not because any legal obligations were already met by having reports submitted to Congress. The White House maintains that it has operated with complete openness, posting a picture of Trump on Monday on social media with the caption, 'The Most Transparent President in History.' In the picture, Trump had his back to the camera and was covered in shadows, visibly blocking out most of the light in front of him. ___ Associated Press writer Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report. Josh Boak, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNN
3 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: Why Trump's Texas battle over the House could end up affecting every American
Democrats might finally have learned something about Donald Trump — if they hope to beat him, they must get down in the gutter alongside him. Party leaders in powerhouse blue states on Monday vowed to emulate the president's methods to create new Democratic-friendly seats in the House of Representatives in response to his bid to carve out five new GOP districts in Texas. Their promises came as they celebrated Democratic Texas state lawmakers who suddenly became the fresh faces of the anti-Trump resistance after facing arrest warrants for fleeing the state in an exodus that ground a special legislative session called by the president's allies to a halt. This all might look like yet another twist in a generationslong struggle by both parties to gerrymander districts to get a leg up in elections. And some voters' eyes might glaze over at what seems like an internal Texas tussle. But the fight has profound national implications. In the short term, the House of Representatives — which Democrats hope to win back in midterm elections next year to rein in Trump's presidency — could be at stake. Democrats currently need a net gain of three seats to take the majority. If the Texas plan passes without a response by another state, they will need eight. That could dash their goal of imposing a clamp on Trump's runaway presidency. In the medium term, the Texas redistricting fight must be seen against the backdrop of a fraught political age. There are growing signs American democracy is fraying. Republicans will argue, correctly, that Democrats have mounted their own egregious redistricting schemes in states such as Illinois and Maryland. But the instigator of the effort to make the Texas congressional delegation even redder was a president who already has a dark record of trying to subvert the verdict of voters. Longer term, the national political fight that has erupted over Texas looks almost certain to further erode the checks and balances of democracy, however it ends. If both parties now simply go all-out in a national gerrymandering frenzy, they will produce a House of Representatives where it will be even more difficult for incumbents to lose their seats and that will make meaningful political change even harder. If nothing else, the furor demonstrates the imperative of winning power and forging transformational change before the opportunity is lost. Republicans over the last decade have built an unassailable conservative Supreme Court majority that enabled GOP redistricting efforts based on race, including in Texas. And they've elected and supported a president with an expansive and constitutionally questionable thirst for imposing his own personal power that has shattered most political norms. Most presidents would not be as blatant in Trump in trying to change the electoral battlefield. Over the same period, Democrats failed to bolster ranks of liberals on the Supreme Court — for instance, by not persuading late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire when a liberal replacement could be confirmed while the party controlled the presidency and the Senate. In 2024, Democrats initially backed an aging and unpopular President Joe Biden, despite warnings that his candidacy could open the door again to Trump and his anti-democratic project. This loss of power has been disastrous to progressive aspirations and to protecting the liberal victories of the last 50 years, including the nationwide constitutional right to abortion. Some top Democrats see the Texas redistricting showdown as a moment for their party to show more ruthlessness. 'We are at war,' New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday, alongside several exiled Texas lawmakers, warning that Democrats should forget independent redistricting panels intended to draw fairer maps that represent a complex electorate. 'The playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past,' Hochul said. 'That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever,' she said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan for a mid-decade redistricting in his state to match the one underway in deep-red Texas. His proposal would come before voters in November — the latest skirmish in a long-running ideological feud between the two states. But it will only be triggered if Texas moves ahead with its own plan. Newsom said he still favored a national independent districting body, but warned that Democrats needed to respond to the GOP's hardline tactics. 'Things have changed. Facts have changed. So we must change,' Newsom said. 'We have got to think anew. We have got to act anew. And we are reacting to the change — they have triggered this response, and we are not going to roll over.' Potential 2028 Democratic primary candidates, including Newsom and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — who has also rushed to back the Democratic Texas lawmakers — have compelling personal interests in joining the fight. In two years, candidates will be asked on a debate stage what they did in the battle over Texas. But they're also seeking to revive a national party pummeled by Trump, which lacks leadership and has left its supporters listless. Grassroots progressives have been pining for someone, anyone, to show some stomach for the fight — even though Democrats lack any power in Washington to meaningfully hurt the president. The Texas uproar also coincides with multiple examples of Trump's widening authoritarianism, following his cowing of Congress, crushing of constraints within the federal government, and co-option of the Justice Department and some intelligence services into instruments of his whims. On that score, a source told CNN on Monday that Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into Obama administration officials over the Russia investigation. Given all this, if the Democrats don't fight back now, when will they ever fight? As CNN's Eric Bradner reported Monday, the proposed new GOP maps could force two prominent Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, into a primary against one another. They'd also merge two other seats and make two south Texas seats held by Democrats more Republican-leaning. While the Democrats made a statement by leaving Texas, their chances of ultimately prevailing seem thin, given the financial pressure of $500 daily fines for non-attendance and their interrupted livelihoods when they are away. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a key Trump ally, could call further special sessions later in the year. This is why some Democrats believe that if they can threaten Republican seats in their own states, they might convince House Speaker Mike Johnson to call off his allies in Austin. 'Perhaps the Republican members of Congress here in New York could say to their Republican colleagues in Texas — 'Hey, slow down on this because this could affect us,'' Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, said. This seems a long shot, however, not least because there are considerable impediments in New York to a swift redrawing of maps. Hochul admitted that that even if everything goes smoothly, redistricting that would bypass New York's current nonpartisan commission could only be in place for the 2028 election — a lifetime away in Trump-era politics. And attempts by Democratic states to rebalance electoral maps might convince more GOP bastions to do the same. So, if an outside Texas strategy is unlikely to force the Texas Republicans to back down, why are Democrats pursuing it? This may be one of those times in politics when a party can win something by losing. Democrats might not only engage their demoralized partisans by taking the fight to Trump on Texas; they can use the battle to organize and focus their message as they grapple for traction after a grim political year. Defending democracy might be a desirable project in the abstract. But in the past, especially when Biden was warning that Trump imperiled America's 'soul,' the idea felt distant from voters infuriated by high grocery prices and the cost of housing. And impassioned warnings from Democratic leadership about how Trump would threaten democracy didn't stop his reelection. Hochul and other Democrats seemed on Monday to be reaching for a way to connect the democracy question to more immediate voter concerns through the prism of the Texas power grab. She argued that stopping such schemes was critical to charting a path back to power so Democrats could reverse Trump's policies on tariffs and deportations. That will require a toughening of the Democratic approach, one that underscores the distance traveled since former first lady Michelle Obama warned that when Republicans like Trump go low, 'we go high.' 'With all respect to the good governance groups, politics is a political process,' Hochul said, dismissing 'purity tests' that would make electoral maps fair to everyone involved through nonpartisan commissions. 'If Republicans win the legislature, they can have at it. But until then, we are in charge, and we are sick and tired of being pushed around.'
