Republicans rediscover the one weird trick that actually cuts spending
Well, this is awkward. After the relationship between President Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk very publicly soured, Congress is considering action on the primary product of that relationship: spending cuts suggested by the U.S. DOGE Service.
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NBC News
12 minutes ago
- NBC News
Some swing district Republicans object to Texas redistricting plan as Democrats threaten to retaliate
WASHINGTON — Some Republicans representing competitive districts in blue states are speaking out against their party's push to redraw congressional lines in Texas in an attempt give the GOP up to five more House seats. Reps. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., have called to impose nationwide limits on partisan gerrymandering, a rare move for Republicans in Washington who have thwarted proposed bans for years. The new pushback comes as Democratic governors like California's Gavin Newsom and New York's Kathy Hochul threaten to retaliate against Texas by pursuing their own redistricting plans that could knock out GOP-held swing districts, like those represented by Lawler and Kiley. Kiley announced he will introduce legislation on Tuesday to nullify new House maps adopted by states before the 2030 Census, including any that may be approved this year. That would block the ongoing Texas effort and any potential push in California, his office said. 'Gavin Newsom is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,' Kiley said in a statement Monday. 'Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.' Lawler, a fellow second-term Republican who sits in a swing district, also said he will introduce legislation to prohibit gerrymandering in every state. 'Gerrymandering is wrong and should be banned everywhere — including in New York, Texas, California, and Illinois. I'm introducing legislation to ban it,' Lawler said Monday on X, inviting Democrats to sign on. Still, it's unlikely that House Republican leaders would allow a vote on any legislation to limit partisan redistricting. That would represent an about-face from the party's longstanding view that Washington shouldn't impose any such limits on states. Speaker Mike Johnson's office didn't immediately comment on the idea. Speaking to reporters recently in the Capitol, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of House Republicans' campaign operation this cycle, kept his distance from the Texas push and wouldn't say whether he supports it. 'Well, it's up to the states. I mean, I have nothing to do with it. I found out about it when you all wrote about it,' Hudson said. When asked if he's worried about California retaliating, Hudson replied: 'I'm not concerned. Some of the states, they can do what they want to do.' Newsom has mounted an aggressive push in recent days, on podcasts and social media, to build support for doing away with California's redistricting commission and allowing the state's supermajority-Democratic legislature to draw its own maps for U.S. House districts. He even reposted one user's hypothetical suggestion for creating an extremely gerrymandered map with 52 Democratic-friendly seats, which would knock out all nine Republicans currently representing California, including Kiley. And Democrats in Washington have tried to pass legislation to prohibit partisan gerrymandering, including in recent years under President Joe Biden. A section of the sweeping 'For The People Act' of 2021 would have required all states to set up independent redistricting commissions with balanced partisan representation. Democrats passed it in the House on party lines during the Biden administration, but a different version of the bill failed to overcome a Senate GOP filibuster. Fighting to win back the majority and become speaker, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has turned his focus to combatting the GOP's efforts in Texas in recent weeks. On Capitol Hill, Jeffries privately met with members of the California congressional delegation to discuss options for responding to Texas Republicans, a Democratic lawmaker said. Last week, Jeffries traveled to the Texas state Capitol in Austin to meet with Democrats in both the Texas congressional delegation and statehouse to draw attention to the matter. The leader said the Texas special legislative session should have focused on fixing the state's broken energy grid and 'relief, recovery and resiliency' in the wake of deadly floods in the Hill Country. 'Donald Trump has ordered Greg Abbott and compliant Texas Republicans to race back to Austin have a special session in order to rig the congressional map and undermine the ability of Texans to have a free and fair midterm election. That is wrong,' Jeffries said at a news conference, flanked by Democrats. 'It's an all-hands-on-deck moment, and all options should be on the table to protect the people of Texas,' he continued. 'We will fight them politically. We will fight them governmentally. We will fight them in court. We will fight them in terms of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Texas and beyond.' Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said that if the redistricting tactic is used by Republicans, Democrats must fight with the same firepower. 'I hate what Texas is doing. But if they're going to do it, of course we have to fight back,' Murphy told NBC News. 'Democracies die when the regime plays outside the box and the opposition decides to stay inside the box. So as norms change, we can't just cry about it complain about it. We've got to fight fire with fire.' Another Democrat, Rep. Mark Takano of California, who is slated to become chairman again of the Veterans' Affairs Committee if his party take back the House next year, said he's confident California voters would have Democrats' backs if they pursue mid-decade redistricting. 'The voters of California are pretty clear that ... not just California but the future of our country is harmed by Donald Trump not having any checks put on him,' Takano said. 'I think California is very interested in seeing a check being put on Donald Trump's power; he's voracious. He doesn't see any limits to himself. It's all very personal to him, and it's, frankly, just corrupt.'
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Seems Like The President Who Brags About How Smart He Is Cannot Do Arithmetic
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly bragged about how smart he is, apparently has trouble with basic arithmetic, having asserted a mystifying lie about drug prices several times now. 'You know, we've cut drug prices by 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500%. I don't mean 50%, I mean 1400, 1500%,' he told reporters Sunday before boarding Air Force One to return to the White House following another weekend of golf at his New Jersey course. He had made the same false claim 12 days earlier at a reception for Republican members of Congress: 'We're going to get the drug prices down — not 30 or 40%, which would be great, not 50 or 60. No, we're going to get them down 1000%, 600%, 500%, 1500%.' The declaration, of course, is absurd on its face. A product becomes free if the sale price is lowered by 100%. To reduce the cost of a prescription drug beyond that implies that the customer would actually receive a rebate to take the medication off the pharmacy's hands. Trump's '1500%' claim would mean that a patient would receive a prescription that normally costs $100 for nothing, along with $1,400 in cash. White House press aides did not respond to HuffPost's queries about what Trump might have meant. 'He's beyond unusual. And that I've never met a person so intellectually and emotionally — because there is no compensation — limited,' said Charles Leerhsen, the co-author of Trump's 1990 book 'Surviving at the Top,' who has been warning about Trump's innumeracy and, more generally, his ignorance, since Trump began his first run for president in 2015. 'And that's why some people mistake his idiocy for 'chess on three levels,'' Leerhsen continued, 'because, being unable to understand him, and feeling that nobody could be as dumb as he seems, they arrive at the conclusion that he is actually smarter than they are.' Over the years, Trump has repeatedly boasted about how intelligent he is, offering as proof the fact that his uncle taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,' Trump wrote in a 2018 social media post. Leerhsen said Trump's apparent inability to understand how percentages work helps explain his business failures, such as massively overpaying for the Plaza Hotel in New York City and bankrupting casinos in Atlantic City. 'That's exactly why those things happened. He's not one of those people who compensates for being bad at one thing — say, words — by being good at another — say, numbers,' he said. In reality, Trump has actually undone his predecessor Joe Biden's efforts to reduce prescription prices. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded a long list of Biden's executive orders, including those reducing drug prices for enrollees of Medicare and Medicaid. Last week, Trump posted a letter on social media that he said he had sent to Eli Lilly and Company demanding that it charge its American customers the low prices it charges elsewhere in the world. He then posted letters to 16 other major pharmaceutical companies. 'If you refuse to step up, we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices,' Trump wrote. He also complained that industry proposals to lower prices, as he had demanded in a May 12 executive order, had only 'promised more of the same: shifting blame and requesting policy changes that would result in billions of dollars in handouts to industry.' Related... FDA Names Former Pharmaceutical Executive To Oversee U.S. Drug Program U.S. Consumer Prices Increase As Expected In June Everyday Essentials To Buy Now Before Tariffs Make Them More Expensive
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
California GOP lawmaker targets mid-decade redistricting with new bill
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) announced Monday he plans to introduce federal legislation that would prohibit mid-decade redistricting nationwide. The bill would nullify any new congressional or legislative district maps adopted by states before the next U.S. Census in 2030, including those approved as early as 2025. 'Gavin Newsom is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,' Kiley said in a statement. 'Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.' Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he is evaluating several options for the state to pursue its own redistricting push, following efforts by Texas Republicans to revise their maps at the urging of President Donald Trump. Newsom also shared that he's working with the Legislature on a proposal that could go before voters in a special election this November. Under California law, however, the power to draw district boundaries was transferred from lawmakers to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, an independent group that uses census data to draw the lines. The commission uses U.S. Census data to redraw state and congressional districts every 10 years. Legal experts have warned that attempting to bypass the commission through a special election could result in litigation. Kiley's statement did not address the situation in Texas, where Republican lawmakers are moving ahead with their redistricting plans. If approved, the new Texas maps could potentially give Republicans the chance to gain up to five congressional seats in the 2026 midterm elections. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
