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CNN
an hour ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Republicans want to game the next election. Could Democrats get ‘ruthless' to respond?
Donald Trump Congressional newsFacebookTweetLink Follow A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Democrats' only real opportunity to set up a roadblock in front of President Donald Trump during his remaining years in office comes with next year's midterm elections. They'd need to pick up just a few seats to take control of the House. But Republicans want to game the system by pursuing a rare effort to redraw congressional lines in multiple key states and squeeze more seats out of delegations already designed to favor them. 'Very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats,' Trump said recently at the White House, referring to an ongoing effort by Texas Republicans. But the effort extends to other states as well. It also may not be so simple. The strategy, which is playing in various ways across the country, could backfire if Republicans turn safe seats into competitive ones in the long-shot event that these redrawing efforts succeed and are blessed by courts. Separately, if Republicans change the maps, Democrats are vowing to abandon years of their own rhetoric about the importance of nonpartisan line-drawing and respond in kind by looking for seats in California, New York and New Jersey, despite legal hurdles in those states. 'Never bring a knife to a gunfight,' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters Monday, according to The Hill, quoting the mafia movie 'The Untouchables.' 'We're from Jersey baby, and we won't be laying down.' But the problem for Democrats is they could face more obstacles in court due to their state laws. There are some vacancies, but Republicans won 220 seats in 2024; 218 is a majority. The president's party — with only a few exceptions in the past hundred years — loses seats in midterms. Related: Read the latest from CNN's Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris Mid-decade redistricting not an unprecedented idea — Texas did it, controversially, in 2003 — but it's far from normal, and it goes against the thrust of the Constitution, which suggests redistricting each decade after the census. ► The legislature in Texas wants to find five more seats by carving up Democratic seats in Texas cities. ► Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks the Trump administration should reconsider the 2020 census and give his state at least one more seat. DeSantis is also entertaining the idea of again redrawing Florida's maps after the state Supreme Court blessed maps he engineered in 2022 that gave Republicans four more seats in Florida and arguably maintained the GOP majority in the House. 'I think the state malapportioned,' he told reporters in Florida on Thursday, adding it would be 'appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid decade'. ► Maps in Ohio must be redrawn under a quirk of state law since earlier maps were gerrymandered by Republicans. Now they could try to make the state's delegation even more overwhelmingly Republican and carve up two Democratic seats, according to a report in June from CNN's Fredreka Schouten. ► Missouri legislators are also being pushed by the White House to consider a special session to redraw maps and carve up the state's sole remaining Democratic seat. Making new Republican seats requires carving up Democratic seats, something that could theoretically blow up in Republicans' faces if the national tide turns against Trump. It's called a gerrymander when lines are drawn by one party to its own benefit. It would be what's called a dummymander if those lines backfired. In the event of a wave against the president's party by voters, Democrats could theoretically end up winning more seats in the Texas delegation, according to Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscience professor who also directs the Princeton Gerrymander Project. He laid out his argument in a post on Substack. 'The backfire effect is pretty large,' he said in a phone interview. 'In our preliminary calculations, it looks like this would make up to a dozen seats competitive that are currently safe Republican seats.' There are other assessments that draw different conclusions. The consequences of who controls the House — even by one vote — are enormous. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have gotten a lot done — see the controversial One Big Beautiful Bill Act — despite having one of the smallest possible congressional majorities. Democrats, who for years have been preaching for the need to get politics out of map drawing and cut down on gerrymandering, are talking tough about redrawing maps in the states they control. 'I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power,' former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke said on CNN's 'State of the Union' last Sunday. 'We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,' he said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is exploring the idea even though it would violate the will of voters who in 2008 blessed the nonpartisan commission that's supposed to draw California's congressional maps. Taking map-drawing power back from the commission would likely require another constitutional amendment, which complicates the timing of any effort to retaliate against Texas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a district in New York, told CNN's Manu Raju Democrats are looking at maps in California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington state. 'Some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country are looking at every single aspect of what's possible in these states,' Jeffries said. Expect lawsuits if Democrats try to redraw their maps in these states too. California, which utilizes an independent commission to draw congressional lines, has been considered something of a leader in depoliticizing the drawing of maps, and many of its districts are more competitive than in a state like Texas. Its lopsided Democratic majority is a testament to how blue the state has become. 'What little competition there is in Congress rises in large part from these independent commissions,' Wang said. 'Stepping back from fair districting would also reduce Congress's responsiveness to voters.' After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the process for the drawing of more than 40% of congressional districts, compared with 11% controlled by Democrats. Nearly 20% were controlled by independent commissions, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. There's a growing perception among Democrats that unless reform can be applied nationwide, they should do more to gain advantage. David Imamura is the former chair of New York's state redistricting commission, which was paralyzed after the 2020 census. The state's maps, like those in multiple states, were the subject of years of litigation. He is now a Democrat in elected office in Westchester County and a partner specializing in election law at Abrams Fensterman in New York. He supports a nationwide standard for redistricting like one Democrats have proposed in previous years. But until then, and despite legal obstacles in New York, Democrats should do what they can to win, he said. 'If Republicans are going to cheat, then we have to match them tit for tat,' he said. Republicans in Utah set aside their own nonpartisan redistricting commission to split the Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City area into multiple Republican-leaning districts. But Democrats drew advantages for themselves in Illinois, Oregon and Nevada. Republicans' current advantage as a result is gerrymandering is no more than a handful of seats, according to Wang, even though Republican state governments controlled more of the process than Democratic state governments. Americans have gotten used to taking power from president's party. All five of the last presidents going back to Bill Clinton lost control of the House in a midterm election. That includes Trump during his first term. That means no amount of redistricting will save Republicans' slim majority if the country turns against Trump and Republicans. 'In a district-by-district fight for the House, picking up a handful of seats in Texas and maybe a seat or two in Ohio is probably enough for Republicans to hold the majority,' said Nathan Gonzales, publisher of the nonpartisan Inside Elections. 'But if the broader national mood shifts against President Trump and Republicans in power or Republicans have problems turning out the Trump coalition when he's not on the ballot, then Democrats have an opportunity to win control, even with new maps in some states.'
CNN
an hour ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Republicans want to game the next election. Could Democrats get ‘ruthless' to respond?
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Democrats' only real opportunity to set up a roadblock in front of President Donald Trump during his remaining years in office comes with next year's midterm elections. They'd need to pick up just a few seats to take control of the House. But Republicans want to game the system by pursuing a rare effort to redraw congressional lines in multiple key states and squeeze more seats out of delegations already designed to favor them. 'Very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats,' Trump said recently at the White House, referring to an ongoing effort by Texas Republicans. But the effort extends to other states as well. It also may not be so simple. The strategy, which is playing in various ways across the country, could backfire if Republicans turn safe seats into competitive ones in the long-shot event that these redrawing efforts succeed and are blessed by courts. Separately, if Republicans change the maps, Democrats are vowing to abandon years of their own rhetoric about the importance of nonpartisan line-drawing and respond in kind by looking for seats in California, New York and New Jersey, despite legal hurdles in those states. 'Never bring a knife to a gunfight,' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters Monday, according to The Hill, quoting the mafia movie 'The Untouchables.' 'We're from Jersey baby, and we won't be laying down.' But the problem for Democrats is they could face more obstacles in court due to their state laws. There are some vacancies, but Republicans won 220 seats in 2024; 218 is a majority. The president's party — with only a few exceptions in the past hundred years — loses seats in midterms. Related: Read the latest from CNN's Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris Mid-decade redistricting not an unprecedented idea — Texas did it, controversially, in 2003 — but it's far from normal, and it goes against the thrust of the Constitution, which suggests redistricting each decade after the census. ► The legislature in Texas wants to find five more seats by carving up Democratic seats in Texas cities. ► Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks the Trump administration should reconsider the 2020 census and give his state at least one more seat. DeSantis is also entertaining the idea of again redrawing Florida's maps after the state Supreme Court blessed maps he engineered in 2022 that gave Republicans four more seats in Florida and arguably maintained the GOP majority in the House. 'I think the state malapportioned,' he told reporters in Florida on Thursday, adding it would be 'appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid decade'. ► Maps in Ohio must be redrawn under a quirk of state law since earlier maps were gerrymandered by Republicans. Now they could try to make the state's delegation even more overwhelmingly Republican and carve up two Democratic seats, according to a report in June from CNN's Fredreka Schouten. ► Missouri legislators are also being pushed by the White House to consider a special session to redraw maps and carve up the state's sole remaining Democratic seat. Making new Republican seats requires carving up Democratic seats, something that could theoretically blow up in Republicans' faces if the national tide turns against Trump. It's called a gerrymander when lines are drawn by one party to its own benefit. It would be what's called a dummymander if those lines backfired. In the event of a wave against the president's party by voters, Democrats could theoretically end up winning more seats in the Texas delegation, according to Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscience professor who also directs the Princeton Gerrymander Project. He laid out his argument in a post on Substack. 'The backfire effect is pretty large,' he said in a phone interview. 'In our preliminary calculations, it looks like this would make up to a dozen seats competitive that are currently safe Republican seats.' There are other assessments that draw different conclusions. The consequences of who controls the House — even by one vote — are enormous. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have gotten a lot done — see the controversial One Big Beautiful Bill Act — despite having one of the smallest possible congressional majorities. Democrats, who for years have been preaching for the need to get politics out of map drawing and cut down on gerrymandering, are talking tough about redrawing maps in the states they control. 'I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power,' former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke said on CNN's 'State of the Union' last Sunday. 'We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,' he said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is exploring the idea even though it would violate the will of voters who in 2008 blessed the nonpartisan commission that's supposed to draw California's congressional maps. Taking map-drawing power back from the commission would likely require another constitutional amendment, which complicates the timing of any effort to retaliate against Texas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a district in New York, told CNN's Manu Raju Democrats are looking at maps in California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington state. 'Some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country are looking at every single aspect of what's possible in these states,' Jeffries said. Expect lawsuits if Democrats try to redraw their maps in these states too. California, which utilizes an independent commission to draw congressional lines, has been considered something of a leader in depoliticizing the drawing of maps, and many of its districts are more competitive than in a state like Texas. Its lopsided Democratic majority is a testament to how blue the state has become. 'What little competition there is in Congress rises in large part from these independent commissions,' Wang said. 'Stepping back from fair districting would also reduce Congress's responsiveness to voters.' After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the process for the drawing of more than 40% of congressional districts, compared with 11% controlled by Democrats. Nearly 20% were controlled by independent commissions, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. There's a growing perception among Democrats that unless reform can be applied nationwide, they should do more to gain advantage. David Imamura is the former chair of New York's state redistricting commission, which was paralyzed after the 2020 census. The state's maps, like those in multiple states, were the subject of years of litigation. He is now a Democrat in elected office in Westchester County and a partner specializing in election law at Abrams Fensterman in New York. He supports a nationwide standard for redistricting like one Democrats have proposed in previous years. But until then, and despite legal obstacles in New York, Democrats should do what they can to win, he said. 'If Republicans are going to cheat, then we have to match them tit for tat,' he said. Republicans in Utah set aside their own nonpartisan redistricting commission to split the Democratic-leaning Salt Lake City area into multiple Republican-leaning districts. But Democrats drew advantages for themselves in Illinois, Oregon and Nevada. Republicans' current advantage as a result is gerrymandering is no more than a handful of seats, according to Wang, even though Republican state governments controlled more of the process than Democratic state governments. Americans have gotten used to taking power from president's party. All five of the last presidents going back to Bill Clinton lost control of the House in a midterm election. That includes Trump during his first term. That means no amount of redistricting will save Republicans' slim majority if the country turns against Trump and Republicans. 'In a district-by-district fight for the House, picking up a handful of seats in Texas and maybe a seat or two in Ohio is probably enough for Republicans to hold the majority,' said Nathan Gonzales, publisher of the nonpartisan Inside Elections. 'But if the broader national mood shifts against President Trump and Republicans in power or Republicans have problems turning out the Trump coalition when he's not on the ballot, then Democrats have an opportunity to win control, even with new maps in some states.'
Egypt Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- Egypt Independent
How Trump 2.0 is undoing Trump 1.0
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — The 47th president is in many ways a different man than the 45th president, even though they are both Donald J. Trump. He's unafraid to swear in public or on social media and he's more emboldened, willing to directly challenge the Constitution and the courts and capable of demanding more loyalty from Republicans. But Trump 2.0 is also in direct competition with his former self in several important ways, starting with the fact that he can't seem to remember appointing people he now loathes. Opposing his own appointees Trump's aides are looking at ways to oust Jay Powell, the Fed chairman Trump nominated to the role during his first term. Trump told House Republicans he had drafted a letter to take the unprecedented step of firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Markets beware. At the White House Wednesday, Trump seemed to forget that he had nominated Powell. 'I was surprised he was appointed,' Trump said. 'I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him, but they did.' Biden renominated Powell. Either Trump can't remember or he is willing himself to forget his role in the process. If Trump ultimately tests the Fed's independence and tries to fire Powell, he'll point to a building renovation that got underway during Trump's own first term. Before Trump took office for the second time, the FBI director appointed during his first term, Christopher Wray, quit early rather than wait to be fired. On the Supreme Court, CNN has reported on Trump's gripes behind closed doors about his nominee Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in particular. Undoing his own trade deal When Trump today threatens burdensome tariffs on Canada and Mexico, who he accuses of 'taking advantage' of previous US presidents, he's also talking about his prior self. Trump's first-term administration negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a reboot of NAFTA. Back then, it was hailed as the major accomplishment of his trade policy. Evolutions on crypto and social media He has also evolved on issues including bitcoin and cryptocurrency, although that could have something to do with his family's business interests. And Trump used to support banning TikTok in the US, but now, after making inroads with young men in the last election, he very much wants a US-based company to step up and buy the platform. 'He's undoing himself with a vengeance,' the CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali told me. The relatively moderate mainstream policy hands who marked the first Trump term are on the outs. Outsiders and MAGA figureheads are in. 'Donald Trump clearly is angry about what his advisers forced him to do in the first term,' Naftali said, pointing specifically to trade policy. 'His approach to Canada and Mexico is inexplicable given his first term, unless you realize that he wasn't happy with what he ended up doing in the first term,' he said. Vaccines are another Trump 2.0 correction Naftali said Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, the effort to quickly develop a Covid-19 vaccine at a time when the country was largely shut down by the pandemic. But rather than build on that legacy, Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Health and Human Services director, elevating a vaccine skeptic to a top policy role. Kennedy fired all the members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel and brought in vaccine skeptics to review the vaccine schedule. I put the idea of Trump 2.0 correcting Trump 1.0 to a number of CNN reporters and anchors who pay close attention to foreign affairs, the economy and the environment. On world affairs, he's more erratic and is taking less advice CNN's Jim Sciutto, who wrote a book, The Madman Theory, about Trump's first-term foreign policy, notes that Trump is more aggressive this time, and appears to be more inclined to listen to his own gut. SCIUTTO: In his second term, President Trump is proving less likely to be deterred by advisers or advice against his more aggressive moves in international affairs. And, so for instance, while (former White House Chief of Staff) Gen. John Kelly and (former national security adviser) John Bolton were able to counsel him away from summarily withdrawing from NATO in 2018, many — including those who served in his first administration — fear his current advisers won't stand in the way. From foreign officials, the concern I hear most often is one of uncertainty. From tariffs to military support for Ukraine, they express doubts that what the president says today will hold tomorrow. Trade deals become fleeting agreements subject to where the financial markets are on any given day or how the White House reads domestic politics. And support for Ukraine — which European officials see as central to the security of the whole continent — rises and falls based on Trump's current interpretation of where Putin stands on peace talks. Trump has proven his willingness to make hard decisions his predecessors avoided — the US strikes on Iran stand out. What observers at home and abroad are waiting for is a consistent and predictable worldview. On trade, he's contradicting himself Allison Morrow, who writes the Nightcap newsletter for CNN Business, agrees there's a difference to this president, but he remains the same in one very important way. MORROW: I agree with Tim Naftali, though I wonder how conscious Trump is of his attempts to undo USMCA, which itself was just a reshuffling of NAFTA. The Trump 2.0 tariff strategy, such as it is, doesn't make any sense in practice. If you really want to use tariffs to bring back US manufacturing, you can't be cutting deals, because then there's no incentive for companies to invest in domestic production. We've written about the contradictions at the heart of his tariff ideology dozens of times at this point, and there's just no response from the White House about how they think they can make tariffs do everything they claim, all at once. I think the thing that jumps out at me between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 is what hasn't changed. Fundamentally, I think Trump wants to avoid accountability. And that's why he has sort of slow-walked the tariffs into the market's collective consciousness, and backed off when the bond markets shuddered. He's testing to see what he can get away with without causing a financial or economic catastrophe. Cutting Medicaid rather than repealing Obamacare Trump and his aides also clearly learned from his first term. Instead of trying repeatedly to repeal Obamacare, they cut future spending from Medicaid, which will have a similar effect by pushing millions of lower-income Americans off their health insurance in the years to come. Turning words into actions CNN's Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter noted that in this term, Trump is acting more forcefully against news outlets. STELTER: Instead of merely tweeting insults at independent media outlets, he is taking concrete actions to penalize those outlets, while at the same time promoting and empowering MAGA commentators. Take the media story in the news right now: the imminent defunding of PBS and NPR. In Trump's first term, he harshly criticized public media, but those were just words, not actions. His administration also proposed annual budgets that would have zeroed out the funding, but didn't successfully pressure Congress to follow through. In Trump's second term, he seemingly knows which buttons to press. He (or, probably more accurately, his aides) targeted the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in several different ways and sold Republican lawmakers on a DOGE-branded rescission that passed both the House and Senate. This is what four years of prep looks like CNN's Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes isn't sure Trump is undoing his first term as much as he is better prepared this time. HOLMES: Trump and his allies had four years to prepare for him to be president again. His allies used that time to create a framework for a second term agenda, as well as brainstorm potential roadblocks and work-arounds to those roadblocks, to ensure that they could start enacting his agenda on Day 1. The first time around, even members of Trump's own campaign were surprised he won. They had almost no real transition and Trump had to rely on Washington Republicans, many of whom did not have the same ideas as him, to help fill out the cabinet and guide him. And while he knew what he wanted to do, he had no real understanding of how to get it done. Now, he is working in unison with almost every inch of his administration to get what he wants done — and it's working. Holmes' point carries over to immigration, Trump's signature issue. He is more effectively carrying through with mass deportations than he did in his first term. With a more pliant Congress, he has money for his border wall, the go-ahead to turn ICE into the nation's largest and best-funded police force, and the help of Republican governors to create new detention centers to hold undocumented immigrants — not just violent criminals — he wants to deport. When he leaves office, the country will look a lot different after his second term than it did after his first.
Egypt Independent
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Many Americans want a third party. But where would it fit?
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — Americans are entrenched into their partisan corners, but the party lines keep moving in weird new ways. Republicans who grew up in the Grand Old Party might not recognize a party overtaken by the Make America Great Again movement. Democrats who cheered when President Bill Clinton declared the era of big government to be over might wonder how it is that a democratic socialist is their party's candidate for mayor of New York City. Others have followed Democratic expat and scion of Camelot Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with his Make America Healthy Again mantra, to vote for Trump. Two options aren't enough for multitudes For a variety of structural reasons, two options is what most Americans get, even though poll after poll suggests few are happy with either party. Against that backdrop, it's interesting to consider Elon Musk's pledge to form an 'America Party,' an alternative to Republicans and Democrats, if President Donald Trump's megabill becomes law. 'Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,' he wrote on his social media platform. Musk's primary concern is that the megabill adds to the national debt, he said – and not, as Trump alleges, that he's sore about the end of tax credits to encourage Americans to buy electric vehicles. The third-party pledge follows Musk's musings last month that the US needs a party 'that actually represents the 80% in the middle.' Which middle? It's an interesting thought experiment to consider what the political middle might look like to a space and computer nerd and technocrat like Musk. He cares deeply about climate change and wants desperately for humans to be interplanetary and to live on Mars, but he opposes the megabill for all its government spending. He has strong thoughts about encouraging more American women to have babies, but thinks the addition of people to the country through illegal immigration is an existential threat to the US. The same thought experiment crossed my mind last month when Karine Jean-Pierre, who was White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden, announced in the run-up to the publication of her memoir that she's leaving the Democratic Party. 'We need to be clear-eyed and questioning, rather than blindly loyal and obedient as we may have been in the past,' she said in a statement to CNN. But it doesn't seem like Jean-Pierre's version of independence will be in the same galaxy as Musk's. Three varieties of Democrat One of the more interesting political campaigns of the coming months is likely to be the New York City mayor's race, in which the upstart Democrat (and democratic socialist) Zohran Mamdani will take on Eric Adams, the sitting mayor who is also a Democrat but is running as an independent. Also on the ballot as a 'Fight and Deliver' independent will be former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, although it's not clear if he'll seriously campaign between now and November. That's a lot of different versions of Democrats New Yorkers will be able to sort through. Zohran Mamdani gestures as he speaks during a watch party for his primary election in New York on June 25. David Delgado/Reuters There are already multiple third parties There are, of course, existing third parties in the US. The Green and Libertarian parties appear on most ballots for president, which means they have dedicated followings across the country, but they lack the power to get anyone elected to either the House or Senate. Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas mounted presidential campaigns as both a Libertarian and a Republican, but he got the most traction as a libertarian-minded Republican. His son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, is one of the few Republicans now willing to cross Trump and oppose the megabill. Paul, like Musk, is worried about the national debt. 'You're roadkill in the middle' A senator closer to the middle, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, did vote for the bill, but only after securing carveouts that will help her state – but could aggravate every other American. Murkowski is that rare moderate who can survive without party backing. She won a write-in reelection campaign – the triple lindy of politics – after losing the Republican primary in 2010. That was before her party veered even more toward Trump, but Murkowski recently told CNN's Audie Cornish there are more quiet centrist Americans than people realize. She's representing them, she said, even if Washington is a dangerous place to be a moderate. 'You're roadkill in the middle,' Murkowski told Cornish for her 'The Assignment' podcast. 'Endangered species' Another Republican who opposed the megabill is Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. He said cuts to Medicaid would cost too many North Carolinians their health insurance. But prioritizing the people you represent rather than the national party is anathema in today's political environment. 'In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,' Tillis said in a statement Sunday. Fearing a primary and Trump's wrath, or maybe just tired of defending the shrinking middle ground in the Senate, Tillis also announced he would not seek reelection next year, which immediately made his North Carolina seat Democrats' top pickup priority. Democrats must hope that a moderate like former Gov. Roy Cooper will jump in the race and defy Democrats' national branding. Majority makers Perhaps Cooper would play the same kind of role as former Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin voted with Democrats most of the time, but his tendency to buck the party leadership made him a thorn in the side of progressives. Coincidentally, when Manchin left office, Democrats lost their majority in the Senate. On his way out the door, Manchin said it was time for a third-party alternative, but he opted not to run for president. Middle fringes Kennedy did run for president after leaving the Democratic Party and his ultimate support for Trump likely brought in some new support for the president, who is now letting Kennedy rethink US vaccine policy to the consternation of the scientific community. Kennedy is also trying to take on the food industry. Help from Kennedy's independents probably helped Trump win, but maybe not as much as the nearly $300 million Musk is known to have spent, mostly on Trump's behalf. Musk's political ventures may have now turned off Tesla's natural climate-concerned consumer base as well as the MAGA faithful. Regardless of the wealth he could spend, what middle would his America party fit into?
Egypt Independent
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Trump doesn't have to grab power; Republicans are giving it to him
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — Republican majorities in the Congress and conservatives on the Supreme Court are ceding power instead of protecting it, giving President Donald Trump more and more control over what the Constitution separated in three. Congress is supposed to declare war But Republican lawmakers cheered when Trump launched an air offensive against Iran rather than balking that many were kept out of the loop. House Speaker Mike Johnson didn't seem to mind reports that the White House would be limiting its information-sharing with lawmakers. His response suggested concern about leaks than about guarding lawmakers' duty to oversee the executive. A similar story with tariffs Regulating international trade is something the Constitution puts on lawmakers' plates. A series of laws over the past hundred years slowly gave power over tariffs to the president, but Trump has taken that authority and weaponized it to make demands of other countries, as he did Friday when he cut off trade talks with Canada, the latest twist in a trade war he engineered and is scripting like a reality show. Now, the Supreme Court has clipped the power of lower courts Conservative justices limited the ability of district court justices to issue nationwide injunctions against executive policies. 'This really brings back the Constitution,' President Donald Trump said without a whiff of irony at the White House on Friday. The decision also literally lets him ignore the plain language of the 14th Amendment, at least for now. CNN's Max Rego runs out of the US Supreme Court building carrying a ruling during the last day of the court's term on June 27, in Washington, of US powers 'This is a fundamental shift in the balance between the powers of the presidency and the powers of the courts,' said Elie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst. 'This ruling that we just got impacts everything about the way that the presidency exercises power.' Justice Amy Coney Barrett said there is no precedent in US law for nationwide injunctions. She harked back to English law and the 'judicial prerogative of the King' in a very technical and history-based decision that, she said intentionally 'does not address' the issue of birthright citizenship in either the 14th Amendment or the Immigration and Nationality Act. Justices might ultimately rein in Trump's new view of birthright citizenship 'This is as clear as the Constitution gets about questions,' said Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional law professor at Princeton, appearing on CNN Friday. But the case won't get to the court this year. The short-term result of the decision could well be that at least some babies born in the US may not have US citizenship, despite the very clear language in the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court told lower courts to take another look at the cases and reassess their injunctions. The court also seemed to invite class action lawsuits against Trump's executive order. Trump's allies cheer the end of an 'imperial judiciary' Nationwide injunctions from district court judges have bedeviled presidents of both parties, but Trump's brash view of his power has made for a record number of actions by lower courts. Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi framed the decision as a reclaiming of power from lower court judges in liberal districts. 'They turned district courts into the imperial judiciary,' she said. 'Executive lawlessness' But the liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that this is the type of slippery slope that puts the entire US system of government at risk. 'I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish, and from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends,' she wrote. 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional republic will be no more.' Ever more power for presidents that Trump will use Conservative justices last year bought into Trump's argument that presidents should be afforded a kind of super immunity from prosecution for nearly any action they take while in office. Chief Justice John Roberts said the court 'cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies.' Rather, it had something larger in mind. 'Enduring separation of powers principles guide our decision in this case,' he wrote. That decision all but ended Trump's prosecution during the Biden administration for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He subsequently won the 2024 presidential election. If granting Trump immunity was meant to preserve separation of powers, it was a whiff, since, as CNN's Joan Biskupic has written, Trump is using that decision almost as a blank check. He 'boasts of his ability to define the law,' she wrote. Redefining the 14th Amendment, at least for now 'That was meant for the babies of slaves; it wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation,' Trump said of the 14th Amendment at the White House on Friday. The 14th Amendment was actually enacted after the Civil War as an answer to the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of 1857, an ugly blot on the court's history that declared Black people ineligible for citizenship. By not addressing the issue, the court at least seems open to allowing Trump to change the amendment's meaning, for now, without going through the process of changing the Constitution or passing legislation through Congress — which is a hard thing to square with Roberts' idea of separation of powers principles. In part because Trump does things like issue executive orders that plainly seem to violate a constitutional amendment and intentionally sets up court clashes over laws like the Impoundment Act, which are designed to limit presidents' ability to ignore Congress, his actions have led to a record number of nationwide injunctions. Now, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, he will try to move forward with a laundry list of stalled agenda items he read off at the White House Friday: 'Including birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries, and numerous other priorities of the American people,' he said. If the Supreme Court gives him power, he'll use it.
