Immediately after President Donald Trump ordered Texas to create five new GOP-majority congressional districts in a nearly unprecedented mid-decade redistricting effort, Lone Star State Republicans leapt into action, setting off blue state Democrats who vowed to respond in kind. Today, Texas is expected to unveil its new congressional maps, handing the President exactly what he demanded.

Currently, Texas has 25 Republican-held seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and thirteen seats that were won by Democrats.

According to Punchbowl News‘ Wednesday morning report, Governor Abbott’s new map would increase the number of (likely) Republican-held House seats from Texas to 30, and reduce the number of (likely) Democratic-held seats to just eight.

Five GOP seats alone, in theory, could hand Mike Johnson another term as Speaker of the House.

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“It’s huge news in Austin and on Capitol Hill,” Punchbowl News reported. “It may help the GOP keep control of the House in 2026 — or trigger redistricting fights in other state capitals as Democrats retaliate.”

There might be drawbacks for Republicans.

“Democrats have declared that Republicans are at grave risk of spreading their voters too thin and creating districts that could flip blue in a bad year for Republicans. This kind of redraw is known as a ‘dummymander.'”

But the five new likely GOP districts Texas has drawn all show Donald Trump having won those voters by double-digits, making it more difficult for Democrats to flip them.

Texas moving forward with their redistricting plan means that several blue states may also attempt to redraw their congressional maps: California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington reportedly are all in various stages, from initial conversations to drafting legislation.

Last week, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) warned, “if they’re gonna go nuclear in Texas, I’m gonna go nuclear in other places.”

Maryland House Democratic Majority Leader David Moon, who is drafting new redistricting legislation, told Politico, “it seems very clear that self defense is something we have to put as a priority.”

“If that’s where we are, and that’s where we’re forced to go, then I think that’s where Democratic states need to be prepared to go,” he added.

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House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has indicated he wants to reorganize the congressional maps in at least five states, to help Democrats pick up as many seats as possible.

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is in support of redrawing California’s maps: “I don’t like redistricting in the middle of a decade, but if that’s the game that Republicans want to play, we have to make sure that they know we’re going to put everything on the table,” she told NewsNation, as The Sacramento Bee reported.

Texas is not the only red state expected to move forward with redrawing its maps.

Punchbowl News last week reported that while “Democrats are desperate to push back against President Donald Trump’s brazen attempt to shift the House map in the GOP’s favor…Republicans are trying to muscle through new maps in Texas, Ohio and Missouri, with more red states potentially on deck.”

Legal challenges aside, “some Democrats believe they could squeeze as many as six new seats out of California between a remapping and a good stiff anti–White House midterm breeze,” New York magazine’s Intelligencer reported.

Democrats have in their favor strong anti-Trump sentiment and the fact that the party in control of the White House usually loses seats during the midterms—a fact Trump is trying to negate by ordering the redistricting. But Democrats also have tied their own hands. In the name of good governance, many blue state have independent redistricting commissions, and they may need to go to court to reach their goals.

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Image via Reuters

U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered a searing critique of some of his fellow Democrats, accusing them of being “complicit with an authoritarian”—a clear reference to President Donald Trump. He also chastised a range of American institutions for “bending the knee” and “paying tribute.” He warned that if Democrats fail to unite and confront Trump and his administration’s agenda, they “deserve to lose.” But, he added, if they stand together and speak out with conviction, they can prevail.

“The heated exchange arose after Booker objected to a motion from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, to swiftly pass a package of bills related to law enforcement,” CBS News reported. “Booker said he wanted to make a change to the bloc of measures to ensure resources are distributed equally among law enforcement agencies in response to the Justice Department’s changes to grant programs and cancellation of awards.”

Booker, standing on the Senate floor, at times almost appearing to shout, did not hold back.

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“This to me is the problem with Democrats in America right now, is we’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump, to let this pass through when we have all the leverage right now there is, to say, ‘if you’re as passionate about police as we are, then pass bills out of this body that will help the police officers in Washington, that will help the police officers in Illinois, that will help the police officers in New Jersey,'” he said, as CBS reported. “Don’t be complicit to the president of the United States.”

“The Democratic Party needs a wake-up call,” Booker declared in his rare rebuke, before shifting his focus to institutions that, in recent months, have capitulated to President Trump.

“I see law firms bending a knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles that those free speech rights, that you can take on any client—why are you bending the knee?” he demanded.

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“I see universities! They should be bastions of free speech, bending at the knee to this president. I see businesses taking late night talk show hosts off the air because they dare to insult a president. I see people who want mergers, suddenly think that they have to pay tribute to this president,” he observed.

“And what are the very people here elected to defend the Constitution of the United States, saying? ‘Oh, well, today, let’s look the other way and pass some resources that won’t go to Connecticut, that won’t go to Illinois, that won’t go to New York, that will go to the states he likes,'” Booker said, chastising his fellow blue state lawmakers.

“That is complicity with an authoritarian leader who is trashing our Constitution,” he charged.

“It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone. It’s time for us to fight. It’s time for us to draw lines.”

“And when it comes to the safety of my state, being denied these grants, that’s why I’m standing here. Don’t question my integrity,” he warned. “Don’t question my motives. I’m standing for Jersey! I am standing for my police officers. I’m standing for the Constitution, and I’m standing for what’s right.”

“And dear God, if you want to come at me that way, you’re gonna have to take it up with me, because there’s too much on the line right now in America,” Booker declared ominously.

“As people’s due process rights and freedom of the speech rights and secret police are running around this country, picking people up off the streets, who have a legal right to be here. There’s too much going on in this country.”

“When are we gonna stand together for principles that I just heard that were agreed with? When are we gonna stand together? If we don’t stand as Democrats, we deserve to lose. But if we stand united, if we stand strong, if we stand with other people, if we tell with a chorus of conviction that America, what this president is doing is wrong, if we stand up and speak that way, dear God, we will win.”

Senator Booker’s remarks elicited a wide variety of praise, as seen below, as well as criticism.

Watch the video below or at this link.

BREAKING: In a stunning moment, a passionate Sen. Cory Booker excoriates Democrats, saying “it’s time to have a backbone” and blasts corporations and organizations for “bending the knee” to Trump.

This is INCREDIBLE!💥💥pic.twitter.com/DUqvq5SPl3

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) July 29, 2025

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U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) says the legislation he is filing to send $600 tariff rebate checks to Americans are not for “Biden voters,” but for “Trump blue-collar voters.”

“Well, you wouldn’t give it to everybody, you’d give it to the working people,” Senator Hawley told far-right podcaster Steve Bannon on Tuesday (video below). “You’d give it to our people.”

“I mean, you know, the rich people don’t need it, and but what I mean by that is all those Democrat donors of Wall Street, all these hedge fund guys who all hate the tariffs, by the way.”

Hawley said, “we’re on track to raise over $150 billion from tariff revenues this year alone, this calendar year alone.”

He did not mention that most of the tariff money is paid by U.S. consumers and U.S. companies.

“My view is, we ought to give a portion to that back to our working class blue collar voters who powered the Trump revolution, who got this president into office multiple times, and who are the backbone of this nation.”

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“Biden has crushed these people,” Hawley alleged. “What a legacy for Donald Trump to say, ‘I’m gonna take a portion of this massive money’ that he’s raising on these tariffs, and return it to the people who run this country and are gonna build our future.”

Hawley then got down to some specifics.

“It’d be $600 for every adult and child, so if you’ve got a big family, you’re gonna get more,” he said, calling his plan “fantastic.”

“And you’d phase it out for income, you know? So again, the wealthy—you start making six figures, you get into the big six figures—you’d phase the thing out.”

“So this is not going to the hedge fund managers or all the Biden voters. This is not going to the Wall Street king pins. So they don’t need any of it.”

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“This is going to the Trump blue collar voters, the people who Joe Biden crushed, the people who didn’t get a raise under Joe Biden for four long years, the people who cannot afford their gas, because Joe Biden shut down our energy, who can’t afford their groceries, because Joe Biden drove up the price of everything,” Hawley claimed, despite prices on many items being higher under President Trump.

“And it is a message from us to them, from Trump to these folks that he is here to deliver for them.”

Senator Hawley is facing blowback from critics who say the $600 checks should not be issued, but rather, should be used to pay down America’s debt, which Republicans including President Trump just increased by about $3.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Sen. Josh Hawley rebate checks: “This is not going to the Biden voters. This is going to Trump blue collar voters.”🤔

They are not hiding it anymore pic.twitter.com/QaovdvjiKZ

— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) July 29, 2025

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