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      The luxury gap: Trump builds his palace as Americans face going hungry

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      It was a feast fit for a king – and any billionaire willing to be his subject. From gold-rimmed plates on gold-patterned tablecloths decorated with gold candlestick holders, they gorged on heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice-cream.On 15 October, Donald Trump welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a vast new ballroom now expected to cost $300m. That the federal government had shut down two weeks earlier scarcely seemed to matter.But two weeks later, the shutdown is starting to bite – and throw Trump’s architectural folly into sharp relief. On Saturday, with Congress still locked in a legislative stalemate, a potential benefit freeze could leave tens of millions of low-income Americans without food aid. Democrats accuse Trump’s Republican party of “weaponising hunger” to pursue an extreme rightwing agenda.Images of wealthy monarchs or autocrats revelling in excess even as the masses struggle for bread are more commonly associated with the likes of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France, who spent lavishly at the court of Versailles, or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, who siphoned off billions while citizens endured deepening poverty.But now America has a jarring split-screen of its own, between an oligarch president bringing a Midas touch to the White House and families going hungry, workers losing pay and government services on the brink of collapse.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreen“Are you fucking kidding me?” exclaimed Kamala Harris, the former vice-president, during an interview on Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central podcast The Weekly Show. “This guy wants to create a ballroom for his rich friends while completely turning a blind eye to the fact that babies are going to starve when the Snap benefits end in just hours from now.”For years Trump has cultivated the image of a “blue-collar billionaire” and, in last year’s presidential election, he beat Harris by 14 percentage points among non-college-educated voters – double his margin in 2016.Yet he grew up in an affluent neighbourhood of Queens, New York, and joined the family business as a property developer, receiving a $1m loan from his father for projects in Manhattan. He attached his name to luxury hotels and golf clubs and achieved celebrity through the New York tabloids and as host of the reality TV show The Apprentice.View image in fullscreenAs a politician, however, Trump has successfully branded himself as the voice of the left-behinds in towns hollowed out by industrialisation. His formula includes tapping into grievance, particularly white grievance, and into “Make America Great Again” nostalgia . His speeches are peppered with aspirational promises that his policies will guarantee his supporters a share of the nation’s wealth.This has apparently given him leeway with Trump voters who, despite their own struggles, turned a blind eye to the largesse of his first term and how it might benefit his family. But it was clear from his inauguration in January – when he was surrounded by the tech titans Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg – that part two would be different.Trump has made a personal profit of more than $1.8bn over the past year, according to a new financial tracker run by the Center for American Progress thinktank, which says the lion’s share came from launching his own crypto ventures while aggressively deregulating the industry. Other sources of income include gifts, legal settlements and income from a $40m Amazon documentary about the first lady, Melania Trump.There have been brazen “let them eat cake” moments. In May, Trump said he would accept a $400m luxury plane from Qatar and use it as Air Force One despite concerns that it could violate the US constitution’s emoluments clause. In October, it was reported he was demanding the justice department pay him about $230m in compensation over federal investigations he faced that he claims were politically motivated.View image in fullscreenLarry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “There is a glaring gap between the life of Donald Trump, which is gold-plated and luxurious, and the life of so many Americans who are now being hit by the government shutdown.“You have to go back in history to examples in the 1920s or the Gilded Age in the late 19th century to find this kind of opulence that’s not just going on but being advertised. That goes along with all the other efforts to enrich Donald Trump and his family and his friends. It’s a shocking display of the use of public power for private gain.”It is hard to imagine a more resonant symbol than the ballroom. Last month, Trump left presidential historians and former White House staff aghast by demolishing the East Wing without seeking approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which vets the construction of federal buildings. He also fired all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent agency that had expected to review the project.He claimed the destruction was a necessary step towards building a long-needed ballroom which, at 90,000 sq ft, would be big enough to hold an inauguration and dwarf the executive mansion itself. It will be funded not by the taxpayer but the new masters of the universe.Among the companies represented at the 15 October dinner were Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton, Coinbase, Comcast, Google, Lockheed Martin, Meta Platforms and T-Mobile. The Adelson Family Foundation, founded by the Republican mega-donors Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon, also had a presence.The oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, and crypto entrepreneur twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss – who were portrayed by the actor Armie Hammer in the film The Social Network – were all on the guest list.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEthics watchdogs condemned the dinner as a blatant case of selling access to the president with the potential for influence peddling and other forms of corruption. Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, said: “It’s par for the course for Donald Trump. Millionaires and billionaires wine with him and dine with him and everything is fine with him. There’s a cost and there’s consequences.“They’re not donating this money because it’s a nice thing to do. Certainly there’s some sort of benefit to them and it could be the largest wealth transfer in American history with the big ugly bill [the Working Families Tax Cut Act] just a few months ago.”View image in fullscreenThat legislation delivers tax cuts for the rich while reducing food assistance and making health insurance more expensive for working families. The mood is only likely to darken as the second-longest government shutdown in history threatens to rip the social safety net away from millions of people. John Thune, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, warned on Wednesday: “It’s going to get ugly fast.”A number of essential public services are approaching the end of their available funds, a situation likely to be felt directly in households, schools and airports from this weekend.The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), also known as food stamps, is set to lapse for 42 million people, raising the spectre of long queues at food banks. On Friday, two federal judges ruled that the Trump administration must continue to fund the programme with contingency funds. But the decisions are likely to face appeals. It was also unclear how soon the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded.Schemes that provide early years’ education for low-income families and subsidised air travel to remote communities are also set to run aground. At the same time, thousands of federal employees will soon miss their first full paychecks since the shutdown began, raising the prospect of staffing shortages in areas such as airport security and air traffic control.The timing is awkward because Saturday also marks the start of open enrolment for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. Premiums are expected to soar, reflecting insurers’ doubts that Congress will renew enhanced tax credits before they lapse at year’s end – one of the key points of contention in the current standoff.Trump can often appear immune to political crises. But in a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday, only 28% of Americans say they support the ballroom project, compared with 56% who oppose it. The same survey found that 45% blame Trump and Republicans for the government shutdown while 33% hold Democrats responsible. Notably, independents blame Trump and Republicans by a 2-1 margin – handing Democrats an opportunity.View image in fullscreenJohn Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “For the first time in a while, they have an opening with rural voters. Medicaid and Snap are infrastructural necessities in the poorest counties. Without programmes like this being funded, you’re not just talking about hurting poor people or rural people who are invisible; you’re talking about shutting down hospitals and clinics, and that matters to people. Democrats should be fanning out in rural areas and people should be telling their stories.”It is safe to assume that, had Barack Obama or Joe Biden built a ballroom during the crippling austerity of a government shutdown, Republicans and rightwing media would have gone scorched-earth against them. Trump’s ostentatious display of wealth and cronyism comes against a backdrop of widening social and economic inequality. Democrats, however, are often accused of lacking a killer instinct.Joe Walsh, a former Republican representative aligned with the conservative Tea Party who four months ago became a Democrat, said: “Democrats don’t know how to fight and I can see they’re already squirming on this ballroom issue. We’ve got a guy in the White House who every day is taking a blowtorch to this country and most Democrats don’t understand the moment. He ploughs ahead and tears down the East Wing because he knows he can get away with it.”Walsh believes that the next Democratic president should commit to demolishing Trump’s ballroom. “This is somebody who’s a tyrant who believes he can ignore all laws, rules, norms and processes,” he added. “You have to draw the line on that. No, he cannot unilaterally demolish the East Wing and build a big old ballroom. This guy has no clue what America is. We don’t have palaces in America.” More

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      As Barack Obama stumps for other Democrats, the party gets to see what it lost

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      “It’s not as if we didn’t see some of this coming,” said Barack Obama, a note of bleak humour in his voice. “I will admit it’s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y’all!”The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned. “I did,” Obama added. “You can run the tape.”He did. The former US president spent 2024 sounding the alarm about the horror show that awaited if Donald Trump ever got back to the Oval Office. Trump won the election anyway a year ago on Wednesday.Among the many unintended consequences is the return of Obama to the political stage. Former presidents used to slink away to running foundations or writing memoirs and avoid criticising their successors but that is one more norm that has bitten the dust.Obama has had 25 public engagements or remarks in the past six months, according to a list released by his office. He has tackled everything from USAID to redistricting to Tylenol. He is filling the vacuum left by Trump’s most immediate predecessor, Joe Biden, who turns 83 this month.Now Obama is back on the campaign trail, for Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. It gives him a platform to deliver an alternative State of the Union address. And the gloves are off.To hear the expectant buzz of the 7,000-plus crowd in Norfolk as candidate Abigail Spanberger promised that Obama’s entrance was just moments away was to be reminded that Democrats did once have a president who could match Trump’s superstar charisma.“We love you!” someone shouted from the stands, just as they do at Trump rallies. “We miss you!”The backdrop was a giant stars and stripes and supporters waving mini-flags and signs. But whereas Trump is all big orange hair, dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, Obama’s hair was short and grey and he wore a blue shirt open at the collar with sleeves rolled up. Trump often gets compared to a stand-up comedian but Obama has the sharper act.View image in fullscreenLiberated from the burden of seeking elected office for himself again, he clearly revelled in skewering the president with scathing and scorching lines, as if auditioning for late-night TV.“It’s hard to know where to start, because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness and recklessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain craziness,” Obama said, with the crowd cheering each word, wondering perhaps why Chuck Schumer and the rest of them can’t do plain talk like this.The former president ran through an exhausting but not exhaustive list of Trump’s offences: turning the justice department against his political opponents; replacing career prosecutors with loyalists; firing decorated officers because they might be more loyal to the constitution than to him; deploying the national guard to US cities to stop crime waves that don’t exist; ICE agents pulling up in unmarked vans and grabbing people, including US citizens; a health secretary who rejects proven science and promotes quack medicine; a top White House aide who calls Democrats domestic extremists; and a poor labour economist who got fired for reporting bad jobs numbers.“I mean, it’s like every day is Halloween,” Obama said, “except it’s all tricks and no treats.”He acknowledged that plenty of people voted for Trump because they were “understandably frustrated” with inflation and gas prices and the difficulty of affording a home and worried about their children’s children, saying: “So they were willing to take a chance.”It certainly worked out well for Trump and his family, with crypto ventures with hundreds of millions of dollars and for wealthy allies and corporations whose tax bills went down. But for ordinary people, Obama continued, life is harder than ever, with healthcare premiums set to double or triple and the government shut down.“As for the president,” Obama said, “he has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don’t get mud on their shoes, and gold-plating the Oval Office, and building a $300m ballroom.“Virginia, here’s the good news. If you can’t visit a doctor, don’t worry, he will save you a dance. And if you don’t get an invitation to the next White House shindig, you can always watch the festivities and all the beautiful people on Truth Social.”The crowd lapped it up. Obama was on a roll. He lambasted Republicans for putting on “a big show of deporting people and targeting transgender folks. They never miss a chance to scapegoat minorities and DEI for every problem under the sun.“You got a flat tire? DEI.“Wife mad at you?”The audience rejoined: “DEI!”It was a reminder that humour is a potent political weapon. That is why Trump’s allies tried to oust TV host Jimmy Kimmel and why California governor Gavin Newsom gets under their skin.Obama turned to the artificial intelligence videos that Trump posts on his Truth Social account, including one showing himself wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet and dumping brown liquid on No Kings protesters.“All the nonsense we see on the news every day, the over-the-top rhetoric, the fabricated conspiracies, the weird videos of a US president with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on protesting citizens, all of that is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation has not gotten better,” he said.There it was: the man who had inspired with his words – yes, we can; hope and change; there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America – had been reduced to uttering the word “poop” from the stage. When they go low …Obama dutifully heaped praise on Spanberger and urged Virginians to vote for her. It was a performance of wit and wisdom that reminded America what it has lost – and Democrats what they have never been able to recreate. The party needs someone who will take the fight to Trump. But its best candidate for 2028 is the one who cannot run. More

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      Democrats must not cave in to Trump | Bernie Sanders

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      Democrats in the US Senate must stand with the working families of our country and in opposition to Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. They must not cave in to the president’s attacks on the working class during this ongoing government shutdown. If they do, the consequences will be catastrophic for our country.This may be the most consequential moment in American history since the civil war. We have a megalomaniacal president who, consumed by his quest for more and more power, is undermining our constitution and the rule of law. Further, we have an administration that is waging war against the working class of our country and our most vulnerable people.While Trump’s billionaire buddies become much, much richer, he is prepared to throw 15 million Americans off the healthcare they have – which could result in 50,000 unnecessary deaths each year. At a time when healthcare is already outrageously expensive, he is prepared to double premiums for more than 20 million people who rely on the Affordable Care Act. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth, Trump is prepared, illegally, to withhold funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Snap, despite a $5bn emergency fund established by Congress. That decision would threaten to push 42 million people – including 16 million children – into hunger.And all of this is being done to provide $1tn in tax breaks to the 1%.Let’s be clear: this government shutdown did not happen by accident. In the Senate, 60 votes are required to fund the federal government. Today, the Republicans have 53 members while the Democratic caucus has 47. In other words, in order to fund the government the Republican majority must negotiate with Democrats to move the budget forward. This is what has always happened – until now. Republicans, for the first time, are simply refusing to come to the table and negotiate. They are demanding that it is their way or the highway.To make matters worse, the Republican contempt for negotiations is such that the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has given his chamber a six-week paid vacation. Unbelievably, during a government shutdown – with federal employees not getting paid, millions facing outrageous premium increases and nutrition assistance set to expire for millions more – Republicans in the House of Representatives are not in Washington DC.Trump is a schoolyard bully. Anyone who thinks surrendering to him now will lead to better outcomes and cooperation in the future does not understand how a power-hungry demagogue operates. This is a man who threatens to arrest and jail his political opponents, deploys the US military into Democratic cities and allows masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pick people up off the streets and throw them into vans without due process. He has sued virtually every major media outlet because he does not tolerate criticism, has extorted funds from law firms and is withholding federal funding from states that voted against him.Day after day he shows his contempt for the constitutional role of Congress and the courts.Given that reality, does anyone truly believe that caving in to Trump now will stop his unprecedented attacks on our democracy and working people?Poll after poll shows that the Americans understand the need for strong opposition to Trump’s unprecedented and dangerous agenda. They understand that the Republican party is responsible for this shutdown. And, despite the Democratic party’s all-time low approval rating, independents and even a number of Republicans are now standing with the Democrats in their fight to protect the healthcare needs of the working families of our country.What will it mean if the Democrats cave? Trump, who already holds Democrats in contempt and views them as weak and ineffectual, will utilize his victory to accelerate his movement toward authoritarianism. At a time when he already has no regard for our democratic system of checks and balances, he will be emboldened to continue decimating programs that protect elderly people, children, the sick and the poor while giving more tax breaks and other benefits to his fellow oligarchs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf the Democrats cave now it would be a betrayal of the millions of Americans who have fought and died for democracy and our constitution. It would be a sellout of a working class that is struggling to survive in very difficult economic times. Democrats in Congress are the last remaining opposition to Trump’s quest for absolute power. To surrender now would be an historic tragedy for our country, something that history will not look kindly upon.I understand what people across this country are going through. My Democratic colleagues and I are getting calls every day from federal employees who are angry about working without pay and Americans who are frantic about feeding their families and making ends meet. But my Democratic colleagues must also understand this: Republicans are hearing from their constituents as well. There is a reason why 15 Republican Senators are finally standing up to Trump and, along with every member of the Democratic caucus, support funding Snap benefits.There is a reason why 14 Republican members of the House are on record calling for the extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. Understandably, Republicans do not want to go home and explain to their constituents why they voted to double or, in some cases, triple healthcare premiums. They do not want to go home and explain why they are throwing large numbers of their constituents off healthcare. They do not want to go home and explain why they are taking food off the tables of hungry families.We are living in the most dangerous and pivotal moment in modern American history. Our children and future generations will not forget what we do now. Democrats must not turn their backs on the needs of working people and allow our already broken healthcare system to collapse even further. Democrats must not allow an authoritarian president to continue undermining our constitution and the rule of law. The choice is clear. If the Democrats stand with the American people, the American people will stand with them. If they surrender, the American people will hold them accountable. More

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      Trump policies loom large over New Jersey’s unpredictable governor’s race

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      After last year’s election, when Republicans made significant inroads in the state, New Jersey voters will cast ballots in an off-year, unpredictable gubernatorial race that voters and experts say feels different from any in recent memory.Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a former navy pilot and federal prosecutor who represents New Jersey’s 11th congressional District, is facing Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state lawmaker, who is making his third bid for governor, this time with Donald Trump’s endorsement.With early voting under way, the contest on Tuesday – one of only two gubernatorial races this year – is drawing national attention as a potential preview for what’s to come in the 2026 midterms and an early gauge of Trump’s standing with voters.“This is the first big opportunity for voters to go to the polls and register their feelings about the new presidential administration,” Kristoffer Shields, the director of the Eagleton Center on American Governors, said in October. The current Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has served for two terms and is term-limited. While the state tends to reliably support Democrats in federal elections, it has a history of flipping between parties in its gubernatorial contests. Experts point out that no party has held the office for three consecutive terms since 1961.Adding to the unpredictability of the race, Republicans have made gains in New Jersey in recent years. In 2021, Ciattarelli lost to Murphy by only three points. And in 2024, the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, carried the state by just 5.9 points, down from Joe Biden’s 16-point margin in 2020.“The Republican party is feeling energized in New Jersey, specifically after two close showings here in the state,” said Daniel Bowen, an associate professor of public policy at the College of New Jersey.Recent polls show a tight race, with Sherrill leading Ciattarelli by single digits.A Ciattarelli win, Bowen said, would be “huge for the Republican party” and it would show that “the Maga brand of politics can win in a place like New Jersey, highly educated, wealthy, not rural, urban state.”By contrast, a Sherrill win, Bowen said, could signal a rejection of Maga politics and point to a “broader blue wave response across the country to what the Trump administration has been doing as we think forward to the 2026 midterm elections.”In Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Wednesday, Sherrill met with about 100 people at the O’Donnell Dempsey senior citizen center to discuss affordability, housing, healthcare, immigration and stopping Trump.Among those in the room was 71-year-old Evelyn Velez, who said she was backing Sherrill because there “has to be somebody that’s going to stand up to the administration that’s in Washington DC right now”.“We need somebody that’s gonna fight for the working class, who’s gonna fight for health insurance, lower taxes, and I think she is the best candidate,” Velez, a lifelong New Jersey resident, said.Another supporter, Kim Nesbitt Good, 69, said she felt confident that Sherrill would win and supported her because she was “not about hate, she’s positive, and that’s what we need, somebody that’s positive, someone that’s interested in the country, and the people in this country”.While both candidates have focused much of their campaigns on local issues like cost of living and taxes, national politics and Trump have loomed large.A recent poll found that 52% of New Jersey voters said Trump was a “major factor” in their choice for governor. Sherrill has frequently sought to tie Ciattarelli to Trump and his policies, while Ciattarelli has made efforts to link Sherrill to Governor Murphy, who, according to recent polling, has a 34% approval and 50% disapproval rating in the state. By comparison, the same survey found that Trump holds a 45% approval rating in the state.The contest has drawn millions of dollars in spending and endorsements from national political figures. Ciattarelli has campaigned with Trump allies, including the Florida representative Byron Donalds and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump himself also recently spoke for about 10 minutes at a virtual “tele-rally” for Ciattarelli.On the Democratic side, former president Barack Obama, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Maryland governor Wes Moore, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg have all been campaigning for Sherrill.In a recent interview, Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, told Politico that he wasn’t focused on whether Democrats “overperform or underperform” in this race. “What I care about is making sure we win,” he said. “At the end of the day, we know that the Republicans are feeling very bullish about their chances in New Jersey.In Morris county, one of the five New Jersey counties that flipped from blue to red in the 2024 election , about 20 people gathered at a cafe on Wednesday morning to meet the county sheriff, Jim Gannon, Ciattarelli’s pick for lieutenant governor.Among them was Mike Lombardi, 35, who said his top concerns were “electric bills, crime, immigration”. He said he believed that Ciattarelli and Gannon were the “ideal candidates to lead New Jersey”.Lombardi, who said that he had been involved with voter outreach for Ciattarelli, said this year’s race felt different because of the “energy around the Ciattarelli campaign”.Another supporter, 45-year-old Nick Steenstra, nodded in agreement and said that Ciattarelli was the change that New Jersey needed.Still, Steenstra recognized the challenge ahead. “There are a lot more registered Democrats in the state,” he said, adding that to win, Ciattarelli needed to turn out not just Republicans but also the unaffiliated voters in the state, of which there are more than 2 million.One thing that experts are closely watching in this race is voter turnout. In 2021, only 40% of eligible voters participated in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.“Which side is more motivated to vote is probably going to ultimately decide this,” Shields said, noting that the race “may be defined by how energized Democratic voters are or are not”.Whatever the outcome, analysts say that the implications will probably extend beyond New Jersey.On the Republican side, Shields said people were watching “what the impact of the Trump administration, what the impact of the sort of national politics are on the Republican candidate in a state that tends to vote blue federally”.And on the Democratic side, Shields said “there are a lot of questions about the Democratic party nationally and unifying the Democratic party between the more progressive side and the more moderate side” so they will be watching to see “how Sherrill tries to unify the Democratic party, and is it successful?”.Brigid Harrison, professor of political science and law at Montclair State University, agreed and said that a Ciattarelli victory would be a boost for Republicans heading into 2026.But if Sherrill wins, Harrison said, “it’s a much different and kind of nuanced narrative”.“You see this ongoing tension in the Democratic party between the more moderate Democrats who are saying: ‘Look, we need to get the folks that migrated to the Republican party back on board’ and progressives who are saying: ‘We need to come at this from a more radical agenda,’” she said.A Sherrill win, Harrison said, could be viewed as “a shot in the arm for those moderates who will want to claim the mantle, saying how we move forward as a party is through policies that are middle of the road.” More

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      Judge rules Trump can’t require citizenship proof on federal voting form – US politics live

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      Donald Trump’s request to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form cannot be enforced, a federal judge ruled today.US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington DC sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his executive order to overhaul US elections.She ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, dealing a blow to the administration and its allies.“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.The ruling grants the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment that prohibits the proof-of-citizenship requirement from going into effect. It says the US Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, is permanently barred from taking action to do so.Donald Trump arriving at Palm Beach international airport earlier, in West Palm Beach, Florida. He’s spending the weekend at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach.The White House has announced a new rule restricting the ability of credentialed journalists to freely access the offices of press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other top communications officials in the West Wing, near the Oval Office.A memorandum issued late today bans journalists from accessing Room 140, also known as “Upper Press”, without a prior appointment, citing the need to protect potentially sensitive material. It said the change would take effect immediately.It follows restrictions put in place earlier this month for credentialed reporters at the Department of Defense, who were asked to sign a pledge not to gather any information – including unclassified documents – that had not been authorized for release. It prompted dozens of journalists to vacate their office in the Pentagon and returned their credentials. The department promptly announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets.Earlier today, Donald Trump announced that he has renovated the bathroom inside the Lincoln bedroom at the White House, and shared an image of the lavish white-and-black-marbled remodel.“I renovated the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House. It was renovated in the 1940s in an art deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, attaching a photo showing that version. “I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble. This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!”It comes as Trump has renovated other parts of the White House, including his heavily criticized demolition of the East Wing to build a $300m ballroom, paving over the Rose Garden and decorating the Oval Office with gold.The Lincoln bedroom was originally used by Abraham Lincoln as his office and cabinet room.Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican congressperson, caused a fracas when she cursed at and berated law enforcement at the Charleston international airport yesterday, Wired reports.According to an incident report, Mace cursed loudly at police officers and made repeated derogatory comments towards them. “She repeatedly stated we were ‘fucking incompetent’, and ‘this is no way to treat a fucking US representative’,” the report states.The report also says that a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) supervisor told officers that Mace had treated their staff similarly and they would be reporting her to their superiors.“Any other person in the airport acting and talking the way she did, our department would have been dispatch (sic) and we would have addressed the behavior,” the incident report concludes.Donald Trump’s request to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form cannot be enforced, a federal judge ruled today.US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington DC sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his executive order to overhaul US elections.She ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, dealing a blow to the administration and its allies.“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.The ruling grants the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment that prohibits the proof-of-citizenship requirement from going into effect. It says the US Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, is permanently barred from taking action to do so.Donald Trump is set to sit down with Norah O’Donnell, a CBS anchor, this afternoon, Semafor is reporting, in what would be the president’s first interview with the network since its parent company Paramount settled a $16m lawsuit with him.Trump sued CBS News and Paramount over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. Despite serious doubts about whether Trump’s legal argument would stand up in court, Paramount decided to settle the lawsuit for $16m in July.According to Semafor’s report:
      CBS is in the midst of a deliberate repositioning aimed, at least in part, at gesturing to the center and the right.
      The network decided against renewing the contract of Stephen Colbert, the late night host who has regularly needled Trump and expressed support for mainstream Democrats (critics, internally and externally, said Colbert was increasingly too expensive to maintain).
      Following new owner David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount, he quickly bought the Free Press and installed its founder Bari Weiss atop CBS News; Weiss had made a name for herself as an opinion writer who critiqued what she believed was the illiberal and censorious online left in academia, progressive politics and the news media. CBS also appointed a new ombudsman who had previously run the Hudson Institute, a conservative thinktank.
      In recent months, the Trump administration’s pressure has altered editorial policies at the network. CBS agreed earlier this year to release full transcripts of future 60 Minutes presidential interviews. And following criticism from homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s team over an interview on the network’s Sunday show, Face The Nation, CBS News announced that in the future it would only air unedited interviews on the program.
      Trump has returned the favor by publicly nodding in the network’s direction. On Air Force One earlier this month, he speculated with the press corps about who would be the next anchor of CBS Evening News, and praised the Ellisons.
      “Larry Ellison is great, and his son, David, is great. They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine. And they’ll do the right thing,” Trump said. “And it’s got great potential. CBS has great potential.”
      In addition to praise from the president and some one-on-one access, Trump’s decision, for the moment, to bless Paramount could help it improve its business in other ways. The New York Post reported that people close to Trump believed Paramount had the inside track with federal regulators in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery; its most likely rival potential bidder, Comcast, faces a more steep regulatory hurdle if Trump’s statements about the company are considered.
      Donald Trump said earlier today that the United States and Canada will not restart trade talks, but that Canadian PM Mark Carney had apologized to him for an Ontario political ad that featured Ronald Reagan saying tariffs spell disaster.“I like [Carney] a lot but what they did was wrong,” Trump said. “He apologized for what they did with the commercial because it was a false commercial.”Trump last week called off negotiations over the ad aired by the Canadian province, adding that he was raising tariffs on Canadian goods by an additional 10%.The ad by the Ontario government featured former president Reagan, who was known for his support of free marks and free trade, saying that tariffs on foreign goods lead to trade wars and job losses.A ground stop had been in effect at New York’s JFK airport until 7.30pm ET due to staffing shortages in the air traffic system, according to the New York City emergency management department, but according to Reuters, it was lifted around 3.30pm ET.In a statement earlier on Friday, the New York City department had said that flights headed to JFK were being held at their departure airports.The department also said that JFK, as well as nearby airports LaGuardia and Newark are all “under FAA traffic restrictions” this evening and are under ground delay programs due to staffing shortages and wind in the region.As of 3.30pm ET, it seems as though the ground delays are still in place.New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has called on the Trump administration to “release emergency nutrition assistance for the 3 million New Yorkers set to lose their SNAP benefits tomorrow”.“No state should have to sue the federal government to ensure families can put food on the table,” she said. “But when Washington Republicans refused to act, New York took them to court to mitigate this crisis.”Hochul said that her administration “remains prepared for the worst” and is “fast-tracking over $100 million for food banks and pantries” and has declared a state of emergency.Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, the ranking member of the Senate agriculture committee, which oversees the food aid program, has released a statement following the court’s decision decision, saying that Trump officials “now have no excuse to withhold food assistance from Americans”.“The court’s decision confirms what we have said all week: The administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need, despite knowing that it is legally required to do so,” said Klobuchar. “The court was clear: the administration is ‘required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program.’”If the administration decides not to issue Snap, Klobuchar said that it “is purely a cruel political decision, not a legal one.”“They should immediately act – as the court has required – to ensure food assistance continues to go to families in need” she added.

      Two federal judges ruled almost simultaneously this afternoon that the Trump administration must continue to fund Snap, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown. The rulings came a day before the US Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the program, which serves about one in eight (or 42 million) Americans.

      The US will not send any high-level officials to the upcoming Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, a White House official told Reuters, alleviating some concern among world leaders that Washington would send a team to scupper the talks.

      Public tours in the White House will resume in December, according to a statement from the office of the first lady. They had been suspended indefinitely in August amid construction for Trump’s controversial $300m ballroom project.

      Donald Trump denied that he is considering strikes inside Venezuela, even amid reports that his administration may expand its counter-drug campaign in the Caribbean. It comes as the UN high commissioner for human rights said today that US military strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean allegedly carrying illegal drugs from South America are “unacceptable” and must stop.

      The president reaffirmed that the US would resume nuclear testing, and did not answer directly when asked whether that would include the traditional underground nuclear tests common during the cold war. “You’ll find out very soon, but we’re going to do some testing,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One as he flew to Palm Beach, Florida, when asked about underground nuclear tests. “Other countries do it. If they’re doing to do it, we’re going to do it, okay?”

      A Republican-dominated Ohio panel adopted new US House districts that could boost the GOP’s chances of winning two additional seats in next year’s elections and aid Donald Trump’s efforts to hold on to a slim congressional majority. You can view the map here.

      Donald Trump has called on the Senate to scrap the filibuster, so that the Republican majority can bypass Democrats and reopen the federal government. The filibuster is a way for a relatively small group of senators to block action by the majority. The filibuster rule allows a minority of 41 senators to prevent a vote on most kinds of legislation. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, a Republican known for defending Senate traditions, has repeatedly rejected proposals to weaken or remove the 60-vote rule.
      A federal judge in Rhode Island has blocked the Trump administration’s plan to suspend all Snap food aid benefits for millions of Americans amid the ongoing government shutdown, Reuters reports.US district judge John McConnell in Providence issued a temporary restraining order at the behest of cities, nonprofits and a union who argued the US Department of Agriculture’s suspension of Snap starting from Saturday was unlawful, and told the administration it “must distribute” aid using a set of emergency funds – and potentially other sources – and pay the benefits as soon as possible.He ruled minutes after another judge in Boston ruled that the suspension was likely unlawful in a related case pursued by a coalition of Democratic-led states that also sought to avert the suspension.That judge has ordered the Trump administration to indicate by Monday if it would provide either full or partial SNAP benefits in November.“There is no doubt and it is beyond argument that irreparable harm will begin to occur if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food, for their family,” McConnell said during a virtual hearing.The US will not send any high-level officials to the upcoming Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, a White House official has told Reuters, alleviating some concern among world leaders that Washington would send a team to scupper the talks.Brazil will host a high-level leaders’ summit next week before the two-week UN climate negotiations begin in the Amazonian city of Belem.Earlier this month, the US threatened to use visa restrictions and sanctions to retaliate against nations that would vote in favor of a plan put forward by the United Nations shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from ocean shipping.Those tactics led a majority of countries at the IMO to vote to postpone by a year a decision on a global carbon price on international shipping. The White House official said Donald Trump has already made his administration’s views on multilateral climate action clear in his astonishing speech at last month’s United Nations general assembly, where he called climate change the world’s “greatest con job” and chided countries for setting climate policies that he said “have cost their countries fortunes”.“The president is directly engaging with leaders around the world on energy issues, which you can see from the historic trade deals and peace deals that all have a significant focus on energy partnerships,” the White House official told Reuters.The Trump administration has pursued bilateral energy deals in its trade negotiations to boost US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports with countries like South Korea and also the European Union. On Friday, the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said there is “room for great energy trade between China and the United States” given China’s need for natural gas as the two economic giants negotiate over tariffs.Trump announced on his first day in office that the US would exit the 10-year-old Paris climate agreement, taking effect in January 2026, and the state department has been reviewing the US’s engagement in multilateral environmental agreements. Earlier this year, the US also put pressure on countries negotiating a global treaty to reduce plastic pollution not to back an agreement that would set plastic production caps.The White House official told Reuters that “the tide is turning” on prioritizing climate change, pointing to a memo circulated this week by billionaire and longtime climate philanthropist and investor Bill Gates, who said it is time to pivot away from focusing on meeting global temperature goals and claimed that climate change will “not lead to humanity’s demise”.Public tours in the White House will resume in December, according to a statement from the office of the first lady.“The White House will reopen its doors for public tours on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, with an updated route offering guests the opportunity to experience the history and beauty of the People’s House. In celebration of the holiday season, all December tours will feature the White House Christmas decorations on the State Floor,” it said.Public tours were suspended indefinitely in August amid construction for Trump’s controversial $300m ballroom project.China “made a real mistake” by threatening to shut off exports of its rare earths, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent told the Financial Times (paywall) in an interview published today.US and Chinese leaders had reached an “equilibrium” but warned that China would not be able to keep using its critical minerals as a coercive tool, Bessent told the paper, adding that China “made a real mistake” by “firing shots” on rare earths. More

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      Democratic representative urges former prince Andrew to testify over Epstein

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      A Democratic congressman on Friday called for the former prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to testify before the US House of Representatives committee that is conducting an inquiry into the government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.The statement from Ro Khanna, a California Democratic representative, who serves on the investigative House oversight committee, comes after the UK trade minister, Chris Bryant, suggested that since Mountbatten Windsor has been stripped of his royal titles, he should answer demands for information about his dealings with Epstein, an alleged sex trafficker who died by suicide while in federal custody six years ago.“Just as with any ordinary member of the public, if there were requests from another jurisdiction of this kind, I would expect any decently minded person to comply with that request,” Bryant said.Khanna told the Guardian: “Andrew should be called to testify before the oversight committee. The public deserves to know who was abusing women and young girls alongside Epstein.”Republicans hold the majority in the House, but amid public outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the Epstein case approved an inquiry by the oversight committee into how the government handled his prosecutions. Interest in the case flared in July, after the justice department announced a much-rumored list of Epstein’s sex trafficking clients did not exist, and it would share nothing further on the case.The House investigation has thus far resulted in the release of tens of thousands of pages of documents – including a lewd drawing apparently made by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday – as well as depositions from former top government officials.As a member of the minority, Khanna does not have the power to subpoena Mountbatten Windsor’s testimony. Spokespeople for the committee’s Republican chair, James Comer, did not respond to questions about whether he believes the former prince should be questioned.Khanna and Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman, have introduced a bill to force the release of files related to Epstein, but Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, a top ally of the president, has refused to bring it up for a vote. Massie and Khanna have circulated a discharge petition that will require the bill be voted on, if 218 members of the House sign it.“This is what my effort with Representative Massie has been about: transparency and justice for the survivors who have been courageously speaking out,” Khanna said.The petition has been signed by all 213 House Democrats, as well as four Republicans. The 218th signature is expected to be Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona last month, and awaits swearing in by Johnson. However, the speaker has refused to do so until the House comes back into session, and says he will not tell lawmakers to return to Washington until the Senate approves a measure to end the ongoing government shutdown. More

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      Democrats should be taking the fight to Trump – the problem is, he’s got them battling each other | Jonathan Freedland

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      Every year is election year in the US, but the contests of 2025, which reach their climax on Tuesday, will be especially revealing. These “off-year” battles – a smattering of governors’ races, statewide referendums and the election of a new mayor in the country’s biggest city – will tell us much about the national mood 12 months after Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House and one year before midterm contests that could reshape the US political landscape. Above all, though, they will reveal the division, the confusion and sheer discombobulation Trump has induced in the US’s party of opposition.The verdict on Trump’s first 10 months in office will be delivered most clearly in the two states set to choose a new governor: New Jersey and Virginia. By rights, these should be relatively easy wins for the Democrats. Both states voted for Kamala Harris a year ago, and the current polls are grim for Trump. This week, an Economist/YouGov survey registered Trump’s lowest rating of his second term – 39% of Americans approve of him, while 58% disapprove – the lowest number they’d recorded for him bar one poll in his first term. Trump’s handling of the economy gets especially low marks, and a plurality of voters blame the continuing government shutdown, now in its second month, on Trump and his party. If an off-year election offers an opportunity to kick an unpopular incumbent, then Tuesday should be plain sailing for Democrats.And yet, the contest in New Jersey, for one, is looking far from comfortable. Democrats there are mindful that a year ago Trump surged in the state: after losing to Biden by a whopping 16 points in 2020, he trailed Harris by just six. Current polls show the Democratic candidate for governor ahead, but only narrowly: one survey put her just one point ahead of her Republican opponent. The party is funnelling serious money into the contest and deploying its biggest guns: Barack Obama will campaign in New Jersey on Saturday.It may work. But the fact that, after all that voters have seen from Trump these past 10 months – the power grabs; the wild on-again, off-again moves on tariffs; the failure to shrink inflation; the indulgence of corruption; the vanity projects, including the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for a gilded Trump ballroom – a Republican is even competitive in a state such as New Jersey should be troubling Democrats. And, if my conversations in Washington and New York this week are anything to go by, it is.The problem is that, even after a decade in which Trump has dominated US politics, Democrats are still not sure how to confront him, or even, more fundamentally, what they should really be. Take the mayoral contest in New York City, which is exposing the depth of the divide.The frontrunner is Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old newcomer who came from nowhere to storm his way to the Democratic nomination. Hugely charismatic and a master of social media, he has energised voters who had long regarded the Democrats as stale and tired: in the Democratic primary earlier this year, turnout was highest among those between ages 25 and 35. His chief opponent is the man he beat in that primary, the former Democratic governor of the state and scion of one of the party’s most storied families: Andrew Cuomo.Their clash captures what Cuomo, now running as an independent, calls the “quiet civil war” among Democrats in almost cartoonishly stark terms. Mamdani is a socialist beloved by the young, but feared by the old – and by those alarmed by his refusal to denounce the slogan “globalise the intifada”, a phrase they believe sanctions attacks on Israel-associated, meaning Jewish, targets in the US and elsewhere. Cuomo is 67, previously endorsed by the party establishment and tainted by the bullying and sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of office in 2021.It is a divide that is both ideological and generational. Plenty of younger Democrats see Mamdani as radical and inspiring, drawn to his message of “affordability” of housing and public transport. They see Cuomo as the embodiment of an exhausted, morally compromised centrism that cannot beat Trump. Meanwhile, many older Democrats see Mamdani as radical and untested, carrying too little experience and too much ideological baggage – the same leftist liabilities that the right ruthlessly exploits and ultimately always leads to Democratic defeat. I got a glimpse of that divide when, at a live event in Manhattan for the Unholy podcast, I asked Hillary Clinton whether, if she had a vote in New York City, she would cast it for Mamdani, who is, let’s not forget, the official Democratic nominee for mayor: “You know what? I don’t vote in this city. I’m not involved in it. I have not been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it.”If Mamdani wins, and either of the comparatively moderate Democrats running in New Jersey and Virginia loses, then the party’s progressive wing will take that as confirmation that its approach – the path of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders – represents the party’s best hope. But if all three win, and especially if the gubernatorial candidates improve on Harris’s performance in 2024, then the moderate wing will be buoyed, and the argument inside the Democratic party will rage on. In fact, it’s a fair bet it will rage on whatever happens.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd that is because the age of Trump has been utterly confounding for his opponents. How do you play against a player who breaks all the rules of the game? If you stick to the old ways of doing politics, if you obey the traditional proprieties and conventions, you cast yourself as part of the very establishment or deep state or elite that Trump has so profitably railed against for 10 years. But if you don’t, if you disrespect past norms, then you become part of the problem, the danger, Trump represents, weakening the guardrails that keep democracy on track.An example of that dilemma is on display in California. The state’s ambitious governor, Gavin Newsom, has tabled a ballot initiative – a referendum – that would redraw the boundaries of California’s congressional districts to give the party about five more seats in the House of Representatives in time for next year’s midterm elections. It’s retaliation for a Trump-approved gerrymander in Texas that will hand Republicans a similar advantage in that state. Democrats have hailed Newsom’s move as an act of resistance, fighting Trumpian fire with fire. And so it is. But it also burns away one more democratic norm, turning boundary changes into a routinely partisan battleground.Democrats are struggling because there are no good options when fighting a nationalist populist unafraid to wreck democracy. If you stay high while he goes low, you lose – and he is free to wreak further destruction on the democratic system. But if you sink to his level, you risk damaging the very thing you want so desperately to protect. The havoc of Donald Trump is never confined to Trump. It engulfs his opponents too.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

      Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets here or at guardian.live More

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      California’s gerrymandering measure would move the nation backwards | David Daley

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      Let’s imagine it’s early 2031. Democrats hold a three-seat edge in the US House. California has just lost four seats to congressional reapportionment. Texas has gained four.Reapportionment has not gone well for Democrats. In addition to the four from the Golden state, New York has lost two seats. Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois each lost one. Blue states surrendered those seats – and electoral college votes – to red states where the Republican party draws the lines: Florida, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.President Gavin Newsom, needing to make up those 11 electors in a re-election campaign against Donald Trump Jr while also defending his party’s slender lead in the House, calls California’s Democratic leadership. Texas will already gain four seats, he tells them. California will lose them. Democrats are going to have to draw a 47-1 congressional map. If not, Republicans could win another trifecta. Trump Jr could win. Democracy itself is on the line.Very little in this scenario is fanciful. If population trends continue, Sun belt migration will cost blue states a dozen seats in the US House. Newsom will be a favorite for the Democratic nomination. Texas and Florida will gain additional seats, no gerrymander required. And the partisan calculus in 2031 could look a lot like it does in 2025: without a big boost from California, Democrats might not have any hope to hold the US House.Newsom and other proponents of California’s proposition 50 – a measure that would allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts – insist that they are only asking voters to replace California’s bipartisan commission-drawn map as a temporary solution to an urgent crisis within American democracy. The 48-4 map, they promise, is purely retaliatory, and designed to restore partisan balance and match the five seats stolen first by Texas. The commission – designed to ensure fair districts – would supposedly be restored to power after the 2030 census.It’s difficult to believe that’s true. Those additional California seats will not be any less important to Democrats in five years. After all, the exact electoral concerns driving Newsom and Democrats to act in 2025 will still be with us when the next round of redistricting begins, after the 2030 census. Indeed, after reapportionment – and if the US supreme court further weakens the Voting Rights Act in a case from Louisiana this term, placing seats held by Black Democrats across the south in jeopardy – the Democrats’ partisan prospects might even be worse.Now put a Trump scion or another Maga acolyte on the ballot. Combine that with the electoral college boost the Republican party will receive after apportionment and their long-term edge on the US Senate map. Won’t California Democrats insist, again, that democracy depends on a radical gerrymander? Might partisans approve another power grab in the name of democracy?California voters face a difficult choice this fall. Many citizens, rightly concerned about the authoritarian turn of the national GOP, will support proposition 50 as a counterweight. Yet it’s worth considering this: once politicians gain power over redistricting, they’re loath to hand it over voluntarily.California voters, after all, created the state’s independent commission for precisely this reason: the politicians could not be trusted to do it themselves. In the 1980s, the Democratic representative Phil Burton called the state’s Picasso-style cartography his “contribution to modern art”. He offered the same justification as Newsom: this power play was needed to counteract Republicans. But voters hated this gerrymander so much that a statewide repeal vote succeeded in 1982.This rebuke taught Democrats a curious lesson: they’d simply guarantee themselves the number of seats they wanted by working with Republicans to gerrymander the state. After the 2000 census, the two parties agreed on a fair split of the delegation behind closed doors. Voters had no say at all – and the seats were so locked in that despite a tumultuous decade in politics, only one incumbent lost a re-election bid.Voters didn’t like this much, either. They finally took the pen away from politicians, over the course of two initiatives in 2008 (affecting state legislative districts) and 2010 (affecting Congress). The commission voters established is the gold standard for reform. Commissioners are put through an arduous process to ensure fairness. No state provides more public input. The commission has inspired nonpartisan reformers nationwide, who have pointed to its success when winning anti-gerrymandering initiatives in Michigan, Colorado, Utah, Ohio, Missouri and elsewhere.And while competitive elections have dwindled nationwide, they’ve dramatically increased in California. Instead of one congressional seat changing hands each decade, 15 seats flipped from 2012 to 2020. In 2022, five seats were within 5 percentage points, and another two were within 8 percentage points. In 2024, eight seats were within 5.1 percentage points. Those competitive seats would be wiped away on the new map – which not only flips GOP seats blue, but also strengthens three other Democratic incumbents.It is no small thing for a state to lose all of its competitive seats. It becomes almost impossible to hold lawmakers accountable. In districts this safe for one side, good luck changing your representative even if you want to.This gerrymander does net Democrats five seats nationally. One could argue that’s a fair trade-off. But in the end, it doesn’t actually create a level national playing field – now or long-term. Proposition 50 counters Texas. But with Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina and Kentucky redrawing next, that’s an additional 10 seats with no counterweight – all with the US supreme court weighing a Voting Rights Act case that, depending on the decision, could allow Republicans to nab another dozen seats. Californians will surrender their commission, and the best national inspiration for reform. The actual national impact may be negligible to zero.And over the long run, the partisan picture will grow cloudier still for Democrats. California’s shrinking population could cost the state four seats in Congress via reapportionment. That’s another reason why it’s so hard to imagine Democrats giving up power to draw the lines ever again. After the 2030 census, four incumbents will lose their districts. Will an additional five Democrats want to lose theirs – the likely outcome if the commission returns? Might partisans want the power to choose which side, or which incumbents, lose their seats? Come 2029, the rumbling will begin: this power should stay with the legislature. You know, because democracy itself will depend upon it.If this mid-decade redistricting armageddon tells us anything, it’s that we desperately need a national standard to end gerrymandering everywhere. But if California unwinds the most successful example of reform for partisan purposes, well, it moves the nation farther away from any real solution.It moves California backwards as well, to a time when mapmakers chose winners and losers – something politicians tend to like just fine. We should expect them to zealously protect it at all costs.

      David Daley is the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More