Indiana Statehouse Rocked by Protests as Republicans Try to Rig Maps

Protesters packed the Indiana Statehouse Monday to fight against Republican plans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give their party an extra advantage and eliminate the state’s two Democratic congressional seats.

President Trump has pushed for the redistricting, which passed Indiana’s House of Representatives last week. Republicans in the state Senate have warned that there aren’t enough votes for new maps to pass, which Trump has met with insults and threats.

Monday is the last day for public testimony on the bills, and the past week has been full of dueling pro- and anti-redistricting rallies. Loud chants of “Stop the steal” filled the statehouse as lawmakers in the Senate Committee on Elections began their session Monday afternoon, with many protesters bringing homemade signs.

When public testimony began, pro-redistricting speakers were booed and heckled. One person yelled that Republicans were stacking the deck with redistricting supporters, which may be true considering those who signed up to testify on the bill stated their position on the form. Committee chairs often group speakers by position, according to the Indianapolis Star’s Cate Charron.

CNN’s Eric Bradner said that Monday’s anti-redistricting rally was much larger than the pro-redistricting rallies at the Statehouse, including one last week organized by Turning Point USA. The reason for that, CNN reports, is that there isn’t much enthusiasm among Indiana Republicans, with much of the pro-redistricting pressure coming from national groups such as TPUSA and the Club for Growth.

Trump likely sees redistricting as the only way to protect his presidency from a hostile Democratic Congress, and is threatening to support primary challengers to Republican senators who oppose redistricting and calling them names on his Truth Social account. At least 11 elected Indiana Republicans have faced swatting threats, including state Senator Greg Goode, who hadn’t even made any public comments about redistricting.

But in spite of the pressure campaign, Indiana Republicans are not coming out in droves to support the idea.

“It’s ridiculous to bring the whole thing up to begin with, but it’s what the president wants,” Debbie Myers, a Republican small-business owner in Martinsville, Indiana, told CNN about redistricting. “It’s wrong, and it’s a waste of money and a waste of these people’s time, and I don’t think it should have happened.”

President Trump’s former lawyer and interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba is stepping down from her role in the wake of a 3–0 appeals court ruling that found she was “unlawfully” serving in the position.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit  agreed with a lower court’s ruling that Habba was given the U.S. attorney position through a “novel series of legal and personnel moves” and was not legally able to take the job. 

“While I was focused on delivering real results, judges in my state took advantage of a flawed blue slip tradition and became weapons for the politicized left.... They joined New Jersey senators, who care more about fighting President Trump than the well being of residents which they serve,” Habba wrote in her resignation letter, posted on X. “As a result of the Third Circuit’s ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down in my role as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.”

Habba was originally meant to leave her interim position over the summer, as New Jersey federal judges refused to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney. But the Trump administration fired Desiree Grace, the U.S. attorney first assistant and Habba’s planned successor, prior to the end of Habba’s appointment, purposefully leaving the role unfilled. It then made Habba first assistant, allowing her to take the role of acting U.S. attorney without a Senate confirmation—which she may have likely failed. 

“My fight will now stretch across the country. As we wait for further review of the court’s ruling, I will continue to serve the Department of Justice as the Senior Advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys,” Habba’s statement concluded. “Make no mistake, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl.”

It’s not looking so good for former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—or any Democratic appointees at federal agencies.

While hearing arguments Monday in a case challenging Slaughter’s removal earlier this year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed primed to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 case that established Congress can pass laws limiting the president’s ability to fire executive officials of independent federal agencies.

The court’s six conservative justices voiced concerns that agencies wielding executive power weren’t really accountable to the executive, Bloomberg Law reported. “Tomorrow we could have the Labor Commission, the Education Commission, the Environmental Commission, rather than Departments of Interior and so forth,” warned Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The court’s liberal justices weren’t convinced. Justice Elena Kagan said allowing Slaughter’s removal would place “massive, uncontrolled, unchecked power in the hands of the president.”

Only Justice Brett Kavanaugh voiced “concerns” about handing over the Federal Reserve, which is meant to set monetary policy without political interference.

The Supreme Court previously approved Donald Trump’s emergency request to remove Slaughter, despite the rulings of two lower courts and a law stating that presidents may only legally remove FTC commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” At the time, Kagan torched her colleagues for empowering Trump to remove “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all.”

“And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence,” Kagan wrote in her opinion. Slaughter was the only Democrat left on the FTC board.

Breaking with precedent on Humphrey will allow Trump to continue his unfettered firing campaign against Democratic appointees, but it would also grant the president unprecedented control over agencies that regulate the economy, the stock market, as well as federal campaign finance and communication rules.

The Supreme Court previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

President Trump has been quite upset over six Democratic legislators telling members of the military that they have to refuse illegal orders, calling the lawmakers seditious and saying their statements are “punishable by DEATH.”

But as it turns out, Attorney General Pam Bondi has said the same thing.

Last year, as a lawyer for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, Bondi filed a brief with the Supreme Court writing, “Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.”

“The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill nonmilitary targets. Indeed, service members are required not to do so,” Bondi wrote in the brief, filed to support Trump in his effort to convince the Supreme Court to grant him immunity from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Bondi was in fact trying to cover for one of Trump’s lawyers in January 2024, who was asked by Judge Florence Y. Pan in federal appeals court, “Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”

D. John Sauer, who is now Trump’s solicitor general, said no, seeming to hurt his case. Bondi’s friend-of-the-court-brief was meant to cover for Sauer by arguing that Pan’s hypothetical question wasn’t realistic because military officers would disobey such an order.

“A president cannot order an elite military unit to kill a political rival, and the members of the military are required not to carry out such an unlawful order,” Bondi wrote in her brief. “It would be a crime to do so.”

When the case reached the Supreme Court, conservative Justice Samuel Alito agreed.

“I don’t want to slander SEAL Team 6,” Alito said to laughter in the courtroom. “Because they’re—no, seriously, they’re honorable. They’re honorable officers, and they are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice not to obey unlawful orders.”

While the president won his immunity case, the six Democrats have been targeted by Trump’s supporters with violent threats and unrelenting attacks from the White House. And Bondi is not the only administration official who has affirmed that the military should disobey illegal orders—Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is on video saying the same thing in 2016. But to this administration, Trump can’t break the law, only the people who disobey him do.

GOP Representative Brian Fitzpatrick sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday and directly criticized the recent policy decisions of President Trump and the Republican Party in general, further emphasizing the various internal rifts on the right.

The Pennsylvania representative first came for what he sees as his party’s steerless criticism of the Affordable Care Act.

“On health care, you’ve been pushing very hard to deal with these expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, pushing your own plan for this,” Raju said to Fitzpatrick. “But you’re encountering a lot of resistance from within your own party.... What do you say to them?”

“If you don’t have a better plan, then get on board with ours. But doing nothing is not an option,” the representative replied. “I’ve heard so many people in the Republican conference rail against the Affordable Care Act, rail on Obamacare, rail on the premium tax credits.... If you wanna criticize something that’s OK, as long as you have a better alternative. They have never offered a better alternative.”

Fitzpatrick also stressed the affordability issue.

“Everybody’s gotta have an answer to rising costs across the board, whether it be health care or anything. This is what people voted on,” he said. “This is what led to Donald Trump’s election in ’24, I believe it’s what led to Mamdani’s election in ’25. I think affordability is the issue, that’s what trumps everything else.”

“The president himself called affordability a Democratic scam,” Raju replied.

“I don’t believe that to be true. At all.”

“Do you find those comments problematic?”

“I don’t know what he was intending, I’ve heard him say the opposite of that, that he wants to focus on affordability,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know where he’s going with that.... I can just tell you from my standpoint, affordability is the most important issue. Issue number one.”

Fitzpatrick reserved some of his harshest criticism for how Trump has handled Russia’s war on Ukraine, as the president has pushed what many have referred to as a 28-point pro-Putin peace plan.

“I have not liked the way either this or the prior administration has handled this.... We need a lot more moral clarity out of the administration,” he said. “Vladimir Putin invaded a peace-loving democracy. Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a legitimately elected president, Vladimir Putin is an unelected dictator. Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia has kidnapped close to 20,000 Ukrainian children. It is genocide, it is war crimes, and we have to call that out for what it is.”

“Has Trump been too deferential to Putin?”

“I believe so.”

This interview comes as narratives of GOP disharmony are peaking, sparked by MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of Trump’s disdain for anything but his own agenda, and her subsequent resignation announcement.

“I think emotions are really high… A lot of our colleagues are frustrated that their legislation has not been brought to the floor.… It’s a lack of priorities.”

While other Republicans recently criticizing Trump plan on retiring, Fitzpatrick has confirmed his intention to run for reelection in 2026.

There could be a major switch-up at the Department of Homeland Security “really soon.”

In a drastic turn of events, Donald Trump is reportedly considering replacing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem with outbound Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. That could make Noem the first person to be pushed out of Trump’s second-term Cabinet.

Noem has unquestioningly carried out practically every element of the president’s immigration agenda and endlessly fawned over his leadership. Last week, Noem nonsensically thanked Trump for keeping hurricanes at bay since he returned to office. Yet none of that has been enough to keep her in the administration’s good graces, because even while Trump may be satisfied with her performance, top White House officials have become increasingly frustrated with Noem’s sphere of influence—specifically, the tenure of her chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski, reported The Bulwark.

Three former DHS officials with ties to the current staff told the digital publication that the changeover could happen “really soon,” giving the term-limited Youngkin a future in Washington.

CNN reported in late November that Youngkin has “expressed more interest in an economic or business portfolio, rather than one focused on immigration” but would still be “excited by the prospect of joining the Cabinet.”

Lewandowski denied The Bulwark’s report, commenting to the outlet that “none of that is true.”

Exactly what a Noem exit means for DHS—or the president’s immigration agenda—is not clear, though political analysts predict that Youngkin could be less abrasive than his predecessor, a woman who bragged about killing her dog in order to curry favor with the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

“If he gets the gig, he probably won’t be as flashily cruel as Noem has been,” argued The New Republic’s editor, Michael Tomasky. “But there’s every reason to think that he’ll do just what Stephen Miller tells him to do—if only because he’s leaving Richmond with his political future in shambles and needs to revive his career. If the Trump Cabinet is his meal ticket, he’ll follow orders.”

DHS staffers, meanwhile, are reportedly looking forward to the leadership change.

“Things are fucked” at the department, a former staffer relayed on behalf of a current DHS official to The Bulwark. “It’s horrible.”

“‘They’re going to destroy this place. I’m just hoping the new secretary gets here in time.’”

President Trump is almost certainly supporting Paramount’s hostile takeover bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN. 

After Netflix announced they were acquiring the media and entertainment company in an $83 billion cash-and-stock deal Friday, Paramount on Monday announced a $108.4 billion cash offer in a takeover bid that reeks of Trump’s cooperation. Trump was asked over the weekend if he thought Netflix should be allowed to make the deal, and he flat-out said he would be involved in the ultimate decision. 

“They have a very big market share. And when they have Warner Bros. you know that share goes up a lot, so I don’t know, that’s going to be for some economists to tell and also I’ll be involved in that decision too,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center Honors.  

Paramount CEO David Ellison went on CNBC Monday morning to talk about Paramount’s bid, and tried to play coy about how Trump would feel about Ellison taking over CNN, a news network that Trump has railed against over “unfair” coverage. 

“We’ve had great conversations with the president about this, but I don’t want to speak for him in any way, shape or form,” Ellison said. Those great conversations have reportedly involved which CNN hosts to fire if Ellison takes over the network and putting CBS’s 60 Minutes on CNN. 

Paramount’s takeover bid also involves Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, specifically his private equity firm Affinity Partners, as well as sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. Paramount conveniently left that out of the press release announcing the takeover. 

Paramount’s owners, Larry Ellison and his son David, are staunch Trump supporters and are building a right-wing media empire, having CBS in their Paramount portfolio, acquiring the anti-woke publication The Free Press, and also bringing TikTok under U.S. ownership to push pro-Israel views. 

All of this suggests that Trump, through the Ellisons, is trying to force mainstream media outlets into submission and cease critical coverage. Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos may have helped his Warner Bros. deal thanks to private meetings with the president, but if it comes down to a choice between that or having the Ellisons take over CNN with his son-in-law’s help to make it pro-Trump, it’s clear what Trump would prefer. 

The online MAGA-verse were at each other’s throats more than usual this weekend, as right-wing commentators Benny Johnson, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Tucker Carlson were all points of controversy.

The first tiff started on Saturday, when Yiannopoulos—who has made a name for himself as an openly gay far-right bigot—accused multiple conservative influencers like Johnson and Charlie Kirk of being closeted gay men on Tim Pool’s podcast with swindler and former MAGA Representative George Santos, who is also gay.

“One of the most distinctive things about the right-wing in this country is its homosexual overtones. Benny Johnson posts pictures of his children every two days—it’s weird. And everybody knows what went on with Benny Johnson in those lobbies and those hotel rooms at SAS. Everybody knows,” said Yiannopoulos.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Santos replied.

“Men, younger men. Not underage, at least I don’t know that. His wife was crying drunk in the lobby three SAS’s in a row about how her husband was upstairs with boys,” Yiannopoulos claimed. “Go ask her.”

“Come on, Milo, aren’t you ever scared of getting sued?” Santos asked.

Yiannopoulos insisted he was telling the truth, and that he’d never been sued.

On Sunday, Johnson threatened to sue him.

“I am duty bound to take action to protect my family against those who maliciously defame and attack us. More to come on that soon,” he wrote. “Pray for healing for some really sick and delusional people. Jesus is about redemption. The legal system is about justice. Happy Sunday.”

Yiannopoulos responded in a message addressed to Johnson and his wife, Kate:

“I know more about defamation than any lawyer you will hire. Benny is a public figure. Malice is a nonstarter. I have receipts, and the truth is a total defense against any claim of defamation or libel. Do you want to lose a defamation case to MILO YIANNOPOULOS OF ALL PEOPLE about whether or not you are gay? Do you want to even fight one? The people who have poured money into making you a big deal are about to lose their entire investment,” he ranted.

“I know more about your marriage than you think I do,” he continued, “and I have evidence, and I have witnesses. I know who to subpoena. I know what questions to ask. About nocturnal liaisons dangereuses with chaps in assless chaps and about being caught in flagrante delicto at conferences attended by students, some of whom may have been under 18 (I guess we’ll find out!).”

Yiannopoulos also claimed that Turning Point USA may have faked Charlie Kirk’s death.

Meanwhile, other far-righters—mostly Islamophobes and Zionists—were at pundit Tucker Carlson’s throat for his purchase of a property in Qatar.

“Speaking on stage at the Doha Forum in Qatar, Tucker Carlson told Qatar’s Prime Minister Al Thani that he is buying a place in Qatar this week because he’s an ‘American”; and he will live and go wherever he wants,” MAGA crank Laura Loomer posted on Sunday. “Qatar is the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood and they continue to allow HAMAS officials to live in Doha, where Tucker now wants to buy a place to live.”

“Let me explain the joke: Qatar is a bloodthirsty, terror-supporting slave state, and Tucker Carlson is rubbing it in your face that he’s an unregistered foreign agent for them,” another account wrote.

It’s clear that Trump’s base is fraying at the seams. From those questioning the validity of Trump’s “America First” and our fealty to Israel, like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Tucker Carlson, to those like Yiannopoulos spreading conspiracy theories only Candace Owens would touch, it’s clear that whatever base of hatred Trump still has is fractured.

Vice President JD Vance offered up a defense for his own racism so baffling that it makes you wonder: What in the world are they teaching at Yale Law School? 

Vance slammed an X account for paraphrasing one of his anti-immigrant tirades as “completely dishonest”—before confirming that he pretty much agreed with the sentiment anyway.

During an October interview with conservative podcaster Miranda Devine, Vance made a series of comments claiming Americans struggled living next door to immigrants. 

“‘Well, wait a second. What is going on here? I don’t know these people. They don’t speak the same language that I do.’ And because there are 20 in the house next door, it’s a little bit rowdier than it was when there was just a family of four or a family of five,” Vance said on the podcast.

“It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I wanna live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers,’” Vance said. 

Vance’s comments were old-school racist, as he proselytized about the invented struggles of not living in a homogeneous community made up of white, English-speaking, nuclear families. The inclusion of immigrant families meant noise and chaos for their well-meaning white neighbors. Vance, who has previously admitted to telling racist lies for attention, uses comments like these to justify the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and deportation efforts. 

On X, hedge fund manager and frequent anti-Trump poster Spencer Hakimian offered a summation of Vance’s comments: “It’s totally reasonable to not want neighbors who speak another language.” 

Vance hit back in a post of his own. “First of all, it’s just a made up quote. Completely dishonest,” he wrote, referring to Hakimian.  

“Second, what’s reasonable is to want to share a language with your neighbor. How do you borrow a cup of sugar? Resolve disagreements? Have a nice conversation? You need a common language, and in America, that language is English,” Vance wrote. “The far left became so deranged on immigration that they’re attacking people for wanting to be able to speak to their neighbors.”

In one fell swoop, Vance denied thinking it was reasonable to not want neighbors who don’t speak English, before clarifying that it was not unreasonable to want your neighbors to speak English. If your defense of racism is to offer up a brainteaser, you may be working too hard. 

Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum Monday, demanding an apology from Paramount after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene bashed him on their network—and it’ll probably work.

In an interview on 60 Minutes Sunday, Greene, a recent MAGA defector, exposed just how much Republican lawmakers hate Trump and slammed his second-term agenda.

In his meltdown, Trump continued to elaborate on his inane nickname for “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” in a post on Truth Social, writing, “Green turns Brown under stress!” and “She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple!”

But Greene wasn’t the only recipient of the president’s ire.

“My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME!” Trump wrote.

Paramount has already bent over backward to build a pro-Trump media behemoth. Earlier this year, the organization paid $16 million to Trump to settle a lawsuit over an edited 60 Minutes interview of failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, clearing the way for a merger with Skydance. (Months later, it chopped up an interview with the president to make him sound normal.)

Paramount later installed Bari Weiss, a boring center-right pundit, to lead CBS News and started to install editorial rules to benefit Trump’s administration. Hell, Paramount even agreed to revive the Rush Hour movies after Trump begged his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison, whose son David runs Paramount Skydance.

Why will the president’s childish outburst probably get him exactly what he wants? On Monday, Paramount launched a $104.8 billion hostile bid to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Warner Bros., after losing out to Netflix. Semafor reported that Paramount executives had initially been hopeful Trump would step in to block the sale to Netflix, but the president had demurred. Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump said he would be “involved” in the Warner Bros. sale, positioning himself as a dealmaker for interested parties to suck up to.