How Trump’s Redistricting Plan in Indiana Blew Up in His Face

After enduring months of bullying by the president to pass his gerrymandering plan, Indiana Republicans overwhelmingly voted to kill the effort on Thursday. Their rationale for doing so, however, was shockingly personal.

Anxious about the 2026 midterms, Trump issued directives to several red states, including Indiana, to redraw their congressional maps in order to bolster Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House. In Indiana’s case, that unprecedented, longshot effort would win the GOP two more seats in the U.S. House.

There were plenty of reasons to put the kibosh on the initiative. For one, doing so in the middle of the decade would be extraordinary. While political gerrymandering is technically legal, it typically aligns with the release of census data at the beginning of a new decade.

Initial reports speculated that just a handful of Republican state senators would reject the bid to draw new congressional maps. Instead, 21 Republican state senators voted against it—more than half the GOP caucus in Indiana’s upper chamber—citing reasons from personal disgust with the president’s language to the personal, violent threats they endured for considering voting against the effort, according to CNN.

“Hoosiers are a hardy lot, and they don’t like to be threatened. They don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be bullied in any fashion. And I think a lot of them responded with, ‘That isn’t going to work,’” state Senator Sue Glick told CNN. “And it didn’t.”

State Senator Michael Bohacek—a longtime disability advocate whose daughter has Down syndrome—pulled his support for the new maps after Trump called Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded.”

“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” Bohacek said in a statement. “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

State Senator Greg Walker said he voted no after he felt targeted by several swatting attempts. Voting yes, he told CNN, would have only encouraged the dangerous harassment.

In the end, the White House’s pressure campaign was costing Republicans support in their own districts. State Senator Jean Leising told the network that, after speaking at her grandson’s middle school this past fall, practically every member of his basketball team had fielded text messages about her—”and they were all bad.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost it Thursday when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins quoted President Trump’s own statements on the economy and Christmas.

“If the economy is as strong as the president has said it is, then why is he telling parents two weeks before Christmas that they should only buy two or three dolls for their children?” Collins asked, referring to Trump’s comments at a rally in Pennsylvania Tuesday, in which the president told a Mount Pocono crowd, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice. You don’t need 37 dolls.”

Leavitt tried to deflect, saying that Trump actually meant that he wants products made in America by American small businesses, even if they cost more, because Americans would get a better-quality product and would be supporting their fellow Americans.

“Again, with respect to affordability, every economic metric, Kaitlan, and I wish you would report more on it, does in fact show that the economy is getting better and brighter than where it was under the previous administration,” Leavitt added, specifically pointing to inflation, real wages, and gas prices.

Collins pressed further, pointing out that grocery prices have been up, but Leavitt kept repeating that inflation was down and that the press didn’t report on the high levels of inflation under President Biden.

“My predecessor stood up at this podium and she said inflation doesn’t exist. She said the border was secure, and people like you just took her at her word, and those were two utter lies. Everything I’m telling you is the truth backed by real factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it because you want to push untrue narratives about the president,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt’s replies did nothing to explain why Trump would tell people to settle for less this holiday season. At his Pennsylvania rally, the president was repeating comments he made in the spring to try and explain away the impact his tariffs were having on consumer goods. But back then, as well as this week, his comments only raised more questions about the economic health of the U.S., and no amount of bluster by his staff can shut those questions down.

Want to visit the United States? Customs and Border Patrol will make you submit your social media history—and your family history and DNA too.

In an 11-page notice published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, CBP outlined several proposed changes to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, which screens and approves applicants traveling into the United States through the Visa Waiver Program.

Under the new rules, social media would become a “mandatory data element” for ESTA applications, and all applicants would be required to submit a social media history going back five years. But that’s not all.

The notice also said that it would add several “high value data fields” to the ESTA application, including “biometrics.” Examples listed were face, fingerprint, iris, and even DNA.

The Department of Homeland Security announced in November that it would begin uniformly collecting facial biometrics from all noncitizens upon entry and exit to the United States, removing prior exemptions for some travelers. In the new rules, CBP states that applicants, including third parties applying on an individual’s behalf, would be required to provide a “selfie” of the applicant’s face in addition to their passport photo.

Other “high value data fields” include information about applicants’ family members, their names, phone numbers, and addresses, as well as when and where they were born.

Travelers would also be prompted to submit their personal and business telephone numbers used in the last five years, and email addresses used in the last 10 years.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem abruptly ended her time before the House Homeland Security Committee Thursday, angering lawmakers by stepping away from the hot seat to attend a highly anticipated meeting on the future of FEMA.

Except that meeting never happened.

The FEMA hearing was scheduled to take place at 1 p.m. Noem was reportedly informed at 12:26 p.m. that it had been canceled, a DHS spokesperson told The Hill.

Just minutes before receiving that notification, Noem told the committee, “I have to actually leave this hearing early, because the FEMA Review Council is giving their report today on suggestions for changes to FEMA.

“I have to co-chair it, but I will be leaving soon to have to go do that,” she mentioned while responding to a question about FEMA’s distribution of funds.

Noem left shortly afterward, before Democratic Representative Julie Johnson had a chance to grill Noem herself. In response, Johnson made a comment that summed up her caucus’s collective reaction to the ICE captain’s time on Capitol Hill.

“I’m just going to take the position that she was scared of my questions,” Johnson quipped.

But rather than return to the hearing, which continued for a couple more hours, Noem simply … left.

It’s not a good time for Noem to be scurrying away from her responsibilities. In a drastic turn of events, Donald Trump is reportedly considering replacing Noem with outbound Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a decision that would make Noem the first person to be pushed out of Trump’s second-term Cabinet.

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

Trump established the FEMA council by executive order in January, around the same time that he pitched it would be better to do away with FEMA altogether in favor of handing disaster money directly to the states. The council is co-chaired by Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t deny that the Trump administration was illegally deporting people with ongoing asylum cases.

Noem spiraled out during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday, after Representative Dan Goldman pressed her on the government’s efforts to deport lawful asylum-seekers. There have been mounting reports that asylum cases are being routinely dismissed by immigration judges, and the asylum-seekers are then taken into ICE custody for expedited removal.

The New York Democrat asked Noem whether she agreed that asylum was a lawful pathway to citizenship and that immigrants with ongoing asylum applications were legally in the country. Noem agreed asylum was “a lawful pathway.”

“So, if your department then deports anyone with an ongoing asylum application, you are violating the law, correct?” Goldman asked.

Noem immediately became defensive. “Joe Biden left us with a [inaudible] five billion cases backlogged,” she replied, attempting to dodge the question.

“I’m not asking about Joe Biden, I’m asking you a specific question,” Goldman said. “If your department deports anyone with an ongoing asylum application, you are violating the law, correct?”

But Noem continued to speak monotonously throughout the lawmaker’s repeated requests to answer the question, claiming that the Biden administration had “greatly violated” the asylum law.

“Why are you filibustering? Why can’t you answer the question? It’s a simple question,” Goldman asked, but the secretary continued to rant that the “asylum program was broken under the last administration.”

Clearly, Noem had no intention of openly copping to breaking the law—but Goldman said her artless obfuscation did it for her, since yes was the “obvious answer.”

“If you don’t like the asylum system, you change the asylum law. Bring it to us. We’ll work with you. I think it needs to be changed. But you can’t just decide that you’re not gonna follow the law—and asylum is a law—and deport people with ongoing applications. Unfortunately, that is exactly what’s happening,” Goldman said.

ICE attorneys at immigration hearings are increasingly asking immigration judges to dismiss asylum cases, and the Trump administration has instructed judges to grant quick dismissals. At the same time, the Trump administration has purged dozens of immigration judges and sought to recruit so-called “deportation judges” to help ramp up the government’s soft ethnic cleansing.