12 Republicans Break Ranks to Stop Trump Stealing More House Seats

South Carolina has decided not to get involved in President Donald Trump’s redistricting war.

The state Senate voted 24–20 Tuesday to leave their House districts alone for the upcoming midterm elections. Twelve Republicans broke ranks and joined every Democrat state senator in the surprise decision.

A few legislators, such as Republican state Senator Richard Cash, changed their votes due to timing. Early voting in South Carolina primaries began on Tuesday.

“Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway,” Cash said.

This is a developing story.

President Trump wants federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements, a move that would place even more constraints on a disgruntled workforce that has been targeted by this administration.

The Office of Personnel Management released a draft NDA Tuesday that could be used by federal agencies.

“The form is intended to document Federal employees’ acknowledgment of, and agreement to comply with, current legal obligations to safeguard non-public, confidential, or proprietary information, created or obtained through their official duties, while expressly preserving the right to make disclosures authorized by law,” the OPM notice reads. “OPM believes that a governmentwide NDA form will promote consistency across Government, better protect confidential information, and better inform Federal employees of their rights and obligations regarding confidential information.”

The OPM also keeps the definition for what constitutes “confidential or proprietary information” extremely broad, including “information relating to internal agency operations, personnel matters, procurement processes, or any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material that is not currently publicly available.” Agencies can choose whether to implement the NDAs, and whistleblowers are still protected under federal law if calling out waste, fraud, and abuse.

Either Donald Trump himself wrote the Justice Department’s latest court filing, or whoever did is a big fan of his writing style.

MeidasTouch correspondent Scott MacFarlane flagged the strange similarities between Trump’s syntax and a Sunday filing submitted to a Washington, D.C., district court regarding his presidential ballroom.

The four-page document is littered with the unnecessary capitalization of terms such as “Project” and “Top Secret.” Trump, too, loves capitalizing random words in his social media posts.

The document contains multiple run-on sentences full of commas, another Trumpian quirk of grammar. The best example of this is an almost Joyceian line on page three:

This meritless Lawsuit has been a great attack on our Country in that the Military, Secret Service, and Law Enforcement are not happy that all of these Top Secret features have been revealed to potential enemies, criminals, and all others, including the fact that there will be a major drone port and Government sniper facilities on the heavily secured roof of the Ballroom, all for the sake of an unhappy passerby, a woman with absolutely no standing, represented by the “National Trust,” which was defunded by Congress due to a total lack of respect for them.

Just as striking as the syntax is the document’s claims about the ballroom. The filing boldly asserts that “without the construction of this great Project, the President cannot safely conduct the business of the United States.” It also contains wild architectural specifications, such as that the ballroom roof “be hermetically sealed to prevent malign forces from contaminating the circulating air.”

Finally, the document suggests that that construction is somehow “under budget,” despite the Senate’s recent request for $220 million in taxpayer money to go toward ballroom “security.” The White House had initially claimed the ballroom would be funded with $200 million from Trump and “other patriot donors,” before that number later doubled to $400 million.

The filing was submitted by three members of the Justice Department: Stanley Woodward Jr., R. Trent McCotter, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

While it’s a fun theory, The New Republic is doubtful that Trump himself wrote the filing. First of all, the president would never put effort into doing something and then not take credit for it. Second, despite the dozens of errors, the prose still reads better than most of the president’s Truth Social rants.

President Trump may soon have his name on the busiest train station in the country.

Newly released design renderings of a renovation project for New York’s Penn Station, first reported by Gothamist, show a large presidential seal with Trump’s name, along with gold railings, columns, and escalators in Trump’s signature style.

The federal government took over the renovation project from the regional Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year, with Amtrak overseeing it. Trump wants work on the station to start by the end of 2027, and the bidding process has already drawn flak from New York elected officials for its lack of transparency. Amtrak and the U.S. Department of Transportation last week announced Penn Transformation Partners as the project’s “master developer,” a group of private companies including real estate developers and engineering firms.

The new designs have a big glass entrance on Eighth Avenue that would let in natural light, but require the destruction of the Theater at Madison Square Garden and part of the garden’s facade. A large plaque with “President Donald J. Trump” would be inscribed in marble inside the southwest corner of the Eighth Avenue entrance next to a presidential seal, according to images obtained by Gothamist.

The White House had floated renaming the station “Trump Station” in February, but the renderings show the existing name remaining. New York Governor Kathy Hochul joked in April 2025 that she would be open to renaming Penn Station after the president if he came up with the funds for renovation.

Donald Trump is preparing to meet several key administration officials at Camp David on Wednesday as Iranian peace talks fall apart.

The impromptu presidential retreat will include every Cabinet member, including outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Inclement weather could alter the plans at the eleventh hour, however. Trump typically flies to the 125-acre Maryland compound via helicopter, but heavy rain battering Washington could challenge his route and ultimately change the meeting location.

Trump’s twelfth visit to the Catoctin Mountain park will focus on “recent successes of the administration including economy and small business wins, Task Force to Eliminate Fraud highlights, and foreign policy updates,” a White House official told the Post.

The crumbling prospect of peace with Iran, however, is expected to dominate the conversation.

The U.S. attacked Iranian boats and missile launch sites late Monday, according to U.S. Central Command, violating the ceasefire mere hours after Iranian officials arrived in Qatar for discussions to end the war. The boats were reportedly attempting to lay more mines along the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman.

Iranian state media confirmed that some of the attacks hit Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port city that is home to the country’s key naval and air bases. State media reported that explosions occurred in other cities, as well.

CENTCOM characterized the strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying they were intended “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.”

Shortly afterward, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei threatened American military bases in the Middle East, writing in Farsi on his official X account that “America will no longer have a safe haven for mischief and the establishment of military bases in the region.” Khamenei further vowed that the phrases “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” would remain the rallying cry of the Islamic community and “the oppressed of the world, especially the youth.”

New Jersey GOP Representative Tom Kean—who has been missing from Congress and his own neighborhood for nearly three months—is still finding time to make money trading stocks.

NOTUS reported on Tuesday that Kean submitted an electronic signature on Friday disclosing that he’d traded stocks personally in April—a move that would raise questions about insider trading even if anyone knew where he was. This is the second time Kean disclosed his trades even as he’s missed a whopping 90 House votes.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I think it should be a bigger story that a sitting Republican member of Congress is missing, nobody knows where he is, yet he’s somehow still insider trading,” political commentator Mike Nellis wrote on Tuesday.

Nearly five weeks ago, Kean told the public he was absent due to a “personal health matter,” and would return shortly. He did not elaborate on the health matter.

“You couldn’t make up a better avatar of the 119th Congress than a Congressman who misses all floor votes but still trades stocks,” political scientist Alex Garlick said.

Aside from the stock trading, Kean has also continued to send out newsletters, signed off on travel expenses to Las Vegas for staff, and himself used Amtrak and rideshare apps in San Francisco—far away from his home district, and well into his mysterious absence. Kean’s condition may very well be serious. But if he’s going to be sending newsletters, catching Ubers, and trading stocks, he’ll need a more detailed explanation for his sabbatical.

The Iran war continues to divide Donald Trump’s social media cultists.

After reports that the Trump administration was finally getting around to ending its incredibly expensive and pointless military campaign, Republican Senator Ted Cruz criticized the peacemaking on X.

“I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’” Cruz wrote Saturday. “If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’—now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

MAGA influencer Alex Bruesewitz jumped on Cruz for daring to question Dear Leader: “Cool, Ted. No one asked you, bro. Stop trying to undermine the President and his administration.”

“Hush, child,” Cruz replied. “The adults are talking. I’m not your ‘bro.’ And young political grifters pushing Iran appeasement are not remotely helping the President.”

Bruesewitz, a 29-year-old Trump adviser who helps the administration post memes on social media, was ready with a fittingly immature reply.

“Sorry you’re still salty that I prevented you from getting a picture with Nicki Minaj after you came running after her like a school girl,” he wrote. “You’re going to get wiped out in 2028, clown.”

Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received similar treatment on Saturday after he mused that “the deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman–Robert Malley–Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to build a [weapons of mass destruction] program and terrorize the world. Not remotely America First.”

This time, it was White House spokesman Steven Cheung who “clapped back,” or whatever.

“Mike Pompeo has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about,” Cheung said. “He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He’s not read into anything that’s happening, so how would he know.”

The fact that this is how the White House communications director speaks to people is both shocking and kind of funny. While Cruz’s and Pompeo’s neoconservative bloodlust is despicable, it’s hard to see Bruesewitz’s and Cheung’s ridiculous fealty to Trump as any better. Their insistence that Trump knows what he’s doing in Iran is also provably false. One supposes the silver lining here is that the MAGA coalition is sadder and more dysfunctional than ever.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie has vowed to go scorched earth on the Trump administration—by unveiling previously unmentioned names related to the Epstein files.

The rogue Kentucky lawmaker pointed fingers at Donald and Melania Trump during an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday, claiming that the first lady is well aware that the Justice Department’s public rollout of its investigation into the pedophilic web is incomplete.

Acting Attorney General “Todd Blanche is violating the law; there’s still millions of files they haven’t released,” Massies said. “We know from talking to the victims’ lawyers that their own 302 forms haven’t been released. We know the files have been over-redacted.

“I have released at least three names of billionaires who are implicated in this. I don’t think it’s possible to get to convictions with Todd Blanche at the top, and with the FBI Director Kash Patel at the top, because they’ve effectively both perjured themselves by saying that there’s nobody else in the files.

“Even Melania doesn’t believe that: The first lady knows that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone,” Massie said.

Last month, Melania delivered an oddly timed public address that surprised even the president. In a short speech, she denied having any sort of relationship with Epstein or his longtime girlfriend and criminal associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. She also criticized media coverage that tied the three of them together (despite their having been photographed together), and called on Congress to allow Epstein’s victims to testify.

Trump was reportedly not informed of what his wife would tell the public ahead of time, but said afterward that the content of Melania’s speech didn’t “bother” him and that she “had a right to talk about it.”

Massie underscored that the Epstein Files Transparency Act “is a law” that will force the files’ release “for years.”

“So, if we can’t get this attorney general and this FBI director to do the right thing, the next ones who take those seats are obligated by law to release the files that these individuals are not releasing now,” Massie concluded.

Massie—a longtime critic of the president—lost his primary race last week to a Trump-backed candidate. But even before the primary vote, Massie had become increasingly unbeholden to MAGA loyalties, voting (and speaking) his mind, much to the president’s chagrin.

A federal court in Alabama has struck down Republicans’ attempt to redraw the state’s congressional map, on the grounds that it intentionally discriminates against Black voters.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court ruled that the state could not switch to its 2023 congressional map, which had previously been blocked in court three years ago, even after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act earlier this month. That earlier map only had one majority-Black, Democratic-leaning district, as opposed to the current two.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges said in their ruling. Two of the three judges were appointed by President Trump himself.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to redraw its maps, sending the redistricting process down to the lower court. Republicans will almost certainly appeal Tuesday’s ruling, sending it back up to the high court.

Alabama Republicans have ignored protests and even natural disasters in order to force through a new congressional map as primary elections draw near. Governor Kay Ivey last week delayed four of the state’s congressional primaries in anticipation of the new map. For now, though, three federal judges are blocking their attempt.

“There is no convincing evidence that it is necessary for us to allow Alabama to pivot to the 2023 Plan in the middle of an election, and substantial evidence that it is not,” the judges ruled.

This story has been updated.

To be a Donald Trump–endorsed political candidate, you must possess many qualities: integrity. Empathy. Intelligence. A love of the United States and all who inhabit it.

Just kidding! You don’t have to have any of those things. You just have to suck up to him more than the other guy.

The president made that clearer than ever in a post to Truth Social Sunday, in which he explained the complex reasons behind his endorsement of Ken Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary.

Paxton was “very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” Trump wrote. “Ken’s opponent was VERY disloyal to me.”

Trump’s obsession with fealty over everything is quite pronounced in the case of Paxton, an awful person with a long history of scandals.

Paxton cheated on his wife, was impeached by the state House on corruption charges, and illegally helped donors by targeting their enemies as state attorney general. Last month, his office offered a sweetheart plea deal to a repeated child molester that would see the offender spend just one day in jail.

Paxton should never be able to get the endorsement of a sitting president. It’s not even like his Republican rival, John Cornyn, doesn’t suck up to Trump. But Paxton has given the president lavish, consistent support over the years. It’s as simple as that for our commander in chief.

Paxton will face Cornyn in a runoff Tuesday night that is projected to go Trump’s way. The winner will advance to the general in November against Democrat James Talarico, a progressive Christian with a quiet cadence and the face of a Boy Scout.

Talarico won a close primary of his own against Representative Jasmine Crockett in March. He will have an uphill battle in a state as red and as anti-abortion as Texas, but is actually ahead in recent polls. Election pundits such as Nate Silver are giving Talarico a good shot, particularly if the controversial Paxton wins Tuesday.