Second Republican Governor Rejects Trump’s Gerrymandering Wars

Another Republican governor is refusing to bend to Donald Trump’s demand to rig their state’s elections in his favor.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a longtime Trump ally, is not preparing to call a special legislative session to redraw his state’s congressional map mid-decade, his office told Palmetto Politics.

McMaster’s office told the outlet that he had been in communication with the White House following the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act last week, but the governor’s office rejected the idea it was being “pressured” by the Trump administration. His office insisted that it was part of “ongoing coordination” with the White House and the talks were simply part of the “regular communications” the governor enjoys with Trump.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, McMaster suggested that it could be worth reviewing South Carolina’s congressional map, noting that it had been upheld as recently as 2024. “In light of the Court’s most recent decision on the Voting Rights Act, it would be appropriate for the General Assembly to ensure that South Carolina’s congressional map still complies with all requirements of federal law and the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote in a post on X.

South Carolina currently has six Republicans and one Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Last week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, another Republican, also said that he wouldn’t pursue mid-decade redistricting in light of the recent Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, Trump has continued to threaten red states that refuse to rig their elections in his favor.

Republicans are now trying to get $1 billion in taxpayer funding for President Trump’s ballroom.

Senator Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, included a request for the funds in a reconciliation package released Monday night. The $1 billion would go to the Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the ballroom’s construction. An additional $30.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $3.5 billion for Customs and Border Protection were also included in the budget item.

In a statement Monday, Grassley said, “Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families. We will work to ensure this critical funding gets signed into law without unnecessary delay.”

The reconciliation process allows for a simple majority in the Senate, meaning that if there is no Republican opposition, Trump will get the ballroom funds. It’s quite an increase from the $400 million in tax dollars that Senate Republicans asked for last month, and from the zero dollars from taxpayers that Trump promised. But he must have his ballroom, whether the American people want it or not.

President Trump is still beefing with Pope Leo XIV, accusing the first American pope of “endangering a lot of Catholics,” on The Hugh Hewitt Show on Monday.

Trump attacked the pope unprovoked after Hewitt said perhaps the pope could speak up about China’s detention of Hong Kong billionaire Jimmy Lai.

“Well, the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.… I don’t think that’s very good,” Trump said. “I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people, but I guess, if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”​

It’s clear that Trump has been extremely bothered by the pope’s very measured criticism last month, and consumed with this one-sided beef ever since. Trump is claiming that Pope Leo is “endangering” Catholics because he wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Pope Leo XIV never said anything close to that. Instead, he simply criticized Trump’s war on Iran and his genocidal threats accompanying it, and the president has been crashing out since, calling him “weak on crime” and putting words in his mouth to cope.

The White House is forecasting a rough November for congressional Republicans.

In private briefings, attorneys at the White House Counsel’s Office are preparing executive branch staff for a blue wave in the 2026 elections, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The 30-minute briefings feature a PowerPoint presentation detailing how congressional oversight works and best practices for handling it, reported the Post. Other components of the past-due education involve guidance on how to respond to congressional inquiries in a timely manner.

“It’s obvious to everyone that it’s very likely,” one attending official told the Post. “It was a sober-eyed conversation.”

A White House official said that the meetings were “nothing new” and that the counsel’s office has provided oversight guidance to relevant stakeholders since Donald Trump returned to office.

Yet multiple sources that spoke with the Post explained that recent meetings with the office were acutely focused on the midterms and their fallout.

Trump, who was once a golden ticket for the Republican Party at the ballot box, has in his second term cooked up a litany of issues, any one of which could be a death knell for conservatives come November.

In the 15 months since he returned to America’s highest office, Trump has launched the U.S. into a war with Iran, sparking a global energy crisis that has raised the cost of living pretty much everywhere. He also invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, Nicolás Maduro, axed thousands of staffers from the federal government and crippled some government agencies, and used his office to target his political opponents.

He has hobbled America’s press, sowed doubt and distrust in the country’s democratic elections, undermined the judiciary system, pardoned hundreds of people who served his personal interests—such as those who attacked Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021—imposed nonsensical tariffs on U.S. trading partners, aggressed America’s international alliances, abused the purpose of executive orders, and endorsed violent immigration policies and detention centers that have been compared to concentration camps, among other issues.

His lagging popularity has been reflected in nationwide polls: 62 percent of Americans disapprove of the president, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published Friday, a growth of two percentage points since the poll was previously conducted in February.

Despite the cost of his own influence, the president has placed enormous pressure on his party to win, well aware of the consequences that await him if they don’t.

“You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump said in January. “I’ll get impeached.”

President Donald Trump derailed his own speech Monday to insist how mentally healthy he is, following new poll data showing that a record high of Americans think he’s lost his mind.

“I feel the same as I felt 50 years ago, I don’t know,” Trump told the audience at a small-business summit at the White House.

“I’ll say, ‘I’m not feeling well’—well, someday, I might say that to you, and you’ll be the first to know. Actually I won’t have to say it, because you’ll be able to see it, just like you did in the last administration,” Trump said.

Americans have already been seeing Trump’s apparent cognitive decline: A recent poll found that 59 percent of Americans don’t think Trump has the mental acuity to serve as president, and 55 percent think he is not in physical shape to do so.

Trump continued ranting about his pitch to require candidates for office to take cognitive tests. “No president has ever taken one except me, and I’ve taken three of them. And I’ve aced each one,” he said.

Trump went on to describe the test, which sounds a lot like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a 10-minute assessment designed to identify signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is not a test for intelligence.

“You know the first question is very easy. They always show the first question, it’s: You have a lion, a bear, an alligator, and a—what’s another good—a squirrel, OK? Which is the squirrel?” Trump said, claiming the questions got increasingly complex.

He then veered into a tirade against California Governor Gavin Newsom before resuming his point. “I think everyone in this room is brilliant, but nobody’s gonna get all 30 questions correct. Nobody. ’Cause when you get to those last questions they’re pretty hard, you got to be pretty sharp.

“One doctor said, ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone get all questions right.’ That’s a doctor, who does this stuff for a living. And I did it three times. So, I don’t know. I think I’m done with those days, I’m tired of taking those tests,” Trump said.

Trump segued again, insisting on the importance of picking an intelligent leader during times of war. He went on to claim that his military campaign in Iran only lasted six weeks, though the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for more than two months; that the Vietnam War lasted 19 years, even though the U.S. was only really involved for eight; and that the war in Iraq was 10 or 12 years long, when, again, it was really only eight.