Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Despite weeks of threats and mounting pressure from President Trump, Indiana Republican senators defied Donald Trump’s redistricting pressure campaign in Indiana this week. It was a stunning loss for Trump’s ongoing gerrymandering blitz as he pressures red states across the nation to redraw their maps to try to ensure Republicans hold the U.S. House in the midterms.
In a 31-19 vote on Thursday, Indiana state senators rejected a gerrymandered map proposal that would have redrawn district lines to favor Republicans, and one that would have effectively kicked Indiana Democrats out of representation in the U.S. House.
Several Indiana lawmakers have been outspoken about the reasons for why they did not cave to Trump’s bully tactics. The decision to buck Trump comes at a time when utter capitulation to the Trump administration has become mainstream. Several said they defied the Trump administration because they didn’t like the pressure Trump was placing on state level lawmakers. Others said it was a personal choice, rooted in disagreements and dislike for the president’s character.
During an Indiana state Senate Elections Committee hearing on the proposed maps this week, Republican state Sen. Greg Walker, announced that he refused “to be intimidated” by the Trump administration.
“I made a choice. I will not let Indiana or any state become subject to the threat of political violence in order to influence legislative product,” he added.
GOP Indiana state Sen. Michael Bohacek said, ahead of Thursday’s vote, that he would vote against redistricting after the president used a slur to describe Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” Bohacek wrote on Facebook in a post explaining that his daughter has Down Syndrome.
And Republican state Sen. Greg Goode similarly spoke out against redistricting shortly before Thursday’s vote.
“Indiana did this just four years ago, the map produced was celebrated by legislative leadership, and Indiana served as a national model for getting things right through Hoosier common sense,” he said.
— Khaya Himmelman
‘You Only Have One Tool’: A Divided, Dataless Fed Cuts Rates As the Economy Moves in Two Different Directions
Ahead of the first meeting of the Federal Reserve Board following an unprecedented federal economic data blackout, Fed watchers predicted a potentially historic outcome. Axios mulled the idea that, if the Fed opted not to cut rates, three of the seven-member governors board could dissent, a split not seen since 1963. Markets waffled over a period of mere weeks, from a low 20% expectation of a quarter-percent rate cut before surging to 87% likelihood.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced the board’s expected decision to cut rates by a quarter of a percent. Only one of the seven board members dissented. It was, you guessed it, Trump’s most recent appointee, Stephan Miran who always seems to want the higher rate cut the president is asking for. Among the larger voting members — 12 in all — three dissented, with two wanting no cut at all. This marked the fourth consecutive split Fed vote, the longest stretch of divided decisions since 2019, CNN reported. The 9-3 split was also the first since 2019, but hardly as notable as what could’ve gone down.
Fueling the uncertainty was leftover anxiety about major data gaps caused by the six-week government shutdown. Governors didn’t get information about October inflation, there was no October jobs report, and the November inflation report that should’ve been published Wednesday morning had been pushed to late next week. Here’s what members could see: the jobs market is at best stagnant and at worst in decline, while inflation chugs ahead buoyed by Trump’s tariff policy, indicators moving in opposite directions. “You have one tool,” Powell said Wednesday, addressing the dueling economic narratives. “You can’t do two things at once.”
— Layla A. Jones
It’s Not Just Dems: GOPers Pressure Leadership to Do Something About Looming Rise in Health Care Costs
Up on Capitol Hill, GOP leadership is under pressure to address the looming health care cost crisis from their respective caucuses.
The Senate GOP voted Thursday — largely for show — on two competing plans to address the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Both failed to meet the 60 vote threshold, making it even more likely that millions will be hit with skyrocketing health care costs at the end of the year. But, it’s worth noting, the Democratic plan to extend the subsidies for three years had a handful of Republican senators cross the aisle and break with their own caucus to send a clear message to leadership.
“I hope the message is, ‘We need to do something here,’” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of the GOP senators who voted for the Democratic bill, on Thursday. “We’re all under pressure.”
On the House side, seemingly fed up with House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) inaction, Republican members have filed and are supporting discharge petitions to vote on extending the enhanced subsidies.
Under pressure from their caucus, House GOP leadership is working on a health care overhaul ahead of a planned vote next week to address the Obamacare subsidies. The plan is not expected to extend the ACA subsidies, though.
— Emine Yücel
One Week Away from Even More Epstein
House Democrats trickled out more Epstein info on Friday in the form of a cache of photos showing the hobnobbing convicted sex offender’s relationship with powerful figures that include President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, and other luminaries like Larry Summers, Steve Bannon, Bill Gates, and Woody Allen.
The photos further document what we already knew: Epstein and these guys really got along! If photos of Epstein yukking it up with Woody Allen, Bannon, Trump, and others aren’t enough to make you gag, the cache includes more: Dems on the House Oversight Committee also included photos of various sex toys, as well as an eerie ribbed black glove.
And it’s not the end of the Epstein revelations. A Manhattan federal judge ordered a bevy of grand jury records from the Manhattan federal criminal investigation released next Friday, Dec. 19. That’s expected to pale in comparison to what the DOJ is now required by law to release, though with notable exceptions: the government can withhold information subject to ongoing criminal investigations, like the ones that Trump ordered the DOJ to open last month.
— Josh Kovensky
