MAGA Is Livid Ted Cruz Accidentally Helped Block Texas Redistricting

Donald Trump’s major electoral setback in Texas is thanks, in no small part, to Ted Cruz.

A three-judge panel ruled against the Lone Star State’s gerrymandering effort Tuesday, ordering Texas to return to its 2021 maps for the upcoming midterm elections. The decision was written by Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, whom Cruz recommended to the bench in 2019.

That realization has enraged some members of Trump’s base, who have questioned how the Houston native could have recommended someone who would rule against the president’s agenda.

“Brown was a clear miss by Ted Cruz,” argued conservative political strategist Mike Davis in a Fox News op-ed Wednesday.

Brown wrote in the Tuesday ruling that “substantial evidence” proved Texas had “racially gerrymandered” its latest districts.

Trump suggested in July that Texas could give Republicans five more House seats by flipping a handful of blue districts next year via “a very simple redrawing.” The Justice Department then threatened to take legal action on the matter, asserting that at least four Texas congressional districts were “unconstitutional” since the presence of multiple racial groups had made white people the regional electoral minority.

Redistricting is perfectly legal—so long as it complies with federal law. Trump’s directive for Texas forced the state to focus on race rather than politics, in defiance of national nondiscrimination laws. Brown noted in the legal opinion that if the effort had intended to thwart Democratic strongholds in the state, it would have also targeted majority white Democrat districts,” but those were “conspicuously absent.”

Brown determined that reverting to the 2021 map was a more adequate solution than providing Texas with the opportunity to draw up another plan, since not only was the 2021 iteration developed by the state legislature (as opposed to the state judiciary) but it has successfully been used in two previous congressional elections, as well as an ongoing special election. The judicial ruling effectively crushed Trump’s dream to reshape Texas to help Republicans in Washington.

Meanwhile, Cruz is laying the groundwork to run for president in 2028, though it’s unclear who in the MAGA movement will rally to his side.

The White House is so desperate to scrape together some “good news” that it’s trying to tout a decline in the number of new international students enrolling at American universities. That would actually be really bad—if it were the whole story, that is.

The number of new international students enrolling at American universities has decreased 17 percent since last year, according to the White House’s Wednesday “good news” roundup, which cited a recent survey from the Institute of International Education. The Trump administration celebrated the dip, claiming it was “reclaiming spots for American students on college campuses.”

But there’s more to this number than meets the eye. In fall 2025, 29 percent of institutions reported an increase in the number of new international students enrolling, 14 percent said the number was stable, and 57 percent said there was a decrease, according to the IIE study. However, the total number of international students only declined by 1 percent, and the number of international undergraduates actually increased by 2 percent. So it doesn’t look like too many spots were actually “reclaimed.”

The high percentage drop of enrollment can be explained by a significant drop in the number of students signed up for Optional Practical Training programs, which allow students to remain in the United States after they have completed their studies—a program that the State Department is planning to gut. It seems that international students are still studying in the United States; they’re simply taking their newfound knowledge with them after they finish school to make their home countries great instead of ours.

An enrollment dip is still not good news, however. International students paying full tuition and higher fees can help to cross-subsidize lower in-state tuition for American citizens. Outside of the financial incentive, involving international students in U.S. higher education has had tremendous positive outcomes for American society and higher education.

This study comes after the Trump administration revoked more than 6,000 student visas in August and arrested multiple foreign-born students and faculty over their speech or political affiliation, making clear that international students are not safe to remain in the United States. Ninety-six percent of institutions said that the dip was the result of concerns about visa applications, and 68 percent said it was due to travel restrictions, according to the study.

At the same time, the Trump administration has moved to increase the cost of an H-1B temporary visa by a factor of more than 10,000 percent, creating a sky-high financial barrier to those wishing to come to the United States for work.

Donald Trump’s claim Tuesday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “knew nothing about” the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi may be undercut by a phone call he had with the monarch.

Democratic Representative Eugene Vindman said in a speech on the House floor Tuesday night that he reviewed the phone call at the time when he was a staffer on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, calling it as problematic as the one between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump that led to the president’s impeachment in 2019.

“After the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, I reviewed a call between the president and the Saudi crown prince. The American people and the Khashoggi family deserve to know what was said on that call. If history is any guide, the receipts will be shocking,” the Virginia congressman said, calling for the president to release the full transcript of the call.

The phone call Vindman is referring to is suspected to be from June 2019, when the White House reported that a call took place.

On Tuesday, when a reporter asked bin Salman and Trump about the U.S. intelligence conclusion that the crown prince personally ordered Khashoggi’s killing, Trump rushed to bin Salman’s defense.

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that,” Trump snapped. He added, “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Based on Trump’s close ties with MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, the phone call may be damaging to the president, especially considering that Trump claims to have protected MBS from congressional action over Khashoggi’s murder during his first term.

“I saved his ass,” Trump said to reporter Bob Woodward for his 2020 book Rage. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop.”

The White House is close to implementing a new rule that would effectively eradicate congressionally approved whistleblower protections.

Congress has passed several laws since the 1970s extending protections to federal workers who call out governmental wrongdoing. But the Trump administration is planning on chipping away at that by updating its policy on accountability, which would “exclude senior employees from legal protections that prohibit U.S. government agencies from retaliating against whistleblowers,” reported Reuters Tuesday.

Federal employment attorneys noted that the new policy would make targets out of the people most likely to find themselves in positions to uncover serious corruption.

“Translation: Trump can fire federal employees who point out that he’s broken the law. That’s pretty damn dark,” wrote Miles Taylor, an ex–Homeland Security official who drew national attention in 2018 when he anonymously penned an op-ed for The New York Times claiming to be part of the internal “resistance” against Trump’s first-term agenda.

It would follow through on Donald Trump’s April proposal to create a new federal employee category to “enhance accountability.”

“This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” reads a White House fact sheet from the time on the proposed changes.

The Office of Personnel Management estimated at the time that the switch-up could affect as many as 50,000 positions across government agencies.

The Trump administration told Reuters Tuesday that the new rule would not strip employees of their current protections but would “put individual federal agencies in charge of enforcing those safeguards.”

“This administration is making good on its determination to silence dissent in all forms, creating a culture of fear, silence and intimidation,” Andrew Bakaj, chief legal counsel of the nonpartisan group Whistleblower Aid, told Reuters in a statement.

President Trump joked (we think) about firing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent while Bessent was sitting right in front of him.

“Interest rates are down despite the Fed. I mean Scott, you gotta work on this guy. He’s got some real mental problems. He has something wrong with him,” Trump said while addressing the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, referring to current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. “I’ll be honest, I’d love to fire his ass. He should be fired. Guy’s grossly incompetent. And he should be sued for spending $4 billion to build a little building. I’m building a ballroom that’s gonna cost a tiny fraction of that.

“You gotta work on him, Scott,” Trump continued. “The only thing Scott’s blowing it on is the Fed. Because … the rates are too high, Scott. And if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m gonna fire your ass, OK?” The crowd roared with laughter. “I wanna get him out, Scott!”

This is a pretty stunning undermining of his own staff, even for Trump. And if the economy is doing so well, why is he so pressed about rates getting cut?

“Translation: the economy isn’t bad enough, let’s speedrun a recession!” California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office posted in response.

Trump has been after Powell for months now, threatening to fire him over and over again for not cutting interest rates and refusing to fully capitulate to Trump’s aggressive economic plans.

It’s unclear how much power Bessent has to influence Powell’s job security, if any at all. Bessent is one of the front-runners for Powell’s job, although he has told the president he doesn’t want it. That’s probably a smart decision.

“I get that Treasury Secretary is a cool job ... but if I were a billionaire, there is [no] way I’m staying in a job that requires me to spin indefensible, economically-illiterate policies for a morally-corrupt boss who tries to humiliate me publicly,” Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jessica Riedl wrote on X. “I’d be on a beach somewhere.”