Trump Finds Out Bullying Doesn’t Work in Indiana

Hello, it’s the weekend. It’s The Weekender ☕️

Despite weeks of threats and increasing pressure from President Trump, Indiana’s Republican senators this week defied Donald Trump’s redistricting pressure campaign in Indiana. It was a stunning loss for Trump’s ongoing gerrymandering blitz as he pressures red states across the country to redraw their maps to try to ensure Republicans hold the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterms.

In a 31-19 vote Thursday, Indiana state senators rejected a proposed three-dimensional map that would have redrawn district boundaries to favor Republicans, and effectively expel Indiana Democrats from representation in the House of Representatives.

Several Indiana lawmakers have spoken openly about why they have not given in to Trump’s intimidation tactics. The decision to oppose Trump comes at a time when complete capitulation to the Trump administration has become commonplace. Several said they defied the Trump administration because they didn’t like the pressure Trump was putting on state lawmakers. Others said it was a personal choice, rooted in disagreements and a dislike for the president’s character.

This week, at an Indiana State Senate Elections Committee hearing on the proposed maps, Republican state Sen. Greg Walker announced he refuses to “be intimidated” by the Trump administration.

“I have made a choice. I will not allow Indiana or any other state to be subjected to the threat of political violence in order to influence the legislative product,” he added.

Indiana Republican 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 word choices have consequences,” Bohacek wrote on Facebook in a post explaining that his daughter has Down syndrome.

And Republican Sen. Greg Goode also came out against redistricting shortly before Thursday’s vote.

“Indiana did it just four years ago, the map produced was celebrated by legislative leaders, and Indiana served as a national model for getting things done through Hoosier common sense,” he said.

—Khaya Himmelman

‘You only have one tool’: Divided, data-less Fed cuts rates as economy moves in two different directions

Ahead of the Federal Reserve Board’s first meeting following an unprecedented breakdown in federal economic data, Fed watchers were predicting a potentially historic outcome. Axios pondered the idea that if the Fed chose not to cut rates, three of the seven members of the Board of Governors could disagree, a division not seen since 1963. Markets were wavering over a period of just a few weeks, going from a low expectation of 20% to a quarter of a percent rate cut before surging to 87%.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced the board’s expected decision to cut rates by a quarter of a percent. Only one of the seven board members disagreed. This is, you guessed it, Trump’s latest appointee, Stephan Miran, who still seems to want the higher rate cut the president is demanding. Of the largest voting members – 12 in total – three dissented, and two wanted no reductions. This is the Fed’s fourth consecutive split vote, the longest string of split decisions since 2019, CNN reported. The 9-3 split was also the first since 2019, but not as remarkable as what could have happened.

Concern over major data gaps caused by the six-week government shutdown fueled uncertainty. Governors didn’t get information on October inflation, there was no October jobs report and the November inflation report that should have been released Wednesday morning was pushed back to the end of next week. Here’s what lawmakers saw: The job market is stagnant at best and declining at worst, while inflation is rising, supported by Trump’s tariff policies, with indicators moving in opposite directions. “You have one tool,” Powell said Wednesday, addressing conflicting economic narratives. “You can’t do two things at once.”

-Layla A. Jones

It’s not just about Democrats: GOPers are pressuring leaders to do something about looming rising health care costs

On Capitol Hill, GOP leaders are 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 Affordable Care Act’s expiring subsidies. Neither managed to reach the 60-vote threshold, making it even more likely that millions of people will be hit by skyrocketing health care costs at the end of the year. But it’s worth noting that the Democratic plan to extend the grants for three years has prompted a handful of Republican senators to take the plunge and break with their own caucus to send a clear message to leaders.

“I hope the message is, ‘We need to do something here,'” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of the Republican senators who voted for the Democratic bill, said Thursday. “We are all under pressure.”

On the House side, apparently 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 grants.

Under pressure from their caucus, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are working on a health care overhaul ahead of next week’s planned vote on Obamacare subsidies. The plan is not expected to extend ACA subsidies, however.

-Emine Yucel

One more week from Epstein

House Democrats on Friday released more information about Epstein in the form of a cache of photos showing the convicted sex offender’s relationship with powerful figures including 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 the photos of Epstein having fun with Woody Allen, Bannon, Trump and others aren’t enough to make you vomit, the cache includes more: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee also included photos of various sex toys, as well as a strange ribbed black glove.

And this is not the end of Epstein’s revelations. A federal judge in Manhattan has ordered the release next Friday, December 19, of a series of grand jury records from the Manhattan federal criminal investigation. That should pale in comparison to what the DOJ is now required by law to disclose, with a few notable exceptions: The government can withhold information that is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations, like those Trump ordered the DOJ to open last month.

—Josh Kovensky