Lone Tennessee House Democrat says he will end re-election bid after state gerrymander
Steve Cohen, the lone House Democrat from Tennessee, announced that he would not seek re-election after his district was redrawn in the state’s new congressional map.
“This is by far the most difficult moment I’ve had as an elected official,” Cohen, who has served in the US House since 2007, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Friday. “I don’t want to quit. I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to beat me.”
The new map, passed by Tennessee’s GOP-dominated legislature last week, splits up the ninth district and funnels Black voters in the Memphis area into three different constituencies.
Now, all of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning. The state’s gerrymander came a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
Key events
Trump pushes endorsement for Letlow in Louisiana Senate primary
Ahead of Louisiana’s US Senate primary tomorrow, the president posted on Truth Social on his way back from China to repeat his support for Republican congresswoman Julia Letlow.
“She is a TOTAL WINNER!” Trump wrote on social media. “She has my Complete and Total Endorsement, and will never let you down!”
The president announced his backing for the representative earlier this year as a hardline challenger to Senator Bill Cassidy, the incumbent who is one of three sitting Republicans who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial.
Cassidy, who also chairs the Senate health committee, has drawn the ire of the president, and has been critical of the administration’s Make America Healthy Again (Maha) agenda. Although Cassidy cast a deciding vote to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr as Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, he has since questioned many of his policy decisions.
Letlow is also facing another known entity in the Louisiana primary – the state’s treasurer John Fleming.
While the Senate primary will still take place on Saturday, after Louisiana lawmakers voted to pass a new congressional map that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts this week, the down ballot race will be an open primary on 3 November. Now, all US House candidates, regardless of party affiliation, would be on the ballot in Louisiana for voters in their district.
Dharna Noor
Supreme court Justice Samuel Alito is resisting climate advocates’ calls for him to sit out a major case that could benefit the fossil fuel industry.
In a statement to NBC news, a spokesperson for the high court said that “his recusal is not required”.
“Justice Alito does not have a financial interest in any party” involved in the case in question, the spokesperson told the outlet.
The pushback came one day after a coalition of environmental advocacy organizations and progressive watchdog groups called on the Senate judiciary committee to investigate Alito’s financial ties to oil companies, noting that the justice’s most recent financial disclosure showed he had holdings in ConocoPhillips, Phillips66 and five other oil and energy companies, and also has sums invested in a Vanguard fund in which Exxon is the third-largest holding.
“His irregular recusal practice in oil and gas industry-related cases is undermining public confidence in the impartiality of the Court,” reads the letter, whose signatories included the Center for Biological Diversity, the Revolving Door Project and scores of other progressive groups.
Alito did not recuse himself from a case slated to be decided in the court’s next term. It focuses on a bid by energy companies ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to find that federal law prevents subnational governments from filing lawsuits against oil and gas companies for the climate-warming effects of their products.
The supreme court in February agreed to take up the case brought by the oil majors Suncor Energy and Exxon. Alito weighed in on the decision.
But two years earlier, had recused himself from considering a petition brought by the same companies in the same lawsuit. The court rejected the companies’ request to weigh in on that petition. The court did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Hakeem Jeffries says ‘Congress and the nation’ are better for Cohen’s tenure in office
After Steve Cohen announced that he would not seek re-election to Congress, Hakeem Jeffries praised his colleague’s time in office.
“The city of Memphis, the Congress and the nation are better because of Steve’s commitment to making a difference,” the top House Democrat said of Cohen.
Jeffries also pointed to Cohen’s accomplishment as the first Jewish person elected to represent Tennessee in the Congress, and his work as a champion for civil rights. Steve has been a powerful champion for civil rights, and social justice issues.
Meanwhile, in Columbia, South Carolina lawmakers are at the state legislature ahead of holding a special session to settle the proposed change to the state’s congressional districts.
“Time is of the essence and its important that we act sooner than later,” said Jay Jordan, a Republican state representative, in response to a question about whether the redistricting can be achieved in time without any legal hurdles, for the upcoming elections.
Lone Tennessee House Democrat says he will end re-election bid after state gerrymander
Steve Cohen, the lone House Democrat from Tennessee, announced that he would not seek re-election after his district was redrawn in the state’s new congressional map.
“This is by far the most difficult moment I’ve had as an elected official,” Cohen, who has served in the US House since 2007, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Friday. “I don’t want to quit. I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to beat me.”
The new map, passed by Tennessee’s GOP-dominated legislature last week, splits up the ninth district and funnels Black voters in the Memphis area into three different constituencies.
Now, all of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning. The state’s gerrymander came a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
Earlier, I brought you the news that thousands of US stock trades surfaced in Donald Trump’s recent ethics filings.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization told the Guardian that the president, his family and the Trump Organization do not play a role in selecting, directing or approving specific investments made in his name.
They are not asked for inputs regarding the investment decision, the spokesperson added in response to questions about portfolio management raised after Trump’s ethics filings revealed thousands of trades tried to US stocks.
“President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions,” the spokesperson said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit the US this fall, at the invitation of President Trump, Wang Yi, a top Chinese diplomat said, as reported by Xinhua, Chinese state media.
“The man I am walking with is President Xi, of China, one of the World’s Great Leaders!” posted Trump on Truth Social along with a photo on Friday morning after departing from China.
Trump also brought up the widely discussed White House ballroom in the post. “China has a Ballroom, and so should the U.S.A.! It’s under construction, ahead of schedule, and will be the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the U.S.A.,” he said, adding that the opening would be around September 2028.
Lisa O’Carroll
Kurt Campbell, regarded as the architect of Barack Obama’s China policy, who attended 15 China summits, said Xi’s reference to the Thucydides trap, would have not have gone down well with Trump, portraying the US as a falling nation.
“It is rare in a summit like that, that a relatively obscure academic concept captures some of the moment, but President Xi bringing up Thucydides’ Trap, and the concept of a rising and falling nation, and how hegemonic transitions take place, really got under the president’s skin,” he said.
Thousands of US stock trades surfaced in Donald Trump’s ethics filing on Thursday afternoon. Trump disclosed at least $220m in financial dealings in the securities of dominant American companies this year, including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Oracle, Broadcom, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, as first reported by Reuters.
The value of the transactions were reported in ranges and could be as high as approximately $750m, according to two financial disclosure forms shared by the US Office of Government Ethics.
Some large purchases, valued under $5m, included an S&P 500 Index fund, Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, while large sales, valued at more than $5m, included Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.
The White House press office referred questions about who placed the trades to the Trump Organization. Other details, such as the types of securities traded, were also unclear in the filings.
South Carolina governor orders special redistricting session
Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s Republican governor, signed an executive order on Thursday ordering a special redistricting session ahead of the midterm elections.
This comes after state senators in South Carolina bucked Donald Trump’s demands earlier this week to approve plans to redraw the state’s congressional map after the supreme court gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act.
The president had urged them to back the redistricting proposal on Monday evening. The US president would be “watching closely”, he wrote on social media, adding: “GET IT DONE!”
“We appreciate Governor McMaster’s leadership in ensuring South Carolina addresses congressional redistricting,” said Drew McKissick, the state’s Republican party chair. “Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, Republicans have an opportunity to get this done, and we should maximize it. Now is the time for lawmakers to stand with President Trump, defend the Constitution, and finish the job.”
The Friday session will focus on whether to redraw the state’s map to essentially get rid of the majority-minority district that Democrat currently James Clyburn represents. However, a number of South Carolina Republicans fear that mid-decade redistricting would actually weaken GOP voting power in newly-drawn districts.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Donald Trump has departed Beijing after a two-day summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
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Trump said that during the visit he and Xi discussed a wide array of topics, with the conflict with Iran one of the most pressing. He claims that the US and China agreed that Iran should not have be able to produce nuclear weapons and that the strait of Hormuz must be opened as soon as possible, while also stating that he would consider ending sanctions on Chinese companies that bought Iranian oil.
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He also told reporters that he would be “OK” with Iran suspending their nuclear programme for 20 years, but only if they do so with “a real commitment”, while claiming that Iran’s missile capabilities had been reduced by 80% and described reports to the contrary as “treasonous”.
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Despite not agreeing on a large number of deals, Trump claims that China have agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets from the US, with a further 550 jets also possibly being bought at a later date, and said that they had also agreed to purchase “billions of dollars” of soybeans in a deal that he described as a big win for American farmers.
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Discussions also took place around China releasing 30 pastors who were arrested in late 2025 for being members of the Protestant Beijing Zion church. Despite this, Trump did not say that steps had been made to release Jimmy Lai, a political prisoner from Hong Kong who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for collusion and sedition.
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The issue of Taiwan was also discussed “a lot” according to Trump, but the president declined to elaborate on the details of these discussions or the position his government would take. Taiwan, which is engaged with a protracted conflict with China as each nation claims sovereign over the other, has historically received unofficial support from the US, and is one of its largest trading partners.
