Former President Barack Obama offered a scathing summary of President Donald Trump’s return to office during a call with Texas state Democrats who skipped town to fight Republican efforts to redistrict the state.
During a 30-minute Zoom meeting on Thursday, Obama spoke to dozens of members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, who fled earlier this month to Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts so that Republicans wouldn’t be able to make a quorum and hold a vote on the new districts.
The maps are usually redrawn once every 10 years, after the census is completed, and not mid-decade. But Trump has called for a “simple redrawing” of Texas that would allow Republicans to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections, with the goal of maintaining control of the House.
ADVERTISEMENT
The meeting was part pep talk and part strategy session, and Obama did not mention Trump by name, CNN reported.
But he called out the administration’s efforts to gerrymander congressional districts, suppress voting, overturn election results, bypass Congress through executive action, militarize cities, and politicize the Department of Justice and the military.
“Those are trend lines that remind us this precious democracy that we’ve got is not a given,” he said. “It’s not self-executed. It requires us to fight for it. It requires us to stand up for it.”
He said Republicans increasingly recognize their policies are unpopular, so they’re trying to “fix the game a little bit” by drawing maps that splinter Democratic voting blocs or that pack Democrats into a single district so they can’t influence other races.
“That’s not fair,” Obama said. “That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.”
The former president remains beloved in many Democratic circles but has kept a relatively low profile since Trump won re-election, but has shown signs that gerrymandering is one issue where he’s willing to go to bat for Democrats.
Later this month, he will headline a fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard—just his second fundraiser since fall 2024—to benefit his former attorney general Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
The group is funding political campaigns and legal challenges to Republicans’ efforts to gerrymander Texas, Ohio and other red states.
Holder also joined Obama during Thursday’s call with Texas Democrats and updated the caucus on what his committee was doing to fight gerrymandering in other states, according to ABC News.
During the meeting, Obama told the Texas Democrats he was “grateful” to them for helping Americans understand the stakes of the redistricting fight, and credited them with inspiring blue states to retaliate against the Republican redistricting plans.
“Because of your actions, because of your courage, what you’ve seen is California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering,” Obama said.
Texas Rep. Gene Wu, who chairs the state’s House Democratic Caucus, told ABC News that the members were “especially excited” about the meeting, and that Obama’s involvement was proof that Democrats nationwide understand what’s at stake with the Texas redistricting effort.
“President Obama’s support shows the whole country is watching—and Texas House Democrats won’t be silenced by bullies,” he said.
The caucus also wrote in a social media post that it was “honored” to have Obama’s support. The former president responded that he was “so proud” of the Texas caucus members for their willingness to “put themselves on the line.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to arrest, fine and even try to remove the Democratic lawmakers from office.
