NEWSLETTER: Trump cheats at golf... and politics

Plus another campaign ad from Kentucky.

By Jesse Valentine - August 04, 2025

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A viral video making the rounds this week appears to show President Donald Trump cheating at golf.

He was playing the Trump Turnberry course in Scotland when he drove a ball down the fairway and into the rough. Caddies rushed to retrieve his ball and move it to a more favorable spot.

This display is funny, pathetic, and a confirmation of one of Trump’s few core beliefs: if you lie, cheat, and prevail—you deserve the spoils of victory.

We see this same mentality in our politics now, with the White House pressuring Texas, Ohio, Florida, and Indiana to redraw their congressional maps. The goal is to dilute Democratic voting power in 2026 and increase Republican odds of holding the House. It’s a trick—designed to circumvent the electoral fallout of Medicaid cuts and Trump’s rapidly sinking popularity.

Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new, of course. It’s how Southern racists suppressed the Black vote in the last century and how Republicans maintain their minoritarian rule in this one (often, also by suppressing the Black vote). But doing it at the behest of a president with authoritarian ambitions is new—and deeply troubling.

Texas has already drafted maps that would likely net Republicans five new seats in Congress. In Ohio, they’re hoping to pick up two, and in Indiana, they’re angling for one.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who enacted a 2022 map that eliminated a majority-Black district—said he would push for redistricting even though his state isn’t required to do so until 2030.

This power grab is on a collision course with our anemic institutions. The Supreme Court has shown leniency toward partisan gerrymanders. I fear the media would report Republicans winning the House in 2026 as an affirmation of Trump’s popularity—and ignore the dirty tricks that made the outcome possible.

Trump would likely use such a result to ramp up mass deportations, silence dissenters, and ram through another tax break for billionaires. Two more years of unchecked power would make his threats to seek a third term—which is barred by the Constitution—dangerously real.

Democrats have historically responded to Republican gerrymandering by calling for “fair maps.” It’s the moral thing to do—but it’s akin to fighting a forest fire with a watering can. Blue-state governors need to launch their own redistricting bonanza—and they need to do it fast.

ICYMI

Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly introduced a bill on Tuesday that would ban for-profit corporations from forming political action committees (PACs).

Political spending by PACs on federal races hit a record high of $1.9 billion in 2024. Much of this spending came from large corporations whose business interests are directly tied to Congress.

“Corporate money has way too much control over what happens in Washington, and that’s not how it should work,” said Kelly. “When representatives are making decisions that affect working families, whether it’s lowering costs or protecting workers’ rights, they should be accountable to you, not the corporations writing big checks.”

WATCH AN AD

Nate Morris is a millionaire Republican donor—but he’s running in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race as a working-class outsider.

This rebranding reflects a tension in Republican politics. Morris wants to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, who helped pave the way for the MAGA movement but is also despised by MAGA voters as a symbol of the D.C. swamp that Trump promised to drain.

In his first campaign ad, Morris declares himself a “Trump guy” and calls primary opponent Andy Barr a “McConnell boy.” It’s an interesting choice of words, considering Morris has donated thousands to both Barr and McConnell. Check it out!