Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
Happy Monday, readers! In today’s edition, NBC News reporters in Austin, Boston, Chicago and Washington bring you the latest from the redistricting standoff in Texas, after Democrats fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum to move forward with legislation. Then, our team in Washington digs into the fallout from President Donald Trump’s dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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— Scott Bland
Redistricting clash escalates in Texas after Democrats scatter, denying state House a quorum
By Ben Kamisar, Natasha Korecki, Ryan Chandler and Adam Edelman
The Texas state House briefly reconvened this afternoon amid a nationally watched clash over the GOP majority’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional lines, with Republican lawmakers voting to approve civil arrest warrants targeting the dozens of Democrats who fled the state, blocking Republicans from proceeding with the plan.
The bulk of the 50-plus Democrats who left the state are in Illinois, where they’ve been welcomed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker. Others are in Boston and in Albany, New York, where Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, in response to Texas, is pushing for a change in state law to allow redistricting in future years.
There, beyond the reach of the state sergeant-at-arms and the Texas Department of Public Safety, the warrants may have little practical effect. But back home, the Democrats face mounting fines, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to boot the Democratic lawmakers from office or send law enforcement to force them to return to the state.
Because House business requires a quorum, 51 out of the state’s 62 Democratic House members can, by remaining out of state, prevent the Republican-led state House from moving forward with legislation.
The absences deprived the House of its quorum, a reality confirmed quickly after legislators gaveled in this afternoon.
Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows admonished the dozens of Democrats who fled the state as having “abandoned their post and turned their backs on the constituents they swore to represent.”
Democrats have decried Republicans’ redistricting move as a power play and criticized them for moving on the redistricting bill before having responded legislatively to the devastating floods this summer that killed more than 100 people in Kerr County, outside San Antonio. Today, Burrows shot back by arguing that Democrats are delaying their ability to move on other legislative priorities, like addressing the floods.
Democratic state Rep. Ann Johnson of Houston, speaking yesterday evening after she arrived at a news conference at a strip mall about 30 miles west of Chicago, said the redistricting bill is happening only because Trump is “afraid of the electorate next November.”
Read more here →
White House searches for a new BLS chief with ‘credibility’ and ‘experience’
By Jonathan Allen, Katherine Doyle and Peter Nicholas
White House officials began the week scrambling to find a permanent replacement after President Donald Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday, following a weaker-than-expected July jobs report and drastic downward revisions of employment for the prior two months.
Steve Bannon, a senior White House adviser in Trump’s first term who is influential with the MAGA wing of the GOP, is pushing hard for E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Antoni, a contributor to the Project 2025 policy rubric, has been a longtime skeptic of BLS data. On Bannon’s podcast last week, Antoni called for McEntarfer to be fired shortly before Trump pulled the trigger.
In an interview with NBC News this afternoon, Antoni said he had not been contacted by anyone in the White House about the job. West Wing officials are “still running traps” on candidates for the Senate-confirmed position, one White House aide said.
The White House did not return a request for comment on whether Antoni is under consideration.
Trump yesterday said that he plans to announce a pick in the next three or four days.
“It’s going to have to be somebody that has tremendous credibility and experience,” said a senior White House official who noted that Trump would likely listen to the thoughts of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Stephen Miran, the chair of the National Economic Council.
Hiring such a person could potentially be a challenge for Trump. In ousting McEntarfer, he baselessly claimed that jobs numbers are subject to political manipulation — “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” he said — raising the specter that a new commissioner would not release numbers that made Trump look bad.
“I find it so hard to believe that your average person hears Trump fired someone because he claimed that they manipulated data and whoever he’s replaced them with is going to produce trustworthy data,” Kathryn Anne Edwards, an independent economic consultant and host of a podcast called The Optimist, said.
Read more here →
🗞️ Today’s top stories
- ⏸️ Put on pause: The European Union announced it will delay a plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods as it continues trade negotiations with the Trump administration. Read more →
- 📈 Euphoria on Wall Street: The American Eagle-Sydney Sweeney “great jeans” controversy has caused the brand’s stock to skyrocket — thanks to President Donald Trump. Read more →
- 🏈 Going for it: Former college football coach Derek Dooley launched his bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Read more →
- 🗳️ 2026 watch: Rep. Nancy Mace, who has at times broken with her own GOP leaders and often courted controversy, launched today a long-expected bid for governor of South Carolina. Read more →
- ❌New restrictions: The Department of Homeland Security will update visa policies to prevent transgender women from traveling to the U.S. to participate in elite women’s sporting events. Read more →
- 👤In the shadows: By the time Susie Wiles took the stage at the Florida Republican Party’s biggest event of the year, it was clear who the star of the show was — and, equally as important, who was not. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Scott Bland and Dylan Ebs.
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