Former President Obama has been working behind the scenes, giving pep talks to people in the party as it tries to fight back against President Trump. We learned this week that he Obama placed a call to NY Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani back in June to offer advice and support. This week, Obama made a 30-minute call to Texas Democrats who had fled the state to prevent Republicans from forming a quorum.
In a video of the 30-minute conversation obtained by CNN, Obama praised the Texas Democrats for standing up to the Republican push to tweak congressional maps in their state to net as many as five GOP US House seats.
“What we all recognize is we can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by,” Obama said. “And so, 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 that is highly irregular and is not what we should be doing, to balance out the maps for this upcoming election.”
“And my hope is that rather than have a race to the bottom where every district is predetermined based on how it’s drawn, that over time, the American people, ideally with the help of the courts, realizes that there’s a better way,” he continued…
“And when we have fair voting rights, and we have fair maps, and we’re fairly competing, that’s good for everybody, not just one side,” he said. “And that’s what we should be aspiring to over the long term, is a situation in which there are rules that are fair for everybody, and then we compete.”
The idea that Obama is suddenly against gerrymandering (his own state of Illinois is heavily gerrymandered) is a bad joke. He never cared about this until now. Nevertheless, his message brought some of the Texas Dems to tears.
NEW: Former President Obama and Eric Holder met virtually with Texas lawmakers in a “congratulatory moment” on “nationalizing a debate in this country around stealing congressional seats,” one of the people on the call says.
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 14, 2025
Gene Wu says of the call:
“It was a huge deal. Some members were in tears. It reminded us what leaders are supposed to sound like.”
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 14, 2025
Speaking of Gene Wu, who is the chair of the Democratic House Caucus, he continues to work to make himself out a hero in this situation rather than an embarrassment. As I described here, the group’s exit strategy was to make pointless demands and then declare victory even as they return home and know they will wind up losing this battle.
A new statement Wednesday revealed how Democrats are defining victory: “In keeping with our original promise to Texans, the First Called Special session will never make quorum again,” state Democratic Caucus Chairman Gene Wu declared…
“Texas House Democrats will issue our demands for a second special session on Friday. Abbott can choose to govern for Texas families, or he can keep serving Trump and face the consequences we’ve unleashed nationwide,” Wu added.
This is meaningless nonsense. Waiting out the special session might matter if this was the only one Gov. Abbott could call, but that’s not at all the case. In fact, Gov. Abbott has already said he will call new special sessions repeatedly until Democrats return. So the idea that they are forcing his hand or that the delay accomplished something is a joke. It doesn’t matter at all. And yet, in a follow up article, Rep. Wu said this. [emphasis added]
A person close to the situation who has knowledge of the plans said Texas Democrats plan to return to their state “as soon as Monday.” They have set two conditions for their return: first, that the special session in Texas come to an end, and second that California Democrats release their own redistricting proposal.
Wu said Friday, “One of the two conditions have been met when the governor caved. We expect the other condition to be met next week.”
This is a complete inversion of reality. Gov. Abbott didn’t cave. He’s doing exactly what he said he would do all along. It’s Gene Wu and his fellow Dems who are caving. They are heading home having accomplished nothing except to generate headlines (and get a pep talk from former President Obama).
But of course NBC News doesn’t point that out. There’s no indication that this is spin on the part of Democrats who are in fact caving right now. Instead, the rest of the article is about their fear of threats, making them out to be victims.
Some of the legislators said their homes in Texas received repeated pizza deliveries when they hadn’t made the orders. It’s now considered by law enforcement to be an intimidation tactic after a judge’s son was murdered by an assailant who posed as a delivery driver.
In another instance, state Rep. Diego Bernal said a man wearing a backpack showed up to his family’s residence in San Antonio. Bernal told NBC News in an interview that the individual represented himself as a worker for the water company and started asking for Bernal’s whereabouts, including when he’d be home and how long he had been gone.
The episode was caught on the family’s home surveillance camera, and Bernal said while he doesn’t know if the person was intent on doing harm, he was certain the man misrepresented himself, as he was not wearing the customary identifiers of a water department employee.
Obviously no one should be making threats against any government officials, but I seem to remember when protesters were putting up maps to the homes of SCOTUS Justices and showing up at their homes and Democrats were fine with it at the time. Some media outlets published sympathetic profiles about the protesters.
Again, no one should have to put up with this but it’s not like only one side is getting it. Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who has been demanding Democrats return, has also received threats on his voicemail. This Obama-approved stunt has raised the temperature, intentionally, around this and that means peopel on both sides are getting threats.
Bottom line, Democrats are caving and will be back in Texas by Monday. They will claim victory and pretend it was Gov. Abbott who caved to them but that’s not what happened here. They are going to lose this battle and everything else is just spin which the left-leaning media is, as always, eager to lap up.
