President Donald Trump said Texas Democrats who fled the state in a stunt to avoid voting on a redistricting measure that could reduce their party’s power may face visits from the FBI.
Although the Democrats are a minority in the Texas legislature, their absence prevents the legislature from having a quorum, which means no business gets done. As noted by NPR, the stunt was done in 2003 and 2021, with the end result of delaying the eventual passage of the legislation Democrats wanted to block.
During a media event on Tuesday, Trump was asked, “Should the FBI get involved?”
“Well, they may have to,” he said, according to a post on X.
President Trump says FBI “may have to” get involved in locating Texas Democrats who fled the state to prevent vote on new redistricting maps. pic.twitter.com/1ER4W6tkpL
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 5, 2025
“They may have to. No, I know they want them back. Not only the attorney general, the governor wants them back. If you look, I mean the governor of Texas is demanding they come back. So, a lot of people are demanding they come back,” Trump continued.
“You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back. You have to fight it out. That’s what elections are all about.”
“Well, I think they’ve abandoned the state,” Trump said, according to Fox News, adding, “Looks very bad.”
When asked if the Texas plan, which would potentially give Texas Republicans five new House seats, would spark retaliation from Democrat-run states, Trump said, “They’ll do it anyway.”
“Look, a lot of these states, you know, I watched this morning as Democrats are complaining, and they’re complaining from states where they’ve done it, like in Illinois, like in Massachusetts,” he continued.
“The Democrats have done it long before we started. They’ve done it all over the place. They did it in New York. They did it in a lot of different states,” Trump said.
Should Texas Democrats who refuse to report to the legislature be arrested?
Trump noted that despite Democrats’ hand-wringing, Texas is booming.
“Texas is a place that’s done very well with a free enterprise kind of an attitude, with the exact opposite of what’s happening in New York with a communist mayor. And they know what they’re doing. And they’re doing the right thing,” he explained. “So, we’ll see what happens. We have a wonderful governor in Texas. He feels strongly about it. It’s going to be up to him.”
Earlier Tuesday, Sen, John Cornyn of Texas raised the concept of the FBI intervening, according to USA Today.
“In a representative democracy, we resolve our differences by debating and voting, not by running away,” Cornyn wrote in a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, according to The Hill.
“I request the FBI’s assistance, as federal resources are necessary to locate the out-of-state Texas legislators who are potentially acting in violation of the law,” he said. “The FBI has tools to aid state law enforcement when parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime.”
“These legislators have committed potential criminal acts in their rush to avoid their constitutional responsibilities and must be fully investigated and held accountable,” Cornyn continued. “I urge you to work with Texas public officials to provide them the support they need.”
On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest legislators, based on civil arrest warrants issued by the legislature.
Because Democrats have fled to blue states such as Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, it is uncertain how cooperative those states would be in executing arrest warrants from Texas, USA Today noted.
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