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In today's issue:

▪ Trump revives battle over census

▪ What gerrymandering means for voters

▪ FBI fires officials at odds with White House

▪ Israel cabinet backs Gaza City takeover plan

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President Trump is raising the stakes of the midterms redistricting fight with his push to revive a battle over the census.

Trump on Thursday directed the Commerce Department to start work on a "new" census. Work is already underway for the census scheduled for 2030.

The president said in a Truth Social post that the next census should not count those who are in the country without authorization and use the “results and information gained” from the 2024 presidential election.

The plan would likely face significant legal hurdles, writes The Hill’s Jared Gans. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says the decennial census should be conducted on the basis of the total number of people in each state. The Supreme Court effectively blocked the citizenship question from being added to the 2020 census.

It was unclear Thursday whether the president was calling for a mid-decade census or changes to the next one in 2030.

Still, the push adds a new dimension to the fierce redistricting battle playing out across the country, as Republicans seek to gain the upper hand ahead of next year's midterm elections.

Trump’s call for a new census shows he’s doubling down on this strategy of adjusting the terms of engagement in the elections to come, Gans writes.

“From a messaging standpoint, it is ingenious to push the envelope on this front,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told The Hill.

▪ The Associated Press: Can Trump hold a census in the middle of a decade and exclude immigrants in the country illegally?

Trump himself kicked off the redistricting arms race with his call for Texas Republicans to approve a new congressional map that aims to give the GOP five more seats in the state in next year’s midterms.

The president said earlier this week the GOP is "entitled" to five more seats.

▪ ABC News: How gerrymandering has reshaped the political map for red and blue states.

▪ The Atlantic: How Democrats tied their own hands on redistricting.

LONE STAR STANDOFF: Democrats in Congress are defending the Democratic legislators who fled the Lone Star State in an effort to block the GOP-controlled Legislature from moving ahead with redrawn maps.

The group of more than 50 Texas House Democrats are scattered across various blue states, vowing to wait out the remainder of the special session.

Claims by Texas Republicans that the FBI is getting involved in efforts to track down and possibly detain the Democratic state lawmakers are getting strong pushback from Democrats in Congress.

Democratic members are investigating how involved the FBI is in the Texas redistricting battle, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, and lawmakers who have weighed in on the matter say FBI intervention would be an egregious politicization of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Responding to a claim by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) that the FBI will help find the lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said: “These extremists don’t give a damn about public safety.”

Jeffries said in a Thursday interview with ABC News that the FBI lacks the legal authority to intervene in a state-level political dispute.

“There would be no authority for the FBI to target Democrats from the Texas Legislature in connection with an act that Democrats have taken that is authorized by the Texas Constitution,” he said, adding that the redistricting effort in Texas is “a clear power grab because Donald Trump and House Republicans are desperate to try to hold on to their thin majority in the House of Representatives.”

Cornyn made the call for FBI involvement, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R) appeared to confirm Thursday when he wrote on social media that Texas authorities and the FBI were "tracking down" the lawmakers.

“Those who received benefits for skipping a vote face removal from office and potential bribery charges,” he wrote. “In Texas, there are consequences for your actions.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) — who is challenging Cornyn for his Senate seat — on Thursday asked an Illinois court to enforce arrest warrants against the Democratic lawmakers. The warrants are only enforceable within state lines, a largely symbolic threat that ensures any members who return to Texas can be apprehended and returned to the House chamber.

It remains unclear what the FBI has agreed to in terms of aiding Republicans. Experts who spoke with The Hill on Wednesday expressed skepticism that the FBI even had the jurisdiction to aid Texas Republicans in forcing Democrats to return to the state.

“I don’t see why the FBI would be involved in this at all,” said Richard Painter, who served as associate counsel to the president in the White House counsel’s office during former President George W. Bush’s second term. “I mean this is Texas politics and the FBI has no business trying to enforce Texas state law.”

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