Barack Obama isn’t done lashing Donald Trump and his “enablers” over their gerrymandering efforts.
The 44th president issued a fresh rebuke of Republicans on Wednesday as he delivered a chest-beating pep talk to volunteers of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign to pass Proposition 50, a measure aimed at redrawing the state’s district maps to counter similar efforts by conservatives.
“The essence of Prop 50 is to say that if you are going to play that game, then we are going to try to counteract that abuse of the system,” he said. “The problem that we are seeing right now is that our current president and his administration is explicitly saying that we want to change the rules of the game midstream in order to insulate ourselves from the people’s judgment.”
We have just over two weeks to pass Prop 50. And when we do, it will send a message of hope across the country, that change is possible if we do the work.So, let’s get to it. https://t.co/EodmVsbE9o pic.twitter.com/GjeGo0SjSv
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 22, 2025
Trump has been pushing state lawmakers to redraw their maps to bolster the GOP’s narrow majority in Congress ahead of the 2026 midterms. In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a new congressional map forking over five more red seats after a tense standoff that saw Democrats flee the state in an effort to block the gerrymandering.
Similar power struggles between Democrats and Republicans are playing out in a number of other states, including Missouri, Utah, Kansas, and Indiana.
“When we are finished with this monkey business that we’re seeing in Texas and Carolina and Missouri and potentially Indiana, when we’re not seeing that kind of behavior out of not just the president but his enablers, then California will revert back to an independent commission that is doing things the way it’s supposed to be done,” Obama said.
The former president argued that the heart of the issue is not about the number of congressional seats secured by either party, but about “whether or not our democracy can be manipulated by those who are already in power to entrench themselves further, or whether we’re going to have a system that allows the people to decide who’s going to represent them.”
Obama re-entered the political trenches in August as Democrats launched a fight against Texas’ redistricting efforts. He endorsed California’s Proposition 50 and vouched for Newsom’s “fight fire with fire” approach.
The Washington Post reported that Obama’s endorsement came after a series of phone calls with Eric Holder, his former attorney general and now head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
“We’re doing things that kind of go against what we talked about,” Holder told the outlet. “But we decided, we have to preserve our democracy if ultimately we’re going to heal it.”
Californians are set to vote on Proposition 50 on Nov. 4. A CBS News poll earlier found that 62 percent would vote in favor of the redistricting measure. Of that number, 51 percent said they were voting to oppose Trump.
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