SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump had said it was, quote, "pretty much up to Israel" if it wants to fully occupy Gaza. NPR's senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro, joins us. Domenico, thanks for being with us.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: How would you sum up the president's position on Gaza?
MONTANARO: Well, you know, this is someone who said he wants to turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East, you know, relocate Palestinians out. So it's no surprise that he'd allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to essentially do what he wants there. You know, his posture is creating some friction with European allies, some of whom have said that they will recognize a Palestinian state. A lot of that is because of the starvation that we're seeing in Gaza. And like with so many things, what Trump cares about is optics. And he doesn't want to see those images of starving children on TV. He knows that could come back on him and that he would be asked about it. So he's urged Israel to try and get more aid in. But beyond that, he doesn't seem to care very much about what Israel does as far as trying to govern there.
SIMON: And let me ask you about Ukraine because last night, the president said there'll be a meeting next Friday with Vladimir Putin in Alaska about Ukraine.
MONTANARO: Yeah, you know, right over the border. The Kremlin essentially said it would be easy for them to fly over to Alaska. And the key here is going to be what comes of it. You know, does Trump endorse some of these big concessions that Putin wants - likely significant swaths of Ukrainian territory? We don't know what it's going to look like. You know, Trump has recently been more frustrated with Putin, feeling like he's telling him one thing and then doing another when it comes to the war. And foreign policy experts will tell you, you know, that's been Putin's MO the whole time. But Trump has only seemingly recently started to see that.
Bigger picture here, the war as well as, you know, with Gaza and Israel - this has been a frustration for Trump. He wants to be recognized as a, quote, "peacemaker" and get both of these wars over with, but that's proven far more complicated than his, you know, easy campaign pledges of bringing swift ends to both.
SIMON: Extraordinary redistricting fight that began in Texas is now spreading to California. Why is it spreading?
MONTANARO: Well, I mean, this is turning into a redistricting arms race that could have major implications for who controls the House next year. You know, California now is looking to be a Democratic counterbalance to what Republicans in Texas are trying to do, which is squeeze out five more GOP seats at the behest of Trump. Texas Democrats fled the state, trying to deny Republicans a quorum to vote on this new map. Republicans are trying everything that they can to get them back - fines, trying to get the FBI involved. The fact is, Texas Democrats aren't going to be able to stay away forever. Republicans are probably going to get their map.
And that's going to set off a chain of events where multiple states are trying to redraw their maps. California is the big key for Democrats 'cause it's the biggest Democratic state where they could get maybe enough seats out to be able to counterbalance what Texas does. But that's going to require a ballot initiative because the state has an independent commission to redraw those seats. It looks like that is going to go forward. This is all happening because, frankly, Republicans have just a three-seat majority in Congress. Historically, the president's party doesn't fare well in midterms, and Trump is trying to put all his chips in the middle of the table because he knows that if he doesn't have full control of the House and Senate, of course, the White House, in 2026, he's going to be a lame-duck president starting in November next year.
SIMON: And finally, President Trump has once more said he's pushing for a federal takeover of the federal city, Washington, D.C. What can you say about it?
MONTANARO: Yeah. We don't know if he's actually going to go through with that. But certainly, these threats and leverage - that's something that he's been trying to do and show toward D.C. and other cities. You know, he got upset this week over a former DOGE staffer - the Department of Government Efficiency that was led by Elon Musk - being the victim of an attempted carjacking. Trump has threatened a takeover of D.C. before. He's been critical of how it's run. And no doubt there have been these rash of these kinds of crimes in D.C., but the data show that violent crime in D.C. continues to drop, as well as in other cities. That's no matter for Republicans, though. They focus on these extreme anecdotes of crime to fit a narrative, and crime, Democratic governance of cities and immigration are all things Trump ran on during the 2024 election.
SIMON: NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Thanks so much for being with us today.
MONTANARO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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