President Donald Trump lashed out again at the Indiana Senate's rejection of House-passed redistricting, and the famed GOP kingmaker vowed to dethrone the culprits.
"Republicans in the Indiana State Senate, who voted against a Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, should be ashamed of themselves," Trump wrote early Saturday morning on Truth Social.
"Headed by a total loser named Rod Bray, every one of these people should be 'primaried,' and I will be there to help! Indiana, which I won big, is the only state in the Union to do this!"
There were 21 Republican Senate holdouts who dealt Trump one of the most significant political defeats of his second term by rejecting redistricting in Indiana. The decision undermined the president's national campaign to redraw congressional maps before the midterms to combat Democrat efforts in the states the left controls.
At the top of Trump's target list for leading the holdouts is Indiana's top state Sen. Rodric Bray.
"He'll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is," Trump said. "I hope he does, because he's done a tremendous disservice."
The president brushed off the defeat, telling reporters he "wasn't working on it very hard."
But the White House had spent months engaged in what Republican Sen. Andy Zay described as "a full-court press."
Vice President JD Vance met with senators twice in Indiana and once in Washington. White House aides frequently checked in over the phone.
Some have claimed Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from the state, a claim rejected by the White House as "100% fake news."
"President Trump loves the great state of Indiana," said White House spokesman Davis Ingle, who insisted Trump "has never threatened to cut federal funding and it's 100% fake news to claim otherwise."
Notably, former Vice President Mike Pence fielded calls from senators during the redistricting debate, according to a source at the Associated Press who requested anonymity to disclose private conversations.
The person declined to describe Pence's advice. Pence has been at odds with Trump ever since he, while serving as his vice president, refused to kick the contested electors in the 2020 presidential election back to the states.
Some Republicans lashed out at senators for defying Trump.
"His life was threatened — and he was nearly assassinated," Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith wrote on social media. "All for what? So that Indiana politicians could grow timid."
The message to the president, Beckwith said, was "go to hell."
The proposed map would have divided Indianapolis into four pieces, grafting pieces of the city onto other districts to dilute the influence of Democrat voters. But in small towns near the borders with Kentucky and Ohio, residents feared the state's biggest metropolitan area would gain influence at their expense.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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