Governor calls Trump ‘Taco’ online, short for ‘Trump always chickens out’, prompted by president’s flip-flop deadlines

California governor Gavin Newsom says the state will draw new electoral maps after Donald Trump “missed” a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.

In a letter sent to Trump on Monday, Newsom said he would prefer to leave the matter of congressional map-making to independent commissions, not partisan legislative bodies and emphasized that he would “happily” stand down if other states abandoned their redistricting effort. But, Newsom said: “California cannot stand idly by as this power grab unfolds.”

Several states have waded into the redistricting wars, where Newsom and other Democratic state leaders had threatened to draw retaliatory maps if Texas were to move ahead with its redistricting scheme.