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President Donald Trump said Tuesday evening that the FBI «may have to» round up a group of Democratic lawmakers who fled Texas to avoid voting on the state’s proposed redistricting map.

This comes as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and several Texas leaders, including Attorney General Ken Paxton, have demanded that the 50 Democratic members of the state legislature who fled the state return or face consequences.

The Democrats fled the state in an effort to deny Republicans the necessary two-thirds quorum required to vote on the redistricting map, which would likely give the GOP an edge in elections and potentially add five House seats to the Texas Republican congressional delegation.

National Democrats have praised the stunt. During a press conference on Sunday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a leading Democratic figure, shared his support for the Texas Democrats, describing their departure as a «righteous act of courage,» while claiming Republicans want to silence «millions of voices, especially Black and Latino voters.»

FBI URGED TO LOCATE OR ARREST TEXAS DEMOCRATS WHO FLED STATE TO STALL REDISTRICTING VOTE

Abbott said the lawmakers’ commitment to voting as elected state officials is a duty and is «not optional.» The governor also said a legislator determined to have «forfeited his or her office due to abandonment» can be removed from office under the Texas Constitution, thereby creating a vacancy, which the governor can «swiftly fill» under Article III, Section 13. 

After the Democrats failed to meet Abbott’s 4 p.m. CT Monday deadline to return, Texas Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows announced he would sign arrest warrants against any absent Democrat lawmakers if authorized by a vote of the chamber. Shortly thereafter, the House did approve the warrants and Abbott then swiftly called on the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest the «delinquent Texas House Democrats.»

The attorney general has stated that the lawmakers «should be found and arrested no matter where they go.»

Trump weighed in on the political intrigue Tuesday at the White House when he was asked by a reporter, «Do you want the federal government and the FBI to help locate and arrest these Texas Democrats who have left the state?»

‘ALL-OUT WAR’: FLEEING TEXAS DEMS SIDE WITH NEWSOM AS REDISTRICTING STANDOFF CONTINUES: ‘FIRE WITH FIRE’

Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu speaks at a press event in Illinois after he and dozens of fellow lawmakers fled Texas to block a redistricting vote, Aug. 3, 2025. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The president responded that it is a bad look for Democrats to «abandon» the state rather than fight it out in the legislature.

«Well, I think they’ve abandoned the state,» he said. «Nobody’s seen anything like it, even though they’ve done it twice before. And, in a certain way, it almost looks like they’ve abandoned the state. Looks very bad.»

Pressed further on whether the FBI should get involved, Trump answered, «Well, they may have to.»

«They may have to,» he repeated. «No, I know they want them back. Not only the attorney general, the governor wants them back. If you look, I mean the governor of Texas is demanding they come back. So, a lot of people are demanding they come back. You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back. You have to fight it out. That’s what elections are all about.»

‘BUTTER KNIFE TO A GUNFIGHT’: DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKER RIPS HIS PARTY’S STRATEGY IN REDISTRICTING BATTLE

A view of the Texas State Capitol in Austin as the GOP-led redistricting session continues without dozens of absent House Democrats. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Asked by Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy whether he thought Texas’ redistricting plans were worth risking blue states similarly retaliating, Trump answered, «They’ll do it anyway.»

«Why, if we stop over there, they would have done it anyway,» he said. «Look, a lot of these states, you know, I watched this morning as Democrats are complaining and they’re complaining from states where they’ve done it, like in Illinois, like in Massachusetts.»

«The Democrats have done it long before we started. They’ve done it all over the place. They did it in New York. They did it in a lot of different states,» Trump went on.

CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM’S ‘HYPER-PARTISAN’ MAP IS ‘UNIQUELY CORRUPT,’ GOP LAWMAKER ARGUES

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said lawmakers who fled the state may be removed from office and may also be liable to felony charges.  (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)

The president went on to praise Texas’ redistricting plans, saying, «There’s tremendous support for it.» He also praised Abbott, saying the future of the plans depends on him.

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«Texas is a place that’s done very well with a free enterprise kind of an attitude, with the exact opposite of what’s happening in New York with a communist mayor. And they know what they’re doing. And they’re doing the right thing,» he said. «So, we’ll see what happens. We have a wonderful governor in Texas. He feels strongly about it. It’s going to be up to him.»

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Pritchett and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

Wednesday marks the 80th anniversary of when the U.S. employed the first ever nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by the bombing of Nagasaki three days later on Aug. 9. But despite nearly a century of lessons learned, nuclear warfare still remains a significant threat.

«This is the first time that the United States is facing down two nuclear peer adversaries – Russia and China,» Rebeccah Heinrichs, nuclear expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital.

Heinrichs explained that not only are Moscow and Beijing continuing to develop new nuclear capabilities and delivery systems, but they are increasingly collaborating with one another in direct opposition to the West, and more pointedly, the U.S.

TRUMP LIFTS VEIL ON US SUBMARINES IN WARNING SHOT TO KREMLIN IN ‘CLEVER’ REPOSITIONING MOVE

«It’s a much more complex nuclear threat environment than what the United States even had to contend with during the Cold War, where we just had one nuclear peer adversary in the Soviet Union,» she said. «In that regard, it’s a serious problem, especially when both China and Russia are investing in nuclear capabilities and at the same time have revanchist goals.»

Despite the known immense devastation that would accompany an atomic war between two nuclear nations, concern has been growing that the threat of nuclear war is on the rise. 

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which collectively killed some 200,000 people, not including the dozens of thousands who later died from radiation poisoning and cancer – have been attributed with bringing an end to World War II.

But the bombs did more than end the deadliest war in human history – they forever changed military doctrine, sparked a nuclear arms race and cemented the concept of deterrence through the theory of mutually assured destruction.

Earlier this year the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved forward the «Doomsday Clock» by one second – pushing it closer to «midnight,» or atomic meltdown, than ever before.

In January, the board of scientists and security officials in charge of the 78-year-old clock, which is used to measure the threat level of nuclear warfare, said that moving the clock to 89 seconds to midnight «signals that the world is on a course of unprecedented risk, and that continuing on the current path is a form of madness.»

TRUMP CONFIRMS 2 NUCLEAR SUBMARINES ARE ‘IN THE REGION’ TO COUNTER RUSSIA

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023. (Sergei Guneyev/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Despite the escalated nuclear threats coming out of North Korea, and international concern over the Iranian nuclear program, the threat level largely came down to the three biggest players in the nuclear arena: Russia, the U.S. and China.

The increased threat level was attributed to Russia’s refusal to comply with international nuclear treaties amid its continuously escalating war in Ukraine and its hostile opposition to NATO nations, as well as China’s insistence on expanding its nuclear arsenal.

But the Bulletin, which was founded by scientists on the Manhattan Project in 1945 to inform the public of the dangers of atomic warfare, also said the U.S. has a role in the increased nuclear threat level.

«The U.S. has abdicated its role as a voice of caution. It seems inclined to expand its nuclear arsenal and adopt a posture that reinforces the belief that ‘limited’ use of nuclear weapons can be managed,» the Bulletin said. «Such misplaced confidence could have us stumble into a nuclear war.»

But Heinrichs countered the «alarmist» message and argued that deterrence remains a very real protectant against nuclear warfare, even as Russia increasingly threatens Western nations with atomic use.

«I do think that it’s a serious threat. I don’t think it’s inevitable that we’re sort of staring down nuclear Armageddon,» she said. 

CHINA’S GROWING NUCLEAR ARSENAL AIMS TO BREAK US ALLIANCES AND DOMINATE ASIA, REPORT WARNS

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched from an air field during military drills in Russia on Feb. 19, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

Heinrichs argued the chief threat is not the number of nuclear warheads a nation possesses, but in how they threaten to employ their capabilities.

«I think that whenever there is a threat of nuclear use, it’s because adversaries, authoritarian countries, in particular Russia, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to invade another country. And that’s where the greatest risk of deterrence failure is,» she said. «It’s not because of the sheer number of nuclear weapons.»

Heinrichs said Russia is lowering the nuclear threshold by routinely threatening to employ nuclear weapons in a move to coerce Western nations to capitulate to their demands, as in the case of capturing territory in Ukraine and attempting to deny it NATO access.

Instead, she argued that the U.S. and its allies need to improve their deterrence by not only staying on top of their capabilities but expanding their nuclear reach in regions like the Indo-Pacific.

A rocket launches from missile system from the Plesetsk facility in northwestern Russia on Dec. 9, 2020. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

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«The answer is not to be so afraid of it or alarmed that you capitulate, because you’re only going to beget more nuclear coercion if you do that,» she said. «The answer is to prudently, carefully communicate to the Russians they are not going to succeed through nuclear coercion, that the United States also has credible response options.

«We also have nuclear weapons, and we have credible and proportional responses, and so they shouldn’t go down that path,» Heinrichs said. «That’s how we maintain the nuclear peace. That’s how we deter conflict. And that’s how we ensure that a nuclear weapon is not used.»