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Louisiana is suspending their planned May congressional primaries despite the fact that early voting was about to begin. Because of this week's Supreme Court decision that undermined a key plank of the Voting Rights Act, the Republican-controlled legislature will redraw the map. President Trump thanks the state's governor for, quote, moving so quickly, so not doing in Indiana. And House Speaker Mike Johnson says southern states should consider redistricting ahead of the midterms in November. We should know that Speaker Johnson himself stands to gain from the redrawn maps as a Republican incumbent in Louisiana. Meanwhile, Democrats could be ramping up retaliation in states like Illinois and Colorado with House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries saying all options are on the table. I want to also note that we've seen that Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, has announced that he is not redrawing for the midterms. I argued on the five. This is a really big issue for 2028. And beyond the midterms, it'll be like zero or one seats gain, maximum three to four. But what's your take on the gerrymandering wars right now? Well, I've said it's from the beginning to race to the bottom. And I don't like gerrymandering. I don't think anyone likes gerrymandering. It's why in 2021 Democrats put forth a bill to end partisan gerrymandering nationwide and every Republican voted against it. I mean, even Republicans, many of you asked them to support gerrymandering. They were probably saying, no, your co-hosts on the five said they don't like gerrymandering. So I mean, like we're in this situation where we're in this race to the bottom. But I'm of the belief that, OK, since they're going to do it, we should do it too. Right? Like screw it. Why fight with one hand tied behind our back? Now, I will say what's dangerous to me is the cancellation or suspension of elections. The state of emergency declared in Louisiana. That's scary to me because votes have already been submitted. Absentee ballots have already been tallied. And so you're essentially nullifying votes as an elections ongoing. Could you set the stage for the cancellation of, for example, a November election if there is a hurricane in Louisiana and you just want to redo it? I mean, like you never know where things go at this point. So it's concerning. It's a race to the bottom. And I just I would like to see national gerrymandering ban be passed and national independent redistricting committee established. That's what I would like. Yeah, that would be nice. And I think, you know, when people look at the breakdown and how many seats there were to be gained in the states based on their partisanship, you know, they see a lot of shiny toys like 52 seats in California, for instance, if we did that 17 in Illinois, et cetera. But I'm curious as to how successful you think some of these southern governors are going to be in actually getting these harebrained ideas through like in Tennessee, for instance, it's already eight to one. There's only one Democratic seat in Memphis. They want to get rid of that. South Carolina only has one Democratic seat. It's Jim Clyburn seat. They want to get rid of that. I mean, do everything will obviously get tied up in the courts, but do you think that they are going to be successful with anything pre-minterms? In Louisiana potentially, I think. But what is success? I don't know how you define success for a lot of these Republican governors because Jeff Landry could suspend this election. Let's say he gets it through, but I'm already hearing that they're not going to eliminate both black majority districts. They're only actually going to eliminate one. The one. So if you're going to do this for just one district, is that really a success when you have another one you theoretically could? Are you going to go back next cycle and redistrict again before 2028? I mean, and then in Georgia, like you said, they're not doing it. Tennessee says they're going to do it, but saying it is a lot easier than actually getting it done. We have six months until election day. So it is, I mean, we're going to have to see. I don't know that ultimately they'll be that successful. And also, I mean, when you talk about success, just look at what Democrats have done compared to what Republicans have done in this gerrymandering battle. If anything, Democrats are out on top right now. And so, okay, Tennessee goes through with it. Let's say Maryland and Governor Moore wants to do it tomorrow too, right? Like it's this constant race to the bottom. And ultimately I just think you're going to get out members of Congress that have been established and just cycle in a new generation of members of Congress in these new districts. So on the numbers game, I think it's relatively going to be a wash. Well, I hope so. Part of that definitely is due to the good work that Democrats did in response to the Texas gerrymander and asked voters what they wanted to do in California and Virginia and picked up a lot of seats. Two questions. Do you think so? It was a big deal when Indiana, the legislature, rejected Trump's overtures for redistricting there. There were a number of Republican members who ended up getting death threats, got into very public tangos and got president over that. Do you think any of the southern states are going to, I mean, Brian Kemp with the 2026 thing, you know, Brian Kemp has always been more of a normal human being than the average Republican in the Trump era. But do you think any, we'll see any pushback like we did in Indiana or generally speaking there? Okay. I mean, I think they've learned that they're less in a way. I don't think they want death threats. And even in Indiana, I mean, like, yeah, you got the pushback and they didn't do it. But Indiana is still a ruby red state and if Trump told them to jump, they'll say, how high tomorrow. So I really just, I don't think we'll see it elsewhere. And then this is a framing question that I have for you. Mostly I want you to do my work for me for when I go back on the five and talk about it. So there are two camps that I'm seeing in terms of how to talk about the Supreme Court ruling and the gerrymandering fight. So there is one camp that is all in on talking about the racial dynamics of this and it is undoubtedly an attack on black representation in the country. Like there's no two ways about it. And Republicans have a very smooth way of framing it that like it's us that's obsessed with race, etc. Even though they were crying racial foul when Virginia lost some rural representation. They were like, well, what about the white people? And I was like, this is the same conversation here. Right. So that's one way to talk about it. And the other way to talk about it is to talk about gerrymandering as a national plague on the nation. The policy solution to it, which is a gerrymandering ban that Democrats have been supporting and the implications for elections without really heavy emphasis on the racial component. What do you think is the most effective way? Because I've done it both ways. I think both have their resonant points, but it does feel like we can sometimes get lost in having like a hyperbolic fight. You know, there are a lot of people out there talking about, you know, this is a Jim Crow redux, etc. And maybe it's just my perch in conservative media that I find those battles much tougher to wage and win. But I'm curious what you think. Well, I think I have a nuanced response to this and it's kind of splitting the hair a little bit. And I think it depends on which audience you're talking to. If you're talking to a majority conservative audience, the racial argument won't play. On the five, the racial argument won't play. But at the same time, you can't just eliminate an argument just because it won't play. And I think that a lot of people when talking about gerrymandering forget that black Americans fought for representation for decades. And this is a Jim Crow redux in a lot of ways in terms of trying to roll back the Voting Rights Act. Now, they didn't eliminate section two, but they did anything, I mean, pretty much eliminating it without eliminating it. That's kind of where we got. And you have to recognize that in any argument you put forth. Now, at the same time, I think it all goes to a larger argument, which to me is the electoral college and just the way a portion of it works in the United States of America. The system that we kind of operate in, I think it is generally a problematic system when a majority vote-getter doesn't become president of the United States. This idea of this electoral college system where you apportion votes based on how big the population is and then you apportion congressional seats based on population, it almost seems very archaic. And yet when you're having these arguments about national gerrymandering ban or anything, I don't think you can have those arguments without bringing up race. And I also don't think you can have those arguments without talking about, well, is the system really working the way it was intended to work? And I would say it's not. Now, that's a whole constitutional convention and all that jazz. And I would love to have a constitutional convention tomorrow on a whole host of issues. But I think there needs to be a bigger argument, a bigger conversation here about our electoral system and the way kind of gerrymandering plays into it. You can go into campaign finance or all this stuff. And I also think you need to have a conversation about is the Supreme Court, this modern day Supreme Court, too powerful in the sense that it is actively from Citizens United to today. It is actively changing the electoral system as we know it. And there's nothing Congress or the president even can do about it. I think the president would say that he did a lot about it since he picked a bunch of folks who are a big part of it. Thomas's concurrence was like bone-shilling. And that's not true. I mean, right. Yesterday everyone was like, oh, I think it was Kayleigh McEnany. She printed it out and was like reading it like it was, you know, the most beautiful poem she'd ever heard in her life. And I was like, this is batshit what we're hearing now. I just wanted to add, I thought it was very cool. James Talorico, Our Fave in Texas, posted that the first bill that he's going to bring if he wins in November is a nationwide gerrymandering ban. And I think it is going to go in the conversation with corruption and the us versus them. And like you're getting a raw deal and will be used rhetorically by a lot of Democratic candidates and probably some Republicans who will then ignore the fact that they could have voted for it and didn't. Just a note that the calcium markets currently have the likelihood of redistricting before the midterms at 83% in Florida. Which is strange because it's a violation of their state constitution. That's in court and Louisiana and the odds rising quickly in New York and Alabama. Kathy Hockel is raring to go. So you were doing some great reporting on the attempts to control elections this fall. You already mentioned this a little bit. In the last few weeks, the DOJ demanded Wayne County, Michigan to turn over ballots from the 2024 election and are now also asking for the full on redacted voter rolls. What's going on there? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, they're trying to re-litigate the past. The DOJ demanded voter rolls, all ballots, anything from Wayne County, which is Detroit, a majority black minority area that is highly Democratic voted against Donald Trump significantly. And so they're trying to, in my opinion at least, influence the upcoming midterm elections by scaring off poll workers, by scaring off election officials, by trying to purge voter rolls. It's not just in Wayne County. They've requested it from 48 states in the District of Columbia. So it's, I mean, they're trying to do it nationwide. And even Republicans are saying no. Yeah. From my understanding. Because it is actually such an unrepublican concept to have the federal government play a role in state elections. Republicans, the parties of states' rights, they love states' rights. They loved it for Roe v. Wade. Now they love it. Now they don't like it when it comes to elections, right? Like, let Wayne County administer its elections. Let Michigan administer its elections. Keep the federal government's pause out of states. And that's how it should be. That's how it's been done. But this Trump administration that wants to buy a stake in spirit airlines and buy a stake in big tech companies and do all this stuff. I mean, it's, they're moving towards socialism, even if they don't like socialism. Totally. State-run capitalism is what we call, which is, you know, what the Chinese do essentially. It was interesting to see this move for 2024 rolls because we know that they're obsessed with 2020 and, you know, Tulsi Gabbard hanging out in Fulton County, like hiding in the corner there. Yeah. And when I saw this headline come in, I was like, oh, like, it's every election now that they think that there was fraud in. And someone, I think he was Mitch McConnell's general counsel. He wrote a piece, I think it was in the National Review, about, to your point, how this is such a nasma to being a Republican that you would try to federalize elections. For sure. I don't know what that word means, but yes, I agree with you. The opposite of, right? Oh, thank you. I didn't take that SAT, so I don't like SAT words. Because you took the ACT or like you were just gifted out? No, I just, I skipped a few years. Okay. Trump also spoke out yesterday about the filibuster saying Republicans need to get rid of it. Let's take a look. There will be very little voting cheating if we do the Save America Act. And the way they're going to do that is to terminate the filibuster. So I thought he'd forgotten about the Save America Act, frankly. I'm not sure what jogged his memory. Also, Greta Van Cessron looked really unhappy, which is generally how her taste looks at this point. But where do you think the Save America Act situation stands? Obviously Ken Paxton, who's still leading in the polls for the nomination in Texas for Senate. That's like his big thing. And I think he's said that if Trump gets it through, then he'll drop out and let Cornyn be the nominee. But what's your take? Yeah, I mean, I think the Save Act is still dead on arrival. I don't think it's going anywhere. You still need a filibuster-proof majority to pass it. You don't have enough Republican support to eliminate the filibuster. And Thune has said he won't get rid of the filibuster. So this is just posturing. It's just posturing. But I will say this, if they do somehow eliminate the filibuster, like, I think you're going to see a blue wave of epic reports. Like, I really do. I don't think buyer beware here for them. You think eliminating a filibuster is a story that resonates with average Americans? Okay, it's not the eliminating the filibuster story that resonates. It's the breaking down of congressional norms that I think resonates of like your passing Save Act and whatever while we were paying a record amount for a guess. But I don't know. I feel like we're so past it. It's almost laughable, like, how far in the dust we have left all of the norms that I worry that anything really resonates. Like, when you look at obviously Trump's support and Republican support has been eroding over time. But the real jolt to it was like going to a war, right, that no one wanted. It wasn't because you didn't ask Congress to go to the war. It was just like this thing is happening. And I feel like everyone has kind of accepted the fact that we live in a system with no checks and balances like King Charles, good on you for that line. But in general, I don't know what really resonates with people anymore besides huge blunt actions and their grocery bill. Well, speaking of price increases, we're back to tariffs again. A minute ago, we were putting tariffs on the EU again. Breaking news. We're on your breaking news on reaching moderate. Trump says he's pleased to announce that he's going to be announcing 25% tariffs on cars and trucks coming from Europe because Europe is not complying with our trade deal. So we're back to tariffs. Buy your cars now. But also illegal. This room court said illegal. I do love how King Charles got the exemption for Scotch and whiskey because he wasn't totally shitty to Trump when he was visiting. It's insane. I mean, like we live in a complete VEP episode every single day. I know. But I was excited to be here live for an Aaron Pernas breaking news situation. We'll have to clip that up. I make sure to get it out right away. And your regular viewers will be like, why is there a weird woman in the frame as Aaron is breaking news? Not a weird woman. The author of I Disagree, which you should all go pre-order right now. Look at that middle of the show plug. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us. I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Midge Furse, two-time Indie Resale champion, championship MVP, and forward for the US Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset, and unseen battle. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an Elite Athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Is the US-China rivalry ultimately a race to build the future? The United States and China are the two countries that are really inventing the future. The future is being financed by Wall Street, invented in Silicon Valley, as well as Shenzhen. I'm Jake Sullivan. And I'm John Finer, and we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, author Dan Wong joins us to discuss America's lawyerly society, China's engineering state, and why derangement might be a prerequisite for superpower status. The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. The DHS shutdown is finally done 75 days long. Trump signed the measure into law yesterday. Speaker Johnson initially rejected the bill that came to the House and the Senate as a joke, but an internal memo from the White House saying it would be unable to pay DHS personnel starting in May if the House didn't act. Help grease the wheels. Here's Speaker Johnson speaking after the bill was passed. Don't doubt the House or pumpkin or dork. We always deliver for the American people. We did it again in spite of the challenges and we continue to do that. He's so dishonest though, because he doesn't mention that they jammed through the ICE and CBP funding through reconciliation. So it's not like it makes it sound like the Democrats caved. They did not. They still voted for a clean bill. It came from the Senate, right? It had no funding for ICE in it. So if you're feeling let down by Democrats, don't they stuck to the Senate. They stuck to their proverbial guns for as long as they could enforce them into a reconciliation process to get that was it 75 billion that they got through. But what do you think the upshot of any of this is or it's much of a muchness? Much of a muchness. I mean, what upshot? Like, it's just like, who cares at this point anymore? Like seriously, like who does this? What average American is going to be like, oh my God, we're out of a government shutdown. And most people don't even know we're in a government shutdown because Trump just found money to pay people. That's my point about the filibuster. Yeah. But it does have or it could potentially have implications for immigration enforcement. This is the part that I was a little bit afraid of because it has felt like they've taken a real break from it. That Mark Wayne Mullen understands that what Kristi Noem and Greg Paveeno was doing is not going to be acceptable to a wide swath of Americans, even more moderate Republicans. Tom Homan has kept a very low profile since Minnesota, right? Like, I think I've literally not seen. Tom Homan, since I slept Minnesota, I did see him in the green room at Fox once. But I have not seen him like. Well, he was attacking the Pope. Oh, did he? Did you see that? Yeah, he said that the Pope, the Pope should go on an immigration raid with him. Yeah, that's going to happen. Yeah, that's what he said. Like this Pope who just appointed a new bishop in West Virginia who was an illegal immigrant to try crossing the border three times. Like that Pope is going to go on an immigration raid with you. But do you think that they're going to ramp back up the deportations? Because I have seen some swirl online from prominent voices saying that Mullen doesn't understand the assignment and that people did want these mass deportations. They just don't want, you know, public killings like Alex Pretty and Renee Good. I think they will after November, not before November. I think they're going to wait until after the midterms. I think they know that if they start back up before the midterms, it's not bad news bears. Bad news bears. Okay. I love that. I know Mullenial talking points. Don't make me feel so old. It's because I've said bad news bears on previous episodes, I'm sure. It's incredible to me how far down the list of topic priorities Iran has gotten like yesterday on the 5. We didn't even talk about the war. Crazy. It is the 60 days deadline for the conflict. No congressional approval in sight. I didn't even understand what happened last night. Like they tried to reclassify it in such a way so that it wouldn't be subject to a war powers vote. I don't, it feels like Republicans are actually legitimately angry about this at this point. But let's listen to Pete Hexeth and then I want to get your, your take on Iran. Ultimately, I would defer to the White House and White House counsel on that. However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60 day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire. So they're not in. Yeah. That's our understanding. Just so you know. Okay. Well, I do not believe the statute would support that. I think the 60 days runs maybe tomorrow and it's going to pose a really important legal question for the administration. We have serious constitutional concerns and we don't want to layer those with additional statutory concerns. I yield back. That was it. That because we're in a ceasefire, they should get those two weeks back. Do you think that argument is going to carry any weight with folks who are expecting to vote on this? I shouldn't. I mean, we're not in a ceasefire. I don't know what BS they're spewing. We have a naval blockade right now on Iran. That's an act of war under every international law of war. We are not in a ceasefire. Are you as fascinated though as I am with the fact that the blockade isn't actually working and how the Iranians are just sneaking their oil out. They're putting like a banner on the vessel that says we're Iraqi and just going about their business. And I don't know. I don't have the numbers on exactly how much crude oil is getting out. But I feel like the fact that we're hearing less about folks who depend on that oil being really upset means that there must be some decent amount getting out the door. Yeah, 100%. I mean, but at the end of the day, like the administration is going to violate the law again. They should pull out US forces today if they don't get congressional authorization. That is the law. A ceasefire does not mean that hostilities have ended. It means that hostilities have ceased temporarily. You need a permanent agreement to end the war. I mean, I don't know because it's like any what's any. Are they going to listen to a court? Are they going to listen to Congress? Like who did they have to listen to at this point? I don't even know. Me. Yeah. And you basically. Good luck. Yeah. What's the deal they have seen suicide note situation? I would love to know. Apparently there's a suicide note that they found in the coffers of a New York City courthouse. And it was found by a cellmate of Epstein's when Epstein died. And it's just been sitting in this vault and we don't know what it says. I'm very suspect of it. I don't think Epstein took his own life. So that's kind of where I'm at. But you don't think he took his own life? Like how far do you go in the conspiracy? I guess like, do you think that's somebody and I shouldn't even call it conspiracy. Like Julie K. Brown doesn't think that Epstein killed himself. And I don't think anyone has spent more time steeped in Epstein than Julie K. Brown. But do you think that this is a note that he was coerced into writing or someone wrote for him or? Let me reframe what I said. I don't think the investigation was thorough enough to determine conclusively that Epstein took his own life. That's where I'm at. How about that? I don't know. I ultimately don't know what happened. He may have taken his own life. He may have not. But I think that the fact that the inspector general of the DOJ that investigated Epstein's death didn't look at this note tells me everything I need to know. Do you think that they secretly have read it and ingested it and had conversations about what the implications are? And then we're like, it would be really better if this was in a box at the bottom. That's a ton of speculation that I don't have an answer to. I have no idea. Oh, right. You're no fun today. Lastly, the Senate voted unanimously to ban senators and their staff from participating in prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi effective immediately. Chuck Schumer is urging the House to pass a similar measure, which I imagine that they will. What do you think is going to happen with the regulation of these prediction markets? I mean, I hope they're highly regulated, especially Polymarket. Kalshi is a little different, but Polymarket is not even a U.S.-based company. It's not regulated by the CFTC to conduct business in the United States, I believe. So that's a whole different conversation. I think this prediction market rise is one of the most dangerous things that's happening inside the United States of America right now because it is so unregulated. For example, if there was a prediction bet about how long this episode would go, I can fill a bustard on my own and make a ton of money off of it. And there is nothing stopping that from happening really. I mean, you have these insider trading regulations, but it's not regulated like the stock market is. It's like indicting someone for insider trading. It's interesting that a soldier that was indicted in the Southern District of New York for betting on the Maduro raid, he wasn't indicted for insider trading. He was indicted for the use of classified information. I don't know that you can even indict someone on insider trading charges because of how unregulated the market is. And also, I don't even know that is it gambling? Is it a prediction market? Is it something like a stock or is it something like sports betting? No courts answered that clearly enough for me at the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in. So I think there needs to be a lot more regulation and a lot more conversation, especially as it relates to people in power. Yeah. I mean, life always moves too quickly for the courts, especially when technology is involved. I agree with you with the difference. Like Cal-Chi doesn't allow bets on war, for instance, and things like that, which I think is important since there's an argument that people have been making a ton of money off of war, which is American lives lost, Iranian lives lost, Lebanese lives lost, Israeli lives lost, all of it. And that there were inside information, potentially there was a big story about someone on Pete Hexas' team. And then we also know things like John Jr. and Eric Trump are making a ton of money off of the war. So what's the difference? Right? Like at this point, I don't even know. Actually, and I could just go on and be like, I could do a whole episode listing all the ways that they're making money. Final thing that I just wanted to note, it's not even a topic. I just want to say that Trump's net worth has nearly tripled in his second term. It's up to $6.5 billion. That is not happening without cheating. Oh, for sure. That's not happening without. Yeah, but I was doing like a soapbox thing for the audience. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I mean, I'm basically done. Like there are a bunch of criminals. And it's just astounding, like the cognitive dissonance or the willingness to just completely ignore the fact that the coffers, crypto and live, like in your hands, are just open to the highest bidders and the whole world knows that you can just put a token in and then you're going to get what you want. And this links to everything. I mean, I couldn't, it was frustrating on a number of levels. You know, we had Senator Rand Paul on earlier this week and he has a bill about, you know, making sure that the ballroom goes through the normal approval processes and private privately funded. And I asked him like, well, what are people getting for this money? He's like, well, I don't know if we have laws that are going to make it so that we could find that out. You're the guy to make the laws. Like you now have somebody who has taken every norm and shattered them, who has meant every rule that we ever thought that we needed to have a sane and functioning society. And you don't want to do anything about it. It's like clip that clip that good. That's great. Yeah. Once I got on my soapbox before we go, a reminder that raising moderates is on sub stacks. Subscribers get those ad free episodes that everyone's desperate to have. Our newsletter is there the Monday rage. It's very good. My mom told me that we're going to be doing more live streams. Scott is massively into live streams, which should be very exciting. You can find us at raging moderates.prophgmedia.com. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. Bye. Yeah.
