Trump Gets Revenge Again

Today in the group chat, President Trump gets revenge again. Who else could pay the price this week for standing up to him? I'm the one they haven't been able to bully, so they're putting all the brunt, the force on me. So two fighter jets collide at an air show. How did four Navy pilots manage to eject and parachute to safety? I think they're gonna have to come to us. It's a failed nation.

Cuba fears a U.S. invasion and reportedly stockpiles drones. What kind of fight could the island put up? And one lawmaker wants college athletes at Southern schools to take a stand for voting rights. By transferring out, is that a fair thing to ask of them? Thank you. We're kinda Trying to fight to be able to live in the... Yeah. It's gonna be a rough commute for many New Yorkers today why workers at the biggest commuter railroad in the country are on strike this morning.

And to first look at the damage from that powerful tornado that tore through Nebraska. We're on watch for more dangerous spring storms today. disagree with President Trump, but if you try to destroy him, you're gonna lose'cause this is the party of Donald Trump. And a senator from Louisiana found that out the hard way. Could a congressman from Kentucky be next? Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish.

And we begin in Louisiana, of course, with the downfall of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. He is the first Republican senator to lose a primary in nearly a decade. Cassidy voted to convict Trump for impeachment, and Trump doesn't forget. Cassidy didn't mention the president in his concession speech, but he did give a veiled jab on the way out the door. Our country is not about one individual.

The welfare of all Americans and it is about our constitution. If someone doesn't understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power. They're about serving themselves, they're not about serving us. And that person does not qualify to be a leader.

Okay, the president already turning his eye to his next rival, Thomas Massey, posting early Sunday morning urging voters in Kentucky to quote, get this loser out of politics in Tuesday's election. Massey is confident it won't work there. And I'm the one they haven't been able to bully, so they're putting all the brunt and the force on me. But you can tell that I'm ahead in the polls and they're desperate.

All right, so we're gonna bring in some folks who know in our group chat. Sarah Fisher, CNN Senior Media Analyst, Senior Media Reporter at Axios, Nia Malika Henderson, CNN senior political analyst, Bloomberg political and policy column columnist. and Sungman Kim, CNN political analyst, White House reporter with the Associated Press. Sungman, can I start with you? Because when I look at the race in Louisiana

And then I look at those Indiana Republicans, which were on the state level, who lost against the primary challengers backed by Trump. Trump is feeling pretty good, right, about the power of his endorsement. I mean he has to be feeling really good right now, at least when it comes to his own party, because

Defeats by or or losses by a sitting senator are really rare. You mentioned at the top that this is the first loss by a senator in nearly a decade. That was Luther Strange and Alabama in twenty seventeen. He wasn't even an elected senator, he wasn't appointed Senator.

And before that it was Dick Luger in twenty twelve. That is all to say, this just doesn't happen very much. What I do think it shows, I mean, not just the Indiana um s uh Senate races and this uh and and the Louisiana primary over the weekend. It shows just how much the president has had a grip on his party because either you're um you're aligned with him if you're a Republican or you've kind of had to contort your positions to get in line with him.

I'm gonna say the weird thing about this story is I thought this purge had already happened. You know what I mean? The congressional reporter in me is like this is a ten year old story. What's different about this moment? I think the midterms sort of foreshadowed some of what we're seeing here, which is how polarized this is.

Either Donald Trump loses overwhelmingly or the Republican Party loses overwhelmingly as Democrats continue to expand their tent. We saw that with Abigail Spanfeller in Virginia and Mickey Sherrill in New Jersey.

Or it's the complete opposite and the trumpiest candidate wins. And what we're seeing now heading into the midterms is that polarity, I think, is still going to exist. The trumpiest candidates are going to continue to prevail. And then in other cases, they're going to continue to completely fall flat. This is why I'm continually watching redistricting, because I think that's going to have a major impact on how this polarity plays out.

Neamelik, I want to play for you Pete Buttigieg, former transportation secretary. Um he is looking at this moment as an opportunity for Democrats. Here's how he makes the case. Senator Cassidy is a normal, honest, and very conservative Republican. And it turns out people like that have less and less of a home in Donald Trump's Republican Party. We are seeing more and more extreme candidates. uh put forward in in their House and Senate races, which does create a big opening for Democrats.

I don't think the kind of person who votes for Democrats is gonna vote for Thomas Massey. I'll put up his voting scorecard this session. He he's a Republican. Yeah. And a Republican who more or less has voted for Trump Uh with uh on many things. These are the numbers from the Heritage Action. And for most of the time he's been uh in Congress has gotten Donald Trump's uh endorsement, right? Despite him being a libertarian and and and voting against uh Republicans and the president.

Loudest on the things Trump most wants. Yes, yes, yes. And Trump loves revenge. He loves to display uh his power over his voters. In some ways, I think uh this is overkill, the amount of money and time they're spending. I was about to say, well, it one thing about Massey is the amount of money that's going in is also bolstered by uh Republican Jewish Coalition, APAC. They're pouring a lot of money into this race.

Um right there is some reporting from Politico because of the votes he's taken there. Let me play something for you'cause what gets at this. Um somebody was asking him, um, I think it was Laura Loomer. Um this was back in January. Take a listen. Congressman, in the last two weeks you repeated AOC's talking points on Venezuela. And Jasmine Crockett has retweeted you. When will you change your party affiliation to Democrats? I thought you knew.

I vote with Republicans ninety one percent of the time. It seems like it's not a good idea. Nine percent I don't, they're taken up for pedophiles, starting another war, or bankrupting our country. Yeah, you know, listen... Like some elements there, a Democrat would be like, ah and then others they'd be like, Democrats have been in this position. It's like you know looking at Marjorie Taylor Green. Oh, can you, you know, fold her into the big tent of the Democratic Party? No. You can. Yeah.

And the Never Trumpers did not produce any kind of win for Democrats, obviously, during the Kamala Harris period. Like to me that contingency is very loud, but I just don't see them actually creating s an opening for Democrats. No, I think that what Pete Boudej is aspiring to is seeing the polarity, seeing the polarization, and wondering can Democrats take advantage of that? And I think it's gonna be very hard in historically conservative districts like we're mentioning here with Thomas Massey.

One thing that's notable about Massey is like this also is an example of small not small things, but single positions really dogging candidates. So on the Cassidy front it was healthcare. He's a doctor, he came out swinging against RFK and the what was happening with vaccine. Right.

And of course then he can vote, but I'm thinking most recently that was his single thing. With Massey, it was Epstein. If Donald Trump sees one lane for one thing, it does not matter if you have voted with him 99% nine percent of the time. He will find that one thing, he will take it, and that is the end for you.

Well we're gonna have a lawmaker here and and I'm excited to talk more about this because what does it mean to have an opening when both parties are dealing with polarization? Um I I wanna turn to this though. We have some reporting on those two fighter jets.

That uh collided in midair. The dramatic moments right after that saved the lives of four crew members. Plus, today there's gonna be jury deliberations uh in the case of Elon Musk and Sam Altman, that trial over OpenAI, but there will not be a final decision just yet and from reality TV villain to LA superhero can Spencer Pratt turn his fame into votes? I do know that he has become wildly famous again, but a lot of his support, I don't know how much of it is in LA.

Twizzlers keep the fun going. Yeah, I know. I just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte, but twisty, chewy, yummy Twizzler sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little Yeah. Which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going! Time I got news for your ears. I am your host, Michael Ian Black. We're talking about when you can expect your trauma.

to get delivered. I know you ordered it nine months ago. You've been waiting patiently. We've got all the updates. We've got the updates on the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. We've got updates on the most expensive. Ballroom ever conceived. You won't believe how much this thing is costing. Have I got news for your ears? Check us out on Amazon Music, wherever you get your podcasts, even better you can watch. On Spotify.

Okay, it's almost 15 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup. The president is warning Iran that the clock is ticking as a ceasefire between the two country holds for now. President Trump spent part of the weekend meeting with his national security team plotting a path forward on the war, including potentially restarting attacks. Trump told Tehran they quote, better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them.

And right now, this that you're looking at is the moment that two Navy jets crashed during an air show in Idaho. Four crew members ejected and opened their parachutes as the planes went up in a fireball. It all happened as dozens of The show is canceled. The crash is under investigation. And jury deliberations begin this morning in the case brought by Elon Musk.

Against open AI. Their decision will be advisory, with the judge making the final call on the verdict. Musk is suing the AI giant and its CEO, Sam Altman, over allegations that the company breached its original charitable trust.

This morning, an international effort to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 80 suspected deaths have been reported and 246 cases. The World Health Organization has since declared the Ebola epidemic a quote public health emergency of international concern. Bringing in CNN's Larry Midowo in Nairobi. Larry, if you can start just by telling us the state of play here with this public health emergency.

Audi experts are extremely concerned and the region here on high alert after these Eighty-eight deaths from Ebola in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The C D C saying that there are ten confirmed cases, but more than three hundred and thirty suspected cases. And there's also been a case reported in Uganda next door.

Confirmed cases in Uganda. One person died and was sent across the border. The others receiving treatment, the government in Uganda tells us. And the neighboring country of Rwanda saying it is adding extra vigilance at its border, border checks, just making sure that this does not travel across the border. But the reason why experts are concerned, the first case was reported about a month ago and the a fifty nine year old man died from that. Now this

huge outbreak in an area of the Eastern DRC where already says suffering from major conflict and d and displacement and that means people have been traveling quite a bit. That is why the World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency of international concern, but falling short of declaring it a pandemic emergency. The Africa C D C is supporting the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and of Uganda to deal with this. Here's what the director told CNN this morning.

We need to open borders. We need people to fly. But what we need is to make sure that we are screening each person. We are isolating those who are at risk. And we are taking all public health measures that can protect all of us. I think for now we are on top of things. That's gonna be a major issue for a lot of countries if there are people traveling from the DRC or from Uganda from the region who might have been

infected or who are directly affected. The C D C is saying it is helping relocate a small number of Americans who are directly affected. It didn't offer any more than that, but it says it's working with the interagency partners to make sure that it's providing support to the DRC to deal with this so that, you know, viruses have no visas um or they do get around and they're making sure that this is nipped in the bud.

Okay, that's Larry Madoo speaking to us from Nairobi. After the break on CNN this morning, tensions between the US and Cuba heating up. How some on the island are actually preparing for a potential invasion. Plus Thank you. The bottom line is... Yeah. No one wins in a strike. Everyone is hurt. Okay.

Talks to end a strike at the largest commuter rail system fail a Monday morning commute sure to be a nightmare in New York. In the meantime, good morning to St. Louis. We've got a beautiful picture of the sunrise under the arch.

People in Cuba are on edge this morning. There's a fuel shortage, escalating tensions with the US, and it's plunged the island into fear of what comes next. The children don't have food to eat and aren't going to school. We're desperate. The women, we've already lost twenty pounds and we are anxious because we don't have a way of supporting our kids. Frustrated Cubans are demanding help from their government. Fuel supplies from Venezuela were cut off back in January. And then this happened.

Now Axios reports U.S. intelligence is concerned about the threat of military drones from the island as the Trump administration pressures Cuba's government. Is Cuba gonna turn to us and make it? I mean, I think so. I mean, look, I've been hearing about Cuba since I'm a little boy.

They've been saying, what's going on with Cuba? And I think we'll be turning it. Marco's been very effective and uh the whole group has been very effective. It's uh yeah, I think I think they're gonna have to come to us. It's a failed nation. It's a totally failed nation. So bringing into the group chat Becca Wasser, defense lead at Bloomberg Economics. There's no doubt the US has put

maximum maximum pressure on Cuba. It is affecting the people who live there. People are worried about a humanitarian crisis. Um I want to ask you about the military aspect of this. Does Cuba have really a military that could put up any kind of response to US boots on the ground or even uh strikes or aggression? So let's break this down first and foremost, which is yes Cuba has a military. It has a military with aging equipment, largely old Soviet era equipment.

But as Axios reported, they have recently acquired some new advanced drones. But that doesn't mean that the drone threat to the United States is necessarily an imminent one. And it doesn't mean that Cuba is ready to launch any type of preemptive action against the United States. But here it's really important to note that.

Cuban military has some aging equipment, but it really comes down to not just materiel, but what have they learned and what can they actually do? And it's worth noting that there were Cuban forces protecting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. when the US came in. But that didn't go so well for Venezuela. That didn't go so well.

Venezuela, but I think again we have to think about what this might look like. There's maximum pressure, there's a blockade, it looks a little bit like the playbook that we've seen President Trump use in Iran. But what type of action if the United States were to do anything, what would it look like? And I think it's just going to be continued economic pressure more than military action.

Just a follow up to that, what would be the US objective for Cuba if there were to be some sort of military action? Because as we've seen with Venezuela and then Iran, the plan B No, and I think here we have seen President Trump perhaps learning uh some bad lessons from his relative success in Venezuela.

Because we should say they're already eyeing uh a Department of Justice indictment, maybe, for Raul Castro. And we know that was the pretext for going in to get Nicolas Maduro. And I think a lot of people are asking the question of like A, I mean to be Maduro sh should not become a verb, but I I had someone on set last week say that Trump administration is looking at this through

Caracas colored glasses. And I thought that was really interesting because there's it's not like the oil in Venezuela. I'm not sure what you really get with Cuba that the administration would be interested in. And I think there it is more of a political question and you have members of Trump's who feel very strongly about the Cuban question, uh, you know, Marco Rubio in particular. And so I think we need to have that lens when we're talking about what might occur and why it might occur.

Let me play for you Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense. I think this will get to the point I can feel you about to make. Um here he is on Face the Nation. I think that actually the biggest risk is that we end up with another Mariel uh evacuation from Cuba that has tens of thousands of Cubans heading to the United States out of desperation. as as happened a number of years ago. Uh so I think that's actually at this point uh the biggest threat.

A lot of young people may not remember that. What it's like to see a mass exodus is the administration thinking about these kinds of things. I think that there's a there's a look at all the potential consequences, but we also know even when the administration may be aware of the potential consequences of what may happen with the military action.

they don't necessarily kind of enact whatever their plan B is in response. We're seeing that happen right now with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So if they do have backup plans or contingency plans, we don't no necessarily know that they're gonna be executed. And just remember the geography. Cuba is what, ninety miles from the from the s uh the coast of Florida. There i th your history that you mentioned is why there is such a giant Cuban diaspora in South Florida.

There i i it is a very um key polit I mean, there are so many questions surrounding what They may or may not do, but I also think it's really difficult to ignore kind of all the different, you know, little pieces that are building up. You have the Castro potential indictment, you have Ratcliffe's visit, you have the sanctions that the State Department has placed on Cuba over the last several weeks, and the fact that they just Strikes throughout the region.

And and I mean, how many wars can the American military handle at once? I mean you see sort of the fallout of the Iran excursion, as the president calls it, and you know, sort of blowing through this expensive munitions. I mean what what's your And Hexeth was super upset last week when someone asked about it. Is there enough uh munitions? Is there enough supplies?

Listen, what it comes down to is the US military is meant to be a global military, but the cost, the readiness costs of potentially having Two wars on multiple fronts, right? We have all of everything that's happening with the Iran war. We have the military buildup in the Caribbean still. We have global. Global. Response actions, including deterrence operations in Europe, still. So when you look at that global stretch.

prosecuting multiple conflicts at once is going to create even more overstretch for the US military and leave them less prepared for some of the real consequences consequential you know crises that could emerge in the future. where you might want to have that readiness still. So Uh actually making a move on Cuba, in some ways it's mortgaging the future. And that's really important for folks to realize and what it might mean for our men and women who serve in the military all over the globe.

Okay, Becca Wasser as always, I really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Straight ahead on CNN this morning. We're gonna talk about the Congressional Black Caucus, which is at a crossroads thanks to the redistricting wars. I'm gonna be talking with Congressman Jonathan Jackson about their fight to stay in the game, plus a dangerous twister touches down in Nebraska, and the threat's not over.

Good morning everybody. I'm Audi Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN this morning. It's half past the hour. Here's what's happening right now. A large part of the central U.S. is bracing for another day of powerful storms. Yesterday, more than a dozen tornadoes were reported mainly throughout eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. The tornadoes destroyed the Several homes and buildings and drone footage shows the widespread destruction.

Nebraska. Now, the severe weather threat is forecast to continue for the next two days. And that cruise ship at the center of the deadly hantivirus outbreak has just docked in the Netherlands. Dutch officials say quarantine facilities are the first time. Once the ship arrives, it will undergo a full biomedical cleaning and will be disinfected. And it's going to be a chaotic commute in New York this morning as service remains.

disrupted on the vital Long Island Railroad, America's largest commuter railroad. People there are on strike. Negotiations are underway with the Metropolitan Transportation Agency. It's unfortunate we had to come to this position. I don't want to be here any more than anybody else wants to be here, but this is the only way to get the MTA to listen.

Both sides returned to the negotiating table later this morning. Union workers want better salaries and health care program And the fight over redistricting is moving to the football field amid growing calls for black student athletes to boycott SEC schools. I think the only thing these people understand is a loss of income.

And I think the clearest way to do it, I think if these four and five star athletes, they need to understand they are contributing to a system that only wants to erode the situations they have. If you can't run in a state, you shouldn't run in a state. Our next guest has a similar take. Illinois Democratic congressman Jonathan Jackson joins the group chat. Now, did I hear, have you actually talked to any students about this? Yes I have. Where? What state? Uh South Carolina and uh Louisiana.

How do they receive it? Well first the level of skepticism. They're very much concerned about their future. Their parents are involved. There's a huge opportunity for N I L H, the money making opportunity. Their name, image and likeness, right? They can make money independently in a way. And it sets in it may put a target on them. So there's a lot of things that a student would have to consider. But I want this to be broader than just the black athletes. I want the

Caucasian white athletes, people that have a good conscience to come up and think about this here. Do you want to be on the side of the people that are trying to resegregate? our national polls. And so and the coaches have to speak to this. So I don't think it's fair that we put all the burden just on the athletes, but good coaches have to speak up for this.

But it's an intriguing idea given the role of young college-age black people in the civil rights movement as well. They've uh borne this burden for a very long time. What about the Democratic Party? Couldn't they be doing a little more? Or is this just the most sort of high profile uh outlandish thing to talk about?

Well, I think it's high profile, but if you think about the analogy that I use, I take them back to the point of history of September twelfth, nineteen seventy. It was University of South Carolina versus University of Southern California versus Alabama. And Coach Bear Bryant, he was very proud of his team. Alabama was very proud to be segregated.

still in nineteen seventy. And when they got to the football field, they saw a diversified, if you will, a DEI team in the University of Southern California versus a uh homogenized, segregated University of Alabama, and they were beat 42 to 21. Bear Bryant went back to his state senators, his state rep, and to the governors, said if we're going to be proud of our football team, we're going to have to have some black athletes.

He did more in many ways to start desegrating Alabama by going through the athleticism. I think there's a new generation of people in the South. in this country. They don't want to go back. Now that they're seeing the horrors of what segregation was, they can't believe it. I think they're gonna turn the page. They don't want to empty out their football stadiums.

All right, I want to play for you President Trump, who in mid May was talking about these changing maps, talking about these redistricting wars, uh, and here's how he talked about it. voters who are confused about the changing maps. The changing dates And to African Americans concerned that this is going to draw black members of Congress off the map, what do you say?

Well I think it's been a wonderful process. Uh they've been the Democrats or as I call the Democrats because they are dumb in so many ways. They've redistricted for years, and now we took our shot and it looks like we're gonna pick up a lot of seats. And that's a good thing. Let me show you guys the map for this redistricting push at this point.

These red states are the ones where um the map favors GOP. Democrats have tried their own redistricting effort and you can see the little blue there from where they have picked up stuff and then as we talked about South Carolina and Louisiana now under consideration. For a while it seemed like Democrats were sort of winning this fight, so to speak, or it turned it into a wash. Um, is there real fear now that you guys are on the back foot?

Well absolutely. I think that the way we have to do that, we have to overwhelm the polls. And so I'm not the big fan of the redistricting. I hope we uh get into the Congress where we like settle this law. It's supposed to happen. Happen every ten years. We're supposed to go through the census every ten years, then go through the reapportionment, then the redistricting, and that map stays in place. But because Chief

Justice Roberts has been committed his entire life to dismantling the Voting Rights Act. He has taken everything all the way up to 2013 now to 2026. and every Supreme Court ruling to finally gut it. That's where we see the all this new gerrymandering, redistricting is all coming in after the twenty thirteen election, after the twenty thirteen

um court decision. So let's settle that. It should be happening. This is what even ironically Barry Goldwater said would be a problem. He says the presidency has gotten too powerful. We have a equal checks and balance, but Speaker Johnson has not stepped up to try to curtail the press from any of his activities.

Let me uh bring up a uh a piece of um history that you're going to know, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the late Reverend Jesse Jackson in January 2015, talking about what it would take to protect the vote, particularly for black Americans in this country. Uh here he is. So what we need is an amendment to the constitution. for the for the constitution protected right to vote. We want to have The state's right to vote, we have fifty state separate and unequal system of elections.

So our issue is to educate people Has this revealed a weakness? Oh you got me with that one. I've not done an interview with Dad on this. Uh yesterday was his ninetieth day of having made his transition. Um no, but we do need a a constitutional amendment. First of all The the VRA comes out of there's no teeth in the fifteenth amendment. So it was a law that gave us the right to vote and at the same time voter suppression began. Well I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no, that's fine. I love him. I don't know. He passed uh February seventeenth, so uh I'm glad he's with the ancestors and he did not have to see this disaster. He has fought against this his entire life. The same thing that uh Chief Justice Roberts My father fought for the Voting Rights Act to expand democracy, and Chief Justice and Clarence Thomas, their entire life, has fought against it.

See, I'm sixty years of age, born nineteen sixty six. The Voting Rights Act was passed nineteen sixty five. I'm the first generation of Americans to actually be born with equal rights. Our democracy was born in nineteen sixty five.

Well I want to talk more about that because that timing, that timeline you discussed is also what really helped birth and create the numbers of people in the Congressional Black Caucus. uh caucus, which I think is upwards of sixty something members at this point. Sixty two the highest it's ever been. Now according to the chairwoman, a third of their seats could be affected, particularly in southern states, the ones we've been talking about. Uh here she is.

The Calais decision is a devastating blow to the C B C no doubt about that. And not only the C B C but the the the constituents that CBC members represent in the districts that have been uh dismantled. Uh however, I believe that CBC members will continue to be the conscience of the Congress. Neo, can I come to you for that for a little bit of history here or at least understanding the moment we're in? What makes this an inflection point for that group particular?

Yeah, I mean I listen, I mean if you think about the history of the CBC, it has been a consistent uh an increasingly large block of the Democratic Party. We don't just represent black districts. Exactly, who don't just represent black districts, who represent di diverse districts all over the country, and you are going to see a fairly large rollback.

uh in these members because of the redistricting and some of them have already uh sort of bowed out and aren't gonna run for re-election. James Clyburn in South Carolina um he is likely to be redistricted out. Though some Republicans there were a little like, not James. have a lot of these southern states, states like South Carolina, they've got a black um female coach of the USC um, you know, women seem th there is this idea of sort of the new South and they're they're relying on Yeah.

Yeah, and so this idea that they're going to possibly now have an all white Republican uh congressional delegation doesn't sit well even with some of these folks.

President Trump and his allies uh in the White House are very much pressuring folks in South Carolina in particular uh to do this. It looks like they will go for it. Uh and Jim Clivern, uh you know, who I think is eighty five years old, um is Insisting that he's gonna run, that he's still gonna win will be a little bit more than a little bit.

Let me add something to this. Antoine Sea Wright, who um is a Democratic strategist, you probably know him, was on our set last week. And he had this to say about democrats and what they should be doing in the problems he sees. They should be stepping up and saying more in this moment because this is an all hands on deck moment. Whatever differences we may appear to have amongst each other, everybody they do not compare to the differences we have with the people we're trying to eliminate.

and exterminate black political power. He felt like the sort of Bernie Sanders wing of the party was not stepping up and not talking enough about this issue. Well, this I would tell you, um, just like with the athletes, the athletes we're now pulling for jerseys versus skin color when we talk about the SEC. The same thing has happened in the political arena.

Uh no Democrat can get a gavel on Capitol Hill without addressing the historical issues that the African AC American community has had with the Voting Rights Act. This affects everyone in the Democratic Party. So although they've limited to talk about what the CBC and the African American community are doing. The progressives have have taken a setback. The centrists, the blue dog democrats have taken a setback. Everyone loses. This is 25% of the things that we're going to

of the base of the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill right now. So everyone should be speaking up. And that's why I think that our good colleagues, the Liberals, uh, need to have something to say. White women need to have something to say. They were the biggest beneficiaries of our DEI programs to give people a chance. This was like true meritocracy when everyone was given a chance.

When I was looking out at the immigration issue, the raids, the protests, uh given even given that they were northern states, they were mostly white crowds. Do you think this issue is going to in a sense reactivate black activists um black voters and kind of pull them into um this administration and pull them into the fight so to speak. Well, yes, and this is a fight that has to go on consistently. It's never gone away.

Yeah, but they've been sitting out. They've been a little like, well, you know, this is not our fight, we've been through twenty twenty. I think we're gonna have to put our resources where our mouth is. The Democratic Party has to invest in the South. The Republican Party is now getting a return on their investment from their voter registration, from their uh Redmap plan, from their Contract on America plan, on their Project 2025 plan. These have been long-term sustained plans.

and even with their Charlie Kirk plan to infiltrate going into student organizations. Where has the money gone to invest in? Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama. Uh we just can't go by every five years, every four years and do a flyover. When was the last Democratic presidential candidate campaigning in Mississippi in an off season?

in Alabama, Louisiana, uh, when have they gone there? And so they've done these as flyovers. We have to get back to the base. We should not be looking at the electoral map as only a few states in the north. and conceding the entire South. Our growth, our numbers are in the South. I saw my father, Reverend Jesse Jackson,

flipped the United States Senate by putting two million more African Americans on the road in nineteen eighty four, nineteen eighty, at the height of the Reagan power. So I know we have the power. The good news is there are more of us than there are of them.

The good news is more people have come from the North with a different mentality and have gone to the South and that more Southerners now have grown up in a desegregated world and they don't go and they don't want to go back. So I'm very excited about that.

Stay with us. I've got a few more things I want to ask you about. I want to talk about this next. Top administration officials headline a prayer festival at the National Mall. Does this blur lines of church and state? The morality and religion that formed the American consciousness were decidedly Christian. Found upon the principles and the divinity of Jesus Christ.

All right, that's from the all-day prayer event at the National Mall on Sunday. The Vice President, one of several Trump cabinet officials. and allies who spoke at the event which was called Rededicate 250. It featured a lineup of largely evangelical speakers focused on tying America's founding to Christian ideas and principles. Critics say the gathering, with a mix of private and public funding, violated the separation of church and state. People in attendance did not see that as a problem.

The so called wall of separation between the church between church and state um is a myth a myth. It's a misconception I should say. Concerns about separation of church and state. I could see uh where some people would be upset about that but uh my view is that the separation of church and state is for that the government was not to come into the church. Not the other way around.

Okay, group chat is back. I have to say, Congressman, you of course co-chaired National Breakfast, bipartisan. How do you see the separation of church and state? Well, our faith is something that we carry with us, we carry within us, and that specific clause was to say you cannot discriminate, you cannot alienate someone because of their religion. So there has never really been a separation of church and state.

Uh it's something that you carry. It's in the laws that we have. You carry a bible into the to the courtroom. There you are with the president actually. And you also carry the Bible when you're getting sworn in. So churches all around us, the question is what do they believe and for some people have they ever opened it and read it and are they trying to exact it, do something about it in their life?

I just want to play for people an example. Uh here is South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. He uh spoke at Sunday's event. He had this to say. Four. To World War II, to the landing on the moon, Americans have looked to God. for guidance, for peace, and for strength. It's this commitment to prayer that powered the civil rights movement. The journey for justice for all was rooted in the black church.

And then I wanna play one more for you. This is Gary Hamrick. He was also a speaker at Sunday's event. And here's how he talked about the stakes. We are in a spiritual war. This is a battle in our day between good and evil, between right and wrong, between truth and lies, between light and darkness. This is a battle for the very soul of America.

Can you talk about this kind of language, um, the spiritual soul, the battle? And is that all different from what the historical narrative of like black um uh religious and spiritual leadership and its ties to politics. Well, I mean, that should be a skit on Saturday night live what we just saw right there. I mean, um Senator Scott should go back to sixteen, nineteen. and to talk about slave ships. There was also a slave ship that came to America in 1555 called Jesus.

by uh ironically enough, he should talk about the trials of Phyllis Wheatley trying to be recognized as human being. He should talk about the Dred Scott decision. And so for him to invoke the black church and to uh saying we were a part of this uh slave ocracy was absolutely foolish and painful. And then the other people that are

getting up there talking. Let's tell the whole story of people that were professing that all men were created equal, Thomas Jefferson, at the same time were enslaving people and and having uh, you know, shall we say, uh a a defiled relationship with a Miss Sally Hemings who was not recognized as a human being. So

history has to be told in its entirety. It has to be uh the purpose is to bring out the truth. We did not creep create some of those horrors, but we have to bring the truth forward. And so no, they're not uh serving our God correctly and what they're doing on the mall is a mass distraction. I just left Cuba about six weeks ago. I would like for them to speak to a current issue. on what would Jesus do. When I saw a low birth weight baby named Alessandro

weighing less than a thousand grams, just over a pound, and we have put a an oil embargo where there's no energy. When I saw black women and other women in Cuba having to walk up the stairs, in the maternity wards because there's no energy in the hospital. And they say nothing. Let me play for you. This is Doug Wilson who is somebody who I think is the pastor to Pete Hegseth. And he was in an interview with Pamela Brown just last August trying to explain some of his ideology.

Women are the kind of people that people come out of. So you just think they're meant to have babies? Oh. They're just a vessel. No, it it doesn't take any talent to simply reproduce biologically. The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls. You can draw a direct line between his thinking and how Hegsett speaks at Pentagon Press conferences.

Yes, I I I think that's exactly right. Um you know, this idea that this is i in some ways a religious war uh that is happening in in Iran he quotes. But I mean to buy just the idea of the Christian nationalist, I think there's been some battling over that term and what it means. Sarah, what does it mean in the public's second uh mind right now? I think that the public has shown repeatedly that when religion is sort of weaponized for political purposes, there tends to be backlash. I think about

President Trump invoking the Bible when they were tear gassing people during the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a ton of Christian backlash to invoking the Bible in that moment. And so I think that this is a very fine line that the administration is going to have to walk. if they wanna invoke religion as a way to galvanize the party, you can only take it so far between people actually believing that that's a movement of faith versus that that's a political Yeah.

scheme. And then just sort of the last thing I wanted to note while we're here, this is happening amidst uh historical rise of anti Semitism, and you can't draw those two things apart right now. Yeah. Not doing the job. No, I don't think that's doing the job.

Yeah. Okay. Well Congressman, thank you for being here. Always love having your insights. You guys, thank you for being with me for the group chat. We've got a news c a lot of news coming up. We're still following the threat of those tornadoes in the Midwest. And we've got some headlines coming up about the potential threat to Cuba as the US puts maximum pressure there. I'm Audi Cornish, and the headlines are next.

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