Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And a majority of Americans have a negative view of billionaires spending more money to buy elections, according to a Washington Post IPSOS poll. We have such a great show for you today. Author of Evil Geniuses Kurt Anderson stops by to talk about Trump, saying the
Democrats should be hung. Then we'll talk to Aten ben about her run for Congress in a swing district in Tennessee. But first, the news and disapproval of Donald Trump is now higher than in his first term. At the same time, we have such a great show for you today as the world churns Andy Levy stops by to talk about the fight inside Democratic leadership. Then we'll talk to Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin about the Democratic chances of flipping the
House and perhaps even the Senate. But first, the stories the media is not covering enough.
So Lally, you're going to be shocked to hear this, But Lindsay Halligan totally really, really really messed up. I wanted to say something much more bad, but I know I caught myself and didn't say the same, and body vows to take this up to the top of the courts to get mister Kobe from mister Trump.
But I don't know. This doesn't look good for them.
Despite being a pageant Queen Lindsay Halligan Lindsay Michelle Halligan born in nineteen eighty nine in Portland, Maine. She is the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. And here's the problem. Here is the problem is that she has no experience doing anything pretty much at all
besides pageants and industrial law commercial properties. And then eventually she was an insurance lawyer and also pageant Queen Donald Trump's lawyer, and it turns out putting her as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, she should have maybe had a few jobs between insurance law.
And that, and she didn't. And now you know who's benefiting from.
That, mister James Kobe, who is not by.
Hobie, mister James Comy, who is too dall and a terrible writer. But in this case, we want him to not go to jail for a trumped up crime. And so we will in fact say that this is actually good. Both cases, the Comy case the James case both dismissed because Judge Cameron Curry said the loyalist prosecutor and still by mister Trump to bring the cases was in her position unlawfully. And so it turns out you can be hot and still be very, very bad at your job.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Abby Law, the lawyer for missus James James, since there are only five people in the world, also was the lawyer for Hunter Biden Avilall said mister Trump went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies to bring these base those charges after career prosecutors refused. This case was not about the justice owned law. It was about targeting Attorney James for what she stood for and who she challenged.
Bill Baldy Yet again.
That guy is battle average a good well.
The fact that he is able to find mortgages at every point that Trump can then use to go against his enemies.
And by the way, at every point this doesn't work.
So Bill Poulti is being I don't know if they've quite opened a formal investigation, but expect to hear the name Bill Paultie again and again and again so.
By Yesterday on Twitter Republican Propaganda News, I'm sorry, punch bowl News, Jake Sherman sent out a tweet saying that there are many Republicans were looking to exit just like Barjorie Taylor Greed, and that they're fed up with big props for mister Trump. Politico has a giant explator of what's going on today? Where do you see him?
Okay, first of all, don't be me into Jake Sherman. He is got it.
I'm serious.
Covering Congress is a thankless job, and they do some really good reporting, and then I.
Won't be saiding committee.
Thank you.
You can send him an edible arrangement. Mike Johnson, let's talk about this because it's interesting. House Republicans are really mad at Mike Johnson. Here's why they're mad at him, because he took advantage of what they let him do. Okay, Like this is an incredible bit of House Republicans, Like why did you let me hit me? You know, like just so bad? Okay, So Donald Trump's Republican Party goes
in there when Donald Trump gets sworn in. We said this was coming, We told them it was coming, right, got Russ Vought, and the crew is like, you're not gonna have the power of the person anymore. Sorry, Congress, that's ours. Now. Congress rolls the fuck over with everything. They roll over on cabinet appointments, they roll over on spending. They let the Trump administration do this five billion dollar pocket recision which takes back all the foreign aid money.
At every point, they just roll over. Now Republicans are mad. They don't like the job anymore because they have no power. They took this job for power. They give all their power to Trump, and now they're mad they have no power.
Okay, I mean you didn't have to give.
Trump all your power, So good news for Democrats. Mike Johnson is not good at his job. If you had a Tom Emmer in there, you had someone who had been doing the job for a while, they might be able to stop these discharge petitions. They might be able to whip votes. But luckily you don't. You have Mike Johnson in there. So Mike Johnson has Now there's another
diste arch petition. These discharge petitions are ways to get around leadership, to find a piece of legislation, and to get around leadership by getting the two hundred and eighteen signatures you need to force a vote on legislation. This is something that does not usually happen because usually you have a Speaker of the House who has some control over their caucus. But Mike Johnson has no control over his caucus. And so we have a discharge petition palooza.
And Republicans did this to themselves. You guys.
By the way, Nashville, Tennessee, you have this special election, so and there are more special elections or two more special elections coming up, so one in Texas. Mike Johnson's his majority is getting thinner. So we'll see what happens. But it's nice to see these Republicans reap what they sew.
So byie, mister Trump seek the writing on the wall of the affordability crisis. That might be because he just had his crush at the office or on Bob Dottie who talks about it extensively. Anyway, he's announce saying an extension of ACA tex credits for two years.
Yeah, so this is Trump has decided he's going to solve healthcare. You'll remember that in Trump one point zero, which is the world we live in forever and ever, until we die. Trump said, he who knew healthcare could be so complicated?
You remember that I do it, did lives rent free by Edge.
Yeah, well, it turns out is very complicated, and so in typical Donald Trump fashion, he's decided that he's just going to quick fix it. So he said on Monday he was going to announce a new like a Trump Care. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, not a time that Congressional anyone want.
To do anything.
They want to go home for Thanksgiving because they're extremely hard working. Politicians basically ended the shutdown because they were worried about traveling home for the holidays. Okay, they ended the government shutdown because they were worried about holiday travel. This is a crew that takes holidays very serious. Anyways. So Donald Trump wanted to extend the ACA tax credits for two years. This is what Democrats wanted from the government shutdown. I am interested to see if this happens.
If it happens, it's billions of dollars. It will increase the deficit. But you know, none of these Republicans particularly care about that. If it happens, it will be so interesting because it runs contrary to basically all of the Republican goals. So we'll see what happens. But I could see how Trump would want it, because they're going to get killed on these premiums. They're going up, up, up, abup. You have voters who are very mad by inflation, and now they're going to be even madter.
So let's see what happens.
Yes, so famously, Senator Jib Justice, very new to the Senate, former governor of West Virginia. He is not so into paying taxes. And we now see that his legal woes or even bigger because his wife's been sued for five million dollars in unpaid taxes from two thousand and nine.
Yeah, so this is interesting. Jim Justice, my man, he flies back and forth to Congress on a private jet every week. So okay, that is insane. You can get an apartment at private jet, okay, to work. He does not have an apartment in DC. He takes a private jet there and back. Even for a rich person, that is wild. But he has a little bit of a tax problem. So the US government on Monday. Now, by
the way, this is the Trump government. Okay, so think about just what had to happen here for the Trump government's irs to decide that they were going to sue a Republican senator from West Virginia. We're more than five million dollars in unpaid federal income taxes, penalties, and interest dating to the two thousand and nine tex following you. I think this is wild, and Jim Justice is supposed to have billions of dollars. We'll see where this lands, but this strikes me as wild.
Andy Levy is the host.
Of As the World churns Andy Levy.
Hello, Molly john Fest.
You know what the first rule of fight club is?
I do what is it?
Well?
You know, even the fact that we are violating.
It now.
He's not great.
But obviously the first and second rules of fight club are that you do not talk about fight club. So let's talk about that.
Let's start fight club. Yeah, Tux Humor.
And a woman you may know, Kristian Jili Brian. They're catching a little heat for their wildly unpopular senate picks, putting their hands on the scale for Haley Stevens. Gifted Orator Haley Stevens and the always young and refreshed seventy seven year old Janet Mills discuss.
Yeah, you're referring, of course, to this group of is it six Democratic fake senators? Yeah, we're calling themselves the fight club, and yeah, they're not happy with Schumer and Joe Brand and look good for them, and they want to win. They want to win. And this is way overdue, but better late than never, and it would be nice if, yeah, if we could get different leadership. Molly, do we have to have this leadership? Is there? Is it a rule somewhere?
Is it another rule of fight club that we have to not fight?
So here's what I would say, Chuck Schumer does not need to be the leader of the Senate Democrats. In fact, Chuck Schumer is a choice. And I think that you know, Chris Murphy is available, Brian Schott is available. Even you know Tina Smith or your favorite from Minnesota, Clomentum. God, even those people are all available to be in leadership.
And by the way, this is a job everyone wants.
I understand why Schumer got the position. He you know, he's been working his whole life for it.
And it was one of those things where you know, the Democrats are very big sometimes on sort of I don't know if coronation is the right word, but it's sort of you know, next in line, like you know, oh.
Your suppers coronation is I think you it doesn't work. And all those people you named, with the possible exception of my not so favorite senator from Minnesota, would be much better than Chuck Schuman. None of them. It's going to be an imperfect person. We know that. And so the idea to me is get someone who's at least less imperfect than Chuck Schumer. And I know that sounds like damning with fate praise, but that's the way politics works.
The problem with Schumer is not that he's not perfect. The problem with Schumer is that he's not a fighter. And this is again goes back to this adage from Pritzker's chief of staff. It's not left versus senator, it's fight versus cave. And with the fight club the six senators, what you see is they're not ideologically all the same.
Maryland Senator Chris van Holland and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy are not the same as Bernie Sanders of course, and Elizabeth Warren, but they are the same in the fact that they want to fight. Whereas the Gillibrands and the Schumers want to raise money and pick bad candidates.
It's twentieth century politics versus twenty first century politics. And that's not even necessarily an age thing because you look at the people in that fight club. You've got Bernice Anders, You've got Liz Warren. You know, it's not like these are people in their forties or fifties or whatever. They are elder statespeople. But they at least recognize that it's not nineteen ninety six. This is not George H. W. Bush's Republican Party. I mean, let alone Mitt Romney's Republican Party.
But they recognize that it's Donald Trump's Republican Party. And you can't sit there and do twentieth century politics in this environment. And Chuck Schumer does not and apparently never will understand that. I don't think Jilli brand does either. And look, Joe Biden was and should have been the last gasp of twentieth century politics for the Democrats. That caused a lot of problems his not being comfortable going after the jan six people. You know, So I'll let
that be in the past. Let's move forward. That the Mark.
Garland school of not doing anything.
Exactly exactly, and that's the same school that Schumer and Julibrand are part of. And it just it has to it has to go. It has to die. That school of politics has to die.
I think that what you're going to see is and this is not from the pundit class.
This is from the base.
The base is mad about Biden, the pundit class. And I was as skilty of this as anyone said, go along with Biden. He'll be good. Voters will like him. He's not too old. He's going to just do one term. He got in there, he was not going to do one term. Everything was exactly the worst case scenario, right, he was too old, he did this, he stayed in too long. They couldn't have a primary process at every point.
It was just a disaster. And so you do not have the base's full faith and credit now like in twenty sixteen, Chuck Schumer could tweet Orange Man bad and raise ten million dollars. No no, no, no no. And we see this when we look at the DNC number, like they're taking out loans to pay for the DNC. Like voters are not happy. And even if they want Democrats to win more than they want Republicans to win, you don't have a blank check.
No, but look, I think if they send me one more text that'll do it. You know, I just it's it's unreal. But you're absolutely right. Look the base and forget about the pundit class, forget about you know, well except for me, because I really am. I'm much more of a man of the people, a man of the base than I am.
You were in the army, certainly more than many a NASCAR come on, yeah, but you're.
Absolutely right when it comes to the base. And that gets back to what you were saying before from Pritzker's people about it's fighting versus not fighting, and everybody wants fighting now. And the thing is, Chuck Schumer will now get on Twitter, I suppose, and definitely on Blue Sky where I see it, and he'll post things that maybe ten years ago would have been effective or you would
have said, all right, good for you, Chuck. Now what they look like, because it's what they are, is a guy who is trying desperately to catch up and to be someone he's absolutely not, and so it just comes across as completely performative when he sits there and goes, we will fight this, and we you know, we have to do this. It was like, you've been in power for a long time and you haven't done any of this, and so you get a lot You look at it and you see people applying saying, why are you telling
us this, Why aren't you doing this? Because that's who Chuck Schumer is, so it all rings false when he tries to do it now and again it's, you know, twentieth century versus twenty first. The twentieth century politicians have got to, if not completely go they've got to step back. They've got to step back. We saw this when AOC wanted to be the I forget which committee it is now, and we went with the guy that oversight, guy that nally he died, who died in office, who you know, had cancer, and the.
Democrats sex he was seventy six. It wasn't like he was a young guy.
Right, and the Democratic leadership said, no, we need to give this position to him. It was not term exactly, and that shit has got to go away. And it's one of the biggest things I think holding back the Democratic Party right now is this sort of refusal to let the next generation, or at least the people you know, again, Liz Warren is not young. Bernie Sanders certainly isn't young. But they know what's going on and they always have because they've been those kinds of politicians in their whole
lives where they do fight. You've got to start turning it over to the people who recognize the world in which we live in twenty twenty five.
Yeah, now I want to talk about where we are right now because Donald Trump he's going to bring peace
to Russia Ukraine. Like, I feel like he's doing everything he can to distract from the Epstein files, right Like he's like hoping that if he just keeps going on with the news sources like that, how that the that Pam BONDI will never release any of the Epstein stuff, even though he had to file, he had to sign that discharge petition which says in his law that they're going to release it within thirty days.
Yeah, but Molly, remember he instructed everyone to vote for that because he really wants it.
Yeah, he did.
He changed the very last minute when he saw he was going to lose. He was like, I think we want those, you want those?
Yeah, And look at least he's not, you know, maybe starting a war in it with the South American country to distract from everything else.
But look where your favorite of the way the ways in which Donald Trump is trying to distract is your favorite that he's starting a war, or is your favorite that he's trying to bring peace to Russia Ukraine.
It's the war for me. It's always the war for me. I mean, if you're going to distract, you got to do it with a war, because that's when you get the CNNs of the world can prepare their their theme songs.
Right and exactly, Caribbean.
Caribbean freedom. You know, that's when you get all the all the newspapers and everyone's there, well, we have to support the president.
We're at war.
You get people saying this is the day Donald Trump became president. You can't beat a war if you're trying to take the focus off of something else. I mean, I'm fairly certain there was a whole movie that was kind of about that. Yes do yeah, that sort of gave us a praeze. So it's absolutely that for me. The the Ukraine Russia stuff is I mean, have you seen anything more incompetent than well, this is our plan. No, this isn't our plan. Marco Rubio have nothing that doesn't
even know about this plan. Oh, Marco Rubier wrote this plan. It's unbelieve and beyond the incompetence, just the national security implications of having a plan out there. And we can't get a straight answer as to whether this plan is Russian talking points or whether it's from the administration because we can't tell the difference.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's nuts, but it's part of Donald Trump's tri facta for trying to get the Nobel Peace Prize, which he has now missed the window on at least for twenty twenty five. But it is funny to me because it's like, you know, he does on some level like he kind of wants to do the stuff presidents do, but just not with any of the follow up for any of the you know, like he's like he's like, yeah, I'm gonna bring peace and I'm gonna do this. Like it's a very sort of distracted view,
kind of you know, half hearted view on presidenting. But ultimately he's really just trying to make money.
Well, he's just trying to make money, finds me of you know, there's a sort of a famous saying that writers have I love to have written, but I hate writing.
Speak for yourself. I hate all of it.
Right, But it's the same. That to me, that's Trump with presidenting. He doesn't like presidenting, you know. He doesn't like having to negotiate a peace treaty or doing any of the work. What he wants is the credit. And it's just that simple. That's all he wants is the credit. He's not interested in the work. He couldn't care less if there was peace between Russia and Ukraine. Obviously he'd probably just be happier if Russia had been able to
swallow up Ukraine. Yeah, but he just ultimately doesn't care. He just wants the credit. He wants, like you said, he wants the Nobel Prize. He doesn't want to do the work that you would, you know, like to think is involved in getting a Nobel prize. He just wants the prize. He wants the trophy. And we see this when he goes to these events, the sporting events, and he leaves with the trophy that he was supposed to give the team, and we saw that happen. That's Donald
Trump in a nutshell. He just wants the trophy.
By the way, this week not didn't like make the top of the newsfeed, But I think it is important is that this week in Las Vegas, Ice Barbie and FBI Director Cash Battl went to some kind of grand.
Praise Formula one.
Yeah.
Yeah, and they had a great time on our tax paradigm.
So I'm glad they're having fun.
Look, you can't spend all of the FBI's travel budget on your girlfriend. You have to keep some for yourself. It's right, I mean, that's just that's just fair. That seems fair to me. So good for Cash, I say, for getting out of the office, you.
Know, Cash Battel.
Also this week we discovered the Cash Battel's girlfriend, twenty seven year old conservative influencer Slash Singer, is guarded by the Swat Team.
Yeah.
The extent to which this entire administration is a grift, it's absolutely unreal, Like even I think, beyond the most cynical person's wildest dreams. Just every possible method or mode of grifting is being taken advantage of by just about every official in this administration. I mean, you know, you absolutely don't have to hand it to them, but it
is truly remarkable. I mean, we've Obviously we've lived through both in the history of our country and even in you know, just the short history of my life and the longer history of your life. But we've lived through
grifting administrations, unscrupulous administrations. But I think you could pretty much stack them all up, all the previous ones in one stack, and put the Trump grifts in another stack, and the Trump grifts would outweigh I think every single previous administration's grifts throughout the history of this country.
We need a word, an expression for what the Teapot Dome scandal like with crypto and double dealing and insider trading and influence trading, and your son in law who's negotiating all these deals is also not in government, but he is also negotiating the Russian peace treaty and also in the Middle East, but he also takes money from a lot of Middle Eastern countries for his wealth fund.
I mean, it's like, what is that.
It feels like there's got to be a bigger word than cryptocracy.
And honestly, I'm out a losstocracy because well, because everything you said is it's just I don't know, it's a trump oocracy, Like I don't know what else to call it like it's every single aspect of his presidency is to enrich him, to help him. And I mean, we've seen Richard Nixon and people like that before, but they are rank amateurs compared to the level of.
What's going on now.
It's absolutely unreal. You can't even say, like the teapot dome scandal is a perfect example, because it's the one thing we remember from that.
You can't do that.
Now there's a new teapot dome level scandal every damn day.
Speak for yourself, man, I remember it all from the teapot Don't periods kidding? I was so mean will you never come back?
Earlier when I said your longer history as opposed to my shorter history.
Will you never come back?
Can you always never come back?
Don't? I would like to invite you not to come back.
I will accept your non invitation to always come back.
Actually, you can come back because I like you. Jacob rubash Kin is an analyst and reporter at Inside Elections. Jacob Rubashkin, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Always a pleasure, happy to be here.
So you are here to be our election whisperer, and I'm going to make you start with an election you were not prepared to weigh in on. Because what we do at this podcast is we put people in very uncomfortable situations because.
We don't tell them what we're going to ask them about.
And we do that because it's a because of being very disorganized. So there is a special election in Tennessee. It is Mark Green's seat. It is a R plus twenty two. It is happening the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and both Democrats and Republicans are just pouring money into it.
Explain, yeah, this special election, like you said, it's Mark Green's seats. So Mark Green was a Republican congressman. He resigned over the summer. By all rights, this should be an incredibly Republican seat, an easy hold for the Republican Party. But there are two things going on here. The first is the shape of the district itself. Tennessee drew a pretty aggressive gerrymander following the twenty twenty census. There used to be two Democratic seats in Tennessee, one in Memphis
and one in Nashville. And what they did was they left the Memphis one, but they cracked the Nashville one, and they distributed little pieces of Nashville across three different districts in Middle Tennessee, so that there was no concentration
of Democratic votes. But what that means is that three districts in Middle Tennessee all have a piece of Nashville, and if turnout dynamics are such that Democratic voters are super fired up and Republican voters are not fired up and may not even know that there's an election going on, that little piece of Nashville can punch above its weight in those three districts. And that's exactly what's going on here, is that it is a Republican district under normal conditions.
But the Democrats are hoping that the combination of the president's poor approval rating, some Democratic momentum, and the fact that this is a sleepy race the weekend after Thanksgiving will allow them to reshape the electorate in such a way that they can win what should be an unwinnable seat for them.
And the candidate who is running for this seat is a woman called aften Bane. Aften Bane, Yeah, we interviewed her on this podcast and she is really interesting candidate, and I think she's a really good example of if you want to run a candidate in a place you can't necessarily win because she is both an activist, grassroots activist, so she has a lot of connections on the ground. It's not like she is parachuting in. And then she
also is very beautiful and young and charismatic and out there. Right, I mean, all of these are pieces when you're running in anywhere, but especially when you're running in a very tough district.
Right, yeah, no, I mean, look, it helps to look the part. It helps to you know, have a political base, as she does having served in the state legislature.
These days, it helps to be young.
Right, We're in a moment where after everything that went down last year. I think Biden voters voters place a premium on youth, or at least they place a whatever the opposite of a premium is on being older.
And again, in voters defense, like they get fucked by electing someone really old. They were told to trust the Democratic Party that this candidate wasn't too old, and then exactly the worst case scenario unfolded.
So they're right to be mad.
Yeah, And so I you know, I think that she does bring a fair bit to the table. She's proved to be an able fundraiser. But like you said, she
is very progressive. She is out there, and she's she's outspoken, and so the Republicans woman, and she's exactly And Republicans have amassed a whole treasure trove of clips of her over the past couple of years, saying all sorts of things that don't usually fly in particularly Republican areas, and they are in the last couple of weeks of this race putting all of that on TV an attempt to push back against whatever sort of momentum.
She has going for her.
But you know, all of the data that we have suggests that this race is closer than it has any right to be. I have not seen anything that convinces me that this is a race that often is going to win. But when we talk about a Trump plus twenty two district, I would not be surprised if this is a single digit outcome when all is said and done.
So a significant shift.
From where we were just a year ago in the twenty twenty four presidential election.
So let's talk about the rest and landscape. Why I really brought you on here. I want you to talk us through the dummy mander again. I'm being overly optimistic because I'm a partisan hack. But I'm just going to paint this scene for you and let you go wherever you want with it. Trump went to the party and said, I need you to get me five seats to the Texas Republicans. They got in five seeds. Court said no. Justice Alito at the Supreme Court shockingly said yes, Republicans
can have whatever they want. Now there are five seats coming from California. Unless the Supreme Court is able to do something, it will look real bad if they take the five seats away from cal but give the five seats to Texas. Though anything is possible. But the landscape is really all up in the air right now. So i'd love you to talk us through what it looks like. First with the eye to jerrymandering. And then there's also the question of Section two of the Voting Rights Act,
and that decision will come down in June. My first question for you is, if that decision comes down in June and the Supreme Court says you don't have to have race negative jerrymandering or race sensitive jerrymandering, would that affect the twenty twenty six election. Would the South get more Republican seats in twenty twenty six.
If that decision comes down in June, and that decision is a case about the Louisiana congressional map, which currently has two black opportunity districts. They had to redraw the map ahead of last year to take it from one to two, that decision does have the potential, like you said, to eviscerate a core component of the Voting Act as it pertains to redistricting. If it comes down in June, that is too late for anything to happen for the twenty twenty sixth election.
But it will affect twenty twenty eight.
Absolutely.
Yes.
If the Supreme Court were to say states with significant minority populations and largely that means black populations don't have to create black opportunity districts, which is the term of art, then I would anticipate we will see at the least Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, potentially South Carolina, and Tennessee at a minimum all attempt a redistrict ahead of twenty twenty eight, because all of those states have at least one seat that is a
heavily democratic black majority or black plurality district.
Because they're required to by law.
And then there are additional opportunities potentially in states like Texas and Florida where obviously it's not just oh, there's one district where the legislature has drawn most of the black vote into you know, these are huge states that have different pockets of racial concentration throughout the state, some of which are protected by the VRA, some of which
are not VRA. Jurisprudence is actually kind of in flux right now, and this is getting very in the weeds here, but the Fifth Circuit has said it has to be a single racial group to qualify as a VRA district. You can't say, well, this really diverse area, you know, has thirty percent Black voters and thirty percent Hispanic voters and twenty percent Asian voters. Therefore it deserves a district where those communities can elect a representative of their choosing.
It says, if it's not you know, forty or more percent Black, or forty or more percent Asian, or forty or more percent Hispanic, it doesn't qualify. But that's only the Fifth Circuit, so like the Eleventh Circuit in Georgia hasn't said whether they agree with that. Yet there's a lot up in the air, as there always is with redistricting.
And if the Supreme Court steps in and says we're going to undermine the last essentially thirty five years of VRA interpretation, which they might, which they might, they might not. I think that people are always get a little overconfident when they try and predict out what the Supreme Court is going to do. But there's a chance that the redistricting chaos we've seen this year is only multiplied in two years when the states are unfettered by the Voting Rights Act requirements.
In June, when that comes down, no matter what the decision is, it'll be too soon for twenty twenty six.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, Texas filing deadline is December eighth, right, Illinois filing deadline already passed. States filing deadlines are coming up. Primaries start in March the earliest. The earliest primaries begin in March. By the time June rolls around, it will be far too late for the train to be rewound on redistricting. So for the twenty twenty six cycle, I honestly think it's highly unlikely, no matter what the Court rules, that we'll see the dismantling of VRA districts in America.
That means in twenty twenty six cycle we have a pretty good sense of what the jerry nander will look like.
Well, not necessarily.
Okay, so then tell us why.
Yeah.
So the frustrating thing, of course, is that even the maps that have been passed this cycle, there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty. So you mentioned the Texas map that was struck down by a federal district court in al Paso.
The Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court. Now, Justice Alito did implement a stay, but that's a very brief administrative stay that suggests that sometime in the next week, essentially the full Court will consider what to do on that front, and there's a chance that they will let that lower court ruling stand. I think most people still think they will keep the stay in place and do full arguments next year. Maybe, but the Texas map is currently in flux.
You have a map in Missouri that was a gerrymander that Republicans drew earlier this year to draw out a Democratic representative in Kansas City, and that map could be blocked by a referendum, and you've got the potential for democratic redistricting in Virginia early next year and Republican redistricting in Florida early next year.
In Florida redistrict, I thought they were pretty tight.
They can try.
They may run into some timeline challenges just because we're later in the game, but remember Florida's primary isn't until August, and so by virtue of their own calendar, they have a little bit more wiggle room. I don't know how aggressive they can get, but I think you could probably draw a map that gets Republicans in additional two seats at minimum out of Florida if they go down that path. And that's you know, that's twenty eight districts. Virginia is
another dozen districts. Texas obviously thirty eight. So we still have seventy five congressional districts that are somewhat up in the air as we know close out twenty twenty five.
Those five seats in California, though, are set now.
Yeah, so the California map, I think most of the people that I talked to in both parties are pretty or that the California map is going to be in place that the Republicans have been unsuccessful in all of their court challenges.
You know, the DOJ, the Trump DOJ just filed a suit against.
The California map, but I don't think anyone is particularly confident that suit will prevail. So, yes, the Prop fifty map that was designed to improve democratic odds in five seats, five Republican health seats, will be the map almost certainly for the twenty twenty six mid terms.
That means Democrats definitely have a five seat advantage at least for that jerrymandering that Republicans have done Texas. What else They couldn't get Indiana though they've been trying.
Yeah, so Republicans got Texas, they got North.
Carolina, right, and that was one seat. That was one seat, and that's because they have a super majority in the House.
Correct, and redistricting in North Carolina does not require the governor's signature.
Because North Carolina had Democratic governors and super powerful state legislatures that have been working hard to screw over those governors for a couple of years.
Right, the North Carolina legislature has taken a lot of powers away from the governors. As like you said, North Carolina, of course, used to be solid Democratic at all levels, but over the last twenty years they keep electing Democrats governor. But the state legislature is pretty consistently Republican and so they've taken a lot of powers away from the governor. So they got that. You know, Ohio, It kind of
depends how you do the math. In Ohio. You can either give Republicans a seat or not, or a half a seat if you want to hedge. But the Marcy Captor seat does get a little bit worse for her, and it was already pretty bad for her.
So that is another one. Missouri.
You know, will see what happens, but that one you have to put in the Republican column until if and until it's paused or rolled back. So you know, five in Texas, one in North Carolina, one in Missouri. That that gets you to seven and then you know, depending on how you want to count Ohio. But the number is is smaller than Republicans would have liked. I think when Trump first set down this path in the summer, right,
he wanted five in Texas. He wanted not just your one in Missouri and one in North Carolina, but he wanted two in Indiana, he wanted one in Kansas, he wanted one in Nebraska, probably wanted four in Florida, and he didn't even think that Democrats might get five to counterbalance in Texas. So the math has shifted considerably over
the last couple months. And to your point, I think there's ultimately an outcome here where Democrats end up with more favorable districts across the country when all is said and done, than they had at the outset, which would be a pretty significant turn of events. And underline how in that scenario, how that push would backfire on Trump.
And we're going to turn our eye now to the Senate math because there's a sense and again we just know the twenty five cycle and the polls, and we can use that information to extrapolate what we can. But there's a feeling that Democrats are in a much better position than they have been. But this Senate map is still a real cluster fox. So let's just go Maine across the country. So start with Maine.
Yeah, so your word mind, But I would say that the Senate map is a very difficult one for Democrats, even in a favorable political environment.
So you've got Maine.
Maine is the only seat on the Senate map held by a Republican, but one by Vice President Harris, one by Joe Biden, and in twenty twenty one by Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen. By rights, that should make it the top target for Democrats in twenty twenty six The only reason why it's arguably not the top target is because Susan Collins is there, and she has proven to be an incredibly difficult out. She has beaten back challenger
after challenger. She's beaten back some really heavy hitters on the Democratic side, people with a ton of money, people with a ton of electoral experience, and main voters just keep on sending her back. Now, that's no reason to believe that she can't lose this time, because everybody wins up until the moment that they lose. But it does mean that it's no sure thing to beat her, even in a state that Kamala Harris carried by six seven points at the top of the ticket. So that's the
first seat. You know, there are two seats Democrats absolutely have to win in order to take back the Senate, and one of those is Main where they've got themselves a real headache of a primary and then a real stalwart in Susan Collins waiting on the other side. And the other is North Carolina, which is a perennial battleground.
Democrats haven't won a Senate race here since two thousand and eight and kay Hagen, but they get really really close every time, and they've got a great recruit there and former Governor Roy Cooper, he won four terms as state attorney general. He won two terms as governor even as the state was voting Republican for many other offices. And he's got a good match up there against Michael Wattley, Yes.
Who's an R and C guy.
Yeah, he's the Trump pick and that's why he gets to be the nominee. But realistically, I talked to Republicans all the time, you know, I think everyone understands that, well, North Carolina is always going to be really close, It's
always going to be really competitive. On the surface, the matchup of popular former governor, former state attorney general, well known, well liked in the state, versus former chairman of the RNC and chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party who's never held office before and who nobody really knows is not naturally the best contrast for Republicans. So that doesn't mean this race mole costs half a billion dollars and you know, end up in a two point margin one way or the other.
But I think Democrats are most excited. I would say.
About about Roy Cooper in North Carolina, but that only gets you to two right, and Democrats have to flip four seats in order to win back the majority there at forty seven.
They need to get to fifty one.
So then you have to look at this map and say, all right, well, where can we find our two other seats? And the reality is you got us start. You've got to start digging a little deeper. And what you come up with are you've got Ohio, where former Senator Shared Brown is attempting to come back after he lost by a couple points last cycle.
That's kind of a special election because it's to fill the JD.
Van seat.
Yes, so John Hustad is the incumbent Republican. He was appointed to that seat. He's the former lieutenant governor. He has been elected statewide before, but not to that Senate seat, and he's new in the chamber. Shared Brown, of course, heavily recruited by Democrats to run this time around and avoids a primary and all that stuff, So he's one potential. Then you've got Iowa, where you have an open seat.
Senator Joni Ernst isn't seeking a third term. Democrats have a primary there essentially a three person primary between state Representative Josh Turik, State Senator Zach Walls, and veteran Nathan Sage. Republicans have all lined up behind Congresswoman Ashley Hinson.
Iowa was a what and R plus Trump wonted.
By like twelve last time he went it by ten or nine in twenty twenty and twenty sixteen. It's gotten pretty republican. But here's what I'll say about Iowa and the reason why I think that Iowa, of all of these states that I'm mentioning here kind of in this second and third tier, Iowa is the most intriguing to me is for two reasons. Firstly, there's clearly something in the water there if you look at special election results
at the state legislative level. Since the beginning of the year, Iowa has been the location of the greatest Democratic overperformance relative to twenty twenty four. We've had now half a dozen state Senate and state House races in Iowa over the last twelve months, and Democrats have I believe in almost perhaps every single one of them overperformed well into the double digits. They had some big wins, flipping state
Senate districts. They are breaking the Republican super majority. So I think that there is an element of democratic energy in Iowa.
Arguably, Iowa is.
In a bit of a localized recession right now due to the outsize impact of the tariffs, of the soybean policy, of the beef policy.
You know, you have a reason why.
You know, Chuck Grassley is very vocally pushing back against Trump on tariffs, and that's because I think Iowa is uniquely vulnerable to those challenges. So I think that there's a possibility for Democrats to put up a real fight there. Plus, you've got Rob sand running for governor who's going to spend a ton of money and run a very good campaign at the top of the ticket. So that's always
helpful for every other Democrat in the state. After Iowa, you got to look to Texas, where Democrats have tried and failed to make something happen for the last twenty five years, not since Anne Richards has a Democrat won statewide in Texas, so it's been quite a long time. They've got a primary amongst themselves Colin Allread and James Tallerico. But the real drama here is the Republican primary.
Yes, which we will continue on next time you come back. Will you please come back? This was like one of the I just I'm like obsessed with this interview.
I am a huge fan and also I've just learned a lot of new stuff. So thanks.
Yeah, no, absolutely, there's We've got a full year to digest all this, so there's a lot to talk about.
No more.
Pet Jesse Cannon BII. Mister Trump, Yes, I've heard about him.
He really loved the socialists Zorad, you know, the TikTok Bolshevik, and he's showing it.
He's socializing fucking everything.
Yes, so this should be a shmongous scandal, a huge mangus scandal. So Trump administration is buying parts of companies now in itself.
Who doesn't love socialism? We love it.
And look, the American government has done this before, and the thinking behind it is maybe not so insane. The problem is because of Trump, He's done a lot of crypt shit. Also, we don't know how he's vetting these companies. But what you have to realize is, okay, so a few things. There's no real strategy here. Some of it is Trump wanting to, like king make or you know, make over chores towards people he likes.
So that is for sure true.
Picked up winners and losers, pretty capitalism.
There's no strategy. It's a lot of cronyism one of these situations. Then he went and bought oh in Intel, I think he went and bought three million dollars of debt, so personally I think it was Intel.
But you know, so there's real, like real.
Corruption level corruption here, which I think is also worth noting.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.