Transcript: Trump Has No Clue What His Supreme Court Just Unleashed

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 5 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.For background reading on the topic of today’s episode, see this piece arguing that the Supreme Court’s gerrymandering ruling will unleash a massive redistricting arms race. Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Last week, the Supreme Court gutted a key protection against racial gerrymandering, and Donald Trump is already urging Republicans to capitalize on it. In a Truth Social rant, Trump called on GOP states to gerrymander their congressional maps to the max in time for this fall’s elections. That means eliminating as many seats represented by African Americans as possible. By expressly putting this in the context of the midterms, Trump in essence openly admitted that this new gerrymandering push is all about keeping power in the face of his nose-diving approval, which just hit yet another new low. All of which will simply require Democrats to act in response.Max Flugrath of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action has been thinking a lot about the roadmap ahead for Democrats. So we’re talking to him about all this today. Max, good to have you on.Max Flugrath: Greg, thanks so much for having me.Sargent: So as you all know, the Supreme Court’s ruling gutted the Voting Rights Act yet again, removing a check on racial gerrymandering. On Truth Social, Donald Trump urged GOP legislatures to act on the ruling by redrawing their congressional district maps aggressively, saying, “Republicans will receive more than 20 House seats in the upcoming midterms.” Now, Max, the idea that Republicans can get 20 House seats in time for the midterms is pure bullshit, and we’ll get to that. But for now, note how Trump doesn’t even disguise that this is about preventing the loss of the House of Representatives. Your thoughts on that?Flugrath: It’s a shameless paragraph, you know, plain and simple. And it’s something that his advisors have actually been talking to donors about for some time. In December, Axios reported that Chris LaSivita and Fabrizio—Trump’s pollster—were at an RNC donor retreat telling them that this case, Louisiana v. Callais, would boost their prospects in 2026 and it would transform the Republican Party’s ability to win elections for years to come. They’re not being coy about it at all.Sargent: They certainly aren’t. Well, let’s recap the current situation. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, just signed a new map potentially flipping four Democratic seats into the GOP camp. Up until now, the redistricting arms race had been mostly a wash, particularly after Virginia redrew and added up to four Democratic seats. So now maybe with Florida, the ledger tips a little bit toward the GOP. A lot depends on what happens in court with both the Florida and Virginia cases, but maybe it ends up being a wash. Can you sum up where we are?Flugrath: So yeah, this all started in Texas after Trump demanded they rig their maps. After that, we saw Republicans add more seats to their column in Ohio, in Missouri, and North Carolina. Of course, California responded right after—that was sort of a gut punch in response—and they put it to the voters, which is not what Republican states have been doing at all. Virginia was next in this sort of redistricting war saga that Trump kicked off. And, you know, like you mentioned, I think that’s sort of under review, strangely. Republicans are looking for a court to vacate the will of the voters due to some technical BS in my opinion.And now we’re seeing what’s going to happen in Florida. They have an actual constitutional amendment there, which was passed overwhelmingly by voters in 2010 to restrict and outlaw partisan gerrymandering. So it’s unclear the fate of those maps. I think DeSantis and others involved have talked about them in a pretty partisan way. So they may have shot themselves in the foot. Of course, the result remains to be seen.Sargent: Right. So California and Virginia, just to clarify, added seats into the Democratic column, more or less making this a wash. But again, a lot turns on what happens in court with Virginia and Florida. Here it gets a bit complicated. Due to the high court ruling, several GOP states are going to try to redraw in time for the midterms this fall. Meanwhile, some other GOP states will try to wait and redraw in time for the 2028 election. Just to break this down, let’s start with the first batch. As of now, GOP legislatures in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina are going to try to redraw in time for this fall. Max, can you walk us through what that entails? I know there’s some doubt about South Carolina, but what’s the general picture?Flugrath: Yeah, I mean, look, they’re going to try to ram these maps through and, it’ll probably add a couple of seats in the Republican column, leaning it in their favor.