Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on redrawing congressional maps and testing Trump's power

[0:00] For more on those federal workers turned candidates, on the Supreme Court restoring abortion pill access for now, [0:06] and the rush by some states to redraw their congressional maps, we turn now to our Politics Monday duo. [0:12] That is Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. [0:17] It's great to see you both. [0:18] Good to be here. [0:18] Let's pick up, Amy, with what we just heard from those former federal workers. [0:21] What does it tell you that those now candidates wanted to come back into government, this time as decision makers? [0:26] This time, and they made the distinction very clearly that we were public servants. [0:30] We weren't elected to these jobs. [0:32] Now we're asking to go in front of voters and actually earn the place from voters to do this job. [0:39] Look, I think what's interesting about this whole debate over the federal workforce was that if you ask voters just broadly, [0:48] do you think it's a good idea to be more efficient in delivering government services, they would say yes. [0:53] But Doge's, the reason Doge was unpopular with voters was that it felt like it was so haphazard and it was done in a way that wasn't really well thought through, wasn't really well crafted. [1:05] Now whether these candidates can appeal to voters who are so sort of disgruntled with government writ large is going to be interesting. [1:15] Because even though they were public servants, I think a lot of people hear the term, I was a government worker, and associate that with politics, even though that's obviously not what they did. [1:29] Yeah. [1:30] Tam, what about you? [1:30] Yeah, I do think that this is in many ways a logical step for people who suddenly had more time on their hands to think about ways they wanted to give back or ways to do public service in sort of a different realm. [1:46] This isn't the first time that you have seen people go and run for Congress after a run-in, for instance, with President Trump. [1:57] You have Congressman Vindman in Virginia, who was the whistleblower in the first Trump impeachment, who then was booted from his job and then ran for office successfully. [2:15] Let's turn now to a topic I know you both have been following, which is the redrawing of those congressional districts. [2:21] Immediately after that Supreme Court decision last week, which made it much harder to challenge alleged racially gerrymandered congressional maps, we've seen a number of states make moves in their own territories. [2:32] Let's take a quick look at the map here. [2:33] Louisiana quickly suspended its House primaries, where early voting was already underway so lawmakers could approve new maps there. [2:40] In Alabama, there's a special legislative session today to redraw maps. [2:44] Tennessee will have the same tomorrow. [2:46] Mississippi, considering the same move. [2:48] For context, before the Supreme Court decision, the states shown here in red had already redrawn maps to benefit Republicans. [2:56] States in blue had done the same for Democrats. [2:58] States were already considering changes in yellow there. [3:02] Florida was weighing a new map before the Supreme Court ruling. [3:04] Amy, when you look at this whole picture, what kind of maps are we going to end up with? [3:08] Who are they going to benefit? [3:09] Well, they're going to benefit incumbents. [3:11] We're going to have fewer and fewer really, truly competitive seats, because the goal here is to make as many safe districts for one party or the other. [3:21] Today, if you look at those seats that you mentioned in Louisiana, Alabama, and maybe Mississippi, but definitely Tennessee, [3:30] the potential there is for at least three African-American Democrats to be drawn out of their districts across those three states. [3:40] If we think about this more broadly, though, and get past the 2026 election into 28 and 30 and beyond, [3:47] I think one of the biggest questions now is in front of Democrats, because what we're seeing is a war right now on partisanship. [3:54] Who is going to come out ahead in terms of the number of seats they have in the House, how many Democratic seats, how many Republican seats? [4:02] Democrats can get into this, continue to do this tit for tat. [4:07] But in order to get more seats, they have to take districts that right now are held by black or Latino lawmakers who are Democrats, [4:15] and basically open them up, dilute those districts, move those black and Latino voters into other areas of the state to make those more Democratic. [4:26] And that's going to be a really big question mark for Democrats going forward, because if they're defending, [4:33] what they're saying is the dilution of the influence of black and Latino voices is a problem, [4:41] and we need to ensure that those voices remain here, can you go into some of these states in order to get a partisan advantage [4:49] by also diluting those voters, those votes? [4:54] You have been reporting on a Republican effort in Indiana, where the Republican state senators there defied President Trump, [5:01] did not redistrict there. Trump-aligned groups, we know, are now pouring in a lot of money to try to oust them. [5:06] Tomorrow is the primary election. [5:08] Here is what one of those state lawmakers, Senator James Buck, told you. [5:11] I represent Senate District 21. I don't represent Washington's wishes. [5:19] If that's the case, everybody after me would be looking over their shoulder. [5:25] If I vote with my district, is Washington going to try to crucify me? [5:29] And you can't let that happen. You've got to have a spine. You've got to stand up for your constituents. [5:37] You have to do what's right and let the chips fall where they may. [5:40] It's a fascinating dynamic, Tim. How is this going to play out? [5:44] Yeah, those chips are falling. We don't know how ultimately these races will turn out. [5:49] We'll know late tomorrow night. [5:51] What we do know is that people like Jim Buck and State Senator Spencer Deary and the other Republican state senators, [5:58] who are generally very Republican but just crossed the president on this one thing, [6:04] they are facing the full weight of President Trump's political machine coming down on them. [6:10] And it is painful. [6:12] They are facing millions of dollars in negative campaign ads. [6:17] They are then raising money and trying to fight back. [6:20] They're definitely being outspent in a significant way. [6:23] And, I mean, this is a true test of President Trump's power of political retribution. [6:30] And one Trump advisor I spoke to said that these incumbents are headed for their, quote, political slaughter. [6:38] When I pressed on why are you spending money on Republican primaries in a red state, [6:44] he said there is more than enough money to send a message in Indiana [6:49] and then defend the Republican majorities in the fall. [6:52] We're going to continue to follow your reporting on that. [6:54] Before we go, I'd love for you both to weigh in briefly on that Supreme Court decision that we mentioned earlier, [6:58] basically restoring temporarily broad access to the abortion pill in Fipristone. [7:03] Is this going to have an impact for Republicans? [7:04] Well, I think it does have an impact in that it takes, [7:07] potentially takes that issue off the table for the midterm elections. [7:11] This is an issue on which Republicans certainly have a disadvantage. [7:15] And it's not just that it is the pill itself, [7:18] but we'll get into the conversation about health care overall. [7:22] Which is one in which Democrats have a very significant advantage. [7:27] Yeah. [7:27] And I'm sure there are 2026 implications, but I'm watching for 2028. [7:32] Because we're going to have an open Republican primary, maybe not super open. [7:36] It depends on how many people run and whether the vice president runs. [7:39] But you're going to have an open Republican primary without Trump on the ballot. [7:43] And he has been able to sort of smooth over a lot of disagreement within the Republican coalition [7:49] on the issue of abortion and how far to go. [7:51] And I see that being a very big issue in that Republican primary in 2028. [7:57] Tamara Keith, Amy Walter, always great to start the week with you both. [8:00] Thank you so much. [8:01] You're welcome. [8:01] Support journalism you trust. [8:17] Support PBS News. [8:19] Donate now or even better, start a monthly contribution today.