← The NPR Politics Podcast
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Supreme Court OKs Texas Redistricting, Trump Dismisses 'Affordability'
00:22:45
Loading summary
Transcript112 lines
- [00:00]
Ashley Lopez
This message comes from Carvana. Buy a car 100% online@carvana.com with financing to fit your budget. Enjoy seven days to return. If it's not a fit, limitations and exclusions may apply. See return policy@carvana.com hi, this is Andrew from Easton, Pennsylvania. My husband and I are currently en route with our 6 month old Corgi.
- [00:22]
Domenico Montanaro
Puppy to his last day of puppy training classes.
- [00:25]
Tamara Keith
This podcast was recorded at 12:41pm on Friday, December 5.
- [00:30]
Ashley Lopez
Things may have changed by the time you hear, but we know with these.
- [00:33]
Domenico Montanaro
Classes that Bear will be one step.
- [00:35]
Ashley Lopez
Closer to being a great citizen.
- [00:38]
Tamara Keith
Oh, goodness.
- [00:39]
Domenico Montanaro
All right, here's the show.
- [00:43]
Ashley Lopez
Nice pun.
- [00:44]
Domenico Montanaro
Good luck with that. I really hope it works out because raising a puppy is really hard.
- [00:49]
Ashley Lopez
But a corgi, corgi puppy, that is next level cute.
- [00:53]
Tamara Keith
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.
- [00:58]
Ashley Lopez
I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.
- [01:00]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [01:03]
Tamara Keith
And it's been a busy week in the wide world of politics, so let's try to make sense of at least some of it. I want to start with news about redistricting. It came in last night. The U.S. supreme Court is allowing Texas to use a gerrymandered map in next year's midterms. That's after a lower court had blocked it. Ashley, catch us up here.
- [01:25]
Ashley Lopez
Yeah. So I mean, obviously, the Texas legislature earlier this year drew its congressional map to create five more seats that would be favorable to Republicans. And there was, of course, a legal complaint, a lawsuit that was filed. But I mean, one thing in the backdrop of all this is like one, this was at Trump's urging, right? Like, it was purely and very obvious political motivations here. But this other thing that was sort of happening in the background is that the Department of Justice was one of the reasons that some lawmakers said they did this. The DOJ sent a letter to Texas officials that basically urged them to dismantle minority coalition districts. So, like, you know, congressional seats that give black and Latino voters representation in Congress. So this was one of the motivations for the legal complaint that was filed. And it was why the court, this like three judge panel that heard this case for nine days said, hey, you cannot do this. While partisan gerrymandering is allowed by law, having any sort of racial motivation for redrawing maps is not cool. And so this was struck down. The new maps were struck down. And then of course, Texas officials were like, well, let's send an emergency request to the Supreme Court for them to step in. And that's what happened here.
- [02:38]
Tamara Keith
And why ultimately did the Supreme Court say they were going to let this map go into effect?
- [02:44]
Ashley Lopez
In short, they did not buy the argument that this was purely a racial gerrymander. They think that this was clearly about partisan motivations and there wasn't a need to, like, strike down the maps on a constitutional level. Because as we've said many times on this podcast, the Supreme Court has said, hey, if you want to create political districts that favor one party over another, that's fine. It's when race is entered into the question that is not okay. But partisan gerrymandering is.
- [03:13]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, I mean, this was a 6, 3 ruling with the conservatives on one side, the liberals on the other. Another example of why it's important in picking a president, because they can pick Supreme Court justices. And, you know, there's a real fine line between political gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering. The court, like Ashley said, says that political gerrymandering's fine, but when 85 to 90% or so of black voters vote Democratic, then it can be easy to say that you're politically gerrymandering, but also affecting all of the black voters in the state.
- [03:47]
Tamara Keith
So we've been describing this as potentially up to five additional Republican seats for Texas. Is that, is that what it's looking like, Ashley?
- [03:58]
Ashley Lopez
Yes, this is potentially five more seats that are favorable for Republicans. But there's also this thing happening in California where now lawmakers are going to create a possible five more seats for Democrats there. This was always going to be kind of a wash. What happens in Texas? The bigger question is like, okay, well, now we have, you know, on the Republican side, Missouri and North Carolina have added a seat or two there.
- [04:22]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that Republicans, Donald Trump really wanted to be able to juice how many seats they could get out of Texas in particular, because Trump saw potentially five new seats out of Texas, you know, when California went ahead and passed their ballot initiative to be able to go ahead and do mid decade redistricting as well. That, again, like Ashley said, could offset what Texas does. And Democrats have had some victories in some other places like Utah as well. And Republicans may not get as many seats as they would have wanted out of these things. And, you know, we've talked about before the potential for boomeranging, but when you take a seat that, you know, might be 57%, you know, in favor of a Republican and move that down to maybe 53% in favor of a Republican in a Democratic wave year. Those are the kind of seats that could get picked off as well. So a lot of nuance here that doesn't quite just cleanly add up to, you know, Republican advantage.
- [05:25]
Tamara Keith
Domenico, with this Supreme Court decision now out there, we've already seen something of an arms race among states to try to redistrict for partisan advantage. Do you expect that now that is going to just amp up because there is sort of like a permission structure there now?
- [05:43]
Domenico Montanaro
Well, I mean, if there was anybody who had any pause about doing it in a partisan way, they certainly don't need to have any according to the Supreme Court. You know, the Supreme Court had already ruled that partisan gerrymandering was okay and now it re emphasized that and underscored that. So it's gonna be one of those things where if there's a state legislature that wants to be able to blatantly partisan gerrymander, they certainly allowed to do that.
- [06:09]
Tamara Keith
Ashley, where could we see more of this happening?
- [06:12]
Ashley Lopez
So lawmakers in Indiana have not stopped sort of looking at this for right now. We've also heard Virginia Democrats, they had big wins there during this election cycle. So there are conversations there. I heard a lawmaker say that, you know, they could get a 10 to 1 map out of the next legislative session that they hold that would favor Democrats. Another state to watch is Florida. Lawmakers started their hearings on potentially redrawing their maps as well. That's already a map that is pretty gerrymandered right now. So that's another big state to watch because it's got a lot of congressional seats.
- [06:53]
Tamara Keith
I want to stick with the congressional maps for a moment and talk about a special election for a House seat near Nashville. It happened this week and ordinarily not such big news. But Democrats, despite losing there, did overperform. Tell us what happened.
- [07:09]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah. And you know, this is again another special election in this 2025 year where we've seen Democrats make double digit overperformance from the previous year. I mean, this was a seat like you said, that Trump and the prior Congressman won by 22 points. The Republican in this case won by nine. That's 13 points. And that's in line with what we've seen this year where Democrats have had double digit over performances. I mean, on average They've overperformed by 14 to 16 points depending on whether you include the Virginia and New Jersey governors races as well. When you continuously have an over performance by one party over and over again, and especially in the double digit Category that is a huge signifier of potential wave election coming in the following year, at least at this point. And when you look at the number of Republicans who are retiring from Congress, pretty high number of Republicans who are retiring from Congress right now, that's another indicator. So right now, Republicans are a bit on their back foot. They're hoping redistricting can help them. They're hoping that, you know, tweaking their message like the Republican congressional candidate did in Tennessee, seven was able to talk more about the cost of living and that maybe that can help them. I think they're gonna have to hope mostly that views of the economy become more positive because we know the party in power usually gets more credit and more blame than perhaps they deserve when it comes to the economy.
- [08:39]
Ashley Lopez
So I think one of the worries that Republicans should draw from this is if you look at this district, this is one of those carve outs during the gerrymander int Tennessee in 2022 that broke up Nashville, this big bluish city in the middle of the state. And this is the sort of thing that Texas Republicans did, which is they are breaking up suburbs and big cities like Houston and in the Dallas area and in Austin. What happened in this congressional race is that this seat got competitive because it had these pieces of the Nashville county there. Davidson, this is a place where the Democratic candidate did really well and some of the like surrounding suburban counties got a little bit more competitive. And I mean, this is the sort of nightmare scenario for Republicans moving into the midterms is like, well, if we break up all these districts and you know, we get these left leaning, purplish suburbs all across the country now being more competitive because they just have fewer Republicans in them. It's a big question if, yeah, even if it's a wave election or not even such a big wave election, this could put a lot of those seats in up in the air for them for the most part. You know, Republicans did start spending a lot of money towards the end in this race and I think that really helped them. And that Democratic candidate was maybe, you know, maybe not the best fit for some of these more conservative leaning, purplish counties around Nashville. But you know, if there are some better candidates that are a better fit for some of these suburban counties, it is, it is going to be very interesting to watch next year.
- [10:13]
Tamara Keith
All right, well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment Every afternoon on NPR's. Consider this. We go deep on one big story this week.
- [10:23]
Domenico Montanaro
A college professor fed up with students.
- [10:25]
Tamara Keith
Using AI set a trap to prove if they were.
- [10:29]
Domenico Montanaro
So I end up with 39% AI.
- [10:32]
Tamara Keith
Submissions, how it worked and what it reveals about higher education in an era of AI. On Consider this Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [10:43]
Domenico Montanaro
This week on Up First, NPR's morning news podcast as we learn more about the Trump administration's deadly strikes against alleged drug boats. Senators from both parties have questions. Will they get answers? We'll keep you updated. And we're following the latest efforts by the president to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Listen to up first for what you need to know to start your day.
- [11:06]
Tamara Keith
On the next through line from npr. The mother of Thanksgiving. If every state should join in Thanksgiving.
- [11:14]
Ashley Lopez
On the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?
- [11:23]
Domenico Montanaro
Listen to Throughline in the NPR app.
- [11:26]
Ashley Lopez
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [11:31]
Tamara Keith
And we're back. And I want to take some time to talk about some signs of pushback that are happening within the Republican Party. We saw a little bit of it this week with scrutiny given to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and we talked about that on the pod earlier this week week. But increasingly, voters of all stripes think affordability is the main issue that will drive their political decisions. And Domenico President Trump this week again called the concept of affordability a Democratic con job. You know, he ran on a promise to bring down prices. So how does this wash?
- [12:07]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, it's really something. I mean, he continues to downplay the the idea that the cost of living is really important to people. You know, I mean, he wants to be able to try and say that Democrats are just using this as some kind of a hoax. You know, it repeatedly comes up as the top issue for people, the strongest motivating issue for people at the top of public opinion polls because they feel like they can't afford housing or health care or paying their bills month to month. And that that's become a tighter and tighter squeeze. And his economic ratings have not been very good. They blame for making things worse on the economy, you know, saying that his tariffs, for example, have raised prices. So it's a real difficult position that he's in and one that, again, he tries to kind of wriggle out of by downplaying the affordability argument and by going to culture war issues.
- [13:04]
Tamara Keith
Ashley, what do you make of this? Do you think that this is going to be an enduring challenge headed into the midterms?
- [13:10]
Ashley Lopez
I mean, short of everyone's money Woes going away. This is not gonna go away. And I think, like, every sing time the President says something like this, dismissing people's sort of material problems. Right now I could just hear, like, Democratic operatives, like, loading this into, like, whatever ad they're gonna be running next year. I mean, I don't think that the economy is something that is an issue that's gonna go away. It's hard to see it being sort of, you know, eclipsed by some other big issue. We have a lot of foreign policy stuff happening right now, and voters say, we've been looking at things like immigration. Voters will say, well, we want the President to be focusing more on housing prices and, and health care prices. Like, those are the things that really matter to us. So I see no situation in which all of a sudden this becomes less of a liability for Trump, especially as time goes on, he owns more of the economy. It's harder to blame things on the former president the further away you get from that last administration.
- [14:03]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, I mean, all that's true, right? I mean, people's problems with being able to pay for things aren't just gonna go away. I mean, Tam, what is the White House saying about all this?
- [14:12]
Tamara Keith
The White House is saying a lot of things. The President's economic advisers, who previously had said that Q4 it would be his economy, are now saying early next year, the policies will go into place, people will get the tax refunds, they'll feel better. You just need to be patient and wait. As we've talked about, the President has described it as a con job. I talked to a senior administration official who attempted at some length to explain to me that the President calling it a con job was not dismissive, but was instead the president just saying that Democrats had an affordability problem before and they shouldn't be able to put it on him now. But there is some action early next week. President Trump is set to travel to Pennsylvania. He has done almost no domestic travel that hasn't been to attend sporting events or to to golf at one of his resorts or disasters, very little domestic travel related to messaging or sell policies to the American people. That changes on Tuesday when he goes to Pennsylvania to try to sell his affordability agenda. The question that I have is, what is the message going to be? Is he going to be in this defensive crouch that we saw all week where he's talking about affordability being made up as an issue, or is he going to do what this White House official told me his message would be, which is, I feel your pain. We've done a lot, but there's more we have to do. And I guess I'm waiting to see also if this trip is a one off or if it really is going to be a ramping up of his messaging to the American people, which the White House has been promising for like a month now.
- [15:58]
Domenico Montanaro
But what we usually see with Trump when he goes on these kinds of trips is he can meander into a lot of different spaces. And I think that he's always been most comfortable talking about the other, talking about immigration, talking about the people he doesn't want in the country. And that's really a big reason why he's had such a high floor with his base, because he goes on screens talking about people from other countries, like he did this week in talking about Somalis. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you. Okay. Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their countries stink and we don't want them in our country. I can say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them to. Hell, we got to. We have to rebuild our country. You know, our country is at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it. We could go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.
- [17:02]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. He, he also referred to Minnesota Democratic House member Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant, as, quote, garbage, and said Somalis should, quote, go back to where they came from. The remarkable thing here is this all just sort of sprung up in the past week, which initially his focus had been on people who came from Afghanistan after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. allegedly an Afghan immigrant.
- [17:35]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, look, I mean, in this country, we've had a lot of anti immigrant rhetoric that's gone back, you know, hundreds of years. You know, a lot of white nationalists in the country and people within the Trump administration admire former President Calvin Coolidge, for example, for signing the Immigration act of 1924 into law. And a lot of the rhetoric that you heard then you hear kind of reflected in a lot of what Trump has to say. But you can, it's sort of of playing a switcheroo with what the country was. I mean, back then, they were upset about bombings that happened that had Some Italians involved. So they were kind of against Southern Europeans coming into the country. There were issues with Jews in Eastern Europe being pro socialism, so they didn't want them in the country. And the son of a Polish immigrant who shot and killed McKinley. So then there became this anti immigrant fervor to keep people out who they thought were not assimilating. Well, I mean, it's very similar language to what we hear from Trump and his base now. And when you have economic concerns that we see across the board, there's a lot of pointing fingers at the other. And this is what Trump has done over the last decade.
- [18:43]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. And the Trump administration in the past week or so has specifically and clearly said they want to prioritize assimilation.
- [18:53]
Ashley Lopez
I mean, I think, like, the important part of this is the timing of all this. Trump has been getting some flack from his base. I mean, we saw Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she is very frustrated with Trump and is now deciding to leave Congress because of this. We've heard other members of Congress express concern about the direction of the party. So, you know, if the base is in trouble, go back to the hits. That's what Trump is doing. He's talking about the stuff that always seemed to animate, you know, his base voters, the most loyal parts of the party. So I guess partially this isn't that surprising.
- [19:26]
Tamara Keith
And that is something I'll be watching as he does this event in Pennsylvania. Does he stick to the economy or does he go to the greatest hits? All right, let's take another break and then it's time for Can't Let It Go. It's been a great year for tv.
- [19:42]
Domenico Montanaro
Movies and music, and we are highlighting the best of the best, including K Pop, demon hunters, sinners and severants. We're talking about our favorite moments there.
- [19:52]
Tamara Keith
The year, including some of the best.
- [19:53]
Domenico Montanaro
Pop culture you might have missed.
- [19:55]
Ashley Lopez
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour in.
- [19:57]
Tamara Keith
The NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:02]
Domenico Montanaro
So I just want to check in really quick.
- [20:04]
Ashley Lopez
Are you okay? Or are you suffering from sleep deprivation.
- [20:09]
Tamara Keith
A stack of bills, or political propaganda?
- [20:12]
Domenico Montanaro
If so, you may be stuck in the parent trap.
- [20:16]
Ashley Lopez
On the It's Been a Minute podcast, we're diving headfirst into the anxieties of.
- [20:21]
Domenico Montanaro
Modern parenting and how that trickles out.
- [20:24]
Tamara Keith
To all of us.
- [20:25]
Ashley Lopez
Even if you don't have children. Come find some relief.
- [20:29]
Domenico Montanaro
Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts on. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Famous actors remember their days of Obscurity. Like when Pedro Pascal remembered the stress of being a waiter. The legitimate logistical labor of meeting everyone's needs in the right manner. You know, the act one, the water, act two, the drink. Listen to Wait Wait. In the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:01]
Tamara Keith
And we're back. And it's time for Can't Let It Go. The part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. I will go first. This has been a week of drunken animals, and I am here for it. Well, okay, one of them was a teetotaler. One of them got very drunk. So first there was the story of the raccoon, AKA trash panda in Virginia, who broke into a liquor store and raided not the top shelf, but the bottom shelf, then passed out in the bathroom.
- [21:42]
Domenico Montanaro
It's the bottom shelf that usually gets you passed out, right?
- [21:45]
Tamara Keith
I mean, yes, it's hard on the liver. The bottom shelf is hard on the liver, hard on the head, hard on everything. So there was that. And then last night, I saw a story that just made me so happy. A baby fur seal in New Zealand went a little wayward and ended up in a pub. And it is just the cutest thing in the whole wide world. And they said a lot of things about, like, there were a lot of jokes about on the rock. Yeah.
- [22:12]
Ashley Lopez
I assume that, like, seal just wanted pets and love and attention because I think of them like sea dogs, which I think is, like, universal. I will say for raccoons, though, they look like burglars. Like, are we not supposed to assume they'll do burglar type behavior? Because they got like those little. Those little patches over their eyes. I don't know. I feel like we should let it. We should allow it to happen.
- [22:31]
Domenico Montanaro
Allow it to happen.
- [22:32]
Ashley Lopez
Yeah.
- [22:33]
Domenico Montanaro
We're not letting crying fester keep the raccoons out. What are we talking about here?
- [22:39]
Ashley Lopez
I like a little good chaos.
- [22:41]
Domenico Montanaro
No. No raccoons.
- [22:42]
Tamara Keith
As long as they're only stealing the cheap liquor.
- [22:44]
Domenico Montanaro
It's.
- [22:44]
Ashley Lopez
Yeah, exactly.
- [22:47]
Tamara Keith
Domenico. What can't you let go of?
- [22:49]
Domenico Montanaro
Well, it's also animal related and a sweeter side of the story because we're talking about Flora, the cat who was reunited with her family last week after a 15 year separation.
- [23:02]
Tamara Keith
Whoa.
- [23:03]
Domenico Montanaro
It went missing during an apartment move where it sort of wandered off. They lost the cat when she was a kitten. It was microchipped. Fairfax county virgin.
- [23:12]
Tamara Keith
There you go.
- [23:13]
Domenico Montanaro
Went into a shelter and they figured out who it belonged to. And they were reunited after 15 years.
- [23:19]
Tamara Keith
Ashley, what can't you let go of?
- [23:21]
Ashley Lopez
I'm kind of keeping in the theme of, like, DMV stories here. Recently there was the first ever Taco Bell DC 50K.
- [23:29]
Tamara Keith
Oh, yes.
- [23:30]
Ashley Lopez
Yeah. So this is something that happens in Denver, but now it's over here, much to my chagrin, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But Basically, it's a 50k where you stop at different Taco Bells and eat there, you know, as you run. And I, I say that this is like, my worst nightmare because. And by the way, it's nine Taco Bells. You run to nine Taco Bells, eat at them, and then you keep running. And I have emetophobia, which is like, I have, like, I have a phobia of people vomiting. Like, if someone even tells me they're nauseous, I get into a panic attack and flee.
- [24:03]
Domenico Montanaro
Well, I guess the running is good for you. You could be part of this.
- [24:07]
Ashley Lopez
But if I'm running in here, people who are feeling sick, like, that is not good. Like, that is. I mean, already running is terrible. That was just like, my worst nightmare. But anyways, I think it's pretty interesting that so many people were. It was hundreds of people doing this. And I cannot believe so many people wanted to in the cold, chow down on, like, the food that is the hardest to digest and then go for a run. But you know what? I know I don't want to yuck people's yump, but sounds woof.
- [24:32]
Tamara Keith
I have to say I set my personal record in a half marathon now, many years ago when I didn't realize I was gonna be doing a half marathon the next morning. And I ate at Taco Bell the night before, and then I got up the next morning and ran my best race ever.
- [24:49]
Domenico Montanaro
Are you saying it gave you the runs?
- [24:52]
Tamara Keith
No, everything was contained, fully contained.
- [24:56]
Ashley Lopez
I usually try not to encourage the dad jokes, but that was pretty good.
- [25:00]
Domenico Montanaro
I mean, that was just sitting there for me.
- [25:02]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. All right, that is all for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Muturi. Our producers are Casey Morel and Bria Suggs. Our editors, Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Krishnadev Kalamer and Kelsey Snell. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.
- [25:17]
Ashley Lopez
I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.
- [25:19]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [25:22]
Tamara Keith
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.
- [25:33]
Domenico Montanaro
Wolf researcher Jeff Reed built special recorders to try to understand what the wolves of Yellowstone park are saying to each other. When you first start hearing these chorus howls. They kind of sound like a cocktail party in the wild.
- [25:51]
Ideas about translating nature?
- [25:53]
Ashley Lopez
Listen to the TED Radio Hour on.
- [25:54]
Domenico Montanaro
The NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:58]
Tamara Keith
Wildcard is where big name interviews feel like conversations with a friend.
- [26:02]
Domenico Montanaro
I mean, I can't believe how lucky I've been. You didn't say goodbye the right way, McConaughey, she told me.
- [26:10]
Ashley Lopez
I don't think you're Princeton material.
- [26:12]
Domenico Montanaro
I'm nothing if not open, I guess.
- [26:15]
Tamara Keith
I'm Rachel Martin. Watch or listen to Wild Card on the NPR app, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:22]
Domenico Montanaro
Fall in love with new music every Friday at All songs considered.
- [26:26]
Ashley Lopez
That's NPR's music recommendation.
- [26:28]
Domenico Montanaro
Podcast Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new.
- [26:32]
Tamara Keith
Releases of the week.
- [26:34]
Domenico Montanaro
Make the hunt for new music music a part of your life again. Tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts.