Transcript
A (0:03)
It's Monday, May 4th. I'm Jane Coston and this is what a day. The show that just learned it has something in common with first lady Melania Trump via President Donald Trump speaking in Florida on Friday. And she hates when I dance, too. At the end, too. She hates when I dance to what's sometimes referred to as the gay national anthem. You know that she hates it. I also hate when he dances to YMCA by the Village People, which is not the gay national anthem, as we've discussed. The gay national anthem is Dancing on My Own by Robin. On today's show. The war in Iran that wasn't a war but became a war is currently not a war, according to the Trump administration. And grab a glass. We're pouring one out for Spirit Airlines. But let's start with voting. Republicans spent their weekend defending last week's Supreme Court decision that struck down a Louisiana congressional map. It's a decision that in effect, could entirely defang the power of the Voting Rights act, which ensures that states cannot redistrict nonwhite voters out of political power. But on Fox News Sunday, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott told host Maria Bartiromo that the decision was actually great for Americans because it'll help us hire members of Congress more fairly.
B (1:27)
The Supreme Court just applied a principle that most Americans already understood, and that is, for example, in a hiring decision in the United States, everybody knows an employer cannot engage in racial discrimination. Now, the court is just making clear that that same hiring decision, when voters hire who their member of Congress is going to be, there cannot be racial discrimination. The fact of the matter is, for decades, the Democrats have been using racial discrimination to draw these crazily drawn lines.
A (1:58)
Discrimination against minority voters, on the other hand, is apparently fine, provided you don't make that discrimination too explicit. The Supreme Court decision is big news. But there are tons of ways that the Trump administration and the GOP are trying to make it harder for you to vote. Take the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, or tgdc. It's supposed to be a non partisan federal committee that determines the standards for voting equipment used in elections across the country. The those standards are known as the voluntary voting system guidelines, and they're intended to keep our election safe and secure, something I thought Donald Trump was very worried about. But back in April, a group of election officials sounded the alarm. The Trump administration has been blocking new appointees to the TGDC and won't say why. Without those experts in place, we could see voting machines that are more likely to get breached by hackers or just plain don't work. And that's a big, big concern. With midterm elections just a few months away and with the Trump White House looking to, quote, take over how Americans vote. So to explain what's going on with our nation's voting apparatus, I spoke to Jacob Knudsen. He's a reporter at Democracy Docket. We talked before the Supreme Court announced its decision in Louisiana versus Calais. Jacob Knudsen, welcome to what a day.