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What A Day

A Committee Protecting U.S. Elections Is Under Threat

What A Day

What A Day

News, Daily News

4.612.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week's Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act is big news. But there are tons of other 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 nonpartisan federal committee that determines the standards for voting equipment used in elections across the country. 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 — which is a big, big concern with midterm elections just a few months away. So to explain what’s going on with our nation’s voting apparatus, we spoke to Jacob Knutson, a reporter at Democracy Docket.

And in headlines, Trump tells Congress that the war in Iran is currently not a war, Tucker Carlson gives a long and winding interview to the New York Times, and we send a bittersweet goodbye to Spirit Airlines.

Show Notes:

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's Monday, May 4th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day.

0:06.5

The show that just learned it is something in common with First Lady Melania Trump via President Donald Trump speaking in Florida on Friday.

0:13.4

And she hates when I dance to at the end to...

0:15.8

She hates when I dance to what sometimes referred to as the gay national anthem.

0:24.0

You know that.

0:25.1

She hates it.

0:25.9

I also hate when he dances to YMCA by the village people, which is not the gay national anthem.

0:32.3

As we've discussed, the gay national anthem is dancing on my own by Robin.

0:36.9

Thank you. The Gay National Anthem is Dancing on My Own by Robin.

0:54.3

On today's show, the war on Iran that wasn't a war but became a war is currently not a war, according to the Trump administration.

0:59.1

And grab a glass, we're pouring one out for Spirit Airlines. But let's start with voting.

1:03.3

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

1:08.3

of the Voting Rights Act, which ensures that states cannot

1:10.9

redistrict non-white voters out of political power. But on Fox News Sunday, Texas Republican

1:15.5

Governor Greg Abbott told host Maria Bartaromo that the decision was actually great for Americans,

1:21.1

because it'll help us hire members of Congress more fairly.

1:30.4

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,

1:36.4

everybody knows an employer cannot engage in racial discrimination. Now the court is just making

1:42.1

clear that that same hiring decision, when voters hire who the member of Congress is going to be, that cannot be racial discrimination.

1:49.0

The fact of the matter is for decades, the Democrats have been using racial discrimination to draw these crazily drawn lines.

1:58.0

Discrimination against minority voters, on the other hand, is apparently fine,

2:02.3

provided you don't make that discrimination too explicit. The Supreme Court decision is big news,

...

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