Project Freedom Strait Of Hormuz, Louisiana Redistricting, Senate Midterm Landscape
Up First from NPR
NPR
4.6 • 59K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
Louisiana’s governor suspended U.S. House races so lawmakers can draw new congressional maps after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, part of a broader Republican push for aggressive redistricting ahead of the midterms.
With President Trump’s approval ratings near new lows, Democrats see a narrow but real opportunity to flip the Senate this fall in several key races including North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Susanna Capelouto, Mohamad ElBardicy and Arezou Rezvani.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.
Our director is Kaity Kline.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
(0:00) Introduction
(02:52) Project Freedom Strait Of Hormuz
(07:39) Louisiana Redistricting
(11:01) Senate Midterm Landscape
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning, Michelle. Good morning, Leila. So real quick, before we start today, a reminder that we just celebrated public media giving days here at NPR. |
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| 1:00.3 | President Trump says the U.S. will guide stranded ships out of the Strait of Hormuz. |
| 1:04.9 | Meanwhile, he's considering a proposal from the Iranians. |
| 1:08.1 | Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish him forever, |
| 1:12.3 | or do we want to try and make a deal? I'm Michelle Martin. That's Leila Fado, and this is up first from |
| 1:17.3 | NPR News. Louisiana's governor suspends house races in his state so lawmakers can draw new |
| 1:24.7 | congressional maps after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act. |
| 1:28.4 | They're literally trying to take power from the people. |
| 1:30.8 | How aggressive will we districting get before the midterms? |
| 1:33.8 | And with President Trump's low approval ratings, Democrats see a narrow path to flipping the Senate this fall, |
| 1:40.7 | which races could decide control. |
... |
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