Trump Blurts Out Vile Plot to Rig Midterms as Crushing New Poll Hits

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After the Virginia supreme court blocked the Democratic redistricting plan, which would have netted Democrats four more House seats, Donald Trump celebrated. He called the ruling a “huge win” over a “horrible gerrymander.” But Trump himself has ordered many GOP states to gerrymander maximally. So here Trump openly declared that Republicans reserve the right to rig elections while Democrats do not. His actual position is that he and Republicans should play by their own corrupt rules, and that it's good for the election to be rigged in their favor. This comes as a new Marist poll shows Democrats leading in the generic House matchup by 10 points. Though polling averages have it at 5 points, if Marist is a leading indicator that hints at a blue wave. We talked to Ari Berman of Mother Jones, the great voting rights reporter. We discuss the Virginia ruling, why democracy can’t function when one party serially cheats and rigs elections, why Democrats must respond, and what their long-term strategy should look like. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:32.0	After the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a new redistricting that gave Democrats additional House seats, Donald Trump celebrated the outcome.
0:36.9	In so doing, however, he accidentally revealed that he and Republicans
0:41.1	expressly reserved the right for themselves to play by their own rules and rig elections in their
0:47.5	own favor unilaterally. In truth, the only chance Trump and Republicans have of salvaging the
0:53.3	midterms is extreme cheating,
0:55.7	as a remarkable new poll shows.
0:57.9	But what are friends of democracy supposed to do in a world where one party is openly rigging the game and the other isn't?
1:05.6	Where are these gerrymandering wars really headed?
1:08.6	We're talking this over with Ari Berman of Mother Jones, the great
1:12.1	reporter on voting rights. Ari, good to have you on. Hey, Greg, great to talk to you. Thank you.
1:17.5	So in Virginia, Democrats had succeeded in passing a redistricting referendum that added an additional
1:22.8	four congressional seats to the Democratic column. The state Supreme Court struck that down. But instead of
1:29.4	talking about the ruling, which is unfortunate, let's look forward, Ari. Democrats will probably
1:33.7	still win one or two of those four seats in Virginia. Meanwhile, Republicans are redistricting in
1:40.0	several southern states where they might get a, I don't know, five seats extra. Ari, what's the
1:45.6	overall math right now? Can you just boil it down in really simple terms? I would say
1:50.0	Republicans are probably going to net about five seats from redistricting at the end of the day.
1:55.6	Possibly more, maybe less, but they're ahead right now in the gerrymandering arms race because of what the state
2:02.2	Supreme Court in Virginia did and because of what the U.S. Supreme Court did last week.
2:06.4	What looked like a wash is going to be a small Republican advantage.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 3 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Republic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Republic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.