Weekly Wrap | An All Out Gerrymander Brawl, Maya May with a Gubernatorial Hopeful & Trump’s Troubles w/ Affordability

Welcome to another edition of the Weekly Wrap, Lincoln Square’s guide to all the shows and interviews you might have missed throughout the week.

Can the GOP Gerrymander Itself out of a 2026 Wipeout? | First Draft with Susan J. Demas & David Daley, Author of ‘Ratf**ked’

We are in the throes of an epic battle over redistricting ahead of the midterms and how these maps are handled might decide whether Republicans can survive the midterms or not. Author David Daley joined Lincoln Square executive editor Susan Demas to discuss the broad unraveling of the Voting Rights Act and how aggressive this push really is.

David Daley: We are accustomed to decisions coming from the U.S. Supreme Court the last week of June in really important cases, but there’s no reason that they have to. I’m reminded a lot of the Citizens United case when I look at Calais (Louisiana v. Calais), and that had a similar process in that court that decided it needed to be re-argued and re-briefed on larger constitutional grounds. So they scheduled it for very early in the term, and the Citizens United case was announced late January in 2010, giving Republicans and Democrats plenty of time to begin the process of raising all kinds of dark money from billionaires and special interests that could not be tracked.

So, if the Court wants to find a way to affect the 2026 election, it can certainly do so. And it would be dramatic. We’re talking about somewhere between 12 to 19 seats that could really ice the midterms.

Susan Demas: I have read analyses that note this would have an effect in terms of state legislative races as well. Again, you could be shifting the balance of power in a lot of states. You could be guaranteeing super majorities, perhaps in some heavily Republican Southern states that would no longer have representation for minorities, for Black people in particular. That has a dramatic effect on elections for ‘26 and beyond.

And then you factor in the larger issue of the Calais case and it could be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act. Am I being too dramatic to say that?

David Dailey: No. I think the Court and John Roberts have been so patiently eviscerating the Voting Rights Act over so long that proclaiming a death knell sounds dramatic, but it’s been a slow bleed. And there’s not much left after what the Roberts Court has done – starting with the Shelby County decision back in 2013 that ended preclearance.

See more of the discussion here.

Can Democrats Win in Nevada in ‘26? | Maya May Welcomes Governor Candidate Alexis Hill

Families in Nevada are facing the same harsh reality many Americans do right now: wages no longer match the cost of housing, public transit falls into disrepair, and health care depends on your luck. Alexis Hill is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Nevada and she sat down with Maya May to discuss her plans to address these issues.

Maya May: As a mom, how does it make you feel that there are outside interests coming into the state and making life potentially worse for families here?

Alexis Hill: I’m honestly fed up and sick of it – and that is why I’m running. I feel like I can’t wait anymore for another politician to come in and do nothing in my state or actually acquiesce to these powers. No one is bringing up the everyday person, the everyday Nevadan and how to make their lives better.

I think the people in power are scared to push back against these special interests and those people in power, sadly, continue to want to do these giveaways instead of actually saying “OK, these corporations need to pay their fair share to come into our state.” The state of Nevada is an amazing place. We don’t need to be giving everything away in order to diversify our economy. It seems very cynical to do instead of investing in everyday Nevadans.

Maya May: Because there’s the film industry, there’s data centers that are looking to come here – so, when do you think people in general understand what happens when a corporation gets a tax break like they’ve been getting? Because Nevada should be flush with cash.

Alexis Hill: We actually have been spending less per capita with about triple the gross in our state since 1990. We are not even keeping up government revenues, haven’t been keeping up with inflation since the 90s as well. It’s because when you give these tax breaks away, we don’t have a way to make sure we can invest in our schools or we can invest in our roadways – or invest in working people and make their lives easier. I don’t think people understand the long term consequences of it. I certainly want a film industry in Nevada, no question. I think that there’s a way we can do it sustainably that protects Nevadans and brings in economic prosperity. But the way that the legislature was considering (and our government) bringing in the film industry was over a billion dollars of transferable tax credits that they could sell and more than likely will sell to the casinos so that they can offset their tax burden.

See more of the interview here.

Trump’s ‘Russia First’ Policy | Simon Rosenberg & Stuart Stevens LIVE

The American public has been wondering about the stranglehold Russia has over Trump for about a decade now. That leverage keeps widening the gap between the interests of the U.S., and MAGA priorities. Stuart Stevens and Simon Rosenberg dive into these uncomfortable truths of the corrosion going on with how the United States exercises power.

Stuart Stevens: How are we gonna hold this wide spectrum of illegality and criminal behavior accountable? What structure is there going to be to do that? And will there be a stomach to do it?

Simon Rosenberg: Stuart, I think about this all the time. I think about the lack of a stomach to really pursue Trump adequately after 2021 and his attempt to overturn an American election, and to try to violently assault members of Congress – and led that effort. The efforts to create accountability around that failed and I think that’s why I think it’s so critical now for Democrats to be operating, as I say with three legs to the stool, we have to be talking about affordability and prices, and we have to be talking about health care.

But then these basket of issues around his abandonment of our democracy and democracies around the world, the unprecedented levels of corruption we are seeing – his selling of pardons, the tearing down of the East Wing to build himself a gilded ballroom that keeps getting bigger and bigger. He may have to tear down the rest of the WhiteHouse to build the ballroom at the current rate he’s going. (We Need) to have a conversation with the American people about what he’s doing to the country and to all of us.

Because in order to create the predicate for accountability and that we are not engaging in this. We need to stay disciplined. I call it the tyranny of kitchen table issues – preventing us from having a conversation – the American people want us to have. I’ve been able to show through my writing that threats to democracy in many polls are equal to or even greater than concerns about health, for example. And it’s certainly an issue top of mind to people, as it should be. Because they’re trampling our rights and freedoms in unprecedented ways.

So, I think we have an obligation as leaders of the country to be having this very robust conversation with the American people about this basket of issues that we can throw into the threats of democracy – including him selling out Ukraine and Europe, and frankly, even America to Russia. It certainly looks like what precipitated the last few weeks was that Russia just kind of upped the ante in how much money the Americans were going to be getting. Jared Kushner and Witkoff and Trump.

Remember, Witkoff’s son runs World Liberty, their huge crypto play. And the Witkoff family and Trump family are in business together. And part of that business extends to them shaking down the Ukranians and in the current negotiations and level of betrayal that this represents of Americans, of democracy, of our Western alliances that we built after WWII.

It’s so overwhelming and jaw-dropping and dangerous.

See more of the discussion here.

Trump is Weaker Than He’s Ever Been. What Now? | The Strategy Session

The gang was back this week for The Strategy Session to discuss Trump’s unraveling vulnerabilities. Joined by The Lincoln Project Chief of Staff Ryan N Wiggins, Rick Wilson and Joe Trippi discuss not only Trump’s numeric decline, but it’s transfer of political gravity. How a figure who once dictated the party’s terms has made weakness flow to all parts of the party.

Rick Wilson: We have a lot of friends. We talk to a lot of people. And sometimes people want us to do things that aren’t our lane. Like, ‘hey, will you help us register voters?’. Well, that’s not what we’re good at. We are good at telling stories and setting narratives that Democrats are not always as good at doing.

We go out and we do those things, and as a coincidental matter, those things drive Trump out of his damn mind. So it is really something that – we learned a lot of lessons in 2020 – TV and advertising and our spots, our ads for digital are incredibly important. But so is the social media stuff we do. So is the press that we do because, Joe and Stuart and I (and Ryan), we’re all on TV all the time to talk nonstop and try to tell those big stories. We do these podcasts and these streaming shows in part to help you folks out there in the world compete against this media machine that MAGA has built that always tells them what to say and do and think.

We try to give you tools to fight back on what the zombies are saying to you every day.

Joe Trippi: Because the Democratic Party does not do that. I mean, it just doesn’t have an information distribution and flow that Lincoln Square and The Lincoln Project and others out there are filling the vacuum. But it’s a much needed vacuum because as a Democrat who joined The Lincoln Project for that reason – that the strength of the messaging just isn’t there for this fight. And I think you start to see elements starting to emerge and people, leaders starting to emerge. I think a lot of it is people following our lead.

Ryan N Wiggins: And [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom’s doing it beautifully right now. He’s following our exact playbook.

See more of the discussion here.

Taxes & the Price of Democracy | First Draft with Susan Demas & author Vanessa S. Williamson

What was it that Ben Franklin said? “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Lincoln Square’s executive editor Susan Demas was joined by author Vanessa S. Williamson to discuss the myths surrounding taxation and democracy while spotlighting how fiscal choices reveal who a country is actually serving.

Susan Demas: Could you talk with us about more of where we’ve been in the last few decades? Where it seems like there has been a proliferation of right wing think tanks and places for the ultra wealthy to put their money to advocate for such policies. There’s a real machinery there that supports these far right economic policies and seems to have pushed the Republican Party further and further in that direction.

Vanessa Williamson: That’s exactly right. There’s a long story that you can tell here that goes back to the New Deal, right? The people who opposed the New Deal programs, things like Social Security, were really angry and were really aware that they didn’t have the most people on their side. Most people loved FDR, right?

So, there’s this very funny story. They tried to get people angry about Social Security. So all these businessmen put little pieces of propaganda in people’s pay slips in factories across the country before FDR’s re-election. And they said, “you are sentenced to a new tax (which was to pay for Social Security),” that will come out of your paycheck every week and the only way you can stop it is to vote against FDR.

There’s this wonderful thing that one of FDR’s supporters said, which is like, “yeah, you know why there wasn’t any propaganda in your pay stub before FDR got elected?” “It’s because there weren’t any pay stubs because you were out of work, right?” So when people voted, it didn’t work. There was an effort to create popular mobilization against the kind of things that FDR was doing and it didn’t succeed.

So what you see is far right businessmen moving to build a whole intellectual infrastructure to try and turn that around. And in many ways it hasn’t actually succeeded. People are still having payroll taxes that pay for social security remaining the most popular federal tax. People like sales tax that they know that they pay. People aren’t opposed to paying taxes themselves and they still want to tax the rich.

That has been a consistent thing since as long as there has been polling. The number one concern people have about taxation is that the wealthy corporations aren’t paying their share. So on one level, this campaign has not worked, but it has worked at the top. It has changed the rhetoric in Washington in a way that’s really extraordinary. When you go from something like LBJ saying, “Hey, we’re going to raise your taxes and what you’re going to get is something called Medicare.” And people were willing to do it. They were like, “oh, that does sound excellent. We should definitely have health insurance,” – to Democrats never, ever talking or ever raising taxes on anyone. It’s a huge shift in the rhetoric right and that’s what this conservative infrastructure built – was the language and the talking points and the media infrastructure to put those ideas out there in a way that really shifted people’s views and the way that taxes are talked about in this country.

See more of the discussion here.

Epstein Was First. Is AI Next? | Slaying Giants with Rep. Ro Khanna | Two Joes Podcast LIVE

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna has been at the front of the bipartisan push to release the Epstein files and inspired MAGA to hold Trump accountable. Rep. Khanna is already looking toward Silicon Valley in his backyard as the next target with AI scaring the public. He joined Joe Trippi and Joe Klein on Two Joes to discuss that and the state of Democrats heading into ‘26.

Joe Klein: I think when you look at the results from Tennessee last night, where the Republican margin dropped from about 30 points to about eight, Republicans have to be thinking twice about their own enlightened self-interest, including President Trump, if he could sit back and be rational for a little bit. There is the price of groceries, which may be able to be modified a little bit, but there are three huge structural problems when it comes to affordability. They are health insurance, electricity, and housing. And they are going to require government action.

I can’t believe I just said that: they’re going to require government action. And that’s going to require a bipartisan coalition in Congress where a whole lot of Republicans are going to be in districts that are going to become very iffy if prices skyrocket. Do you see taking those three issues on? Do you see any chance for a bipartisan coalition or for an answer?

Rep. Ro Khanna: Well, my solution is the same solution that FDR, a national insurance that Truman ran on, that John F. Kennedy was for, that Lyndon Johnson was for, that Carter ran on, that we gave up when Reagan became president. But it’s the solution that makes sense, that people should be able to have every doctor they go to and network, that the government expands Medicare immediately. Start by getting it for 60, 55, 50. By the way, you get it down to 50, you cover a lot of the issues because people, as I’m about to turn 50, your health issues start to increase.

So that is the solution. You have people in Marjorie Taylor Greene and others now saying, “they’re just subsidizing private health insurance which is crazy,” and I do think you can get a coalition for expanding Medicare in this country. On the electricity bills, there’s a huge number of issues for what’s causing it. One simple thing where you may get a bipartisan coalition is why aren’t the tech companies paying for jacking up electricity bills with these data centers? They’re plopping down data centers in Bucks County, PA and then they’re taking the water – they’re jacking up everyone’s electricity prices and they’re not compensating people for the cost.

They should be paying the cost. There’s $18 trillion in my district. They can help lower America’s electricity costs and then we should be having renewable energy as well. Thats one of the things I don’t understand about the Republicans. I thought they were all of the above energy party?

See more of the discussion here.

The Child Who Disappeared Inside Federal Plaza | Michael Fanone & Maya May LIVE

In one of the more unbelievable stories of 2025, a 6-year-old boy vanished inside a federal building in New York City. No, he didn’t wander off and get lost. He was disappeared by ICE, and that’s exactly what Maya May and Michael Fanone got into in this discussion about what happens when an ICE “check-in” turns into a horror show.

Maya May: I see that people are coming around in terms of class consciousness – you know, how unaffordable everything is – there’s certain things that enough people agree on that it is a huge threat to the administration. And we talk a lot about ICE on the show and law enforcement, and one of the things they’re doing is they’re attacking the most vulnerable people because they think people won’t pay attention. They’re attacking people on the margins because they think people in the mainstream aren’t going to pay attention to the people on the margins, not realizing that what happens is, visually, that margin keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger until those of who have some form of privilege are also under some form of threat.

So, that’s what i implore people to remember right now and why we try to tell these kinds of stories, Mike, is that this administration is ‘criming’ so much that you have to cover it like a crime procedural which is something that we want to start doing more of here and doing deep dives into stories that are maybe blowing up on social media but not being covered by the mainstream.

I don’t know how many people have heard of the story we are going to cover tonight, but last week a 6-year-old boy vanished inside a federal building in NYC.

[...]

First of all, how does a child go missing in a government building? When you hear that, Mike, are you just…?

Michael Fanone: As a former law enforcement professional it absolutely boggles my mind. I couldn’t even imagine something like that happening. And then as a parent it is beyond infuriating. I cannot imagine what this child’s parents are going through. It just underscores the level of inhumanity that this administration is willing to invoke for the purposes of driving people out of this country.

See more of the discussion here.

Trump Is Losing On Affordability … Bigly | Behind the Numbers with Rick & Andrew Wilson

Trump’s approval is in a nose dive, a tail spin – they are bleeding into his own base and reshaping the political map. The GOP has become wholly dependent on Trump and it traps candidates in a message that voters aren’t buying. Rick Wilson and Andrew Wilson go Behind the Numbers to take a look at why Trump is losing so badly.

Andrew Wilson: It will be different after the 2026 elections. Trump will no longer have Mike Johnson to hide behind and that will sort of come home to roost. But for now, it’s just a steady building thing with the base. And, of course, all Americans are feeling it.

Rick Wilson: The implication of those numbers, when you’ve got 37% of Republicans and what was it? 53% of Harris voters. This has an implication of, Donald Trump’s number with the American people on the economy is now in the low teens or low 20s somewhere.

Andrew Wilson: To put this in context. These adults all lived through COVID. They’re saying now is worse than COVID which, when we’re losing a million jobs a month at one point, that could be recency bias. It probably is recency bias. But at the same time, they’re not reflecting on it right now. That’s scary for Trump. We saw last week, his Gallup numbers were really low – 36% approval. That was somewhere close to where he was after January 6th.

So, his approval is as bad as January 6th and people feel like the economy is worse than it was during COVID. It’s a really nasty combination for him.

Rick Wilson: And I don’t think there’s anything in the economy that’s going to recover enough to start turning this number around. I don’t know if we’ve studied this enough yet, Andrew. The dependency of, and I wrote a little bit about this in my morning newsletter, the dependency of Trump’s candidates – they all have to drink the poison. They have to all say they love him, he’s never wrong, he’s always perfect – in order to win their primaries.

But, I feel like this is going to be a real shattering kind of moment with this massive amount of job cuts that are going on. You’ve got 300,000 in the federal government. You’ve got 90,000 at Fed Ex. You’ve got UPS. You’ve got Amazon. All these companies cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting. And while it’s not being reported in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s getting reported everywhere else and people know it now. I wonder how that dependency that they have is going to – I don’t think there’s a strategy where they can disconnect from him in time.

See more of the discussion here.