A National "Reset": How The Supreme Court Just Shook Up The Midterms

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Thursday, April 30th, 2026. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. The Supreme Court has struck down a redrawn congressional map in Louisiana, calling it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. But what will this mean for other states that want to reshape their voting maps? This is a really important reset by the court of its own jurisprudence, which had been distorted over the last decade to require states to district in a way that was not required or even permitted. some cases by the federal constitution. I'm Dave Anthony. The FBI director of the president fired in his first term, has been indicted a second time in the second Trump term. James Comey is accused of making a threat using seashells on a beach. But when it comes to a threat like this, really the point comes down to whether Mr. James Comey was acting recklessly. And I'm Carol Markowitz. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act from 1965 says states cannot enact voting procedures or policies that discriminate on the basis of, among other things, race or color. A group of black voters in Louisiana sued saying the 2020 redraw of the congressional map violated Section 2. A lower court judge agreed, and by 2024, there was a new map that added a second black majority district to the state out of a total of six congressional seats. A group of non-African American voters countersued, saying the redraw went too far. and violated the equal protection clause of the constitution. Wednesday, in a six to three decision, the Supreme Court agreed the majority opinion was written by Samuel Alito Samuel Alito, who wrote, because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the state's use of race. That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander. Obviously the right result. They determined that the last map that was drawn for Louisiana was done unconstitutionally, and we've been saying that consistently from the beginning. That was the obvious result. House Speaker Mike Johnson's district... is in Louisiana. So we'll see what effect it has. We have, as you know, a primary coming up in about two weeks. So we'll see if the state legislature deems it appropriate to go in and draw new maps. That's not really something I have this left to say over. President Trump was asked if this ruling means some states with Republican legislatures should begin redrawing their lines in response to this ruling. I would. I mean, it depends. I mean, some states don't need to redraw. And some do. I mean, I know what the concept of the world, I just haven't seen the result. Yeah, I would say generally I would think that they would want to do it. Some were greatly helped and some, you know, didn't make much difference. Yeah, I would say they would do that. If multiple states engage in redrawing their maps now because of this, New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Democrats will respond. If Republicans are going to redraw North Carolina, if they're going to redraw Texas, if they're going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states, then unfortunately we have to provide balance to.

that. She said this ruling will provide cover to those with bad intentions who will say they're engaged in legal partisan gerrymandering while really being motivated to discriminate on the basis of race. I think the ruling is a very big deal and that's why everybody's been waiting with a lot of anticipation for it to come out. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Merle. I would say that, you know, all of the fear that the Supreme Court was going to declare Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. unconstitutional have now, you know, has now been somewhat addressed because the court did not do that. But I also think that the court went a long way in addressing some problems with its own jurisprudence that allowed courts to manipulate our maps all over the country for years. Elaborate on that point. What do you mean that that's been happening? That what do you think has been happening before this ruling? So, you know, what happens? So the federal constitution says that legislatures draw these maps. But right after that happens, for years now, our maps have been challenged in federal courts. And they've typically been challenged on these very narrow Section 2 grounds on the Voting Rights Act as having a disparate impact. The court basically said that it harmonized Section 2 with the United States Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause. by making it very, very clear that we are not required and should not be sorting our voters by race. We've argued that all along in regards to our first map and then even with regard to this map, but the jurisprudence was allowing courts to take Section 2 weaponize it against states and force us to go do something that violated the federal constitution under the Equal Protection Clause. So I think the court fixed that. Now, you took your position as AG kind of in the middle of all this. When you first got a hold of this case, what had happened? Take us back in time a little bit. So a group of black voters had sued over the map redraw after 2020. And they got their wish, right? A federal judge said, essentially having only one district packed in black voters into one area. And this, he said, diluted their voting strength. But then. Another group came in and counter sued. This was around the time you became Attorney General. So I was Solicitor General at the time that the original suit was filed under then Attorney General Jeff Landry. And, you know, we defended our original map and said that you can't draw another second majority minority map without violating the federal constitution and specifically the Equal Protection Clause because you can't draw the map without racially, basically race predominating in the drawing of that map. So we went through that litigation for several years. We lost over and over again in the courts, even though we kept saying you can't draw the map without violating the Equal Protection Clause. Having not been rescued by the courts from that lower court, district court ruling, we then complied with the court orders and we drew a new map. That mooted the first case, but it triggered a new lawsuit brought by some.

And so I think that you'll see a lot of discussion of that taking place in the next week. Representative Troy Carter wrote that he's upset by this ruling. He's a Democrat. He wrote approximately a third of Louisiana's population is black, yet only a handful of black citizens have ever represented our state in Congress. That's dark reality underscores the continued need for protections that ensure fair and equal representation. I'm reading here, though, in this majority decision, they're writing that Section 2 expressly rules out this idea of exact proportional representation, right? So what do you say to this concern about this number, a third of residents are Black? Yeah, I mean, just to be clear, it always did. In fact, Section 2 expressly prohibits proportionality in drawing in the way that you draw the max. So I think that... That is an press line that the Democrats have used for a long time to try and justify something that was unconstitutional. And you saw it play out very acutely in this case because the way that the population is dispersed across the state, the only way to draw a second majority minority map was to crack a bunch of cities in half. packed the black voters into a district and packed the white voters into a district. We said we can't do that constitutionally, but the first judge in the first case said, do it anyway. And we got no relief from the courts on appeal in that case, even in the United States Supreme Court after the Alabama decision was issued. We sat at the Supreme Court for a year and then the case was remanded with no relief. and no clear answer in that decision for our case. So, you know, we did draw a new map to comply with those court orders. That map has now been held to be unconstitutional. That's what we've said all along. And, you know, while I respect Representative Congressman Carter, I think that what he's arguing for is for us to have to sort our voters by race, and that is exactly what the court said is unconstitutional. Now, as to the dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said that the burden shifts here. She said the state now needs to do nothing more than announce a partisan gerrymander. And as long as there is an obvious evidence of a race-based motive, Section 2 plays no rule. She's essentially saying this ruling hollows out Section 2 so much it's ineffective. You've kind of addressed this, but what do you say to that? I just, you know, I disagree. I mean, with her, I think that the court has harmonized Section 2 with the federal constitution. It needed to do that. It has desperately needed to do that for at least a decade. And so I'm, you know, certainly very relieved and gratified that the court has taken up the challenge to harmonize those two things. We've said all along, and I thought that this was constitutionally. pretty unremarkable, quite frankly, what Clarence Thomas said when our case was scheduled for re-argument, and that is the Constitution always trumps the statute. And yet we were being told that a statute was going to trump the Equal Protection Clause, and we had to go draw a new map that violated the Equal Protection Clause. That doesn't make any sense at all. It never did constitutionally. And I think we have finally gotten to that point in the United States Supreme Court, where it harmonizes the statute with the Constitution.

Attorney General, Liz Merle, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I appreciate your time. This is a new era of American innovation. Google AI is helping Americans stay safe from scams, from real-time scam detection on pixel to proactive fishing blocking in Gmail. Learn more at g.co slash American innovation. I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on politics, I am joined by former Republican strategist and host of the Rich Zioly show, Rich Zioly. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com. Or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. This is Carol Markowitz with your Fox News commentary coming up. James Comey, back in federal court in Virginia again, facing his second indictment in the second Trump term. This one accuses the ex-FBI director of making a threat to the president who fired him in 2017. Threatening the life of the president of the United States will never be tolerated. by the Department of Justice. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, when the indictment was announced Tuesday, alleging James Comey made that threat to kill the president on Instagram, almost a year ago, in a post showing a picture of seashells on a beach in North Carolina, set up to look like the numbers 86-47, writing Cool Formation. Now, 86 could be interpreted to mean remove or kill. 47 is a potential reference to Trump as the 47th president. James Comey was not arraigned yesterday. No plea was entered and he's not being jailed. James Comey's lawyer says he plans to argue it's a vindictive prosecution. The ex-FBI director was defiant in a video on substack. Nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go. James Comey's first indictment last year, charged with lying to Congress, was dismissed by a federal judge questioning the legality of the appointment of the U.S. attorney. As for this case, well, I think the DOJ has an uphill battle to establish why this isn't protected First Amendment speech. Andrew Tarkaski is a criminal defense attorney and a former federal prosecutor. There is a long line of Supreme Court cases over the last couple of decades that talk about what is a threat or what is threatening language that can actually be prosecuted versus that which is protected under the First Amendment. And so I think there's a lot of critique already about these charges. But when it comes to a threat like this, 86-47, where there's some ambiguous meaning depending on who you're asking, really the point comes down to whether Mr. James Comey was acting recklessly in communicating. something that would be taken as a threat. And he is in a special position of knowledge and power and his position over all of the years that he was on the inside, combined with the relative intellect that a person of that status, I guess, would have. And so he is in a different place where he can calculate and perhaps information that he's received over the years has told him that...

posting something like that with nearly a million followers or maybe even more, that that has a special reaction or threatening nature to it. And so in the eyes of the law, though, A former FBI director not treated any differently than any other citizen. Does that affect the level of proof a prosecutor has to make in a case his status? It does, because it's all going to come down to whether he had this reckless disregard of his knowledge or actual knowledge that this would be interpreted as a threat or intended in that way. And so when you take those pieces of it and you apply it to the actual individual who's being charged, their entire background matters. 86, 47. Let's pray it down. Again, there's no allegation that he wrote in words, any kind of a threat on the president. So 86 can be interpreted as remove or maybe even kill. But what is 86... as a legal definition how do you do that in court and can both sides argue on 86 not being relevant or 86 being very important well as my kids said at least he didn't say six seven so we're just talking we're just talking about 87 this is this is a 86 so we are trying to determine exactly what that means mariam webster defines it not as killing it's more of like a position to remove them from power to eliminate their power supposedly restaurant, right? The origin is getting rid of an order in a restaurant, right? 86ing it. Yes, yes. And so when you look at what that meaning is, that's favorable to Mr. James Comey. But every word has different meanings, and it's all in the context. And imagine that it said kill Trump, for example. Right. That would be something that even that could be defensible on First Amendment grounds. Because that actually is one of the Supreme Court cases where a draft military member had said, you know, give me my rifle. I'll put LBJ in my target back in Vietnam era. was protected speech because it was more hyperbolic politicized speech and oftentimes in politics the idea of kind of these death-threatening type statements can actually be just a politicized statement, not a death threat. It's all very situational and based, again, largely on what the actual speaker knew. And just posting a picture is the same as speaking the words in a lot of respects. All, let me ask this. He wrote, I think it was like, look at this formation on this beach. Do they have to prove that he made?

the formation? Or what if he did, actually, walk along the beach and find it? Does that make a difference? Well, it would make a difference because he stated that he hasn't, and I think he'd be looking at additional charges if there was evidence that he had because that might be a false statement to the FBI. Okay. His actual... Posting of the picture is the problem. That's effectively speaking the words. But if you're repeating somebody's words or you're taking a picture of what somebody put out their artwork, I think you have a better argument that you're just kind of propagating the art or the words of somebody else. If he had done the arrangement, that might show more in his mind that he was trying to communicate something very specific. And so, again, all of those situational details will matter, but it doesn't matter from a legal perspective outright. Okay. So one of the other things in this case is not long after that post, he removed it, took it down, and then he wrote, I oppose violence of any kind. So I took the post down. Does that at all infer or imply that he knew this was a threat when he put it up? I think that's exactly what the hour kind of pauses is, is he saw, okay, this is not being taken the way that I saw it. And so I actually think that it's good evidence. for him. If he posted that and then tried to take it down to cover his tracks, that's more of a problem for him versus, you know, where he realized, oh, this is being misinterpreted, which would be evidence of his innocence here. His first indictment was tossed out last year by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia was unlawfully appointed. That case... Apparently, they haven't tried it again. They haven't brought it back up, so that one is over with. So you have this one. Do you think that James Comey has a good chance of getting this one dismissed on the First Amendment grounds? I think he does. I think that it's, I'd be surprised if it gets all the way to trial without something else coming in here, some sort of superseding indictment or some sort of information that we don't currently have. This on its own, just an arrangement of seashells or even just a poster that has words on there that to some could be. interpreted as threatening, that's not a prosecution we see a lot. There's usually some sort of other malevolence behind it. And Mr. James Comey, for what it's worth, in his official positions, did, according to many, a lot of brave danger to our country and to the political landscape of things. And so there's a lot of issues with what he did. How much of that would come into a trial here or whether that will allow this to move forward, I think is part of the big question. Later today, Cole Allen returns to court, the suspect in Saturday night's attack at the White House Correspondents dinner in Washington. He's accused of trying to run through security to get inside the event, but Allen was stopped. It could have been so much worse, but for the reality that we had the Secret Service as well as the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI. U.S. Attorney Janine Piro, it's a detention hearing today. So is there any chance? The federal judge would release Alan on Bond as the investigation continues.

Almost zero. I can't really conceptualize a way that that would happen. Maybe an insane asylum if there's some sort of insanity underlying things, but there's no evidence of that right now. When somebody engages in acts such as this, and I think this is a very strong indictment to start with, I think we're going to see a superseding indictment with additional charges. They're going to have him every which way. This is a serious threat on the president's life, as well as the hundreds of people that were in there. I don't think any judge is going to see this as anything other than a person who has to remain. behind bars while the investigation continues in the prosecution eventually. Now, initially, the strongest charge he faces, of course, is attempting to assassinate the president. That's not a hard case to make, would you think, in this? I don't think so. It seems as though he had the plan, the means, the opportunity. He did his best to try to execute on it. There's so much being made of the Secret Service and exactly how security operated here. I think it actually... did what it was supposed to do. There's great agents who were all right there. They stopped him before. It was a particular elevated threat. And whatever happened kind of in that lobby area is, though, enough evidence to show that had he gotten past that security barricade, essentially, and made his way into the room that his intent all along was to do grave harm and cause death, particularly to the president, but also anybody else who got in his way. If you're his defense lawyer, what do you do? I mean, you... I alluded to insanity. He has this manifesto that's been reported. He had contacted family. He had checked into the hotel in the indictment. They talk about how he had a pistol. He had a shotgun, multiple knives and daggers, and significant ammunition. How do you defend this guy? What the defense is going to do is what they constitutionally are required to do, and they'll make defense arguments, perhaps that it was too tenuous to actually charge an attempted murder, that this is more of a plot or a scheme that maybe we'll see this individual, Mr. Allen, get out at some point in his life. Maybe parole at the very end, Reagan's assassin has had the opportunity for parole hearings time and time again. We got out, didn't John Hinkley get out? Actually, I think you're right. Yes, yes, yes. you know, it's that kind of 20 years from now, 30 years from now, what potential... But see, that case, he ended up with an insanity defense that worked. Yes. He didn't have the manifesto, did he, that we have in this particular case. What about a guilty plea? What if you go that route? What does that do? Well, a guilty plea is only as good as the idea that you might get something from it. But really, you're mitigating. You're litigating to mitigate. So if the... prosecutors aren't going to give you a deal 30 years or 50 years and they just want life yeah uh what deal is there to make Right. So I guess you can, as the case plays out, if there are some things that may be going in your favor, you might have the chance to then try for the plea and get what you want. Right. If there's something to get out of it, if there's some sort of upside to a defendant, that's when the deal is something that you'll consider taking. But as long as there's not an upside, you know, we fight this and he goes to jail for life and there's not really a chance there with a plea deal, it's hard to take that plea deal. It's really a sick mind that you're dealing with. Yeah.

And that goes back to, if it's a sick mind, how do you make an insanity case for a person who seemed to have planned it out so meticulously and wrote a manifesto? How do you make that case? You really can't. Insanity, when it comes to the eyes of the law, particularly in a criminal case, it means you really can't determine the difference between right and wrong. You don't know that your actions are bringing about these wrong consequences. It doesn't mean that you're simply of a different mind or have some sort of mental health issue or even crisis. It's that inability to really know the difference between right. and wrong, appreciate the nature of your actions. And so here, where you have somebody that plans it out, who's been thinking about it for a long time, who has the appropriate weapons, those are all pieces of the puzzle that I think make an insanity defense incredibly difficult. So what we can say is that's sick, that that is a sick thought process. It doesn't necessarily mean it's insane. Right, right. When you have mental health diagnoses, even severe ones, it's easy to conflate it with something that could be considered mental insanity. for a criminal context, but it doesn't get you there because these are perhaps distorted thoughts or there are perhaps unwanted thoughts, but they're not actually thoughts that cause you to be unable to be here on earth, to know the difference between right and wrong. Andrew Tricasky, criminal defense attorney, former federal prosecutor. Great to have you here. Thanks. Thank you so much.

This is a new era of American innovation. Google is offering free AI training to U.S. small businesses with a Google AI professional certificate so they can start using AI to get more done. Learn more at G.com slash American Innovation. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz.com. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for... taking the quiz. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News Commentary. Carol Markowitz. What's on your mind? President Donald Trump suffered his third major assassination attempt. In the first attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, a bullet clipped his ear. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by Secret Service agents. Two months later, in a second attempt, Ryan Ruth was arrested while lying in wait at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course. These three major attempts don't include attempts like the one by Austin Tucker Carlson Martin, who was shot dead by Secret Service agents two months ago after he breached the security barrier at Marilago while Trump was not at the property. Nor do they include the one by Asif Merchant, a Pakistani business owner with ties to Iran, who had tried to hire Hitman to kill the president. Those stories were almost instantly out of the news cycle. Trump has arguably been one of the most targeted presidents in American history. It's long past time for his adversaries to do something to stop these attacks. Trump is trying to bring down the temperature, but he keeps budding up against those on the left who don't want that. The media is even worse. Part of the problem is that so much of the left is mired in conspiracy theories about things like Trump being a pedophile, but also about whether any of these assassination attempts are real. They're not being discouraged from those troubling and evil ideas by anyone, least of all members of the media who should be telling them the truth. Chuck Todd once considered a somewhat serious host of NBC's Meet the Press, blame Trump for the violence against him. I'm not going to any events where Trump's at. Todd said Monday on a podcast, I don't feel safe. Chaos follows him. Podcast host Chris Galiza chimed in, agreeing, truly disgusting. Where are the grownups in the room? Even when Democrats do the right thing and condemn violence, something that should be expected of all elected officials but isn't, they go to great lengths to pretend Trump isn't the target of violence. Former President Barack Obama vaguely tweeted in opposition to violence after the assassination attempt without ever saying the president's name. Quote, although we don't yet have the details about the motives behind last night shooting at the White House Correspondence Dinner, it's incumbent upon us all to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy, end quote. Obama posted on X, but by the time he posted, we already fully knew what Cole Allen was allegedly there to do. Obama just didn't want to give the president credit for being a victim and instead kept his anti-violence pleas vague. There has to be accountability. A few days before the WHCD, Jimmy Kimmel joked that Melania Trump was glowing like an expected widow. Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country, the first lady posted on X. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. His words are corrosive and it deepens the political sickness within America. She's absolutely right. Kimmel hasn't been funny in over a decade, and his stick is largely just rage and hate aimed at Trump and his family.

It wasn't funny before, but as the assassination attempts tick up in number, the media has to own its role in normalizing the violence. It would be better for us all if they did that starting now. I'm Carol Markowitz, columnist for the New York Post, and foxnews.com. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.