No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump loses it after Democrats' Virginia win

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Democrats finish the Republicans’ redistricting fight with a big win in Virginia. Brian interviews Hakeem Jeffries and Marc Elias about the details of that fight.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Democrats finish the Republicans' redistricting fight with a big win in Virginia, and both Hakeem Jeffries and Mark Elias dig into the details of that fight. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So I'm going to read a post from Trump that pretty much sums up nicely the aftermath of the redistricting fight, culminating in Virginia voting in favor of a redrawn map that will likely see 10 Democrats and one Republican in the congressional delegation. So Trump wrote,

A rigged election took place last night in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. All day long, Republicans were winning. the spirit was unbelievable until the very end when, of course, there was a massive mail-in ballot drop. Where have I heard that before? And the Democrats eeked out another crooked victory. Now, I have some thoughts here as somebody who has spent a lot of time advocating for redistricting. I have long been an advocate for the dissolution of the independent redistricting commissions in California and New York, the big Democratic weapons, given the fact that Republicans are wielding Texas and Florida as their own weapons. And they, of course, have no independent redistricting commissions.

I hosted a live stream for Prop 50 in California. We raised a million dollars toward that effort. Hosted another live stream for Virginia last week. You will not find a bigger champion for fighting fire with fire than me. So, with that said, here are my thoughts. First of all, I cannot tell you the extent to which I am unmoved by Republicans bitching and moaning about redrawing the maps when it was Trump who said this last summer. When you told Jeremy, and we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats,

We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats. That he's entitled to those seats. And the hush that fell over the Republican Party, you could not find a single member who spoke out against it. And yet, now the Democrats dared fight back,

now that Democrats dared not unilaterally disarm, we're watching a party-wide meltdown on the right. Like, for example, Mike Johnson. It's a hyper-partisan gerrymandering boondoggle. We fought hard. We raised a ton of money. We did our best, but the Democrats in charge of Virginia hoisted this upon the people. It is still in the courts. We are confident in calling upon the Virginia Supreme Court to do the obvious and right result

and that is to strike this thing down. Why? Because it was demonstrated again last night. This is a divided state. It's almost 50-50. Keep walking. So a 10-to-one map. is not justified in that state.

And the people showed it again last night, the fact that it was so close, demonstrates and proves exactly what we've been saying from the beginning. But here's how you know this line from Trump and Mike Johnson and the rest of the GOP is complete bullshit. A, not one of those people spoke out against Texas gerrymandering their maps. In other words, they're not actually against gerrymandering. They're just against Democrats using it.

When it's Republicans doing it, they're fine with it. No fainting spells, no pearl clutching. They love to throw punches, but when you punch back, they lose their collective minds. But B, and more importantly, they could outlaw partisan gerrymandering today if they wanted to. Republicans have full control of government. They've got the House, the Senate, the White House. If they were truly against the scourge of gerrymandering, this race to the bottom, as they've been calling it now, then do something about it. Remember, Democrats tried to pass the Freedom to Vote Act in 2021, which included a ban on partisan gerrymandering nationwide.

Why, guess how many Republicans voted for it? Zero, not one. The best time to have passed that bill was five years ago. The second best time is right now. Again, they're not against gerrymandering. They just don't like when their opposition can return the punch. They want unilateral disarmament from the Democrats. And they don't know how to react when the response by the left isn't just a strongly worded letter.

But I think what's especially instructive here is the reaction by Trump, saying not that the election was just unfair, that it was rigged. that there was a massive ballot drop. Same bullshit that we heard 100 times in the aftermath of 2020, but it's instructive because as we head into midterms, it's clear that Trump's priority right now is using bogus rigged election claims as a pretext to actually try and rigged the next election.

He's doing it right now by seizing ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, in Arizona, and just days ago in Detroit, he tried to pass an executive order banning mail-in ballots, pushing for Republicans to nuke the filibuster to pass the Safe America Act, which would, in part,

force the states to hand over voter data to the federal government, and if you're the federal government looking to suppress certain votes, having pertinent info like voter affiliation is certainly helpful. It would also mandate certain documents like a passport that would be required to register to vote, and guess who's in charge of issuing passports, the federal government? So these election interference claims are only growing louder and louder on the right, and they will continue to grow louder as it becomes clear

that Trump and Republicans have no legitimate path to victory. And I think that's honestly the saddest part of all of this. I mean, think about it. If they gave even a fraction of the attention that they're giving to crying fraud about every election they lose to actually governing with their majority, they wouldn't need to engage in election subversion. But they just can't do it. They cannot bring themselves to hold true to any of their promises.

They can't bear the thought of actually lowering prices or protecting health care or reducing inflation or releasing the Epstein files or staying out. out of war. So instead, they promise these things on the campaign trail, and then when people inevitably get pissed off because they realize they've been conned, Trump and the GOP decide to just rig the game instead. It is the ultimate fuck you to their voters. Lie to get their votes with zero intention of ever delivering and then lie about non-existent

election fraud as a pretext to undermine the election and just entrench your majority so that you don't actually have to be held accountable by the voters. The reality is that even if you're a Republican voter, even if you're an independent, voter, you don't benefit at all by having a political party in power whose priority is only entrenching their own control. Like, you benefit when those elected officials know that you still have the power to rein them in if they start to enact an agenda that is completely counter to what they ran on, like the one that they're doing right now. So now is the moment for you all to retain that power. Remember, Republicans are not entitled to your undying support. They don't own you.

They work for you, not the other way around. The Virginia referendum does not happen in a vacuum. It is a check on a Republican Party that is completely out of control, even according to their own voters. And when they get backed into a corner, they only get more anti-democratic and more dangerous. So we should celebrate the win and simultaneously be cognizant about what's coming in the future, because we can still stop this slide into autocracy, and that is exactly what Trump and the GOP are afraid of. Next up are my interviews with Hakeem Jeffries and Mark Elias. No Lai is brought to you by Helix. So I was a personal trainer for about a decade before I got into politics. And I would tell people every day how to be healthy, how to exercise, how to lift properly,

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I'm glad to be joined by Hakeem Jeffries. Thanks so much for joining me. Good to be with you. So we obviously had a major victory in Virginia. This is something that you had worked on for a long time. And I want to get into your participation in all of of this. But before I do, the map right now as it stands looks to be mostly set except for the state of Florida. And so in light of the results that we've seen in California, in light of the

court decision that we saw, adding a seat in Utah, in light now of the referendum results in Virginia, what would your message be to Ron DeSantis as they consider engaging in a gerrymander on top of the existing gerrymander? That's exactly right. The map in Florida, that already exists was gerrymandered in 2022. And so to the extent they try to take some additional seats in a map that was already gerrymandered, what Ron DeSantis will accomplish is placing additional Republican incumbent in jeopardy. And that's the reason why, Brian, so many Florida Republicans quietly have gone to the White

House and have gone to the governor telling him. not to go down this road. It was a disaster for them in Texas, where they claim they're going to take five seats away from us. They'll be fortunate in Texas if they get to two or three. And they're going to lose at least one Republican incumbent as a result of the Texas dummymander. And now Ron DeSantis is considering making the same mistake in Florida.

Can you talk a little bit more about what you've heard from these other Florida Republicans? Because that's been floating around the zeitgeist a little bit. bit, but obviously we don't have as good insight as I'm sure you do in terms of what these people are saying to the governor. Well, particularly in light of the continued electoral success that Democrats have had, we've now won elections for 16 consecutive months, starting with an Iowa State Senate race in January of 2025, running all the way through what just happened in Wisconsin, where we won a state

Supreme Court race by 20 points in the state that Donald Trump had just won in November of 2024. And of course, we've won special elections in Texas in January of this year, where we overperform by 31 points. And then we won a special election in Louisiana in a House race. Both of these not exactly liberal bastions, right? No doubt about it. Conservative suburban Texas, And then rural Louisiana, the home state of Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise, where Donald Trump had won that district in 2024, I believe by 13 points. The Democratic candidate won it by 24. That was a 37 point overperformance. That happened in February.

And then in Florida, of course, we flipped the district in Palm Beach. that is represented by Donald, now represent, that Donald Trump lives in in terms of Mar-a-Lago, that is now represented by a Democrat. We also, of course, flipped the Miami mayorship for the first time in 30 years by 20 points that was in December. And so as all of these wins stack up,

Florida Republicans and Republicans across the country are getting nervous because they know that Donald Trump has been a failure, Republicans in Congress have been a failure. They have nothing positive to run on. They've now gotten us into this reckless and costly war of choice. And the last thing they need is to lose Republicans in their districts, which will happen if they try to gerrymandered a map. Well, you know, in response to basically your warning to Ron DeSantis in light of the Virginia results, DeSantis had come out today and basically offered up some ad hominem attacks against you. Do you think that this is him?

in an actual confident state, or is this just him posturing because he knows he's in a shitty position right now? Yeah, I think it's him posturing. And look, Ron DeSantis is a failed public servant, a failed governor, and a failed candidate for president. He's reeling right now. He's underwater in his own state. He's got no credibility.

He's struggling. His presidential ambitions are done, finished, right? And he knows this at this point. He was groveling to try. to become a cabinet secretary, Donald Trump shut him down. Yeah. So his whole world is falling apart. And now he's got a civil war going on in his own state with Republicans warning him that it

will be a disaster to go down this road. Because as Democrats, they know we're serious. When we say we're going to go into a state and we're going to compete heavily and aggressively, we're going to do it. And by the way, that's a change from what we had seen before. And I think this redistricting fight is a good mind. microcosm for exactly that. Because I think for a long time, this is something I've been exceedingly critical of, is the idea that if Democrats are going to fight back, it's going to be

in the form of a strongly worded letter, right? And now we're seeing instances where Democrats are saying, okay, you know what, if you're going to gerrymander these maps to engineer yourselves permanent majorities in the House, if Trump feels like he's entitled to five seats, that it's not going to be unilateral disarmament from the Democrats. They're actually going to fight back. And we saw that in California. We saw that now in Virginia. And of course, there's other offensive opportunities on the table. That includes New Jersey, New York, Colorado. You know, we'll see what happens as we get into the next midterm cycle or the next general election cycle. But I want to talk about your participation in this because I don't know that a lot of

people know how involved in all of this you were. And in fact, even I wasn't until we had spoken a few months ago and you are deep in the weeds of making this happen. And to your credit, you're both doing this and not out there taking all of the credit that you should. So I want to give you the opportunity right here to talk a little bit about what this process has been like for you largely behind the scenes. Yeah, well, it's been an all hands-on-deck effort, and I'm so thankful that Democrats across the country have stepped up in a phenomenal way. That's the Democrats in Texas in the state legislature, who I went to visit in late July

when this was first announced to talk about how we can support their efforts to push back aggressively, and ultimately they made the decision to go on quorum break, which was an important decision to leave the state, not to justify any of the foolishness that the Texas governor was trying to do upon being ordered by Donald Trump to do it, and to shine a national spotlight on Donald Trump's efforts to rig the midterm election. To me, that was sort of key. And then I had the opportunity to go visit them when they were hanging out in Illinois while the quorum break was underway. Just to thank them and continue to encourage them and to make it clear that we would support

them all the way through their efforts to push back. That, of course, helped to inspire California responding. Governor Newsom was a tremendous leader in this effort in very early on, connected with Governor Newsom, talked to the California delegation, led by Zoe Lofgren, the dean, and Pete Aguilar, the caucus chair, and of course, Speaker Emerita Pelosi. And the California delegation did a tremendous job of leaning in, working with the governor, and working with the state legislative leaders, who I also had the opportunity to engage with, as we were preparing to execute the California response through Prop 50.

which we knew needed to be forceful and decisive, temporary. And fast, by the way. And fast. There's no doubt about it. At the same period of time, we knew that, and this has been going on now for 10 months. And it's one battle after another all across the country. So we've pushed them back in Texas and forced them into a dummymander. We won Prop 50 in California.

We've picked up a seat in Utah that a Democrat will occupy after the November midterm elections. We stopped them in New Hampshire, stopped them in Indiana, stopped them in Kansas, and stopped them in Nebraska. We pushed them back in Ohio, and we're going to hold the three seats in Ohio that they thought they were going to be able to take away from us. That ain't happening. And one of the ways in which we were able to successfully push them back in Ohio, working with the legislative leaders in the Ohio congressional delegation, is because when they saw we were serious in California and willing to go to the mat, it brought the Ohio Republicans to the negotiating table because they were concerned about a referendum.

Yeah. That would have freeze anything that they tried to do. And then, of course, working with Abigail Spamber, our governor, she's been an amazing leader, Don Scott, the Speaker of the House, the legislative leaders and members of the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Congressional Delegation, and all along President Barack Obama, who's been a forceful advocate for a strong response and former Attorney General Eric Holder, we've gotten to this point. But we're going to keep our foot on the gas pedal.

And we're just in a moment of maximum warfare. everywhere all the time. And the next battlefield is in Florida. And we mean it when we say we're going to go in hard if they tinker with this map and create additional opportunities for us to defeat Republican incumbents. Well, I think it's important to note that while we could and should celebrate this victory in Virginia, that, you know, obviously this fight will continue, especially in light of the fact that we have the Calais case, Section 2, the Voting Rights Act, which is likely to come down any day now,

and that will likely gut what's remaining of the Voting Rights Act, which means all of these Black Opportunity Districts, which mandate black representatives in the Deep South where there would otherwise be gerrymandered maps, those will likely go away. And that could mean a swing of a dozen, two dozen, maybe even more seats across the country. We also have to be. have the prospect in 2030 of the census getting handed down and that taking seats away from from traditionally or historically blue states and giving them to red states and what they'll do with them is already clear. And so how does that make you think about the battlefield that we're looking at right now? I mean, I know I had mentioned New Jersey, New York, Colorado. How does it make

you look at the rest of the map in light of what's coming down the pike? Yeah. So we, you know, we're going to continue to press forward, finish the job, in 2026 and we're close to being able to do that right now. Republicans are down in the redistricting war that they started anywhere between three and five seats and the DeSantis dummymander is not going to help them out in Florida if they go down this road. Yeah. We've got to finish the job in 2026.

But as you mentioned, look to the 2028 cycle because it's our expectation that Republicans will never learn the lesson of engaging in. in a way that is consistent with free and fair elections because they've adopted voter suppression as a strategy. Right. Brian, because these people have no ideas. They failed. They're a disaster.

The economy's falling apart. The war is deeply unpopular. ICE is out of control. They got nothing. And yes, as Democrats, we're going to continue to articulate a vision for making life better for the American people for driving down the high cost of living, fixing our broken health care system, making sure that everyone in America who work. who works hard and plays by the rules, working class folks, middle class folks, communities of color,

everyday Americans, you work hard, you play by the rules, you should be able to live an affordable life, a comfortable life, and live a good life. We're going to fight for that. As Democrats, at the same period of time, we have to level the playing field and ensure that there are free and fair elections. We're going to do that in the 26 cycle and then be prepared to respond aggressively in advance of 2008. So that looks like New York, and New Jersey and Colorado and Washington at minimum. Yeah. And we're in the process of engaging with the governors and the legislative leaders in those states

to set the possibility of changes in motion. So whatever the Supreme Court does, we're going to have the ability to respond and respond decisively. Well, I think what's important there is that all the while, Like, while this happens, Republicans are suddenly finding, finding their conscience and denigrating the race to the bottom that is gerrymandering. Do you have a message to these Republicans in terms of, you know, if they want to offer up national legislation to ban partisan gerrymandering nationwide, how amenable you would be to that in very much the same way that we had every single Democrat vote for the Freedom

to Vote Act back in 2021, that in part would have banned partisan gerrymandering? And you had not a single Republican who voted in fact. favor of it? Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is when my grandmother used to tell me, which is be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. And they started this redistricting war. We are finishing it. At the same period of time, we believe, of course, that there should be one national standard. Yeah. And we're committed to working on that, that partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade gerrymandering should be prohibited in every state, not just blue, but states in every state. And so that means we are committed to continuing to move the legislation

forward that we've previously advanced, that didn't get a single Republican member to support, but that perhaps they see the light of day now moving forward, having been pummeled in this fight that they started. And we've had at least a handful of Republicans or former Republicans turned independence like Kevin Kiley suggesting a willingness to now support that legislation. He, of course, is on his way out. Right. He can do that as a private citizen now. He can do that as a private citizen. It would have been nice for him to speak up while his party was actually trying to start

this war that they thought they were going to win. Right. I mean, that's the ultimate irony is that all of these people who were clutching their pearls and having fainting spells right now didn't have a word to say when Donald Trump was sparking this movement off in Texas. And Greg Abbott did. decided to, you know, pick up the ball where Trump left off and engage in this whole process in the first place.

It's incredible to me that Donald Trump himself, apparently, at the Virginia rally where he was urging his MAGA supporters to vote no, said, gerrybandering is bad. Bro, you started this. And you only think it's bad right now when you're on the wrong side of our efforts to fight back. Well, to that end, Donald Trump actually took to choose social today and wrote, a rigged election took place last night in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. All day long, Republicans were winning. The spirit was unbelievable until the very end when, of course, there was a massive mail-in ballot drop. Where have I heard that before? And he goes on to spew out a few more conspiracy theories. But I actually think that this is instructive because it kind of gives us a preview into what Trump's defense here is going to be. He's not going to be leaning in to try and win votes by virtue of how he and his party, which has full control of government, govern. They're looking to just cross. foul every time there's an election that they lose. But the way that they've been able to weaponize the positions of power that they hold right now are actually pretty dangerous because, you know,

you have, you have Republicans across the country who are now seizing ballots. We saw that happen in Fulton County, Georgia. We saw that happen in Arizona. We just saw it happened this past weekend in Detroit. Meanwhile, you have Trump signing an executive order that would ban, prohibit mail-in ballots nationwide, even though it's something that's secure enough for him himself to use. And then finally, you have him leaning on the Republicans to nuke the filibuster so that they could pass the Safe America Act, which would do a ton of damage, but in part put the onus on people to have a passport to register to vote. Well, who's in charge of issuing passports? It's Donald Trump's federal government. So what does this tell you more broadly, this post that Donald Trump made,

about the weapons that he's preparing to use as we head toward midterms? Well, the so-called Save America Act is a classic example. of where Donald Trump's mindset is at. He said that passing this voter suppression legislation is more important than housing or lowering the high cost of living. Explicitly has said that. Of course, Donald Trump believes that the affordability crisis is a hoax. So we are preparing. The affordability crisis that he ran and won on, by the way. That's exactly right. Because for this guy, it was all about trying to seize power. Yeah. And he lied his way back into 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue promised to lower costs on day one and of course cost

of skyrocketing out of control including gas prices as a result of his reckless war of choice. But I think it does highlight for me the fact that we are operating under the assumption that Donald Trump is going to do everything he can to prevent the midterm elections from being free and fair. And voter suppression is their strategy and we've embarked on an effort. that I believe will be the largest voter protection effort in the history of modern day America. And that's going to involve House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the Democratic Governors Association, the DNC, the Democratic Attorney General's Association,

the Democratic Secretary of State Association, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, those are the state legislators, working with the civil rights groups, organized labor, good government groups, civil liberties groups, democracy protection groups, and the faith community. And those efforts have been underway now for months in terms of planning and we'll continue to intensify the public engagement over the next few months as we get inside of the six-month countdown to the November general midterm election. confidence, though, given the ease with which they can deploy the tools at their disposal, and the ease with which Trump has deployed these tools in the past. I mean, hell, we're talking

about a guy who literally incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. This is not someone who's going to be, who's going to be precious about when he decides to wield his power. I mean, this is somebody who's using the federal government to prosecute political enemies, judges, Democratic members of Congress, Democratic senators. I mean, the sky's the limit. Do you have confidence that given the opposition that he's mounting and the tools that he has at his disposal, that we will have enough tools on our end to protect our free and fair elections? Yeah, it's an important question. And we're systematically going after all of the ways in which he is going to try to undermine the ability for the American people to be the ones to make the decision as to who's in the majority in the next Congress, as opposed to Donald Trump trying to make. that decision for them by rigging the midterm election. So we had to crush his gerrymandering scheme

and we're on our way to doing just that. We needed to stop his ability to deploy the National Guard. Donald Trump, if you recall, throughout much of last year, federalized the National Guard. And we believe that that was part of his effort, a trial run, to be able to unleash troops in cities, towns, counties, and municipalities in advance of the midterm elections to try to intimidate people from showing up. And so we immediately sued the hell out of him, working, of course, in partnership with our Democratic governors,

Governor California, Governor of Illinois, and the governor of Oregon, that case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and in December in a six-three decision with conservative justices like Justice Roberts, Justice Amy Comey Barrett, and one other Republican justice, Gorsuch, said no to the Trump administration and made clear that he does not have the power to federalize the National Guard over the objection of these government. and Donald Trump was forced to withdraw these National Guard troops. And so we've taken that ability away from him.

Now we're fighting the battle as it relates to ICE. And one of the demands that we've put on the table, the reason why DHS has not been funded by Republicans up until this point, we want to fund the other parts of DHS that don't involve ICE and the CBP violent mass deportation machine that Trump has unleashed on law of abiding immigrant communities and American citizens, in some cases, getting them killed, as we saw horrifically in Minnesota. We've put on the table that ICE cannot conduct itself insensitive locations in terms of operations. And that we've defined as houses of worship, schools, hospitals, and polling sites. Yeah. And we're going to continue to push for that because we want to remove the ability of this president to deploy ICE to intimidate communities across the country.

All right. Well, we will leave it there. Later, Jeffries. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you much. No lie is brought to you by ShipStation. When your company is growing fast, order of fulfillment can make or break your success. Ship Station's intelligence-driven platform brings order management, rate shopping, inventory and returns, warehouse systems, and comprehensive analytics all in one place, saving customers 15 hours per week on fulfillment. With Ship Station, everything you need to manage, get a lot of business. getting orders to customers is in one place. Connect to over 200 sales channels.

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I'll give you the honors. Can you talk about the news that just broke? Yeah, Brian, this is fantastic news. As a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am pleased to announce that the redistricting measure that was on the ballot, it passed. So Virginians are gonna have a new map in time for 2026. It's gonna mean four more Democratic seats

as we roll forward into the midterms. I don't think that this will happen, but I wanna ask what happens in the event that Republicans use their one last option here, which is to appeal up to the Virginia Supreme Court. Can you talk about the options that are on the table? Yeah, so look, my law firm and I, we are still in court and we are like,

full speed ahead in making sure that this result sticks. The Republicans have a series of lawsuits. I wish it was just one lawsuit. They've got a whole bunch of lawsuits that they filed that, you know, are in various stages of here and there to try to block it in the first instance. And when that failed, to try to now undo it. But here's the thing. You know, the courts in Virginia, like every place else, are going to look at these results and ask themselves. Number one, what is the law? What is the Constitution saying? This is the process for changing the Constitution in Virginia. So I think just on the merits, there's not really anything to what the Republicans are claiming.

But then the second thing is, you know, they're going to look at the results and they're going to say, are we really going to after a vote, after the people of the state of Virginia came out and voted in overwhelming numbers to adopt this, are we really now going to reverse it? And the answer to that is no. So yes, there is still important cleanup work to be done. there is still important legal work to be done tomorrow morning in canvas locations and counties all throughout the Commonwealth. People at my law firm and others will be out making sure that there is no mischief going on

there will obviously run through the tape in these court cases. But Brian, it is a night that we can celebrate great news for democracy, great news for Democrats, a big night for Hakeem Jeffries and the effort to push this through. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic governor. You know, they got a lot of criticism. But in the end, like Gavin Newsom, they pulled it off. And I want to note that, again, this stuff wouldn't happen if we didn't have fighters like you and your team

who are litigating this stuff in the courts. The political stuff, notwithstanding, we need lawyers who are actually going to be fighters. You and your team are the peak among them. So a small step that everybody watching right now can take to support that work to help elevate Mark's voice, Mark's profile, do in the courts is to subscribe to Democracy Docket, which by the way, already released their

coverage of what we're seeing right now happen in Virginia. So whether you're looking to support the work that they do in the media space or the work that they do in the courts, the best way that you can show that support is to go ahead and subscribe. So I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Mark, I have heard all of the protests from Republicans online who claim that, okay, now Now we have a likely 10-1 map coming in Virginia, and Virginia is closer than that map would

suggest. And so what would your response be to those people who are suddenly finding their voice when it comes to partisan gerrymanders only as it relates to Virginia? Look, if Republicans want to do away with partisan gerrymandering, they can support the legislation that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in Congress have introduced to ban partisan gerrymandering. Like we didn't hear any complaints from the Republicans when Donald Trump was forcing Texas to do this. We didn't hear any complaint from Republicans when they were redrawing maps in Kansas City to do away with, to basically break that city into a thousand little pieces.

There were three different pieces. We didn't hear any of their concerns when they were gerrymandering in North Carolina. Like the only time we've heard any Republicans express concern about partisan gerrymandering was in California and then in Virginia, which by the way, are the two states where it was actually the people, the people in both of those states actually voted on it. So it's not like these were backroom map deals, you know, of politicians. You know, I went out and I voted on Saturday. I voted early and I voted yes.

And a majority of Virginians voted yes. I know when it was in California, you were a big part of leading that effort. I hope everybody supports your work by subscribing to this channel and staying informed on everything that's going on. in the world of politics and law and culture. But Brian, the Republicans, they didn't have boo to say about any of those states. And guess what?

Now as Ron DeSantis looks at what he's going to do in Florida, where are those voices? Have you heard anything from Kevin Kiley complaining about what's going on in Florida? Have you heard anything from the congressional delegation, the Republican congressional delegation of Virginia, about what may go on in Florida? No. It's all a bunch of hypocrisy.

If they want to ban all-partisan gerrymandering, they're going to have partners with Democrats to do it. But it's not going to be that we only stand down in states that Democrats control. Right. Those days are over. Let me just tell you something. If you think the days of Democrats playing by one set of rules and Republicans playing by another,

you're hitting yourself. Yeah. And I think that's the perfect point here is Republicans had nothing to say when it was just the Republicans gerrymandering the map because Donald Trump came out and brought. broadcast that he felt he was entitled to five more seats in Texas. That was no problem. What their problem is, is not with the fact that Democrats are redrawing these maps. It's that it's that Democrats aren't unilaterally disarming. And by the way, I almost get why Republicans would just

assume that this was baked in. And that's because Democrats have largely hewed to this idea that, you know, okay, we can just defer to, you know, good governance and our institutions and norms, and that would be how we kind of operate while the Republicans run roughshod over democracy as a whole. And I'm glad to see that there are finally Democrats who are in office right now who recognize the urgency of the moment that were in. Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who saw this thing through to the end. By the way, before it was, you know, the politically sexy thing to do, saw this thing through to the end in a state where there was a million reasons to have not done it, then for Abigail Spanberger and State Senator Lucas to have done the same thing,

along with the other Democrats in Virginia, to have seen this thing through to the end. And so I guess my question here is, what would your message be to other Democrats across the country in states that are even bluer than Virginia? And Virginia's no, you know, Virginia is not the bluest state in the country by any stretch of the imagination. And so what would your message be to these Democrats in New Jersey, in New York, in all of these other states like Colorado, where we have a little bit more upside because they're even bluer,

but we haven't yet taken full advantage of the maps to fight fire with fire. Now, look, the Republicans are not gonna back away from their strategy. So Democrats can't let up now. There's no unilateral disarmament in this world. We need to be as aggressive on our side as they are ruthless on their side.

And by the way, I wanna give a plug for people who have not already done so to pre-order Brian's book. Because Brian actually talks about the fact that when Democrats take power at the federal level, when they take power at the federal level, we need to play by the same set of rules that Republicans have. Now, that doesn't mean graft, that doesn't mean corruption, that doesn't mean illegality. It doesn't mean any of that. But what it does mean is using the levers of power to do the bidding of the American public rather than the bidding of the Trump family and his friends.

So please, join me right now in pre-ordering that book. pre-ordered it I have written the forward for it the first time I've ever written a forward for a book because this one's so important for you to pre-order and look my preference is you always get it from an independent bookseller but if you don't you got my permission to go get it from Amazon or wherever else most of the more things you pre-order it and I'm gonna put the link to pre-order that book which is called the day after right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video it's a huge help to pre-order the book and you can

also see on that same landing page the dates for the book to So if you live in D.C. or New York or Chicago, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, please grab a ticket and come see me talk in person. And if you're in D.C., I'll be there with Brian. We'll be there. You know, Brian is a big star, so you'll want to hear from him. But I promise you I'll be there. And so I'll be happy to talk to any of you if you sign up for the one in D.C.

And Brian may even invite me some of the other ones. That's it. Okay, but Mark, I want to go back to this question that we had discussed before. And that is a message that you would send to these other Democratic governors, for example, who haven't yet seen the full upside of this strategy play out. Look, it's good policy. It's good politics. Yep.

And we need you to do it. I mean, the fact is this whole thing has been a calamity for Donald Trump. And what that means is that if you are on the fight side, if you are on the side that Gavin Newsom's on, you're on the side that Abigail Spanberger's on, you're on the side that, frankly, Hakeem Jeffrey's done a great job, you know, marshalling operations. opposition to what Republicans are doing and also leading the effort here in these states. If you're on that side, it is not just that you are going to get better results on policy, but it's really good politics. I mean, Gavin Newsom has shot to the, you know,

shot to the moon over, over what he's done. And my prediction is Abigail Spanberger is going to see the same thing right now. You know, people have been on her and criticizing her, but I'll tell you what, no one, but I'll tell you what, there's nothing Americans like more than a winner and Abigail Spanberger is a winner tonight and Donald Trump is the biggest loser. It's also worth noting here the importance of this strategy, especially in light of two things that are coming down the pike, and that is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, that case, the Calais case, we're expecting any day now the Supreme Court to issue a ruling in this case, and it's largely believed that the Supreme Court is going to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights

Act, which means that all of these Black Opportunity Districts will be no longer mandated by the Voting Rights Act, and so these Republican-led states can redraw their maps and eliminate these Black Opportunity Districts. And the second is that we have the census coming up in 2030, and we're going to see a lot of population movement

from these big blue liberal bastions, these states that Democrats have control in, down to the Sun Belt, for example, where Republicans are largely in control, and we've seen the extent to which they're willing to redraw the maps in their favor, and just like they're doing it right now, they'll do it even more when they have added electoral votes.

So can you talk about the fact that this is actually a proactive strategy in light of the facts that we have, we likely do have some bad news coming down the pike? Look, here's a deal. Politics is a game of inches. It's not, you know, a lot of people think that politics is about landslides. Even the landslides in this country are not landslides. You know, it's not like you've got people winning by 20 points, 30 points, you know, in competitive elections.

And so each one of these seats matters. You know, you look at what the majority that the Republicans have right now in the House. And, you know, depending on the day and who's resigned, you know, it's three seats, it's four seats, maybe it's five seats. But like, it's truly seat by seat hand-to-hand combat. And so, you know, whether it is the fact that Republicans are going to take their next shot in Florida, whether it is that, you know, you have the census coming up, whether it is that if the Supreme Court rules, you know, the wrong way in the Clay case, you could see Republican legislatures in the deep south, gerrymander, you know, a black citizens, you know, dilute their voting power by, by, by, by, by, by, by, by, by gerrymandering further. Or frankly, it's Donald Trump seizing ballots or

trying to change the rules of who can vote by mail. All of these things are critically important because each one of them can be the difference maker between who wins and who loses and who controls Congress and who doesn't, and ultimately who controls the presidency because, of course, the electoral college is also affected by the census. So look, you know, my message to you is take the night and celebrate Virginia. And then tomorrow, recommit yourself to the hard work because the hard work is still in front of us. Like Donald Trump tomorrow morning will still be in office. Donald Trump tomorrow will still be going after his political opponents using the Department of Justice. Donald Trump tomorrow will still be scheming with governors to try to figure out how to screw you

out of your right to vote and in some states like Florida, how to screw you out of fair districts. So like we cannot let up and we cannot assume that because we've had a victory here or they've had a setback there, that we are, you know, we're inevitably going to win the midterm elections. Right now, Republicans are very unpopular, Donald Trump's very unpopular, and, you know, things are lining up well. But there's a lot of hard work that has to take place between now and then. that's the work that I do in the courts. It's the work I try to do in speaking out. It's the work that Brian does in speaking out.

And frankly, it's the work he did in writing this book, which is why I recommended it earlier. Because part of the message of that book is that when you gain power, you need to use that power. You need to be prepared to use that power. We can complain all we want about Project 2025 and Donald Trump. But the fact is they came in with a plan to execute an authoritarian, vision, and that's what they're doing. And Brian, in this book, is laying out what it is Democrats

need to be prepared to do. So again, I'd just ask you to subscribe to it. I'd ask you to sign it for Democracy Docket. And I'd ask you to celebrate for tonight the victory in Virginia. Thanks again to Hakeem Jeffries and Mark Elias. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, Please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to bryantellercoen.com to learn more.