What A Day - Trump Still Has A Grip On Indiana

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

There’s a lot going on in this year’s midterm elections. Tennessee Republicans approved a new map on Thursday, splitting the majority-Black voting district that encompasses the city of Memphis �� and possibly eliminating the state’s only blue congressional seat. The president also got to flex his muscles this week in Indiana’s Republican primary. Candidates with his support beat at least five Republican incumbents who had voted against his redistricting plans in the state. So what does all of this mean for the midterms? To find out, we talked to Jon Favreau. He’s a co-host of Pod Save America.And in headlines, Russia preps for its annual Victory Day Parade, two reports shed new light on the Iran war, and President Donald Trump tries to square up with a child in the Oval Office.Show Notes: Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, May 8th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day? The show wondering, if the Atlantic's reporting about FBI director Cash Patel's alleged drinking was so incorrect that the FBI director filed a lawsuit against the outlet, then why is the FBI reportedly going after leakers and demanding Patel's security detail take polygraphs? So weird. On today's show, Russia preps for its annual Victory Day parade, and President Donald Trump tries to square up. with a child in the Oval Office. Huge turn here, but let's start with the midterms and redistricting. Tennessee Republicans approved a new map on Thursday, splitting the majority black voting district that encompasses the city of Memphis,

and possibly eliminating the state's only blue congressional seat. They did so despite massive protests from Democrats and the people of Memphis, who gathered outside the state Capitol building in Nashville on Thursday. One Tennessee Republican state representative, Todd Warner, was photographed using a Trump flag as a cape as he went to vote for the plan. In case you needed the subtext to be made, you know, text. Because this is all about giving Republicans and Donald Trump more power in Congress after last week's Supreme Court decision weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And speaking of Trump's power, the president got to flex his muscles this week in Indiana's Republican primary. candidates with his support beat at least five Republican incumbents who had voted against his redistricting plans in the state.

So what does all of this mean for the midterms? To find out, I talked to John Favreau. He's a co-host of Pod Save America. John, welcome back to what did I? Good to be here. On Tuesday, Indiana Republicans sided with Trump and voted out a handful of state senators who didn't support the president's redistricting push. Were you surprised at all? No.

I mean, Donald Trump. approval rating in Indiana is above water. Right. One of the few states where that's true, not as popular as he is in, like, Wyoming, but he's more popular than, like, Ohio. And some of these people, some of these candidates won with, like, 7,000 votes, right, 8,000 votes total. Because it's a primary, like, it feels like this is going to be, like, the most MAGA

of the most MAGA voting anyway. It's not surprising that, like, a low turnout primary on the Republican side would feature a lot of Trump supporters, especially if he made it a big deal, which he did. What do you think that means for Republican candidates as we approach the elections? Because on the one hand, Trump's popularity with everybody besides Republicans is plummeting, with independence, with even right-leading independent voters. On the other hand, Trump's popularity with Republicans is still comparatively strong. So what do you think that means where you have Republican candidates who want to get closer to Trump, but getting closer to Trump might make them more vulnerable.

Well, primary season is coming to an end. Right. It has ended with in many states. Mm-hmm. And then Republicans and all these seats that are competitive to the extent that they're, wherever there are competitive seats or competitive states, now they don't have a, the threat of a primary challenge is no more. The threat of losing to a Democrat is in front of them.

And so I would imagine you'll suddenly see some Republicans, just finding some courage in those final months before the election and perhaps breaking with Trump. But even in Indiana, where they had primaries on the Republican and Democratic side and the Republican side was obviously a much bigger focus. Like there was a bigger turnout, at least in Marion County where Indianapolis is like a higher termite among Democrats versus the last midterm election than there was. And the Republican turnout went down. So even in the state where we're talking about these candidates that Trump Act won, you were still seeing. Democratic turnout, outpaced Republican turnout in comparison with the last midterm. This election cycle has been particularly crazy because of Texas and California announcing

plans to redistrict in the middle of the decade, which obviously typically does not happen. Thanks Donald Trump. Now, all of these other states have followed suit and it's basically the Wild West of redistricting, a word I cannot say. It's a hard one. I just say redrawing the maps. Thank you. See, that's so much better.

We're just going to redraw the maps. See, those are words I can say. What impact is all of this redrawing of the maps having on the integrity of our elections going into the midterms? The integrity in the most technical legal sense is still there. But it's a race to the bottom because we have already seen a bunch of blue states red draft their maps in response to the red states redrawing their maps, which started because Donald Trump demanded more seats in Congress. Congress. And, you know, it is not out of the question by the time you get to 2028 or 2030, you look at a map and states where there is a Democratic majority in the state legislature, they are all blue and don't have a single Republican member of Congress. And red states where

there's a Republican majority in the legislature, they are entirely red and don't have a single Democratic congressperson in Congress. And that is a very polarized country and even more polarized country than we are today. That also means that you don't have moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats as much, especially in the House, because you don't have like a Republican sitting in a blue state like New York or a Democrat sitting in a red state like, you know, Tennessee. And that's probably bad for democracy. Speaking of Tennessee, Tennessee has already approved a new map that gets rid of the state's only blue seat. All of this as a result of last week's Supreme Court decision that more or less

gutted section two of the Voting Rights Act and cleared the way for states to redraw even more districts without considering minority voters because apparently you can do partisan redraws, but you can't do racial redraws. It just so happens that the partisan redraws are racial redraws. The midterms are not that far away. How likely is it that the new maps will go into effect by then? Well, so in Tennessee, they had to pass the new maps, but they also had to pass a law changing the filing deadline for candidates to jump up. into the race because it had already passed in March. Right.

So they changed it to May 15th. So now there's like another week for suddenly candidates to jump into a race. The challenge they will face is there was a Supreme Court decision in 22, in April of 22, saying that changing filing deadlines in April of 2022 was too close to the election then for that to work. And so obviously May is even closer to the election. So I do think there will be a legal challenge for this, but who knows? and then we'll get, I think South Carolina's trying to go, and I think Alabama's trying to go to redraw their maps. I think those are slightly less likely than Tennessee to work. And then I think Louisiana will redraw because the Supreme Court decision was about Louisiana, that will probably be the most likely to take effect.

And then I bet DeSantis's four seats that he gerrymandered with his new maps will probably go into effect because the Florida Supreme Court is very right wing and probably does not care what the Constitution actually. says. And then we're all just going to be holding our breath to see what the Virginia State Supreme Court does, whether they uphold the results of the referendum in that state to redraw those maps so Democrats can pick up four of seats. In the middle of all of this, Democrats are continuing to overperform in special elections across the country. Big time. Looking at what we've seen in these races so far, what should Democrats take from these

wins as they head into the general election? I think, you know, it should give Democrats optimism. It shouldn't make us too comfortable. When have Democrats ever been too comfortable? Never, never. So that's a good sign. Just, you know, some folks that hang out online might be too optimistic. But no, I think it's, look, you can compare to previous elections, previous midterms,

compare to the Republicans versus different. Like, no matter what comparisons, what stats you use, Democrats are much more in They are more likely to show up in these midterms, and Republicans are less likely to show up in these midterms. And the special election results also are outpacing what the polling is showing. The generic ballot in the polling is closer than most of the special election results have been. So I think that's a very good sign. Obviously, the midterm electorate is probably slightly friendlier to Republicans than a special election electorate, but certainly not as friendly to Republicans as a presidential electorate is. And if it's not as friendly, plus we're already seeing. results that outpaced previous years in some of these specials and off years, then I think Democrats should feel pretty good. I think something I've been thinking about is, is the environment for these midterms friendly enough to get some Democrats who I think Republicans would typically think there's no way they'd win?

You know, you're Graham Platiners who they're already talking about like, oh, we're so excited to go against him. Are we in kind of a like, tea party-esque for Democrats' environment in which you could see Democrats who, if we would have tried this 10 years ago, they wouldn't have gotten into office, but people are mad enough, people are mad at mainstream Democrats enough, and people are mad at Republicans enough to get those people into office. I think it really depends. I think what we're talking about here is, is the environment end up being bluer than

2018? And I think right now, if you believe the polls, then it's like getting close to 2018, but not quite there yet. If you look at the special election results, the off-year election results, that looks like a bluer environment than 2018. I think you're not going to get quite Tea Party in 2010 only because that was less about the environment and more about the maps being different that we just talked about. Right. So there was just a lot more Republicans sitting in districts that were unfavorable to them. We're talking about, like, you know, Democrats, I think, are odds on favorites to take the House. But in the Senate, you're talking about, you're talking

about if Democrats win, they have to win states where Trump won by eight, nine, ten points, double digits, probably. And that's a taller order. But as we are seeing, not impossible. Like I actually think Platner is not even the least likely by any means, just because of the partisan makeup of Maine. I think you're going to get down to Conchared Brown, pull it out in Ohio, whether it's Josh Torrick or Zach Walls in Iowa, do they pull it out? Does Mary Paltola pull it out in Alaska? Does James Telerico pull it out in Texas? Like those are the four states, I think, that if we need two out of the four of those states,

that means that those Democratic candidate will have won by probably outpaced Trump by like, you know, 10 points. John, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Fun to nerd out. Every time. That was my conversation with John Favro, co-host to Pod Save America. Your vote counts here, so use it by commenting and leaving a review on our show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Please make sure to subscribe, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends.

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We know it's hard to keep up with every update on the Iran war. From the ceasefire to rising gas prices, there's a lot going on. But two new reports came out this week, one from the Washington Post and one from ABC News, with some interesting information. According to people that spoke with the post, a confidential CIA analysis found that Iran can survive the U.S. naval blackade for at least three months before facing, quote, more severe economic hardship. Maybe Iran can survive another three months. but I'm not sure the American people are going to be into a, quote, four to five-week war that lasts into August.

And would it be a war without a little corruption? Here's Good Morning America describing an ABC News report. We have learned that the Justice Department is investigating a series of suspiciously timed trades just ahead of major announcements about the war by President Trump. Sources tell ABC News that the DOJ, along with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are probing at least four trades in the oil market, where traders made a total of more than $2.6 billion betting that oil prices would drop right before they actually did.

Wall Street traders attempting to make money off the war, what are the chances? Saturday marks Russia's annual Victory Day parade in Moscow, a celebration honoring the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, a victory that cost the USSR roughly 24 million lives. It's typically a massive display of military might and power. But this year, things are going to look a little different.

For one thing, the parade will not feature any military equipment for the first time since 2008. No tanks, no missiles. Airports in Moscow were shut down on Tuesday, and the government cut off mobile internet access for many in the city. Why? Here's Sky News on Thursday. There's been an increase in Ukrainian drone attacks across Russia recently. Lots of energy infrastructure has been hit. and even a Moscow high rise was struck just a few miles from the Kremlin at the start of this week.

And that's got the authorities here rattled. They are worried their big day could be disrupted. See, remember Russia's war in Ukraine? The war pro-Russia pundits said would last for just a few days. The conflict has now lasted for more than four years, longer than the Soviet Union's battle against Nazi Germany. And Ukraine's ability to produce and launch long-range drones that can strike at the very heart of Russian territory has made everyone super anxious. So now, Russia's big victory parade is going to be less big. Sad. Speaking of storied conflicts with lasting legacies, America is now debating a question we've all wondered about. Could Donald Trump win a fist fight with a child? No, I am not kidding.

It all started on Tuesday, when Trump asked a child a very normal question in the Oval Office during an event celebrating the return of the presidential fitness test. Are you a strong person? Yes, sir. You think you can take me in the fight? That would be embarrassing. It would be. So the good people at UGov decided to poll more than 2,000 Americans

and ask whether they thought an 8-year-old boy, an average American, or they themselves could beat Donald Trump in a physical altercation. 66% of Americans said that, an average American could beat Trump. Democrats were, as you guess, more likely to say that they could beat Trump. Republicans who were polled said that Trump would probably beat them. I need to be very clear about this.

Donald Trump will turn 80 next month and appears to consume mostly fast food and diet Coke. And a majority of Republicans, pulled by UGov, think he would best them in a physical altercation. Sometimes I really worry about people. And that's the news. Before we go, in the latest episode of Runaway Country, Alex Wagner, and strict scrutiny's Kate Shaw discuss the outrageous indictment of James Comey and why it matters when the DOJ is weaponized against perceived political enemies. Tune in to Runaway Country, wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe,

leave review, celebrate, because Trump's sheriff's lost in court again and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration cannot impose 10% global tariffs, like me, Water Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and somehow I don't think this is going to stop Trump from trying to impose global tariffs at all. What a day is a production of Cricket Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily 4, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor.

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