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Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, August 1st. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that thanks President Donald Trump for focusing on the real issues. Because sure, his biggest legislative victory thus far this term is a massive cut to Medicaid, but the administration is going to spend $200 million on a new White House ballroom. Yes, a new 90,000 square foot ballroom, priorities. [music break] On today’s show, Trump lashes out at Canada for saying it would recognize a Palestinian state in September. And get ready for more push-ups, kids, because the presidential fitness test is back, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky. But let’s start by talking about redistricting. Don’t click away. It’s interesting, I promise. Because everyone’s talking about congressional redistricting! Trump really wants redistricting, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott wants whatever Trump wants. So redistricting it is. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis wants to redo the whole dang census to pave the way for, surprise, redistricting. Even California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he wants a special election this November focused on, you guessed it, redistricting. Here he is on Pod Save America last month, where he first floated the idea of redrawing the state’s maps. 

[clip of Gavin Newsom] And so from my perspective we’re going to play fair in a world that is wholly unfair we may have the higher moral ground uh but the ground is shifting from underneath us and I think we have to wake up to that reality. 

Jane Coaston: So it looks like America’s hottest club is redistricting. It has everything, drawing, lines, Congress, angry people. But what does redistricting actually mean? In theory, it means redrawing electoral districts, in this case for Congress, in ways that are supposed to accurately reflect population changes. Typically, we do it every 10 years after the completion of the census to figure out how many house seats each state gets. In practice, redistricting regularly turns into the equivalent of a partisan bar fight. But Texas Republicans are taking it to new levels right now, all in service of their ever demanding orange overlord. Trump wants the state to redraw its congressional map well outside of the normal tenure cycle to help keep Republicans in control of the House in next year’s midterms. And that’s why all these other states are threatening to do the same, a race to the bottom of our already frayed democratic norms. I’ll be honest with you, before about two weeks ago, I’d put approximately zero thought into congressional redistricting. But think about the thing you care about the most. You want to fight climate change? Anti-trans laws? The situation in Gaza? Do you want to keep your health care coverage? Well, my friend, then you care about redistricting. It’s where all this important stuff starts. But let’s be real. I care a lot about the 2026 midterms because I care a lot about America. I want Democrats to win the 2026 midterms and take control of Congress. And it’s pretty clear a mid-cycle redistricting push to maximize partisan results is bad for democracy. But could it be good for Democrats? To find out more, I spoke to Justin Levitt. He’s a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former White House senior advisor to the Biden administration. Justin, welcome to What a Day. 

Justin Levitt: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Jane Coaston: So Texas lawmakers just released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map on Wednesday. Essentially the goal is to flip five democratic seats in the 2026 midterms. What’s your take on that map? 

Justin Levitt: They’ve designed a map that’s designed to do that if everything works out right for them. So they did what they promised to do. I’ll say they’re banking on a lot of information about a lot of Texas voters, including presidential turnout, but races are weird. And if this looks more like 2018 than 2020 or 2024, then they might well have given some districts over to Democrats they don’t expect. 

Jane Coaston: Democrats have said that the map is blatantly racist because it essentially splits voters of color to make districts more white. Is that the basic strategy there? 

Justin Levitt: Yeah and particularly in Texas, I think that they’re relying on a particularly Latino Republican electorate that might or might not show up and that might or might not still prefer the Republican party. The Republican party has not been taking many policy steps designed to appeal to its Latino supporters. Um. In fact, some would argue doing exactly the opposite. And so we’ll see which voters decide to show up and who they prefer. 

Jane Coaston: Right. And obviously we have to talk about the timing of all this because this is not usually when states redraw their lines. 

Justin Levitt: Sure not. 

Jane Coaston: It happens after the census. The last one was in 2020. So we basically just did this. Is there any precedent for this? For people just being like, hell yeah, let’s redistrict? 

Justin Levitt: There is, unfortunately, precedent. There’s precedent even in Texas. The last time Texas tried this was 20 years ago. And Democrats fled the state twice. 

Jane Coaston: I remember this. 

Justin Levitt: In order to try to stop them. 

Jane Coaston: I remember this! 

Justin Levitt: Yeah, they camped out in little motels outside of the state in New Mexico and in Oklahoma. Willie Nelson sent a case of bourbon, like you had–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Justin Levitt: Tom DeLay got in trouble for calling in the FAA. It was nuts. And we’re about to go nuts again. There’s not that much precedent outside of Texas. A few states have done it on a few occasions, Georgia’s done it a little bit. Um. Some other states have done it sort of mostly on the margins. Texas goes big when it goes. And here we go again. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, and apparently Texas Democrats are fundraising to potentially leave the state to block GOP-backed redistricting right now. So Willie Nelson, if you’ve got that bourbon available, you may need to send it. 

Justin Levitt: Yeah, pack up another another set of crates. 

Jane Coaston: You are a former Justice Department lawyer. The current Justice Department under Trump gave Texas a legal justification to redraw their congressional districts. It sent the state a letter claiming some of these districts were an unconstitutional gerrymander. First off, is there any basis to that claim? 

Justin Levitt: No. 

Jane Coaston: Okay. 

Justin Levitt: And I can say flatly no. The letter they sent, first of all, didn’t look like any Department of Justice letter that I have ever had a part in sending or even seen sent out. It was two pages. It was pretty shoddy. It was filled with typos. It didn’t sort of get into the basic distinctions between fundamental legal principles, which made me wonder, were the people incompetent or was it just partisan pretext? And the fact that I don’t know the answer. 

Jane Coaston: A little column A, a little column B. 

Justin Levitt: Yeah, that’s not a good place for the Department of Justice to live. It’s also, if it was partisan pretext, it’s also illegal. You can’t use public office to further a partisan purpose if you’re a federal government employee, and I took those rules really seriously when I was in the DOJ. Um. It sure looks like they did it because they could because they wanted to further President Trump’s request to get five more seats. And that sure looks like it’s illegal. And I think there’s actually been a request for an investigation under the Hatch Act sent out precisely because of that. 

Jane Coaston: How is it legal to fight gerrymandering with more gerrymandering? 

Justin Levitt: It’s not really legal to fight gerrymandering with more gerrymandering. The Supreme Court said in 2019, excessive partisan gerrymandering is inconsistent with democratic principles. It’s illegal. It’s unconstitutional. It’s just that they also said in basically the same breath, we’re not gonna stop anybody and the federal courts aren’t available to stop anybody. So it said it’s un-constitutional, but go fix it yourselves. So now there’s a question about whether other states are gonna break the law in order to respond to Texas breaking the law. This has become essentially a, well, I was gonna say a playground fight, but they’re fighting with knives and that’s not normally how most playground fights work. 

Jane Coaston: Well, I mean, it does really seem like now Democrats are the kids in the playground saying that, you know, he hit me first, but also again, with knives, because we’re seeing leaders in democratic states, basically saying like, if they go low, we will meet them in hell, which part of me kind of appreciates that, but you know you’re seeing California governor Gavin Newsom tweeting, quote, “two can play that game.” Democrats in New York introduced a bill to redistrict state congressional maps as well. Governor Kathy Hochul said, quote, “All is fair in love and war,” which I’m glad we’re getting all of our good quotes out. But like, is this a good idea? 

Justin Levitt: Yeah, this is horrible for democracy. I mean, no two ways about it. This is really bad for democracy, what Texas is doing. And other states that respond would also be bad for Democracy. That’s the problem. That’s why we have laws to stop this sort of thing is to stop self-help. It’s what helps keep us from just beating each other. And when law gives out, you’re starting to see a little bit more of this combat. I’ll say the opportunities for Democrats to respond are better in some states than others. So New York, that may be a lot of hot talk. It’s gonna be really hard for New York to actually change the rules. And the last time it tried to gerrymander, the courts stopped New York from doing that and put in a different map of its own. Um. Conditions are better in California. Conditions are better in Jersey. Conditions already really ripe in Illinois. 

Jane Coaston: But California has an independent redistricting commission because about 15 years ago, we had this whole conversation and voters said, we do not want legislators doing this. We want an independent commission. And now Governor Newsom is saying, like, actually. 

Justin Levitt: Well, I think he’s gonna ask the voters actually. Okay. And the voters might actually say, well, actually. So you’re absolutely right. In 2010, we had this discussion and we even had this discussion with people saying, should we stop ourselves from being able to draw crooked districts because somebody else might do it? We had the exact retaliation response that’s in the conversation now and voters emphatically bipartisan. Democrats didn’t want Democrats doing this and Republicans didn’t want Democrats doing this. So a really bipartisan measure to say, no, we want the voters to choose politicians, not vice versa. We want to be in control here. And I wonder whether Texas has gotten so piggy, whether they’ve gotten so egregious, that California voters will sit back and say, well, that was fine for normal conditions, but we’re in an abnormal zone now, and we might want to change the Constitution. We get to do that and it’s a lot easier to change California’s constitution than the federal constitution. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, it really does seem stupid if you’re in a blue state to not redistrict to be in the favor of Democrats while red states are redistricting to be in the favor of Republicans. But I know you think this is bad for democracy, and it probably is. But Democrats losing, I think people would argue, is worse for democracy. So what would be your advice to Democrats right now? 

Justin Levitt: My response is if we’re going to drive the car all the way off the cliff where there is no road, it’s not three to four house seats. It’s eight to nine house seats in California. It’s three house seats in Illinois. It is all of them. I mean to be clear here, the mutually assured destruction that is nuclear war means that you don’t have to draw lines that connect districts to each other. I can take you and I can take your partner living in the same house and put you in different districts. I can take a little dot from one place and a dot in another and a band down below and draw a smiley face if I want to. There’s no federal law that stops that. So if Democrats in California really want to take a really big swing, they could effectively make the California delegation entirely democratic. And I mean entirely. While still complying with the Voting Rights Act. Because there is room in those districts to spread around and make any Republican’s life in the state magnificently difficult. That’s not good for democracy, but I can understand why people are tempted. And I don’t know if it’s going to take a real wake up call, like no rules, for Congress to finally step in and say, okay, this is silly, we need rules. It seems like nothing wakes Congress up except for massive scandal. And I think what Texas has been courting right now is massive scandal 

Jane Coaston: So I know you are saying we should not do this, but also you are saying we could make Republicans life quote, “magnificently difficult,” which to me sounds fun so what is the alternative here? What is your case for getting out of this partisan death spiral, even if the partisan death spirals sometimes is kind of fun? 

Justin Levitt: So Texas hasn’t done what it said it’s going to do yet. Okay. It’s about to, it’s very clearly about to. And I still believe that, you know, you build up your nuclear arsenal not to use it, but to convince the other side not to use theirs. So I think showing Republicans what the response will be if they go ahead and pass the, again, 100% unconstitutional maps in Texas, probably violating the voting rights act, probably doing a bunch of stuff that is illegal. Show them what the world after looks like. You know, when I was growing up, there was a film called The Day After that showed you nuclear war. 

Jane Coaston: Yep. 

Justin Levitt: Imprinted on my brain. People need to see what the world afterward looks like, that’s step one. And I will hope that that’s enough deterrence to let California keep the institutions that have really been serving California voters well. I want to emphasize the California commission has been doing right by the citizens of the state. And so I really don’t want that to go away even temporarily. If the California voters are going to toss that aside, I would want it to be very temporary. I want it to be explicitly contingent. You only get to do this if there’s a finding that some other state has gone off the rails. And I’d want it to be so unmistakably big that it sends a signal that we don’t ever have to do this again. 

Jane Coaston: Justin, thank you so much for joining me. You’ve done the impossible and made redistricting kind of fun and entertaining and also a little scary. 

Justin Levitt: A little scary. 

Jane Coaston: A little scary. Thank you. 

Justin Levitt: Of course. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Justin Levitt, constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and a former White House senior advisor to the Biden administration. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of unnamed journalist] What’s the holdup with the negotiations with Canada? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, they have to pay a fair rate, so it’s very simple. They have been charging very, very high tariffs to our farmers, some over 200%. And they’ve been treating our farmers very badly. They’ve been trading our country very badly for years. 

Jane Coaston: President Trump was light on details Thursday afternoon when asked about the potential terms of a trade deal between the US and Canada. Just hours later, though, he issued an executive order increasing the tariff rate from 25% to 35%. It’s a big deal because Canada is one of our largest trading partners. It’s not totally clear why Trump made the change, but it could have something to do with a recent announcement from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

[clip of Mark Carney] Canada intends to recognize the state of Palestine at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025. 

Jane Coaston: Carney made the announcement to recognize Palestinian statehood if certain conditions are met on Wednesday. It follows similar moves from France and the United Kingdom. Trump wasn’t happy about that. He posted on Truth Social the following morning, quote, “Wow, Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them. Oh, Canada.” By threatening to tie foreign policy into ongoing trade negotiations, Trump is essentially using the recognition of Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip. 

[clip of Karoline Leavitt] Special Envoy Witkoff and Ambassador Huckabee will be traveling into Gaza to inspect the current distribution sites and secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground. 

Jane Coaston: That was White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previewing a diplomatic trip to Gaza today. She said Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee will make recommendations to the president on aid distribution following the visit. Witkoff met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Thursday to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Leavitt called the meeting, quote, “very productive,” which is interesting since as recently as this very weak Netanyahu has claimed that there is no starvation in Gaza. Trump posted a Truth Social on the topic Thursday, writing, quote, “The fastest way to end the humanitarian crises in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages.” Trump has been vocal in recent days about not wanting to, quote, “reward” the terrorist organization as countries in the United Nations Group of Seven continue to announce their conditional support for a Palestinian state. On Thursday, the Gaza Ministry of Health said that more than 100 people there had died over the last 24 hours, most of them while seeking aid. The family of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers say they are shocked by Trump’s recent comments about the disgraced financier and convicted sex criminal. Specifically, the family of Virginia Giuffre pointed to Trump’s claim this week that Epstein, quote, “stole her from him.” 

[clip of unnamed journalist 2] Mr. President, did one of those stolen, um you know persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?

[clip of President Donald Trump] Uh. I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. Yeah. He stole her. 

Jane Coaston: Trump made the remark Tuesday on Air Force One. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. Her family wrote in a statement released late Wednesday, quote, “It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago.” They added, quote, “It makes us ask if he was of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions.” Maxwell was Epstein’s co-conspirator and is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in their scheme to abuse girls and young women. Giuffre’s family also criticized the Department of Justice’s recent meeting with Maxwell, who they called, quote, a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life. They asked the Trump administration not to offer her any leniency. Trump’s comments also call into question exactly why his years-long friendship with Epstein ended. Previously, the White House said that Trump and Epstein fell out because Epstein was, quote, “being a creep to women at Mar-a-Lago.” But Virginia Giuffre who worked as a spa attendant there, claimed she first met Maxwell at the club in 2000. That’s four years before Epstein and Trump’s supposed falling out. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I was always a person that loved playing sports, I was good at sports. 

Jane Coaston: Oh, is that what caused the bone spurs that got him out of the Vietnam draft? Hmm. Trump signed an executive order Thursday at the White House. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We’re officially restoring the Presidential Fitness Test and the Presidential fitness award, and it’s going to be a very big thing. 

Jane Coaston: Great. Now school children across the country will once again know the shame of not being able to touch their toes or do a single pull-up. I’m glad the president of the United States has his priorities in line. Trump signed the order reestablishing the presidential fitness test flanked by the usual suspects, vice president, J.D. Vance, education secretary, Linda McMahon, and WWE Hall of Famer Triple H. The program was created in the sixties and rolled out in schools across the country to promote healthy lifestyles for kids. A lot of you probably remember it, and some of you may still be scarred by it. The tests included running, sit-ups, pull-ups or push-ups and that infamous and aforementioned sit-and-reach which I was really good at. During the Obama administration, the program was phased out to focus more on individual health rather than athletic feats. At least this executive order is bringing about a fun new acronym for us to use. According to the White House, the initiative is Making America Active Again, or MAAA! And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, remember that no matter what, you can properly say the name of Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how President Trump always deeply plugged into sports in a way that definitely doesn’t scream, I last enjoyed a sporting event in 1993, got completely lost during a press conference on the presidential fitness test. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I was on the council, and Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback, who is really, he’s been fantastic. 

Jane Coaston: Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and it’s Tua Tagovailoa. Tua Tagovailoa! See, now you’re doing better than the President of the United States. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Gina Pollock, and Laura Newcomb. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with the headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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