Ex-Trump aide's defense of Supreme Court race ruling meets furious pushback on CNN

A former Trump administration official downplayed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on voting rights but met pushback from his fellow panelists on CNN.

The conservative majority essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act's requirement that congressional districts be designed to give minority voters an opportunity to elect their own representatives, and former Donald Trump aide Mike Dubke told "CNN This Morning" that he agreed with the court's ruling.

"Let's be clear about what we're talking about: This is just another form of gerrymandering," Dubke said. "I mean, we've been talking about Texas and Virginia and California and that midterm gerrymandering, the Voting Rights Act, making race a primary issue of how you draw these districts, is just another form of gerrymandering. So to Justice [John] Roberts' point, a law that was written over 60 years ago, is it still necessary? We can have that argument, we should have that argument. But we've also got a broken system in which we are trying to gerrymander ourselves into majorities in the House of Representatives. It is the fox designing the henhouse."

Host Audie Cornish pushed back.

"But one of the things that's interesting about this ruling is they specifically say partisan reasons are okay, partisan reasons to protect incumbency, to protect parties is perfectly legal and fine," Cornish said. "So in a way, it doesn't alleviate what you say. It actually elevates the partisan reasoning."

Journalist Sara Fischer agreed.

"When I look at certain laws in the way that the Supreme Court has set precedents, for example, the standard of actual malice when it comes to defamation – that's something that I cover a lot – the wording here matters so much," Fischer said. "So the thought here that you need to prove intent is so, so, so hard for anybody to legally overcome, so just want to put that out there. In terms of the political and partisan thing, I think what they're trying to get at there is that is not going to violate the way that this law is being interpreted. What will violate the way that this law is being interpreted is if you are to make these decisions that are, you know, end up being discriminatory against race, and so essentially what they're saying is we're not ruling on whether or not this is a partisan problem. We're only ruling on this narrow thing. Yeah, now that the outcome means it's more partisan, that's a debate that we all are going to have to have as a society."

- YouTube youtu.be

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr's decision to initiate an early renewal review of Disney's broadcast licenses is creating divisions within the Republican Party, with some lawmakers expressing concern about potential government censorship while others defend his authority to investigate diversity practices.

Carr cited Disney's diversity, equity, and inclusion practices as the reason for the accelerated license review. However, critics argue the timing suggests retaliation for a joke Jimmy Kimmel made about First Lady Melania Trump during a White House Correspondents' Dinner preview, reported Politico.

Kimmel quipped that Melania had a "glow like an expectant widow," referencing the 24-year age difference between the Trumps, but President Donald Trump denounced the comment as a "despicable call to violence" in light of a shooting that occurred at the dinner Saturday night.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) whose Commerce Committee oversees the FCC, left open the possibility of questioning Carr, reiterating his longstanding opposition to government involvement in regulating speech. "The federal government should not engage in censorship, that it is not the FCC's role to be the speech police," Cruz said Wednesday.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) similarly expressed skepticism, stating the FCC "probably shouldn't be involved with regulating humor."

However, most Republicans either downplayed Carr's action or defended it as routine regulatory authority. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) characterized the licensing review as a standard exercise of FCC power, while Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) affirmed Carr's authority to conduct such reviews.

The National Association of Broadcasters strongly criticized the move, with CEO Curtis LeGeyt calling it "nearly unprecedented" and warning it "creates significant uncertainty for all broadcasters."

An FCC spokesperson responded that the action addressed alleged discriminatory DEI conduct, including claims Disney created racially segregated spaces and established racial preferences or quotas.

Far-right supporters including MAGA influencer Benny Johnson backed Carr's efforts, arguing taxpayers shouldn't fund programming they object to. Meanwhile, at least one liberal advocacy group called for Carr's impeachment.

Harvard University reportedly concealed the true source of a $25,000 donation to its women's rugby team, allowing athletes to believe the money came from university leadership when it actually originated from convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein.
According to an investigation by podcaster Pablo Torre and Harvard Crimson staffers Dhruv Patel, Hugo C. Chiasson and Elise A. Spenner, the university deliberately obscured Epstein's connection to the gift — a deception that didn't unravel until 2019, years after the money had been spent.
The athletes had no idea who was funding them. Former team president Emily Riehl learned the truth only when a journalist investigating Epstein's criminal history contacted her in 2019.
"I've seen online that you were the president of the women's rugby club that year," attorney Martin F. Murphy wrote, before revealing the donor's identity: "The donor was convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein."
That was the first time Riehl had heard Epstein's name connected to the gift, the report states.
Harvard's internal records tell a different story. Documents obtained by The Crimson and Torre show that in June 2004, Harvard explicitly established the "Jeffrey E. Epstein Fund for Women's Athletics," noting a specific preference for women's rugby. One month later, then-University President Lawrence H. Summers personally thanked Epstein for the contribution in a direct letter.
But the team was deliberately kept in the dark. Players believed the money had come through Massachusetts Hall, routed personally by Summers after they confronted him about funding disparities between men's and women's rugby programs.
"There's absolutely no way we would have touched a dime from him had we known the source of this funding," Riehl said. "But that information was never provided to us."
The team was struggling financially. The women's rugby players operated on roughly $6,000 annually, cleaning dormitory bathrooms through work-study, volunteering for psychology studies, and soliciting donations from parents to keep the program alive, the Harvard Crimson reporters wrote.
The $25,000 infusion was transformative — but only because its source remained hidden from those it was supposedly meant to help.
Harvard's 2020 report buried the truth, the report notes. When the university released its official investigation into Epstein's donations, the women's rugby gift was folded into a generic tally without addressing the core deception: Harvard's internal records had always identified Epstein as the donor, while the "cash-strapped athletes" were left believing Summers had answered their financial pleas.
Documents released by the House Oversight Committee and Department of Justice since November reveal that Summers maintained a longstanding relationship with Epstein, exchanging emails from the 1990s until the day before Epstein's 2019 arrest.
"I'm glad that it is coming out now, and I'm glad that there is finally some reckoning," Riehl said. "Maybe not to the degree that is warranted, given everything that he did — but it's better to talk about it late than never at all."

- YouTube youtu.be

House Republicans are so disgusted with their leadership that some of them are now privately wishing they would lose the majority.

According to NOTUS, "The majority of the House Republican Conference, GOP senators, the White House and even members of his own leadership team are fighting with the embattled House speaker and believe Johnson has lost control of his members. They are also confused by his strategy, as he has repeatedly fumbled attempts to get must-pass legislation through the chamber."

Johnson finally managed to get an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on a bipartisan basis, following days of wrangling and negotiations, noted the report. "But his conference walked away from the process scarred. Some Republicans told NOTUS it was unwise for Johnson to have clumped multiple controversial bills into one rule — including one for Republicans’ budget blueprint for reconciliation. That decision deterred Democrats, who went out of their way to support the failed rule on FISA earlier this month."

One higher-ranking Republican member of Congress told NOTUS, “This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade.”

Another said there's essentially no point to having a House majority, and they almost wish the rush of Republicans resigning from Congress would give Democrats the reins: “If we were to lose the majority now, it’d be a blessing in disguise. Because maybe then Democrats would go off the rails and do something stupid, and maybe voters would actually give us another chance in November.”

Wednesday saw yet another round of drama, with the farm bill repeatedly being delayed, undelayed, and delayed again as various members raised objections.