Supreme Court Weighs Handing GOP 19 House Seats
The Voting Rights Act is at risk. Plus: Trump targets San Francisco. DHS spent $51 million of your money on propaganda. Obama's Director of Homeland Security tells me ICE has crossed a line. And NTDS.
Watch my conversation on ICE with former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.
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This week, as ICE actions in Chicago and beyond grow more aggressive, I spoke with Jeh Johnson, former DHS Secretary in the Obama administration and former general counsel of the Pentagon. A career lawyer, he knows what ICE is and isn’t allowed to do.
On Speaker Mike Johnson’s claim that ICE hasn’t crossed the line, Johnson, who ran ICE, flatly disagrees. He describes warning then–ICE leadership, including Tom Homan (whom he called “one of my most dependable advisors on immigration enforcement policy”), against overreach and says we’re now seeing it “in spades”: masked agents, arrests outside churches and immigration courts. “I do not understand why ICE feels compelled to hide their identities,” he told me.
We also discuss reports of full-body WRAP restraints on already-handcuffed detainees; DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s propaganda-style videos; what it means when the executive branch shrugs off court orders; and what citizens can do now. I also asked about his former law firm Paul Weiss and their decision to cut a deal with the Trump administration.
Johnson recently co-authored this ABA report on the state of American democracy with conservative Judge Michael Luttig, and tells me: We are in a constitutional crisis.
Also in today’s newsletter: Where Trump wants to send troops next, the fate of the Voting Rights Act (and why the Supreme Court could effectively hand Republicans 19 House seats), a federal judge rules against Russ Vought’s plan to fire 10,000 federal workers, and Gen Z protesters topple another government. Plus News That Doesn’t Suck on the weird and wonderful winners of two wildlife photography competitions.
Here Are Your Headlines
Breaking: Trump, speaking today in the Oval Office with FBI Director Kash Patel, said the next city he wants to target with National Guard troops is San Francisco. He claimed the deployment comes “at the request of government officials.” (It’s not clear who that would be. Several city officials, including the mayor, today said they don’t need troops.) Trump also said he’s considering land assaults on Venezuela. Trump, who is 79 and fresh off a whirlwind trip to the Middle East, looked visibly exhausted.
SCOTUS to Weigh in on Redistricting: The Supreme Court’s conservative Justices today seemed sympathetic to arguments that would gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act. This could hand Republicans control of Congress for a generation. Millions of Black voters throughout the South could become effectively disenfranchised — and the GOP could gain an additional 19 seats in the House (potentially even more), effectively ensuring Republican control of the lower chamber. According to voting rights groups, as much as 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus could be eliminated. And the New York Times estimated that if the Court does gut the Voting Rights Act and states redistrict, Democrats could win the national popular vote by six points or more and still not control the House.
Nationwide Implications: If the Court strikes down or significantly weakens these remaining protections in the Voting Rights Act, Republican states including Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee could lose all of their Democratic representatives in Congress. This isn’t theoretical — the precedent set in this case will determine redistricting nationwide.
The Issue: The case is about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) which bans lawmakers from drawing gerrymandered maps that disenfranchise minority voters. In 2020, Louisiana Republicans adopted a new voting map that left Black voters with a majority in just one of six districts; this, despite the fact that Black Americans comprise roughly one-third of the state’s population. A lawsuit successfully argued the map violated the Voting Rights Act, and the state drew a new map; that new map was a gerrymander designed to ensure Black voters were majorities in just two districts while preserving the seats of powerful Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson. Then a group of “non-African-American” voters — including a member of the Trumpettes (a pro-Trump woman’s organization) and a man who said he forgot he’d signed up to the lawsuit — filed another suit, arguing that the new map actually discriminated against them.
The Arguments: The white plaintiffs argue that protecting minority voters is itself discriminatory. The Trump administration attorney argued that “current voting conditions cannot justify such excessive consideration of race.” This argument echoes President Andrew Johnson’s 1866 claim that post-slavery anti-discrimination efforts “operated in favor of the colored and against the white race.”
The (Potential) Outcome: The Supreme Court’s conservatives have already eviscerated the VRA; some of the Justices worked on prior cases challenging equitable representation. They effectively ended race-conscious university admissions in 2023 and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that “race-based remedial action must have a logical end point.” Have we really reached that end point? Last session, the Court made the rare decision to hold this case for reargument now rather than issuing a decision then, signaling the significance of what’s at stake.
The Hypocrisy: Remember, the Supreme Court recently ruled that it’s fine to factor race into decision making — specifically when law enforcement stops someone to question their immigration status, based on their race.
The Political Reality: An extreme ruling could backfire. Eliminating protections for minority voters would be a political bombshell — the kind that could energize voters who oppose such imbalance and drive higher turnout to protect Democratic seats. There’s always a chance that overreach awakens opposition.
Escalating Violence: I have been posting videos on social media showing federal immigration agents deploying tear gas yesterday without warning against Chicago residents (and over a dozen police officers!) despite a recent court order prohibiting exactly that. It’s just the latest incident in ICE’s increasingly aggressive tactics against civilians — immigrants and citizens alike. Agents were filmed violently tackling one 19-year-old Black American citizen, Warren King, while King’s relatives protested in the background. King was held in an agent’s vehicle for hours before being released. “They can come for literally anybody,” he told ABC7. “That’s not right.” In the chaos, some Chicago residents are fighting back: filming agents and honking car horns or blowing whistles to alert neighbors to ICE’s presence.
Inhumane: An investigation by AP found ICE is using terrifying full-body WRAP restraints on immigrants, despite internal concerns about safety. (See photos and videos of the devices here.) One Nigerian man who was put in the straightjacket-like device on a 16-hour flight to Ghana said “it was just like a kidnapping.” The AP identified twelve cases where law enforcement used WRAP on detainees who later died, with autopsies confirming “restraint” contributed to death. Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told me “I was the senior legal officer of the Department of Defense for four years, and I don’t believe I’ve seen such a thing occur in a battle space.” If we don’t need it in war, maybe we don’t need it at a detention center? See more in our interview at the top of this newsletter.
Where’s the Line? House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) yesterday said he has “not seen [ICE] cross the line yet,” dismissing video evidence of widespread violence and abuse. Former DHS Secretary Johnson disagreed, telling me, “Yes, I have” seen ICE cross the line. Johnson told me that as DHS secretary he constantly reminded ICE leadership that “one combustible incident in a community could undermine your ability to carry out your mission in that community.” ICE’s current aggressive tactics might please the base, but could they be contributing to the decline in the number of ICE arrests since the summer?
Bending the Knee: Meta yesterday confirmed it removed a Facebook page used to track ICE agents at the request of DOJ. The company claimed the page “was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm.” This follows Apple and Google removing multiple apps that aimed to help communities track ICE sightings. One developer warned that “we’re up against a regime … that’s going to operate any way it wants to and threatens whoever it wants in order to get its way.… We have to challenge this and fight this any way we can.”
Please Hold: A federal judge today extended her temporary ruling prohibiting the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Portland. This weekend, a crowd of naked cyclists pedalled through the city in what one participant called a “quintessentially Portland way to protest” against ICE and the prospect of troops in the city.
Power Struggle: Trump’s budget director Russel Vought today said the administration will aim to cut over 10,000 federal jobs while the government is shut down. Thousands have already lost their jobs. Vought said “we want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy.” Shortly after he made his comments, a judge temporarily blocked the purge, concluding that the administration has “taken advantage of the lapse in … government functioning to assume that all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore.… You can’t do this in a nation of laws.”
Just Say No: Dozens of Pentagon journalists handed in their access badges rather than accept new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The new agreement would expose reporters to penalties if they reported information that wasn’t approved for release. “It’s sad,” one reporter who’s had a desk at the Pentagon since 2007 said. “But I’m also really proud of the press corps that we stuck together.” Reminder, this almost certainly won’t stop leaks. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, journalists don’t need to physically enter the Pentagon to access sources anymore.
Warning Signs: The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas looks increasingly fragile, with both sides accusing the other of violating the terms.
Where Are the Bodies: Israel determined that one of the four bodies handed over by Hamas yesterday is not actually a hostage. Hamas has yet to return the majority of the 28 deceased hostages whose bodies it agreed to return as part of the ceasefire deal. In response to this delay, Israel today halved the amount of aid allowed into Gaza. Today Hamas returned two more bodies. It said it has returned all bodies “that it was able to reach” and is “making great efforts” to locate the remaining bodies.
Shots Fired: The Israeli military opened fire on Palestinians who it says moved toward its troops inside the boundary where Israeli forces had retreated under the terms of the agreement. A reminder that the threat of violent conflict remains.
No Propaganda, Please: Major airports across the country are refusing to display a partisan video message from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. In the video, Noem openly blames Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown, which is causing airport delays. Many experts (and airport officials) warn the video violates state and federal laws prohibiting federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity — and airport policies forbidding political content. This is just one of several videos featuring Kristi Noem, which together have reportedly cost US taxpayers at least $51 million. That makes DHS — or, really, the taxpayer — the spender behind the most expensive political ad campaign of 2025 so far.
Youth, Speak: Gen Z protests organized over the internet have toppled another government.
(The following content, which covers the ongoing Gen Z protests taking down governments around the world plus some News That Doesn’t Suck for photography lovers, is for paid subscribers. Thank you for your support. You make our work possible.)
