The Brief | The South Just Started Redrawing the Map. Five Governors Already Moved
Plus: Pirro closes the friendly-fire question, the longest shutdown in history finally ends, mifepristone heads to SCOTUS, and Spirit Airlines goes belly-up at 2 a.m.
The breaking news over the weekend was that Sec. of State Marco Rubio has another job. When he isn’t dealing with U.S. foriegn interests he is apparently also DJ’ing weddings.
Over the weekend while attending a family wedding Rubio was behind the turntables, with headphones, dropping beats. What does this man not do?
On the other end of the social media viral spectrum was Tucker Carlson’s interview on The NYT podcast The Interiew. I highly recommend giving it a watch. If you already watched it I want to hear your thoughts in the comments. I watch the full episode. Here is my immediate summary.
Okay, let’s get into the news.
In today’s Brief:
Five Southern governors made moves on their maps in 72 hours. Florida already passed one.
Pirro has the gun, the bullet, and the vest fiber. The friendly-fire theory is dead.
76 days. Three million off SNAP. The longest shutdown in American history is over.
The Fifth Circuit yanked Mifepristone from the mailbox. Danco ran straight to Alito.
Spirit Airlines shut down at 2 a.m. Saturday. Bessent has names.
The Map War Just Crossed the Mason-Dixon
Last Wednesday, SCOTUS handed down Louisiana v. Callais, 6-3. Alito wrote that plaintiffs now have to prove intentional discrimination, not just “disparate impact.” In plain English: until last week, courts could throw out a congressional map if the result hurt minority representation, even by accident. Now, plaintiffs have to prove the mapmakers did it on purpose. That’s the standard the Constitution actually calls for. It’s also the one Republican governors have been waiting decades to see enforced.
Florida wasted no time. The state House passed a DeSantis-drafted map 83-28, the Senate followed 21-17, and the new lines pick up four GOP-leaning seats. DeSantis had the special session called before the ruling.
Alabama flipped position twice in 48 hours. Gov. Kay Ivey first told reporters the state was “not in position” for a special session because of a federal court order locking her current maps through 2030. Friday she reversed and called lawmakers in starting today. AG Steve Marshall filed an emergency SCOTUS motion arguing Callais overrides Allen v. Milligan.
Mississippi’s special session was already scheduled for May 20. State Sen. Kevin Blackwell wrote on X, “It’s time to erase Bennie Thompson’s District.” Gov. Tate Reeves on Truth Social: “First Dobbs. Now Callais. Just Mississippi and Louisiana down here saving our country!”
Tennessee's Bill Lee called a session starting Tuesday with Memphis Democrat Steve Cohen in the crosshairs. I want to bring your attention to this wound because it’s gold. The 9th District was drawn as a majority-black seat to elect a black representative. But, Cohen is white. He's the seat since 2007. His Republican challenger, Charlotte Bergmann, is a black woman. So the same party now warning Callais will hollow out black representation in Congress has, for almost two decades, run interference for a white Democrat against a black Republican in a Black-majority district. You can’t make this up.
South Carolina’s Henry McMaster is “looking into it.”
The math: CBS estimates one to nine GOP seats added in 2026 alone. NYT goes higher, up to 12 nationwide. Texas already shifted five right last summer. California countered five left. Virgnia also responded in favor of the Democrats but has been put on ice for now by the court. The battle over redistricting has hit full throttle.
The Democrats spent the last decade calling redistricting “racist gerrymandering” any time Republicans drew a line is now upset that racist gerrymandering is not longer allowed.
The Bullet, the Vest, and One Extra Arrest at Doral
Last week’s hovering question on the WHCD shooting was whether the Secret Service agent who took a hit was struck by friendly fire. Sunday, that question closed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told CNN’s Jake Tapper that prosecutors have video of suspect Cole Allen firing at the agent, the agent confirming he was hit, and a pellet from Allen’s pump-action shotgun “intertwined with the fiber” of the agent’s vest.
“It is definitely his bullet,” Pirro said. Secret Service Director Sean Curran told NewsNation last week the suspect shot the officer at “point-blank range” after charging the checkpoint.
Allen, the 31-year-old California teacher who called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” in his manifesto, was charged Monday with attempting to assassinate the president. Preliminary hearing’s set for May 11.
Saturday afternoon, exactly one week after the shooting, Secret Service grabbed an “unruly” man at Trump National Doral after he set off the magnetometers, defied orders, and got physical with an agent. Trump wasn’t on site. The man’s now in a Miami jail.
Two attempted breaches at presidential venues in seven days, and 1,006 days to go in Trump’s second term.
76 Days and a Pesticide Shield Stripped
The longest shutdown in U.S. history finally came to an end on Thursday. Trump signed the Senate-passed DHS funding bill after a House voice vote, restoring the Coast Guard, FEMA, TSA, and CISA. ICE and Border Patrol stay carved out, funded through reconciliation Trump wants on his desk by June 1.
Speaker Johnson held the line for 41 days after the Senate’s deal, arguing it caved on immigration. He folded once reconciliation was on the table.
The legislative window the shutdown forced open also handed MAHA its first real win. The House voted 280-142 to strip the pesticide-manufacturer liability shield from the farm bill. The language would have blocked failure-to-warn lawsuits against companies whose labels comply with EPA rules. Anna Paulina Luna threatened to “slaughter” the bill if her amendment didn’t get a vote. Chip Roy backed her. 73 Republicans crossed over with House Democrats. 142 Republicans voted to keep the shield.
The MAHA voters delivered the margin in 2024. They’ve been waiting for a tangible legislative win that wasn’t a press release. They got one.
Mifepristone Lands at Alito’s Desk
Friday, a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel temporarily blocked the Biden-era policy allowing mail-order distribution of Mifepristone. Two Trump appointees, one Bush appointee. Ruling reinstates the in-person dispensing requirement that stood from 2000 until the FDA loosened it during COVID and made the change permanent in 2023.
Saturday, Danco Laboratories, the New York manufacturer of Mifeprex, ran straight to the Supreme Court asking for an emergency stay. The application landed on Justice Alito’s desk; he handles Fifth Circuit emergencies and can act alone or refer it up. Danco’s lawyers called the panel ruling “unprecedented.”
The case originated with a Louisiana woman, Rosalie Markezitch, who said her boyfriend ordered the pill from California and coerced her to take it. Louisiana classified Mifepristone as a controlled and dangerous substance in 2024, the first state to do so. The Fifth Circuit found that the FDA’s mail-order rule allows out-of-state prescribers to run an end run around state law.
Mail-order chemical abortion was never the safety regime its defenders claim. The same outlets warning about “chaos” if the in-person rule returns are the ones who told you to ignore the study finding that one in ten women experienced a serious adverse event. Watch the line on Alito.
17,000 Jobs, 277 Canceled Flights, and Elizabeth Warren’s Greatest Hits
Spirit Airlines, the bright-yellow ultra-low-cost carrier that started life 34 years ago as a Michigan trucking company, posted a wind-down notice at 2 a.m. Saturday. All flights canceled. 17,000 jobs gone. Stranded passengers in front of empty ticket counters at LaGuardia and LAX.
Trump’s $500 million bailout proposal fell apart by Friday. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy went on ABC’s This Week and laid the blame at Pete Buttigieg’s feet: “Spirit tried to merge with JetBlue. The Joe Biden-Pete Buttigieg administration and the DOJ tanked that deal. Immediately after that, they filed for bankruptcy.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent named names on X.
Even Neera Tanden, a Biden senior adviser, wrote Saturday that the Garland DOJ’s decision to block the merger deserves “honest” reassessment given the families now jobless. The Buttigieg camp blamed Trump’s Iran war for fuel costs.
Trump’s relief plan: JetBlue, Southwest, Delta, United, and Frontier are running capped “rescue fares” for stranded customers, plus preferential interview slots for laid-off Spirit staff.
Elizabeth Warren and AOC sent a 2022 letter to Biden’s DOJ helping kill the JetBlue merger as “consolidation” that would hurt consumers. The “consumer-protective” version of this story ends with 17,000 employees clearing out their lockers and customers paying United’s rescue fare. Which is exactly the higher price the merger was supposed to avoid. At-aboy ladies!
Quick Rundown
Project Freedom in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump announced Sunday that the U.S. will start escorting stranded ships out of the Strait this morning, after Iran’s blockade trapped roughly 20,000 seafarers and a cargo ship took fire near Sirik Saturday. Take it as goodwill, or interference gets “dealt with forcefully.”
Giuliani hospitalized again. America’s Mayor is in critical-but-stable condition, per spokesman Ted Goodman. This comes about eight months after Giuliani was rear-ended on I-93 in New Hampshire after stopping to help a woman flee a domestic violence incident. Trump on Truth Social: “What a tragedy that he was treated so badly... he was right about everything.”
May Day did its thing. Friday’s “Workers Over Billionaires” mobilization hit roughly 750 events backed by close to 500 organizations: boycotts of work, school, and shopping in New York, Chicago, LA. University of Maryland economist Peter Morici on whether it’d dent any actual billionaire: “Somebody will go to store B instead of store A.” The local mom-and-pop shops, on the other hand, ate it.
Let’s Talk About It
Five Southern states are redrawing their maps in 72 hours after Callais. How are we feeling about this? Do you worry about escallation or are you full speed ahead?
Warren torched 17,000 Spirit jobs this week. AOC torched 25,000 Amazon HQ2 jobs in Queens back in 2019. If "Democrats for the working class" were a band what’s the band name? Be creative.
Drop your takes in the comments. See you Wednesday. Stay nosy.
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