Morning Wire
Virginia Gerrymandering Blocked & Left-Wing Nonprofit Scandal Spreads | 4.23.26
23 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What legal challenges are facing the Democrats' redistricting map in Virginia?
The Democrats' radical redrawing of Virginia's congressional maps hits a legal roadblock.
There's a lot of questions about whether this vote is actually going to stick.
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, April 23rd, and this is Morning Wire.
The fallout spreads from the bombshell indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
— The SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.
— And more countries in the Middle East ratchet up pressure on Iran to come back to the table, while the Trump administration says the blockade is working.
We are completely strangling their economy through this blockade. They're losing $500 million a day. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know.
Today's show is brought to you by Quince. Quince is an online retailer that sells high quality classic clothing and home items made of real materials like cotton, cashmere, leather, silk, linen, et cetera, for extremely affordable prices. And surprisingly, I'm not wearing any Quince right now, but earlier today I was wearing the Bella jeans, which are a cult favorite for a reason.
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Chapter 2: How does the Southern Poverty Law Center's indictment impact public perception?
The fallout from the massive redistricting vote in Virginia this week has already begun, but pending lawsuits in front of the state's Supreme Court could offer hope to Republicans.
Joining us now to discuss the legal challenges to the Democrats' most recent move and the consequences from this vote is Daily Wire opinion editor Ben Dominich, host of The Big Ben Show. Ben, thanks for coming on.
Yeah, it's great to be with you. This is such a fascinating vote and there's so many different things that could come out of it. Of course, you know, we are looking at it from the national scale where Republicans already were kind of on their back heels when it came to trying to keep the House. But there's a lot of questions about whether this vote is actually going to stick.
Right. Well, there are some legal complaints already about what Democrats have done here with the map in Virginia. One district court already has issued an injunction blocking the certification of this referendum. What are the arguments in that case and what are the odds that the state Supreme Court will actually overturn this?
So first off, the arguments are actually pretty solid. The way that this decision came down, it came from a special session that wasn't even supposed to deal with a question of this nature. There are certain legal requirements when it comes to that in Virginia that were not met. Additional requirements included to have the language posted for this type of decision for more than 90 days.
They had not met that. They also didn't actually confine themselves within the Article 2 limits that happened within Virginia that would have had condensed districts that you have probably now seen quite embarrassing ones, including the one that's shaped like a lobster that have been going around.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the SPLC's funding practices?
We'll have more commentary on this, by the way, by the former attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, and by others as well. in the Daily Wire coming forward. But the thing that I think people need to understand is that the Supreme Court in Virginia is a political appointment. You do not get lifetime terms. You do not get to sort of spend your days on the bench forever.
And the idea that this Virginia Supreme Court would go out and reverse something that national Democrats spent so much money trying to achieve is It really stretches the imagination. So I think that there's no question. But when it comes to the actual politics of the way that this is going to play out, I really doubt the Virginia Supreme Court is going to bail out Republicans.
They really should have spent some more money and worked harder to try to win what looks like now a very winnable vote.
Now, Republicans are saying this is egregious, but Democrats are defending it. They're saying they're just doing what red states are doing. So what's the truth there?
Well, the truth is that Democrats are leaving a lot out of this. And let's not pretend for a moment that both parties don't try to split districts in ways that benefit them the most. But the truth is the whole kind of cascade that started this was actually the Biden DOJ suing Texas over a district in Galveston that ultimately led to blowback for them and giving Texas the opportunity
to draw new districts, which they did. And you've seen this play out in states like Indiana. There are still kind of a ticking clock for states like Florida if they're going to end up doing anything prior to these coming up midterms. But look, I think everybody's looking right now in a house that's so closely divided to get any advantage that they can.
And when it came to Virginia, I mean, even Abigail Spanberger didn't want to get a map this extreme. Her proposal was for nine to two in terms of majority Democrat districts. They ended up passing 10-1.
They did it by a lot less than I think they thought they were going to win by, and that's because of the backlash from rural Virginians who understand, essentially, you're taking away their voice in Washington.
What was the final split of the vote?
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Chapter 4: What are the arguments against the Democrats' redistricting efforts?
He was the ultimate decider in the Iranian regime. And not only is he gone, but everyone around him is gone except for his son, Mujtaba, who became the supreme leader. But we haven't seen him. I mean, he hasn't even done a proof of life video in the month that he's been supreme leader. So I think you do have disarray.
I think the president does want to give them a chance to accept the terms, but he wants to be confident that whoever is accepting them has the authority to do so.
Now, there's been some speculation about a coup or civil war going on behind the scenes. Is there a sense that the military leadership is taking control of the political leadership in Iran?
The short answer is we don't know. Bear in mind, Iran has been at 1% internet access now for almost two months. It's inconceivable what's going on inside that country. I certainly think it's fair to say there's a power struggle going on, and I think this will all hinge on that nuclear program. I think the IRGC officers believe that to be their only ticket to relevance and to power.
And so they're going to fiercely resist any attempt to relinquish that enriched geranium or give up their terrorist proxies or their missile programs.
The prospect of a second round of talks in Pakistan kicking off Tuesday went down in flames, obviously. The White House says they're giving Iran's leadership more time to get unified on a proposal. And you're saying here we're not seeing any outward sign of that. Are you seeing anything else? Is the Trump administration still feel confident that they're going to get some sort of proposal?
Well, I do believe they think that every day that passes makes their leverage greater because of the economic pressure that Iran is under because of that Internet outage. And then they stop paying salaries for the police and the soldiers as of this week. So those guys aren't getting paid. That bill is going up every day.
And the currency problems, the inflation problems, they're not getting better. And then you also have the region turning on them. So you have UAE opening investigations into their illicit terrorist financing networks through Dubai. You have the government of Syria cracking down on the drug running that's going on with Hezbollah and Captagon. which was another source of income for the regime.
All of those individually wouldn't bring down the government, but collectively they start to put more and more pressure on them to find some kind of economic lifeline.
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