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Midterm Game Changer? Supreme Court Limits Voting Rights Act; CNN Analysis: Well-Timed Bets Make Millions On Iran War. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired April 30, 2026 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.
It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.
The man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner -- well, he's going to be in federal court today for a detention hearing. Prosecutors are pushing to keep the 31-year-old behind bars as he faces multiple felony firearm charges.
And a royal snub. King Charles and Queen Camilla are wrapping up their visit to the U.S., but it wasn't all smooth sailing. New York's mayor did not meet with the king privately while he was visiting the city, but he did have some advice for his majesty..
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MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: If I was to speak to the king separately from that, I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
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CORNISH: He's talking about this 105-carat diamond that is the crown jewels. India claims that the British took it unfairly during British rule.
And a severe weather outbreak is bringing serious damage across the South and Midwest. In Texas, a tornado flattened homes in a town just west of Dallas, sending at least five people to the hospital, and the storm marked the sixth straight day of severe storms, which have hit from Texas to Wisconsin.
And the Supreme Court has issued a major voting rights ruling that could reshape how election maps are challenged in court. In a 6-3 decision, the justices changed the rules for how minority voters can challenge voting maps. First, it's no longer enough for challengers to point to a map and say minority voters end up with less political power. Now they actually have to prove that the map draws were targeting Black voters on purpose because of their race.
[06:35:00]
Second, the court says partisan goals protecting your party and your incumbents, it's fine. And supporters of the ruling are saying this is going to keep courts out of policing ordinary partisan politics. Now at the heart of Wednesday's ruling was Section Two of the Civil Rights Act, which Lyndon B. Johnson signed.
I want you to listen to what he had to say when he signed it in 1965.
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LYNDON B. JOHNSON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American in his heart can justify.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So joining me now is Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. He's also the former mayor of New Orleans.
Good morning.
So first, I just wanted --
MARC MORIAL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE: Good morning.
CORNISH: Thank you so much.
You know, as I read in the introduction, this ruling is going to shift the burden. Now, when groups like the Urban League or the NAACP or whoever go to court and challenge a district, they're going to have to prove that the people who made that district were doing it for racist reasons.
How does that affect the playbook here, right, of protecting those districts?
MORIAL: It's an absurd standard. Those that plan to use race to diminish political power don't advertise it. They don't put it on the record.
They do it in private rooms, in secret meetings. I served in the Louisiana legislature through a reapportionment session and, you know, the secrecy around people's intent.
The Supreme Court's thinking is naive. It's a bad decision where the Supreme Court has substituted its judgment for the judgment of Congress, which passed the Voting Rights Act numerous times since 1965.
It's tantamount to a judicial coup or a judicial bailout of a failing conservative movement in the nation. So make no mistake about it, that all of the sort of illogical linguistic gymnastics that the Supreme Court is using, the intent here is to dilute African American and Latino voting power, to try to erase hard fought gains.
CORNISH: Yeah.
MORIAL: And the long term impact is to diminish the number of African Americans and Latinos who serve in public office --
CORNISH: Now --
MORIAL: -- around the nation. So --
CORNISH: Let me jump in here, because when people look at that map and they see that Louisiana district literally snaking across the map to capture all of those voters, and they have questions, we had one of our panelists who said, look, this is assuming that all Black voters vote a certain way, or all voters of any race vote a certain way.
Can you talk about that in this day and age?
MORIAL: In reapportionment, communities don't look like a nice, neat box. That district embraces African American communities up and down the Red River region from the Baton Rouge area up to northern Louisiana.
So the compactness, the contiguity of a community doesn't look neat on a map. If you looked at districts all across the country, you're going to see many oddly shaped districts. That's not the standard by which reapportionment should be undertaken. And I think what the Supreme Court is doing is washing its hands to allow partisan racial gerrymandering to flourish again.
That's what we had in the 1950s. And previous to that, and the representation we had in those days did not many people a fair seat at the table.
So this is a backward step, and it's a judicial coup, because what the Supreme Court is doing is, in effect, legislating. Theyre legislating by overturning decades of precedent and by substituting their judgment --
CORNISH: Yeah.
MORIAL: -- around conditions in this country that Congress documented through hearings when the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized about 20 years ago.
CORNISH: It feels like this is end of an era when I think about the Black political power that arose in the '70s and '80s, especially in urban districts. And frankly, there are some lawmakers who are still around from that period.
But if a new one is starting, what is it? What would -- what would it look like to you to see, quote/unquote, "fair districts"?
MORIAL: The reason why, particularly in the South, the Voting Rights Act was needed when it came to reapportionment was because historically white voters in the South did not, in any large measure, vote for African American candidates.
My own state, Louisiana, has not elected a Black person statewide since the 1880s, and it's because with a third of the vote being Black, no Black candidate can capture a significant enough of a white vote to be able to be elected because the voting patterns are racially polarized.
[06:40:08]
That's the reality. We can't imagine it out of existence. And this is why I think it remains to be seen what this is going -- what's going to evolve. But --
CORNISH: Yeah.
MORIAL: -- you have to -- prospect that many Black and Latino elected officials may lose their seats in state legislatures, or even in the Congress. And so, it's going to be another, if you will, challenge for this nation to make sure that -- that all people are represented in the political process. That's what this is about.
Democracy works best when everyone has a fair seat, a fair chance to elect the candidates of their choice. And everyone is sitting at the table.
I fear, Audie, that this is just going to turn into raw, naked political warfare at state legislative levels, around partisanship, around race, around all sorts of issues. The last 60 to 70 years in this country, the Supreme Court, through one person, one vote through the Voting Rights Act, put a set of very effective guardrails on the power of the states to reapportion.
They're withdrawing that, washing their hands of it, saying the Constitution has no say around this. And that's not good for American democracy. It's not good for the American people.
CORNISH: Okay. That's Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans of the National Urban League now. Thank you so much for talking with us.
MORIAL: Thanks, Audie.
CORNISH: I want to turn to you, Mike, because I put your question to him. You know, like assuming that voters are going to vote a certain way. And he reminded us of some interesting history that it wasn't just about Black voters voting for Black. It was like white voters wouldn't vote for nonwhite candidates.
And I'm thinking about in the context of the thing you and I were talking about, which is the massive amount of Black Republicans exiting Congress this year.
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, I think if you take the mayors logic to the next step, he's almost arguing if a if a Black candidate can't be elected statewide in Louisiana, we need to dissolve state borders.
CORNISH: Not just saying statewide. He's saying even in a district. I mean --
DUBKE: Well, he was saying statewide. He said in statewide.
Look, the bottom line for democracy, in my view, is that we should have more competitive districts. We should stop trying on either a racial basis or a partisan basis constructing these districts that the only competition is in the primaries.
CORNISH: Yeah, and here's why, because incumbents, you're not exactly nailing it. Okay? So I want to talk about this next.
DUBKE: Yes, yes.
CORNISH: There was a ton of back and forth in the House. They basically cleared this procedural hurdle to unlock special Senate powers late last night. Here's why it's important. It allows them to bypass a filibuster and greenlight billions of dollars for ICE and Border Patrol without a single, I repeat, a single Democratic vote.
So this is another marathon voting session, both conservative and moderate lawmakers basically turning on each other, critical of the leaderships ability to govern
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REP. TROY NEHLS (R-TX): The American people gave us the gavel. They gave us the White House. They kept, kept -- they gave us the Senate. And we have squandered an enormous amount of time away. We've squandered these opportunities.
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CORNISH: Okay. So I wanted to talk about this because this whole ruling is about who we elect, right? And the guys who want to stay in power, who aren't killing it, are the ones who its in their hands.
DUBKE: They write the rules.
CORNISH: So can I turn to you? Because for the public, I feel like you're -- it's an anti-incumbent vibe the last couple of elections.
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah, 100 percent. And by the way, there's -- we've seen a huge rise of Republicans leaving Congress. They don't want to leave politics, Audie. They're going and running for governor.
CORNISH: Right. So we should say there's something like 61 lawmakers. If I'm getting my numbers right, who are exiting, 38 of them are Republicans, which surprised me. And all of the Black Republicans are leaving because like, are you tired of winning? Or why are you leaving? Is it because congress is useless?
FISCHER: Well, it's -- Congress is not a place where you can get things done. That's the number one thing that we hear, even from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's what she cited when she said that she was going to move out. But reputationally, it's hard to carve out a niche. It's hard to carve
out a national brand. And if you're somebody who aspires to national politics, I think what were seeing is that you actually have a better shot of leaving Congress, which is so toxic, which isn't being well received by people going and running for governor, running for something on a more national scale, maybe trying to buddy up with people in your party to get appointed something in the future in a cabinet that seems to be the political route these days.
CORNISH: Is that a good thing? Because basically, obviously governors have an easier path. You get more sort of experience in the executive. Like, does it feel like, well, then good. Maybe the talent needs to go elsewhere.
MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I mean, I think in Congress, you have to take votes that you don't necessarily want to take. If you want to aspire to higher office, you saw that with the Iraq war vote for Democrats.
[06:45:00]
That was a huge problem for folks running.
But I just think that nobody wants to be in this position. They don't want Donald Trump dictating to them what they have to do and threatening them with a primary challenger. But what I do fear is sort of I think what's similar to what you think with redistricting, we are now just going to have extremely partisan people in Congress. It's going to be so extreme on both sides because the people who can win and who are running now are going to be the extremes. And that is not good for our democracy because most of the electorate is in the middle.
DUBKE: The incentives are all off.
HAYS: That's right.
DUBKE: The incentives for running for congress are all off. You have now with the ability to raise money online. There's no party. I mean, if the parties ever functioned well is when they had some control over their members to push legislation forward.
CORNISH: Right.
DUBKE: The parties don't operate well, but we still live in a duopoly in the United States, in which you have to go through a party in order to be elected.
CORNISH: And the more you tell people, we're going to redistrict this map, were going to change this, we're going to change that. You're basically telling the voter over and over again, you're helpless. We're in charge of this. And what does that voter do? Do they feel like they have power in this system? Like, what do powerless people do?
FISCHER: They pull out of the system. And we've seen so many surveys. The University of Pennsylvania does incredible work around this. That shows that people are just less severely involved. They know less about civics. They know less about the three branches of government. They can't even name them.
And they're leaning out because they feel that there's nothing that they can do to change the system. So why even get to be a part of it?
CORNISH: Well, one way you can is to bet on it, Sara.
And we're talking about that next.
DUBKE: That transition.
CORNISH: Okay. You like that?
DUBKE: I did.
CORNISH: Okay, people -- people are now and I wish I wasn't saying this betting on war. And some of them are winning big. So who's going to police that? We're going to have Democratic Congressman Sam Liccardo, who is here trying to do just that. He's going to join the group chat next.
And then later on CNN, former Attorney General Pam Bondi will answer questions about the Epstein files. After all, it will not be under oath.
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CORNISH: All right, I want to tell you this story. There is a U.S. Special Forces soldier who is free on bail this morning because he was charged after he won $400,000 betting on the January raid to capture Nicolas Maduro.
Now, Gannon Ken Van Dyke pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say he didn't break any laws.
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MARK GERAGOS, ATTORNEY FOR GANNON KEN VAN DYKE: Mr. Van Dyke is an American hero, is somebody who is charged, unfortunately, with something that is not a crime. We look forward to vindicating his rights.
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CORNISH: So the concerns go beyond this case. People are betting on the war with Iran, and a CNN analysis shows several traders have made millions on trades made before key announcements in the war.
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KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Earlier this month, less than three hours before President Trump announced on truth a U.S. ceasefire with Iran, traders had bet $950 million that oil prices would fall. That bet paid off as well. Oil futures fell 15 percent after the post.
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CORNISH: Okay. And that's our reporter Kara Scannell, who has been who has been reporting on this. And now we have Congressman Liccardo here to talk about it.
You're not just any Democrat from California. You are actually trying to push legislation on this. At first, let's understand why the soldiers lawyer is saying, look, what is he being charged with? This isn't a crime, specifically, betting on a military operation is only illegal if you use nonpublic government information.
Like help me understand, is there a piece of evidence here that would kind of be the answer?
REP. SAM LICCARDO (D-CA): Well, he did commit a crime, but he committed a crime by betting $33,000 on a prediction market. We have, in one case, $1.5 billion that was bet on S&P 500 futures in anticipation of a of a Trump tweet, I think about 14 minutes beforehand.
There's a lot more money being made by people who are much higher up in this administration.
CORNISH: I found it interesting that "The Wall Street Journal" reported that the White House had actually warned its staff not to bet. Okay? So here's the headline. Like, hey, guys, don't.
LICCARDO: Yeah.
CORNISH: Is that enough? Or is that to you an acknowledgment that there's a problem?
LICCARDO: Well, it's an acknowledgment that they've been caught. I'm not sure they recognize it's a problem.
CORNISH: Well, why are you saying that? I mean, here at CNN, we get information from Kalshi. We're not allowed to make bets. There's a memo that tells us that that doesn't mean we have a problem.
LICCARDO: Well, the extraordinary coincidence. Look, if someone made some money by betting a few minutes before a tweet once or twice, that would be a great coincidence. When it happens five times with more than $2 billion in bets, it's racketeering. We know that someone's making a lot of money on inside information, and theyre very high up.
CORNISH: Sara and I are always gossiping about this, so she's going to have a question. But I had one other thing, which is Kalshi actually suspended some candidates for betting on their own races, you know, and we as I mentioned, we have a partnership with Kalshi. But the reason why I'm pointing it out is because there are lots of people who say this with sports betting as well. Look, the system is working. The system is working when people are
policed. And the only reason we know about these candidates is because these markets are doing something that the old time bookies wouldn't have done. And so are we in a better position than we might have been?
LICCARDO: Well, the problem is we don't know who made money off the $2.1 billion that has been bet over the last five Trump tweets. So we have a lot more to learn. And unfortunately, were not learning it. FCC's (ph) chair indicated they might be looking into this. They have jurisdiction over a piece of this.
SEC, which has jurisdiction over the S&P 500 futures bets, has said nothing. We have no indication there's any investigation at all.
[06:55:02]
This is the dog that didn't bark. The fact that these agencies that are tasked with finding out what's going on and ensuring there's some accountability are saying nothing publicly.
CORNISH: Yeah.
FISCHER: Your recommendation to solve this problem would be to bring more transparency to the system so that we know who's placing some of these bets. Other members of congress have kind of gone a step further, saying, we need to put into law that members of congress cannot or government officials, if you will, cannot make these bets.
Why go your route as opposed to the other?
LICCARDO: Well, actually, it would be illegal if we knew who the members of Congress were that were making bets, if, in fact, there are members of Congress doing that. So, so, either way, it gets at the same problem. We know that folks with inside information inside Congress, inside the administration shouldn't be profiting privately from information that's garnered through their public service.
Obviously, whether we do it through the transparency route or whether it's through an explicit prohibition, frankly, I think it's a belt and suspenders.
CORNISH: What are you guys thinking about it? I mean, first, it's a soldier. Are we going to see somebody else higher up in the food chain or somewhere else in government charge that will surprise people or cause a backlash?
DUBKE: I'm sure at some point we will. I mean, the curiosity factor here of and the investigative initiative here is to find these individuals who it is and make the political points off of it, because, you know, while we've got the --
CORNISH: You're saying there's an incentive.
DUBKE: There's an absolute incentive. No offense to a Democratic congressman who's talking about a Republican White House. But yes, there is absolutely a partisan incentive here to out this. This is a, you know, this is a form of anxiety about being something getting out of hand, right? Something that all of a sudden, you've got to reckon with.
FISCHER: Yeah. I just think I'm glad you brought up the NBA situation, that was sort of more of a sports betting situation.
CORNISH: Yeah.
FISCHER: Broadly speaking, we are in an environment right now where we are gamifying the news, gamifying terror. It's not just betting on the Iran war, it's betting on injured athletes with sports betting. And I wonder what this just does broadly to our culture.
Do young people have an incentive to sort of bet on bad outcomes? It's culturally doesn't feel American, but its the reality of our country right now.
CORNISH: And we were saying before you came on that those voters who maybe feel a little disenfranchised or frustrated, this is what theyre doing with their time. Like that's your way of being part of the dialogue.
LICCARDO: And we need them to be engaging and voting. And clearly, particularly for young people, they're not. They're engaging in this way. And I agree, it's incredibly dangerous and too many people are making money off of what we all recognize is this severe cynicism.
CORNISH: Now, since I'm not a beat reporter anymore, I've concocted this segment to be nosy about what's happening in your phone. So can you tell me what is in your group chat?
LICCARDO: Well, you know, we just endured, I don't know, seven hours of waiting for 20 Republicans who are holding the speaker hostage on a vote on the Senate budget. And as we were waiting, of course, I was in a chat and one of my colleagues said that my two-year-old daughter could manage the house better than the speaker, and then showed a video of the two year old daughter brushing her teeth with peanut butter.
And I'm a big peanut butter fan, so I observed that I think at this point really, because she obviously knows what she's doing.
CORNISH: But here's the thing. Mike Johnson could have been canned months ago, right? For a while it was like he just couldn't hold on to it.
DUBKE: He just keeps winning.
CORNISH: I'm trying to help you, okay? I'm trying to help.
LICCARDO: You require one Republican to stand up and demonstrate some spine. But we have seen no profiles in courage from this caucus.
CORNISH: Okay, but there's no bipartisanship either. I'm surprised no ones crossed the aisle. You're not?
HAYS: No, not at all. But also, who wants the speaker job? That's like the worst job you just get.
CORNISH: That used to be a very good job. Yeah. Remember you guys used to spend all your time being like, Nancy Pelosi is the best. Like that was considered --
LICCARDO: A matter of fact.
HAYS: She could whip a caucus in no time. You wouldn't be waiting around seven hours if Nancy was in charge.
FISCHER: No chance.
CORNISH: Mike, no take off.
DUBKE: No, no, I think theyre absolutely right. She --
CORNISH: What's in your group chat? Nancy Pelosi memes?
DUBKE: No, my group chat is very parochial. It's very Buffalo. It's Tuesday night Sabers-Bruins playing. We have a long tradition in Buffalo of playing both national anthems, even when a Canadian team isn't playing hockey.
FISCHER: I saw this.
DUBKE: The mic goes out and the public. The American public stood up and sang the Canadian national anthem. My wife looked at me because I knew every word as we were watching it on TV as well growing up in Buffalo. And she goes, what is going on?
CORNISH: It's amazing.
DUBKE: We can see Canada from our house.
CORNISH: Okay.
DUBKE: This is -- this is good neighbors.
LICCARDO: Thank you for offering that fig leaf.
CORNISH: Thank you very much.
HAYS: You care about your neighbors than the president does.
DUBKE: I care about my neighbors.
CORNISH: Meghan, what is in your group chat?
HAYS: Oh, always Bravo. The leaks from the "Summer House".
CORNISH: It's "Summer House". You're the second person this week.
HAYS: That are coming out that are just incredible. I mean, it's not great that there are leaks. That's terrible for Bravo, great for the Internet and great for all of us.
CORNISH: Great for journalism. So that's a profile of courage.
FISCHER: M y group chat quickly as I'm heading to Miami for the F1 Grand Prix, and F1 is so hot in America right now. Thank you, Apple. Thank you, Netflix. Thank you, "Drive to Survive". We'll see how it goes.
CORNISH: "Drive to Survive". Good cut, I like that I like that.
Okay, you guys. Thank you so much. Congressman, thank you for being here. We can have you here for other legislation. Really appreciate it.
And the headlines are next.
