Stephen K. Bannon welcomed The Tennessee Star’s Aaron Gulbransen on Tuesday’s War Room: Battleground to discuss the aggressive map drawing and lawfare by Democrats and the Republican loss of seats in districts because of incumbent focus and lack of strategy.
Bannon: Aaron, you’ve written a detailed memo and it is about the redistricting. It’s something that Boris and I have been maniacally focused on. But you’ve kind of set this up of where we actually stand today. Can you walk the audience through this redistricting, which we thought at the beginning of this process, we were going to be R plus-12.
Walk us through where we stand today. The Supreme Court just ruled the other day on a couple of states. Boris is going to get into that in a minute. But walk us through where we stand, and how did we get here, sir?
Gulbransen: Yes. Good to be with you. Of course, everybody was assuming that this is going to be a Republican slam-dunk, but the field is actually tilted in the Democrats’ favor, no doubt in part to the Democrats Sue to Blue.
But the new maps thus far, which, of course, you have four states that have not completed their process, which includes 44 districts that have not been redistricting. But as we stand right now, you have a net Democratic gain of 11 Democrat-leaning seats. Republicans have lost six Republican-leaning seats.
And then there was a subtraction of six competitive seats. So we’re looking at it. And of course, right now, if the election were to happen today, you’d need to pick up seven.
So the Republicans are kind of getting their butts kicked a bit in the redistricting process. In Texas, they went on an incumbent protection spree rather than trying to make some more districts competitive.
In Tennessee, they showed them the, kind of the right way on the Republican side, where they changed the formerly 5th Democrat stronghold into a Republican seat. So right now, Republicans are not creating the chessboard that they want. And of course, you have the litigation. But that’s what’s going on.
Bannon: Okay. I want to go back through this slowly so the audience understands this. To start the process off, given the 2020 Census, if this was done fair and smartly, we would have had a pickup of R plus-12.
We picked up 12, of which just performing like you’d normally perform, we would take over the House. And I remember having meetings on Capitol Hill with all these people saying, hey, it’s a lock. We’re going to do this because they’re going to pick up these seats. Right?
Gulbransen: Right.
Bannon: And now you’re telling me that didn’t happen? I want to be very specific about that. And Boris and I have talked about so much. The Democrats, not just do they weaponize; Mark Elias, the legal guys, weaponize things. They play total smash-mouth.
In New York state, I think we’re at 23 and three. I think they’ve taken five seats away. So just walk through slowly: How did we go from a Republican pickup of 12 to, now I think you’re saying we’re negative? And I know what the establishment did.
It was ‘protect the incumbents’ and their excuses. Oh, we’re going to save $50 million we don’t have to raise or spend on these because we’re making them a set of R plus-two, we’ve made them R plus-10. So it’s a safe seat, but we gave Democrats, maybe a district got mixed up. So walk us through how we went from a pickup of 12 seats to not a pickup of 12 seats, sir.
Gulbransen: So you said a very major thing, which is they did the incumbent protection thing. And then you also have the essentially the Sue to Blue thing. So we don’t know what’s going on in North Carolina and Georgia. They’re in litigation.
The Ohio Supreme Court is on their second or third bite of the apple on the districts there. And New York is the kicker because it eliminated at least four congressional seats. So, what we’re seeing is, number one, in the redistricting process for states that Republicans control, they’ve either played it safe by enhancing their incumbents, not necessarily looking for fairer elections in other districts, not necessarily even going after the Democrats.
Then in other states, they’ve been sued and some of the maps have been tossed out. And this is part of their Eric Holder strategy on this, which is Sue to Blue. And then the Democrats, who would they always do this when they have power, is they’re very hyper-aggressive.
And in a state like New York, they went completely to the wall and tossed out at least four or five Republican seats. And so we’re sitting here with 11 more Democrat-leaning seats nationally than we had the last cycle.
There are six fewer Republican-leaning seats than there were, and there are six fewer seats that are competitive. And again, this is the aggressive map drawing in New York, as well as court decisions overturning maps in states like Ohio and North Carolina. Now, Florida has yet to finish the redistricting process, too.
Bannon: I would say Florida and Missouri are still out. And Missouri is still out because of the heroes in the legislature of the state of Tennessee. The Tennessee Volunteers put their shoulder to the wheel and really, I think, it braced up Missouri.
Boris, will give me details in a second. And also Governor Ron DeSantis ought to get an attaboy and everybody ought to have his back on this. They gave him I think it started with a 14 to 14. That corrupt crowd up in Tallahassee started at 14 to 14.
He’s at 28, but they have not been approved. Aaron, besides Missouri and Florida, because we want this – our posse will work like crazy in this thing and they’re enraged by this – where else is there still work to do besides Missouri and Florida right now? You said there were 44 districts total. Missouri and Florida, I think would add up to 36 districts. Where else is there work to do?
Gulbransen: Louisiana and New Hampshire.
Bannon: One last thing before I let you go, I want you to just go back and talk about the aggressive nature – and I want every Republican out there to understand this, and we just launched a new station outside of Philadelphia – and how aggressively the Democrats are legally using lawfare. And this is what the Republicans have to get. We got to build something like a Mark Elias right now. We’ve got a lot of wins over Mark Elias. But my point is the way they come at things, they’re in full attack mode all the time. Is that correct, Aaron?
Gulbransen: Yes. If they don’t like the result, they sue. If they have control of the entire process, they don’t care who they throw against the wall. And they’re suing in North Carolina, in Georgia, Ohio, and several other states. And in New York where they had total control redistricting, they threw Republicans out of the House, essentially.
Bannon: I just want to better understand. In New York state with 26 congressional seats, you’re going to have three Republicans in the entire state. Used to be eight. I mean, it’s been demographic implosion there.
That’s why they keep losing seats overall. But still with the 26 adds can be 23 to three. It’s mind-blowing. Only three Republican House members in the entire Empire State and they basically just took five. This is the way they play smash-mouth. Aaron Gulbransen, you’re ahead of the congressional.
We’re going to have you all the time to go through this year at the House level. How do people get to you? How do they get to The Star News? How do you follow your reporting and what’s your social media?
Gulbransen: The main flagship is, of course, The Tennessee Star. Tennesseestar.com. And I’m on GETTR under the user name Aaron Gulbransen. I know it’s a mouthful, but it’s Aaron Gulbransen on GETTR.
Bannon: It’s a great name, sir. I love that name. I appreciate it, Aaron. Thank you very much for joining us. Great work. Great memo.
Gulbransen: Thank you.
Listen to the full episode here:
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Photo “Missouri Capitol” by RebelAt. CC BY-SA 3.0.
