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Obama ripped for SCOTUS hot take after support for Virginia ‘gerrymander’
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Former President Barack Obama was lambasted for rebuking a new Supreme Court ruling against race-based redistricting in Louisiana, just days after cutting ads for a Virginia effort to transform that state’s map into a 10-1 Democratic advantage.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Louisiana’s 2024 mid-decade redistricting that produced a serpentine district represented by Rep. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, calling it an «illegal» racial gerrymander, while Obama argued the decision weakened a Voting Rights Act provision prohibiting race-based discrimination.
«Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias’,» Obama said.
«Unless it’s Virginia. In that case, it’s great to have a 10-1 gerrymander,» Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer replied in a post on X.
SPANBERGER FACES ‘BAIT-AND-SWITCH’ BACKLASH IN FINAL HOURS BEFORE REDISTRICTING REFERENDUM
Former President Barack Obama campaigns for Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor, in Newark Nov. 1, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg)
Fleischer was joined by former North Carolina Congressman and ex-Trump aide Mark Meadows, who addressed Obama to say his rebuke was «beneath you.»
Former DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also weighed in, remarking that, to the former president, «disenfranchising millions of voters and forcing 45% of Virginians to be represented by one congressional district and 55% represented by 10 is now ‘standing up for Democracy.’
«Is that ‘equity’? What a farce.»
Obama went on to slam the current makeup of the Supreme Court and its conservative majority, saying its decision in the case is another example of «abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.»
Other critics noted Obama has been mum on his own home state’s gerrymandered map, which features several zigzagging districts connecting disparate neighborhoods and suburbs of Chicago, while other Democratic strongholds form serpentine districts around the interior of the state to connect cities like Champaign, Springfield and Moline with other Democratic areas.
The Virginia redistricting map was approved narrowly by voters late last week in a special election that the Virginia Supreme Court upheld amid a legal fight over the «ramming» through of mid-decade redistricting. (Virginia Legislative Information System)
Other critics noted how Democrats control every congressional district in New England, plus Hawaii, citing reported figures that all of those states have Republican populations between 32% and 48%, but none of those voters have like-minded representation in Washington.
The 44th president added that setbacks like that can be overcome, calling on Americans who respect «democratic ideals» to vote in record numbers to outweigh any electoral changes brought on by the court’s decision.
In his own reading of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito said that when «correctly understood, [it] does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map.»
Just days earlier, Obama was front and center in the largely Democratic-led «Vote Yes» campaign in Virginia, where the commonwealth’s Democratic legislative majority and Gov. Abigail Spanberger backed a voter referendum to implement their own mid-decade redistricting that would favor their party for at least the next four years.
DEMOCRATS WIN VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING FIGHT, THREATENING REPUBLICAN HOUSE MAJORITY
The approved map would transform Virginia’s 6-5 Democratic congressional majority into a likely 10-1 split by redrawing rural districts to include Washington, D.C., suburbs or the Richmond-Petersburg metro area, which proponents like Obama said is needed to restore fairness on a national level.
«By voting yes, you have a chance to do something important, not just for the commonwealth but for our entire country. By voting yes, you can push back on the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms,» Obama said.
Obama claimed in a pro-Yes ad that supporters could «level the playing field.»
CARVILLE AND CO-HOST LAMENT THAT TRUMP SPARKED A REDISTRICTING WAR, MAKING BOTH PARTIES LOOK CYNICAL
Louisiana State Sen. Cleo Fields speaks during the swearing-in of the state Legislature in Baton Rouge, La., on Jan. 8, 2024. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)
While largely a Democratic concern, and as newly drawn districts in Louisiana and Alabama favored Democrats, Virginia’s «yes» campaign did have support from a handful of non-Democrats such as anti-Trump former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
Like Louisiana’s map, Virginia’s plan has been subject to dueling litigation, including a recent move by a circuit judge in Tazewell County in the western mountains to place a hold on certification of the «Yes» vote, while the state Supreme Court considers a case over the referendum’s legislative process and legitimacy.
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In a statement, Fields said Wednesday’s high court decision «dismantled» decades of settled law and was not a «neutral reading» of the Voting Rights Act.
«Today’s majority has resurrected exactly that standard — and the practical effect is to make it far harder for minority communities to challenge redistricting maps that dilute their political voice,» Fields said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Obama for comment on criticisms.
Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report.
barack obama, democrats elections, midterm elections, issues, law, state, politics
INTERNACIONAL
Exposed Fauci diary shows he estimated COVID-19 death rate to be much lower than what he told Congress
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Entries from early 2020 in a now-exposed personal diary kept by Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic show that he privately estimated the death rate from the illness was significantly lower than what he told Congress under oath only weeks later.
Fauci, 85, has come under intense scrutiny for years regarding his approach leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, and his alleged links to the Chinese lab where the virus originated. He will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to speak about his newly publicized personal records.
«The stated mortality over all of this when you look at all the data including China is about three percent. It first started off as two and three,» Fauci said in testimony before the House Oversight Committee on March 11, 2020, according to a transcript of the hearing.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci prepares to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee about the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on November 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Senators questioned Fauci and other witnesses about the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years old this week. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
LEGACY MEDIA IGNORES MASSIVE ANTHONY FAUCI DOCUMENT RELEASE ALLEGING HE MISLED CONGRESS ON COVID ORIGINS
During the hearing just weeks into the virus reaching the U.S., he was asked by Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, to compare the mortality from COVID-19 to the mortality of the seasonal flu.
«I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around one percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu,» Fauci continued. «I think that is something that people can get their arms around and understand.»
But on Feb. 8, 2020, about a month before that congressional testimony, Fauci expressed privately that he believed the virus’s mortality rate was much lower than what he later told lawmakers.
«[Former CDC Director] Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak,» Fauci wrote. «He and I are on the same page in thinking tht [sic] this is acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%.»
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2024. The hearing covers findings from a 15-month Republican-led probe into Fauci and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
FAUCI’S NEWLY RELEASED COVID DIARIES REVEAL BIZARRE FIXATION ON FAME AS PANDEMIC DEATHS MOUNTED
At that time, Fauci had counted 34,687 cases of the virus and 724 fatalities, according to his diary, which equals just over 0.2%.
Fauci was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) during the pandemic, and first became the face of combatting COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic during President Donald Trump’s first term, and remained in the role under President Joe Biden until retiring in 2022.
The very influential position wasn’t lost on Fauci. His diary entries tracked his rising influence and press appearances, and he meticulously kept track of how he was portrayed.
«Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable,» he wrote in a diary entry on May 21, 2020.
«It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world,» he continued.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on July 23, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)
INSIDE FAUCI’S PRIVATE DIARY: WHAT HE WROTE ABOUT TRUMP, TV PERSONALITIES AND CELEBRITIES
Fauci noted that he was developing a «very unique and interesting relationship» with Trump.
His diary is adorned with screenshots of headlines that mentioned him, including a New York Times story from March 2020 titled, «Not His First Pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci Sticks to the Facts.»
He referenced another Washington Post article in his diary on Aug. 8, 2020, titled, «As Fauci battles the pandemic and politics, his grateful neighbors celebrate him as a hero.»
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn-in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 3, 2024, in Washington, D.C. The Subcommittee is holding a hearing on the findings from a 15-month Republican-led probe of former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci and the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital reached out to Georgetown University and the Georgetown University Department of Public Health, where Fauci serves as a distinguished professor at the university’s school of medicine, seeking comment on the journal entries versus public statements.
Fox News Digital also reached out to Paul’s office but did not hear back by time of publication.
anthony fauci, health, politics, white house, fox news media, coronavirus
INTERNACIONAL
Uruguay puso en marcha los patrullajes con blindados militares en los barrios de mayor criminalidad de Uruguay
Vehículos militares comenzaron a patrullar los barrios con mayores niveles de criminalidad en Uruguay. El primer día de tarea el equipo tuvo un problema: quedó fuera de servicio por ajustes técnicos tras su primera recorrida. Este domingo, el vehículo Cóndor ya había vuelto a patrullar el barrio Marconi de Montevideo.
El viernes, el Ministerio del Interior había presentado uno de los vehículos blindados tipo Cóndor que serán incorporados a los operativos de seguridad pública y al patrullajes de zonas definidas como de “mayor complejidad” por las autoridades.
El ministro Carlos Negro explicó que viernes que la incorporación de estos blindados fortalece “la protección de la ciudadanía” y la “seguridad de los funcionarios policiales”, según la información divulgada por Presidencia de la República. “Lo que queremos es, por un lado, la protección de los vecinos con mayores recursos materiales y, por otro, la protección de los funcionarios policiales que llegan a las zonas más complejas”, expresó el jerarca.
Esta unidad fue decida por el Ministerio de Defensa Nacional y es parte de un total de cuatro vehículos que se desplegarán progresivamente en la capital uruguaya.
El peso del vehículo es de 9.000 kilos, según informó el director general de Operaciones Especiales, Jorge González. Está pensado para que sea utilizado en tareas de patrullaje preventivo, en el traslado seguro de efectivos y en la respuesta a situaciones de enfrentamientos armados
“La idea es proteger a los ciudadanos, concurrir a lugares de enfrentamientos armados y tener una protección adecuada para nuestros propios policías”, señaló González.
El Cóndor fue equipado con cámaras y una tecnología adicional que mejora la visibilidad en el entorno y facilita la conducción durante los operativos, según la comunicación oficial. Los choferes debieron completaron una capacitación específica de tres semanas en el Batallón de Florida, a unos 100 kilómetros de la capital uruguaya.
Los capacitados fueron un total de 19 efectivos.
El primer vehículo ya está operativo, pero hubo un problema en su primer día.
Según informó Montevideo Portal, el primer blindado sufrió varias fallas mecánicas y quedó fuera de servicio en menos de 24 horas de haber comenzado a utilizarse. Una de las fallas fue la rotura de una manguera. Esto motivó algunos cuestionamientos de parte de la oposición.
“Así gobiernan. Son un libreto de murga no divertido. Cantinflas no lo haría nunca mejor. País roto”, escribió el senador Sebastián Da Silva, integrante del opositor Partido Nacional. “Cerrá y vamos”, criticó el presidente de esa fuerza política, Álvaro Delgado.
Tras esta controversia política, el Ministerio del Interior informó que el vehículo Cóndor “se encuentra plenamente operativo y realizando tareas de patrullaje en la zona oeste de Montevideo”.
Está previsto que los otros tres blindados sean incorporados de forma paulatina, a medida que finalicen los trabajos de mantenimiento. “Esperamos que en el correr de agosto estén prontos los otros tres vehículos”, declaró el ministro.
El despliegue diario o para operativos específicos será definido por la Policía Nacional, según las necesidades que haya.
El presidente de la República, Yamandú Orsi, había anunciado el 22 de junio la nueva medida de seguridad. “A partir de un encuentro con los ministros de Defensa, Interior y Economía resolvimos redoblar el combate contra el crimen organizado. Para esto direccionamos la infraestructura de seguridad del país a este fin”, expresó.
Después, el ministro descartó que esta medida signifique una militarización de las calles de Montevideo y el área metropolitana. “Si hay algo que teníamos previsto era despejar cualquier duda que se pudiera generar con ese tipo de términos. Solamente se trata de contar con infraestructura que posibilite en una coyuntura específica y una circunstancia especial que el Ministerio del Interior tenga los vehículos apropiados para patrullar, con sus funcionarios”, dijo el secretario de Estado.
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