Trump's Beijing Trip, SCOTUS 6-3, SAVE America Act Shelved | Mitchell, Reynolds, Manning

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. The United States Senate is walking away from a bill, the components of which 83% of Americans support. And today we'll call the Senate out. Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. I'm Jenny Beth Martin. It's Monday, May 11th, and a lot is happening today. The Senate has shelved the Save America Act. An amendment to the budget resolution to add part of the Save America Act to that budget resolution failed.

[00:00:42] Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated the debate on the bill will be shelved for the time being. Let me be very clear about what the Save America Act actually does, because the media is not telling the whole story. This bill requires documentary proof of United States citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, a voter ID when casting a ballot, and works to clean up the voter rolls of non-citizens. That's it. That's all it does.

[00:01:10] And the legacy media will tell you that requiring proof of citizenship is redundant because non-citizen voting is already illegal. What they do not tell you is that there currently is no enforcement mechanism in place. None. The Save America Act fills the gap. It is common sense. It is constitutional. And 83% of Americans are with us on this, regardless of their political affiliation. The good news is the fight is not over.

[00:01:37] We're going to ask Cleta Mitchell from the Election Integrity Network exactly what this means and what we can do next to take action on it. Also on our radar today, Iran. In Iran. President Trump has called Iran's latest counteroffer and his words, totally unacceptable. The Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. We continue to watch the story closely. President Trump is correct to say Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

[00:02:04] In this Wednesday, President Trump heads to Beijing for a three-day state visit, the first American presidential visit to China in nearly nine years. Trade, Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, all of it is on the table. Jeff Reynolds from Restoration News is going to break it all down for us. Plus, the Supreme Court just delivered a landmark ruling on racial gerrymandering, Louisiana v. Calais 6-3.

[00:02:32] The Constitution does not permit race-based congressional districts. Vicki Manning from Restoration News has been going all through this story, and she's joining us today to explain what it means for the 2026 midterms. But first, Cleta Mitchell is standing by, and she's been fighting for the Save America Act since day one. Cleta, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, J. Beth. Appreciate your having me. Well, thank you for being on. And let me just remind everyone that you're the founder and the chairman of the Election Integrity Network.

[00:03:02] The founder of Fair Elections Fund. You're a senior fellow at, or I guess you're really a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute. And you're one of the most respected election law attorneys in the country. You've been fighting for the integrity of the ballot box for decades. You've helped Tea Party Patriots Action, Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund. And now you're doing it as an activist.

[00:03:24] And you've been with us since day one on that very first meeting that you and I had with Senator Mike Lee about the Save America Act. I know you are as frustrated as our viewers are and as I am right now with what's going on in the Senate. They've shelved the Save America Act. And you've been fighting for this since the very beginning. So walk us through what happened in the Senate and where we stand now. Well, you know, the truth of the matter is not much happens in the United States Senate.

[00:03:53] That's really a big problem. The Senate used to be known for decades, maybe over a century, two centuries. It was known as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But now the U.S. Senate has stopped deliberating about anything, frankly. And they only work two and a half days a week. And so they don't like anybody to interfere with their schedule of coming in, casting a few votes and leaving.

[00:04:17] And so really, you know, what we were asking the Senate to do is something that the Senate used to do regularly, which was to consider freestanding legislation. They don't do that anymore. They only consider legislation if it's virtually unanimous, which means no opposition, because they have decided to let their filibuster rule, which used to not preclude actual legislation. It used to be only vote very sparingly.

[00:04:45] But since the Republicans took the majority of the United States Senate back in 1994, and it's gone back and forth several times. But honestly, what's happened is that the Democrats will not allow any freestanding bill to pass unless it has 60 votes. And, well, we haven't had there haven't been 60 Republicans in the United States Senate for a century or more.

[00:05:12] And so what we have learned, what we were trying to get them to do, which Senator Thune agreed to do, which was to allow the Save America Act as a freestanding bill to come before the Senate and to be debated.

[00:05:28] And we asked them to conduct a talking filibuster, which meant make the Democrats come to the floor and make them have to explain to the American people why they oppose these important election integrity measures that the American people want. For citizenship to vote, requiring a photo ID to vote, whether you're voting in person or by mail,

[00:05:51] and making sure that your voter rolls are compared to the database at the Department of Homeland Security to make sure there are no non-citizens or dead people on the rolls. That's what the bill does. People support it. Senator Thune originally said he would allow debate, but they've never been willing to engage in a real filibuster where you have to set a time and say, we're down in filibuster, every senator can speak as long as he or she wants for two, I'd give two speeches.

[00:06:21] And at the end of that time, then we have a vote and it only has to pass by a majority. What's happened? What we've learned through this process, and Jenny Beth, you and I talked to some Senate rules experts, there is a ruling by the parliamentarian, which I want to say is like 40 years ago, 1986, 40 years ago that said every time an amendment is offered, that that restarts the clock,

[00:06:50] which the Senate could overturn that parliamentarian's decision and return to the real rules of the Senate, which it's the two speech rule, that you can actually see an end in sight and then ultimately pass a bill with a majority vote, which is what we believe should happen. That's what the rules say. But they're not willing, the Senate is, the Senate Republicans are not willing to overturn that parliamentary decision.

[00:07:18] There's not a single Democrat who has stepped forward to say that they will help every single Democrat, every one of them, opposes this bill, is on record opposing this bill and has not stepped, no one, not one of them has stepped forward. And so now Senator Thune says, well, we just can't do anything with a freestanding bill, which says to me, Jenny Beth, we need to go back to the House

[00:07:45] and we need to start putting pressure on the House to add the Save America Act or key provisions of it, pick one, maybe photo ID. I don't know. I mean, the whole thing makes me crazy to have to pick, it's like picking one of your kids as your favorite because all three of these things are so important. But unless the House attaches it, it has now become clear to me that unless the House attaches all or some parts of the Save America Act

[00:08:15] to a bill coming from the House that the Senate wants, that we have no chance of getting these reforms that we desperately need. We desperately need these changes in our law. So that's where we are. I think we're going to have to turn our attention to the House, quite frankly. Okay. I want to ask a few follow-up questions about that. But let me start with something pretty basic that you're going through.

[00:08:39] But let's remember that not everyone watching is familiar with the way everything works in Washington, D.C. So explain more clearly exactly what you mean when you say a freestanding bill. A bill that is introduced. You know, we learn in fifth grade how a bill gets through the Congress. If you're a legislative body, a bill is introduced in the House and it passes, goes to a committee, comes back, passes the House, and it goes to the Senate.

[00:09:08] And then it's considered by a committee and then comes to the Senate floor. And then the Senate considers that bill. We haven't been able to do any of that with the Save America Act. The House has twice passed the Save Act, which did not have the voter ID component. That was added in January of this year. And we repassed, the House repassed the Save Act plus voter ID, and that became the Save America Act.

[00:09:38] And they put it in a bill that had already passed the Senate. They took the version that had passed the Senate, the bill that took the content out, put the Save America content in it, sent it back to the Senate so it didn't have to go to committee. It could just come before the Senate floor on a simple majority, which the Republicans have.

[00:10:00] And so that has been the Save America Act has been on the floor for the Senate to consider for about a month now, five or six weeks. It was before the Easter recess in March, early March. And there has been debate, but it's not been a filibuster where they actually put the bill on the floor to be debated for purposes of moving into final passage.

[00:10:29] So it's just been sort of in la-la land in the Senate. Now what I'm saying is that is not, they're not going to move to the filibuster. They're not going to, Senator Thune is not going to bring it up again for just talking about it. And now the only way, in my opinion, and I don't know, nobody's been able to tell me otherwise, the only way we're going to get any of this and put it back on the agenda is to take,

[00:10:56] the House has a number of legislative vehicles that they're considering that they have to do action upon. And the only way we're going to get any part of the Save America Act is to put it, all a part of it into one of those bills that the House has yet to consider. So now we have to go back to the House. He's passed it three times. I had this conversation with the Speaker. He said, we've passed it three times. I said, yes, I know that. But we are going to have to do it again.

[00:11:25] And this time you're going to have to put it in something, in another bill, because the Senate is not capable of passing a bill that is just the Save America Act. It's got to be attached to something else coming from the House. And that's what we're going to have to pivot to work for. And that's the difference in a standalone bill versus what you're talking about. A standalone is a plain bill that is confined to one subject or the subject of the bill originally.

[00:11:54] This is, we're talking about taking that one bill and attaching it to something else. And when we say must pass legislation, we mean legislation that Congress feels they must pass, because if they don't pass it, well, basically they think the world will end. And the kind of legislation that we're talking about with this oftentimes is funding bills,

[00:12:19] the farm bill, transportation bills, the FISA bill. So I don't know which, if any, you're thinking about, Cleta, but I'm just kind of explaining those are the kind of bills that we're talking about. So we're saying this is one that they feel like they must pass, and they've got to get it through. And we're asking to attach onto that the Save America Act. That's right. And frankly, my recommendation to the House leadership would be,

[00:12:47] and will be if I ever got a chance to talk to them, put it on all of them. Just keep putting it on. Just put it on every one of them. Make the Senate know that you're not going to stop until they do something with this. But that's a heavy lift in Washington. We don't have, you know, look, we don't have boards of paid lobbyists that are just roaming the halls who've given to these campaigns and who these members of Congress will do whatever they want these lobbyists ask

[00:13:16] because they fund their campaigns. We don't have that. We're just citizens. We're giving, you know, we give them our votes, but we don't give them, most of our people don't give money. I would change that, frankly. I wish more of our people would give money so that they could be treated as donors and not just as, you know, just pesky constituents. But this is a real problem. And we need to get the attention of the members of the House leadership at this point

[00:13:46] because I think they're our only hope. They're our only hope. Well, and they're our only hope. And they have been fighting for the bill. Yes, they have. So we're not saying we're trying to get their attention because they aren't doing what we want. We're asking for their attention because they are paying attention to us and have been on this legislation. When you were just talking about the paid lobbyists, one thing that I have considered, if this bill,

[00:14:12] it has such a minor impact on the overall budget of the federal government, at least the way that it is right now. I suppose they could add incentives or fines that would change that. But it has such a low overall impact that there aren't lobbyists working on it. And usually what happens is government spends a massive amount of money,

[00:14:38] and the people who are receiving that money hire lobbyists to go advocate so they can get their hands into that money and hold on to that money and spend it however they want. So they pay for the lobbyists, but it's sort of like a cost of doing business so they can get the government funding. We don't, we're not, all we're trying to do is get you to do something that's constitutional and common sense. Make sure that only American citizens are voting in the elections in our country

[00:15:05] and make sure we show a photo ID to ensure that the people voting are who they say they are. It's pretty simple, but it doesn't require a lot of money. And because of that, I think that that's why we're seeing us a pesky constituents, as you just said, rather than somehow the power brokers. But the power brokers are only brokering, well, not just only, they are brokering power over our tax dollars.

[00:15:30] So it's kind of twisted the way things are right now in Washington, D.C., especially on the Senate side. Well, it's very twisted, and it's been twisted for a while. I'm not sure how we untwist it, but of course, that's why the Tea Party movement was founded in the first place. And you've been working on that. And it made big progress. I mean, it's not as though we're not making progress, but because we've been working on election integrity since the 2020 election,

[00:15:57] many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of volunteers all over the country, spending thousands, tens of thousands of volunteer hours working on understanding the problems in our elections. And as you pointed out, I'm an election lawyer, and I've been working on this for decades. But now that we have a huge army, a movement of people who understand that these are important changes that need to be made to our election system.

[00:16:23] And, you know, but so now we have all these people, and they're making their voices heard. It's just that trying to get Congress to listen to the constituents and listen to the people instead of just to their own, the lobbyists, as I say, who fund their campaigns. It's really very difficult. And so, you know, but we have to keep working. And yes, I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful to Speaker Johnson.

[00:16:48] I'm very grateful to House Majority Leader Scalise and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. They have listened to us. They've listened to us because Congressman Chip Roy from Texas made it impossible for them not to listen to us because he's the father of the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act. Chip is really the one that said, let's do the SAVE Act, but let's add voter ID. Great idea. But, you know, you don't stop.

[00:17:17] We still haven't completed the task. So I'm just, let's go back to our friends in the House leadership and say, okay, we got to do this one more time. We got to find another way. You guys have led the way, but now we got to find another way because this one isn't going to work. And we can be mad, and I am mad at the Senate, and I'm going to be mad at the Senate for not doing what they need to do. I'm not mad at Senator Mike Lee or Senator Ron Johnson or Senator Rick Scott or the others who pledged to support the bill.

[00:17:47] But I am mad at the Senate leadership. Senator Thang, and he has not proven himself to be a strong leader. But that's who the senators elected. They don't want a strong leader. No, they don't want a strong leader. They want a leader who's going to let them do what they want to do, which is— Two and a half days a week. Yeah, two and a half days a week. Bless their hearts. Don't interfere with my weekends, please. My Monday weekend. Yeah. Bless their little hearts.

[00:18:16] So, Cleta, let me—I want to go back to one more thing that you said and then ask, I guess, two things related to what you said. The first is this. Another possible vehicle would be reconciliation, right? I don't know that we could give voter ID on reconciliation, though. I don't know that we can really get anything on reconciliation. In reconciliation, again, because of these rules of the Senate, there's a different set of rules called the Byrd Rule.

[00:18:45] And Robert Byrd was the Senate majority leader for the Democrats for decades. And he wrote these rules about—that are very strict on being able to pass budget issues and money, financial issues, on a majority vote. It doesn't require that you have to go to cloture. You don't have to have a 60-vote majority. You can do it through a majority vote.

[00:19:12] And in order to accomplish that, you have these strict rules about what can and cannot be considered. Look, there are ways—the Senate could change that rule. They could say we can—they could change the rule or the Byrd Rule. I don't even know if it's a rule or it's just a practice. But they could change that, put this bill in reconciliation, and then for all I care, change it back. But they could do that if they wanted to. There are many things that they could do if they wanted to. Where there is a will, there is a way.

[00:19:41] What we're upset about is there doesn't seem to be a will on the part of the Senate leadership to get this done for the American people. That's what's distressing. Right now, no, we cannot put the Save America Act in reconciliation because the parliamentarian would rule it out of order, which they could overturn by a majority of the Senate membership, and then put it in. But they're not even willing to consider that. Right. Right. Okay.

[00:20:10] So we're watching how that works in the House. And perhaps one of the things that I've heard is maybe they would add block grants to the state or something so that money is changing hands. But we're for fiscal responsibility and a debt-free future, so I don't want to spend money just to get it passed because the Senate's leadership, leadership, in air quotes, can't get the job done.

[00:20:36] And, Cleta, you said something as you were talking in the answer to the first question, and you said this bill desperately needs to be passed. There are things in it that desperately need to be done. Explain why it's so important to get these things done. Oh, my goodness.

[00:20:52] Well, number one, we could really resolve a lot of the problems with voting by mail if people had to have a photocopy of their ID that was attached to their application for an absentee ballot, and then when they return an absentee ballot, if they had to have a photo. Because it's very difficult to manufacture.

[00:21:14] It's one thing when you can manufacture Friday lunch ballots if it's easier to do that if you don't have to attach a copy of your photo ID. So that's really important. It's really important that we address the issue of foreigners voting in our elections. And that's true whether the person's here legally or illegally. I've just been listening to Peter Schweitzer's book, which I highly recommend to everyone in Ginny Beth. If you haven't had him on as a guest, you should.

[00:21:41] It's quite frightening, actually, because he talks about in this book how our foreign adversaries, including countries like Mexico, have utilized and are utilizing mass migration into the United States as a means of undermining and destabilizing the United States, and how they've been working with Democratic consultants to pervert our elections, to manipulate our elections,

[00:22:06] and using with the help of the Mexican government to turn out voters for Democrats. I mean, it's pretty amazing what they've been doing right under our noses, as he calls it, the invisible coup. So we need to have a serious system, a rigorous system of excluding foreign citizens from voting in U.S. elections. And that's one of the things that this bill does.

[00:22:35] So I'm not going to quit working on this and kind of come up with ways. If plan A doesn't work, go to plan B. If plan B doesn't work, go to plan C. That's what we have to do. It's really important that we get the non-citizens, the foreign citizens off our voter rolls and make sure they're not allowed to vote, and that everybody who does vote has to show a photo ID. Okay, one more question.

[00:23:01] And it may be all that we have time for, but if we have time for more, I have another one for you. But this one is important. So we're working in Congress in D.C. trying to get this taken care of for the whole entire country. What else can people be doing in their states to make a difference within their states? Look, every state should pass a law. First of all, every state should pass a constitutional amendment.

[00:23:26] There are seven states now that have voted in the last several years and adopted constitutional amendments that say only citizens are eligible to vote in this state. And then state legislatures should follow up and they should say, I mean, I think there's something like maybe 14 that are going to be voting on that this year. But then state legislatures need to adopt procedures that nobody's allowed to be added to the voter rolls until they have been confirmed as a U.S. citizen.

[00:23:53] And while they're at it, they should confirm that these people are residents of the state and eligible to vote under the laws of the state. The state legislatures have a lot of authority. And I would direct people to our website at www.electionintegritynetwork.org. Look at our citizens, U.S. citizens election bill of rights. The very first principle is that only citizens should be participating in our elections.

[00:24:19] And we have the bill of rights, the citizens elections bill of rights listed. We have the different components, the checklist of everything necessary to implement that. And later this week, we're going to be publishing a handbook, the model election laws handbook that has legislation, model bills that can be introduced into every legislature and enacted into law that will protect against non-citizen voting.

[00:24:47] And we'll make sure that only citizens are allowed to register, only citizens are voting. But it covers a whole system of elections, everything from only citizens voting all the way through to oversight of technology, voter registration, cleaning voter rolls. It's all going to be there for citizens to take and use. It's free. Download it. Talk to your legislators. Let's get these elections cleaned up. Okay. And then I think we have time for one more. So I'm going to ask one more question.

[00:25:17] President Trump has issued a few executive orders related to election integrity. Even though he's issued these executive orders, why is it important that we continue working to get laws passed? And will the election, the executive orders be in effect for this election? Well, of course, every time he issues an executive order, these left wing nutcases file, they go judge shopping.

[00:25:42] They find the most far left trial court judges anywhere in the country and they file lawsuits. And then these judges think that they've been elected president and they block the enforcement of the executive order. I'm not sure how many of the president's executive orders are enjoined from being implemented, but it's certainly on the election front. They've filed suit to enjoin most of the executive orders the president has issued.

[00:26:09] So, look, we have a big battle on our hands because there are two camps in America. There are those of us who believe in integrity in the elections. And what's the opposite of integrity? Corruption. Corruption. So, you have a big group of people who happen to control the Democratic Party, officials, the media, the corporate left wing media, academia, all the elites of this country. They really want corrupt elections. We want integrity. They want corruption.

[00:26:39] And that's what we're fighting against is this massive cabal of people who want chaotic, insecure, fraudulent, not transparent, corrupt elections. And that's what we're fighting against. Very good. Cleta, I really appreciate you being on. Give the website and also your social media one more time, please. Our website is electionintegritynetwork.org. Electionintegritynetwork.org. Go there and you'll find lots of resources. Sign up to help.

[00:27:08] We need people all over the country helping with all of these things that we need to get done. And then if you want to, I really, I'll do Twitter or X. Sorry, I'm old. I can't get used to it. But it's at Cleta Mitchell on X. And hopefully, but the Election Integrity Network, you can find on Instagram, on X as EI Watch Dogs and on Facebook. So lots of places to find out how you can help and what's going on. Very good.

[00:27:36] Cleta, I appreciate you being on so much. And I appreciate everything that you've done to work not only just on the Save America Act, but working on all of these election integrity issues since 2020 and even before 2020. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you so much, Jenny Baird. All right, everyone. Please keep fighting and don't go anywhere. Cleta told you exactly what you need to do. You need to call the House.

[00:28:04] So we've been saying when it relates to the Save America Act, call your senator. What Cleta is saying is call the House. So call your congressman and tell your congressman that you want to see the Save America Act attached to other legislation that is going back to the Senate. Coming up, President Trump is heading to Beijing this Wednesday for the first American presidential visit to China in nine years. Trade, Iran, Taiwan, all of it's on the table.

[00:28:32] And Jeff Reynolds from Restoration News is here to break it down. So stay with us. We'll be right back.

[00:29:40] Jeff Reynolds is the senior editor at Restoration News. Jeff, welcome to the Jenny Beth Show. Thank you, Jenny Beth. It's great to be here. I've been a fan for a long time and a longtime Tea Party are going way back. Well, I'm so glad to hear that. So President Trump heads to Beijing this Wednesday for a three-day state visit. It's the first presidential visit to China in nearly nine years. What's the single biggest thing on the table and what does a win look like for America?

[00:30:08] Well, I don't know if there's one single biggest thing on the table. There are several things that he's trying to apply pressure on. And that's really the theme here is applying pressure and applying leverage. He's done several things recently with security agreements across the globe that have kind of gone under the radar. There's the Malacca Straits security issue with Indonesia.

[00:30:33] There's a security agreement with Morocco to control the Straits of Gibraltar. Their shipping lanes across the country or across the globe, I should say, are a much bigger deal than anybody in the news is talking about. So that places a lot of leverage on China because they import so much of their food and their fuel.

[00:30:55] So that's one thing that I think he's going to impress upon Xi is that you need to play ball with us because we're starting to control more of the energy flow, shipping across the world and all of those things. So go into the shipping lanes a little bit more. I think there are probably a lot of people in America who have never given any thought to shipping lanes, not because they're not smart people.

[00:31:25] They just if you haven't dealt with imports and shipping or you weren't in the Navy, it's probably not something that you think about very much. But now we've seen a lot of attention with the Strait of Hormuz and you're talking about other shipping lanes. Explain more about this.

[00:31:42] Yeah. So there are four main shipping channels that China relies on for the most affordable and most convenient imports that they can bring to their country. One of those is the Straits of Malacca through Indonesia, as I mentioned. The Straits of Gibraltar at the end of the Mediterranean is another. Then, of course, you've got the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal.

[00:32:09] And you saw last year where we came to an agreement with Panama to basically kick China out of managing both ends of the Panama Canal. That means that we are now back in charge of the Panama Canal to a great extent. We have we have eyes and ears in these areas where we have security agreements.

[00:32:33] So this is something where Hu Jintao back in 2003 warned when he was the premier of the Chinese Communist Party. He warned that if they ever lost control of the Malacca Strait, they would really be in trouble getting the needed imports that they get for the country to be able to run and survive. So all of these things put pressure on China.

[00:32:59] You know, our agreement to send more arms to Taiwan also puts more pressure on China. And then, of course, what we're doing in Iran is neutralizing not only Iran as a sponsor of terror, which China has been supporting on the back end, but also their ability to get cheap oil because they've they've gotten cheap oil from Iran for years.

[00:33:26] They bought it as on as a discount or at a discount because it was sanctioned oil. So they bought it for pennies on the dollar. OK, and then Trump is expected to press Z on China's purchase of that Iranian oil. How much leverage do you think America has right now over China related to that? I think quite a bit, actually.

[00:33:50] And I think the the the more actions that Donald Trump is taking on the global stage, let's not forget Venezuela was another one back in January where they we've taken complete control over that supply of oil. Now, the communist regime has spent 25 years destroying their own oil production simply because they nationalized the oil industry there.

[00:34:18] So it's going to take many years for us to rebuild that. But that's another you've heard about these fleets of ghost ships. They transit the ocean without transponders and without registering or hiding their their national registration. So these ghost ships ship oil from Iran, from Venezuela to countries that don't want to deal on the on the open market. They want to deal on the black market for discounted oil.

[00:34:47] So Venezuela, Iran, later on, Cuba is going to fall to this this pressure campaign. But all of this puts pressure on on China because they cannot produce their own oil and gas to run their economy. China's already given the White House assurances they won't send weapons to Iran. How bond and how how binding do you think those assurances are? And should we trust China when it comes to them?

[00:35:17] The answer is clearly no, we should not trust them. And binding, I mean, it's as binding as she says they are, you know, or decides, you know, one day. Well, I didn't really mean that or, you know, the situation has changed or whatever she is going to say. We know that they tell us one thing and do another. That's been a long history of the Chinese Communist Party. Communists don't always tell the truth. Hate to break it to you.

[00:35:43] You know, so it's they are it's it's we have to verify everything that they do and put pressure on them. If we allow them to escape or, you know, have a backdoor out of these pressure situations, then they're going to take them. And so that that's that's the big thing is we we can't trust them.

[00:36:09] So we have to continually apply pressure and not mollify them with things that, like, you know, the the Biden or Obama administration did to sending pallets of cash to Iran and those sorts of things. Exactly. That was a terrible mistake on on Obama's part that we're still cleaning up today. You mentioned that the president has shipped.

[00:36:36] I think you said the president has shipped weapons to Taiwan. Taiwan is watching this this this visit very closely. And many are worried that Trump might trade Taiwan security for a trade deal. What is your assessment? And do you think that Taiwan should be nervous about it? Do you think people who are worried about that are just looking to undermine the president? What's your opinion? I think there's some risk there.

[00:37:00] I think that he may say something publicly about Taiwan to try to demonstrate that he has a good relationship, a working relationship with Xi. That that's a possibility. But the devil is always in the details. And what what what is this actually going to mean? And what does this mean for Taiwanese independence? I think the more important thing for the United States is all of the technology that we get from from Taiwan.

[00:37:30] They need to be a strategic partner for us economically because we rely on their chips and we don't want to rely on China for all of their technology. We we've sold the farm to China for the last 30 years, offshoring all of our own production of microchips and computer equipment and all of that.

[00:37:51] And so Taiwan can be a strategic partner to wean us off of our reliance on China if we if we played our cards right. But this is this is a high stakes game of chicken. And so, you know, what's he going to have to give up in order to get some sort of agreement with with Xi?

[00:38:10] I would imagine that it will give the way Trump seems to negotiate is he'll give them something to brag about on the national international stage. And he'll you know, Xi will be able to say something like, well, you know, they're never going to intervene in Taiwan or whatever. But behind the scenes, there will be a lot more nuance and detail to the negotiation.

[00:38:36] OK, and then the last question about China, and then I'm going to ask one about restoration news. What what is it that you think people should be looking for beyond just the talking points when it comes to this visit of President Trump to China? Again, it's it's about leverage. We're talking about geopolitical and shipping lanes and, you know, all of those pressure points, but also the tariffs. She is going to be able to push back and say, well, you know, your Supreme Court ruled against your tariffs.

[00:39:06] And but that will still be on the table because he's got other avenues to implement the tariffs. And the tariffs are not about revenue as much as they are about, again, applying pressure and rebalancing the the playing field for international trade.

[00:39:23] So it's going to be about demonstrating to them that we're not going to back down and we're not going to going to accept their terms on trade deals, on how much they're supporting Iran, how much China and Russia are supporting Iran in their resistance to our military conflict. OK, and the last question, we're shifting gears completely away from the president and China. Restoration News is incredible work.

[00:39:52] It is a conservative news network. Explain to people just a little bit more about your your your website and about the new magazine that you've launched and why they should visit you for the news of the day. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. Our independence magazine is really quite something. We are we've launched this. We're just now starting to plan issue three. Issue two is going to be hitting mailboxes here in a week or two. Actually, a couple of weeks anyway.

[00:40:20] And we are doing long form investigative journalism. It both at the website and at the magazine.

[00:40:29] So we are doing deep dive analysis of a lot of different things, faith and freedom and our constitutional founding principles and what it means in 2026, our 250th anniversary as as a nation and how all of those principles inform how we operate on the international stage and domestically as well.

[00:40:56] What are we supposed to be doing as a government? You know, where where can we clean up the waste, fraud and abuse? That's that's a big point in our investigative journalism aspect. And so we don't do breaking news. We do a lot of very deep dive investigative journalism and analysis. That is great. And give that website one more time. Sure. It's restoration dash news dot com. Restoration dash news dot com. Jeff Reynolds, thanks so much for being with me today.

[00:41:26] Thanks, Jenny Beth. It's been a great pleasure. We're going to be watching Beijing very closely. And now we're going to talk about the Supreme Court. As you know, they just had a ruling that stopped race based congressional districts in in as redistricting and districting of the congressional districts are happening. They ruled it is unconstitutional.

[00:41:49] And Vicki Manning, who is a senior investigative researcher for Restoration News, same place as Jeff Reynolds, wrote a piece about this ruling. And she's here to explain what the ruling means to 2026 midterms and every American who believes that their district may have been redrawn or drawn based on race. Vicki, thanks so much for joining me today. Good afternoon, Jenny Beth. So you have a piece titled SCOTUS in Racial Segregation and Voting Districts.

[00:42:18] It's a strong title. Walk our viewers through what the Supreme Court actually said in Louisiana versus Calais. And why just what the importance of this is. So I think it's important to give the background of the case in Louisiana. It was a judge essentially ruled that Louisiana had to draw their one one of their congressional district lines based on race. And that's what was being heard before the Supreme Court.

[00:42:47] So the court ruled in Calais that creating voting districts based on race is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Or simply put, it was clear racial discrimination. You can't segregate voters or draw district voting lines based on race. And the Voting Rights Act was meant to guarantee a person's right to vote no matter their skin color.

[00:43:11] And despite the Democrats' rhetoric that voting rights have been gutted, the court specified that provision still stands and you can't discriminate based on race. The court also highlighted the 15th Amendment's prohibition on intentional racial discrimination as the basis of their ruling in Calais. And I do believe that drawing district voting lines is racial segregation.

[00:43:39] And as I point out in my article, racial segregation was wrong at the water fountains and it's just as wrong in voting districts. That is absolutely correct. Justice Thomas wrote a separate concurrence going even further than the majority. He said that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act never required a race-based district in the first place. What do you think that means for future rulings on the Voting Rights Act? Have you considered that?

[00:44:07] Yeah, so I think it's important to point out that the Voting Rights Act wasn't new legislation. In fact, the legislation of the Voting Rights Act specifically begins an act to enforce the 15th Amendment of the Constitution. So it was simply an enforcement of existing constitutional law that prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

[00:44:31] Now, at that time when the Voting Rights Act was adopted, Southern states were trying to put barriers in place to so blacks couldn't vote, like poll taxes, literacy tests, things like that. And the Voting Rights Act was intended to be a measure to stop that discrimination, which was already illegal under the 15th Amendment. So the Voting Rights Act is still very much in force, and I believe it's now being properly applied.

[00:45:01] Okay, so what does this ruling mean practically for congressional districts, such as the one in Virginia Beach that you wrote about, but anywhere in the country where majority minority districts were drawn, specifically drawn because of race? So I think we see that down in Florida. I think one of the districts that DeSantis just, one of the redistricting efforts down there, you had one district that went basically from coast to coast on that state.

[00:45:30] It was definitely not compact. And so DeSantis, I believe, used this ruling to kind of help create that district to be more compact. Now, here in Virginia Beach, our local voting districts in 2022 were drawn as majority minority districts, specifically our city council and school board elections. A judge actually ordered three districts to be drawn based on race, very similar to the Louisiana case.

[00:45:58] And it was even openly admitted in court documents that these were race-based districts. And I believe, based on the SCOTUS ruling, that if this were challenged in court, the local districts, the local city council would be forced to redraw those lines.

[00:46:16] That might be an interesting way for Virginia to do redistricting since their attempt to gerrymander just failed so spectacularly in their own state Supreme Court. I don't know. I'm just kind of speaking off the cuff. The left is saying this ruling could cost black members of Congress 15 seats. Is that a real number? Is that a scare tactic from places like Democracy Docket?

[00:46:45] And in Tennessee, aren't we seeing that even as they're looking at redrawing the maps, that it may very well be a black congresswoman who beats a white person, even though it'd be a Republican rather than a Democrat? So my argument to the left is why does skin color matter? I think as long as Democrats continue to focus on a person's race as the deciding factor for qualifications for their office, we're going to always have a divided nation.

[00:47:15] And, you know, Americans will choose the best candidate for the position, not based on skin color, but who represents the values of the voters within their communities. I think we're well beyond choosing candidates based on the color of their skin. But I think Democrats continue to make that an argument because they're they're not winning on the policy issues.

[00:47:35] And actually, I believe that redistricting based on geography rather than these majority minority districts could give more opportunity for minority voters rather than piling them all in one segregated districts. It gives them more opportunity to spread out and to potentially influence more district elections and to even run for office themselves.

[00:47:59] Well, and I think that there's one other thing that's really important, and that is that you want people who represent the district in the place where you live. And sometimes these districts have been and I understand I understand the gerrymandering is is going to happen. And it is just a political fact of life that we're dealing with right now.

[00:48:24] But sometimes you have these districts that are really long and they look like snakes and they cover a metropolitan area and then they go really deep into the state, into more rural areas of the state.

[00:48:38] But when that happens, I think that the people who represent the or the people who live in the more rural areas are not getting the best representation because they oftentimes will wind up with someone who lives in the more metropolitan area because there's a bigger population there. And oftentimes the things that the rural people care about are a bit different than the people care about in the metropolitan area.

[00:49:03] My point is, there are more factors that go into voting than just simply skin color or there certainly should be. Geography, as you just mentioned, is one of those those items. And it's not just geography, but the community that you live in and making sure that the people who represent you, whether it's in a state legislature or in in Washington, D.C., understand the needs of that community. Exactly.

[00:49:31] And it's also having access to your representative as well. You know, if you live in the southern part of the state and your congressman lives in the northern part of the state, you don't have that access to be able to give them your input on issues happening in your own community or to hold them accountable for the decisions that they make. So I think having those compact geographically based districts are so important for that reason as well.

[00:50:26] Okay. So I think that's really important. Yeah. And I think that's really important. We don't I don't want any discrimination to happen. And so I while I don't want discrimination to happen when when drawing the districts, I also want to ensure there's no discrimination happening to people when they are voting. And just we need to be a colorblind society. And that's very important. OK, we're almost out of time. So we're not going to be able to go in depth in this.

[00:50:54] And maybe we could bring you back next week to do so. But you've got this new piece that's out about the PTA called Welcome to the Cult of PTA. Could you just kind of tease that? And then I would encourage everyone to go to restoration.news.com to read this piece. Yeah, thanks. So I've been following the PTA for years. I actually served on a school board for eight years. And so I started seeing what was happening.

[00:51:22] A lot of the local dollars are going to the national PTA. The national PTA has their annual conference coming up in June. And I looked at their agenda and their agenda just looks like a far left woke activist conference rather than focusing on the education of what's best for students and families.

[00:51:45] So they've really strayed away from their mission of supporting parents and teachers to become just another arm of the far left. OK, that's very good. And I said your website completely wrong. I think I said dot instead of dash. So it's restoration-news.com. And I really think everyone should go read this. When you were on the school board, were you elected to that position or were you appointed? How did that work for you?

[00:52:13] I was elected for eight years. That's amazing. So you are an elected official. So when we're sitting here talking about redistricting and what it means in representative government, you truly understand because you've been elected. You've run campaigns. You won the majority vote or at least a plurality vote. And you truly understand what that means when we're discussing all this. Yeah, absolutely. I had to run two elections at large, won both of them.

[00:52:42] And it was very important to me to be a representative of the people because I ran for office because I was one of those concerned parents whose representatives weren't listening. And so that's why I ran. Well, Vicki, thank you so much. And hopefully we can have you back. And I'm making this note to my production team right now. I just pressed enter. But maybe we can have you back on to talk more about the PTA that week that the PTA conference is going on in June.

[00:53:09] And I haven't read the full article yet, but I'm looking forward to doing that. As a mom, my kids are out of school now, but my kids were in public school. And it's just important to pay attention to what is happening throughout the entire school system. Thank you so much, Vicki. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Janita. All right.

[00:53:31] And again, to read Vicki's piece about both redistricting and also about PTA and everything that Restoration News is doing, go to restoration-news.com. Now, I have two calls of action for every American who's listening right now. It's very simple and it's direct. And if enough of you make the phone calls, we can make a real difference. It's really just one phone call today. To your congressman. So you don't have to make two phone calls to your senators today.

[00:54:01] It's one phone call, but you're going to talk about two different things. So look at the number on your screen. If you're listening on the podcast, it's 202-224-3121. Again, that's 202-224-3121. That is, as you know, if you've been listening to The Jenny Best Show, that is the Capitol switchboard for the United States Congress. Call that number right now. And you want to speak to your congressman. And you're going to tell your congressman two things.

[00:54:31] First, tell them that you want the House of Representatives to pass the Save America Act again, and this time attach it to other legislation that the Senate must vote on. You don't have to specify what that is. Just say, you want to see the—thank you so much for getting it passed three times already.

[00:54:53] We're asking you to step up and do it again and attach the Save America Act to another piece of legislation that the Senate must vote on. So must pass legislation. The next thing is to tell them to stop the so-called dignity, the so-called, in air quotes, Dignity Act. No amnesty, not now, not ever.

[00:55:16] The Dignity Act is being sold to people as a compassionate solution to illegal immigration, but it's not. It is amnesty, plain and simple. And when you don't follow the rule of law, you are not being compassionate. Following the rule of law and making sure our country does not turn into a banana republic is the compassionate thing to do.

[00:55:39] So Tea Party Patriots Action, our polling shows that more than half of Americans support deporting illegal aliens, not giving them a path to citizenship. Legal immigrants who waited in line and followed the rules and followed the laws, who did everything right, deserve better than watching Washington hand out the same prize to people who cut in line in front of them. So again, the number is 202-224-3121.

[00:56:08] Tell your congressman, attach the Save America Act to must-pass legislation that the Senate must vote on. And no amnesty, no Dignity Act. Now, before we go today, I want to take a moment and honor someone who meant a great deal to me growing up in Atlanta. Bobby Cox has passed away. And for anyone who grew up a Braves fan, and I did, this is a day of deep sadness.

[00:56:34] I grew up in Atlanta hearing the name Braves in our house, watching Dale Murphy play and rooting for the Atlanta Braves. When Bobby Cox returned to manage the Braves in 1990, everything changed. He led the team to 14 straight division championships, five National League pennants in the 1995 World Series championship. And if you were in Atlanta in 1992 and I was, you'll remember the National League Championship Series.

[00:57:03] You remember Francisco Cabrera coming off the bench. You remember Sid Bream, who could barely run, digging down deep and finding something no one expected and sliding into home plate. And you remember Skip Carey's call. A lot of room in right center. If he hits one there, we can dance in the streets. The 2-1. Swung line, Drake!

[00:57:44] Three years later, in 1995, Bobby Cox gave Atlanta its World Series, its championship, the one we've been waiting for for so many years. And Bobby Cox holds a major league baseball record for career ejections, which happened as he always went to bat for his team and he always had his team's back. Here is Bobby Cox, after his retirement, throwing the opening pitch and getting tossed out of the game one last time. It was great tonight, of course, honoring Bobby.

[00:58:14] And then he threw out the first pitch and Chipper was the recipient of that pitch. And then the umpires came out. And what did Tim Timmons do right away after saying, nice to see you, Bobby? He threw him out of the game. I'm praying for Bobby Cox's family and friends today. And I'm saying a prayer of gratitude for the joy his years with the Braves brought the city of Atlanta and to this little girl who grew up in Georgia, believing her team could win.

[00:58:43] I'm Jenny Beth Martin, and this is The Jenny Beth Show. Rest in peace, Bobby Cox. If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin.

[00:59:12] The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.