Commentary Culture Investigations

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Scientific models and predictions can’t be taken as fact. This is true of the late biologist and alarmist Paul Ehrlich, whose lies and doomsday predictions about population growth and natural resource depletion traveled the world and negatively influenced people. Arguing for the suppression of the human population was Ehrlich’s unashamed stance behind everything he said.
As the former president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford, Ehrlich was considered an authoritative voice on human population dynamics and conservation of nature. His greatest error, however, was treating human flourishing as an impediment to environmental progress. He advocated for voluntary sterilization, supported China’s one-child policy, and falsely concluded there would be food shortages as the world population grew. (RELATED: Death of a Charlatan)
Ehrlich’s views became globally amplified when he garnered significant attention for his bestselling 1968 book The Population Bomb. The book conveyed a central argument: that the world’s population rising above two billion would cause unsustainable environmental destruction and resource depletion, threatening civilization as we know it. By his logic, the world population had to be curtailed — capped at two billion people — or catastrophe would ensue. (RELATED: Desired Fertility Is Too Low to Avoid Depopulation)
Fortunately, time ultimately proved Ehrlich wrong. Human beings have adapted and innovated, as they always have. Ehrlich’s predictions of widespread famine now look laughable in hindsight. Today, with a global population hovering around 8.3 billion, the percentage of the world facing extreme poverty has miraculously decreased by 65 percent since 1990, per World Bank estimates. Malnourishment rates have precipitously dropped in recent decades across the world, with the steepest decline in sub-Saharan Africa. And Ehrlich’s prediction of nuclear war never materialized either. (RELATED: The Horrific Legacy of Paul Ehrlich)
In an October 2022 interview, Ehrlich reflected that the suffering of butterflies inspired his views about population control. Observing how housing developments take over the habitats of butterflies in New Jersey, Ehrlich lamented that he wasn’t able to breed butterflies. While it is unfortunate that some butterflies cannot inhabit much of their historical range, this is not exactly a major issue in world affairs. More revelatory is that Ehrlich felt more of an affinity towards butterflies’ habitats than those of human beings.
This story belies a broader narrative, one often on full display on Earth Day: Climate activists imply human flourishing is greedy and detrimental to the “natural world,” as if human beings are somehow divorced from their environmental surroundings. Humans can indeed have negative impacts on the environment if there’s no balance between production and conservation. This scenario, thankfully, is increasingly rarer today. Humans need resources to sustain our population, and conservation — the wise use of natural resources — needs human attention to preserve at-risk populations. Yet this fact often gets overlooked and is tragically drowned out by slogans.
Paul Ehrlich stated that his preference was for nature to “take its course,” even at the expense of people. Ironically, Ehrlich believed his goal to lower the human population was altruistic. This clear paradox never deterred his many followers, who gave him tremendous notoriety.
By excluding humans from his definition of nature, Ehrlich discounted how humans sustain life on Earth: energy production. Energy production is a crucial part of our society’s ability to function, and a pillar of critical industries like agriculture and health care. We cannot afford to remove our resources from the natural human cycle of consumption and production. Notably, the most prosperous nations are energy-rich ones.
This Earth Day should be dedicated to reclaiming conservation in a way that promotes life and human flourishing.
This Earth Day, let domestic energy production flourish alongside true conservation efforts. The United States is among the largest producers and consumers of oil in the world. Domestic energy production not only feeds, houses, and safeguards the population; it also helps conserve land. For example, offshore oil and gas royalties are responsible for generating $900 million annually to support the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) that conserves public lands and recreational spaces.
This Earth Day should be dedicated to reclaiming conservation in a way that promotes life and human flourishing. The timing is ripe for a needed shift in framing. Currently, the Trump administration is focused on reshoring domestic manufacturing — an important means of offsetting real environmental degradation caused by manufacturers that adhere to poor environmental standards elsewhere in the world. Producing more in the United States also protects Americans from being penalized by unanticipated market shocks. Supply chain disruptions are far more of a problem than overpopulation.
And, on Earth Day, it is appropriate to celebrate humans as the best stewards of nature and the Earth. After all, humans are the only species that can consciously conserve all other species. This is an important aspect of modern life that Ehrlich, who has accurately been described as wrong about everything during his lifetime, did not appreciate.
Ehrlich cast darkness into the conservation movement, calling on humans to engage in self-abnegation. This argument was wrongheaded at its core. Instead, one can empower individuals by encouraging them to accept agency for their actions, rather than assigning them imaginary blame for a looming disaster: one that, of course, never came to fruition.
At the same time, Ehrlich denied basic tenets of human nature. He argued that women, if afforded the choice, would prefer a motorcycle over having several children. And, bizarrely, despite being a lifelong academic, he adopted a scathing view of academia, claiming that right-wing Harvard alumni are “idiots” and that it is a “horrible thing” that Stanford has economics and business departments.
Ehrlich’s legacy can be drilled down like this: he was the ultimate purveyor of climate hysteria. Although his outlandish predictions were proven wrong, the fear he instilled endures in fearmongering that demands Earth cease to have human flourishing. Humanity, of all the species, has far and away the greatest capacity to regenerate Earth’s resources. This Earth Day, we should all unapologetically recognize and applaud the fact that more people and more energy go hand-in-hand.
Gabriella Hoffman is the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at Independent Women. Sydney Rodman is a visiting fellow with the Independent Women’s Center for Energy and Conservation.

There are columnists who only report bad news when their party is out of power. There are columnists who criticize what’s wrong with the world regardless of who’s in charge. Others prefer to talk only about good news or to remain silent. And then there’s a final category, consisting of a single author, who always brings bad news: I’m referring to the veteran journalist Thomas B. Edsall.
The New York Times columnist disapproves of everything the Democratic Party does, everything Biden does, everything those left after Biden do, everything the Republican Party does or says, and, most of all, everything Trump does. Until now, I thought Edsall was one of those old bloodhounds who don’t play favorites. Now we know he’s exactly like the vast majority of progressive columnists, and that his entire ideological framework boils down to a single sentence that changes form but never substance: Trump is causing the apocalypse.
On Tuesday, Edsall treated us in the New York Times to one of those all-or-nothing columns, in which he breathlessly strings together, one after another, all the misfortunes that, in his view, Trump is bringing upon the world. He uses a tactic older than journalism itself. He begins with a specific, horrific case (a cancer patient) and then bombards the reader with a mishmash of generalities, all apocalyptic in tone, unsupported by any real evidence beyond vague, collective references to other equally vague publications.
[T]hese hypothetical victims have voices only he can hear.
From that initial case, he proceeds to conclude that Trump is causing millions of deaths worldwide through USAID cuts, promoting disease by sowing doubt about vaccines, and, my favorite, eliminating environmental regulations that supposedly saved tens of thousands of lives a year. I don’t know whether these tens of thousands of survivors of the climate cataclysm have personally told Edsall their stories, or whether this is just a peculiar phenomenon sometimes seen among left-wing columnists: these hypothetical victims have voices only he can hear.
Edsall accuses the president of using the presidency for his own benefit and that of his family, and for a moment, I thought he had changed the subject and was now writing about Joe Biden, but I was mistaken; it was still about Trump. (RELATED: Biden’s Penultimate Betrayal)
He claims that Trump has destroyed alliances with Europe and NATO, and it would be nice if, before bursting into tears over such claims, he asked himself a simple question: which alliances? The kind where the United States pays, and the rest spend their time insulting it? The kind where Russia and China call the shots? Or perhaps the kind where any turbaned antisemite carries more weight than the most important nation in the world? (RELATED: NATO Commits Suicide — All We Can Do Is Bury It)
Edsall also suggests that the Trump administration has dismantled the federal government. Frankly, nothing would make most Americans happier, but I’m afraid that hasn’t happened. As far as I can tell, everyone is still paying taxes, and the government can still meddle in your affairs without so much as an invitation.
He is deeply concerned about Trump’s supposed obsession with dividing society. I assume he forgets that nothing in history has caused more division and conflict across Western nations than the class resentments of the traditional left and the sectarianism of the postmodern left. Even if Trump were interested in dividing Americans, and I seriously doubt it, he could never have done half of what Obama or Biden accomplished, much less come close to what Kamala Harris seemed poised to do, had the Holy Spirit not intervened to spare the United States and the modern world that particular ordeal.
Generally speaking, Edsall’s prescriptions for the world’s ills would be perfectly suited to moderate socialism, provided we were living at the start of the 20th century. In 2026, talking to the Democratic Party about reclaiming the working class is like talking to my late grandmother about ChatGPT.
I think some of Edsall’s past analyses were misguided but well-intentioned. That is not the case here. This piece is nothing more than a bile-filled screed against the president — a column so exaggerated and absurd that it should embarrass the progressive intellectual Edsall once had within him. One day, we should seriously examine how the sectarian rancor of the far left consistently manages to poison any intellectual endeavor. It’s like a toxin for the mind.
“Easily the Worst President in U.S. History,” Edsall titles his lengthy rant, brimming with hyperbole and hallucination. Relax, sir. Go for a walk. Get some air. Talk to your friends. Have you ever considered adopting a cactus as a pet?
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President Donald J. Trump insists that if Iran craves peace and prosperity, it must surrender its “uranium dust” and exit the uranium business.
So, what’s the deal with Iran’s uranium fetish?
If Iran were like a giant Belgium, with precisely 0.00 barrels of oil reserves, the largely annihilated ayatollahs’ decades-long obsession with uranium might make sense. If the only thing beneath Iran’s sands were more sand, one might understand its quest for atomic energy. However, Iran is awash in petroleum.
According to U.S. Energy Information Agency data, Iran swims atop 208.6 billion barrels of black gold. That earns Iran the bronze medal in the oil-reserve Olympics. Saudi Arabia (258.6 billion) holds the silver. The gold belongs to Venezuela (303.8 billion). America is No. 10, with 44.4 billion barrels. (RELATED: Drill, Baby, Geopolitics: Now It’s a Matter of National Security)
Iran needs a new energy source like Venice needs a new canal.
As for natural gas, Iran wins the silver medal, with 34.8 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves. That’s enough to last 137 years — until 2163. (My personal bicentennial!) Only Russia sits prettier, with 47.8 trillion cubic meters.
Iran needs a new energy source like Venice needs a new canal. If the ayatollahs want more fuel, they know what to do: Drill, baby, drill.
Meanwhile, Iran’s passion for uranium is seldom seen within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Among OPEC’s 12 members, the United Arab Emirates is the only nation, aside from Iran, that operates a commercial nuclear reactor. Other major petroleum producers are happy to power their nations via their vast pools of dinosaur juice. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Hormuz)
Do the ayatollahs chase atoms because they are closet “climate” warriors? Does every mullah have an inner Al Gore whispering inconvenient truths about oil and gas and urging them to trade fossil fuels for fission?
There is no evidence of any such thing, nor is there a cadre of eco-activists clogging Tehran’s streets and clamoring to end “the climate crisis.” To date, no reports have emerged of a hijab-clad Iranian Greta Thunberg snarling, “چطور جرات میکنی؟”
Pronounced “Chatur jarat mikni?” — this is Farsi for Thunberg’s curse: “How dare you?”
Regarding Iran’s uranium-235 supply, nuclear expert Robert Goldston warns: “Ninety-nine percent of the work needed to enrich the full stockpile to 90 percent has already been performed.”
And why have the ayatollahs enriched uranium so intensely? Uranium-235 at 3-5 percent enrichment is perfect for atomic energy. However, Iran has breached the 20 percent threshold for “highly enriched uranium” (HEU). Indeed, it has achieved 60 percent! For peacefully generating electricity, 60 percent-enriched uranium is like running a lawnmower with jet fuel — total overkill.
So, why, oh why, would the ayatollahs be so monomaniacal about refining uranium beyond what’s required to generate atomic energy that Iran doesn’t need and that almost no other OPEC nation even wants?
Iranian officials gave the answer to this vital question to Trump’s envoys on February 6. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner conferred with their Iranian counterparts in Oman. They sought a peaceful offramp before the launch of Operation Epic Fury. (RELATED: Trump’s Pakistan Card and Iran’s ‘Paranoid Inertia’)
“Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possess,” Witkoff told Fox News host Sean Hannity on March 2. “Both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60 percent, and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs. That was the beginning of their negotiating stance.” A 460-kilogram supply equals 1,014 pounds, or roughly half a ton of HEU.
Iran volunteered this information, not to tout its technical prowess but to terrify America.
Notwithstanding Governor Tampon Tim Walz’s (D – Minnesota) claim Saturday that “no threat was present” — and House Democrat chief Hakeem Jeffries’ assertion Monday that there is “no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat” — the Iranian attachés’ mere words made their country an imminent threat. Weapons-grade uranium requires 90 percent enrichment. The road from 60percent to 90 percent is neither long nor winding.
On March 16, Robert Goldston wrote ominously for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: “While press coverage has indicated that it is a short technical step from 60 percent enrichment to 90 percent, perhaps it is not evident to the public that 99 percent of the work needed to enrich the full stockpile to 90 percent has already been performed.” If Iran’s centrifuges spun just another 1 percent, they would yield bomb-quality uranium.
Not so fast, Iran’s leaders contend.
“We are not seeking nuclear weapons,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reassured diplomats in Tehran in February 2025. Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani commented in April 2024: “Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes.”
U.S. atomic scientist Matthew Bunn, PhD, dismisses such statements. The Harvard professor and former White House science advisor told CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday: “Iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons effort for over 20 years now.”
Bunn’s skepticism is well-founded. Left to their own devices, the ayatollahs would hone their Uranium-235 into atomic bombs. They would hurl them, use them for atomic blackmail, or slip high-quality uranium dust to their deadly pals in Hamas or Hezbollah. These terrorist murderers could disperse it via dirty bombs or simply toss it into the air on a windy day in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, or on Tel Aviv’s Bograshov Beach.
“Death to America!” is not just a slogan. It is as central an organizing principle to Iran as “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is to the USA. For 47 years, Iran has menaced, wounded, kidnapped, and killed Americans, Israelis, Jews elsewhere, fellow Muslims, and innumerable others worldwide. Iran has been a designated state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 and is widely considered Earth’s No. 1 perpetrator of those lethal arts.
“More Americans have been killed by Iran than any other terrorist regime on Earth,” the White House declared March 4 in its “partial record of the Iranian regime’s blood-soaked war on Americans.” Consider just six of these 42 violent incidents:

November 1979: Iranian students, backed by the regime, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran — taking 66 Americans hostage in a 444-day standoff.

October 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 241 U.S. military personnel — including 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel — in a truck bombing at a Marine compound in Beirut.

June 1996: Iran-backed Hezbollah Al-Hijaz terrorists killed 19 U.S. Airmen and wounded nearly 500 others in a truck bombing at a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia.

August 1998: Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, facilitated by Iran-backed Hezbollah, simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people — including a dozen American citizens.

Between 2003 and 2011: Iran-backed militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq — “roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq.”

October 2023: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 Americans in the October 7th massacre.

“It is clear that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, combining explicit hostile intent, expanding strike capabilities, and concrete preparations documented by U.S. and allied intelligence,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told me. The president and founder of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center added: “In the days leading up to this conflict, Tehran feared that the U.S. and Israel had uncovered its new accelerated uranium enrichment and deployment of advanced centrifuges, steps that sharply reduce breakout time for a bomb.”
AI-generated image by Deroy Murdock on Apr. 20, 2026, ChatGPT, OpenAI
Darshan-Leitner added: “Iran began preparing for a potential preemptive attack on Israel, U.S. bases, and its regional allies. America simply could not let Iran conceal its uranium nor allow a dangerous surprise attack on its bases or allies. President Trump knew it was a question of who would pull the trigger first.”
Faced with Iran’s blood-soaked history, the terminal psychosis of its leadership, and his top diplomats’ premonition of 11 atomic bombs, Trump faced a choice: neutralize this deep-rooted, determined, and deadly threat now, or handle it the way doctors Walz, Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer would treat a patient’s early colon-cancer diagnosis: “Relax. There’s no imminent threat. Come back in five years.” When their patient faced metastatic Stage IV disease in 2031, these quacks would say: “No sweat. You can buy chemotherapy drugs en route to hospice.”
Thankfully, President Trump did not wait to act until an atomic-tipped Iranian missile began plunging into the National Mall. Trump spoke of the ayatollahs on Saturday: “They’ve gotten away with murder for years. They’re not getting away with it anymore.”
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Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

Virginia voters approved a ballot measure Tuesday night allowing Democrats to redraw the Old Dominion’s congressional districts with a 10-1 advantage. Republicans will now turn to a legal challenge that’s before the state supreme court.
Just over 50 percent of voters signed off on the constitutional amendment when the Associated Press called the election at 8:49 p.m. with 81 percent of the vote reported. It grants Virginia’s Democrat-led General Assembly temporary authority to redraw the congressional districts mid-decade. A bipartisan commission would regain its normal authority to draw the maps, which at present give Democrats only a 6-5 advantage, following the 2030 census.
The ballot question described the measure as an effort “to restore fairness in the upcoming elections” and did not provide an image of the proposed map. Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D.) approved the legislation in February and threw her support behind it even though in 2019 she called gerrymandering “detrimental to our democracy” and said opposing it “should be a bipartisan priority.”
Tuesday’s vote, however, doesn’t guarantee the gerrymandered maps will be implemented. GOP-led lawsuits before the Supreme Court of Virginia challenging the methods Democrats used to put the question on the ballot could make the vote moot. A lower court ruled on three grounds that Democrats’ political maneuvers were illegal and described the ballot phrasing as “misleading.”
GOP legislators, including Virginia senate Republican leader Ryan McDougle, filed a lawsuit in October accusing Democrats in the General Assembly of illegally expanding a special session focusing on a budget bill to draft the constitutional amendment. Tazewell County Circuit Court judge Jack S. Hurley Jr. agreed in late January, calling it an “invalid expansion” since Democrats failed to secure the two-thirds supermajority vote needed to broaden the scope of the special session, rendering the proposed amendment void.
He also ruled that Democrats improperly placed it on Tuesday’s ballot. Proposed amendments must pass the General Assembly twice, once before a House of Delegates election and again at its first regular session following the election. Hurley found that the amendment’s first passage wouldn’t count since it occurred after early voting began, with more than one million votes already cast. Democrats were also legally required to publish the amendment three months before the election, but Hurley ruled that they failed to do that, as well.
In a separate suit, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Reps. Ben Cline (R., Va.) and Morgan Griffith (R., Va.), repeated some of those same arguments and alleged that the phrasing on the ballot was misleading, particularly its description that the amendment would “restore fairness in the upcoming elections.” Hurley again sided with the GOP.
“It is misleading, in particular the ‘restore fairness’ language because it would lead a voter to believe he or she were doing something unfair by voting against the proposed amendment,” he wrote in late February.
Democrats appealed both rulings. They were fast-tracked to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which ordered the election to continue, but declined to rule on the merits until after the vote. Oral arguments are set to begin Monday.
The seven justices’ elusive politics makes it unclear how the supreme court could rule, Honest Elections Project executive director Jason Snead told the Washington Free Beacon. His group filed an amicus brief arguing that the referendum was illegal since it passed the General Assembly through an “unlawful special session.”
Snead called the amendment an attempt to “steamroll any provision of the laws or constitution of the state of Virginia.”
“I think that the Virginia supreme court has an excellent opportunity to deliver a clear ruling that you cannot short-circuit the order here in Virginia for raw political power,” he said.
The post Virginia Voters Approve Gerrymandered Congressional Map As Legal Challenges Loom appeared first on .

The state will be represented in Congress almost entirely by Fairfax County.

U.S. Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is now a former Member of Congress, after her resignation just ahead of a potential expulsion vote. Now that she’s resigned, the Elitist Media can finally bring themselves to report on her charges.

ABC broke their collective ice with a brief, buried at the end of B-block, on World News Tonight:

WATCH: After completely ignoring the indictment and ethics hearing of now-former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, @ABCWorldNews finally deigns to cover her resignation. Buried at the back of B-block. pic.twitter.com/YyA4kYeail
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 21, 2026

DAVID MUIR: Tonight, Florida Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-Mccormick resigning from office ahead of a vote to potentially expel her from Congress. She’s accused of stealing $5 million in FEMA and Covid relief funds, allegedly using the money to finance her 2021 campaign and personal expenses. She denies any wrongdoing. She’s now the third Member of Congress to resign in the last week.

After everything that has occurred throughout the process, this was the first time that the story got mentioned on World News Tonight. If only Cherfilus-McCormick had committed sexual impropriety, then perhaps her story would’ve gained more notoriety.

The CBS Evening News filed a much more extensive report. Watch:

WATCH: The CBS Evening News broke their own silence on former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s resignation from Congress ahead of a potential expulsion.
TONY DOKOUPIL: To other news and another day of reckoning on Capitol Hill. A Democratic congresswoman from Florida became the… pic.twitter.com/5Iu4L6mSwX
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 22, 2026

TONY DOKOUPIL: To other news and another day of reckoning on Capitol Hill. A Democratic congresswoman from Florida became the latest US lawmaker to step down amid allegations of ethics violations. It happened minutes before a vote- a vote to decide whether she should be forced out. Here is CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nikole Killion.

NIKOLE KILLION: Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick decided to resign rather than face punishment by her House colleagues after the House Ethics Committee found she committed more than two dozen campaign finance related violations.

MICHAEL GUEST: We, being the ethics committee, we being the body as a whole, that we are going to hold members accountable.

KILLION: Cherfilus-McCormick called the probe a “witch hunt”, and said “rather than playing these political games I choose to step away.” The investigation centered on allegations that she stole $5 million in FEMA funds that were paid out to her family’s company in 2021 and funneled to her congressional campaign. Investigators say she used the money to buy jewelry from Tiffany, a Tesla, designer clothing and tickets for a cruise. Cherfilus-Mccormick’s resignation comes one week after California Democrat Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales left office following allegations of sexual misconduct.

RO KHANNA: She needed to go. Swalwell needed to go. Gonzales needed to go. We need to uphold basic ethics in the United States Congress.

Reporter: Cherfilus-McCormick also faces federal charges but has pleaded not guilty and there are calls for another lawmaker, Florida Republican Cory Mills, to resign or be expelled. He’s under an ethics investigation for sexual and financial misconduct but has denied any wrongdoing, Tony.

DOKOUPIL: Nikole, thank you very much.  

NBC Nightly News did not report on anything that happened after the initial indictment, but they were the first to cover the allegations and ethics probe. Now that she’s gone, the networks have attempted to play catch-up and get something into the record.

And the double standard lives on.

Tuesday’s CBS Mornings was the only lead broadcast network morning show to mention Virginia’s special election that, pending voter approval, would gerrymander the commonwealth’s congressional delegation from six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and one Republican in the name of “fairness.”

Unsurprisingly, the liberal network took their elected allies at their word that it would only be a “temporary” map and it’s only in response to a “national fight started by President Trump and congressional Republicans in Texas.”

WATCH: Tuesday’s ‘CBS Mornings’ asserted Virginia Democrats are only gerrymandering the commonwealth to a 10D-1R map because “the national fight [was] started by President Trump and congressional Democrats in Texas and other states” and takes Virginia Dems 100% at their word that… pic.twitter.com/Ok3fAm5hwf
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 21, 2026
Fill-in co-host Matt Gutman made it sound uncontroversial: “Now, voters in Virginia will decide today whether to redraw the state’s Congressional map. Legislature wants to change these districts which were created by an independent commission. The new map will give Democrats control of every congressional seat in the state except one.”

Speaking of benign, here was the wording of the question before voters:

Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?

Senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe spun from the get-go that this talk of partisan redistricting was a “national fight started by President Trump and congressional Republicans in Texas and other states to redraw congressional maps.”

“Democrats, of course, did it as well in California and now here in Virginia, they’re trying to find another advantage for themselves in the east,” he added.

Following a soundbite of a pro-“yes” ad featuring former President Barack Obama, O’Keefe doubled down, citing GOP redraws in Missouri, North Carolina, and Missouri that “could help the GOP win nearly 10 more seats in November.” Notice how the numbers were not relayed from Democrat gains in California, Utah (via a state judge), or failed attempts in New York.

There are a number of misleading claims here. First, the new Texas congressional map still allows for Democrats to hold at least 21 percent of seats — which is eight out of 38 total seats — when the Lone Star State gave Kamala Harris 42 percent in 2024.

Second, Virginia’s map would leave the GOP with only one seat — or nine percent — when they gave Trump 46 percent of the vote two years ago.

Finally, has O’Keefe seen states such as Illinois? The left’s argument that gerrymandering has been one-sided is, at best, preposterous.

But, yes, Republicans “started it” when it comes to “rigged” congressional maps 🙄 pic.twitter.com/vGn0NJI53r
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 21, 2026

Moving back to O’Keefe, he touted Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger’s support for the mesasure, saying she “wants to change from this current almost evenly divided congressional map to this, giving Democrats a possible 10-1 advantage.”

Here again, O’Keefe left out some information.

Until earlier this year (and thus dating back to her gubernatorial campaign), Spanberger was against gerrymandering.

O’Keefe did provide soundbites from the Republican view, including President Trump and former Governor Glenn Youngkin. O’Keefe said the GOP believe “it’s an unconstitutional power grab as the proposed map expands Democratic-leaning districts in Northern Virginia and squeezes GOP representation into just a single seat.”

When Fairfax County is cracked five different ways, it’s safe to rate this claim as true.

O’Keefe had one more whopper to deliver after a clip of former Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the changes in order to save democracy (or something): “So, important to point out that the question being put to voters here today does call out the fact this is a temporary change, and Virginia’s current redistricting laws would kick back in after the 2030 census is taken.”

If anyone believes Fairfax County will give up being the home of up to five of Virginia’s 11 members of Congress, we have a possibly, soon-to-be-detonated bridge Iran to sell you.

Further, the math reveals a different story O’Keefe and his fellow D.C. elite media wouldn’t be caught conceding.

In California, Trump received 40 percent of the vote in 2024, but their gerrymander now leaves only five seats out of 52 seats for Republicans, which works out to 9.6 percent.

Our friend Matt Whitlock explained last August on X that there are plenty of lopsided House districts in blue states such as New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington state:

Wrong. Red states got nothing on blue state gerrymandering.
California:
🔴40% of the statewide vote
🔵17% of the seats (9 out of 52)
Massachusetts:
🔴35% of the statewide vote
🔵0% of the seats (0 out of 9)
Connecticut:
🔴 38% of the statewide vote
🔵 0% of the seats (0… https://t.co/F9NtnikHVg
— Matt Whitlock (@MattWhitlock) August 6, 2025

2022 Media Research Center Bulldog Award winner Luke Rosiak made a similar point Tuesday morning on X:

Virginia Democrats say they aren’t the bad guys, they’re just responding to Texas gerrymandering. But Texas’s proposed map (+21%) is less of a gerrymander than the maps of California, Washington (+23), and MD (+26), and is similar to NY (18%). pic.twitter.com/EuPxyuHHRD
— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) April 21, 2026

To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 21, click “expand.”

CBS Mornings
April 21, 2026
7:14 a.m. Eastern

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Virginia Casts Votes on New Congressional Map]

MATT GUTMAN: Now, voters in Virginia will decide today whether to redraw the state’s Congressional map. Legislature wants to change these districts which were created by an independent commission. The new map will give Democrats control of every congressional seat in the state except one. Ed O’Keefe is at a polling place in Northern Virginia. Ed, good morning.

ED O’KEEFE: Matt, good to see you. If it’s Tuesday, people are voting, and we’re seeing a decent clip of folks show up this morning. This is all is all part of the national fight started by President Trump and congressional Republicans in Texas and other states to redraw congressional maps. Democrats, of course, did it as well in California and now here in Virginia, they’re trying to find another advantage for themselves in the east.

FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA [IN AD]: Virginians are turning out in record numbers to vote yes.

ED O’KEEFE: In Virginia, Democrats hope new battle lines can be drawn. It’s a direct response to President Trump’s push for Republicans to redraw congressional districts in states like Texas, North Carolina and Missouri that could help the GOP win nearly 10 more seats in November.

GOVERNOR ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D-VA): This year, we saw a President say that he’s entitled to more seats in Congress, because, of course, they all see that the wave is coming.

ED O’KEEFE: Democratic Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger wants to change from this current almost evenly divided congressional map to this, giving Democrats a possible 10-1 advantage. President Trump in a radio interview, urged Virginia voters to reject it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Nobody has ever seen anything like it. It’s so unfair.

O’KEEFE: Republicans say it’s an unconstitutional power grab as the proposed map expands Democratic-leaning districts in Northern Virginia and squeezes GOP representation into just a single seat.

FORMER GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN (R-VA): The new map is crazy, and what it does is take Northern Virginia and inject it into the entire state.

O’KEEFE: But former Obama era Attorney General Eric Holder, who’s led a nationwide push against these kinds of redraws, now says Virginia’s change is necessary to stop Republicans.

FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER [on CBS’s Face the Nation, 04/19/26]: What were we supposed to do? Nothing?

O’KEEFE: So important to point out that the question being put to voters here today does call out the fact this is a temporary change, and Virginia’s current redistricting laws would kick back in after the 2030 census is taken, Nate, just 196 days to go until Election Day.

NATE BURLESON: All right, Ed, thank you.

There is nothing the Fed should or could do about rising insurance costs based on perceived climate risk.

Yet his independence on interest-rate decisions remains in doubt.