Today’s notice: Decades of history are playing out in Southern redistricting efforts. An exclusive look at the RNC’s plan to turn the midterms around. FEMA politics. Todd Blanche lays out his priorities. And: One of the House’s all-time stock traders hangs it up.

THE LATEST

Where redistricting brings out raw emotions: The speed of redistricting efforts in the South after Louisiana v. Callais is compressing a ton of history into a very tight space.

On one side are the people excited by Callais, mainly conservative Republicans, who say they can now finally prove the South’s ugly past is behind it. On the other are those terrified by the ruling, most vocally Black Democrats, who say it’s a sign that the ugly past is creeping into the present.

These strong feelings are crashing together across an entire region this week. Tennessee’s GOP trifecta rolled out a new congressional map that effectively erases Memphis as a constituency, fracturing it into slivers of Republican-majority districts. Louisiana’s Republican trifecta is ready to go next.

Right behind them is Alabama. The state’s attorney general, Republican Steve Marshall, is pushing hard to flex SCOTUS’ new reading of the VRA to help speed along redistricting efforts underway by the Republican trifecta in the state. Advocates for Black voters in Alabama say the plan would dilute their political power.

“I would wholeheartedly disagree with that,” Marshall told NOTUS’ Torrence Banks yesterday. “I think what they are simply trying to do is to be able to, similar to the legislature in Virginia, California, New York, Texas, engage in their prerogative” to draw district lines.

An Alabama presidential exit poll from 2020 found Black voters made up 22% of the sample — and 89% of them voted for Joe Biden. How will Republicans in the state deal with the backlash to the new maps from voters like that? “You’re assuming that every Black voter is a Democrat, which I don’t think is true,” Marshall told Torrence. “Here in Alabama, we’ve seen strong growth within the Republican Party from all races.”

In other places, the redistricting argument is purely partisan. But in the South, there is a visceral quality to it that has now come to the forefront. NOTUS’ Manuela Silva and Torrence detail how South Carolina Democratic icon Jim Clyburn and other Southern Black lawmakers are feeling right now.

“Either we can start voting as we have not been doing before, or we are going to live the same existence in this country as Black people that our grandparents and parents lived,” Clyburn told NOTUS.

Open tabs: Possible Epstein Suicide Note Is Released (NYT); Trump’s abrupt U-turn on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz came after backlash from allies (NBC); Republicans prepare for long-term redistricting domination (Semafor); The FBI Is Reportedly Investigating a Leak to an Atlantic Writer (The Atlantic)

From the campaign trail

Exclusive: The RNC’s low-propensity voter force. The Republican National Committee sent 34 staffers to 17 states last week, NOTUS’ Christa Dutton reports. Their job? Trying to pry out the less-reliable voters who helped fuel Donald Trump’s victory in 2024.

The RNC did not provide the full list of targeted states, but an official told Christa they include some obvious ones like North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as “places that we don’t traditionally play” like Maine and Alaska. Republicans have seen great results from spending get-out-the-vote resources on low-propensity voters, and they’re hoping those same people can be the party’s secret weapon again.

From FEMA

First on NOTUS: “The findings are deeply disturbing.” That’s a line from a new report by disaster-recovery experts and former FEMA employees who are not fans of how the agency has been run since 2025. Torrence obtained the findings from Sabotaging Our Safety, a group that gave FEMA an “F” grade for its leadership, workforce, strategic planning and hurricane preparedness.

The report is timed to come out alongside recommendations from the Trump administration’s official FEMA Review Council — a group full of people who are fans of how Trump wants the agency run.

Speaking of that, Democrats are going up with ads attacking Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Senate in North Carolina, over his service on the Review Council. Christa reports that Majority Forward PAC is up with a digital campaign continuing Democratic efforts to turn his appointment by Trump as “recovery czar” after Hurricane Helene into a liability.

From the DOJ

Todd Blanche lays out his priorities: The acting attorney general gave a speech yesterday at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix, where he vowed to carry out the Trump administration’s mission of blurring the lines between the DOJ and DHS, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports. Specifically, Blanche said he planned to focus on expanding the administration’s efforts to denaturalize recent immigrants and retaliate against sanctuary cities.

The nation’s top law-enforcement official also said that he directed federal prosecutors to seek more serious criminal charges against people who impede immigration agents — including “assault on a federal officer,” a crime that carries a possible yearlong jail sentence and a fine of up to $100,000.

NEW ON NOTUS

Trader no more: Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan has purchased just four municipal bonds and government securities so far this year. NOTUS’ Avani Kalra reports on how it’s a stark contrast from his disclosures last year, which revealed that he was one of Congress’ most prolific traders.

He’s been under pressure about his trading on the campaign trail from Democrats, who think they can flip his Pennsylvania district. A spokesperson confirmed that Bresnahan has stopped trading but declined to comment when asked what prompted the shift.

More: DOJ Opens a Probe Into a Second Virginia Democrat, by Jenna Monnin

NOT US

• Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash, by Sarah Fitzpatrick for The Atlantic
  
• Iran War Looms Over Vance as He Visits Iowa, by Shane Goldmacher for The New York Times
  
• As 2028 looms, Jennifer Siebel Newsom faces increased conservative attacks, by Finya Swai for Politico

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