The Supreme Court's conservative majority has quietly abandoned one of its own legal doctrines — and it did so in the middle of an ongoing election, in the dead of night, and without explanation, according to two lawyers.

The so-called Purcell principle, which the Court has invoked repeatedly over the past several years to protect the rights of minority voters, holds that state legislatures cannot change their election maps when an election is too close. But that principle was just thrown out the door in Louisiana v. Callais, according to legal experts Marc Elias and Joyce Vance.

Elias and Vance discussed the ruling on a new episode of the "Democracy Docket" podcast.

Elias pointed out that the Supreme Court relied on the Purcell principle to block a federal order requiring Alabama to redraw congressional maps that were found to discriminate against Black voters when the primary election was nearly five months away. But that principle was thrown out the window last week when it ruled that state legislatures can gerrymander their election maps on a partisan basis.

The ruling led Republican-controlled states like Louisiana and Alabama to immediately redraw their maps, with Louisiana's governor declaring a state of emergency and disrupting an ongoing election to do so.

"There is no way to explain why Black Alabamians in 2022, when the election was almost five months away, it was too late," Elias said. "But in Louisiana, white Louisianans, when the election is ongoing, get an assist from the Supreme Court, saying it is not too late."

Vance also expressed frustration with the Callais ruling.

"The conservative majority on the Supreme Court must be doing some serious yoga practice to be able to contort themselves into this kind of pretzel logic," Vance said.

President Donald Trump's latest glitch at a small-business event stunned a political analyst on Tuesday.

On May 4, Trump attended a small business event in the East Room at the White House, accompanied by Kelly Loeffler, his Small Business Administration secretary. During the event, Trump appeared to nod off while Loeffler was speaking, and at one point looked like he was sleeping while standing up, according to political analyst David Pakman.

Pakman discussed the event in a new reaction video on YouTube.

"Dear God, he is standing up and falling asleep!" Pakman said. "At another point, an incredibly disoriented Donald Trump, roused from a dream state, says that he could end employment with the swipe of a pen, which shocked people in the room. They are silent because I guess what Trump means is that he could end unemployment. But Trump goes, 'I could end employment with the swipe of a pen.'"

"This man is not well," Pakman added.

Trump's health has been a great concern during his second administration. There have been several instances where Trump was seen sleeping in meetings. His ankles have also shown signs of significant swelling, and bruises repeatedly appear on the back of his hands.

Some psychologists have said Trump may be experiencing symptoms of frontal temporal lobe dementia. Others have speculated that Trump may be showing signs of heart failure.

Pakman noted that Trump's speech at the small business event was "not remotely coherent."

"He says, 'I could end employment.' What?" Pakman said. "Trump then joked about getting out of office eight or nine years from now. I think we should not take the bait on this. That's my instinct."

President Donald Trump's legacy hinges on an issue he has no interest in addressing, according to one of his biographers.

Journalist Michael Wolff argued during a new episode of the "Inside Trump's Head" podcast, co-hosted by Nico Hines, the Daily Beast’s global editorial director, that Trump's war in Iran is shaping up to end a lot like the oil crisis that plagued former President Jimmy Carter long after he left office. Wolff noted that Americans have become increasingly sensitive to rising gas prices resulting from the war, similar to the crisis Carter faced when the former Iranian regime fell, he added.

At the same time, Trump has failed to pay attention to the changing nature of modern warfare, Wolff argued. Not only could that cost the U.S. a decisive victory in Iran, but it could also make Trump a footnote in history.

"So the lesson that everyone should have been learning if they paid attention to Ukraine — which Donald Trump was not doing, was not interested in doing, and rather stubbornly refused to do — is that the nature of warfare was changing," Wolff said.

Wolff added that Trump's team inside the White House has no clue how to respond to the crisis that the president has created.

"Everybody within the white House and within the Trump political team is aware that they don't know what to do about this," Wolff said. "They literally do not know what to do. They don't know how to get us out of the war, and they don't know how to manage this on a political basis."