The Trump administration's effort to silence a United Nations expert hit a major snag, with a judge ruling it violated her right to free speech.
A federal judge temporarily blocked sanctions against Italian lawyer Francesca Albanese, a UN expert on the Palestinian territories, according to reporting by the Guardian on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote in his opinion that "Albanese has done nothing more than speak!"
Albanese recommended that the International Criminal Court prosecute United States and Israeli nationals for war crimes in Gaza, The Guardian reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded by sanctioning Albanese last year and barred her from entering the U.S. or banking there, according to the Guardian.
Family members of Albanese with U.S. citizenship sued the Trump administration in February and alleged that the sanctions were "effectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life," according to reporting by the Guardian.
Leon wrote that the Trump administration wanted to regulate her speech because of the "idea or message expressed," which is protected by the First Amendment, the Guardian wrote.
"It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC's actions - they are nothing more than her opinion."
"JD Vance is desperately trying to remind dad he's still his most special boy," Psaki quipped on her show, mocking the announcement as political theater designed to keep Vance relevant while Secretary of State Marco Rubio accompanied President Donald Trump to China. "He's still doing his homework, even though dad's away on his big work trip."
Vance himself joked about the seeming disconnect, comparing himself to Macaulay Culkin's character in "Home Alone."
The Trump administration's Medicaid cuts, which California's attorney general said will gut programs that help seniors and people with disabilities remain in their homes, were unveiled with what Psaki described as unusual fanfare — "tons of pomp and circumstance."
The timing was no accident, she argued. Vance made the announcement the day before California Gov. Gavin Newsom was scheduled to unveil the state's annual budget, delivering a one-two punch intended to dominate news cycles and put Newsom on defense.
"Politically speaking, today was kind of a twofer," Psaki said. "He got some headlines to stay relevant while Marco got to ride on the big plane to go do big boy stuff in China. And he got to attack Gavin Newsom."
Newsom is widely considered one of Vance's most formidable potential rivals in the 2028 presidential race, making California a particularly attractive target for the vice president's political maneuvering.
President Donald Trump may be laying the groundwork to deploy secret presidential directives that no court has ever reviewed, no Congress has ever examined, and that any sitting president can rewrite at will to interfere in the midterm elections, a State Department insider warned on Wednesday.
Known as Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEADs, the directives were designed to bypass traditional Congressional authorization during national emergencies. They were initially contemplated as a way to ensure continuity of government during a crisis, and documents authorized actions like seizing private property or arresting citizens that would face legal challenge only after they had already been carried out.
Jonathan Winer, a former U.S. special envoy during the Obama administration who reviewed declassified materials at the National Archives, warned during an interview on the podcast "The Court of History" that Trump may try to use them to stifle the upcoming elections.
"The key thing about PEADs is they've never been reviewed by Congress or anyone outside administration," Winer said. "They can be rewritten based on any administration's point of view as to what's necessary in an emergency. And they would be tested legally and constitutionally only after they're used."
Winer pointed to The White House's newly released counterterrorism strategy, which identifies Antifa alongside foreign terrorist groups as a primary domestic threat. When combined with other Trump executive orders, Winer said the framework closely resembles the legal architecture the J. Edgar Hoover FBI used to justify mass surveillance and detention planning six decades ago.
What makes the current moment uniquely dangerous, host Sidney Blumenthal said, is that the officials who would be ordered to implement any such directives — such as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel — have already demonstrated they will comply.
"That history echoes," Winer said, "and those echoes are pretty loud right now."
In the early morning hours of late February, a 911 call was made from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Mesa because a man was having a seizure after immigration agents used pepper spray on a group of 47 detainees in an enclosed room.
“Um, yeah we had, uh, a officer safety issue here,” ICE Ofc. Gene Rivero told a dispatcher with the Mesa Fire and Medical Department, according to a 911 call obtained by the Arizona Mirror through a public records request. “Pepper spray was used and we have a couple subjects that need to be looked at and one subject specifically that appears to be seizing.”
The incident had occurred at the Arizona Removal and Operations Coordination Center housed at the Mesa-Gateway Airport. The facility, first exclusively reported on by the Mirror, is a 25,000-square-foot facility at the airport. It opened in 2010 to little fanfare and can house up to 157 detainees and 79 ICE employees.
But a Mirror analysis of data of ICE detention records that the Deportation Data Project obtained via the Freedom of Information Act showed that, in some cases, detainees have stayed for longer than the 12 hours ICE has said the facility is meant for.
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And AROCC has regularly held far more detainees than it is supposed to. The day that ICE agents pepper sprayed the inmates as they were housed in a small room — each room has a capacity of no more than two dozen, though nearly 50 were in the room this day — there were a reported 332 detainees being held.
The pepper spray incident happened a week after a congressional oversight visit, prior to which ICE had shuffled around detainees so that AROCC had some of the lowest numbers it had seen all year.
ICE said the officers used pepper spray to quell disruptive behavior in the overcrowded detention room.
“Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) spray was deployed on a group of detainees at the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center in Mesa, AZ, following repeated verbal commands to cease kicking the cell door, banging the windows, and exhibiting aggressive behavior toward officers,” ICE said in a statement to the Mirror. “At approximately 2:15 a.m., an ICE detainee was transported to East Valley Emergency Room (EVER) due to an asthma episode. The detainee was released from EVER at approximately 3:15 a.m.. There is no evidence to suggest that the asthma episode experienced was caused by exposure to OC spray with the detainee’s pre-existing medical condition.”
ICE did not respond to questions asking about the comments made by its own employee about the detainee “seizing,” if any employees of the agency also required treatment or what policies the agency has for the use of pepper spray in confined spaces.
From the 911 call, it’s clear that ICE agents were affected by the spray. As he spoke with the dispatcher, Rivero repeatedly paused to cough, and others can be heard coughing in the background. Rivero told the dispatcher that ICE agents were attempting to “air out” the facility to clear out the chemical agent.
Firefighters said they “found one individual outside with security that was struggling from the exposure to the pepper spray.”
“We also found many people sitting in the breeze way (sic) shackled at the feet. Security was bringing inmates out five at a time and placing them in the breeze way,” according to a fire department report obtained by the Mirror.
“At the beginning we only had the one patient. Eventually we ended up
evaluating a second patient who ended up refusing transport,” the report says.
A report of the incident obtained by the Mirror shows that firefighters said that there was only one patient, but approximately 30 others were “getting out of cells” and that they “may need a lot of ppl wash down” due to the pepper spray.
Both the Queen Creek Fire Department and Gilbert Fire Department helped respond to the call.
Last month, three Arizona Democratic members of Congress showed up at AROCC unannounced for a surprise oversight visit. They said afterward that the holding rooms had roughly double the number of people than the maximum capacity posted outside each room. One said that detainees were packed in the rooms “like sardines.”
One of those lawmakers, U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, told the Mirror in a written statement that the audio from the 911 call made her sick.
“This makes me sick to my stomach. You could hear detainees coughing and struggling to breathe,” Ansari said. “ICE is cruel — I’ve witnessed that cruelty firsthand. I’ve seen my constituent, Yari, coughing up blood while suffering from medical neglect. I’ve seen people packed into small concrete cells at Mesa Gateway, sick and crowded together like sardines.
“Time and time again, I’ve demanded answers from ICE and they’ve failed to show basic humanity or accountability. That’s why I’ll continue to vote NO on any additional funding for ICE.”
An airplane sits on the tarmac at Mesa Gateway Airport on the evening of April 9, 2026, outside of the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, an ICE facility where detainees are temporarily housed before they are put on a plane to either be deported or moved to a different ICE facility. (Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror)
Another one of those lawmakers, U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, said in a statement to the Mirror that she is “deeply concerned” with the increased use of force against ICE detainees.
“People who are simply asking for food, water, and medical care should not be met with force,” Grijalva said. “Equally concerning is the severe overcrowding at this facility, where the population on the day of the incident far exceeded the facility’s maximum capacity. When detention facilities become overcrowded and conditions deteriorate, the risk of escalation and harm increases significantly.”
The Tucson Democrat said she is also troubled by ICE’s response to questions about the incident and is calling for greater transparency on this incident as well as what protocols the agency has on use-of-force “particularly in confined spaces and against medically vulnerable individuals.”
“ICE’s immediate attempt to dismiss any possible connection between the medical emergency and the deployment of pepper spray is equally concerning and reflects a broader pattern of deflecting accountability and gaslighting the public,” she said. “I’m calling on ICE to provide full transparency regarding this incident, including whether proper protocols were followed and what steps are being taken to ensure the health and safety of individuals in custody.”
An internal report, obtained by the Washington Post and published as part of a larger database of use of force incidents at detention centers, gives a little more insight into the incident.
“On February 27, 2026, (Enforcement and Removal Operations) Phoenix reported the use of force on a group of 47 detainees while housed at the AROCC in Mesa, Arizona,” ICE wrote. “No injuries were reported, ERO leadership. (Mesa Fire and Medical Department), and the ICE (Office of Professional Responsibility) Intake Center were notified.”
In late January, the local agency responded to a medical call at AROCC, where it found such severe overcrowding that it gave ICE a list of corrections it needed to make.
ICE told Mesa Fire that the 238 people records show were detained that day was an aberration because of a measles outbreak at another Arizona facility. The agency promised the number of detainees would be back under the listed maximum capacity of 157 within a week.
But the next day, records show the daily population was 646 people. The day after that, it was 526. Within a couple of days, there were 777 people being housed at AROCC. On Feb. 4, the day ICE had said the overcrowding would be resolved, there were 513 people locked in the facility’s detention rooms.
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The use of force incident at AROCC is one of many this year.
In 2024, there were 23 reported use of force incidents for the entire year at detention centers in Arizona. In 2025, that number rose to 34. In just the first two months of 2026, there were 13 incidents, putting ICE on pace to use force on immigrant detainees 78 times.
From the start of January to the end of February in 2024, there were three use of force reports and in 2025, there were five. This year marks a 333% and 160% increase from the same timeframe in previous years.
The majority of use-of-force incidents are taking place at the Eloy Detention Center, and the reports offer little information on what happened.
So far in 2026, the Eloy Detention Center has reported 4 use of force incidents; the narrative supplied in the official database only lists the nationalities of those involved, the date of the incident and that there was a “use of force.”
In 2024, under the administration of President Joe Biden, reports included more information.
For example, a report on Jan. 6, 2024, provides a narrative about how “contract staff” issued verbal commands to a “Senegalese national detainee” to “stop punching and kicking his cell door.”
“The EDC staff deployed a short burst of OC spray into the detainee’s cell to gain compliance. The detainee was extracted and escorted to the shower area for decontamination,” the narrative says. It goes on to say that the detainee was evaluated and later released in “administrative segregation pending a disciplinary hearing.”
Reports since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025 have become less transparent. While reports in 2025 continued to include some information about the use of things like pepper spray and why use of force was used, reports on incidents in 2026 have virtually no details.
“ERO Phoenix reported the use of force on a Jamaican national detainee and a Syrian national detainee while housed at the EDC in Eloy, Arizona. No injuries were reported. ERO leadership was notified,” the narrative for one 2026 report states.
“ERO Phoenix reported the use of force on two Mexican national detainees and two Cuban national detainees while housed at the EDC in Eloy, Arizona. No injuries were reported. ERO leadership was notified,” another report says.
None of the 2026 narratives supply information about what force was used or what led up to the use of force.
ICE did not respond to the Mirror’s questions as to why the narrative section of the use of force reports has become less detailed this year.
But getting a glimpse behind the curtain on use of force by ICE has never been simple.
“It’s never been easy to get data on this,” Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, told the Mirror.
Requests for use-of-force data often are withheld as sensitive law enforcement information, and incidents are generally learned about via detainee lawyers.
“It has never been particularly transparent,” Hawkins said.
A detainee boards a 747 that is part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Air Operations at Mesa Gateway Airport on Sept. 23, 2025. (Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror)
Reporting by the Washington Post has found that, during Trump’s second administration, use of force at ICE detention centers has surged. Their analysis found that detention staff have used force 37% more times than the previous year and a 54% increase from under Biden.
Meanwhile, populations at these centers, like AROCC, are continuing to grow and outpace the size of the facility.
The airport where AROCC is located has raised concerns that conditions there could be a violation of the lease agreement with the private company that sub-leases the space to the federal government.
At AROCC, ICE is detaining more people for longer periods than it ever has. The average length of stay in 2026 is about 36 hours, compared to the same time frame in 2025, when detainees were housed for just about 12 hours on average.
In 2025, the average daily population was approximately 21 people for the same timeframe. So far in 2026, there have been an average of 274 detainees each day. The Mirror found one individual in the data who stayed for 18 days, coinciding with a time when the population of the facility was near its peak of 777 people.
Conditions at the Eloy facility and the Florence Detention Center, where there have been multiple reports of abuse that has led to deaths, have garnered headlines.
Oversight of facilities like AROCC, Eloy and Florence exists in theory, but appears to be minimal, at best. Such oversight generally is done internally by the Office of the Inspector General or internal DHS units that have all been gutted by the Trump administration.
“Accountability has always been very, very limited and in short supply,” Hawkins said, adding that finding people willing to come forward about issues inside can be considerably difficult, as well. “The witnesses may be deported before it can even be investigated.”
Additionally, facilities like the one in Eloy and the Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex are run by private companies, meaning that there is a “less clear chain of command for discipline.”
Those facilities are run by CoreCivic who reported a 25% increase in total revenue for the first quarter of this year, largely attributing government contracts with DHS and ICE to their success.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.
President Donald Trump was hit by a devastating takedown on MS NOW from voters on Wednesday after he told reporters that he doesn't care about the economic pain the Iran war is causing.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he does not consider Americans' financial situation when considering how to manage the Iran war. Those comments sparked swift backlash from political analysts and observers who argued that Trump had revealed how little he thinks of the average American.
MS NOW played a montage of voters reacting to Trump's comments on Wednesday.
"He doesn't care about our situation. He doesn't. He's just here for pride and ego," one voter said. "He's not lying. And he proves it. Not only that, but also like food stamps and other stuff. He does not care about our financial situation."
"That's ridiculous," another voter chimed in. "He's a pompous idiot."
"You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth," another voter said. "Of course, the Americans' pockets don't mean anything to you."
Trump's comments are just the latest example of how he has shown voters that he does not care about their well-being. Last year, Trump's budget slashed billions in federal spending on public benefits like food stamps and Medicaid, despite his promises not to cut those programs.
MS NOW's Chris Hayes kicked off Wednesday night's edition of "All In" by breaking down the details of President Donald Trump's highly controversial $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for allowing his tax returns to be leaked — effectively, a demand to have his own administration pay him money.
This comes amid reports that President Donald Trump's own Justice Department is considering a possible settlement to the suit, although it is unclear whether that settlement would include a monetary payout and, if so, how much.
"It is hard, dear viewer, to keep track of the very, very long list of shady deals and no-bid contracts and outright corrupt crypto schemes that have been the hallmark of the presidency of Donald Trump, particularly this second version of it," said Hayes. "But I ask you tonight to pay attention to the one that he appears to be about to pull off, because it's got to be the greatest heist in American history, a direct transfer of billions of your taxpayer dollars directly into the bank account, and the pockets of Donald Trump, all dressed up as a settlement of a lawsuit in which Donald Trump is both the plaintiff and also the defendant. It would be a maneuver that could nearly triple his net worth."
"All of this happening as the Trump administration is literally making your life harder and more expensive with wars and tariffs," said Hayes. "None of that has stopped Trump from trying to get his hands on more of your money."
"The president, in effect, sued himself for more than $10 billion, or he sued the government he controls," said Hayes. "$10 billion, by the way, is nearly the entire annual IRS budget. And those dollars have paid out would come from the U.S. Treasury, which he also oversees. Now, this is so novel, I don't really know how you characterize it legally, like we're out past the frontier, whether legal or not. I am of the strong opinion, and I think many would be also that this is an attempt at the largest theft ever by an American politician, plainly, flagrantly. Blatantly, in plain daylight. It is a conflict of interest so enormous the term itself, conflict of interest hardly begins to capture what's happening."
"In fact, get this: last month, a federal judge in the case ... gave them until May 20th to come back and explain how the case isn't a scam to enrich Trump," said Hayes. "She's like, wait a second, wait a second. The constitution requires cases or controversies, but I don't see one here, she writes. 'Although President Trump avers he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is a sitting president and is named adversaries or entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,' she added ... What the judge is saying is, like, I don't think this is actually a real case. It can't be. You're on both sides."
"So the lawyers have one more week to file briefs that would convince the judge to let Trump's $10 billion lawsuit continue," said Hayes. And this, he said, is why the Justice Department is considering settlement talks now, before that deadline: to "shovel tons of cash over to him in return for him dropping the suit. The mob has a word for that: shakedown."
"Think of it again," Hayes continued. "Your taxes may come out of your paycheck every week. Or you wrote a check April 15th. Some part of that is going to end up in Donald Trump's bank account. No one has ever taken as much money in the history of the nation as Donald Trump is attempting to hoover up from the federal government right now, I don't think there's ever been a $10 billion theft, $10 billion. That's the same amount in child care subsidies that Trump froze last year. $10 billion is almost enough to fund federal disaster relief for a year. It is enough to fund the entire National Park Service, one of the great jewels of this nation, for five years. You could fund the Peace Corps for 20 years. It could all go straight into the Trump family coffers."
"I am telling you, there is no scale or precedent for corruption like this in the United States," he added. "It would put every other Trump grift to shame."
A former employee of the prison where Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice and convicted child sex offender, Ghislaine Maxwell, is incarcerated, spoke out on CNN about the lengths staff there are taking to make sure she has a cushy experience.
"The things that were being done for her were not common for any of the other inmates," Noella Turnage told CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday.
Turnage was fired from the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, where Maxwell is incarcerated. Turnage shared emails from Maxwell that boasted how much better it is than the last prison that held her.
"The food is legions better," Maxwell wrote in an email to her brother. "The place is clean, the staff is responsive and polite...I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderlands (sic) looking glass. I am much much happier here and more importantly safe."
Turnage explained that this kind of treatment isn't even given to "the other high-profile inmates."
To provide Maxwell a private visitation, prison staff even "caused visitations to be shut down for the rest of the inmates that weekend," Turnage said.
"They were not able to see their families that Saturday to make way for Maxwell to see her visitors," Turnage said.
The prison's warden handled Maxwell's mail, "which may not sound like a big deal to some people, but the other inmates in that prison, they have a hard time getting out their regular mail, much less anything needed for court filings," Turnage explained.
"For them to go out of the way to make sure that Maxwell had that opportunity was pretty disgusting," Turnage said.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that former private prison executive David Venturella will lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an acting capacity after the agency’s current director departs at the end of the month.
Venturella has been a senior adviser to ICE since February 2025 and previously worked at the private prison giant GEO Group for more than a decade, most recently serving as the company’s senior vice president of client relations until 2023. GEO Group is a major beneficiary of federal contracts, running immigration detention centers for ICE.
The Washington Postnoted that GEO Group also “owns the only company with an ICE contract to track immigrants through GPS ankle monitors.”
GEO Group’s PAC donated heavily to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and has seen a hefty return on its investment. The company reported $254 million in profits for fiscal year 2025—a 700% increase compared to the previous year—and boasted “record-setting new contract wins totaling up to $520 million.”
The Trump administration’s decision to elevate Venturella to the head of ICE comes as congressional Republicans are working to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for the agency, even as deaths in detention rise and immigration officers unleashed by the president continue to face backlash for fatal abuses across the country.
The GOP’s budget reconciliation proposal, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, includes over $38 billion for ICE to “expand and sustain enforcement operations by hiring and equipping personnel across its divisions, supporting detention and removal transportation, upgrading technology and facilities, and expanding 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a lead sponsor of legislation that would terminate all existing federal contracts for immigration detention, said Tuesday that Venturella’s appointment as acting ICE chief “is to ensure Trump’s corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities’ pain.”
“But Americans demand oversight and accountability,” said Ramirez. “We must Melt ICE, end detention, and dismantle [the Department of Homeland Security].”
Vice President JD Vance just revealed something dark about President Donald Trump's war in Iran with another one of his "shameless lies," according to one analyst.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Vance was asked about Trump's comments, in which he said the financial pain Americans are feeling because of the Iran war is not a top-of-mind concern for him. Vance deflected and accused the reporter of misrepresenting what Trump actually said.
"Do you agree with the president that Americans' financial situation should not be a consideration in that decision-making process?" the reporter asked.
"I don't think the president said that," Vance said. "I think that's a misrepresentation of what the president said."
The vice president's response stunned Adam Mockler, a political commentator for the MeidasTouch Network, who responded to Vance's comments in a new reaction video.
"These people lie so shamelessly, and it comes top-down from Trump," Mockler said. "He's the most shameless liar of them all, but this is some shameless BS. Listen, nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. But the reality is we are not any closer to a denuclearized Iran if that's the goal."
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he won't end the war in Iran until the regime agrees to give up its nuclear weapons. That's despite Trump claiming last year that Iran's nuclear capabilities had been "completely obliterated" by a previous strike on three of the nation's nuclear facilities.
Mockler suggested that Vance's comments show the administration knows they are not close to achieving their goals in Iran.
"The enriched uranium is still there," he said. "The scientists have been scattered across the country, and all the blueprints have been put in the cloud. They can just rebuild whenever they want."
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is inappropriately injecting religion into the federal workplace, according to a new lawsuit, and pressuring employees to follow her faith.
According to ABC News, the National Federation of Federal Employees "filed the lawsuit in California, accusing Rollins of violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," stating that "Secretary Rollins's practice and policy of subjecting agency employees to proselytizing messages conveys the expectation that USDA employees share in the Secretary's religious beliefs, even when doing so would betray an employee's own beliefs."
Rollins is accused of repeatedly invoking Jesus Christ in her emails to staff and creating an uncomfortable environment for employees who do not agree with her beliefs.
"The complaint listed a series of emails sent by Rollins to commemorate recent holidays, including crediting 'gratitude towards a loving God' in her Thanksgiving email, writing that 'God gave us the greatest gift possible' in her Christmas email, and describing the story of Jesus' resurrection as the 'greatest story ever told' in her Easter email," said the report. "Rollins only acknowledged Christian holidays, according to the complaint."
One employee said nobody dared ask to remove themselves from the email list for fear it would "create trouble," while another said he "feels that the Secretary is conveying to him that he is unwelcome and 'going to hell' because he does not share the Secretary's beliefs."
Rollins has frequently created controversy with her remarks about food inflation, suggesting that people who were pressured by higher egg prices should just raise backyard chickens, and insisting that her department ran "simulations" proving Americans can create a meal for just $3.
A prominent election law expert noticed something major shifted with Chief Justice John Roberts last month, and he can't find a reassuring explanation for it.
Writing in Slate, University of California, Irvine law professor Richard Hasen, one of the country's leading voting rights scholars, says Roberts spent four decades carefully dismantling the Voting Rights Act one methodical step at a time. But in the past 30 days, the chief justice has thrown that patience out the window, and the consequences for American elections could be severe.
Louisiana v. Callais, in a 6-3 ruling, effectively gutted what remained of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the very provision Roberts had previously pointed to as a safety valve when he helped strike down other voting protections in 2013, Hasen said.
Hasen was spooked by the speed of the ruling, as the court rushed its final judgment in Callais, bypassing normal procedural timelines. Days later, it handed Alabama a sweeping redistricting victory, green-lighting the elimination of a Black opportunity district even after a lower court found intentional racial discrimination.
Hasen warned states can now use partisan gerrymandering as a legal defense against racial discrimination claims, a distinction he called "nonsensical in the South, where 90 percent of Black voters support Democrats."
"Every state now has an incentive to squeeze out as many seats for the dominant party as it can, hurting not just minority rights but representation for voters across the country," he said.
Hasen offers three possible explanations for Roberts' sudden urgency: naked partisanship, motivated reasoning that blinds conservatives to harm they're causing, or a 71-year-old chief justice who sees the clock running out on his project to reshape American democracy before the court faces serious reform pressure.
"Roberts did not tell us why he is suddenly in a hurry, but none of the possibilities are good ones," Hasen wrote.
Hasen coined the "Purcell principle," the legal doctrine the court just abandoned, and said he has reluctantly changed his mind on Supreme Court reform as a result.
"Trump is about to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping tonight, a high-stakes meeting which is being mocked across China," Burnett explained. "Beijing's strict censors are letting the ridicule go viral, which is a statement in and of itself."
"America has lost its swagger. They're nothing but a paper tiger," one of those viral posts read. "The U.S. economy is in bad shape. Trump has been blustering Iran for so long."
"They will look up to us from now on," read another post that Burnett shared. "Trump came to China! We won the tariff war!" read another.
"Trump, you're welcome to visit China and learn from us," the mockery continued.
"The U.S. is no longer a country that we look up to. We can now compete with them with confidence and strength," a Chinese social media user wrote.
"In China, political content like this never goes viral, especially when you have a head of state coming," Burnett explained. "This is because government censors want this to go viral, and by the tone of the messages, the Chinese government feels they've got the upper hand."
Missouri's Supreme Court may have just thrown a wrench into President Donald Trump's gerrymandering scheme, according to a new analysis.
On Tuesday, the court upheld the GOP's new map, which gives the party a 7-1 seat advantage over Democrats in the House of Representatives and could lead to the ouster of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), who represents Kansas City. However, the court tucked a little-noticed line in its ruling that Democrats could use to fight back against the map after the November election, according to a new analysis by The Kansas City Star.
In essence, the court said it is "impossible to say" whether the new map is in effect until Missouri's Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins certifies it. Hoskins has until Aug. 4 to certify the map, which is the same day as the primary elections.
But even if Hoskins certifies the map ahead of the election, Missourians would still need to vote to approve it, according to the court. That vote wouldn't happen until November, which would give Democrats leverage to potentially throw out the map altogether.
"If Hoskins determines that the campaign has enough signatures, the map would then be retroactively suspended back to Dec. 9, the day the campaign filed its initial paperwork, the court found," according to the analysis. "In other words, the new, gerrymandered map would be blocked — and has been blocked — until Missourians have a chance to vote on it in November."
"That stark acknowledgment creates several chaotic and dueling scenarios, including the possibility that one map could be used in August and another one in November," it added. "It could also open the door for a post-election challenge if the gerrymandered map is blocked but used in the August primaries."
