Grand juries are revolting against Trump's DOJ — and judges are joining them: NYT

Speaking with “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire, Rohde got right to the point as the producers displayed a graphic showing the administration coming up far short of its goals.

“Remind us, please, about the goals that this administration first set out for this conflict and what has actually been achieved,” Lemire prompted his guest.

“Look, I want to give credit to all the service members that are out there in particularly the day after Memorial Day, but this has been a disaster for this administration to have the Secretary of State [Marco Rubio], as we just saw him on his plane, trying to play down, almost trying to placate the Iranians and the American public about how this conflict has gone was extraordinary,” he began.

“I looked up President Trump's speech on February 28th when he announced the war, so achieved: ‘annihilate their navy.‘ Maybe. I mean, I think that's generally true. But this morning, the New York Times has reported that there are hundreds of these speedboats and this — look, I believe the United States Navy, I don't believe the Iranians at all — if they're laying mines with one of these speedboats. That's why it was part of the attack yesterday; that's extraordinary. That shows how emboldened the Iranians are. So that's maybe achieved or partly achieved.”

“And then everything else. 'Destroy their missiles,'” he continued. “The latest assessment is that 70% of Iran's missile capacity remains intact. They have knocked out some of the factories. But again, that is not an achievement. Overall, ensure the region's terrorist proxies no longer destabilize the region — That's not happening at all. That's not even part of these negotiations. And the missiles aren't either.”

“Ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” he continued. “That's not even part of the current negotiations that will come in this 60-day second round of talks. And then, most tragically, what he said to, as he said to ‘the great people of Iran, take over your government,’ and the regime remains in place.”

“So it's astonishing to me that an American president is in this position,” he concluded. “And they just, you know, this administration … just continues to mismanage this war.”

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And yet, while Trump’s actions have been scrutinized for potentially compromising a path toward a negotiated settlement, Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warned on Monday that the president was not the “greatest threat” to achieving peace.

“In recent days, it was not the Persian Gulf that emerged as the greatest threat to the agreement. It was Israel’s potential refusal to fully adhere to the regional ceasefire and halt its bombardment of Lebanon. That danger remains acute,” Parsi wrote in an analysis published on his Substack Monday.

Iran has demanded that Israel halt its bombardment of southern Lebanon as a key condition in its negotiations with the Trump administration, a demand that Israel has largely ignored.

On Friday, Israel launched what’s referred to as a “double tap” strike in southern Lebanon – following up an initial strike with a second to target emergency responders such as paramedics. More than 3,100 Lebanese have been killed by Israeli air strikes since early March and nearly 10,000 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

To secure a peace deal, Trump could demand Israel’s compliance, much as he unsuccessfully tried to do in April when he explicitly demanded Israel halt its attacks on Lebanon. Israel strikes continued, however, with Parsi noting a similar scenario that occurred in 1982, though one that elicited a very different response by the U.S. president at the time.

“Trump could still choose to put American interests first and compel Israel to comply, much as Ronald Reagan did in 1982 when he pressured Prime Minister Menachem Begin to halt Israel’s devastating assault on Lebanon,” Parsi wrote.

“Reagan reportedly expressed outrage at the bombardment of Beirut, warning Begin that America’s support could not be taken for granted. Within hours, the bombing stopped. Trump, by contrast, has thus far shown little ability to ensure sustained Israeli compliance with his demands.”

"We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory," the judges wrote.

The court ordered Secretary of State Wes Allen to administer Alabama's remaining 2026 congressional elections — including August special primaries — using the "Special Master Plan," a race-blind map previously imposed by the court that created a second district where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

The ruling comes after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the court's earlier permanent injunction and ordered the panel to reconsider in light of Louisiana v. Callais, an April 2026 decision that raised the bar for Voting Rights Act claims. The three-judge panel concluded that Alabama still loses under the new standard — both on constitutional and statutory grounds.

The judges found zero evidence that the legislature acted for partisan reasons and rejected the state's attempt to use Callais as a shield. "Alabama cannot use Callais to legitimize its pre-Callais decision to double down on the discriminatory vote dilution that we and the Supreme Court found," they wrote.

The court also cited the chaos that would result from forcing a map switch now. Alabama's elections director testified it would take a "Herculean effort" to redistrict voters in just seven days — a process that normally takes months.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, a Greensboro Democrat and plaintiff in the case, had warned the legislature it was on the wrong side of the law.

"We're definitely going to be filing actions in the state constitution," Singleton said after the legislature passed its special primary election law last month.

The court denied a stay, but Alabama was expected to appeal immediately to the Supreme Court.