Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Trump’s inner circle is reportedly worried the Iran war is wrecking his presidency, with one report claiming the war is taking a “personal toll” on both the president and White House staff. A former 60 Minutes star correspondent is now accusing her old boss of inserting Trump administration talking points into her reporting. JD Vance is facing a wave of “Never Vance” attacks from Republicans as he considers his own presidential campaign in 2028. And a Trump-appointed federal judge in Kentucky just handed the Justice Department its 17th straight loss in its efforts to seize state voter rolls.
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Trump Advisors Believe Iran War Actively Destroying His Presidency
According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, the Iran war is “taking a personal toll” on both President Donald Trump and his inner circle. And his advisors are worried the war is “consuming his presidency” and could cost Republicans their majorities in November.
After five months, Trump is in over his head. He reportedly believed the war would be over in a matter of weeks. Instead, it’s dragged on with no end in sight. Meanwhile, prices keep climbing, his approval rating is plummeting, and nearly two dozen American service members are dead.
All of the potential off-ramps failed to materialize. Trump first announced a ceasefire back in April right after threatening to end Iran’s “whole civilization.” In June, he signed a memorandum of understanding to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But neither effort panned out.
Now Trump reportedly no longer believes peace talks can end the war. One top White House official said the president is in “revenge mode,” convinced that brute force is the only way out.
That could prove costly. Just this week, Houthi militants from Yemen fired on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, leading to oil prices crossing the $100 per barrel mark. Trump has threatened a “major military punishment” in response to the attacks. And the Pentagon is reportedly now moving more troops, medics and weapons into the Middle East to give Trump more options if he decides to escalate the war. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is arguing that Iran broke the initial agreement by targeting commercial ships and killing American soldiers.
There’s also growing tensions between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president has reportedly told staffers he no longer wants to talk to or meet with Netanyahu, even as the Israelis are trying to set something up.
The personal toll of the war is also very real. According to the Journal, several top aides have reportedly been warned by intelligence agencies that Iran is plotting to kill them, and that they should stop using regular car services. One such alleged plot spooked Trump so much that he returned home from the recent NATO summit in Turkey — which borders Iran — in an older Air Force One jet, swapping out his new $400 million jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family.
After the New York Times published its report on those security concerns, Trump was apparently so mad that he asked some officials have been asked to hand over their phones so he could find the source of the leak.
Amid all of this, the ongoing war is splitting Trump’s MAGA coalition in two. Fox News host Laura Ingraham has warned that the “clock is ticking” toward the November midterms and that the war is only hurting Republicans’ chances. Longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon accised Netanyahu of leading the U.S. into “a horrible conflict filled with lies.”
Now, the president is hoping to pivot elsewhere, touting his administration’s new “Trump accounts” for families and seizing on any news of gas prices declining. But in private, Trump has reportedly pushed advisers to lean on oil companies to bring prices back down before voters cast their ballots in November.
For now, Trump is banking on the belief that he can break Iran’s will through a sustained bombing campaign. One Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the president feels he already gave peace a chance, and now he’s digging in on the military option.
Here's what nobody in Washington wants to say out loud. In August of 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution came to the Senate floor and passed 88 to 2. Wayne Morse of Oregon was one of the two. He stood up and told his colleagues they were handing a president a blank check to make war, and that history would record it as an unconstitutional surrender of a power the Constitution gave to Congress and to Congress alone. He was mocked for it. He lost his seat four years later. And he was right about every single word. What we're living through right now is what happens when there's nobody left in that chamber willing to be Wayne Morse. A president decides, the country pays, and the young people doing the dying never got a vote on it through anybody they elected.
Former ‘60 Minutes’ Star Accuses Bari Weiss of Demanding White House Talking Points in Her Reports
Cecilia Vega, who was the first Latina correspondent on '“60 Minutes” before being fired in May with no explanation, just broke months of silence.
While speaking Thursday at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Conference in New Orleans, Vega described what she called political interference under Bari Weiss, the right-wing opinion columnist that pro-Trump billionaire CBS owner David Ellison installed as the network’s editor-in-chief.
Status News reported that Vega told ABC’s John Quiñones she was “scared” to speak out but felt “there is a lot at stake.” She laid out three incidents in which Weiss personally intervened to inject far-right propaganda in her stories. When Vega reported on the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year, she said she was pushed to include footage of protesters attacking suspected ICE officers, even though her team couldn’t verify the footage existed. She was also instructed to include a supposed moment where Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told police to fight ICE agents, and where the police chief apparently rolled his eyes. Vega said her team combed through the press conference tape and never found that moment, since it never actually happened.
When reporting on Trump’s war with Iran, Vega said she was told to say Iran was “totally outgunned” by the U.S. and Israel, which she called a Trump administration talking point. And on a story about food stamp benefits in West Virginia which she told through residents’ voices, Weiss reportedly pressed her on why she hadn’t interviewed Vice President JD Vance or referenced his book “Hillbilly Elegy,” which is about Vance’s upbringing in Ohio. That’s despite the book being published a decade ago with absolutely no connection to West Virginia.
Vega said she didn’t include any of the disputed material in her final product, which drew applause from the audience. She stopped short of directly naming Weiss and instead mentioned “the new administration at CBS News,” though it’s easy to discern who she was talking about.
The former “60 Minutes” star observed that the tension began once new people started showing up in screenings of her reports to give feedback. She said the show used to be an “island” protected from political interference, and that she was never given a reason for her firing or even offered a one-on-one meeting with Weiss.
Vega’s account is similar to that of other former CBS journalists, including veteran correspondent Scott Pelley, about political pressure from network leadership. CBS has said Vega’s claims are not based in reality, and Weiss has said any editorial involvement as within the scope of her job as editor-in-chief. But prior reports have shown Weiss has repeatedly played a hands-on role in “60 Minutes” coverage. This includes personally green-lighting stories, even though that typically falls to the show’s executive producer. Staff have said that kind of involvement is unprecedented for a network boss and has frustrated staff who see her as the show’s de facto executive producer.
Understand what got dismantled here, because it wasn't just a TV show. For almost forty years this country had a rule called the Fairness Doctrine. If you held a broadcast license, you were using airwaves the public owns, and the deal was simple. You had to cover the hard issues, and you had to let more than one side be heard. Reagan's FCC killed it in 1987, and pretty much everything that's happened to American broadcast news since has rolled downhill from that one decision. Because once there's no public interest standard, there's nothing structural standing between a billionaire who buys a network and the version of reality he wants poured into your living room. There's just an owner, and whoever he hires.
This is exactly why we launched Raw America this year. Networks owned by billionaires aligned with the Trump regime can’t be counted on to accurately hold this government accountable. If you agree this moment requires truly independent journalism, become a paying subscriber right now.
JD Vance Faces Barrage of Attacks from ‘Never Vance’ Republicans
As Vice President JD Vance considers his own campaign for the presidency in 2028, he’s getting hit by a wave of attacks from inside his own party. His loudest critics have adopted the “Never Vance” label and lately been ramping up their attacks online, with several claiming he’s “unfit” to be president over his failed attempt to negotiate with Iran.
This kind of sustained, public attack from an incumbent vice president’s own party is unusual, especially since it’s happening a full two full years before Republicans vote for their next presidential nominee.
Vance’s team reportedly believes most of the attacks aren’t organic, but rather part of a coordinated plot. However, he’s concerned that publicly responding could backfire politically by signaling to the GOP base that Republicans aren’t fond of him.
Vance is currently the frontrunner in the lates 2028 Republican polling, though Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio is gaining ground with more business-minded Republicans.
Much of the vitriol toward Vance is rooted in his handling of foreign policy. In a July 15 appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Vance he called himself a “reasonable moderate” when it came to the United States’ relationship with Israel. He also accused pro-Israel influencers of being paid to attack him.
That set off a wave of criticism from pro-Israel conservatives like the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, and NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon. Much of the the criticism of Vance spread online after his interview with Rogan.
One Vance ally argued the inorganic appearance of the attacks looks obvious to “anyone with an IQ above 70,” and said Vance’s favorability with Republicans remains parallel with Donald Trump’s own numbers. Vance supporter Jon Schweppe posted data showing steady favorability numbers despite what he referred to as an “anti-Vance op,” and said the goal appears to be driving a wedge between Vance and Trump ahead of a future 2028 primary.
This kind of early, ideological attack from within the party isn’t typical for most vice presidents. Mike Pence didn’t see this kind of backlash until the final weeks of Trump’s first term, when a mob of Trump supporters roamed the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence.” Kamala Harris faced criticism too, but it was more muted.
Trump himself has said Vance is “philosophically a little bit different” when it comes to Iran and maybe less enthusiastic about the war, despite Vance continuing to publicly back the Trump administration’s policies.
Set aside what you think of JD Vance for one second, because there's something older going on here. The framers wrote a clause into Article One, Section Nine of the Constitution barring any federal officeholder from accepting a gift, a payment, or a title from a foreign government without Congress signing off on it. They'd watched European courts quietly purchase ambassadors and ministers, and they were genuinely frightened the young republic would be bought the same way. What they could never have pictured is a foreign power that doesn't need to buy the officeholder at all. If that's what's happening here, and the reporting is careful not to overclaim it, then somebody's figured out you can just rent a few thousand accounts and go to work on who's allowed to be on the ballot in the first place. The corruption the founders feared arrived by carriage. This one arrives on a phone, and we've built no clause to stop it.
Trump-Appointed Judge Hands Him 17th Straight Loss in Effort to Seize Voter Rolls
The Trump Justice Department’s record in efforts to seize state voter rolls now offricially stands at zero wins and 17 losses. The latest loss came this week, after a federal judge appointed by Trump himself threw out the DOJ’s lawsuit against Kentucky. She’s now the eighth Trump appointee to rule against the administration on this particular issue.
Since Trump’s second term began last year, the DOJ has been demanding unredacted voter registration data from almost every state. Thirty states plus Washington, D.C. wonuldn’t cooperate, so the Justice Department sued, basing its arguments on the Civil Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act.
So far, they’ve lost every single one of those cases. 11 of the 17 losses have come from judges appointed by Republican presidents.
In this Kentucky ruling, U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom found federal law simply doesn’t allow the federal government the kind of authority the DOJ claimed. She leaned on a prior ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the DOJ’s argument. The Sixth Circuit — whose jurisdiction covers six states, including Kentucky — has been the only appellate court to weigh in so far.
Boom wrote that Kentucky’s voter rolls don’t “come into” the possession of state election officials in the way the law requires, meaning isn’t subject to the Civil Rights Act provision the DOJ cited.
She also found that the Justice Department never properly explained the rationale behind its demand, which is another statutory requirement And she rejected the administration’s argument that normal court procedure shouldn’t apply to these cases in the first place. After 17 straight losses, the pattern seems pretty clear.
And here's the part that ought to stop you cold. In 2013, in Shelby County versus Holder, five justices decided the heart of the Voting Rights Act wasn't needed anymore. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the country had changed. Within hours, states that had spent decades under federal supervision started rolling out the voting restrictions they'd been blocked from passing. Now look at the inversion we're watching today. The 1960 Civil Rights Act was written to let federal investigators pry open the files of local officials who were keeping Black citizens off the rolls. This Justice Department picked up that exact law, turned it around, and aimed it at the voters. Seventeen federal judges, most of them appointed by Republicans, have looked at that and said no. That's not partisanship. That's judges reading a statute written to protect people and refusing to let it be used as a weapon against them.
Independent Journalism Needs Your Help to Survive
That’s your Friday rundown. Trump’s own team is panicking over the Iran war out of fear that it will ruin Trump’s legacy and end GOP control of Congress. A fired 60 Minutes reporter is accusing her former bosses of turning the most storied newscast into a propaganda mill. Vance is getting hammered from inside his own party before anyone even casts a ballot. And a Trump-appointed judge just handed the DOJ its 17th straight loss on its unprecedented voter data seizure attempt.
Raw America is only able to cover these stories this way because we don’t have to please a billionaire owner currying favor with the regime, or please a corporate board trying to get federal contracts approved. We only answer to you, the reader. But we’re behind on our fundraising goals, and need more paying subscribers to step up. If you found this newsletter valuable, now is the time to make the leap. Every subscription dollar goes directly toward the independent journalism that the billionaire-owned outlets could never do. Don’t wait.
I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Pentagon Caught Omitting Troop Deaths from Iran Death Toll. The Department of Defense has revised the official death toll from the Iran war to 14, down from 18 on Thursday. The Pentagon explained the change was due to four troop deaths happening after President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire in April. Those four service members were killed last weekend after Iranian attacks on U.S. targets in Jordan and northern Iraq.
Gold Star Families Upset with Trump Putting Words in the Mouths of Dead Troops. Several family members of dead American troops — known as “Gold Star families” — are now speaking out against Donald Trump’s insistence that the four service members who died last weekend said “we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” Karie Fugett, the widow of U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Jimmy Cleveland II, who was killed in Iraq in 2010, called Trump’s remarks a “disgraceful political stunt.”
Swing State Trump Voters ‘Very Disappointed’ over Iran War. Multiple supporters of Donald Trump in North Carolina are now telling MS NOW that they are “very disappointed” in the president over his war with Iran as it continues to drag on with no end in sight. One voter who admitted to supporting Trump in all three of his elections told the network they were upset with how the president minimized the deaths of American troops in the Iran war after Trump compared the Iran death toll to those in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and World War II.
Democratic Congresswoman Demands Investigation Into Trump’s Ties to Tate Brothers. After the recent arrest of far-right influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate — who have been charged with sexual assault and human trafficking — Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) called for an investigation into the president’s links to the two alleged sex criminals. In a letter to House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Ansari noted that the Tates have “successfully cultivated ties with conservative political figures,” which reportedly include the president’s youngest son, Barron.
