Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
The European Central Bank is warning that Trump’s war in Iran could prompt a full-blown financial crisis. Nearly 200 journalists and press freedom advocates are fighting to block a media mega-merger that would put a billionaire Trump donor in control of both CNN and CBS News. A House Republican just got an earful from his own constituents at a heated town hall. And even the New York Post is blasting corruption in the Trump White House.
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Trump Creating Conditions for Next Financial Crisis
The European Central Bank doesn’t exactly make headlines for being alarmist. These are careful, measured central bankers. So when the ECB’s Vice President Luis De Guindos puts out a biannual Financial Stability Report warning that Trump’s Iran war and his whiplash trade policies could spark a global financial crisis, that’s a flashing red light. De Guindos wrote directly that the war has put the financial system “to the test,” and that the longer it drags on, the graver the consequences for the global economy become.
And it’s not just the war. The ECB went out of its way to flag Trump’s trade policies as a separate and serious threat. The bank called the pattern of tariff announcements and reversals a “structural feature of the global environment” now, rather than an aberration.
There’s also something in there that doesn’t get enough attention. The ECB specifically called out the uncertainty around whether the U.S. is still committed to multilateral cooperation at all. Washington has historically been the anchor of the international economic order. When that anchor starts dragging, the whole system is put at risk.
The shaky ceasefire has technically been holding since April 7th. But just this week, the U.S. military acknowledged it carried out what it called “self-defense” strikes in Iran, hitting missile launch sites and boats placing mines. The military said it was “using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.” But do active strikes really signal restraint?
Iran’s decision to effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz for ships carrying regional oil, natural gas, and critical supplies has been squeezing the global economy for months now. The ECB’s warning signals that any further strain on the system could push us all beyond the brink.
It took American leadership most of a century to build the post-war economic order that’s kept global capitalism from devouring itself, and one impulsive president is unwinding it in months. Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address about the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex on our democracy, and what we’re watching now is exactly what he feared, a country whose foreign wars and erratic economic threats have made it the destabilizing force rather than the stabilizing one.
Journalists Fight to Stop Ellison’s Acquisition of CNN
If the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery goes through, it would put both CBS News and CNN under the control of pro-Trump billionaire David Ellison. Now, major voices in the media are going to the mat to stop the merger.
The Wall Street Journal reports Ellison will make “sweeping changes” at CNN to appease Trump if the deal closes. Trump himself said openly back in December that any deal involving Warner Bros. should include putting CNN under new management. We’ve never once had a sitting president openly demanding editorial control over a news network as a condition of a business deal that federal regulators have to approve. But that’s the situation in Trump’s corrupt White House.
Ellison has already made similar moves at CBS News, including hiring right-wing columnist Bari Weiss as editor in chief, despite her having zero TV news experience.
Nearly 200 journalists, academics, documentary filmmakers, and press freedom organizations have signed an open letter opposing the merger. The letter was organized by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and obtained by Status News ahead of its delivery to Paramount this week.
The signatories include Sam Donaldson, the legendary former ABC News anchor. Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta also signed it, along with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan and former MSNBC host Katie Phang. Notably, current CNN contributor S.E. Cupp also signed on, and said journalism is “under assault in America, not just by authoritarian forces, but by market forces, too.”
The letter calls the merger “a political arrangement to circumvent constitutional safeguards, with severe consequences for American democracy.”
The practical stakes here are real and urgent. Paramount is hoping to close the deal by mid-July. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said he’s considering legal action to block it but hasn’t made a final decision. Democratic lawmakers have been demanding Ellison testify before Congress. State attorneys general who want to act are going to need to move fast.
Two of the most recognized news brands in America, CNN and CBS News, could end up under the control of a MAGA billionaire who has openly signaled he’ll reshape their editorial direction to suit a president who has spent years calling those same outlets enemies of the people. The same president whose administration has the power to approve the deal.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that a free press was the great check against faction and tyranny, and the founders understood that a republic without independent journalism is a republic in name only. What we’re watching isn’t a business transaction, it’s the deliberate construction of a state-aligned media apparatus, and history tells us exactly where that road ends.
Nebraskans Grill Their Republican Congressman
Nebraska isn’t exactly a hotbed of progressive revolt. Congressman Mike Flood represents a ruby-red congressional district, and he held a town hall Tuesday night. It did not go well for him.
Constituents booed. They jeered. They interrupted. And Flood largely had no answer for the litany of things they were angry about.
The Iran war came up immediately. One woman told Flood flat out that the war is “making everything unaffordable.” Gas prices, airline tickets, consumer goods across the board. She said, “We can’t afford things here, while you guys are lining your pockets.” The room applauded her. Flood, of course, defended the war, arguing that Iran — which never attacked the U.S. — could no longer do harm.
Then there’s Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which critics have described as a payout scheme for Trump allies, including people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Even Flood had no defense when a constituent asked him what was “fiscally conservative” about the scheme, saying “I do not think we should be creating a fund for people that commit physical violence against law enforcement.”
That’s a sitting Republican congressman, in Nebraska, saying he won’t sign off on the fund before Congress has an oversight role. He wasn’t alone. The reconciliation bill collapsed last week partly over this exact issue, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune sent members home early after Acting AG Todd Blanche’s meeting with Republicans was reportedly a disaster.
One constituent who’d known Flood since high school accused him of being “bitten by the Beltway bug.” Another pressed him on Trump’s stated ambition to take Greenland by force. Flood said he doesn’t support invading Greenland and has a meeting with the Danish ambassador scheduled for June 4th.
Flood ended the night by calling the event “an experiment in democracy” and said he’d keep holding town halls. Credit where credit is due: Flood is at least facing his constituents. A lot of his colleagues aren’t.
This is what democracy actually looks like, ordinary people in a deep red district standing up in a public hall and demanding their representative answer for what he’s voted for. The founders designed the House of Representatives to be the chamber closest to the people, refreshed every two years precisely so moments like this could happen, and every member of Congress who’s hiding from their constituents right now is betraying that two-hundred-and-thirty-six-year-old constitutional promise.
Even the New York Post Is Calling Out Trump’s Corruption
The New York Post has been one of the most loyal institutional supporters of Donald Trump since his first term. So when the Post’s editorial board publishes a piece telling the Trump White House to rein in its corruption, that’s a stunning reversal.
The editorial did not hold back. It called the Justice Department’s settlement of the Trump IRS lawsuit “terrible” optics. It went after the $1.8 billion slush fund. It called attention to Trump’s personal account making roughly 3,600 stock trades with total values between $220 million and $750 million while in office. And the editorial board reminded us that Trump’s personal fortune has reportedly more than doubled since his second term began, from $2.4 billion to $6.3 billion.
The Post also called out the Trump sons’ “extensive, highly lucrative crypto dealings with Gulf state Arabs and other foreigners.”
The conservative paper’s conclusion was direct, stating: “Somebody needs to get on top of this, with an eye not just on the White House speaking directly to the public’s concerns, but on how what it’s doing looks to average Americans.”
The Post wasn’t calling any of this illegal, but that this all looks bad at a time when regular Americans are paying higher prices for everything while the Iran war rages on.
Aside from the Murdoch-owned paper, multiple Republican senators have also broken with their party over the January 6 slush fund. Blanche’s meeting with the Senate GOP on the topic was widely described in press reports as a “sh*tshow.”
The political coalition that supports Trump is under real pressure right now. The Iran war is costing ordinary people money. The open corruption is causing major problems that are hard to ignore even for friendly outlets. And Trump’s signature domestic policies in the reconciliation bill can’t even get through the Republican-controlled Congress without falling apart.
The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution exists for a reason, and the founders put it there because they’d watched European monarchs sell out their countries for foreign gold and personal enrichment. When even Rupert Murdoch’s editorial board is sounding the alarm, you’re not looking at a partisan disagreement, you’re looking at a corruption so naked it embarrasses the people who built the propaganda machine that protects it.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. The fight is here. Thank you for being in it.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Erupts After Biden Sues His DOJ. Former President Joe Biden officially filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice this week to stop the release of audio recordings and transcripts with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir. Biden maintained the material in question is “private information,” and that President Donald Trump’s DOJ is violating the “core tenets of American justice” by disclosing those records. Should the Trump administration obtain the materials, it would share them with the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee and the Heritage Foundation, which is the group behind the far-right Project 2025 playbook. Trump responded to the lawsuit by calling Biden a “crooked politician.”
GOP Operative Admits ‘Major Money Issues’ Hinder Texas Senate Race. After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican U.S. Senate primary runoff on Tuesday night, Republicans are fearing the financial toll of supporting his candidacy in the general election. National GOP-aligned groups already poured $90 million into Texas during the Republican primary, and now they expect to spend roughly $100 million more to keep the seat being vacated by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in Republican hands. Democrat James Talarico has already raised more than $40 million for his campaign, having secured his party’s nomination in March.
Judge Rules Corporations Have Right to Vote in Delaware. Superior Court of Delaware Judge Craig A. Carsnitz — who was appointed by Democratic Gov. John Carney in 2018 — ruled on Tuesday that corporations, partnerships, trusts, limited liability corporations and other artificial entities can vote in some elections. Carsnitz’s decision ruled that because Delaware state law considers corporations to be legal “persons,” they can vote in local elections in the Town of Fenwick Island, under the “principle of one person/entity/one vote.”
ICE Detainees Dying by Suicide in U.S. Custody at ‘Alarming’ Rate. A new investigation by the Associated Press (AP) found that immigrant detainees being held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody are dying by suicide at a rate that far exceeds the growth in detainee population. According to the AP, at least 10 detainees — all of them men — took their own lives since Trump’s second term began in January of 2025. In previous administrations, ICE recorded no more than one such death per year since its founding in the George W. Bush administration.
Investors Modeling Their Stock Purchases After Trump. After the president’s stock portfolio increased in value by more than 52 percent since November, many investors are now looking to mirror his trades. In just the first quarter of 2026, Trump made more than 3,600 stock trades of anywhere between $220 million and $750 million (financial disclosure forms only require a range, rather than exact numbers). Some investors are using the Autopilot app to model their own trades after Trump, who has more than doubled his personal net worth since his second term began last year.
