Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
A federal appeals court just shut down one of Trump’s most brazen attempts to disrupt the midterms. New details are emerging about how the billionaire Ellison family’s $45 million in secret donations to Trump-aligned groups helped grease the wheels for their media empire. A Democratic senator is demanding Trump reimburse taxpayers from his own pocket for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle. And the Pentagon’s social media team is posting QAnon memes on official government accounts, and refusing to explain why.
Before diving in, I need to point out that you’re here, reading the news from Raw America, instead of from a cable network owned by a right-wing billionaire. In this newsletter we talk about how Larry Ellison — the world’s sixth-richest man — bought his way into Trump’s inner circle to get his administration to approve his takeovers of CBS, and, pretty soon, CNN’s parent company. Raw America exists to give you the unfiltered truth free of billionaire and corporate censorship. But we can’t keep this up unless readers on the free list make the leap to become paying subscribers. If you’ve been enjoying Raw America’s work for free, we need you to subscribe right now. Not tomorrow, not next month. Today. Every subscription is an act of resistance against the MAGA billionaires buying up media outlets.
Federal Court Halts Trump’s Voter Disenfranchisement Plan
Last summer, Donald Trump’s Justice Department started sending letters to more than 40 states and Washington, D.C., demanding the private data of every registered voter in America. The request included birthdates, partial Social Security numbers and even driver’s license numbers. Most states refused. The DOJ sued 30 of them.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was one of those who said no. And this week, a federal appeals court backed her up.
The Sixth Circuit handed down a 2-1 ruling saying the administration has no legal authority to demand that data. And because it’s the first federal appeals court decision on the matter, it sets binding precedent for every other state still fighting these lawsuits.
Critics have been warning the administration’s goal is to create a massive national voter database to flag voters as ineligible and pressure states to purge them from their rolls before the 2026 midterms.
Sara Chimene-Weiss of Protect Democracy argued that the Trump administration collecting this sensitive voter data is part of a strategy to seize control of elections and cast doubt on any unfavorable results this fall.
At least eight district courts had already tossed similar DOJ suits before this week’s ruling. But this is different. And now, more than 20 states now have a powerful new legal weapon to fight back with.
The Ellisons Gave $45 Million to Trump to Build a Right-Wing Media Empire
The Wall Street Journal this week published an extraordinary piece laying out just how deeply Donald Trump’s political operation is linked to Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s money, and how the Ellison family has made out like bandits as a result of carefully timed donations.
In 2024, Ellison gave roughly $45 million to a nonprofit supporting Trump’s reelection campaign. That funding doesn’t require public disclosure and hasn’t been reported before now.
Since then, the Oracle founder — and world’s sixth-richest man — has given tens of millions more to Trump-aligned groups, including donations to what the Journal describes as the president’s legacy initiatives in Washington.
Trump has returned the favor a thousandfold.
The day after Trump’s second inauguration, Larry Ellison was in the West Wing when Oracle was named as the architectural backbone for the administration’s $500 billion AI data center initiative. Oracle also ended up as part of the investor group that took control of TikTok’s U.S. operations.
Larry’s son, David Ellison, leads Skydance, which merged with Paramount last year. That deal put the Ellison family in charge of CBS News, where right-wing columnist Bari Weiss was installed to run the operation. The Justice Department recently cleared the $81 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, potentially adding CNN to the Ellisons’ portfolio.
Larry Ellison reportedly called Trump himself to personally lobby for the Warner Bros. deal, telling him that if Paramount landed it, the family could overhaul CNN, which both men view as hostile to the administration.
This is what billionaire capture of the media looks like. It’s not just about profit margins, but buying political access, shaping narratives and building a media environment closely aligned with the regime in power.
This is also why we launched Raw America earlier this year. Media outlets controlled by politically connected billionaires will never be able to truly hold the rich and powerful to account. Independent journalism is incredibly essential in our current environment. Become a paying subscriber to Raw America right now and help keep independent media alive.
Senator Demands Trump Reimburse Taxpayers for Reflecting Pool Disaster
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is currently a fluorescent green swamp of algae, with expensive blue sealant peeling off the bottom in sheets. And Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper wants Trump to pay for it himself.
In a letter to the White House, Hickenlooper wrote that the administration falsely claimed an emergency to bypass a competitive bidding process to rush through a renovation of the iconic landmark to be painted blue in time for the Fourth of July. Millions of dollars worth of federal contracts went to a company called — get this — Greenwater Services, which is, naturally, run by a longtime Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor.
When the pool turned into an algae-covered mess, Trump pointed the finger at vandals, though he of course offered no evidence for that claim. Hickenlooper pushed back on that assertion, writing the fault lies with the administration’s “incompetence.” He added: “The bill for this fiasco should only belong to you, Mr. President.”
Now, the White House is now planning to spend even more taxpayer money to drain the pool again and make repairs.
Trump famously promised to drain the swamp. He just didn’t mention it would be his own.
Trump’s Pentagon Is Posting QAnon Memes on Its Official Government Accounts
The official X account for the Defense Department’s Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering this week posted three separate memes rife with references to the far-right QAnon movement, and are refusing to answer questions about it.
The posts were linked to Trump’s announcement about a quantum computing initiative. One showed Trump positioned inside a large letter Q beneath the words “Quantum Dominance,” along with the phrase: “Are you enjoying the show? Refill your popcorn.”
“Enjoy the show” is a signature QAnon phrase, which adherents used to illustrate how Trump was secretly winning a great battle against a global cabal of child predators. A second post read “Trust the plan, patriots.” A third showed a soldier inside the letter Q with the phrase “Where We Go One, We Go Quantum.” “Trust the plan” and “Where We Go One, We Go All” are also QAnon dogwhistles.
This is part of a larger pattern of Trump administration social media accounts referencing white supremacist language, rabidly anti-immigrant posts and even a Michael Jackson lyric that used an antisemitic slur. Another core element of that pattern is blanket denial whenever journalists ask about any of it.
QAnon isn’t a harmless joke. Its believers have committed real acts of violence. One California father killed his young children in 2021 after becoming consumed by QAnon beliefs. Another man who shot up a pizzeria in Washington in 2017 over the same delusions was killed in a 2025 shootout with police.
Official government accounts are now amplifying this ideology. And the federal employees running those accounts won’t even give their names.
Support Independent Journalism That Doesn’t Pull Punches
You just read about how the courts are stopping the Trump administration from potentially disenfranchising millions of voters this November, how one of the world’s richest billionaires bought his way into Trump’s inner circle to be able to buy CBS and CNN, and how the Pentagon is using a violent right-wing extremist movement’s language and then gaslighting everyone who asks about it. Raw America is bringing you these stories independent of any billionaire or corporate sponsor telling us what we can and can’t say. But we can only stay operational if enough readers on the free list step up to fund this work. We can’t do any of this without your support. Subscribe today.
Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. We’ll see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump’s Meeting with Senate Republicans Devolves Into Shouting Match. President Donald Trump met with the Senate Republican Conference on Wednesday in an effort to shore up support among GOP lawmakers. However, Trump spent much of the meeting berating senators over the recent War Powers Resolution that passed with the help of four Republicans, limiting his ability to wage war in Iran. The president also got an earful from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who at one point called him “brother” instead of “Mr. President.”
Trump Pressured to Produce Evidence of ‘Vandalism’ Tainting Reflecting Pool. President Trump has insisted that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool being overrun with algae is the result of “vandals” slashing a 350-foot gash in the bottom of the pool. However, despite his promise to produce photographic evidence of the alleged vandalism, neither Trump nor the Interior Department have done so. The New York Times has reportedly obtained documents proving that the algae blooms were not caused intentionally.
Congresswoman Denies Using AI to Write Legislation. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is now fending off accusations of using Anthropic’s Claude AI to write an amendment to a defense bill. Observers online noted that the text of the amendment referenced “Claude” and asked the Florida Republican whether she was submitting legislation written by AI. Luna denied it and said her staff only used AI to conduct a “spellcheck” and insisted that her staffers authored the amendment.
FBI Found Secretly Harvesting Data from ICE Protesters’ Smartphones. Newly released public records show that the FBI extracted sensitive data from at least 13 electronic devices seized from people protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year. Mother Jones found that the FBI contracted with the Israeli firm Cellebrite to pull data from more than a dozen protesters’ phones. It remains unknown whether warrants to seize the data were actually granted.
Maryland Governor Hints at Upcoming Special Session for Redistricting. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said Wednesday that Old Line State lawmakers are “planning on coming back” to Annapolis to redraw congressional district boundaries to be friendlier to Democrats. Maryland’s congressional delegation is all Democrats, save for the rural First Congressional District, which is currently represented by House Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Harris. Democratic leaders have been under pressure from national party leaders to redraw maps in response to Southern states redrawing maps after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision that eroded the Voting Rights Act’s provisions for adequate racial representation in Congress.
