Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
A Republican congressman accused of brutally abusing his ex-wife is now suggesting her father, a sitting GOP senator, is only speaking out against him to distract from his own scandal. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth still can’t get Senate Republicans to fund the Iran war as the price tag keeps climbing past what anyone was told. Joe Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, is now saying that there’s no way out of the war Trump started and that it’s made us all less safe. And new reporting shows Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is using a Civil War-era conspiracy law to threaten ordinary protesters with years in federal prison.
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Republican Accused of Domestic Violence Threatens to Reveal Dirt on GOP Senator
Republican Congressman Max Miller of Ohio is accused of horrific abuse against his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. The allegations include pouring boiling water on her, beating her, and pointing a gun at her head. He also allegedly broke their two year-old daughter’s collarbone.
Emily’s father is Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio. He finally broke his silence this weekend and called on his former son-in-law to resign from Congress. Moreno said Miller needs professional help to end what he called a clear pattern of abuse.
Miller didn’t deny it, but instead went after his ex-father-in-law. He suggested Moreno is only speaking up now because he’s trying to distract everyone from his own “media circus.”
That’s apparently a reference to a 2008 online profile on an adult site created with Moreno’s work email, seeking men for one-on-one encounters while traveling. Moreno hasn’t confirmed or denied creating it. A former intern claimed responsibility, and said it was a prank.
But Miller basically confirmed Moreno was aware of abuse allegations involving his own daughter for two years, and he’s more upset about the timing of the accusation than about the accusation itself.
There’s also a text message from 2024 where Miller told Moreno, “everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does.” That reads a lot like a threat to expose personal information if Moreno didn’t silence his daughter.
Miller then went live on social media on Sunday, accusing his ex-wife of lying and suffering from mental health problems. He argued that if he’d really assaulted her, she wouldn’t have offered to cook him dinner six days later.
That’s not how abuse survivors’ relationships with their abusers actually work, and anyone who’s studied domestic violence patterns knows it. She likely knew if she didn’t cook that dinner things would’ve been even worse for her.
Asked whether Miller should resign, Trump was noncommittal, saying, “so far it’s accusations.” Keep in mind, this is the same man a New York jury found civilly liable for sexual abuse.
Hegseth Fails to Convince Republicans to Fund Trump’s War
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently spent several hours with multiple Republican senators trying to sell them on an emergency funding package for the Iran war. But he walked out without converting anyone.
We’re now six months into the war with no end in sight. Republicans are losing confidence in Hegseth’s leadership of the Pentagon, and many of them feel like they were never told the truth about what the war’s true cost.
Hegseth said in July the war had cost $37.5 billion. But according to independent analysts at Moody’s, the real number is likely in excess of $132 billion. That’s a gap of nearly a hundred billion dollars between what the Pentagon told Congress and what outside experts think actually happened.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the meeting with Hegseth felt more like a sales pitch than an actual briefing. Asked if she was convinced the country needs to spend what the administration wants, she said, “that has yet to be determined.” Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was also disappointed, saying she still has no clarity on the actual cost of the war.
This is all happening Trump demands a Pentagon budget of $1.5 trillion for the coming year. He called it an “unprecedented investment.” But Congress isn’t there yet. Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said it’ll be tough to get more money than what the House already approved, while Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah said he won’t back any new funding for a war that Congress never actually authorized.
Meanwhile, the war keeps expanding across the region. Last week alone, we saw strikes on Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
Joe Rogan Blames Trump for Endless War in Iran
Joe Rogan — one of the most popular podcasters in the world — endorsed Trump in 2024. But on a recent episode of his show, he called the war with Iran an “unprovoked attack” by Trump, and said what Republicans all know but won’t say out loud: there’s no clear way to end it.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, who’s written extensively about the military, told Rogan the war was terrible, unnecessary, and the opposite of what the Defense Department was ever designed to do. Rogan agreed, and pointed out that American stockpiles are running dry and that U.S. bases can’t sustain constant drone attacks.
Both Rogan and Jacobsen complained that most coverage of the war focuses on dollars and cents, rather than the human cost of 18 U.S. service members killed and hundreds of others wounded, along with more than 3,600 dead Iranians.
Human rights group HRANA says nearly half of the Iranians killed since the war began have been civilians. Rogan noted this “makes America an enemy” and makes Americans “less safe.” A recent AP-NORC poll backs up that assertion, as nearly two-thirds of Americans say the war hasn’t been worth the human and financial toll.
This is the same Joe Rogan who’s been increasingly critical of Trump’s ICE crackdown while continuing to push hard for accountability for Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirators. Vice President JD Vance even admitted to Rogan that the administration mishandled the release of the Epstein files.
When a guy who campaigned for you starts saying your war is unwinnable, that’s a major warning that your political future is doomed.
Trump’s DHS Exploiting Centuries-Old Law to Intimidate Protesters Into Silence
Treasure Thoreson is a special education teacher in Minneapolis. One morning in June, Homeland Security agents showed up at her door. A half dozen more were waiting in her front yard.
She was eventually arrested and charged, along with 14 others, with conspiracy to impede federal agents. Prosecutors justifies the charges by pointing to blockades outside a federal building that served as ICE’s headquarters during its operations in Minnesota in January.
This charge, conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, dates all the way back to the Civil War and can carry up to six years in prison. Before Trump took office again, it was almost never used.
Since then, Trump’s Justice Department has charged more than three dozen people in at least ten cases using this law. Every single defendant was an ICE protester.
Before this year, most recent uses of this law involved the January 6th cases against far-right groups like the Proud Boys. While many were convicted, they were all pardoned after Trump’s second term began.
Legal experts like Aaron Terr, of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), says the government is sweeping up people for their political beliefs rather than actual violence.
In Spokane last summer, protesters tried to block a van from moving detainees. Local police pepper-balled the crowd. The day after, the Justice Department told prosecutors nationwide to prioritize charging protesters under that same statute.
Nine people ended up charged with conspiracy. Six pleaded guilty, though three went to trial, including combat veteran Bajun Mavalwalla, who called the charge an attack on the First Amendment. All three were ultimately convicted.
Even the U.S. attorney who originally handled that case chose to resign rather than sign the indictment. He later condemned the scheme as dusting off a Civil War-era law to punish people who stood up for people unlawfully detained by ICE.
In Illinois, a similar case against protesters at the ICE detention facility in Broadview was eventually dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct. One defendant, Chicago musician Joselyn Walsh, said the experience still rattled her given just how much power the federal government has over ordinary people’s lives.
Katie Schwartzmann of Protect Democracy called it the prosecutions an attempt to scare Americans out of organizing, and urged Americans to not let the administration get away with it.
Help Raw America Do What the Billionaires Won’t
That’s your Monday morning rundown. A Republican congressman is threatening to sink the political career of a fellow Republican who’s calling on him to resign for allegedly harming his daughter. Republicans are souring on Trump’s war with Iran, along with one of Trump’s most influential supporters. And Trump’s DHS is using a Civil War-era law to chill constitutionally protected dissent.
You won’t hear these stories covered this way by news outlets owned by pro-Trump billionaires. The entire reason David Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Patrick Soon-Shiong and other right-wing oligarchs are buying up news outlets is so stories like this disappear altogether. Raw America was created to make sure that never happens.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media.
Here are five stories you may have missed:
Todd Blanche Officially Kills Trump’s MAGA Slush Fund. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — who is attempting to be officially confirmed by the Senate — officially put plans in writing to officially end President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion slush fund for MAGA loyalists. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) signaled he would now vote for Blanche’s confirmation out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is the other GOP holdout, has yet to indicate how he would vote on Blanche’s confirmation after the move. Blanche notably kept Trump’s IRS audit protection for himself, his businesses and his family in place.
Iran Says Trump Lying About Peace Talks. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said he was holding off on attacking Iran, claiming its government was seeking to renegotiate a ceasefire. However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei disputed Trump’s claim and stressed that there were no current talks with the United States, and that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed so long as American “aggression” continues.
U.S. Accused of Dropping 2,000-Pound Bomb on Civilian Home. During strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, the U.S. military reportedly dropped a Mark 84 2,000-pound bomb on a civilian home, leaving a 30-foot crater in the ground. Roughly two dozen homes were reportedly displaced by the strike, with the New York Times reporting that there were no military targets in the vicinity. U.S. Central Command stated it was investigating the attack, and maintained the U.S. doesn’t intentionally target civilians.
Democrat Launches Investigation Into Trump’s Plan to Sell Access to Social Media Posts. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, announced recently that his staff is currently investigating Trump’s plan to sell previews of his market-moving social media posts to investors for individual subscriptions of $100,000 apiece. Raskin stated that the plan appeared to be an “insider-information scheme” that represented the “depraved essence of insider trading.”
Democrats’ Path to Retake Senate Runs Through Handful of Midwestern States. Political experts now believe the best chance Democrats have to regain control of the U.S. Senate in November is by winning the critical Midwestern states of Iowa, Michigan and Ohio, and by independent candidate Dan Osborn — who was endorsed by the Democratic nominee who later dropped out of the race — winning Nebraska’s U.S. Senate race. Democrats can flip control of the chamber by winning four Republican-held seats and maintaining control of Democratic seats in states like Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota. Several potential flips also include Alaska, Maine and North Carolina, the last of which is an open seat with no Republican incumbent.
