Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann, and you’re watching Raw America.
A lot of news to get to this morning: Epstein survivors showed up at the State of the Union to shame Trump over the files he’s been hiding, while a Black congressman was physically removed from the same chamber for refusing to let Trump’s racism go unchallenged. Virginia’s governor delivered a Democratic response that didn’t pull any punches. A Republican governor got DHS to back down from building an ICE facility in her state. And the Supreme Court just handed the Postal Service immunity for intentionally destroying your mail, or delivering it late, right before a midterm election where millions will vote by mail.
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Now let’s get to the news.
Epstein Survivors Confront Trump, Congressman Pays the Price for Fighting Racism
Tuesday night’s State of the Union was defined by the president avoiding multiple tense confrontations.
More than a dozen of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers attended as guests of Democratic lawmakers, wearing badges that read “Stand with survivors. Release the files,” with a black redaction box over the word “files.” At a press conference before the speech, survivor Dani Bensky asked plainly: “Where are the rest of the files? Why are there no investigations when there are plenty of people to investigate?”
Trump did not acknowledge the survivors. He did not mention the Epstein files even once during his 108-minute address. He just kept going, as though the women sitting in that chamber did not exist.
The pattern is pretty clear. Trump spent much of last year working to block the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He has refused to meet with survivors. The DOJ missed its own disclosure deadline. And a separate NPR investigation published the same morning alleged the DOJ withheld files potentially implicating Trump himself in the rape of children.
When the president can simply erase survivors from the national conversation and face no immediate institutional consequences, that’s not just callousness: It’s a warning about how power protects itself right here in plain sight. And how fragile accountability becomes when the powerful control both the narrative and the levers of justice.
Then there was Congressman Al Green of Texas. Just as Trump entered the chamber, Majority Leader Steve Scalise walked over to Green and physically ripped a sign from his hands reading “Black people aren’t apes,” a reference to the president’s grotesque depictions of Barack and Michelle Obama. Green was removed. Afterward, he told Raw Story: “On some issues, it’s better to stand alone than not stand at all. So I stood alone.”
The Republican leadership of the House didn’t merely ignore the message. They physically suppressed it on the floor of Congress, on national television. When that is the response to someone simply naming racism out loud, that alone is a stark reminder of the actual state of our union.
In a functioning democracy, dissent is protected. Especially in the People’s House. When truth-telling about racism is treated as the offense, and silencing is treated as order, that’s how representative government quietly slides toward authoritarian theater.
Spanberger Sets the Record Straight on Trump’s Agenda
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic response Tuesday night and did not mince words. She called out the president for sending “poorly trained federal agents into our cities” who have arrested and detained American citizens without warrants, condemned ICE for separating nursing mothers from their babies, jailing a child in a blue bunny hat, and killing American citizens in the streets using agents with masked faces to dodge accountability.
Her remarks landed in a specific moment. Just before the address, former ICE training instructor Ryan Schwank told Congress the agency’s training program is “deficient, defective and broken.” Schwank resigned from the training academy specifically so he could speak without restriction.
Spanberger’s argument is simple and correct: a broken immigration system is a problem to be fixed through policy, not a blank check for terrorizing American communities. When the agents enforcing the law haven’t been properly trained in the law, that’s not law enforcement. That’s state-sponsored fear.
And history teaches us that when armed agents operate without proper training, transparency or accountability, the damage doesn’t stop with immigrants: It spreads, eroding the rule of law itself and normalizing a model of governance where force replaces consent as the organizing principle of democracy.
Republican Governor Hands Noem an Embarrassing Loss
Here’s a story that cuts against the narrative that resistance to Trump’s immigration agenda is purely a Democratic project.
Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire announced Tuesday that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem agreed to halt plans to build a new ICE detention facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Ayotte raised the town’s concerns directly with Noem in Washington last week, and Noem backed down. Noem confirmed the meeting and called New Hampshire a “strong partner” on immigration enforcement, but the facility is not going to be built.
Meanwhile in Maryland, the response took a very different form. Attorney General Anthony Brown sued the administration Monday over plans to convert a warehouse into an ICE detention center, arguing that DHS spent more than $100 million in taxpayer money without an environmental review or public input.
Whether it’s a Republican governor or a Democratic attorney general, communities across the country are pushing back against this heavy-handed immigration agenda executed with neither transparency nor accountability. That’s federalism doing what the framers intended: Serving as a democratic speed-bump against centralized abuse of power. When local communities demand a voice in how force is deployed in their name, they’re not obstructing government — they’re preserving self-government.
The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier to Steal Your Ballot
Here is the story that should be dominating every front page in the country right now. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, five to four, that Americans cannot sue the Postal Service for damages in federal court when carriers intentionally destroy or refuse to deliver their mail. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in USPS v. Konan. Every Republican-appointed justice except Neil Gorsuch joined it. Gorsuch sided with Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent.
The case began with Lebene Konan, a Black landlord in Euless, Texas, who alleges that local postal carriers refused to deliver mail to her tenants for two years because they objected to the fact that she, a Black woman, was renting rooms to white people. She sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The question was whether that law’s barring of lawsuits arising from the “loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission” of mail also covers intentional destruction or refusal to deliver.
Every sensible reading of ordinary English says no. As Sotomayor wrote, no one intentionally loses something. Thomas disagreed, substituting the word “deprivation” for “loss” and arguing that one can suffer a deprivation through intentional theft. Sotomayor called it what it is: A contortion of the English language.
The timing could not be worse. Millions of Americans vote by mail. Some states conduct elections entirely that way, like my state of Oregon. The FTCA had served as a meaningful deterrent against postal workers who might consider destroying or withholding ballots, and that deterrent is now gone. And who controls the Postal Service? A Trump ally. Who controls the Justice Department that would investigate mail ballot destruction? Trump. What has Trump telegraphed about the upcoming midterms? His open, naked desire to undermine them.
When the highest court in the land strips away a deterrent against the intentional destruction or delay of mail in an era of mass vote-by-mail, it’s not a technical ruling. It’s a structural weakening of the guardrails that protect the ballot. And democracy does not survive long when those in power can tamper with the machinery of elections without fear of consequence.
This is why independent journalism matters. These are the stories that connect the dots between a Supreme Court opinion and what happens to your vote. Raw America exists to make those connections without corporate pressure, without billionaire interference, without anyone telling us what we’re allowed to say. If you’re not already a paying subscriber, today is the day to become one.
I’m Thom Hartmann. And that’s the way it is today, Wednesday, February 25, 2026. We’ll see you next time.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Johnson Admits Losing Midterms Would Mark “End of the Trump Presidency.” Following President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told far-right outlet Newsmax that should Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives in November, it would mean “the end of the Trump presidency in a real effect.” Johnson has just a 217-214 majority in the House, meaning Democrats only need to flip a handful of seats in the midterms to control the chamber.
Federal Judge Blocks Trump DOJ from Spying on Reporter. U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter ruled Tuesday that the Department of Justice is barred from accessing materials seized from the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. The raid on Natanson’s home was part of an investigation into a federal contractor allegedly leaking classified materials to Natanson. While Porter hasn’t yet released Natanson’s property back to her, he ruled that the DOJ’s attempt to access her devices would be a violation of her First Amendment rights.
Embattled GOP Congressman’s Texas Colleagues Not Defending Him. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who is fighting for his political life amid allegations of an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide, isn’t getting any help from his fellow Texas Republicans. Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) said Gonzales’ March 3 Republican primary race is “up to his constituents,” while Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Semafor: “I’ve got my own race to run.” Gonzales is being challenged from the right by YouTuber Brandon Herrera.
Plaintiff Takes stand to Testify Against Social Media Companies. A 20 year-old plaintiff who goes by the initials K.G.M. is set to take the stand on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court as part of a lawsuit alleging social media companies knowingly cause hard to the mental health of teenage users. More than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and more than 250 school districts, are collectively suing platforms like Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), Snap and YouTube.
New York Governor Demands $13.5 Billion in Tariff Refunds. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is now calling on the Trump administration to return $13.5 billion to New York residents after the Supreme Court ruled Trump lacked the power to unilaterally impose tariffs via emergency declaration. Hochul called the tariffs “senseless and illegal,” and characterized them as “a tax on New York consumers, small businesses and farmers.”
