Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
Donald Trump is reportedly so furious with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro over the Reflecting Pool debacle that he may fire her, even though the mess traces back to his own botched renovation. Several Fox News hosts, including Laura Ingraham, are now openly questioning whether Trump’s war with Iran is even worth fighting, showing a growing distance between Trump and his favorite news network. Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post has published a stunning run of anti-wealth-tax opinion pieces, including one from a dark-money-funded former senator pushing debunked talking points. And Senate Republicans are increasingly telling reporters that Trump himself has become their biggest liability heading into the midterms.
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Trump May Fire Jeanine Pirro After She Dropped Charges Against US Olympian
For months, Donald Trump insisted “vandals” damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Prosecutors even charged former Team USA Olympic canoe team member David Hearn with a felony over it.
Then the Justice Department admitted the truth. The pool’s problems came from Trump’s $14 million rushed, botched renovation job, not vandalism. Prosecutors finally dropped the case against Hearn last week.
Trump was apparently livid over that decision. CNN is reporting the president spent most of this weekend fuming at Pirro, and that he’s now “highly likely” to fire the DOJ’s top prosecutor in Washington.
Pirro is saying the decision to drop the charges wasn’t even her call. She insisted that career prosecutors in her office made the filing, and that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s agency withheld information that would’ve stopped the indictment altogether..
Records obtained through FOIA requests back her up. Internal emails between the National Park Service and DC Water never once mentioned vandalism. Officials instead talked about algae and whether to dye the water black like they’ve done in the past.
So even though Trump’s “vandal” story was completely fabricated, Pirro — who is one of his most devoted allies and defenders — is the one about to pay for it.
Trump isn’t the only one coming for Pirro and her team. Hearn’s lawyer says “nothing is off the table.” That could mean efforts to disbar prosecutors, kicking off inspector general investigations or even filing lawsuits that could dig up even more embarrassing details. Stay tuned on this one.
Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post in Full Panic Mode Over Taxing Billionaires
Since March, the Washington Post has run ten separate opinion pieces attacking wealth taxes at both the state and federal level. This is by design, given that the paper is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. His true income tax rate was less than one percent for years, according to ProPublica, because almost all of his wealth sits in unrealized stock gains the IRS isn’t able to tax.
Bezos’ Post most recently ran an op-ed from former Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nelson, an 85-year-old conservative who voted for both Bush tax cut packages and signed Grover Norquist’s notorious anti-tax pledge. Nelson claimed that wealth taxes would devastate family farmers.
That claim was debunked decades ago. Researchers have never found a single example of a family farm sold off to pay estate taxes. It’s a stale talking point invented 40 years ago to scare rural voters, and it’s still getting passed around today.
Nelson is being paid by a group called Saving America’s Family Enterprises, or SAFE, which is naturally a dark money nonprofit that won’t disclose its donors. Its leadership traces back to lobbying firms that did work for big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. Nothing about that suggests any real concern for working-class families.
Meanwhile, roughly $700 billion in federal taxes went uncollected last year, mostly because Trump and Elon Musk gutted IRS enforcement. The richest ten percent of Americans own nearly 88 percent of all corporate stock and mutual funds. This fight was never about farmers, but rather about protecting billionaires’ bottomless wealth. And of course, Jeff Bezos is making sure his paper is on the side of the billionaires.
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Fox News Turning on Trump’s War with Iran
Even Trump’s most reliable allies in the media are starting to break away from him.
Fox News saw its brand grow over the last decade by being Trump’s mouthpiece. But lately, some of its biggest names can’t stop asking pointed questions about his war with Iran.
Primetime host Laura Ingraham recently pointed out that if Iran can still credibly threaten Air Force One, the U.S. clearly hasn’t destroyed Iran’s military capabilities as the Trump administration claimed it has. She’s now asking directly whether Trump was even properly briefed before he launched the war in February.
Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who served in Trump’s first and second-term administrations, recently said on Fox that bombing alone “is not going to get the job done.” Retired Marine Johnny Joey Jones, who is a close friend of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has made similar comments that simply dropping bombs won’t stop Iran from doing what it wants to do in the region.
Longtime Fox commentator Brit Hume pointed out that Trump promised to keep America out of endless wars, and yet now he’s stuck in a war with no clear end in sight. And Trump loyalist Jesse Watters, who took over Tucker Carlson’s primetime slot after his firing, admitted he doesn’t know what the president’s “we’re very close” statement even means anymore after hearing it for months.
Fox Business hosts have also blamed Trump’s war for oil prices climbing right before the midterms. Hosts and contributors on the president’s favorite news network where he plucked roughly two dozen members of his administration are now openly suggesting Trump is in over his head in Iran. That should give an idea of just how much trouble Trump is in.
Republicans Admit Trump Is Their Biggest Liability in Midterms
Significant cracks are now showing inside the Republican Party, all thanks to Trump’s disastrous second term.
Multiple GOP senators tell The Hill that Trump’s policies have become increasingly harder to defend on the campaign trail. His $1.8 billion slush fund and his push to funnel taxpayer money toward his gaudy $400 million White House ballroom are proving to be especially toxic with voters.
Retiring North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said there’s simply “no way to explain” the slush fund to voters. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said Trump’s constant attacks on his own party’s senators are only driving them further away from his corner.
Political forecasters are now giving Democrats an 85 percent chance of retaking the House and a 55 percent chance of flipping the Senate. Even reliably red states like Kansas, Ohio, and Iowa have suddenly competitive the more Trump’s approval ratings plummet.
The White House, naturally, insists Trump remains the unequivocal leader of the party heading into November. That may be true, but it’s certainly not going to help his party stay in power after the midterms.
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Thanks for reading. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. We’ll see you tomorrow.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Top Democrat to Focus on Trump Accountability in 2027. Should Democrats retake the House of Representatives in November, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) — the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — is pledging to use his role as chairman to hold public investigations surrounding President Donald Trump’s administration. Garcia has indicated plans to question Department of Justice officials over their handling of the Epstein files, and his committee is expected to play a crucial role in an unprecedented potential third impeachment effort of Trump.
Trump Stops Short of Calling on Republican Accused of Domestic Violence to Resign. When speaking to reporters on Monday, President Trump made it clear that he was standing by Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) despite allegations of domestic violence from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who has called on him to resign. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he always thought Miller was “a good person” and was going to leave the issue to the families of Miller and Moreno to “figure out.”
Kentucky Governor Says Supposed August 3 Deadline to Replace McConnell Is Arbitrary. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) emphasized Monday that the supposed deadline of August 3 to either appoint a replacement for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) or call a special election was completely arbitrary, and that he is still weighing all options when considering McConnell’s seat. The 84 year-old senator has not been seen in public since his June 14 hospitalization, which his staff attributed to a fall and a mild bout of pneumonia. McConnell has yet to release any video or audio statement proving his capability to continue serving out the rest of his term, which ends in January.
James Talarico Unfazed By Conservatives’ Attacks on His Masculinity. Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is arguing that conservatives’ attacks on his masculinity are a poor distraction from real issues affecting Texans, like the cost of living. His campaign has also accused Republican Ken Paxton’s campaign of grasping for straws to steer attention away from Paxton’s scandal-ridden career. Texas’ Senate race is seen as a toss-up despite Texas having two Republicans represent the Lone State State in the U.S. senate for nearly 40 years.
Texas Admits it Inadvertently Removed U.S. Citizens from Voter Rolls. The Texas Secretary of State’s office is now moving to reinstate multiple voters who were wrongly flagged as non-citizens through a federal initiative. State elections director Christina Atkins said 2,724 registered Texas voters were inadvertently singled out by the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, despite all of them providing proof of citizenship to the Department of Public Safety.
