Here's The Truth About Lindsey Graham

States are lining up to sue over the Warner Bros. Discovery deal, and a $650 million-a-quarter clock is ticking.

Good morning, Raw America family. Welcome to the Sunday Wrapup. I’m here with my cup of coffee, and for once I’m smiling at the news. And it’s not about Lindsey Graham.

Thank you for being a paying subscriber. We built this publication because we saw billionaires swallowing America’s newsrooms whole. This week, for the first time, we got a glimpse of what it looks like when someone pushes back. You also helped hire our new White House reporter, Brian Karem.

Now, let’s get into it.

Farewell, Trump Enabler

First, we have to talk about Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly last night of a “brief and sudden illness.”

By sunrise, the whitewash had begun. Trump declared him a “true American Patriot.” Netanyahu mourned a beloved friend. Their eulogies will tell you about his service.

But they won’t tell you the truth. In 2016, Graham dared America on camera: “Use my words against me.”

Here are his words.

In December 2015, Graham called Donald Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” By February 2016, he said: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy.” That May: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it.”

Then Trump won. Within a year, he was scolding reporters for calling the president a kook.

He wept on the Senate floor for John McCain, then deepened his devotion to the man who mocked McCain’s captivity, and who kept mocking him after he was dead.

In 2016, he swore no Supreme Court seat should be filled in an election year. In October 2020, he rammed Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court eight days before the election.

Georgia’s Republican secretary of state said Graham called him about tossing legal ballots. On January 6th, he said “count me out,” but was back at Mar-a-Lago within months.

I’ll give him one achievement: he championed Ukraine to the end, dying a day after standing with Zelensky in Kyiv.

But the ledger is the legacy. He saw what Trump was, said so, and spent nine years kneeling anyway.

He asked us to use his words against him. Consider them used.

The States Are Coming to Stop Paramount

David Ellison thought the hard part was over. His $110 billion bid to swallow Warner Bros. Discovery, which would put CNN and CBS News under one Trump-friendly roof, glided through Trump’s Justice Department without a scratch. His father Larry donated millions to a pro-Trump group. And according to The Wall Street Journal, he privately promised the president that Paramount could “overhaul” CNN once the deal closed. There was even a dinner honoring the Trump White House.

And then the states showed up.

This week, a coalition led by California and New York is preparing to sue to block the merger. Oregon’s AG has also asked a court to halt the deal while it investigates Paramount’s lobbying of the Trump administration.

Across the Atlantic, the U.K.’s media regulator says she’s “minded to intervene,” warning the merger threatens a “sufficient plurality of views” in the news media.

Career Justice Department staff also reportedly opposed the merger. As Norm Eisen told Status, the staff who got overruled “were absolutely right to question the deal, and judges may well be about to join them.”

The $650 Million Clock

At first blush, a few states opposing a merger in a landscape of Trump-friendly judges seems almost quaint. But Ellison has a real problem. When Paramount was fighting off Netflix’s competing bid, Ellison inserted a “ticking fee” into the deal to show off his confidence. Starting October 1, Paramount owes Warner Bros. shareholders 25 cents per share for every quarter the deal stays open.

That’s roughly $650 million. Per quarter.

So the states don’t even need to win. They just need to slow things down.

Jeffrey Toobin told Status that a court-ordered stay “could be almost as bad for Paramount as losing the case.” Because even for a rich guy like Ellison, that’s real money on top of the nearly $80 billion in debt his deal is already carrying.

The money behind the money is also getting nervous. Gulf sovereign funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi that pledged $24 billion in equity are reviewing their overseas investments as Trump’s war with Iran shakes the region.

Equally important: Larry Ellison’s Oracle has shed nearly 40% of its value in a year.

The Ellison empire has cash-flow problems. The meter starts running in October.

CNN Could Walk Free

According to Status, the pre-eminent media newsletter, there’s another outcome nobody will say out loud but everybody’s whispering about. If delays pile up, Paramount’s easiest escape hatch may be spinning off CNN as a standalone asset.

Wharton’s Paul Nary told Status that if it came down to divesting CNN or losing the deal, Paramount would take the deal. “CNN is almost immaterial when it comes to other WBD assets,” he said.

This is a big deal. Ted Turner’s cable news network, which was set to join Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News as a Trump-appeasing channel, could remain independent.

Ironically, CNN could slip out of the Ellisons’ grasp precisely because they got too cute courting the administration.

I’m not going to pretend the fight is won. But for the first time since the Ellisons started their shopping spree, the deal is actually at risk.

ICE Killed Another Immigrant Who Wasn’t Even Their Target.

On Tuesday morning, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo did what he did every workday: he left home to pick up his construction crew and drive them to a job site. He never got there. An ICE agent shot and killed him during a traffic stop in Houston’s East End.

Salgado Araujo was 52. He’d lived in this country for more than 35 years. He had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status.

DHS now admits he wasn’t the man they were looking for. Agents saw a white van and someone who “resembled the target,” and a father of three ended up bleeding on the pavement. His son learned of the shooting from a Facebook post.

ICE claims he rammed their vehicle. The three men who were in his van say that’s false.

This is the first known fatal shooting by federal immigration agents since Renée Good and Alex Pretti were killed in January. Alex’s death is part of why Raw America exists. The machine that killed him is still running, still unaccountable, and still shooting people it wasn’t even looking for.

Federal Agents Are Knocking on Reporters’ Doors

If buying the press doesn’t work, there’s always intimidation. On Friday, federal agents showed up at the homes of New York Times journalists with grand jury subpoenas. Four reporters have been ordered to testify next week over their reporting that Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One lacks the security of the old plane.

The Times‘ top lawyer said the sight of federal agents on reporters’ doorsteps should shock anyone who believes in the Constitution. I agree.

Connect the dots. One billionaire family is trying to buy CNN and CBS. The government is criminalizing reporters at the Times. The free press in the U.S. is being squeezed from both ends: ownership above, prosecution below.

Thanks For Staying Ahead of the Billionaires

I launched Raw America because I watched billionaires buy up the free press one masthead at a time, and because Alex Pretti’s killing showed me what happens when power stops fearing accountability.

Here’s what your subscription builds: reporters in Washington breaking stories the corporate outlets won’t touch. Live interviews with officials Trump would rather keep off your screen. And a newsroom that keeps an eye on the biggest stories, while the oligarchs would prefer you look away.

Thank you again for being with us. You’re what makes our day possible.

— John Byrne / Founder, Raw America and Raw Story

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