Good evening, I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
Tonight’s stories expose how the elites try to rig the system to avoid accountability. A newspaper finally reveals what Epstein’s secret storage unit was trying to hide. Republicans are paving the way for billionaire Trump donors to buy CNN. A White House aide was exposed running an influential social media account. And Democrats won elections in Pennsylvania and Maine while Trump ranted on national TV.
But before we go further, support independent media with a paying subscription. Raw America is Raw Story and Really American’s people-powered response to billionaire-owned corporate media and its refusal to tell these stories the way they need to be told. Right-wing oligarchs are spending billions to control what you see and hear. Supporting independent media is the only way to beat back that concerted effort. If you value a media committed solely to you, become a paid subscriber today. Every subscription is a vote against the billionaire press.
What Epstein Didn’t Want Police to Find
The full inventory of a secret Palm Beach storage locker rented on Jeffrey Epstein’s behalf has now been published, and it’s a window into the mind of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and worked methodically to cover his tracks.
Private investigator William Riley, working for Epstein’s attorney Roy Black, removed items from Epstein’s Florida mansion ahead of a 2005 police raid and carted them to a nearby storage facility. New reporting from The Telegraph reveals the inventory, and the contents are staggering.
Three computers. Twenty-nine address books. Nude photographs of women believed to be victims. Dozens of magazines with titles like “Barely Legal” and “Purely 18.” VHS tapes and DVDs of teenagers, an 8mm cassette with handwritten notations referencing shower and lingerie footage, and two books described as training manuals for sex slaves.
Despite a court order demanding evidence be preserved, Epstein repeatedly ordered staff to wipe hard drives and shred tapes before his 2019 arrest. In one 2014 exchange, associates described drilling holes in hard drives and calling data destruction trucks to his New York mansion.
The FBI has said it found no evidence Epstein was recording people for blackmail. But 2014 emails show someone advising him that installing cameras “will have to be very discreetly done,” adding that “the Russians may come in handy.” Former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter said that when investigators finally raided the mansion, “the place had been cleaned up.” Surveillance-linked computer equipment was conspicuously absent.
Meanwhile, one of the world’s richest men has finally admitted what emails, flight logs and reporting have long suggested. At a town hall with staff at the Gates Foundation this week, Bill Gates confirmed he had two affairs with Russian women during his marriage.
Gates insists he neither did nor saw anything criminal. But Epstein once threatened to expose the affairs, warning Gates risked going from “richest man to biggest hypocrite” and that charitable pledges would “disappear as a result.” Gates called his relationship with Epstein “a huge mistake.” His ex-wife Melinda had always been wary; perhaps he should have listened to her.
MAGA Attorneys General Want CNN Sold to Trump Donors
Now to a story that lays bare how the right weaponizes government power to reward its friends and punish its enemies. The battle for Warner Bros. Discovery is intensifying, and the political fingerprints on it could not be more obvious.
Netflix has made an accepted $83 billion bid for WBD’s streaming and studio assets. David Ellison’s Paramount has made a competing $108 billion hostile takeover bid for the entire company.
Now, eleven Republican state attorneys general are urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to subject the Netflix bid to a “thorough and exacting review” under antitrust law. The DOJ has already opened a formal antitrust probe into Netflix.
Meanwhile, Paramount CEO David Ellison attended Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night as the personal guest of Senator Lindsey Graham. Ellison’s family empire has faced almost no scrutiny, despite the fact that a Paramount win would hand Trump donors control over CNN.
The asymmetry here is stark. One bidder attends the State of the Union as a Republican senator’s guest, the same night his rival gets hit with a new wave of political pressure. That is not antitrust enforcement. It’s a protection racket.
This is exactly why we built Raw America — to combat billionaires who are swallowing the news. Your support ensures independent media that holds power accountable is here to stay. Become a paying subscriber today.
MAGA X Account Exposed as White House Sock Puppet
A pro-Trump X account called Johnny MAGA, with nearly 300,000 followers, was exposed today as being run by Garrett Wade, a White House rapid response manager. When ICE shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Johnny MAGA pushed the administration’s line. His audience had no idea they were consuming government propaganda.
The trail is damning. Wired traced a phone number linking Wade to the account, and FEC records connect him to a consultancy owned by Taylor Budowich — Trump’s former deputy chief of staff for communications. Wade’s own wife, a White House press assistant, follows the account. This isn’t a rogue staffer. This is infrastructure.
What was Johnny MAGA boosting? When Trump posted that racist AI-generated video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, the account called it “a masterpiece.” A White House employee celebrating dehumanizing racism on a covert account while pretending to be just another voice in the crowd.
Corporate media will frame this as a social media curiosity. It’s not. It’s a government running covert propaganda against its own citizens, manufacturing the illusion of organic support.
Democrats Win While Trump Talks
Finally, while President Trump spent Tuesday night ranting at the State of the Union, Democrats ran up the score in three swing-state legislative races. The results tell a bigger story than any speech.
Ana Tiburcio and Jennifer Mazzocco flipped two Pennsylvania state House seats, handing Democrats a majority in the state legislature. Both seats had been held by Republicans, and both flipped by comfortable margins in districts Trump carried.
In Maine, Scott Harriman defeated Republican Janet Beaudoin and further cemented the Democratic hold on the state House. These weren’t deep blue strongholds. These were competitive districts where voters looked at what Republicans are actually doing in power and said no thanks.
This follows a pattern we’ve seen since the Dobbs decision: when Americans actually show up to vote, they reject the MAGA agenda. Special elections, ballot measures, midterms — Democrats keep outperforming expectations in the races corporate media ignores.
The split screen was hard to miss: A president delivering a rambling address to a joint session of Congress, while his party lost ground in the states that will decide the 2026 midterms.
Raw America Provides the Context Behind the News
These stories didn’t happen in a vacuum. Epstein spent years methodically hiding evidence from law enforcement, apparently with legal help and the FBI’s inexplicable failure to raid a single storage locker. The political press barely covered Tuesday’s Democratic wins because a president who lost those states was busy making noise on television.
Raw America exists to name that pattern out loud. Corporate outlets won’t do it. Billionaire-owned media has no incentive to do it. Independent journalism is the only answer, and independent journalism only survives with your support.
Become a paying subscriber today. Share this video. And remember: the powerful are counting on your silence.
I’m British Chris for Raw America. Thanks for watching.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Federal Judge Strikes Down Wave of Trump’s Deportations. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration will no longer be permitted to deport immigrants to so-called “third countries” where they have no ties. Immigrants had previously been sent to countries like Eswatini, Rwanda and Ghana despite never having visited those countries. Murphy put a 15-day pause on his order to allow the government to appeal.
Republicans in Congress Give Trump an Ultimatum on Firings. President Trump has been told to either make any personnel changes atop federal agencies soon, or wait until after the November midterm elections. Lawmakers are warning that as the primary season heats up, they may not be available to vote on confirmations of potential new Cabinet secretaries. Several in the hot seat include Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over her handling of ICE operations in Minnesota, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who has been accused of taking lavish personal trips with taxpayer dollars and allegedly having an affair with a staffer.
Four Americans Shot Dead by Cuban Authorities. The Cuban government said Wednesday that ir killed four people in a boat headed to Cuba from Florida. According to Cuban officials, the four boat passengers rode into Cuban waters and opened fire on a Cuban patrol before they were killed. The commander of the Cuban vessel was wounded in the attack. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) said he was conducting his own investigation into the attack.
DHS Tells States ICE Agents Will Not Be at Polling Places in November. Heather Honey, who is a deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at DHS, told state election officials Wednesday that the agency will not be deploying ICE agents near polling places when voters cast their ballots this November. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) called Honey a “an election denier with zero integrity” and said he didn’t trust her promise.
US Women’s Olympic Hockey Team Declines Trump’s Second Invite. The US Women’s Hockey team — which won the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy — rejected a second White House invitation from President Trump. The president previously invited the team to attend Tuesday night’s State of the Union, which was rejected. On Wednesday, Trump announced he would “soon” extend an official invitation for Team USA women’s hockey to celebrate their win at the White House. The group declined through a spokesperson, citing previous commitments.
