Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
There’s a lot happening right now. A lot. Steve Bannon is openly salivating for ICE agents to intimidate voters at the polls. The Supreme Court might be about to disenfranchise almost a million Americans in one ruling. Iran’s government is proving Trump is lying to the whole world about the war. And Trump is now pinning the blame for his unpopular war on Pete Hegseth. Let’s get into all of it.
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Bannon Says ICE Agents at Airports Are Practice for the Polls
Trump supposedly sent ICE agents into airports because of delays caused by the partial government shutdown. But Steve Bannon just went on his show and said the quiet part loud.
He called it a “test run” for the 2026 midterms. He said ICE agents checking IDs at airports is “perfect training” for what he wants them doing at polling locations this fall.
Bannon called it “5D chess” from Trump. He said, quote, “That’s what’s going to happen in the fall of 26.”
Now, here’s where it gets complicated. A DHS official told state election officials last month that ICE agents won’t be at polling locations during the midterms. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams even posted on X confirming that DHS made that commitment.
But then Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin, refused to rule it out during his confirmation hearing. And when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked directly, she said she “can’t guarantee” that an ICE agent won’t be near polling locations.
So the official line is: no ICE at the polls. But the people around Trump keep leaving the door wide open. And Bannon isn’t hiding what he wants at all.
Voting rights activists have been sounding the alarm about this for months. The presence of immigration agents at polling places would intimidate voters. That’s the point.
The Supreme Court May Deal Blow to Mail-In Ballots
This one’s genuinely alarming, and it hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention.
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case called Watson v. Republican National Committee. At issue: whether states can count mail ballots that arrive a few days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked on time.
About 30 states have these grace period laws. In 2024 alone, more than 750,000 ballots were counted because of them. The RNC is arguing those laws are invalid because federal law sets Election Day, and they say that means ballots have to be received by Election Day, not just mailed by it.
The liberal justices spent the hearing pointing out that this argument has no basis in history or law. States allowed soldiers to vote by mail during the Civil War, with grace periods. Early voting, by definition, doesn’t happen on Election Day. None of that has ever been considered a problem.
But the conservative justices weren’t interested in that history. And the Trump administration itself couldn’t name a single example of fraud from post-Election Day ballot receipt in this century. But those same false claims are being used as legal justification to gut voting laws in 30 states.
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett sounded genuinely uncertain during arguments. They might hold the line. Or they might not. If the court strikes these laws down before the midterms, state election officials would have fewer than 150 days to rewrite their rules and somehow inform millions of voters. The chaos that would follow is hard to overstate.
Democrats are statistically more likely to vote by mail. That’s not a secret. The RNC knows it. And conservative justices know it.
Former Murdoch Paper Editor Tears into Trump’s Iran War Claims
There’s a remarkable story developing around Trump’s messaging on Iran, and it’s coming from conservative journalists, not the left.
Trump posted on Truth Social over the weekend, in all caps, claiming the U.S. and Iran were negotiating and that he’d instructed the Pentagon to pause military strikes for five days while talks continued.
But Iran’s government flatly denied it. Their foreign ministry said there had been “no direct or indirect contact” between Washington and Tehran, and claimed Trump had backed down after Iran threatened to strike power plants across the region.
Gerard Baker, the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, said on Fox News that Trump was re-creating a “Baghdad Bob,” in reference to the Iraqi information minister who gave press briefings during the 2003 U.S. invasion claiming Iraq was winning, right up until the end.
Baker wrote that Americans are now “in the unprecedented position of having to suspect that the enemy’s version of events is more likely to be true than our own.”
That’s a Fox News contributor. About a Republican president. During wartime.
The Financial Times’ Edward Luce said something similar, noting the strange situation of having to wait for Iran’s statement to figure out whether anything the U.S. president said was true.
The fact that veteran conservative journalists are publicly drawing comparisons to Saddam Hussein’s propagandist should be more than a little alarming for the White House.
Trump Blames Hegseth for His Unpopular War
Trump said Monday that Pete Hegseth was the first top administration official to advocate for military strikes on Iran.
That tracks with what Bloomberg reported over the weekend: that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Rupert Murdoch were among the loudest voices pushing Trump toward military action, while Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, and chief of staff Susie Wiles were more skeptical.
Trump has acknowledged Vance wasn’t enthusiastic. Vance hasn’t said anything publicly.
The war is now four weeks in. When Hegseth was asked Thursday when the U.S. might wind down operations, he pushed back against setting a “definitive timeframe.” Meanwhile, Trump announced that Hegseth signed a directive extending active-duty benefits to National Guard members serving in Memphis, Washington DC, New Orleans, and at the border.
The crowd applauded. Hegseth smiled. And nobody mentioned an exit strategy. Stay tuned, we’ll be watching this one closely.
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STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Markwayne Mullin Admits to Making Violent Threat Against Teen Boy. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) — who President Donald Trump has appointed to replace outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — recently confirmed that newly resurfaced video of a 2023 speech in which he spoke of threatening his daughter’s teenage boyfriend at the time was real. In the video, Mullin boasted to a crowd of far-right evangelical Christians that he told the boy he would drag his face across asphalt if he ever saw him kiss her daughter in front of him.
Pentagon Contemplates Sending 3,000 Troops to Seize Iran’s Oil Hub. The Department of Defense is now reportedly considering 3,000 U.S. Army troops from the 82nd Airborne Division’s “Immediate Response Force” to Iran’s Kharg Island. The island is the cornerstone of Iran’s oil exporting economy, and the potential deployment would take place as Iran continues to insist on keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed, where is a key shipping lane for approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil.
Trump Caught Falling Asleep During Memphis Task Force Meeting. President Trump, who is 79 years old, traveled to Memphis, Tennessee on Monday, where he was caught on video falling asleep during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks while attending a meeting of an anti-crime task force. This is merely the latest instance of the president nodding off in public, as he’s done in Cabinet meetings that he said were “boring as hell.”
Republican Senator Confirms Trump Personally Blocked Deal to Fund TSA. During an interview with Fox News, Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) said President Trump was directly responsible for torpedoing a deal that would have ended the ongoing shutdown of DHS and funded the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). Kennedy said he and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came up with a plan that had support from Democrats to separate ICE funding from DHS funding, in order to reopen critical agencies under DHS’ umbrella like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and the TSA. But Kennedy said that after Trump insisted on Republicans not making deals with Democrats, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) killed the deal.
Bill Cosby Forced to Pay Over $19 Million After Being Found Liable for 1972 Sexual Assault. 88 year-old actor Bill Cosby — who was jailed after being convicted of sexual assault in 2018 and freed in 2021 after serving three years of a 10-year sentence — was found liable for drugging and sexually assaulting Donna Motsinger in 1972. The jury awarded Motsinger $19.25 million in damages. Cosby’s attorney said she plans to appeal the verdict.
