Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
House Republicans humiliated Trump and Mike Johnson by tanking a critical vote. A former “60 Minutes” correspondent predicts Bari Weiss will be pushed out soon. Someone carved “8647” into the National Mall grass and now the federal government is investigating. And the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is demanding JD Vance testify about what’s looking like a coordinated White House cover-up of the Epstein files.
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Mike Johnson Furious as Republicans Help Democrats Defeat Trump Priority
Mike Johnson’s own party just handed him one of the most embarrassing defeats of his speakership.
On Thursday, the House voted on a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign targets. Trump urged Republicans to pass it, calling it “very important to our Military.”
The bill didn’t just fail. It got demolished. The final vote was 198 to 218. Nineteen Republicans joined 199 Democrats to sink it. Only seven Democrats crossed over to support it.
Johnson was visibly shaken afterward, calling the vote “shameful” and “very, very dangerous.” He went on to warn that he was praying there wouldn’t be “a serious calamity on our shores over the next few weeks.”
Johnson blamed Democrats exclusively, but that math doesn’t add up: nineteen members of his own caucus voted against the bill too.
Democrats opposed the bill chiefly due to Trump installing Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence, despite him having zero national security experience. Trump also named U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton as permanent intelligence director, though he similarly has no intelligence background.
Federal law requires the DNI to have “extensive” national security experience. Democrats say Pulte’s appointment is illegal on its face, and that his apparent purpose is to hound Trump’s political enemies.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Thursday’s vote a “show vote,” and that Democrats will broker a real FISA extension once Pulte’s name is withdrawn.
Section 702 was set to lapse at the end of the week. There’s no extension in place. Trump wanted this authority, tried to jam it through without addressing legitimate concerns, and now he doesn’t have it. That’s entirely on him.
60 Minutes Veteran Predicts Bari Weiss Will Be Fired Soon
The carnage at CBS News is worsening by the day, and now one of the people who built “60 Minutes” is saying out loud what a lot of us have been thinking: Bari Weiss won’t last much longer as CBS’ editor in chief.
Steve Kroft, who was a correspondent at “60 Minutes” for thirty years, told reporters that he expects Weiss to be pushed out or moved into a different role once the Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closes. He told reporters: “everything she’s touched has turned to shit.”
Given what’s happened over the past few weeks, it’s hard to argue with him.
Weiss fired six senior producers and correspondents in May, including veteran correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Both journalists accused Weiss of inserting right-wing bias into their reporting. Scott Pelley, a 37-year CBS veteran, questioned Weiss’s new lackey and was fired the next day in a letter accusing him of “remarkable incivility.”
This all traces back to last summer, when Paramount settled Trump’s $16 million lawsuit over Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview. Critics called that lawsuit baseless, but Paramount wanted to grease the skids for its $8 billion merger with Trump ally David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Once the merger closed, Ellison brought in Weiss and handed her the keys to CBS News.
Now, it’s been reported that if the Warner Bros. deal goes through, Weiss could end up overseeing editorial across both CBS News and CNN.
Three remaining correspondents, Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim, announced they’re staying for now, but made clear they’ll leave if Weiss won’t stop interfering with journalism. Ellison reportedly called Stahl to apologize.
“60 Minutes” was the number one news program in the country for 52 straight seasons before all this started, with 9.1 million weekly viewers. That’s a nine percent increase year over year. Weiss inherited a winning program and has spent the last six months trying to kill it.
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Trump Administration Investigates Giant ‘8647’ Display on National Mall
U.S. Park Police and the National Guard were both on the scene Thursday after someone apparently traced the numbers “8647” into the grass near the World War Two Memorial on the National Mall in Washington. A Reuters photographer captured the image from the top of the Washington Monument.
The term “8647” has become a symbol of resistance to the Trump administration. “86” is restaurant slang for getting rid of a menu item, and Trump is the 47th president. Trump allies and the Justice Department have argued the phrase is a threat.
That argument is already playing out in federal court. Former FBI Director James Comey was charged with threatening to assassinate the president after he posted a photo of seashells on a beach arranged into the numbers “8647.” Comey took the post down and is fighting the charges on First Amendment grounds.
The timing of Thursday’s incident is notable. The National Mall is being prepped for Trump’s 250th anniversary of American independence celebration in the coming weeks, and he’s celebrating his 80th birthday on Sunday with a UFC fight on the White House lawn, because apparently we’re all living in Idiocracy.
Top Democrat Demands JD Vance Testify on Epstein Files ‘Cover Up’
Vice President JD Vance may soon find himself in front of Congress, if Ranking Oversight Committee Democrat Robert Garcia has his way.
A recent New York Times report alleges Vance personally led White House Situation Room meetings to coordinate the administration’s response to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. According to the Times, Vance argued that letting Congress lead a slow rollout of Epstein-related files would only make things worse for the administration politically, and pushed for the Justice Department to release materials from Epstein’s estate proactively.
Garcia called it a “massive cover-up” on Thursday and said he’d be spending the next 24 hours urging the committee’s chairman, Republican James Comer, to subpoena Vance to testify.
Garcia pointed out that the Situation Room exists for national security matters, and that using it to war-game political damage control around a convicted sex offender’s associates is entirely inappropriate. Keep a close eye on this one.
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Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris. We’ll see you next time.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Nominates Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that he would be nominating U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton — who is overseeing the Department of Justice’s operations in the Southern District of New York — to be the next permanent Director of National Intelligence (DNI). This is despite Clayton having no prior background in national intelligence. Federal Housing Finance Director and Trump loyalist Bill Pulte is set to take over as acting DNI until Clayton is confirmed by the Senate.
Minnesota Man Pleads Guilty to Shooting Prominent Democrats. 58 year-old Vance Boelter pleaded guilty on Thursday to the murder of former Minnesota Houser Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband, Mark, in order to avoid facing the death penalty. He will face an agreed-upon sentence of consecutive life terms plus 40 years. Boelter also targeted Minnesota state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette in his rampage, wounding them both. And he wounded the Hortman’s golden retriever so badly it had to be euthanized. Boelter additionally had a list of 70 other “targets” that included various Democratic politicians.
Seven States Pull Out of Trump’s 250th Anniversary Fair. At least seven states are officially withdrawing from the “Great American State Fair” that the Trump administration is organizing as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations this summer. Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington state are all declining to participate. Maryland and Pennsylvania have reportedly not publicly committed to participate. Both Connecticut and North Carolina cited cost-related concerns, though a spokesperson for Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) said the state pulled out because the event was “a more partisan affair than originally presented.”
Software Update Automatically Shuts Off Amazon Drivers’ Air Conditioning. As summer temperatures are heating up, some Amazon delivery drivers’ electric vans lost their air conditioning following a recent software update. Air conditioning turned off anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes if a driver is not in their seat. The vans are manufactured by EV company Rivian specifically for Amazon, and one anonymous Amazon delivery driver wrote in an online forum of the software update, “we all hate this, obviously.”
Republicans’ Chances of Losing Senate Just Increased as Two States’ Projections Updated to ‘Toss-Up.’ A new model from Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball has moved the Alaska and Ohio Senate races from “Lean Republican” to “Toss-Up.” Sabato, who runs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, also updated the North Carolina Senate race from “Toss-Up” to “Leans Democratic.” Democrats need to flip four Republican-held seats in order to take back the majority in the U.S. Senate, as well as hold onto contested Senate seats in Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota.
