Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann, and this is Raw America’s morning brief.
America woke up today in a war that nobody voted for, nobody planned, and nobody, including the man who started it, can explain. Donald Trump is bombing Iran. Six American service members are already dead. And the president of the United States has formally admitted to Congress that he has no idea how it ends.
When a single man can hurl a nation of 330 million people into war without consent or clarity, democracy itself is put on the battlefield.
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TRUMP’S WAR WITHOUT A PLAN
On Monday, the White House released a letter Trump sent to Congress under the War Powers Act, obtained by CBS News, that is one of the more remarkable documents in recent American military history. “Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace,” Trump wrote, “it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.”
Translation: we started a war and we’ll let you know how it goes.
A republic cannot survive if war becomes an improvisation carried out over the heads of the people it endangers.
The War Powers Act, passed in 1973 after Vietnam taught this country some very hard lessons about presidents playing soldier without congressional authorization, gives Trump 60 days to either wrap up combat operations or bring the matter before Congress for a formal vote. The clock is ticking. And based on everything we know, there is no plan on the wall.
The law was written in the blood of past mistakes, and ignoring it risks turning the hard lessons of history into permission slips for the next disaster.
Over the weekend, Trump offered four different explanations in roughly 48 hours for why he launched what the Pentagon is now calling “major combat operations” against Iran. He said he wanted “freedom for the people” of Iran. Then he said it was about the nuclear program. Then it was about regime change. Then it was a preemptive strike because Iran was about to attack American bases. Pentagon officials, however, briefed congressional staffers and said there was no evidence Iran had been planning any such strikes. Trump also claimed Iran was building missiles that could soon reach the American homeland. U.S. intelligence assessments concluded the opposite, finding that Iran was years from any such capability and wasn’t even pursuing it.
Six Americans are dead. More are wounded. And the justification for their sacrifice keeps changing with the news cycle. When the reasons for war shift by the hour, the foundation of democratic accountability begins to crack beneath all of us.
ISRAEL’S WAR, AMERICA’S DEAD
What isn’t changing is what Senator Mark Warner said out loud after the Senate was briefed: “This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others, that was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline. There was no imminent threat to the United States by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel.” Warner was careful to add that he stands firmly with Israel. But standing with an ally, he said, is not the same as treating every threat to that ally as an imminent threat to American forces and then going to war on that basis without a vote of Congress, a plan, or a coherent explanation.
If alliances can override Congress and carry America into combat without debate, then the people’s branch of government becomes a spectator to decisions of life and death.
Netanyahu, when asked whether he had pushed Trump into the conflict, laughed, actually chuckled, and told Fox News: “That’s ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.” Benjamin Netanyahu laughing at the question may not itself be evidence of anything. But it is a flavor.
No foreign leader should ever be able to smile at the thought that American power can be steered without the clear and public consent of the American people.
Marco Rubio, performing the unenviable duty of defending the indefensible, told reporters the strikes were “preventive” because the administration anticipated that after Israel attacked Iran, Iran would retaliate against American bases, so the United States had to strike first to prevent the retaliation that would have followed the Israeli attack that also hadn’t happened yet. Speaker Johnson offered essentially the same logic. It is the foreign policy equivalent of punching someone because you knew they’d hit back after you hit them first.
When hypothetical threats become blank checks for real bombs, the constitutional guardrails that restrain executive power start to disappear.
MAGA CIVIL WAR: CARLSON AND KELLY BREAK WITH TRUMP
The fissures inside MAGA itself are dramatic and real. Tucker Carlson called the strikes “absolutely disgusting and evil” and said plainly: “This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war.” Megyn Kelly said the service members who died “did not die for the United States,” that they died for Iran or Israel, and told anyone demanding unconditional support to, and I’m quoting directly here, “suck it.” Republican Congressman Thomas Massie posted that the administration had admitted Israel “dragged us into the war” and predicted that gas, groceries, and virtually everything else would get more expensive, with only defense company shareholders coming out ahead.
When even loyalists begin to question a war, it signals a deeper struggle over whether power in America serves the public or simply the powerful.
Trump’s response to his erstwhile allies was vintage Trump: Kelly needs to study her history books. Carlson’s opposition “has no impact on me.” And then: “MAGA is Trump.” Not a movement. Not a set of principles. Trump. Full stop.
Democracy cannot coexist with the idea that one man embodies a nation, because self government depends on citizens, not a single personality, holding ultimate authority.
This from the man who ran on ending wars, who gave an election night speech promising “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to end a war,” who spent a year calling himself the “Peace President,” who bombed Nigeria, attempted an invasion of Venezuela, and has threatened military action against Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Greenland, a territory belonging to a NATO ally. After the Nobel Committee declined to give him their prize last November, Trump said he no longer felt “obligated to think purely of peace.” The Nobel Committee apparently did not find his bombing campaigns sufficiently peaceful. He seems to agree.
When campaign promises dissolve into cruise missiles, voters are left to confront how fragile their power can be between elections.
NOEM ON THE HOT SEAT: DHS SHUTDOWN, DEAD AMERICANS, AND A HEARING THIS MORNING
Meanwhile in Washington this morning, the other front of the Trump administration’s war on its own people is playing out in a Senate hearing room.
A democracy is tested not only by foreign battlefields but by whether its own government respects the rights and lives of its citizens at home.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, and the pressure on her is bipartisan and building. DHS has been effectively shut down for nearly a month after budget negotiations collapsed. TSA employees are working without pay. And Noem must answer for the deaths of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good, killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis this year. Noem labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist” before any investigation had begun. Her own agency’s oversight arm subsequently released a report contradicting that narrative. The heads of ICE, CBP, and USCIS all declined to back her account when they testified last month.
When armed agents of the state take American lives without clear accountability, the promise of equal justice under law begins to erode in plain sight.
Senator Dick Durbin put it plainly: Noem “expects us to rubber stamp her record-breaking budget” while DHS operations spiral out of control and American citizens are shot dead in American cities.
Congress was designed to check power, and if it fails to do so the balance that protects liberty tilts dangerously toward unchecked authority.
Raw America has a reporter inside that hearing room right now.
Independent journalism is one of the last defenses democracy has against secrecy, spin, and the quiet normalization of abuse.
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Stay with us today. This is going to be a long one.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Kash Patel Fired Iran Counterintelligence Unit Days Before Strikes. In the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents and staffers who were monitoring threats from Iran. The agents were fired not for their Iran work, but for their participation in investigations into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That unit, known as CI-12, tracks the handling of classified material as well as foreign countries’ spies operating on U.S. soil.
January 6 Rioter Covered Hegseth’s Iran War Briefing as a ‘Journalist.’ Brandon Straka, who was convicted of participating in the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol, was one of the credentialed journalists at the Pentagon for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s briefing on the Iran war. Straka was seen on video encouraging rioters to “go, go” and storm the Capitol, and urged one rioter to take a riot shield from a Capitol police officer.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Blames Trump for ‘American Troops Being Killed.’ During an appearance on SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly’s podcast, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) heaped criticism on Trump for his actions in Iran and accused him of misleading the MAGA base. She told Kelly: “What is happening to the man that I supported, you supported? The man that denounced what happened in Iraq? The man that said, ‘No more foreign wars, no more regime change? … JD Vance promised it. Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it.”
Minnesota Prosecutor Announces Criminal Investigation into Trump Officials. Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty announced this week that her office was conducting an investigation that could eventually lead to criminal charges for federal officials. Moriarty is looking at 17 cases, including the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. She’s also investigating an instance where Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino threw a smoke canister at protesters in Minneapolis.
Oil Prices Surging While Trump Administration Attempts to ‘Mitigate’ Costs. Following the strikes in Iran, the price of global benchmark Brent crude has jumped to $83 per barrel, which is a 10 percent increase from last week. U.S. gas prices are approximately $3.11 per gallon on average according to AAA. This is mainly due to tankers avoiding Iran’s Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of oil is shipped.
