NEW: Congress Jumps Town As Musk Plays God

Congress Leaves D.C.; No Kings Takes America By Storm; Musk Plays King; Trump Bails Out Putin Allies

Good morning.

Congress passed a partial DHS deal in the early hours of Friday morning, then senators got on planes and left town before the House blew it up. Millions of Americans are expected to take to the streets today in what organizers are calling the biggest protest in American history. Elon Musk was secretly on Trump’s call with the Indian prime minister about the Iran war, with no public disclosure and no explanation for why a private citizen was listening in on sensitive foreign policy discussions. And the Trump administration quietly lifted sanctions on two Russian executives with documented ties to Putin’s war machine, one of whom helped funnel military technology to Russia, while a senior European official says Russia is now providing Iran with targeting intelligence on U.S. forces.

Raw America is Raw Story and Really Americans’ people-powered response to the unprecedented oligarchic and MAGA takeover of American media. CNN and CBS are running cover for a war that has killed 13 Americans and sent oil prices surging more than 30 percent in parts of this country. The FCC chair is threatening to pull broadcast licenses from any outlet that doesn’t fall in line. The pro-democracy press is running behind the billionaire class in reach, resources, and infrastructure, and that gap only closes if people who care step up right now. Please become a paid subscriber today. Every subscription funds the journalism the billionaires and the oligarchs don’t want you to read.

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Congress Cut a Deal, Then Got on Planes. The House Blew It Up Before Senators Landed.

In the early hours of Friday morning, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security through September. By midday, it was effectively dead.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate’s work “a joke.” MAGA House Republicans fumed that the bill failed to fund ICE and Border Patrol. Some pushed a rival bill restoring that funding, a proposal that has no path through the Senate. Meanwhile, most of the Senate had already left Washington, some before the vote even happened. Senator Marsha Blackburn was photographed slipping through Reagan National Airport Thursday night, using an escort to shield herself from cameras. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he had made “some temporary headway” and then got on a plane. Ted Cruz was spotted on a flight out of the capital before the ink was dry.

TSA workers, many of them unpaid for weeks, are still calling out sick in the thousands. Airport security lines are still stretching for hours. Trump signed an executive order to immediately pay TSA workers, a move that has no legal authority over federal funding, which is controlled by Congress.

House Republicans accused Senate Republicans of dumping an unfinished deal on their desks in the middle of the night and disappearing. “The Senate has gone dark,” Johnson said. Democrats pointed out that the Senate deal would have ended the shutdown immediately if Republicans had chosen to back it.

The result is a partial government shutdown defined less by policy disagreement than by a Congress that managed to clock off early in the middle of it, while the federal workers caught in the mess prepare to miss another paycheck.

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Millions Expected in the Streets Today. Organizers Call It the Biggest Protest in American History.

More than 3,000 events are planned across all 50 states and 16 countries today for the No Kings Day protests against the Trump administration. Organizers including Indivisible and the 50501 movement expect today’s turnout to exceed the previous No Kings protest in October, which drew 7 million people nationwide.

“I would expect March 28 to be the biggest protest in American history,” said Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin.

The flagship event is being held in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, in recognition of residents’ resistance to the ICE surge that descended on the Twin Cities this winter and resulted in the deaths of Renée Goode and Alex Pretti. Senator Bernie Sanders, Jane Fonda, Bruce Springsteen, and Joan Baez are among those scheduled to appear at the St. Paul rally.

Organizers say more than two-thirds of RSVP’d participants are outside major urban centers, including Republican-controlled areas and battleground counties. The coalition has emphasized the nonviolent nature of the protests and has trained leaders in de-escalation. The No Kings website prohibits participants from bringing weapons, including legally carried firearms.

The Trump administration has continued to federally prosecute anti-ICE protesters. Nine people were recently found guilty of “antifa terrorism” charges stemming from a Fourth of July demonstration outside a detention facility in Texas. The administration has not publicly commented on today’s expected turnout.

The people are responding. The question is whether the outlets supposed to cover it will do so honestly, or whether the networks running cover for this administration will minimize what is happening in the streets today. Raw America will be covering it without fear or favor.

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Elon Musk Was Secretly on Trump’s Call With India’s Prime Minister About the Iran War

Elon Musk, a private citizen with no current government role, was on a phone call Tuesday between President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. There was no official disclosure of his presence on the call. Two U.S. officials confirmed it anonymously afterward.

It remains unclear whether Musk spoke, why he was included, or what role he played. What is clear is that his presence was not announced, not authorized through any public channel, and not explained by the White House.

India is among the countries most severely affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure, heavily dependent on oil imports from the region. The call covered the escalating crisis in the Middle East and efforts toward what Modi called “peace and stability.”

Musk’s business interests in the outcome of this war are not incidental. Rising gas prices driven by the Strait closure are favorable to electric vehicle adoption, an industry Musk dominates through Tesla. SpaceX holds billions in government contracts with the same administration whose foreign policy calls Musk is apparently joining. The world’s richest man, who reportedly fell out with Trump last summer following his departure from government, appears to be back in the room, on calls about active wars, without public disclosure.

A private citizen on a sensitive foreign policy call, with financial interests affected by the outcome of that call, and no announcement that he was there. This is not normal. The fact that it has not led every news broadcast this morning tells you everything about where we are and who the major networks are protecting.

This is exactly the kind of story that Raw America exists to cover and that corporate media, owned by the same billionaire class Musk belongs to, has every incentive to bury. If you want this reporting to continue, please become a paid subscriber today.

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Trump Lifted Sanctions on Putin’s Allies While Russia Feeds Iran Targeting Intelligence on U.S. Troops

The Treasury Department quietly removed sanctions Friday on two foreign executives with documented ties to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s war machine.

The first, Vladimir Dmitriev, was sanctioned in 2022 for his role at Gazprombank, Russia’s third-largest bank and a primary funding source for Russia’s military operations in Ukraine. Putin personally appointed Dmitriev to lead a state development corporation. The second, Frederic Pierre Villa, was sanctioned in 2023 after U.S. authorities determined he had helped a network of European companies funnel military equipment, including components for nuclear weapons laboratories, to Russia’s intelligence services and soldiers.

Both men can now move money and conduct business through the U.S. financial system. The administration also dropped sanctions against a pro-Russian political operative in Ukraine who was assassinated last year in Madrid.

The timing deserves scrutiny. This is the latest instance of the Trump administration offering financial relief to Russian interests as the Iran war sends shocks through the global economy. Earlier this month, the White House eased sanctions on Russian oil. Since the Strait of Hormuz closed, crude has broken $100 a barrel and gas prices have jumped more than 30 percent in parts of the country.

Now a senior European official has told reporters that Russia is actively providing intelligence to Iran, including targeting information on U.S. forces in the region.

The United States is fighting a war in which 13 American service members have died. Russia is reportedly helping the country those service members are fighting by feeding it information about where U.S. forces are located. And this administration just handed two of Putin’s financial operatives access to the U.S. financial system. Democrats called the move a “huge financial boost” to Putin and “the means to continue his bloody war in Ukraine.”

More than 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in that war. Russia is now reportedly helping Iran target American troops. And the administration lifted sanctions on Putin’s allies this week without explanation, without a press conference, and without the coverage it deserves from the networks running cover for a president who has never taken a meaningful action against Vladimir Putin across two terms in office.

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A Note From Raw America

Our reporters have been on the ground at the most important Capitol Hill hearings and brought you exclusive interviews with top generals you cannot find anywhere else. We are joining the Washington D.C. press pool to get the most important conversations directly to our viewers, without a billionaire or a government official deciding which questions are safe to ask.

Today, millions of Americans are in the streets. Russia is feeding Iran targeting intelligence on U.S. forces. Elon Musk is sitting in on presidential foreign policy calls without disclosure. The administration is lifting sanctions on Putin’s financial operatives. And the outlets with the largest platforms are either owned by people connected to this administration or afraid of losing their FCC licenses if they push too hard.

The pro-democracy press is behind. Behind in resources, behind in reach, behind in the infrastructure needed to close the gap. That changes one subscriber at a time.

Coverage that challenges power, refuses to sell wars, and will not propagandize for the Ellisons and the oligarchs requires readers willing to fund it. We have the reporters. We have the access. We have the will to keep doing this work regardless of who it makes uncomfortable. What we need is you.

Please become a paid subscriber today. We work for you, not for them. And on a day when millions of Americans are in the streets demanding accountability, that work has never mattered more.

Good morning. We’ll see you tomorrow.

John, Justin and the Raw America Team

Stories You May Have Missed:

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• Trump’s Own Aides Say He’s “Bored” With the Iran War and Wants to Declare Victory and Move On

White House insiders are telling reporters that Trump has grown “bored” with the Iran war and is desperate to simply declare victory and change the subject, even as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and Iran continues to deny any peace talks are taking place. One senior official described the president’s public claims that the war is winding down as “mostly hyperbole.” A former White House official offered a darker assessment, saying Trump has learned he can tell Americans his preferred version of reality and, with enough time, enough of them will accept it as true. The war has now killed 13 American service members and more than 1,400 Iranian civilians. The memes, according to the White House communications director, will continue.

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• Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Marc Andreessen Just Got Appointed to a White House Tech Advisory Panel

Trump appointed the CEOs and founders of Meta, Oracle, Nvidia, and Andreessen Horowitz to a White House science and technology advisory panel this week, putting the people who most need to be regulated in charge of writing the rules. Larry Ellison, whose son David already controls CBS News and is closing in on CNN, will now formally advise the administration on technology policy. Zuckerberg, whose algorithms shape the information environment for billions of Americans, joins him. Jensen Huang’s Nvidia chips power the AI surveillance infrastructure being built by Palantir under its $10 billion government contract. The conflicts of interest are not incidental. They are the point.

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• Minnesota Prosecutors Trying to Hold ICE Accountable for the Deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Goode Are Being Stonewalled

Minnesota officials investigating the ICE killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Goode, two Americans shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in January, are running into a wall of obstruction. The Trump administration has refused to identify the agents involved. Prosecutors don’t know what state those agents are currently in, meaning extradition could be required from MAGA-aligned states that may refuse to cooperate. The county attorney leading the investigation is not seeking reelection and will leave office at year’s end. Legal experts say winning a supremacy clause fight in federal court, a prerequisite for any state prosecution, is far from guaranteed. The administration’s strategy appears to be delay, obscure, and wait out the clock.

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• The LA Times Owner Got Hit With an FDA Warning Letter for Making False Cancer Drug Claims Through His Own Newspaper’s Platform

The FDA issued a formal warning letter to billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, accusing him of making “false” and “misleading” claims about his biotech company’s cancer drug, Anktiva, including stating it could “treat all cancers” and prevent cancer in people exposed to radiation. Soon-Shiong also used the LA Times’ own branding and YouTube channel to promote the drug with similar claims. Shares of his company collapsed more than 21 percent after the letter became public. The LA Times has not published a word about it. That is billionaire media capture in four sentences.

Here are 5 fresh “Stories You May Have Missed” from the last 24 hours:

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• Trump Told a Saudi Business Summit “Cuba Is Next” Then Asked the Media to Pretend He Didn’t Say It

Speaking at a Saudi-backed investment summit in Miami on Friday, Trump told the assembled audience that Cuba would be his next military or political target after Iran. “I built this great military. I said, ‘You’ll never have to use it,’ but sometimes you have to use it. And Cuba is next, by the way,” Trump said, before quickly adding: “But pretend I didn’t say that. Please, please, please, media, please disregard that statement.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Paris the same day, reiterated his push for regime change in Havana, saying Cuba’s economy “can’t change unless their system of government changes.” The administration has already effectively blockaded Cuba from Venezuelan oil since the January capture of Nicolas Maduro, triggering a humanitarian energy crisis on the island.