Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
The news is coming fast and it’s coming hard, and if you’re trying to keep up with what’s really happening in this country, you need to know what the mainstream press is either burying or spinning beyond recognition. TSA agents are selling their blood to pay rent, a former CBS News president is sounding the alarm about what Bari Weiss is doing to her old network, Trump’s war is taking a toll on the global economy, and Republicans in Congress may refuse to fund the Iran war. Let’s get into it.
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TSA Agents Are Selling Their Blood Thanks to Republican Inaction
The Transportation Security Administration is in crisis, and it’s a crisis that’s entirely man-made.
TSA’s deputy administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week, and what she described should be front-page news everywhere.
Wait times at major airports have topped four hours, the longest in American history. Employee call-out rates at some airports are running between 40 and 50 percent. If the partial government shutdown continues, TSA will have missed nearly a billion dollars in paychecks.
And it’s not just an inconvenience for travelers. McNeill told the committee that TSA officers can’t pay their utility bills, and their services are getting shut off. They’re getting eviction notices. They’re sleeping in their cars. And yes, they’re selling their blood and plasma just to get by.
Meanwhile, the shutdown drags on because Republicans refuse to uncouple ICE funding from TSA funding. Republicans have so far refused to vote for roughly a dozen Democratic bills that would pay TSA agents and fund other DHS agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard while the debate over ICE funding continues.
And if you’re planning to travel this summer, there’s another problem. TSA takes four to six months to train a new checkpoint officer. That means anyone hired today won’t be ready in time for the FIFA World Cup, which starts in June and is expected to bring somewhere between six million and ten million additional passengers through U.S. airports.
This is what government chaos looks like up close.
Former CBS News President Says Bari Weiss Is Destroying the Network
Wendy McMahon ran CBS News for four years. She resigned last May after CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, decided to settle a Trump lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris for $16 million, a decision she clearly didn’t support.
After she left, Paramount merged with Skydance Media, owned by David Ellison, whose father is billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison. The new ownership installed Bari Weiss, founder of the right-wing outlet The Free Press, as CBS News editor-in-chief.
McMahon was asked about all of this, and while she was diplomatic, she wasn’t exactly subtle.
She noted that so much of what exists in the “opinion space” is built on the foundation of real reporting, and she raised the question: what happens when that reporting disappears? It’s a pointed observation from someone watching a major news institution get hollowed out by someone with no background in traditional news reporting.
Under Weiss, CBS has already pulled a “60 Minutes” segment about conditions inside an El Salvador megaprison where Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration were being tortured. CBS Evening News has installed a new MAGA-friendly anchor, viewership has dropped below four million, and the network is trailing well behind its competitors.
McMahon called her departure “equal parts exhilarating and painful.” But she also made clear that the future of credible journalism depends on independent outlets bringing in what she called “reinforcements,” not on legacy networks abandoning the journalism that made them worth watching in the first place.
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Trump’s War Endangering the Global Economy
The OECD, one of the world’s leading economic research organizations, updated its global economic outlook this week, and it’s not good.
The Iran conflict is already hitting the global economy, driving up inflation forecasts just as things were starting to look up.
The OECD now expects average inflation across the G20 to hit 4 percent this year, up from the 2.8 percent projection from December. For the United States specifically, the forecast is 4.2 percent, compared to 2.6 percent just last year.
That’s a significant jump, and it’s coming from multiple directions at once. Energy prices are going up because of the conflict. Tariffs are adding upward pressure. The labor market is tight, and net migration is slowing down. All of that is pushing prices higher.
What’s really striking is what the OECD said could have happened without the war. The organization said it would have actually revised its global growth forecast upward by 0.3 points if not for the conflict. Instead, growth projections are flat or slightly down.
The Federal Reserve has already signaled that interest rate cuts aren’t coming anytime soon. The European Central Bank is reportedly considering a rate hike as early as April. This is what a synchronized global economic shock looks like in real time. And it was entirely avoidable.
Republicans May Reject Trump’s War Funding Request
There’s growing frustration among House Republicans over the Trump administration’s lack of clarity on Iran, specifically around the question of ground troops. But frustration and action are two very different things.
Democrats are pushing for a new war powers vote, which could happen as early as April. With Republican Nancy Mace signaling she’d likely vote yes, Democrats would need just three more Republican holdouts to flip, and that’s apparently within reach.
The real test is going to come when the Trump administration sends Congress its war funding request. Trump is hoping to get $200 billion for his war, which, by the way, he said has already been won. And this is while TSA agents remain unpaid and FEMA and the Coast Guard remain shut down. At some point we’ll find out how many House Republicans are actually willing to push back, and how many are just frustrated in private.
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Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris. We’ll see you next time.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Wants to Add His Signature to U.S. Currency. President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department is reportedly aiming to add his signature to American currency on all denominations of bills, and the new currency could be rolled out as soon as this summer. The change would be permanent until a future president removes it. This will be the first time a sitting president’s signature will be on U.S. currency in American history.
Republican Senator Wants to Force Congress to Vote on Iran War. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is contemplating bringing a bill to the floor that would compel Congress to vote on an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iran. The Alaska Republican has yet to officially introduce the resolution, though she described it as an attempt to put guardrails on the administration’s war in Iran as costs continue to soar and the White House has yet to articulate an exit strategy.
Joe Rogan Says Democrats Were Better Than Trump on Border Security. During a recent episode of his show, podcaster Joe Rogan argued that Democrats have historically been tougher on border issues than Trump. He noted that then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) 2008 presidential campaign included hardline positions on deporting immigrants convicted of crimes and requiring them to learn English. Rogan’s guest, former U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Bill Thompson, agreed, and told listeners that then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign included similar promises.
Bruce Springsteen Says He’s Fine Losing MAGA Fans. Rock icon Bruce Springsteen, whose “Land of Hopes and Dreams” tour is kicking off next Tuesday in Minneapolis, said his MAGA fans likely won’t be pleased with it. He called Trump “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous,” and said his tour will be “political and very topical about what’s going on in the country.”
Iran Charging Tankers Millions to Leave Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is now directing tankers to take a narrow route out of the Strait of Hormuz, where they’re being charged millions of dollars for safe transit. Prior to the February 28 strikes, the Strait of Hormuz saw up to 110 ships per day passing through. Now, that number has dropped to less than 10 per day.
