Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
Tonight: the attorney general of the United States begged the president not to fire her and was shown the door. Republicans are privately bracing for what one of their strategists calls “a midterms massacre.” Every time Trump calls a journalist an enemy of the people, a lawyer somewhere gets their wings. And Maine is about to become the first state in America to ban new data centers.
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Now, let’s get to the news.
Pam Bondi Begged Trump Not to Fire Her. He Fired Her Anyway
Pam Bondi is out as attorney general. Trump told her just before his Iran speech Wednesday night. According to the Daily Mail, she responded by pleading with him for more time in the role.
“She was unhappy and tried to change his mind,” a source said.
Trump was unmoved. By Thursday morning she was on a plane back to Florida.
The stated reason for her dismissal is that Trump believes Bondi tipped off Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell that the FBI was building a file on him related to his connection with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative. Whether that’s accurate is unclear. What multiple sources agree on is that Trump had grown “more and more frustrated” with Bondi for failing to go after his political enemies aggressively enough. In his view, she didn’t execute on his vision.
Her replacement is Todd Blanche, who was until recently Donald Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney. The man who kept Trump out of prison will now run the Justice Department that decides who gets prosecuted.
Bondi is the second cabinet member fired in less than a month, following Kristi Noem. Reports suggest Tulsi Gabbard may be next. The administration is calling this a transition. Most people would call it a purge.
Republicans Are Privately Bracing for a Midterms Massacre
Seven months from now, Americans vote in the midterms. And according to Newsweek, Republican strategists are using words like “massacre” in private.
Trump’s approval rating sits at 41 percent. His approval on inflation has hit an all-time low of minus 34 points, down from plus 6 when he took office. Prediction markets now price a Democratic House takeover at 84 percent. States once considered safely Republican — Texas, Iowa, Ohio — are suddenly competitive in the Senate.
Democrats have overperformed in 41 out of 42 key elections since 2024.
One Republican strategist with three decades in the business said he has “never seen the fundamentals of an election cycle as bad for an incumbent party.”
Another was blunter still: to reverse the trajectory, he said, the Iran war would need to end, gas prices would need to plunge, the economy would need to bounce back, and trust would need to be rebuilt with independents. “I’m not sure there’s enough runway,” he added.
Every Time Trump Attacks the Press, a Judge Uses It Against Him
For years, Donald Trump has called journalists enemies of the people, radical leftists, propagandists, and worse. It turns out federal judges have been taking notes.
According to the New York Times, courts have now ruled against the Trump administration in at least three separate cases involving news organizations, citing the president’s own public statements as evidence of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
When Trump posted on Truth Social calling for NPR and PBS to be defunded as “radical left monsters,” a federal judge quoted it directly in a ruling striking down the executive order cutting their funding. The judge wrote that it was difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that the government was targeting viewpoints it didn’t like.
The Associated Press, the New York Times, and Voice of America journalists have all taken legal action, with courts in each case pointing to Trump officials’ own words as proof that the government was punishing speech rather than enforcing neutral policy.
One First Amendment lawyer described the situation as “a viewpoint discrimination festival.” A retired media defense lawyer put it more succinctly, saying Trump is “the gift that keeps on giving” for press freedom litigation. The White House maintains it has shown an unwavering commitment to the First Amendment. The courts, on current evidence, remain unconvinced.
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Maine to Become the First State to Ban New Data Centers
Finally, something good.
Maine is poised to become the first state in America to freeze construction of large new data centers, with a ban on any project over 20 megawatts set to run until November 2027. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House, is expected to clear the Senate, and the governor supports it.
The concern is electricity. Maine already has some of the highest residential power prices in the country, and lawmakers are worried the AI building boom will drive them higher still.
At least ten other states are watching closely, with similar measures advancing in New York, South Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma. One economist called Maine “the canary in the coal mine.” Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced federal legislation to do the same thing nationally.
The artificial intelligence industry, which has been quietly powering up data centers across rural America, would like you to know this is all very concerning. Maine’s voters, who are paying some of the highest electricity bills in the country, appear largely unbothered by that concern.
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This has been Raw America. I’m British Chris. We’ll see you tomorrow.
