Good morning, I’m Thom Hartmann.
This morning we are watching a president who threatened to obliterate an entire civilization now rage at the allies who refused to help him do it. We have a Pentagon that threatened the Vatican with a medieval history lesson. We have a veteran sitting in federal custody for giving on-the-record interviews to a journalist. And we have an administration that just declared the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional so the president can shred history without consequence. None of this is normal. None of this is a rough patch. This is authoritarian consolidation happening in real time, and the corporate press is either looking away or actively running cover.
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Trump Turns on NATO the Morning After the Ceasefire
The ink was barely dry on the Iran ceasefire when Trump lit into the allies he expected to fight his war. “None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!” he posted Thursday morning on Truth Social. After his closed-door Wednesday meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump escalated further, posting that “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” and revived his threat over Greenland in the same breath.
Rutte did his best to manage the fallout publicly, describing their exchange as “very frank, very open” and pushing back on the broader criticism by noting that most European nations had been “helpful, with basing, with logistics, with overflights.” Spain and France had refused to allow U.S. military aircraft use of their airspace or joint facilities during the Iran operation, and Trump has not forgiven it. Congress passed a law in 2023 requiring congressional approval before any president can withdraw from NATO, but Trump has claimed he has the unilateral authority to leave regardless.
NATO wasn’t built as a favor to Europe. It was built because Americans watched what happens when democracies stand alone against authoritarian aggression, and decided never to let that happen again. When a president treats that 80-year alliance as a loyalty test he can revoke on a Tuesday morning, he isn’t just picking a fight with allies, he’s dismantling the entire architecture that kept great-power war off the table for generations.
The alliance was built after World War II to prevent exactly the kind of go-it-alone military adventurism this administration has made its brand. The question now is how much longer it survives this presidency intact.
Pentagon Threatened the Pope — and He Cancelled His U.S. Trip
This story is almost too extraordinary to believe, but it is documented and it matters. After Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World address in January — arguing that diplomacy was being replaced by force and that “a zeal for war is spreading” — Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon. What was said inside that room has no precedent in American history.
Sources familiar with the meeting say Colby told the cardinal directly: “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” A U.S. official present then invoked the Avignon papacy — the 14th-century episode in which the French monarchy forced the Catholic Church into submission, ordered an assault on Pope Boniface VIII, and relocated the papacy from Rome to southern France. Many inside the Vatican interpreted that historical reference as a direct threat to use military force against the Holy See. There are no public records of any previous meeting between American officials and Vatican representatives at the Pentagon, let alone one in which the United States suggested it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.
Every American president since Eisenhower has understood that the moral authority of religious institutions, however imperfect, is one of the few forces in the world that can check the impulse toward endless war. What this administration did in that room wasn’t just a diplomatic blunder. It was a declaration that it recognizes no authority above its own, not law, not history, and not conscience.
The consequences were immediate. Pope Leo cancelled his planned visit to the United States. And on July 4th — America’s 250th birthday — rather than celebrating with the administration that threatened him, he will visit Lampedusa, the tiny Mediterranean island where North African migrants wash ashore by the thousands. He did not choose that date by accident. The White House dismissed the entire account as “highly exaggerated and distorted,” insisting the meeting was “respectful and reasonable.” You can draw your own conclusions.
A Veteran Is in Federal Custody for Talking to a Journalist
Courtney Williams is a 40-year-old Army veteran who spent years supporting Delta Force operations at Fort Bragg, managing cover identities for special operations troops deployed abroad. She endured years of bullying and what she described as vicious sexual harassment, filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and then gave extensive on-the-record interviews to journalist Seth Harp for a book exposing crime and corruption inside Delta Force. Her name runs throughout the book. Four photographs of her appeared in a published excerpt in a major national magazine. “We never made any attempt to hide that or disguise her identity,” Harp said publicly.
Now she is in federal custody, charged under the Espionage Act and facing up to ten years in prison. The FBI director posted a celebratory message on social media announcing her arrest. Sources say the criminal complaint doesn’t even specify what classified information she allegedly disclosed. Her arrest came just days after Trump threatened to force a media company to hand over a journalist’s confidential source or face jail time — after a reporter revealed that a U.S. airman had been shot down over Iran.
The Espionage Act was never supposed to be a weapon against people who report wrongdoing inside the government. It was written to stop spies from handing secrets to foreign enemies, not to silence service members who survived harassment and told the truth on the record to a journalist. When you start using espionage laws to punish whistleblowers and intimidate the press, you’re not protecting national security. You’re protecting the people in power from accountability.
Courtney Williams filed a complaint against her harassers. She told the truth, on the record, to a journalist. She is now in federal detention with a public defender.
This is exactly why Raw America exists. When veterans are jailed for telling the truth and journalists are threatened for reporting it, an independent press is not a luxury. It is the last line of defense. Paid subscriptions are what make this work possible. Please become a paid subscriber today.
Trump’s Lawyers Just Declared the Presidential Records Act Unconstitutional
The Presidential Records Act has been the law of the land since 1978. Passed in the direct aftermath of Watergate, it requires that all records created or received by the president, the vice president, and their staff in the course of official duties belong to the United States government — not to the individual who happened to hold office. Trump tore up documents throughout his first term, forcing White House staff to painstakingly tape them back together. His removal of thousands of classified records to Mar-a-Lago was central to the federal criminal case against him. Now, in his second term, his Office of Legal Counsel has issued a formal opinion declaring the entire law unconstitutional. The conclusion: the president “need not further comply with its dictates.”
There is a foundational problem with that legal theory. The Supreme Court rejected it nearly 50 years ago, when President Nixon challenged an earlier version of the same law upon leaving office. The OLC opinion — authored by a far-right former Samuel Alito law clerk — does not explain why that precedent no longer applies. It simply declares that it doesn’t. As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance put it, the administration’s own lawyer has, with the stroke of a pen, attempted to overrule the Supreme Court.
Here’s what you need to understand about why this matters beyond the legal arguments. History is how democracies learn from their own mistakes. When a government destroys its records, it isn’t just hiding what it’s doing today. It’s making it impossible for future generations to know what happened, who gave the orders, and who was responsible. That’s not a legal dispute. That’s an erasure, and it’s exactly what authoritarian governments do when they know the record would convict them.
A coalition of historians has already filed suit asking a federal judge to order the administration to disregard the opinion. The case landed with U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who has a strong and consistent track record of checking executive overreach. The question Vance says the administration must answer is a simple one: why wouldn’t you want to preserve the historical record? The answer, of course, is that they don’t want a record because the record would be damning.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Stay informed. Stay engaged. We’ll see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Truth Social Users Revolt Against Trump Over Iran War. Many users on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform are now openly opposing the president over his war with Iran. After the president posted that a “whole civilization will die tonight,” one user said Trump was “losing me as a supporter,” another called him “so immature and sad” and another said they were “honestly heartbroken.” The New York Times found that thousands of Truth Social accounts made similar comments.
Trump Hides True Cost of Noem’s Luxury Jet Now Being Used by First Lady. The Department of Homeland Security originally said the luxury Boeing 737 Max 8 jet used by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem cost $70 million. But DHS insiders recently confided to the PunchUp Substack that the jet — which is now being used by First Lady Melania Trump — cost $108 million, and the DHS is still being stuck with the bill. The jet includes a queen bed, showers, flat screen TVs, and a bar.
Mystery Bettors Profit Handsomely from Trump’s Ceasefire Announcement. Several dozen recently created accounts — or “wallets” — on the site Polymarket made suspicious trades just prior to Trump’s announcement that the U.S. was engaging in a two-week ceasefire with Iran. One wallet created the morning of the announcement bet $72,000 that a ceasefire would happen on April 7 and cashed out with a $200,000 profit. Another wallet created the day before made $125,000 on the announcement. A third wallet created just 12 minutes before Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the deal made almost $50,000.
RFK Jr. Delays CDC Report Showing Benefits of Receiving Covid-19 Vaccine. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic — recently delayed publication of a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) detailing how patients who were vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus attained numerous health benefits. The report showed that those who received the vaccine reduced their risk of urgent care and emergency room visits by 50 percent, and lowered their risk of being hospitalized by 55 percent.
Republicans Fear Oil Prices May Remain High Despite Iran Ceasefire. Even though crude oil prices dropped after Trump announced the two-week ceasefire and the news that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen with tolls, several Republican lawmakers in Congress still expressed concern about oil prices. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who is a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the U.S. needs to remain “vigilant” and “maintain pressure on Iran to follow through” on its promise to reopen the strait. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is one of the more hawkish Republicans in Congress, said the Iran negotiation framework had “troubling aspects,” while Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) urged lawmakers to “keep our eyes wide open.”
