Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
A former beauty pageant contestant says Donald Trump assaulted her and warned “bad things can happen” if she spoke out. The Supreme Court’s conservatives just handed what Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls powers similar to a king. That same ruling could give Trump the power to severely disrupt mail-in voting. And Republican congressman Thomas Massie got into a viral confrontation with a Fox News reporter after the reporter tried to ambush him.
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Trump Allegedly Assaulted Beauty Contestant and Gave Her Ominous Warning
Beatrice Keul is a former Miss Switzerland and Miss Europe contestant. And she says that in 1993, Donald Trump assaulted her in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, then threatened her to make sure she stayed quiet.
Keul, who is now 55, gave an exclusive interview to the Daily Beast’s PunchUp Substack about her encounter with Trump. She says she was 23 years old at the time, working as a banking executive and doing part-time modeling. She says Trump’s team lured her to his American Dream Pageant in New York, then invited her to a private meeting with the then-47-year-old real estate magnate
What happened next, she says, was violent and frightening. Trump allegedly “jumped” on her, kissed her, and tried to lift her dress. She said Trump was “grabbing and touching my body everywhere he could.” Keul called it “violent, quick, and intense,” and added she was “screaming for help, and nobody came.”
Trump then told her to keep quiet, saying, “Otherwise, bad things can happen.”
She also said Jeffrey Epstein was there that day, and introduced himself as “Don’s best friend.” Epstein also told her she was meant to be his “prey.” Keul called it “a horror show.”
After she first came forward in 2024, Keul said the threats never stopped. She reportedly received an AI-generated audio message around the time of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre died, which said, “We know where you are, and we will get you.”
Keul isn’t backing down. She wrote a book, which is currently being reviewed by lawyers ahead of publication. And she told PunchUp she believes more survivors will come forward this year.
Keul is one of at least 28 women who’ve accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Writer E. Jean Carroll won a 2023 civil case against him for sexual abuse, and the Supreme Court refused to throw out that jury’s finding today.
The White House responded that Trump has been “totally exonerated” on anything pertaining to Epstein. Karoline Leavitt called Keul’s allegations “fake” back in 2024, when she was still working on the Trump campaign.
Keul remains defiant, saying: “I stood up to the American president to save lives. This is my truth, and I will not be silenced.”
Trump May Have Gotten a Secret Weapon to Sabotage Mail-In Voting
Today, the Supreme Court handed Trump a loss, refusing to let Republican-backed plaintiffs in Mississippi throw out state laws that count mail ballots arriving after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. But tucked inside Monday’s rulings was something much more serious.
The Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in the Trump v. Slaughter case, and the consequences are enormous. The conservative majority overturned 90 years of legal precedent to give the president the power to fire members of independent federal agencies without cause. We’ll talk about what Sonia Sotomayor had to say about that in just a moment.
But here’s the angle that everyone missed: As Washington Post White House correspondent Jacob Bogage pointed out on X, this ruling could give Trump the power to fire members of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, which selects the postmaster general and oversees the entire U.S. mail system.
The current postmaster general, David Steiner, is already executing a controversial Trump executive order that would direct the post office not to deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to hand over sensitive voter data to the federal government. A federal judge in Boston blocked that order for now. But the legal fight is still ongoing.
So yes, Trump may have lost the mail-in voting battle on its face. But if he can pack the Postal Service board and install a loyalist as postmaster general, he may not need that ruling at all to meddle in the election.
Sotomayor Warns Trump Is Now More Powerful Than a King
The Trump v. Slaughter ruling is unquestionably one of the most significant Supreme Court rulings in decades. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not mince words when breaking down what it means.
The Court’s conservative majority scrapped the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. United States decision, which allowed Congress to protect officials at independent federal agencies from being fired by the president without cause. Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter will now be officially replaced by a Trump appointee. But the implications go far beyond the FTC.
Sotomayor was joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan in her dissent. She noted that even the English crown, the very institution America’s founders revolted against, was constrained by Parliament when it came to firing high-level officials.
She further observed that the founders never intended to give any president the complete set of powers the Crown held, let alone more than that.
This is the court system Republicans have spent decades building. And it is now reshaping American democracy with each subsequent decision.
Massie Hounds Fox News Reporter in Viral Video
And finally, outgoing Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie just blew up the internet in a viral confrontation with a Fox News reporter.
Fox’s Nicholas Ballasy initially stopped Massie on the street to ask him about allegations from a former girlfriend, who claimed Massie offered her money and asked her to sign a nondisclosure agreement. She also alleged that Massie boasted about a supposed sexual escapade with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert.
Massie responded by pulling out his phone and recording Ballasy while peppering him with questions about whether he liked “gay porn.” When Ballasy tried to walk away, Massie followed him. “All you got to say is you don’t like it, that you haven’t been to those websites.” Ballasy said, “of course I don’t like it,” to which Massie replied, “that’s not what I heard!”
The Kentucky Republican then continued to follow Ballasy and point his phone at his face, asking him if Fox was a real news organization and if this was how he made his living.
Ballasy later posted his own video of the confrontation and said it was “pretty sick” that “gay porn” was the “first thing on his mind.”
Massie lost his Republican primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, after Trump actively worked to push him out of Congress for pursuing full disclosure of the Epstein files.
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If you found this newsletter valuable and you’re still reading, the most important thing you can do is become a paying subscriber. We reported on how a beauty contestant is defying a sitting president who allegedly threatened her life. We covered how a Supreme Court ruling could hand Trump control of the entire mail system and undermine your ability to cast a ballot. And we highlighted how the conservative Supreme Court supermajority is making Trump more powerful than the monarchy the founders fought a revolution to escape. Raw America can report these stories because we don’t have a billionaire watching over our shoulder, but we need paying subscribers to keep this work going. If you’re still on the free list, subscribe to Raw America today. Independent journalism can’t survive without your financial support.
Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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