Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann;. Before the news, do us a favor: tap the ❤️ and hit restack. That’s the best way to help independent journalism spread right now.
Donald Trump got caught editing a CNN clip that omitted more than 13 minutes of devastating news about his collapsing public approval. CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’ bosses are considering cutting her loose after “60 Minutes” consistently put up some of the lowest ratings in its history. Trump is flirting with the idea of ripping out the White House press briefing room and replacing it with a gaudy gold-trimmed swimming pool. And the Trump administration is forcing immigrant children as young as three to defend themselves in deportation proceedings.
A brief ask before we go further: independent media is quickly becoming the only way to get the truth about what’s happening in this country, and we need your help to keep this work going. Almost every day a billionaire or a hedge fund gobbles up another news outlet and lays off journalists while the big stories get ignored or swept under the rug. We launched Raw America as the answer to billionaire-controlled media, because a small group of MAGA oligarchs shouldn’t get to be the sole deciders of what you get to know.
Trump Caught Editing Clip to Remove Mention of His Dismal Approval Rating
Donald Trump fired off another desperate late-night Truth Social post, posting a brief clip of CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten explaining that the president’s MAGA base is still sticking with him.
In the 43-second clip the president posted, Enten notes that Trump won 99 percent of MAGA Republicans against then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, and that his approval with that group today is still at 98 percent. The full segment, though, runs more than 14 minutes, and the rest of it is absolutely brutal for Trump.
Right at the beginning of the segment, Enten highlighted what he called an “eye-popping” stat: fewer than one percent of Republican TV ads that aired in the first half of September even mentioned Donald Trump. Among Democratic ads, 20 percent did. When members of your own party won’t even say your name in campaign commercials a handful of weeks before an election, that’s a very clear sign that you’re seen as toxic to voters.
Enten then pivoted to Republicans who don’t identify as MAGA, noting that in 2024, those voters backed Trump over Harris by 56 points. However his approval among tht group today is just 7 points. Enten said that 49-point shift proves Trump’s support with those Republicans is “absolutely crashing.”
The GOP itself is also in turbulent political waters heading into the November 3 election. Only 46 percent of non-MAGA Republicans say they’re extremely motivated to vote in the midterms, compared with 71 percent of Democrats. Roughly 10 percent of those non-MAGA Republicans are even saying they’ll vote for a Democrat. And among independents, Trump’s approval has dropped by a whopping 86 points since the 2024 election, with Enten’s data showing Trump at -71 with unaffiliated voters.
According to Enten, the one thing dragging Trump down with both groups is his handling of the economy. In the fall of 2024, independents broke for Trump over Harris on the economy by a comfortable 22-point margin. His net approval with them on that issue is now -77. That’s mostly thanks to gas prices, which have shot through the roof as a direct result of Trump’s war with Iran. 92 percent of independents disapprove of Trump when it comes to lowering fuel prices. Trump can selectively edit a video as much as he wants, but that doesn’t change the fact that voters are still shelling out way more money than they used to just to fill their tanks.
Josef Stalin’s government censors used to airbrush purged officials out of the official photographs, but it never once changed who’d actually been shot. A president who trims reality down to the 43 seconds he can stand to look at is curating his own false reality. A country whose leader hides the numbers from himself is a country being flown into the sideof a cliff.
Bari Weiss ‘Likely Out’ at CBS Due to Record Low Ratings
Things are looking particularly dark for CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. RadarOnline is claiming in a new report that Weiss is “likely out” after the latest stretch of lackluster ratings. Her torpedoing of “60 Minutes” could end up being the final straw that sends her packing.
It’s important to compare this current stretch of“60 Minutes” to its history. Don Hewitt launched the program in 1968, and it was the most-watched and most trusted news program in America for decades. After Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison acquired CBS, he put Weiss in charge of its newsroom despite her being a conservative opinion columnist with zero TV news experience. Ellison apparently also thought she’d help bring in more conservative viewers.
That hope for more eyeballs hasn’t panned out. The season premiere of “60 Minutes,” which was headlined by a softball interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pulled in just 7.94 million viewers. That’s a 21 percent decrease from last year’s season premiere. There was also a 33 percent decrease in viewership from the coveted, advertiser-friendly 25-to-54 age demographic.
The second episode didn’t perform well either. “60 Minutes” led with an interview with Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy, and only garnered 6.77 million viewers. For context, that’s the third-smallest viewership for the second episode of the program in the last 25 years. And this past week, the show didn’t air at all in order to make room for a simulcast of the MTV Video Music Awards.
But Weiss has more headaches than just “60 Minutes.” After she put Tony Dokoupil atop CBS Evening News as lead anchor, the already last-place broadcast went on to lose even more viewers to ABC and NBC. And Weiss’ overhaul of CBS Mornings has also been lagging behind the network’s competitors in the AM slot.
The low ratings at “60 Minutes” comes amid a year of chaos in its newsroom. Weiss forced out longtime executive producer Tanya Simon. Veteran correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega also left the show. In April, former executive producer Bill Owens stepped down over not being allowed to make independent editorial decisions. Anderson Cooper quit after a 20-year stint as a correspondent. And in June, new executive producer Nick Bilton announced that star correspondent Scott Pelley was fired after he confronted Weiss and her lackeys over what they were doing to the program in a staff meeting.
One of Radar’s sources within theTV news industry told the outlet that their colleagues are all wondering how quickly the Ellison family will pull the plug once a federal judge grants final approval to their merger with Warner Bros. Dioscovery. The same source noted that “60 Minutes” is now getting lapped in viewers even by weekday editions of ABC’s World News Tonight. They called the program’s ratings collapse an example of the most valuable brand in news getting intentionally torpedoed by network leadership.
Back in 1954, CBS anchor Edward R. Murrow took on Joe McCarthy’s red scare when almost nobody else in broadcasting would. That’s what earned CBS News its trust from the American public that it’s enjoyed ever since. You can’t buy that kind of credibility with a merger, and you definitely can’t earn it by taking it easy on the rich and powerful. These low ratings are now telling David Ellisons what Edward R. Murrow could’ve told them for free.
Trump Suggests He’ll Destroy Another Part of the White House
Donald Trump is now teasing yet another White House demolition project. He recently posted a photo of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Truth Social, labeled “Fake News, Before,” next to a rendering of an indoor swimming pool labeled “FDR Pool After” complete with Trump’s signature aesthetic of Versailles-style architecture with gold trim. There’s even a gold ladder going into the water, because why not?
Trump didn’t include a caption with the photo, so it’s still unclear if he actually plans to tear out the press room, or if he’s taking another swipe at reporters. He could also just making a tired pun about the White House press pool.
There’s real history behind the room Trump may or may not be aware of. Franklin D. Roosevelt had an indoor pool built at the White House in 1933, which he used for exercise and for easing polio symptoms. Each subsequent presidents used the pool up until Richard Nixon had it covered to make space for what eventually became the briefing room.
Trump has previously said he wanted to keep the press room as-is, once telling a reporter who asked about potential renovations that he didn’t want reporters to feel too “comfortable.”
That post denigrating the “fake news” comes in the midst of his ongoing fight with the White House press corps. The Trump administration recently tried to ban CNN, Politico and MS NOW from covering the White House. All of the major networks in the White House TV pool — including Trump’s favorite network, Fox — responded by suspending their coverage of the president in solidarity with their colleagues. A federal judge appointed by Trump in his first term blocked the ban from taking effect after the outlets sued. But despite that ruling, CNN was still excluded from Air Force One for Trump’s trip to Tennessee over the weekend, and was locked out of the room for his state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump destroying parts of the White House isn’t an imaginary fear. We all watched as he tore down the East Wing to make way for his $400 million ballroom. He also paved over the Rose Garden and just installed a brand new helipad on the South Lawn. The people’s house keeps getting remodeled to one man’s taste, with no input at all from Congress or historical preservation groups.
The founders included freedom of the press in the First Amendment and ratified it in 1791, because they lived under a king who decided who got to watch the government work. They knew a republic can’t survive if the people in charge get to restrict coverage of their administration. That briefing room isn’t for the president’s whim. It belongs to the people. And every reporter he blocks from the White House means less transparency for the public.
Trump Administration Forcing Immigrant Children to Represent Themselves in Court
This story out of Harlingen, Texas is particularly hard to hear. In an immigration courtroom on Monday, 25 migrant children sat on benches waiting for their names to be called. One six-year-old in the courtroom pretended to fly an airplane, while a three-year-old named Mateo played with the microphone at the defense table while his attorney spoke to the judge.
Among the first to go before the judge was a 13-year-old Honduran boy named Angel, who had no attorney. When asked if there was a reason he couldn’t go back, Angel said his mother and nearly his entire family are here in the United States, and that it’s too dangerous to go back to his home country. The judge ruled he didn’t qualify for asylum and asked whether he wanted to voluntary leave the country or be forcibly deported with a removal order.
Angel said he didn’t know and started crying. Eventually, through tears, he told the court, “I have no one. I have nothing.” The judge would only respond that U.S. immigration laws are very strict and gave the young boy until the end of the month to file an appeal.
In 2008, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which then-President George W. Bush signed into law. That legislation is supposed to give unaccompanied minors real protections, including screenings for potential human trafficking and fear of persecution. Advocates and attorneys told CNN those protections are now being hollowed out under the second Trump administration. Hearings that used to unfold over months now happen within a period of days or weeks. Asylum interviews are sometimes rescheduled with just 24 hours’ notice.
In July, the Trump administration let a $200 million annual contract with the Acacia Center for Justice lapse. That money went toward funding roughly 100 legal service providers who helped coordinate representation for more than 20,000 unaccompanied kids. Acacia’s executive director, Shaina Aber, said that under the previous system, a detained child would have never been given a deportation order without representation.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement awarded up to $20 million to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) to fill that funding gap through December of this year, and a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told CNN the agency remains committed to making sure every child in immigration court will have legal representation. But attorneys have stated in court filings that USCRI lawyers often haven’t shown up or haven’t spoken up. That was proven on Monday, when a USCRI attorney watched silently and didn’t intervene as Angel’s case played out, according to ProBar legal director Lauren Fisher Flores.
Flores said that in her 20 years, she’s never once seen immigration courts strip children of their right to seek protection until today. She warned that due process is rapidly unraveling. Meanwhile, the immigration court system — which falls under the jurisdiction of the Trump administration’s Justice Department — denies that cases are being fast-tracked through the courts.
The ripple effects are happening everywhere. Estrella del Paso in El Paso shut down its own children’s program and laid off 13 of 18 staffers. ProBar documented one instance of a seven-year-old child who appeared in court without a lawyer in August and was given just 30 days to leave the country. The group launched a hotline called Dory, named after the “Finding Nemo” character. Since its launch, Dory has taken more than 200 calls from kids since early August. Many children are now choosing to leave voluntarily, lured by a $3,000 stipend from the Department of Homeland Security.
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called In re Gault that children re also entitled to due process. Justice Abe Fortas wrote that under the U.S. Constitution, “the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court.” Angel is a 13 year-old boy, and what happened to him in Harlingen this week is exactly what the Court said this country doesn’t do. A nation that deports a crying 13-year-old without a lawyer present has already told the world what it thinks its own Constitution is worth.
Help Independent Journalism Do What the Billionaires Won’t
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media. If you haven’t already, tap the ❤️ and restack this post so we can break through Substack’s algorithm and reach more readers. That’s how independent journalism survives.
