Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
The U.S. just bombed Iranian targets around the Strait of Hormuz after Iran attacked a commercial vessel passing through the critical shipping lane. Donald Trump is reportedly furious over new book revelations about his bathroom habits. A billionaire investor told Congress he was deceived by Jeffrey Epstein while paying him $158 million over several years. And a federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify under oath in lawsuits over his $1 million-a-day election giveaway.
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Trump Declares Ceasefire Over and Bombs Iran After Ship Attacked in Strait of Hormuz
Tensions in the Middle East escalated sharply on Friday, as the United States bombed Iran in response to Iran attacking a commercial vessel passing through the waterway this week.
It started Thursday, when a Singapore-flagged cargo ship called the Ever Lovely was attacked roughly seven and a half nautical miles off the coast of Oman. The ship’s owner, Evergreen, said all crew members were safe and the vessel was able to continue on its way after sustaining limited damage.
But the attack immediately blew up the fragile ceasefire that had been in place between Washington and Tehran.
Trump accused Iran Friday of firing at least four drones at ships passing through the strait, with one connecting. He called it a “foolish violation” of the fragile ceasefire agreement.
That ceasefire came after weeks of war that led to the total closure of the strait, which is a key route for 20 percent of the global oil supply. Oil prices jumped after the first strikes in February and had only just started to come back down.
The agreement that reopened the strait included language demanding Iran use its “best efforts” to ensure safe passage of commercial vessels, toll-free, for 60 days.
Iran has plans to collect what it calls “maritime service fees” for traffic in the strait. The U.S. has fiercely opposed that proposal. And now that a ship has been attacked and American bombs falling on Iran again, the two countries are right back on the brink of war.
Tehran hasn’t yet responded to Trump. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is asserting that the strait is strictly Iranian territory.
How this develops over the coming hours and days could have significant consequences for both the region and for global energy markets.
Trump Outraged at Report on His Bedroom and Bathroom Habits
The president is apparently furious about one particular passage of the book “Regime Change,” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. And it’s not for the reasons you might expect.
Zeteo is reporting that a passage about Trump’s bathroom and bedroom habits got under the president’s skin and has, quote, “privately and absolutely infuriated the president.”
Trump apparently prefers a carpeted bathroom. White House staff were concerned that carpet could lead to mold problems. Trump is reportedly livid about that detail making it into the book.
One senior Trump official confided to Zeteo that the president knows those details “make him look so f—ing gross.”
Zeteo’s sources added Trump has been complaining to anyone who will listen about how the book described his habits, which also reportedly include the president snacking late at night and leaving empty chip bags and ice cream cartons on the floor. There’s now also an informal blackout inside the administration on publicly discussing the book at all.
For everyone keeping score at home, this is the man who controls the nuclear codes, worried about what people think about the carpet in his bathroom.
Investor Sheds Light on Epstein’s Relationships with MAGA Billionaires
The House Oversight Committee’s ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s network is making some very powerful people very uncomfortable.
Billionaire investor Leon Black appeared before the committee Friday for a closed-door deposition. He’s co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, and he stepped down from that role back in 2021 after his links to Epstein became public knowledge.
Black told the committee Epstein deceived him, and maintained that he personally committed no criminal wrongdoing. The investor said he only learned about Epstein’s “nefarious activity” in 2019. He paid the convicted child predator $158 million between 2012 to 2017, and said those payments were for legitimate tax and estate planning services.
But those payments came well after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Senator Ron Wyden’s office claimed that its nearly four-year investigation found that Epstein may have acted as a middleman for Black to pay different women. Black insisted those findings were “rank speculation,” adding: “I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women.
Black also notably revealed that Epstein’s network included Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.
Committee chairman James Comer said Black’s testimony could be the most “groundbreaking” one so far. Democrats on the committee have pushed Republicans to call Trump himself to testify, given his own long and well-documented friendship with Epstein. Republicans have so far refused.
Judge Orders Elon Musk to Testify in Fraud Lawsuit
A federal judge is now calling on Elon Musk to testify under oath in two proposed class-action lawsuits accusing him of misleading voters with his $1 million-a-day election giveaway.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower ruled Thursday that Musk must now sit for a deposition as the two cases move forward.
Those lawsuits were filed by Arizona residents who claim Musk and his America PAC misled voters in seven battleground states during the 2024 presidential campaign. Musk said anyone who signed a petition supporting the U.S. Constitution would have a random chance at winning $1 million, like a lottery.
The plaintiffs say the awards weren’t random at all.
One of Musk’s own lawyers stated that the 18 winners were selected because they “might be good spokespeople for America PAC.” That sounds more like a casting call than a lottery.
Judge Hightower didn’t say definitively whether Musk acted recklessly by describing the payouts as random. She also cited testimony from America PAC Director Christopher Young, who said earlier this year that he was “surprised” by Musk’s description of the giveaway because it didn’t match how the program had actually been designed.
Hightower recommended allowing one plaintiff’s fraud claim to move forward while recommending dismissal of a separate breach-of-contract claim. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an Obama appointee, will now decide whether to adopt those recommendations.
Musk launched America PAC specifically to support Trump’s 2024 presidential run and unveiled the giveaway at a town hall in Pennsylvania. Now he’ll have to answer questions about it under oath.
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In this newsletter, we covered how Trump is blowing up his own peace negotiations by carrying out new attacks on Iran, how the White House is lashing out over a book detailing his unsavory late-night habits and how a billionaire is shedding light on Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to the same billionaires funding the far right in America today. You can’t count on billionaire-owned outlets to connect those dots. Raw America will never self-censor to please a wealthy backer, because we don’t have one. We have you. But we can only keep doing this work if readers like you decide independent journalism is worth financially supporting. If you’re still on the free list, we’re counting on you to make today the day you upgrade to a paying subscription.
Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris. We’ll see you next week.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
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Republican Returns from 3-Month Absence to Host Campaign Fundraiser. Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) returned home this week after a months-long disappearance that he attributed to an undisclosed medical episode. Kean — who hasn’t voted in the House of Representatives since March 5 — plans to return to Washington on June 30, where he’ll be hosting a fundraising event for his reelection campaign. The New Jersey Republican is running for a third term in one of the most competitive congressional districts in the U.S.
United Nations Demands ‘Prompt Investigations’ of Deaths in ICE Custody. Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is now calling for “prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations” into the recent spate of immigrant deaths in U.S. custody. Türk’s demand comes on the heels of a Human Rights Watch report this week finding that the number of deaths in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities surged by 140 percent during President Trump’s second term, with 52 people dying in the first 500 days of Trump’s second administration.
Mike Pence Says Washington Is More ‘Swampy’ During Trump Presidency. Former Vice President Mike Pence — who President Trump’s supporters attempted to lynch for not overturning the 2020 election during the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 — accused his former boss of creating a “swampy” environment in Washington D.C. during his second term. Pence told NPR’s Morning Edition that Trump’s pattern of favoring well-connected special interests, as he did when granting tariff waivers to certain corporations, was the antithesis of his “drain the swamp” mantra that he and Pence ran on in 2016.
Election Officials Alarmed at ICE Entering Polling Place in New York. Both Democratic and Republican election workers are sounding the alarm over federal agents walking into a polling place this week to question a worker over a social media post. ICE agents were seen Tuesday interrogating a Syracuse woman working the primary election over an Instagram post in which she called for the arrest of ICE agent Jonathan Ross over the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good earlier this year. Onondaga County elections commissioner Kevin Ryan, who is a Republican, told Democracy Docket that ICE was out of line, emphasizing there was “no emergency” and “no threat to public safety.” Federal law strictly prohibits ICE from entering voting precincts.
