Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
President Donald Trump is melting down over his favorite news channel platforming a Democrat. The Pentagon is quietly drawing up invasion plans for Cuba. New York just found a smart way to tax the rich. And Saudi Arabia is now pressuring Trump to end his war in Iran.
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Trump Rages at Fox News
So apparently, even Fox News can end up in the doghouse.
President Trump went after his favorite network for doing a segment on Tom Steyer, a Democrat running for governor in California. Trump called Steyer a “sleazebag” and demanded to know why Fox was giving him any airtime at all.
He went on to accuse the network of basically handing Steyer a winning campaign, saying Fox was making it possible for someone like that to win, and urging people to vote for Republican Steve Hilton instead.
Here’s the thing, though. Fox spent a chunk of the segment pointing out that Steyer’s old hedge fund had ties to private prisons now being used to detain immigrants. That’s not friendly coverage. That’s a hit.
And Fox did interview Hilton, Trump’s preferred candidate, in a longer segment that ran right after. Trump had apparently already changed the channel by then.
McCallum even speculated that Steyer might be a second-string choice for Democrats, brought in after Eric Swalwell was pushed out. This wasn’t the coronation Trump seemed to think it was.
What this really shows is Trump’s relationship with Fox News has never been as solid as it looks. The moment the network does something he doesn’t like, even briefly, even critically, he goes nuclear. Trump clearly needs constant validation and panics when he doesn’t get it.
Pentagon Planning to Invade Cuba
USA TODAY is reporting that military planning for a possible Pentagon-led operation in Cuba is quietly ramping up, with two anonymous sources confirming the directives are in motion. The Pentagon says it plans for a range of contingencies, which is about as non-denial of a denial as it gets.
This didn’t come out of nowhere. Back in January, the Trump administration started cutting off oil shipments to Cuba as part of a pressure campaign to force political change on the island. Trump himself has said publicly that he expects to have the “honor” of invading Cuba. Just this past Sunday, he said as much to reporters at the White House, casually floating military conquest of a neighboring country as if he’s talking about a road trip.
Analysts are divided on whether this is real strategic planning or mostly signaling. Brian Fonseca, a Cuba military expert at Florida International University, says there’s no “imminent threat” argument being built the way there was before operations in Venezuela and Iran.
He does note, though, that Cuba’s military equipment has deteriorated, and it’s not clear the officers would fight hard for an unpopular regime. What comes after is where it gets ugly fast. As Fonseca put it, “This will be a very easy military victory, but a far more difficult political victory.”
Sound familiar? It should.
New York Wants to Tax Empty Mansions
Here’s a policy idea that’s both simple and long overdue.
Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a proposed pied-à-terre tax this week, which would hit secondary residences worth $5 million or more that aren’t being used as anyone’s primary home.
The idea is straightforward. If you’re a billionaire or foreign investor who owns a luxury apartment in Manhattan but lives somewhere else, you should be paying into the city’s tax base just like everyone else does.
The tax is projected to raise at least $500 million a year in recurring revenue. It’d affect roughly 13,000 properties, with higher rates kicking in for homes valued above $15 million and again above $25 million.
New York City is staring down a budget gap of around $6 billion heading into fiscal year 2027. That gap has already narrowed from $12 billion earlier this year, but it’s still enormous. And this isn’t a radical idea. It’s a targeted tax on people who own luxury property in one of the most expensive cities on earth and then don’t even live there. The fact that it’s taken this long is the more interesting story.
Saudi Arabia Wants Trump to Stop the War They Helped Start
The war in the Middle East that the Gulf states quietly helped encourage? Saudi Arabia is now trying to pump the brakes.
According to reporting in the Telegraph, confirmed by two Gulf officials, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is now pressing Trump to scale back the military campaign against Iran and return to negotiations. The concern is specific: if the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports continues, Iran could respond by instructing its Houthi allies in Yemen to blockade a critical Red Sea chokepoint that Saudi oil exports now flow through.
That would be catastrophic for Riyadh. Saudi Arabia managed to survive the closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the conflict by rerouting oil exports through its Red Sea port of Yanbu. But if the Houthis seal the Red Sea too, there’s no third route.
For a while, the crown prince was one of the more hawkish voices in the region, reportedly concluding alongside Netanyahu that this was a rare chance to permanently weaken Iran. Other Gulf states didn’t share that appetite for risk. Saudi Arabia did, and it placed a big bet on Trump. That bet is looking shakier by the week.
The Gulf states welcomed Trump’s return, ramped up oil output, pledged trillions in U.S. investment, and one of them even gave him a luxury Boeing 747. They thought that would buy stability.
Instead, as one unnamed official put it, “Trump has set the Middle East on fire.”
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Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. We’ll see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Pentagon Deploys Thousands More Troops to Middle East. The Department of Defense is planning to send approximately 10,000 more troops to the Middle East in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government to agree to U.S. terms for a ceasefire. 6,000 personnel will be aboard the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier (which was most recently near the Horn of Africa) and several warships escorting it, while another 4,200 are from the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The deployment coincides with the end of the two-week ceasefire Trump announced in April.
Trump’s Acting AG Backpedals Over Epstein Files. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — who inherited the position after former Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired — is now publicly backtracking his previous position on the Department of Justice’s release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Blanche said earlier this month that the Epstein files “should not be a part of anything going forward,” though he told Semafor on Wednesday that he supported Epstein survivors coming forward to testify, as First Lady Melania Trump suggested during last week’s press conference. Many prominent Epstein survivors said the first lady was improperly putting the onus on victims, pointing out that many have already offered many hours of testimony to the DOJ.
Trump Sued Over Firing Most Black Officials in Federal Government. A Black former federal appointee is now suing the Trump administration, alleging that the White House is intentionally targeting Black workers at independent agencies for firings. Alvin Brown — who President Biden appointed to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) — alleged that 75 percent of all Black officials at independent federal agencies have been fired by the Trump administration. Brown’s lawsuit listed several examples of Black appointees being fired at the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the Library of Congress and the Federal Reserve.
Virginia Takes Major Step Toward Eliminating Electoral College. Virginia on Wednesday signed onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), in which states agree to award their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote once the number of states amounts to 270 electoral votes (the number needed to officially elect a president). With Virginia adding their 13 electoral votes, the total count of NPVIC states is at 222. There are now 18 states and one territory (Washington D.C.) that have signed onto the NPVIC.
Jury Rules Ticketmaster Is an Illegal Monopoly. A Manhattan jury ruled Wednesday that entertainment giant Ticketmaster was liable for illegally monopolizing the market for live event ticketing, and tying its concert promotions business to the use of its venues. According to Bloomberg, the verdict could eventually lead to a judgment that may lead to Ticketmaster being broken up. The lawsuit was first launched by then-President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, which was joined by 40 state attorneys general. 34 of those 40 decided to continue to trial after the DOJ settled its claims with Ticketmaster.
