Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Trump just said being put in the same category as Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan is a compliment. Israel is calling Trump’s Iran deal “catastrophic capitulation,” saying the agreement positions Iran as the victor over both Israel and the United States. Republicans are also breaking with Trump over that deal, with one senator calling it the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. And New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission just released its first subpoenas.
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Trump Says Being Compared to Hitler ‘Sounds Good to Me’
Donald Trump was on Air Force One flying back from the G7 summit in France when he did something that would have ended any other political career in modern American history.
The president found a passage online, written by someone calling himself a “presidential historian,” compared Trump favorably to brutal dictators like Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Stalin, and Mao. Trump reposted it, adding: “Sounds good to me.”
The passage, written by a man named Dave King, argues that what makes Trump more powerful than all these historical figures isn’t that he’s better than them, but that he has greater global reach. King describes Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun as “butchers who destroyed mainly small villages.” He argues Hitler “repeated Napoleon’s mistake” by going after Russia, while Mao and Lenin used fear and authoritarianism but didn’t have the resources to project real global power.
King concludes that Trump is “the first leader willing to use” America’s economic and military might “on a global scale,” making him “by far the most powerful person that has EVER walked this planet.”
King is explicitly putting Trump in the category of leaders defined by “brutal conquest and the fear they instilled in populations.” Trump read that, saw his name next to Hitler’s, and posted it to his social media platform in the middle of the night with a glowing endorsement.
A president who approves of being compared to history’s most ruthless leaders isn’t a patriot or a statesman, or even a nationalist. He’s a fascist. And he wants us to fear him. Don’t let him have it.
Madison warned in Federalist 47 that piling every power into one set of hands is the very definition of tyranny, and that’s exactly the kind of reach this president just bragged about wanting. The whole Constitution was built so that no American would ever get to say what Trump said and mean it.
Israel Calls Iran Deal ‘Catastrophic Capitulation’
When the Trump administration announced the Iran deal, the White House called it historic. Israel is calling it something very different.
David Horovitz, the editor of The Times of Israel, used the phrase “catastrophic capitulation” in a headline. Nir Dvori, an analyst for Channel 12 News in Israel, called it a diplomatic October 7th, referring to Hamas’ killing of roughly 1200 Israelis. Yaakov Amidror, who served as national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Americans “paid with cash and got, at the maximum, a letter of intent.”
Why is Israel sounding the alarm? Start with Iran’s nuclear program, which Netanyahu has spent decades framing as an existential threat to Israel. It’s the same issue Trump cited when he announced the first strikes against Iran back in February. And under this agreement, it’s been punted to “a later stage” of negotiations. Meaning it’s completely unresolved.
Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal is still intact. Trump even told reporters this week that it would be “unfair” if Iran weren’t allowed to keep “some” ballistic missiles. Let’s also remember this is the same president who promised to “raze their missile industry to the ground.”
Additionally, nothing in the agreement addresses Iran’s support for Hezbollah and the Houthis, though the deal requires Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. Israeli analysts say this leaves them in a worse position than before the war.
Meanwhile, Iran is expected to get hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and reconstruction aid, all of which could end up funding the same networks that have spent years attacking Israel.
Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser, argued “Iran came out stronger,” having successfully stood up to “the global superpower.” Freilich added that this is simply “an Iranian victory over the U.S. and Israel.”
Iran’s own top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, agreed, saying on state television that the deal gave Iran “several times more” than they set out to achieve through military action. It’s not hard to see who exactly won here.
The framers handed Congress the power to declare war in Article One precisely so that one man couldn’t march the country into a fight and then bargain it away on his own terms. Thirteen Americans are dead, and the country never got a vote on the war that killed them or the deal that ended it.
Republicans Call Trump’s Iran Deal ‘Worst Foreign Policy Blunder in Decades’
Republicans don’t often publicly break with Donald Trump, but the language they’re using after seeing the details of the Iran deal is pretty damning.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent last month, wrote on X that “Reagan is rolling over in his grave” over the deal. Cassidy pointed out that before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was open, Iran was under crushing sanctions, and 13 American service members were still alive. Now those men and women are dead, the sanctions are being lifted, and Americans were hit with higher prices at the pump. Cassidy added it was “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s U.N. ambassador in his first term, is openly asking why Washington is offering to help rebuild a regime that “chants death to America, murders our troops and attempts to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told the Daily Wire that history teaches “giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is a bad idea,” and pointed out that somewhere between $10 and $30 billion could flow directly to Iran’s new hardline supreme leader before Iran makes a single concession on its nuclear program.
Even Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, weighed in, comparing the agreement to the kind of appeasement the first Trump administration had previously condemned in President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
The pushback is even reportedly coming from within the White House. According to Axios, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth each raised concerns about the deal as well.
Iran’s negotiating team is celebrating the deal as a win. Trump’s own allies are calling it a failure. And the American families who lost their loved ones in the war are now trying to make sense of a deal that seems to have delivered very little of what the war was supposedly about.
Margaret Chase Smith stood on the Senate floor in 1950 with her Declaration of Conscience and reminded her own party that loyalty to a strongman isn’t the same thing as loyalty to the country. It’s worth noticing that most of the Republicans finding their voice now are the ones who’ve already lost their seats.
New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission Issues New Subpoenas
Meanwhile in New Mexico, the Epstein story isn’t going away.
New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission just released six of its first 14 subpoenas, and they’re targeting some major players in getting to the bottom of who knew what about Epstein’s crimes. The Office of the Attorney General has been asked to produce files related to the deceased child sex trafficker, including any communications with federal prosecutors in New York during that investigation. The State Land Office is being asked for records tied to Epstein’s infamous Zorro Ranch, along with financial transactions between the office and Epstein.
The New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the governor’s office are both being subpoenaed over former Governor Bill Richardson, and are asking for any communication Richardson had with Epstein as well as records of any travel to Epstein’s properties.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has been asked for calls, reports, and case files linked to both Epstein and Zorro Ranch.
Additionally, the Santa Fe Institute, which is a non-government research organization, has received a subpoena asking for financial records related to Epstein, including any donations from Epstein or his chief accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and documentation of how that money was used.
All recipients have until the end of June to comply.
Keep a close eye on this story, as the Commission still has eight more subpoenas outstanding that haven’t been made public yet. This investigation is moving. Whether it stays in the news or gets buried quietly is something Raw America will be watching closely.
The Supreme Court settled it back in 1927 in McGrain v. Daugherty that the power to subpoena and compel testimony is exactly how a legislature holds the powerful to account, and that’s the authority New Mexico is using right now. Brandeis was right that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the people who worked hardest to bury this story are the ones who should be most worried about it.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. The fight is here. Thank you for being in it.
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