Good morning, I’m Thom Hartmann.
This morning: Trump is threatening to destroy Iran’s bridges and power grid, with international law experts warning those strikes could constitute war crimes. JD Vance has been named “Fraud Czar” with a mandate to target Democratic-led states. And federal agents have detained a Milwaukee Islamic community leader over a conviction from Israeli military courts dating back to when he was a teenager.
Raw America is Raw Story and Really Americans’ people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CBS and CNN are being consumed by oligarchs. Corporate outlets are running cover for the war in Iran, and the FCC chair is now threatening broadcast licenses for any network that doesn’t. The message to newsrooms is clear: get in line or lose your license. Independent media has never been more critical, and the window to protect it is narrowing. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your support is what keeps us free, honest, and on the air.
Trump Threatens War Crimes in Iran as Conflict Drags On
Donald Trump took to social media late Thursday night to threaten the destruction of Iran’s bridges and electrical power grid, two categories of civilian infrastructure whose deliberate targeting experts say could constitute war crimes under international law.
“Our Military, the greatest and most powerful anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran,” Trump wrote. “Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!”
Dozens of international law scholars have now signed an open letter warning that U.S. strikes on civilian infrastructure with no clear military purpose may cross legal and moral lines. The letter flags Trump’s remark last month that the U.S. might attack Iran “just for fun,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s boast that America doesn’t fight with “stupid rules of engagement,” and Trump’s January statement that “I don’t need international law.” These aren’t offhand comments. They are a documented record of an administration that has openly rejected the legal frameworks the United States helped build after World War II.
In a low-energy primetime address Wednesday, Trump offered vague updates on a conflict now more than a month old, promising it would end “in a few weeks” without explaining how. He also warned the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks, threatening to send the country of 90 million people “back to the Stone Ages.”
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows, has sent crude prices well above $100 a barrel and pushed gas prices higher across the country. A new poll shows just 31 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, the lowest mark of either of his terms. For a president who ran on lowering costs, those numbers are a political disaster in the making, and Republicans heading into November’s midterms know it.
When an American president openly declares he doesn’t need international law, he’s not just breaking rules, he’s dismantling the entire post-World War II framework that the United States spent decades building to prevent exactly the kind of collective punishment and civilian destruction that the world said “never again” to in 1945. That framework doesn’t just protect people in other countries. It protects the idea that America is something more than just a nation with the biggest weapons.
Trump Calls on the World to Help Him “Make a Fortune” Off Iran
In a Friday morning post, Trump declared that the U.S. could “easily” reopen the Strait of Hormuz and promised the world a “gusher” of profit if it did.
“With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE,” he wrote.
As recently as Wednesday, Trump had said it wasn’t Washington’s job to pressure Tehran on the strait at all, calling on other nations to “grab it and cherish it.” Now, apparently, the U.S. is ready to take ownership. There’s no coherent strategy here. There’s a president posting, day by day, whatever thought crosses his mind, while oil prices climb and working Americans pay for it at the pump. When the commander in chief is treating a shooting war like a real estate negotiation, the rest of the world is watching, and they’re drawing their own conclusions.
This is what happens when you put a transactional real estate developer in charge of foreign policy. Wars aren’t deals, and the countries watching us right now, allies and adversaries alike, are recalibrating their relationship with American leadership in real time. That shift doesn’t reverse itself when the next administration comes in.
Trump Names Vance “Fraud Czar,” Targets Blue States
Trump announced Friday that Vice President JD Vance will serve as what he’s calling the “Fraud Czar,” tasked with investigating alleged theft of taxpayer money, with an explicit focus on Democratic-led states including California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, and New York.
“The numbers are so large that, if successful, we would literally be able to balance our American Budget,” Trump claimed, without providing evidence.
Trump signed an executive order on March 16 creating a fraud task force, naming Vance as chairman. Friday’s announcement gave Vance the public title and a first assignment. “Raids have already started in L.A.,” Trump wrote. This is not law enforcement. This is political theater with federal resources. Targeting blue states and framing it as fiscal responsibility is the MAGA playbook in plain sight. There is no independent oversight here, no bipartisan structure, no transparency. Just the vice president of the United States handed a mandate to investigate the president’s political opponents and given a catchy title for the press release.
Every authoritarian government in modern history has used the machinery of law enforcement to punish political opponents while calling it accountability. What we’re watching here isn’t a crusade against fraud. It’s the federal government being converted, piece by piece, into a weapon aimed at anyone who didn’t vote for the man in the White House.
ICE Detains Milwaukee Islamic Leader Over Decades-Old Israeli Conviction
Federal immigration agents detained Salah Sarsour, 53, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest Islamic organization in Wisconsin, earlier this week. Sarsour has been a legal permanent resident for more than three decades.
Agents approached him outside a Milwaukee office on Monday morning, with roughly a dozen vehicles pulling up before taking him into custody. He was moved first to a Chicago-area detention facility, then transferred to Indiana.
Authorities cited a conviction from Israeli military courts dating back to when Sarsour was a teenager in the occupied West Bank, before he ever came to the United States. Community members and attorneys say he did not fully understand the Hebrew-language charges at the time and that he was abused while in custody. The U.S. government vetted his application when he arrived and granted him legal status. He has no criminal record in this country.
His legal team has filed a writ of habeas corpus. His attorney argues his detention now appears rooted in his years of public advocacy for Palestinian rights, not any legitimate legal concern.
“They’re using the immigration system to try to silence him,” the Islamic Society’s executive director said.
This is a pattern. Arrest a community leader. Dig up a decades-old foreign conviction. Use immigration law as a weapon against dissent. A grandfather, a business owner, a pillar of his community for more than thirty years, surrounded by a dozen federal vehicles on a Monday morning for collecting the mail. That’s what’s happening in Milwaukee this week, and it’s happening in cities across this country.
When a government starts using immigration enforcement to silence political voices, it’s not just a civil liberties problem. It’s a warning about what kind of country we’re becoming. The First Amendment doesn’t mean much if people learn that speaking out gets you surrounded by twelve federal vehicles on a Monday morning.
A Word Before You Go
We have had reporters on the ground at the most consequential hearings in Washington. We’ve brought you exclusive interviews with top generals and national security officials that you won’t find anywhere else. We are joining the D.C. press pool and working every day to get the most important voices and the most critical stories directly to you.
None of that happens without paid subscribers.
The outlets that used to do this work are now owned by the same class of billionaires driving the policies we’re covering. Coverage that challenges power, refuses to sell wars, and won’t propagandize for the oligarchs who now control most of what you read and watch requires something different: direct support from the people who need it most. That’s you.
Corporate media has made its choice. We’ve made ours. If you value journalism that answers to its readers and no one else, please become a paid subscriber today. It is the single most direct thing you can do to keep independent reporting alive.
I’m Thom Hartmann. Stay informed. Stay engaged. We’ll see you tomorrow.
Stories You May Have Missed
People are dying in Trump’s largest detention camp, and inspectors found 49 violations. Camp East Montana in El Paso, the largest immigration detention center in the country, is also one of the facilities with the most detainee deaths — three of the 25 people who have died in ICE custody since October were held there. A federal inspection found the private company running the camp refused to provide staffing information to ICE, left tools and equipment unsecured throughout the facility, and failed to maintain an accurate inventory of its ammunition. A former detainee from the Netherlands told investigators he heard guards betting on which detainee would die by suicide, and that he personally talked three people out of killing themselves. Trump wants to expand this system — his new budget requests funding for 100,000 detention beds.
Hegseth fires the Army’s top general in the middle of a war. Defense Secretary Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to leave his post immediately, along with two other senior military leaders. Senator Chris Murphy put it plainly: “It’s likely that experienced generals are telling Hegseth his Iran war plans are unworkable, disastrous, and deadly.” Reports also indicate Hegseth has blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four military branches.
Trump drops a $1.5 trillion defense budget — and wants to gut domestic programs to pay for it. The White House released its fiscal year 2027 budget request Friday, proposing a roughly 40 percent increase in defense spending over 2026 funding levels. The plan would cut non-defense programs by 10 percent, eliminate refugee resettlement aid, and expand ICE detention to 100,000 adult beds and 30,000 family beds. Trump said the quiet part out loud: “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.” Medicaid, Medicare, and social programs are all on the chopping block to fund the war machine.
U.S. strikes hit a medical research center and a Red Crescent warehouse in Iran. U.S. and Israeli forces expanded their attacks on Iran Friday, hitting a century-old medical research center in Tehran, steel plants, and a bridge near the capital. A drone strike also struck a Red Crescent aid warehouse in Iran’s Bushehr province. These are not military targets. International law experts have been raising the alarm for weeks, and the strikes are not getting quieter.
The March jobs report came in, and the numbers are already softening. Employers added 178,000 jobs last month, reversing losses from February, but the unemployment rate dipped largely because fewer people are actively looking for work. With oil prices above $100 a barrel and the cost of living crisis accelerating, economists warn the labor market resilience may not hold. Watch this number closely over the coming months.
