Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
There’s a ton of news happening today. There’s a war in Iran that the White House says it’s winning, even as Iranian suicide boats are torching tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. There’s a twelve-hour standoff in Vermont over an ICE raid that didn’t even find the man they were looking for. There’s a full-blown meltdown at the new-look CBS News. And there’s a quiet but important special election result out of New Hampshire that the mainstream media isn’t giving nearly enough attention. So let’s get into it.
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Now, the news.
Iran’s New Leader Blows Up Trump’s Biggest Claim About War
Donald Trump is telling Americans the war with Iran has been “won” and will be over “soon.”
Shortly afterward, Iran struck six oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices shot above a hundred dollars a barrel.
So, not quite won, then.
Here’s what’s actually going on. Multiple classified intelligence reports show that Iran’s government is not in danger of collapsing. The regime “retains control of the Iranian public,” according to those sources.
When US and Israeli strikes began on February 28th, they killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who’d led Iran for decades. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has now been declared the new supreme leader.
In a televised address Thursday, Mojtaba warned that US bases in the region “will be attacked.” He vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, calling it a tool to pressure the enemy. And in a passage that’s going to haunt the Trump administration, he referenced a strike on a girls’ school on the first day of the war that killed 175 people, most of them children. A preliminary Pentagon report reportedly holds the US responsible for that strike.
Israel, meanwhile, has claimed strikes on nuclear-related sites. Israel says it was used for weapons development tied to Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, which was officially believed to have ended back in 2003. But the intelligence picture is clear: the clerical power structure is intact. A senior Israeli official acknowledged there’s no guarantee the war leads to regime collapse. Trump and Netanyahu both called on Iranians to rise up and overthrow their own government in the early days of the war. That message has since been quietly dropped.
What does “victory” actually mean here? The White House’s own definition keeps shifting.
GOP Governor Angered at ICE Chaos in His State
On Wednesday in South Burlington, Vermont, ICE officers showed up to a house on Dorset Street looking for a 24-year-old man named Deyvi Daniel Corona-Sanchez.
He wasn’t there. Twelve hours. Flash-bangs. No arrest.
What followed was a nearly twelve-hour standoff that turned violent. State troopers cleared protesters away from the property, authorities deployed flash-bangs, fired what appeared to be paintball-style devices at the crowd, and detained multiple demonstrators. Democratic Representative Kate Logan was among those who came out, saying she was there to protect her neighbors.
Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, called the whole thing “totally unnecessary” and went after both ICE and what he called the “agitators” in the crowd. He said the federal agents’ “lack of training, coordination, and leadership” put both peaceful protesters and Vermont law enforcement in a genuinely difficult position. That’s a Republican governor criticizing ICE tactics. Take note.
Linda Ayer, a 74-year-old woman with a walker, stood in front of the line of law enforcement and said simply: “What they’re doing is illegal.”
CBS Hires War-Monger Republican
When CBS brought in Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief last October, it was a clear signal the network was going hard-right to appease the Trump administration. Top journalists, including Scott MacFarlane and Anderson Cooper, have since walked out or declined to renew their contracts.
Now, in a development nobody saw coming, the White House is furious at Weiss.
CBS quietly hired Jeremy Adler for its communications team. Adler spent four years as deputy chief of staff and senior communications adviser for Liz Cheney, the daughter of the late former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was one of the key architects of the last Republican war in the Middle East.
Weiss’ timing is more than a little suspicious: Her attempt to hire Adler comes as Trump is waging a vastly unpopular war in Iran that’s costing American taxpayers almost $2 billion per day. And if you’re trying to convince the public to support a regime change war nobody asked for, who better to hire than a spin artist with ties to the Cheney family?
Of course, the hire makes a little more sense given who owns CBS’s parent company. CBS sits under Paramount Skydance, controlled by Larry Ellison’s son. Larry Ellison is a personal friend of Donald Trump. Paramount is also now in the process of acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN. That deal needs FCC approval. Do the math.
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Signs of a Potential Blue Wave Emerge in Trump Country
Quietly, on Tuesday, a Democrat flipped a Republican state house seat in rural Carroll County, New Hampshire. Trump won that area by double digits in 2024.
Bobbi Boudman beat Republican Dale Fincher with about 52 percent of the vote in a district of more than 4,000 ballots cast. She’d tried to win the seat twice before and lost both times.
According to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Democrats have now flipped 28 state legislative seats nationwide since Trump won back the White House. Boudman did it on $12,000. Her opponent had $55,000 between his own fundraising and outside group support.
Her campaign focused on affordability, education, and fiscal responsibility. Bread and butter stuff. It worked.
CNN’s Harry Enten puts Democrats’ chances of taking back both chambers of Congress at 46 percent and rising. Not there yet, but the trajectory is real.
Raw America is now in Washington, DC. We’re on the ground covering Iran War protests. We’re in the room for Kristi Noem’s congressional hearings. We’re watching the Senate hearings on birthright citizenship in real time. We were there for the War Powers resolution vote.
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I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for watching. See you next time.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Heavily Armed Man Rams Truck Into Michigan Synagogue. An attacker armed with a rifle drove his truck into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, just outside of Detroit, Michigan. A security guard fatally shot the man after he drove through a set of doors and into the main hallway. The shooter was neutralized before any of the estimated 140 children present at its early childhood center were injured. The attacker has not yet been named and a motive has not been revealed, though the synagogue had recently ramped up security following Trump’s attack on Iran.
High Oil Prices Likely to Outlast Trump’s War. Despite the Trump administration’s claims that the current high prices of crude oil are temporary due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, analysts say those prices could stick around longer than expected due to several factors. Some of those include the weeks-long backlog of oil tankers at the Strait, Iranian attacks on regional oil infrastructure, Iran reportedly placing mines throughout the Strait of Hormuz and various Shia Muslim splinter groups unaffiliated with Iran acting on their own.
Trump Reportedly Shrugged Off Top Affordability Concern. In response to the U.S. Senate recently passing a bipartisan bill aimed at shoring up the national housing shortage, President Donald Trump allegedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that “no one gives a [bleep] about housing.” Trump is instead pushing senators to focus exclusively on passing the SAVE Act, which would require all Americans to prove their citizenship before being allowed to cast a ballot. The bill has been roundly criticized as an attempt at voter suppression in order to drive down turnout in November’s midterm elections.
Top U.S. Military Commander Says Bombing Civilian Targets Is a Doomed Strategy. During a Thursday hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich — who is the highest-ranking U.S. commander in Europe — cautioned against air strikes on civilians, saying it only “hardens their resolve.” Grynkewich’s comments come on the heels of a U.S. strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed more than 170 students and teachers.
ICE Detention Center Gets New Contractor After Multiple Deaths, Illnesses. The East Montana Detention Facility in El Paso, Texas will now be under new management after the deaths of three detainees. The facility has also recently seen outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles. Richmond, Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics was previously tasked with managing the facility, though the new no-bid contract has now been awarded to Chantilly, Virginia-based Amentum Services Inc.
