Good evening, and welcome to Raw America. I’m British Chris.
We’re living through one of the most consequential and chaotic periods in American political history. The president’s mental fitness is now being questioned by his former allies; Hollywood stars are trying to stop a MAGA billionaire’s major acquisition; a Trump-appointed prosecutor keeps losing in court; and the ICE detention death toll keeps climbing. Let’s get into it.
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Trump’s Mental Health Under New Scrutiny
The debate over Donald Trump’s mental state has been simmering for years, but something’s shifted in recent weeks. It started with Trump’s post threatening to destroy Iran’s civilization. Then came a Sunday-night attack on Pope Leo XIV, who Trump called “weak” and “terrible.” What’s new this time is where the criticism is coming from.
Marjorie Taylor Greene told CNN that threatening to destroy Iran’s civilization was “insanity.” Candace Owens called him a genocidal lunatic. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who once sold Trump like a religion, said the president’s brain is “not doing too hot.”
Former Trump White House counsel Ty Cobb told journalist Jim Acosta that Trump is “clearly insane.” Former press secretary Stephanie Grisham wrote online that “he’s clearly not well.”
Americans largely agree. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 61 percent of Americans think Trump has become more erratic with age, and just 45 percent say he’s “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.” That’s down from 54 percent back in 2023. Democrats have called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked.
Princeton historian Julian Zelizer put it plainly: Trump “feels much freer, even than Nixon, to unleash his inner rage and to act on impulse.” And unlike in the first term, there’s nobody around him willing to pump the brakes.
Hollywood Stars Rail Against Trump Donor’s Purchase of Warner Bros.
More than a thousand film and television professionals signed an open letter this week opposing the $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance. The list of signatories reads like a Hollywood awards-night lineup: Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Kristen Stewart, Bryan Cranston, Jane Fonda, Lin-Manuel Miranda, David Fincher, Denis Villeneuve, Glenn Close, and hundreds more.
Their argument is straightforward: this merger would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four, at a moment when the industry is already reeling from consolidation. The letter warns of fewer jobs, fewer opportunities for creators, less competition, and less choice for audiences.
Paramount pushed back with a lengthy statement promising to greenlight more projects. They called the merger a way to strengthen competition. You can decide how convincing that is.
Here’s the wildcard: California Attorney General Rob Bonta and attorneys general in other states are reportedly scrutinizing the deal and considering legal action to block it. The open letter explicitly backs those efforts. If state regulators step in, this could get messy for Paramount and Skydance very quickly.
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Trump Noticing Jeanine Pirro’s Losing Streak
Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality Trump installed as U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., is having a rough stretch. Her headline-grabbing investigations into Trump’s political enemies keep running into a problem: judges and juries aren’t buying them.
Last month, federal judge James Boasberg threw out Pirro’s subpoenas to the Federal Reserve, ruling they appeared designed solely to “harass and pressure” Fed Chair Jerome Powell — who Trump has been itching to fire. The judge wrote that prosecutors had “offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the president.”
Pirro’s office also tried to convince a grand jury to indict six Democratic lawmakers who released a video reminding military members of their obligation to refuse illegal orders. The grand jury passed. Then there was the case against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent — also rejected.
Trump has reportedly taken notice of Pirro’s record. And the team she’s assembled to handle the most politically charged cases is a little unusual. One of her special counsels, Carlton Davis, has spent most of his career as a Republican congressional staffer. The other, Steven Vandervelden, is a dance photographer.
Pirro’s said publicly that she left “a very nice life” because this is what she loves and what the president asked her to do. The courts, so far, have been less enthusiastic.
47 Deaths in ICE Custody
A 49-year-old Mexican man named Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died on April 11 at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana. He was found unresponsive, transferred to a medical center, and pronounced dead. He’s the 47th person to die in ICE detention during the Trump administration’s second term.
Last month, Mexican diplomat Vanessa Calva Ruiz described the pattern bluntly, calling the deaths “an alarming, unacceptable trend” and pointing to “systemic failures, operational deficiencies, and possible negligence.”
The numbers back her up. ICE detention has hit a record 70,000 people — the highest level in the agency’s 23-year history. An ABC News analysis found the death rate in the first 14 months of the current term running at 11 per 100,000 admissions. That’s compared to 7 per 100,000 last year, and just 1 per 100,000 in 2022. It’s the deadliest stretch in federal immigration detention since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Forty-seven people have died. The rate is accelerating. And the people in charge are ignoring it.
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I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for watching.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Deletes Post Depicting Himself as Jesus Christ. President Donald Trump on Monday deleted an AI-generated post to his Truth Social account that depicted him as Jesus Christ, and laying hands on someone to heal them. The image prompted backlash even among Trump’s loyal followers on his far-right social media platform, who accused the president of blasphemy. Trump told reporters in the White House that he thought the photo depicted him as a doctor.
DHS Doubles Down on Voter Roll Purges. Officials within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are now reportedly looking to not only comb through state voter rolls to look for noncitizens to purge, but to also use Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to find targets for prosecution. A group of 2020 election deniers within DHS calling themselves “Team America” have also suggested using a “more powerful tool” to investigate Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud, though that tool has not yet been publicly revealed.
Eric Swalwell Resigns from Congress in Wake of Sexual Assault Allegations. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) announced Monday that he would be resigning his seat in Congress amid a potential expulsion vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. Swalwell — a married father of three who suspended his campaign for California governor this weekend — continues to maintain the allegations are “false” and that he will fight them in court.
Rich Americans Feel Emboldened to Cheat on Taxes Due to IRS Cuts. Since Trump’s second term began last year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has shed thousands of jobs in its enforcement sector, which focuses on auditing high-income individuals. According to the Wall Street Journal, audits of Americans who make more than $10 million in annual income dropped by nine percent in 2025, and are on track to drop by another 39 percent in 2026. Former IRS national fraud counsel Carolyn Schenck said the prevailing attitude among wealthy taxpayers is: “The IRS isn’t going to catch me.”
Missouri Town Votes Out City Council Over Data Center Deal. Voters in Festus, Missouri — which has a population of roughly 12,000 people — recently voted out all four incumbent members of their city council running for reelection over their approval of a $6 billion data center. Council members Jim Collier, Jim Tinnin, Bobby Venz and Brian Wehner lost by significant margins as residents expressed anger over the deal struck with CRG, which is a subsidiary of Chicago-based real estate developer Clayco.
