Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. The first six days of Trump’s Iran war cost American taxpayers $11.3 billion, and Congress still can’t get a straight answer about why it started. The energy secretary went on Fox News and couldn’t answer a basic question about the Strait of Hormuz. The New York Post, Trump’s own favorite newspaper, is calling the administration’s war messaging a failure. And CBS News handed a prime-time platform to the exiled son of Iran’s last dictator and called it journalism. Welcome to the new American empire. Let’s get into it.
Raw America is Raw Story and Really Americans’ people-powered response to MAGA and the billionaire takeover of American media. This war is the clearest demonstration yet of why independent media matters. CBS News, reshaped by Bari Weiss, spent Sunday night auditioning an exiled Iranian prince for head of state on 60 Minutes. CNN is consolidating. Corporate newsrooms that once asked hard questions are now running cover for a rogue war, just as they did in 2003. The pattern is not subtle. Independent coverage has never been more important, and the only thing making it possible is you. If you are a free subscriber, go paid today. We don’t have a billionaire behind us. We have readers.
When a democracy goes to war, the people have a right to know why. That’s not a courtesy, it’s the entire premise of self-government.
$11.3 Billion in Six Days. Congress Still Can’t Get an Answer.
The first six days of Operation Epic Fury cost more than $11.3 billion, Pentagon officials told Congress in a closed-door briefing Tuesday, according to the New York Times. That number does not include the military buildup before hostilities began on February 28.
Democratic lawmakers walked out furious. “I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal. Senator Elizabeth Warren was blunter: “It is still the case that the Trump administration cannot explain the reasons that we entered this war, the goals we’re trying to accomplish, and the methods for doing that.” Democrats are pushing for public hearings with sworn testimony. The administration is expected to return to the Hill with a supplemental funding request worth tens of billions more.
Trump told supporters Wednesday: “We won. In the first hour it was over.” He has also said the war may last over a month and could require ground troops. Seven U.S. service members are dead. The military has privately determined the U.S. was behind the missile strike on the girls’ school in Minab. Officials are still calling it “under review” in public.
Seven Americans are dead, a school full of girls was bombed, and the administration’s official position is that they’re still looking into it. That’s not a communication problem. That’s a democracy problem.
Even the New York Post Is Calling This a Messaging Disaster
When you’ve lost the New York Post, you’ve lost something. The Murdoch-owned tabloid Trump has called his favorite newspaper ran a blistering editorial this week calling the administration’s war communications a failure.
The Post board took direct aim at Pete Hegseth, saying he should be front and center briefing the press rather than having what it called “an allergic reaction” to coverage of American casualties. “Team Trump provided solid briefings in the first weekend of the war, but then dropped the ball,” the board wrote. It called on Hegseth, Vance, Rubio, and senior Pentagon officials to provide daily substantive updates instead of leaving the field to what it called “Iranian, anti-American, anti-Israel and/or anti-Trump actors” on social media.
“This is not the administration’s private war,” the board wrote. “A public that feels it’s being leveled with, as much as possible, will be a lot more patient than one that feels needlessly kept in the dark.” A paper that spent years as a reliable Trump amplifier demanding accountability from a Republican White House is a signal the political ground under this war is shifting faster than the West Wing has grasped.
When even the loyalists start asking questions, it usually means the cost, in lives and dollars and credibility, is getting hard to ignore. That’s always when the pressure for accountability either builds or gets crushed.
The Press Has Done This Before. It’s Doing It Again.
In 2002 and 2003, the New York Times ran Judith Miller’s WMD stories on the front page. The Washington Post championed the Iraq invasion. The networks embedded reporters and broadcast the fall of Baghdad like a sporting event. When the WMDs didn’t materialize, the press did some quiet soul-searching, published belated corrections, and moved on. No one lost their job. No one gave back the ratings.
Twenty-three years later, the pattern is running again. George Will published a column celebrating Trump’s Iran strikes as restoring “the credibility of U.S. deterrence” and called critics of the war people who “reveal their barbarism.” CBS News, reshaped by Bari Weiss, opened 60 Minutes on Sunday with a softball interview with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last dictator, conducted from his Paris apartment. Correspondent Scott Pelley’s most probing question: “When you see the courage on the streets, I wonder how that moves you.” Pahlavi teared up. The Savak, his father’s feared secret police, did not come up. The Washington Post, its foreign desks largely shuttered, is running wire copy with subheads like “Iran left the status quo behind” to describe a war that has killed more than a thousand people.
The institutional press that failed the country on Iraq is failing it again, with fewer reporters, less editorial independence, and owners with closer financial ties to the people running the war.
A free press isn’t just a feature of democracy. It’s the mechanism by which citizens hold power accountable. When that mechanism is captured by the same interests running the war, the whole system breaks down and ordinary people pay the price with their sons and daughters and their tax dollars.
This is precisely why Raw America exists. When the corporate press is running cover for a war it cannot explain, independent journalism is not optional. We were at the protests. We were on Capitol Hill for the War Powers vote. We have been in the briefing rooms. We are building the press operation this moment requires, entirely because of paid subscribers. If you are not one yet, we need you to become one today.
The Energy Secretary Went on Fox News and Couldn’t Answer the Question
Laura Ingraham invited Energy Secretary Chris Wright onto The Ingraham Angle Wednesday to explain what the administration plans to do about Iranian projectiles hitting oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Wright responded with talking points about Iran’s history of terrorism. Ingraham cut him off. “Well, Mr. Secretary, we know that. But what now?” Three ships hit in 24 hours, insurance markets in chaos, crews afraid for their lives. Wright’s answer: trust the military and wait.
It was not his worst performance of the week. On Tuesday he posted on X the false claim that the Navy had already escorted a tanker through the strait. U.S. crude dropped as much as 19 percent. An oil futures ETF lost $84 million in market cap. The post was deleted within minutes. Karoline Leavitt confirmed at the next briefing: “I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time.”
The energy secretary moved global oil markets by posting something false, deleted it, then went on Fox News and couldn’t explain what happens next. This is the team managing a war over one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply. When the official managing America’s energy strategy can’t answer basic questions about it on live television, that’s not just embarrassing. It tells you something about who’s actually in charge, and whether anyone is steering this thing at all.
Why We Do This
We had reporters at the Iran war protests at the White House. We were on Capitol Hill for the House War Powers Resolution vote. We have been in DHS hearings with Secretary Kristi Noem. We have brought you exclusive interviews with people like retired General Paul Eaton. We are on the verge of joining the D.C. press pool full-time.
When the corporate press is running cover for a war it cannot explain, independent journalism is not a luxury. We are building the press operation this moment requires, and we are doing it entirely because of paid subscribers.
If you believe independent, people-powered journalism is the answer to what is happening to this country, become a paid subscriber today. We will keep showing up. We need you to make it possible.
I’m Thom Hartmann. We’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Admits to Falling Asleep During Iran War Meeting. President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters during a rally in Kentucky that he kept “falling asleep” during a war planning meeting when generals were presenting him with potential names for the attack on Iran. Trump, who will turn 80 in June, has been seen nodding off during recent meetings, including a roundtable discussion earlier this month, and at the inaugural “Board of Peace” meeting while various world leaders were speaking.
New Oil Crisis Worse Than 1970s Embargo. A new report from the International Energy Agency finds that the current oil supply shock is even worse than the Saudi oil embargo of the 1970s. The IEA found that the ongoing Iran war has led to the “lrgest disruption to crude supplies in the history of the global oil market. Because there is now “limited capacity” to trade routes, oil-producing countries have had to cut production by roughly 10 million barrels per day.
Trump Tries to Spin Rising Oil Prices as a Positive Development. In a Thursday post to his Truth Social platform, Trump framed rapidly rising oil prices as a good thing for the U.S. economy. The president insisted that because the U.S. is a large oil producer, “we make a lot of money” when crude prices surge. Brent crude – a benchmark for global oil trading — recently topped $100 a barrel. Prices continue to rise due to Iran closing the Strat of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the global oil supply is transported.
New Billboard Reminds Troops of Their Duty to Refuse Illegal Orders. San Diego Veterans for Peace recently placed a billboard near Naval Base San Diego reading: “Active Duty & National Guard: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders.” In a statement, a spokesperson for the group said some examples of illegal orders include “unconstitutional” deployments to U.S. cities to support ICE crackdowns, or deployments to “illegal regime change wars, such as Venezuela or Iran.”
Washington State Passes Millionaires Tax. Lawmakers in Washington State passed the state’s first-ever income tax in history. The tax — which charges 9.9 percent on all annual earnings in excess of $1 million — impacts roughly 20,000 households statewide. The tax is expected to bring in $4 billion per year, and the revenue would be partly spent on child care, early education programs and tax credits for lower-income families.
