Good morning, and welcome to Raw America. I’m Thom Hartmann. We’ve got a lot to cover today. The MAGA civil war over Trump’s Iran war is out in the open, with Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Marjorie Taylor Greene all breaking with the president — and Trump firing back. Inside the White House, his top aides are scrambling as gas prices spike and the midterm math gets ugly. At CBS News, billionaire-installed editor Bari Weiss is giving us a front-row seat to what the corporate takeover of American journalism actually looks like. And Kristi Noem’s congressional hearing was such a disaster that Trump is reportedly calling senators to ask if he should fire her. It’s all ahead.
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Let’s get into the news.
MAGA Civil War Boils To The Top
Donald Trump spent Wednesday night on Truth Social doing what he does best. Declaring victory. After Tuesday’s primaries, he shared a Just the News piece claiming that MAGA critics who’ve turned on him over his war on Iran are losing their grip on the base. And on the surface, the numbers back him up. Nearly all of his endorsed candidates won their races. But here’s the context Trump left out. Most of them were incumbents who were expected to win anyway, or they ran unopposed. That’s not a mandate. That’s a calendar.
The real story is the fracture inside the MAGA movement itself. Tucker Carlson called the U.S.-Israel airstrikes on Iran “absolutely evil and disgusting” and suggested the war was fought because Israel wanted it. Megyn Kelly devoted her entire Monday show to opposing the war, saying the service members who died “didn’t die for the United States.” And Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that “whatever Trump’s new twisted perversion of MAGA is, is going to lose in the midterms.” Trump fired back, telling reporter Rachel Bade, “MAGA is Trump. MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it.”
He can say that. But the crack in the coalition is real, and it’s widening. When a movement is built around a single personality instead of shared democratic values, moments of real-world consequence like war tend to expose the contradictions underneath it.
The War Blows Up Trump’s Economic Message
Inside the West Wing, the mood is reportedly closer to panic than triumph. Trump’s war on Iran is sending gas prices sharply higher, and that is a direct threat to the one message his team has staked the 2026 midterms on. Cost of living. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has reportedly sounded the alarm. Crude oil is up more than ten dollars a barrel since the strikes began, and prices at the pump are up twenty cents a gallon. On Tuesday, they jumped by the biggest single-day margin since 2022.
Iran responded to “Operation Epic Fury” by targeting Gulf energy infrastructure, which any serious person could have predicted. Now, according to Politico, White House aides are “looking under every rock” for ways to bring prices down. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is reportedly getting screamed at. Someone floated a gas tax holiday, which would require Congress to act and oil companies to voluntarily pass the savings along. Nobody is holding their breath on that one. Another idea. Deploy U.S. troops to protect Middle East energy infrastructure. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the war would eventually lower gas prices by freeing up Iranian oil. The midterms are seven months away. Voters will remember what they paid at the pump this summer. When war drives up the cost of everyday life, the political consequences tend to arrive quickly because working families feel it every time they fill up their cars.
Bari Weiss And The Billionaire Takeover of CBS News
Meanwhile, the billionaire remaking of American media is playing out in real time at CBS News, and it is not subtle. Bari Weiss, handpicked by Trump-friendly billionaire David Ellison to run CBS News, has reportedly thrown the network’s objectivity standards out the window since the Iran strikes began. According to sources, CBS staffers described what’s unfolding as “propaganda-palooza.”
Within hours of the bombing starting Saturday, Weiss flew her preferred anchor, Tony Dokoupil, to Tel Aviv before most regional flights were grounded. During a Saturday night special, Dokoupil repeated White House talking points and interviewed right-wing commentator Douglas Murray, a personal friend of Weiss. He told viewers there were “no reports of American casualties.” A day later, six U.S. troops were killed in a retaliatory strike in Kuwait. Weiss also reposted a clip celebrating the death of Iran’s supreme leader with a fire emoji, and CBS staff say she is now actively targeting New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with increased negative coverage. One CBS journalist’s response to all of it. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
This is what the Ellison and MAGA takeover of American media looks like in practice. Weiss has functioned as an errand person for that project since the moment she was installed. CBS News didn’t just hire an editor. It hired an ideological agenda. And the public is watching it unfold on their screens and being told it’s journalism. When billionaires buy newsrooms, they rarely do it to strengthen democracy. They do it to shape the story in ways that protect their wealth and power.
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Kristi Noem’s Nightmare Hearing — And Trump May Be Done With Her
And finally, Kristi Noem had a bad day in Congress on Wednesday, and it may have been her last as DHS Secretary. Trump is reportedly calling Republican senators to gauge whether he should fire her. Speaker Mike Johnson was reportedly already floating her replacement back in January. Some Republicans have even reportedly discussed a deal where Democrats release withheld funding in exchange for Noem’s ouster — though Democrats say they’re not interested in that trade. They want actual reform.
The hearing was ugly. Noem faced questions about an alleged affair with top advisor Corey Lewandowski, her department’s lavish spending on luxury travel and $220 million in self-promotional ad campaigns, her handling of FEMA funding, and the deadly ICE crackdown in Minneapolis. When asked to reconcile her concern for government waste with those ad costs, she invoked the president’s name, saying Trump “tasked” her with getting the message out. That did not go over well. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not seeking reelection and therefore has nothing to lose, called her tenure a flat-out “disaster.” Democratic Senator John Fetterman called her “grossly incompetent” weeks ago, after Americans died during her department’s operations in Minnesota.
Noem characterized ICE officers involved in Minneapolis as heroes facing unfair criticism. She also refused to apologize for labeling two slain protesters — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — as domestic terrorists. The question now is whether Trump pulls the trigger. He’s asking around. That alone tells you something. When loyalty to a political figure becomes the main qualification for running major parts of government, moments like this tend to reveal the cost of putting politics ahead of competence.
Raw America reporter Luke De Cresce is in the House chamber for today’s War Powers resolution vote. We’re only able to cover every one of these stories because of the support of Raw America’s paid subscribers. Our reporters have been on the ground in hearings like the one with Kristi Noem. We’ve brought you exclusive interviews with people like retired General Paul Eaton, voices you’re not going to hear on corporate media. None of that happens without you.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. We’ll see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Georgia’s MAGA Elections Board Paved Way for Trump to Seize Ballots. The FBI’s raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia was facilitated in part by the Georgia State Election Board, which has been packed with far-right Republicans. After the election board — which has consistently trafficked in 2020 election conspiracy theories — subpoenaed the ballots themselves, they requested the Justice Department’s assistance, which led to the Trump administration’s civil lawsuit in December and the resulting search warrant.
Leaked Memo Shows Trump Administration Preparing for Long War. U.S. Central Command (which oversees military operations in the Middle East) is reportedly asking for more military intelligence officers to be sent to its Tampa, Florida headquarters to assist with the war in Iran for at least 100 days, though their services may extend through September. This surpasses Trump’s initial timeline of four to five weeks, and one unnamed Republican insider told Politico that a protracted war would be seen as a “f—-ing nightmare” given November’s midterm elections.
Americans Angry with Trump Over Higher Gas Prices. Following Trump’s strikes on Iran last weekend, gas prices have surged across the U.S., prompting many Americans to express frustration with the administration. The average price for a gallon of gasoline increased from $2.975 on the day of Trump’s speech announcing the attack, to $3.198 on Wednesday. The firm GasBuddy predicted gas prices would rise by as much as 30 cents per gallon “over the next two weeks.” New Jersey bartender Kelly Sharp told USA TODAY: “[Trump] promised to bring prices down, but he never did.”
Trump Sued Over TikTok Sale. Anti-corruption group Public Integrity Project filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday over the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operation to a group of investors with ties to Trump. The group is alleging the deal violates a 2024 law meant to prevent the spread of Chinese government propaganda. Public Integrity Project CEO Brendan Ballou — a former Justice Department prosecutor — called the deal “the absolute worst of all possible worlds.”
Obama Calls on Virginians to Support Redistricting Initiative. Former President Barack Obama released an ad on behalf of a group backing Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting push. Obama said the measure was necessary to counter the “unfair advantage” Republicans in red states gave themselves by redrawing their own districts, adding: “In April, Virginians can respond by making sure your voting power is not diminished by what Republicans are doing in other states.”
