Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America. If you’re watching this on Substack right now, do us a favor and tap the ❤️ and restack this newsletter. It only takes a second and ensures these stories reach the most people.
Today at the Rose Garden, Donald Trump told the assembled crowd that he has “some very severe problems” but then refused to elaborate and tried to change the subject. Former Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz is facing a new federal lawsuit from two women who accuse him of sex trafficking when they had just graduated high school. The Pentagon has finished its report investigating a strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed 120 children, but is keeping it hidden until after the November midterms. And the FBI is now looking into more than 100 suspicious letters sent to state election officials across the country, with some of them containing a white powdery substance.
One more thing before the news: the right-wing billionaires buying up the media aren’t slowing down, and we can’t either. We’re not just up against MAGA oligarchs like David Ellison and Jeff Bezos — we’re also battling tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, whose algorithms are actively blocking our stories from reaching our followers. Your inbox is the one thing they can’t touch, and becoming a subscriber means you’ll never miss any of these important stories.
Donald Trump made a puzzling remark at a Thursday Rose Garden event meant to honor first responders. While talking about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, Trump suddenly made the conversation about himself and left us with a lot more questions about what’s really going on behind the scenes.
The president told the crowd that he’s lucky because he doesn’t smoke or drink, and has no desire to do so. He went on to say that he has friends with drinking problems who “have a real hard time.” And he added that if he did have a drinking problem, he he probably “wouldn’t be here right now.”
Then, he said: “I have other problems I have some very severe problems, but those are not one of them.”
At that point, Trump seemed to realize that he’d just potentially handed the press an entirely new news cycle. He then turned toward Attorney General Todd Blanche and said, “I probably set myself up for that one, Todd,” and quipped that Blanche may have to defend him against the questions. The president quickly tried to walk the comment, telling event attendees, “I actually don’t know. I was just having fun to the media.”
The 80 year-old president has been sparking health questions with consistent bruising on his hands, taking repeated cognitive tests and repeatedly falling asleep in public. We all deserve to know what “severe problems” Trump has that he’s not telling us about.
Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress in November 2024, is now the defendant in a new civil lawsuit accusing him of sex trafficking two young women. The 38-page complaint was officially filed in federal court Thursday in the Middle District of Florida.
The plaintiffs, who are only identified in the suit as “Jane Doe 1” and “Jane Doe 2,” allege that Gaetz and two others coordinated recruitment, payments, drugs and travel to obtain sex from them between 2017 and January 2019. Both women wrote in the complaint that they were recent high school graduates at the time they were trafficked, and the defendants used the power of their office, wealth and connections to prey on their vulnerability.
One of the other men named in the lawsuit is Joel Greenberg, who is both the former tax collector for Seminole County and a longtime associate of Gaetz. Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2021 to six federal charges including sex trafficking of a child, and is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence. The lawsuit claims Greenberg recruited the two women through the website SeekingArrangement.com and introduced them both to Gaetz.
Jane Doe 1 says she had sex with Gaetz at a party in July of 2017, where she says she saw him with a 17-year-old girl who was paid $400 in cash. According to the complaint, Gaetz and Greenberg paid Jane Doe 1 on at least 19 separate occasions. Jane Doe 2 alleges that she had sex with both Gaetz and Greenberg at a party where MDMA pills were distributed. The suit also gives details about paid trips to various locations including Las Vegas, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.
In a statement to the Guardian, Gaetz denied the allegations, while maintaining much of the alleged conduct is false and that he looks forward to deposing the plaintiffs. He also shared a 2018 social media photo of three women on a beach, suggesting the plaintiffs gave a different portrayal of their Bahamas trip than what they alleged in the complaint.
Let’s all keep in mind that in December of 2024, a bipartisan House ethics investigation found that Gaetz paid women for sex and drugs at least 20 different times, and that he had sex with a 17-year-old in 2017, though the former congressman continues to deny any wrongdoing. And remember that this is the same man Trump almost made his second-term attorney general.
The Pentagon has finished its internal investigation into the bombing of Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, which killed more than 150 people, including 120 young girls. But we apparently won’t get to see it until after the midterm elections.
Bloomberg reports that the investigation has been completed for months. The report supposedly blames flawed intelligence, outdated imagery and an overreliance on artificial intelligence for the Tomahawk missile strike that blew up the school on the first day of the Iran war. Trump shrugged off the bombing in June, saying “mistakes are made. War is nasty.”
National Iranian American Council policy director Ryan Costello stated that the government’s refusal to come clean about the Minab strike isn’t just a shameful way to hide from accountability after committing a horrific war crime, but that keeping the report secret means that the errors that led to the strike could happen again. He referenced separate strikes on a family’s home on Iran’s Qeshm Island and on a wedding party in Kuhestak in the Hormozgan province that killed two children.
Policy analyst Brian Finucane was more blunt, suggesting that the Pentagon likely want to give voters a fresh reminder that the Trump administration killed 120 schoolgirls on the eve of the midterms.
Meanwhile, the administration seems to be undeterred in its escalation of the Iran war. According to CNN, the U.S. is contemplating dropping the “mother of all bombs” — the largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal — on Iranian energy infrastructure. Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy warned that a severe attack on the Iranian energy sector could lead to severe consequences for both global markets and the U.S. economy. The war has dragged on since February with essentially no clear end in sight.
The FBI announced Thursday that it’s conducting an investigation into a wave of suspicious envelopes mailed to state election officials across the country. Apparently more than 100 letters went out, with recipients including at least one U.S. senator and a prominent pollster.
Election officials in both Louisiana and Oklahoma told authorities they received letters containing an unknown “white powdery substance.” Federal authorities have intercepted similar letters that were addressed to secretaries of state in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Ohio.
Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said election officials should never have to live in fear for simply doing their jobs. He characterized the letters as cowardly threats that won’t deter his office and staff. The FBI said it’s working alongside both the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and local law enforcement agencies to respond appropriately to each incident.
This has happened before. In the 2024 election, multiple suspicious packages were sent to various election officials in at least six different states. The people who count our votes are increasingly being targeted by bad actors, and that should cause significant alarm for anyone who cares about democracy and fair elections.
We’re getting under the skin of the MAGA billionaires who run the media and distribution platforms. On Facebook, where many of you first found us, Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithm is preventing our stories from reaching our followers. Elon Musk is doing the same on X. This is likely a response to our coverage of both Zuckerberg and Musk cozying up to Trump.
I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for watching, thanks for supporting independent media, and please be sure to click the ❤️ and tap the restack icon so we can get these stories in front of the people who need them the most.
