Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
The Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising text in Vice President JD Vance’s voice admitting groceries are too expensive, just days after Vance himself claimed the economy is booming. Two red state attorneys general are asking the Supreme Court to allow a pro-Trump billionaire to gobble up CNN’s parent company. A resurfaced video shows Trump’s young White House staffer Natalie Harp professing her bizarre devotion to him years before she ever joined his team, raising new questions about her medical claims and her fixation on the president. And Republicans who mourned the passing of country music legend Dolly Parton are now being called out for cutting public funding for her children’s book charity.
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The Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising text this week in the voice of Vice President JD Vance. It tells the recipient that if she can’t afford to donate right now, that’s fine, because “groceries cost what they cost.”
This is an interesting line, given that this is the same administration that spent months insisting the economy is in tip-top shape, and given that Trump himself has called the affordability crisis a “scam” and a “hoax” cooked up by Democrats. And yet his vice president still admits that a need as basic as food is too expensive for regular people to donate money to a political campaign.
The text links to a longer letter, supposedly from Vance himself, that opens with an apology. Not for anything Vance has done but for what “this business” has done to the recipient. The letter goes on to ask for money anyway, while promising an itemized receipt showing exactly how the recipient’s donation will be spent.
And again, this text came out just days after Vance stood in his Ohio hometown and told a crowd that homeownership is finally becoming a reality again for young Americans, even though it isn’t.
So which is it? Is the economy working as intended, or are groceries so expensive that the vice president is telling people to skip donating because of the price of food?
The Lincoln Project pointed out that the affordability crisis must be real if Vance is now fundraising off of it. Progressive commentator Isaiah Walker was more direct, arguing there’s no way anyone signed off on this fundraising pitch thinking it was a good idea.
The polling is pretty clear: a significant majority of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy, and trust Democrats more on economic issues. This isn’t a problem with messaging anymore, but with credibility. Voters simply aren’t buying Republicans’ rhetoric any longer.
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Two Republican attorneys general, Brenna Bird of Iowa and Austin Knudsen of Montana, just filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to intervene and kill an antitrust lawsuit filed by twelve Democratic-led states. That lawsuit is aiming to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN and a host of other media properties.
Iowa and Montana aren’t actually part of the original case. They’re simply asking the Supreme Court to use its seldom-invoked power over disputes between states to essentially override California and the 11 other states suing to stop the deal from going through.
Legal experts view Iowa and Montana’s effort as a long shot. University of Michigan professor Erik Gordon characterized it as political grandstanding, and said the Supreme Court is about as likely to block this antitrust enforcement as it is to name Donald Trump the litigator of the year. Attorney and former U.S. Ambassador Norm Eisen, who’s been fighting the merger, said there’s no valid legal argument for the filing, and that the Supreme Court intervening would effectively turn the entire system of antitrust enforcement on its head.
The filing from Iowa and Montana argues that because states opposing the merger have frequently mentioned CNN potentially getting a new owner, that means the lawsuit is political in nature, and not antitrust-related.
But the lawsuit itself doesn’t have anything to do with news coverage. It’s about whether one billionaire family should be able to singlehandedly control a massive Hollywood studio and basic cable distribution all at once. A federal judge already found serious questions about the deal that prompted her to issue a temporary restraining order in July.
There’s no need to over-complicate what this is. A deal backed by a Trump-aligned media mogul is running into resistance from state regulators doing their jobs. And instead of letting the legal process play out, Republicans are trying to circumvent it entirely by calling the manager in the form of the pro-Trump Roberts Court.
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Jonathan V. Last of the Bulwark recently published a report about a resurfaced video of Natalie Harp, the 35 year-old White House aide known for her intense obsession with Donald Trump. The clip is from around 2017, years before Harp ever worked for the president, and it reveals how deep and unsettling her devotion to him really is.
In the 96-second video, which was filmed as a selfie, Harp is standing by a lake, saying that she was the victim of a 2015 medical error. She claims she was accidentally infused with sterile water and went into hemorrhagic shock, causing her to lose nearly all of her blood platelets due to a rare medical condition. She added that the ordeal left her with cancer, chronic pain and significant medical bills. She then said Trump was responsible for changing her fate, though she never really explained how.
Medical experts who’ve looked into Harp’s claims say her account doesn’t add up. Errors involving sterile-water infusions are extremely rare, and documented cases show patients typically survive them. That significantly undercuts both Harp’s story as well as the claims of the man who initially posted the video, who is a Trump surrogate with ties to Michael Cohen.
This isn’t the first time Harp’s medical story has come under the microscope. At the 2020 Republican National Convention, she argued that Trump’s “right to try” law saved her from cancer. But analysts at the time pointed out that the experimental treatment she received was already legal and approved by the FDA well before that law went into effect.
This new video resurfaced just days after the Daily Beast published private letters from 2023 in which Harp called Trump her “guardian and protector in this life.” Her estranged brother called Harp’s relationship with Trump “unhealthy.” Regardless of her medical history, Harp’s claims combined with her proximity to the president — not to mention her having the keys to his Truth Social account — should be a much more significant concern for anyone paying attention.
Music legend Dolly Parton died this week at the age of 80, after a brief battle with cancer. The entire country has spent the last week mourning her and celebrating her contributions. Parton’s Imagination Library charity is credited with sending more than 332 million free books to thousands of kids across five countries. It’s one of the most beloved charities in the country. Parton said she built the charity to unite people around a common cause regardless of politics.
But while the nation grieves her, two Republican-led states have already moved to defund her charity.
Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, cut the program’s $3 million dollar state allowance in 2025, insisting private donors would make up the difference. Missouri also slashed its funding of the Imagination Library from $6 million dollars down to $2 million. That cut forced the state to freeze new enrollment in the program back in July. State officials say they’re not sure whether the program eve has a future in the Show Me State.
Ironically, Missouri was the first state in the country to fully fund the Imagination Library back in 2024. Parton herself said at the time it made her happy knowing she was giving kids something that made them feel special. But less than two years later, that funding has evaporated, while the same Republicans responsible for defunding Parton’s charity now post tributes to her legacy.
That’s a pretty cynical pattern: cut the funding first, post the tribute, and hope no one connects the dots.
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Thanks for reading. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. We’ll see you tomorrow.
