Good evening. I’m John Byrne in for British Chris, and this is Raw America. First, take a few seconds to tap the ❤️ and restack this edition. That’s the best way to make sure our independent journalism breaks through and reaches more readers.
A top Republican senator believes the White House is directly responsible for feeding Oklahoma US Senator Eric Schmitt the bad intel behind his viral humiliating exchange with former special counsel Jack Smith this week. Republicans are scrambling to pass a mostly toothless data center bill as voter anger over sky-high electric bills poses a genuine threat to the GOP’s control of the Senate. West Virginia GOP Senator Jim Justice is now urging Donald Trump to reconsider his nationwide ICE crackdowns as ranchers are now experiencing a dire labor shortage. And Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders is lending his massive $22.8 million war chest to help progressive Senate candidates running in tight races in Florida, Michigan and Minnesota.
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Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri thought he had former Special Counsel Jack Smith dead to rights during yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. But in one viral exchange in which he suggested Smith secretly traveled to Atlanta in 2024 to coordinate his prosecution of Donald Trump with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He accused Smith of using an Atlanta Hawks NBA game as cover.
In reality, Smith attended an Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball game in College Park, Maryland. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar announced Schmitt’s error to the committee by noting that he “got [his] teams wrong.” Suddenly, a Republican senator that Axios floated that same morning as a possible 2028 vice presidential contender became a national laughingstock.
One unnamed high-ranking Republican senator told Raw Story on Wednesday that the bad information almost certainly didn’t come from Schmitt’s office, but from Trump’s White House. The senator confided that Trump administration officials were likely the ones who asked Schmitt to make the claim during hearing and provided him with the material in question. Schmitt’s office didn’t respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa told Raw Story that she’d also watched the exchange, and made sure to note that staff work should be verified before a public hearing. She also observed that she knows the difference between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks.
Klobuchar said Republicans’ refusal to believe Smith’s sworn testimony shows how far gone Republicans are when it comes to their belief in unhinged conspiracy theories. Schmitt tried to defend his line of questioning by accusing Jack Smith of perjury, but no one outside of his party seems to be buying that argument.
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Data centers have gone from job creation vehicles to political poison in a little less than a year. Now, Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from them.
The Senate is voting on a bill sponsored by Republican Senator Jon Husted of Ohio called the Ratepayer Protection Act. That legislation easily passed the House of Representatives by a margin of 417 to 3. The bill would only require state utility commissions to consider making data centers pay their own energy costs. Husted backed data center tax incentives as Ohio’s lieutenant governor, and his general election opponent, former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, has branded him as “the face of data centers” in his campaign ads.
Democrats blocked the bill last week and are planning to oppose it again. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York pointed out that the bill is essentially toothless as all of its proposed recommendations on data centers are entirely optional. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut called the bill an attempt to make voters forget that Republicans spent the entirety of Trump’s second presidency so far trying to stop states from regulating the AI industry.
Outgoing Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas even admitted the bill was more about optics than anything else, saying the pending vote would serve as a “confidence builder” for voters who are concerned about data centers in their own communities.
The polls are not on the industry’s side. Last year, Heatmap found Americans evenly split last year on whether they supported having a data center built in their neighborhood. Today, 75 percent of Americans are opposed to the idea. Gallup and Pew also found similar collapses in support in surveys of their own. One GOP pollster told The Washington Sun the issue is a “tailor-made, perfect s**tstorm” that combines the affordability crisis, corruption and corporate greed, and said it hurts Republicans most because they’re the incumbent party that controls all three branches of the federal government.
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Republican Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia is loudly breaking with Trump over his draconian immigration policy.
Justice told Politico on Tuesday that the Trump administration should seriously reconsider how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is conducting itself. He lamented that federal agents are dragging away people who have peacefully coexisted with their neighbors for decades, and said he doesn’t think the federal government should be focusing resources on that. Justice, who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, went on to say that it’s impossible to improve before acknowledging you made a mistake.
The West Virginia Republican’s comments come after groups representing ranchers complained that ICE crackdowns in agriculture-heavy states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are costing cattlemen millions of dollars and hurting supply chains as frightened livestock workers decide staying home is safer.
Since then, Justice seems to have ruffled feathers at the White House, posting on his official X account today that he still supports Trump’s immigration strategy “full stop.” Meanwhile, Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota is urging the Department of Homeland Security to streamline processing for legal temporary farm workers so farmers and ranchers can have help during the harvest season.
Given that food and fuel prices already have farm country in dire economic straits, it’s easy to see why rural Republicans are getting increasingly nervous as the cheap immigrant labor they counted on for years is now in serious jeopardy. Those chickens may all come home to roost on November 3.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced today he’s using his considerable campaign war chest to bolster the campaigns of several progressive U.S. Senate candidates he’s endorsed.
Sanders, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in both 2016 and 2020, still has $22.8 million available for federal campaigns as of the end of June 2026. He’ll now be spending millions to help Angie Nixon in Florida (who Raw America interviewed last month), Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan (who also appeared on Raw America this spring). Notably, some of those candidates, like Nixon, aren’t getting assistance from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Sanders said strong progressives who won tough primaries now need help to compete with well-funded Republicans heading into the general election. The Vermont senator is also spending down his war chest to help reelect Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and on helping Democratic House candidates in both Ohio and Wisconsin.
Nixon, who prevailed over the far better-funded Alex Vindman in this summer’s Democratic primary, is going up against appointed Republican Senator Ashley Moody, who is running for her first full term in the Sunshine State. Most election forecasters still believe Florida is a Republican stronghold, but a recent survey from St. Pete Polls showed the race tied at 45 percent, suggesting Moody isn’t unbeatable. Nixon also announced she’ll be a co-sponsor of Sanders’ bill that would impose a federal moratorium on new AI data centers, tying her campaign directly to one of the biggest issues of the midterm election.
A federal judge is expected to officially approve Paramount CEO David Ellison’s $111 billion merger with CNN’s parent company, meaning the MAGA billionaire who ruined 60 Minutes is about to do the same thing to one of the biggest newsrooms in the world. You can count on an Ellison-owned CNN to promote MAGA propaganda while burying news that undermines the MAGA narrative.
Raw America is excited to announce interviews with two Democratic members of Congress, who will talk about everything from the movement against data centers to the perils of runaway AI and a slew of other topics. Catch our interviews with U.S. Rep. George Whitesides (D-Calif.) tomorrow at 4:30 PM ET, and with U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.) Friday at 9:10 AM ET by tuning into our homepage at RawAmerica.com.
I’m John Byrne, in for British Chris, Thanks for watching, and for supporting independent journalism. If you haven’t already, please tap the ❤️ and restack this newsletter. Every like and restack helps us reach the people who need these stories the most.
