Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America. If you’re watching this on Substack right now, help us reach the people who really need these stories by clicking the ❤️ and restack icons. Those two clicks help more than you know.
Today, it’s been revealed that Donald Trump was reportedly so furious with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles after Republicans got humiliated in the midterms that she offered her resignation on the spot, clearing a path for outed white nationalist Stephen Miller to move into the role. Ohio’s Democratic Governor-elect, Amy Acton, says she has no plans to speak to her defeated Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy after he exploited her childhood sexual abuse for an attack ad. A new analysis by the New York Times finds that Democrat Mary Peltola is likely to win Alaska’s nail-bitingly close Senate race, while also poking a huge hole in one of Trump’s favorite go-to claims. And Ivanka Trump’s birthday party in Morocco was partially paid for by American taxpayers to the tune of almost $100,000.
Before we get started: the election is over, but the real fight is just beginning. The MAGA billionaires like Elon Musk who tried and failed to buy the midterms are now about to spend untold sums in the battle for your mind. That means rampant disinformation on social media and even more media consolidation. Independent media outlets like Raw America not beholden to any oligarch will become more important than ever over the next few years.
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A new report illustrates just how ugly things got in Donald Trump’s White House as Tuesday’s midterm results rolled in.
According to CNN’s Kristen Holmes, the president was so angry with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles after Republicans’ humiliating defeat that Wiles offered her resignation. That news broke Friday not long after Trump announced on Truth Social that deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller — an outed white nationalist who was the chief architect of his most cruel immigration policies — would take over as chief of staff on Monday.
Holmes reported that Trump had been “furious with Susie since the election losses.” Various allies and advisors had been repeatedly calling the president and urging him to make staffing changes at the senior level. Holmes said Trump’s outburst toward Wiles happened in full view of multiple people, and that Wiles offered to leave her position after being publicly berated.
This is a significant turnaround from just two weeks ago, when Trump dismissed speculation that Wiles was headed for the exits. Holmes recalled Trump telling her his chief of staff would be “by my side for a very long time.”
Holmes said Wiles had become known as the one constant force who had successfully kept a lid on the chaos that defined the president’s first term, and as a key member of his braintrust for the past six years. She also said Wiles was perhaps the only person who could protect the president from of his own “worst instincts.”
Now, that guardrail appears to be totally gone with Stephen Miller now officially the most powerful man in the White House outside of Trump for the next two years. Americans should brace themselves.
In Ohio, Democratic Governor-elect Amy Acton is making it clear she’s not extending an olive branch to the Republican opponent she just dispatched.
In a Friday appearance on CBS Mornings, Acton told host Gayle King she has no plans to have a conversation with Trump-endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy after he ran an ad that featured her estranged mother, Donna Arthur. Acton said the ad was both “terrible and despicable.”
The background behind the ad is what makes it so disturbing. Acton hasn’t spoken to her mother in decades. In the late 1970s, Donna Arthur lost custody of both of her children after defending her husband, Cledith Arthur, who was criminally charged with raping Acton when she was a young girl.
A grand jury indicted Cledith in July of 1978. He pleaded not guilty, then skipped town. He and Donna fled to Pennsylvania. He was a fugitive from the law until at least 1981. He died in 2004. Donna Arthur stayed married to him despite what he did to her daughter.
In Ramaswamy’s ad, Donna Arthur doesn’t mention the abuse allegations, but instead claimed her daughter “lied her entire life.” The ad was even criticized by some Republicans like current two-term Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. Some in the GOP worried that Ramaswamy may have sunk his own campaign by deciding to air it and spend $4 million spreading it across all of Ohio’s media markets in the final weeks of the election cycle.
As it turns out, they were right. Ramaswamy lost to Acton by eight points Tuesday night, despite Ohio not electing a Democratic governor since Ted Strickland in 2006.
Acton told CBS that America can’t afford to normalize behavior like Ramaswamy’s, making it clear that the ad was “so beyond the pale.” She said she believes leaders’ words should carry weight and that accountability is necessary. She added that Republicans relied heavily on lies and hatred in their campaign against her, but took solace in the fact that despite more than $150 million spent in the electon, Ohio voters saw through the propaganda.
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, also weighed in. He lamented that Ramaswamy “stooped to such a despicable low,” and said the attack revealed just how morally bankrupt Ramaswamy really is.
In Alaska, the Senate race has yet to be decided and it may take weeks to count all remaining votes. However, a new analysis is offering a promising outlook for Democrats.
Both incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola each sent out messages claiming they’ll ultimately prevail once every ballot is counted and ranked-choice preferences are accounted for. But the New York Times’ own analysis from the New York Times suggests the math favors Peltola.
The Times’ independent analysis also undermines one of Trump’s main talking points about the Alaska race. Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Alaska’s Division of Elections to block certification if Sen. Sullivan fell short, arguing that he would have won were it not for a candidate on the ballot with the same name — Daniel J. Sullivan — confusing voters. But a federal judge threw that lawsuit out last week.
According to the Times, Peltola was the second choice for most of Daniel J. Sullivan’s voters who ranked him first on their ballots, meaning she’ll pick up their votes once he’s eliminated from the full count. This means those voters weren’t actually confused at all about who they were voting for. Trump is still nonetheless demanding that Alaska hand over all of Daniel J. Sullivan’s votes, along with those of an entirely different fourth candidate, to Sen. Sullivan, despite the proposal having no basis in law, let alone any historical precedent.
As of this morning, Peltola was slightly leading the first-round count of ballots by roughly 600 ballots with 48.2 percent of the statewide vote. Her campaign says early in-person votes and absentee ballots have been breaking her way at a margin of more than 56 percent. Sen. Sullivan’s campaign insists he needs roughly 49.5 percent of the remaining two-way ballots and has 49.8 percent so far.
There’s a particular irony to all of this: if Sen. Sullivan ends up getting reelected, he’ll owe it all to ranked-choice voting, which is the very same system Republicans tried to repeal with a 2026 ballot initiative. That repeal campaign appears likely to fail. And if Peltola wins, she could be either the 55th or 56th Democratic member of the U.S. Senate in the next session of Congress, depending on whether Democrat Scott Colom wins Mississippi’s Senate race, which is also shaping up to be a photo finish. Democrats have already flipped six Republican seats so far.
Tell Democrats: use your new majorities to abolish the Electoral College!
Our last story tonight is about Donald Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, and the luxurious birthday getaway that was partially funded by American taxpayers.
According to a report in the Daily Mail, Ivanka was seen in Marrakesh, Morocco, on October 29, the day before she turned 45. Federal records obtained by the paper show there were two Secret Service contracts for roughly $93,000 for agents to both secure and stay at a two five-star hotels ahead of the first daughter’s arrival.
That includes $59,543 for rooms at the Sofitel Marrakech and $33,457 for a Secret Service team to be stationed at La Mamounia, which has hosted well-known guests like Winston Churchill and the Kardashian family. Those figures don’t even account for Secret Service agents’ flights to and from each destination, meals, transportation or salaries.
Even though Ivanka herself isn’t an employee of the White House, she’s still entitled to her own Secret Service detail as a member of the president’s family. Moroccan outlet Le360 reported that Ivanka walked through Marrakesh’s old neighborhoods and and enjoyed a cuisine of traditional Moroccan food. Her trip ended in time for her to make it home for the midterms.
Ivanka Trump is worth an estimated $100 million, and that figure grows exponentially when factoring in the total net worth of her husband, Jared Kushner, who is worth more than $1 billion. She could easily reimburse taxpayers for her Morocco trip, particularly when millions of Americans are struggling to afford basic needs like food and fuel thanks to her father’s policies. The one silver lining in all of this is that for once, that money wasn’t spent at one of her father’s resorts.
On January 3, the next Congress will gavel into session and investigate the Trump administration for abuses like the ones documented in these stories. Raw America isn’t waiting until then to uncover what’s really going on in Washington. Our Capitol reporter, Luke De Cresce, has spent this week pounding the pavement in the Rayburn and Cannon buildings, meeting with staffers for both the top Democrats on the most influential committees, and with decision-makers for incoming members. Our White House reporter, Brian Karem, will soon be out with a new report revealing what his sources are saying about Trump’s embattled Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth.
I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent journalism. If you haven’t already, be sure to hit the ❤️ and restack this newsletter so these stories can reach the most people. Have a great weekend.