Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. Before we get to the news, take a second to hit the ❤️ and restack this newsletter. That’s how independent journalism breaks through into more readers’ feeds.
Today, Donald Trump’s new taxpayer-funded ad is reminding Americans that he started the same kind of foreign war he promised to keep them out of, and that prices are now higher than they were before he took office. The Republican running for a powerful statewide office in Texas has been caught calling for the public executions of prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama. Senate Republicans are rejecting Pete Hegseth’s call for $1.5 trillion in new military spending. And Democrats are already preparing subpoenas for the Trump family if they win a majority in either chamber of Congress this fall.
A quick ask: we’re still short of our September fundraising goal and only have a few days left to catch up. We’re also under a barrage of censorship from Mark Zuyckerberg’s Facebook and Elon Musk’s X, because MAGA tech billionaires don’t want their algorithms amplifying these stories. But by becoming a paying subscriber, you can ensure you’ll get stories like these directly in your inbox, which they can’t touch.
A new TV ad features President Donald Trump warning Americans: “This is the final battle.” It ends with text that reads “paid for by the US Government,” meaning us taxpayers. That last line has led to a real headache for the Trump administration.
Monday’s panel on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” did a deep dive on the ad after it premiered this past weekend. The hosts began the segment by playing a clip of Republican Senator John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana saying the ad was “probably illegal.” Kennedy pointed out that there’s a law against politicians spending public money to promote themselves.
MS NOW host Joe Scarborough pointed out that taxpayers footed the bill for the ad, and said it as akin to “stealing taxpayer dollars.” But what really stood out to Scarborough was Trump’s line about keeping Americans out of new foreign wars. He told viewers: “When [Trump] says, I’m keeping you out of foreign wars, what he’s saying is, ‘Hey everybody, I’ve got you in a foreign war. I put you in a foreign war.’ That is a reminder: look what I have done!”
Scarborough’s co-host, Jonathan Lemire, also observed that the two main pillars of Trump’s 2024 campaign were staying out of foreign wars and bringing down prices, with Lemire saying the president “has not fulfilled either.” He went on to say that the ad ends up reminds the very people who paid for it that Trump failed to follow through on his biggest promises.
Scarborough also warned that the ad almost certainly means trouble for the Republican Party, saying: “This is bad. It’s bad for America.” He told the GOP it’s also enormously bad for their party, saying they “need to make him stop.”
Congress has attached language to almost every single federal appropriations package since 1951 that prevents federal money from being spent on “publicity or propaganda.” The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has long read that to forbid officials who control the treasury from engaging in self-aggrandizement. A president using our tax money to sell us on himself is the exact thing that rule was written to stop.
Bo French is the GOP nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, which has broad authority over the state’s billion-dollar oil and gas industry. That includes oversight over drilling, pipelines and natural gas infrastructure.
French has already been facing an onslaught of criticism from members of both parties for a racist post attacking Asian students at a University of Texas football game as “foreigners” who were supposedly displacing Americans. He’s refused to apologize for the post. Both outgoing Republican Senator John Cornyn and longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove have said they refuse to vote for French.
Now, a new CNN investigation has uncovered something even uglier. Over the past several years, French has repeatedly called for public executions of prominent Democrats in now-deleted social media posts.
In May 2020, after Donald Trump’s Justice Department dropped its case against retired General Michael Flynn, French demanded the death penalty for people he referred to as “Obama conspirators.” He then wrote, “The penalty for treason used to be death. Even for a former president,” using the hashtag “HangEmHigh.”
In February 2025, while he was chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, French suggested that the acronym for DOGE should be “Dangle Officials Gallows Expeditiously.” He then wrote in a subsequent post, “I want more than perp walks. I want public executions.”
When one of his followers commented that they wanted California Democrat Adam Schiff — who is now a U.S. senator — to go to prison, French replied a few minutes later, writing: “No. I want to see public executions for traitors.”
CNN confirmed the deleted posts came from the same X account French currently uses, as both the old and current handles share the same numeric user ID. It’s unclear whether French himself was responsible for deleting them or if the platform itself pulled them for violating rules on advocating for violence.
Earlier this year, French called on the Trump administration to deport 100 million people, and said Republicans should openly embrace Islamophobia. In spite of his rhetoric, incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, still support him. When Democrat James Talarico called on Paxton to condemn French, Paxton would only say that he “condemn[s] racism in all its forms” without specifically naming French. Abbott said French’s post was “not my message,” but he has yet to withdraw his endorsement. and he has yet to comment on French’s posts calling for Democrats to be publicly executed.
French is up against Democratic state representative Jon Rosenthal this November for a six-year term on the Texas Railroad Commission.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution had watched English kings hang their critics as “traitors,” which is exactly why Article III defines treason more narrowly than any other crime in the document. It also requires two witnesses to the same overt act before anyone can be convicted of it. When a man who wants to regulate the nation’s biggest oil and gas industry endorses hanging a former president, he isn’t defending our republic, but rather calling for a return to the tyrannical government they fled.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been asking Congress for $1.5 trillion in new military spending for the next year, which is more than 40 percent above what the Pentagon spent last year. He’s also seeking a separate $88 billion package for both the Iran war and additional weapons. But an increasing number of Senate Republicans are stiff-arming him.
Semafor reported today that the growing GOP resistance to Hegseth spells trouble for the defense secretary, along with his relationship with Congress and Trump’s ongoing war in Iran. The Republican pushback also comes amidst continuous turmoil at the Pentagon, with Hegseth firing top generals and blocking military promotions for a disproportionately high number of Black and female officers.
One unnamed Republican senator confided to Semafor that lots of lawmakers are upset about the Iran war, saying it’s “hurting our chances in the elections in the fall,” and said the administration’s strategy “seems rather haphazard.” That senator also heaped criticism on Hegseth for firing respected admirals and generals.
Outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who voted to confirm Hegseth last year, said the first significant briefing he actually got on the Iran war after seven months of fighting came just last week. Tillis went on to vote against continuing the war along with three other Republicans. Those four GOP votes could sink a defense spending bill assuming all Democrats vote no. Tillis then wondered: “Why is anybody going to blindly appropriate anything to him?”
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs Senate Appropriations Committee and voted against confirming Hegseth, said her fears about him have been confirmed, saying Hegseth has “blocked promotions for some of our most capable military officers.” She also noted that the “number of women and Black people that had been struck from the list was awful.”
Senator Kennedy of Louisiana quipped that anyone who thinks the Pentagon will get money outside of the budget reconciliation process “needs to put down the bong.” Democrats are also not rushing to bail out Hegseth, with one Trump administration official telling Semafor the former part-time Fox News weekend host is “not going to get Democrat votes.”
That same anonymous official warned a standoff over Pentagon funding could leave the military without funds for recruitment bonuses, repairs on military housing, fixing ships and aircraft and restocking America’s weapons arsenal, saying: “We’re really depleted after the Iran war.”
For now, Trump is still stands by Hegseth, which means Republicans will now have to decide whether they want to make the president mad or swallow their concerns and vote for the funding anyway. But if Democrats take back either chamber of Congress in November, Hegseth can kiss his hopes of a massive Pentagon funding package goodbye.
When Dwight Eisenhower left office in 1961, the five-star general who led the largest invasion in human history warned Americans about “unwarranted influence” from the military-industrial complex, which was tiny compared to the one we’re facing today. If even Republican senators are now asking why Congress should just hand over $1.5 trillion to a defense secretary who won’t give them war briefings, Ike’s warning seems to be finally landing on the desks of the people he addressed it to.
If Democrats win back control of either the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate on November 3, the Trump family’s business empire could be under Congress’ microscope as early as February. With control of either chamber comes subpoena power, and millions of dollars in new funding to hire more staff to conduct investigations.
There’s plenty of material for a would-be Democratic majority to work with. Over the last two years, the First Family has made significant investments in multiple industries including artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and drones, while the president’s personal net worth has swelled by more than $2.2 billion. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York is promising to “hold the crooks accountable, beginning on day one.”
Private companies are particularly juicy targets because, unlike the White House, they can’t hide behind executive privilege. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland both pointed to Trump-linked cryptocurrency ventures along with 1789 Capital — the venture capital firm run by the president’s eldest son — as potential targets for new subpoenas.
Raskin, who is in line to chair the House Judiciary Committee if Democrats win back the speaker’s gavel, noted that Trump’s Pentagon gave a $620 million loan to rare-earth startup Vulcan Elements, which was announced around three months after Don Jr.’s fund bought a stake in the firm. Raskin observed that Don Jr, “seems to have a clairvoyant sensibility of exactly who is going to get government contracts.” Vulcan insists it didn’t ask any investors to help secure the loan.
Raskin also pointed to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as someone Democrats in Congress “absolutely will need to talk to.” He accused Kushner of ignoring two formal inquiries into deals between his investment firm, Affinity Partners, and Gulf Arab governments while he was negotiating on behalf of the United States. Kushner’s lawyer insists that nobody has identified any specific rule that he allegedly broke.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California is also warning corporations to not shred any documents tied to their dealings with the Trump administration in expectation of future investigations. He’s also looking into a White House plan to allow parts of Yosemite National Park to be developed by a company with connections to GOP campaign committees, saying: “In this administration everything is for sale, including our most precious gems like Yosemite.”
Companies already seem to be gearing up for a Democratic-led Congress. 1789 Capital recently retained the law firm Quinn Emanuel and announced it wouldn’t be “held hostage to political gamesmanship.” The White House is currently shrugging off the planned investigations, calling them baseless. But even some Republicans support new investigations with Senator John Curtis of Utah called for a probe into a Russian oligarch paying for or Don Jr.’s wedding earlier this year.
Roughly a century ago, the Senate’s historic Teapot Dome investigation exposed how a cabinet secretary sold off public oil reserves in exchange for bribes. When a witness refused to show up before Congress, the Supreme Court ruled in the McGrain v. Daugherty case that Congress’s power to compel people to testify before committees is built right into its power to legislate. Oversight is the Constitution’s immune system, but it only works when people are actually willing to switch it on.
Far-right billionaires who own major cable networks and newspapers like David Ellison and Jeff Bezos won’t lead with these stories because they don’t fit the narrative they want you to believe. And MAGA oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk won’t show these stories in your feeds for the same reason. Raw America can bring you coverage like this precisely because we don’t have a wealthy owner calling the shots. We only answer to you. But this work can only continue if readers believe in it enough to support it.
I’m Thom Hartmann. Once again, please take a moment to tap the ❤️ and restack this edition so we can reach the readers who really need these stories. Thank you for reading, and thank you for supporting independent media.