Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. If you’re watching this on Substack, take a few seconds to click the ❤️ and tap the restack icon. Those two clicks are what help us break through and reach the people who really need to hear these stories.
Today, in an exclusive report from Raw America White House correspondent Brian Karem, a Republican member of Congress is heaping criticism on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his sudden firing of the Pentagon’s top war planner as both Democrats and Republicans push for Hegseth’s impeachment. Defense Department officials are also now bracing for the likelihood of Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion military budget never making it out of Congress. Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance are canceling public appearances even in traditionally red states in the final days of a midterm cycle that’s looking increasingly bad for the GOP. And the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat is now putting a plan in place to investigate the president’s son-in-law over billions in payments from foreign governments.
As you’ll read below, Raw America’s White House reporter, Brian Karem, is tapping into his sources at the Pentagon and in Congress to bring you news that no one else is reporting. He’s there not because a MAGA billionaire wrote a check, but because our readers chipped in to support hard-hitting independent journalism. Whether this work keeps going is entirely up to you.
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Pressure is mounting in Congress to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with both Democrats and Republicans apparently now working together to make it happen. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed the initial resolution, and Democrats who expect to take over the House — and possibly the Senate — in the midterms told Raw America Thursday night they’ll vigorously be pursuing impeachment in the next Congress.
This comes after Hegseth suddenly fired Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia without warning on Thursday. Sylvia was the Pentagon’s Director for Strategy, Plans and Policy and its highest ranking war strategist. Sylvia was fired roughly 24 hours before a strategic meeting with Defense Department officials and the president about plans to ramp up strikes on Iran.
Miles Taylor, who was chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration, told Raw America that Hegseth may have sealed his own fate by firing Sylvia, saying: “There is a time coming when Hegseth will be held accountable. He knows it and there’s likely nothing he can do about it.”
Sylvia has been in MAGA’s crosshairs for the better part of a year. In September of 2025, far-right influencer Laura Loomer called for his dismissal on X after his son, Gavin Sylvia, made critical comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death online after he was killed at an event in Utah. Loomer explicitly called on Hegseth to “review the employment of Gavin’s father, MG Brett Sylvia.”
One unnamed Republican member of Congress confided to Raw America that “it doesn’t look good no matter how you cut it. It almost looks like Loomer is running the Pentagon.”
The Pentagon is saying Sylvia was fired for failing polygraph tests and was being investigated for potentially leaking classified information about wars in Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere. Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a Thursday statement that the Pentagon has “zero tolerance for the intentional, unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” and that after an “extensive” investigation, Sylvia, “along with others,” had been referred to the Justice Department “for potential legal action.”
When a reporter in a Thursday press gaggle asked Trump what proof the administration has, the president seemed unaware that Sylvia is a man, saying “she’s going to have big problems.”
When President Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, it was a president reminding America’s most renowned general that the United States military answers to the Constitution, and not to any one man’s personal ambitions. But under this president, that principle has been turned on its head. Now, the nation’s top war planner has been unceremoniously thrown out on the eve of a major war meeting because a right-wing social media influencer wanted his family to be punished. That’s exactly why the Framers wanted the military to be under civilian control.
Elsewhere at the Pentagon, Defense Department officials are apparently expecting Trump’s record $1.5 trillion military budget to fall apart in Congress. For months, the administration has pushed for lawmakers to appropriate money to projects like a “Golden Fleet” battleship and his proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system. The administration is also hoping to get funding to replace a weapons arsenal depleted as a result of the Iran war.
However, Trump’s funding request will require bipartisan support. And so far, that isn’t panning out. The GOP is likely to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress on Tuesday, and Pentagon officials are reportedly now drafting a budget proposal about $400 billion smaller than the president’s. A former Pentagon official told Politico that “none of them expect anywhere close to 1.5 trillion.” Another source confided that the Pentagon “can’t admit” it’s planning for less money, since that would publicly contradict the White House’s public statements.
The president is hoping to get the budget across the finish line by using the budget reconciliation process to add $350 billion to a $1.15 trillion base budget. That process is what allows the Senate to pass certain spending bills with just 51 votes and bypass the filibuster. But Republicans have less than five weeks after the November 3 midterms before the new Congress is sworn in. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio told Politico that if Republicans lose their majorities, “it’ll be the Last Supper.”
There’s a clear reason Article I of the Constitution makes it clear that no military appropriation can last longer than two years. The founders had just fought against a tyrant who kept a standing army that answered only to him. They wanted every generation of Congress to have to look the voters directly in their faces before writing another big check for the war machine. That’s precisely the kind of accountability this administration is trying to avoid by passing a reconciliation bill in the lame duck session.
Speaking of the midterms, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance are now cancelling planned public appearances in states with tight Senate elections just four days before voters head to the polls. Trump called off rallies in Kansas and Iowa scheduled for this weekend, and is instead opting to hold tele-rallies by phone. The Republican National Committee called it a “72-hour sprint” that would focus on at least 19 states.
Trump has hosted 25 rallies in October. On Monday, he sounded audibly hoarse in Corinth, Mississippi, telling supporters, “God didn’t make your vocal cords to do a rally every day.” He reversed course on Thursday, telling a Reuters reporter at a South Carolina event “I feel perfect” when asked if his busy rally schedule was wearing on him.
A few hours after that event, JD Vance cancelled a planned Friday press conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota touting the Trump administration’s “War on Fraud,” without giving a specific reason. The cancellations come as Trump’s approval rating continues to plummet to new record lows as gas prices remain stubbornly high due to the war with Iran. NBC News’ polling average shows that 52 percent of Americans want Democrats to control Congress, whereas only 43 percent want Republicans to remain in charge.
160 years ago,Andrew Johnson took his own unpopular presidency on the road in what he called the Swing Around the Circle. Voters proceeded to heckle him all the way from from Cleveland to St. Louis. He then watched voters hand his opponents a veto-proof majority in Congress that fall. Trump appears to have learned the one lesson Johnson didn’t, which is that when the public has turned against you, the safest place to be is out of sight. This also shows that a president who’s that afraid of his own voters should tell us everything we need to know about where how Tuesday’s election will pan out.
Our final story this morning: Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland — who would chair the House Judiciary Committee if Democrats take back the House of Representatives — is officially setting his sights on Jared Kushner. Vanity Fair magazine published an excerpt from journalist Matthew Cole’s upcoming book. According to that excerpt, Kushner allegedly had access to roughly $2 billion in secret funds linked to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates while he was serving as a senior adviser to his father-in-law.
In a letter initially shared with MS NOW, Raskin told Kushner he’s “currently unfit to serve in any capacity in the United States government,” writing that at least five foreign governments seem to have “damning kompromat” on him. Raskin is calling on Kushner to fully recuse himself from representing the United States in any capacity until he hands over records of his foreign payments.
Democrats currently lack subpoena power in the minority. However, Raskin wrote this letter without his usual Oversight Committee co-author, which signals he’s planning to have the Judiciary Committee investigate Kushner if Democrats win back committee gavels on Tuesday. Kushner responded to Cole’s reporting by calling it “completely insane,” even though he has well-documented ties to Middle Eastern leaders. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, for example, poured roughly $2 billion into his firm, Affinity Partners.
After Congress discovered in 1938 that Nazi Germany was quietly paying Americans to influence our politics in their favor, it passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act arguing that anyone taking foreign money to influence America should be required to disclose that to the public. Almost ninety years later, a president’s son-in-law sitting on $2 billion in Gulf money is negotiating foreign policy on America’s behalf and insisting any questions about the arrangement are “insane.” Whether Jamie Raskin gets his subpoena power next week could also be seen as a vote on whether the foreign agent registration law still means anything.
Raw America is only able to cover stories like these — in which a Republican exclusively tells us that the Pentagon is now answering to a far-right influencer and a top Democrat is planning to investigate the president’s son-in-law — because we only answer to our readers, not a billionaire owner. That kind of independence is increasingly rare, but it requires resources to sustain.
I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media. If you haven’t yet, be sure to hit the ❤️ and click restack so these stories can reach the most people. Have a great weekend.