Raw Exclusives

There’s always a learning curve when you start a brand new job, no matter how qualified or prepared you might be. You have to learn everyone’s name, how to get along in the culture that’s being created in your immediate environment, and then give it your all to make sure you’re performing to the best of your ability as you continue to get acclimated.

Unless, of course, you’re a member of the Trump Regime, where all new hires can just walk into their gig without any experience, qualifications, or knowledge of what the role might entail — so long as they look good on camera.

So when it was announced last week that Newsmax talking head Katie Zacharia would take over as the newest Press Secretary, I made a prediction that she wouldn’t even last a Scaramucci....

In the Catholic Church, committing a cardinal sin means you’re doomed. For those who aren’t Catholic, a cardinal sin would include killing innocent Americans in their neighborhoods or threatening to live-stream a third-world execution,

On Wednesday, in a bit of prophetic writing, I stated — as a former press secretary myself — that newly appointed White House press secretary Katie Zacharia had committed two cardinal sins as a public spokesperson: she wasn’t honest with the press and she didn’t speak with authority.

I probably should have written that she would be gone by the end of the week. However, deep down in my former spokesperson and kind Catholic heart, I wanted to give her a chance in a truly thankless job — take it from me, it is. ...

If the Trump campaign wants a rally playlist, it should skip morbid tunes like "Phantom of the Opera" and "November Rain" and go straight to the classic dance track from 1994, the Real McCoy's "Run Away."

It's the one song brainwormed on the minds of most Republicans on the November ballot. First came the convention no-shows, then the scrubbed websites, and now the empty seats. Even Texas Governor Greg Abbott bailed on Trump's San Antonio rally last week. If Abbott bails on you, then you know you’re fixin' to catch a beating.

None of this is new, of course. But the running away has been intensifying, just as Trump has been putting frequent flyer miles on that luxury jet that he took from Qatar. The exodus began in the closing weeks of summer, when dozens of Republicans in competitive races found reasons to skip the GOP's own midterm convention in Dallas, among them Sens Susan Collins, Mike Rounds and Dan Sullivan. ...

Kimberly Guilfoyle was summarily fired by press conference on Tuesday, as everyone knows. Some know a few of the details, but irony that is this delicious begs for a rundown highlighting some rather normal, all but adorable, attempts at self-enrichment by somebody so completely out of her league.

Ultimately, though, Guilfoyle proved again that once a Trump (close enough), always a Trump, and that if one is going to go for pure enrichment in office, it's best to be all-in with enough money involved to possibly look respectable rather than pitiful, perhaps a portion cut to the pres... of course, we can't "know."

From the beginning, Guilfoyle's appointment rolled eyes and garnered sighs, "Trump being Trump." Ambassadorships have long represented lifetime achievement awards for big donors and friends. But most "big donors" come with some career experience and a large enough account to have given a ton of money — most, not all, had proven competence enough at an international level....

If we know anything about this administration, it's that there is no limit to anything, no bottom to any matter — it's a given. But that's quite different than saying it's beyond the power to shock.

At times, Trump 2.0's actions can still jam a jaw to the floor, particularly when the move involves absurd grift while servicing some of the most pro-fascist, pro-Russian forces on Earth, and especially when the White House connection lands at the feet of the second most powerful person ensconced in the dump.

CBS News reported last week that Katie Wiles, the daughter of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, recently traveled to Republika Srpska, the Bosnian-controlled territory led by pro-Russian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik. A fascist meeting a fellow fascist, and not for a vacation. ...

WASHINGTON — Democrats have spent months researching arcane election law, preparing legal briefings and even role-playing ahead of this fall’s midterms so they’re ready, in real time, to combat as many as 150 potential threats President Donald Trump might throw at them.

But, even with all that meticulous preparation, the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to have a solid plan if Trump declares a national emergency ahead of Election Day.

“We talked about this today. It's a little frightening,” Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) told Raw Story last month — on the last day the House of Representatives was in session before November’s elections. “We're just coming up with scenarios of what could happen.” ...

In a bid to navigate the “biggest single mistake” of President Donald Trump’s two terms in office, the president has sparked a new “complete catastrophe,” a panel of journalists argued Monday on MS NOW.

“This war with Iran is going to prove to be the biggest single mistake of Donald Trump's two terms in office,” said David Rohde, MS NOW senior national security reporter. “The Saudi Arabian government could fall there — it's a disaster for this country and it's extraordinary what's happening, just the stakes here every day.”

A cascade of attacks has erupted across the Middle East in recent days amid Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran, a conflict that has kept U.S. fuel prices elevated. However, Trump has increasingly blamed the Russo-Ukrainian war for elevated fuel prices....

President Donald Trump delivered his rally speech in Tennessee Saturday to entire sections of empty seats at the F&M Bank Arena in Clarksville, new video and photos of the rally revealed.

“President Trump’s crowd on a Saturday afternoon in Clarksville, Tennessee, near the Kentucky border, deep in the heart of Trump country,” wrote New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh in a social media post on X, alongside a video showing entire seating sections devoid of attendees.

Reuters photographer Seth Herald also captured a photo featuring “a section of empty seats” at the arena while Trump delivered his rally speech, which was disrupted within minutes by a heckler....

President Donald Trump is already displaying signs that he's a depressed old man, and one author predicted that those signs could be magnified if the November midterms go the way the polls currently suggest.

Kurt Anderson, founder of Spy Magazine, told Joanna Coles on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" that Trump's recent statements about his devoted aide, Natalie Harp, suggest he's "manifestly miserable." Trump told reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in an interview for their book "Regime Change" that "All of you will go off and make money ... she'll never leave me," referring to Harp.

Anderson predicted that if Republicans get trounced in the midterms, as polls suggest they might, then Trump's depression might begin to spiral. ...