BREAKING: The Day Trump's Strategy Cracked

REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

Good evening, this is Really American. It is Monday, July 13, 2026. The courts said no. The states said no. Maine said hell no. Trump booked a primetime speech about 2020.

Today a federal judge tore apart Trump’s sweetheart IRS settlement, called it a scheme built on bad faith, and referred his lawyer for discipline just days before Todd Blanche faces the Senate. Twelve states went to court to stop the Ellison family from swallowing CNN, HBO, and half of Hollywood in one bite. Trump responded to all of it the only way he knows how, by announcing a primetime address to relitigate the election he lost six years ago. And in Maine, an ICE agent shot and killed an innocent father in front of his three-year-old daughter, and within hours an entire city poured into the streets. The pattern is impossible to miss. Every piece of the strategy is cracking at once, and the people cracking it are judges, states, and ordinary Americans.

BEFORE THE NEWS: WHO OWNS YOUR NEWS

Today, twelve states had to sue to stop David Ellison from putting CNN, CBS News, HBO Max, and Paramount under one roof, with Bari Weiss already purging journalists at 60 Minutes. Bezos owns the Post. Murdoch runs Fox. The billionaire takeover of American media is not a prediction anymore, it is a court docket. Really American is the alternative: fully reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale at any price. If you have been reading on a free subscription, this is the moment to upgrade to a paying membership. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

FEDERAL JUDGE TORCHES TRUMP’S IRS SCAM

A federal judge ruled Monday that Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS was a sham from the start, brought for an “improper purpose” and settled through collusion between Trump and the Justice Department he controls.

In a blistering 56-page order, Judge Kathleen Williams referred Trump lawyer Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for potential discipline and restricted a second lawyer, Daniel Epstein, from practicing in her district. She also mailed copies of her order to the bar associations of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the two men who signed off on the deal. According to reporting from CBS News, Williams wrote that Trump and his sons “acted in bad faith” and that “it is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties.”

Remember what this settlement actually did. It created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, a number picked for the branding, not the math. The judge said so herself, writing that the figure “speaks of a ‘branding’ effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages.” Congress already forced the DOJ to abandon the fund. But the provision permanently shielding Trump, his sons, and his companies from IRS tax claims is still standing.

Blanche walks into his Senate confirmation hearing for attorney general this week with a federal judge having just flagged his conduct to the D.C. Bar. Senators now have a 56-page roadmap of exactly what to ask him. This is your tax agency, and Trump tried to use a fake lawsuit to make sure it can never audit him again. A judge just put that on the record forever.

TWELVE STATES MOVE TO BLOCK ELLISON’S MEDIA EMPIRE

Twelve states sued Monday to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the deal that would hand David Ellison control of CNN, CBS News, HBO Max, Paramount+, and two of the biggest studios in Hollywood.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are leading the suit, joined by ten other states. They argue the merger violates the Clayton Antitrust Act by strangling competition and creating a monopoly over news and entertainment. Per the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal reported last month that DOJ leadership closed its investigation into the deal before career antitrust lawyers could object to it.

The stakes are not abstract. Ellison already bought the Free Press and installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News, where she has fired correspondents and producers at 60 Minutes. Three of them say she interfered with stories in ways that would benefit Trump. The remaining correspondents have publicly threatened to walk if she touches their independence. Now she may end up running CNN too.

Trump’s DOJ waved this deal through. The states are the last line of defense. Whether one Trump-allied family gets to decide what news reaches your living room is being decided in a Northern California courtroom right now.

TRUMP RETREATS TO HIS 2020 FANTASY

Trump announced a primetime “Speech to the Nation” for Thursday at 9 p.m., where he will reportedly present declassified intelligence claiming foreign nations plotted to interfere in the 2020 election. The election he lost.

MS Now reported the speech will lean on declassified documents, according to The Independent. Here is what the actual intelligence record says. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded in March 2021 that no foreign adversary altered or hacked any technical aspect of the 2020 vote. That was the unanimous judgment of the nation’s intelligence agencies, delivered while Trump allies were still contesting the results.

This is not a history lecture. Trump’s federal officials have already raided a Georgia elections office and seized ballots. Federal prosecutors say they are investigating a “grand conspiracy” against Trump dating back to 2016. The Thursday speech is the public relations arm of that operation.

Watch the timing. A judge just exposed his IRS scam, states are blocking his allies’ media takeover, and his deportation machine killed another innocent man this morning. So he is changing the channel to 2020. Do not let him.

ICE KILLS INNOCENT DAD, MAINE ERUPTS

An ICE agent shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine on Monday morning. He was authorized to work in the United States, had a Social Security number, and was on his way to work. His three-year-old daughter watched it happen.

The Daily Beast reported that a witness heard a woman screaming “You took her dad, you took her dad!” while the little girl stood nearby, still in her Bluey pajamas. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed to Senator Angus King that the man was not even the target of the warrant. Another witness heard the victim, bleeding from the head, say “I tried to stop.”

Biddeford answered within hours. Hundreds of protesters filled Mechanics Park and swarmed Susan Collins’ district office four blocks from the shooting, chanting “vote her out.” Collins, locked in a tight re-election race, is now calling for a “full and impartial investigation.” Rep. Chellie Pingree demanded answers: why was ICE in Maine, was there body camera footage, and why is this man dead? The Maine Attorney General is investigating.

This is at least the 11th fatal shooting by federal immigration agents since Trump’s second term began, and the second killing of a non-target in six days. When ICE swept through Maine earlier this year in “Operation Catch of the Day,” it detained nearly 200 people. Only 11 had criminal convictions. They told you they were going after the worst of the worst. They shot a working dad in front of his toddler.

KEEP THIS WORK GOING

If you found tonight’s newsletter valuable, the single best thing you can do to keep this work going is become a paying subscriber. A federal judge exposed Trump’s IRS scheme, twelve states are fighting the billionaire media takeover, and ICE killed another innocent man while Trump plans a speech about 2020. These are the stories that matter and Really American is covering them without a billionaire calling the shots. If you have been reading on a free subscription, today is the day to upgrade. Every subscription funds the independent journalism you just read. Subscribe or upgrade right now.

— The Really American Team