Rising This Week: Opposing Trump's war

Before Trump bombed Iran, large numbers of callers urged reps not to let it happen. All Rise News gets an exclusive look at the data.

Visualization by 5 Calls data expert Katie Dektar

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On Saturday night, Donald Trump announced that the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites, entering the country into Israel’s war against the Islamic Republic without authorization from Congress.

The week before that moment, congressional phone lines had been flooded with calls urging lawmakers to stop that from happening.

Since Capitol switchboard data isn’t public, internal data from the app 5 Calls provides unique insight into what animates their users, and their most pressing topic last week by far was avoiding war with Iran.

That topic dominated callers’ list of concerns to lawmakers throughout most of the United States, including all of the Northeast, the South, Great Lakes, and most of the Midwest, according to 5 Calls data and visualization expert Katie Dektar.

(For 11 states in the Western U.S., the top concern was the potential sale of public lands in the GOP budget bill.)

During the week ending on June 21, callers placed 24,384 calls opposing war against Iran, and the app’s sample scripts focused on bipartisan resolutions in the House and Senate reaffirming that only Congress has the power to declare war.

• The app’s other Top 5 most popular topics were:

  • 2. opposing the sale of public lands in Trump’s budget bill (19,379 calls).

  • 3. demanding the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (12,992 calls)

  • 4. denouncing Trump’s militarized response to protest (12,140 calls).

  • 5. opposing Trump’s budget bill (11,519 calls)

To be sure, the data reveals the dailing habits of one avowedly progressive app’s users, but there is reason to believe that the app generates a signficant portion of the total calls.

As All Rise News previously reported, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) revealed earlier this year that the U.S. Senate phone system received around 1,600 calls per minute this past February, amid controversy over Elon Musk’s actions with DOGE.

When 5 Calls co-founder Nick O’Neill cross-checked that number against the app’s internal data at the time, he found that it represented roughly 15 percent of the calls that the app generated. A significant number of people use information gathered by 5 Calls to dial outside the app, so the percentage may be higher.

All Rise News will continue to follow this story.

Before injecting the U.S. into another war in the Middle East, Trump spent June sending troops to the streets of Los Angeles. His administration also deployed federal law enforcement against his perceived political opposition.

The pattern has become entrenched with each elected official arrested, detained, or wrestled to the ground for performing oversight: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, Sen. Alex Padilla of California, and New York City comptroller and mayoral hopeful Brad Lander, all elected Democratic politicians. In most of these cases, the Trump administration accused the target of assaulting law enforcement until viral video debunked the allegation, and the case either crumbled or was never charged. Only McIver’s criminal case remains.

Wisconsin County Judge Hannah Dugan has no partisan affiliation, but she is now being prosecuted for steps that she took to control her courtroom, amid a national trend of immigration officials using courthouses as hunting grounds for arrests.

During an ongoing attack on the rule of law, it’s never been more important for independent media to chronicle these cases in depth and on the ground.

This week, I plan to attend McIver’s arraignment in Newark, N.J., and I intend to cover Judge Dugan’s case in Wisconsin if it goes to trial. No media conglomerate will be funding the costs of that coverage.

All Rise News’ paid subscribers make it possible, and they will have deeper access to the on-the-ground coverage and Q&A conversations. Whether or not you can afford a subscription at this time, your readership is greatly appreciated.

This week’s listings are below.