The Lonely Liberal

Graham Platner is out — and nobody knows what happens next in the most important Senate race of the midterms. Last time, I called him the right candidate but the wrong person. This week, that prediction cashed out. So what now? I break down how the campaign actually ended (hint: it was Schumer's money, not the allegation), the two-week scramble to replace him, the 600-delegate convention Maine Dem...

Nick and Rick break down America's 250th anniversary week — and the chaos that came with it. They open on the America 250 meltdown: the DC Independence Day Parade was canceled Friday night due to a 115-degree heat dome; Philadelphia's parade was canceled the day before; the Great American State Fair on the National Mall temporarily closed after 44 attendees needed medical attention for heat-relate...

In February, the Supreme Court ruled Trump's tariffs illegal — all $166 billion of them. The refunds are flowing right now, with interest. But they're going to Walmart, Target, and the importers, not to you — even though the Fed's own research shows American consumers paid nearly all of it, about $1,000 per household. Nick breaks down the triple-charge: you paid the illegal tax at the register, co...

Nick and Rick break down 10 days of chaos in American politics. They open on Trump's Iran deal: at Versailles during the G7 summit, Trump signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran's foreign minister — Strait of Hormuz reopens, sanctions lifted, $42 billion in frozen Iranian assets unfrozen, US forces removed from Iran's borders. Senators Cassidy and Tillis called it "the worst Americ...

Maine should be the easiest Democratic Senate pickup of 2026. Susan Collins is uniquely vulnerable, Trump has never won the state, and it’s a midterm with an unpopular Republican president. So why is it a nightmare? Nick endorsed Graham Platner early — an anti-PAC, Bernie-backed, working class Marine veteran running the exact campaign Democrats say they want. Then came the scandals. The Reddit pos...

The Iran deal text is finally out — all 14 points. Nick reads every one of them, ranked from least to most egregious, so you can hear exactly what was traded away and what wasn't. Iran gets immediate oil exports, $24 billion in frozen assets with no restrictions on use, and a $300 billion reconstruction commitment — before a single nuclear concession is verified. The nuclear program? Still standin...

Nick and Rick break down a chaotic week in American politics — recorded as the UFC fight unfolds on the White House South Lawn. They open on Trump's 80th birthday UFC spectacle: seven mixed martial arts matches with 4,000 spectators, including 1,000 servicemembers required to attend in uniform on their own dime and meet a waist-to-height ratio standard, plus a 120,000-person fan fest at the Ellips...

Trump just did something FDR tried and failed to do: he purged his own party. Three sitting members of Congress — Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Bill Cassidy, and Rep. Thomas Massie — crossed him, and all three are gone. So why does a president polling at 38% have this much power? Nick breaks down the math trick behind Trump's grip on the GOP, why the same anti-establishment fever just nominated an oyster...

Nick and Rick break down a chaotic week in American politics. They open on the Trump-Israel rupture: Trump cursed out Netanyahu in a Monday phone call — "You're f***ing crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. Everybody hates you. Everybody hates Israel because of this" — and then confirmed it on the record to the New York Post. Days later the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency raised I...

Is Trump a fascist? Nick's guest says: wrong question. Dr. Eric Grube is a historian at Boston College who specializes in fascism, nationalism, and the far-right movements of interwar Europe — and he's back on the show six months after his last appearance to update his verdict. His answer has shifted: Trump isn't a fascist in the historical sense so much as a selfish egomaniac being driven by the...

Trump threatened to "blow up" Oman over the Strait of Hormuz while a tentative Iran deal sits unsigned. Ken Paxton crushed John Cornyn in Texas — the first GOP senator ever primaried out — and immediately started attacking his Democratic opponent's testosterone levels. Federal courts blocked two Republican gerrymanders in Alabama and South Carolina, taking a chunk out of the GOP's redistricting ma...

Last week the Democratic Party released its official autopsy of the 2024 election. 192 pages. No mention of Gaza. No mention of Biden's age. No mention of the debate. Not once. Nick breaks down what the document actually reveals — not about 2024, but about a Democratic establishment that preaches getting money out of politics while backing Cuomo over Mamdani, that cried about losing young men and...

Nick and Rick break down a chaotic week in American politics. They open on Trump's revenge tour: Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein ousted Thomas Massie in the most expensive House primary in history ($32 million spent), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth campaigned in-district against Massie in apparent violation of the Hatch Act, and Trump endorsed Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Texas Senate runoff. The...

Trump sued his own government for $10 billion, was about to lose in court, and settled with himself — walking away with a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded fund he controls, a board he can fire, zero court oversight, and his personal IRS audit liability quietly erased on the side. Nick breaks down exactly what the Anti-Weaponization Fund is, who gets the money, who's running it, and why calling it a sl...

Nick and Rick break down a chaotic week in American politics. They open on Trump's two-day state visit to Beijing, where Xi warned that mishandling Taiwan would put the relationship in "great jeopardy" and Trump returned with a vague Iran commitment and a Boeing order — plus Pete Hegseth visibly sweating through the welcome handshake with Xi on Chinese state TV. Then to the quote of the week: Trum...

Ten years ago, Nick got laughed out of a grad school seminar for arguing that the U.S. isn’t a fair example of capitalism — by the same logic his classmates used to exempt the USSR from representing socialism. He’s been waiting for the right case study ever since. This week he found it: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and DOGE’s crusader against ‘wasteful’ government spending, built his entire...

Nick breaks down a chaotic week in American politics. Opening on Iran: three US Navy destroyers came under missile, drone, and small-boat attack in the Strait of Hormuz, the US struck Iranian soil for the first time since the ceasefire, the UAE was hit by Iranian missiles, and Saudi Arabia pulled US airspace and airbase access — forcing Trump to abruptly pause "Project Freedom." Meanwhile, an Atla...

The 2026 midterms are supposed to be a referendum on Trump. But while everyone's watching that fight, corporations and billionaires are quietly buying the outcome. Nick counts down the Top 5 PACs already flooding Congress with cash — from the GOP's traditional money machine all the way up to Trump's $304 million protection racket. Crypto has $300 million in the game. AI companies are targeting sta...

Nick is back from Spain and joined by Rick to catch up on two weeks of political chaos. They open on the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting: Pirro's confirmation that Cole Allen's bullet hit a Secret Service agent, and Trump's bizarre pivot to pushing his $400 million ballroom within hours of the attack. Then to Iran: the 60-day War Powers deadline arrives, Hegseth invents a "ceasefire pa...

A lot of people on the left are quietly asking the same question right now: if the Democrats keep letting us down, why bother? Nick brings his sibling Li on to work through it honestly — the Stein votes, the Gaza frustration, the feeling that even a Democratic win wouldn't have fixed anything. 

Over the last two years, at least 10 people with access to America's nuclear and aerospace secrets have died or disappeared. The FBI is now investigating. Congress has opened a formal inquiry. Trump was briefed and called it "pretty serious stuff." So what do we actually know? Nick walks through the cases, the official responses, and what remains unanswered — because this story is just getting sta...

Week 8 of the Iran war, and the wheels are coming off. Iran re-closes the Strait of Hormuz just 24 hours after reopening it, gunboats fire on Indian tankers, and gas hits $4.12/gallon — while Russ Vought tells Congress he has no idea what any of this is costing taxpayers. The House war powers resolution fails by a single vote. Trump picks a fight with the Pope, posts an AI-generated image of himse...

Rick's out sick, so Nick is flying solo with a quick-hit roundup of the biggest stories of the week. Six weeks into the Iran war, Trump threatened to bomb power plants on Easter Sunday, Vance flew to Islamabad for peace talks and came home empty-handed, Israel killed 300+ in Lebanon in a single day, and the Pope told everyone to knock it off. Then Vance hopped over to Hungary to campaign for Trump...

Trump threatened to destroy an entire civilization. Iran held firm. Two hours before his own deadline, Trump blinked — and called it a victory. This week, Nick breaks down what actually happened with the Iran ceasefire: what's in the deal, how it compares to what Iran was offering the day before the war started, and why the country that pushed America into this war just bombed Beirut hours after t...

Trump had one of the most chaotic weeks of his presidency — and that's saying something. He gave his first primetime address on the Iran war 33 days in, claiming total air dominance over a country that then shot down two of our jets within 48 hours. He fired his Attorney General for not being ruthless enough. He told a room full of Saudi investors that MBS better "be nice to him." And he dropped a...