Make It Make Sense with Grant Hermes

Can the U.S. government take away your citizenship? Increasingly, the answer is: they're trying. This week, Grant sits down with Irina Manta, professor of immigration and national security law at Hofstra University, author, podcaster, and naturalized citizen, to break down the Trump administration's growing push to denaturalize Americans — and what it means for the future of citizenship...

Trump extended the Iran ceasefire indefinitely, which is another way of saying he blinked. Again.  Meanwhile, a new Pentagon assessment says the Strait of Hormuz won't reopen for six months AFTER the war ends, meaning high gas prices through the holidays. Trump's approval has dropped to 33%. Only 23% approve of his handling of the cost of living. And a Fox News poll found Americans now t...

Trump got caught lying about Iran agreeing to US demands. The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell account of his erratic behavior behind closed doors. The US broke the ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz days before peace talks. The Secretary of Labor resigned amid scandal. And The Atlantic reported that FBI Director Kash Patel is so frequently drunk that staff had to request breaching equipme...

The war in Iran may be ending, maybe, but the legal and moral reckoning is just beginning.  Grant sits down with Oona Hathaway, Yale Law School professor and one of the country's foremost international law experts, to confront the questions most people aren't ready to ask: has the United States already violated the laws of war in Iran, and if so, what does that mean for America's pl...

Congress came back from spring break, and in under 6 hours, two members resigned, two more could be next, and the balance of power in the House just got a lot less certain.  In this episode, Eric Swalwell resigns amid sexual assault allegations from five women. Tony Gonzalez resigns after a staffer's suicide linked to a coercive relationship. Cory Mills faces stolen valor, weapons charges, an...

The US tried to end the war in one day. It collapsed. Then things got significantly worse...and weirder. After 21 hours of failed peace talks in Pakistan, the Trump administration announced the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Conservatives called it genius. The math says otherwise. Grant breaks down exactly why the blockade won't lower your gas prices, why Venezuela can't sa...

How Close Did We Actually Come? — Iran, The Peace Talks, and What Happens Next The VP is on a plane to Pakistan. Peace talks are scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad as Iran comes in with better cards than it had before the war.  Grant talks to Eric Czuleger from The Under Report back on the show to break down the most overwhelming week in recent memory; what actually happened, how close Tuesday re...

The Iran "ceasefire" lasted roughly three hours. The Strait of Hormuz is technically a toll road now. America might get a cut. And nobody can agree on what either side is even negotiating for.  Grant breaks down everything that happened this week — the ceasefire announcement, why Israel blew it up, what Iran's 10-point plan actually says, and the honest scorecard after 38 days of wa...

Trump's deadline for Iran expires at 8PM ET tonight — and hours before it hits, he threatened to wipe out an entire civilization in a single night. Is the nuclear option actually on the table? Grant  breaks down Trump's escalating threats against Iran, what "wiping out a civilization" actually means under international law, the genocide definition in the Geneva Convention, and...

45% of Americans now call themselves independent — more than either party. So why does Congress look nothing like the country? Today Grant talks with Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project about the hidden math behind our elections: how closed primaries, gerrymandering, and plurality voting let roughly 1–2% of the electorate pick your representative before most people even show up to vote. →...

Trump gave a primetime national address about the Iran war — and the most important parts were what he didn't say. We break down the three things that got cut from the speech, why the markets tanked anyway, and why $7/gallon gas might hit by Memorial Day. Then: the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara — the case that could end birthright citizenship for the first time in 127...

The longest government shutdown in US history drags on as Republicans in the House and Senate square off against each other before leaving for Spring Break without a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security.  Trump orders TSA agents to get back pay, except no one knows where the money is coming from or if it's legal. ICE may be a permanent fixture at airports.  The war in Iran reaches...

Grant is joined by the Bipartisan Policy Center's Michael Thorning. Thorning is the director of structural democracy at the nonpartisan think tank and the lead writer of a brand new series called Congress at a Crossroads.  He and Grant talk about why Congress is so broken, how it got here, and what can be done to fix it before it's too late.  LINKS:  Congress at a Crossroads Bipartisan P...

Grant is joined by Liz Dye from the Law and Chaos Podcast to talk about the shenanigans coming from the Attorney General's office. AG Pam Bondi is trying to meddle with state bar associations so DOJ attorneys can't face discipline for doing things they would normally face discipline for. Liz explains how it all traces back to a guy named Ed Martin, one of the DOJ's hottest dumpster...

Grant gives an update on the war in Iran after a new report shows the US did in fact bomb a girls' school, Iran chooses to start deploying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, new US intel finds Trump has been lying about the Iraninan regime being weakened and a Senate briefing on the outlook of the war looks bleak.  THEN, what does the FBI want with Arizona's election trash? The DOJ just took...

After struggling to explain the objectives for entering the war in Iran, the Trump administration is struggling to define whether the mission is close to completion. The president said it was "very complete," while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said it was "just the beginning," only for Trump to say it was both.  Grant explains what's going on and how we're feelin...

The 2026 midterm election is shaping up to be the most expensive in American history, with the combined races for Senate already reaching the $5 billion. Ad spending is expected to break $10 billion as billionaires, corporations, and dark money groups spend money to elect candidates to do their bidding, much of it without the public ever being able to know who is spending a single dime.  Grant is...

In a bombshell piece of news, Donald Trump announced that Kristi Noem would no longer be the Secretary of Homeland Security. After several big scandals, some  really bad hearings on Capitol Hill and a major mistake of saying the president approved a $220 million ad campaign, Noem was fired.  In her place Trump named Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin who is best known for trying to start a fight wi...

After three days of the Iran War, the reason the US struck first is still shifting target for the Trump administration as it tries to make its case to the American people about how and why the US is at war again in the Middle East.  Grant explains how peace talks ended and how the President and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu worked to make a plan to attack Iran amid the talks. He also goes through...

Grant talks to the author, journalist, activist Cory Doctorow, about his recent article calling for Democrats to create a Nuremberg Caucus to hold federal agents, administration officials, and elected leaders accountable after the Trump era is over. But, instead of building those cases when Republicans are out of power, he wants them to start collecting evidence, out in the open, right away.  He e...

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump made his usual sweeping statements, false claims, and insults at Democrats.  But in what was a very long (1 hr and 47min!) speech, he left two key things out. In fact, they were two of his signature policy agendas for the year. ICE deployments and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  Grant breaks down why it's interest...

Donald Trump gives his first true State of the Union speech to Congress since becoming president for a second time. It just might be the most important speech in his political legacy.  Trump is going into this speech as weak as he's ever been. His approval ratings are the lowest they've been, as are the approvals of his handling of every top issue, and the belief that he's fit to do...

Grant brings Eric Czuleger back on the show for the very first back-to-back guest on Make It Make Sense.  With the largest military buildup in the Middle East since 2002 happening right now and President Donald Trump promising a "limited strike" in Iran, the world is on edge... again.  Grant and Eric talk about how the US got here, why it's different than the last time the US bombed...

Donald Trump ran for president promising to make Americans richer and bring prices down, starting on day one. So far, that's not panning out.  The cost of the ICE and troop deployments to US cities and around the globe has ballooned into the billions. Despite promising it would bring in money to the US, Trump's tariffs have cost Americans billions of dollars out of their own pockets. So...

The government is in another shutdown. This time, it's only a partial one. Every agency inside DHS isn't being funded, except ICE.  Grant explains the 10 demands Democrats have and why two of them are already non-starters for Republicans who are looking to capitalize on the crises to force through their voter ID bill.  MANTRA MATCHA If coffee makes you alert and deeply unwell, it might b...