The Neal Larson Show

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason kick off the morning with some light banter—vacation plans to Seattle, food quirks, and a reminder that National Donut Day is coming (with a throwback to Neal’s infamous donut-choking moment). Then we dig into the bigger issue: Senator Scott Herndon filing a complaint against Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane over election-season mailers and how tho...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s show we bounced between Idaho politics, media narratives, and a few big “who’s actually responsible here?” questions. We started with the marijuana initiative and the odd math around signatures—how do you gather 150,000 when you only need about 71,000, and what happens if a huge chunk turns out invalid? That led into a bigger conversation about whether Idaho’s citizen i...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson opens the show in “real life” mode—he’s heading out later this week for a short Seattle trip with his wife and teenage daughter, and he’s openly taking listener suggestions for hidden gems beyond the obvious stops. He also shares a weekend movie detour: seeing *Michael* (the Michael Jackson biopic) with his daughter, recommending it primarily as an entertaining, nostal...

Send us Fan Mail We kicked off a Friday show in full “America 250” mode—loosening things up while also getting serious about what it means that the country is nearing its 250th anniversary. Neal shared why he sees America’s founding as more than historical luck—something rooted in providence, liberty, and the idea that our rights come from God, not government. He also invited listeners to be part...

Send us Fan Mail Nine days after the election, we’re still processing how much noise we all got dragged into—dark money, viral single-issue drama, and the constant firehose of information that can make us worse at decisions instead of better. We talked about how distrust has become the default setting: people reflexively argue, pick teams, and assume bad intent, even when the facts (like how legis...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason come in a little “off” today—post-primary letdown, a little fatigue, and the sense that even when things are moving in the right direction, the process is messy. They talk through what they see as Donald Trump’s continued dominance in politics (including big primary wins they point to as proof), while also acknowledging the internal Republican infightin...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason spend the morning unpacking two things that have been sitting heavy: how easily we can get locked into a narrative, and how much hotter and more on-edge people feel lately—even after a holiday weekend. They circle back to a heated Memorial Day call/text exchange about Trump’s “obliterated” comment on Iran’s Fordow site, and Neal walks through the nuance...

Send us Fan Mail On Memorial Day, Neal Larson and Julie Mason open the show by grounding the day in gratitude—then pivot into a wide-ranging, very “live radio” conversation that hits politics, culture, and the moment we’re in. They discuss Thomas Massie losing his primary despite Trump’s endorsement power, and what that says about how vulnerable incumbents can be when local dissatisfaction is alre...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason close out a whirlwind post-election week in classic Friday form: a little Capitol Hill intrigue, a little local weirdness, and a lot of “where are we headed from here?” They kick things off riffing on Trump’s continued dominance inside the GOP—how one endorsement can flip a Senate race overnight—and what that kind of bully-pulpit pressure does to senato...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason debrief a bruising stretch of East Idaho politics and the hangover from Tuesday’s results. Neal talks through his “mental palate cleanse” road trip to Dillon, Montana—part therapy session, part prayer, part 1980s playlist—and the bigger realization it led to: we’re sliding into a toxic “team sport” way of voting where people pick a slate or a brand inst...

Send us Fan Mail Post-election day hit like a gut-check. We walk through the East Idaho results—overall a big night for incumbents, with the major standout being Tonya Burgoyne narrowly losing to Jennifer Miles, and a handful of races (especially Barbie Hart vs. Connor Cook) landing uncomfortably close. We also touch the federal/statewide top-lines (Risch, Fulcher, Simpson, Little, etc.), local le...

Send us Fan Mail We’re in the final stretch of Election Day with polls open and we’re basically counting down the hours until this thing is done—while still pushing hard for everyone eligible to vote to get out and do it. Neal Larson and Julie Mason remind unaffiliated voters they *can* participate by selecting a party ballot at the polls, and we spend the morning taking rapid-fire “stump speeches...

Send us Fan Mail It’s election eve, and we’re all feeling that mix of “let’s get this done” energy and pure exhaustion—mostly because we’re about 48 hours away from the political ads, mailers, and doom-scroll campaign videos finally disappearing. Neal and Julie kick things off reacting to a clip from a candidate who claimed the only “official debates” he was invited to were with “Neal Larson and J...

Send us Fan Mail This one felt like the moment in the election stretch where you look up and realize you’re running on fumes—and Facebook isn’t helping. Neal Larson and Julie Mason talk candidly about how toxic the local political feed has gotten, why they’re stepping back from social media, and why they’re not apologizing for asking hard questions of candidates who want to represent tens of thous...

Send us Fan Mail Senator Jim Risch joined us from Washington, D.C., and we worked through a mix of big-picture foreign policy and very Idaho-specific concerns. On China, Risch urged patience—he thinks President Trump has a plan and we’ll see announcements soon, likely on trade and possibly Iran. On Iran, he painted a picture of real internal instability (a leadership vacuum and factions competing)...

Send us Fan Mail With six days to go before the election, Neal Larson opens with a pretty accurate picture of what this moment feels like: multiple tornadoes on the horizon—chaos in a bunch of places at once. He does a needed “we’re going to be okay” wellness check for everyone, even while admitting he badly wants conservatives to win—people who actually mean what they say, who’ll govern like the...

Send us Fan Mail With a week left before the primary, Neal and Julie are feeling that familiar end-of-cycle fatigue—when everything feels louder than it should and it’s tempting to snap back on social media. But the bigger point Neal keeps coming back to is this: we all still have to live together after Election Day, and the constant anger isn’t helping anyone think clearly. From there, Neal lays...

Send us Fan Mail We’re in that familiar spot where the Idaho primary is the real election, and there’s simply more happening than any show can realistically hold. A big chunk of the conversation centers on the sudden, statewide panic over Jordan Redmond putting serious personal money into a PAC to support primary challengers—panic that feels a little rich considering how much anonymous, out-of-sta...

Send us Fan Mail We kicked off the morning talking straight about election season in East Idaho—specifically how to spot (and ignore) the deceptive “dark money” mailers that show up dressed in feel-good names like “water champions” or “veterans” groups. Neal’s message was basically: don’t even read the hit piece—flip it over, check the “paid for by,” and if it’s not an actual campaign you recogniz...

Send us Fan Mail This morning felt like a full-on smorgasbord: we kicked around the national headlines (including cautious optimism about an Iran deal and Marco Rubio heading to Rome to meet with Pope Leo), but the center of gravity was Idaho politics with the primary just days away. We dug into what’s shaping up to be a high-stakes, faction-defining Republican primary season—especially in races l...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is a snapshot of what it feels like to live in the political pressure-cooker right now—locally and nationally—where the chaos is constant, social media makes it worse, and people are genuinely asking if something terrible is around the corner. We talk through a string of recent flare-ups (public meetings boiling over, community controversies, and the way online outrag...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason set the table for a busy stretch of primary season, including a live, in-studio debate between Representative Stephanie Mickelsen and challenger Kelly Golden. Before the debate, we talked through how fried and combustible everything feels right now—local controversies, international tensions, and the reality that in Idaho, most races are effectively dec...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show was a mix of election-season levity and serious policy talk. We kicked things off with a parody ad imagining challenger Larry Golden trying to compete with the built-in name recognition of Brit Raybould by “upgrading” his last name into a full-on Southeast Idaho heritage sampler—funny because it’s a little too true about how politics can work around here. We also gave...

Send us Fan Mail Enjoy the latest Neal Larson Show Parody!

Send us Fan Mail We’re officially in that “two-and-a-half weeks to Election Day” stretch, and it feels like the volume keeps turning up—forums everywhere, social media at peak car-wreck energy, and a lot of people showing sides of themselves that aren’t exactly their best. We talked through why we keep coming back to voting records and scorecards, even when people hate them: it’s the scoreboard. C...