The Neal Larson Show

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show was a mix of national chaos and local accountability. We started with US Senator **Jim Risch** laying the blame for the ongoing government shutdown at Democrats’ feet, calling it completely avoidable and emphasizing how unfair it is that people like TSA and Coast Guard are being forced to work without pay. He also walked through his view of the current conflict with I...

Send us Fan Mail We spent time unpacking the late-session Idaho housing “affordability” bills and the common thread running through them: loosening planning and zoning to allow more density—duplexes, apartments, even backyard tiny homes—plus talk of rent caps tied to local median income. It’s the kind of solution that sounds clean on paper (more supply = lower prices), but it runs straight into th...

Send us Fan Mail Neal and Julie spent the morning bouncing between a few stories that all, in their own way, come back to trust—trust in institutions, trust in elections, and trust that people will be held accountable when they cross the line. We started with “Mormon Women for Ethical Government,” and why the branding feels intentionally provocative (and, in our view, politically one-directional)....

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason kick off the Monday show comparing March Madness notes (including a fun Idaho tie with Dylan Darling’s buzzer-beating moment for St. John’s) before shifting to the weekend’s bigger highlight: being invited to the Mountain States Policy Center dinner featuring Dana Perino. They talk about the room full of lawmakers and policy folks, the organization’s pr...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s Friday show, Neal Larson and Julie Mason mixed a little “inside baseball” with a lot of local and state issues—and a fun listener perk. We set up a giveaway for two pairs of tickets to the Mountain States Policy Center dinner in Boise featuring Dana Perino, asking listeners to text a screenshot of the NewsTalk 107.9 app to enter (with the caveat: please only enter if yo...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason bounce between March Madness fun and a few heavy headlines, starting with the great experiment: letting multiple AIs build NCAA brackets (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok—and maybe Claude) to see if the machines can out-pick the humans. They compare how each model handled the same prompt, note some basic “bracket logic” mistakes from ChatGPT and Gemini, and laugh...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show was a true “turn on a dime” mix of DC and local-life—starting with us rolling out a just-for-fun Neal Larson Show March Madness bracket group (text **BRACKET** to join), because honestly we all need a little relief from politics and the legislative session. From there we dug into the Senate fight over the **SAVE Act**, where Democrats are calling it everything from “v...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show had that classic “welcome to Idaho politics” whiplash—in the best way. Neal Larson and Julie Mason dug into a high-profile cultural bill moving through the Idaho House: a “biological sex bathroom” policy meant to stop intentional use of the opposite-sex restroom in public settings. They walked through why they see it as basic common sense, why they think some of the “...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason kick off the week already feeling like it should be Thursday, bouncing between birthday banter and real frustration with how things are going—especially at the Idaho Legislature. They dig into the Senate’s blow-up over a major budget, agreeing Senator Doug Ricks is one of the few who shows up the same way in every room, and pushing back on the idea that...

Send us Fan Mail Idaho’s budget fight is getting real, and it feels like we’ve backed ourselves into a corner: big tax cuts, an economic forecast that isn’t exactly inspiring confidence, and now lawmakers are acting surprised that the math is tight. We walked through what happened after Senator Guthrie’s floor speech—genuine, humble, and persuasive in tone—even if the behind-the-scenes vote count...

Send us Fan Mail Julie was out today, so Neal Larson took the mic solo and covered two big threads: election integrity at home and Iran abroad. First up was a conversation with Senator Jim Risch about the SAVE Act—requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Risch called it obvious, broadly popular, and worth fighting for, but he also laid out the political reality: Democrats are u...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason start in their usual gear-shifting way—riffing on Utah potentially becoming a real-life Jetsons test lab for personal aerial vehicles (cargo first, people later) and the creeping reality of humanoid robots—before pivoting hard into an Idaho Legislature vote urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider *Obergefell* (the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex m...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show was a bit of a whirlwind, but it all circled around the same theme: people weaponizing narratives instead of dealing in reality. We dug into the spike (and quick drop) in oil prices tied to risk around the Strait of Hormuz—reminding everyone there’s not an “oil shortage” so much as speculation and shipping/insurance fear. From there we pivoted into politics, where we...

Send us Fan Mail This episode was a classic “big picture to local politics to cultural weirdness” Monday. We dug into the fast-moving U.S. operation against Iran and the debate over what powers the president has versus Congress—acknowledging why some people are wary, but also arguing the case that after decades of Iran using proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc.) to kill and threaten Americans,...

Send us Fan Mail Today we dug into the Kristi Noem shake-up and the way everyone’s trying to spin it. Call it whatever you want—“reassigned,” “moved,” “Western Shield” whatever—this wasn’t a lateral move, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help. We talked about what likely set the stage for it, including the frustration that Homeland Security started looking like a personal branding vehicle (that se...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s show was a classic “all of the above” kind of morning. We started with a mix of Idaho politics and everyday-life tangents—everything from why the governor’s race is crowded while other statewide incumbents are basically unopposed, to Pocatello’s new Target and the excitement around Raising Caine’s. From there we jumped into a clip from the Senate floor where Lt. Gov. Scott...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson walks us through a new “party cohesion” metric he built (with help from AI and the legislative API) to measure how often Idaho lawmakers vote with the majority of their stated party on votes that break along clear partisan lines. The goal isn’t a purity test or a “gotcha,” but a sunlight tool: if you’re running with an “R” (or “D”), how often do you actually vote like...

Send us Fan Mail Today we’re tracking the Idaho Legislature as two major immigration enforcement bills (H700 and H704) move from the House to what Neal calls the Senate “morgue” — State Affairs — chaired by Senator Jim Guthrie. We talk through why that committee placement raises alarms, how primary-season politics may pressure the Senate to at least give the bills a real hearing, and why Neal want...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason unpack the U.S. (and Israeli) operation against Iran over the weekend, arguing it wasn’t some impulsive “assassination” but a long-overdue strike against a regime they see as an active, ongoing threat to America and Israel through missiles, nuclear ambitions, and proxy terror groups. They push back hard on the idea that the U.S. must wait for an “immine...

Send us Fan Mail Today we kicked around a couple of those issues that sound simple until you actually follow them to the end. We started with a bill moving through the Idaho Legislature that would curb cities from restricting short-term rentals like Airbnb, framed as a private property rights question and another example of the state reining in local governments. That led into a bigger conversatio...

Send us Fan Mail This episode of the Neal Larson Show, with Julie Mason, dives into a lively mix of legislative proposals and public frustrations, heavily leaning into traffic woes. The hosts kick off with Senator Mark Harris's bill aimed at tackling "left lane lurkers"—slow drivers hogging the passing lane. This sparks an animated discussion, with Neal humorously suggesting the bil...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason open their February 25th, 2026 broadcast with a detailed analysis of a recent State of the Union address, which they generally praise for its solid structure and celebratory tone, rating it a B+/A-. They note the speech was "Trump-esque" with familiar catchphrases but appreciated that it didn't require them to "justify" the pres...

Send us Fan Mail This episode kicks off with Neal and Julie looking ahead to tonight's State of the Union, where the President's "America 250" theme is set to intertwine with discussions on pressing issues like tariffs, the economy, and Iran. Locally, the Idaho legislative session is a major focus. We hear their take on Senator Harris's e-verify bill, which they critically...

Send us Fan Mail Neal Larson and Julie Mason dive deep into a diverse array of topics, kicking off with a pragmatic look at state budget cuts, particularly in Idaho. They challenge the alarmist rhetoric often employed by politicians during election cycles, suggesting that modest cuts (like 1%) won't lead to calamity and that much of the current financial squeeze stems from the "extra mon...

Send us Fan Mail The big news dropped this morning: the Supreme Court has struck down all the tariffs enacted by former President Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, with a 6-3 decision. While Neal appreciated the reminder of checks and balances within our government, Julie pointed out the "tariff derangement syndrome" some exhibit. There's still a lot of un...