Red Flag

In Week 43 of 2026, Red Flag examines the "energy dominance" promise against a White House deal to import Russian diesel and ease pump prices. Rachel and Jordyn walk through what the deal covers: 4.8 million metric tons, nearly 36 million barrels, through mid-April. They look at the six Republican senators who joined six Democrats in opposing it, and the letter's argument that it funds Russia's wa...

In Week 42 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn examine the promise that nobody will touch your Social Security, just as the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment is due to be announced on October 14. Forecasts sit around 3.5 percent, but a bigger raise means prices rose more, and Medicare Part B takes a bite out of it. The 2026 Trustees Report projects the retirement trust fund running short in the fourth quarter...

In Week 41 of 2026, Red Flag checks the Republican promise of fiscal responsibility against the books for fiscal year 2026, which just closed. Rachel reads the ledger and Jordyn asks what it means for regular people. They cover a deficit of about $2 trillion, record net interest of roughly $1.1 trillion, and national debt that passed $40 trillion in August. They also look at why revenue rose in do...

In Week 40 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn dig into a quiet trend sweeping Republican campaigns: candidates scrubbing Trump endorsements from their own websites and ads. It starts with Byron Donalds' vanished "TRUMP-ENDORSED" banner, but the pattern stretches from Florida to Wisconsin, touching immigration, tariffs, and Iran policy. The hosts trace cases like Maria Elvira Salazar's immigration ad and T...

In Week 39 of 2026, Jordyn and Rachel dig into the decade-old Republican promise to repeal and replace Obamacare with something "much less expensive and much better" — and check it against what actually happened when the enhanced ACA subsidies expired at the end of 2025. The numbers are blunt: premiums up an average of 26%, nearly 4 million people off marketplace coverage, and polling showing most...

In Week 38 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn dig into the Continuing Appropriations Act for 2027, the stopgap spending bill that passed the House 370-48 and the Senate 90-6 even though Congress finished exactly zero of the twelve appropriations bills it was supposed to pass this year. They trace the deal back to Collins and Murray, question why the deadline landed on December 11 instead of October 1, and...

In Week 37 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn dig into Trump's promise to end Fed political meddling by installing loyalist Kevin Warsh as chair — and what's actually happening four months later as the White House leans hard on its own pick before the September 15-16 rate vote. The numbers tell an inconvenient story: 162,000 August payrolls against a 31,000 average, inflation stuck above target for five a...

Week 36 of 2026 opens with Trump asking Apple to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," days after Google already made the same swap for U.S. maps. Rachel and Jordyn use the joke as a doorway into something bigger: the first-ever use of Section 338, an untested 1930 tariff authority now aimed at Canada. They trace how the legal fight actually started, why a Slate-quoted trade adviser expects lawsuits...

This week, in Week 35 of 2026, the show digs into Trump’s first-ever use of Section 338 tariffs on Canada and the three-day pause that no one saw coming. Rachel and Jordyn walk through how a 96-year-old trade law with no real rulebook was suddenly used to hit about $20 billion of Canadian goods, why the Friday-night breakdown followed by a Saturday tariff “on” switch raised questions, and what act...

Week 34 of 2026 brings a full receipt check on Trump's claim that his endorsements are nearly unbeatable. He's touted a 399-0 record, but Rachel and Jordyn count ten Trump-backed primary losses in 2026, including a rough Tuesday night in Wyoming and Florida. The hosts break down each loss by office and timing, dig into Thomas Massie's costly spring primary defeat, and trace a purge of Cassidy, Cor...

Week 32 of 2026 brings a look at Section 338 of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act, a tariff statute never once invoked until Trump used it against Canada on July 20, stacking a 50 percent duty set to land August 19. Rachel and Jordyn trace why the administration skipped better-documented tools like Section 301 and 232 for a Depression-era law, then follow the statute-hopping from the Supreme Court's IEEPA...

Week 31 of 2026: Rachel and Jordyn test Trump's promise to pay off the national debt with tariffs against CRFB's new $950 billion projection through 2036 — an $825 billion shortfall Fortune pegs at a 40 percent gap on a $39 trillion debt. From there, they dig into the $166 billion IEEPA refund order CBP has to process by hand, the eighteen-month scramble from IEEPA to Section 122 to Section 301, a...

The Section 122 tariff's 150-day clock runs out at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on July 24, and in Week 30 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn check whether tariff power actually reverts to Congress or the administration has a new legal doorway ready. They trace the pivot from February's Supreme Court ruling against IEEPA tariffs to Section 122, then to a Section 301 forced-labor determination that has no rate cap a...

In Week 28 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn dig into the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling against Trump's tariffs and what happens next. Trump's own nominees, Gorsuch and Barrett, joined the majority, and he called them disloyal within hours. The hosts break down the pivot to a dormant 1974 law with a hard July 24 expiration date, then trace where tariff costs actually land, according to New York Fed and Yale...

Week 27 of 2026, and the Senate managed to pass and reverse a war powers vote within a single business day. This episode tracks exactly how that happened — and what it cost. Rachel and Jordyn walk through the Iran war powers reversal vote by vote: Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy both flipped within 24 hours, a closed-door White House lunch where Trump called Cassidy a lunatic, and a private Situation R...

Week 26 of 2026, and Tucker Carlson just called the Republican Party treasonous and immoral after 35 years of defending it — then the clip sat unnoticed for four days. Rachel and Jordyn run the receipts on Carlson's exit, Trump's Iran war promise, and a Georgia special election margin that collapsed from 37 points to 14. Rachel wants to see the label before buying the product. Jordyn thinks leavin...

Week 25 of 2026, and the House just passed a war powers resolution telling Trump to end hostilities with Iran — 215 to 208 — with four Republicans crossing the aisle to make it happen. This episode tracks the receipts on executive war authority, from the 2011 GOP letter demanding Obama comply with the 60-day clock on Libya to Speaker Johnson's claim that the U.S. is not at war, made the same day T...

Week 24 of 2026, and Rachel and Jordyn are tracking one specific promise: Donald Trump said no new wars, then told Meet the Press he never said that. This episode runs the numbers on Operation Epic Fury at day 100 — $11.3 billion in the first six days, a $200 billion supplemental request with no clear answers for GOP fiscal hawks, and gas prices Moody's says cost the average household $750 this ye...

Week 23 of 2026, and this episode runs the full receipt on Trump's Epstein transparency promise — what he said, what he signed, and what actually got released. Rachel and Jordyn break down how a law that passed 427 to 1 ended up meaning almost nothing in practice: 3.5 million pages released with 81 of 82 pages redacted in a key document, a DOJ that logged lawmakers' search histories in a reading r...

Week 22 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn go through PolitiFact's MAGA-Meter — a scorecard tracking 75 of Trump's second-term promises — after Trump told a Detroit crowd in January that he had kept every single one of them. The numbers say otherwise. About 19% rate as kept. Roughly a third are stalled. Electricity prices, groceries, and housing all moved in the wrong direction. The Department of Educatio...

Week 21 of 2026, Rachel and Jordyn are running the receipts on tariffs — specifically the promise that foreign countries would foot the bill, not American families. They break down the Tax Foundation's findings on household costs, the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling striking down IEEPA tariffs, and what happened hours later when the administration reached for a different statute. The courts keep saying...

Week 20 of 2026 brings Rachel and Jordyn to the Texas Senate runoff — and to a ten-week-old Trump endorsement promise that still hasn't been kept. With the May 26 runoff two weeks out, Ken Paxton leads John Cornyn by three points among likely voters despite a securities fraud indictment, an impeachment acquittal, and a divorce filed on biblical grounds. Democrat James Talarico leads both of them i...