The Tom Sullivan Show

Trump posted "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT," floating a total trade embargo with Canada, Mexico, and others as leverage against the Fed. A Wharton professor called the idea crazy, and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh just told Jackson Hole the Fed still has work to do on inflation, not room to cut. We explain why publicly attacking an independent Fed usually backfires. The August jobs report beat expectations at 162,000 added — good news, but after a year of downward revisions, don't get too attached to that number yet. And Mayor Mamdani just ba...

Millions are hitting the road for Labor Day despite high gas prices, but the real inflation threat is diesel, which is climbing fast. Everything you own arrived on a diesel truck, and your food was grown with diesel-powered equipment — so diesel inflation quietly hits everything. Part of the problem is structural — America hasn't built a new major refinery since one went up in Louisiana in 1977, nearly 50 years ago. Refining capacity, not just crude supply, is the real bottleneck. The Clippers just got hammered by the NBA — a $30 million fine, five forfeited first-round draft picks through 2033, and owner Steve Ballmer suspended a full...

Why does it take nearly a year just to decide if there's enough evidence to hold a trial for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk? We ask directly. The Lindsay Clancy jury is deadlocked, and honestly, we'd be stuck too — prosecutors threw 80 expert witnesses and 300 pieces of evidence at them. That's overload, not clarity. Tiger Woods just had a DUI-related charge reduced to reckless driving again, avoiding jail after refusing a sobriety test with pills in his pocket. If courts keep doing this for people with money and lawyers, why should anyone take drunk driving laws seriously? And in Ma...

The on-off-on-off war with Iran is on again, and right on schedule, oil prices are climbing and inflation is set to follow. Trump wants the Fed to cut rates, insisting "other things" besides his own policies are driving prices up — he never says what those things are, and we call that out directly. Meanwhile, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has resigned after 18 months, following months of clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has now fired or forced out more than a dozen senior military leaders across every branch since taking office. When an organization keeps losing its best people one af...

Trump announced a massive oil deal with Venezuela, claiming U.S. control over 65 billion barrels and promising lower gas prices. Reality check — it's a 25-year deal, not 100 years, the legal authority behind it is genuinely unclear since the full terms have never been published, and Chevron is the only major U.S. oil company actually willing to expand there. Aging ports and power outages mean production won't ramp up fast either. Still, strategically, reducing dependence on Canada and Mexico while locking down Western Hemisphere oil looks like a smart long-term bet even with the near-term hype overblown. Meanwhile Iran's economy is...

Trump says "we won" and Iran is "close to over" — he's been saying versions of this since March. Does he believe it, or is it just managing the narrative? Meanwhile, shifting to economic pressure instead of more strikes actually looks like the smarter play at this point. A federal judge blocked the Postal Service's new mail-in ballot rules for the midterms, ruling compliance is basically impossible this close to November. More rulings are coming, but time has essentially run out to change how we vote. And remember — states run elections, Congress has a say over federal races, the President has none...

Tomorrow is six months since the Iran war began, and it's not the anniversary anyone planned for. The current strategy is economic pressure alone — no more active strikes. We ask honestly whether sanctions can actually win this on their own. In Nepal, a glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding that has killed over 360 people with more than 1,300 still missing, many buried under feet of mud. A dangerous barrier lake is now forming and threatens a second flood before rescue crews can even finish. Nature remains more powerful than us. And the Lindsay Clancy murder trial has revealed she was given more th...

Darline Graham just won the South Carolina Senate runoff, beating Ralph Norman with Trump's full backing, to take her late brother Lindsey Graham's old seat. Washington pundits said her honest "I don't know" answer on a Taiwan debate question would end her campaign. We said it would help her, and it did. Authenticity beat polish. She now faces Democrat Annie Andrews in November. Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle a lawsuit over designing addictive platforms for kids, with new guardrails like daily time limits for teens. Good headline number — but who actually gets that money, and does it...

Dolly Parton has died at 80. We don't usually dwell on celebrity news, but she was never just a celebrity — singer, songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and somehow always genuinely happy in a way that made everyone around her feel it too. Born in a one-room cabin with eleven siblings, she never forgot where she came from and gave back on an extraordinary scale her whole life. We take today to properly honor her. Then California's Attorney General has canceled settlement talks and stands nearly alone trying to block the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. And Treasury Secretary Bessent is getting pushback on his bo...

Bessent launched "Operation Economic Outcast" against Iran, promising to cut off every economic lifeline the regime has. Big talk — but will we actually sanction Chinese, Russian, and North Korean banks? When CBS asked directly, Bessent wouldn't give a straight yes. I don't believe it's coming, and history says most sanctions programs like this don't achieve their stated goal, even when I hope this one does. Meanwhile the Canada trade war just escalated — 50 percent tariffs are live, Canada's hitting back dollar for dollar, and it's an odd time to drive up consumer prices when affordability is the biggest political issue in the...

A 35-year-old Albany woman pledged allegiance to ISIS and plotted to bomb the New York State Capitol and kill state senators — the FBI caught her buying bomb supplies and arrested her this week. Investigators used surveillance including Flock license plate cameras to help build the case — the same technology cities keep canceling contracts for over privacy concerns. We ask if this changes that debate. Then Treasury Secretary Bessent says the U.S. will unveil "the toughest sanctions in history" against Iran at a press conference Monday, calling it an "Economic D-Day." Shouldn't a plan meant to crush an enemy's economy stay...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former Soros currency trader, surprised markets by doubling Treasury's bond buyback program to push interest rates down. It worked for about 24 hours — yields dropped sharply Wednesday. By Thursday, Wall Street had figured it out and rates bounced right back up, essentially erasing the whole intervention. Total failure, and it puts Bessent at odds with Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. More people are leaving California, no surprise there. And yes, apparently Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moving back to the UK is today's big headline. We ask — who cares? — but cover it anyway since it's everywhere. All of it...

Another DSA win in Florida, another round of headlines treating it like an unstoppable wave — but nobody's reporting the growing list of DSA candidates who have actually lost this cycle. We put the real numbers on the table. Congressional candidate Darline Graham admitted on a debate stage she didn't know the answer on Taiwan policy because she's not a foreign policy expert. Refreshing honesty or a disqualifying moment? And how many members of Congress actually know more than she does? The US and Canada just landed a full free trade deal — zero tariffs, after months of fighting. And Moderna and Merc...

Primaries today in Florida, Alaska, Wyoming, and California's 14th District to replace Eric Swalwell — all playing out under newly redrawn maps with DSA candidates thrown into the mix, making these races genuinely hard to call. A polling company called Median Strategies just admitted its widely shared polls showing huge leads for Karen Bass and Francesca Hong were completely fake, created as a social experiment to see if bogus numbers could spread unchecked. It worked — Bass's own campaign shared it. And the bond market is sending a warning — 30-year Treasury yields just hit 5.27%, the highest since 2007, driven by inflation, the Iran war, t...

The DNC officially ended Iowa's decades-long run as the first Democratic primary state, replacing it with South Carolina for 2028, followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia. The stated reason is better representing Black and Latino voters — but let's not forget Iowa is the state that launched Barack Obama, and he never forgot it. Here's the interesting wrinkle — the DSA's base is heavily white and highly educated, a group that's a much smaller slice of South Carolina's Black-majority primary electorate. Could this calendar shift quietly weaken the socialist movement's national path? And Iran's 60-day window to reach a full...

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court Friday, admitting in his own words that he shot Brian Thompson and knew exactly what he was doing. Sentencing is set for December 18th. Within hours his lawyers filed to have the state murder case dismissed on double jeopardy grounds — we explain what that means and why prosecutors say they'll fight it. Then a difficult but important story — sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln, now on the longest carrier deployment on record, have attempted to go overboard amid reports of exhaustion and mental health struggles during this extended Iran deployment. We talk about it h...

Wholesale inflation came in at 4.7 percent for July — that's what businesses pay before it hits you at the register, and it's outpacing wage growth. We break down what that means for your budget. A surprise federal hearing tomorrow has everyone talking — Luigi Mangione may plead guilty to stalking charges, which could set up a major double jeopardy fight to try to kill the pending state murder case. We walk through how that legal argument actually works. Flock cameras have helped solve millions of crimes, and some cities are canceling contracts over privacy worries — I say they catch criminals and don't violat...

Todd Blanche has been Attorney General for three whole days and suddenly the compensation fund Cornyn demanded in writing before confirming him is back on the table. Shocking. Francesca Hong led Wisconsin's governor primary by double digits in the polls and lost to David Crowley by less than half a point. We break down what that says about DSA's real strength, especially with a progressive winning big in Minnesota the same night. Medicare for All is back as a campaign talking point — sounds great until you imagine your cancer treatment run like the DMV, but worse. And today's CPI report sh...

The full Air Force One plane-swap story is out, confirming the Secret Service swapped Trump onto a backup plane in Turkey because of a credible threat. Newsworthy, sure — but now every detail of that protective maneuver is public knowledge, including to our adversaries. That's a real security problem. RFK Jr. and Trump signed an order cutting the recommended childhood vaccine schedule from 17 to 11. So who do you believe, the politician or the doctor? Normally the doctor, easily. But Fauci's ego damaged that trust for everyone. My answer — ask your own pediatrician, not a press conference. Problem solved. All of it toda...

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — the Iran deal was going to be done "any day" every single day last week. Today it still isn't. Trump now says he's "semi negotiating" and "low keying it" — okay, but what does that actually mean? Meanwhile Iran has flipped the script and is issuing its own demands to us. This looks like a mess of our own making. Tomorrow is a big election day — primaries in Wisconsin, Vermont, and Minnesota will test whether the Democratic Socialist wave keeps rolling, and South Carolina holds a special election to fill Lindsey Graham's seat. We preview it all today.
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The economy lost 23,000 jobs in July when Wall Street expected a gain of 83,000 — a huge miss. The 50,000 education job loss makes sense, that's just summer break, but the rest of the report is genuinely soft. This should keep the Fed from hiking rates anytime soon. The Senate passed the Lindsey Graham Russia sanctions bill 86-11 — his final legislative legacy, passed just hours after his funeral. Trump lost his ballroom fight today when an appeals court ruled he needs Congress's approval, which he never got. He's appealing to the Supreme Court. And weeks after the Supreme Court told him he can't ban...

Fauci invoked the Fifth 111 times even though he's already pardoned — and Rand Paul's committee just voted to hold him in contempt, sending the referral straight to the DOJ instead of a full Senate vote. We break down the constitutional questions that raises. Wisconsin's Francesca Hong defended her old "cancel Thanksgiving" post on CNN Monday and by Wednesday was telling Politico it's actually her favorite holiday. That's a fast reversal. And Marine One came within a mile of a commercial jet taking off from Reagan National — the FAA investigates whether controllers did or did not follow the safety protocol put in plac...

There are really two Democratic parties right now — highly educated voters disappointed they're making under sixty thousand dollars who make up the DSA, and traditional blue collar Democrats who want something completely different. We break down that split using El-Sayed's winning campaign, which sold affordability and lower gas prices while quietly leaving out abolish ICE, cut Israel aid, pack the court, release prisoners, and tax billionaires. An armed man was arrested at Trump's Rancho Palos Verdes golf club days before his visit after being caught photographing security operations — another concerning pattern given everything this president has been through. And as a fo...

Missouri voters decide today whether to phase out the state income tax — which currently makes up 63 percent of state revenue. If it passes, taxes go up somewhere else, guaranteed. We break down how we'd vote. Mayor Mamdani's proposed grocery stores apparently only require a NYC library card to shop — not income, not need. That detail alone tells you this idea is in trouble before it's even built. And Ohio Congressman Max Miller faces a Wednesday deadline to be pulled from the ballot over serious domestic abuse allegations from his ex-wife — allegations his own former father-in-law, a sitting senator, calls disqualifying. Is thi...

I wasn't a Pirro fan before, but she earned real respect today. She dropped the felony charges against Olympian David Hearn for the Reflecting Pool "vandalism" after her own office found the damage was actually botched construction, not sabotage — directly contradicting Trump's public claims. Trump is furious, disagrees completely, and may fire her over it. That took real courage. Meanwhile, how many times has Trump now threatened Iran with military action only to back off at the last second? War is a test of wills, and we ask honestly — are Iran's leaders deliberately provoking him because they've learned the threats neve...

U.S. intelligence says Iran likely hacked more than 30 water systems in Minnesota, and the attack actually hit systems across seven states total. Iran may be bringing this war home. Trump's response? He blamed Minnesota's governor instead and said "Iran should be so lucky." We examine that gap. Advisors are telling reporters retaliation strikes alone won't win this war — they'll just drag it out. The real choice is escalate and win or accept a bad deal, and neither is what the President wants. Todd Blanche's confirmation is still stuck in the Senate. And we revisit Chinese cars — banned here, sold ever...

Senator Cornyn won't vote for Todd Blanche without written DOJ promises — and it's worth noting Trump just endorsed Ken Paxton against Cornyn in the Texas primary. Coincidence? The confirmation vote is delayed with the Senate's August recess coming next Friday. NYC's mayor published the names and addresses of pied-à-terre apartment owners in a public shaming campaign — dangerous, and we ask the obvious question: does shaming rich people who already pay their taxes actually help anyone struggling financially? History says no. And June's PCE inflation dropped to 3.7 percent thanks to lower gas prices during the brief Iran pause — a pause that's...

Iran fired a surprise rocket attack overnight and just like that, Trump's "pause" is over. He says it's now our turn to fire back — but war doesn't work like taking turns, and today we explain why that framing should worry everyone paying attention. The Fed held interest rates unchanged and Wall Street hated it — the Dow dropped over a thousand points on inflation fears with no Fed action to calm them. And Todd Blanche's Attorney General confirmation just hit a wall — Senator John Cornyn says no vote unless the DOJ puts specific promises in writing about the anti-weaponization bill and Trump...

Lindsey Graham's memorial service is today in DC with South Carolina tomorrow, and the moment everyone keeps replaying since his death is his explosive Kavanaugh hearing rant — we play it for you today. Trump says Iran asked him nicely to stop the bombing. Iran says that never happened. We examine why the President keeps describing a war like it's a real estate deal. And Bryan Kohberger wants to withdraw his guilty plea in the Idaho college murders. Here's what matters — the man has a master's degree and was working toward a PhD in criminal justice. He's not confused. My take — he mis...

Bernie Sanders and Rahm Emanuel are now fighting it out in public — Sanders calling out the Democratic establishment on national television, Emanuel warning in the Wall Street Journal that socialist candidates could cost Democrats the midterms. We break down who's actually winning this fight. Trump paused the Iran war again — why does this keep happening? And when told Russia is helping Iran, he reportedly said he doesn't believe it but he'll ask Putin. We have questions about that verification method. And three people were killed at Seattle's Bite of Seattle food festival Sunday night when two gunmen opened fire on each...

Tariffs are back and let's be honest about what they are — a tax that raises your prices, slows the economy, and invites other countries to retaliate against our exporters. Trump Media is now selling Wall Street firms early access to the President's market-moving Truth Social posts for up to one hundred thousand dollars a month. Schumer says if a staffer did this it'd be a scandal — now it's a subscription plan. We agree it's wrong, regardless of party. And Thune and the White House are publicly feuding over the SAVE America Act because Republicans have 51 votes and need 60. Thune's telling the...

Message to every politician in Washington — people don't like you. But the new Fox News poll shows it's specifically bad for Republicans right now — Democrats lead on the economy, healthcare, inflation, income inequality, foreign policy, and even immigration. Democrats now lead the generic congressional ballot by 7 points, the best showing for the party in a Fox poll since 1996. We break down every number. Then let's clear something up about the Saudi nuclear story — this isn't about weapons. It's the same low enriched uranium model we already use with the UAE for civilian power plants. And it still needs Congress to approv...

An OpenAI model broke out of its sealed test lab on its own, got onto the internet, and hacked a real company called Hugging Face to cheat on a test. No human told it to. Hugging Face actually caught it themselves before OpenAI even called. Silicon Valley is buzzing because this is the exact nightmare scenario AI safety people have been warning about for years. Mayor Mamdani has finally admitted he never actually had the power to arrest Netanyahu — you'd think checking with his own legal team would have come before the threat, not after. He also couldn't clearly define th...

Trump, Sheinbaum, and Carney looked like best friends at the World Cup. Now there are new tariffs on Canada, our second biggest trading partner. What happened between then and now? Iran keeps taking hits and still won't budge — are we headed toward boots on the ground? Democrats are increasingly worried the Democratic Socialist surge could split their own vote just enough to hand Republicans the midterms despite favorable forecasts. And Mayor Mamdani is still threatening to arrest Netanyahu even though lawyers keep confirming he has zero legal authority to do it. Another socialist dream that just isn't real. All of it...

More generals and admirals are saying it out loud now — you cannot negotiate a war the way you negotiate a real estate deal, and bombing alone was never going to be enough. Three more soldiers are dead and Trump finally appears to be shifting away from talk of talks toward real military commitment. We ask what took so long. The Democratic Socialists keep winning primaries and it is splitting the Democratic Party at exactly the moment forecasters predicted a strong Democratic fall. Fascinating timing. New York City's mayor wants to arrest Netanyahu — except he has zero legal authority to do that...

The President gave a speech questioning our election systems right before the midterms and we ask directly — did it make you trust elections more or less, and was that the actual goal? Here's the structural fact that matters — America has over ten thousand separate election jurisdictions. That alone makes coordinated national fraud incredibly hard to pull off undetected. We break down why. And the Iran war keeps growing. So which is it — are we trying to get the lying, cheating IRGC leadership back to the table, or are we actually trying to eliminate them? The country deserves a straight answer. All of...

President Trump is expected to deliver a major speech tonight, with reports suggesting a significant announcement may be coming. Will the focus once again be on the 2020 presidential election, and why does that issue continue to dominate political debate years later? We examine whether Americans are entitled to hold differing views about the election and why the controversy remains a central topic in national politics. We also discuss the latest developments involving Iran and growing concerns about U.S. policy in the Middle East. Plus, the White House is reportedly searching for the source of a leak to The New...

America is bombing Iran and the President wants to get them back to the negotiating table. Why? Iran lies. Iran cheats. Iran has never honored an agreement in its history. The goal should be defeat and surrender — not another round of talks that produce another piece of paper that means nothing. Todd Blanche testified today for Attorney General and one Republican vote kills the nomination — we identify where the danger is. Jay Clayton testified for DNI and Democrats spent most of the hearing asking him to say Trump lost in 2020. And ICE wants to resume traffic stops after two deadly shoo...

Last night the plan was blockade the Strait of Hormuz and charge twenty percent of cargo value as a fee. This morning the fee was gone after Middle Eastern leaders called Trump with an investment alternative he liked better. The blockade is still on and the President is now calling the whole thing a skirmish. Rubio has been saying the fee was illegal for weeks — he was right but the fee died by phone call not legal argument. ICE shot and killed two men during traffic stops in Houston and Maine and DHS immediately ended traffic stops as an immigration en...

Senator Lindsey Graham died from an aortic dissection at 71 and the bipartisan grief pouring in today is a reminder of what old-school Senate relationships used to look like — when members of both parties actually knew each other as human beings. We pay tribute to a complicated but genuinely warm man whose personal conduct in the Senate was better than the era he served in. Mitch McConnell says it was a fall and mild pneumonia but the medical care he is receiving tells a different story. We flag the disconnect. And Trump wants to charge fees for passage through the Strait of...