Lindsey Graham is gone. Mitch McConnell is missing. The Iran ceasefire has collapsed into 140 fresh strikes across the region. And ICE just killed two more people — one in Biddeford, Maine, and one in Houston — while the Department of Homeland Security refuses to even issue a statement. This is what peak President Mayhem looks like, and we're only in the middle of July. Paul Rieckhoff comes to you solo from a brutal-hot New York City to make sense of a week where the wheels came off in five directions at once.
Paul offers a clear-eyed, no-BS accounting of Graham's complicated legacy — the senator who voted to send him to war, disappointed on the post-9/11 GI Bill, then finally got Ukraine right — and argues his Russia sanctions bill should be named for him and passed immediately. He breaks down why McConnell's silence matters, why the courts are still the last line holding against Trump's IRS slush fund and his war on the free press, and why ICE isn't a partisan issue anymore — it's a patriotic one. He closes on what still binds this country together: the World Cup in New York, the Midsummer Classic in Philly, and the stubborn, unifying pull of country over party.
In this episode
- Lindsey Graham's death, his sister Darlene's appointment to his seat, and the national-security cost of a family placeholder
- Why Graham's Russia sanctions bill for Ukraine should be named for him and passed ASAP
- Mitch McConnell's silence, his "proof of life" photo, and what compromised 85-year-old senators mean for our enemies
- The collapsed Iran ceasefire: 140 US strikes, retaliation across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Oman
- ICE kills again — Biddeford, Maine and Houston — with zero DHS accountability
- Why Paul believes Trump is stoking street violence to justify the Insurrection Act before the midterms
- Trump subpoenaing New York Times journalists over the grounded, unsafe foreign-gifted Air Force One
- The courts punching back on Trump's $1.8 billion IRS "slush fund for insurrectionists"
- Primary calendar: Arizona 7/21, Maine 7/25, and why independent veterans keep getting locked out
- Something good: the MLB All-Star Game, Ben Rice, the World Cup final at MetLife, and the summer of New York
