The Tom Sullivan Show

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. Plus Marine One had another close call with a passenger jet, this time blamed on flight pattern changes from the new helipad construction. All of it today.

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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 than 30 prescriptions for 13 different psychiatric medications in just four months before she killed her three children. That doesn't excuse what happened — she's responsible. But the psychiatric and pharmaceutical systems that let this happen need real reform. All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 change anything for a company built on exactly the engagement this lawsuit targeted? All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 bond market plan from his own mentor, legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller. All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 country. All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 secret instead of being previewed days in advance? All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 Merck announced their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a major melanoma trial, sending the stock soaring. Would vaccine skeptics actually take this one? All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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, tariffs, and government spending. We break down what that means for your mortgage. All of it today.

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Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed

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 peace agreement expired over the weekend with no deal. Now it looks like economic pressure is the only real lever still being worked. All of it today.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tom-sullivan-show--6632619/support.

Remember to call with your money and investing questions 855-295-6600 for the Financial Friday podcast. https://www.spreaker.com/show/7102919/episodes/feed