You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 29, 2026.

We open with Anthony Fauci's appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee — where he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times over nearly four hours, refusing to answer questions about COVID-19, gain-of-function research, federal records, and his role in shaping the pandemic response. He even invoked the Fifth when asked whether a red folder was sitting in front of him. We walk through the constitutional tension at the heart of the hearing: Biden's sweeping preemptive pardon covers Fauci for any federal offense between 2014 and January 19, 2025 — and under an 1896 Supreme Court ruling, a pardoned witness can no longer claim Fifth Amendment privilege because the danger of prosecution has been removed. Fauci's lawyers are apparently betting the autopenned pardon might be invalidated. We also point out that the Fifth Amendment does not protect a witness from future perjury — meaning the only real jeopardy Fauci faced was if he lied again. His diaries, which he confirmed are his, already prove he lied to Congress about school closures and gain-of-function. Biden may have given him immunity from punishment. He may also have given Congress the power to compel the truth.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, Fauci's Senate testimony — 111 Fifth Amendment invocations, a contempt vote expected next week. Then the Trump administration officially banned gain-of-function research globally — expanding last year's China-specific ban to all foreign nations and the United States itself, with HHS and the State Department issuing a joint statement on biosafety standards. And the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton as the new Director of National Intelligence on a party-line 51-47 vote — in part because Clayton refused to tell Democrat senators that he believed Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly.

We also cover President Trump's ban on importing humanoid robots manufactured in China — framing it as a national security issue rather than a tariff. We explain why this is correct: Chinese robotic firms have been pouring money into R&D, producing advanced prototypes that can lift, run, climb stairs, and mimic human gestures. Importing them would stifle American domestic robotics manufacturing and potentially introduce devices receiving overnight software updates from servers in Beijing.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson take on the trend of celebrity children dropping their fathers' last names when they turn 18 — specifically Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's daughter, and Tom Cruise's daughter Suri. Teri makes the case that this isn't really about the name — it's about what happens when a parent loves winning more than they love their children's relationship with their other parent. She shares a story from their own extended family where a mother kept her children away from their father for 20 years based on lies — and when the truth came out as adults, the son found his father, the father died shortly after, and the son's relationship with his mother was shattered permanently. The data on children without fathers is not ambiguous. The children who are protected from the bitterness of divorce are the ones who grow up most whole.

We dig into Zoran Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax — a second-home tax he promised would affect 13,000 properties. When the city published the list of people subject to the tax, it contained more than 960,000 names and their addresses — effectively doxxing nearly a million New Yorkers, including celebrities who campaigned for Mamdani like Cynthia Nixon, plus Anna Wintour and Woody Allen. It also included people who have lived in their homes as their primary residence for 27 and 30 years respectively, now being billed $43,000 in additional annual taxes on top of their existing property taxes. One resident compared it to a command and control government like Cuba or China. We call it exactly what it is — a communist mayor who said he was going to tax the rich and is now taxing anyone he can find an address for.

We also cover the co-owner of the Seattle Storm WNBA team allegedly approaching two teenage girls holding pro-Sophie Cunningham signs at a game — girls wearing XXXY t-shirts in support of women's sports — and unleashing an expletive-filled rant that left one of them in tears. The team apologized. We note that these girls bought tickets, spent money on parking and concessions, and chose to spend their evening at a Storm game. The ownership treated them as political opponents. We also note that the same signs held at a Fever game in Indianapolis would have received a very different reaction.

For our Bright Spot, Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt introduced the Boasberg Act — named after the Washington D.C. federal judge who has repeatedly blocked Trump administration actions before being overruled by the Supreme Court. The bill does three things: requires fully randomized case assignments so plaintiffs can't judge-shop, implements transparency measures to verify the randomization is actually being followed, and removes a judge from a case if the Supreme Court overrules them in that same case. We call it exactly what it is — a structural fix to a systemic problem that has cost taxpayers time and money and allowed activist judges to function as a one-person veto over the will of the American people.

We also cover Chicago's government grocery store experiment — where Mayor Brandon Johnson gave a company called Yellow Banana $13 million in subsidies to reopen seven Save-A-Lot locations in food deserts, promising $26 million over ten years. Yellow Banana closed all seven stores in less than two years. The reason: you cannot sustain a grocery store selling at below-market prices. New York City is now launching the same experiment. We suggest they call Chicago first.

We also cover Nancy Sinatra's claim on X that the founding fathers would have banned firearms if they'd known about automatic weapons — and explain why this is historically illiterate. The founders specifically ensured colonists could own the weapons of war of their era. The Battle of Lexington and Concord was triggered by the British attempting to confiscate cannons. And the Second Amendment says arms — not muskets.

And we close with 14-year-old Jory Thomas, who brought his lariat camping along the Yellowstone River because he'd been practicing roping every day after school. While camping, he heard cries from the middle of the rushing river — a man clinging to a cooler after his raft hit a bridge upstream. Jory waded in, threw his lariat, roped the man on the first try, and pulled him to shore. He said God was basically putting him in place. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy.

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