You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 23, 2026.

We're broadcasting live from Times Square in New York City — on primary day, as Mayor Zoran Mamdani attempts something far larger than winning a few congressional primaries. We explain why what Mamdani is trying to do is bigger than New York — he's attempting to remake the entire Democratic Party in the image of democratic socialism, purging what's left of moderate Democrats and replacing them with Democratic Socialists of America candidates. We ask the question nobody on the left seems willing to answer — name one socialist experiment anywhere in the world you would describe as compassionate. Venezuela? Cuba? China? The Soviet Union? If your ideology has no successful historical examples, what exactly are you basing it on?

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the U.S. is allowing Iran to sell oil in U.S. dollars through August 21st — within the 60-day window of the initial peace agreement — with Vice President Vance making clear that everything goes back on if Iran doesn't deliver. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is actually increasing. Then three non-citizens — from Brazil, Haiti, and Cuba — pleaded guilty to voting in U.S. federal elections in both 2020 and 2024, had their residency status revoked, and reminded everyone that the most secure election in history apparently had at least some fraud in it. And the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District resigned this week following FBI raids on his home, office, and Miami property earlier this year — with scuttlebutt about potential kickbacks tied to an educational software program he was promoting.

We also cover a federal judge blocking the Trump administration's use of the SAVE database — a system the government already has — to allow states to cross-reference their voter rolls against citizenship and immigration records. We explain why this ruling is breathtaking in its logic: the government cannot share data it already has with another part of the government to verify data it already has. We ask why this is even controversial.

Our American Mamas Terri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson discuss a Dallas case where a 75-year-old man named Chung Kim shot and killed his upstairs neighbors after they repeatedly dropped dog waste and dirty diapers onto his balcony, documented everything, went to management repeatedly, and got no help. We explore the line between a system that fails its citizens and the moment someone takes matters into their own hands — and connect it to John Adams' warning that our government is only suitable for a moral and religious people. 

We dig into Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner — George Soros' most famous district attorney — and a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that found Krasner's office committed a pattern of misleading and mendacious filings, withheld material evidence, submitted a false stipulation of fact, misstated facts in filings, and opposed required evidentiary hearings — all in service of helping convicted murderers and rapists avoid prison through fraudulent post-conviction relief claims. We ask the obvious question — if the state Supreme Court found all of this, why isn't Larry Krasner in jail?

We also revisit the Fauci documents dumped by Tulsi Gabbard on her way out as DNI — and ask the question plainly. If Fauci used USAID through back channels to fund research that created the COVID-19 virus, which killed 7.1 million people internationally — and did nothing wrong — why did he lie to Congress? And why did Joe Biden issue a preemptive pardon for crimes nobody had formally accused him of yet?

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has expanded his trans-femicide state of emergency — focused on a statistically tiny number of transgender murder victims — while nearly 200 people have been killed in Chicago already this year by conventional violence. We explain why dividing crime victims into political categories is not just morally wrong but strategically stupid — if you actually enforce the law against everyone, everyone is protected.

For our Bright Spot, we work through the five most visited landmarks in New York City — Central Park, Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the 9/11 Memorial — and find a deeper American story in each one. The conservationist tradition. The triumph of capitalism. Industrial ambition. A monument from France to American liberty. And a reminder that there are people in the world who want to tear down everything on that list.

And one of Mamdani's congressional candidates — Dira Liza Avila Chevalier — posted in 2021 that America is an effing disgrace and that when she needed a napkin for barbecue, she just wiped her hands on the American flag instead of getting up to get one. She has since deleted the post. Mamdani still supports her. We note that men and women have bled for that flag.

We close with the passing of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan at 100 years old — who served under four consecutive presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush — and the John McCain quote that may be the best tribute anyone ever paid him. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776!