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Two young conservative women who voted for Trump ask the questions their own side keeps dodging.
Episodes
The archive
18 episodes, newest first.
- The Obamacare Cliff the GOP Wouldn't OwnWeek 39 of 2026: enhanced ACA subsidies expired, premiums spiked, and millions of people dropped coverage — including a lot of Republicans who never wanted this outcome. Rachel and Jordyn do a receipt check on a party that controls the House, Senate, and White House and still couldn't produce a health care plan before its own voters felt the hit. They walk through the premium math, the coverage drop numbers, and the HSA counterproposal that only showed up after the sticker shock landed. Rachel keeps hammering the ROI question: where was the plan for the last decade? Jordyn pushes on whether 'money directly to the people' actually means anything when the amount doesn't cover the gap. They don't fully agree on how much blame goes to congressional gridlock versus leadership choices. The question this episode tries to answer: if a party spent ten years promising to fix health care, why did open enrollment hit with nothing ready to replace what expired?
- Shutdown Punted Past Election Day, Sep 15Week 37 of 2026: Congress just funded the government through December 11 — a date that conveniently clears the calendar until after early voting and the midterms. This week Rachel and Jordyn dig into the 370-48 House vote and the 90-6 Senate vote that got this stopgap to Trump's desk, and ask why a Congress that couldn't finish a single one of twelve appropriations bills suddenly found bipartisan unity to hide the fight from voters. Rachel connects it to the same delay-and-defer pattern she's tracked on tariffs all year; Jordyn's more focused on what it says about Congress abandoning regular order altogether. They disagree on how much blame goes to GOP leadership versus the system itself. Plus: a Receipt Check on 'fiscal responsibility,' the debt ceiling nobody's discussing, and a Friendly Fire round. The question: if both parties agree the one thing they can't survive is you watching them fight over money, what does that tell you about who they're actually afraid of?
- The Loyalist Fed Chair Who Might Hike AnywayIt's Week 37 of 2026, and this week's topic is Kevin Warsh — the Fed chair Trump himself picked to end political meddling at the central bank. Now the whole administration is publicly leaning on him days before the September 15-16 FOMC meeting, and markets are betting on a hike, not the cut Trump wants. Rachel digs into the jobs numbers and market odds like a spreadsheet audit. Jordyn keeps circling back to what a hike versus a cut actually does to a mortgage payment. They don't fully agree on how much blame lands on Warsh versus the incentives of the job itself. Along the way: Vance's public lobbying, Trump's oddly restrained tone toward his own pick, and a Fed governor who isn't reading from the same script as the White House. The question this episode tries to answer: if installing a loyalist didn't end the pressure campaign, was Fed independence ever actually the plan?
- Lake America: The Real Bill You're Paying, Sep 1This week we're looking at the same news cycle from two directions: Trump asking Apple to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" on maps, and the Section 338 tariff fight with Canada that's about to get more expensive. Canada's dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs hit September 8. Detroit is already describing real economic pain. National trackers put the average household tax hit in the hundreds of dollars, and nobody in Washington has said what ends this. Rachel wants to know if the meme is doing PR work for a policy nobody can defend on the merits. Jordyn keeps circling back to whether a legal theory nobody's tested in court should be running this much of the economy. They don't agree on how much the naming stunt actually matters versus how much it's just a distraction from the real story. But they agree on the question a lot of frustrated conservatives are asking right now: when does 'winning' on tariffs start showing up as a number on your receipt instead of a headline?
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- The Tariff Fired, Then Vanished, Aug 25Week 35 of 2026: the Section 338 tariff Rachel and Jordyn called weeks ago actually fired, then paused, then turned into a 'deal' nobody can fully explain. They compare what the administration is calling a win to what a three-day pause before a midterm actually buys American consumers on dairy, alcohol, and cars. Rachel keeps pulling the fiscal thread: a $0.9 trillion deficit hit from trade policy that never gets a victory lap. Jordyn keeps circling back to whether Section 338 becoming a template for future executive tariff moves should worry conservatives who claim to believe in checks on power. They don't fully agree on how much credit the 'deal' deserves for cutting steel and aluminum tariffs, or whether that's real relief or a rounding error dressed up as a win. So which is it: trade policy, or theater timed for November?
- The Purge That Boomeranged, Aug 19Ten Trump-endorsed candidates have now lost their 2026 primaries. Rachel and Jordyn check the receipts on the loyalty-test strategy and ask whether the purge is eating its own.
- The 1930 Tariff Law Nobody Dared Use, Aug 4Trump reached back to Smoot-Hawley and pulled out Section 338, a provision no president had ever used, to hit Canada with 50 percent tariffs. Rachel and Jordyn track the receipt and follow the same week's quieter story: welfare data heading to ICE.
- The $825 Billion Tariff Gap, Jul 28Rachel and Jordyn dig into the new CRFB analysis showing Trump's Section 301 tariffs will raise about $825 billion less than the ones the Supreme Court threw out, while taxpayers still owe importers a $166 billion refund. A fiscal responsibility party that swapped a big illegal tax for a smaller one and called it a win.
- The Tariff Cliff: Door Number Three, Jul 21Rachel and Jordyn cash in their own July 7 prediction as the Section 122 tariff hits its 150-day statutory expiration at 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24, breaking down whether the GOP actually reclaimed its taxing power or the executive just pivoted to Section 301 and 232 authority instead.
- Six Justices Said No, Trump Did It Anyway: Jul 7Rachel and Jordyn revisit the tariff fight they've been tracking all year: the Supreme Court struck it down in February, Trump found a Nixon-era loophole, and that loophole expires July 24 unless Congress acts. They ask whether the GOP finally reclaims its constitutional tariff power or just watches the clock reset.
Talent
Talents in this show
Each one has a profile of their own.
About
What the show is
Each week, they hold MAGA accountable to its own promises: what was delivered, what was abandoned, and what got quietly walked back when nobody was looking. Conservative Reckoning is for the growing number of right-leaning voters who still believe in limited government, personal liberty, and fiscal responsibility but refuse to clap for a movement that forgot those values existed. If you feel politically stranded between a party you helped build and a direction you can't defend, pull up a chair. You belong here.
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