The Erick Erickson Show

Erick Erickson tells the online right the hard truth about the SAVE Act: most Americans have no idea what it is, and no election bill is what stands between Republicans and November. He argues gas prices, wages trailing inflation and grocery bills are the real problem, then plays James Talarico on white privilege and blinders, Abdul El-Sayed telling Stephen A. Smith he wants a secure border while he abolishes ICE, and Michigan's Will Lawrence on ending heterosexual households. Plus the Missouri Supreme Court blowing up the state's congressional map 60 days out, Paul Ryan and Andrew Ross Sorkin on the debt, Social Security and the retirement age, and Mark Thiessen's plan to let Ukraine build its own Patriot interceptors.

• Why the SAVE Act is not a silver bullet: Erick's blunt case that voters have never heard of it, and that the midterm damage is about gas prices, wages beneath inflation and groceries, not election law
• The mitigation strategy for November: play the Democrats' own words back at them, James Talarico on blinders and white privilege, Abdul El-Sayed refusing to disavow Hassan Piker, and the "he's for you, they're for they/them" ad Erick wants resurrected
• Abolish ICE, explained: El-Sayed says ICE did not exist before this century, and Erick's answer that ICE is INS with a new name and a Homeland Security address
• Missouri Supreme Court redistricting mess: primaries already run on a 7 to 1 map, the general ordered back to the old 6 to 2 map, and Erick's equal protection argument for taking it to the US Supreme Court
• Entitlement reform as a second term legacy: Paul Ryan and Andrew Ross Sorkin on populism killing debt reduction, the automatic cuts coming by 2032, raising the retirement age, and a lame duck window after the midterms
• Ukraine, Iran and one privacy warning: Mark Thiessen's PAC-2 and PAC-3 co-production plan for Ukraine, "go finish Iran," and the Krebs on Security report that scans of 153 million driver's licenses are for sale on a Russian forum

Erick opens with a hot dog stand anecdote from New Way Weiners in Macon that matches the polling data: a Trump voter who is not angry, just disappointed, with diesel over six dollars a gallon. He walks through Karl Rove's Wall Street Journal warning that a Trump rally a day in October and an ad blitz built on the president himself will sink Republicans at 39.6 percent approval, then takes apart Joe Rogan's claim that ending poverty would end crime. Also: Sam Altman and Howard Lutnick at the G20 Asheville summit, the vitamin K shot panic, and the death of Gloria Steinem.

• Karl Rove's midterm warning: make 2026 about the Democrats, not Donald Trump
• Trump at 39.6 percent approval, the "they/them" ad, Troy Jackson in Maine and James Talarico in Texas
• Joe Rogan's poverty and crime take, and why the data does not back it
• Sam Altman and Howard Lutnick at the G20 Asheville statement on light touch AI regulation
• The algorithm versus AI: vitamin K shots, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Gloria Steinem's death

Erick tracks the Iran war as Brent hits 95 dollars and West Texas crude hits 91, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claiming the Strait of Hormuz is flowing and the regime is finished, while Iranian missiles hit Kuwait and possibly a hotel in Jordan. He then reports the growing revolt inside the Pentagon against Pete Hegseth after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation, and lays out his full theory of why the Republican Party keeps nominating the runner up, which points to Ted Cruz in 2028 if JD Vance stumbles. Breaking at the end of the hour: Maria Bartiromo is out at Fox Business after 12 years.

• Iran escalation, the Strait of Hormuz, Chris Wright on 17 million barrels a day, Scott Bessent on the iron wall blockade
• Brent at 95 dollars, West Texas crude at 91, diesel over 6 dollars a gallon, and Howard Lutnick on tariffs and GDP
• Pete Hegseth losing the officer corps: Dan Driscoll resigns, Sean Parnell responds, House and Senate Republicans prepare tough questions
• Erick's theory of everything on the GOP: Dick Cheney, Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and why Ted Cruz should be the 2028 nominee
• JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and the anti-Semitism problem with southern evangelicals and the donor class
• Breaking: Maria Bartiromo out at Fox Business, speculation about White House Press Secretary

Erick knocks down the viral photos of the rusted USS Abraham Lincoln as left wing propaganda, pointing to the HMS Hermes coming back from the Falklands in 1982 in worse shape, then takes a call from Tom, a Navy pilot's father who says the fleet is simply broken and that 62 percent of jet pilots and 58 percent of helicopter pilots will not re-up under Pete Hegseth. The hour turns to Tom Homan on Fox laying out three straight record breaking months of ICE arrests and the national security case against birth tourism from Russia and China, Marco Rubio sanctioning Raul Castro's grandson and Banco Exterior de Cuba, and Erick's question about why the ICE protests vanished exactly when Cuban money in American shell accounts got frozen.

• USS Abraham Lincoln rust photos debunked: HMS Hermes, the Falklands, and why every ship at sea corrodes
• Caller Tom on the broken Navy: General Dynamics maintenance contracts, MH-60 helicopters, and pilot attrition under Pete Hegseth
• Dan Driscoll out, General Randy George purged, and the Army drone program Hegseth sidelined without telling Donald Trump
• Tom Homan on record ICE deportation arrests in June, July and August, plus 25,000 to 30,000 birth tourism cases a year from Russia and China
• Marco Rubio sanctions the Castro financial network as the ICE protests quietly disappear
• Ayanna Pressley calls birth tourism enforcement great replacement theory, and the Michigan land acknowledgement that set Erick off

Erick returns from break with good scan news for his wife, then breaks down why Army Secretary Dan Driscoll walked into the White House, told President Trump how many generals and admirals Pete Hegseth had quietly purged, and resigned on the spot. He also takes on Laura Ingraham by name over her "never Trump" attack, walks through Harry Enten's numbers showing Republicans running ahead of Trump's own 37 percent approval, and explains why the first Secure America PAC ads are aimed at exactly the wrong voters.

• Dan Driscoll out at the Pentagon, the Washington Post readiness leak, and how many officers Pete Hegseth fired without telling the president
• Why the president's super PAC ads fail: Harry Enten's data on Trump's 37 percent approval, the generic ballot, and the Republicans who are not motivated
• Erick versus Laura Ingraham, the Dominion discovery text messages, and why he will never say privately what he will not say on air
• Ken Paxton, James Talarico, and the Texas Senate race: run on the opponent's own words, not on your own record
• Max Miller, Brian Poindexter, and the best campaign ad of 2026, plus Ann Richards' 1996 warning to Bill Clinton about campaigning on the past
• Post Labor Day polling shifts, summer's Democratic bias, and the case against leaving the mentally ill on the streets

Erick Erickson opens by answering Laura Ingraham's Twitter attack over his Ken Paxton column, then defends Amy Coney Barrett for siding with Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump in the 5 to 4 White House ballroom ruling while tearing apart John Roberts and his "aesthetic injury" dissent. The hour closes on the deadlocked Lindsay Clancy jury in Massachusetts, with Erick and attorney Chad from Montgomery arguing the prosecution overcharged the case and that jurors, not social media, should decide it.

• Ken Paxton trails James Talarico in Texas, outraised 10 to 1, and Erick answers Laura Ingraham's "never Trumper" attack with the 2020 Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani text messages
• Amy Coney Barrett sides with Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to let White House ballroom construction continue in National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation
• John Roberts dissents on "aesthetic injury" standing, and Erick argues the Chief Justice keeps making the Supreme Court more political every time he tries to keep it out of politics
• Every president since World War II wanted a ballroom: Erick calls it overbuilt and gaudy, but says it is the president's house and the historic preservation crowd has no standing to stop it
• Lindsay Clancy jury deadlocks after 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits, and Erick refuses to attack the nine women and three men, defending American juries and the insanity and manslaughter questions in play

Erick Erickson breaks with much of the right on Flock cameras, taking apart Ron DeSantis and his move to pull every license plate reader off Florida's state highways, and laying out three fixes he says beat an outright ban: prohibit facial recognition in public rights of way, mandatory prison sentences for police who abuse the system, and a private right to sue Flock Safety when it shares data a city told it to keep local. Caller Troy asks what "papers" actually means in the Fourth Amendment, and Erick walks through persons, houses, papers and effects, the Supreme Court holding that a license plate carries no expectation of privacy, and how the FBI already used cell phone tower data to build the January 6 cases without a single camera. The hour then turns to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shutting down 110 driving schools over English proficiency violations, illegal aliens holding commercial driver's licenses in California and New York, Ken Paxton, Lake America, and a personal update on ten years of a drug keeping Erick's wife alive with stage four lung cancer.

• Ron DeSantis moves to strip Flock cameras from Florida rights of way, and Erick argues the license plate readers have solved hundreds of thousands of crimes and recovered kidnapped kids and wandering dementia patients, while wondering aloud whether DeSantis is grabbing a populist libertarian lane ahead of JD Vance and Marco Rubio for 2028
• Three fixes instead of a ban: ban facial recognition in the public right of way, mandatory minimum prison sentences for officers who abuse Flock Safety data, and a private right of action against Flock when it shares data across jurisdictions that opted out
• Caller Troy on the Fourth Amendment and the word "papers," with Erick explaining persons, houses, papers and effects, the Ben Franklin liberty and security quote everyone misuses, and why anyone can legally photograph your license plate from the roadside
• Sean Duffy shuts down 110 driving schools tied to 5,000 English proficiency violations, and Erick credits the Transportation Secretary on air traffic controller hiring and FAA GPS upgrades that Pete Buttigieg never delivered, while calling the new FAA ban on pre flight drinks pure nanny state
• Erick on Ken Paxton, James Talarico and being handed crap sandwiches by both parties, on Lake America as bot bait, on his Swedish grandfather learning English in Coral Gables, and on his wife hitting ten years on a stage four lung cancer drug she was given two years to survive

Erick Erickson walks the whole 2026 Senate map, refusing to back off his warning that Ken Paxton is a bad general election candidate against James Talarico in Texas, then breaks live news that Donald Trump has launched new strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz after Iran tried to mine the strait and fired eight missiles at an American base in Jordan. He takes apart Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan campaign, the Hasan Piker problem, the Charlamagne tha God appearance and the fireworks and asthma clip, and closes the hour explaining why he has changed his mind on whether Islam as it is being imported by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR is compatible with the Western world.

• Ken Paxton versus James Talarico in Texas: Erick says he called this race months ago, that independent voters decide Texas, and that Republicans should not drain the national budget saving Paxton when Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska and Alaska are all in play
• Breaking during the hour: Trump announces strikes near the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for Iranian sea mines and eight missiles fired at a base in Jordan, with a warning that a much larger attack is waiting in the wings and "very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran"
• Abdul El-Sayed's campaign in trouble: Mike Rogers on offense, Debbie Wasserman Schultz refusing to clear him, the Hasan Piker campaign appearance he now calls "a streamer in California," a Jewish consultant hired for damage control, and his claim that fireworks cause asthma attacks and heart attacks
• Scott Jennings versus Abby Phillip on CNN over Laura Loomer, and Erick's answer: draw Jesus and nothing happens, draw Muhammad and people lose their heads, plus MEMRI clips of imams saying "Islam is the solution for the whole world" and "we will build America on Islam"
• Why Erick changed his mind, credited to Muslim friends who fled the Middle East and to Dr. Michael Youssef's book on the unholy alliance between progressivism and Islamism, with Hamtramck, Dearborn, the British rape gangs and El-Sayed's Muslim Brotherhood ties as the evidence, and a Jimmy Carr bit and a Jewish necktie joke as the illustration