The Erick Erickson Show

Erick Erickson makes the case that abortion is his red line and that voters have every right to sit out races like the Ken Paxton versus James Talarico Texas Senate fight, warning Republicans that holding your nose for corrupt or unworthy candidates guarantees worse ones, from Vivek Ramaswamy's struggles in the Ohio governor race to Trump's taxpayer funded campaign ad. He also defends Georgia governor candidate Rick Jackson against an AJC attack on the self-made man, plays the Saturday Night Live Dario Amodei parody, and shares a UK counterterrorism update on five men released on bail in a suspected foreign state operation.

• Lesser of two evils: Erick explains why abortion is a red line, why he will not vote for two pro-abortion candidates, and why more disaffected Republicans and independents are tapping out of the 2026 midterms
• Texas Senate race: Ken Paxton versus James Talarico, John Cornyn's role, and Beau French's Railroad Commission risk, with Erick reminding Republicans they told voters in 2016 they were electing a politician, not a preacher
• Ohio governor race: Vivek Ramaswamy slipping in the polls, and Erick's charge that some on the right will not vote for a brown-skinned Hindu candidate after demanding everyone hold their nose for Donald Trump
• Trump taxpayer funded campaign ad: the White House swapped the paid for by Trump for President tag for a government one, and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy is among those calling it out
• Rick Jackson and the self-made man: Erick answers an Atlanta Journal-Constitution column calling the self-made man a myth, and argues for helping the deserving poor while ending bailouts for repeated bad choices
• Also: Saturday Night Live's Dario Amodei and Anthropic parody, UK counterterrorism police releasing five arrested men on bail in a suspected foreign proxy operation, and the Laughing Cow's scowling new ad campaign

Erick Erickson opens as President Trump welcomes Xi Jinping to the White House and the administration caves on its ban of CNN, MS Now, and Politico, then explains why a declining China, not a rising one, is the real danger: purged generals, a stalled Chinese economy, Iran's oil squeeze, and Beijing's push to get Trump to abandon Taiwan. Then Erick celebrates Argentine President Javier Milei's blistering United Nations speech, the free market results of ending rent control in Buenos Aires, and why EU bureaucrats, Adrian Vermeule's common good constitutionalism, and Abdul El-Sayed's word salad on Iran all point the same direction.

• Trump and Xi Jinping at the White House: the CNN, MS Now, and Politico ban reversed, and the Tiananmen Square irony of barring CNN on the day China's dictator arrives
• China in decline: Peter Schweizer on Xi purging the Central Military Commission and 45 missing generals, Greg Ip and Rhodium Group on a Chinese economy that may be growing near zero, and Senator John Kennedy's "he learned to lie before he learned to talk"
• China, Iran, and Taiwan: Beijing helping Iran target Americans, U.S. missile batteries on Philippine islands in the Luzon Strait, and why Erick wants Reagan style confrontation instead of friendship
• Javier Milei at the UN: a "cast of fatally arrogant parasites," Argentina's economy rebounding after cutting tariffs, price controls, and rent control, and the free market lesson for Trump populists and JD Vance
• EU Digital Markets Act rules forcing Apple to rewrite its app tracking prompt, Britain's disinformation push, Adrian Vermeule's common good constitutionalism, and Abdul El-Sayed refusing to condemn Khamenei and the IRGC in Michigan

Erick Erickson reports from a Georgia fundraiser where Republicans finally felt some joy, as Rick Jackson's ad blitz on Keisha Lance Bottoms and the 2020 Atlanta riots moves the Georgia governor race while Democrats hold zero TV reservations for October. Then Erick sides with Judge Judy on retrying Lindsay Clancy, blasts The View for scolding Patrick Clancy for divorcing the woman who killed their three children, and argues true crime podcasts, Christian nationalism, and a Massachusetts mask bar are all symptoms of a society losing its mind.

• Georgia governor race: Rick Jackson's Keisha Lance Bottoms riot ad, $31.5 million in Republican October TV reservations versus zero for Democrats, and Mike Collins gaining ground against Jon Ossoff
• 2026 midterms: why September polling is shifting toward the GOP, reports the NRSC is eyeing New Hampshire, Michigan, and Minnesota over Georgia and North Carolina, Ken Paxton's ads falling flat against James Talarico in Texas, and Erick's call of a 50 50 Senate with JD Vance breaking ties if the election were today
• Lindsay Clancy retrial: Judge Judy on the danger of copycats, a defense attorney targeting the lone guilty juror, and why prosecutors must try the case again
• The View and Patrick Clancy: Alyssa Farah Griffin as the lone voice of reason, and how true crime podcasts and Candace Owens style conspiracy theories are rotting brains
• Christian nationalism: Andrew Walker's World magazine piece, pastors and marriage counselors on grievance driven young men in the church, and Erick's comparison to the masked holdouts at a Massachusetts lesbian bar; plus flamethrowers in Las Vegas and Erick's favorite mail order butchers

Erick Erickson opens on Stanford University admitting its dining department used AI to turn a Hispanic male student into a Black woman in marketing photos, calling it DEI and identity politics run amok, and draws on his late friend Tim Keller's teaching that every person is made in the image of God. Then Erick turns to the farm crisis: Mike Rogers and Roger Marshall breaking with the White House on the Iran war as diesel prices top six dollars at harvest, why a diesel export ban would backfire, China reneging on soybean purchases, and farm bankruptcies piling up in Georgia.

• Stanford University AI photo scandal: a Hispanic student digitally turned into a Black woman, Stanford faulting only its AI policy, and Erick on DEI, identity politics, and why "woke" is alive and well on college campuses
• Tim Keller and the image of God: Erick's private conversations with Keller, why his critics twisted theology to fit politics, lessons from CNN friendships with Paul Begala and Donna Brazile, and Ketanji Brown Jackson as the stigma of hiring by race
• Iran war and diesel prices: Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers and Kansas Senator Roger Marshall urging a wind down, John Kennedy's "colony of reptiles" line on China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea, and $6.53 diesel hitting the harvest
• Diesel export ban: $100 billion a month in goods arriving by cargo ship, Russia's export ban, and the American Petroleum Institute's warning that refiners would cut gasoline and jet fuel too
• Farm bankruptcies and soybean prices: China buying from Brazil instead of American farmers, falling Chinese hog demand, Brooke Rollins telling families to eat lentils, weekly farm bankruptcies in Macon, and population decline

Broadcasting from the home bunker on a day of runaway mattress deliveries, Erick Erickson breaks down President Trump's United Nations remarks: the Shield of the Americas alliance with Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent, renaming artificial intelligence "super intelligence," rejecting global AI restrictions, and a call for the complete economic isolation of Iran as Xi Jinping arrives at Joint Base Andrews. Then Erick explains why capping diesel prices or banning diesel exports would raise costs on everything shipped into America, how tariffs and the Canada trade war wiped out Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm, and why Kamala Harris may sit out 2028 while she campaigns for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

• Trump at the UN: Shield of the Americas, "super intelligence" replacing AI, 18 new munitions plants, and isolating Iran until it stops attacking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz
• Xi Jinping's visit, his purge of generals, and fears he thinks he can play Trump on Taiwan; Brent crude over $100 and a 19 year high in Treasury yields
• Why a diesel export ban and price caps backfire: global diesel prices, cargo ships, import costs, the aluminum tariff lesson, and the Canada tariffs that gutted a Vermont cheesemaker
• Kamala Harris says she has not decided on 2028, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, and Andy Beshear circle, and Abdul El-Sayed's "cars are modern day cigarettes" and uncommitted past in the Michigan Senate race against Mike Rogers
• Macro versus pocketbook economics, JD Vance's "give us more time" message, and Democrats attacking George W. Bush for campaigning for Susan Collins, Dan Sullivan, and Mike Rogers

Erick Erickson says America needs litmus tests for crazy, starting with the Last Ditch lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where critics cried ableism and eugenics when the struggling bar dropped its N95 mask mandate one night a week, and moving to Bill Burr's defense of Luigi Mangione, Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk, and transgender athletes in girls sports. Then Erick explains why Xi Jinping is a real totalitarian, unlike Donald Trump, as the Chinese dictator arrives at Joint Base Andrews believing he can make Trump cave on Taiwan, plus the Paramount Warner Bros merger meltdown at CNN and the AI bubble coming for online retail.

• The Last Ditch lesbian bar mask mandate fight in Greenfield, Massachusetts, the "intersectional" backlash, and the Boston Globe's record breaking story
• Litmus tests for crazy: Luigi Mangione and Brian Thompson, Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle, Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk, Lindsay Clancy, masks in 2026, and kids transitioning
• Xi Jinping's visit, his purge of Chinese generals, Uyghur concentration camps, a declining Chinese economy and birth rate, and the fight over Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, and Japan
• Trump versus a true totalitarian: court losses on tariffs, birthright citizenship, and banning CNN and Politico from the White House pool
• The Paramount Warner Bros deal, Bari Weiss, Kara Swisher, a 90 day diesel export ban, and Amazon blocking Meta's AI shopping agent as Wall Street sees an AI bubble

Erick Erickson explains why Meta's new AI agent Muse, the number one app in the Apple App Store, has Amazon blocking it and Wall Street dumping bank, insurer, telecom, and travel stocks, and why he is fine with AI agents canceling unused subscriptions and hunting down better deals even as a Financial Times study finds ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Grok get financial questions wrong most of the time. Then, with the 10 year Treasury yield at a 19 year high, Erick plays Rand Paul on CNBC blaming both parties for the national debt, warns of stagflation and a bipartisan fiscal cliff Mitch McConnell predicted, and asks listeners to pray for Ben Sasse after his liver surgery.

• Meta's Muse AI agent: Amazon blocks it from shopping, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Allstate, and Charles Schwab shares slide, and Goldman Sachs flags telecom, insurance, and utilities as "consumer inertia" stocks at risk
• AI agents versus Main Street retail: Amazon's ad business, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Blick, and why Erick misses browsing a real store, plus Apple's new Siri agent on the iPhone
• Financial Times study: AI chatbots give wrong answers to money and tax questions 57 percent of the time, with Claude Opus 5 the best performer at about 60 percent
• Rand Paul on CNBC: warfare and welfare spending, deficits causing inflation and the affordability crisis, tariffs, the 10 year Treasury yield, entitlement reform, Social Security and Medicare, and Mitch McConnell's warning that both parties will go off the cliff together
• The White House denies a diesel export ban as Chris Wright seeks voluntary help from the oil industry, and Erick shares an update on former Senator Ben Sasse's surgery and fight with pancreatic cancer

Erick breaks down President Trump's speech to the United Nations General Assembly, from calling the International Criminal Court a rogue institution and an evil group of people, to the Iran ultimatum (a deal or annihilation, with no thought given to the midterms), to the moment the Cuban delegation walked out. Then a searing hour on Canada's MAID program and the death of 83 year old Brigitte Stegman, a Christian grandmother who told her family she had made a mistake two days before doctors killed her. Plus Marco Rubio made permanent as national security advisor, Zelensky laying white roses at the 9/11 memorial, and why deregulating natural gas in 1993 proved the free market right.

• Trump at the United Nations: the International Criminal Court, UNESCO, a 15 percent UN budget cut, and no global carbon tax on his watch
• Iran ultimatum from the UN podium, plus Marco Rubio on diesel prices, the Black Sea, and the Houthis
• The Cuban delegation walks out as Trump ties Havana to the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and the DSA, and celebrates the capture of Nicolas Maduro
• Canada's MAID program: Brigitte Stegman's family speaks out, one in every 20 Canadian deaths is now physician assisted, and Erick's theological case against a culture that has stopped respecting life
• Marco Rubio commissioned permanently as national security advisor, and the 1993 natural gas deregulation that liberals like Mario Cuomo admitted they got wrong

Erick takes apart the online outrage machine after Converse pulled a Chuck 70 ad over absurd claims that a K-pop star's photo evoked a KKK hood and a lynching, and explains why Nike's habit of apologizing to the white wokes helped drop it out of the S&P 100 for the first time since 1998. Then the mob turns on Taylor Swift for cheering her husband Travis Kelce during the Chiefs' 33 to 30 win over the Colts, Rick Jackson's brutal 2020 riot ad flatlines Keisha Lance Bottoms in the Georgia governor's race, and General Motors delivers Patriot missile housings to Lockheed Martin just 22 days after signing the contract. His thesis all hour: the only way to play the outrage game is to refuse to play it.

• Converse pulls the Karina Chuck 70 ad instead of saying "we did nothing wrong," and Nike falls out of the S&P 100 for the first time since 1998
• Taylor Swift cheers Travis Kelce and gets attacked for it, plus Brad Wilcox and the Institute for Family Studies data on masculine husbands and happy marriages
• Rick Jackson's ad guts the Keisha Lance Bottoms campaign in the Georgia governor's race, and why Ken Paxton and Mike Collins should stop running AI drivel
• General Motors retools a car plant and delivers Patriot missile housings for Lockheed Martin in 22 days, beating subsidized General Dynamics without a dime of industrial policy
• Trump at Gracie Mansion with Zohran Mamdani, GM walking back the Apple CarPlay decision, and Nikole Hannah-Jones on standardized tests

Erick Erickson walks through the economic war on Iran, with Brent and West Texas crude back below $100, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC detailing five new sanctions authorities that shut down Iranian airlines worldwide and closed branches of Egyptian, Turkish and Russian banks, and Wall Street Journal reporting on the US Navy blockade, stranded truckers at the Pakistani and Afghan borders, and Iran's paranoia after the Hezbollah pager operation. He covers record diesel at $6.31 a gallon, JP Morgan admitting it has no model for the endgame, Steve Moore's deregulation case, and the breaking news that the Trump administration is weighing a diesel export ban. Then former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin joins to explain the Education Freedom Tax Credit and why 20 governors still have not opted in, and Erick closes on the Associated Press tying a Mississippi killing to lynchings and on Senator John Curtis demanding an investigation of the Don Jr. wedding.

• Iran under blockade: Scott Bessent on CNBC, aviation and maritime and crypto and gold sanctions, three sanctioned banks, and the September 23 shutdown of Iranian airlines worldwide
• Oil below $100, diesel at an all time high of $6.31, gasoline at $4.37, JP Morgan saying it has no baseline view, and the Trump administration studying a diesel export ban that failed for Jimmy Carter
• Iran's self sabotage at the Pakistani, Afghan, Turkmen and Turkish borders, the Hezbollah pager operation behind the paranoia, new long range Iranian missiles, and Chinese help replenishing them
• Glenn Youngkin on Empowering America's Parents, the $1,700 dollar for dollar federal tax credit, 30 states in and 20 out, Kathy Hochul and Jared Polis opting in, Josh Shapiro holding out, and Rick Jackson versus Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia
• The Associated Press tying the murder of Tasia Fortune to Southern lynchings after a black suspect was arrested, plus Senator John Curtis pushing an investigation of the Russian oligarch who funded the Don Jr. wedding