The Erick Erickson Show

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

Erick Erickson opens by explaining why the Iran war cannot be negotiated like a normal conflict: the Islamic Republic's Mahdiism means the Ayatollahs believe they must bring about the apocalypse. He then walks through Brett McGurk's argument that Iran is actually losing its leverage in the Strait of Hormuz, with oil flows back to two thirds of pre war levels and Iran's economy contracting more than 5 percent. The hour turns on the Washington Post leak of the Secretary of Defense orders book, in which Pete Hegseth was told by the Navy, European Command, Pacific Command and Southern Command that a prolonged Iran deployment cannot be sustained, and on why Erick believes the leak is a 2028 hit job aimed at Hegseth from inside JD Vance's orbit.

• Mahdiism explained: why Iran's rational belief in the apocalypse makes negotiation impossible
• Brett McGurk on the Strait of Hormuz blockade working, oil flows recovering, Iran's economy contracting more than 5 percent with 70 percent inflation
• The Washington Post orders book leak: Admiral Daryl Caudle says only one fourth of the Navy's destroyer fleet is ready to deploy
• Three leaks in a row (Patriot missiles, surface to surface missiles, the non concur) and how Iran reads American weakness
• Erick's 2028 read: JD Vance's team, Pete Hegseth eyeing a run, and a White House source insisting the leakers are civilians, not the military
• Scottie Scheffler wins at East Lake, and why Trump cannot remove a sitting vice president

Erick Erickson reads President Trump's Truth Social post warning that communities rejecting data centers will end up "backwards and poor," then explains why that is the wrong message and why JD Vance's more nuanced version is the right one. He walks through the history of populist movements from Huey Long to Zell Miller to argue that MAGA likely does not survive Trump intact, and he points out the irony that TikTok, which Trump still refuses to shut down, is the original vector for nearly every viral anti data center complaint about water usage, land use, and noise. In the second half he breaks down Trump's Venezuela oil deal in full, giving the President real credit for removing Nicolas Maduro and reopening the fields to Chevron and Halliburton while calling the Pentagon equity structure exactly what it is: socialism.

• Trump's Truth Social data centers post, "let data rain," and why "backwards and poor" is the wrong pitch to a skeptical country
• Populism's arc from Huey Long and Rose Long to Zell Miller, and why JD Vance may not hold the MAGA coalition together
• TikTok as the vector: how data center water usage, noise, and land use fears went viral, and why Trump could shut it down tomorrow
• Caller Mark in Jacksonville on Eisenhower's interstate highway system as the model for embracing data centers, plus Georgia power bills going down
• The Venezuela oil deal: 17 fields, 65 billion barrels, Delcy Rodriguez, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and a Pentagon 35 percent equity stake Erick calls rotten
• Why Hugo Chavez taking Exxon and ConocoPhillips fields at gunpoint in 2007 makes the colonialism complaint absurd, and why paperwork beats rifles

Erick discusses the progressive dystopia that is America as the Handmaid's Tale even as progressives like Kathy Hochul are willing to cover their heads to go talk to muslim men who'd deny them rights. He also points out how the same standard the media is focused on between Hasan Piker and Abdul El-Sayed is playing out between Tucker Carson and J.D. Vance. Erick also discussed Milo Yiannopoulos's deportation and how independent voters say they support the President's deportation of all illegal aliens, but, when rubber meets the road, they do not.

Erick Erickson opens Open Line Friday on President Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America" and asks the obvious question: who exactly is switching their midterm vote over a lake? He then reports the real story behind the Canada trade war, that Jamieson Greer negotiated a deal both sides liked before Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sabotaged it over French language packaging, and warns it could cost Susan Collins in Maine and Mike Rogers in Michigan. Plus Trump's Arthur Schlesinger presidential rankings blunder, the data center backlash to the backlash, and 200,000 Chinese accounts shut down on Twitter.

• Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario, why no president should have that power, and the Iroquoian history of the name
• Jamieson Greer's Canada deal, Howard Lutnick's last minute sabotage, and the House and Senate races the trade war could sink
• Inside the White House: worry about a lame duck president, a Congress with no reconciliation message, and life after the midterms
• Trump's Truth Social presidential rankings, actually a 1940s Arthur Schlesinger Sr. list, with Woodrow Wilson "great" and Ulysses S. Grant a "failure"
• Data centers, unions like Steamfitters Local 602 breaking with Democrats over jobs, Greg Abbott's new ad, and China's 200,000 fake Twitter accounts
• Personal: Erick's daughter Evelyn turns 21, born the night Hurricane Katrina hit, and his AJC column on bringing back mental institutions

Erick Erickson uses the Callaway Golf and Good Good Golf blowup, a bad driver ad, a public apology, and a canceled partnership, to make a much bigger point about a country with no adults in the room, and he tells his own story of the tweet that nearly cost him CNN and how Rush Limbaugh became the mentor nobody else gave him. Then caller Randy asks why data centers do not go into empty strip malls and factories, and Erick gives the zoning and contamination answer from his Macon City Council days, plus the Effingham County build that is actually pushing Georgia Power rates down. He closes with hard advice for Flock Safety on license plate readers, facial recognition, and the abuse stories piling up.

• Callaway Golf, Good Good Golf, Matt Kendrick, and the Obsession themed driver ad that blew up, with Dude Perfect as the counterexample of growing up right
• Where the adults went: Erick on his own infamous tweet, apologizing for years, and emailing Rush Limbaugh at three in the morning for advice
• Caller Randy from Macon on repurposing empty big box stores for data centers, and why blank slate land at three to four thousand an acre always wins
• The Effingham County, Georgia mega data center, reportedly for OpenAI, and Georgia Power cutting rates because the facility pays its own way
• Flock Safety under fire: the Texas town that voted the cameras out, license plates versus facial recognition, and the mandatory minimum Erick would write into law
• Personal: daughter Evelyn's 21st birthday, his parents' 62nd wedding anniversary, Leif Erickson, and the great kitchen hardware negotiation

Erick Erickson closes Open Line Friday with major Iran news, reporting from Axios and Barak Ravid that the United States has broken Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, plus the full CENTCOM update from Admiral Brad Cooper on the minesweeping operation, the naval blockade, and the 750 million barrels of crude the Navy has escorted through. He breaks news live that Chevron and Halliburton are investing billions in Venezuela's oil fields and directing that flow to the United States, a huge win he credits to President Trump, then covers Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole warning that rates could go up in September. The hour ends with a long, moving tribute to Dolly Parton, the only American with 80 percent approval from both Republicans and Democrats, and a hard word for the Christians online claiming she is in hell.

Topics:

• Iran and the Strait of Hormuz: Alireza Tangsiri's mine order, the US and UAE reopening the shipping lanes, and only 11 real mines out of 200 objects swept
• Admiral Brad Cooper's CENTCOM update in full: 50,000 troops, 20 warships, 1,500 commercial vessels escorted, zero Iranian oil exported since the July blockade resumed
• Why Erick does not believe Xi Jinping or the Russians will cut Iran loose, and the theology of why secular communists and radical Islamists ally against America
• Breaking: Chevron, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips circling Venezuela's oil fields, with all flows directed to the United States
• Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole, inflation still above target, and markets falling on the odds of a September rate increase
• The Dolly Parton tribute: Appalachia, the literacy programs, turning down the Presidential Medal of Freedom from both Trump and Biden, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Peggy Noonan on her legacy, and the Hitler exception
• Callers Al in Oklahoma on pulling data center water out of the air, and Jim in Orlando telling the president to stop acting like an idiot before November

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise trip to Moscow to warn Vladimir Putin off any attack on NATO, and hours later Latvia declared a border emergency and sent troops to its frontier with Russia and Belarus. Erick Erickson walks through the Wall Street Journal exclusive, the near extinction of America's Patriot missile batteries, and why the Pentagon never told Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to ramp up production. Then a blistering segment on Mike Collins, the Georgia Senate race, and a Republican campaign staffed by white nationalists and Holocaust deniers while John Ossoff cruises.

• John Ratcliffe in Moscow, the Wall Street Journal exclusive, Steve Witkoff, Dmitry Peskov, and the NATO warning to Vladimir Putin
• Latvia declares a border emergency as Russia probes the Baltics, with Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and Sweden all watching
• The missile shortfall: Patriot batteries nearly gone, the defense primes never told to ramp up, and Ukraine outproducing all of NATO on drones five million to under one hundred thousand
• Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea learning how to learn from each other, with Ukraine as the axis test bed
• Mike Collins, the Nazi twink consultant, the Holocaust denier group chat, and why Erick says the GOP handed John Ossoff a second term
• Ben Domenech on GOP infighting, plus Ken Paxton, James Talarico, Rick Jackson, and Keisha Lance Bottoms

Erick Erickson maps the midterm Senate landscape after President Trump tells voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot," with Karoline Leavitt's last day as press secretary, a $400,000 a head Houston fundraiser for Ken Paxton, Abdul El-Sayed scrambling to distance himself from Hassan Piker in Michigan, and a democratic socialist surging against Chris Pappas in the New Hampshire primary while the GOP sleeps through it. Then a raw, emotional hour on the Lindsay Clancy trial, where Erick refuses both the men who deny postpartum depression is real and the women online insisting a mother could never strangle her three children. Callers Carol, Dwayne, Liz, and Krista weigh in on Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, and where mitigation ends and responsibility begins.

• Trump's "pretend I'm on the ballot" plea to Trey Gowdy, Karoline Leavitt's exit, and the Houston money chase for Ken Paxton
• The Senate map: Republicans confident on Michigan, Iowa, Susan Collins in Maine, and Florida against Angie Nixon, worried about Ken Paxton, Michael Whatley in North Carolina, and Mike Collins in Georgia
• Abdul El-Sayed versus Hassan Piker, Mike Rogers, and why Democratic strategists are telling donors to stop funding Florida and Texas
• New Hampshire's overlooked opening: Chris Pappas collapsing against John E. Sununu as a democratic socialist rises, plus Mark Short on Trump's absence from the trail and the Dallas midterm convention
• The Lindsay Clancy verdict, postpartum psychosis as mitigation and not excuse, Matt Walsh, Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, and Jonathan Hamby in Atlanta as the case for reopening mental health institutions
• CNN's rough week, from misspelling Erick's name on air to apologizing for running a Vegas impersonator's photo as Dolly Parton, plus Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America"