Shelley Wynter HR 2 06-18-26

Conversationalists, it's Eric Erickson here across the fruited plain. The phone number is 877-973-745. Should you wish to be on the program, I would be delighted to have you. I am broadcasting today from Freedom 969 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. My first time in Oklahoma City. And, you know, as someone from the Atlanta area, what I appreciate about both Tulsa and Oklahoma City is that Oklahoma City is not an hour from Oklahoma City and Tulsa is not an hour from Tulsa, unlike Atlanta, where everything in Atlanta is an hour from everything else. It's been nice to be able to say, oh, it's going to take 10 minutes to get there. Oh, it's going to take five minutes to get there as opposed to. And it's three o'clock. It could take me five hours to get three blocks. It's been very nice. Full number again, 877, 973, 745. I actually want to start this hour with some phone calls from the listeners. Everybody's got an opinion on the Iran situation. I want to actually start with Alan. Alan, welcome to the show. I hope you're doing well. Oh, yes. Thank you very much, and thank you for having me on. Sure. I'll get right to the point. I know you've got a lot of calls. This is one of the few times I think, for the most part, everybody is misreading the situation. First off, it's very much understood that the clerics couldn't tell you the truth if their tail in was on fire. And they're very similar to the Pakistani. grooming gangs in in Great Britain. There's no, they're just differences in power and situation and circumstances. And they're, they get a mental virus. Well, we have gone through all these formalities of signing these pieces of paper. And everybody's playing table tennis back and forth. But, but the gist is this. Trump was under pressure. He, I think he boo booed and realizes he booed. He made a mistake. He thought he could get this done in time. before the election, but he found out he couldn't, and he didn't want to carpet, as you said, carpet bomb, and he didn't want to kill indiscriminately. He does not have that in his soul. He wants to win. He wants to do what it takes, but he doesn't want to kill indiscriminately. So what happened? He finally realized he's getting two-pinched time-wise he had to yield. So what's he doing? He's yielding. What's he going to do next year? You know in history the Vietnam War, you had the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Well, guess what? there's going to be a goal of Hormuz, or straight of Hormuz incident. If I was him and they don't straighten up and fly right, and they can't straighten up and fly right because their mind doesn't work that way. Their goal is to wipe us off the map, wipe Israel off the map. So they're not going to disappoint us because they can't do any better. So what do you have to do? Have to crush them. Well, this time, Trump knows more than they're going to be preparing. But all he's got to do is got to get by the House and the Senate, got to have the Republicans maintain control. And then some point next year, the hammer comes down because they can't do right. So, you know, listen, that is the most articulate, I think, theory of the play here. And I hope that you're right. I personally...

would like to think he's lulling them into a sense of normalcy, watching them all get together, then we're going to decapitate this level of regime. Because, again, I think it's very important that people understand that the foreign minister of Iran who negotiated this deal is already on Iranian television, saying that once they have the resources available from this deal, they intend to destroy Jerusalem. And the son of Ayatollah Khomeini is saying that the great jihad can now begin against Israel when they get their $300 billion. By the way, the Central Command has just noted. that they are ending their blockade and will allow the transport of Iranian oil out of the Strait of Hormuz for sale immediately. And the White House has just said that they will begin to allow several billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets to flow from Qatar effective immediately. So no performance guarantees. They're immediately allowing this to flow. Here's my perspective and my concern on the theory. And again, the theory a little more succinctly than Alan put it was, We've got to get through the midterms, and once we get through the midterms, we will go back in and fight. I think we're going to wind up having to go back in and fight, whether we want to or not, whether that's the plan or not, because Iran's never going to agree ultimately. In fact, the majority of the Senate Republicans are out there complaining about there's no way Iran's going to agree to this stuff. But here's my concern. 13 Americans died in the fight against Iran. The Iranians have now been working with the Russians and the Chinese. to better target American personnel and American military installations. They were actually far more effective than many of us realized at the time, including blowing up the U.S. Central Command Base in Bahrain, they were specifically able to target our intelligence gathering facility on that base. They knew exactly where it was, and they hit it, and we couldn't stop them. 13 Americans have been killed. If Iran now has 60 days, or we drag it out for six months, we get past the midterms, to rearm, re-solidify where its missiles are, move its drones around, and take in better munitions and radar equipment from the Russians and the Chinese, how many more Americans are going to die? If it was to get through the midterms, why didn't we just not stop? We had our foot on the gas. We had our boot on their neck. Why did we let off the gas? If we were, as the Trump administration claims, in control of the Strait of Hormuz and letting oil flow, why not? Now, this is, I think, the fatal flaw in the argument, is we claimed that the Strait of Hormuzes was open and we were controlling it. But now that we've struck the deal, the president admitted that that wasn't the case at all, and that Iran actually had been effectively able to mine it and shut it down. What will stop them in three, four, or five months from doing that? I think that's ultimately the problem here, is if we do have to go back in, and by the way, I think we are going to have to go back in, I think it's going to be more costly for us. Here's the piece of the nugget that I don't think most people realize. And this one you should pay attention to. We have some intelligence that has come out about the Iran situation, and it turns out that every military vehicle of the United States that Iran was able to successfully target is a military vehicle and platform that we had given the Qataris access to.

The Qataris have access to Apache helicopters. Iran was able to target Apache helicopters. Qatar has access to F-15s. We were able to see multiple F-15s and F-A-18 shot down by the Iranians. Every military platform we've given the Qataris, the Iranians, curiously enough, have learned how to undermine that military vehicle. I don't think that's a coincidence. And I think that the Pakistanis and the Qataris and the Turks give lip service to friendship with the United States and undermine us. After Iran, Qatar funds more terrorism than any other country on planet Earth. That's just a statement of fact. It's a statement of fact that has come from our intelligence agencies. It's a statement of fact that has come from our military. It is a statement of fact that has come from our allies. And yet we treat the Qataris as if they are our friend. That's my concern with this situation. Alan, if you're still listening, look, I think you articulated it the best, and I hope that is the case. But my deep concern, again, is that it will be so much more costly as Iran will have time to better prepare and better target. Because remember, our attack on Iran initially was a surprise. We were able to decapitate the first wave of their leadership because it was a complete surprise to the Iranians that we were coming. It will not be a surprise the next time. And over the next 60 days, they will have access to billions of dollars to buy new resources from the Chinese and buy new resources from the Russians and by time to solidify their defenses and by time to solidify their ballistic missiles and by time to build up their drones and more Americans will get killed. That's my concern with a delay. And I do believe we're going to have to go back in. Jay in Jacksonville, Florida, you're going to be up next. Welcome to the show, sir. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. Yeah, no, I was just wondering if maybe you've heard, I was telling your call screener there, that I was wondering why you think the president got scared on this whole thing? Because when we first started, we were coming in hard against them. And, you know, they were on the ropes in a few more weeks than they would have been finished. And then it seems like he got spooked and took his foot off the gas and started begging for a deal. on, you know, and now it's like they're coming out on top and we're the ones, you know, with egg on our face and the whole situation. So, okay, so the president, when he was in Europe over the last couple days, he said something very curious. He said he was told that there were four weeks left of oil in the world, and if we continued, that there would be a global depression, not recession, a depression. And he made the statement about a global depression, and he didn't want to be Herbert Hoover. He made that statement twice. My educated guess, and it is an educated guess based on talking to people who are involved.

that the van swing in the White House convinced the president that you will plunge the world into economic chaos if you don't let up on the gas and try to cut a deal. And so the president did not want to spark what he believed could be a depression instead of a recession. So he began to let up on the gas, get his boot off Iran's neck, and allow peace to come so that he could find a path out of this. And I do think that's what it was. That is my educated guess, that the president of the United States was led to believe economic calamity was coming if this went on for too much longer because of Iran's control of the global oil market and tying up the Strait of Hormuz. I do believe that we as the American people were lied to or at least spun about the access to the strait. of Hormuz, and now that we're out of this situation, the president's admitting, actually, they did close the straight of Hormuz, and only about 6 million barrels of oil a day were flowing when normally it's 25 to 40 million barrels of oil, and so we had to open the straight, we had to get global oil prices down, we had to get oil reserves built back up, and maybe when the oil reserves are built back up, but everyone knows we got 60 days to do it, maybe we go back in, but it'll be another costly endeavor. I think that's what happened. The concerns about the global economy outweighed everything else. The president has now said that twice in Europe, unscripted remarks. He mentioned twice. A global economic meltdown was coming. And that's it. The problem here from my perspective on this is that it shows the Iranians that the West will crumble if you offer them economic pain. And so what Iran now knows is that it does not have to be militarily strong. It can just wreck the global economy by depriving countries of oil, and it can sink the world into global depression. And so I think if we go back into Iran in the future, in addition to it being more costly because of military targeting, we will also see Iran immediately do everything it can. to destroy the global economy as a way to bring maximum pain to commit democratic countries that suffer election losses to not fighting them. And it's kind of wild when you think about it in the West now. The economic comfort of the voter is so important that our enemies know if they bring economic pain, they can win a fight that they couldn't otherwise win on the battlefield. But that I think is the new world that we are now in. Those who love him, listen to find out what he's going to say next. Those who disagree with him, also listen to see what he's going to say next. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

Missed part of today's show? Catch it again in full with the Eric Erickson Show 24-7 live stream. Available at Eric Erickson.com. Stream enabled for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Greetings, conversationalists. It is Eric Erickson here. Glad to have you with me across the United States of America. All right. I just, I want to say something, and I want to put it on the record here. This happens all the time, and it is the bullying campaign that starts when you disagree with this administration. I have been around for quite a while now, helped get redstate.com off the ground back of the day. And I would routinely disagree with the Bush administration, particularly the Harriet Myers moment and the immigration moment. And they would push back and they would come to the site and they would write responses, but never wanted to accuse me of being on someone's payroll or being bought off or being unfaithful or unpatriotic. I got to tell you. The number of young punks on the internet who get behind a keyboard and mouth off bravely about how everyone who disagrees with Trump is bought and paid for by the opposition, and you're not loyal to MAGA. I am loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America. My principles is a Christian and a conservative, and I choose to disagree sometimes. And you people sometimes don't like it when I don't agree all the time, but I'm not going to lie to you. lot of people on the internet who are making a lot of money lying to people who want to be lied to. And I am not one of them. I want to tell you the truth. I want to tell you what I think. And we've got an open phone line here if you disagree. But the level of bullying from a bunch of unaccomplished 20-somethings who are grifting off the system to tell people to shut up instead of questioning, if you can't question your own side and hold them accountable, you're no better than the progressive left that got to where they are by shaming, shunning, censoring, and silencing reasonable people in the Democratic Party. And that entire party is... now been overtaken by a bunch of anti-American lunatics. And I will not be quiet when I disagree. I will tell you what I think. And I am proud to see other people standing up and questioning this deal. Again, the key question that this administration has no answer for is if we only targeted military targets, why are we giving Iran $300 billion to reconstruct Iran when we didn't destroy Iran? And we know their money goes to fund terrorism. In fact, the State Department yesterday, again, confirmed to Congress.

that Iran dedicates the primary profit of its oil cells to terrorism, not to economic redevelopment. This country uses its people as pawns. It doesn't treat its people as human beings. It guns them down in the street if they oppose the regime. So why would they want to feed them when they can fund terrorism? You don't have to bully, and in fact, the fact that you're trying to shut people up suggests it's a worse deal than we know. If you're not even willing to have the conversation, but just accuse people of disloyalty and try to get people to stop listening to them, it's actually kind of pathetic. Now, let me tell you that's what's not pathetic. I'm here in Oklahoma City, and down the road for me is the headquarters of Old Glory Bank, my bank. I have a no-fee checking and a no-fee savings account from Old Glory Bank, and you can too. You can get one of their premium accounts, interest-bury checking. I don't have that. If you're active duty in military, if you're first responder, they will waive the fees for you to get one. If you're a business, they've got great business checking. And yes, they're an online bank, but you can deposit cash. You can deposit checks. I've used both. It works. Their app is great. Their budgeting tools and bill pay tools are great. And you don't have to worry about them turning off your bank account because you're a conservative. Their bank started by conservatives for conservatives. They believe in your freedom to bank as you see fit because they are a pro-freedom bank. You go to old glorybank.com slash Eric today. You sign up with Old Glory Bank, and my friends, they will give you a great, great checking account experience, and they will get to know you of your business so that if business lending is your thing, they already understand your business. And if you need CDs or a mortgage, they're your people too. Old Glorybank.com slash Eric, member FDIC, Equal housing lender, terms and conditions apply.

from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It's Eric Erikson, spreading freedom across the nation from Freedom 969. My affiliate here, great hospitality. I got here. There's this lady who has a bakery, and she put my show logo on the sugar cookies, and they are fantastic. And also made cinnamon toast muffins. Holy moly, incredible stuff. The food is great here. I'm about to go somewhere after the show to some guy named Clark and eat barbecue. And then we're going to do an event with the listeners. And then there's a tropical storm blowing through the southeast. And I'm going to hope to get home in the morning. Oh, by the way, that reminds me, Charlie and Ken, just housekeeping note. I should be there on time tomorrow. But you never know with Tropical Storm, whatever his name is. It's an A. What is, whoever the tropical storm is, that guy, he's sailing through the southeast, apparently. I didn't even know until Delta sent me an alert and said, hey, your flight may be delayed due to a tropical storm. I didn't, I mean, I realized we're in hurricane season, but I didn't realize there was actually going to be one this year. But it's not as a tropical storm, which in the south is just a heavy rainstorm. So I will get home at some point. I assume before the show hits tomorrow. So here's the list. Here's the dirty little secret for listeners. Shh. Don't tell the radio people that I'm telling you this. They get mad when I pull back the curtain. If you tune in tomorrow live and you hear me and you think, didn't he talk about this yesterday? it might actually be me trying to land in Atlanta and they had to go to best of until I get there. That has happened for. One time I kid you, I promise, I'll get to the news, and Jeff, I'll get to your phone call. One time I was stuck on the interstate, there was a wreck. There's something in Atlanta called the Grady Curb. It's a giant curb in the interstate that wraps around the hospital called Grady Hospital. And they... Instead of bulldozing the hospital, they just built the interstate around the hospital. It's called the Grady Curb, and you get stuck there. It is for you Catholics. It's like highway purgatory. You wait and pray for someone to get you out of this curb. And I was late to the station. I literally had to start my show on the cell phone. So I was on my cell phone until I got to the station and then commercial break ran out of the car, got to the station, and resumed the show behind the microphone. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'll be there on time. But otherwise, I can't call from the flight and I don't want to be. It would be kind of awkward. Wouldn't it be hilarious if I started my show 30 feet over the runway? It'd be the dumbest show you've ever heard. Nonetheless, I promise. Assuming the tropical storm reports are correct, it'll have blown through and Delta will get me there on time, and I'll get back to Atlanta and do the show tomorrow. Now, Jeff, I want to take your phone call. Welcome Jeff to the show. Thank you, Eric, for taking my call. And I wanted to first off, when I heard this last segment you were talking about the blowback against your enlightened position, as it always have been, about what's going on now in the Gulf, I just started, I got really angry. So first off, I have to get you some context on this. In 2016, when everybody knew that Hillary was going to be elected, I decided to.

go ahead and go up to that Lake and Trail. And I was about halfway through the Smoky Mountains National Park. And when I found out that it was probably going to be closer than people realized, I actually walked the last 15 miles back to my vehicle, got back to Atlanta just so I could vote. Now, hang on, Jeff. Jeff, we got to put this in proper context because we got listeners in South Carolina, and there could be euphemism here. You weren't actually in Argentina with your mistress where you were on the real Argentina. You were on the real Appalachian Trail, correct? You know what? I told my wife that's exactly. She had GPS as a microphone. I have a dormant GPS, and she was following me, so my wife can attest. His last name's not Sanford people. We can move on now. We just wanted to clarify it. But my father's name is Sanford. Oh, uh-oh. So that notwithstanding, Eric. So I just got really mad about 15, 20 minutes ago, and I had to call and defend my bro. Because I've been following you since Red State. When you started hosting for rush, I said, oh, my God, he's going to be the next rush. And sure enough, you are almost there, my friend. But now with that context. I agree. I've had had some issues with some of the things over the years about, but I've never doubted your expertise to it. But right now, the blowback on this stuff, I agree with you 100%. I've made some post on X that I'm really kind of moving away from this maga stuff because I see, I think something is wrong. I can't put my finger on it. But let me tell you what proved it. Marco Rubio standing behind Trump. I think was yesterday in France or Switzerland or wherever. The look on his face told everything. He looked beat down. He looked defeated. And that's exactly how I feel. And I've got to give you props, dude, because all these folks on these keyboard warriors out there attacking you, they don't have any context to do it. They just want to get clicks. Well, look, I appreciate it. And, you know, I got confronted last night by someone who said, so, do you regret now supporting Trump over Kamala Harris? It's like, no, he put a UFC match on the lawn, not transgender boobs. I am, I'm totally fine supporting. Donald Trump against the Democrats. I don't like this deal, but you know what? I like his tax cuts. I like his judicial picks. I like much of what he's done. I frankly like much of his foreign policy, but this deal I don't think is a good deal. And I'm not going to shut up about it to be a team player. I don't carry anybody's water, and I don't think you should. I remember when George W. Bush did Harriet Myers and then the immigration stuff, and I remember Rush Limbaugh. I was in law school at the time, or just out of law school, and Rush was like, enough, enough. The guy is not a conservative. He is partying ways with us.

And I'm not going to carry water for an administration. It's like, thank you. I never want to be a water carrier. There are way too many people in conservative media who will carry water for any Republican administration. It doesn't matter who the Republican is. If Mitt Romney were the president right now, the people who are attacking Mitt Romney from the right would be riding him like a little chihuahua in heat. And you know it and I know it. And they're doing it with Donald Trump now. They would be doing it if it was Mitt Romney. They would be doing it if it was John McCain. And I refuse to be that person. And you know it. You know that there are people in conservative media who if the president is a Republican, they will defend him. They will not criticize him. They will serve as chief apologist until the moment he's gone. And then they'll stab him in the back. I would rather tell you what I think right now instead of lying to people who want to be lied to. I'll tell you the truth whether you like it or not. Now, I want to move on to the Democrats because I'm not going to spare of the Democrats here because they got problems. I am going to play you audio, and it is not audio that you might expect me to play. And some of you are going to hear the audio, and you are going to be appalled that you have to listen to this audio because of who is speaking. I'm not going to tell you who. You're going to have to listen. And there's a serious major point for me playing the audio, and I beg you, listen to the audio. Listen to what is said and by who is saying it. And then I want to point out to you why it is so important that this is said. This is an interview from MS Now, now that I built it up. Where is the audio? Oh, my gosh, really? Are you kidding, Erickson? You can't get the audio out? Here we go. Y'all, I promise I'm a professional, and my finger was on the mute button, and I didn't even realize it. Some days, the blonde hair comes out. You know, on the right, and you see this in the Trump administration, this idea that any suggestion or criticism that America was anything other than perfect is unpatriotic. Is it suggesting that you hate your country? Is it suggesting that you hate your country? Now, the flip side is among progressives, sometimes there is this sense of, well, the own... The only true narrative of America is this one of oppression and exclusion. And I reject both those views. I think it's complicated. As I said, I think it's possible to celebrate the founders and appreciate what they did as well as look. objectively and critically at how their values strayed very far from what they professed. I think it's if possible to say that there were populists in rural America and the South and white America that really did believe in equality and justice.

Time and time again, the Democratic Party increasingly has propped up people who are hostile to this country, and even a number of the people who come across as reasonable, like a Jon Ossoff in Georgia, is still a progressive embedded within the progressive movement, propping up the progressives who wish to destroy this country. And the fact that Barack Obama sees it's a problem and it's coming across in the polling. Think about this. Donald Trump is at this moment less popular than Joe Biden was at this moment in the midterms in 2022. And yet at this time, the Democrats only have a four-point lead in the generic ballot. Why? Because as much as people may not care for the president, they positively hate the Democratic Party right now because the majority of Americans, including a lot of Hispanic immigrants who are now American citizens do not want to put into power the people who hate this country. So I think the Republicans are not going to have a disaster. It's not going to be good, but it's not going to be the disaster some people feel. In today's uncertain economy, American financing is helping families find a way out of the high-interest trap because we're headed into the summer with possible interest rate hikes coming. There are economic warning signs on the horizon between persistent inflation and the cost of life. You're feeling that pressure. You've worked hard for your family. You've worked hard for your home. You probably have more equity in your home than you realize. Yet the summer surge is forcing you to rely on credit cards. American financing has salary-based mortgage consultants, and with mortgage rates of the five, their customers are... saving an average of $800 a month by wiping out high interest debt. That's money that stays in your pocket to fight back against rising costs. They've got no upfront fees, no pressure, and if you start today, you could delay two mortgage payments. Call American financing today. Their number is 866-886-9262. That's 866-886-9262. You can also go to Americanfinancing.net slash Eric. Americanfinancing.net slash Eric. I will get to your phone calls when we come back at 877973-745. I just, I got to share with you a funny, funny moment. So I have in the last 24 hours. been asked to be on TV in Australia, in Japan, in Great Britain, and all over American news networks. Why? Because I'm a conservative who disagrees with the president on the Iran deal. And I have declined all of them. Because I just find it increasingly frustrating that the American media only wants to have on conservative voices who will criticize the president. They don't want you on when you're willing to defend the UFC fight. They don't want you on when you're willing to defend the invasion of Iran.

Or the war with Iran. They don't want you on when you're defending the president's foreign policy with North Korea. They don't want you on when you're defending the president's support of Israel. They don't want you on when you're defending the president's tax cuts. They don't want you on with any of that stuff. They want you on when you're willing to criticize the president. That's the only time they want conservatives on these major networks, whether it's the BBC or Canadian broadcasting or these others. And I just refuse to play that part. I am perfectly willing to praise the president, as well as criticize the president. I'm not going to be pigeonholed as some critic of the president on international television. It's just, it annoys me. I'm perfectly willing to go on these TV networks. But not when the only opportunities are, oh, boy, we can get someone a prominent conservative on to criticize the president. And never to get on in praise. They don't like praise of the president on these networks by conservatives. They don't hear it. They define themselves now in opposition. I saw that CNN is going to get the reflecting pool water tested. They've already said it was going to be a couple of weeks of the algae clearing the pipes. The water would turn green, but then go back to the color it's supposed to be. They already said that was going to happen. They predicted it was going to happen. And yet CNN has decided that they're going to turn it into the scandal of the day against the president. They're still mad about the UFC fight, which they were perfectly fine with the transgender parade of the White House for Easter. But that is a bridge too far for them because one nutty guy said something mean about Michelle Obama. Oh, the horror. Oh, the horror. Now, let me tell you about perfectly snug. You can get this perfectly snug mattress topper. You can save $280 at perfectly snug.com slash Eric. What do you do? You got a perfectly snug.com slash Eric. Tadda. You save $280. What is it? It's a mattress topper that is like an air conditioner for your bed. It uses very quiet fans to circulate cool air through the mattress topper that then bleeds through the fitted sheet to you to keep you comfortable. It can also warm up. and you can adjust it overnight with your phone. You can set it to turn on and off automatically and to adjust automatically overnight so it can cool you down and then warm you up for wake up time, whatever you need, and it's got two zones so you and your spouse can have different temperatures. Perfectly snug.com slash Eric. Y'all, I have one, and I was a purchaser before I was an advertiser, and I'm proud to advertise for him. I love this thing. When I travel, I miss it. Perfectly snug.com slash Eric. Save up to $280. Perfectly snug.com slash Eric.