Erick Erickson Show 3-20-26 HR 1

Welcome. The word just come out. Mean Joe Green has died of the Steelers fame. No, wait, wait, no, no, this is nope, hang on a second. This just hit the wires and now the NFL is saying not so fast. This is the internet, but this all comes on the word of Chuck Norris passing. You know, Chuck Norris. Death did not beat him. He beat death. He is still alive. He's a believer meeting the man who conquered death first. Chuck Norris, American hero, American legend passing away in Hawaii. He was in his 80s. The jokes of the years have been phenomenal. Chuck Norris once told his wife to calm down. And she did. God bless him to his family. Prayers for his family. We got a lot to talk about today, but got to start with Chuck Norse. Also, I need to tell you yesterday, I mentioned the Iranians hitting the F-35. There is footage circulating. Several newscasts have shown now the footage of the Iranians hitting the F-35. There's a thermal image camera. That's AI-generated footage. It's not real. The Iranians were able to shoot and hit the F-35. They did not shoot it down. It landed on its own power, the pilot landing the plane, in American territory on an American base. It is not true to say... that Iran shot down the F-35. It's simply not true. Fat Amy is a tank in the sky and handled the bullets and landed. It did not get blown out of the sky by the Iranians. The footage of the F-35 on the thermal camera is simply not true. Made up nonsense. Now, that's not what I want to talk about today. It's an open line Friday. The phone number is 877973-745. I want to begin with the experts because the experts tend to be a circle of jerks who sit around and try to find ways to bash the United States. Many times the experts have very high, shall we say, senses of themselves. And they say things that simply are not true. And that is an important point. that you need to remember, that the experts often say things that simply are not true, but they become conventional wisdom. I want to begin with the piece out of NBC News. The headline is this. Israel killed another Iranian leader, but experts say that doesn't mean it's winning the war. In fact, the experts say, that we could be radicalizing more people. This is Chuck Hagel, former moderate Republican senator, who became Secretary of Defense, I think, for Barack Obama. Listen to this conversation with Christian Amunpur on CNN. Let me ask you finally, the idea of rules of engagement and what you've just talked about, I think, the destruction of the country and what will it mean for the future. President Trump talks about hitting Iran so hard, quote, they'll never recover or reigning death, fire, and fuel.

on Iran, that's Pete Hegseth as well. European leaders are calling foul, saying that it's reckless and illegal. That's one of the European prime ministers. And that the former French prime minister says Trump is taking the US towards becoming a rogue state. Since Secretary Pete Hegseth has talked about, you know, I'm going to paraphrase, but useless rules of engagement, are you concerned about... them going even further off the reservation, not just conducting a military campaign, but one that could be, you know, could have like the whole business of we will take no quarter, which means not saving and perhaps executing prisoners. Oh, sure. I mean, this crowd does not comply with any guidelines or rules or laws. I mean, all you need to do is once again reflect on what the president himself said when he was asked about when the war is going to end. And his response was, well, when I say it's going to end, and they say, well, how do you know that? And he said, well, I just, my instincts will tell me when it's ready to end. Are you kidding me? No president has ever done anything like this. One of the things that is going to occur here and the results, consequences of what's going on, is that we are manufacturing a whole new generation of young terrorists. in the Middle East. That's just one consequence of what's coming here. Okay, it was the last part, but the fact that Christiana Amapur has on Chuck Hagel, who wants to bash the administration, she is not exactly sympathetic to the regime in Iran. Her family is Iranian, but she's also kind of given them a pass over the years. It's been very interesting to watch her try to thread needles of she hates the Americans, but she doesn't like the Iranians. And then you have Chuck Hagel saying this thing. We're making more extremists. festering terrorism. We're breeding terrorists by this. How? Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, when we bombed Dresden and destroyed the Nazi regime, did we manufacture more Nazis around the world by fighting Germany in World War II? Did we? Did we radicalize the Japanese in World War II by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did we suddenly see the world turn into, all the Japanese turned into radical extremists? Did we? What about Afghanistan and Iraq? Because I think we learned the lessons, the wrong lessons from those. Do we have a world because of Iraq and Afghanistan that has incited a bunch of Islamic extremists around the world? Actually, we have it. Some of you want to think we have, but we have it. We have Islamic extremists, but not because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The idea that we are going to fester extremism and breed terrorism around the world because of this is nonsensical. The people who are already inclined to are going to head that way anyway, whether this is a catalyst or not. But I want to read you now back into this NBC news story. Let me just read you something. Lara Jani is a big scalp, says Michael Stevens, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. It's impressive what Israel is able to do. They promised they'd hit the regime, and they're doing it very successfully. But from a global perspective, you have to ask, so what? That's one expert relied on. Rosby Parsi, an adjunct lecture at Sweden's Lund University, agreed that the assassinations will most likely not affect the operational side of the war. But the targeted killings will likely hamper the effectiveness of Iran's internal operations, according to Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst. Follow along with me here. If you look at how the assassination of Ali Khamenei empowered the most hardline and security elements within the Islamic Republic of Iran, then Ali Larijani's death could act as an accelerator to that path. says Ellie Garanmea, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Israel seems to be turning its attention to targeting those that could push for a political solution to overcome Iran's troubles at home and abroad, Garan Maya says. Now, did you notice something in here? Every single person that this NBC news story quotes is a European expert. In Europe, Islamic radicalism is festering. In Europe, The European elite are refusing to do anything about Islam or radicalism. In fact, they're shutting down anyone who says anything bad about Islam because the European elite have a presupposition and they're dealing with Islam that if you aggravate it, you're going to produce grimlins. It's like you produce the gremlin's what by throwing water, getting them wet. feeding them after midnight, all those things. The Europeans are literally treating the Islamic, the Muslims in Europe like the Grimlands. If you feed them after midnight, if you get them wet, you're going to produce the bad guys. If you say that Muhammad is not God, is not real, or you draw a picture of them, you're going to get the bad guys. If you say Islam is of the world and not of God, you're going to get bad guys. If you suggest that... Not all terrorists are not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. You're going to get the bad. You can't say anything bad about Islam in Europe. You go to jail. You can insult Jesus. You can say that Christianity is not real. You can be anti-Semitic. You can do all these things. But you can't do it about Islam.

There's a comedian that none of you will like who I dearly love, and Philip is going to cringe when I bring this up. His name is Jimmy Carr. Jimmy Carr is an Englishman who pushes the boundaries of free speech rules in Great Britain because he takes free speech very seriously. He once got summoned to Parliament for telling a joke about the Holocaust. The joke was along the lines of, did you know that there were like 7, 8 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust and 2 million gypsies? We always focus on the bad that happened in the Holocaust, not the good. That's the punchline of his joke about the gypsies. And then he laughs and he says, oh, what are they going to do? They're just going to move on. He got summoned to parliament for telling that joke. He was called out a judicial inquiry into his Holocaust joke. He tells a joke about Mary and Joseph and how awkward it must have been in bed for Mary and Joseph. I mean, what's she going to do? She can't call out to God that that's the other guy. That would be awkward. And, well, she's certainly not going to say her son's name. That would be even more awkward when she and Joseph were a bed. The entire, what's so funny here is you can watch this special on Netflix and nobody laughs at the joke. He's literally making jokes about Mary and Joseph being intimate in bed and what name does she call out? That is the joke. Does she say God or does she say Jesus? Clearly it would be awkward. It is a joke that his audience in Britain, which is increasingly atheist, does not laugh at this joke. And he says, would you like to hear my Muslim jokes instead? And the crowd in Great Britain cheers. And he says, y'all don't want to hear those jokes. They would all bomb. And the crowd eats it up. And then he says, you know, I can tell Christian jokes. I've got lots of jokes about Christians. I'm an atheist. I love to pick on the Christians. I mean, the Muslims, what are they going to do? The Muslims would kill me. What are you Christians going to do? Forgive me? And again, another punchline, and the crowd eats it up. But that's the problem. The European elite reacted to Jimmy Carr telling the Holocaust joke and telling jokes about Islam that weren't jokes about Islam negatively. They were upset with him. He got in trouble with the government. Why? Because the government in Great Britain has at this point in time internalized the idea that if you incite Islamists, if you incite Muslims, you're going to get terrorists. And so the elite in Europe live in fear, and it translates into their interpretation of events. By bombing Iran, you're going to get more extremism. And it becomes this echo chamber of the... of this circle of jerks who are the experts around the world and oh my gosh we're going to get extremists by bombing Iran

You know who is extreme in Iran? The leadership in Iran that we're killing. You know who's not extremist? The people of Iran. Ladies and gentlemen, I lived in this part of the world, and I can assure you that no one in the Middle East likes the Iranian leadership. None of them. None of the Sunnis do. They're a separate sect of Islam. They don't like the Shiites. And of the Shiites in Iran, they are distinctly the minority. and the tens of millions of people who live under the tyranny want them dead. But for the European elite, they have internalized this idea that you make extremists by attacking anyone who's Muslim and so that is their talking point. It has now spread to all of the experts. So every expert interpreting what we're doing in Iran is, oh, we're going to create more extremists. You know what you can't do to create extremists? If you kill them, they don't become extreme. And so if we keep killing them, they're not going to have a chance to become extremist. And then if you kill enough of them, the Iranian people can take back their country. And that, by the way, is the plan. But the experts can't fathom that because they're too scared of Islam. Have something to say? Hello. the show. 1-877-9-7 airing. That's 1-877-97-9-73-7-4-25. I want to go in the Wayback Machine to the year 2000. That was the year Al Gore ran for president against George W. Bush. And George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, the attack from Democrats, was that he was over his head when it came to foreign policy. He knew nothing in the dynamics with the fall of the Soviet Union. We needed someone who knew foreign policy. And then George W. Bush trotted out Dick Cheney. And this is how the media covered the pick of Dick Cheney for George W. Bush. He means all George W's weaknesses, lack of gravitas. We see the son who is seeking some gravitas. They were looking at candidates with gravitas. But he has the gravitas. You can sum it up in one word stature. It may go to the gravitas. We're to use the favorite phrase gravitas. This is a vice president who brought gravitas. This will give some gravitas. I think the gravitas that Cheney brought to the ticket. What he gets is gravitas, a sense of weight. He does not need anybody to giving gravitas. It means that bravitas. I think he also. also needs some gravitas. To give gravitas. Well, he brings gravitas. He does seem to bring some gravitas. He's called Gravitas. A little Gravitas. You certainly have Gravitas tonight. He displayed tonight a certain gravitas. I think gravitas is the word. Unfortunately. Notice it was the media echo chamber. This wasn't the talking point that was fed to all of them from the Bush campaign. A couple of people said it, and then everybody else started embracing it. It's the same with this nonsense about extremism in Iran, that by blowing up the leadership of Iran, we're going to foster more extremism in Iran. That's a talking point from experts that to other experts sounds good. And so they're all parodying each other now. And it's not a coincidence most of these experts are European experts where they're two.

scared to death of Muslims to ever do anything to crack down on it because they're afraid if they do, it'll fester extremism. Gravitas and extremism, the talking points. They're all the same. It's a hive mind, a bubble and echo chamber. Now, get out of the echo chamber of banking and go with an original March to the beat of their own drummer bank. That would be Old Glory Bank. Go to Old Glorybank.com slash Eric today. Sign up with Old Glory Bank. Now, why? What makes Old Glory Bank unique? Well, they were started by conservatives. Four conservatives fighting against the debanking trends of the Biden administration where progressives were buying shares in banks with the backing of the Biden administration and the pressure of the Biden administration to pressure banks to force conservatives to change their ways or close their accounts. And a lot of banks targeted conservatives to shut down their bank accounts. A lot of banks targeted conservatives for punishment. And to this day, there are a number of banks where you can't even use your debit card to go lawfully purchase a gun. At Old Glory Bank, they believe in your freedom. They're on your side. They support your freedom to bank. They protect your privacy. Old GloryBank.com slash Eric. That's where you need to go. I've got an account with them, and I started my account with Old Glory Bank because of my concerns being a conservative talk radio show host. Old GloryBank.com slash Eric. Old GloryBank.com slash ERICK. Member FDIC, Equal housing lender, terms, and conditions apply.

I want to play for you again the quote, and I want you to know, again, this started with an Iranian-tied media account from Ireland that is a very pro-Iran account from Ireland, and then it spread to a bunch of anti-Semitic accounts in the United States, people tied to Tucker Carlson, the Christian Nationalists, who they all hate the Jews. This is the quote. Unfortunately, and unhappily. Jesus Christ has no advantage over Jinnis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation. That is the quote. Now, here it is, in its full context. That was 18 seconds. It's actually a minute, 15 second long statement. Listen to the full context here. Because his point, if you're a Christianist theologically sound, if you're just into philosophy, he's dead on the money. If God's the future. You know, if people want to be naive, that they don't see the kind of world we're living in. In this world, it's not enough to be moral. It's not enough to be just. It's not enough to be right. You know? One of the greatest... Writers of the 20th century, someone that I admire a lot, was the historian Will Durant. Now, he wrote many volumes. I read most of them. He also wrote the lessons of history, very brief, 100-page book, in which he said, well, history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Jinnis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation. So you have no choice. If you look at the world as it is today, you have to be blind not to see that the democracies, led by the United States, have to reassert their will to defend themselves. You got that? The point of Will Durant and of Benjamin Netanyahu is that if Jesus Christ were just the greatest, most moral, most honest, most ethical person that ever walked the planet, take the deity out, just the most honest, most moral, kindest, most righteous, and good person to ever walk the earth, he would lose to Genghis Khan. if he did nothing. The righteous will inherit the earth through something happening. If Christ did nothing and Genghis Khan was able to fulfill his ambition, well then Christ is weaker than Genghis Khan. Now Christ wouldn't do. Nothing. He wouldn't sit back. He wouldn't sit on his hands. And that's the point that Benjamin Netanyahu is making. That's the point that Will Durant was making in the peace. And it is. It's only about 100 pages long. That when good men do nothing, evil triumphs, you can be thankful that Christ would do something. But the point is not that Christ did something. It's the alternative. What if he did nothing? It doesn't matter how powerful he is. It doesn't matter how good he is. If he chose to do nothing.

Evil would triumph if evil did something and good did nothing. And the moral of the story is that good must do something. It is a story of World War II, where Hitler was able to advance because good men did nothing for a very long time. You had Neville Chamberlain declaring peace in our times right before Hitler fully stormed into Poland and we had World War II all over the place. I want to read you a tweet from a man named Michael Spangler. Michael Spangler is a minister in North Carolina. He is also the pastor of Piedmont Presbyterian Church and the principal of Salem Creek Academy and the managing editor of American Mantle. He's the principal of a Christian school and the pastor of a Presbyterian Church. That's how his Twitter bio reads. Let me read you this tweet. One of the most subversive books around is The Hiding Place by Corey Tin Boom. It celebrates shielding Christ's enemies from the political consequences of their evil. It promotes lying to do so. It glorifies resistance to just government and co-belligerence with communists. It paints the just consequences for these actions as persecution and does so all in the name of white Protestant Christianity. Two dozen copies are available at your local Christian homeschool bookstore. Ministers cite it from the pulpit as something well known and beloved. The rot is deep. That is a supposed Christian minister who supposedly runs a Presbyterian church, I believe he was actually chased out of. a church. I think I read somewhere that he was pushed out of a church. He is, just so you know, the head of Salem Creek Academy. Salem Creek Academy is, is it an actual school? I guess it's an actual school. Salem Creek Academy. There you go. There's a boys' school. There is a homeschool cooperative and there's an online academy. It doesn't look like it's physical. He's headquartered in North Carolina. Salem Creek Academy, it's got a fancy website in the homeschool community. You may know this outlet. They want to raise godly men. What they sound like they want to raise, perhaps, are white nationalists. Michael Spangler writes a good game, but you know what the hiding place by Corey Tin Boom is about? Let me read you again how he describes it. It celebrates shielding Christ's enemies from the political consequences of their evil.

It promotes lying to do so. It glorifies resistance to just government and co-belligerence with communists. It paints the just consequences for these actions as persecution, and it does so in the name of white Protestant Christianity. You know what Cory Tin Boone's book The Hiding Places about? Corey Tin Boone was a Dutch Protestant whose family hid Jews from the Nazis in World War II. It is a book about Christians in tough times, making tough decisions to love their neighbors by protecting their neighbors who do not even share their religion from the monsters. Michael Spangler's interpretation of Corey Tinboom's book, The Hiding Place, about hiding Jews from certain death by the Nazis and her family risking their life to do so. is about shielding Christ's enemies from the political consequences of their evil and about glorifying resistance to just government. What is the just government, according to Michael Spangler? It is the Nazi imposed government on the Dutch.

Cornelia Johanna Tin Boom, Corey Tinboom, was a Dutch watchmaker and Christian writer who worked with her father, Casper, and her sister Betsy and other family members to help Jews escape Nazis during the Holocaust by hiding them in her home. They were caught. She was arrested. She was sent to a concentration camp. Her book, The Hiding Place, is a biography, recounting how her family was willing to hide the Jews and then got to a concentration camp and shared the gospel message. Her book is world renown. She was declared righteous among the nations. It became a book, her book became a famous movie in the 1970s. She is celebrated for protecting Jews from the Nazis. You should know, by the way, that most of her cohort... were rounded up to be exterminated. In the concentration camp, they smuggled in Bibles. They held worship services. Many of the prisoners in the concentration camp converted to Christianity. A number of the Jews in the concentration camp with Corey Tinblum converted to Christianity.

Her sister died in the concentration camp. Her sister's last words to Corey Tin Bloom were, there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. Twelve days after Corey Tin Bloom was released, it was discovered that it was a clerical error. She was not supposed to be released. Twelve days after her sister died, Corey Tin Boom was released. It turns out it was a clerical error. All of the women who were with her were rounded up and sent to gas chambers and killed days after she had been released due to a clerical error. And she wrote her book, The Hiding Place. a book well known among Christians around the world. And this supposed Presbyterian pastor who runs an academy dedicated to shaping the minds of young men describes that book about hiding Jews from the Nazis and then being placed in a concentration camp and watching her family die all around her for doing the right thing is considered glorifying resistance to just government and co-belligerence with communists. These are the sorts of people who exerted Benjamin Netanyahu's quote to make it look like he was attacking Jesus Christ when he was actually quoting a well-known famous Catholic historian. This is the world we live in. The people who are circulating the AI clip of an F-35 being shot down by the Iranians when it wasn't are the people circulating the excerpted clips. They are rotting people's minds. They are corrupting people. And it is so much an online phenomenon. We should stamp it out there before it spills over into the rest of the society. We are dealing with profound evil and not just among the Iranians. Honest. Putting your trust in me to tell you what's going on. Transparent. I need you to know this from the bottom of my heart. Giving you the information without the noise. My job isn't to tell you what you want to hear. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

Taking the complicated and making it simple. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Hello there. Welcome. It is Eric Erikson here across the United States of America. The phone number is 877-973-745. I know it is an open line Friday. I got a lot to talk about. Just bear with me here. We got lots and lots of stuff to cover. We got to move on from all the Iran stuff when we come back because I want to give you a history. of something circulating in, well, in American pop culture and politics and how old it actually is. First, I've got to tell you this hour is sponsored by Van Allen Golf, A-L-L-E-N, Van Allen Golf.com, maker of fine golf equipment, including my putter that I used to make a 35-foot putt. I'll get over it at some point and stop telling you about it. If you text golf to 33777, I'll send you the link to Van AllenGolf.com and to Golfers Journal, you should subscribe to Golfers Journal, too. just a plug for them because I love them and I want the free golf balls if people use my referral link. But nonetheless, fan Allen golf, great stuff. I want to move into domestic politics when we come back. We've spent a lot of time on Iran and as news develops and there's breaking news, I'll cover it. But there actually is more stuff happening out there. Casey Means's nomination in the Senate to be Chief Wiccan of the United States is up. in the air. Looks like Republicans are beginning to balk at confirming her, which is a good thing. Now, we got Joe Kent on with Megyn Kelly. Isn't it funny? He went from Tucker Carlson to Candace Owens to Megyn Kelly. Really, you're starting to see this nexus of the woke right out there and the anti-Semites on the right rallying around each other. It's very interesting. We'll get into that as well. And I want to explain to you why gas prices in the U.S. are going up. Even though we produce our own oil supply here, I got to ask that question and want to explain it to you. First, I want to tell you about the Edenpeer Thunderstorm. You can get three of them, and you can save 200 bucks at Edenpeerdeals.com. Edenpeerdeals.com. Use the discount code Eric 3. They will get rid of pollen. They'll get rid of dust. They'll get rid of pandemic. By the way, they're filterless. You don't have to have a filter subscription for this. They will also eliminate 99.9.9.9% of bacteria and viruses because they generate plasma. And as the air flows through the machine, the plasma touches the particles and wipes out the bacterial viruses. And they generate ozone. Three technologies, filterless air purifier, a bacteria and virus killer. and an odor killer with ozone, and you can get three of them and save $200 at Edenpuredeals.com. The discount code is Eric 3, E-R-I-C-K-3, Edenpuredeals.com. If it does not eliminate the odor, you get a money-back guarantee.

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