Erick Erickson Hr 3 1/13/26

Hello America, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. I need to jump straight into news here. The president has been briefed. I'm reading from James Laporta at CBS News. The president has been briefed on a wide array of military and covert tools that can be used against Iran that go well beyond conventional airstrikes, according to two. Defense Department officials who spoke under condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters. The president's national security team held meetings to discuss those options. In fact, I can tell you that it was Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and JD Vance and several members of the military and national security team in the room together. As anti-regime protests sweep Iran, Mr. Trump has warned for weeks he might intervene. Air power and long-range missiles remain central to any potential military response. But Pentagon planners have also presented cyber operation options and psychological campaigns intended to disrupt Iranian command structures, communications, and state-run media. The officials said cyber and psychological operations can occur simultaneously with traditional military force and what military planners call integrated operations. They could also be deployed as standalone options. Defense officials did not detail what... digital infrastructure is under consideration for targeting in Iran or what exactly the psychological campaign against Iran state-run media would look like if Mr. Trump were to authorize it to American officials emphasize that no final decisions have been made. We know the president on social media is saying talks with Iran are over, that no dice we're done. We now know as well that the The Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Defense Secretary, and others have been in the room together in planning meetings. The President himself, he's actually speaking right now at the Detroit Economic Club, and we are not, we know he was briefed. and we know that the president is interested in taking actions. We just don't know what actions are going to be taken. We also now know from CBS News that there are upwards of 20,000 people who have been killed by the Iranian regime. And Trey Yinst, who is the Fox News correspondent who is in Israel, has tremendous sources in the Middle East. Let me just play you this clip. Dana Good Morning, new reports indicate at least 3,000 Iranians have been killed amid anti-government demonstrations. The confirmed number is expected to be much higher. Overnight, thousands of people gathered in the streets of major cities once again, including the capital of Tehran. Further south in the city of Isfahan, Fox News was able to make contact with a man who is using Starlink. He described battles between protesters and security forces who are using live ammunition. On the call, he said the government has really repressed them using weapons of war against the demonstrators.

moment, the situation for the demonstrators in the street. The atmosphere is like a war zone, and some people are trying to escape from it. He goes on to say, I have to emphasize that among Iranian people, Trump is the most popular person right now. He has so much popularity because of the steps that he took toward preventing the growth of terrorism in the Middle East. They respect him. The internet blackout in Iran continues, making it difficult for people to get new information, although international calls were briefly going through overnight. The Americans, Israelis, and Europeans are watching these demonstrations closely. with German Chancellor Wayne in today. If a regime can only keep itself in power by force, then it's effectively at an end. I believe we are now seeing the final days and weeks of this regime. In any case, it is no legitimacy through elections in the population. The population is now rising up against this regime. I hope there is a possibility to end this conflict peacefully. Amid the crackdown, there is growing fear among protesters. One man in Tehran messaged me overnight saying, my days are numbered. Dana. Trey Yings, please keep us posted. Thank you so much. And yesterday, Michael Allen. That was Dana Perino there with Trey Yance this morning. CBS News now say the death toll is probably upwards of 20,000, at least 12,000 confirmed killed. So. Death toll continues to rise in Iran as the president now is looking towards military action. And I don't think it's a coincidence on Fox News, knowing the president's eyeballs are mostly there, them starting to point out how the Iranian people love the president. In fact, they're very pro-Western in Iran. It's just the regime. And the people are often repressed. And you understand that those death to America rallies they have where they burn the American flag that people are essentially brought out at gunpoint and told the protest. They don't really want to do it. it that required to participate by the regime. It's all for show. So that is happening right now. The national security team has met to go over a host of options for the president. He has decided to take action in Iran. We're just not sure which actions he will take beyond the tariffs he's already imposed, but looks like he'll be doing more. Beyond that, I want to go to a completely separate subject. I'll take your phone calls here shortly. But Richard Yarrow from the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. School at Harvard had a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye. And thanks to Matthew Cottonetti for pointing this out to me. I want to read you this from Richard Yarrow from the Harvard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. School. It is a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal. When the German sociologist Max Weber visited the U.S. in 1904, he was shocked to hear why Americans tolerated inept leaders. Quote, we prefer having people in office we can spit upon rather than officials who spit upon us, as is the case with you. Weber's interlocutors told him. That's from William Galston's column from December 31st, America's 25 years of decline. It presents several examples of short-sighted or untrustworthy policymakers.

More shocking is how little the country has declined despite that many failures of federal politics. In 1990, the United States accounted for 26% of the world gross domestic product. If Beijing's estimates of its own economic growth are correct, then in 2024, after decades of China's rise, the United States still makes up 25.9% of global GDP. The U.S. continues spawning new industries like AI and leads in a wide range of digital technologies, finance, education, medicine, and so on. Other countries still perceive American power. As Singapore's former president, Halema Yaakab told, wrote this month, it's still a unipolar world. Spare a thought for our allies. When the Cold War ended, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada represented 32% of the world economy. Today, they make up less than 14%. By 2020, Arkansas and Alabama had overtaken each one in per capita income. Congressional failures on infrastructure and education made the U.S. poorer, but Congress's questionable spending still pales in comparison with the poor economic management of many other rich countries. See the 2024 Draghi report on European competitiveness. The U.S. has clearly declined in one way. It fought two world wars and the Cold War, while allied with most of the world's other leading industrial, technological, and military powers. Today, our key allies are mostly demographically, fiscally, militarily, and technology worse off, and in some cases, more politically divided. Stronger allies would make America stronger, but if our allies' problems aren't fixed, we will grow lonelier and weaker. From a guy at Harvard who points out essentially we're still the same quarter GDP of the whole world, but our allies' GDPs have declined. We stand head and shoulders above every other country economically, militarily. Look at the military. The engagement in Venezuela, have you all read the reports of the military officials in Venezuela? They had seen nothing like it. You know, I've said this, and it's joking, but it's also true. We were in and out of Maduro's compound faster than the kid in stranger things could declare himself gay. The whole operation was two hours and included a malfunctioning helicopter that we were able to keep in the air without a jeopardizing the mission. In Ukraine, the Russians barnstormed the country thinking it would be a quick invasion, and it was not. Our weapons used by Ukraine, our old generation weapons are better than the bleeding edge weapons the Russians and the Chinese both deployed in Ukraine. In Iran, we have been able to decapitate their nuclear ambitions in ways no other country could. The Chinese have developed stealth radar technology to be able to detect our stealth planes. It has failed everywhere it's been used against our stealth aircraft. We have problems. Let's not understate the problems. We're struggling to build ships for the Navy.

The president is absolutely right to shake up the military industrial complex when it comes to questioning their ability to build weapons systems on a rapid clip. I noticed the other day a buddy of mine worked with Lockheed Skunk Works, and Lockheed is running a PR campaign about how cheaply and rapidly they're able to deploy projects for the government through the skunk works. Well, okay, Lockheed, we don't need an ad campaign. Just get it done. Problem for Lockheed Skunk Works is they can't tell us what they're working on. It's all classified. But they're doing it. We need our shipbuilders to do it. We need Raytheon to step up its games with weapons manufacturing. We got a lot of military industrial players who have consolidated overtime. They're more monopolistic than they've ever been. Inefficiencies have come into the problem. The president is right to focus on that. It is definitely time for us to re-engage, but also decline is a choice, and there are certain sectors of this government and our states that have made the choice to decline. The progressive states being captive of the teachers' unions, you know the teachers' unions in Minnesota want to be out of school for the next five weeks so the teachers can go protest ice. Screw the kids, they want to go protest ice. California and New York are scoffing and mocking the Mississippi miracle of literacy. They've actually, you're putting out academic papers trying to debunk the Mississippi miracle. And you know what they're doing? They're debunking it by looking at Mississippi math grades, not reading grades. No, in Mississippi, a black kid from poverty is more likely to graduate from... high school in Mississippi fully literate than a black kid from California in the middle class. Yes, a black kid in poverty in Mississippi is more likely to graduate from high school fully literate than a black kid from the middle class in California. The poor non-white kids in the South have higher reading skills than the middle class non-white kids in California. That's just a fact. They don't like it. So they say, what about the math scores? Well, yeah, math's a problem. And you people keep changing every three years. We've gone from Common Core to Singapore Math, which is Common Core repackaged. We've given up on real math because it's apparently racist. We've got problems. But also, there's a lot right going on in this country. There's a lot of good still in this country. And we will continue to be a great country as long as we're a good country. And that is my concern with the president's bullying of so many of our allies like Greenland and the like. It makes us the bad guy. And if we get comfortable being the bully, we won't remain a great nation. But we are a great nation. We are good people. Outside of the hate that you see on social media and the Wackadoo progressives protesting ICE, by and large in this country, most people are offline, not online, and they get along with their neighbors. And they help in their community. and they show up at jobs and they go home and they take care of families and they do so without complaint.

They want to unplug from politics, so they watch football. It's one of the reasons the NBA numbers have declined in ratings. It's not just that, I mean, you got LeBron James deciding he can take nights off, and the NBA players don't act like they're really into the game, and it's no longer a team sport. It's just who can throw the furthest and get it in the basket. But people want to watch the NFL. That's why there was such a backlash over Kaepernick and the politicization of the NFL. People want to unplug from politics. People want to break, and they deserve a break. But they're good people, they're hardworking people. Americans are great people. And we're still the greatest country. Economically and militarily, we lead the world in medicine and AI development. China would have us believe that they're better than us and they're not. We're a good people in a great nation. Stop listening to the voices hating on the country. Follow Eric on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble. Search E.W. Erickson. Want to be on the show? Come on, be on the show. Call Eric now at 877-973-745. Hello there. Welcome. It is. Eric Erickson here. Let me jump to Robert calling from Jacksonville, Florida. You're up next, Robert. Welcome to the show. You know, thanks very much, Eric, for taking my call. I'm calling you referred earlier when you were talking about the young man who burned down the synagogue. You got into a little bit of history and racism, et cetera. And I just wanted to mention to you in the audience, I don't know if you've ever heard about a book called The Burning Tigers. And this is about the Armenian genocide that was committed. in the late 1800s and the early 1900s and preceded the Holocaust by the Nazis in Germany. And it was about the Turks from the Ottoman Empire trying to wipe out the Armenian population in Turkey. Now, what does this matter to us? The point of my comments is history. We have failed our young people in this country by failing to teach world history. We do teach American history, and even that probably isn't very good. But we don't teach our young people about world history, about what has happened, what has raised the issue of racism, not only by religious racism, but by the color of people's skin and what they believe. This book, The Burning Tigers, is just incredible. And the atrocities, if we think the Nazis were bad and they were, The atrocities committed by the Turks and the Muslims in Turkey, in the 1890s, principally 94 through 96, and again in the early 20th century, in the 1915 to 1920 period, is unbelievably horrific. I mean, they didn't just send them to the gas chambers. They burned these people. They cut them with swords. They didn't spend bullets on them. They slaughtered them. Anyway, I'm a little passionate about it. Yeah, listen, I'm glad you brought that up. I had not read the book. I know the name, but had not read it. And I mean, yeah, and you know, part of this too, Robert, you kind of raise it directly is the lack of people's sense of history today. They just, they don't understand. And what's old is new again. And, you know, I mean, quote ecclesiasties or not, there's nothing new under the Sunday. We have real problems festering in large part because people simply don't know their history.

Wander Zee, you know, I'm totally down with my son's idea that every senior in high school should watch Schindler's list. So you don't go to college thinking there are questions to be asked. You understand this is the history. They show you the real people. They give you the real story. It is a true story. And it's a horrific story of how people treat people. And I don't know that the internet is rotting people's brains. We have outsourced our critical thinking to others. You know, I thought it was interesting that this kid who burned down the synagogue actually told his father in text, I did my own research. How many nut jobs and conspiracy theorists have you encountered since COVID who went down some lack of do rabbit hole because they, quote, unquote, did their own research. There are way too many of them. It's just a troubling, bothersome, festering thing out there. People need to know their history.

Eric Erickson Show, cutting through the chaos with relatable, unpredictable, conservative commentary. Hello, they're welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. 8779773-745 is the full number should you wish to be on the program. The Supreme Court today heard arguments about a in Idaho law. There were a couple of laws at stake. Actually, you know what? Let me just pause real quick. Mike Tomlin, 19 seasons with the Steelers. He has decided to step aside. He informed his team he's stepping down. It sounds like he might have thought he was going to be pushed out. But now you got Harbaugh. out after 18 years with the Ravens and Tomlin out after 19 seasons with Steelers. So you got that happening. Okay, now we've got to get into the Supreme Court argumentously. Now, we're not going to hear a case until June. Kobe and I were talking before the show. The Supreme Court typically it takes them. months to arrive at decisions. They are very deliberative in their pace. And the major controversial decisions, they try to schedule earlier in the years so they can drag them out and deliberate on them and get their wording as precise as they want by the time you arrive at the end of June. And at the end of June, these decisions all come out. We would expect that this decision would be one of the very last decisions to come out based on the order of argument. The arguments began at 10 o'clock this morning. There was an Idaho case and a Montana. case. The ACLU argued on behalf of the boys, the trans girls. It was notable that the progressives referred to them as girls and the conservatives referred to them as either boys or trans girls. If you go back, There was a case, I guess it was last year in the Supreme Court. It was argued over by, was it Chase Stranger or whatever from the ACLU, for actual name, who is trans. And her argument was that states could not restrict chemical agents to delay puberty, among other things. This was a Tennessee case, Tennessee ban giving puberty blockers to minors. And Strangio just got annihilated, eaten alive in oral arguments. Even Elena Kagan had the very, very, very difficult task of trying to put a semblance of an argument on Strangio's argument because Strangio was no good. Now, interestingly enough today, the...

The lawyer for the ACLU who argued for the trans athletes was asked if there was a definition for boys and girls. And the ACLU lawyer said, we don't have a definition between boys or girls. This is the exchange with Samuel Alito. From Samuel Alito, do you agree that schools may have separate teams for boys and girls? Yes, says the ACLU. So then we need to have a definition of boys and girls. ACLU replies, we don't have a definition. So then Samuel Alito says, well, say physically normal guys want to take part on girls' track teams, but he says he's a female, can the school barring? And the ACLU says, yes, he's got a sex-based biological advantage. And Samuel Alito goes back to, but you don't have a definition for boys and girls. And then Amy Coney Barrett points out, how does a law discriminate on the basis of transgender status? Trans girls are allowed to play in boy sports. And again, the ACLU lawyer doesn't really have an argument. It didn't go well. The Chief Justice was suspicious. The conservative block was suspicious. Even Neil Gorsuch, who's been the most sympathetic of the justices from the right to transgenderism, the Bostock decision, that the employment discrimination case were he sided with the trans person in Georgia. Even Gorsuch was really skeptical. of the decisions and the opinions and the arguments of the progressives. And here's what it all boils down to. There are such a tiny number of people in this country who identify as trans and want to play in girl sports.

Another case landed on the docket. It's an emergency application involving a 2024 California law that blocks schools from requiring educators to notify parents for children who change names or pronouns in school. A federal district judge said parents had a right to be notified about any transition by their children. A appellate court panel said that, no, parents do not get the right to be notified if their children in school decide to change their name or their gender. Here's a real problem for the trans community. They've gotten ahead of the science, and in getting ahead of the science, they have run a hostile PR campaign against anyone who brings up the science. The New York Times, when covering the Supreme Court decision today, used the phrase sex assigned at birth. That's actually propaganda language from a trans group that has produced a style guide for the media in how to talk about trans issues. Instead of biological sex, it's sex assigned at birth, suggesting it's the doctors determining someone's sex as opposed to the basic biology of the chromosomes. It's a PR campaign designed to discredit sex. So today in the United States Supreme Court, the trans community, having bought its own arguments and drunk its own Kool-Aid, could offer no definition of biological sex to the United States Supreme Court. And then when confronted with the fact that Could a man who is a man but identifies as a woman participate in a woman's sport? The ACLU lawyer argued no because the man has competitive advantages. And Samuel Alito, who asked both questions, turns around and said, but you just said we don't have a definition of men and women. Crazy gets tripped up by crazy. And that crazy came to get tripped up in the Supreme Court today in the same way it got tripped up last year in the Scrimetti decision over giving minors puberty blocking drugs. You can't out crazy the crazy. And the crazy in the Supreme Court today tripped all over its arguments, first saying there's no definition for male and female, and then saying you could block men from being in women's sports if the men presumed to identify as women but really hadn't transitioned. What's the transition point from male to female if there's no definition for male and female? And that is the point. They launched ahead of the science with a devil-may-care attitude. The trans community has Leroy Jenkins themselves all the way to the Supreme Court, and they're going to wind up like Leroy Jenkins getting mowed down by a bunch of justices for being crazy with no actually coherent arguments. It really was wild to listen to the arguments. What was... The most interesting, the funniest, the funniest part of all of it was listening to Ketanji Brown Jackson who said she wasn't a biologist so she couldn't define men and women in her Senate hearing, now referring to cisgendered men and women.

Again, it is a propagandistic language of the left to take the prefix cis, which is derived from chemistry, and apply it to biology and say there's no definition of men and women, but now you have cisgendered men and women. Those are that is men who think they're men and women who think they're women. And now you have the trans class, but the Supreme Court justices nor the lawyers for the trans community would refer to them as trans. I thought it was very notable Amy Coney Barrett. She got lit up by some conservatives for using trans girls saying there's no such thing. Why are you giving lip services? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all because the argument on file used the phrase trans girls. So Amy Coney Barrett is using the phrase trans girls and trans women. and clearly distinguishing them as they're not girls and they're not women. And that was Cody Amy Coney Barrett's argument that if you have to put the prefix trans, it means there's something other than girls and women. But conservatives wanted to eat her alive for using the language that was at play. That's not how this works. Yeah, some of the men on the court referred to him as boys, but most of the conservatives have embraced the idea of trans because that's in the court record. There is a way the law works and the way the legal system works and the way the justices work and they're not going to adopt your labels because you don't like the label that's at play. They're going to use the word trans. What was notable is that the progressive justices not only refuse to refer to these boys as trans girls, they wanted to try to find a way to get the case thrown out of the court because they know where this is headed.

The majority of the Supreme Court, like most Americans, is not comfortable locking America into a pro-transposition when so much of the science says otherwise. And in fact, when you look at the European nations, they're all now turning their back on the trans community because of their pseudoscience. Again, when you can't give us a definition of what a man and a woman is and then try to argue that men can't be in women's sports because they're men, you fall flat in your logic. Crazy out does crazy, and the crazy went to the Supreme Court today, ill-prepared for logical arguments because transgenderism is definitionally not logical. And the Supreme Court ate up the ACLU lawyer today, which was totally predictable. Maybe the trans community should rely on people other than the ACLU to argue their cases because they've all been a disaster. You're at the intersection of politics, news, culture, and current events. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Get the podcast, live stream, email, and social media links by texting Eric to 3377. Now. 47 members of the House of Representatives have decided not to run again for office for the House. Neil Dunn, Republican from Florida, is now the 47th House member. This is his statement that he is saying, after prayerful consideration and discussion with my family, I have decided not to seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives. This will conclude my service after five meaningful terms representing the people of Florida's second congressional district. As a physician and army surgeon and veteran from a multi-generational military family, I brought my commitment to life, liberty, and conservative values to Washington. It's been my greatest honor to fight for lower taxes, our military and veterans, the unborn health care innovation and policies that empower Americans over bureaucracy and addressing threats from communist China, Russia, and others goes on from there. There are now, if you're keeping total, 26 Republicans and 21 Democrats who have decided not to run for reelection. which is a kind of warning sign for a lot of people that things aren't going well for the GOP. Now, the second congressional district is in the Panhandle area. It's a part of Walton County stretches over through Tallahassee down the Taylor County, Madison County, Jefferson, Leon Gadsden, and the like. And he's gone. He'll be there until the end of the year. But 47 members of Congress deciding they're tired of Congress. When things are functioning well, you don't see this level of turnover. This Congress hasn't done much. While I very much like the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a lot of Republicans have grown frustrated with the inability to get anything done. And many of them will say they got issues with him, but also the majority is so narrow. Any one or two people can block anything from happening. They have big things they wanted to get done.

and they're not able to get any of that stuff done now. It's never a good sign for the incumbent party when that many of the incumbent party are leaving 27 Republicans. In 2010, it was upwards of 30 Democrats decided to retire, and that was kind of a warning sign of a wave. In, what, 2018, you had over 20 Republicans decide to retire. There was the wave. What's notable is the 21 Democrats, and a lot of them are from very safe Democratic seats. There are some swing districts there as well. My theory, my working theory on the election is that there will be a blue wave. We've seen it pretty consistently in the special elections. But I don't actually think we're going to see a massive, massive number of seats in the House by the Democrats. I think they probably win the House. But maybe by 10 seats or less, which isn't great. They'll be able to hold themselves together better than the Republicans over hand because they've got such a herd mentality. But why do I say that? Look, I'm willing to be wrong. Maybe they get 20 seats. Maybe they get 30 seats. But the country is gerrymandered so well. and the Republicans continue to remember. They're waiting for this Louisiana case for the Supreme Court. If the Louisiana case from the Supreme Court comes down and okays of what the Republicans want to do there, you're going to see more Republican states redistrict, and that's going to neutralize Democratic advantages. But, yeah, I think the Democrats probably are having a wave-down ballot, and that's a bad warning sign for Republicans in swing states like Georgia. You're going to have to put on your A-game across the country, Republicans.