Erick Erickson HR 1

One, zero, all engine running. Lift-off. We have a lifetown. is Eric Eretton here across the United States. The phone number 877973745. We got to talk about the breaking news. It appears we have a bomb suspect in the January 6th pipe bombing of the DNC and the RNC. Now, for those who don't remember this, on January 6th, there was this weird situation of a pipe bomb that was found in DC at the RNC and at the DNC. There were a lot of questions about it. And there were a lot of conspiracists on the right. Remember, I'm going to be real honest with you. There is this ongoing conspiracy theory on the right that January 6 was all a bunch of FBI agents encouraging people to get in. And in fact, there was a report out about the number of FBI agents that were... put on the street in plain close on January 6th. That's been used as a conspiracy theory to amplify this. The president's team themselves amplified that. And what they totally missed was that that report was about after the riots began, those FBI agents went on to the street. They weren't there first. They totally lied about it to try to perpetuate a false narrative to benefit the right to benefit the president. The left and the right liked to lie to each other in public about what's going on. They liked their preferred... narratives, and that's one on the right. And so in addition to this belief that remember at first it was all Antifa, then it was FBI agents, people on the right for a long time began to believe that it was actually the FBI agents who were planting the pipe bombs to make Trump supporters look bad. The Blaze came out very recently. I don't know what's happened to the Blaze. It is embracing the Nick Fuentes crowd, it seems like. They've just completely descended, it seems, in my mind, to madness. And increasingly becoming unhinged. An innocent woman was blamed by the Blaze, a federal security officer. was linked to the pipe bombing attack, cleared her name. She has an alibi, a video of her playing with her puppies at the time the devices were placed. The FBI has ruled her out as a suspect in the plot, but the Blaze was so desperate to tie this whole grandmaster conspiracy together to blame the federal government for January 6 and completely lie about what happened on January 6th, that they named an innocent woman as the suspect based on a...

a walking profile, that if you matched the cadence of the walk of the masked pipe bomber and you match the cadence of the walk of this woman who I'm not going to name because she's innocent, you had the same person. I await her lawsuit against the blaze. Boy, did they get out over their skis, and they deserve what's coming based on the information we have. The name of this suspect appears to be making sure I have it right. Brian Cole of Virginia. This is from the New York Post. The suspect arrested. for planning pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic National Committees. Ahead of the January 6 riots has been identified as Brian Cole Jr. of Virginia. Cole, age 30, was busted by the FBI Thursday morning in connection to the attempted bombing, just shy of the fifth anniversary of the riots. Sources told the post investigators were looking into his possible connection with some form of anarchist writings or leanings. Those specifics were not immediately known. The authorities said coal was the man caught on camera skulking around the capital city. The night before former Vice President Joe Biden's election victory was to be certified by Congress, leaving viable explosive devices outside the major party headquarters in D.C. The video showed him carrying a backpack, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, mask, gloves, glasses, and a pair of Nike AirMax SpeedTurf sneakers. The devices were found the following afternoon, just as Congress was convening. And they've had a search for this man ever since. You know, so the conspiracy on the right... has been that it was a federal agent, that it was the feds. They were trying to make Trump supporters look bad. But the left as well concocted a theory. The left's theory was that this was a Trump supporter and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were never going to look into it. This is where the left was. The right had its conspiracy theory to its side. The left's conspiracy theory was that it was obviously a Trump supporter trying to blow these institutions up because they were anti-establishment, trying to defend Donald Trump. They knew that even at the RNC, they didn't really like Donald Trump. And so Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, they're going to cover it up. They're never, ever, ever going to attempt to find the actual bomber. They're going to bury the evidence. No, actually, federal authorities have been working pretty diligently this whole time, and they have found who they believe is the person. We don't know all the evidence. We haven't had the press briefings yet, but it's a reminder that both sides, both sides, like to weave stories and narratives.

that leave out the truth to advance and placate the interests of their own sides. And oftentimes those of us who are still normal and haven't been broken in this wild age of Trump where, boy, people are just so broken, whether they hate him or loving, you just got to stay on the narrow straight path of sanity and recognize that both sides of this point have gotten so tribal that they're willing to weave intricate tales. that in some cases, like with the Blaze, out name and blame an innocent person, and they like to tell tall tales because it makes them sleep well at night. You know, that's a lot of conspiracy theorizing these days. Conspiracy theories, there are a number of reasons in my mind. One is you want to simplify complex things. Another is you want to complicate simple things. A third is you have failed at life and can't bring yourself to blame yourself, so you must concoct a conspiracy of blame for other people. And oftentimes we see that on all sides. They have failed in some way, but they've got to concoct a theory to blame other people. They can't accept blame for themselves. They can't accept blame for their own actions. They don't want consequences. The riots on January 6 weren't a good thing. The left, though, trying to tar and feather every Trump supporter as being complicit was a bad thing. This is where, you know, the other day I talked about the reconstruction stuff. The left is now talking more and more. We need reconstruction once we take back power. That's about all Trump supporters. They see every Trump supporter. as the bad guy. And make no mistake about it. I'm not deluded as someone who is willing to criticize the president. Even this, I'm already getting hate mail. While I'm sitting here talking, I can see the hate mail coming in from Trump supporters angry with my take on January 6th. And what I am very mindful of is despite me saying what I said, and I stand by it. When the reconstruction comes, the left is coming for me too. So there are people on the right who say, well, you should double down. You should be with us. You shouldn't say these things. They're going to come for you too. Now, I think I've got an obligation to the truth. Whatever the left does, I think the truth sets you free. And the left is deeply captured by lies. Deeply captured by lies. People on the left, how many of you really believe someone can transition that gender identity is real? That's a lie. It's a lie that has captured you and corrupted your party. How many of you believe that illegal immigrants don't get welfare benefits? You know, that's one of the weird stories we're having now that we're going to get into is just last year. Remember, when Donald Trump was talking about all the illegal immigrants getting welfare benefits? What was the talking point on the nightly news? What were the fact checkers at Politifax saying? Illegal aliens don't get welfare benefits. And now, what is the talking point? Why you racist? Are you upset about illegal aliens getting welfare benefits? I mean, they went from they don't get them to, of course, they get them, you racist, why do you have a problem with it? Because it's being exposed to the Somali fraud in Minnesota. And you know, the new thing is, why are you calling it a Somali fraud ring? You don't call organized crime by white people, a white mob.

Well, that's actually what you call January 6. You people on the left, a white mob. But actually, we call it the Italian mafia, the Chechen mob, the Romanian hackers, the Somalis are from Somalia. It's a fraud ring of Somalians, therefore it is a Somali fraud ring. There's nothing racist about it, but you people want to scream racism to avoid the implications of it. The narratives they weave for themselves. The narratives that help them sleep well. We're going to find out about this Brian Cole guy. I know nothing about him. The information is slowly trickling out. I'm sure there will be an FBI press conference later where Kash Patel will get again say something stupid. But at least we'll get some facts about this situation. We're also, by the way, getting facts about the situation. in the Caribbean. You know, what if I told you guys for a very long time? When these sorts of stories about the Trump administration come out, wait a couple days and see how it changes? The story about, well, the guys were floating in the ocean and they bombed them a second time to kill him, came out over Thanksgiving weekend. And then suddenly the New York Times comes out and says, actually, it's different than that. They were trying to sink the ship. Those people died and collateral. Well, today there are new revelations that completely undo the Washington Post story. That they weren't floating in the water clinging to debris as claimed. They climbed back into the boat and were attempting to save the drugs and in contact with another narco-terrorist vessel to come save them. Wow, how the story has changed. But you see, the left wanted you to believe that Pete Hegseth was a war criminal. I kept telling you, let's see what comes out. We don't really know. Congress needs to investigate. They set the narrative. They didn't care about the truth. They set the narrative. That's what so much of... All of the antagonisms in today's headlines are are both sides setting narratives to try to own the other side. They don't really care about the truth. And don't deny it. People in the right do it too. The president's team does it. My job is to sort through it to tell you what's actually going on. The left is trying to... Pete Hegseth as a war criminal to delegitimize the entire administration, the Washington Post ran with the story that now multiple media outlets from the New York Times to ABC News are now directly contradicting it. When we come back, I'll play you the audio. Martha Radditz, not exactly friendly to the administration, has the story await until you hear the facts. Have something to say? Hello. Hello. Call the show. 1-877-9-7-Earing. That's 1-877-973-7-4-25. Want to be on the show? Come on, be on the show. Call Eric now at 877-973-7-4-25.

Greetings conversationalists. Don't forget to text Eric E R-I-C-K to 33777. You get the show notes, the live stream, the podcast, everything you need. Martha Raditz is not exactly a fan of Donald Trump. The ABC News is not. In fact, yesterday, if you were here, I noted they did a minute and a half on the ABC Nightly News. about Donald Trump's offensive statements. about Somalis and never mentioned the Somali fraud scandal in Minnesota. In fact, they haven't mentioned the Somali fraud scandal at all on ABC's nightly news. Martha Raddett's not exactly a fan of the Trump administration, and yet she is breaking some news here on ABC. She was the one who broke this as the boat situation, the Caribbean, continues to evolve. believed to be potentially in communication with others and salvaging some of the drugs. For some reason, that started a weird place. Here we go. And tonight, new information, according to a source familiar with the incident, the two survivors climbed back onto the boat after the initial strike. They were believed to be potentially in communication with others and salvaging some of the drugs. Because of that, it was determined they were still in the fight and valid targets. A JAG officer was also given. giving legal advice. So again, David, that video will be key. And Admiral Bradley will be on the hill tomorrow behind closed door. Now, that was last night. So Admiral Bradley's going to be there today. Keep in mind, the original reporting is that the JAG officers, the lawyers, they were not consulted about the second strike. They were left out of it and didn't find out until after it happened. This contradicts that. And then they said they were floating in the water and they were targeted because of it. And that was contradicted by the New York Times that said, no, no. They were attempting to sink the vessel. The order was to seek the vessel. A second missile was required to sink the vessel. And now it turns out, as the story has continued to evolve from what the Washington Post originally reported and that CNN and others ran with was that actually they weren't floating in the water, they climbed back into the boat, which was not sunk. They were attempting to rescue the drug cargo and pass it off to other narco terrorists. And that's why they launched seconds. Completely, completely changes the story unless you're just a flat out committed Trump hater. I got to tell you, again, my standard rule on these sort of salacious stories is you wait 24, 48 hours, you see what plays out. You are never, ever going to go wrong by waiting a couple of days when these sorts of stories from the press come out. Now, I will tell you, as a side note, Laura Lumer.

is out on social media claiming that this was all a hit by Dan Driscoll, the Army Secretary, who's actually friends with Jake Dan Sullivan. And Jake Dan Sullivan's wife, who's now a member of Congress, who participated in that video, allegedly donated money to Driscoll when he ran for office some years ago. Sounds like Lumer is grinding the axe against Driscoll and blaming him for this. There's a lot of drama in all of this. The president standing by Pete Hegseth, and if anything, this sort of recovery of the storyline is going to protect Pete Hegseth. If people were trying to push him out, this was the wrong thing to do. Doesn't actually make him look in the light that they cast him in. So, interesting development. They climbed back into the boat and we're working with other narco-terrorists to save the drugs. Kaboom. Americans for Prosperity would like to get you involved with them around the nation. They get engaged regularly. And in so doing, They advance common sense conservative reforms across the country. Americans for Prosperity engages at the local, the state, and the federal level to rally conservatives to common sense conservative policy. In more and more cases, they're actually getting common sense Democrats. There are a few left to advance some of their reforms around the country, particularly when it comes to reigning in out-of-control state bureaucracies like the Raines Act. Even some Democrats are taking them seriously on this. They advocated for the president's tax cuts, mobilized an army of activists to get it done. They have mobilized conservatives around the country for school choice. They are deeply engaged in the fight for freedom in this country. They love to have you involved, even if you just want to be informed about public policy. Go to afpvolunteer.com today. AFP Volunteer.com. Sign up with Americans for Prosperity Today. Get involved with them. Advance the Common Sense Conservative Reform Agenda across the country.afpvolunteer.com.

Truth over tribe. Conviction over party. Eric Erickson, conservative, but not captive. Greetings. It is Eric Erickson here. The full number is 877-97-975. Charles Shea has died. You probably have never heard of him. You should know who he is. He was a decorated American Indian veteran. What did he do? Well, he was a 19-year-old army medic and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and saved a lot of lives that day. Now, if you want real perspective on where we are historically from D-Day, he was 19 when he stormed the beaches of Normandy. and died yesterday at 1001. We are rapidly, rapidly losing the living memory of World War II. Just for perspective there. Now, I got to move on to the Somali story. I want to play a clip for you. I need to play this audio. I have not actually heard this audio. That's fair warning to my board op. It's a press conference, so I assume there's nothing. It's, what is it, Primal. Jerome Powell, she's the leader of the progressives in the United States House of Representatives. She and a number of Democrats have filed legislation. Well, just listen to them. Today to say enough. Our Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act has a remarkable, unprecedented 123 original co-sponsors. Before we've even introduced it, 123 co-sponsors, and it overhauls the detention system. It drastically scales back the use of detention. It ensures that every single immigrant who is in detention has their human and civil rights protected. Our bill also phases out the use of private for-profit detention centers. It prohibits the detention of children and families and makes it harder to detain primary caregivers and vulnerable people like pregnant women or seniors or workers who are whistleblowing and unscrupulous employers. It requires DHS to allow members of Congress to do our jobs and conduct those unannounced inspections that hold these facilities accountable. As an immigrant myself. That's the problem with Pramila Jayapal, the leader of the progressives, Democrat from Washington State. 124 Democrats have signed on to legislation that will prohibit detaining illegal immigrants at the border. You'll have to let them into the country. We'll require the United States government pay for lawyers to fight deportation. and will essentially abolish ICE internally. I wish you guys could see the look on Kobe's face right now. Yes. Yes. Your profanity will not bleed through the microphone. This is nuts. They want to prevent the detention of people at the border.

And his willingness to shamelessly use DHS as his own force of terror is only making visible what so many communities have already known to be true. That terrorizing is the point. You got this, this is the talking point. Terrorizing is the point. They've clearly hit on this, that terrorizing is the point. This is Rob Bonta, the California Attorney General. They've decided to set up a website where you will be able to file reports on ICE activity in order to protect illegal immigrants. You'll be able to file all the relevant information of where ICE is on this website. I'm Robanta, California Attorney General, and I want to say thanks for being here. We are here to announce a new tool that we are launching today to protect the rights, the safety, the dignity of all Californians throughout the state during a time of profound uncertainty and a time of profound fear. Today we're launching an online portal where members of the public can report potentially unlawful conduct by federal agents operating in our state. And we encourage Californians who have concerns about the law being broken, a federal officer breaking the law, to report to us. So we can assess the information. Over the last 10 months, we've seen troubling reports coming from communities across California. including unmarked military style vehicles and individuals detained in ways that resemble abductions. Right. You got that? Y'all, I got a side note for those of you on the right here. First of all, you know, there's a difference between the Border Patrol and ICE. Ice tends not to be the ones who are running all over the place grabbing people. ICE tends to know their target in advance. Ice is the one that's blamed, but often it's Border Patrol that does the more Cavalier Mass Roundups. I need to say this on the record. Don't get mad at me for saying it because you know deep down it's true. Every time you arrest a citizen... In the mix-up, it provides ammunition for the left to undermine the credibility of what's happening. So ICE and Border Patrol and Homeland Security need to dot all the I's and cross all the T's in advance. They've got to do this. And they actually do need to focus on the bad guys first. Increasingly among a lot of Trump supporters, They can't distinguish between the guy who hasn't broken the law once he crossed the border and the guy who actually is a gang member, deport them all.

There's a valid argument for saying that, but I've got to tell you, when Trump came in, he said he was going to focus on the worst of the worst, and a lot of Hispanic voters voted for Trump because of that. If you can't distinguish between the grandmother who's been here for decades illegally and the gangbanger who's terrorizing that grandmother's neighborhood, who is illegal, you have a problem with the voters in the same way the Democrats have a problem because the Democrats don't want any ice. Republican voters have a problem in that they're being overly aggressive with ICE. An American citizen is not required in the United States to have to walk around with their passport to prove their citizenship. And if that is the case in areas of this country, and I'm not saying it is, but that's the allegation. And if it is, that's wrong. You've got to understand the nuance case here. Don't be mad at me for telling you the truth because the truth is there will be a voter reaction against the right if they overplayed their hand and are too aggressive. We want all the illegal aliens detained, but you've got to start with the criminals first and then build the case for the rest of them. On the left, though, they've doubled down on the opposite extreme. It's both sides are extreme. On the right, it's every single person who is here illegally. There's no differentiation between them. They're all lawbreakers. Get them all out now. There's no priority between the gangbangers and the drug dealers and the grandmothers and the workers who are working for the landscape company. They're all the same. Get rid of all of them. that may be true to you, but to a lot of people it's not, and there will be backlash. In the same way on the left, it is the, we have to protect every illegal immigrant. They're all God's people. They're all welcome here. They should all be given welfare. No, that's wrong, too. That is the bad position. And if you're forcing Americans to default, they're going to default on the far right side of deport them all. Why are we given illegal aliens welfare benefits in this country? Why? We should not be. Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor is speaking out about this. Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan, thank you so much for coming in. From what we have seen so far, there are no signs of large-scale arrests and operations around the Twin Cities in this new operation. Do you know what the roughly 100 federal agents are doing in your state right now? Well, what I can tell you is they're certainly not letting us know their plans. But what we do see is that they're coming in quickly, scooping people up. We're hearing reports of that from folks on the ground. But really, what this is all about is striking fear into the hearts of Minnesotans. I just find it completely abhorrent the comments that came from... President Trump out of the cabinet meeting the other day and just yesterday, just the vile dehumanizing things that he had to say about our neighbors. You got that this is all completely abhorrent. The president's abhorrent. They're just striking fear. This is the talking point from the left, by the way, that they're just striking fear. No, they're not actually striking fear. They're deporting people who shouldn't be here.

Y'all, if the Republicans play this right, just, I understand some of you listening right now. You're going to send me hate mail and say, nope, they're all the same, round them all up. If you can't distinguish between the gangbangers and the drug dealers and Julio who cuts somebody's grass down the street from you and leaves you alone, you're going to provoke a voter backlash. You can win this fight if you just show a little bit of restraint. And no racism. Because if you come out on this, remember that the goal right now to win elections is to just not look insane. When the Democrats are coming out with legislation, 124 Democrats saying, we want illegal aliens not detained, welcome to this country, given welfare benefits, and lawyers so they can stay here, versus we're rounding up the gangbangers and the drug dealers. We'll figure out what to do with the rest of them once we get the drug dealers and the gangbangers gone. You come across looking reasonable. When you say, screw them all, we're rounding them up or we're shipping off to some country. We don't care where, maybe the desert in Africa. You look like a racist to a lot of people. You may not be, but you look that way and you look crazy too. The American people are trying to find candidates who look reasonable, and it is a reasonable position to say there are a lot of illegal aliens here. We can deal with later. Let's start with the gangbangers and the drug dealers and the violent ones. And then we'll move on. And worry about the others later. And I think that's a winning position for the GOP right now. But you've got to be able to nuance. And people don't want to nuance. The number of people who will yell at me for making the case that you just can't go in and round them all up because you come across looking bad to a lot of Hispanic voters and non-white voters who have been moving in your direction. They want the gangbangers gone. They want the drug dealers gone. They want the bad guys gone. And to a degree, they even want a lot of the other illegal aliens gone who came over during the Biden administration. But they're not concerned about the guy who's been here 30 years. And if you're not willing to make that distinguishing feature, you're going to cede some ground that could be yours to actually get these people out of the country. You got the opportunity to distinguish yourself from the left that's gone just absolutely insane and can't nuance easy. Just nuance a little bit. The left can't. You win the election. You win the argument. You preserve the power to be able to do these things. 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 to tell you the truth. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Just joined us? No worries. Check out the Eric Erickson Show 24-7 stream at Ericerickson.com. Available for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Greetings. Welcome. It's Eric Erickson here. 877937425. Jim in Springfield, Ohio. Welcome to the show. Jim, how are you? Fine, Eric. I appreciate you bringing light to the Somali community in Minneapolis in Minnesota because it's actually what's going on in central and southwest Ohio and even up into the Lima-Finley-Tolito areas is a replica of that. The Biden administration tried to establish these enclaves similar to the Somalian enclave with about 50,000 Haitians in the Columbus area, 30,000 in Springfield. Springfield is only a community of 60,000, and probably another 100 to 120,000 more southwest Ohio up I-75. The situation right now is DHS has already last week said they need to be out February 3rd. And that's already been the Supreme Court's always ruled that's going to happen. Although they did have an exemption from August. However, this is all very similar, and that there's a church, a central Christian church, led by a Carl Ruby, who was advocating for some of the same things, the civil disobedience, kind of the underground railroad, possible violence to protect these patients from leaving. And the whole advocacy thing is, is they know that they're probably going to have to leave. But they're doing what you just discussed in regards to raising money for legal assistance to try to keep them here, even though they're ordered to leave. You know, so I got to let you go there, Jim, because I got a commercial break here. But you say this, just so you guys understand, yeah, there is a pastor he mentioned who calls himself a recovering fundamentalists who wrote a piece. The headline is civil disobedience for such a time as this. The left can't distinguish this sort of stuff. It's an issue. I got to tell you about Hillsdale College. They have an actual class that is taught by Victor Davis Hanson on citizenship and why it matters. You can take that class for free along with 39 other classes at Eric for Hillsdale.com, E.R.CK, Eric for Hillsdale.com. The class is 30-minute video lectures. And... Depending on the class, it depends on the number of lectures. I think Victor's is seven or eight, 30-minute lectures, and it's a deep dive into citizenship, what it is, how it comes about, how you uphold it, elevate it. Really good. They've got one on the founding of the American Republic and the Constitution on early Rome, literature, economic, science, chemistry, you name it, they got them. 40 classes to choose from at no charge to you. Eric for hillsale.com.

You sign up, you improve your mind, you get smarter about a topic. Eric for Hillsdale.com. Sign up with Hillsdale College today.