Erick Erickson HR 2

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here across the United States. The phone number doesn't matter. I can't take phone calls today. As I mentioned the first hour, I'm actually on a college tour with my son today, so I'm doing my show while he is hanging out with the architecture students and faculty at Sanford University in Birmingham. It is beautiful over here. If you've never been here, so I went to Mercia University in Macon, Georgia. I actually got a scholarship to go to Duke. My mom wanted me to see the Baptist school because Duke was Methodist. Friedrich Merz, I'm using air quotes when I say Baptist. No one had ever heard of it until we actually beat Duke one year in the NCAA tournament in March Madness. But Duke is Duke and Duke is gorgeous. But the people were so pretentious. I was from like a little bitty town in Louisiana. I've never been to a big school. I'm on this gorgeous campus. It is sprawling and massive. And everyone was like, we don't need you. You need us. and Friedrich Merz was very, very nice to me. They gave me almost as good a scholarship as Duke gave me. And I wound up going to Friedrich Merz. And it was tremendous. I met my wife, and so I don't regret going. But then I came over to Sanford. My son wants to be an architect. He's looking at Auburn University, and he was looking at Sanford because they have good architecture programs. And he fell in love with Sanford. It's Christian. They prayed for him while he was on campus. I know so many people who have kids or went to Sanford that I had no idea. And I was kind of like, man, I wish I had gone. This place is great. But then I would have never met my wife. But I'm excited for him. So his two favorite restaurants on Planet Earth are Hattie Bs, the hot chicken restaurant in Nashville, and Grimaldi's, the Coal Fired Pizza place up under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. And they've got a Grimaldi's and a Hattie B's. My wife is horrified. We may never see him again if he moves to Birmingham to go to college. So, and even, I am at Samford doing my show, but I don't have a setup to be able to take phone calls. But I appreciate you being here. Let's get to the second hour of the show. Don't forget, text Eric, E-R-I-C-K to 33777. If you want the show notes, the live stream, the podcast, more importantly, I'm going to keep asking. Please text donate to 33777 and you can make a difference for a family this Thanksgiving. We are working around the country to help provide Thanksgiving meals to families who otherwise wouldn't be able to. So thank you very much for your help. Chuck Schumer. We need to talk about him. The word on the street is Chuck Schumer is not going to run for re-election. Punch Bowl News, which is a very credible site. So let me give the street. I don't like the name Punch Bull News. It sounds not very serious if we're honest about it. But that's Jake Sherman's website, among others. They were the original Politico note guys.

Random history, let me go on a tangent real quick. Back of the day, Mark Halperin, and Mark, if you're listening, hi, back of the day, Mark Halperin started a thing called The Note at ABC News. And I was an obsessive political junkie. They started it in 2004 on the campaign trail, and it was a play-by-play. They called it what the Gang of 500, where were the political circle of jerks in D.C. who covered the political machinations of D.C. There was lots of insidery gossip. It was all the play-by-play. What's happening? Well, it was so successful. ABC's note was so successful. Others adapted it, and one of the more successful was Politico. Politico's playbook. And if you're in D.C., you read the playbook. I am in Middle Georgia, and I read the playbook in the morning, except the playbook has over time gotten distinctly left-wing. It is very left-wing. Now, it's not a coincidence that one of the guys who shaped the Politico playbook, Jake Sherman, left and took his team with him and started Punch Bowl News. And they were the ones who got the playbook right. And the guys who came after them were partisans. You had the one guy who's now the gay guy with the Afro at MSNBC, who is at the White House correspondent, hyper-progressive. Now, of course, has landed at MSNBC. And you could tell this guy is progressive. Political Playbook has gotten super lefty. Punchbowl News is actually very good. Jake Sherman and his team do a very good job of it. And Jake Sherman and his team. are being credited with suggesting that Chuck Schumer's days are now numbered in Washington, D.C. There are more reports coming out that Chuck Schumer may not run for re-election, and it wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't run for re-election. So I just, let me compare and contrast to you. Mitch McConnell. versus Chuck Schumer. Mitch McConnell is the longest serving Republican leader in the Senate versus Chuck Schumer. Mitch McConnell went through a number of government shutdowns as leader of the Republicans, and he was always vilified by the base. because Mitch McConnell was always opposed to the shutdowns. Mitch McConnell, by the way, we would not have the United States Supreme Court we have but for Mitch McConnell. For all the hell, conservatives like me have given over the years, and I've criticized Mitch McConnell a lot over the years. I've come to respect him, though.

For all the criticisms we on the right have given Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell got us a conservative judicial system and a conservative Supreme Court. It was Mitch McConnell who single-handedly took the slings, the arrows, the bullets, all the shots from the left for refusing to give Merrick Garland confirmation hearing. It was him. When the Judiciary Committee was going to consider it, it was Mitch McConnell who had come to the microphone and said, I'm not going to allow it. I'm going to force him not to do it. It was Mitch McConnell who did that, who held the seat open for Donald Trump to fill with Neil Gorsuch. It was Mitch McConnell who got the Republicans to kill the filibuster for the Supreme Court because Harry Reid had killed the filibuster for other judicial nominees. It was Mitch McConnell who rushed Amy Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court before the end of Trump's term to make sure that we had three justices appointed by Donald Trump. It was Mitch McConnell who did those things. But conservatives continued to hate Mitch McConnell despite doing those things because transactionally they felt like he oftentimes wasn't giving them what they wanted. And Mitch McConnell's view in office was, I'm not here to give conservatives what they want. I'm here to keep Republicans in the majority. And that means I've got to take care of Susan Collins and I've got to take care of Lisa Murkowski and I've got to take care of all these other Republicans. Ted Cruz is going to get reelected in Texas. What about the guy in the swing seat? He's a Republican. He's not a conservative. I got to protect him. because I'm the leader of the Republicans, not the leader of conservatives. So Mitch McConnell was always opposed to government shutdowns because Mitch McConnell thinks government shutdowns are bad and nothing good comes from them and you don't get good policy from them. And he was wrong about sequestration. But generally, he's been right. Republicans never really did get a lot from the shutdowns. So Mitch McConnell always stood against the shutdowns, and when Republicans decided suddenly to reopen the government, Mitch McConnell could get a lot of hell, but he was always there. He never changed his mind. Compare and contrast him to Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer has wanted to be the leader of the Democrats, but to be the leader of the Democrats, you almost have to be the leader of progressives, and a Jew cannot be the leader of the progressives because the progressives are anti-Semites. So Chuck Schumer has to thread a needle more carefully than Mitch McConnell ever had. He's Jewish, but he can't be too Jewish. He can't be pro-Israel, even though he is. The progressives don't trust him because he's Jewish. So he staked out his position to say, I'm for the shutdown. Mitch McConnell never did. Chuck Schumer did. Chuck Schumer took the position, I'm for the shutdown. The shutdown should happen, and the government should stay shut down. When Mitch McConnell takes the position the government should never shut down and Republicans come his way, Mitch McConnell looks like a leader. He led the Republicans in his direction, and he's going to get reelected in Kentucky. You're not going to beat Mitch McConnell. Chuck Schumer could be challenged in New York with this wave of progressives in New York City, Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the like. And Chuck Schumer dug his heels in and said, we should keep the government closed down. We should not reopen the government. The government does not deserve to reopen. Let's not reopen the government. And eight Democrats shifted away from him. So where when they shift towards Mitch McConnell's position of being opposed to shutdown, he looks like he led them in the right direction. When Chuck Schumer's over here on the left saying don't open the government and eight Democrats will walk away from him, Chuck Schumer looks weak. He played his hand poorly. He always has played his hand poorly.

But he decided to go to the mats against a guy like Neil Gorsuch, who's actually cited on criminal justice reform with the left, on the Supreme Court and on transgender issues with the left. And he decided it was worth scrapping the filibuster to fight that guy with the filibuster that he couldn't sustain. He's not a tactical genius. He's not a strategist. And now he's probably worked his way out of a job by staking out a position that was never, ever sustainable opposing a government reopening, keeping the government shut down. Had he learned anything from Chuck Scherver from Mitch McConnell, he should have learned the leader of the party should never stake out a position that cannot hold the ground. 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.

He may not tell you what you want to hear, but he tells you what you need to hear. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Guys, I want to say something lovingly here. So Megyn Kelly's in hot water that essentially she was saying, and I can give you the quote here, that somebody very, very close to this case, the Epstein case, who's in a position to know virtually everything. This person's told me from the start years and years ago that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile. This is the person's view who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like he liked 15-year-old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for that. I'm just giving you the facts that he wasn't into like eight-year-olds, but he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were but would look legal to a passerby. That's a pedophile to me. And I just, here's the thing, to a lot of my friends on the right, some of you have much bigger careers than me and higher profiles than me. I, what are you doing? What, what, there's, there's, there's, playing the war games. Is he a pederist or a pedophile? He was still gross and creepy. There's no reason to go there with some of the stuff. I just, I don't get what's going on with, with some of the conservative commentariat right now and conservative podcasters are, is, has the audience completely captured you now and you're afraid of losing the, I don't know, but I just, I, I, at some point, you. I don't know. She's under a lot of fire for it. I'm not going to beat up on Megyn Kelly for this description. I would just say that I find it unnecessary because the guy was... abusing underage girls, which in my mind makes him a pedophile, whether it's eight or 15 doesn't matter. You still wouldn't want him doing that to your daughter, so there's no reason to try to, like, wrap around the word choice here for somebody who's evil. Evil is evil. I just, I don't know what's going on these days. I feel completely out of touch now. With so much of the right, I mean, I was elected official leader in the conservative movement. One time, the Atlantic did a profile on me of the most influential conservative you've never heard of. And now I'm like, what the hell is happening to the movement? What has happening to the right? Why are we like quibbling over whether he was a pederist or a pedophile? Why are we?

I mean, at Heritage, why is Kevin Roberts trying to defend Tucker Carlson and this no enemies to the right idea of me when Heritage was founded because there were anti-Semites on the ride who needed to be purged? And, I mean, like Heritage was one of the biggest opponents of tariffs ever. And then the President said he wanted tariffs. And now the Heritage Foundation is like, yeah, yeah, tariffs. And now the President's walking back tariffs. Is the Heritage Foundation going to dig in on defensive tariffs? Or is they going to walk back to their old position? I mean... I'm still as conservative as I was, and I haven't changed my mind on very many positions in the last 20 years because I'm a conservative. I just don't know what the hell has happened to the conservative movement. Now, they should all go to Hillsdale College and take the classes from Hillsdale. You can go to Ericforhillsdale.com, and you can actually find a class on the... timelessness of conservatism. You can find classes on the founding of this country and on chemistry and economics and math with Hillsdale's faculty. Every class consists of 30-minute video lectures by their great faculty. They're very entertaining. You're not going to get bored. You're going to learn a lot. Depending on the class, depends on the number of videos. But each one's 30 minutes, so you do it at your own pace. Some classes up seven, some have 10. Do it at your own pace. Get a certificate of completion and never pay a penny. Because it's the heritage, or it's Hillsdale College, and they want to be connected to you and improve your mind. Eric, E-R-I-C-K, Eric for Hillsdale.com. Sign up with Hillsdale College today. Eric for Hillsdale.com. Build a relationship with them. See what sets them apart. And you will get smarter with real education, not indoctrination, thanks to Hillsdale College. Eric for Hillsdale.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. It's Eric Erickson here across the nation from Birmingham, Alabama today. I know it should be an open line Friday. I don't have the capacity to take phone call. So I normally, I could do it on my iPad with a call screening program. My call screener, though, it's hunting season, so naturally he's off killing animals. And I thought, eh, there's no reason to have a backup call screener. Because I'm going to be remote anyway. And then it turns out they didn't have the setup for me. I've got a hardwired Ethernet cable and couldn't use my. It's just, it's complicated. So I couldn't have calls today. I apologize. But I did a lot of calls yesterday. So you should be taken care of. If you text Eric E RICK to 33777, you get the show notes to live stream the podcast. If you are subscriber to the show notes, and again, text Eric, E RICK to 33777. Click that first link. And at some point in the next week, you're going to get my little recipe, mini cookbook for the holidays with all the recipes. You've got to be a subscriber, though. You don't have to be a paid subscriber, but you've got to be a subscriber to the show notes to get the recipes. They will be forthcoming. Now, here is the situation. I have criticized the president on tariffs today. But I need to praise the president. If you're a longtime listener to this program, I do have domestic criticisms of the President of the United States. However, I also need you to know that I'm a big fan of his grown-up foreign policy. I may quibble with the position of Ukraine and stuff like that, but he's got a grown-up foreign policy. I got friends of mine who really don't like him blowing up these boats in the Caribbean. I'm actually in favor of blowing up the narco terrorists. I assume they're narco terrorists. I'm going to take his word for it. I'm a little hesitant on Pete Hegseth sometimes, but he's got a grown-up foreign policy. And this one will blow your mind. It appears that the leader of Syria, when he was ISIS's guy in Syria, was discreetly cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and al-Qaeda. You got that? The Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, turned out to have been an agent of the United States while leading ISIS in Syria, co-opted by none other than the Trump administration in his first term. Not making that up. This is Jim Garrity writing a National Review. If you wondered why Donald Trump has grown so buddy-buddy with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa since the start of the year, the New York Times reveals a big piece of the puzzle. Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammad Al-Ahmed al-Sharaa and leader of the Hayatara al-Sham, a U.S. designated terror group. was discreetly cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and al-Qaeda since he took control of a slice of rebel-held territory in northwestern Syria in 2016. We can debate how much that makes him our guy, but he clearly hasn't been ISIS's guy for a very long time, as that particular Islamic terrorist group has tried to kill our Ahmed al-Sharaa at least twice this year, and now the United States has reportedly in discussions to establish a lasting military presence at a Damascus air base.

That should blow your mind. This again, this is from National Review, that State Department warning casually mentions the United States continues to designate Hayatara al-Sham. HTS as a terrorist group without specifying the current acting president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, under the Namdegar Abu Muhammad al-Ahmed al-Sharaa, used to run the group. Up until late December, the United States government was willing to pay $10 million for information about his location because he was on the specially designated global terrorist lists. Ahmed al-Sharaa traveled to Iraq in 2003 and joined al-Qaeda. He was captured and held at Camp Boca. In 2011, at the start of the Syrian Civil War, he formed the Nusra Front. as an affiliate of the Islamic State, but Ahmed al-Sharaa had a falling out with Abu Baker and Baghdaddy in 2013, and the Nusra front split off. And yet, since his first interaction with Ahmed al-Sharaa, President Trump has been oddly positive about him. Back in May, the U.S.-S.-Saudi investment event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump said, quote, I'll be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness. By the way, I should point out that I thought that was the right move at the time, and a lot of people on the right were upset he was doing it. It just seemed like give this guy a chance. He's not with the Bashar al-Assad. You know, the Bashar al-Assad regime was the Bathurst Party of Syria. The Bathurst Party, let me just back up here and give you some background. The Bathurst Party was formed as a derivative of the Islamic Nazi Party. Those Nazis. In the 1930s and 40s, groups of Arabs would meet with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany, and they were trained on politics by the Germans. They were also inculcated into Jew hatred by the Germans. Yes, ironically, a lot of the Arab Jew hatred we have today comes from the Nazi education of the forbearers of the current political parties in Syria, and they were also for a time with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Iraq. The Baathas Party controlled Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Syria. under Bashar al-Assad and his father. They literally are the Arab Nazi party. And they are now in both Iraq and in Syria crushed. And Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president of Syria now was opposed to the Baptist regime. even as he led a branch of ISIS, which was kind of wild. And now it turns out that he was actually an American agent inside Syria using his position to undermine ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria, even as he was allegedly collaborating with him. The guy was shrewd as hell. Essentially, he was having the Americans target his own friends as his power consolidated, and now he's the president of Syria, and we're getting an air base in Syria. This is true. So, by the way, I had been to Damascus back in the day when I was a kid living overseas, and they're wonderful people. The Syrians are wonderful, and it's a beautiful country that's now been war-torn and destroyed. Much like back of the day, Lebanon was considered, Beirut was considered the Paris of the Middle East. Damascus and its surroundings and in Syria, beautiful country, beautiful people, wonderful people.

led by Nazis, literal Nazis, the Arab Bathurst Party were the Nazis. Hafaz Bashar al-Assad, the father, the tyrant, and then his son, Bashar al-Assad, who now lives in exile in Moscow, terrible people. Now, let me read you this from People magazine because I found this funny. I don't have the video at hand to play. It's so funny, though. As Trump 79 presented Alshara age 43 with a perfume bottle. Trump sprayed the fragrance on the politician, called it the best fragrance. And the other one is for your wife, Trump said, before quickly saying, so how many wives you got? One Alshara said. Trump laughed with you guys. I never know. That's fantastic. And then later of the day, here's what President Trump said. He's a very strong leader. He comes from a very tough place. He's a tough guy. I like him. I get along with him, the new president of Syria. We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader can do it. And people said he's had a rough past. We've all had rough pass. But he has had a rough pass. And I think, frankly, if you didn't have a rough pass, you wouldn't have a chance. He gets along very well with Turkey, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who's a great leader. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a great leader, very much in favor of what's happening in Syria. We have to make Syria work. Syria is a big part of the Middle East. And I tell you, I think it's working really well. We're working with Israel on, you know, getting along with Syria, getting along with everybody. And now the New York Times is reporting the Syrian leader has been discreetly cooperating with the United States. Since President Trump took office his first term, he's had a quiet relationship with the guy. Not only that, since December, Syrian security forces have been cooperating with the global anti-IS coalition. That's a very big deal. It's a very grown-up foreign policy. It is something that the president got right. And you should note it's one of those foreign policy issues that Joe Biden didn't reverse on. Joe Biden and the Biden team, the Jake Dan Sullivan's of the world, the Anthony Blinkins of the world, never second-guess Trump on building that relationship with Ahmed al-Sharaa. That's impressive. Now, I've got to ask you. How many major mainstream media outlets are going to give Donald Trump credit for this? Will CNN thawing over Donald Trump as I am for doing this? Because you know they would if it was Joe Biden or Barack Obama who did this. Donald Trump cultivated an ISIS-Al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist in Syria, developed a relationship with him to the extent the guy turned on his old allies and became an American ally and sold out the terrorist positions in the Middle East of the bad guys. The President of the United States deserves credit for that. The President of the United States deserves credit for the collapse of Syria.

and the rehabilitation of the Syrian people under Alshara. It may not work out. It might not. There are competing forces. His life is constantly in danger. ISIS is targeting him, but he recognizes an American position in Syria with an American military base in Syria provides stabilization to his regime. The Middle East is aligning towards the United States yet again. Under Joe Biden, it's worth noting that the Egyptians, the Saudi Arabians, the Bahraini, the Qataris, the Emirates, they all started making kissy face with China. Because Biden wanted nothing to do with them, particularly Saudi Arabia, which has great clout. Biden wanted something to do with Iran. Donald Trump has now neutered Iran, destroyed its nuclear capabilities, and now there's word on the street, Saudi Arabia may give formal diplomatic recognition to Israel. That's remarkable. Hamas invaded Israel in October 7, 2023. We now know, in large part, to stop Saudi Arabia's diplomatic recognition of Israel. The diplomatic recognition of Israel may now be coming. The Abraham courts may be extended. Israel's clout grows, our clout grows, our military positions grow. At a time where there are loud voices in the administration wanting to retreat from the world, we're going to have a military base in Syria. It used to be our enemy. And Syria is becoming restabilized. The Syrians are smart, savvy people. I have grew up with Syrian friends. They're wonderful. This is a big deal. And every American, I don't care what your politics are. I don't care whether you like Donald Trump or not. You should be willing to give the President of the United States credit for what is happening. It is a major profound realignment in the Middle East. It may not last. It may go south. American soldiers may one day be in harm's way again. But we have peace now. A week before Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, Jake Dan Sullivan was talking to a group at an Atlantic Forum. and suggested that there was now greater peace than at any time in the Middle East, and Joe Biden deserved the credit, not Donald Trump, that the Abraham Accords were overstated. Within seven days, Hamas had invaded Israel and war began. Donald Trump has brought that war to an end, expanded the Abraham Accords, brought peace to Syria, brought the Syrian president into the Oval Office, and it turns out had cultivated a relationship with him going back to 2017 when Donald Trump first became president of the United States. That's remarkably impressive. It's a grown-up foreign policy. And I again would say that is why we should give the president the benefit of the doubt, even what he's doing in the Western Hemisphere. It's a grown-up foreign policy. It's making the world safer for American interests at home and abroad. The man surrounded by isolationists is not afraid to stride the world stage and place American soldiers in Syria. And that's a good thing for an American-led world order. When the truth seems hazy, Eric will clear the way. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

On the go, take Eric's podcast with you. Available wherever you stream your favorite podcast. Search Eric Erickson. So here's your interesting news of the day. It's a national story, even though it's out of Georgia. In Georgia, there's an old school prosecutor. It was a politician named is Pete Scandalakis. He heads the state agency in Georgia that's tasked with naming replacement prosecutors. If a prosecutor is disqualified from doing a job, there's a group of... prosecutors he's in charge of. Well, Fani Willis, you know, disqualified from the Fulton County investigation of Donald Trump. Couldn't find another attorney to take over the case. So Pete Scandalakis himself has taken over the case. He's the head of the prosecuting attorney's counsel in Georgia. His statement, several prosecutors were contacted, and while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment. As a result, the public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of the case. Accordingly, it is important to someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed. So Scandalakis himself has decided that he will take the case. Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. suggested he's ready to move the case, which was indicted more than two years ago out of legal limbo, gave Scandalakis until Friday to make a decision and threatened to dismiss the case if they couldn't find a prosecutor. So Scandalakis himself, who is a Republican, is going to take this case. This is the RICO case against Donald Trump and the others. I don't see how he pursues this case. It seems like it was botched from the beginning. And I suspect he'll probably wind up throwing, getting rid of the case, the overreach from Bonnie Willis. Big national news story here out of Georgia, though. A prosecutor has picked up this prosecution of Donald Trump and others. I just don't know that it's going to actually be able to proceed. In fact, in September of 2024, Scandalakis said he didn't think there was enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against the current lieutenant governor in Georgia, Bert Jay Jones, based on what Fani Willis and uncovered. Jay Jones is now the Republican governor gubernatorial candidate, one of the Republican gubernatorial candidates. and had been on an elector for Donald Trump in Georgia. So he tossed the Bert Jay Jones prosecution. My suspicion is he probably, the case is too unwieldy anyway. Fani Willis has brought a lot of RICO cases in Georgia, and they're too big and unwieldy. She's had trouble delivering on them. So it looks like the case against Donald Trump probably is going to formally die at the hands of a prosecutor. I don't know the outcome. I should just say I don't know Scandalagas. I hadn't talked to him. But considering what he did with the issue of Bert Jay Jones, the lieutenant governor in Georgia, who was similarly indicted. And Willis, by the way, couldn't prosecute Jay Jones because she had held the fundraiser for his opponent was disqualified. They had to go to a different prosecutor. That case got tossed. So the case against Donald Trump and Georgia probably is now going to die formally.

It was always nuts that the case had been brought the way it had been brought, but an ambitious prosecutor wanting to make her name in Democratic politics did it, bit off more than she could chew, and well, didn't go well for her. So there you have it. I just... The prosecutions of Donald. And, you know, this gets to the whole Epstein stuff. And we're going to get to the Epstein. I put the upscene stuff off. We'll get to it next hour. But the idea that the Democrats would throw everything they had at Donald Trump to try to getting prosecuted and sending him to jail to try to stop his presidential bid. But somehow if they had damning documents about Jeffrey Epstein or Donald Trump, they would have held them back. It never made sense. And yet that's now the position the Democrats are arguing. That, oh, yeah, they had all this damaging stuff about Trump and Epstein, but they just, they thought it would be inappropriate to release it at the time. No sane person can actually believe that. And yet there are a lot of Democrats who want to believe that. When we come back, I'll finally, I put it off. God help me. I'll get into the Jeffrey Epstein stuff because there are new developments in that. But first, with banks around the country having financial problems with the government trying to steer you to use plastic instead of cash, they ended the penny. Yesterday was the last day the penny was going to be produced in this country. Swiss America is the trusted leader in precious metals. They have been for 40 years. They're rated A Plus by the Better Business Bureau, and they would like to talk to you about the secret war on cash. They've got to report out the secret war on cash. It takes less than 15 minutes to read, and it can save your retirement and finances. You can get a completely free copy by calling or texting my name, Eric, E R-I-C-K, to 800-289. 2646, they all out war on cash includes digital forms of currency and it's growing. Get the Secret War on Cash report completely free to my listeners. You just text Eric, E.RICK, to 800-289, 2646, or call 800, 289, 26464646. Say Eric Erickson sent me. They'll give you the report completely free. You can also go to Swissamerica.com slash Eric. Swissamerica.com slash ERICK. The report is free from Swiss America. about the secret war on cash. They would love to help you. By the way, I bought gold from Swiss America. If you're interested in buying gold, they're great place to buy gold. Swissamerica.com slash Eric or call or text my name Eric to 800, 289, 2646. Message and data rates may apply.