Erick Erickson Show HR 2

Hello America, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here across the nation from Anchorage, Alaska to Palm Beach, Florida, and all points in between. Hi, to those of you up on WTIC up in Hartford, it was great to join you guys up there this morning. The full number here, 87797-973-745, should you wish to be on the program, I want to get to a piece I wrote this morning. Because I think it's really important. The United States of America is 3.8 million square miles. We're filled with 340 million people producing over $30 trillion in gross domestic product. We're the fourth largest country by land, third by population, and first by GDP. Yet we don't know each other anymore. We don't talk to each other anymore. We don't care for each other anymore. We don't particularly like each other anymore. We are isolated people staring at screens filled with existential terrors about others, whoever the other may be the Democrats, the Republicans, the progressives, the conservatives, the left, the right, the immigrant, the native. On Tuesday night, those existential terrors played out for the Democrats. Whenever the Democrats control the White House, Republicans show up and vote as if their very lives depend on it. When Democrats are in the White House, Republicans are at all the elections and fired up. And when Republicans are in the White House?

Democrats are the ones who vote as if their very lives depend on it. Years ago, here in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am, there was a mayoral contest. And I want to play this for you. This is an advertisement. It appeared with the late John Lewis. Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, who had been the mayor of Atlanta. They were rallying people to vote for a black candidate in Atlanta, Georgia. And John Lewis has a line in here. This ad is designed to scare black voters to show up to the polls. And this is a... A radio ad from the 2000s. This isn't from the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, the 60s. This is from this century. And I just, I want you to listen to this ad. This is Congressman John Lewis. And I'm Mayor Shirley Franklin. And I'm Andy Young. On November 7, we faced the most dangerous situation we ever have. If you think fighting of dogs and water hoses in the 60s was bad, imagine if we sit alley by and let the right-wing Republicans take control of the Fulton County Commission. The efforts of Martin and Corretta King, Josea Williams, Maynard Jackson, and many others will be lost. That's why we must stand up. we must turn out the vote for the Democrats on Election Day. And especially for John Eves, for Fulton County Commission Chairman. Unless you want them to turn back the clock on equal rights and human rights and economic opportunity for all of us, vote for John Eves as Fulton County Chairman. Your very life may depend on it. This message paid for by... Think about the end of that. That was John Lewis, who was a civil rights icon, was a member of Congress. Y'all, they're alive, may depend on it. You think the dogs in the street and the water hoses was bad? Wait till you get the Republicans in charge of the Fulton County Commission. That was an ad from the early 2000s for a man named John Eves who won the election, by the way. It was played on black radio stations in Atlanta, Georgia. Your very life may depend on you voting Democrat. The Democrats have been doing this for quite a while. It's kind of new for Republicans. Democrats have been doing this for quite a while. Do you think the water hoses and the dogs and the police with batons on the streets were bad? Imagine Republicans being in charge. That's kind of what it is now. Remember, I mean, they're convinced that Republicans are rounding up citizens and disappearing citizens in this country. And so, of course, Republicans were not going to have a good night on election night. Republicans control the White House, and it's the Democrats who are in existential terror and needing to show up. But there's something else there, too.

because not everywhere has those existential anxieties. And the reality is, if you're a Republican, you can look at Tuesday night and say, well, actually, this was New York City and New Jersey and Virginia, not exactly friendly to Republicans. Glenn Youngkin barely won his election. with Joe Biden in the White House. It sucks on Jason Mayeri's losing, but I mean, this is a Democratic state. Of course, they're going to vote Democrat. Now, a lot of that had to do with Winsome Earle-Sears as well. She ran a terrible campaign. It's true. Win some Sears ran a terrible campaign and dragged down the rest of the ticket. Had there been a better gubernatorial candidate for the GOP, mayors may have won, even if the gubernatorial candidate lost. So Republicans can look at Tuesday night and say, it's not that big a deal. In fact, I've got a commenter on my substack who is regularly. You're wrong, Erickson. You're wrong about all of this. You're wrong. There's no way anyone is going to vote for the Democrats. Don't you see what happened in 2024? The Democrats, it's going to be 40 years of the wilderness. They're never going to get elected again. And now, after Tuesday night, his responses to me are less shrill and more. I think you're wrong, but we'll see. Little bit cautious there now after what happened on Tuesday. The Republicans, though, can look at this and say, it was just New Jersey, it was just Virginia, it was just New York, it wasn't everywhere except in Georgia now. A Republican state, there are two statewide elected, very progressive Democrats now on the Public Service Commission, because Republicans didn't turn out. And I've got a lot of people say, well, actually people were mad about energy rates. And in my neighborhood, they turn out. Your anecdote is not data. I've got the data. The Republicans of the state of Georgia did not turn out on Tuesday. In Texas, the Republicans did very well with constitutional amendments. In Austin, Texas, a tax hike failed. Republicans did okay. But they could have done better. And in California, of course, Republicans got blown out of the water. You could say, well, it's California. But here's the point. Let me run the numbers again for you. We are 3.8 million square miles of territory with 340 million people producing over $30 trillion in economic output a year. And we don't know each other. We don't talk to each other. We don't like each other. We isolate ourselves progressives even more so than... conservatives, but also increasingly conservatives. We are in information silos where we all get our information from different places now. We don't just watch ABC, CBS, and NBC. We don't even watch CNN and Fox. We don't watch MSNBC. We go on the internet. We go on YouTube. We go on TikTok. We go on Twitter. We go on Instagram. We go on Facebook. Well, the boomers go on Facebook. And it is just increasingly an information silo where you get your news from the people you believe, you get the information you want to hear from the people who are going to tell it to you like you want to hear it. And yet, across the United States of America, voters shifted to the Democrats. Hispanic voters in Georgia shifted to the Democrats.

Hispanic voters in California shifted to the Democrats. Hispanic voters in New York and New Jersey and Virginia shifted to the Democrats. Wherever there was election, Hispanic voters shifted. Wherever there was an election, young white men shifted to the Democrats. Wherever there was an election, married women who actually tend to vote Republicans shifted to the Democrats. Every demographic... Not every, but just about every demographic shifted to the Democrats. Here's what I know is true, and it's not opinion, it's fact. You may not like it, but the truth doesn't care whether you like it or not. It's still the truth. In every election in the United States of America, that is a vast and divergent land of people who don't know each other or like each other or talk to each other, when they all shift in the same direction in an election, it's the economy stupid. Your theory of the election doesn't matter. My theory on tariffs, I think, has some credibility because it's the economy. Your theory on deportations might have some credibility if it's driving up labor prices. But it doesn't matter. Here's what matters. The Republicans now know it's the economy. It's the cost of living. It showed up in exit polling in Texas. It showed up an exit poll in Georgia. It showed up an exit poll in Virginia. It showed up an exit poll in New York. It showed up an exit poll in California. Everywhere there were elections in this country on Tuesday night. What showed up in the exit polling was people are tired of the cost of living being so high. And now they're blaming Donald Trump. The honeymoon is over. He owns the economy. And the economy is not doing great. It may be good for you, but don't get in the habit like the Democrats did of downplaying it.

This has been Josh Shapiro from CNN last night. Republicans did not do well last night. And it's also true, obviously, that Democrats were very likely to win Virginia or New Jersey or New York. But obviously, if Republicans don't take into account the fact that this is now a Republican-owned economy and that this is a Republican-run country. I mean, the Republicans do run both House of Congress and the presidency. And so if there's a backlash, it's going to obviously happen to the Republicans. And that is always the most likely scenario. I mean, I think that the question is going to be margins. Right now, there aren't that many vulnerable seats, actually, in the House. The number of challengeable seats is extremely limited. So I don't think you're going to get a wave that's 40, 50 seats, because I'm not sure that's possible anymore, given redistricting and giving the big sort that's been happening. But for Republicans not to take some alarm at the fact that obviously these exit polls, which are showing... economy still is the number one concern and inflation still is the number one concern if they don't take that seriously obviously they're going to be some some serious effects in the minute yes yes there are And you know what, you've got, so Bakari Sellers was on this panel with Ben Shapiro, and they were making a lot of sense. This is sellers on the Democrats. There are two points I want to make along the same lines that Ben was making. This probably will be the only time we agree. I was like, y'all are agreeing on talking with a bang here. But yes, we have to think about the fact that, take Virginia, for example, every single county in Virginia swung to the left, every single county, not just one. And we're talking about two, three, four, sometimes 15, 16 points. swung to the left. In Georgia, what you saw around Atlanta, Fulton County, Gwinnett, Cobb, I mean, those folks came out to vote. And so you're starting to see those things. And last but not least, the issues that were at the forefront, and Democrats have to realize this. The issues that were at the forefront, like you said, were the economy affordability, one, number two, health care. A distant third was immigration. You know what was not in in those top five or six issues? These culture wars, which Donald Trump pulls us down in, and we can never win them. Yeah, I hope Democrats don't listen to Bakari sellers because Donald Trump does pull the Democrats down into these things and they can't help themselves. Whether it's defending criminals or defending illegal aliens or defending boys and girls' sports, the Democrats are never able to help themselves. It's just wild. It's... wild how Donald Trump can master the left. But the problem for the Republicans is Donald Trump is not on the ballot. He's not on the ballot. And Republicans like to turn out for Donald Trump. And now it's their economy. They own it. Like I wrote this morning, and some people misunderstood the point, I believe tariffs are a problem, but whether you believe that or not, it's the Republican's economy and you've got to find solutions to fix the economy because people feel like the cost of living is going back up and wages aren't rising comparably to offset the cost of living going back up. Groceries are more expensive. Republicans are touting how a Thanksgiving meal is cheaper this year than it was last year. A lot of that has to do with the cost of eggs coming down more than anything else.

Grocery prices are going up, and now Republicans are perversely doing the same thing Democrats did when they were in office with Joe Biden say, no, actually, don't believe your eyes at the grocery store prices are coming down. That's not helpful to Americans who are feeling higher grocery costs right now, which is actually happening. The Republicans have got to figure this out. 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. Y'all, I'm worried. I went to Starbucks and they accidentally gave me someone's pumpkin spice latte and... It's like, is this how people join the Alphabet Gang? They take an accidental sip of a pumpkin spice latte. It was disgusting. I kind of knew that the Alphabet Gang flavor profile was Nutmeg, but I was just not expecting it to be as terrible as it was. No, no, thank you. I'm going to go. find me a pastor and do some conversion therapy outside of Colorado, I guess, just to make sure that I'm suddenly not like, I don't know. I don't know. It was terrible. It was awful. You know what else is awful? I just got an email from Delta saying that stay tuned because they're going to start canceling flights. They're not saying it's my flight. There are anybody else's flight. But thanks to the government shutdown, Delta is going to start canceling flights. And I'm just not sure that I'm going to have the weekend that I want to have. I don't know. It's the government shutdown. The government shutdown. They're not actually blaming. The Democrats in the email, they are just saying it's the government shutdown in a response to the government shutdown. But that is going to build some angst in Washington, where it's the Democrats who continue to screw up everything by refusing to open the government. And you know, I'm actually a big proponent of government shutdowns. I think we could keep the government shutdown. We're starting to have cascading problems, of course, air traffic control. It might hurt me directly. I don't know. But listen, I think the SNAP beneficiaries, they're going to find resources. Local governments and state governments and food banks are going to step up. Americans are going to help because Americans are actually generous people and we'll realize, oh, we don't need all the government welfare we've got. The military is going to be a problem because we do need to fund the military, and we're not funding the military. But, I mean, is your daily life being that... traumatically impacted outside of those of you who are federal employees who aren't getting paid right now. Air traffic controllers got paid today. They got $0 in their paycheck literally because they got $0.00 notices. They're not going to show up for work much longer. The Democrats are going to have to cave eventually. We'll see where this goes. But I personally, I don't think we need the government to reopen, but that's just me.

As long as the Democrats get blamed for it because they're the ones doing it. Now, let me tell you about Hillsdale College. Go to Hillsdale, Eric for Hillsdale.com, E-R-I-C-K. Eric for Hillsdale.com, and you can sign up with Hillsdale College. Take one of their amazing 40 classes to choose from completely free and expand your mind and horizons with Hillsdale College. They're actually really good video lectures with Hillsdale's fine faculty. 30-minute episodes, depending on which class depends on the number of episodes like the capitalism class. I think it's seven. There's one on Aristotle that has 10. There's one that has, I think, 13, but you can get them on. I mean, chemistry, math, economics. political science, history, philosophy, literature, theology, you name it, and you expand your mind, you find a topic, and then go back and take another one, and there's no charge. They're actually really interesting as well, and by the way, they do have this six-part series coming out. I was a little ahead of the curve, but stick around because the six-part series on the American Colonies is coming out, and it is really good. I thought it was already out. It's not. I've seen it, but you go check it all out. Eric for Hillsdale.com.

Hispanic voters in this country, contrary to what Democrats say, really hate illegal immigration. So they voted for Donald Trump. But now that they voted for Donald Trump, they are having a bit of a backlash because they think the way the deportations are being handled is cruel. The Republicans overplayed their hand on Obrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was a gangbanger, we think, from El Salvador. But a lot of Hispanic voters looked at it and said they threw him in an El Salvadorian prison and they wouldn't even get him back out and a judge said no or other people who were rounded up who weren't gangbangers and weren't criminals, the lawn guys, the restaurant workers, the grandparents, things like that. And again, just I need you to be a grownup here and just listen to me. You may be cheering it on, but there's a constituency that's not in. They vote too. They wanted deportations of the gangbangers. They wanted deportations of the criminals, but they got it in their head that that's who was being deported. Not the guy down the street they go to church with. But that guy got deported too. And the Republicans overplayed their hand. Think about this right now. Contrary to what you think, it's not ICE that's doing all these crazy rates. It's Border Patrol. Ice is actually far more reserved. They tend to have a target list. They go find the targets, and they tend to be criminals and gangbangers. And Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem have decided that they're being too targeted, and they want broader roundups, and they're pushing out the heads of ice and replacing them with the Border Patrol guys, who are the more cavalier, round them all up and ask questions later, people. That's a disaster waiting to happen for the GOP because they've gotten too cocky. They looked at the polling. They saw Hispanics like deportations. They decided, let's go around them all up. And now the Hispanics are like, I think you went too far. You know, ironically, too, let's be real honest here, Donald Trump is getting penalized because he was too successful too quick on closing the southern border. He's not getting a lot of credit for it anymore because he did it so quick and now people have moved on to other stuff. And the media with the Democrats, remember, Erickson Rule the Media, they cover the beneficiaries of Democratic policies, they cover the victims of Republican policies, they're highlighting a lot of victims of these mass deportations of people that people in local communities think, why did they deport that person? I know that person. That's not a bad person. They're not a criminal or gangbanger. And yet the Trump administration comes out and say, yeah, we're not stopping with the criminals and gangbangers. We're deporting everybody. You may be okay with that. I might myself be okay with that. But I'm a big boy enough to understand. I'm big in more ways than what. I'm grown up enough to recognize that there are other people than you and me, and they see the world differently, and they're not okay with it, and they vote too. Now, let's do Democrats. The Democrats, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, he's the one who the day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated said Democrats need to be prepared to do things they wouldn't have otherwise done because democracy's at stake and this is war. He never apologized for saying things that some might believe would lead someone to get killed. He's doubled down on his shrill rhetoric. And now he says Democrats need to keep the government shut down until they get everything they want.

I'm with Frank Luntz. I actually think that the shutdown politics doesn't actually help the Democrats. It's for real and true that Republicans and a lot of polling seem to be getting more of the blame. But I don't know that that actually lasts. The Democrats just won an election, and I think a lot of people could look at that election and say, okay, Democrats, now exercise a little bit of humility. You got a good election. Open the country back up. And they're not. And I think that that has the potential to blow up in people's faces because I actually do think that the shutdown is going to hurt Democrats because progressives are going to overplay their heads. Let me go back to this Frank Lutz quote from Election Day. How do you think... this could affect the outcome tomorrow might affect the shutdown. I mean, two big things that are happening with lots of political dynamics. It's just a crucial time as people are suffering, Frank. How do you think that could affect things? You're correct. And this is the breaking point. You don't pay our men and women in uniform. And they have to go without their weekly paychecks. And you start to have people who cannot afford their food and fuel. Then it starts to have an impact. And then people start to say, why is this happening? I believe that the shutdown is politically motivated. I believe that if they wanted to, they could find common ground, and they choose not to. And that is, to hurt the Republican brand, the Republican reputation. Their numbers are down, as you point out in your own polling of Donald Trump. But the numbers that are fallen the worst, to my surprise, are the Democrats. Everyone is being hurt by this. Everyone's credibility and respect and looking at the government and the public just looks at this and says, why? Why can't you find some agreement? Why can't you give? Why can't you cooperate? And that's going to be a very big question Wednesday and Thursday when this election is over. Particularly with the Democrats winning on Tuesday. With the Democrats winning on Tuesday, they could say, look, the American people are with us. Let's reopen the government. We're going to keep fighting. And when we get back the Congress next year, we'll make sure this stuff happens. And they're not. They're going to dig in their heels and saying, no, we're going to keep shutting it down. We're going to keep it shut down. I believe that they are going to overplay their hands on the Democratic side because it always happens. It always happens to both sides. Both sides decide, nah, my side is right, your side is wrong, and I'm going to keep doing this because I think the people are with me. It turns out the people aren't with them. The people aren't with the progressives when their people in their communities are going to food banks, and they're competing with government employees at the food banks who shouldn't have to be at the food banks, but they're there because they're not getting their paychecks.

People aren't with the Democrats when they get an email from their airline saying your flights canceled due to the government shutdown, and the Democrats are refusing to reopen the government. Now, I would tell Republicans, particularly the president, you need a message a little better here instead of talking about the filibuster, just talk about you're willing to negotiate, but the Democrats got to reopen the government. You're willing to negotiate. The Democrats got to reopen the government. Tell the American people you're not going to be held hostage, like Barack Obama did, that you're not going to let the Democrats hold you hostage. Republicans do need to message better. And when the president is fighting the Republicans instead of the Democrats on this, there's no reason for the Democrats to reopen the government because the president is causing collateral damage at his own side. You've got to message better, Mr. President. Make this about the Democrats, not the filibuster. Make it about them not reopening the government. And by the way, it is about them. That actually is true. They're the ones who are refusing to vote for the resolution Chuck Schumer himself authored. But you've got to make that case. It seems like the Speaker of the House right now is the lone man out there making the case. If this goes on too much longer, though, the Democrats will have overplayed their hand, and this will not go well for the Democrats. Frank Lutz is in his panels. He's already seeing a shift. Republicans have been getting blamed. Suddenly Democrats are getting blamed. Democrats won. They still won't reopen the government. They're going to overplay their hand because the right and the left at the outer edges always overplay their hand to their own detriment. Now, let me jump over here to Brian in Jacksonville, Florida. Welcome to the show, Brian. How are you? Great, Eric. Love their show. Thank you. I have a basic economic question for you. As you say, and I believe the economy isn't doing very good. I own two ice cream stores and one in a poor area town, one in a rich area town. And I can see customers in both locations aren't making as much money, you're spending as much money. My question is, with so many people losing that have less wealth now than they did before, where is the wealth going? I know Democrats would say that the rich are just getting richer. Some Republicans would say, you know, lower income people are getting more free stuff. But where? In your opinion, is the money going that the rest of us don't have any more? Who does have more money? Is this a certain group or different countries? So let's look at costs. It costs more to produce because of a tariff. So you go to the grocery store now. Your coffee is 20% higher than it was six months ago, the cost of coffee. Why is the coffee higher? It's higher because of a 20% tariff on the countries of Central and South America that produce coffee. And the money you're paying isn't going to those companies is going to the government. Let's talk about aluminum. The aluminum manufacturers have raised prices in this country.

because the president has imposed tariffs on imported aluminum. So the domestic manufacturers said, hey, you know what, we can raise our prices too. So they're raising their prices, but then what are they doing with the money? Well, they could have diverted it to shareholders, except the largest aluminum manufacturing facility in the country burned to the ground. So now the money is going to rebuild the largest aluminum plan in the country as opposed to going to shareholders. Or let's talk about the other costs that are out there that are domestic costs. Where is it going? Well, there are certain business owners who are going to get wealthy. There are companies that you will ultimately see it come out into 401ks. But a lot of the money, when the president is talking about the trillions of dollars coming in from tariffs, that money's coming out of your pocket. You've got to understand that foreign governments and companies don't actually pay tariffs. It's the importer at the customs facility, at the local ports, when the person who's imported the good or service, or the good, rather, wants to take it out of the port. They've got to pay the customs agent to let them go. They're paying the customs agent the tariff that goes to the federal government. So most companies aren't seeing greater wealth and you're not seeing greater wealth. The government, though, is getting a trillion extra dollars out of the economy that they're going to go somewhere. That's part of the biggest issue that we're facing right now. That's why the tariffs are bad because it's a tax on the American people. And companies, many of them are eating those costs so they're not giving you pay raises. So prices are going up for a lot of reasons, inflation and other things, tariffs. A lot of companies trying to eat the costs as best they can, which means they're not raising wages, which means they're not reinvesting in their companies. There's a cascading and spillover effect of economic consequence, and none of it's very good. If Donald Trump got rid of the tariffs tomorrow, The stock market would soar and prices would go down. Prices would go down definitionally because the tariff is no longer there. And Americans would feel a real benefit. And maybe the Supreme Court will do him a favor in spite of himself if they rule the tariffs unconstitutional. When the truth seems hazy, Eric will clear the way. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

Get the podcast, live stream, email, and social media links by texting Eric to 33777. Now. Hello there. Welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. The full number is 87797933-725. Should you wish to be on the program, Damian, you're going to be up next. Welcome. Yes, sir. Can you hear me? I can. All right. So long-time listener, first-time caller, pray for your family all the time. Thank you. My question is, if you talk about the Supreme Court rolling back the tariffs, are there any potential negatives with that? Or I know it sounds like a lot of positives, but are there any negatives that could come of that? And I'm going to hang up and let's do your response. Yeah, Damien. Yeah, Damien, sorry. I thought I was hanging up the phone and cut off my microphone instead. Y'all, it's one of those days. That's why I need a break. Yes, there is a downside. The president negotiated all these trade deals with these countries where they're tariffing our products to a degree. We're tariffing their products to a greater degree of ours to go away. There's remain. What the president can do, though, is then refuse to allow their products into the country. That actually is legal under the IEPA, the Emergency Powers Act. So he could do that to force them to get rid of their tariffs and media as well. And remember, we actually had a guy call and leave a voicemail yesterday and said, actually, nobody's talking about how all these countries were already tariffing us. And I've tried to explain this repeatedly that we got exemptions from the – yeah, South Korea had tariffs on the United States, but actually they exempted us from the tariffs. They were on paper, but with an exception to zero percent tariffs. Switzerland, there was only an agriculture tariff. No American products sent to Switzerland got a tariff except agriculture products. And we, guess what, imposed a tariff on Switzerland, but now the president supplied blanket tariffs. In Canada, there's a dairy import tariff from the United States, but there's a quota that we never actually exceed except one time in the 1990s, so we never actually pay that tariff. In Australia, no tariffs on American products that are imported into Australia, where we actually have a trade surplus with them, and yet we're not tariffing them. So I give this call all the time for people to say, we actually, there are tariffs. These countries were tariffing us. Why can't we tariff them? Well, yeah, they had a tariff, but then they gave us an exception to that tariff, so they actually weren't tariffing us. And you hear the president say, well, South Korea is putting a tariff on us, and you don't actually... He never says the part about they've given us an exemption from that tariff, so we are not actually paying a tariff. That's the problem here. There's not a lot of honesty out there on the issue, but I'm willing to tell you what's true. I'm willing to tell you, for example, Swiss America has been warning people about a secret war on cash where the government's trying to steer you towards... debit and credit purchases because they want to be able to control and see what you're doing. No anonymity in your purchases. Swiss America has been warning people about the secret war on cash and they want to give you their report completely free.

All you have to do is call or text my name, Eric, to 800, 289, 2646. All that war on cash includes digital forms of currency, too. It's growing, coming after your crypto. So just get this report from Swiss America. There have been the leader in precious metals in this country for 40 years. The report takes less than 15 minutes to read. It can save your retirement and finances. Call them at 800, 289, 2646, or text my name, Eric. 2-800-289-26-46 or go to Swissamerica.com slash Eric, Swissamerica.com slash E-R-I-C-K. Message and data rates may apply. Let Swiss America help you out.