Erick Erickson HR 3 10-28-25

Summer means firing up the grill, getting together with friends, and making the most of the weekends. Total Wine and More is my first stop. Whether it's salesers and ready to serve cocktails for the cooler, or a good bottle of bourbon. Everything I need is at Total Wine. With the lowest prices, it's easy to stock up for whatever the weekend brings, and I can get everything I need in one stop. Shop Total Wine and More and get ready for your next summer party. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina? Drink responsibly, B-21. Hello, America. Welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. Across the United States of America, I am delighted to have you with me this afternoon or evening whenever you're listening to the show, but you should be listening live. Because you know, by the time you get to the podcast, the news has changed. And I like to do the news fresh out of the gate. And there is news. The United States has blown up four more boats in the Pacific that were coming in from Mexico purported to be drug dealer boats. That is what we are told at least. This from the New York Times. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States military has destroyed four more vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing 14 people the biggest one-day toll since the campaign began last month. One person survived, he said, and Mexican officials had assumed responsibility for the rescue. Mr. Pete Hegseth did not provide evidence for the administration's contention that the vessels were smuggling drugs, the basis for an operation that has killed at least 57 people. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol leader who has become a face of the administration's immigration crackdown, is being questioned by a federal judge about the tactics agents are used in the Chicago area, including the use of tear gas, all of this while the president is in Asia for various summits. Now, I want to get to the immigration crack down here and then jump back to the boats because they're somewhat related. I'm going to read you this from Bill Malugan, Bill Malugin, it depends on who you talk to, how you pronounce it. I can't remember, honestly. I've always said Bill Malugan. And I want to say. that Bill does great work. He's probably the most informed person when it comes to immigration in this country. And I'm a little bit concerned that Bari Weiss is trying to steal all these good people from Fox News and she may try to steal him too to cover immigration. But he writes this. Per four senior DHS and Trump administration sources, a mass removal of ICE leadership around the country is underway, with up to 12 ICE field office chiefs being removed and reassigned in an effort to increase deportation numbers. I'm told the move is spearheaded by Corey Lewandowski, and a handful of the ICE chiefs will likely be replaced by Border Patrol and CBP officials, some of whom will be handpicked by aggressive and controversial Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino.

I'm told some of the ICE leadership removed from their positions include the ICE field office directors in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Denver, El Paso, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, and New Orleans. Seattle and Portland have share in office. Border Patrol officials taking over ICE leadership position would be extremely significant as Border Patrol and ICE do different things. And I've done numerous ride-alongs in beds with both. Generally speaking, ICE typically conducts very targeted operations, largely going after criminal illegal aliens or those with deportation orders, but almost always knowing who they're targeting for arrest, often conducting surveillance to learn their schedules before and waiting before arresting them. if needed. Border Patrol under Trump 2.0. While sometimes doing their own targeted operations has been very aggressive and has been at the forefront of some of the most controversial immigration enforcement operations we've seen so far, carrying out roving patrols in Los Angeles, Chicago, etc., often at Home Depot, car washes, flea markets, etc., leading to a handful of federal judges around the country issuing injunctions against them. A majority of the viral videos you see online are border patrol agents, including the use of a Trojan horse-style Pinsky moving truck at a Los Angeles Home Depot and operation. organized by Bovino. ICE often gets blamed for what Border Patrol does as the media and activists often cannot tell the difference between federal agents and everyone is called ICE. I'm told there are growing concerns about the political and PR fallout associated with some of the roving patrols, Border Patrol is conducting, as lawsuits continue to stack up in the midterms approach next year. I'm told there is significant friction within different wings of DHS and the administration with border czar Tom Homan and ICE director Todd Lyons, preferring to prioritize targeting criminal aliens of the worst or those with deportation orders, while... Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and the Border Patrol Commander Bovino prefer to use aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the U.S. illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers. I'm hearing from both sides of this friction. Can we be mature adults for just a moment? I want you to play a thinking game. We get into next year, and it turns out that some of the speedboats that had been blown up weren't drug runners, but were innocent people. What do you think that's going to do in the minds of independent voters? Remember, the people out of power tend to be more mobilized to go vote.

What do you think that's going to do to independent voters if they learn that the American government has been killing innocent people in the Caribbean and the Pacific? What do you think that's going to do? If you think it's not going to do anything, you need to think again. But here's the thing. I don't actually think this is going to happen because I tend to agree with Don the caller the other day who had been in the Coast Guard that they actually have good intelligence and that they do know what's going on. And I think that most Americans will support blowing up drug dealers. But... Let's get to Malugan's piece. We know there have been a handful of American citizens who were rounded up. and thrown in jail being mistaken for illegal aliens. And it wasn't ICE that did it. It was the Border Patrol agents that did it. We know this has happened. If you haven't been paying attention to it, I've talked about those cases, and there are multiple lawsuits where people are going to get a lot of money from the federal government because they were locked away by Border Patrol agents, thinking they were illegal aliens when they just have to be Hispanic Americans who were legal citizens.

Now can you imagine the ad campaign? Can you imagine the ad campaign next year of Hispanic Americans staring at the camera, saying, my name is whatever, I was arrested by ICE because of my skin color. I'm born in the United States. I'm an American citizen, but I was detained by my government thinking I was illegal alien because of the way I looked. You know damn well those ads are coming. And I can tell you from groups that are pro-Trump that support Hispanic voters, that they've been warning the White House for some time that Hispanic voters are starting to shift dramatically because of this issue. Every single Hispanic voter in this country is in favor of the deportations of the gangbangers and the criminals and most of the illegal aliens who came here under Joe Biden. You know who they're not really happy about getting deported? The old woman who's been here for 30 years, the family that's been here for decades, they're not really happy about that. You may be happy about that. But you've also got to win elections. You've also got to win elections. As Bill Malugan points out, the difference between ICE and the Border Patrol is that ICE has not gotten sloppy. Border Patrol has gotten sloppy repeatedly. And frankly, if Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski are in charge of the project, it's probably going to get screwed up. Bovino is a hard charger who wants every illegal alien in the United States rounded up and deported, and you probably do as well. In theory, I do too, but, and yes, there is a but. Do we want to put the grandmother who's been here for 30, 40 years making tortillas, the local Mexican restaurant, ahead of the Trinderagua gangbanger? If you say, well, just round them all up, it doesn't matter, there's no priority. You may feel right about yourself, but as I say to candidates, when they're running for office, know when you're in the minority, even when you think you're right, and you're in the minority there. Because a lot of the people who want the illegal aliens rounded up and thrown out, they were thinking about the gangbangers and the wave of humanity that came over when Joe Biden was president. They actually weren't thinking about the grandmother at the local tortilla shop who's been here for a very long time. They weren't thinking about those people. They weren't thinking about their gardener. And there's got to be a balance there. If there is political blowback on this, The blowback is going to come before the midterm elections. And if the Democrats do take back the House, I don't think they'll take back the Senate. If they take back the House, you can be sure Donald Trump is going to be impeached. He won't, it won't be confirmed by the Senate. They don't have the votes in the Senate. But it's going to be captivating to watch if this is the case. When you have these people, these American citizens, but round up, it's just Border Patrol's been sloppy. And that's the bottom line, whether you want these people deported or not, when they're rounding up American citizens, it's sloppy. And it's happened more than once. One time is too many when we're talking about these sorts of things because it gives the president a black eye, and it's not his fault.

He committed to rounding up the illegal aliens. But what did the president say repeatedly? Prioritizing, and this is what Tom Homan said, prioritizing the gangbangers and the criminals. We still have a lot of gangbangers and criminals in this country who shouldn't be here. Maybe wait for grandma until after you get them done. Get them deported. Politics does matter, you understand. Politics matters. You may like the policies, but the politics of it matter because there's an election that comes up next year. And the party out of power tends to have the most energy going into that election. And when they are combined with independent voters and Hispanic voters who believe they were lied to about how the immigration effort was going to go. The president could be in trouble. The only saving grace for the president is that the Democrats are so bad crap crazy and so insane and so unchained when it comes to immigration, a lot of people may say, yeah, I don't like it, but I still prefer him to them. And that would be a bad thing for us. I'm just saying you've got to worry that the Border Patrol is being elevated over ice. because ICE has not given the president a single black eye in this. Not a single bit of negative press has been because of the actual ice ages. Now, they get blamed, but it's not them, it's the Border Patrol. And it is the Border Patrol that has rounded up American citizens by accident. And legal resident aliens by accident. And there becomes a compelling case to make it an ad campaign for the Democrats who probably aren't smart enough to pull it off where you put on camera these American citizens and legal resident aliens who were detained and had to prove they deserve to be here, prove they were American citizens. And you shouldn't have to do that as an American citizen. You should not have to prove yourself to be an American to American authorities. They should know before they get you. And that's what ICE does. Not what Border Patrol does. Don't be mad at me for telling you the truth here. This is a political hot potato that could blow up in the president's face. We do not want Democrats taking back the House of Representatives next year. And by wanting us not to have the Democrats taking back the House next year, we need to be on our A game at all times. Amateurish mistakes by the Border Patrol hurt the President and the Republicans' ability to hold on the power next year. The Democrats are already hyping this up as Donald Trump is going to steal the election no matter what they do. That may suppress the Democratic vote. It would be hilarious if it did. But we can't afford mistakes. And Border Patrol makes mistakes at this. There have already been a couple. There will be more, and they will be used against the GOP and the midterm elections if we're not careful. Follow Eric. on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble. Search E.W. Erickson. Want to be on the show? Come on, be on the show. Call Eric now at 877-973-725.

Welcome back. There's some breaking news for those of you in Dayton, Ohio, and you can keep up with WHO, HIO there, my station there, and WHIO TV as well. There's been a murder suicide, double murder suicide, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It happened over the weekend, not on base grounds, it appears, though. First Lieutenant Jamie Gustatus. 25, worked for the 7-11th Human Performance Wing as part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Jamie Pritchard. 33, worked for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. Jacob Pritchard was part of the Air Force Research Laboratory. It appears, based on the statements that Jacob killed his wife, Jamie, either during or late hours Friday night or early Saturday morning. They lived in Huber Heights, and... Where the location where Jamie was killed is unknown at the time, put her, Jacob put her body in the trunk, drove to West Milton Municipal Parking Lot, exited the car and shot himself. Just awful, awful. Also, apparently... broke into Gustus' apartment and killed her. All three employees, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The Air Force has just released the statement, saying they're saddened by the tragic events and their thoughts and prayers with families and loved ones affected. And we stand with them as they navigate the unimaginable pain. And they're still trying to figure out what happened. So this happened over... the weekend period, and now the Air Force, of course, saying there's just releasing the statement as all three were employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base there just outside Dayton, Ohio. You can tune in WHIO there for more. Just hit the wires, though I had not heard about that story. My goodness gracious. Awful stuff. When we come back, the president of the United States is in... Asia, and he has spent a great deal of time in Japan with the new Japanese Prime Minister, the first female Prime Minister of Japan, who is a heavy metal fan, played in a heavy metal band, and is a huge Margaret Thatcher fan. She's also a staunch conservative, wants to rebuild the Japanese military, and is a huge free trader. and she and the president have hit it off watching Otani play in the World Series, and he seems to be a big fan of hers and her of his and of the United States. Is it not just, I don't know, it speaks highly of our country for those Democrats where only a third of them take pride of the country. I find it just a remarkable... thing that some of our strongest allies are the countries that we destroyed at war, whether it's Japan or, I mean, United Kingdom or France, or, well, not France. They've always been around Germany, Italy. It's just, it's remarkable how these countries that we fought have become such great allies of ours, the Japanese especially considering the bombs we dropped on them. Now,

Let me tell you about Vision Computers because they would love to be your ally in business if you have managed IT. You know your employees could be having to file email tickets or deal with chatbots. And with Vision Computer, what sets them apart is they actually get a phone number they call. And in 15 seconds or less, they can get the answer to what's plaguing them by an actual human being. They can save your company money. Your employees can be focused on their jobs while Vision Computer is focused actually on your computers and boosting your uptime. Vision Computers.com or 404 Compute, call them at 404 Compute and tell them Eric sent you, and they may be able to save you some money. and you get live human beings. And by the way, you can do this for yourself at your home. If you are tired of having to figure out what's going on with your computer, call Vision Computers at 404 Compute. Tell them I sent you or go to VisionComputers.com, and they can upgrade your computer or build you a computer or build you a computer. Their tech support comes free. Vision Computers.com or 404 compute, tell them Eric sent you, save you some money, keep you up and running, and boost your profitability for your business with Vision Computers.

The full number 877937425, should you wish to be on the program, would be delighted to have you with me. Do you know the president has gotten another peace deal done? Have you heard about this one? He negotiated it as well with the Malaysians. It is peace between Thailand and Cambodia. Kind of a big deal. This is the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Thank you, President Donald Trump, for giving us this honor. And on behalf of course Malaysian, our colleagues in ASEAN, I'm a thank you for your concern, for your empathy, and for your commitment to support this peace deal. When I first receive your call, and then urging me to do more and supporting our initiative. And you personally did call both Prime Ministers to urge for a speedy settlement. I would say great thank you. And we, of course, admire your tenacity or courage because the world needs leaders who promote peace strongly.

And to achieve that, you have to break some rules, as you did today. When the president arrived, he asked me to join him in the car. I said, that's against the security and protocol rules. And he was delighted to break the rules, and I... A nice right. He was a nice right. And we share a lot of things in common. And this is the president as well. Well, this is so exciting because we did something that a lot of people said couldn't be done. And we saved maybe millions of lives on this one-piece deal itself. And I'll tell you what makes me so happy is the two countries we're dealing with and the third that helped so much. I appreciate so much. Maybe it couldn't have been done without you. They really like each other. I'm not used to that when I do these deals. Usually there's a lot of hatred. They liked each other, so it made it a little bit easier. But millions of people are alive today because of this peace treaty. So before I begin, I want to extend our deepest condolences to the Prime Minister, on Newton, as well as His Majesty, the King of Thailand, and the entire nation on the passing of Her Majesty. Queen Siriquette, the queen mother, and a beautiful, incredible woman who is so respected all over, all over, all over the world actually respected. I know the people of Thailand will remember her forever as the embodiment of dignity, kindness, and grace this just happened. But this is a woman who was so loved and respected. Today we honor the memory by... Bringing the blessing of peace to the nation she dearly loved. She loved this nation like few people love their nations. This is a momentous day for all of the people of Southeast Asia as we sign a historic agreement to end the military conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. Now, what actually happened here is that Thailand and Cambodia have a disputed border. And both parties have agreed to remove heavy weapons from the disputed border territory and to work together to clear each other's landmines. And they're going to set up a task force to deal with the proliferation of scam centers, of people who are scamming Westerners through Cambodia and Thailand. And they're also going to work on putting up border markers in the disputed territory. A lot of people are dismissing this, but the Thai Prime Minister has said that he actually does believe pressure from the Americans got both parties to resolve the situation, us promising better trade deals to Cambodia, got Cambodia to the table, us supporting the ties, have got them to the table. We've got a long history with Thailand. You know, Thailand was one of the very few countries in Southeast Asia not colonized by the French or the British. That's kind of what, oh, what it was the king and I, what the musical was about. With Ewell Brenner, I watched that movie as a kid. I love that movie as a kid. In any event, the president has been able to bring peace. And then he went from there to Japan. Now, I got to make a point here first, and I made it yesterday, but it's worth talking about again. The president of the United States went to Israel, went to Egypt, came back, and then went to Malaysia.

went to Japan, now to South Korea. He's just traveling all over the place. He's 80 years old, roughly. He's traveling in ways Joe Biden couldn't, and yet the media is suddenly deeply concerned about the president's health and well-being in ways they never were with Joe Biden. Now, I kind of would be, too, given the way the man is just traveling everywhere, but at the same time, he's traveling everywhere and he's holding up. It's kind of a big deal. On top of that, the U.S. and Japan have now signed a trade deal. The Japanese are going to get more missiles and they're going to get F-35s. The prime minister says Toyota is going to build more factories of the United States. I got to say, you know, I love Toyota. I try to get my son to get into a forerunner. My forever vehicle, when I finally can downsize for my Denali, and I love my Denali. But I want one of those Lexus SUVs that's built on the land cruiser frame. There's a sharp-looking vehicles to me, and they last forever. I'll never need another vehicle. But Toyota's going to be building more in this country. The prime minister of Japan and the president completely hit it off. She's a baseball fan and obviously loves Otani, so she's a big Dodgers fan. So they were watching the World Series on television together, rooting against the Canadians, apparently, eating lunch at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo. and also they were mutual friends with Shinzo Abe, the assassinated Prime Minister of Japan. So he is, again, transforming the world, one nation at a time, two nations at a time with peace. The Middle East peace looks like it may be falling apart because of Hamas, but the president will be okay if it falls apart because of Hamas because he doesn't like Hamas anyway. And the other Arab nations and Muslim nations around the world are ready to get rid of Hamas. So this will just give the president an opportunity to further transform the Middle East and maybe build a Trump hotel in Gaza. You never know. This is Trump's world. We just live in it. I saw a progressive this morning talking about how Republicans tend to vomit praise. That was the phrase, vomit praise about Trump. You know, the reality is I'm, you know, I'm a Trump critic. I can support him, but I can also criticize him. And his supporters don't like it when I criticize him. But what I have found is that for all the people who are his hardcore supporters who get mad at me when I criticize it, the people who get mad at me the most are the progressives who just can't welcome any credit to Trump. Look at the Middle East peace deal. It is even Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were willing to, by name, give Donald Trump credit for getting the hostages returned. And your average Democrat can't bring themselves through it. They can't bring themselves to be intellectually honest about what's happening. He deserves praise. He deserves praise for helping Armenia and Azerbaijan come to terms in Pakistan and India and Thailand and Cambodia. He deserves praise for helping get the last of the living hostages out of the custody of Hamas. He deserves praise for these things. I'm perfectly willing to criticize him.

when I feel the need. But I just, I don't understand the people who can't bring themselves to credit the things Donald Trump has done that are good. They just can't bring themselves to appreciate that he's done good things. There's always some sinister underlying motivation that they interpret from whatever he is doing. But he's got some great policies out there. Chinese have decided to hoard rare earth minerals, and now the U.S. and Japan have decided to boost the supply chain between each other of rare earth minerals to combat what the Chinese are doing. This is good. And the New York Times tries to say, well, we're not really changing a whole lot. Well, we're not changing a whole lot. Okay, that's true. But we're changing some things, and the things we're changing need to be changed, and they're good. It's just kind of remarkable. to see how some people just flat out refuse to give Trump credit for the good things he's done. And it's not just partisanship. There are just some people who are deeply broken, but to them, to all of you, I say, at this point, it's kind of Donald Trump's world, and we're just living in it. Now, to Gary in Jacksonville, let's go to the phone to your 8779773-7-4-25. Gary, welcome to the show. How are you? I enjoy your show. Long time listener, first time caller. I have four comments. All right. 20,000, when you, I don't know what the right number is, but let's call it 20 million illegals came in under Biden. And if you're trying to collect anywhere near that number, you're going to make a few mistakes, number one. Second comment I have is you said you're against tariffs. To me, the tariffs have brought in, what, trillions of dollars to our economy. Fuel prices are down, food prices are down, home values are attractive. To me, bringing in this extra money to our country and the economy doing well, stock market doing well, I don't see a problem with the tariffs. The third comment I make, is the president, it's amazing to me, gets respected everywhere he goes. You had mentioned Malaysia just a minute ago, Japan, and I'm not just talking about the world leaders, I'm talking about the citizens. You see them driving down the road, and they're waving. They can't wait for President Trump to be seen, even just in a motorcade. Yet we have people on the view. whoopi Goldberg, the media, and a bunch of liberals, and he gets disrespected here in our country, and it makes me sick. Even if you don't like Trump, he's our president. And then the last comment I'm going to make is more of a question. You have said repeatedly, and in fact a few minutes ago, that there are many things you disagree with that Trump does, and I'd like to know what they are, because... Personally, no one's perfect, as I mentioned in my first comment, but I'm pretty much in favor of everything he's done so far.

And with that, I can either stay on the line or I can take it offline. Yep, all right. Yeah, just just just listen to me here offline on WKV, Gary. Okay, so let's start with the deportations of 20 million. Even the Trump campaign actually says there, Trump team says 14 to 15 million illegal immigrants are here. And that's not all that came over from Biden. That is, most of them are, but a lot of them have been here for a while. And you say mistakes happen, but here's the problem. Mistakes can't happen. Mistakes will happen when you're trying to round up that many people rapidly. And the problem with that is when the mistake involves the arrest of an American citizen, that's illegal. And by the way, there's no qualified immunity for the Border Patrol agent. When you arrest an American citizen improperly, there's no qualified immunity for that person because it was settled by the Supreme Court that you can't detain an American citizen without cause. And because you've detained the American citizen without cause, and by the way, confusing them for someone else is not proper cause. You, the American taxpayer, Gary, you're paying that person a lot of money. And then that person shows up in an ad campaign for the midterms, and it costs the Republican seats in Congress. You can't make those mistakes because not only is it a financial liability for you and me as taxpayers, it's a massive political liability for the GOP, and we've got to stop the Democrats. We've got to stop the Democrats. On the tariff issue, it hasn't been trillions of dollars that have been brought in. It's been billions of dollars. Where's the money coming from? It's the economics 101. The money for tariffs is coming from you and me when we buy stuff or it's coming from the companies importing stuff. Now, here's the way it's worked in practice. Some of what's happening is the companies manufacturing the goods abroad are lowering their price and just eating it so that when they sell it to these two companies here. And they pay the tariff because it's the American company that pays the tariff. It's not the foreign company. So when the American company pays the tariff, they're actually paying what they were paying before because the company abroad lowered the price so much. But some of those things are being passed on to you and me. So take Carter's, for example, it's going to shut 150 stores. It's going to lay off several thousand employees. Why? Because they can't keep absorbing the costs of the tariffs they're paying. So they're passing amount of consumers and consumers are buying less. So the tariffs are directly related to unemployment for people who work at Carter's. The tariffs are directly related to the failure of wages to grow at small businesses in the country because what those small businesses are doing, they have to pay the tariff. Again, American companies pay the tariff. The importer pays the tariff, not the exporter. So it's the American company that pays the tariff.

And to the extent that the exporter hasn't reduced the price enough, well, you're paying more as a small business to bring these things in. And you either absorb the cost or you pass on the consumers, and sometimes you can't pass it on the consumers. So what are you doing? You're not hiring. You're not given pay raises, and now we've got inflation at 3%. So inflation is at 3%, and now wage growth in this country has slipped below 3% again, and every economist left right and center except those in the White House is tied into tariffs. Why? Because American companies are paying more for the imports, and they can't pay higher wages now. So as inflation has gone back up... and wage growth is now slower than inflation, people are falling behind again, and it's now Trump's economy, not Joe Biden's economy, and that is the problem with tariffs. And so you ask why I disagree with tariffs. Instead of tariffing every country on the planet, because he claims that other countries tariff us, and it's not actually true we're exempt from their tariffs, he should target China. He should not target China and India together because we need to be able to manufacture products in India to compete with China. But he decided to target India and China with punitive tariffs, not just China, and that screws up the American manufacturing base of companies that can't repatriate. You can't bring the iPhone back to the United States and make it in the United States without it being extremely expensive. But you can make it cheaply in India or Vietnam, but the president has taxed both of those countries in ways that still drive up the price. to pack up its entire assembly line from China and put it in India and then the president imposed punitive tariffs on India and it messed up Apple's play that would have benefited you and me. So tariffs, I disagree with him on. I have disagreed with him in the past on Ukraine, but I think he's seen the light and is now signing with Ukraine. I've certainly disagreed with him on that. I've also disagreed with the president on some of the fixation of some of the people around him that he has humored over the years that I think are not great people that he doesn't need to platform. I've disagreed with him on that. I'm sure there are other things I have disagreed with the president on over time. I'm sure there are, but there's no reason to dwell on the disagreements when there's a lot I'm getting from him. But when I do disagree with him, I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. It's not my job to humor the president. If anything, one of the things I complain about the most is there are too many people on the right now who were perfectly fine when you disagree with George W. Bush, but they can't abide any criticism of Donald Trump. And that suggests there's a growing immaturity in our ranks that you as someone from the right can't criticize people on the right. And that's just not my thing. You're at the intersection of politics, news, culture, and current events. It's the Eric Erickson Show. The Four Things You Need to Know podcast, giving you the four things to pay attention to after the show. Available on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. Or by texting Eric to 33777.

If you got the show notes today, you text Eric to 33777. You get the show notes. You get the four things to know this afternoon. You got all the latest info on Hurricane Melissa. It has now made landfall in Jamaica with 185 mile per hour wins. The Category 5 storm, one of the strongest ever hit Jamaica, be in prayer for those people, and it will continue sailing on. Now, I need to tell you about Old Glory Bank, my bank. I would love for you to go check out Old Glorybank.com slash Eric. It is a bank for, well, people like you and me. who you are conservatives. You're a little bit worried about how progressives have used banks to bully people. Old Glory Bank was set up by conservatives for conservatives. They believe in your freedoms. Some banks, you know, they even restrict the sorts of things you can use your debit card for, even though they're lawful purchases. Old Glory Bank believes in your freedom, and they're happy for you to have a... checking account with them. I've got the no-fee checking and the no-fee savings account with them. I was a customer before I was an advertiser, by the way. I sought them out as an advertiser because I really love the concept. I can even deposit. I had an online bank, and I couldn't deposit cash, and I left them for Old Glory Bank because they figured it out. And if you're a veteran, a first responder, your active duty military, they got great, great discounts for you. Oldglorybank.com slash Eric is where you want to go. Full service bank nationwide. You can do mortgages, CDs, checking accounts, savings accounts, old glorybank.com slash Eric, member FDIC, Equal Housing Linder Terms and Conditions Apply.

Summer means firing up the grill, getting together with friends, and making the most of the weekends. Total Wine and More is my first stop. Whether it's salesers and ready to serve cocktails for the cooler, or a good bottle of bourbon. Everything I need is at Total Wine. With the lowest prices, it's easy to stock up for whatever the weekend brings, and I can get everything I need in one stop. Shop Total Wine and More and get ready for your next summer party. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, B-21.