Erick Erickson HR 2

One, zero, all engine running. Lift-off. We have a lifter. 7-7-9-7-3-7-4-25, should you wish to be on the program. I am very happy to have you with me. I got to be real honest with you. I'm kind of free-forming this show today because we've got all of this incoming news, and I know we've got callers who want to chat about it. I, and I just, let me just say this. I mentioned this a little bit yesterday. I am mentally and emotionally exhausted at this point. I am struggling for words on this program. In a rare burst of chastisement, my producer yesterday said I said something I shouldn't have said on radio, which is a rare thing to happen. And he's probably right, but I'm just, I'm out of words. I'm grasping for stuff. Because I am exhausted by this. I am exhausted still from two weeks ago having to cover murdered children who a transactive is locked into a church so he could gun him down. And I'm still thinking, you had a bunch of kids in a church and you locked the door. And thank God you were such a bad shot. It could have been even worse than it was, and it was bad enough. and this kid, and now the conspiracy theories that are flowing, oh, it had to be a sniper, it had to be foreign intelligence. On and on and on it goes. You know, I'm seeing people online say, he had to have a helper, and Frank Turrick is a world-renowned theologian. He was with Charlie Kirk, and people said, oh, he must have been coordinated to the shooter. Look at him, scratch his nose, and the top of the said, he must have been signaling the shooter. People have lost their damn minds. I am exhausted by it all. Y'all have got to be exhausted. Now, I realize I do it for a living. This is why I get paid the big bucks because I'm supposed to be the guy who knows what to say at times like this, and I don't know what to say. So let me just say a couple of things, and I'm going to cheat to some degree because I wrote these things this morning. But you need to hear them. You know, Donald Trump is term limited. He will be gone by January 21st, 2029. Specifically, he'll be gone by noon, January 20th, 2029. He's not a dictator. Your democracy is not under attack. There is no threat to democracy in this country. The nation's going to keep having elections. And guess what? Power is going to keep going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. There's no such thing as permanence in American politics. We are not at war with each other unless we choose to be, and some of you are choosing to be at war with your fellow American. There is evil in the world, and we keep seeing that evil. But many of those you think are evil also think you're evil. And you don't know each other, so it makes it easier for each side to think the other is evil when, in fact, you've had profoundly different views on what would make the world better.

Now, you read the last one, and you're thinking, yes, but. In fact, I had someone say, yes, but the left really is evil because of abortion. And I started to respond, you know what, they say you're evil because of the child separation policy at the border, putting kids, but, you know, it doesn't do any good because you're convinced the other side is evil. And yeah, I think so too. When it comes to abortion and child killing, yes, but also it's legal in the United States. So you disagree about public policy. If you're defensive on this, you might need to unplug for a little bit. Go touch some grass. Both sides see each other as evil, and it's really easy for you to decide you have the moral high ground, and therefore the other side is evil. That's what they do, too. I want you to understand. You and I could look at them and say abortion is evil. You guys support it, and they say separating children from their parents is evil, and you guys support it. And so then you're just calling each other evil without actually getting to know each other. We don't live in authoritarian state. We don't live in a totalitarian state. Donald Trump is not an authoritarian tyrant. There is no constitutional crisis. Words are not violence. Trans people are not getting killed because people disagree with them. Many of us think it's a mental illness and many of you are proving us to be right. Fighting fire with fire gets everybody burned. If you make every hill a die on, guess what, everybody dies? Or you die on every hill.

believing that embracing or advocating a conservative position or a Christian position or not being a leftist is totally fine. It's not violence. It's not hostility. It's disagreement. If you can't understand that people have vehement disagreements, but you think that people who disagree with you are somehow evil or they need to be censored, silenced, or shut up, you're the problem, not us. You know, there is this dangerous thing, and a number of, even progressives have been warning about this. Going back to 2017, though, the well-regarded Jonathan Haidt, who wrote the piece on cell phones, he's the guy who has encouraged this movement to confiscate cell phones. In 2017, riding in the Atlantic, he was worrying about the dangerous idea festering on the left that words are violence. And he warned back then if this gets stuck into left-wing psychology, the words are violence, progressives are going to get violent. And they are because it got stuck. He warned about it. In 2017, he warned about it. Words are not violence. When you decide that words are violence, that means you think you can respond with your own physical violence against those words. And that leads to political assassinations. The assassin of Charlie Kirk told his family that Charlie spreaded hate. When you believe hate is violence, you think you're justified in using physical violence against it. It's a dangerous philosophy, but it's part of postmodern critical theory. A lot of people on the left have embraced this idea that words are violence. Not violent, but violence. That saying something you disagree with is violence. And it can be responded to with violence in self-defense.

I also believe we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life-libery and the pursuit of happiness. I believe that truth has to trump the tribe, that ballots have to trump bullets, that God's on the throne, and that we're all going to be okay. I also wrote this this morning that I believe and am big on empathy and sympathy and loving your neighbor. And I also think that every person who publicly celebrated Charlie Kirk's assassination should be driven from polite society. Because once the depraved and demonic celebrate the death of innocent people, well, you don't want those people in society. And I'm sorry. But I actually do think if you are publicly willing to celebrate... The assassination of someone you disagree with politically, you are a depraved individual, and you should be shunned from polite society. Shame serves a purpose in society. There are not many things we agree with anymore in society, and the problem for people on the right is that culture has been so dominantly leftists. The left thinks they get to police everybody. The left thinks they get to shut you up on the right because you've said something they don't like. The left thinks they get to punish you, censor, you cancel, you have you fired because you voiced an opinion that they on the left find offensive when it's not offensive on the right. I continue to be amazed at the number of people in the press, in the New York Times, at CNN, on MSNBC, we say Charlie Kirk voiced controversial views. You know what they're controversial to. They're controversial to the left. The New York Times and a beast actually said Charlie Kirk held controversial views, and one of those views was strong defense or robust, they said, defense of the Second Amendment. That's not a controversial view to anyone I am friends with or no, literally. Not a single person I know believes that defense of the Second Amendment is a controversial view. That's what progressives think, and yet because the New York Times is run by progressives, they decided Charlie Kirk's views are progressive. They also misquoted him, blasting him for anti-Semitism. You know, I've criticized... Charlie for platforming some people at TPUSA who were anti-Semitic but not him and in fact he started raining in he fired a number of them he started distancing himself from Candace Owens and others as they got got more and more outlandish He was doing the right thing in that regard. And yet the New York Times wanted to vilify him as an anti-Semite. They had to actually walk it back today with the corrections. It actually turns out he was quoting someone else and disagreeing with them. They never actually paid attention to what he was saying.

I'm just really shocked at the high school teachers and the elementary school teachers and the college professors and the doctors and the nurses and the firefighters and the policemen and even that secret service agent who thought it was perfectly acceptable to go on social media and say he got what he deserved. And you know what it is. You all have little groups of friends where you say things that you wouldn't say in public, and everybody kind of knows you're not being really serious, you're being a little flippant, or maybe you are, and occasionally your friends will say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up. And these people, they don't really have friends. They go on social media and they do it there. But it gives you a window into their soul. How depraved they become that they could see a 31-year-old father of two, a husband, get gunned down because someone thought he spread hate with his words. And yeah, I do want those people driven from polite society. I think there are two things that we should as a society shun Nazis and people who think others deserve to die because they voice an opinion you don't like. We used to have this common thing in this country where we all hated the Nazis. The Nazis were bad. But now the left decides anyone who disagrees with them as a Nazi. Anyone who doesn't embrace leftism is a Nazi. And that's part of the problem here is on the left. If you disagree with them, you are committing violence. If you disagree with them, you're a terrible person and you should be punished by society. Ezra Klein wrote in the New York Times that Charlie Kirk did it the right way in politics. He engaged, he spoke, he debated. There's a website called 4-4 Media. It's a progressive site. They attacked Ezra Klein for saying this and said, no, Charlie Kirk did not engage in politics the right way. He engaged in politics in the worst possible way because he disagreed with people in the LGBTQ plus community. Notice as an aside how they keep adding other letters. It used to be the LGBT community. Then it was the LGBT community. Now it's the LGBTQ plus community. They keep adding letters that you're suddenly supposed to say. And if you don't say, it's a way to highlight the shibbolists of the left. If you don't leave all, if you don't say all the letters plus the plus, well, you're not really a member of the tribe.

Y'all, a lot of people need to go touch some grass and meet their neighbors. I mean, seriously, people actually need to go, like, engage with people, get off the internet. These people who feel comfortable getting online and cheering on the murder of someone. And, you know, here's the thing. Here's what I know. Here's what I know for certain very, very few of the people, the nurses, the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers, the school deans, the academics, the veterinarians who went online and said he got what he deserved. If they actually personally knew him or his family, they would never say that. But they don't. It's always easier to hate the people you don't know. That's why you have to make an effort to meet and know people. We have a choice as a country of which path we take now. Bullets or balance. There are a lot of people not just on the left who really want to break the country up, who really do think that, oh, I got a stockpile of guns and ammo, I'll win this fight, rebuild the country in my image. That's terrible, demented thinking. But it's thinking of people on social media more and more. We could all use to stand to touch a little grass this weekend to turn our phones off, turn the news off. We're not an authoritarian state, and I want every single one of you left, right, and center to understand we will get through this moment. If we stop vilifying each other, it's okay to disagree. I've worked very hard in the last number of years on my show now to stop just making personal attacks on people I disagree with. Because I'm the one who's been warning you now. For about four years, there's this growing violence coming to the country. I could see it. From a mile away, I've been telling you this was coming, and here it is. And the way through it is to recognize even those people you think are bad because you don't like their views on something. They're still Americans. And you've got to love your neighbor. And that's not easy. But it must be done for us to get through this together. And if you want to go apart, if you want to break up the country, how much blood are you willing to spill because you'll have to spill a lot to do it? So I would advise you against it. And instead, try to find a way for each of us to accommodate each other. And that begins by maybe knowing each other a little bit better. 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.

You may not agree with him, but he tells you the truth. It's the Eric Erickson Show. Hello there, it's Eric Erickson. Listen, I ran long glass segment. So those of you on hold, I will come to you in the next half hour, I promise. I'll get to all of you on hold. The phone number is 877-9-373-7-4-25. Chris Rufo, I'm glad he said what he said. Y'all, there was weird, just, it was a dumb, too goofy for the moment moment where Kash Patel at the end of his statement, This is Charlie Kirk brother. We have the watch. I'll see you in Valhalla. And I was like, what the hell is that? I'll see you in Valhalla. Really, the FBI director is going to end his statement on national TV with that at a serious moment at a press conference about catching the killer after his live tweeting the other day that they caught the guy. And he's like, oh, my bad, they let him go. It's just been an embarrassment. Chris Rufo has finally come out and said what everybody's saying privately that there are a lot of questions about whether Kash Patel is the right fit to lead the FBI now. It's that I'll see you in Valhalla thing was just, I mean, it was just not right at the moment. Can the guy not figure out what moment he's in? Just odd, weird. Yeah, there are problems. We'll get into those. I'll take your phone calls when we come back. First, I've got to tell you about Vision Computers. Call them at 404 compute or go to Vision Computers.com. If you want their help build a new PC, hey, by the way, if you've got a Windows PC and you're running Windows 10. Microsoft is going to stop security patches for it October 14th. So you need to upgrade. Yeah, true. It's one of the ways they try to get you to upgrade your operating system. But Vision Computer is not their fault, but they can help you, and they can get you saving some money. And all you got to do is go to Vision Computers.com or call them at 404 Compute. You want to get those security patches. They can take care of your computer. They can remote in to help you. They can keep you online. They can give you great managed IT support for your business or yourself if you're in the gig economy and need somebody. 404 Computer, VisionComputers.com. They can also build you computers. They can upgrade your computers. Tell them Eric Sintchie, you can even save some money. VisionComputers.com or 404 compute.

He's got the courage to tell you the truth, even when it isn't popular. You're listening to The Eric Erickson Show. Can I just say I had a moment during commercial break where I realized I have hit peak middle age, scrolling Instagram, see a post from someone I follow. It is a guy I know he's a fitness influencer. He has a very attractive wife. And it's the two of them. She is attractively dressed, skimply dressed, I should say. You know what my first thought was when I saw this picture of him and his extremely extraordinarily incredibly looking wife and her skimpy outfit? Wow, I really like the floors in this. That's a nice wood grain in color. Yeah, peak middle age. It's happening right now. Happening right now. It's like, oh, hey, look at them. All right. It's time to take some phone calls here. Open line Friday, 877-97-973-7-4-25. David and Jacksonville, Florida. You're up first. Welcome. Hey, thank you for playing that piece from Bernie Sanders. I was just thinking the same thing. I think Donald Trump needs to gather folks like Cardinal Dolan, Ashley said something, and Megan Romer, her Democratic Socialists, Hakeem Jeffries, Roger Law to the DNC. and Glenn Youngkin, you know, those kinds of people that are, and they wouldn't have to be those, but get a bunch of folks and say, let's go to Camp David over the weekend, and let's come out with something that's powerful that said, this has just got to stop. And it needs to be well represented. I don't know how you pull it off. Maybe it's impossible, but I think something needs to be said. You know, and a real strong way of saying it. And I think it needs to start with the president. Not, you know, I think he needs to take leadership on it. And the Bernie thing that you read really got me thinking, that was very well said what Bernie said. And I'm going to agree with Bernie on maybe the fact that he's a man. That's about it. You know, I got to say, I was really impressed with Bernie Sanders statement, and I couldn't play all of it in the break. It went on for several more minutes. And the other one, David, that I was impressed with is Governor Cox, he, Governor Cox has really shined in the moment dealing with the situation and the encouragement to people to really just get out and to. to touch some grass and get off line, and he made this great comparison earlier, too. I want you to look at how Utahans reacted the last two nights. There was no rioting. There's no looting. There were no cars set on fire. There's no violence. There were vigils and prayers.

And people coming together to share the humanity. And that, ladies and gentlemen, I believe is the answer to this. We can return violence with violence. We can return hate with hate. And that's the problem with political violence, is it metastasizes. It does. And he really encouraged people that social media is doing a lot of this. It's time to get offline. Unplug. Go meet your neighbors. He's right. He's right. Scott in Montgomery, Alabama, you're going to be up next. Welcome to the show, sir. How are you? Thank you for having me, Eric. You mentioned earlier that your son was watching a Tim Keller clip, and I got to tell you that for my college daughter, Charlie Kirk, was out of her. I can't tell you how many times she sent me clips of him defending our Christian values. So on Wednesday her and I just held each other for a while and cried. And really great man to God. But my call today was talking about one of the things that Charlie would always try to do is find a common point, something that the people disagree with them, they could find an idea, a word, or something. And I was focusing on the best interest for the last couple of days. It's interesting how the Trump administration identifies it as the shooter in Utah, the shooter in Wisconsin and all that stuff. But yet, if you go back to the Biden administration, domestic terrorist was parents showing up at school board meetings. And I'm just, it blows me away how, one, thankful that Trump's in the administration, but two, the words matter as far as what's your definition of these things. And that was a really... skill that Charlie had is defining what does this mean to you and I can tell you what it means to me. We can start a discussion. Yeah, look, I think that's well said because it was the appearance were considered domestic terrorists, Catholics, domestic terrorists, evangelical churchgoers, nuns, domestic terrorists, all of them phrased by the Biden administration as opposed to just the shooter or the assassin in this case. And by the way, and Scott, listen, thanks very much for calling, particularly from Montgomery. And I got to say one thing there. I'm seeing some people online get very upset if someone says shooter as opposed to assassin. I'm showing people, Grace. It's a high-stress moment, and you say murder as opposed to assassination. No, I'm not going to fight with people over those sorts of words in a stress situation right now. It's just... It leaves a bad taste of my mouth to do that. One more call here before I get to this Kash Patel News. Ryan, you're going to be up next. Welcome. How are you? Hi, Eric. Thank you for taking my call. I know obviously the news of the day being what it is. But I'd like to ask your opinion about an issue where I know gender affirming care.

We know what that is in most cases, right? But also, there are certain medications that people need to have for fertility issues. Like, you know, IVF should not be lumped in with gender affirming care. And I know from my personal experience that these medications are hugely expensive. Now, you know, I have to have these things. I'm not trying to transition. I'm just trying to have a child. And so we can have a lack of children epidemic, but we can't also then. restrict these things from insurance for being able to have them. Well, and you know, so that gets to the Scrimetti case from the Supreme Court. In this case the other day from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on gender firming care. And what the Supreme Court said, what the 11th Circuit said, is that if a woman, for example, needs medications that would otherwise be used for... gender affirming care, but actually needs them for, say, fertility treatments, that that's perfectly fine. And same with men. That's not discrimination. So, for example, if a man needs a medicine. for male medical problems. And a woman would want the same medicine, but it's for gender transition. The man can get, for example, the testosterone supplement, but the woman can't because the man wants it for something for a male biological problem, and the woman wants it. for something that's not related to a biological problem. Those things are fine. So IVF treatments. Now, a lot of insurance does not cover IVF. That has nothing to do with gender transitioning. It has to do with other issues. But a lot of insurance companies don't actually cover IVF. The president had said he wants to require insurance companies to cover IVF. Congress has not actually passed a law on that. But that one's a separate matter from transitioning. And you've got to keep them separate. So what the Supreme Court has ruled with Scrimetti is that... Men and women have to be treated equally under the law, and if women can't take drugs for transitioning, men can't take drugs for transitioning, and that's actually treating them the same. Now, before I take any more calls, I want to talk about this Chris Rufo piece, because I got to just say, there are times you can say things.

You're referencing an action movie as FBI director. You were live tweeting an arrest of a shooter that turned out not to be so the other day. I just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm not alone. I can tell you I've talked to people within the Trump administration. The president was not happy the other day with Kash Patel's performance. I suspect he probably got a... talking to by Susie Wiles. That I don't know for sure. I do know for sure the president was not happy the other day. But a lot of other people in the administration, members of Congress who supported Kash Patel's nomination, are kind of scratched their head like, this guy's in over his head. And yeah, I think he clearly showed that he was in over his head. And it would not surprise me if some level of shakeup is coming. Now, you guys in Missouri, your attorney general is being shipped off to the FBI by the Trump administration to be a co-deputy director. It wouldn't surprise me if once he gets there, he suddenly becomes the director of the FBI. What is it, Andrew Bailey? Is that the attorney general? Sharp, sharp, sharp. My gosh, is he sharp? Brilliant attorney general, great guy. And they clearly need someone else within that operation who won't go rest in Valhalla. but actually not tweet and get the job. I'm just, I was flabbergasted by the amateurishness of that in a serious press conference. But it's not just me. It's Chris Rufo now saying he does not appear to be the right man to meet this moment for what the FBI is going to have to do now that we now know that this kid was radicalized online by a bunch of leftists and was an Antifa guy. Something's got to happen. within the FBI to try to deal with this growing domestic violence on the left that the Biden administration chose to ignore. When the truth seems hazy, Eric will clear the way. It's the Eric Erickson Show.

Get Eric's daily show prep email. Text data to 33777, and you'll be in the know. Greetings. It's Eric Erikson. 8779373425 is the phone number. If you wish to be on the program, I'm going to go to Mel calling from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Welcome to the show. I was calling because I believe we've raised an entire generation who believes there's the thing called hate speech instead of dealing teaching them that there is free speech and teaching them how to address that oh that's a good point that's a very good point Because, yeah, I mean, if you have hate speech, shouldn't, how do you or love speech, I guess, is the answer. But it's a good point. When we're told it, and so often hate speech is speech that the left doesn't like. And then they morph it into hate speech is violence. And violence begets violence and physical violence is the way to respond to the wordly violence. And you have these sorts of situations. It's a deeply disturbing logic path that the left takes on this. But you're not wrong, Mel. That's where they go. They have no way to deal with it. But what is hate speech? Hate speech is speech the left doesn't like. Because there are certainly things you and I can agree are hateful to say, but hate speech is a category of just stuff the left doesn't like. If I tell you transgenderism is mental health issue, they say that's hate speech. I'm just telling you the truth. Steve in Dayton, Ohio, you're up next. Welcome to the show, sir. How are you? I'm hanging in. Good.

What's going on? My comment is, we'll put it this way, that since sometime in the mid-20th century, we've been living in what we call the post-Christian era. And what that means basically is that Christianity no longer is the overarching organizing principle for Western civilization. But we talk about it's post-Christian, it's post-modern, post, and just talking about what it isn't any longer and not talking about what's replaced Christianity and these other things. And what it is is individual autonomy. And I think until we deal with that, we're just dealing with symptoms. And individual autonomy, you know, is basically best expressed by Justice Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Casey case where we all get to decide everything about everything. But basically, in a sense, it means I'm in charge of me and you're in charge of you. And what that means is everything is political. Everything cannot be merely political. And so however much you want to talk, and let's just get together and talk, but until you decide that not everything is political, and I cannot be in charge of me and you in charge of you and think that we can have a society, let alone a civilization, we're just deceiving ourselves. Yeah, look, I think that's a very interesting point, Steve, at a very philosophical level. We do have to take ownership for ourselves. I would just say, though, that this desire by the left to police the right and not police themselves is increasingly part of the problem we're dealing with here, where they want to exercise control over who on the right is acceptable. And so much of the national press and conversation goes along with it as opposed to having each side police themselves. I mean, I ran into that when I was hired by CNN. The left went nuts. They nearly fired me before they even hired me because the left didn't want me to be the conservative commentator on CNN as opposed to what conservatives wanted. It's a weird, weird moment in this country. We've got to move on to the invasion of Tennessee. I'll keep taking your phone calls. But first, I got to tell you about Old Glory Bank. They're my bank, and they'd love to be your bank. You can go to old glorybank.com slash Eric and get an account. old glory bank.com slash Eric is where you go. They have no fee check it in savings accounts. They've got interest-bearing accounts. They've got great accounts. You're a veteran or first responder. You can get great deals with them. They do mortgages, car loans, CDs. They're fully functioning made. They even have great business accounts. Great business accounts. If you're interested in going to a bank started by conservatives for conservatives to defy the debanking trends in the country,

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