The Erick Erickson Show Subscriber Only Feed

Thank you Jackie N Charlotte, Jay Humbard, Carolyn Baum, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.CNN is engaged in a systemtic lie to its audience and I’ve got all the evidence to show it. CNN altered its reporting about the Iran bombing and is not just refusing to acknowledge it left out key details, but is doubling down that its original reporting included the key details about the intelligence report being “low confidence.”CNN did not originally report the intelligence report was “low confidence,” but now its anchors and fact checkers insist that it did.CNN should apologize for its original reporting. Instead, it has chosen to gaslight its audience. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Even on Memorial Day, the news waits for no one. But also, I wanted to try a new set up in my home office so I figured I could use the Afternoon Briefing as an excuse to tinker. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I said something yesterday on my radio show that has stirred the pot and earned me unmitigated hate mail from all corners of the internet. I made a flipant comment that the coordinated coverup of Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline by Democrats and members of the media was worse than the events of January 6th. After careful consideration… I stand by… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

For all the hand-wringing over a so-called constitutional crisis, the reality is this: President Trump keeps winning at the Supreme Court. Time and again, progressive judges in the lower courts have tried to block the lawful exercise of presidential power—and time and again, the Supreme Court has struck them down. Whether it’s firing federal employees, deporting violent gang members, or declining to spend appropriated funds, the Court has affirmed the constitutionality of his actions.When you step back and look at the pattern, it becomes clear we’ve had this story backwards. The real constitutional crisis isn’t the president asserting his authority—it’s the coordinated obstruction by progressive judges who are actively working to undermine a democratically elected president and the constitutional powers entrusted to him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined me on radio to share that Senator Marco Rubio’s replacement will be named in the coming days. The Governor also commented on the urgency of calling a special session of the Florida legislature to expedite Trump’s deportation plans claiming, "This can't wait… People say it's premature. It's never premature to do the right thing." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

When Rush Limbaugh was guiding me through the early years of my radio career, he often warned that I should rarely have a guest on my show because talk radio is an intimate conversation between me and my audience. I have internalized this advice and, you will notice, rarely have guests on my show.The lone exception in recent months was today when Meta’s Joel Kaplan joined me. Joel is a former law clerk for Antonin Scalia and is now leading Meta’s efforts to reprioritize free speech on Facebook and Instagram. You need to hear this conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I don’t know Susie Wiles. I once blamed her for some of Trump’s bad endorsements and only later learned I was just being used by people who didn’t like her and had an ax to grind. It was a reminder of just how self-interested some people are. A lot of people see Donald Trump not so much as an advancement of policy interests, but an advancement of their own bottom line.To Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita’s credit, they have done a very good job of marginalizing those people and keeping Trump as focused as they can. Trump, an extrovert, chats with everybody and lots of people get into his head. Managing that alone can be difficult. Wiles and LaCivita took things to the next level and not only won, but won the popular vote. Sure, Trump gets the credit. But as someone who has run campaigns, the staff work magic.One of the difficulties, worth sharing, is that LaCivita was also the target of a hit job. The publication smeared him as getting rich off Trump. Lots of others have or have tried to. As Corey Lewandowski tried to reassert himself back into the campaign, curiously, more rumors about LaCivita spread. The allegation has been that Lewandowski, who I don’t think is a good person, was trying to undermine LaCivita’s role in the campaign. That effort ended on Election Night. It was LaCivita on stage, not Lewandowski. And now, thankfully, the two people who kept the grifters at bay will be there to continue helping Trump focus and keeping his supporters from being taken advantage of. The details matter, so listen to this from today’s show. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

After nearly a month of the American press corp doggedly covering President Biden, they have dutifully retreated to their partisan posts and resumed parroting Democratic talking points now that Harris has the nomination. When Republicans began pushing the failures of Harris’s time as Border Czar, USA Today, Time Magazine, CBS, and Axios (within hours of each other) quickly buried the story and published “fact checks” claiming that was never the role given to Harris. Except it was. In fact, Axios was the same outlet in 2021 that explicitly claimed Harris was Biden’s Border Czar and only yesterday corrected the story from three years ago. The blatantly obvious coordination between members of the press and the Democratic Party is a reminder of what Republicans are up against this November. Now that Biden has stepped aside, the American press is quite literally willing to rewrite history to ensure their team wins. As Charles Cooke said in National Review, “It sure was fun having a press corp for a month.” Watch: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

I am old enough to remember the media’s obsessive hatred of George W. Bush. Countless MSNBC hosts opened their nightly shows in the early 2000s with some reference to George W. Bush being Hitler while simultaneously being Dick Cheney’s puppet for Halliburton. While Barack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize for simply showing up, Bush was never given an ounce of credit for his PEPFAR program that saved the lives of millions of people from HIV in more than 50 countries around the world. One of the most interesting and consistent critiques of the GOP by the media was that the Republican Party should have gone with John McCain instead of Bush. They described McCain as a “maverick” Republican who wasn’t afraid of going after the far right and knew when to compromise with the Democrats. The media’s love of McCain abruptly halted in 2008 when McCain won the Republican nomination and faced off against Barack Obama in the general election. Immediately, McCain was deemed to be an aging, racist, war-mongering radical who had Hitler-like tendencies and was unfit to be President of the United States. The unvarnished attacks went so far as to include allegations that he continued to suffer from PTSD from his time as a prisoner of war and could potentially lead the country back into war. The media immediately went to war with Mitt Romney when he secured the Republican nomination in 2012 claiming he must be a racist homophobe because of his Mormon background. In addition, the media dug up trivial stories from Romney’s time in college and went so far as to claim that Romney put a dog on top of a car. But then came Donald Trump in 2016. Multiple hosts, including my friend Bill Mahar, admitted that they had sensationalized their attacks on previous Republicans and that this time, they were serious. The racist, sexist, bigoted, and homophobic claims they made against Bush, McCain, and Romney were largely symbolic, but this time they meant it. Donald Trump was a real-life bad guy despite their identical claims over the preceding decade. The American people heard these claims as the media’s version of the boy who cried wolf. Time after time, we were falsely warned that the Republican was a dictator, and only now does the media claim they are serious. The reality is the left is fine with dictators, so long as they are good progressives who abide by the laws of critical theory. Che Guevara operated as a dictator killing thousands of innocent people but did so in an equitable way through freedom fighting. Hamas waged a ‘freedom fighting” campaign on October 7th by raping women and killing the babies of their oppressors and are therefore heroes to the left. The critical theory lens that the left views society through complicates their view that democracy is on the ballot this November. Middle-American voters who would rather watch Sportscenter than the evening news see a Democratic Party obsessed with democracy but sympathizing with dictatorial actors around the globe. Meanwhile, their grocery bills are higher, crime is on the rise, and they see a world that is immensely less stable than just four years ago. But the media wants them to know that this time they are serious. This time the Democrats are right and democracy really is on the ballot. I just don’t think that message works. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

It is a remarkable turn of events for Donald Trump.The former President led the nation and much of the Western World to realize that the Chinese spy app TikTok threatens national security. During his tenure in office, Trump tried to bar TikTok’s operations in the United States because the company is, ultimately, owned by the Chinese Communist Party. There is copious evidence China uses the app to spy.Unfortunately, Trump left office before ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company, was forced to divest, and Biden walked it all back. But even Biden, despite his campaign embracing TikTok, has continued to prohibit TikTok on government phones and in government facilities. Multiple states now ban TikTok on government property and on government devices.Many of you believe your phones are listening to you. You have a conversation and suddenly see an ad on social media on your device for precisely what you were talking about. Imagine all those conversations flowing back to China.You think you don’t have anything to worry about. But get a new phone, not your current phone. Set up a new TikTok account that is unconnected to any information related to you and not on your home wifi. Now, watch how the algorithm starts feeding you anti-American propaganda, transgender propaganda, pro-Hamas propaganda, and anti-Semitic propaganda — TikTok isn’t just spying on you but is indoctrinating your children against American values.Just the other day, the government arrested 25 year old Sergeant Korbein Schultz from Texas for selling classified military intelligence to China. Schultz worked in Army Intelligence. Now, imagine your kid, ten years from now, getting a job in government. China has ten years’ worth of data on what your kid was secretly watching on the internet and engaging with on TikTok. They won’t need money to blackmail your kid.TikTok is a national security threat to the United States, and Donald Trump was right to raise the red flag about it and take action. On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 50-0 to force ByteDance to divest its control of TikTok to continue operating in the United States. When is the last time Congress agreed unanimously to anything other than naming a post office? That’s how big a deal this is.The bill does not ban TikTok. It has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with China using TikTok as a surveillance tool in the United States and as an app designed to poison our children. TikTok can operate, just not with Chinese control. Contrary to the spin against the legislation, this carefully drafted bipartisan legislation has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Chinese communist control of the app.Sadly, now Donald Trump is calling for Republicans to kill the legislation. In a Truth Social post, he claims it would only help Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Because Trump is still nursing grudges about 2020, he claims killing TikTok (which the legislation does not do) would enrich Meta.This is not only false, but in taking this stance, Trump is letting his emotional wrath trump national security. It is dangerous immaturity.And, for the record, Meta refuses to operate in China because it does not want China to have access to its servers. TikTok is controlled by China.It must also be noted that the members of Congress and conservative groups most vocally opposed to this legislation are all funded by financier Jeff Yass. Yass is a major investor in TikTok and is opposed to the legislation. He also leans Republican in his giving.Yass’s investment company, Susquehanna International Group, bet big on TikTok in 2012, buying a stake in parent company ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That translates into a personal stake for Yass of 7% in ByteDance. It is worth roughly $21 billion based on the company’s recent valuation, or much of his $28 billion net worth as gauged by Bloomberg.Whether because of a donor’s interests or his emotional grievances, Donald Trump trying to sabotage his legacy on national security is shameful and dangerous and, if a preview of what will come from a second term, is less than reassuring. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Union County, North Carolina is making headlines today because county leaders have finalized plans to ban fluoride in the drinking water. Despite every dentist in the county protesting the decision, county residents claim that since the CDC got COVID-19 wrong, they probably got fluoride wrong too. Even though fluoride has been in the drinking water since the 40s and offers well-documented protection against tooth decay, the facts don’t matter. Alex Jones said it turns the frogs gay and that carries infinitely more weight than the CDC to some people. Inevitably, they will next ban the paths of airplanes over Union County for fear of contracting chemtrails. While the Alex Jones clip is what made it famous, the anti-fluoride movement was started by rich liberals on the West Coast and slowly seeped into conspiratorial wings of the right. The conspiratorial movements like fluoride and MMR vaccines causing autism started on the left but were picked up and ultimately blamed on the right. While it’s fun to laugh at the idiocy of people who actually believe this stuff, I worry that this is the beginning of a return to the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages was a period that coincided with the fall of the Roman Empire when significant societal advancements were lost and culture moved backward. I think this may be happening again. One of the basic advancements that we take for granted is the eradication of polio thanks to the polio vaccine. This deadly disease that claimed the lives of countless children and rendered others paralyzed was practically eradicated thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk’s first vaccine used in 1955. But now, thanks to conspiratorial actors on the left and disseminated to the right, polio is on the rise again in this country and around the world. The people who have not lost their minds are fighting against the unknown. “There are no cases of smallpox so how do we know the vaccines work?” scream the conspiracists. “Kids don’t have significant tooth decay, so how can we be sure fluoride works?” they ask.I fear we are returning to a dark age because a growing number of Americans are willfully turning their backs on what works. For every doctor on the right who claims the MMR vaccine causes autism, a doctor on the left will advise you that it is medically beneficial to mutilate yourself if it means your sex and gender align. The bottom line is there are anti-truth movements on the left and the right but the progressive elite in this country are claiming their quacks are right. The progressives got so much wrong about COVID and now openly embrace the pseudoscience of transgenderism that the pseudoscience of the right is rearing its head now too. Both sides have doctors and scientists who tell each side what they want to hear, regardless of truth. Meanwhile, the government is failing at its basic responsibilities and seeding more distrust as its arrogant experts and elite use the discord to control. All of this is the product of a growing idolatry in the country, the worship of self by both sides.This doesn’t end well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

TRANSCRIPT: I may be destroying my career here. I might be, but if Michelle Obama does become the Democratic nominee for president, you can stop listening to me. I don't think it's going to happen for a lot of reasons, including the number of Democrats who really believed Joe Biden was going to be a one term president and behind the scenes are deeply resentful of him and also resentful of Obama for paving the way for Trump. They wouldn't stand for Michelle Obama, but it is neither here nor there.You should understand there are people online, on podcasts, online prognosticators, pundits, telegram groups, and the like who are pushing the idea and seeding it into people's minds that Michelle Obama — the Democrats are going to pull a bait and switch and make her the Democratic nominee. If that's the case, I don't believe it is, you can stop listening to me.But please, please for the love of God do me a favor. If she's not the nominee come November, please remember who told you she would be the nominee and unfollow them on social media.Delete their podcasts. Stop listening to them. This gets me to the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce thing. There's a huge rumor started that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, they're not actually dating. It's that it is a PSYOP campaign, psychological operation, by the Department of Defense or others to help Joe Biden. They're dating not because they're in a relationship or in love, but it's to help Joe Biden get elected. It's all about politics. It's all about Joe Biden.If you do believe this, you are the definition of a dumb ass. I just need you to know that and I'm sorry if that offends some of you with me saying that so bluntly, but you really are if you believe this. Here's the thing. Most of the people online selling you this bill of goods, and it is a hyper online affair, they don't actually believe it. They're hoping you do. It's not a coincidence some of the loudest voices about this conspiracy theory were the people in the QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy.They didn't actually believe it, but they hoped that some people would. In fact, some people did and showed up and tried to shoot up the place because of the conspiracy theory. They don't care about the fallout. They care about themselves and their power. It's a nihilism that's happening on the right. They don't care about the ends. They don't really even care about the means. They care about the giggles and the clout. They care about you talking about what they started.They care about getting into your mind and getting you to believe something. It's all about power for them in the same way critical theory is about power for the left. Now what's going on here? It's not a coincidence many of these are young men on the right who are social media influencers and they claim to be some sort of consultant to get people on social media. What happens is they talk about this stuff and other people then begin to talk about it and link at it saying, "Look at this idiot who believes this stuff."They don't care that they're being called an idiot. What they care about is you're linking back to them. Notice I'm not doing that. You are mentioning their name. Notice I'm not doing that. You are elevating their platform so they can then go to candidates and donors and say, "Look how influential I am. Look at all the people talking about me. Look at the impact that I'm having in the arena and write me a check. Give me a job." That's what this is about for them. They don't care about the fallout of it.They don't care that someone actually went to that pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, and tried to harm people. They don't care about that. They care about being able to get the influence. Therefore, they were able to get the political consulting contract. They got the donor to fund their cause because they're a social media influencer and they run people's social media accounts and look at all the attention they can get for you. You won’t be surprised to learn how many of them are also tied to Turning Point USA.Meanwhile, there are dumb people who live sheltered lives who fall for it and get taken advantage of. There are people who decide to do something about it and take action. They don't care about any of that. They don't care about you. They're willing to lie to you. Don't believe the lies. They themselves are awful people. They're terrible people who really should be shunned online. You should stop following them and stop listening to them and stop platforming them and stop elevating them.Put it to you this way. Taylor Swift is, now that Queen Elizabeth II is dead, the most popular woman on the planet. She's popular among Republicans. She's popular among Democrats. She's popular among everyone. The NFL is the most watched thing on television, and the Kansas City Chiefs games are some of the most watched NFL games because Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are in a relationship. Kelce is the most popular tight end in the NFL. He's very good at his job.Yo

Tim Alberta has a new book out about the American church in an age of extremism. Progressive atheist Rob Reiner has a new documentary out about the dangers of Christian nationalism. Some friends participated with both Tim’s book and Reiner’s documentary.I have other friends who are antagonists towards it all. Some proudly call themselves Christian Nationalists because it gets a rise out of all the right people. They are not, definitionally, in favor of passing laws barring anyone but orthodox Christians from seeking office, etc, but because the left gets worked up over the term, they’ll embrace it.Alberta, in writing his book, experienced awfulness at his dad’s funeral, where a member of the congregation harassed Alberta about politics. My wife, in 2016, told her Bible Study that she’d been diagnosed with cancer, and a woman told her that the woman would pray for my wife but wanted to hit me for not supporting Trump.People have let their politics get the best of them, and too many people are letting their politics shape their faith.But, concurrently, a prominent pastor friend of mine who passed away earlier this year had more than one conversation with me where he and I were concerned many of our friends were letting their critics radicalize them. This is a growing problem in American Christianity — a far bigger problem than Christian Nationalism. People are being radicalized by their antagonists. People are weaving their theological concerns and practical concerns within evangelicalism around how others have treated them.This is not just happening to those who now criticize evangelicalism from within. It’s also happening to those who criticize the critics. They want to rile them up. For a time, many of the pastors I talked with were concerned about people in their churches after George Floyd, insisting that the pastors needed to speak out about social justice. Now, I am far more likely to encounter pastors who are combatting congregants convinced that the pastor has gone woke if he is not denouncing social justice every Sunday. The merry online band of TheoBros see woke everywhere unless you’re explicitly against the wokes daily, and the merry online band of deconstructed evangelicals see Christian Nationalism everywhere unless you explicitly reject the GOP.The only religion that has a concept of grace has a lot of graceless people in it on both sides, convinced myopicly that only they are in the right. And a lot of that gracelessness comes from a sense of betrayal by others.While all these people are squabbling and writing and talking on camera and banging away on keyboards, tens of thousands of pastors are going to get up this morning and preach. Then, they will spend time with family and friends before going to make hospital rounds to pray for those ailing and dying members of their congregations. Tomorrow, most of them will get up and go to work their day jobs because the pulpit is a passion calling, but working at Walmart or driving a bus pays the bills.Remember, most pastors in the United States do not have the church as their full-time calling. If your church has a full-time pastor who does not work another job, you are in the minority.When the authors write the books, the talking heads talk to Rob Reiner, and the TheoBros fight back online about the meta conversations and actual conversations of evangelical problems, worries, fears, concerns, and creeping nationalism in the congregation, tens of thousands of pastors who will never be interviewed, known nationally, or write a best seller will divide their time between visiting wounded souls and preparing a message of hope in a fallen world.The national discourse has given too much airtime to the wounds, grievances, and gripes of those who now see problems in evangelicalism because of Trump and those who see no problems at all except with those they perceive as traitors, whiners, and “BigEva.”And on both sides of that divide, otherwise well-intentioned people with good hearts who think they mean well and who are friends of mine are using their platforms, pulpits, press releases, columns, and tweets to fight a fight that is not as big or loud in the world at large as it is in their sphere and, in fighting that fight, help everyone on all sides forget the invisible local shepherd of the local flock who will struggle this week to pay a bill before standing, for free, in a pulpit on Sunday to remind people that the world and Hell itself will not prevail against God’s kingdom.Perhaps we need fewer laments, fewer Rob Reiner documentaries, fewer TheoBros puffing chests and banging on keyboards, and more reminders of the small church pastor focused on doing the right thing without a spotlight on him.The aggrieved airing their grievances are putting the spotlight on themselves, convinced they’re performing a vital service correcting an error. Increasingly, it looks like chasing idols while we forget that within evangelicalism, the Holy Spirit still works wond

Now that we have had the DeSantis vs Newsom debate, Republican primary voters deserve the Nikki Haley vs Ron DeSantis conversation. I am formally inviting both of them to Atlanta to have this conversation moderated by me. Without the distractions of Vivek or an obnoxious audience, let’s have a conversation between these two candidates about the issues Republican primary voters care about.Each candidate separately sat on stage with me for nearly an hour at my conference in Atlanta this August. About 1,000 members of the audience and many more online listened to each of them answer a host of questions on a variety of topics. Each candidate knows me and knows I have no interest in gotcha questions but instead, want to give them both a chance to explain their differences to the voter. The data tells us the GOP is full of Trump-leery voters and the vast majority of the ones I speak with are on the fence between Haley and DeSantis. An open formatted opportunity like this would allow each candidate to clearly and succinctly explain to these undecided voters why they have earned their vote.Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Haley, I am deadly serious about this. Are you in? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama joined me to talk about his military holds in the Senate. President Biden says the senator’s holds risk military readiness. Members of the military say the military is ready. This is an attempt by the Biden Administration to deploy progressive social policy into the military, using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. Sadly, few Republicans are publicly standing by Senator Tuberville, but this is a fight worth having and we should all have his back. Take a listen to our conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

By request, this is my show open today. Happy Independence Day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Tim Keller has died. He has been battling pancreatic cancer. Two years ago, for Good Friday, he spoke to me about his fight with cancer, his faith, and about culture. You can hear the conversation above.I got to know Tim as a critic of his who discovered that much of what I heard about what Keller had said or written was vastly different from what Keller had actually said or written.He reached out to me. We struck up a mild friendship from afar, occasionally talking by phone or email with notes of encouragement to each as my wife struggles with lung cancer and he with pancreatic cancer.Over the past few years, a segment of evangelicals on social media took to criticizing a man who has led more people to Christ than all of them combined. Many of them had worked hard to push people away from Christendom through their cold hostility and lack of grace, while Keller, with his smile, worked hard, even through cancer, to bring people to Christ.Keller, a prominent pastor in New York, boldly took on both critical theory, writing one of the best pieces against it, and also the liberal church’s rejection of biblical sexuality. Only a few weeks ago, Keller opened himself to incoming fire from progressive theologians for rejecting trans-ideology.But Keller put Christ first. He loved others. He believed in engaging a world hostile to Christ and learning from those not of the church. He told me frankly that because everyone is made in God’s image that we have much to learn even from those who might reject God. He loved people. He loved the Lord.Tim Keller’s books have been read by millions, and his words have pulled so many to Christ.His race is now won. He is home. The other day he told his family he wanted to see Jesus. Now, he walks with the Lord.RIP. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

Riley Gaines is a 12-time All-American swimmer from the University of Kentucky who would much rather be in dental school than doing interviews with people like me on the radio. Instead, Gaines has been thrust into the national spotlight for having the courage to say that young women should not have to compete against men in sports or change in front of men in locker rooms. That is exactly what happened when the NCAA forced her to compete against transgender athlete Lia Thomas in a championship event. Just last week at a speaking engagement, Gaines was assaulted on stage and held hostage by trans radicalists at a university in San Francisco. If not for a police officer nearby, her situation could have been much worse. Take a moment and listen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe

This is a transcript of my radio monologue today in Charleston, South Carolina after the Nikki Haley event. You’ll want to hear this.If I sound a little different, it's because I'm actually in a hotel. I brought all my radio equipment over, and I am broadcasting live from the Charleston Place Hotel in downtown Charleston. My daughter and I were here for Nikki Haley's event, saw it about an hour and a half ago now, and ran back down to the hotel to get started on radio. Be patient with me if you're on the phones. It's going to be a little while before I can actually get my call screening software up and running. I had some issues with the hotel wifi in the room, but they're working on it.I want to talk about an issue that ties into all of these Republican presidential candidates running. I hope all of the Republican candidates take note of this important story. It has everything to Nikki Haley who just announced her presidential campaign here in Charleston just a little while ago. She spoke with passion about the American dream and her journey to launching a presidential campaign. The story is from Bloomberg News and is highlighted in The Show Notes. You need to see this. Let me just read you the beginning of this. The headline, just so you understand, is, "New Cars are Only for the Rich Now, as Automakers Rake in Profits.""With pandemic era chip shortages fading, manufacturers are keeping inventories low and prices high. The shift to EVs, electric vehicles, will make things worse. A shiny new car in the driveway has been an emblem of middle class prosperity for generations. But for the typical American family, it's now a distant Dream. The average monthly payment for a new car has soared to a record $777, nearly double from late 2019, according to Kelly Blue Book owner, Cox Automotive. That's almost a sixth of the median after-tax income for US households. Even used models have climbed to $544 a month on average. Keep in mind, yesterday's inflation report. Used cars are down about 11%. But that's still $544 a month on average."The sticker shock extends well beyond the United States where inflation is a thorny political issue for President Biden, as the 2024 election looms. In Europe, prices are flirting with records. Used car prices soared in Japan last year and in China. A rapid push to electric vehicles means consumers will have to pay more in some cities. At the root of the problem is automaker's new mantra, 'keep inventory lean and price tags fat.' Three years after the pandemic triggered a global shortage of semiconductor chips and crippled car manufacturing, Ford, General Motors, and their overseas rivals are notching big profits. And because electric vehicles cost about 25% more than the average car, the shift to plug-ins is about to make the affordability crisis even worse. Add soaring interest rates to the mix, and new cars are fast becoming the domain of the rich."Ladies and gentlemen, here is your Campaign 2024 issue. The Democrats have priced the middle class out of the American Dream. This should not be a partisan issue, but it is a partisan issue. Because the Democrats have so embraced climate extremists in this country, they think it is a good thing that the middle class must rely on public transportation or 10-year-old vehicles in order to get just to work, let alone carpool the kids. They think it is a good thing. They think it will force people into cities where they can more control our lives. They think it's better for the environment. They are ruining the American Dream for the middle class, not the poor. The poor have always largely been priced out of the automobile market, including the recently used automobile market. But for the middle class, they could at least get a recently used, a pre-owned vehicle, they call them.And for a lot of the middle class, particularly the upper middle class, they could get new vehicles. They can't do that anymore. You can't do that anymore. You are struggling to make ends meet because of inflation. Yes, it's the automakers who are doing it. Notice how Joe Biden blasts the big oil companies, but he doesn't blast the big auto manufacturers. Why is that? Unionization, perhaps? He doesn't go after them. The reason he doesn't go after them is because Joe Biden thinks it's a good thing.He said in the State of the Union, we'll only need oil and gas for about 10 more years. He said that. Joe Biden said that. That was one of his lines. He tried to defend it. It was rather indefensible, frankly. Joe Biden is pricing people out of the middle class, American Dream.Listen. This was what he said.The congressional reaction from the Republicans was appropriate for what he said despite the fact he tried to correct himself. But he said this consistently, for about 10 years, you all, we can't, there's not enough lithium. There was a report out the other day, there's not enough lithium.And right now, by the way, Politifact is coming after me for reporting a news article f

Live on my show today, I interviewed Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC). He is one of the twenty conservatives refusing to vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker.Earlier today, Fox News reported that Bishop would quit if McCarthy won. That isn’t true. Bishop talked about how that story came about, why he is holding out, and what his end game is.To get a true sense of what is going on, take time to listen to the congressman. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ewerickson.substack.com/subscribe