Erick Erickson takes apart Abdul El-Sayed's disastrous Jesse Watters interview on Fox News, the Hassan Piker problem now swallowing his Michigan Senate campaign, and why the overwhelmingly white Democratic Socialists of America keep recruiting non-white candidates who cannot stop talking. Then the breaking story of the day: CIA Director John Ratcliffe lands unannounced in Moscow after flying in from Riga, and Erick explains why the most pro-Ukraine official in the Trump administration was the one sent to tell Vladimir Putin that NATO is not going anywhere. Plus Target's Halloween costume apology and the Big Ten shutting the door on NFL washouts.

• Abdul El-Sayed vs. Jesse Watters: circumcision, reparations, ICE, and a Democratic strategist admitting the party likes its odds in Texas better than Michigan
• The Hassan Piker problem: Politico's playbook lead, El-Sayed's statement on Jewish safety, and his refusal to condemn Piker by name
• Inside the Democratic Socialists of America: college educated, white, downwardly mobile, and coveting, with intersectionality and allyship as the recruiting tool
• John Ratcliffe's unannounced Moscow trip, the pause in Ukrainian strikes, and Russia touching the wires like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park across Poland, the Baltics, and Scandinavia
• Why Putin covets Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, plus Target's blackface-looking Halloween costume apology and the Big Ten banning NFL players from returning to college

Erick Erickson confesses he has been an original, card-carrying Canada hater since a French teacher at his school in Dubai told the class that real Americans should call themselves "United Statesians," then turns hard on President Trump for launching a trade war with America's largest trading partner 70 days before the midterms, explaining that the entire trade deficit with Canada is heavy crude oil and lumber and that Howard Lutnick reportedly blew up a finished deal from trade representative Jamieson Greer. Then Erick, an elections lawyer by trade, cuts through the panic over the Supreme Court and Trump's mail-in ballot executive order, showing that all the Court allowed was Homeland Security and the Postal Service to build citizenship lists while the lower court injunction blocking enforcement stays fully in place. The hour ends with breaking news from Variety that Dolly Parton has died at 80.

Topics:

• Why the U.S. trade deficit with Canada is really about oil: American fracking produces light sweet crude our heavy crude refineries cannot process, so we import Canadian oil and now gas prices go up
• Howard Lutnick blows up the Jamieson Greer trade deal per the New York Times, Steve Moore concedes on Fox that the pain is not worth the gain, and Trump spends the day trying to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America"
• Canadian lumber, electricity, and the housing affordability crisis, plus the political cost to Mike Rogers in Michigan and Susan Collins in Maine 70 days before the midterms
• What the Supreme Court actually ruled on the mail-in ballot executive order: DHS and USPS may compile lists, but the injunction barring the Postal Service from blocking absentee ballots was never touched
• Erick's elections-lawyer verdict: Article 1, Section 4 gives the president no role whatsoever in election law, and why American federalism is exactly why China's much-hyped election-shaping AI got the swing states wrong

Erick Erickson plays the Parton family's official video announcement from Brian Seaver, Dolly's longtime head of security and the son of Cassie Parton, and then spends the hour on the life of Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean, dead at 80, reunited with her husband Carl Dean, the woman who wrote "I Will Always Love You," "Jolene," and "Coat of Many Colors," sold more than 100 million records, played nine instruments, and quietly gave away books and money for decades. Erick calls her the last American icon everyone loved regardless of politics, and warns that the demons Jesus cast into the pigs eventually invented social media, so the haters are coming. Then a rare guest: National Federation of Independent Business president Brad Close joins Erick to explain why Obamacare made it nearly impossible for small employers to insure their people, and a caller from Jacksonville gets an elections-lawyer answer on mail-in ballots and non-citizen voting.

• Brian Seaver's family announcement, the plush cotton bed Dolly asked for, and Erick's favorite story: Dolly Parton entering a drag queen Dolly Parton look-alike contest and losing
• The staggering resume: 26 number one Billboard country singles, 110 charted singles, 3,000 songs written, 11 Grammys, 55 Grammy nominations, an asteroid, "9 to 5," "Steel Magnolias," the Imagination Library, and the Dolly Parton travel stops built to take on Buc-ee's
• Wikipedia crashes as Dolly's entry becomes the most read page in the world, plus the Trio cut of "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow Tree" with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris
• NFIB president Brad Close on small business health care: coverage fell from half of small employers to about a third after Obamacare, why multi-employer pools are strangled by regulation, and the case for HSAs and buying insurance across state lines
• The beneficial ownership reporting rule killed by the Trump administration, the $120 billion in compliance costs saved, and why Congress still has to repeal the law, plus caller Dave in Jacksonville on whether the Postal Service can be charged with mail fraud for delivering ballots to non-citizens

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent takes to the Financial Times to declare an "economic D-Day" against Iran, promising secondary sanctions on every nation, bank, and shadow fleet propping up Tehran, with China the name he pointedly never writes. Erick Erickson explains why none of it is possible without the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and why Vice President JD Vance's push to abandon that status would hand the world to China, Russia, and Iran. Then the story swallowing the news cycle instead: Donald Trump's 50% tariff threat against Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney refusing to wait and firing back the day after Labor Day, Jamieson Greer's version of the collapse, and Argentine beef versus furious American ranchers.

• Scott Bessent's Financial Times op-ed, the Tehran conference framing, Pascal's wager, and the 1 p.m. Treasury announcement broadening secondary sanctions
• Why the reserve currency is the whole weapon, and why JD Vance's worldview would leave America helpless against Iran and its allies
• Trump's Canada tariff post, the January 1, 2027 delay, and why Mark Carney is retaliating on $20 billion of US goods right before the midterms
• The Alberta secession myth, Canadian median income versus Mississippi, and the lumber and steel squeeze on American homebuilding
• Argentine beef imports, the smallest US cattle herd since World War II, and Jamieson Greer on CNBC blaming Canada for a fight Trump's tariffs started

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent goes live to open the sanctions campaign against Iran, with OFAC hitting more than 60 entities, individuals, and vessels, new sectoral determinations on digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping, a promise that every branch of Bank Melli goes dark, and a hint that a major financial institution gets sanctioned by the end of the week. Erick Erickson translates it (the UAE and Dubai have already cut Iran off, and China will tell us to pound sand), then laughs at the San Diego City Council opening its meeting with a Kumeyaay Nation land acknowledgment and takes a caller from Dayton, Ohio on Canada, Ohio HR 194, and a Charter of Rights whose freedoms are subject to "reasonable limits." The hour's centerpiece is a full accounting of why Americans no longer trust the people asking them to accept Flock cameras and data centers, told through sand dumped in skate parks, an arrested paddle boarder, and five years of experts who lied.

• Scott Bessent's live Treasury press conference: secondary sanctions, OFAC sanctioning more than 60 entities, individuals, and vessels, Bank Melli shuttered, a deliberate cure period rather than an immediate hammer, and a hint at a big bank by week's end
• Why the UAE and Dubai closing the Iranian crypto and oil laundering route matters, why Erick Erickson expects China to refuse, and Bessent's swipe at Mark Carney when a reporter asked about Canada
• The San Diego City Council's Kumeyaay Nation land acknowledgment, plus Amanda in Dayton, Ohio on Ohio HR 194, the push to add Canada to the Religious Freedom Special Watch List, and pastors jailed under the Charter's "reasonable limits" clause
• The trust monologue: San Clemente's sand filled skate park, the arrested paddle boarder, unbolted basketball rims, Gavin Newsom at the French Laundry, Brian Kemp and The Atlantic's "experiment in human sacrifice," Chris and Andrew Cuomo, Daniel Uhlfelder's grim reaper, Rachel Maddow's vaccine promise, the Wuhan lab emails, and the Hunter Biden laptop
• Why Erick still backs Flock cameras and data centers with restrictions and a facial recognition ban, why the 2000 Mules retraction and the Mark Andrews settlement prove character is not a partisan issue, and why Delta, Coca-Cola, Amazon, and JP Morgan taught Americans to fear AI

1. New Economic Pressure on Iran
   The Trump administration is threatening secondary sanctions against China, banks, and other entities accused of helping Iran evade economic restrictions. 

2. Canada Prepares a Tariff Counterattack
   Prime Minister Mark Carney's planned tariffs could raise prices for Americans and influence the midterm elections. Canadian officials are also discussing action involving oil, electricity, water, and other resources.

3. South Carolina's Republican Runoff
   Ralph Norman faces Darline Graham in a runoff that could be decided by Republican base turnout. Erick explains why polling trends and South Carolina's runoff history may favor Norman.

4. A Difficult ICE Deportation Case
   The reported detention of Luis Manuel Aviles, whose son served aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, is raising questions about immigration enforcement. Republicans must consider how cases like this could affect public opinion and the midterms.

Text ERICK to 33-777 for "Show Notes" and to stay updated on all things Erick Erickson.

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Stay grounded, stay informed, and keep the faith.

Erick Erickson opens on the Georgia governor's race, where Keisha Lance Bottoms, running against his friend Rick Jackson, told a C-SPAN audience she was proud to end Atlanta's multimillion dollar agreement with ICE because "all money ain't good money," and Erick answers with Laken Riley and with a 29 year old named Ramon Harris stabbed to death on the Atlanta Beltline by Jonathan Hamby, a man arrested more than thirty times since 2011 and turned loose every time. That becomes the hour's argument: three strikes laws, reopened mental institutions, and a hard rewriting of what loving your neighbor actually requires. Then the Iran block, with Scott Bessent's economic D-Day, the Strait of Hormuz dark fleet data, and the Straits of Malacca chokepoint the United States and Indonesia are now closing on China.

• Keisha Lance Bottoms on C-SPAN bragging about ending Atlanta's ICE agreement, Rick Jackson, the 2020 sacking of Atlanta, Laken Riley, and Athens, Georgia operating as a sanctuary city while denying it
• The Atlanta Beltline murder of Ramon Harris by Jonathan Hamby, thirty plus arrests since 2011, charges dismissed, suspended, and reduced to time served, and Erick Erickson's case for three strikes laws, no parole, no pardon, and reviving forced mental health commitment
• Why 2 percent of the population commits almost all the crime, and why turning a mentally ill man loose thirty times was not loving to Jonathan Hamby, to Ramon Harris, or to anyone else
• Flock cameras under fire in Bloomingdale, Illinois and Kenosha County, Wisconsin, a million crimes solved against seventy breaches of trust, the real meaning of the Ben Franklin quote, and Erick's terms: keep the cameras, ban facial recognition, jail the cops who abuse them
• Iran's ghost fleet mapped: tankers stacked off Singapore and Mumbai, the new United States and Indonesia deal over the Straits of Malacca and Timor, Kpler data showing more than 80 percent of Hormuz oil traffic going dark, Trey Yingst on Fox, Scott Bessent promising China is not exempt, the UAE and Dubai closing the dirham and crypto backdoor, and whether Tehran shoots first
• Abdul El-Sayed telling an interviewer that American collateral damage and rule breaking help explain terrorism, and Erick Erickson's blunt verdict on it

1. Supreme Court Clears Trump Ballroom Construction
   The Chief Justice allows President Donald Trump to continue building a White House ballroom while a legal challenge moves forward. The decision suggests opponents face a difficult path toward stopping construction.

2. Beef Imports and Tariff Relief Could Lower Prices
   The White House expands access to foreign beef while removing the 25 percent tariff that helped drive up consumer prices. The policy change offers another reminder that tariffs ultimately raise costs for American families.

3. Texas Court Cuts Alex Jones Sandy Hook Judgment
   A Texas appeals court reduces a $50 million judgment against Alex Jones to $6 million under the state's limits on punitive damages. Jones still faces more than $1 billion in liability from a separate Connecticut judgment.

4. China Threatens Rare Earth Supply Over Iran Sanctions
   Beijing threatens American access to rare earth minerals as Washington tightens sanctions on Iranian oil. The confrontation underscores the urgent need for the United States and its allies to build supply chains independent of China.

Text ERICK to 33-777 for "Show Notes" and to stay updated on all things Erick Erickson.

www.erickerickson.com

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Stay grounded, stay informed, and keep the faith.

Erick Erickson opens Open Line Friday with Isaac Newton's laws of motion and argues that American politics now runs on the third one: every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, and nothing is left to slow either side down. He reads The Economist's warning that superintelligent AI with legal rights could turn humans into "labradors for the machines," calls it nonsense from Silicon Valley weirdos who do not believe in God and think they can build one, and tells the story of ChatGPT refusing to help him cut a lock off his own office door while Claude just told him where to saw. Then the backlash roll call: the Toronto Tempo's non-binary she/they snapping turtle mascot, Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins resigning after 11 years over spiked columns featuring female athletes, the European hunt for everyone who exposed Jason Arday, Flock cameras being chopped down, and the data center revolt. The hour closes with the fiscal argument of the day: with a guaranteed five to six percent return in the government bucket, nobody has a reason to put a dollar in the private sector bucket, which is exactly why Scott Bessent is wrong that we can grow our way out of the debt.

Topics:

• Newton's three laws applied to politics: the AI backlash, the transgender backlash, and why no intervening force exists when both parties profit from the crisis
• The Economist on giving AI legal rights, humans as pets, and Erick's rebuttal that a large language model is a random probability machine, not a sentient one
• The Toronto Tempo's Des and Dot, a Borealis blue non-binary she/they snapping turtle mascot for a women's league that cannot define a woman
• Matt Calkins quits the Seattle Times over female student athletes, and the European campaign to fire everyone who exposed Cambridge plagiarist Jason Arday
• The government bucket versus the private sector bucket: guaranteed returns, bond issuance crowding out private investment, and why Scott Bessent's growth answer does not work
• Confiscating every American billionaire's $8.3 trillion would fund one year of a $7.4 trillion government, and San Francisco Democrats now oppose California's wealth tax
• The Republican turn to "the common good," Rush Limbaugh on why you cannot beat the real thing, and the case for shrinking Washington instead
• Trump's Education Department moves to strip the American Bar Association of law school accreditation power
• Congress still forces the Federal Reserve to file an annual report on a presidential dollar coin that stopped being minted in 2011