Erick Erickson, broadcasting from a hotel on assignment, tells listeners the midterm polling is bad but not as bad as the headlines, breaking down Steve Kornacki's NBC News poll on Hispanic voters (a 24 point Democratic lead on the generic ballot versus 22 points in 2022) and the cost of living and corruption problems dragging down Republicans. He then reports that James Talarico is now favored over Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race and that Paxton's campaign is being run from Washington, and he explains the fight between President Trump and Senator Tom Cotton over permanent daylight saving time.

• Steve Kornacki and Meet the Press: the NBC News poll of Latino voters, the 24 point generic ballot lead for Democrats versus 22 points in 2022, Trump approval with Hispanic voters, and why Erick says the GOP has held a 10 to 15 point gain
• Midterm issues: cost of living, jobs and the economy, and corruption as the number two issue, plus a CBS News Battleground Tracker poll showing Democrats winning the House if the election were held today
• Texas Senate race: James Talarico leads Ken Paxton, leaked audio of Paxton complaining his campaign is run from Washington, billionaire donors who say they were never called, and Angela Paxton's vote Republican ad
• Trump, Tom Cotton, and permanent daylight saving time: the president posts Cotton's personal cell number on Truth Social, Cotton's school bus and standard time arguments, and Erick's text exchange with the senator
• Senate map and Erick's contrarian take: Republicans keep the Senate while losing the House, with Michigan, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas in play, plus the Not Safe for Radio Show at Gas South Theater this Saturday and an aborted takeoff story

Erick Erickson reacts to Southern Baptist Convention president Willy Rice telling Fox News that Christians need to step up in politics, and argues that believers cannot play team sport for the Republican Party while corruption is the number two issue for voters. Using the book of Lamentations, the Psalm 51 repentance of King David, and the 2000 Bush election and PEPFAR, he makes the case that Christians can be a prophetic voice to both parties, and that sitting out a race like Ken Paxton's Texas Senate contest can be a vote for better. A Braves upset of the Dodgers, a candidate quality warning for Mike Collins in Georgia and Max Miller in Ohio, and a Siberian plague rumor round out the hour.

• Willy Rice and the Southern Baptist Convention: the SBC president tells Fox News that abortion, gender identity, marriage, and immigration are theological issues, and Erick asks where the Southern Baptist voice is on corruption and on the humane treatment of illegal immigrants being deported
• Corruption and the Trump family: why corruption is the number two midterm issue, taxpayer funded ads recycled from 2024 campaign videos, a possible blanket pardon, and the administration asking DOJ and HHS to hold off on mifepristone restrictions until after the midterms
• Lamentations and King David: Erick teaches the book of Lamentations (steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, Jeremiah, Babylon, the fall of Jerusalem) and Psalm 51 to explain why Christians must hold their own side accountable as the prophet Nathan did
• Caller Steve and Ken Paxton: the lesser of two evils debate, the 2000 George W. Bush election decided by 537 votes, PEPFAR and adoption reform, why Paxton may lose Texas after paying restitution, and why loyalty to Trump in primaries is wiping out electability in Georgia (Mike Collins), Ohio (Max Miller), and Washington (Joe Kent)
• Braves upset the Dodgers behind a former 7-Eleven employee and a 21 year old rookie, a plague scare in Siberia after Russia lost a saint's bones, and ad reads for Rinnai tankless water heaters, Vision Computers, and American Financing

Erick Erickson opens with breaking news that the US has cleared Iraqi airspace for Israeli aircraft after pulling American troops out of Iraq, as armed skirmishes spread inside Iran, oil falls to $100 Brent, and B-1 bombers leave RAF Fairford after a foiled terror plot. He argues the carrier group and 10,000 Marines headed to the Middle East are there to contain a destabilization campaign, then pushes back on Nate Silver's call that Georgia's governor's mansion flips, with Rick Jackson, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Jon Ossoff in the mix. The hour also covers the Supreme Court's new term, Justice Samuel Alito, a University Heights, Ohio prayer meeting case, birthright citizenship, and the Cornell fraternity case.

• Iraqi airspace, Israel, and Iran: the US withdrawal from Iraq, Israeli access to Iranian airspace, armed skirmishes across Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el Mandeb, Houthi positions, and Erick's theory that a destabilization campaign is underway
• RAF Fairford and the Pentagon: 12 B-1 bombers moved home to Ellsworth Air Force Base after a foiled terror attack, Marco Rubio's spin, a Washington Post report on Operation Rough Rider and munitions shortages, and officers leaking to reporters because they fear talking to Congress
• Georgia politics: Nate Silver's forecast that the governor's race flips for the first time since 2002, Rick Jackson versus Keisha Lance Bottoms, Jon Ossoff crushing Mike Collins, split ticket voting, and Raphael Warnock's absence from the campaign trail
• Supreme Court: Boulder, Colorado's climate case, Justice Samuel Alito's interviews on originalism and the leaked Dobbs draft, the University Heights, Ohio prayer meeting case, and why Clarence Thomas's birthright citizenship dissent matters for a birth tourism ban
• Culture and news: Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times tying the Cornell fraternity case to President Trump, the Gaza genocide claim, and ad reads for Cozy Earth, Perfectly Snug, and Vision Computers

The G7 plans to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude as oil prices decline. Weak U.S. hiring, an update on Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike, and Republican campaign spending shifts round out the October 2 news.

1. G7 Oil Release and Iran Export Blockade

The planned release aims to stabilize prices, with Brent crude briefly falling below $100 before moving back above that level. The United States has blocked an arrangement to move Iranian oil through Iraq to Pakistan. Reports of military skirmishes inside Iran continue as its economy deteriorates.

2. U.S. Adds 29,000 Jobs as Wages Lag Inflation

Unemployment has edged up to 4.2%, with companies holding back on hiring. Inflation has risen four-tenths of a point while wages have risen one-tenth. Economists point to uncertainty over the president's changing tariffs as one reason companies are struggling to budget for wages.

3. Christa Pike Unconscious After Execution Attempt

Pike remains unconscious and on a ventilator after Tennessee's lethal injection attempt. Her lawyers describe what happened as torture. Pike and her boyfriend tortured and murdered a 19-year-old woman.

4. GOP Redirects Campaign Spending to Kansas

Republicans are increasing support for Roger Marshall in Kansas while cutting spending in North Carolina and most major funding in Georgia. Ossoff continues to lead Collins in Georgia polling. Additional spending for Paxton in Texas and a new advertising commitment from Bottoms in Georgia also feature in the campaign picture.

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Erick Erickson opens Open Line Friday with a sweeping history of social contagion, from the 1518 Strasbourg dancing plague and the Salem witch trials to the McMartin preschool panic, then connects it to new data showing LGBTQ identification among kids in free fall and J.K. Rowling's take on the trans fad. He also reports that oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz has topped pre-war levels for seven straight days and takes calls on sanctuary cities, the Arizona immigration case, and CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.

• Social contagion history: Strasbourg dancing plague, tarantism, Salem, tulip mania, the Werther effect, Mattoon gas attacker, McMartin preschool, LeRoy Tourette's cluster
• New data on the collapse of kids identifying as trans, J.K. Rowling's post, detransitioners, and the rise and fall of transition surgeries
• Strait of Hormuz oil flow above pre-war levels, Brent crude near $100, Iran economy in free fall, and Erick's credit to President Trump
• Open Line Friday calls: why sanctuary cities and states are legal, the Arizona immigration ruling, the 1984 drinking age and Louisiana highway funds lesson
• CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Erick's view on Islam and the West, plus Not Safe for Radio Show tickets for October 10 in Duluth, Georgia, Hunga Tonga rain, and the Braves

Erick Erickson takes on a New York Times report that Anthropic quietly hosted religious scholars under nondisclosure agreements to discuss AI consciousness and Claude's moral status, and that the company reportedly considered pulling out of a Vatican launch event for Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI. Erick argues theologically that AI is a math equation that cannot have a soul, then takes Open Line Friday calls on the failed Tennessee execution of Christa Pike, the death penalty, and who funds American mosques, from the North American Islamic Trust to the Muslim Brotherhood.

• Anthropic and AI consciousness: the New York Times report on private meetings with religious thinkers, Chris Olah, Claude's alleged moral status, and Erick's case that a word generator and math equation cannot have a soul (the Genesis bara argument)
• Pope Leo XIV encyclical on AI: Anthropic's reported push to pull out of the Vatican event, why none of the participants lead a congregation, and caller Adam's view that AI is just a tool like a socket wrench, plus Mark Zuckerberg's far humbler AI pitch
• Christa Pike and the death penalty: Tennessee's failed lethal injection, her lawyers' torture claim, Erick's disagreement with the Pope on pro-life and capital punishment, Marsha Blackburn's electric chair push, and the Noah covenant
• Mosques, the Muslim Brotherhood, and intersectionality: the North American Islamic Trust, the Holy Land Foundation case, Qatar and Saudi funding, Michael Youssef's book The Unholy Alliance, and Erick's warning about the right-wing woke in JD Vance's orbit
• Open Line Friday fun: slow left lane drivers and Sheriff Tyler Hooks of Morgan County, Georgia, gas pump pet peeves, New Way Lunch chili dogs in Macon, and Erick's Pine Tree golf putt with Van Allen Golf

Erick Erickson wrestles with the Cornell Seven fraternity case, arguing that society cannot prosecute bad or immoral behavior, only crimes, and walks through New York consent law, the Duke lacrosse case, the University of Virginia fraternity hoax, and the Lindsay Clancy insanity verdict. He also reports that national Republicans are pulling money from Michael Whatley in North Carolina and Mike Collins against Jon Ossoff in Georgia to save Ken Paxton in Texas, then takes Open Line Friday calls on Mecca versus Medina Muslims, football season, and President Trump's Oklahoma stop with Kevin Hern.

• Cornell Seven fraternity lawsuit: the civil suit and reopened prosecution, the wrongly named Marine served in error, New York consent and revocation law, ex post facto limits, and Erick's case that you prosecute crimes, not bad things
• Cautionary history: the Duke lacrosse case, the University of Virginia fraternity allegations, Nancy Grace, and why social outrage and media mobs should not drive prosecutions
• Lindsay Clancy verdict: Massachusetts' unique burden on prosecutors to prove sanity and what jurors said afterward
• Georgia and North Carolina Senate races: national Republicans pull money from Michael Whatley against Roy Cooper and Mike Collins against Jon Ossoff to fund Ken Paxton in Texas, and Erick's I told you so
• Open Line Friday calls: Mecca versus Medina in the Quran, women and men bearing responsibility in the Cornell case, false allegations like the Dodgers player, Panthers hockey, football season, Trump and Kevin Hern in Oklahoma, and the car loan interest deduction

Erick Erickson opens with a blunt monologue on the Gaza genocide narrative and the violence it keeps inspiring, from a thwarted mass shooting plot at the Texas State Capitol in Austin to the Boulder attack and the Pennsylvania governor's mansion arson. Then he covers the botched Christa Pike execution in Tennessee and digs into the 2026 Senate midterms, with Harry Enten's polling data, James Talarico, Ken Paxton, Susan Collins, and why polls keep oversampling Democrats.

• The Gaza genocide claim, the foiled Texas Capitol shooting plot, and the media's refusal to push back
• Rising antisemitism on the left and the right, and the threats Erick still gets for calling out white nationalists
• Christa Pike's botched lethal injection in Tennessee, the all-female execution team, and the governor's pause on executions
• 2026 Senate midterms: Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Maine, and why Republicans likely hold the Senate while losing the House
• Harry Enten on polling misses, why polls oversample Democrats, and the Ken Paxton versus James Talarico race in Texas

Erick Erickson opens with Senate Democrats killing the Stop Insider Trading Act and the Ratepayer Protection Act after both passed the House, then explains why the prepaid absentee ballot request forms in your mailbox are not ballots and how progressive groups use data brokers to target voters. He covers the deadly I-95 fog pileup over Lake Marion in South Carolina, the Flydubai hijacking and the hero pilot who saved the plane, the RAF Fairford terror arrests in the UK, and the left's political religion, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

• Senate Democrats kill the Stop Insider Trading Act and the Ratepayer Protection Act (passed the House 417 to 3), with Jon Ossoff voting to block, and why Congress campaigns on issues instead of solving them
• Absentee ballot request forms versus real absentee ballots: why prepaid return envelopes signal a request form, which states offer prepaid ballots, and how progressive groups track barcodes and ballot harvesting
• Mass casualty fog pileup on I-95 near Santee and Lake Marion, South Carolina, with Orangeburg County crews extracting victims by hand
• Flydubai hijacking: the Omani co-pilot's radical Islamist indoctrination, the stabbed pilot who opened the cockpit door, and Netanyahu and Modi praising a real hero
• RAF Fairford terror investigation: a UK and Iran dual national arrested in Westminster, radical Islam in US mosques, an imam facing deportation in Wisconsin, and Muslim missionaries harassing black churches in Michigan as Abdul El-Sayed runs