S15 EP46: Hour 1 - War And Narrative

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Welcome to the Eric Erickson Show Podcast, our one. Hang on, hang on. Yep, there it is,

there it is. Greetings and welcome, it is Eric Erickson here across the

United States, where the Dow is up 150 points right now, S&P up 15, NASDAQ up

93. Wait a second, wait a second, did you know that oil is down 10.74% right

now. It's $84.59 a barrel. Have you heard that? Of course you haven't, because

the American median, the Democratic Party is rooting for disaster in Iran. I

can only think they want the American military wiped out in Iran, so they can

gloat and blame Donald Trump. The relentless negativity of the narrative about

what's happening in Iran right now, Mark Pinn, who was the poster for Hillary

Clinton pointed this out. The headlines right now are the Iran regime is in

control. Trump is under pressure to end the war. Come any sun, justice, toughest

of father, U.S. responsible for missile strike on school. By the way, which is

being contested, you should know. Have you heard that we've sunk the Iranian

Navy? 50 of their ships sunk. The Iranian Air Force wiped out. The Iranian

military assets ruthlessly destroyed or buried under rubble. The Iranian

leadership, there is internal chaos. There is a struggle happening now between

the Iranian Army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Kamini machine

has brought on a hereditary theocracy, which it's not supposed to do, causing

turmoil within the mullahs. The progress of the war planning is unprecedented.

Have you heard any of that? No. What you've heard is we killed a bunch of

schoolgirls and the media. This is the same media that said Renee Good did not

hit a border patrol agent when she did. They're now saying it was absolutely an

American missile that's actually in dispute even Iranian witnesses from the

ground who recorded it, said that looked to them like it was a misfire to

the Iranian missile. The Iranian regime is being pummeled. You know what, by

the way, you know what some of the spin is, what the media is believing now is

that Iran is holding back. It hasn't really thrown a punch yet. It's been pulling

its punches any day now. They're going to launch the big guns. They're going to

surprise and dazzle with displays of technology unprecedented. It's

impossible that they are losing this campaign. I cannot believe what I'm

watching. On CNN today, if you get the show notes, you'll see this. We put it

in there. I want to read for you the opening of the CNN story about the two

Islamic terrorists in New York City. I am not making this up. This is how the

story opened at CNN. Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City

Saturday morning for what could have been a normal day, enjoying the city

during that normally warm weather. But in less than an hour, their lives would

dramatically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs

during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zoran Mandani's house. Here's

what we know so far. You got that two Pennsylvania teenagers

crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could have been a normal

day enjoying the city during that normally warm weather.

By the way, I want to read for you the biography of the person who wrote that

piece for CNN. This also is in the show notes today because you need to know who

the person is who wrote it. The person who wrote it is Taylor Roman.

Taylor Roman at CNN is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism who uses

they them pronouns. And this is what Taylor Roman wrote about herself.

Taylor Roman is a journalist studying at Columbia University graduate school of journalism.

They have previously worked at KPFA Pacifica Radio, left-wing public radio,

the daily Californian and listed local San Diego writing about a range of topics from

music reviews to city politics. They hold a BA in media studies and a BA in gender and women's

studies from University, California, Berkeley. They are passionate about politics, music,

and investigative journalism. And she, not today unless she skits a Frinnick,

wrote two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning

for what could have been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.

But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested

for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest.

By the way, the way the whole opening story reads, it makes it sound like the two terrorists were

throwing it at the Muslims. And maybe at the mayor, no, they were Islamic terrorists.

Can you imagine this they them writing about Ted Kaczynski?

Awarded a scholarship at 15 to a prestigious mathematics institute. He moved to Idaho to the

rural mountain country where warm in the cabin and cold outside, it would take a dramatic turn for

his life when he was one day arrested for being the freaking Unabomber. This girl is probably

going to be promoted at CNN over time, I bet. This is why the network has gotten dreadful.

The only network that has a, is allowed to have a reporter inside Iran is the one publishing

this nonsense. And CNN wants you to know they maintain full editorial control over their

reporter and they set it no doubt at gunpoint by the Iranian authorities, which couldn't see

behind the camera. The relentless negativity of the media and the Democrats towards this operation

when our men and women in uniform are exceeding all expectations.

There's an entire propaganda campaign by the American Press Corps to denounce what's happening,

to make what's happening terrible, to play up the president's obfuscations. Do you know why the

president of the United States has played obfuscations? Do you know why the president did not barnstorm

the country to try to build support for this military operation? Because if he did the Iranians

would have bunker down and hit their missile launchers. The president did not spin two months

building the case for war so that Iran did not have time to prepare for war. He had Steve

Whitcock negotiating with him up until 12 hours before we killed the Ayatollah.

And the media's like, oh, we don't know what the for what is the in game. Do you really,

do you idiots think the president of the United States is going to stand there and just give you

the in game for the operation? He sent like five or six signals out about what he wants,

all of which are totally contradictory. And the Iranians are like, I don't want to cry.

They have no idea what to do other than they're now saying there will be no negotiations. Okay,

we will bomb the snot out of you. The relentless, relentless negativity of the American press

corps when our soldiers, sailors, and airmen and Marines are doing a wonderful job. Maybe we even

have special operators in the country. The president says he doesn't want to send people there.

And I understand that. It probably would help to have some coordination on the ground with the

rebels that we're supporting. I'm just flabbergasted. There is great success on the ground.

We know that the Iranians have activated sleeper cells who may be gearing up for something and

the Democrats, they won't even fire up the Homeland Security operations.

It's just wild to see this. In fact, I want to play for you some audio from MS now.

Oh, where did I put this? Bear with me actually. Let me jump first. I want to go to Max Boot while

I find this clip because Max Boot is a man who for a decade wanted to overthrow the Iranian regime.

Max Boot is a man who for years said we needed to get rid of Iran and listen to him on MS now,

which is operating as a propaganda network for the Iranian regime. I think we just don't know enough

about the power structure in Iran to know how things will play out and what's true today may not

be true in the near future. I think it's a fluid situation, but it's clear that other figures

are in the regime like Al Rajani and others exercise considerable power. We'll see how much

power the new Supreme Leader can accumulate, but whatever happens, this is clearly a review

of President Trump, who was claiming that he was going to select the new leader. Obviously,

this is not the person that Trump would have selected. What it indicates is that you have

regime continuity, and you have a hard liner who in some ways could very well turn out to be

even more threatening than his father, because remember for all the terrible things that I

told Hamini his father did, he never pressed forward with Iran's nuclear program, but it could

very well be the case that if Iran still retains their highly enriched uranium after this conflict

and the capability to weaponize it, that the new Iathella could very well proceed to do that,

because he's seen that the lack of a nuclear weapon has allowed Iran's enemies to attack it with

impunity. So this is a man who for years said you can't believe the Iranians when they say they're

not working on their nuclear arsenal, that they absolutely were behind the scenes working on their

nuclear arsenal. Now he's suddenly like, oh, his dad never actually did a nuke. He might.

He's just completely willing to put things around MSNOW as a propaganda network for terrorists

and Iran. Listen to this, this is very important. This is kindlinging who used to be with NBC

proper, stayed with MSNOW because he's a left-wing activist. This is his coverage of the New York

situation. And there are really two strands here because there's no evidence that this particular

attempted attack has anything to do with the war in Iran. In fact, ISIS and Iran are not on the same

page ideologically. But so this incident is a reminder though that there are still dangerous people

in the land who have pledged allegiance to ISIS. And we got really lucky here. They decided to go

and mount an attack at an anti-Muslim protest in New York City, perhaps perhaps the most

the best staffed counterterrorism organization in the United States and the NYPD. And they use

devices that didn't go off. But these were clearly, if you read this complaint, these were

people who were ideologically devoted by their own words to ISIS, 18 and 19 years old.

It's not clear whether they were self-radicalized, whether they had any outside influences. You've

heard the commissioner refuse to answer that question. But this is a very alarming development here

at a time when the FBI has bled resources, counterterrorism resources, dozens and dozens of FBI

agents with deep counterterrorism experience have left the bureau in the last year. Now on this other

story that you mentioned, there is a notion, there was a bulletin according to reports

warning about a potential uptick in threats based on the Iran war and the White House has

prevented that bulletin from being issued. These are run-of-the-mill homeland security unclassified

bulletins that go out to law enforcement. And there's a perception among a lot of people I talk to

that the White House does not want to emphasize the idea that what they've done in mounting

this attack on Iran has increased the terror threat at home. But that is exactly what has happened.

Notice there's no statement. This is a statement from Homeland Security, but there's no statement

about the Democrats not funding Homeland Security. There's blame at the FBI for firing some agents

who were worked counterterrorism, but there's nothing about the Democrats who refuse to fund

Homeland Security at a time that sleeper cells have been activated. That there's nothing

in there that would allow the viewers to know the Democrats refuse to fund Homeland Security

at a time of war. It's relentlessly attacking Donald Trump. If there's a mass casualty event

in the United States because of Iranian sleeper cells, they will not tell you that they came here

when Joe Biden was president because of his open borders. They will not tell you they had been

planning attacks all along. They will not tell you that the Democrats refuse to fund Homeland

Security. They will just blame Donald Trump. The American media and the Democratic party would rather

our soldiers die and you die and our military lose an engagement with Iran so that they can blame

Donald Trump, then actually imagine a successful campaign to overthrow terror masters who want us

all dead already. In some parts of the country, as we get into spring break season,

it is five hour delays to get into airports because of backups with TSA. In New Orleans,

Louisiana, the lines to go through TSA extend all the way to the parking garage. In other parts of

the country, there are five hour delays in New Orleans, about a three hour delay. In some parts of

the country, blessedly, it's not that bad right now, but TSA agents are not getting paid because

Democrats refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security. They are waiting for a terror attack

in the United States so that they can blame Donald Trump, but it's them who are refusing to fund

the Department of Homeland Security. It is the Democrats refusing to fund TSA, the Coast Guard,

and the rest of Homeland Security because they want changes to immigration and border patrol,

the only parts of Homeland Security that are fully funded through 2028. And of course,

you know and I know the American press corps, the moment Americans are killed because of a terror

attack, they will blame Donald Trump for it for provoking Iranians as opposed to the fact that Joe

Biden and the Democrats left the border wide open for sleeper cells to come into this country,

set up shop and wait and then decided to defund Homeland Security so the government

can't actually do the job it needs to do to protect us. The Democrats want Americans dead at

this point is the only thing I can conclude because they think it will help them in November

in the midterms to be able to blame Donald Trump for dead Americans because the Democrats

let sleeper cells cross the border when Joe Biden was president, denying the border was even open,

let them set up shop, take root, and then won't fund Homeland Security. And the press will not

hold the Democrats accountable because the press is on their side. Now in Cogniz on your side,

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Hello, welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. The phone number is 877-9737-425.

Should you wish to be on the program? I would be very, very happy to have you. Don't forget if

you text the word donate to 337-777, you can help the Jason Hughes family. That is the

teacher who is tragically and accidentally run over by some of his students.

Just one word for you guys and I thank you on behalf of the family. The generosity that you

guys have shown in both the generosity of people in his community and the people who listen to

this program. I really, really, really just, I can't thank you enough. The fundraiser woke up this

morning and it was something like $400,000 and I just really tremendously want to appreciate

you guys. It just a wonderful, wonderful, just kindness that you guys have shown that family.

I'm overwhelmed by your generosity and I appreciate you so much for doing this. Thank you.

You can text donate to 337-777 to get that he's got a wife and two kids left behind and it just

the whole community has turned out and it's you guys turned out just the generosity overwhelming.

So thank you very much. I cannot thank you enough for what you guys have done. Now we got to move

on to other stuff because I want to talk about the war planning effort and the president's mixed

messages. The president is getting, of course, attacked as the media loves to attack him for

his supposed mixed messages, unclear inside, he said, maybe the war is almost over, maybe it's not,

maybe he wants a complete and total surrender, maybe not.

The president of the United States is, well, sometimes articulate and sometimes not,

there was a piece of the Wall Street Journal. I just, it's going to aggravate some of you,

I know, it's Gerard Baker who is the editor at large for the Wall Street Journal. But let me just

let me, let me read this for you so you understand the frustration. It was set of Winston Churchill

that he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. Donald Trump's trick with the

mother tongue is to douse it in gasoline, set it on fire and drop it in a dumpster in the middle

of his own parade ground. Whatever you think of the wisdom or efficacy of the president's policies,

their effectiveness is almost always mediated by an inability to articulate and communicate goals

in a way that helps make them achievable. The US War on Iran is an ear perfect microcosm of the

president's mismanagement words matter. They don't merely persuade and inspire. They give meaning

and shape to abstract ideas and values. They are the action by which mere deeds become noble.

But this is about more than the importance of the president's words. It's about the entire

effect and style of this administration's leadership. The forum that attends the substance

of governing is about a leader's ability to represent to ourselves and the world the kind of

people we are and what we want to be. And this is where the president fails.

We're nine days into an incredibly successful operation that no one believe would be successful

even to where it is. The president of the United States has taken out Nicholas Maduro.

Political prisoners are being released even as I speak from Venezuela. They have stopped the

Venezuelans and the Iranians from sending oil to Cuba. The Cuban government is now on the

verge of collapse for the first time in decades. Cubans have taken to the streets to protest the

communist regime there. The president of the United States is realigning the world in our favor.

Donald Trump is not the president I would want. He's crashed. He's borish. He doesn't have great

character. If you're willing to acknowledge it, some of you get very defensive when I say these

things, but they're all true and you know it. He's not necessarily the president I want, but he

seems to be the man we need right now to do the things that other presidents said they wanted to

do and never did. There is a class of people on the right that simply can't embrace even the

good from the Trump presidency because he's not their style. He's not their taste. He's not

their cup of tea. Donald Trump's not my cup of tea, but I am certainly enjoying watching him

wallop the Iranians and destabilize Venezuela. You know the Chinese on a daily basis

send flights to encircle Taiwan. They send their military jets to fly laps around Taiwan

to remind the Taiwanese that they are there and the time is coming soon when China will invade.

The Chinese have had to stop those flights because the Chinese don't have the oil and gas

to fill up their military aircraft right now because of what's happening in Iran.

There are all sorts of media articles about how the Russians are winning the war in Ukraine right

now despite losing territory because gas prices have gone up so much it's helping the Russians

except the Russians have now lost a key weapon supplier for the Ukraine battlefield.

It was Iran that was supplying weapons to Putin and part of those weapons were made in

Venezuela. Iran's munitions factories in Venezuela are now gone. We bombed them on the way out

after taking out Maduro. Iran's munitions factories in Iran are now gone because we bombed them in Iran.

There have been random sites bombed in Iran over the last 72 hours.

Now you wonder, Erickson, why focus on these random sites?

Iran is a nation the size of Alaska. For perspective because sometimes it's hard when you

picture it on the map you can take the state of Texas which is the largest of the continental United

States and you can place four Texas's inside Alaska. That's how big Alaska is. Alaska is four times

the size of Texas. It's massive and that's the landmass of Iran and Iran spread its military

capabilities out across that landmass and Iran is an extremely mountainous nation.

So not only are their military assets hidden in caves and in cities they're spread out around

a landmass the size of Alaska. And what's so notable is that the Israelis and the Americans

are now hitting random sites in Iran that aren't on the map as of geostrategic importance.

These are not their military bases. These are not their oil refineries. These are not their weapons

caches. These are not their weapons storehouses. These are not palaces of the mullahs.

These are not battlefield training grounds. These are none of those things and yet we're targeting

them and that tells me and others who've paid attention that we have actually found sites in Iran

that are off the map and not known to the public and yet are of strategic importance to the Iranians

and we found them and we're destroying them. We're not getting credit. They're not getting credit.

The administration is not getting credit for these random explosions and random parts of Iran.

Yet what it tells me is that our intelligence, primarily the Israeli intelligence is superior

to what anyone thought they had. The president of the United States does not come out and talk like

a president of the United States that we've had before. Now the prior president of the United

States came out and talked about turtles. He made no sense. The prior president of the United

States in mid-sidents could wander off and sniff a little girl's hair and grab a little boy's butt

and forget his train of thought and then talk about turtles and the media would tell us everything

was fine. Pay no attention to what he's saying. Just understand that he understands what he's

talking about and they would give him a pass. This president comes out and says well the war efforts

going fine. We're ahead of schedule. We may end it tomorrow. We may end it next week. We may

end it five years from now. We may end it today. I want total and absolute surrender from the

Iranians. I want unconditional surrender from the Iranians. I want new leadership. I want to

be in charge of the leadership. I don't know who I want but I want someone who's not them. They're

like oh my gosh that's mixed signals. I mean for the girls in the press corps to be complaining about

someone sending mixed signals ladies come on your professionals. The president of the United States

is not going to stand there and say well tomorrow we're going to strike these five locations and

then we're going to pressure the Iranians to surrender. They're not going to do that.

As I said earlier, the president didn't build up a a pool of goodwill to invade Iran because he

knew if he did it, the Iranians would hide their weapons. They would bunker down and they would

prepare and they would have months to prepare. So the president of the United States since Steve

Whitgoth and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to negotiate with the Iranians as the Tomahawk

missiles were in the air. He obfuscated and we caught him with their pants down and we killed

their top leadership. And for some reason the American press corps and the Democrats are like well

I mean it's been nine days we haven't won. This is a waste of missiles. This is a waste of resources.

This is a disaster. We should come home. They're not going to give away the time plan.

They're not going to give away what we intend to do. Here's Pete Hexath.

On day 10 of Operation Epic Fury we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on

our objectives which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury.

They're straightforward and we are executing them with ruthless precision.

One destroy their missile stockpiles their missile launchers and their defense industrial base

missiles and their ability to make them. Two destroy their navy and three permanently deny

Iran nuclear weapons forever. It's a laser focused maximum authority mission

delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision. No hesitation, no half measures.

As President Trump declared yesterday we're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming

display of technical skill and military force. We will not relent until the enemy is totally

and decisively defeated. But we do so. We do so on our timeline and at our choosing.

Our timeline our choosing not theirs and the media wants to hurry this up along because

they are in blame Donald Trump mode. This is the prime minister of Qatar. Just listen to this.

There's a big sense of betrayal and this is the second time. That's why it's also like for us.

It's been something really significant to see the attack which was showing that

been a pre-planned like once the war started just maybe an hour after the start of the war.

Qatar and other Gulf countries been attacked right away and all of us before this war

and repeatedly we've been saying and repeating that we are not going to take part of any

attacks or any wars against our neighbors. We would like to see a peaceful neighborhood

we were helping Iran and United States in reaching diplomatic solutions but this miscalculation

by the Iranians to attack the Gulf countries has destroyed everything.

Iran has destroyed everything. They miscalculated. Qatar is allied with Israel the only last year

bombed Qatar. The Saudis are allied with Qatar and they don't like each other and they're

all allied with Israel right now. To destabilize the regime and so you know what the Western

media is doing. The Western media is pushing Iranian propaganda and Chinese propaganda and

Russian propaganda to make it look like this is a disaster. We are nine days into a campaign.

Nine days in and the media and the Democrats have declared it a disaster that the Iranians are

beating us. We've destroyed their navy. We've destroyed their Air Force. We've taken out one

Ayatollah. We've possibly taken out the current Ayatollah. They tried it out a cardboard cutout.

I'm not making that up a cardboard cutout of the current Ayatollah to celebrate his inauguration

as the Ayatollah and nobody knows where he is. Rumor has it he's in a coma from an attack on him.

It's just it is

Asa nine to expect that you're going to get the president to come out there and tell you what

his nine point plan for Iran is right now when we're nine days in bombing key positions to

render them enable to make nuclear weapons or to be a threat to their neighbors who are now

all on the side of the Jews. This looks pretty successful to me right now.

The measure of whether or not you think it's successful or not is defined by how much you hate

Donald Trump and if you passionately hate the man you've decided it's a disaster and you're

betting against the greatest military on the planet. This hour of the program is brought to you by

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I gotta just be straight with you in 2028 I know we're a little ways off but in 2028 I will vote

for whoever promises to cut down and burn every Bradford pair in America they are the most

noxious trees they stink do you know in Japan they refer to them in the slang as well

well a bodily fluid produced by men a word I don't really want to say on air I've never smelled

them the smell that to know what it smells like but that's the slang for these nasty trees in Japan

and I learned last night from my friend Casey Matthew you know who pioneered bringing the Bradford

pair to the United States the worst president ever no not Jimmy Carter no not Joe Biden no no

Woodrow Wilson the man who segregated the American military was a Princeton academic who was a

deeply deeply unrepentant racist to the Democrats love is the man who foisted the Bradford

pair on us and I will support any presidential candidate in 2028 who promises to chop them all

down and burn them friends don't let friends plant Bradford pairs they're disgusting now Swiss

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